Hey Michael !
Jim
Its all Kilkenny with you.
Jim
Jim
"Jim" <stone...@softcom.net> wrote in message
news:aeidnZu8-PaBkWnb...@softcom.net...
> You overlooked Tuathmhumhan---Thomond.
>
> Its all Kilkenny with you.
>
> Jim
>
Richard de Clare, not Richard de Kilkenny.
Mairtin O'Druachain
Some powerful Druids came from Tuathmhumham, were invited to the Rock
of Cashel by the King of Munster, and were granted land by him in the
Comeragh Mountains of the Deise. And they survived.
You're psychic to mention that just now.
Mairtin O'Druachain
Michael is not of Kilkenny, I may be.
Jim
"Mairtin O'Druachain" <Drui...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1190403405.3...@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
I converse with people in Thomond. People linked to the old Ballyally.
They say good things about the reclusive ones to the four directions from
them.
Jim
Jim
I'm not knocking Kilkenny. Just trying to get a rise out of Michael. I miss
talking with him.
P.S. I'm really enjoying your posts. I prefer substantive writing like yours
to the empty fluff
that appears on ARD, i.e. the American expert nonsense. :-)
I tend to pick on Christians but only in the American fundamentalist case.
All my relatives in your country are Catholics and the absolute salt of the
earth.
Jim
Mairtin O'Druachain
> "Mairtin O'Druachain" <DruidE...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Kilkenny, Cill Chainnigh = The Church of Canice, the most modern name
for here, coming from 597 A.D. when the missionary Canice arrived with
a Christian Army and the Druids fought to the death above on the
Mound, where St. Canice's Cathedral with Round Tower stands
majestically today (built by the Normans), here was the last of the
Irish Druid Order.
It took 220 years since the days of St. Kieran, 377 AD to the
onslaught of St. Canice in 597 AD to 'convert' Kilkenny and the People
of the Osrai, and then by bloody force of arms as the Osrai fought to
the death against Christian armies pouring into Kilkenny from all over
Ireland.
Canice went to seminary with Colmcille, and Canice was the son of a
Filidh of Donegal. To this day there is a dustrust of Donegal people
in these parts.
Strangely, Kilkenny (The Diocese of Ossory) went on to be the most
Loyal Catholic part of Ireland, was seat to the Catholic Conferation
of Kilkenny (The Irish Parliament of the Normans and native Irish) and
capital of Ireland until Cromwell came to bloodily put an end to their
Royalist resistance in 1649 A.D.
In Druidic times, The Kingdom of the Osrai, or Usrai = The Kingdom of
the People of the Serpent (probably meaning Dragon). In Urmhumhan
(East Munster) then, anglicised to Ormonde. Since the Normans came, in
Leinster.
Became the greatest Norman City of all in Ireland. In ancient times
always swung between supporting the King of Leinster or Munster as it
suited them, always inveterate enemies of the King of Meath (Midhe)
where Tara lies.
Jim
Years ago my teacher said he was pretty sure that the Irish Druids were
called Dragons.
aine
YES!! They were. Which is why I named my son Talon, for the Dragon and
the Red Dragon is is birth spirit guide.
Most of us know that the Celts held the head as sacred. When in
battle, it was written (somewhere sorry) that they drank a bit of
blood from the Fallen Warriors (I believe their own) from the head to
take in the Fallen Warriors greatness and battle experience. A bit of
their spirit.
Which is why I asked here somewhere recently but was never answered,
if possibly this could be where the term Vampire came from or Dracula?
Not sure how I put it.
aine
>
> - Show quoted text -
Take Dracula out..I already know how that name came about. I meant
Vampires in general.
Jim
"aine" <aine_n...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1190414346.8...@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
Try Draco. :-)
odub...@comcast.net
Druids may have been known as adders but not as dragons. Dragon was a
nickname for Irish warriors. The Druids themselves liked to call
themselves "swineherds" (for obvious reasons). :-)
> Most of us know that the Celts held the head as sacred. When in
> battle, it was written (somewhere sorry) that they drank a bit of
> blood from the Fallen Warriors (I believe their own) from the head to
> take in the Fallen Warriors greatness and battle experience. A bit of
> their spirit.
>
> Which is why I asked here somewhere recently but was never answered,
> if possibly this could be where the term Vampire came from or Dracula?
> Not sure how I put it.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
It's not where the idea of vampires comes from. Drinking blood from a
fallen hero or relative is an old Irish and European custom. It's also
have bonds and oaths are instigated. Using the head as a drinking cup
by Celts or drinking from a head is considered to be taking in the
soul or spirit of the fallen. That is why so many sacred wells are
said to have heads within them.
