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451. At the time of rongorongo the right ascension day of Bharani was *41.4 according to my manner of notation. But presumably this number was perceived as 414 - i.e. with no star for marking number of days beyond day 80 counted from the first day of the year and with no decimal point.

The bare digits were enough, because knowledge procured the insight of the dimension, here the insight of 414 being greater than the number for the Sun year (365, 364, 360, 354, 350, or whatever).

414 was one more than 14 * 29˝, i.e. one more than 14 lunar synodic months. One more than 413 (a mirror image of 314).

The decimal system was (formally regarded) not present and 41.4 should simply be expressed as 414 - given that knowledge provided the insight that the dimension was less than a Sun year.

The Babylonians counted with 60 expressed by 1 in the same manner as we with our 10 are expressing the sum of our fingers, and 11 as one more. The Babylonians counted with our number 11 expressed as a single 'digit'. The Babylonian sign for 1 could be understood also as 60, 600, 6000 etc.

The bare digits were fundamentals throughout the dimensions and calculations with them demanded no decimal point (or similar), for the dimension of the result would be obvious.

One might therefore speculate how the structure of these fundamentals was perceived. One clue is provided by Betelgeuze (*88):

te hokohuki te moko te hokohuki

Moko 1. Lizard; moko manu uru, figurine of a lizard (made of wood). 2. To throw oneself on something, to take quickly, to snatch; to flee into the depths (of fish); tagata moko, interloper, intruder, someone who seizes something quickly and swiftly, or cleverly intrudes somewhere; ka-moko ki te kai, ka-moko, ka-aaru, quickly grab some food, grab and catch. 3. To throw oneself upon someone, to attack: he-moko, he-reirei, to attack and kick. 4. Moko roa: to make a long line (of plantation); moko poto, to make a short line. 5. Ihu moko; to die out (a family of which remains only one male without sons); koro hakamao te mate o te mahigo, he-toe e-tahi tagata nó, ina aana hakaara, koîa te me'e e-kî-nei: ku-moko-á te ihu o te mahigo. when the members of family have died and there remains only one man who has no offspring, we say: ku-moko-á te ihu o te mahigo; to disappear (of a tradition, a custom), me'e ihu moko o te tagata o te kaiga nei, he ęi, the ęi is a custom no longer in use among the people of this island. Vanaga. 1. Lizard. P Pau., Mgv., Mq.: moko, id. Ta. moó, id. 2. To stun, to be dizzy. PS Sa.: mo'o, to be surprised. Hakamoko, to accomplish. Mokohi, grain, full-grown berry (mokoi); mokohi haraoa, grain. Mgv.: mokohe, food. Mokoimokoi, heart T, kidney. Mokomoko, sharp, pointed, slender, cape, headland; gutu mokomoko, pointed lips. Churchill. Mgv.: mokora, a duck. Ta.: moora, id. Churchill. MO'O, s. Haw., general name for all kinds of lizards. Tah.: mo'o, lizard. Sam.: mo'o, lizard; v. to be surprised. Sanskr., mush, to steal, rob, plunder; muçalî, a house-lizard; műsha, rat, mouse; mosha, robbing. Zend, műska; Pers. and Bokhara, műsh; Kurd., meshk; Afghan, mukhak; Arm., mugn; Osset, misht, rat, mouse. Greek, μυς, a mouse. Lat., mus, mouse, rat, marten, sable. A.-Sax., O. H. Germ., Scand., műs, mouse. Anc. Slav., myshi; Illur., misc, mouse. (Fornander)

