Arthurian Romance (British History)

[Chad]

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

It's interesting to watch Gardner trying very hard not to rely on material that he clearly once accepted but now knows/suspects is a hoax.

[Hatty]

[Hatty]

Just revisited the overlong paper on bear myths and came across a very interesting remark: Ewenki novice shamans dress in a bearskin before journeying to the underworld (the Ewenki word shaman is the term used all over the shop so it's been argued that shamanism originated with the Ewenki but I wouldn't know 'bout that). Bears of course hibernate; if, as has been discussed elsewhere, reindeer husbandry preceded farming, the Persephone myth could have had an altogether different significance, later related to agriculture.

(Bear paws are still a vital part of a shaman's kit, can be a lucky talisman as with rabbit's feet but mainly used as the end of the drumstick; the drum, covered with reindeer-skin, is the equivalent of the shaman's 'horse').

There are a lot of taboos surrounding the eating of bear flesh, which anthropologists like to interpret as incest-related (no pun intended), especially where women are concerned. In many mythologies there are warnings against eating food in the underworld or accepting food from the fairy folk. All very symbolic and deeply mysterious.

[Rocky]

Arthur is called Ardur in some texts. So couldn't it be the case that Arthur=ardour, and that Arthur comes from a French word.

[Ishmael]

[Rocky]

Oh. Queen Eve = Geneviève. She was the patron saint of Paris.

She helped ward off the Huns.

[Hatty]

[Hatty]

While Paris is in our thoughts, can anyone explain the presence of the Parisii in the East Riding of Yorkshire, close to the sea and the Humber? The Humber is 'of uncertain origin' though everyone solemnly asserts that it's 'a common name for a river' (are there Humbers galore in France or somewhere?). There's also a rather mysterious spur sticking out for miles into the North Sea called Spurn Head which apparently is due to an underwater glacial moraine from the Ice Age. Looks like a harbour wall to moi.

[Ishmael]

Here in Toronto we have a Humber River.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_River_(Ontario)

Seems to me though that the name might refer to "The river in the harbour": The Harbour river.

[Hatty]

I think you're right. Ontario was settled by French-speaking Europeans too. The area round the Humber estuary has been drastically eroded and many of the coastal towns are underwater including Ravenser Odd which in the sixteenth century was apparently the most important port on the coastal stretch. I can't find an adequate explanation of how this spit could survive constant erosion from the North Sea, the tidal erosion being in a consistent southwards direction.



Prehistoric (i.e. Bronze Age) boats have been unearthed at the mouth of the Humber which were built with care and sophistication, chic even. The Parisii capital was called Petuaria by the Romans, the present Brough-on-Humber, thought to be related to Welsh pedwar meaning fourth or quarter. A quartier?

[Ishmael]

Hatty. May I say that the work you have been producing lately is truly remarkable!

[Hatty]

Thank you for the encouragement, Ish, goes without saying that you're always remarkable as everyone will agree. It's rather a remarkable coincidence that Paris and London were wrangling over which city would get the meridian line and a bunch of Parisians were living in east Yorkshire near the location of what appears to have been some kind of astronomical observatory.

[Rocky]

I found this, about the Parisi. It must have been electronically transcribed from some text where the characters for "f" and "s" are similiar: