Bestiary |
Midgard, or Jormungand
Of the descendants of the Norse god Loki, Jormungand is definitely the largest – namely in size. In the form of a great serpent, he encircles the castle of Midgard, created from the eyebrows of the giant Ymir. After Midgard, Jormungand is also called the Midgard Serpent, or Midgard for short. That's to keep the names straight.
Midgard, the castle (or Middle World in English) was originally a fortress in the center of the earth, located between the heavens and the underworld, surrounded by the ocean where Jormungand lived. As the world grew larger, so did the serpent; no matter where the borders moved, there was still the sea. Not just for the Norsemen. Until it came to be thought that the gods threw Jormungand into the world's ocean, where he stretched around in circles as was his custom.
Let's go back for a moment to the arrangement of the world according to the Norse myths. One version of it.
Below, as almost everywhere, was the realm of the dead, Helheim, Above, of course, was the heavens with their sun and moon gods, stars, clouds, and other weather influences. And in between, a whole line of worlds. Midgard you already know, is surrounded by the ocean with the serpent Jormungand. But beyond the sea was not the end of the world, but a realm called Utgard, the land of giants. Or a whole series of worlds, Jotunheim, the land of the ice giants, Nidavellir, the realm of the dwarves, Svartalfheim, the land of the dark elves. A little higher up stands Ásgard, the known home of the warrior gods, and Vanaheim, the home of the more peaceful deities. And more and more, the Norse world was pretty well divided.
Now back to Midgard, the serpent. Mention has already been made of parents and siblings. Jormungand's father (not mother, as in the case of Sleipnir) was Loki, and his mother was the giantess Angrboda. The serpent had two siblings who at least equal him in glory, a brother Fenrir, the great wolf who bites Odin himself at Ragnarök, and a sister Hel, goddess of death and ruler of Helheim, the Underworld. The Midgard serpent is quite peaceful in comparison, lying on the ocean floor, meeting its own tail. But it wouldn't be a child of Loki if it didn't wait for an opportunity – just as Fenrir kills the High God in his final battle, Jormungand has Thor as his target. The two have enough unfinished business past and present, with Thor having attempted (unsuccessfully) to dispose of the serpent several times in a sort of preemptive manner. It never quite worked, he only saved a number of sailors, so death awaits him thanks to Jormungand's poison after all.
Midgard: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
1.7.2024 (9.11. 2003)
Uwibami
A giant dragon (according to other sources, a snake) that once flew in the Japanese sky. This would not have mattered, given all that was crossing the Japanese sky at the time if the Uwibami had not launched dive attacks in which it pulled riders from their saddles and devoured them.
This, of course, displeased many people, but the one who finally got the better of the dragon was named Yegara-no-Heida.
1.7.2024 (16.11. 2003)
Aeternitas
This snake comes from the Apennine Peninsula for a change. Aeternitas is the personification of immortality (the Romans were experts at personification) and is usually depicted as a snake eating its own tail. Which is, of course, an ancient symbol of infinity and eternal life. This snake was called Uroboros (Ouroboros) later. Before I say a few words about him, I note that Aeternitas also personified immortality by being reborn from his own ashes, after the manner of the phoenix bird.
Uroboros was originally imagined to be a circular river, flowing into itself or an all-enveloping ocean (the Greek Okeanos being an example); under Roman influence, the idea of an endless serpent prevailed. The undulations of the reptilian body and the movement of the waves are not so far apart. In medieval Europe, the Uroboros became a symbol not only of immortality but of everything that a circle can radiate, the beginning and the end or infinity. Alchemists in particular took it as their own.
1.7.2024 (16.11. 2003)
Dewi
An ancient Celtic god who, in one form, gave Wales its emblem – the red dragon, which you can see on the Welsh flag. The legend is quite well known, as it features the figures of Vortigern and Myrddin Emrys (Merlin in English, of course).
