[←197 ]
Les magiciens dans l’Islande ancienne, op. cit., p. 5. See also Carla Del Zotto and Giulia Piccaluga (ed.), Religione e magia nelle saghe nordiche, special issue of the Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, July–December 2012.
[←198 ]
“Tripartition fonctionnelle et écriture runique en Scandinavie à l’époque païenne,” art. cit., p. 251. See also, from the same author, “Le maître-des-runes. Essai de détermination socio-anthropologique. Quelques réflexions méthodologiques,” in Clairborne W. Thompson (ed.), Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, op. cit., pp. 27–36; Fred Wulf, “Runenmeisternamen,” in James E. Knirk (ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala 1994, pp. 31–43; “Runenmeister,” in Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich and Heiko Steuer (ed.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 25, op. cit.
[←199 ]
Ludwig Buisson, Der Bildstein Ardre VIII auf Gotland. Göttermythen, Heldensagen und Jenseitsglauben der Germanen im 8. Jahrhundert n. Chr., Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1976, p. 17.
[←200 ]
The rune seventeen, t (*tīwaz), is Týr’s rune, the only god we are positive that a rune was named after. But *tīwaz can also mean “god” in the general sense (tivar is the plural of týr in Old Scandinavian). See Anders Hultgård, “Ziu-Týr. Religionsgeschichtliche,” in Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 35, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, pp. 929–932.
[←201 ]
L’Edda poétique, op. cit., pp. 625–627, translation by Régis Boyer.
[←202 ]
See Daniel McLean McDonald, The Origins of Metrology. Collected Papers, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge 1992.
[←203 ]
Boris A. Frolov, Numbers in Paleolithic Graphics, Nauka, Novosibirsk 1974.
[←204 ]
See Patrick Ettighoffer, Le Soleil et la Lune dans le paganisme scandinave, du mésolithique à l’âge du bronze récent (de 8000 à 500 av. J.–C.), L’Harmattan, Paris 2012.
[←205 ]
Alexander Marshack, The Roots of Civilization. The Cognitive Beginnings of Man’s First Art, Symbol and Notation, McGraw-Hill, New York 1972 (French Translation: Les racines de la civilisation. Les sources cognitives de l’art, du symbole et de la notation chez les premiers hommes, Plon, 1973, pp. 57–58). See also “Cognitive Aspects of Upper Paleolithic Engraving,” in Current Anthropology, June–October 1972, pp. 445–477; “Upper Paleolithic Notation and Symbols,” in Science, 24 November 1972, pp. 817–828; “Upper Paleolithic Symbol Systems of the Russian Plain: Cognitive and Comparative Analysis,” in Current Anthropology, June 1979, pp. 271–311; “On Paleolithic Ochre and the Early Uses of Color and Symbol,” in Current Anthropology, April 1981, pp. 188–191; “Concepts théoriques conduisant à de nouvelles méthodes analytiques, de nouveaux procédés de recherche et catégories de données,” in L’Anthropologie, 1984, 4, pp. 573–586.
[←206 ]
In Latin, mensis only means “month,” the name of the moon (luna) come from somewhere else.
[←207 ]
In Indo-European, the moon is also called *louksna “the bright.” See Anton Scherer, Gestirnnamen bei den indogermanischen Völkern, Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1953.
[←208 ]
Jean Haudry, “Notes sur les racines indo-européennes *mē-, *met-, *med- ‘mesurer’,” in Etudes indo-européennes, XI, 1992, p. 47.
[←209 ]
Lokmanya Bāl Gangādhar Tilak, Orion ou recherches sur l’antiquité des Védas, Archè, Milano 1989, p. 29. In Germanic, the name of the moon (*mēnan-) became differentiated from the month, which kept its original form (*mēnōþ-).
[←210 ]
La Germanie. L’origine et le pays des Germains, op. cit., p. 27, translation Patrick Voisin.
[←211 ]
Ibid., p. 39. Original text: “Nec dierum numerum ut nos, sed noctium computant; sic constituunt, sic condicunt; nos ducere diem videtur.” In Pierre Grimal’s translation: “Because to them, the night shows the path to daylight.” (“Les mœurs des Germains,” in Tacitus, Œuvres choisies, op. cit., pp. 38). The verb computare means here “to count, to calculate” (see the words computatio or computus from medieval Latin, hence “comput”).