... Kepelino wrote: 'Lalani or stars of heaven are the stars close to the heavens, called ruling stars. There is a vast number of these stars and they shine with a tiny, twinkling light because of their great height.' Lalani, in the Kumulipo or Hawaiian Chant of Creation, was translated 'row of stars' by Queen Liliuokalani. The Hawaiians also called the Milky Way Kuamoo, Backbone of the Lizard. Many Polynesian names for the Milky Way may be reminiscent of the crocodiles of Western Melanesia, the moko-roa, 'long lizards' of legend, for the same motif is found in various parts of the Pacific. The Tuamotuans termed the Milky Way Vaero-o-te-moko, Tail of the Lizard, and Mango-roa, Long Shark. The Mangaian name Moko-roa-i-ata, Long-lizard-of-morning, not only sounds the lizard or crocodile note but also refers to the method of determining the small hours of the night before the rising of the morning star. The Maori used the same term contracted to Mokoroiata. Again they called the Galaxy Mango-roa, Long Shark, and Mangoroiata, Long-shark-of-dawn ...

... A une certaine saison, on amassait des vivres, on faisait fęte On emmaillotait un corail, pierre de défunt lezard, on l'enterrait, tanu. Cette cérémonie était un point de départ pour beacoup d'affaires, notamment de vacances pour le chant des tablettes ou de la priére, tanu i te tau moko o tana pure, enterrer la pierre sépulcrale de lézard de sa pričre ...

... On condition that, if he rescued her, she should be his wife and return to Greece with him, Perseus took to the air again, grasped his sickle and, diving murderously from above, beheaded the approaching monster, which was deceived by his shadow on the sea. He had drawn the Gorgon's head from the wallet, lest the Monster might look up, and now laid it face downwards on a bed of leaves and sea-weed (which immediately turned to coral), while he cleansed his hands of blood, raised three altars and sacrificed a calf, a cow, and a bull to Hermes, Athene, and Zeus respectively ...

Ca4-10 Ca4-11 Ca4-12 (80 + 8)
CLOSE TO THE FULL MOON:
June 15 (166)

 μ Columbae, SAIPH (Sword) = κ Orionis (86.5), τ Aurigae, ζ Leporis (86.6)

16

υ Aurigae (87.1), ν Aurigae (87.2), WEZN (Weight) = β Columbae, δ Leporis (87.7), TZE (Son) = λ Columbae (87.9)

17

Ardra-6 (The Moist One) / ANA-VARU-8 (Pillar to sit by)

χą Orionis, ξ Aurigae (88.1), BETELGEUZE = α Orionis (88.3), ξ Columbae (88.5), σ Columbae (88.7)

ZUBEN ELGENUBI (α Librae)

"May 5 (*45 = *86 - *41) 6 7 (127 = 168 - 41)
FEBR 14 → 214 = 2 * 107 15 16 → 216

... Once upon a time there was an old woman who owned a great potato field (mara) where she planted her potatoes in spring and harvested them in autumn. She was famous all around for her many varieties of wonderful potatoes, and she had enough of them to sell at the market place. She planted her potatoes 7 in a row, placing her foot in front of her as a measure from one potato to the next. Then she marked the place with a bean - which would also give nourishment to the surrounding potatoes. Next she changed variety and planted 7 more followed by another bean, and this was the pattern she followed until all her 214 varieties had been put down in their proper places. She had drawn a map which she followed and from where each sort of potato could be located at the proper time for its harvest ...

214 * 7 (potatoes) + 213 (beans) = 29 * 59. And *88 (Betelgeuze) = *29 + *59.

... The earliest depiction that has been linked to the constellation of Orion is a prehistoric (Aurignacian) mammoth ivory carving found in a cave in the Ach valley in Germany in 1979. Archaeologists have estimated it to have been fashioned approximately 32,000 to 38,000 years ago ... The artist cut, smoothed and carved one side (A) and finely notched the other side (B) and the edges. Side A contains the half-relief of an anthropoidal figure, either human or a human-feline hybrid, known as the 'adorant' because its arms are raised as if in an act of worship. On side B together with the four edges is a series of notches that are clearly set in an intentional pattern. The edges contain a total of 39 notches in groups of 6, 13, 7 and 13. A further 49 notches on side B are arranged in four vertical lines of 13, 10, 12 and 13 respectively plus a further notch that could be in either of the middle two lines ... The grouping of the notches on the plate suggests a time-related sequence. The total number of notches (88) not only coincides with the number of days in 3 lunations (88.5) but also approximately with the number of days when the star Betelgeuse (α Ori) disappeared from view each year between its heliacal set (about 14 days before the spring equinox around 33,000 BP) and its heliacal rise (approximately 19 days before the summer solstice).