The latter, in his childhood years, as an unknown bastard, showed King Vortigern, according to a prophecy, two dragons residing under the foundations of the future mansion. Red and white, the red one Celtic, the white one Saxon, and when they awoke, one destroyed the other. How the king dealt with the prophecy is well enough known, Uther Pendragon killed Vortigern, then Arthur was born and the knights sat down at the Round Table. And the story continues...
Certain is that the original legend is indeed Celtic, and you don't read about the Holy Grail in it. Like this legend, and like many other pagan gods, Dewi changed in the Middle Ages, and today you will find him as St David (Dewi), the patron saint of Wales.
1.7.2024 (16.11. 2003)
Okeanos
Eldest Titan and uncle of Zeus. However, he did not side with his brother Kronos in the legendary Olympic coup but helped Zeus' side. In fact, there was no need for him to do so, for at that time he was already living far from the center of politics as a personification of the infinite and infinitely deep waters that circle the Earth in the form of an infinite and infinitely deep river.
He and his wife, Thetis, were the parents of innumerable offspring – three thousand daughters, called after their father, Okeanos, three thousand sons, plus all the rivers that empty into the sea. Well, not all of them, but those flow into the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
The outer sea, which Okeanos ruled and of which he was a representation, was of course not an ocean accessible to men. The depths of the seas on which men sailed were ruled by Pontos, a god older than Okeanos, whose parthenogenic mother was the earth goddess Gaia. She also later became the mother of Pontus' daughters Eurybia (later goddess of sea power) and Ketos (Cetus) (chief of the sea creatures) and sons Nereus, Thaumas, and Phorcys.
Ókeanos, in various forms of myth, was also involved in the creation of the world. Although, according to the most widely accepted version, he was the son of Uranus and Gaia, according to the Pelasgian, Euronymê, together with Thetis, assigned him to the planet Venus (which was in fact a Babylonian borrowing); according to Homer, on the other hand, all the gods and all other living beings were born in the stream of Okeanos. Well, and according to the philosophers, the Titans, and therefore Okeanos, were born from the union of Air and Mother Earth.
The world at that time was not only surrounded by Okeanos. In the original Pelasgian version of the myth, it was the demiurgic serpent Ophion, whom the Pelasgians borrowed from the Hebrews and Egyptians. It was created by Euronymé, the Goddess of all things, from the north wind. The lust-obsessed reptile became the father of the Egg of the Universe, followed by his seeding of the planets, stars, the Earth with its mountains, plants, animals, and the rest. From Olympus, on which the married couple Euronymé – Ophion settled, then, after a quarrel, the serpent flew out without teeth (from which the Pelasgians then emerged, as they sometimes claim) and disappeared in the black holes under the earth. Only then did Euronymé create the seven planets and, as I have already noted, assign each a Titan and a Titaness.
Ophion had nothing in fact to do with Oceanus; a being much closer, and in some respects identical, to him was the north wind Bóreas. With that, I've made a bridge to next week, so you know what's coming.
16.7.2024 (23.11. 2003)
All the Aeolus's men
No, I'm definitely not referring to the Aeolus who was the forefather of the Aeolus, son of Hellenus and king of Thessaly. Nor Poseidon's son Aeolus, who was considered the same forefather of the same nation. My Aeolus was the grandfather of the second Aeolus, and unlike the forefathers, a god. And now that we know which one I have in mind, we can begin.
Aeolus. (Aiolos more precisely).
He resided on his island (theoretically located in the Lipari Archipelago off Sicily) or in Thrace and was a practical meteorologist by profession. For he ruled the winds, watched over them, and let them out at his own discretion or at the direction of those above. He was also concerned with science and research in the field of seamanship, his greatest contribution being the invention of the ship's sail.
To make matters simple, the myths of Aiolos and Aiolos his grandson sometimes merge into one person. It is important to us that both became the keeper of the winds during their lifetime and because of the professionalism with which they performed their duties, they remained so after their death, having been elevated to the rank of lesser deities. Hera, in particular, had a hand in this, even persuading her husband to allow Aiolos, as ruler of the elements, to attend the Olympic banquets. which is a thorn in the side of others, especially Poseidon, who considers the air above the sea his property.
