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The only master of this kind of observation hitherto has been Marcel Griaule (d. 1956) but he left an impressive cohort of disciples. They have renewed the understanding of African studies, showing that such systems are still alive with the Dogon, whom Griaule "discovered," in the true sense of the word.
As Germaine Dieterlen writes: "The smallest everyday object may reveal a conscious reflection of a complex cosmogony. . . Thus for instance African techniques, so poor in appearance, like those of agriculture, weaving and smithing, have a rich, hidden content of significance . . . The sacrifice of a humble chicken, when accompanied by the necessary and effective ritual gestures, recalls in the thinking of those who have experienced it an understanding that is at once original and coherent of the origins and functioning of the universe.
"The Africans," she continues, "with whom we have worked in the region of the Upper Niger have systems of signs which run into thousands, their own systems of astronomy and calendrical measurements, methods of calculation and extensive anatomical and physiological knowledge, as well as a systematic pharmacopoeia. The principles underlying their social organization find expression in classifications which embrace many manifestations of nature. And these form a system in which, to take examples, plants, insects, textiles, games and rites are distributed in categories that can be further divided, numerically expressed and related one to another. It is on these same principles that the political and religious authority of chiefs, the family system and juridical rights, reflected notably in kinship and marriages, have been established. Indeed, all the activities of the daily lives of individuals are ultimately based on them." [n1 Introduction to Conversations with Ogotemmeli, Marcel Griaule (1965), p. xiv.].
It goes without saying that we need not subscribe to the author's opinion that the Mande peoples invented "their own systems of astronomy . . .
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The father of Saxo's Amlethus was Horvandillus, written also Orendel, Erentel, Earendel, Oervandill, Aurvandil, whom the appendix to the Heldenbuch pronounces the first of all heroes that were ever born.
The few data known about him are summarized by Jacob Grimm [n1 TM, pp. 374f. See also K. Simrock, Der ungenahte Rock oder Konig Orendel (1845), p. ix.]:
He suffers shipwreck on a voyage, takes shelter with a master fisherman Eisen [n2 Also written Ise or Eise, and derived from Isis, by Simrock; considering that the fisherman's modest home has seven towers, with 800 fishermen as his servants, Ise/ Eisen looks more like the Fisher King of Arthurian Romances.], earns the seamless coat of his master, and afterwards wins frau Breide, the fairest of women: king Eigel of Trier was his father's name. The whole tissue of the fable puts one in mind of the Odyssey: the shipwrecked man clings to a plank, digs himself a hole, holds a bough before him; even the seamless coat may be compared to Ino's veil, and the fisher to the swineheard, dame Breide's templars would be Penelope's suitors, and angels are sent often, like Zeus's messengers. Yet many things take a different turn, more in German fashion, and incidents are added, such as the laying of a naked sword between the newly married couple, which the Greek story knows nothing of. The hero's name is found even in OHG. documents: Orendil . . , Orentil . . . a village Orendelsal, now Orendensall, in Hohenlohe . . . But the Edda has another myth, which was alluded to in speaking of the stone in Thor's head. Groa is busy conning her magic spell, when Thor, to requite her for the approaching cure, imparts the welcome news, that in coming from Jotunheim in the North he has carried her husband the bold Orvandill in a basket on his back, and he is sure to be home soon; he adds by way of token, that as Orvandil's toe had stuck out of the basket and got frozen, he broke it off and flung it at the sky, and made a star of it, which is called Orvandils-ta. But Groa in her joy at the tidings forgot her spell, so the stone in the god's head never got loose (Snorri's Skaldskap. 17).
Powell [n3 In his introduction to Elton's translation of Saxo, p. cxxiii.], in his turn, compares the hero to Orion in his keen interpretation: .
The story of Orwandel (the analogue of Orion the Hunter) must be gathered chiefly from the prose Edda. He was a huntsman, big enough and brave enough to cope with giants. He was the friend of Thor, the husband of Groa, the father of Swipdag, the enemy of the giant Coller and the monster Sela.
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The story of his birth, and of his being blinded, are most apparently in the Teutonic stories, unless we may suppose that the bleeding of Robin Hood till he could not see, by the traitorous prioress, is the last remains of the story of the great archer's death. Dr. Rydberg regards him and his kinsfolk as doublets of those three men of feats, Egil the archer, Weyland the smith, and Finn the harper, and these again doublets of the three primeval artists, the sons of Iwaldi, whose story is told in the prose Edda.
It is not known which star, or constellation, Orvandils-ta was supposed to be. Apart from such wild notions as that the whole of Orion represented his toe [n4 R. H. Allen, Star Names (1963), p. 310.] to identify it with Rigel, i.e., beta Orionis, would be worth discussing even Reuter tries to convince himself that Corona borealis "looks like a toe," [n5 Germanische Himmelkunde (1934), p. 255.] because he could not free himself from the fetters of seasonal interpretation of myth, nor dared he attack the Romantic authority of Ludwig Uhland who had coined the dogma that Thor carried the sign for spring in his basket; accordingly a constellation had to be found which could announce springtime, and Reuter, choosing between Arcturus and Corona, elected the latter.
It is not his toe alone, however, which grants to Hamlet's father his cosmic background: some lines of Cynewulf's Christ dedicate to \he hero the following words:
Hail, Earendel, brightest of angels thou,
sent to men upon this middle-earth!
Thou art the true refulgence of the sun,
radiant above the stars, and from thyself
illuminest for ever all the tides of time.
[n6 See TM, p. 375; I. Gollancz, Hamlet in Iceland (1898), p. xxxvii; Reuter, p.256.].
The experts disagree whether Earendel, here, points to Christ, or to Mary, and whether or not Venus as morning star is meant, an identification which offers itself, since ancient glosses render Earendel with "Jubar," [n7 O jubar, angelorum splendidissime . . . See R. Heinzel, Uber das Gedicht von Konig Orendel (1892), p. 15.] and Jubar is generally accepted for Venus on the presupposition that "morning star" stands every single time for Venus, which is certainly misleading: any star, constellation or planet rising heliacally may act as morning star.
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With respect to juba, i.e., literally "the mane of any animal," jubar, a beaming light, radiance," we have, however, Varro's clear statement: iuba dicitur stella Lucifer." [n8 See W. Gundel, De stellarum appellatione et religione Romana (1907), p. 106; Reuter, pp. 256, 295ff.]. Nonetheless, several experts are against the equation Orendel/Earendel = Venus [n9 E.g., A. Scherer, Gestirnnamen (1953), pp. 79-81.]. Gollancz abstains from precise identifications, but he procures the one more existing piece of evidence concerning the word Earendel:
In Anglo-Saxon glosses "earendel" . . . or "oerendil" is interpreted jubar, but "dawn" or "morning star" would probably be a better rendering, as in the only other passage known in old English literature, viz. the Blickling Homilies (p. 163, I. 3): "Nu seo Cristes gebyrd at his aeriste, se niwa eorendel Sanctus Johannes; and nu se leoma thaere sothan sunnan God selfa cuman wille"; i.e., And now the birth of Christ (was) at his appearing, and the new day-spring (or dawn) was John the Baptist. And now the gleam of the true Sun, God himself, shall come [n10 Gollancz, p. xxxviin.].
Orendel/Earendel, then, seems to be the foremost among those which announce some "advent," not unlike the passage in the Odyssey (13 .93f.) dealing with Odysseus' arrival in Ithaca: "When that brightest of stars (aster phaantatos) rose which comes to tell us that the dawn is near, the travelling ship was drawing close to an island." That might point, again, to Venus, but there are reasons to think of Sirius, the brightest of all fixed stars, as will come out later.
Another subject of discussion has been the etymology of the name, and since the identity of Orendel might depend on its etymology, we have to look into the matter, at least superficially. Jacob Grimm admitted freely:
I am only in doubt as to the right spelling and interpretation of the word: an OHG. orentil implies AS. earendel, and the two would demand ON. aurvendill, eyrvendill; but if we start with ON. orvendill, then AS. earendel, ORG. erentil would seem preferable. The latter part of the compound certainly contains entil = wentil [n11 In a footnote. Grimm asks (and we wish we knew the answer!): Whence did Matthesius [in Frisch 2, 439a] get his 'Pan is the heathens' Wendel and head bagpiper?' Can the word refer to the metamorphoses of the flute-playing demigod? In trials of witches, Wendel is a name for the devil, Mones anz. 8, 124'"]. The first part should be either ora, eare (auris), or else ON. or, gen. orval (sagitta). Now, as there occurs in a tale in Saxo Grammaticus . . . , a Horvendilus filius Gervendili, and in OHG. a name Kerwentil. . . and
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Gerenti1 . . , and geir (hasta) agrees better with or than with eyra (auris), the second interpretation may command our assent; a sight of the complete legend would explain the reason of the name. I think Orentil's father deserves attention too: Eigil is another old and obscure name. . . Can the story of Orentil's wanderings possibly be so old amongst us, that in Orentil and Eigil of Trier we are to look for that Ulysses and Laertes whom Tacitus places on our Rhine? The names show nothing in common.
Scherer (p. 179) states shortly: "Earendel does not belong to ausos 'dawn,' nor to OE. �r 'ear' (Ahre), but to OE. ae, ear m. 'wave, sea,' ON. aurr 'humidity" Gollancz, who is inclined to connect Earendel with Eastern (ushas, eos, aurora, etc.), mentions more current derivations, among which is that from aurr "moisture," and from the root signifying "to burn" in Greek, euo, Latin uro, Ves- uvius, etc. Decisive seems to us the derivation from or = arrow, suggested by Grimm, and by Uhland, who explained Orendel as the one "who operates with the arrow" (in contrast to his grandfather, Gerentil, who worked with the ger = spear), and Simrock gives the opinion that the very gloss "Earendel Jubar" designate Earendel explicitly as "beam" (or "ray"), "which still in MHG. and Italian means 'arrow.' " [n12 Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie (1869), 82, P.233.].
Simrock did more Taking into consideration that in the Heldenbuch Orendel is spelled Erendelle, and at some other place Ernthelle, he thinks it probable that "Ern" was dropped as epithet on ornans [n13 lbid. See also Simrock, Die Quellen des Shakespeare (1870), pp. 129f.: Dies ward aber wohl in Tell gekurzt, weil man die erste Silbe fur jenes vor Namen stehende 'Ehren' ansah, as nach dem d. Worterb, III 52 aus 'Herr' erwachsen, bald fur ein Epitheton ornans angesehen wurde."], and he concludes from there that the story of Tell shooting the apple from the head of his son was once told of Orendel himself. That the historical (?) Tell was not the inventor of this famous shot, or even performed it, seems rather certain. As Grimm aptly stated:
The legend of Tell relates no real event, yet, without fabrication or lying, as a genuine myth it has shot up anew in the bosom of Switzerland, to embellish a transaction that took hold of the nation's inmost being [n14 TM 3, p. xxxiv.].
