Ullr and Bres: Identifying The Germanic and Irish Sun Gods
"Paris," of our previous article: https://taliesinsmap.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-heroes-of-iliad-as-indo-european.html) opens up a further layer of comparison to the Norse figure known as Ullr. In his Mitra-Varuna, Georges Dumezil points out that Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum contains an account of a sequence of rulers which match very closely the pattern we also find in Irish mythology. Despite recognizing this parallel, Dumezil was operating under a false understanding of Irish Nuada as a Mitraic god (an understanding which he recognized later in his career as erroneous) which prevented him from accurately uncovering the significance of this parallel. If we recall the Irish sequence of divine rulers found in the Battle of Magh Tuireadh narrative, first is the king Nuada, who rules from the time the Tuatha de Danann arrive to Ireland, during their war with the Fir Bolg, and up until he has his arm severed in that war. Bres then ascends to the kingship, and though he had been a good warrior for the Tuatha de Danann, his rule is marked by despotism and inhospitality. After seven years, Nuada's arm is replaced by Miach with a magical silver arm, making him fit again to rule, and so he is restored to the kingship. Bres is exiled, leading to his incitement of the subsequent war with the Tuatha de Danann. When Nuada is beheaded during the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh, Lugh takes his place as king, strikes the climactic blow against Balor, and leads the Tuatha de Danann to victory, reigning justly afterward for 40 years. Thus we have Nuada, followed by an interlude of Bres, the return of Nuada, and concluding with Lugh. After Lugh's death, the Dagda reigns for 80 more years before dying of the wound he suffered in the Second Battle. In our identification of these figures in terms of Vedic archetypes they are Varuna, followed by Surya, with the returning Varuna, followed by Mitra, concluding with Dyaus/Vayu.
In Saxo's Norse sequence of successions, the first ruler is Othinus. When Othinus is exiled, Ollerus takes over the kingship, ruling for ten years (compared to Bres' seven) before Othinus returns and is restored to the kingship. Ollerus is ejected. In a subsequent section, Othinus goes this time into voluntary exile, and in his absence a figure named Mithothyn takes over his kingdom and begins to change the religious ordinances. In this episode, Mithothyn is portrayed in a negative light, allowing Othinus to return and again and take over the kingdom, reasserting himself as the dominant kingly and deific force. Based on his actions as described by Saxo, Dumezil calls Mithothyn “the 'distributor'” and “the judge-leader (mjotudhinn)” (Dumezil, Mitra-Varuna, 129). Dumezil considers this figure then to be of the Tyr type (and indeed the similarity between the name Mithothyn and Mithra/Mitra is itself striking), and suggests that Mithothyn's negative portrayal and the positive portrayal of the “inspired madman” Othinus reflects the ideals of Germanic society at this time. He says of Othinus that his “entire life consists of one vast Lupercalia [a Roman pastoral festival]...” and that for the Germanics it “would have been their ideal to lead such a life, and that they pretended to live it” (Mitra-Varuna, 130).
Significant to making the parallel between the Irish and Danish accounts match is the fact that Othinus returns after exile between the reigns of Ollerus and Mithothyn, just as Nuada returns after hiatus between the reigns of Bres and Lugh. That is, both Ollerus and Bres are the second kings in the sequence, ruling in an interstitial period while the first king has left the kingship after becoming unfit, and up until that first king returns. Ollerus rules ten years while Bres rules seven. Thus, we have in the Danish pseudo-history a sequence to parallel the one found in Irish myth, and it runs: Othinus, Ollerus, Othinus, Mithothyn, with the final return of Othinus to reassert his preeminence in the Germanic pantheon and his embodiment of their ideal; whereas Father Sky/Wind, the Dagda completes the cycle for the Irish. Thus if we make the likely parallels between Saxo's sequence and that found in Irish myth, we end up with Othinus = Nuada; Ollerus = Bres; Lugh = Mithothyn; and Othinus also = Dagda. Of course with our understanding of Lugh as Mitra, his equation with the figure whose name means judge, who Dumezil compares to Tyr, and whose name also bears a striking similarity to the name Mitra/Mithra itself, comes as little surprise. Likewise, if we understand Othinn as, in part, carrying the Varunian mythos, then his equation to Nuada, who we have directly equated to Varuna in our Iliad analysis, makes perfect sense. And again, if Oðinn also occupies in some measure the role and mythos comparable to Dagda, that is Dyaus-Vayu, Father Sky/Lord Wind, then the fact that he rules at the same points as Nuada and Dagda is to be expected. Indeed, we maintain that both Nuada and the Dagda are gods who each parallel separate aspects of the Norse Oðinn, corresponding to Vedic Varuna, Dyaus and Vayu. The most interesting comparison yielded by this equation then is between Ollerus and Bres. As previously mentioned, because Dumezil believed erroneously that Nuada should equate to Tyr, this led him to believe that the order had been switched around in this sequence on one side or the other. Furthermore, he did not understand that Bres was in the position of the Sun God himself, as we have found in comparison with the other epics. With this understanding we can see that the two sequences may indeed follow the same order: Terrible Sovereign, then Sun God, return of Terrible Sovereign, then Lawful Sovereign, concluding with Father Sky and/or Lord Wind. If so, this seems to suggest that Ollerus may stand for the figure who would have been the central male solar deity of the Germanic pantheon at one time, that indeed Ullr is the Sun God, known by the Vedics as Surya.