Conversely, the nine-month period when Orion was visible in the sky approximately matched the duration of human pregnancy, and the timing of the heliacal rise in early summer would have facilitated a ‘rule of thumb’ whereby, by timing conception close to the reappearance of the constellation, it could be ensured that a birth would take place after the severe winter half-year, but leaving enough time for sufficient nutrition of the baby before the beginning of the next winter. There is a resemblance between the anthropoid on side A and the constellation Orion. None of these factors is convincing when taken in isolation, because of the high probability that apparently significant structural and numerical coincidences might have arisen fortuitously. However, taken together they suggest that the anthropoid represented an asterism equivalent to today’s constellation of Orion, and that the ivory plate as a whole related to a system of time reckoning linked to the moon and to human pregnancy. If so, then ethnographic comparisons would suggest that the Geißenklösterle culture related their ‘anthropoid’ asterism to perceived cycles of cosmic power and fertility ...

... Maui at first assumed the form of a kiore, or rat, to enter the body of Hine. But tataeko, the little whitehead, said he would never succeed in that form. So he took the form of a toke, or earth-worm. But tiwaiwaka the fantail, who did not like worms, was against this. So Maui turned himself into a moko huruhuru, a kind of caterpillar that glistens. It was agreed that this looked best, and so Maui started forth, with comical movements. The little birds now did their best to comply with Maui's wish. They sat as still as they could, and held their beaks shut tight, and tried not to laugh. But it was impossible. It was the way Maui went in that gave them the giggles, and in a moment little tiwaiwaka the fantail could no longer contain himself. He laughed out loud, with his merry, cheeky note, and danced about with delight, his tail flickering and his beak snapping. Hine nui awoke with a start. She realised what was happening, and in a moment it was all over with Maui. By the way of rebirth he met his end.

 

Thus died this Maui we have spoken of, who was formed in the topknot of Taranga and cast in the sea, but was saved and nurtured to lead a life of mischief. And thus did the laughter of his companions at the last and most scandalous of his exploits deprive mankind of immortality. For Hine nui always knew what Maui had it in mind to do to her. But she knew that it was best that man should die, and return to the darkness from which he comes, down that path which she made to Rarohenga. Wherefore our people have the saying: 'Death came to the mighty when Maui was strangled by Hine nui te Po, and so it has remained in the world' ...

Flanking the moko glyph (Ca4-11) were ihe tau glyphs, tau meaning season (period) and ihe a point in time-space determing such a season.

... The glyph type ihe tau appears at the close of calendars, or at the end of main sections of calendars. The picture is that of a moon crescent broken in half, which conveys suggestions of a time when growing no longer continues - i.e. a state of death. If ihe tau is reversed, it becomes a sign of birth, as at right in Ab1-37:

Beyond the point where the Sun reached Betelgeuze, after 3 lunar synodic months, its time of darkness was over and its red light of dawn (mea) was born in the east.

Allen defined the colour of Betelgeuze as orange, but all different shades of red were probably indicators of greatness, because I have read somewhere that anciently red implied such a meaning.

Number 413 (as in Ca4-13) could have expressed, in our notation, 1 + 413 = 414. Day zero was there but could not be counted until this day had been completed in full, only then could a finger be raised up from the closed fist.

... The practice of turning down the fingers, contrary to our practice, deserves notice, as perhaps explaining why sometimes savages are reported to be unable to count above four. The European holds up one finger, which he counts, the native counts those that are down and says 'four'. Two fingers held up, the native counting those that are down, calls 'three'; and so on until the white man, holding up five fingers, gives the native none turned down to count. The native is nunplussed, and the enquirer reports that savages can not count above four ...