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Now there is no arrow to be found that could contest with Sirius in mythical significance. We know mulKAK.SI.DI, the "Arrow-Star" from Sumer, as well as "Tishtriya," the arrow from Ancient Iranit is shot from a bow built up by stars of Argo and Canis Major (Sumerian: mulBAN). The very same bow is to be found in the Chinese sphere, but there the arrow is shorter and aims at Sirius, the celestial Jackal, whereas the same Egyptian arrow is aimed at the star on the head of the Sothis Cow, as depicted in the so-called "Round Zodiac" of Dendera Sirius again. In India, Sirius is the archer himself (Tishiya), and his arrow is represented by the stars of Orion's Belt. And about all of them manifold legends are told. Thus, "Earendel, brightest of angels thou," might well point to the brightest among the fixed stars, Sirius.
But even the derivation from the root aurr = moisture, ear = sea, would not exclude Sirius. Quite the contrary. The Babylonian New Year's ritual says: "Arrow Star, who measures the depth of the sea"; the Avesta states: "Tishtriya, by whom the waters count." And as Tishtriya, "the Arrow," watches Lake Vurukasha (see p. 215), so Teutonic Egil is the guardian of Hvergelmer, the whirlpool, and of Elivagar, south of which "the gods have an 'outgard,' a 'saeter' which is inhabited by valiant watcherssnotrir vikinger they are called in Thorsdrapa, "who are bound by oaths to serve the gods. Their chief is Egil, the most famous archer in the mythology. As such he is also called Orvendel (the one busy with the arrow)." [n15 V. Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology (1907), pp. 424ff., 968ff.].
We had better stop getting diffuse concerning Sirius the Arrow and his role as guardian and as "measurer of the depth of the sea"; the few hints that were given here must suffice to show the level at which to look for the father of Hamlet.
Since, however, we can never resist the temptation to quote beautiful poems, we have still to confess our suspicion that the "Stella Maris" is Sirius too. Enough is known about Isis/Sirius as guardian-deity of navigators, to whom belongs the "carra navalis," and was it not "Mary or Christ" who was addressed with "Hail, Earendel"? In the same manner, the hymn "In Annunciatione Beatae Mariae" begins with the verses:
Ave, maris stella
Dei mater alma
atque semper virgo
felix caeli porta
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Sumens illud Ave
Gabrielis ore
funda nos in pace
mutans nomen Evae.
And there is another hymn which was sung, according to the Roman Breviary, after Compline during Advent and Christmastide, and which has been ascribed to Herimanus Contractus of Reichenau (d. 1054), who would appear to have lived and died a cripple in his monastery:
Alma redemptoris mater, quae pervia caeli
porta manes et stella maris, succurre cadenti,
surgere qui curat, populo, tu quae genuisti
(natura irante) tuum sanctum genitorem,
Virgo pius et posterius, Gabrielis ab ore
sumens illud Ave, peccatorem miserere.
"What I have been attempting to suggest," says the interpreter of this hymn [n16 H. Musurillo, S.J., "The Medieval Hymn, Alma Redemptoris," Classical Journal 52 (1957), pp. 171-74.], "is that the attraction of this charming mediaeval prayer and hymn would seem to form, in large measure, from the intentional ambiguity, the different levels of meaning, and the sunken imagery. . . The 'nourishing mother' is perhaps pictured as a fixed constellation in the heavens, or perhaps as the morning star, guiding those on the sea. She is a celestial passage-way, always passable and ever accessible. . . The falling and rising has now (besides the constantly falling sinners) perhaps the further overtones of heavenly bodies rising and falling, perhaps of ships rising and falling on the sea, 'and lastly of tottering children who need their mother's help to walk. . . The poem. . . is a very striking one, and its force derives, in my view, from the subtle imagery of the first three lines. . . They offer us a symbol, a verbal icon, of the entire situation of man on earth in his struggle to rise to the stars, of his need of an otherworldly force which is at once strong and loving."
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Now, apart from the circumstance that the snowy burial ascribed to the followers of Kai Khusrau, Enoch, and Quetzalcouatl could hardly be claimed to be an "obvious" feature, the fate of Quetzalcouatl's companions might further our understanding; more correctly, the topos where this event is supposed to have happened might do so. The "five mountains" of Mexican myth, their "gods" respectively, the Tepictoton [n1 See E. Seler, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, vol. 2, p. 507, for an Aztec drawing of the Tepictoton.], appear to represent the five Uayeb (= Maya; with the Aztecs: Nemontemi), the Epagomena, those days gained by Mercury from the Moon during a game of checkers, in order to help Rhea/Nut to days "outside of the year," when she could bring forth the five planets. As a matter of fact, in his chapter on the clothes and emblems of the gods, Sahagun puts the "Mountain-Gods" at the end of the list [n2 See T. S. Barthel, "Einige Ordungsprinzipein im Aztekischen Pantheon," Paideuma 10 (1964), pp. 80f., 83. In this paper, Barthel has established, in a rather convincing manner, the presence of decans in Mexican astronomy.].
Worth mentioning might be two more traits which Quetzalcouatl shares with his old-world brethren: Quetzalcouatl and Uemac, like Kai Ka'us and Kai Khusrau, are said to have ruled together, and Quetzalcouatl is accused of incestuous relations with his sister, as were Hamlet, Kullervo, Yama and, we might add, King Arthur [n3 See W. Krickeberg, "Mexicanisch-peruanische Parallelen," in Festschrift P. W. Schmidt, p. 388.].
It is as yet too early in the day to deal with "Uncle Kamsa," whom lexicographers make a "mura-deva," allegedly a "venerator of roots" (mula/mura = root). In his Eine Beitrage (p. 11), Jarl Charpentier earnestly wishes us to accept as that "among the Indian natives fighting against the invading Aryans there were such," namely, "venerators of roots" (and venerators of worms as well). Although we do not doubt that the species Homo sapiens is capable of any "belief," we cannot perceive any cogent reason for subscribing to Charpentier's view.
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Mula/mura, the "root," is a Nakshatra, a lunar mansion woven around with tales: it is the sting of Scorpius, serving as Marduk's weapon in: the "Babylonian Genesis" and as Polynesian Maui's fishhook; with the Copts it is "statio translationis Caniculae . . . unde et Siot vocatur," i.e., the Coptic table of lunar stations takes lambda upsilon Scorpii as the precise opposite of Sirius/Sothis, as we are informed by Athanasius Kircher, whereas Indian tables ascribe the role of exact opposition to Betelgeuse, ruled by 'Rudra-the-destroying-archer." Although we cannot pursue these and other tales further here, we think it at least appropriate to mention the concrete problems arising with such characters as "Uncle Kamsa," instead of accusing a true Asura of "veneration of roots."
Sem Snaebjoern krad:
Hwatt kveda hraera Grotta
hergrimmastan skerja
ut fyrir jardar skauti
Elyudrs niu brudir;
ther er, lungs, fyrir laungu
lid-meldr, skipa hlidar
baugskerdir ristr bardi
bol, Amloda molu
Her er kallat hafit Amloda Kvern.
Gollancz (Hamlet in Iceland, p. xi) retranslated his translation into Old Norse so that the original and the nolens volens interpreting translation might be compared. The retranslation runs thus: kveda niu brudir eyludrs hraera hvat hergrimmastan skerja grotta ut fyrir jardar skauti, thaer er fyrir longu molu Amloda lid-meldr; baugskerdir ristr skipa hlidar bol lungs bardi. Elton translates the passage:
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"Men say that the nine maidens of the island-mill (the ocean) are working hard at the host-devouring skerry-quern (the sea), out beyond the skirts of the earth; yea, they have for ages been grinding at Amlodi's meal-bin (the sea)." [n1 Saxo Grammaticus, Danish History, p. 402.].
Rydberg, too, offers a translation:
"It is said, that Eyludr's nine women violently turn the Grotte of the skerry dangerous to man out near the edge of the earth, and that those women long ground Amlode's lid-grist." [n2 Teutonic Mythology, 80, p. 568].
In spite of the trickiness and the traps of the text Gollancz tries to solve the case; in fact, he tries too frantically (p. xxxvi): "The compound ey-ludr, translated 'Island-Mill,' may be regarded as a synonym for the father of the Nine Maids. Ludr is strictly the square case within which the lower and upper Quernstones rest,' hence the mill itself, or quern."
With this we wish to compare O. S. Reuter's explanation: "ludr = Muhlengebalk (dan. Luur = das Gerust zu einer Handmuhle)" (Germanische Himmelskunde, p. 239; he also includes a drawing of the mill). On p. 242, note, he renders the lines of Skaldskap. 25: "Neun Scharenbraute ruhren den Grotti des Inselmuhlkastens (eyludr) draussen an der Erde Ecke (ut fyrir jardar skauti)," adding: "Das (kosmische?) Weltmeer ist als 'Hamlets Muhle' gesehen." At least he thought, even if within brackets and with a quotation mark, of "cosmic". Rydberg is the only one who has grasped this point completely.
"Ey-ludr," Gollancz continues, "is the 'island quern,' i.e., 'the grinder of islands,' the Ocean-Mill, the sea, the sea-god, and, finally, Aegir. 'Aegir's daughters' are the surging waves of the ocean; they work Grotti 'grinder,' the great Ocean-Mill (here called 'skarja grotti,' the grinder of skerries, the lonely rocks in the sea), 'beyond the skins of the earth' or perhaps, better, 'off yonder promontory.' The latter meaning of the words 'ut fyrir jardar skauti' would perhaps suit the passage best, if Snaebjorn is pointing to some special whirlpool." Non liquet: neither Aegir = eyludr, nor the nine maidens = waves, whether surging or not.
As concerns "off yonder promontory" which sounds ever so poetical and indistinct, see J. de Vries [n3 Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch (1961)]: skaut n. Ecke, Zipfel, Schoss, Kopftuch, eig. "etwas Hervorragendes" . . . Dazu skauti m. "Tuch zum Einhullen," ae. sceata "Ecke, Schoss, Segelschote." fyr. praep. praef. "vor," durch,
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wegen, trotz, fur. . . lat. prae "voran, voraus," lat. prior "der fruhere" which tells us either nothing at all or, if we take "prior" for the proper translation, tells us the whole "story" by means of one single word; in the same manner as the mere fact that the pillars of Hercules were "fyr," called the pillars of Briareos, and before that time, the pillars of Kronos.
