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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| "There is a small island almost adjoining to Anglesey, which is inhabited by hermits, living by manual labor, and serving God. This island is called in welsh Ynys Lenach, or the priests' island, because many bodies of saints are deposited there, and no woman is suffered to enter it." |
Known as Priestholme or Puffin Island these days, just to the right of Anglesey, in line with the 'south' coast, not far from Great Ormes Head.
| Where's Bardsey Island (Mynydd Enlli or Ynys Enlli) in relation to Anglesey? |
It's the small drip off the tip of Lleyn peninsula, the-other-side-of-Anglesey-and-a-bit from Puffin/Priestholme. They're pretty well directly inline with the coast/strait.
| Bardsey was supposed to be the island of the dead saints - with 20,000 of them supposedly buried there - are there that many dead saints? And enough to need 2 islands?? |
Didn't the Celtic Christian monks have a thing for building monasteries just off-shore? (I'm sure Francis Pryor says so.) And if Celtic Christianity 'equates' to the Druids, this corner of Wales couldn't fail to get this treatment.
Since this enters Lleyn into the same frame as Anglesey: remember that Angeln, the supposed home of the Angle tribe, is supposed to refer to pointy peninsula over there; and notice that 'angle', meaning narrowness or constriction (hence angle-as-in-geometry), applies at least as well in Wales as in the Baltic, what with Lleyn/Anglesey making a pretty good right-angle (Caernarfon Bay) and the straight, narrow strait.
| "This island, either from the wholesomeness of its climate, owing to its vicinity to Ireland, or rather from some miracle obtained by the merits of the saints, has this wonderful peculiarity, that the oldest people die first, because diseases are uncommon, and scarcely any die except from extreme old age." |
If it's that good just from being near Ireland (which it isn't, particularly), what must Ireland be like? Well, it does mean Holy Land, dunnit?
Reminds me of the blissful existence of the Hyperboreans.
| Why, pray, is Leland using the Arabic form of the name? |
"All of Lene/Lleyn is as it were a point into the sea."
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Seems to be a Norse name, if your "Ǫngull's Isle" is right. Ǫngull in Old Norse means fish hook, i.e. "angled" as in bent or hooked. However, I've also read that it means strait. |
Is Anglesey on record as Ǫngulls Ey? Even if it is, it doesn't help much since the meaning can not be distinguished from Angle. Are there any decent precedents for places named after people like this? Anglo-Saxons in England and Englanders in America don't count.
Angle and strait are both narrow, constricted. Anguish and snakes are related, so it's a pretty big bran tub to pick meanings from, both prosaic and poetic.
| I still think the simplest answer is that Angles were settled on the island at some point. |
Not so simple if Angles were all over the place and either everywhere (England) or hardly anywhere (just Anglesey and East Anglia) was named after them.
And not so simple when you consider that Angles and Saxons are supposed to have been peers, but when the term "Anglo-Saxon" first appears, in Alfred's title Rex Anglorum Saxonum, of the several things it could mean, "king of the Angles-cum-Saxons" isn't one of them. I think.
I don't know of anywhere in England named after "Saxon" by the way.
| Personally I think East Anglia was probably the oldest Anglo-Saxon settlement and dated back so far that those that wrote the ASC didn't even know. If we go with the view that the Saxons could have been Roman auxilia, then maybe the Iceni revolt was put down using Saxon soldiers that were then settled in the area, leading to the area's name change to Anglia by the time the Dark Ages rolled around. |
Latest indications are that Saxon Shore forts were trade depots rather than defensive posts and there's nothing to stop Saxons living in the south-east under Roman occupation. They seem to have held the North Sea franchise, as it were. (Remember Caesar's comments about the maritime people of the south-east being more civilised than those of the interior?) But this is all relentlessly "Saxon": Angles don't get a mention.
Suetonius had trouble raising any support to quash the rebels and only used the men he brought back from Wales, I think.
| Irrespective of all this, I think we can all agree that Salisbury Plain is artificially levelled. |
Last time I was there, I was surprised how undulating it is. Where's the big, flat bit? Could it mean "an area for doing geometry" rather than a bunch of level fields?
| If the Mon in Monmouth were Welsh it would be Abermon, wouldn't it? |
Does English -mouth usually occur anywhere but at the sea? Afon and/or aber is also applicable at a confluence (still the 'end' of the river), which is the case for Monmouth, so it looks like a translation into English, with Myn rendered Mon (or vice versa). So what's Myn/Monnow?