There is nothing savory in Hera's favoritism, for the winds once belonged to her as Goddess of Death and the male gods had no power over them. Indeed, it has long remained a tradition that the winds are the spirits of the dead – as revealed by the common attempts of British witches up to the seventeenth century to sell the winds they supposedly control to sailors.
Aiolos's men, then called Anemoi, were represented by the eight sons of Astraios (Astraeus) and Éos, the goddess of morning glories. As the world parties are usually given in numbers of four, it was the following who remained in the acquaintance. The eight-walled Tower of the Winds in Athens (you'll find plenty of photos of it posted on the internet by enthusiastic tourists), however, features all of them.
Bóreas
God of the north wind and personification of the same world, usually equipped with snake tails for feet. He got his wife, Orithyia, daughter of the Athenian king, in a manner hackneyed from the Olympians – he simply kidnapped her when she refused him after a good time. Their winged twins, Kalais and Zétes, later sailed with Iason on the Argo, their daughter Kleopatra married a Thracian king, and another girl named Chione (Khionê) became involved with Poseidon. As far as illegitimate children were concerned, the North Wind was no exception. In the form of a horse, he sired twelve foals with twelve of Erichthonius' mares, and these horses could run on waves or across fields of grain without moving an ear.
Boreas is an ancient creature, dating back to the beginning of the world. In ancient myth, it was better known as Ophion, the north wind in the form of a serpent. The boreas fertilizes, it was believed, which is why mares turn their backs to the wind and conceive without the presence of stallions.
Because he kidnapped an Athenian princess as his wife, this city was the center of his cult. After a time, though, it was suppressed - remember, with so many gods, goddesses, and deities, there was a fight for every worshipper - but when Xerxes attacked the city, the Athenians, in thinking of someone to help them, also remembered their brother-in-law. The north wind did not abandon them, sinking Xerxes' fleet, for which he was rewarded on merit by the restoration of the suppressed cult.
On the Apennine peninsula, the god of the north wind was called Aquilo, and later, under Greek influence, the Greek name Boreas prevailed. This did not only penetrate among the Romans, it became the word for violent wind in the Adriatic Sea. In the form of bora, has enriched not only the Czech and English languages.
Euros
was in charge of the east wind. On the Athenian Tower of the Winds, he takes the form of a bearded man in a cloak; though he brought storms and rain, he was not as unfriendly as Bóreas and Notos.
Sometimes the east wind was called Argestês, as Hesiodos says.
Notos,
or south wind became a synonym for the wind itself. It was feared especially by sailors, especially when he met his brother Boreas, it always made him very angry.
Zephyros
The west wind was the Greeks' favorite. He was the protector of plants. Although he was considered a mild-mannered good guy, yet during a discus-throwing contest between Apollo and Hyakinthos, he subtly altered the path of Apollo's discus to kill Hyakinthos. He also obeyed Eros when the god of love accommodated Psyche, and there have been claims that he was the father of this winged boy. Among his unquestioned descendants are the two immortal horses Balios and Xanthos, whose mother was the harpy Podagra and whom the gods dedicated to Peleus.
The Romans called him Favonius, after their own god of the west wind, the messenger of spring.
Boreas, kidnapping Oreithyia, an ancient Greek vase, unknown (picture), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
16.7.2024 (30.11. 2003)
Anemoi (Group B)
We have already discussed the personifications of the Mediterranean air currents fifteen years ago in the persons of the main god Aeolus and the four representatives of the winds blowing from the four main cardinal points. It is time to get acquainted with the others. Their existence was already mentioned then, but I had no idea that their arrival would take so long. Meteorology, however, is notorious for unexpected twists and turns, at least for us laymen.
To the point.