[←212 ]
See Kenneth Harrison, The Framework of Anglo-Saxon History to A.D. 900, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1976 (“The moon and the Anglo-Saxon calendar,” pp. 1–14).
[←213 ]
See also fortnight, derived from Old English fēowertyne niht, “fourteen days,” the average interval between a full moon and a new moon. Its Irish equivalent is coicis. The French expression “quinze jours,” which designates two seven-day weeks, is found in Spanish, Portuguese, Italien, Catalan and also Greek (dekapenthímero). In Welsh, the term pymthefnos means “fifteen nights,” the name of a week being wythnos, literally “eight nights.” See also the expression ”in eight days” (In German: “in acht Tage”), meaning “in a week.”
[←214 ]
On the Coligny calendar, see Françoise Le Roux, Christian-J. Guyonvarc’h and Jord Pinault, “Le calendrier gaulois de Coligny (Ain),” in Ogam, 1961, pp. 635–660; Paul-Marie Duval and Georges Pinault, “Observations sur le calendrier de Coligny,” in Etudes celtiques, 1962, 10, pp. 18–42 and 372–412, 11, pp. 7–45 and 269–313; Jean-Paul Parisot, “Les phases de la lune et les saisons dans le calendrier de Coligny,” in Etudes indo-européennes, 13, June 1985, pp. 1–18; Paul-Marie Duval and Georges Pinault, Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (III). Les calendriers (Coligny, Villards d’Héria), Éditions du CNRS, Paris 1986; Garrett S. Olmsted, The Gaulish Calendar, Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1992; Garrett S. Olmsted, A Definitive Reconstructed Text of the Coligny Calendar, Institute for the Study of Man, Washington 2001; Jean-Michel Le Contel and Paul Verdier, Un calendrier celtique. Le calendrier gaulois de Coligny, Errance, Paris 1997. See also Joseph Monard, Astronymie et onomastique calendaire celtiques. Le ciel et l’année chez les Celtes, Label LN, Ploudalmézeau 2005.
[←215 ]
See H. H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, Thames & Hudson, London 1981, p. 43.
[←216 ]
Jean Haudry, La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens, Archè, Milano, and Belles Lettres, Paris 1987, p. 290. Cf. also Otto Schrader, Die älteste Zeittheilung des indogermanischen Volkes, Carl Habel, Berlin 1878; Eduard Stucken, Der Ursprung des Alphabetes und die Mondstationen, J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1913; Wolfgang Schultz, Zeitrechnung und Weltordnung in ihren übereinstimmenden Grundzügen bei den Indern, Iraniern, Hellenen, Italikern, Kelten, Germanen, Litauern, Slawen, Curt Kabitzsch, Leipzig 1924.
[←217 ]
“Origine et développement de l’écriture runique,” art. cit., pp. 16–17.
[←218 ]
Runes. An Introduction, op. cit., p. 14.
[←219 ]
See also J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006 (“Basic Numerals,” pp. 308–317). It should be noted that Ernst Jünger was also intrigued by that coincidence. In his journal “years of occupation,” on the 11th of April 1948, it reads: “I remembered Kükelhaus’s allusion to the strange fact that when one adds the n- of negation to it [the number eight], it becomes in many languages the word ‘night,’ Nacht, nox, night, nuit, notte and so on. Hence the following combination: according to linguists, in all Indo-European languages, the word for eight goes back to a common root which is the dual of ‘four.’ This invites us to conceive of a base four system, like it is still present in some contemporary cultures. Eight is the end of the road. And it is conceivable that there could have been an ancient connection between ‘end’ and ‘night.’ When reaching ‘nine,’ the count starts again, which would explain the striking relation there is in many languages between ‘nine’ and ‘new,�
� neun and neu” (La cabane dans la vigne. Journal IV, 1945–1948, Christian Bourgois, Paris 1980, pp. 292–293. “Kükelhaus” here refers to the philosopher, pedagogue and craftsman Hugo Kükelhaus (1900–1984).
[←220 ]
See Godfrid Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1948, pp. 188–189.