Myn = Mynydd, mountain? And island is somewhat interchangeable with mountain, as in Bardsey Island (Mynydd Enlli or Ynys Enlli)? Course, the two are one if the name goes back before the sea was there.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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I can't remember how, but the idea came up that the Irish Sea/St. George's Channel is (equivalent to) the River Styx and Ireland is the Underworld or Land of the Dead. The far West is associated with death... then there's that stuff about Patrick and snakes that's all mythic and Platonic and Underworldic... and more stuff about Anglesey-that-shall-be-called-Mon that's all geometric and snaky... and then there are Hebrews crossing over...
Something shifted my attention: what if Anglesey is the (or a) Land of the Dead? That would make the Menai Strait the River Styx.
Ahem. Menai Strait in Welsh is Afon Menai, the "River Menai". {Which is technically correct, since it goes between two banks. River... riparian... ribs? Is that what a rip current/tide is: river-like?}
I thought this might be a clue: Caernarfon "comes from Welsh Caer yn Arfon = castle in Arfon" and "Arfon means [region] opposite Anglesey". But it ain't: Arfon is the region opposite Anglesey, but that's not what it means. Best guess is that Arfon = afon/avon, being the region along side the "river" Menai.
Presumably, Menai comes from the same place as Mon, which seems to be too 'basic' to trace.
Men = stone, as in menhir and dolmen; Môn is an island in south-eastern Denmark; and Môn is Icelandic for the Isle of Man. The simple Mon = mount is discredited, though I don't see why that name shouldn't apply to all of these Isles of Man (including the Isle of Wight), especially when the sea was lower. (Were they literally isles of men then the sea cut them off?)
Monmouth doesn't help. The Welsh is Trefynwy, town on the Monnow, and Monmouthshire is Sir (Shire) Fynwy. Monnow is Fynwy, Mon is Fyn? Finn, the wise hero perhaps? Or is it fyn(wy) = (a)fon?
| The 'English' name [Anglesey] is in fact derived from the Old Norse, meaning 'Ongull's Island'. The alternative "isle (ey) of the Angles" is discredited. |
Oh, so fact = not discredited. Great.
| Old Welsh names are Ynys Dywyll ("Dark Isle") and Ynys y Cedairn (cedyrn or kedyrn; "Isle of brave folk")... Clas Merddin, and Y fêl Ynys (honey isle) are other names. |
Dark... brave... honey... (Merddin = Merlin?) All still points to the ("Greek") mythology, Isles of the Blessed, blissful Hyperboreans and good-life Bardsey island.
Is it my imagination, or does Dywyll sound like "Jewish"?
But there's loads in the frame. Barmon/barmyn = barman, suggesting mon = myn = man, but maybe only because in loanwords: hwsmon/hwsmyn (houseman, surely) = husbandsman, farmer, foreman... iwmon/iwmyn = yeoman... emyn = hymn...
Hang on, hymnus/humnos = song in praise of a god or hero, so it could be Welsh/Hyperborean just as well as Greek.
Some other interesting things:
cymynnu to bequeath, i.e. a death connection (unless it's a borrowing from 'commit'?)
myn = kid, a variation on man, perhaps a reborn man?
mynach = monk. Relevant or a loan? A relevant loan?
mynd = to go; mynediad = going, access, admission; mynegai = index; mynegair = concordance; tremynt = view, sight; tremynu = to walk, to travel... Myn is all about directed movement, pointing, travelling... That could refer to the strait, to right-angles, to the journey into the Underworld...
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Mynyw (Monnow?) means Menevia, which covers most of southern Wales, and is said to derive from Menapia and the Menapii. Menapia also refers to Wexford in Ireland, directly across from Menevia.
There's a book called The Menapia Quest: Two Thousand Years of the Menapii - Seafaring Gauls in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, 216 BC-1990 AD {Catchy.} and this particular sea-faring bunch (linked with the Venetii in their resistance to Caesar) evokes Odysseus and the Argonauts (most likely Atlantic tales, if anywhere), sacrifice, the Underworld... and the metals trades of Wales and Ireland...
| "A suggested etymology of Menapii: *Meen + *ape. Meen = main house, large house in a village where people met, justice was spoken, decisions proposed and voted. ape = follower, low ranking farmer, imitator (a German substrate word)... It refers to a (Celtic) social organisation. [hypothesis]" |
If there's anything to this, Men/Mon could just be main/man and refer to Anglesey being a headquarters.