We stick, however, to Gollancz for some more lines. "The real difficulty," he says, "in Snorri's extract from Snaebjoern is . . . in its last line; the arrangement of the words is confusing, the interpretation of the most important of the phrases extremely doubtful. 'Lid meldr' in particular has given much trouble to the commentators: 'meldr,' at present obsolete in Icelandic, signifies 'flour or corn inl the mill'; but the word 'lid' is a veritable crux. It may be either the neuter noun 'lid,' meaning 'a host, folk, people,' or ship, or the masculine 'lidr,' 'a joint of the body.' The editors of the Corpus Poeticum Boreale read 'meldr-lid,' rendering the word 'meal-vessel'; they translate the passage, 'who ages past ground Amlodi's meal-vessels = the ocean'; but mala,' 'to grind,' can hardly be synonymous with 'hraera, 'to move,' in the earlier lines, and there would be no point in the waves grinding the ocean. There seems, therefore, no reason why meldr-lid should be preferred to lid-meldr, which might well stand for 'shipmeal' (sea-meal), to be compared with the Eddic phrase 'graedis meldr,' i.e., sea-flour, a poetical periphrasis for the sand of the shore. Rydberg [Teutonic Mythology (1907), pp. 570ff. = pp. 388-92 in the 1889 edition], bearing in mind the connection of the myth concerning the fate of Ymer's descendant Bergelmer, who, according to an ingenious interpretation of a verse in Vafthrudnismal 'was laid under the millstone,' advanced the theory that 'lid-meldr' means 'limb-grist.' According to this view, it is the limbs and joints of the primeval giants, which in Amlodi's mill are transformed into meal. . . Snorri does not help us. The note following Snaebjoern's verse merely adds that here the sea is called "Amlodi's kvern.' "
In a note Gollancz adds that in some other manuscript he found the version: "Here the sea is called 'Amlodi's meal'" (Amloda melldur), and concludes: "No explicit explanation is to be found in early Northern poetry or saga. Hamlet's Mill' may mean almost anything." It is not as bad as that. Moreover, Gollancz (p. xvii, note) detected more relevant figures of speech in the four lines cited below which he
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ascribes to Snaebjorn: "The island-mill pours out the blood of the flood goddess's sisters (i.e., waves of the sea), so that (it) bursts from the feller of the land: whirlpool begins strong."
svad or fit jar fjoetra,
flods asynju bolde
(roest byrjask roemm) systra
rytr, eymylver snyter.
To which he adds: "In no other drottkvoett verse does eymylver occur: cp. eyludr above."
It is not as easy to dispose of Mysing, as the specialists pretend, e.g., by preferring to interpret his name as "mouse-gray" instead of the equally possible "son of a mouse." Olrik (pp. 459f.) proposes to identify straightaway "King Mysing who killed Frith-Frothi, and the cow that struck down Frothi the Peaceful. . . King Mysing is merely a rationalistic explanation of the ancient monster." (For the death of Frodi by means of a sea cow, see also P. Herrmann's commentary on Saxo, pp. 380-84. This "cow"in Iceland they remain within the frame of zoology and make it a stag was, according to Saxo, a witch, who was pierced through by Frodi's men. Afterwards they kept Frodi's death a secret for three years, in the same manner as told by Snorri in his Heimskringla about Frey.)
A. H. Krappe, more observant, compared Mysing with Apollon Smintheus, the old "mouse-god" (ARW 33 [1936], pp. 40-56). He had in his mind, however, only the connection undeniable as it is between mice and rats and the plague, and the dragging-in of Smintheus does not much further the understanding of Mysing. This state of things was changed with the publication of the work by Henri Gregoire, R. Goossens and M. Matthieu, "Asklepios, Apollon Smintheus et Rudra: Etudes sur le dieu a la taupe et le dieu au rat dans la Grece et dans l'Inde," although they do not even mention our Mysing, and although they loudly praise (p. 157) the merit of "Meillet . . . d'avoir fait
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descendre la mytholgie du ciel sur la terre" with Rudra, and with the rat of Ganesha (who, by the way, acquired his elephant's head because the planet Saturn, not being invited to the infant's "baptism," had looked upon the baby with his evil eye, thus destroying his head which was successfully replaced by that of an elephant), the mouse plot has got much deeper background. Nevertheless, the identity and the role of the mouse deity is hardly going to be settled without taking into account (1) "the tailed Mus Parik, arrayed with wings; the Sun fettered her to his own ray, so that she could not perpetrate harm; When she becomes free, she will do much injury to the world, till she is recaptured, having come eye-to-eye with the Sun"; this enigmatical winged mouse come from the world horoscope in the Iranian Bundahishn (chapter V, Anklesaria translation, p. 63); (2) the colorful Polynesian myths dealing with the rat that gnawed through the "Nets of Makalii," i.e., Hyades and Pleiades; she could do so unpunished being Makalii's very own sister; (3) the warriors, in the guise of mice, of Llwyd, son of Cil Coed, "who cast enchantment over the seven cantrefs of Dyfed . . . to avenge Gwawl son of Clud," in the third branch of the Mabinogi. There are more items, to be sure, but we have to leave it at that.
We want to stress the point that the haughty verdicts as given by Genzmer, Olrik, and others on Snorri's tale are not unknown to us. Their opinions run along these lines: "The last part of the story of Grotti and Mysing is 'How the sea grew salt.' This is a different motif, in no wise connected with the peace of Frothi." [n1 A. Olrik, The Heroic Legends of Denmark (1919), p. 460.]. Genzmer's wording is more arrogant still. The transportation of the mill by Mysing and the grinding of salt aboard the ship is "die Anschweissung einer zweiten selbstandigen Sage; der grossartig einfache, ahnungsvolle Schluss unserer Dichtung wird durch ein solches Anhangsel todlich geschadigt." [n2 Edda, trans. F. Genzmer (1922), Thule I, p. 181].
It would be more adequate to state that the myth has been "fatally damaged" by the modern experts, and not by Snorri. When we come to the little salt-mill of Kronos, the reader will understand the plot better.
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Olrik (pp. 457f.), however, has some pretty survivals to offer:
In 1895, Dr. Jakob Jakobsen, the well-known collector of the remnants of the ancient "Norn" language of the Western Islands, was informed by an old Shetlander, whose parents had come from the Orkneys (Ronaldsey) that near the most northerly of these islands there was an eddy called "the Swelki" [that is, Snorri's svelgr, "seamill, where the waters rush in through the eye of the mill-stone"]. On that spot a mill stood on the bottom of the sea and ground salt; and a legend of Grotti-Fenni and Grotti-Menni was connected with it. In the course of later investigations in the Orkneys themselves (South Ronaldsey) he learned about the sea mill in the Pentland Firth grinding salt. In 1909, Mr. A. W. Johnstone was told by a lady from Fair Isle that Grotti Finnie and Lucky Minnie were well known in her native island, being frequently invoked to frighten naughty children. Although the legend in those parts is in a fragmentary condition, reduced to incoherent survivals, the tenacity of the oral tradition shows how deeply rooted the legend is in these islands. Outside of the Orkneys neither Mysing nor his salt mill are known to tradition except in the songs of the Edda which themselves bear the stamp of Western provenience.
Vafthrudnismal 35 is rendered by Gering: "Ungezahlte Winter vor der Schopfung / geschah Bergelmirs Geburt. / Als fruhestes weiss ich, dass der erfahrene Riese / Im Boote geborgen ward." Simrock translates similarly, and he remarks (Hdb. Dt. Myth., 9): "Das dunkle Wort ludr fur Boot zu nehmen, sind wir sowohl durch den Zusammenhang als durch die Mythenvergleichung berechtigt."
R. B. Anderson (The Younger Edda [1880], pp. 60f.) translates the verse quoted by Snorri (Gylf. 7)as follows: "Countless winters / Ere the earth was made, / Was born Bergelmer. / The first I call to mind / How the crafty giant / Safe in his ark lay."
Neckel and Niedner (Die Jungere Edda, pp. 54f.) state that Bergelmer and his wife "stieg auf seinen Muhlkasten und rettete sich so." The lines above they render with the words: "Als fruhestes weiss ich, dass der vielkluge Riese in die Rohe gehoben ward," adding in a footnote: "Das oben mit 'Muhlkasten' wiedergegebene Wort ubersetzt man gewohnlich
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mit 'Boot' oder auc mit 'Wiege,' ohne Begrundung und gegen den Wortlaut der Prosa. Gegen den gewohnlichen Wortsinn 'Mahlkasten' (Muhlsteinbehalter auf Pfosten) spricht nichts. Freilich kennen wir den angedeuteten Vorgang des Naheren nicht und wissen daher auch nicht, warum der Riese gehoben ('gelegt') werden musste, und wer ihn aufhob."
The ominous word ludr occurs again in Helgakvida Hundingsbana II, 2-4, where Helge seeking refuge from king Hundingworks in a mill, disguised as a female, and almost wrecks the ludr.
In common with the mythologists who defend the "boat," in Vafthrudnismal 35, eeling entitled to it on account of comparative mythology (see Simrock, quoted some lines ago), and whom he fights
explicitly, Rydberg upholds the notion that the Ark was a ship. It will come out later that this general notion is incorrect.
As a matter of fact, Simrock already (Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie, pp. 240f.) ventured to interpret Fengo (Amlethus' evil uncle) as "the grinding," and Amlethus as "the grain"; "wo selbst der Name mit Amelmehl [Greek amylon], Starkemehl, Kraftmehl ubereinstimmt." He even thought of the possibility (although taking this thought for audacious, "gewagt") to derive the family name of Thidrek's clan, i.e., the name of the Amelunge, from "Amelmehl" We shan't dwell upon the strange information given by Athenaeus (Deipnosophistai 3.1 14f.) about "Achilles, or very fine barley" (cf. Theophr. 8.4-2. Aristoph. Eq. 819: Achilles cake), or on the surname of Ningishzida, namely Zid-zi "Meal of Life" (K. Tallqvist, Akkadische Gotterepitheta, p. 4p6; cf. Riemschneider, Augengott, p. 133), and we point only to Ras Shamra texts, where the lady Anat ground Mot. (See C. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature, p. 45.) H. . Ginsberg (ANET, p. 140) translates I AB, col. II:
She seizes the Godly Mot
With swords she does cleave him
With fan she does winnow him
With fire she does burn him
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With hand-mill she grinds him
In the field she does sow him.