Searles O'Dubhain
1X2Willows
> On Sep 21, 6:36 pm, aine <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sep 21, 1:48 pm, "Jim" <stonelo...@softcom.net> wrote:
>> > Years ago my teacher said he was pretty sure that the Irish Druids were
>> > called Dragons.
>>
>> YES!! They were. Which is why I named my son Talon, for the Dragon and
>> the Red Dragon is is birth spirit guide.
>>
>
> Druids may have been known as adders but not as dragons. Dragon was a
> nickname for Irish warriors. The Druids themselves liked to call
> themselves "swineherds" (for obvious reasons). :-)
>
>> Most of us know that the Celts held the head as sacred. When in
>> battle, it was written (somewhere sorry) that they drank a bit of
>> blood from the Fallen Warriors (I believe their own) from the head to
>> take in the Fallen Warriors greatness and battle experience. A bit of
>> their spirit.
>>
>> Which is why I asked here somewhere recently but was never answered,
>> if possibly this could be where the term Vampire came from or Dracula?
>> Not sure how I put it.
>
> fallen hero or relative is an old Irish and European custom. It's also
> have bonds and oaths are instigated. Using the head as a drinking cup
> by Celts or drinking from a head is considered to be taking in the
> soul or spirit of the fallen. That is why so many sacred wells are
> said to have heads within them.
>
> Searles O'Dubhain
>
FWIW, I concur with the Gentleman's opinion based on my own
experience and research. Mostly, not 100% but largely.
Dan
1X2Willows
. [....]
> There you go - any use? No connection with Celtic speaking people though.
>
> Kevin
Hey... how about them Celtic Glasgow soccer players?
:-Dan
aine
> On Sep 21, 6:36 pm, aine <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Years ago my teacher said he was pretty sure that the Irish Druids were
> > > called Dragons.
>
> > YES!! They were. Which is why I named my son Talon, for the Dragon and
> > the Red Dragon is is birth spirit guide.
>
> Druids may have been known as adders but not as dragons. Dragon was a
> nickname for Irish warriors. The Druids themselves liked to call
> themselves "swineherds" (for obvious reasons). :-)
Either is good. He was born with the caul over his head and after
being checked out as healthy, the nurses and Doctor said except he has
a long snake tongue.
As an infant he use to hang it out and point it. Damdest thing. To
this day he can whip that thing out and stick it up his nose. He
grosses people out in cold season.
Still I swear I saw they said Druids were Dragons. Would make sense as
well why some Kings had Dragon banners if the Druids advised the
Kings? Or why so many references to waking the Dragons? I don't know.
> > Most of us know that the Celts held the head as sacred. When in
> > battle, it was written (somewhere sorry) that they drank a bit of
> > blood from the Fallen Warriors (I believe their own) from the head to
> > take in the Fallen Warriors greatness and battle experience. A bit of
> > their spirit.
>
> > Which is why I asked here somewhere recently but was never answered,
> > if possibly this could be where the term Vampire came from or Dracula?
> > Not sure how I put it.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> It's not where the idea of vampires comes from. Drinking blood from a
> fallen hero or relative is an old Irish and European custom. It's also
> have bonds and oaths are instigated. Using the head as a drinking cup
> by Celts or drinking from a head is considered to be taking in the
> soul or spirit of the fallen. That is why so many sacred wells are
> said to have heads within them.
Think about it though. Even if Vlad tortured people or however the
Dracula story went to name him..the drinking of blood always falls
back to the thought of bats that do. As if it were never heard of by
people that warriors did. If it was such an accepted practice back
then why is vampirism seen as so fictional?
Isn't a vampire feeding off the life force as a warrior did? I really
think there is something that connects it all somewhere.
>
> Searles O'Dubhain- Hide quoted text -
aine
> In Druidic times, The Kingdom of the Osrai, or Usrai = The Kingdom of
> the People of the Serpent (probably meaning Dragon). In Urmhumhan
> (East Munster) then, anglicised to Ormonde. Since the Normans came, in
> Leinster.
Sorry. I did not see this post about serpent/dragon. This explains
alot.
I am having Google problems again. Many are not even showing when I
click on them or say deleted.
aine
> "aine" <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
I did not like Draco as well. Talon was unique and he could apply it
to any bird of prey so I did not trap him into one personality all of
his life. Right after he was born the first Harry Potter movie came
out on DVD. I was glad I did not choose Draco.
Kevin
Hmm! I'm not sure that warriors could be said to feed off the life force.
Kill, yes. Have rituals involving blood - maybe. But feeding off the life
force for sustenance? That's something else altogether.
The earliest vampire related legends would involve the death of newborns and
pregnant women - the usual way of characterising sudden, unexpected fatal
illness. That turns up as a feature of a number of other vampiric legends.