... Time in the night runs like water, sand (or treacle) - whereas the days in the light from the Sun instead fly by quickly ...

kua tuu tona mea te henua te hau tea mauga hua - te henua

Mea. 1. Tonsil, gill (of fish). 2. Red (probably because it is the colour of gills); light red, rose; also meamea. 3. To grow or to exist in abundance in a place or around a place: ku-mea-á te maîka, bananas grow in abundance (in this place); ku-mea-á te ka, there is plenty of fish (in a stretch of the coast or the sea); ku-mea-á te tai, the tide is low and the sea completely calm (good for fishing); mau mea, abundance. Vanaga. 1. Red; ata mea, the dawn. Meamea, red, ruddy, rubricund, scarlet, vermilion, yellow; ariga meamea, florid; kahu meamea purple; moni meamea, gold; hanuanua meamea, rainbow; pua ei meamea, to make yellow. Hakameamea, to redden, to make yellow. PS Ta.: mea, red. Sa.: memea, yellowish brown, sere. To.: memea, drab. Fu.: mea, blond, yellowish, red, chestnut. 2. A thing, an object, elements (mee); e mea, circumstance; mea ke, differently, excepted, save, but; ra mea, to belong; mea rakerake, assault; ko mea, such a one; a mea nei, this; a mea ka, during; a mea, then; no te mea, because, since, seeing that; na te mea, since; a mea era, that; ko mea tera, however, but. Hakamea, to prepare, to make ready. P Pau., Mgv., Mq., Ta.: mea, a thing. 3. In order that, for. Mgv.: mea, because, on account of, seeing that, since. Mq.: mea, for. 4. An individual; tagata mea, tagata mee, an individual. Mgv.: mea, an individual, such a one. Mq., Ta.: mea, such a one. 5. Necessary, urgent; e mea ka, must needs be, necessary; e mea, urgent. 6. Manners, customs. 7. Mgv.: ako-mea, a red fish. 8. Ta.: mea, to do. Mq.: mea, id. Sa.: mea, id. Mao.: mea, id. Churchill.

Ca4-13 → 14 * 29˝ Ca4-14 (90) Ca4-15 (364 / 4) Ca4-16 (92)
CLOSE TO THE FULL MOON:
June 18

η Leporis (89.0), PRAJA-PĀTI (Lord of Created Beings) = δ Aurigae, MENKALINAN (Shoulder of the Rein-holder) = β Aurigae, MAHASHIM (Wrist) = θ Aurigae, and γ Columbae (89.3), π Aurigae (89.4), η Columbae (89.7)

*48 = *89.4 - *41.4

19

μ Orionis (90.3), χ˛ Orionis (90.5)

20 (171)

6h (91.3)

ν Orionis (91.4), θ Columbae (91.5), π Columbae (91.6)

*50 = *91.4 - *41.4

SOLSTICE

ξ Orionis (92.5)

"May 8 (128 = 80 + 48) 9 10 (130 = 50 + 80) 11
FEBR 17 (89 - 41) 18 19 (50) 20

88 (3 lunar synodic months) would leave 325 days to the rest of a year which measured 413 days.

Respect for the elders and their ancestors would surely have created a situation which meant not only 88 but also 325 were bound to be remembered throughout all ages. These numbers must certainly be there in the rongorongo texts, text which were documenting the calendar facts ultimately reflecting the positions of the fundamental stars (including the Sun, the planets, the Moon etc).

Therefore day 325 (November 21 in the Gregorian calendar) should express the idea of a dark fruitful season ahead. 325 + 88 = 413. Or in a solar calendar: 365 - 325 = 40.

... Under Mosaic law, a mother who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain for three and thirty days 'in the blood of her purification', which makes a total of 40 days ...

