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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Some more idle musing:
Orc- is the Underworld. Kore is the Queen of the Underworld. When she is with Hades, her mother Demeter/Ceres(/Rhea/Gaia) is unfruitful and the land is barren.
Looks like an inversion to me: ork <--> kor.
Kore is concealed within; the dormant seed from which life springs. Kore = core, corn, kernel. Cor-/card- = heart.
But also corn = horn.
The Horn of Plenty "was originally the horn of the goat Amalthea, who nurtured the infant Zeus", but I dare say it's an allusion to various horned domestic animals as symbols of fertility.
And corn = crown, corona.
Horns are an emblem of kingship, etc.: Viking/Saxon horned helmets, Herne and Cernunnos with their antlers...
"[Demeter's] attributes in iconography can include a torch, a crown, a sceptre, and stalks of grain."
I'm thinking Crown of Thorns = Crown of Horns.
crescent: from Anglo-Fr. cressaunt, from O.Fr. creissant, from L. crescentum (nom. crescens), pp. of crescere "come forth, spring up, grow, thrive," from PIE base *ker- "to grow" (cf. L. Ceres, goddess of agriculture, creare "to bring forth, create, produce;" Gk. kouros "boy," kore "girl;" Arm. serem "bring forth," serim "be born"). First applied to the waxing moon, luna crescens, but subsequently mistaken to mean the shape, not the stage.
So crescent = Kore-escent.
Tellus: The Roman goddess of the earth, equated with the Greek goddess Gaia] (Terra Mater) and also with the fertility goddess Ceres... Fama was thought to be her daughter.
Tellus = Terra, then. R = L.
Fama is 'fame, rumour', apparently, but (also) looks awfully like famine to me.
Ark = chest, box, coffer; somewhere to lock things away, conceal them.
{Ark is the only English ark- word in the NSOED, unless you count arkose sandstone, coined in the 19th century from arch- for ancient/first.}
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Some more idle musing:
Orc- is the Underworld. Kore is the Queen of the Underworld. When she is with Hades, her mother Demeter/Ceres(/Rhea/Gaia) is unfruitful and the land is barren.
Looks like an inversion to me: ork <--> kor. |
Apparently...the "secret name" of Rome (Roma) was Amor (or Amore): love. Perhaps word inversion was a very meaningful concept to the ancients. Maybe we should keep an eye open for other possible examples.
| Kore is concealed within; the dormant seed from which life springs. Kore = core, corn, kernel. Cor-/card- = heart. |
Perhaps it is the seed of new life hidden within death?
| Horns are an emblem of kingship, etc.: Viking/Saxon horned helmets, Herne and Cernunnos with their antlers... |
Point of parliamentary proceedure: scholars claim the Viking "horned helmet" is a myth.
I'm thinking Crown of Thorns = Crown of Horns.
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Interesting.
| So crescent = Kore-escent. |
George Lucas borrows heavily from Mythology. The center of the Empire/Republic in Star Wars is a planet named "Corresant." Interesting! Where did he get this idea?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Apparently...the "secret name" of Rome (Roma) was Amor (or Amore): love... |
I dunno what that means, but it's interesting.
| Perhaps it is the seed of new life hidden within death? |
Absolutely!
| Point of parliamentary proceedure: scholars claim the Viking "horned helmet" is a myth. |
Is it a myth that Vikings wore horned helmets, or that anyone wore horned helmets? (Haven't they now decided it was Saxons-or-some-such all along?) In any case, the connection between horns-on-head and power-and-status-and-what-have-you was established by someone, sometime.
| George Lucas borrows heavily from Mythology. The center of the Empire/Republic in Star Wars is a planet named "Corresant." |
Interesting!
Harking back (again):
Girl: gyrle "child" (of either sex), of unknown origin; current scholarship leans toward an unrecorded O.E. *gyrele, from P.Gmc. *gurwilon-, dim. of *gurwjoz (represented by Low Ger. gµre "boy, girl"), from PIE *ghwrgh-, also found in Gk. parthenos "virgin." But this is highly conjectural.
Well, I'll tell you, then: girl = churl.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Looks like an inversion to me: ork <--> kor.
Ark = chest, box, coffer; somewhere to lock things away, conceal them. |
More riffing on a theme. kor = gar = gra reveals another tangle of related meanings.
Garnet (the red, semiprecious stone) means granate, granada, granadilla or pomegranate, the very fruit given to Kore that sealed her link to the Underworld. (I imagine the fruit gets its name from the grainy seeds firmly enclosed within the tough skin.)
Grain = corn, kernel, Kore, of course. A zillion words are rooted in gran-/grain, if you'll excuse the pun.
Another direct equation is garb = wheatsheaf.