Birds eat his remnants
Consuming his portions
Flitting from remnant to remnant.
An astonished footnote states: "But somehow Mot comes to life entire in col. VI, and Baal even earlier." But there is absolutely nothing astonishing enough to shake the firm belief of experts in "chthonic" deities.
For the first Irish harp (cruit), see Eugene O'Curry, On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol. 3 (1873), pp. 236f.; see also Rudolf Thurneysen, Die irische Helden- und Konigssage bis zum 17. Jahrhundert (1911), pp. 264f.
There once lived a couple . . . And the wife conceived a hatred to him, and she was flying from him through woods and wilderness; and he continued to follow her constantly. And one day that the woman came to the sea shore of Camas, . . . she met a skeleton of a whale on the strand, and she heard the sounds of the wind passing through the sinews of the whale on the strand, and she fell asleep from the sounds. And her husband came after her; and he perceived that it was from the sounds the sleep fell upon her. And he then went forward into the wood, and made the form of a Cruit [n1 "The word Cruit . . . signifies literally, a sharp high breast, such as of a goose, a heron, or a curlew" (O'Curry, loc. cit.).]; and he put strings from the sinews of the whale into it; and that was the first Cruit that was ever made.
Marbhan's legend about the beginnings of instruments and verses continues:
And again Lamec Bigamas had two sons, Jubal and Tubal Cain were their names. One son of them was a smith, namely, Jubal; and he discovered from sounds of two sledges (on the anvil) in the forge one day, that it was verses (or notes) of equal length they spoke, and he composed a verse upon that cause, and that was the first verse that was ever composed.
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The legend goes on to report, why the timpan, another stringed instrument, different from the cruit was called Timpan Naimh (or saint's Timpan), because "at the time that Noah, the son of Lamech, went into the Ark, he took with him a number of instruments of music into it, together with a Timpan, which one of his sons had, who knew how to play it:" When they finally left the ark, Noah caused his son to name the instrument after his own name, and only under this condition would he give it to him. "So that Noah's Timpan is its name from that time down; and that is not what ye, the ignorant timpanists, call it, but Timpan of the saints."
We introduce the legend for several reasons; first, because we felt reminded at once, as O'Curry did (p. 237), "of Pythagoras, who is said to have been led to discover the musical effect of vibrations of a chord by observing the sound of various blows on an anvil, though the Irish legend. . . does not appear to bear on the tones so much as on the rhythm of music." Second, because here we learn again about two successive stringed instruments, separated, so to speak, by a flood; Vainamoinen lost his Kantele when going to steal the Sampo, and had to construct a new one from wood, afterwards. These traditions must be thoroughly compared, one day, with the different lyres of Greece; we know that one was destroyed by Apollon allegedly in a fit of repentance after he had flayed Marsyas, and that Hermes made another one and presented it to Apollon; pike and whale of the northern seas have apparently replaced the turtle of Greek myth. We also know that the Pleiades, called the Lyre of the Muses by the Orphics, existed side by side with Lyra And Michael Scotus still knew about a turtle figuring, so to speak, as prow of Argo, and "out of which the celestial lyre is made." [n2 Testudo eius (navis) est prope quasi prora navis. , . de qua testudine facta est lyra caeli. Cf. F. Bolll Sphaera, p. 447]. But before being trapped between the devil and the deep sea, we prefer to stop, although this turtle seems to be placed exactly there, where it "should" be, considering that upon its back the Amritamanthana was accomplished. We shall hear more about that considerable and mysterious man, Michael Scotus, later (see p. 258).
The long and the short of the various traditions is that with a new age new instruments, new strings, or, as in the case of Odysseus, a new peg are called for: new "Harmony of the Spheres."
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Christensen, in his work on the Kayanids [n1 A. Christensen, Les Kayanides (1932), p. 43], states: "La tradition nationale fait grand cas du forgeron Kavag, qui s'insurgeait contre l'usurpateur Dahag (le Dahaka des Yashts) et hissait son tablier de cuir sur une lance, ce qui flit l'origine du drapeau de l'empire sassanide, appel� drafs e kavyan, 'drapeau de Kavag.' Cette l�ende, n� d'un malentendu, la vraie signification du nom de drafs e kavyan etant 'le drapeau royal,' est inconnue dans la tradition religieuse."
By means of such statements apart from "modestly" insinuating that Firdausi spun whole chapters of his Shahnama out of "malentendus" the way to relevant questions is effectively blocked. The story of the smith Kavagalso written Kaweh [n2 F. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch (1895), p. 160. In the most recent translation of the Shahnama (Firdousi: Das Konigsbuch [1967] so far, only Pt. I, Bks. 1-5 have come out), H. Kanus-Cred�boldly identifies the smith Kawa with "awestisch Kawata," i.e., with Kai Kobad, the first Iranian ruler.], or Kawais told by Firdausi in the book dealing with the 1000 years' rule of Dahak, that fiendish tyrant out of whose shoulders grew two serpents [n3 Dahak with his two additional serpent heads is the same as the "powerful, raving Dasa with his 6 eyes and 3 heads" of RV 10.99.6.: Visvarupa, son of Tvashtri, and "Schwestersohn der Asura"; cf. Mbh. 12.343 (Roy trans., vol. 10, p. 572).] that had to be fed with the brains of two young men every day. The predestined dragon-slayer, and much expected savior, FaridunAvestan Thraethonaa true predecessor of Kai Khusrau, had been saved from the snares of Dahak as a baby, and hidden away in the mountains. When the archdevil Dahak claimed the sacrifice of the last son of Kaweh seventeen sons had already been fed to the dragon-heads the smith started the revolution for the sake of Faridun:
He took a leathern apron, such as smiths
Wear to protect their legs while at the forge,
Stuck it upon a spear's point and forthwith
Throughout the market dust began to rise. . .
He took the lead, and many valiant men
Resorted to him; he rebelled and went
To Faridun. When he arrived shouts rose.
He entered the new prince's court, who marked
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The apron on the spear and hailed the omen.
He decked the apron with brocade of Rum
Of jewelle patterns on a golden ground,
Placed on the spear point a full moon a token
Portending gloriously and having draped it
With yellow, red, and violet, he named it
The Kawian flag. Thenceforth when any Shah
Ascended to the throne, and donned the crown,
He hung the worthless apron of the smith
With still more jewels, sumptuous brocade,
And painted silk of China. It thus fell out
That Kawa's standard grew to be a sun
Amid the gloom of night, and cheered all hearts.
Now, if there was only the "royal" flag to explain, why should Firdausi (or his source) invent a smith with the name Kaweh (Kavag, Kawa), if there was no connection whatever between kingship and the smith? Even if we leave out of consideration the widely diffused motif of great smiths as foster-fathers and educators of the hero [n4To mention only Mimir, Regin, Gobann. Kaweh's son Karna, by the way, whose life was spared thanks to the rebellion, became a famous paladin of Faridun, as Wittige/Wittich, son of Waylant the smith, became a strong paladin of Thidrek.] as well as the Chinese mythical imperial smiths, and all the material collected by Alfoldi in his article on smith as a title of honor among the kings of Mongols and Turks [n5 Cf., for Turkish traditions, R. Hartmann, "Ergeneqon," in Festschrift Jacob (1932), pp. 68-79.]: the very name of the dynasty of Iranian kings which is of the greatest interest for us, i.e., the Kayanides, is derived from Kavi/Kawi [n6 For the word kavi, see H. Lommel, Die Yashts des Awesta (1927), pp. 171f.; E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster and His World (1947), pp. 100-109.]. The most "kawian" Shah is Kai Ka'us, whose name even contains the relevant word twice, the "Kavi Kavi-Usan," who cannot be separated from Kavy Usa (or Usanas Kavya) of the Rigveda and the Mahabharata [n7 See Lommel's article "Kavy Usan," in Melanges linguistiques offerts a Charles Bally (1939), pp. 21of. That C. Bartholomae (Altiranisches Worterbuch [1904], col. 405) confesses that he is "unable to find relations" between Iranian Kavi Usan and Rigvedian Kavy Usha is a precious gem in the collection of philological atrocities. "Falls meine etymologie richtig ist, entfallt auch die Namensahnlichkeit." Similarity he calls it! It will come out in the course of this essay that his proposition to derive the name Usan from usa- m. (I) Quelle, Brunnen; (2) Abfluss, Leck . . ," is no obstacle at all to the understanding of Kavy Usan. Kronos too has been derived from Greek krounos, i.e., source," spring" (see Eisler, Weltenmantel, pp. 3782, 3850, reminding us also of the Pythagorean formula concerning the sea: "Kronou dakryon, the tear of Kronos").],
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who shows several of the decisive characteristics of the Deus Faber. Not alone is he said to have forged the weapon for Indra [n8 RV 1.51.10; 121.12, 5.34.2. It is particularly the Shushna-myth, where K. U. replaces Tvashtri.] instead of Tvashtriand to have given Soma to Indra who, otherwise, has stolen (or has just drunk) the Soma in the "House of Tvashtri" (e.g., RV 3.48.2f.), but we are told that, during one of the never-ceasing wars between Asura and Deva for the "three worlds," the Asura elected Kavya Ushanas for their "priest" or "messenger," [n9 Taittiriya Sanhita 2.5.8 (Keith trans., vol. 1, p. 198)], the Deva elected Brihaspati (or Vrihaspati, i.e., Jupiter, in Taittiriya Sanhita Agni). Many warriors were slain on both sides, but so the Mahabharata tells the open-minded Vrihaspati could not revive them, because he knew not the science called Sanjivani (re-vivification) which Kavya endued with great energy knew so well. And the gods were, therefore, in great sorrow." [n10 Mbh. 1.76 (Roy trans., vol. 1, p. 185). For this role of Kavya Ushanas, cf. Geldner, in R. Pischel and K. F. Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. 2 (1897), pp. 166-70; for a life-restoring lake or well, owned by the wicked Danavas," see Mbh. 833 (Roy trans., vol. 7, p. 83). In Ireland the Tuatha de Danann were able to revivify the slain (in the Second Battle of Mag Tured), the Fomorians were not.]. The Bundahishn, in its turn, gives the following report in chapter 32, dedicated to "the mansions which the Kayans erected with glory, which they call marvels and wonders," [n11 Zand-Akasih: Iranian or Greater Bundahishn, trans. by B. T. Anklesaria (1956), p. 271; cf. Christensen, p. 74.] in verse II: "Of the mansions of Kay Us one says: 'One was of gold wherein he settled, two were of glass in which were his stables, and two were of steel in which was his flock; therefrom issued all tastes, and waters of the springs giving immortality, which smite old-age, that is, when a decrepit man enters by this gate, he comes out as a youth of fifteen years from the other gate,and also dispel death." According to Firdausi, Kai Ka'us had a kind of balm by means of which he could have restored Shurab to life, but he did not give it to Shurab's father Rustem who implored him for this gift [n12 In the same manner, Lugthe strength and heart of the Tuatha De Danann as Krishna was that of the Pandavadenies the revivifying pig's skin to Tuirill who, by means of it, could have restored to life his three sons, Brian, Juchair, and Jucharba.]