In the C text we can count 325 - 80 = 245 glyphs from the beginning and here there was a very special glyph:

kotia kua rere ki te marama e moa haati kava e moa
Ca9-9 (236 + 1) Ca9-10 Ca9-11 Ca9-12 Ca9-13 Ca9-14 (242)

Koti. Kotikoti. To cut with scissors (since this is an old word and scissors do not seem to have existed, it must mean something of the kind). Vanaga. Kotikoti. To tear; kokoti, to cut, to chop, to hew, to cleave, to assassinate, to amputate, to scar, to notch, to carve, to use a knife, to cut off, to lop, to gash, to mow, to saw; kokotiga kore, indivisible; kokotihaga, cutting, gash furrow. P Pau.: koti, to chop. Mgv.: kotikoti, to cut, to cut into bands or slices; kokoti, to cut, to saw; akakotikoti, a ray, a streak, a stripe, to make bars. Mq.: koti, oti, to cut, to divide. Ta.: oóti, to cut, to carve; otióti, to cut fine. Churchill. Pau.: Koti, to gush, to spout. Ta.: oti, to rebound, to fall back. Kotika, cape, headland. Ta.: otiá, boundary, limit. Churchill.

JULY 15 16 17 18 19 (200) 20
i te mauga pu hia E rima ki te henua koia ku honui erua maitaki ko koe ra
CLOSE TO THE FULL MOON:
16h (243.5) Ca9-16 Yed Prior (Hand in Front) Ca9-18 (246) Ca9-19 Kajam (Club)
Nov 19 20 21 (325) 22 23 24
'Oct 23 24 25 (298 = 325 - 27) 26 27 28
"Oct 9 10 11 (284 = 325 - 41) 12 13 14
SEPT 16 17 18 (261 = 325 - 64) 19 20 21
JULY 21 22 → π 23 (325 - 121 = 204) 24 25 26

*245 (Ca9-17) + *40 (= 7 + 33) = *285 = December 31 (365 = 80 + 285).

The pattern 325 (November 21) + 88 (3 lunar synodic months) = 365 + 48 = 413 (Ca4-13) could have originated from the time-frame of Virgin (Spica) and in my notation this would would have corresponded to JULY 23 (204) + 161 + 48 = FEBRUARY 17 (365 + 48 = 413).

The corresponding terminal date of the year at the time of Bharani could then easily have been derived as 48 + 80 = 128 ("May 8), where the associations might have been twice 64 and twice 29.

And at the time of rongorongo the ancient day FEBRUARY 17 (365 + 48 = 413) would have corresponded to day 48 + 121 = 169 (June 18) = 128 + 41.

The position of Yed Prior (the Hand in Front, δ Ophiuchi, *245.5, Ca9-17, at the beginning of the Serpent Carrier) had been pushed later and later ahead in the Sun calendar due to the precession.

Similarly the position of day 200 had been pushed earlier and earlier among the heliacal stars due to the precession:

DAY 200:
JULY 19 (200 = 321 - 121) JULY 19 (200 = 364 - 64)

"July 19 (200 = 241 - 41)

'July 19 (200 = 227 - 27) July 19 (200)

ω Cancri (*120.2)

Nov 17 (321 = 241 + 80)

Iklīl al Jabhah-15 (Crown of the Forehead) / Anuradha-17 (Following Rādhā) / Room-4 (Hare)

ξ Lupi, λ Cor. Bor.(241.1), ZHENG = γ Serpentis θ Librae (241.2), VRISCHIKA = π Scorpii (241.3), ε Cor. Borealis (241.5),  DSCHUBBA (Front of Forehead) = δ Scorpii (241.7), η Lupi (241.9)

Sept 21 (264 = 200 + 64)

PÁLIDA (Pale) = δ Crucis (184.6), MEGREZ (Root of the Tail) = δ Ursae Majoris (184.9)

Aug 29 (241 = 227 + 14)

no star listed (*161)

ALTAIR (α Aquilae)

Aug 15 (227 → π)

VATHORZ PRIOR = υ Carinae (*147.9)

July 19 (*120) was where (at the time of rongongo) the Sun had reached ω Cancri (*120.2) and 27 right ascension days ahead in the year was Vathorz Prior (υ Carinae (*147.9), which in Roman times (*27 precessional days earlier) had been in 'July 19, etc.

