Corrgend, the Irish Prometheus

Corrgend, the Irish Prometheus

       The Irish Prometheus Myth: Corrgend and Aed

An interesting dissertation was published in 2011 reappraising the theories surrounding the Indo-European origin of the Greek Prometheus myth (and reading this dissertation will be a minimal prerequisite to understanding the following response regarding the specifics of the development of the Greek form of this myth). Gifts of Fire: An Historical Analysis of the Promethean Myth by Marty James John Sulek argues that linguistic evidence newly validates an age-old connection between Prometheus and Vedic fire priest Matarisvan which had fallen out of favor during the 20th century. He argues particularly that Prometheus' original crime for which he was punished must not have been theft of fire (or only that) but instead must have had to do with a prohibited lust or even a rape directed toward Athena. He argues that Prometheus, seen as a fire god, and the other Greek fire god, Hephaestus, are actually doubles (who he theorizes arrived to Greece via separate migrations) and thus Prometheus' crime is actually a variant of the episode in which Hephaestus attempts to take Athena in passion, but is rebuffed and his seed is spilled on the ground, impregnating the Earth, Gaia. In this context the fire god Hephaestus' seed would have to be seen as fire dropping down to earth, whether as lightning or by other means. Ultimately he claims that Prometheus was originally punished for the rape rather than the fire theft and that the moralized punishment of Prometheus for the fire theft rather than the rape must have been a Greek innovation, rationalistically developed out of latent connotations of violence and theft within the etymology of Prometheus’ name. However, if we take this theory and test it against the Irish case, we find surprising results. 

If the Prometheus/Hephaestus/Matarisvan myth is a myth of the fire god, or Vedic Agni, as Sulek suggests, then we will have to look at the Irish fire gods as we have indicated them previously. It is not Manannan, who we have suggested to be the celestial fire god, but Dagda's son Aed, whose name means Fire, who has a myth curiously similar to the Prometheus myth as reconstructed by Sulek. First, we can clarify the etymological relationship between the names Aed, Prometheus, and Matarisvan, according to Sulek's argument. As Sulek claims, these latter two names both seem to contain derivations of math-,“rubbing,” “stealing,” etc., which in the name Matarisvan is also combined with the Sanskrit mātari, meaning “mother” and this last may have within it the term for fire, *atar, as well as the Sanskrit root 'mā-', "to make, produce, create" (Burrow, 1980). As Sulek puts it, “In this conception, Mātariśvan may be interpreted as a composite word formed from the locative Sanskrit word for 'mother' (mātari), itself derived from the Indo-European word *mā- ('to create'), perhaps also combined with the Indo-European word for 'fire' (*atar), and the addition of the root śvi, meaning 'to grow or swell.' Given these considerations, it is reasonable to assume that Mātariśvan and math are, in fact, cognate terms derived from a common Indo-European root *ma” (Sulek, 24). He further explains that, “*Math is also likely cognate with earlier Indo-European words *mā (to make) and *atar (fire), both of which were likely employed to construct Mātariśvan as an epithet,” and concludes with the equation, “Mātariśvan: as the maker (mā ) / mother (mātari) in whom the fire (*atar) grows or swells (śvi)” (Sulek, 29). Aed does not come from the same root as this reconstructed Indo-European root word for fire, *atar, but comes from PIE *h₂eydʰ, and the two words for fire seem to have an unclear relationship, *h₂eydʰ yielding in Ancient Greek, aîthos, “heat, fire.” 

Sulek, however, in connecting Matarisvan and Prometheus to the root for “to rub,” in some ways is purposely challenging decades of linguistic argumentation, wherein a degree of consensus has developed around the understanding that Prometheus' name is only coincidentally similar to the root *menth2, “to rub.” As Gregory Nagy puts it, “it is impossible to derive a basis *pro-math- … from a root *menth2-. The coincidence between Prometheus and pramantha- 'fire drill' can therefore be classified as a Scheingleichung, that is to say, as an 'apparent/superficial coincidence' which can be proved false through the analysis of the linguistic details.” Nagy further states: “The name of Prometheus can actually be traced back to an Indo-European verbal root *math2- 'to rob'. The past participle mathita- happens to be identical to the one of Vedic manthi 'to rub', which opens to a palette of different interpretations in the passage involving the fire-theft episode … 'stolen from among the gods,' could also mean 'churned from among the gods'” (Nagy). This certainly doesn't disallow our particular investigation, and we leave the debate regarding the specific linguistic details to others, using these points of contention only as loci for focusing our mythological analysis. 