[←221 ]
After having conducted the philological study of the four main manuscripts of the Prose Edda, François-Xavier Dillmann showed that it wasn’t actually nine nights at one place and nine nights at the other place, like it is usually said to be, but nine nights at Njördr’s, then three nights at Skadi’s. The author compares that myth with the myth of Kore (Persephone), abducted by Hades in the different versions of the Homeric hymns. See his contribution, “Les nuits de Njördr et de Skadi. Notes critiques sur un chapitre de la Snorra Edda,” in John Ole Askedal, Harald Bjorvand and Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen (ed.), Festskrift til Ottar Grønvik, op. cit., pp. 174–182, and his translation of the Edda (L’Edda. Récits de mythologie nordique, Gallimard, Paris 1991, p. 55, and note p. 165). It should be noted that the god Njördr also has nine daughters, the eldest is called Rodhveig and the youngest is called Krippvör.
[←222 ]
Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiæ Pontificum, IV, 26–27. For Otto Sigfrid Reuter (Germanische Himmelskunde. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Geistes, J. F. Lehmanns, München 1934), the expression post novem annos should rather be understood as meaning an eight-year cycle. According to the testimony of the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg (975–1018), solemn sacrifices also took place every nine years in Lethra, Zeeland (Chronicon Thietmari Merseburgensis).
[←223 ]
Les dieux et la religion des Germains, op. cit., p. 247. The book the author mentions is Helge Ljungberg’s, Den nordiska religionen och kristendomen. Studier över det nordiska religionsskiftet under vikingatiden, H. Geber, Stockholm 1938.
[←224 ]
L’Edda poétique, op. cit., p. 533, translation by Régis Boyer.
[←225 ]
Ibid., p. 537.
[←226 ]
See François-Xavier Dillmann, “Nornen,” in Reallexikon der Germanische Altertumskunde, 2nd ed., vol. 21, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2002, pp. 388–394; Karen Bek-Pedersen, The Norns in Old Norse Mythology, Dunedin Academic Press, Edinburgh 2011.
[←227 ]
L’Edda poétique, op. cit., p. 217.
[←228 ]
La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens, op. cit., p. 1. See also Jean Haudry, “Les trois cieux,” in Etudes indo-européennes, January 1982, pp. 23–48; “Les âges du monde, les trois fonctions et la religion cosmique des Indo-Européens,” in Etudes indo-européennes, 1990, pp. 99–121.
[←229 ]
The Proto-Indo-European word for “diurnal sky,” *dyéw-, both led to the word for “sky” and for “day,” and by extension to the word for “god” *deyw-ó-, literally “of the diurnal sky.” This etymon is also found in the names of Jūpiter, Zeús, the Vedic Dyau and the Irish Dag-da, who are originally deified diurnal skies.
[←230 ]
See Lokamanya Bāl Gangādhar Tilak, Origine polaire de la tradition védique. Nouvelles clés pour l’interprétation de nombreux textes et légendes védiques, Archè, Milano 1979.
[←231 ]
Jean Haudry, La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens, op. cit., p. 285.
[←232 ]
Tacitus confirms that the Germanic people knew only three seasons: spring, summer and winter.
[←233 ]
Philippe Jouët, Dictionnaire de la mythologie et de la religion celtiques, Yoran embanner, Fouesnant 2012, p. 93. From the same author: Etudes de symbolisme celtique. Rythmes et nombres, Label LN, Ploudalmézeau 2012. Franz Rolf Schröder’s article cited by Philippe Jouët was published in Gymnasium, LXVI, 1956, pp. 57 ff. The author demonstrates, in particular by using a notation in Mycenaean (era), that the name Hera comes from the old Indo-European word for year.
[←234 ]
On the Indo-European denominations for year, see also Lenka Dockalová and Václav Blažek, “The Indo-European Year,” in The Journal of Indo-European Studies, autumn-winter 2011, pp. 414–495.
[←235 ]
La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens, op. cit., p. 3. See also Jean Haudry, “Héra,” in Etudes indo-européennes, 6, September 1983, pp. 17–46; “Héra (suite),” in Etudes indo-européennes, 7, February 1984, pp. 1–28; “Les Heures,” in Etudes indo-européennes, 18, September 1986, pp. 1–14. In the Greek religion, Zeus is also the spouse of Leto, which represents the Night. This is confirmed by her Nychia epithet. From that union were birthed Artemis, a lunar divinity, and Apollo, a solar divinity. It should be noted that it took Leto to give birth (this is the yearly “long night”) and that, on an inscription from Tenea, Apollo is said to be the “boss of the Hours” (ōromédōn).