... A very detailed myth comes from the island of Nauru. In the beginning there was nothing but the sea, and above soared the Old-Spider. One day the Old-Spider found a giant clam, took it up, and tried to find if this object had any opening, but could find none. She tapped on it, and as it sounded hollow, she decided it was empty. By repeating a charm, she opened the two shells and slipped inside. She could see nothing, because the sun and the moon did not then exist; and then, she could not stand up because there was not enough room in the shellfish. Constantly hunting about she at last found a snail. To endow it with power she placed it under her arm, lay down and slept for three days. Then she let it free, and still hunting about she found another snail bigger than the first one, and treated it in the same way. Then she said to the first snail: 'Can you open this room a little, so that we can sit down?' The snail said it could, and opened the shell a little. Old-Spider then took the snail, placed it in the west of the shell, and made it into the moon. Then there was a little light, which allowed Old-Spider to see a big worm. At her request he opened the shell a little wider, and from the body of the worm flowed a salted sweat which collected in the lower half-shell and became the sea. Then he raised the upper half-shell very high, and it became the sky. Rigi, the worm, exhausted by this great effort, then died. Old-Spider then made the sun from the second snail, and placed it beside the lower half-shell, which became the earth ...

Full Moon Sun

In JULY 19 (200 = 172 + 28) the Hand of Ophiuchus took over from the Club of Hercules (Hammer of Thor), for 4 days earlier (in day 196 = 28 weeks) the Old Tree had been lopped off (koti).

 

 

The seventh tree is the oak, the tree of Zeus, Juppiter, Hercules, The Dagda (the chief of the elder Irish gods), Thor, and all the other Thundergods, Jehovah in so far as he was 'El', and Allah. The royalty of the oak-tree needs no enlarging upon: most people are familiar with the argument of Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough, which concerns the human sacrifice of the oak-king of Nemi on Midsummer Day. The fuel of the midsummer fires is always oak, the fire of Vesta at Rome was fed with oak, and the need-fire is always kindled in an oak-log.

When Gwion writes in the Câd Goddeu, 'Stout Guardian of the door, His name in every tongue', he is saying that doors are customarily made of oak as the strongest and toughest wood and that 'Duir', the Beth-Luis-Nion name for 'Oak', means 'door' in many European languages including Old Goidelic dorus, Latin foris, Greek thura, and German tür, all derived from the Sanskrit Dwr, and that Daleth, the Hebrew letter D, means 'Door' - the 'l' being originally an 'r'.

Midsummer is the flowering season of the oak, which is the tree of endurance and triumph, and like the ash is said to 'court the lightning flash'. Its roots are believed to extend as deep underground as its branches rise in the air - Virgil mentions this - which makes it emblematic of a god whose law runs both in Heaven and in the Underworld ... The month, which takes its name from Juppiter the oak-god, begins on June 10th and ends of July 7th. Midway comes St. John's Day, June 24th, the day on which the oak-king was sacrificially burned alive. The Celtic year was divided into two halves with the second half beginning in July, apparently after a seven-day wake, or funeral feast, in the oak-king's honour.

Sir James Frazer, like Gwion, has pointed out the similarity of 'door' words in all Indo-European languages and shown Janus to be a 'stout guardian of the door' with his head pointing in both directions. As usual, however, he does not press his argument far enough. Duir as the god of the oak month looks both ways because his post is at the turn of the year; which identifies him with the Oak-god Hercules who became the door-keeper of the Gods after his death. He is probably also to be identified with the British god Llyr of Lludd or Nudd, a god of the sea - i.e. a god of a sea-faring Bronze Age people - who was the 'father' of Creiddylad (Cordelia) an aspect of the White Goddess; for according to Geoffrey of Monmouth the grave of Llyr at Leicester was in a vault built in honour of Janus. Geoffrey writes:

Cordelia obtaining the government of the Kingdom buried her father in a certain vault which she ordered to be made for him under the river Sore in Leicester (Leircester) and which had been built originally under the ground in honour of the god Janus. And here all the workmen of the city, upon the anniversary solemnity of that festival, used to begin their yearly labours.

