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The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> Snake-woman
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Snake-woman |
chimera
Joined:
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|  Posted 04-01-2008 at 21:19
These 3 legends support each other. It would appear that a snake myth was known in Britain, and possibly connected with Rotherwas Ribbon.
"On the Alps was a woman seen straying, and herding the flocks of the sheep,.
"Whence have come you?" she said: "Out of Ireland are we,".
"On this journey," said Conall, "our guide hath been woe:
All the cattle that feed in these pastures are ours,
And from us went the lady that's kept in yon towers."
"'Tis ill-luck," said the woman, "that waits on your way,
All the men of this hold doth that lady obey;
Ye shall find, amid dangers, your danger most great
In the serpent who guardeth the Liss at the gate."
"Trust us well," answered Conall, "that raid will we do!
And the castle they sought, and the snake at them flew:
For it darted on Conall, and twined round his waist;.
Then the serpent from Conall was loosed, from his belt
It crept safely, no harm from that serpent he felt:
And they travelled back north to the Pictish domains,
And a three of their cattle they found on the plains;"_Tain Bo Froech.
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XXX. THE STORY OF CELTINE
Hercules, it is told, after he had taken the kine of Geryones89 from Erythea, was wandering through the country of the Celts and came to the house of Bretannus, who had a daughter called Celtine. Celtine fell in love with Hercules and hid away the kine, refusing to give them back to him unless he would first content her. Hercules was indeed very anxious to bring the kine safe home, but he was far more struck by the girl’s exceeding beauty, and consented to her wishes; and then, when the time had come round, a son called Celtus was born to them, from whom the Celtic race derived their name.
89. Or Geryon, who was supposed to have lived in Spain. This one one of the twelve labours of Hercules.
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"Herodotus told one of the most complete versions of Scythian genealogical legend in his story about "Scythian Heracles" (IV, 8-10). And Herodotus' story is expanded by information of other ancient authors. So, Herodotus tells: Once Heracles, driving his bulls in front of him, came to the deserted country at the Pontus' shore (the Black Sea), country which later was inhabited by the Scythians. The snow-storm was raging, it became cold, Heracles wrapped himself in lion-skin and went to sleep leaving his horses in the pasture. Getting up, he found out that by some miracle his horses disappeared and he left the place for searching them. In the cave, which was in the forest, he met a wonderful creature-maiden: the lower part of her body had the form of snake. This maiden-echidna introduced herself as the master of the deserted country and promised to give him his horses back on condition that Heracles should have intimate relations with her. Heracles agreed to do a deal with her and the maiden did her best to keep him by herself as long as possible. Only later when she understood that she would have three sons from Heracles, she let him go, gave him back horses and got from the future father gifts which were meant for the most worthy son. And this worthy son was turned out to be Scythes, descendants of whom inhabited that country which had been deserted before._ I V Pyankov. Yaroslav Uni., Novgorod."
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James
Joined:
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Messages: 80
from High Desert
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| Posted 05-01-2008 at 17:24
Greetings!
SERPENT FAITH.
No country in Europe is so associated with the Serpent as Ireland, and none has so many myths and legends connected with the same. As that creature has furnished so, many religious stories in the East, and as the ancient faiths of Asia and Egypt abound in references to it, we may reasonably look for some remote similarity in the ideas of worship between Orientals and the sons of Erin.
That one of the ancient military symbols of Ireland should be a serpent, need not occasion surprise in us. The Druidical serpent of Ireland is perceived in the Tara brooch, popularized to the present day. Irish crosses, so to speak, were alive with serpents.
Although tradition declares that all the serpent tribe have ceased to exist in Ireland, "yet," as Mrs. Anna Wilkes writes, "it is curious to observe how the remains of the serpent form lingered in the minds of the cloistered monks, who have given us such unparalleled specimens of ornamental initial letters as are preserved in the Books of Kells, Ballymote, &c." Keating assures his readers that "the Milesians, from the time they first conquered Ireland, down to the reign of Ollamh Fodhla, made use of no other arms of distinction in their banners than a serpent twisted round a rod, after the example of their Gadelian ancestors."
And, still, we recognize the impression that Ireland never had any snakes. Solinus was informed that the island had neither snakes nor bees, and that dust from that country would drive them off from any other land. But the same authority avers that no snakes could be found in the Kentish Isle of Thanet, nor in Crete. Moryson, in 1617, went further, in declaring, "Ireland had neither singing nightingall, nor chattering pye, nor undermining moule."
Bishop Donat of Tuscany, an Irishman by birth, said--
"No poison there infects, nor scaly snake
Creeps thro' the grass, nor frog annoys the lake."