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To which Lommel remarks (M�anges Bally, p. 212): "Und das ist der hasslichste lug im Bilde des Kay Kaus, dass er die Herausgabe des Wunderheilmittels verweigert, da Rostem und Sohrab, wenn beide am Leben waren, vereint ihm zu machtig waren."It is a rather idle occupation to look for "ugly traits" in the "character" of the Demiurge, even if he comes our way in the disguise of a Shah. These few hints must suffice for now; it is bad enough that the burden of "proof" rests with the defenders of sense in our deteriorated century, whereas everyone who presupposes non-sense and "malentendus" can get away with the most preposterous claims. In other words: even if the individual Kaweh/Kavag should have been "invented" by Firdausi, the notion of the Deus Faber and Celestial Smith as the disposer and guardian of kingship [n13 To repeat: the "Lord of the Triakontaeteris," the period of thirty years, i.e., the Egyptian and Persian "Royal Jubilee" (Saturn's sidereal revolution), is Ptah-Hephaistos.], as the original and legitimate owner of the "water of life," [n14 Also of the intoxicating beverage replacing it; Soma belonged to Tvasthri; Irish Goibniu brewed the ale which made the Tuatha De Danann immortal, and the beer of the Caucasian smith Kurdalogon played the same role. When Sumerian Inanna was almost lost in the underworld, it was Enki who gave to his messengers the life-restoring fluid with which to besprinkle the goddess. And, last but not least, it is Tane/Kane, the Polynesian Deus Faber, whose are "the Living Waters."] is by no means an accidental fancy [n15 Leo Frobenius, when accused as happened sometimes of having been deceived by African informants who "made up" any amount of fairy tales which were not "true," used to smile benevolently, and to point to what he called "stilgerechte Phantasie."], and the significance and meaning of the smith's apron as "Kawian flag" would have been understood from China to Ireland.
It should be stressed that the disinclination of philologists to allow for the "essential" connection of Chronos and Kronos rests upon the stern belief that the "god" Saturn has nothing to do with the planet Saturn, and upon the supposition that an expert in classical philology has nothing whatever to learn from Indian texts. Were it not so, they might have stumbled over Kala, i.e., Chronos, as a name of Yama, i.e., Kronos, alias the planet Saturn.
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Indians have indeed, written more about their Kala and the Iranians about their Zurvan than the Greeks about Chronos, but with the translated Vedas being what they are, we won't claim the relevant texts to be transparent, nor the scholarly interpretations to be particularly elucidating, all of the experts starting, as they do, from the unfounded conviction that "astrology" must be a "late" phenomenon.
To throw "identifications" around, does not lead anywhere, in our opinion, so we do not mean to simplify by nailing down, once and for all, Kala/Chronos as being the very same as Yama/Kronos/ Saturn. To recognize Kronos/Saturn as auctor temporum is quite sufficient for the time being [n1 We do not think it is an "accident" that this originator of time begins with the letter X, representing the obliquity of the ecliptic in Plato's Timaeus.], and so are the Indian notions, according to which Yama is often called Kala; in other passages he is the commander of Kala (and Kala, in his turn, the commander of Mrityu, Death) [n2 See J. Scheftelowitz, Die Zeit als Schicksalsgottheit in der indischen und iranischen Religion (1929), pp. 18ff. See also Burgess (Surya Siddhanta, p. 5), who generalizes: "To the Hindus, as to us, Time is, in a metaphorical sense, the great destroyer of all things; as such, he is identified with Death, and with Yama, the ruler of the dead."].
Kala plays his unmistakable role already in Rigveda 164, but the Atharva Veda dedicates to this "god" two whole hymns (19.53 and 19.54), and it is worth recalling Eisler's statement (Weltenmantel, p. 499): "Zu dieser Kala-Lehres des Atharvaveda ist spater nichts mehr dazugekommen; die jungeren Quellen fuhren nur die Vorstellungen weiter aus."
Here are some verses from these two hymns dedicated to Kala, without the numerous notes and comparisons with other translations, as treated by Bloomfield and Whitney (Atharva Veda, trans. by Bloomfield [I964],PP. 224f.):
19.53: (1) Time, the steed, runs with seven reins (rays), thousand-eyed, ageless, rich in seed. The seers, thinking holy thoughts, mount him, all the beings (worlds) are his wheels.
( 2) With seven wheels does this time ride, seven naves has he, immortality is his axle. He carries hither all these beings (worlds). Time, the first god, now hastens onward.
(3) A full jar has been placed upon Time; him, verily, we see existing in many forms. He carries away all these beings (worlds); they call him Time in the highest heaven.
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(4) He surely did bring hither all the beings (worlds), he surely did encompass all the beings (worlds). Being their father, he became their son; there is, verily, no other force higher than he.
(5) Time begot yonder heaven, Time also (begot) these earths. That which was, and that which shall be, urged forth by Time, spreads out.
(6) Time created the earth, in Time the sun burns. In Time are all beings, in Time the eye looks abroad. . . .
(8) ... Time is the lord of everything, he was the father of Prajapati.
(9) By him this (universe) was urged forth, by him it was begotten, and upon him this (universe) was founded. Time, truly, having become the brahma (spiritual exaltation), supports Parameshtin (the highest lord).
(10) Time created the creatures (prajah), and Time in the beginning (created) the lord of creatures (Prajapati), the self-existing Kashyapa and the tapas (creative fervour) from Time were born.
19.54: (1) From Time the waters did arise, from Time the brahma (spiritual exaltation), the tapas (creative fervour), the regions (of space did arise). Through Time the sun rises, in Time he goes down again.
( 2) Through Time the wind blows, through Time (exists) the great earth; the great sky is fixed in Time. In Time the son (prajapati) begot of yore that which was, and that which shall be.
(3) From Time the Rks (= the Rig Veda) arose, the Yajus (= the Yajur Veda) was born from Time; Time put forth the sacrifice, the imperishable share of the gods.
(4) Upon Time the Gandharvas [n3 See A. Weber (Die Vedischen Nachrichten uber die Naksbatras, Pt. 2, p. 278, n. 3) about the Gandharvas as representing the days of the "year" of 360 days, according to the Bhagavata Purana 4.29.21 (Sanyal trans., vol. 2, p. 145); the Indians reckoned with several types of "years" at the same time, and so did the Maya.] and Apsarases are founded, upon Time the worlds (are founded), in Time this Angiras and Atharvan rule over the heavens.
(5) Having conquered this world and the highest world, and the holy (pure) worlds (and) their holy divisions; having by means of the brahma conquered all the worlds, Time, the highest God, forsooth, hastens forward.
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Where we alternately read once "beings," and "worlds," the Sanskrit word is bhuvana, from the radical bhu- (= Greek phyo-) as discerned from the radical as-, bhil- meaning "to be" in the sense of perpetual change, "coming to be and passing away," as- being reserved for the changeless, timeless existence beyond the planetary "instruments of time," the organa chronou of Plato's Timaeus. As a matter of fact, Plato would have understood at once the verbs bhu- and as-, and he might well have applauded the utterance of the vanquished Daitya King Vali [n4 Bhagavata Purana 8.11 (Sanyal trans., vol. 3, p. 126).]:
"O Indra! Why are you vaunting so much? All persons are practically urged on by Kala in engaging themselves in an encounter. To the heroes, glory, victory, defeat and death gradually come to pass. This is the reason that the wise behold this universe as being guided by Kala, and they therefore neither grieve nor are elated with joy."
Nor is there much "primitive belief" to be squeezed out of such statements as "many thousand Indras and other divinities have been overtaken by Kala in the course of world periods." [n5 Quoted by Eisler, Weltenmantel, p. 501. What the author (pp. 385f.) has to say about "anthropomorphic, most primitive empathies" (?Einfuhlungen), connected with Ouranos, Ge, Helios and Selene, which are, allegedly, miles away from the "step of highly abstract conceptions about eternal Time," is not only a contradictio in adjecto, but plain thoughtlessness.]. But the classicists usually prefer to keep silent about the most revealing sentence of Anaximander, handed down to us by Cicero (De Natura Deorum 1.25): "It is the opinion of Anaximander, that gods are born in long intervals of rising and setting, and that they are innumerable worlds (or the much discussed innumerable worlds. Anaximandri autem opinio est, nativos esse deos longis intervallis orientis occidentisque eosque innumerabiles esse mundos)"; and if they do not keep silent, they claim it to be "much more natural" to understand these intervals as being in space than in time (Burnet), by which means every way to understanding is effectively blocked.
This much only for the time being: a broader discussion of Iranian Zurvan would wreck our frame; we do not think, however, that Zurvan/Chronos represents a "Zoroastrian Dilemma"; to style it thus (with Zaehner) is one more mistake: it is not the "beliefs" and "religions" which circle around and fight each other restlessly; what changes is the celestial situation.
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Some say, he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle, they with labour pushed
Oblique the centric globe: some say, the sun
Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road. . .
. . . else had the spring
Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted shone; while the low Sun
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Of east or west; which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotiland, and structure south as far
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turn'd
His course intended; else how had the world
Inhabited, though sinless, more than now
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?
MILTON, Paradise Lost, 10
The name Mundilfoeri (Mundel-fere) raises a cluster of problems, and nothing is gained by evasive statements such as that given by de Vries (Altnord. Etym. Wb., p. 395): "Mundilferi. Name of the father of the Moon. . . Mundill. Name of a legendary figure."
As concerns mund, feminine, it means "hand" (Cleasby-Vigfusson, s.v.), but mund comprises the meaning of tutelage, guardianship (cf. German Vormund). Mund as a neutrum means "point of time, mood, humor, measure, and the right time" (de Vries, loc. cit.).