Though this sequence is a striking structural piece of evidence and very suggestive, this hypothesis would need to be supported by other specific evidences connected to Ullr the actual deity, and not only his pseudo-historical hypostasis. If Ullr can be demonstrated to be a solar figure, then the case for his equation with Bres and then with Surya becomes much more convincing. There are indeed several characteristics pertaining to Ullr which suggest that he was indeed a very solar god. First, Ullr is preeminently known as an archer. The activity of bowmanship is an exceedingly common symbol of solar activity, standing naturally for the action of the sun which shoots its rays from afar. Both Greek Paris and Vedic Karna, who we have shown to be incarnations of Surya previously, are known primarily as archers. Welsh Gronw is a hunter and is on a hunting expedition when he comes in conflict with Lleu. Ullr too is called “hunting god,” veiðiass, in Skaldskaparmal. Second, Ullr is said to have been such a great warrior that his name became a byname used to refer to warriors. The aforementioned Karna is one of the greatest warriors in the war and is so terrifying a force for the Kauravas that only the foremost warrior of skill Arjuna is at last able to match him. On the other hand, Paris' warrior character evidently degenerated to the point where he was seen as a coward in war, his estimation seemingly affected by the significant fact that being an archer in the Greek warrior culture of the time was seen as unmanly and somewhat dishonorable. Homeric scholar Gregory Nagy has argued that this deprecation of archery was unlikely to have existed even during the Mycenaean period, and that it was probably a valuation connected to the developments recent to Homer's time. Third is Ullr's connection to dueling, as he is said to have been invoked by duelists. We see both Karna and Paris facing off in significant duels in their respective epic, including the one which the whole epic turns upon in which Paris is bested by Menelaus. The equivalent duel forms almost the entire climax of the Lleu Llaw Gyffes myth, as Gronw first temporarily kills Lleu, then is killed in return in the rematch. Karna, however, wins nearly every one of his face-offs during the war, including causing king Yudhishthira to retire from battle for a significant amount of time, until he is finally killed by Arjuna on Yudhishthira's command. Falling to the great Arjuna, the most skilled of the Pandavas, is no shame to a warrior, and indeed it is a fate required by Karna's theological role. There is also the colloquial association existing today of dueling and high-noon, the time when the sun is highest in the sky, as if it were the governing deity of that activity. John Julian Molin claims that Ullr's association with duels can be explained by his role as upholder of law and justice, a role commonly connected to solar gods (Molin, Ullr: A God on the Edge of Memory, 110). Fourth is Ullr's physical description, in which he is called fair-faced or bright, while Bres’ nickname is “The Beautiful,” Gronw's is “The Radiant,” Paris is said to be beautiful, and Karna's personal beauty likewise is central. Karna is known for the earrings and breastplate that he is born with which “make his face shine" and make him invulnerable. In the Mahabharata it is said of him that "He is the ornament of a battle. Karna is strong and insolent. He is skilled in weapons and a maharatha," and that "he was as radiant as the morning sun. He had a beautiful face," and, "He is extremely valiant and handsome." In the Irish version they say of Bres that “he was so beautiful that everything beautiful was called a Bres”; of Ullr it is said, “He is beautiful to look at as well.” Fifth, along with the obviously solar description of Ullr as “bright,” a further solar indicator may be his association with skiing. We will see in our investigation of the Lunar Cycle that Skaði, also prominently said to be an archer and skier, is likely a solar princess. Hence this motif or combining both archery and skiing may have consistently been attached to solar figures in Norse myth. The sun, then, may have been likened to a skier due to its light gleaming all down the snowy slopes, or due to it appearing at the tops of the mountains each day, or perhaps due to its gliding across the sky. That Ullr both crosses the seas on his magical transport and skis down slopes is also reminiscent of the motion of the sun as its light crosses the faces of the mountains, earth, and sea.
Ullr is known for his ring and/or shield, which could refer to the golden circle of the sun itself. Skalskaparmal 61 states: “the shield is also called Ship of Ullr […] On ancient shields it was customary to paint a circle, which was called the 'ring,' and shields are called in metaphors of that ring.” The last and most emphatic oath in a series of three is sworn “by Ullr's ring” in Atkavida. 65 amulet rings, dated to between 660 and 780, were found in 2007-8 at an open air shrine to Ullr, called Lilla Ullevi (a place name possibly related to Ullr's name), in Uppland, Sweden. Arrow tips and possible parts of a shield were also found at the site. Meanwhile, Irish Bres is the god whose mother was given a ring by his sun god father at his conception, later passed on to him as a symbol of his solar quality, and Indian Karna is similarly depicted as born wearing earrings with the same significance, gifts traceable to his solar father, which likewise manifest Karna's solar quality by making his face glow. Thus Ullr, Bres, and Karna are all prominently gods of rings or earrings (thank you to Grief, Rubezhal, and Skinfaxi for their help and contributions regarding these details). The association of the Sun with a shield is already attested elsewhere in Norse myth, the Sun being said to have a shield covering named Svalinn, which keeps it from burning the hills and sea (Grimnismal 38).
