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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Hatty wrote: | | The ocean like the land has to be crossed in, if possible, a true or straight line. We have shipping lanes, once they were swan-roads (do swans go in a straight line like geese when they fly?) |
One important point to make.
The "sh" diphthong is, in all likelihood, another form of the "ts" construct. This same group of sounds is represented with "j", "z", "ts", "st", "sc" and several other combinations.
Thus, the word "ship" is cognate with the ancient word "zeph" or "zephyr", which refers specifically to the "west wind".
Perhaps the important thing in shipping (as opposed to boating or rafting) was mastering and harnessing the west wind, as winds from the east (as we know) dominate the globe. To sail west against the prevailing wind required knowledge of times/seasons and, most importantly, latitude -- latitude "lines".
Perhaps shipping lanes were the original latitude lines ~ and before you go any further, I suggest you forget everything you learned in school about Christopher Columbus -- it was our ex-resident Masonic expert who tipped me off that the discovery of America is pure mythology.
But we know from Columbus, and from other actual explorers of the new world, that sailing west often required one to first sail south to equatorial longitudes where one could, at the right time of year, harness a "zephyr", that would take you to a new world.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Chad wrote: | | Yes and doesn't whaling-time sound like Valen-tine? |
Ok. Now you are freaking me out.
Assuming this is all connected, "Valen Time" would mean literally "time of expanse" -- the "expanse" we imagine refers to the ocean. A "whale" then is a creature of the expanse.
Why aren't fish called whales?
(But then, whales were for very long called "fish")
Do the "welsh" have a whaling tradition?
hmmm....
st and sh are both forms of the ts/z construct.
West = Wez
Welsh = Welz
Wales = Walez
Same word I suspect, Wales being to the west.
To go whaling, or to fish for cod, does one sail west?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| ok. Then how did they get associated with flying lizards? |
How did horses come by wings? Apparently in Chinese lore they were seen as messengers of the gods, the Arabian ones anyway. I wonder if horses, valuable creatures that they were, had protective coverings. Bet the prize animals got the full works, round here thoroughbreds are swathed in blankets and they don't half look weird.
| Perhaps the important thing in shipping (as opposed to boating or rafting) was mastering and harnessing the west wind, as winds from the east (as we know) dominate the globe. To sail west against the prevailing wind required knowledge of times/seasons and, most importantly, latitude -- latitude "lines". |
Does the wind direction change on or around 14th February?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Why aren't fish called whales? |
Leviathans. Isn't that section of the bible full of prohibitions and instructions? Sailing instructions in a Semitic language that sounds like Welsh.
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Ishtar
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| Ishmael wrote: | ...Tsar-Khan/Dragon = Kinship/Legal Division
States (Tsar-tsars?) and Counties (Khan-tsars) are political kinship divisions established by surveyed lines.
ok. Then how did they get associated with flying lizards? |
The welsh symbol is a red dragon.
Dragon could look like boats with sails for wings and ores for arms and legs. Viking boats traditionally have carved heads and tails. If a convoy of ships was sitting on your horizon it also may look like a great monster in the sea. Boats would also mean messages arriving from foreign lands (Chinese lore).
Then there is the Draco constellation that held the north star. It would be a line in the sky that ships may use to navigate.
In Lludd and Llefelys story (I'm going by wiki) there is a tale of two dragons fighting. That sounds like a border dispute. One Tsar-Khan vs. another.
| Hatty wrote: |
How did horses come by wings?
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Pegasus came from Poseidon. Is he a land boat?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Pegasus came from Poseidon. Is he a land boat? |
I suspect 'Pegasus' is far older. The winged horse of Chinese legend, like the Chinese winged dragon, is likely to owe its status to 'flying reindeer'.
| Dragon could look like boats with sails for wings and ores for arms and legs. |
That's rather good. Ores, as opposed to oars, are associated with the underground.
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Ishtar
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| Hatty wrote: | | Dragon could look like boats with sails for wings and ores for arms and legs. |
That's rather good. Ores, as opposed to oars, are associated with the underground. |
LOL! You know, I tried really hard not to type 'dessert' instead of 'desert' in the thread on global warming, you've no idea how many cookies I craved.
Maybe I should hang out in the Psychology forum.. :)
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Hatty wrote: | | I suspect 'Pegasus' is far older. The winged horse of Chinese legend, like the Chinese winged dragon, is likely to owe its status to 'flying reindeer'. |
That "white horse" drawing in the UK. Didn't we discuss the possibility it might be intended as a dragon? Is it possible that winged horses and winged dragons are the same thing?
Do horses draw the lines?
What is a "Draft" or "Draught" horse?