As I mentioned, Homer described the vast Achaean army with bronze spear points glistening in the sun as a field of golden corn; and a bunch of words seem to allude to spearlike shafts or blades of grass:
Gar, spear; garfish, spear fish; garefowl, 'spear bird', the great auk; garlic, 'spear leek'; garrocha, goad, bullfighter's short- pointed spear; garrotte "cudgel, f. a base perh. of Celt. origin" {Interesting.}, a stick used to twist and tighten a cord; garrotte, "f. garrot stick, lever".
Perhaps by allusion to having a spear, another bunch of words mean to be prepared or equipped:
Gar, prepare, do, perform, make, cause; gear, equipment; geared, equipped, prepared; curry, prepare, make ready; yare, ready, prepared, alert, nimble, active, brisk, quick {Including quick as in alive, reborn?}; gare Look out! Beware! Take care; garnish, furnish, equip, "f. Gmc vb prob. rel. to base of warn" {Do we go back to worm again?}; graith, state of preparation, readiness, personal equipment, attire, armour.
...unless being prepared meant having a shield. Plenty of shielding, sheltering, protecting, enclosing, covering words (just as with umb-):
Garage, shelter; garancin, "Fr., f. garance madder", as supplied by Hermes to Odysseus to protect him against Circe's spell; garb, 'adornment', elegance, grace {grass?}; gralloch, dear's entrails; garbage, offal used as food, same as umbles, "of unkn. origin": well, now we know; garden, enclosed area {esp. for growing things in!}, yard {G = Y}, garth {TH = D}; gare, coarse wool covering the legs of sheep; gare, dock-basin on a river or canal, pier, wharf, railway station; garish, gaudy[color=darkred:]*, overdecorated, "Origin unkn" {Obvious, surely?}; garland, wreath of flowers, decoration, loop of vegetation, royal crown or diadem, "of unkn. origin" {?}; garment, 'equipment, garnishment', article of dress, outward and visible covering; garner, storehouse, granary, grange; garrison, store, treasure, defence, safety, means of protection; garret, watch-tower.
* Gaudy is interesting in itself: "f. gaudere rejoice". And it looks like goldy to me. But gold = yellow and yellow belongs to the salty/sunny words, which include celebrate.
And it goes on...
Grain comes from grass... gravel means granular... and another word for gravel is grail... (Holy) Grail/Greal/Graal, the object of the Mysteries, "f. med.L gradalis dish, of unkn. origin"... grail also means gradual... and gradual (and all it's relatives) means 'in steps'... like the steps towards consciousness/enlightenment, perhaps. Graine is the egg of a silkworm... and grains and eggs represent literal and metaphorical (re)birth from the underworld.
Graith means ready, prepared and gradely... and great? Cf. grand, which means fully grown... to which green and grass are akin. Of a road, graith means direct. Is the Great Road the straight, direct road?
Gravel and grave mean the same as each other and the same as graff or graft: a grave, ditch, defensive trench or moat. This digging, scratching, grating, groovy, graven, carving sense is at the root of graph, grammar, graffiti and a zillion other words referring to drawing, writing, learning and magic...
Gravellings and graylings are salmon and the like, as in the Salmon of Knowledge.
The graving dock is where ship's bottoms are cleaned, "f. Celt. base = gravel, pebbles, repr. by Breton grouan growan". And would you believe growan is the "the soft gravelly decomposed granite overlying a tin vein"!?
Grape and graip are supposed to mean 'grasp', but a graip is a digging fork... and grain, "of unkn. origin", also means the fork of the body, the lower limbs {Important to Oedipus, who had to defeat his father to reach the fork in the road and in his mother.}, a fork in a river or a tree... also an edge, a blade... a fish-spear or harpoon (with more than one prong)... the kind designed to grab or grasp securely.
Grafting means inserting the shoot of one plant into a cut in another {forming a grain/fork?} to allow it to grow... couldn't be more Kore-esque. {I haven't even looked at craft and other cra/kra/car/kar words...}
A gama small weight, a grain... Gram- denotes all things grassy... but grame/grama also means anger, sorrow... and reminds me of Demeter. And Demeter's bounty reminds me of grant, grateful and so on...
Gravid means pregnant {fecund!}, heavy with young... and the heaviness connotation of ground {"OHG grunt", cf. grunt meaning hard graft}, the lowest or deepest part, is found in all those grave/gravity words.
Of course, ground also means grind into small particles (granules)... and grind also means hard work.
Ground is also synonymous with Earth {security, fecundity...}, which is both round and around. The dictionary says round comes from rotundus, but I find that harder to accept than ground = yround = around = round.