        

The Irish myth is as follows: Aed (name meaning “Fire”) sleeps with Tethra, the wife of one Corrgend. In response, Corrgend kills Aed. Aed's grieving father, the sky sovereign Dagda, then takes revenge on his son's killer by forcing him to carry Aed's body across the earth until he finds a proper stone for his grave. The carrying of Aed and heavy lifting of the stone causes Corrgend's heart to burst, killing him.

Thus, if we take Sulek's theory, both the Greek and Irish myths center around a crime of prohibited lust enacted by the fire god: Prometheus/Hephaestus' lust for or rape/near-rape of Athena and Aed's adultery of Tethra. Not only is Tethra married, but this adultery is also said to violate an oath. Both myths involve a subsequent punishment carried out by sky sovereigns (Zeus and Dagda), though the Irish version also includes a second crime, a murder, performed by a second figure. In the Irish case this second crime is the crime punished by torture. At the beginning of both myths, there is a mention of a feast of or sacrifice to Father Sky — Dagda or Zeus. The Irish tale opens with a mention of Dagda, who is said to be “a just-dealing lord over the feast till even; his mound remains, long may it remain!” (Dindshenchas 22, Ailech I). In the Prometheus myth, Prometheus initially tricks Zeus into accepting an inferior part of the ox sacrificed to him at Mecone. In each case, the woman lusted after has a name relating her to a kind of seabird. Tethra means sea or scald crow, while Athena transforms into an eagle, and has the epithet “Aethyia,” a title related to the greek word for the seabird known as the shearwater. She appears as an eagle accompanying Odysseus on his Odyssey sea voyage and is called “gleaming-eyed,” or “grey-eyed,” epithets believed to relate her to birds. The owl eventually became her common symbol. In both the Irish and Greek cases there is also honor in the crime that is to be punished: Prometheus' theft of fire is intended to aid humans, while Corrgend's killing of Aed is justified as revenge for the crime against him. The text states of Corrgend: “he gained him honor through jealousy” (Dindshenchas).

The revenge of Father Sky in both cases involves torture of the body, suffering, and the giving of the criminal no peace. As the Irish tale states, “in wood nor fields nor sea found he never refuge under the white sun, nor riddance from the man's body on his back,” and, “There was no peace for him nor healing of the harm to be had from the Dagda for the loss of his son, save by torture of his body strong in fight, and a grave-stone laid on the tomb,” and finally, “Corrgend died with travail of body” (Dindshenchas 23). Both criminals are known for a trait of swiftness of hand. Corrgend is described as “swift of hand,” while Prometheus' name contains the verb math which, as discussed, is theorized to have had the connected meanings of “to rub,” “to rape,” and “to snatch away,” and his crime is that of pickpocket-like theft, stealing back fire right under Zeus and Helios' noses, so to speak. Both criminals are also “degraded by love” in their crime. This is the specific description of Corrgend, when he kills Aed, while Prometheus is believed to have been involved in a rape or near-rape, doubling Hephaestus, the latter of whom is clearly degraded in the act, being rebuffed by Athena and ejaculating onto the earth. 

Interestingly, Prometheus' brother Atlas is punished alongside Prometheus by being made to hold up the heavens in perpetuity. Meanwhile, Corrgend is punished by having to carry the body of Aed on his back and to lift a stone so heavy it kills him. Both the punishments of Prometheus and Aed refer to the torturing of a specific organ which was seen as the seat of passion, thus the punishment fits the crime. Crucially, as Sulek shows, the liver was seen as the seat of passion in Hesiod's time, and it is eaten over and over as Prometheus is tied to the rock. Corrgend is said to bear the stone “over road after road” and to say all the while “Ach! Ach! The stone! 'tis by it my heart is bursting!” (Dindshenchas). Hence his heart, often considered the seat of passion in medieval Europe, is tortured by a repeated action, resulting in bursting, just as Prometheus's liver is tortured by a repeated action, being repeatedly consumed, resulting in its destruction and regeneration. Prometheus and Aed are thus also associated with a stone by the attachment to which they are tortured: Prometheus is tied to such a stone while Corrgend has to carry one on his back. Connected to this stone, Corrgend of the swift hands is also implied to be a skilled craftsman, whereas Prometheus is often taken as a progenitor of the power of technology among men. Referring to the erection of this stone, the Dindshenchas reads, “who was he by whom was wrought thereafter the shining work?” and, “Round his son's seemly grave he raised the tomb nobly-bright” (Dindshenchas). Finally, as mentioned, Hephaestus' presumably fiery semen goes into the earth and impregnates it. Meanwhile, Aed, who is fire himself, is said to be buried in the earth. Could these conclusions have the same mythical meaning? Perhaps telling the origin of how fire came to be a property that can be born out of the earth, that is, why the earth-born fire is indeed in the earth to begin with?