The name Ullr is believed to mean “glory,” and the sun is one object whose connection to glory needs no explanation. However, the name Ullr's proposed (though unproven and theoretical) Proto-Germanic root, *wulþuz, has also been reconstructed to mean "shine, radiance, glory, splendor" (cf. Gronw the Radiant). Intriguingly, the Irish have a sun goddess named Aine, the etymology of whose name is “brightness, glow, joy, radiance; splendour, glory, fame,” uniting precisely the same concepts of radiance and glory in her solar nature, and demonstrating that this combination could have been a common theological conception found in relation to Northwestern European solar figures. Aine, as we will see later on, actually parallels Skaði, and Skaði and Ullr actually share exceedingly similar descriptions in the myths. This similarity has been noted by many scholars, the two of them both being snow-shoe gods (she öndurdis and he öndurass) and archers who are bright or shining. If Ullr's name means “the glorious one,” this could connect to the theme of the Solar Glory or Golden Glow of Sovereignty, which the Mitraic god or hero has to retrieve from the Sun god, as seen in previous chapters.
Molin points out the fact that the theory that Ullr may have been a Sun god has gained popularity with scholars in the last three quarters of a century, and sums up this trend thus: “Ullr has been thought by some to have been a Swedish and Norwegian sun god of the Bronze Age, a god who, by the time of the Viking Age and the first Nordic literary sources, had faded only into the distant cultural memories of the descendents of those who had known his former cult. This proposition, taken up most prominently by Ohlmarks (1943, 1947, 1948, 1963a, 1963b, and so on) and most recently by Dronke (2011), has been one of the most frequently espoused theories regarding the god’s role in modern scholarship” (Molin, 124). Molin himself supports this theory, adding that “Swedish rock images bear great witness to the importance of the relationship between shields, ships and the sun” (Molin, 128), and that, regarding the shield as Ullr's ship, “The idea of the sky as an ocean, a reflection of that on earth, on which the sun sails, is common in primitive cultures” (127). To this he adds (among other things) that “It has furthermore been established that the hringr [ring] sometimes was considered an allusion to the sun itself, as is evident from both place names and mythological literature. The ship in which mythology tells us Baldr burned, bore the name Hringhorni 'ship with circle [sun?] on the stem', and King Skjöldr’s ship in the Beowulf legend likewise bore the epithet hringedstefna (Ohlmarks, 1946, pp. 199-200), a peculiarity also noted by Gelling and Davidson (1969, p. 157)” (Molin 126).
The fact that Ullr has only a known step-father, Thor, and no known biological father, along with the fact that he is described so similarly to Skaði, a jotunn, suggests that his father could have been a jotunn. This possibility is encouraged by the Irish comparative case: Bres is half Fomorian (the Irish cognate of the jotunns), his father being a Fomorian who leaves right after his conception. Bres then has to be raised by the Tuatha De, and doesn't know his father until he grows up, as Ullr is raised by the Aesir while having an absent father. If the Norse case were to match the Irish or Indian, Ullr could even have been the son of a goddess such as Jord or Frigg (an earth or mother goddess, with Sif indeed being a possible candidate as well) and an unknown jotunn. Jord or Frigg could then have placed Ullr on a shield and sent him across the water, as Kunti places her son Karna in a box and sends him down the river in the Indian case. Ullr then would have been found and raised by Sif and Thor. This possibility, though highly speculative, has a support: the legendary figure known as Sceafa is found as a baby floating on a skiff and becomes a great king. His close descendant, Scyld (meaning “shield”), is said to be sent out on a ship into the ocean upon his death, just as he had been found as an infant. A rite recorded in the 13th century Chronicon de Abingdon describes how a sheaf (sceaf) of wheat was placed on a round shield (scyld) and sent down a river to decide a land dispute. This foundling myth-type, simlar as it is to the myth of Karna, is thus here associated with a shield, while “ship of Ullr” is the most prominent kenning for a shield in Snorri, giving us an image of Ullr himself floating the waters on a ship that is a shield. We are then left with the possibility that Sceafa/Scyld could be remnants of, or from the same root as, Ullr's own original myth, a myth which would have explained why Ullr's father, and more speculatively still, perhaps even his mother as in the Indian case, are absent.
Ullr's mythology is so scanty that it has been difficult to get a very clear picture of him. Likewise it has been remarked that no explicit male sun god seems to exist in the Norse myth. However, from the scraps of attestation in the myths along with the structural argument, now clarified and made interpretable, we can form a solid case that Ullr may after all have been the god of the sun for the Germanic people at some early point, and that they too had a male manifestation of this deity, just as did the Vedics (Surya) and Romans (Sol), and that they had both a female and male manifestation just as the Greeks (possibly Alectrona and Helios) and the Irish (Grian and Bres). It is also possible that Ullr is a derivation of the original sun deity, over the centuries become more narrowly specialized in the solar art of archery and retaining the solar glory.
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