Latin materials speak of 'Divine Crows' [Corniscae Divae - Allen has this as "Crow-Goddesses", even] which are of Juno; Festus' Epitome [56L] relates: "Corniscarum Divarum locus erat trans Tiberim cornicibus dicatus, quod in Junonis tutela esse putabatur", with this being often cited in accompaniment of an engimatic inscriptional "DEVAS CoRNISCAS SACRVM". This, whilst lesser-known today, … Continue reading The Crows of Juno
Ancient Greek
The Kouretes And The Rudras
Beautiful rendition of the Kouretes (Curetes) carrying out Their Dance about the newborn youthful Zeus (the infant at the base - there's a tripartite Thunderbolt behind Him also). Their Dance with its noise was undertaken to shield Zeus from Kronos - It was a … Safety Dance Now, I didn't just post this in order … Continue reading The Kouretes And The Rudras
Psychopompi Germanica – And Why It’s Not Odin
In recent days I have run into a rather recurrent skein of assertions about Odin purportedly being a "Psychopomp". Now as for why this has kept coming up - the context has been fairly much what you'd expect. Namely, people looking to affirm an accuracy for that well-known 'Interpretatio' from Tacitus, whereby Odin is inferred … Continue reading Psychopompi Germanica – And Why It’s Not Odin
“Apollo Khshathrapati”? “Apollo Kshetrapati” – An Unfinished Draft In Relation To The Theology Of The Trilingual Stele of Letoön
[Author's Note: The following is an incomplete draft of an article that had been intended as an answer to a query received some three years prior with relation to an academic article looking at Apollo, Mithra, and an (Indo-)Iranian hailing upon a most remarkable trilingual stele from what was once Lycia. I am perhaps unlikely … Continue reading “Apollo Khshathrapati”? “Apollo Kshetrapati” – An Unfinished Draft In Relation To The Theology Of The Trilingual Stele of Letoön
The Cailleach – Brief Comparanda [Arya Akasha Arka]
Happened across this impressive rendition earlier this evening, by the inimitable Angus McBride (known for both Osprey and certain tabletop RPG offerings). It depicts the Cailleach Bheur - effectively synonymous with the Cailleach Bhéarra (see Hull 1927, inter alia), also known as Buí , the Wife of Lugh. She is a figure of far broader … Continue reading The Cailleach – Brief Comparanda [Arya Akasha Arka]
Yes, The Ancient Greeks Could See Blue
As hype builds up for Christopher Nolan's Odysseus exercise, I can see that quite a range and array of 'Accepted Pop-Cultural Kernels' around the Homeric and Bronze Age milieu are going to shamble forth into our ken of vision like ever so many skeleton warriors. In some of these areas, interesting and positive progress has … Continue reading Yes, The Ancient Greeks Could See Blue
TRI-LOKA : The Three Worlds Of Indo-European Cosmology – Part Two: Sailing The Sea Of Sky
As promised, we begin our series of subsequent commentaries seeking to add illumination to 'what went where' - and, more especially as applies some detailings, 'why' - for our TRI-LOKA charting of the archaic Indo-European cosmology. For the first installment, we delve into various of the considerations pertaining to the Middle Realm extant between the … Continue reading TRI-LOKA : The Three Worlds Of Indo-European Cosmology – Part Two: Sailing The Sea Of Sky
TRI-LOKA : The Three Worlds Of Indo-European Cosmology
The archaic Worlds-view of the (Proto-)Indo-Europeans featured a functional conceptualization for the Cosmos as broadly divisible into three 'layers' or realms. We can safely infer this due to the shared fundamental TriPlanar structure carried forward by various of the major (post-PIE) Indo-European spheres, attested amidst both their mythic and ritualine perspectives - as we have drawn from … Continue reading TRI-LOKA : The Three Worlds Of Indo-European Cosmology
Scythian Tabiti In Her Indo-European Theological Context – [Part One: As To The Claims, An EmPyreical Investigation]
A few months ago, an associate raised with me a curious concept. Namely, the idea that a) the archaic Indo-European divinity of the Fire was Female, with this being attested via b) the Scythian figure of Tabiti identified with Hestia by Herodotus, and therefore indicating that c) the Vedic figure of Agni was an 'innovation' … Continue reading Scythian Tabiti In Her Indo-European Theological Context – [Part One: As To The Claims, An EmPyreical Investigation]
The ‘Golden Hair’ Of Indra – The Reality To An Oft-Cited RigVedic Verse
I've seen this RigVedic verse - RV X 96 8 - come up several times in the past few weeks; quoted (in English only) by persons seemingly looking to assert that Indra was purportedly in possession of both hair and beard of blond, in the manner of some rather particular stereotype of Northern European (or, … Continue reading The ‘Golden Hair’ Of Indra – The Reality To An Oft-Cited RigVedic Verse