"A draft horse (US), draught horse (UK) or dray horse (from the Anglo-Saxon dragan meaning to draw or haul) is a large horse bred for hard, heavy tasks such as ploughing and farm labour. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_horse
Is a Draught Horse a Dragon?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Is it possible that winged horses and winged dragons are the same thing? |
Rideable and unrideable perhaps. There are two kinds of reindeer, the domesticated and the wild, and while they can and do interbreed the two species remain distinct. Unlike Russian deer, North American caribou have never been domesticated (never? Could be this apparent untameability is because the art has been lost somewhere down the ages); maybe in folklore the wild variety was accorded special, even superhuman, powers which only shamen, or saint-heroes in later versions, could harness.
| That "white horse" drawing in the UK. Didn't we discuss the possibility it might be intended as a dragon? |
White is associated with purity. Net(te) in French means clean or bright. In English net is etymologically linked to knot but where does the 'k' come from? The word knight, associated with horse-riding by implication, apparently derives from some Anglo-Saxon word meaning page boy or young lad if I recall. The 'rein' in reindeer is a Scandinavian word hrein meaning clean, pure, virgin. There's a clear link between purity and catching or taming animals, like the Blessing of the Salmon Nets the enterprise has to be ritualised i.e. follow strict rules of conduct to succeed.
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Ishtar
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| Hatty wrote: | | White is associated with purity. |
White horses are not albino, there is actually no such thing as an albino horse. White horses have to be bred specifically to get the white color. Maybe there is something there with the 'purity.'
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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So white horses represent the pinnacle of breeding, a triumph of man over nature perhaps. I vaguely recall a reference to guides on white horses who would assist travellers across difficult crossing places like swamps. A guide (a hermit?) on a horse that shows up in the dark sounds plausible to me but the mention of a 'pure' animal that's taken who knows how long to breed makes me wonder if this is pure fantasy or been the subject of 'Chinese Whispers'; in any event, quite likely the forerunner of knights on white chargers.
Or saints of course. St James rode not only a white charger but it flew. (His cult as we've discussed was so popular that children built grottoes made of oyster shells, lit a candle inside and begged for pennies). Interestingly, English pilgrims wended their way to Compostella by sea.
The legend of Compostella's foundation is, as ever, deeply fascinating. The story goes like this: after St. James had been killed his disciples brought his body to Galicia (N.B. a seven day journey) ruled by Queen Lupa. The disciples were imprisoned but set free by an angel (like Wireloop said), Lupa sent knights after them who drowned when a bridge they were crossing collapsed (never a hermit around when you need one). A mini Red Sea saga but the interesting bit is the actual building. This involved the disciples meeting a dragon spitting fire whom they broke in two, by making the sign of the cross, whereupon the wild bulls in the surrounding hills were tamed and could be yoked to a cart needed to carry the foundation stone. Perhaps they were consummate horsemen who probably did 'tame' bulls. They may have come to Spain via Andalucia.
Of course the body of St. James mentioned in the legend disappears for the next eight hundred or so years. The route though is real enough and has megalithic features such as a rocking-stone near the cliffs at Finisterre (called logan stones in Cornwall). The church purportedly built by St. James was Our Lady of the Pillar, the first church ever to be consecrated to the Virgin Mary supposedly. Pilar is still a popular Spanish girl's name.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The dragon-slaying (bull-taming?) saints of Spain are not George and Michael but Santiago (St. James) and San Millan (Emilianus in Latin). "Sons of Thunder" indeed. Their principal role far as I can tell was to banish the Moors, a well-documented crusade, but their cults seem to be based on much older roots.
St. James's shrine was 'discovered' eight hundred years after his death by Pelayo, a suitably 'hairy' name for the legendary leader of a group of Visigoth-Iberian hermits in the mountains of north-west Spain. Just in time for the great Christian comeback. San Millan's monastery of Suso is described as a "cradle of the Spanish language" where the first Spanish and Basque phrases were written down and preserved in the monastery's library.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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White is also associated with death. Swans in northern European, loosely dubbed 'Celtic', mythology were the vehicles for the soul's journey to the Otherworld just as Hermes/Mercury escorted souls into the underworld in classical mythology (which, incidentally, has swans pulling the chariot of Aphrodite the moon goddess even though the swan is an uncommon bird in the Med).
There was a custom of placing pennies on the eyes of the deceased as payment for the ferry. The refrain of 'Penny for the Guy', by luck or design almost coinciding with Samhain, the end of the Old Year, is a version of 'Penny for the guide', i.e. the hermit or ferryman. Make no mistake, the swan is an inherently unchristian symbol; though it is clearly the precursor of Christian angel iconography, it symbolises the (Druidic/Hindi) resurrection of the soul not the body as taught by the Church.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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"Theologically, swans are 'fish' and can be eaten on Fridays." Anyone here familiar with Catholic theology?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| ~ and before you go any further, I suggest you forget everything you learned in school about Christopher Columbus -- it was our ex-resident Masonic expert who tipped me off that the discovery of America is pure mythology. |
I guess this idea doesn't get the exposure over there that it does here. Apart from all the stuff about Leif Ericson, is everyone else vaguely aware of Columbus' pilot drawing a map with "the sea the English discovered"... hitting the Caribbean in an effort to miss North America... Richard Ameryk... and stuff like that?
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