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Oakey Dokey
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The Romans regarded Anglesea or the isle of Mona as a stronghold and last bastion of the Druidic faith and spared no-one when they finally managed to subdue the populace there. They also went to great lengths to install a garrison and destroy all and any sacred groves. There were 3 invasions I could find referenced to Anglesea: the first mentions Druidic practices and their abolition, the rest make no further mention, which is odd in itself. The island has a few smaller islands associated with it (Holy island etc) but I'm trying to get an idea of exactly what was there before the church placed monasteries on the island.
The island itself is devoted to the moon and feminine wellbeing, at least among the menia of north Wales. Mona also means 'aristocratic' in Irish Gaelic and 'advisor' in Latin. Knowing the Romans actually used some Druids as advisors, I wonder if this is a link?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Most inspiring, Oakey. Again. I wish I knew more about this stuff but one of the perils of writing a book lauding the "English" over the Celts, is that one tends to be deeply tied to, in this case, the wrong camp.
Still and all, coupla things occurred.
1. The (Classical) Greeks were deeply into this ambrosia but modern day commentators steer well clear of it, even treating it as a mythical substance. I get the impression though that this "food of the Gods" was used in Elysian Mysteries (which are also well steered clear of).
2. The Island of Ely (in the East Anglian Fens...these "Angles" seem to get around) is also a magical place. Surrounded by water. We have yet to get to the bottom of this Druidical penchant for land-water interfaces.
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TelMiles
In: London
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | ...these "Angles" seem to get around. |
Yeah, they do Mick; as they were the native population they got everywhere.
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Against all Gods.
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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| Oakey Dokey wrote: | | The island itself is devoted to the moon and feminine wellbeing, at least among the menia of north Wales. Mona also means 'aristocratic' in Irish Gaelic and 'advisor' in Latin. Knowing the Romans actually used some Druids as advisors, I wonder if this is a link? |
So Anglesey was devoted to the moon.
moon (n.) Look up moon at Dictionary.com
O.E. mona, from P.Gmc. *monon- (cf. O.S., O.H.G. mano, O.Fris. mona, O.N. mani, Du. maan, Ger. Mond, Goth. mena "moon"), from PIE *me(n)ses- "moon, month" (cf. Skt. masah "moon, month;" Avestan ma, Pers. mah, Arm. mis "month;" Gk. mene "moon," men "month;" L. mensis "month;" O.C.S. meseci, Lith. menesis "moon, month;" O.Ir. mi, Welsh mis, Bret. miz "month"), probably from base *me- "to measure," in ref. to the moon's phases as the measure of time. In Gk., Italic, Celtic, Armenian the cognate words now mean only "month." Gk. selene (Lesbian selanna) is from selas "light, brightness (of heavenly bodies)." Extended 1665 to satellites of other planets. To shoot the moon "leave without paying rent" is British slang from c.1823; card-playing sense perhaps infl. by gambler's shoot the works (1922) "go for broke" in shooting dice. The man in the moon is mentioned since c.1310; he carries a bundle of thorn-twigs and is accompanied by a dog. Some Japanese, however, see a rice-cake-making rabbit in the moon.
So ANGLEsey, named after the OE Mona and devoted to the moon.......... where then do the Welsh fit into this picture?? Oh, they don't!!
_________________
Question everything!
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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| DPCrisp wrote: |
| "A suggested etymology of Menapii: *Meen + *ape. Meen = main house, large house in a village where people met, justice was spoken, decisions proposed and voted. ape = follower, low ranking farmer, imitator (a German substrate word)... It refers to a (Celtic) social organisation. [hypothesis]" |
If there's anything to this, Men/Mon could just be main/man and refer to Anglesey being a headquarters. |
If Mon / Mona is taken to refer to the OE /ON Mona for Moon, and added to the German substrate word 'ape' = 'follower' then we have a fully English explanation and they become the 'Followers of the Moon".
_________________
Question everything!
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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Druid Look up Druid at Dictionary.com
1509, from O.Fr. druide, from L. Druidae (pl.), from Gaulish Druides, from O.Celt. *derwijes, representing O.Celt. derwos "true" and *dru- "tree" (especially oak) + *wid- "to know" (cf. vision). Hence, lit., perhaps, "they who know the oak." O.E., too, had the same word for "tree" and "truth" (treow). The Eng. form comes via L., not immediately from Celtic. The O.Ir. form was drui (dat. and acc. druid; pl. druad); Mod.Ir. and Gael. draoi, gen. druadh "magician, sorcerer." Not to be confused with United Ancient Order of Druids, secret benefit society founded in London 1781.
