Taliesin's Map

The Case for  Týr  = Mitra  The Case for  Týr  = Mitra: Part 1 of 4   Georges Dumezil, in his  Mitra-Varuna , makes a case in passing for the identification of the Norse god  Týr  with the Vedic god Mitra. This case is brief, but is a central pillar of the overall argument of his book.  Týr , for Dumezil, makes up the “Mitra” half of the paradigmatic duad of Mitra-Varuna. However, though very influential, the argument is controversial and far from universally accepted, primarily due to the scanty actual evidence we have which depicts or describes  Týr  in the primary mythological sources and material archaeology. Specifically, there is a common objection that Dumezil has stretched the evidence too much and has invented a character for  Týr  to fit his structural theory which the evidence does not actually warrant. However, the idea that the case is based on nothing  could be classed as uncharitable at best,...

The Dagda, The Irish Wind Harvester: Part 2 of 2 Bhima and Dagda: Divine Cooks There are further curious parallels between Bhima and Dagda. One of these comes with Bhima's association with cooking. In the Pandavas' period of exile, Bhima becomes a cook. So strongly is he marked by this vocation that he gains the epithet Ballava , “cook,” and is often depicted in iconography with a cooking bowl or pot of food and a ladle. Dagda, of course, is know for the great cauldron he carries around, from which no one ever comes away unsatisfied, and the ladle he scoops up food with. In iconography this makes the Dagda and Cook Bhima look uncannily alike. Less well-known is the fact that the Dagda is also recorded as a cook, owner of a stupendous “cooking oven”: when his son Bodb Derg inquires what will be his marriage portion, we read that “it is likely the Dagda put up his cooking oven there, that Druimne, son of Luchair made for him at Teamhair. And it is the way it was, the axle and the...