And then there's KERMES, which perhaps someone else would be so kind as to delve into. Something to do with alchemy, oak galls, cochineal, red, cork...
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Well, I'll tell you, then: girl = churl. |
What about "girl" = "grail." A chalice, container or womb.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| What about "girl" = "grail." A chalice, container or womb. |
Could be right. Etymonline said "Another candidate is O.E. gierela garment", which would fit it -- they know not why -- into the "Koreal" nexus, above.
Maybe it meant offspring of either (any) kind. Maybe 'girl' was applied to boys by association with churl/carl, etc. Maybe churl/carl etc. mean Koreal, too.
Churl's Wain = Kore's Wain adds a new dimension!
NB. The way I heard it, a graal was specifically a fish dish/platter... and fish are especially associated with feminine Mysteries.
Maybe Mary Magdalene was the Grail after all!
{No one but the Oxford and Cambridge colleges called Magdalene insist on it being pronounced "Maudlin" anymore, but by the G = Y = U rule, I can see the sense of it now.}
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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The Plough
In a passage from The Odyssey quoted in Wilkens, Ursa Major is also called the Wain.
"That's interesting," I said to myself, "since I reckon that wain, wagon, way, wake... are all the same word and Viking = waking. Now, cutting a wake is exactly what a plough does, so the constellation has been known as The Plough at least since Homer's time.
"Alternatively," I whispered to myself, so I might not hear, "it really was seen as a wagon or cart and the Plough, dating from who-knows-when, is a staggeringly coincidental appellation."
Etymonline: Big Dipper: Amer.Eng. name for the seven-star asterism (known in England as Charles' Wain) in the constellation Ursa Major... In Anglo-Saxon times, it was O.E. wµnes ¦isl "pole of the wain."
The pole, whether of cart or plough, highlights its role as time-keeper or pointer.
Charles's Wain: O.E. Carles wµgn, associated with Charlemagne, originally with the nearby bright star Arcturus, which is linked by folk etymology to L. Arturus "Arthur."
The crux of this is the legendary association of Arthur and Charlemagne.
Others say it's "churl's wain" {same thing, really}. What does Charlemagne have to do with
a) Arthur
b) a wagon or cart
c) a plough?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Others say it's "churl's wain" {same thing, really}. What does Charlemagne have to do with a) Arthur |
I have read elsewhere that some scholars believe Arthur to be a mythologized Charlemagne. Now, if you suspect (as I do) that Charlemagne is himself a myth (having lived during a period of history that did not really happen), then they might well be one and the same thing. Arthur is Charlemagne.
Why would he have two names?
Remember Mick talking about mythical people with two names? Does that mean anything?
Arthur is also known as "The Fisher King." Does that relate somehow?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Arthur is also known as "The Fisher King." Does that relate somehow? |
One of the key things about the Plough (the Septentriones, the Imperishable Ones) is that it "alone has no part in the baths of the Ocean". [Odyssey] I suppose the Fisher King, who plucks the reborn from beneath the waves, doesn't (in this context) undergo death himself. Firmly in Mysteries territory here.
Churl, Charlemagne Charles, Karl, Karol, Carlos... (and a host of feminine equivalents) mean man.
I dunno the stories. There's Alfred and his cakes... various kings and their trees... Bruce and his spider... why not Charlemagne and a plough or cart?
Whether the inspiration for Charlemagne or not, I suppose the Churl's Wain = the Wain of Man. Whether as a cart or a plough, the Wain has to do travel, which can allude to the passage of time. It was used to tell the time... it remains in view... it points to the Pole Star... I think it would be fair to characterise it as "the wain provided for man's use".
{And then laying claim to such a tool would be typical of your run-of-the-mill, turn-of-the-wain, megalomaniac... either real or fictitious.}
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Plow = flow. Movement... also cutting... like cutting a wake, leaving a trail, travelling the way, viking...
Furrows and wheel ruts...
Constable's Haywain is the cart at the end of the season, the plough comes at the beginning.
Haywain = hay wagon. G = Y. Wagon = wayon = wain = travelling thing...
Wain/wagon and plow are 'nuanced apart' now, but their meanings overlap; hence the Plough and the Wain being synonyms for the constellation.
Maybe carts and ploughs were named wain separately (from a common root), but I doubt it: that would mean group A seeing the constellation as a cart, group B seeing it as a plough, and both groups choosing the one name that unites the two ideas.
I should think wain-qua-plough or wain-qua-cart came first and was later applied to the other... maybe to all horse-drawn farming gear.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Others say it's "churl's wain" {same thing, really}. |
Surely not. Churl means peasant, hardly the same as Charlemagne. But the idea of Charlemagne (or King Arthur) being associated with a cart is pretty laughable anyway.
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