Aed is said to be covered with a round tomb, around which the ringfort the Ailech of Imchell was built. We recall again, from a previous chapter, the round temple of the Roman earthly, domestic fire, which shares its name with the Irish god buried in the round house: the Roman Aedes Vesta. Over time, Vedic Matarisvan, originally an aspect of the fire god, was identified with the wind, seemingly because of the wind's role in generating fire, and the fact that Matarisvan is the aspect of the fire god which generates the fire. Interestingly, the Dagda, who is both Aed's father and is the wind god (Vedic Vayu), also mysteriously has the name “Aed” as one of his own epithets. This father-son relationship between Wind and Fire gods, and the fact that the Wind god himself has the epithet “fire,” could reflect precisely the same relationship between the wind and fire, seen as almost identified, and the one as generating the other. 

    

Based on which elements we can see have remained consistent between the Irish case and the Greek, we deduce that Sulek may be correct in stating that the original “Prometheus” myth was more closely centered around the crime of passion committed by the fire god. However, we can also see that another crime against “fire” does also occur in the Irish version and not only in the Greek version, and that the action of Corrgend is moralized in a fashion somewhat similar (though also distinct) to that of Prometheus, this action of Corrgend's being painted both as honorable and as a moral crime at the same time, the criminal then being tortured by the sky sovereign. We can also deduce that the “killing” of the fire god, Aed, by Corrgend, may then be an alternate form of the taking of the fire from the heavens by Prometheus. When Aed is killed he is cut off from the heavenly realm and ends up buried in the earth. The burying of Aed's body in the ground is then the same as Prometheus giving the fire to humans or Hephaestus impregnating the earth with his seed, because we can theorize that the round house and ring fort built around Aed's grave was in all likelihood a fire temple similar to the Roman Aedes Vesta. Thus the burying of the fire god in the ground was really the establishing of the flame at this sacred shrine, on and within the earth. The Dindshenchas say that the Ailech of Imchell: “that bright home of horses, would not be strong in fame” without Corrgend’s shining work.

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This myth then explains the origin specifically of the earthly, as opposed to the celestial fire. It tells us why fire is able to be generated from the sticks and plants that grow up out of the earth. Such generation is possible because the earth, as well as the waters, are invested with the essence of the fire god, and when plants grow from the soil the vital principle of fire is imparted to them from the earth in which fire is latent. When plants are cut and used for the generation of fire, the essence of fire is within them and is able to spring forth. It also tells us how fire came to be established in earthly shrines and hearths dedicated to the gods. 

        

The etymology of the name of Prometheus' Vedic parallel, Matarisvan, shows that the name refers to the process of the fire “growing in the mother,” which scholars have theorized to relate both to the rubbing of the fire sticks and/or to the generation of the lightning in the cloud, which then strikes down on earth and brings fire to the earthly realm in that way. We can see also how the ejaculation of the fire god Hephaestus, which impregnates Earth, may in the same manner be an image of the lightning falling to earth from out of the tumultuous clouds. The storm cloud and the rubbing sticks are then two levels of the same concept. They are “the mother” in which the flame grows, and each one can be said to be the site of the rape or adultery of the sea-bird goddess which is followed by the crime of violently bringing the fire to earth, by theft, murder, or ejaculation. As such, these versions are all interrelated, and, if we accept Sulek's arguments, may have essentially the same meaning on different levels. 