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Mundill (Mundell) is an unknown "legendary figure," certainly; we should be glad to know what the name indicates precisely, but the specialists do not tell us. There is a small but promising hint: Gering, in his commentary on the Edda (vol. 1, p. 168), remarked, "The name occurs again among the saekonunga heiti Sn. E. II, 154." Heiti are a kind of denominations (Neckel renders it "Furnamen") which the skalds used side by side with kenningar (circumlocutions); the list of "heiti of seakings" is to be found in the Third Grammatical Tract contained in Snorri's Edda (ascribed to Snorri's nephew Olaf), and among the twenty-four heiti, no. 11 is Mysingr, no. 15 is Mundill [n1 Den tredje og fjaerde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, ed. by Bjorn Magnusson Olson (1884), 1II.15 (vol. 2, pp. 154f.).]. Everyone who is familiar with the many names given to the cosmic personae specific names changing according to the order of time in Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, etc., astronomy, is not likely to fall for the idea that these heiti were names of historical kings [n2 Olson, apparently a hardened euhemerist, stated in a note: "Hoc versu memoriali viginti quatuor nomina archipiratorum sive regulorum maritimorum continentur."]. The consequences resulting from the understanding of Mysing and Mundill (together with twenty-two more heiti) as representatives of the same cosmic function will not be worked out in detail here: he who keeps his eye on the different fords, ferrymen, pilots, personified divine ships, and kings of the deep sea that cross his path in the course of this essay may eventually work out his own solution. As for the word fere (in Mundelfere), Gering feels certain that it is the same word as OHG ferjo, MHG verge, i.e., ferryman, the name meaning "ferryman of Mundell." Gering refers to Finnur Johnsson who understood the mund in the name as "time," and "explained the name which he took for the name of the moon, originally, as 'den der bewaeger sig efter bestemte tider,'" i.e., somebody who moves according to definite times, let us say: according to his timetable (or schedule).
There is no reason at all to take Mundilfori for "originally" the name of the moon, this luminary not being the only timekeeper at hand. Vafthrudnismal 23 says of the Sun and Moon, the children of Mundilfori, that they circle around the sky serving as indicators of time [n3 Gering, loc. cit.: "himen hverfa . . . 'den Himmel umkreisen' . . . aldom at artale, 'urn den Menschen die Zeitrechnung zu ermoglichen.' Daher fuhrt auch der Mond den Namen artale 'Zeitberechner.'"].
"Ferryman of Time" would make a certain sense, but not enough yet to enlighten us about Mundill "himself."
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The same goes for Simrock's rather imaginative Mundilfoeri = "Achsenschwinger," i.e., "axisswinger," but Simrock has at least thought about a sensible meaning, and maybe he has hit the mark quite unbeknownst. Ernst Krause, too, racked his brains, modestly asking the experts to examine the relation of this mundil with Latin mundus [n4 Tuisko-Land (1891), p. 326; see also p. 321]. We do not mean to meddle earnestly with this particular question, the less so as mundus translated into "the world" has become an empty and insignificant word altogether, but it certainly is depressing to watch the progressists working out their latest "solutions" for Latin mundus, namely, (1) "ornament," (2) "jewellery of women," [n51e., (1) "Schmuck," (2) "Piltz der Frauen"; see Walde-Hofmann, Lat. Etym. Wb., vol. 2, pp. 126f.] without recalling Greek kosmeo which does mean also "to adorn," to be sure, but not "originally," and not essentially; to establish order, especially in the sense of getting an army into line, is what kosmeo means, whence kosmos. And we are not entitled to give the silliest of all imaginable meanings to such a central word as mundus.
We should like to approach the words in question by means of the common objective significance underlying the vast family of word-images engendered by the radical manth, math, whence also (Mount) Mandara, mandala, Latin mentula (penis), and also our mondull [n6 Cf. A. Kuhn (Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks [1886], p. 116) where he refers to Aufrecht: "mondull m., axis rotarum, cotis rotatilis et similium instrumentorum"; ibid. note 2, quoting Egilson: "mondull m. lignum teres, quo mola trusatilis circumagitur, mobile, molucrum; mondultre m. manubrium ligneum, quo mola versatur."], which is supposed to have replaced the older form mandull. True, mandull/mondull is not yet mundill, and mundus is not identical with mandala, yet the whole clan of words depends from a central conception sticking firmly to mnt/mnd, and these consonants connote a swirling, drilling motion throughout. We are, here, up to a veritable jungle of misunderstandings, and the closer we look into the "ars interpretandi" of professionals, the more impenetrable the jungle becomes. But let us try to get a shred of sense by laying bare the more or less "subconscious" blunders accomplished by the interpreters dealing with the radical manth, the heart and center of the Indian Amritamanthana, the "Churning of Ambrosia," i.e., the Churning of the Milky Ocean in order to gain Amrita/Ambrosia, the drink of immortality. It is some sort of case history, the "case" being that manth, math appears to have two fundamentally different meanings (and some more),
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for which we quote Macdonells Sanskrit dictionary (p. 218): manth churning, killing, mixed beverage (= the Soma mixture); mantha-ka m. churning stick; manth-ana, producing fire by attrition." On page 214 we find s.v. math, manth: "whirl around (agnim), rub (a fire stick), churn, shake, stir up, agitate, afflict, crush, injure, destroy, . . . mathita bewildered, . . . strike or tear off, . .. uproot, exterminate, kill, destroy, . . . strike or tear off, drag away." [n7 See also H. Grassmann, Worterbuch zum Rig Veda (1955), col. 976f.].
So far, so good. But why insist on such misleading verbs as "striking" or "tearing off," etc.? Did not we hear about Fenja and Menja who "ground out a sudden host" for Frodhi, i.e., Mysing? And this is not an isolated instance. We know, for instance, of an extremely relevant Hittite prayer to the Ishtar of Nineveh who is asked "to grind away from the enemies their masculinity, power and health" [n8 See L. Wohleb, "Die altromische und hethitische evocatio," in ARW 2; (191.7), p. 209, n. 5: "Ferner mahle den Mannern (namlich des feindlichen Landes) Mannheit, Geschlechtskraft (?) Gesundheit weg; (ihre) Schwerter, Bogen, Pfeile, Dolch(e) nimm und bringe sie ins Land Chatti."] the Hittites are quite respectable members of the Indo-European family of languages. Whether something is gained, or something is lost-peace, gold, health, heads, virility, and what else it is ground out, or ground away, when the underlying image is a mola trusatilis; it is drilled out, or drilled away, when the motion of the cosmos is understood as alternative motion, as in the case of the Indian churn. We have sufficient reasons to take alternative motion for the older conception, but this is irrelevant right here and now; relevant is the general conception, expressed by the manifold words engendered by the radical manth/math, that every event is due to the rotary motion (whether "true" or alternate, compare appendix # 17) of the celestial mill or churn [n9 We touch only slightly the family of Amlodhi's kvern; it must be enough to state that quairnus means "millstone, mill" in Gothic, whereas Old Norse kirna is the churn. Jacob Grimm (Geschichte der deutschen Sprache [1848], p. 47) wanted to derive quairnus from Zarna, zrno, Lith. girna, Latv. dsirnus = corn, kernel, but there seems to be no way from there to English churn, and kirna, the Old Norse churn. Kuhn (p. 104) cans attention to Sanskrit curna, ground powder, derived in the Petersburger Wb. from carv, to crush, to chew.], i.e., of the combined motions of the planetary spheres and the sphere of fixed stars.
At the same moment, when we understand mill and churn as the celestial machinery, the stumbling stone of "to drill" versus "to rob, to destroy" becomes insignificant, and this is important enough, since it helps to clear the decent name of the hotly debated Prometheus.
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Adalbert Kuhn, surely a great scholar, has dealt broadly with the radical manth, with Mount Mandara, the churning stick used by the Asura and Deva for the churning of the Milky Ocean, and he tried hard to bring about a happy marriage between this manthana and Greek manthano "to learn," confronting us with his rather strange opinion of what is "natural". This is what he says (pp.15ff.):
Mit der bisher entwickelten Bedeutung der Wurzel manth hat sich abet schon in den Veden die aus dem Verfahren naturlich sich entwickelnde Vorstellung des Abreissens, Ansichreissens, Raubens entwickelt und aus dieser ist die Bedeutung des Griech. manthano hervorgegangen, welches demnach als ein an sich reissen, sich aneignen des fremden Wissens erscheint. Betrachten wir nun den Namen des Prometheus in diesem Zusammenhang, so wird wohl die Annahme, dass sich aus dem Feuer entztindenden Rauber der vorbedachtige Titane erst auf griechischem Boden entwickelt babe, hinlanglich gerechtfertigt erscheinen und zugleich klar werden, dass diese Abstraktion erst aus der sinnlichen Vorstellung des Feuerreibers hervorgegangen sein konne. Was die Etymologie des Wortes betraft, so hat auch Pott . . . dasselbe auf manthano in der Bedeutung von mens provida, providentia zuruckgefuhrt . . . , aber er hatte, sobald er das tat, das Sanskritverbum nicht unberticksichtigt lassen sollen . . . Ich halte daher an der schon fruher ausgesprochenen Erklarung fest, nach welcher Prometheus aus dem Begriff von pramatha, Raub, hervorgegangen ist, so dass es einem vorauszusetzenden Skr. pramathyus, der Rauberische, Raub liebende, entspricht, wobei jedoch wohl auch jener oben besprochene pramanthai.e. the upright drilling stickauf die Bildung des Wones mit eingewirkt hat, zumal Pott auch noch einen Zeus Promantheus . . . aus Lycophron 537 nachweist, so dass in dem Namen auch der Feueranztindende zugleich mit ausgedruckt ware.
It goes without saying that we do not think it either "natural" or "obvious" to "develop" learning from robbing, or providence from learning: Prometheus (Lykophron's Promantheus)-pramantha drilled new fire, at a new place, at new crossroads of ecliptic and equator; the "gods" did not like that (about which more later).
Now, pramantha, alias the male fire stick, having the well-known naughty connotations, and with the Fecundity-Trust standing around the corner, classical philologists fought bitter battles against Kuhn's proposition, for the sake of noble Prometheus who simply should not be a fire stick or, worse, the fascinum.
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The highly emotional classicists remained victorious upon the battlefield until very recently, when we learn the newest tidings from Mayrhofer [n10 Kurzgefasstes Etymol. Worterbuch des Altindischen, vol. 2 (1963), pp. 567f., 578ff], who rules firmly: "manth, 'quirlen' ist etymologisch von math-, mathnati 'raub en' (offenbar nasallos) verschieden." After having dealt with the different meanings of the words, already known to us, he continues: "An ausserindischen Nachweisen der Vorstufe von ai. math- 'raub en' . . . besteht vorerst nur die vorsichtig ausgesprochene, aber sehr glaubhafte Zusammenstellung von ai. pra- math- mit griech. Promethes, dor. Promathes (Narten)."