Four main gentlemen were introduced as Anemoi at the time: Zephyr, Boreas, Notos, and Euros. The Wind Rose, however, has at least one other cross in addition to the basic one, so the ancient Greeks had more at their disposal:
The northeast wind is called Kaikias. On the Athenian Tower of the Winds, we find him as a bearded man with a shield full of hailstones.
Apeliotes is represented by the East Wind at the weather station mentioned above. East? But that's the direction of the Euros, isn't it? It was written here 15 years ago. And it says so everywhere.
They do. But some have also been saying for thousands of years that the Euros belongs to the southeast. The point is that the representative of the direction from which the weather was more important to the inhabitants of the Peloponnese and the swimmers in the surrounding waters prevailed over the lackluster representative of the main direction. And took his title. So now, instead of a clean-shaven man with curly hair and a load of grain, flowers, and fruit (gentle rains, beneficial to crops), a gloomy fellow with a scraggly beard (heavy storms) blows in from the east. For Roman meteorologists, then, in both cases, Subsolanus.
The wind from the south-west is called Africus by the Apennines because it blows from that direction, but the original Greek name is Lips. On the tower already several times mentioned, which we may also call the horologion, it appears as a youth pushing a ship.
From the north-west, Skiron was coming towards Athens from the Skironian rocks. He arrived at the tower with a pot full of hot ashes and charcoal, for he was bringing winter, and for that, it was necessary to equip oneself properly. His Roman counterpart was Caurus (Corus), but he could also have introduced himself as Argestes. For he (sometimes) blew from the same direction.
Eight cardinal points are sometimes not enough, a circle does not make a square. Moreover, air currents take on different strengths, coming at different times and under different conditions. So I add the lesser minor deities of the air (again, the list is not complete):
Aparctias, also a byname of the northern Boreas.
Euronotos, Latin Euroaster, representing the south-southeast.
Libonotos, the south-southwesterly flow, which the Romans named by the intelligible Austro-Africus.
Thrascias, north-northwest, in Latin Circius.
16.7.2024 (11.2.2018)
Wind in the Pacific
When the Polynesian hero Maui took control of the Pacific Winds, the first to fall under his jurisdiction was Tua-Uo-Loa, the South Wind, sometimes known as Hakona Tipu. The second was Matuu, the North wind, and the third was Mata Upola, the East wind. The last addition to the menagerie was the southwestern Tonga. The only free wind, blowing at will, remained Fisaga, a breeze whose insignificant force is not fit for anything divine anyway.
(6.12. 2003)
Mbon, Jan and Shitta
The nats, the supernatural beings of Burma, have already been mentioned. Mbon is one of them, the wind nat, worshipped yearly at the local harvest festival.
The nat sut ai ceremony belongs, for a change, to a sun nat named Jan and his moon nat counterpart named Shitta.
(6.12. 2003)
Bucca
A Cornish wind gnome (careful not to confuse with Bwca) who seems to be involved in shipping disasters off the local coast.
A much better-known bucca (sometimes known by its full name bucca boo), however, is a mining gnome living in the same region. Cornwall is full of mines - now sadly abandoned - and so it is also full of all sorts of local gnome variants.
(6.12. 2003)
Breton goblins
Horses and livestock used to be one of the greatest assets of any farm, which is why a number of supernatural creatures hang around the stables and barns. In essence, they are retrained lesser mythological beings who in ancient times had something quite different in their job description. Often far removed from agriculture. For a brief demonstration of post-pagan retraining, consider today's group of Brittany's goblins.
Whether they are called Moestre Yan, Petit Jean, Bom Noz or Teuz-ar-pouliet, all of them, following the example of their relatives from all over Europe, take care of horses first and foremost (the Upper Breton Mourioche even looks like a foal), and often turn into horses as well. They also occasionally show an interest in the living beef, but certainly not as often as one might expect.
Mostly they work to the farmer's advantage, but their lively nature will not allow them not to commit mischief now and then. A favorite frolic is the braiding and sniffing of horses' manes and tails (think of the British Pixies, which are only a few miles across the channel from Brittany).