Since Llyr was a pre-Roman God this amounts to saying that he was two-headed, like Janus, and the patron of the New Year; but the Celtic year began in the summer, not in the winter. Geoffrey does not date the mourning festival but it is likely to have originally taken place at the end of June ... What I take for a reference to Llyr as Janus occurs in the closing paragraph of Merlin's prophecy to the heathen King Vortigern and his Druids, recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth:

After this Janus shall never have priests again. His door will be shut and remain concealed in Ariadne's crannies.

In other words, the ancient Druidic religion based on the oak-cult will be swept away by Christianity and the door - the god Llyr - will languish forgotten in the Castle of Arianrhod, the Corona Borealis. This helps us to understand the relationship at Rome of Janus and the White Goddess Cardea who is ... the Goddess of Hinges who came to Rome from Alba Longa. She was the hinge on which the year swung - the ancient Latin, not the Etruscan year - and her importance as such is recorded in the Latin adjective cardinalis - as we say in English 'of cardinal importance - which was also applied to the four main winds; for winds were considered as under the sole direction of the Great Goddess until Classical times.

As Cardea she ruled over the Celestial Hinge at the back of the North Wind around which, as Varro explains in his De Re Rustica, the mill-stone of the Universe revolves. This conception appears most plainly in the Norse Edda, where the giantesses Fenja and Menja, who turn the monstrous mill-stone Grotte in the cold polar night, stand for the White Goddess in her complementary moods of creation and destruction. Elsewhere in Norse mythology the Goddess is nine-fold: the nine giantesses who were joint-mothers of the hero Rig, alias Heimdall, the inventor of the Norse social system, similarly turned the cosmic mill.

Janus was perhaps not originally double-headed: he may have borrowed this peculiarity from the Goddess herself who at the Carmentalia, the Carmenta Festival in early January, was addressed by her celebrants as 'Postvorta' and 'Antevorta' - 'she who looks both back and forward'. However, a Janus with long hair and wings appear on an early stater of Mellos, a Cretan colony at Cilicia. He is identified with the solar hero Talus, and a bull's head appears on the same coin. In similar coins of the late fifth century B.C. he holds an eight-rayed disc in his hand and has a spiral of immortality sprouting from his double head.

Here at last I can complete my argument about Arianrhod's Castle and the 'whirling round without motion between three elements'. The sacred oak-king was killed at midsummer and translated to the Corona Borealis, presided over by the White Goddess, which was then just dipping over the Northern horizon. But from the song ascribed by Apollonius Rhodius to Orpheus, we know that the Queen of the Circling Universe, Eurynome, alias Cardea, was identical with Rhea of Crete; thus Rhea lived at the axle of the mill, whirling around without motion, as well as on the Galaxy. This suggests that in a later mythological tradition the sacred king went to serve her at the Mill, not in the Castle, for Samson after his blinding and enervation turned a mill in Delilah's prison-house.

Another name for the Goddess of the Mill was Artemis Calliste, or Callisto ('Most Beautiful'), to whom the she-bear was sacred in Arcadia; and in Athens at the festival of Artemis Brauronia, a girl of ten years old and a girl of five, dressed in saffron-yellow robes in honour of the moon, played the part of sacred bears. The Great She-bear and Little She-bear are still the names of the two constellations that turn the mill around. In Greek the Great Bear Callisto was also called Helice, which means both 'that which turns' and 'willow-branch' - a reminder that the willow was sacred to the same Goddess ...