That is exactly what "progress" means nowadays: that we are offered as a brand-new, "cautiously uttered, but very credible connecting of Sanskrit pra-math with Greek Prometheus" in 1963, when Kuhn's second edition had been published in 1886. We do not wish to dwell upon the claimed "etymological difference" of the radicals manth and math: if philologists do not understand a subject, they invent different radicals, which are "mixed" in later times, allegedly, as here math- and manth in post-Vedic times." [n11 The worst among the relevant cases is the Greek radical lyk, which the experts insist upon being two different ones, i.e., lyk = light, and lyk = wolf, without spending a thought on Pythagoras, who taught us: "The planets are the dogs of Persephone"; all mythical canines have just everything to do with light.].
Prometheus was a "pramantha," as were Quetzalcouatl, Tezcatlipoca, the four Agnis, and very many more, drilling or churning with "Mount Mandara," or with Mondull: why not call him Mundilfoeri, the axis-swinger? We have, indeed, Altaic stories about one or the other Mundilfoeri "begetting" Sun and Moon. Uno Holmberg states (Die religiosen Vorstellungen der altaischen Volker [1938], pp. 22,63,89f.):
In the myths of the Kalmucks the world mountainSumeru, Meru, alias Mandara appears as the means of creation. The world came into being, when four powerful gods got hold of Mount Sumeru, and whirled it around in the primordial sea, just as a Kalmuck woman turns the churning stick when preparing butter. Out of the vehemently agitated sea came, among others, Sun, Moon, and stars. The same significance has, doubtless, the story of the Dorbots, according to which once upon a time, before Sun and Moon existed, some being began to stir the primordial ocean with a pole of 10,000 furlongs, thus bringing forth Sun and Moon. A similar creation is described in a Mongolian myth, where a being coming from heavena Lama it is supposed to have been, see Holmberg, Finno-Ugric Mythology, p. 328 stirs up the primeval sea, until part of the fluid becomes solid.
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These "creation stories" are more or less deteriorated survivals of the Amritamanthana, "the incomparably mighty churn," in the course of which one constellation after the other emerged from the wildly agitated Milky Ocean [n12 The collector of merely funny survivals might enjoy the following yarn from Switzerland (Grimm, TM, p. 697): "In the golden age when the brooks and lakes were filled with milk, a shepherd was upset in his boat and drowned; his body, long sought for, turned up at last in the foamy cream, when they were churning, and was buried in a cavity which bees had constructed of honeycombs as large as town-gates.]. And the same goes for the "creation" brought forth by the Japanese "parents of the world," who, standing upon the Celestial Bridge, stirred with the celestial jewel-spear the primordial sea until parts of it thickened and became islands. The Amritamanthana survived also in Greece, in the beginning of Iliad 8, and in the myth of Plato's Statesman, and Plutarch spotted it in Egypt: but this subject would make another book. The relevant point was, here, to place figures as Mundilfoeri, or some surviving Lama, or Vishnu Cakravartin On the cosmological stage, where their modes of "creation" make sense.
As concerns the removing of the Pole star, the most drastic version is told by the Lapps:
When Arcturus (alpha Bootis, supposed to be an archer, Ursa Major being his bow) shoots down the North Nail with his arrow on the last day, the heaven will fall, crushing the earth and setting fire to everything [n1 U. Holmberg, Finno-Ugric and Siberian Mythology (1964), p. 221. See the drawing made by J. Turi in Das Buch des Lappen Turi (1912), plate XIV: Arcturus = Favtna, Polaris/North Nail = Boaje-naste, or Bohinavlle.].
Other legends prefer to deal with the fate of circumpolar stars, the result being the same.
The Siberian Kirghis call the three stars of the Little Bear nearest the Pole star, which form an arch, a "rope" to which the two larger stars of the same constellation, the two horses, are fastened. One of the horses is white, the other bluish-grey. The seven stars of the Great Bear they call the seven watchmen, whose duty it is to guard the horses from the lurking wolf. When once the wolf succeeds in killing the horses the end of the world will come.
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In other tales the stars of the Great Bear are "seven wolves" who pursue those horses. Just before the end of the world they will succeed in catching them. Some even fancy that the Great Bear is also tied to the Pole Star. When once all the bonds are broken there will be a great disturbance in the sky [n2 Holmberg, p. 425; cf. Holmberg's Die Religiosen Vorstellungen der altaischen Volker (1938), p. 40.].
According to South Russian folklore, a dog is fettered to Ursa Minor, and tries constantly to bite through the fetter; when he succeeds, the end of the world has come.
Others say that Ursa Major consists of a team of horses. with harness; every night a black dog is gnawing at the harness, in order to destroy the world, but he does not reach his aim; at dawn, when he runs to a spring to drink, the harness renews itself [n3 A. Olrik, Ragnarok (1919), pp. 309f. The author regards it as "ein neues Motiv, dass der Hund am Himmel angebracht ist und mit den Sternbildern zu tun hat. Sonst haben wir die Hunde in einem Berg am Ende der Welt..."].
A very strange and apparently stone-old story is told by the Skidi-Pawnee about the end and the beginning of the world [n4 H. B. Alexander, North American Mythology (1916), pp. 116f.].
Various portents will precede: the moon will turn red and the sun will die in the skies. The North Star is the power which is to preside at the end of all things, as the Bright Star of Evening was the ruler when life began. The Morning Star, the messenger of heaven, which revealed the mysteries of fate to the people, said that in the beginning, at the first great council which apportioned to star folk their stations, two of the people fell ill. One of these was old, and one was young. They were placed upon stretchers, carried by stars (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) [n5 The Sioux take Ursa Major for a coffin, accompanied by mourners. This picture is not too "obvious," so it is significant that Ursa is banat na'sh with the Arabs, i.e., the bier and its daughters; the bier is formed by the chest of the wagon, El-na'sh, the handle of the Dipper being the daughters. See Ideler, Sternnamen, pp. 19f. Kunitzsch, Arabische Sternnamen in Europa, p. 149, no. 71, adds that, according to Athanasius Kircher, christianized Arabs recognized in the constellation the coffin. of Lazarus, followed by the mourners Maryam, Marta, and their maid (al-ama). See also Henninger, ZfE 79, p. 81. Due to Islamic influence, the constellation is called bintang al'nash, star of the bier, by the people of Minangkabau, Southern Sumatra. (See H. Werner, "Die Verstirnung des Osiris-Mythos," IAfE 16 [1954], p. 154.)], and the two stretchers were tied to the North Star. Now the South Star, the Spirit Star, or Star of Death, comes higher and higher in the heavens, and nearer and nearer to the North Star, and when the time for the end of life draws nigh, the Death Star will approach so close to the North Star that it will capture the stars that bear the stretchers and cause the death of the persons who are lying ill upon those stellar couches.
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The North Star will then disappear and move away and the South Star will take possession of earth and its people. The command for the ending of all things will be given by the North Star, and the South Star will carry out the commands. Our people were made by the stars. When the time comes for all things to end our people will turn into small stars and will fly to the South Star where they belong."
To return to better known provinces, Proclus informs us that the fox star nibbles continuously at the thong of the yoke which holds together heaven and earth; German folklore adds that when the fox succeeds, the world will come to its end [n6 (Proklos ad Hesiod, opp. 382) Boll and Gundel, in Roscher s.v. Sternbilder, col. 876.]. This fox star is no other than Alcor [n7 For the name Alcor, and its tradition, see Kunitzsch, pp. 125f], the small star g near zeta Ursae Majoris (in India Arundati, the common wife of the Seven Rishis, alpha-eta Ursae; see p. 301 about Arundati and Elamitic Narundi, sister of the Sibitti, the "Seven"), known as such since Babylonian times [n8 See F. X. Kugler, S.J., Erganzungsheft zum I. u. 2 Buch (1935), pp. 55f.; P. F. Gassmann, Planetarium Babylonicum: "The star at the beam of the wagon is the fox star: Era, the powerful among the gods. In astrological usage, it represents above all the planet Mars/Nergal." See also E. F. Weidner, Handbuch Babyl. Astr. (1915), p. 141; E. Burrows, S.J., "The Constellation of the Wagon and Recent Archaeology," in Festschrift Deimel (1935), pp. 34, 36. The said Nergal, i.e., Mars, to whom "belongs" Alcor in the Series mulAPIN. starts the first flood, as we learn from Utnapishtim, see p. 297, under the name of Era, he succeeds in starting a new one, according to the Era-Epos.].
The same star crosses our way again in the Scholia to Aratus [n9 257; E. Maass, Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquae (1898), p. 391, 11. 3ff] where we are told that it is Electra, mother of Dardanus, who left her station among the Pleiades, desperate because of Illion's fall, and retired "above the second star of the beam. . . others call this star 'fox.'"
This small piece of evidence may show the reader two things: (1) that the Fall of Troy meant the end of a veritable world-age. (For the time being, we assume that the end of the Pleiadic age is meant; among various reasons, because Dardanos came to Troy after the third flood, according to Nonnos.); (2) that Ursa Major and the Pleiades figuring on the shield of Achilles, destroyer of Troy, have a precise significance, and are not to be taken as testimony for the stupendous ignorance of Homer who knew none but these constellations, as the specialists want us to believe.
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There are, indeed, too many traditions connecting Ursa and the Pleiades with this or that kind of catastrophe to be overlooked. Among the many we mention only one example from later Jewish legends, some lines taken out of a most fanciful description of Noah's flood, quoted by Frazer [n10 Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (1918), vol. I, pp. 143f.]:
Now the deluge was caused by the male waters from the sky meeting the female waters which issued forth from the ground. The holes in the sky by which the upper waters escaped were made by God when he removed stars out of the constellation of the Pleiades; and in order to stop this torrent of rain, God had afterwards to bung up the two holes with a couple of stars borrowed from the constellation of the Bear. That is why the Bear runs after the Pleiades to this day; she wants her children back, but she will never get them till after the Last Day.
For Hallinskidi see Reuter, p. 237; Simrock, Handbuch, p. 277; Gering (Edda trans., p. 320): "gebogene Schneeschuhe habend." Much (in Festschrift Heinzel, p. 259), connecting -skidi with Celtic sketo, skeda (English: humerus, scapula) and taking halle for "stone," ventures to propose the reconstruction "he with the stone shoulder. . . which would presuppose a similar story as that about Pelops and his ivory shoulder."