Obligatorily, at this point I will draw attention to water, or rather the water element and its creatures. It's getting annoying, but there really is a way through here. The horse (and its movement and the wave of its mane in a gallop) and water are indeed mythologically related.
So did these goblins come from water? One - now overlooked - point speaks to this. Why would these faeries care about horses in the first place, when for a long time, until recent times, they were rarely used in agriculture? Much more proven and reliable oxen were used to pull them.
Anything else?
Of course, there is.
Indeed, water creatures often had another mythological function, representing death and the afterlife. Paradise, whether we consider Avalon or the gardens of the Hesperides, was always found beyond the ocean (because the sun set behind it). Access to those places was forbidden, with exceptions for those of the heroes who had completed their life's destiny.
Everything comes full circle. Many of the supernatural protectors of the homes are or were originally the souls of dead ancestors.
Unfortunately, the true origins of the Breton goblins are lost in a truly dark antiquity. What their original function and nature were is very difficult to ascertain. And it gets even more complicated when we logically place the above mentioned in the Gaelic circle of tales about the Dus (Tez-ar-pouliet, for example, is translated as Dus of the puddle), mostly evil creatures spread from Switzerland to England when we recall their kinship with the Skrats, goblins who sometimes acted in the role of incubi. Here we enter the landscape of the cultural mixing of European peoples, the realm of linguistic research and comparative analysis. This is far beyond the nature of this reading, and I therefore take the liberty of thanking you.
See you next week.
(14.12. 2003)
Diana
The Romans identified Diana with the Greek Artemis, but apparently, she was originally a separate and distinct Italian goddess. Thus, the basic, well-known attributes were common to both, they were ladies, devoted to hunting, protecting wild animals, and belonging to the moon. Diana was the goddess of light and life and also served as a protector of women in childbirth. Like her Greek counterpart, she was a virgin goddess, severely punishing any attempt at sexual contact.
In the role of Diana Nemorensis, she had a shrine in the grove of Aricia; the priest there used to be an escaped slave, who must have gained the position by murdering his predecessor. James Frazer seized on this history in The Golden Bough; from an introduction of eight pages, he produced a hundred times that number, eight hundred pages of interpretation (plus a book of appendices), and wrote what is now in some ways an outdated but still inspiring bible of cultural anthropology.
The Middle Ages had a fixed occupation for the Roman goddess of hunting; she became the patroness of all witches and the first witch of her kind; thence with the graceful step of a forest lady she passed into modern paganism. Her ideological descendants led, for example, the Wild Hunt; in these matters, she allied herself with various ancient colleagues, with Hecate, Isis, and Ashtoreth.
Diana of Wicca and other contemporary pagan cults is a common Moon Goddess (or one of its parts). According to Leland's Aradia (1899), which is supposed to reflect a long-standing Italian witchcraft tradition, Diana, along with her brother Lucifer (a combination of the Christian and ancient Lucifer), are Aradia's parents. But not only did she give life and name to one of today's most revered witch goddesses, she also stood at the beginning of all things; for she was the first being in existence. She then divided herself into darkness and light. The light was Lucifer, and Diana longed for him because light in darkness is beautiful. Lucifer fled from her to Earth, but Diana followed him. She created fairies and elves and taught magic and witchcraft.
Illustration: Mentnafunangann (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
12.8.2024 (18.8.2013)
Dione
She might be a little confused with the previous Roman lady, but the Greek goddess of rain, Diana, is of course a being of her own, differing definitely by more than two letters. According to Homer, she was Aphrodite's mother, although it is generally assumed that the future goddess of love was born of sea foam, a paternity attributed to Uranus, or rather his genitals. Dione herself has a densely filled-in father box on her birth certificate: this is the one considered by mythographers and storytellers to be Okeanos, Poseidon, or possibly Aither or Atlas. The latter is the father of the Hyades, among whom Dione is sometimes counted; the question is whether this was originally a coincidence of names.
