Taliesin's Map

The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail: Part 3 of 12 < Part 2    Part 4 > The Norse Lunar Cycle Now that we know the basic elements of this lunar Soma cycle, we can begin to spot them, in an exceedingly fragmentary form, just where we would expect them, in a series of tales about the third function gods of the Norse, the Vanir, and the Aesir-Vanir War in which they are combatants. For if the tale of Chyavana and the Asvins fighting Indra, and the Asvins becoming priests of the sacrifice, is the same as the Vanir fighting Óðinn and the Aesir, and becoming priests of their sacrifice, then we should find more or less the same events in the myths of the gods who fight this war in each case. It first needs explaining that Mani, the generally recognized Moon god of Norse myth, does not seem to figure in this sequence of events which we have named “lunar.” However, what basic analysis of the myths has shown is that the Indo-European people often had more than ...

The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail: Part 2 of 12 < Part 1    Part 3 > Chyavana and the Asvins         The Chyavana story in Vedic myth goes back at least to the hymns of the  Rig Veda , and is told as well in the  Mahabharata  and the  Brahmanas , and can only be described as an extremely central myth of the deities known as the Horse Twins. Remarkably, this story actually appears in recognizably similar form in Irish myth as well, and by this comparison we can begin to narrow down a picture of these deities. Comparing, then, the myth of Chyavana as found in the  Rig Veda , the  Mahabharata  and the  Brahmanas  with the Irish  The Wooing of Etain,  we find that these stories preserve key dramatic beats and remarkable small details, though sometimes in altered forms, across a vast amount of space and time. As such it seems that this myth may date back to a time before the  ...

The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail:   Part 1 of 12 Part 2 > [ A glossary of relevant names and charts of parallels appear at the end of this article.] The Aesir-Vanir War and the Holy Grail The Aesir-Vanir War's place in comparative mythology has perplexed and misled interpreters for a long time now, not least because it is somewhat unclear if there is an exact example of the same motif in any other branches. Some point to the Deva-Asura conflict of the Vedic religion, but this can be shown to have at its root an internecine dispute possibly stemming from the time of Indo-Iranic unity, out of which arose, over time, the demonization of the favorite gods of the Iranics by the Vedics as “asuras” and the demonization of the favorite gods of the Vedics by the Iranics as “devas.” The division between the Asuras and Devas fails to match the division between the groups of gods who make war in the Norse myth. These are not the same groups of gods coming in conflict. ...

< Part 3 The Case for  Týr  = Mitra: Part 4 of 4         There is also an important case to be made that the fathers of both  Týr  and Lugh are connected, which would further strengthen the argument for the identification of  Týr  (with Baldr) as a Mitraic deity. The scholar Thor Ewing has shown that the story of Lugh's birth, involving the infiltration of Balor's fortress by Cian and his impregnation of Balor's daughter Ethliu, matches in numerous details the infiltration of Óðinn into the mountain fortress to steal the mead of poetry while also sleeping with   Gunnlǫð . Ewing explains in his essay “Óðinn and Loki Among the Celts” the several features shared between the myths of Óðinn and Cian, which are also in part shared by Welsh Gwydion, the likely father of Lleu.          As Óðinn must infiltrate the giant Suttungr's mountain fortress to regain the Mead of Poetry, so Cian must infiltra...

< Part 2 Part 4 > The Case for  Týr  = Mitra: Part 3 of 4   A third pillar of Dumezil's argument must be marked as more speculative; however, in the context of comparative study it is perhaps one of Dumezil's most successful and ingenious comparisons, and is not without its catalog of supports. I am referring to Dumezil's identification of the brothers of  Týr ( as they are recorded by Snorri in the Prose Edda, namely Baldr and Höðr) with the divine attendants of Mitra: Aryaman and Bhaga.          Dumezil shows the way in which Bhaga and Aryaman develop out of the orbit of Mitra-as-god-of-social-cohesion-well-being-and-justice. Bhaga appears as the god of Destiny considered as Apportionment (of boons in particular), while Aryaman appears as the god of the flourishing of the “Aryan” people specifically, of the tribe or noble in-group society. In this constellation of figures, Aryaman takes on the role of the cupbe...