As concerns mjotvidr, A. V. Strom renders vol. 2 [n1 "lndogermanisches in der Voluspa," Numen 14 (1967), pp. 173.]:
Ich erinnere mich neun Welten
Neun im Baume (oder neun Heime) ,
des ruhmvollen Massbaums
unter der Erde.
And he quotes Hallberg's statement: "Der Baum selbst ist das Mass fur die Existenz der umgebenden Weltin der Zeit." [n2 Why the author, in this excellent article, drags in "ecstatic visions," remains incomprehensible, unless we prefer to call every account of astronomical situations "ecstatic visions," which would be a true miotvidr to measure the vast abyss between sciences and humanities in our time.].
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The last remark goes without saying, mythic measures are time measures, generally, but this fact is so seldom recognized that this white raven has to be welcomed enthusiastically. The "localization under the earth" points to the (invisible) South of the world, as will come out later. By which we do not mean to say we understood the enigmatical picture of this measuring tree.
Now, Heimdal and Loke, perpetual enemies as they are, kill each other at Ragnarok, but Heimdal's death is accomplished by means of a very strange weapon, i.e., by a "head." Snorri's Skaldskaparmal 8 (see also 69) offers an ambiguous kenning: "Heimdal's head is the sword, or, the sword is Heimdal's head," [n3 Heimdalur hoefut heitir sverdh; cf. Simrock, Handbuch, pp. 272f] or we learn that the sword was called "miotudr Heimdaler," and that is, according to Jacob Grimm [n4 TM, p. 22 (see also p. 1290); the English translation says "the wolf's head, with which Heimdal was killed," but the original (Deutsche Mythologie, p. 15) does not mention a wolf.], "the measurer (sector, messor)." Thus, Heimdal measures or is he measured? by means of a sword that is also said to be his very own head. Strange goings-on, indeed. Ohlmarks [n5 Heimdalls Horn (1937), p. 151.] declared the sword to be the Sun a pleasant change for once, otherwise everything and everybody is the Moon, with him but although the measuring instrument, whether the "golden rope" or not, usually is the sun (see p. 154 on Varuna, and p. 246 on Theaethetus 153c [the latter is by Plato] ), we have the suspicion that the case of Heimdal's head/sword is more complicated, and that it may not be settled until we know much more about Loke.
To prevent rash critics from hurling into our faces the maybe they will style it thus complete absence of technological knowledge," we hasten to assert that the relevant inquiries are not as foreign to us as they might assume [n1 To mention only a few useful titles: Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, Pt. II, (1965); Gordon Childe's chapter on "Rotary Motion," in Singer et al., eds., A History of Technology, vol. 1 (1954), pp. 187ff.; Hugo Theodor Horwitz, "Die Drehbewegung in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Entwicklung der materiellen Kultur," Anthropos 28 (1933), 29 (1934). John Storck and Walter Dorwin Teague, Flour for Man's Bread: A History of Milling (1952); Lynn White, Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962) this title is a grotesque understatement!].
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Curwen might point to his enlightened sentence: We are, happily, emerging from that state of blissful ignorance of the subject which made possible such an anachronism as Decamps' well-known picture of "Samson grinding in the Prison-house," wherein Samson is seen turning a huge mill-stone by means of a long lever like a capstan-bar, after the fashion of the Roman slaves a thousand years later [n2 "Querns," Antiquity 11 (1937), pp. 133f. See also L. A. Moritz, Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity (1958), p.12 he makes it a medieval mill.].
There are, indeed, "a number of reasons for questioning the common belief that grain-mills were rotary," as Moritz states (p. 53). And whereas Forbes (Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. 3, p. 155, n. 3) votes for "rotary querns . . . in Assyrian times," Lynn White (p. 108) says: "But while continuous rotary motion was used in this large mola versatilis and, of course, in the water mill which appears in the first century B.C., it is by no means clear how early such a motion was used with querns," which is certainly true. That true rotary motion was used with the potter's wheel much earlier is unquestionable, which is the more relevant, as the potter's wheel, too, belongs to the cosmological instrumentation, e.g., in the hands of Ptah and Khnum. Decisive is the Ancient Egyptian instrument for drilling out stone vessels, which was perhaps even cranked, but there is no unanimity among the historians of technology as to the real nature of this device. In this case and in that of the mill, the accent goes with "true" rotary motion, because there are two kinds of rotary motion, to which we quote Gordon Childe (Singer, p. 187) on the difference "between continuous, true and complete rotary motion, and partial or discontinuous rotary motion. For true rotary motion, the revolving part of the instrument must be free to turn in the same direction indefinitely. There are, however, a number of processes which involve a partial turn of the instrument, such as boring and drilling by hand. There are even machines like the bowdrill or the pole-lather which allow a number, but only a limited number, of complete revolutions of the revolving part. Partial rotary motion of this sort has been used by man much longer than true rotary motion."
Now, we do not wish to suppress White's footnote (p. 109), where he claims Fenja's and Menja's Grotte to have been an apparatus involving alternative motion, "no doubt."
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This might be the case, although we do not agree with the no doubt": several doubts are permitted. We shall abstain, however, from discussing this and similar questions as long as we do not understand precisely and thoroughly how the "Churning of the Milky Ocean" was thought to work, in India, and in Egypt, where the specialists insist upon calling the celestial churn a "symbol of uniting the two lands," and in the survivals in Homer and Plato. For the time being we do think that the oldest technological device used in cosmological terminology was, indeed, a churn or a drill, implicating alternative motion.
The point is this: whether or not Samson, or Fenja and Menja, waited on an oscillating quern or on a true rotary mill is a cosmological question, and will hardly be decided by historians of technology. To illustrate this, we have a look at that "mill" of the Cherokee Indians, mentioned in the chapter on the Galaxy, where it is told that "people in the South had a corn mill," from which meal was stolen again and again; the owners discovered the thief, a dog, who "ran off howling to his home in the North, with the meal dropping from his mouth as he ran, and leaving behind a white trail where now we see the Milky Way, which the Cherokee call to this day. . . 'Where the dog ran.' " In his supplementary notes (p. 443), Mooney explains: "In the original version the mill was probably a wooden mortar, such as was commonly used by the Cherokee. . ." Well, in the "original version," as told by the Cherokee, we may rely on their talking of a mortar but certainly not in the truly "original" myth. There is no possible way whatsoever of "developing" out of "primitive" mortars (or grindstones) cosmological imagery; in other words: the Cherokee mortar is a "deteriorated" mill (whether oscillating or not).
The cosmic machine (mill, drill, or churn) produces periods of time, it brings about the "separation of heaven and earth," etc. Along the way of diffusion into unfamiliar surroundings, particularly tropical ones (lacking grain, plow culture, etc.), the Mill (or churn) ceases to be understood, while the memory sticks to an instrument for crushing foodstuff. And, suddenly, we are told in several continents how Heaven, who once was lying closely upon Earth, withdrew in anger because of women who, busy with their mortars, kept bumping with their pestles against Heaven's body. An extremely pointless idea, the origin of which is only to be understood when we follow it back to the highly complicated machinery which stood at its beginning (historically as well as "sinngemass"), and begot quite innocently such strange offshoots.
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Although we do not like to apply strictly scientific models to historical phenomena, here we abuse the case of entropy: to derive Grotte (the Amritamanthana, etc.) from those utterly nonsensical females bumping their pestles against "Heaven" would be on the same level as to derive the original substances from the state of randomly mingled gases.
These minima only for the technological problem. We keep these questions under lock and key on purpose, and not because it has not dawned upon us that the technological aspect is a very important one. On the contrary, we nurse the suspicion that next to nobody has an idea of the huge difficulties that arise with churn, mill, and fire drill, if one understands them properly as machines which were meant to describe the motions of nested spheres.
Compare Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiche Maya (Eng. trans. by D. Goetz and S. Morley, [1951], pp. 90-102). As concerns the escape of Zipacna, compare the distribution map, given by Frobenius (Paideuma I [1938], p. 8, map 3-"Der Lausbub im Hauspfeiler") .
For the whole motif of pillars and houses pulled down, compare Eduard Stucken, Astralmythen (1896-1907): pp. 73f. for the death of Nebrod, according to Cedrenusof Cain, according to Leo Grammaticus Chron. p. 8 (Kain, hos legei Moyses, tes oikias pesouses ep'auton eteleutesen); pp. 329f. for the case of Susanowo; p. 348 for Turkish Depe Ghoz; pp. 402f. for Zipacna; there, he also wants to incorporate Job 1.18. Stucken's complete blindness to the mere existence of planets has prevented him from better understanding; thus, he claims for the case of Job 1.18: "Auch hier ist die Orion-Gottheit (Satan-Ahriman), welche den Hauseinsturz verursacht, urn die Plejaden-Gottheit (Hiob) zu ziichtigen." This blindness is the more astonishing as Stucken has read Eisenmenger's huge opus, "Entdecktes Judenthum" (1711), where he should have detected the identity (as claimed by rabbinical literature) of the planet Mars with the serpent in Paradise, with Kain, Esau, Abimelech, Goliath, Sammael, the Scape-Goat, and many others.
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A remarkable amount of information about submarine creatures is contained in Mansikka's inquiry into Russian magic formulae, already mentioned [n1 Uber russische Zauberformeln (1909), pp. 168-213: "The Sea, the Stone, the Virgin Mary."]; intermingled as the material is with the author's rather violent "interpretatio christiana," it is well-nigh impossible to lay one's hands on the bare facts. This much can be said, however: in the middle of the "Blue Sea" (or "the middle of the whole earth"), there is either (a) an island -most of the time called Bujan, from the same radical as "buoy the center of celestial power," upon which there is a tree, or a stone, or a tree upon a stone, sometimes the cross or the "mountain of Zion" itself [n2 Thus it is said that "upon the mountains of Zion, upon the white stone stands the pillar and the altar of Christ," or, "a pillar from the earth to heaven." In a prayer Christ is addressed: "O, thou deadly stone pillar" (O, du todliche Steinsaule, Mansikka, p. 187).]; or there is (b) the "White Altar-Stone," which is a "fiery" one, lying in the navel of the sea without being supported by an island; under this stone, there is "a green fire, the king of all fires," or an "eternal, unquenchable fire" that "has to be procured from under the stone" (Mansikka, p. 188we are not told for what purpose the fire has to be fetched from there; the text says only "for burning"). Sometimes it is said that upon this stone-regardless of its being "holy" and the "Stone of the Altar," and even "Christ's Throne" was the "habitation of the Devil himself" [n3 Mansikka, p. 189; see also the formula on pp. 35f.: "Es gibt ein