12.8.2024 (18.8.2013)
Christmas Gift-Bringers
It's strange that the Czech idea of Santa Claus, who sneaks into an apartment in the evening and sticks presents under the decorated tree, is a figure with no particular appearance. (Although a friend of mine watched the incriminated area through a keyhole as a child, and saw him). In other European countries, anthropomorphic personifications of this type exist.
Here they are, at least some of them.
Santa Claus
gift-giving across the ocean in America, originally looked like a Dutch sailor in a green coat with a pipe, because he had just sailed with the Dutch colonists. He has had the iconic look of the fat man in red since 1931 when artist Haddon Sundblom dressed him as such for the Coca-Cola company. Prosaic but true.
He lives above the Arctic Circle in Finland, the home of magic and wizards known in Norse legend. There, elves help him wrap presents, which he delivers on Christmas Eve on a sleigh pulled by reindeer.
Sinterklaas
Santa Claus' role model gives gifts in the Netherlands as early as the fifth of December, his feast day. He arrives in November from the sea on a white horse. His helper or helpers are the familiar Black Peter, or Zwarte Piet. Like his descendant, he has as his forerunner St. Nicholas of Smyrna, a bishop who took in abandoned children and whose name was formed by the contraction Sint Nikolaas (St. Nicholas). Then at Christmas comes Kerstmann, who does not celebrate so much success.
Grandfather Frost
works in Orthodox Russia and therefore does not give presents until the end of the first week of January. He is, however, a much older being than the two previous ones, being the pagan personification of frost. As the brother of the wind, he is, of course, the demon of the wind. He rides in a troika - a form of horse teaming in which the middle one trots and the outer horses gallop. He brings the cold, and his knocking freezes the rivers. He used to be sacrificed porridge at Christmas, but after the arrival of Christmastime Frost stayed in the field as a Christmas grandfather.
Kaledu Senis
or the Christmas Grandfather is based in Lithuania. He used to wear a plain fur coat before he caught on to the American Santa Claus fashion.
Nisse
is a Scandinavian house elf, like the Gardsvor, but closer in origin and character to the Scottish Brownies. The nisse (plural nisser in the original, of course, and Julenisser in the Christmas one) are little elves in red hats who look after the house and farm and the livestock. At Christmas, people usually leave them a bowl of porridge; when a maid once ate it, the nisser danced her to death. Although they appear in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, they only fulfill their giving task in Norway. In Denmark, they are now replaced by Julemanden, in Sweden by
Tomte
or Tomtegubbe, another house elf. These gentle elves hate to be made fun of. It always makes them angry, and an angry elf is not exactly a lottery prize. Your cows may start milking sour milk, the economic results of the harvest are far below expected yields. Closely related to the tomte goblin are the vättar farm goblins, called Maahiset in Finland, but they don't live in the same building as humans.
Even Tomte used to get a bowl of porridge as a reward at Christmas and was later replaced in the role of gift-giver by Grandpa Jultomte, a combination of Tomte and Santa Claus.
Ukko
In the Land of a Thousand Lakes, where the American Santa Claus has his headquarters, Ukko, a fellow with a long white beard and a long red hat, accompanied by mischievous elves, gives presents.
Weinachtsmann
In Germany, they're much the same as in the Czech Republic, i.e. no special creatures, except that Santa Claus is somewhere helped by the red-bearded Weinachtsmann, flying on the wind (a wind demon, to be sure), who also chases away unfaithful wives and puts naughty children in the sack at Christmas.
Befana
We end up in Italy, where Befana, a distant relative of the Czech White Lady, carries gifts on her broom. She's a nasty witch who probably won't make it all the way around the Apennine Peninsula with her cargo, which is why she doesn't give gifts until the 25th in some places and the Three Kings in Sicily. Supposedly as a punishment because she was too busy cleaning up and didn't join the three knights going to the little Jesus. The roots of her existence, however, go back to pagan times.
12.8.2024 (21.12. 2003)