 

 

Hercules first appears in legend as a pastoral sacred king and, perhaps because shepherds welcome the birth of twin lambs, is a twin himself. His characteristics and history can be deduced from a mass of legends, folk-customs and megalithic monuments. He is the rain-maker of his tribe and a sort of human thunder-storm. Legends connect him with Libya and the Atlas Mountains; he may well have originated thereabouts in Palaeolithic times. The priests of Egyptian Thebes, who called him Shu, dated his origin as '17,000 years before the reign of King Amasis'.

He carries an oak-club, because the oak provides his beasts and his people with mast and because it attracts lightning more than any other tree. His symbols are the acorn; the rock-dove, which nests in oaks as well as in clefts of rocks; the mistletoe, or Loranthus; and the serpent. All these are sexual emblems. The dove was sacred to the Love-goddess of Greece and Syria; the serpent was the most ancient of phallic totem-beasts; the cupped acorn stood for the glans penis in both Greek and Latin; the mistletoe was an all-heal and its names viscus (Latin) and ixias (Greek) are connected with vis and ischus (strength) - probably because of the spermal viscosity of its berries, sperm being the vehicle of life.

This Hercules is male leader of all orgiastic rites and has twelve archer companions, including his spear-armed twin, who is his tanist or deputy. He performs an annual green-wood marriage with a queen of the woods, a sort of Maid Marian. He is a mighty hunter and makes rain, when it is needed, by rattling an oak-club thunderously in a hollow oak and stirring a pool with an oak branch - alternatively, by rattling pebbles inside a sacred colocinth-gourd or, later, by rolling black meteoric stones inside a wooden chest - and so attracting thunderstorms by sympathetic magic.

 

 

The manner of his death can be reconstructed from a variety of legends, folk-customs and other religious survivals. At mid-summer, at the end of a half-year reign, Hercules is made drunk with mead and led into the middle of a circle of twelve stones arranged around an oak, in front of which stands an altar-stone; the oak has been lopped until it is T-shaped.

He is bound to it with willow thongs in the 'five-fold bond' which joins wrists, neck, and ankles together, beaten by his comrades till he faints, then flayed, blinded, castrated, impaled with a mistletoe stake, and finally hacked into joints on the altar-stone. His blood is caught in a basin and used for sprinkling the whole tribe to make them vigorous and fruitful. The joints are roasted at twin fires of oak-loppings, kindled with sacred fire preserved from a lightning-blasted oak or made by twirling an alder- or cornel-wood fire-drill in an oak log.

The trunk is then uprooted and split into faggots which are added to the flames. The twelve merry-men rush in a wild figure-of-eight dance around the fires, singing ecstatically and tearing at the flesh with their teeth. The bloody remains are burnt in the fire, all except the genitals and the head. These are put into an alder-wood boat and floated down the river to an islet; though the head is sometimes cured with smoke and preserved for oracular use. His tanist succeeds him and reigns for the remainder of the year, when he is sacrificially killed by a new Hercules.

 

 

The divine names Bran, Saturn, Cronos ... are applied to the ghost of Hercules that floats off in the alder-wood boat after his midsummer sacrifice.

His tanist, or other self, appearing in Greek legend as Poeas who lighted Hercules' pyre and inherited his arrows, succeeds him for the second half of the year; having acquired royal virtue by marriage with the queen, the representative of the White Goddess, and by eating some royal part of the dead man's body - heart, shoulder or thigh-flesh.

He is in turn succeeded by the New Year Hercules, a reincarnation of the murdered man, who beheads him and, apparently, eats his head. This alternate eucharistic sacrifice made royalty continous, each king in turn the Sun-god beloved of the reigning Moon-goddess.

But when these cannibalistic rites were abandoned and the system was gradually modified until a single king reigned for a term of years, Saturn-Cronos-Bran became a mere Old Year ghost, permanently overthrown by Juppiter-Zeus-Belin though yearly conjured up for placation at the Saturnalia or Yule feast.