Druid = Truid = True / Truth. We don't need to go through this ridiculous OFr, OCelt, OE route to get to the same result. Surely Druid is just a rendering of the word 'Truth'.
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Question everything!
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| The man in the moon is mentioned since c.1310; he carries a bundle of thorn-twigs and is accompanied by a dog. |
How widely is the Moon asociated with the civilised arts or the creation of mankind?
| So ANGLEsey, named after the OE Mona and devoted to the moon.......... where then do the Welsh fit into this picture?? Oh, they don't!! |
Are you suggesting then that the Druids were not Celts?
| If Mon / Mona is taken to refer to the OE /ON Mona for Moon, and added to the German substrate word 'ape' = 'follower' then we have a fully English explanation and they become the 'Followers of the Moon". |
It's a shame there seem to be so many ways to make sense of it.
| Surely Druid is just a rendering of the word 'Truth'. |
Or true-wit, "the wisdom of the (World) tree", as obtained by Odin, for instance.
As obtained by Odin in particular, perhaps. Wood (wod) means mad, as in the berserkers devoted to Woden, and has obvious connections with too much knowledge, (getting lost in) the wildwood and stuff like that.
Non-Celtic Druids in north Wales? Remember Beaker Country in the British Isles is a very good match for England-as-opposed-to-Celtland, with the notable additions of extreme north and extreme south Wales. (Beaker People = Bronze Age, globally important copper mines in north Wales and all that...)
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| We have yet to get to the bottom of this Druidical penchant for land-water interfaces. |
Can someone look up mere and mir words? I think you'll find purity and also boundary meanings that fit with the surface of the water meanings, plus mirror, miracle, mother, merriment/mirth... words that seem relevant to this question of interfacing this world to the other(s).
Merde = (m)earth? Something to do with mother?
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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| So ANGLEsey, named after the OE Mona and devoted to the moon.......... where then do the Welsh fit into this picture?? Oh, they don't!! |
Are you suggesting then that the Druids were not Celts?
| Non-Celtic Druids in north Wales? Remember Beaker Country in the British Isles is a very good match for England-as-opposed-to-Celtland, with the notable additions of extreme north and extreme south Wales. (Beaker People = Bronze Age, globally important copper mines in north Wales and all that...) |
I seem to remember that there were Druidic cone shaped hats with phases of the moon inscribed on them discovered at various places in Europe - they were associated with Druids but one was found in Germania........ I will try and find the references.
So maybe the Druids were not linked with a specific people in Europe but were pan-European - an Uber caste?
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Question everything!
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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http://www.angelfire.com/home/thefaery/sceptics3.html
This link gives some pictures and details of these 'hats' found from Ireland to Germany........ so the assumption that the Druids were 'celts' is not definite - they existed in Germanic and Romance language areas of Europe as well - who knows what language they spoke!!??
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Question everything!
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Pulp History
In: Wales
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Found this online ...........German Druids....... needs more research
http://theology101.org/pag/idr/idr11.htm
GERMAN DRUIDISM.
Louis de Baecker, 1854, gave an account of Teutonic Druidism, similar to that of the Belgae of Britain, in his De la Religion du Nord de la France avant le Christianisme. He, unlike men of the Welsh Druidic school, joins Dr. Ledwich, and some Irish authorities, in tracing Druidism to the German and Scandinavian races; saying, "The religion of our pagan ancestors was that of Odin or Woden." But he evidently refers to north-eastern France rather than north-western, as he derives the religion from the Edda. In the book Volu-Spa, or the Priestess, the first song of the poetic Edda, he discovers what Ossian and other British and Irish bards describe as Spirits of the air, of earth, of waters, of plains, and woods. "Caesar was deceived," says he, "when he said that the Germans had neither priests nor religious ceremonies; for Tacitus mentions them in his Germania in the most formal manner." By the way, if Caesar was so mistaken about the Germans, whom he knew so well, is his evidence about Gaulish Druids worth much?
Baecker's northern Gauls had priests of various kinds. The sacrificers were called Blodmanner, or Pluostari; the sustainers of order were Ewart and Gotes-ewart; the protectors of sacred woods, Harugari, Parawari, or Wihesmart; the prophets, Spamadhr, Wizago, Vitega, Veitsga, Weissager, Wetekey. The Priestesses were the Vaulur. The horse, bull, boar, and sheep were sacrificed. "It was in the middle of the wood," he writes, "that the Belgae offered their sacrifices." The Belgic Britons, doubtless, had a similar Druidism.
Caesar asserts that the Germans had no Druids, while be credits the German Belgae of South Britain with having them.
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Question everything!
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