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chimera
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| Posted 05-01-2008 at 20:04
Hail to thee James,
To be sure and did not the Murrigan herself change shape to a snake?
The Echidna "phaiper"_viper was the original Delphic oracle, and its skin became the aegis of Athena.
Achaeans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe other names are the Danaans (Δαναοί, used 138 times in the Iliad) and ... the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaeans - 31k - Cached - Similar pages
Rivers of Life - Google Books Resultby Forlong, J. G. R. Forlong - 2002 - Religion - 708 pages
... mother of Tuath-di-Danaan, who in Western Asia may have been Toth-de-Knaan, ... or perhaps Daran, Darian, or Dorian, for as elsewhere seen these Danaans ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0766126404...
JSTOR: The DanaoiGreek tradition not only states definitely that the pre-Dorian in- vaders of the Argolid were Danaans and not Achaeans, but it goes further, and indicates ...
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0073-0688(192 39%3C59%3ATD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q - Similar pages "
Danu from *duna "bountiful giver" is in DNieper, DANUbe and DANAan, and has a river-goddess temple today in Bali Indonesia on a lake. The Ukraine-France echidna legend is a unified doctrine/tradition.
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sem
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from Bridgend,S.Wales
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| Posted 11-01-2008 at 15:26
Stan Gooch in his book Cities of Dreams, suggests that snake worship/legend dates back to a time of matriarchial societies as the snake is one of the few creatures to have the female of the species bigger than the male.
Sorry, just the input of a lesser-male.
Sem
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chimera
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| Posted 11-01-2008 at 21:17
Echidna was bigger than Hercules, but then he was a god. Is Y Ddraig Goch a female?
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sem
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| Posted 13-01-2008 at 13:31
This is something I've never even thought about C. If I come across anything I'll let you know.
Sem
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BERNARDQUATERMASS
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from Oldham, Lancashire
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|  Posted 13-01-2008 at 19:11
Didn't the Romans have a crest of an imperial eagle clutching a snake?
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chimera
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| Posted 13-01-2008 at 19:38
The Celtic deity on Gundestrup Cauldron of 1st centBCE is clutching a snake with horns. It probably came from Thrace N Greece. The Romans had Alan troop auxiliaries in Britain and Alans from the lower Danube had a snake banner, like the example in Koblenz Museum Germany. It is claimed to be the origin of Y Ddraig, and legs and wings were added in medieval times. "Wyvern" is from Fr. "guivre" viper and their legend says she produced men from her side. Merodach of Babylon killed Tiamat snake and her body produced the world and people. Consistently, the Saxon dragon of the City of London is female, under the firm hand of the Lord Mayor, who wears a chain like Merodach.
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mikecroley
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| Posted 22-01-2008 at 19:36
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chimera
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| Posted 22-01-2008 at 19:48
Sorry, I don't have a pic. of myself to send.
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mikecroley
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| Posted 22-01-2008 at 20:00
Have this for now
mike
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Aluta
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| Posted 22-01-2008 at 23:35
Somehow I thought of serpents as representing the male principle. Shows these things aren't always intuitively obvious.
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chimera
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| Posted 23-01-2008 at 08:04
Mike's drawing is improving . Well done.
"Viper" means vi-parous, bearing living young as compared to snake-eggs.
Possibly linked to Jesus words at Matt. 3:7 about the generation from vipers. Greeks had Python (male) and Pythia (female) at Delphi, so perhaps dragons were of either gender. The "Danu"be and "Dana"an are from Danu female river-snake of Samhita Brahmanas, whose male partner was Danaya. If Echidna's father was Brettanos, possibly he had a snake aspect?
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Aluta
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| Posted 27-01-2008 at 23:54
Was looking at an issue of Sacred Hoop today and there was an article about snake people, nagas, both male and female. A couple of things caught my eye, first that they were often thought to have gems, which reminded me of the Native American Uktena, which bears a gem in its head. Also, the naga's enemies are the garudas, great birds, while in some native American stories the thunderbirds, great birds like the garudas, are enemies of serpents or water beings like the underwater panthers.
I know that the idea of reptiles or amphibians bearing jewels in their heads is widespread, found in many parts of the world, but I'm not sure about the serpent versus great bird motif and it would be interesting to learn more.
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chimera
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| Posted 28-01-2008 at 05:11
Probably, the eagle-snake theme exists where it is observed in the wild, as around Himalayas and by diffusion, south east Asia. The dry regions of Americas would be similar, I guess. In Europe, the theme is a person holding a snake, as in stone carvings from Celtic Thrace, Norse Gotland and Cirencester UK. Indra battled Vritra and Merodach of Babylon did Tiamat.
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