We also can see that the relationship of the fire priest god who brings the fire to earth is consistently related to the idea of artifice. Prometheus has been built up since Hesiod's time as a model of technological ingenuity, the father of the development of new and often forbidden powers stolen from the heavens, while Corrgend, for his part, is known for the swiftness of his hands and is an artificer who sets up a “nobly-bright” monument for Aed's tomb, and it is said of this tomb that he has “wrought...the shining work.” This tomb's brightness is interesting both in relation to its status as a fire temple and in relation to the image of the shining stone, which calls to mind metal works and the spectre of later technology. Pliny the Elder also writes of a famous stone known as the Hephaestus Stone. As Corrgend's stone is “bright” and “shining,” the Hephaestus Stone was said to be as reflective as a mirror. It had the color of red and could set fires or cool hot water. Hephaestus, of course, is both the fire god and the smith god, thus the artificing and metalworking, proto-technological principle is part of him as his active function already.

As Sulek shows, and as the Irish and Vedic cases reinforce, the none of the crimes of the parallels of Prometheus are moralized in precisely the same way that we find in the Greek case, as a heroic rebellion. In these branches the crime instead is depicted either as more morally neutral (Vedic), perhaps violent action, and a necessary prerequisite to the earthly sacrifice which honored the gods, or as a half-noble crime of passion (Irish). Neither of these parallels involve heroic rebellion against the high god. The fire-bringing action, as we can see in the etymology of the names of these figures, inherently involved friction and a concept of quick-handedness (sometimes connected to the fire drill) and these concepts of friction and quick-handedness were metaphysically reflected, it seems, in the myths of the Greeks and Celts, as the violence of theft or murder. 

In the Greek case, such an emphasis on the violence of the action, which tended to put the Earthly principle in hostile opposition to the Heavenly, may have grown more prominent over time, along with a general realization: that once the divinity of creative development (Prometheus) was divided set against the sky god, the sky god was now at risk of being seen as a paper tyrant when placed in opposition to this principle of dynamism. The Greeks, that is, in order to be able to emphasize this division between Heaven and Earth and to make Prometheus into the heroic martyr he comes to be seen as later on, must have felt that a tension within the myth was forcing itself into consciousness. The Dagda does not come off as a tyrant in the same way that Zeus does, as he is justly (and emotionally) avenging his son’s murder when he punishes Corrgend. He does embody a harsh retributive justice even to the point of torture, but overall the potential for Corrgend to be seen as a heroic martyr against the tyrant sovereign god is much more buried. The way the Irish myth is presented, cryptically encoded in metaphors of the “killing” and the “tomb” of the fire god, completely obscures the potential heroic nature of Corrgend's deed – the bringing of fire to humanity – and without close analysis and interpretation his heroic potential would remain fully submerged. At one point Corrgend is even called “every man's foe” for his crime, and overall he is treated as little more than a tragic and half-honorable murderer.

 

If we accept the Irish parallel as a third version of this Prometheus/Matarisvan myth, then we can critique Sulek's conclusions with this additional information and see if his hypotheses about the original form and moralization of this myth were correct. It is true that in the Irish version a heavy emphasis is placed on the initial sexual crime (as Sulek also claims of the Greek original), the adultery with Tethra which is in place of the rape of Athena. Yet this crime is not the cause of the Irish sky sovereign's punishment, and the Irish version still has the second crime, the violence done to “Fire” itself (standing in place of Prometheus' theft of the fire). The Irish sky sovereign still engages in harsh retributive justice involving repetitive physical torture for this crime done to the god named “Fire.” In line with Sulek's claim that the original form of the myth did not include the same moralization with regard to this crime and its punishment, the Dagda's motivation for this torture is both sympathetic and justified, an emotionally driven action of a grieving father and a sovereign prosecution of a murder. In this sense, the Dagda seems much less of an arbitrarily cruel tyrant than Zeus in the parallel situation, and as such it is much less likely that the moralization of “humanity against the tyrannical high god” would arise from the Irish version. The Dagda does not explicitly punish Corrgend for allowing humanity to have fire and its techno-cultural resultants. He does not seem to be trying to keep fire from humans, at least on the face of it. In fact, Dagda is the one who forces Corrgend to bury Aed, to bury “Fire,” in the earth, and to set up a tomb-temple over him, effectively giving fire to the earthly realm. 