[←236 ]
Janus is actually made of the Indo-European divine fire, which explains his relationship with the Vesta. Haudry clarifies that his connection to the year “can be coming from an ancient homology like the one established by the Upanishads between the ‘way of gods’ and the ascending part of the year, the ‘fathers’ way’” (“La préhistoire de Janus,” in Revue des études latines, 2005 [2006], p. 53). The link between Janus and the beginning of the astronomical year should be tied together with the link between the Latvian Janis and the summer solstice. See Jean Haudry, Le feu dans la tradition indo-européenne, Archè, Milano 2017.
[←237 ]
In several Slavic languages, the term for year can also refer to the spring: jaro “spring” in Slovakian, jaro in Czech, jar in Old Polish, jar in Serbo-Croatian, jara or jaru in Old Russian, jar in Ukrainian, same meaning. See also Jarilo from the Belarusian folklore, who’s an ancient god of the spring revival.
[←238 ]
Les runes, op. cit., p. 51.
[←239 ]
The rune 2 on the other hand is somewhat similar to the Chinese ideogram tchōng, which precisely means “middle.” One could also find some connection with the symbol of the double-bitted axe.
[←240 ]
The Chinese also kept in memory the use of an ancient subdivision of the year in twenty-four tsieki.
[←241 ]
It was not adopted in France until the Revolution, on the 5th October, 1793.
[←242 ]
See Alexander A. Gurshtein, “Did the Pre-Indo-Europeans Influence the Formation of the Western Zodiac?,” in The Journal of Indo-European Studies, spring-summer 2005, pp. 103–150. The author demonstrates that the former “zodiac square,” where Gemini corresponded to the spring equinox, Virgo corresponded to the summer solstice, Sagittarius to the fall equinox and Pisces to the winter solstice, is linked to the Indo-European myth of the divine Twins “bringing back” in the spring the Daughter of the Sun that went missing in the winter. See also Eric P. Hamp, “The Principal (?) Indo-European Constellations,” in Proceedings of the Eleventh International Congress of Linguistics, Il Mulino, Bologna 1974, pp. 1047–1055.
[←243 ]
Jere Fleck, “Odin’s Self-Sacrifice — A New Interpretation,” in Scandinavian Studies, spring 1971, pp. 119–142, and autumn 1971, pp. 385–413.
[←244 ]
Herman Wirth (Der Aufgang der Menschheit. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Religion, Symbolik und Schrift der Atlantisch-Nordischen Rasse, Diederichs, Jena 1928; Die heilige Urschrift der Menschheit, Koehler u. Amelang, Leipzig 1931–1935) saw in the runes symbols that referred to celestial bodies or constellations as early as the Magdalenian. Some similar speculations have been suggested by Otto Sigfrid Reuter, Germanische Himmelskunde. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Geistes, op. cit., a book that is remarkably documented by the way. See also Franz Dornseiff, Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie, B. G. Teubner, Leipzig 1922; Rudolf Drößler, Als die Sterne Götter waren. Sonne, Mond und Sterne im Spiegel von Archäologie, Kunst und Kult, Prisma, Leipzig 1976; Gert Meier, Und das Wort ward Schrif
t. Von der Spracharchäologie zur Archäologie der Ideogramme. Ein Beitrag zur Entstehung des Alphabets, Haupt, Bern 1991; Elémire Zolla, Uscite dal mondo, Adelphi, Milano 1992 (“Le rune e lo zodiac,” pp. 145–173). One can also refer to “Sternbilder — Tierkreisbilder” du Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. 9, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1938–41, pp. 596–690.
[←245 ]
Jean Vertemont and Jean-Gabriel Foucaud, Runes et chamanisme, Véga, Paris 2008, p. 63. See also Jean Vertemont, “Runes et astérismes védiques,” in Antaios, winter 1995, pp. 116–122; “Les runes et le zodiaque à 24 divisions,” in Antaios, winter 1999, pp. 146–152.
Runes and the Origins of Writing Page 16