        

Yet despite this it is still possible that the latent meaning of these variants is the same at the core. If the killing of Aed is the bringing of Fire down from the upper realm to the terrestrial, then Dagda still is reacting to the same action that Zeus is, only in an almost romanticized form, depicted here in the context of an emotionally grieving father, this personal drama concealing the core meaning that still mostly matches that of the Prometheus myth: in both cases the criminal is punished for cutting “fire” off from the celestial sphere. Thus we cannot say that the Irish form of the myth can shed light on whether the sky sovereign's motive for the torture we see in the Greek form was merely a Greek innovation absent form the proto-form of the myth. It is possible that the same meaning has merely become more latent in the Irish form, or that the same became less latent in the Greek. The transgressive heroic meaning that accrues to the figure of Prometheus, though not nearly as present in the figure of Corrgend, can yet be said to be present there in latent form, as Corrgend is still the half-justified criminal who ultimately brings humanity Fire and pays the price of torture for this action. True, in the Irish telling it is not Corrgend's conscious intent to altruistically give the gift of fire to humanity, he merely is following passion and avenging a wrong done to him. But his action still is the source of what comes after, of all future “shining works,” and he still gains honor through his passionate action. All this being said, we can see that, in particular, the specific way the Greek myth presents the opposition of the criminal to the high god, particularly the painting of Zeus as the paper tyrant with the seemingly anti-human motive, seems particularly Greek. As a result of such details of the depiction, we end up with the moralization we are familiar with. We can say that these particular Greek narrative colorings do not exactly accord with any other versions of the myth that we have.

What are we seeing in the Greek form of this important myth, then? In the figure of Prometheus, the aspect of the fire god which is the principle of dynamic unfolding separates himself from and contrasts himself against the sky sovereign. What is a specifically religious allegory about sacrificing to the gods in the archaic form proposed by Sulek, in the Greek version is a psychological, rather than strictly theological, allegory about the existential danger inherent in this separation of the principle of dynamic unfolding from the sky sovereign. When this dynamic principle is exteriorized from the order given by the sky sovereign, it becomes chaotic and volatile, potentially even more dynamic and also more destructive at the same time. It poses itself against the sky sovereign in this form, but this is a sovereign who has lost the vital spark of creation, who in this moment can only negate and punish. However, as we have suggested, the particular psychological emphasis given in the Greek form of this myth says more about how the Greeks saw themselves in their relation to the religious forms of their time than it does about the theological status of Zeus and the fire god. A Titanic energy within the Greeks (developing after Hesiod's time with the Athenians almost exclusively at first) caused them to paint this opposition more and more as heroic and paradigmatic. A mythic self-deconstruction along these lines, initiated by the Athenian reception of Hesiod's depiction of Prometheus, has continued over the succeeding centuries and continues to influence the historical process we find ourselves within today. 

The figure of Faust, who has been called the avatar of Western Civilization by thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, is then the embodiment of this Promethean process separated from the high god and internalized in the human. This Promethean Faust sees himself as daring even against the gods, but in actuality, like Prometheus, poses most often against a psychologized projection of the gods. The ideal Promethean-Faustian revolts chaotically against an exaggeration of divine tyranny in order ultimately to harness the power of authentic dynamic creation, even at the risk of his soul. Faustianism bears its unstable, tragic character because Faust embodies a volatile and fiery power that has been extracted from the safe and orderly containment of the Sky Sovereign's mind. He is – as Nietzsche's definition of decadence runs – the part (of the Sky Sovereign) anarchically rebelling against the whole. If the Faustianism that we find ourselves fatefully born into is to mature as we move forward in our historical process, it must first recognize its true nature, its quixotic tendency to take caricatured forms as absolutes, it must understand that its power belongs to the order of the true divine sovereign, and must become something more than mere chaotic rebellion against all ordering principles. It must complete its project of the deconstruction of sacred forms with a project of dynamic construction (that power which it best embodies) if not in the service of a decayed image of divine order, then in the service of a more perfect divine ordering.

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Works Cited:

Burrow, 1980

The Dindshenchas: Ailech I, Ailech II

Hesiod, Works and Days

Hesiod, Theogony

Jorjani, Jason Reza, Iranian Leviathan

The Odyssey

The Rig Veda

Sulek, Marty James John, Gifts of Fire: An Historical Analysis of the Promethean Myth

West, M. L, Indo-European Poetry and Myth, 2007