Then you've got the whole connection with the dead, which following various
strands back to antiquity connects with ancient Greek ideas of the forces of
chaos opposing the gods, which in Roman myth were responsible, via the Roman
idea of witches (who obeyed neither the laws or gods or human society), for
sudden unexpected death and plagues. The most notable Roman witch, Erictho,
was effectively antilife - her very presence sterilised seeds. You might say
that she sucked the life out of them.
Just a few notions off the top of my head - however, highly unlikely in that
case to be connected to warriors, since warriors frequently used things like
amulets invoking a deity's power to avert illness, death in battle and so
on.
Kevin
1X2Willows
"Kevin" <laig...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:fd21ci$f1t$1...@aioe.org...
Sure. That one. What's possibly wrong with it?
Dan
1X2Willows
> [....]
> since warriors frequently used things like amulets invoking a deity's
> power to avert illness, death in battle and so on.
Sovereignty or translated "Genus Locii" are the only ones I can
think of, in said context. Never a so-called "deity".
Dan
aine
> "aine" <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Celtic Sacrifice, Prayer, and Divination
By J. A. MacCulloch
Diodorus says the Irish ate their enemies, and Pausanias describes
the eating the flesh and drinking the blood of children among the
Galatian Celts. Drinking out of a skull the blood of slain
(sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy, and Solinus
describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood of the
slain and drinking it.[821] In some of these cases the intention may
simply have been to obtain the dead enemy's strength, but where a
sacrificial victim was concerned, the intention probably went further
than this. The blood of dead relatives was also drunk in order to
obtain their virtues, or to be brought into closer rapport with them.
[822] This is analogous to the custom of blood brotherhood, which also
existed among the Celts and continued as a survival in the Western
Isles until a late date.[823]
aine
>
> - Show quoted text -
http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/dragonlegacy.html
Book Review
The Dragon Legacy: Secret History of an Ancient Bloodline
Awfully interesting about sumerians and celts and all. Anyone know if
I am being duped on this or has this author already been mentioned?
Nicholas de Vere
1X2Willows
> http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/dragonlegacy.html
>
> Book Review
>
> The Dragon Legacy: Secret History of an Ancient Bloodline
>
> Awfully interesting about sumerians and celts and all. Anyone know if
> I am being duped on this or has this author already been mentioned?
> Nicholas de Vere
>
What are "Nicholas de Vere"s and "Joan d'Arc"s real names?
That's where it all starts...
Dan
1X2Willows
"the gnosis inherent within the words that the message conveys"
gives it away right there.
Dan
aine
wrote:
> "aine" <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote
Joan d'Arc is simply the magazine Paranoias book reviewer. It is a
book review of the Author Nicholas deVere. The Dragon Legacy. Secret
History of an Ancient Bloodline.
1X2Willows
> On Sep 21, 10:09 pm, "1X2Willows" <spambuc...@euro-celts.dot.com>
> wrote:
>> "aine" <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote
>>
>> >http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/dragonlegacy.html
>>
>> > Book Review
>>
>> > The Dragon Legacy: Secret History of an Ancient Bloodline
>>
>> > Awfully interesting about sumerians and celts and all. Anyone know if
>> > I am being duped on this or has this author already been mentioned?
>> > Nicholas de Vere
>>
>> What are "Nicholas de Vere"s and "Joan d'Arc"s real names?
>> That's where it all starts...
>>
>> Dan
>
> Joan d'Arc is simply the magazine Paranoias book reviewer.
Yes, but what is the person's real name who reviews books
under the name of "Joan d'Arc" for the Paranoia magazine?
> It is a
> book review of the Author Nicholas deVere. The Dragon Legacy. Secret
> History of an Ancient Bloodline.
jaja.
What is the author's real name?
I would bet a lot it's not "Nicholas deVere".
Dan
aine
wrote:
> "aine" <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
Okay Dan..where ya going with this? Alot of people use "ghost" names.
Dear Abby..etc. The author I do not know either but I do not know why
that would make a difference.
Mairtin O'Druachain
On Sep 22, 1:22 am, odubh...@comcast.net wrote:
> On Sep 21, 6:36 pm, aine <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 21, 1:48 pm, "Jim" <stonelo...@softcom.net> wrote:
>
> > > "Mairtin O'Druachain" <DruidE...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> > >news:1190406715.5...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> > > > In Druidic times, The Kingdom of the Osrai, or Usrai = The Kingdom of
> > > > the People of the Serpent (probably meaning Dragon). In Urmhumhan
> > > > (East Munster) then, anglicised to Ormonde. Since the Normans came, in
> > > > Leinster.
>
> > > Years ago my teacher said he was pretty sure that the Irish Druids were
> > > called Dragons.
>
> > YES!! They were. Which is why I named my son Talon, for the Dragon and
> > the Red Dragon is is birth spirit guide.
>
> Druids may have been known as adders but not as dragons. Dragon was a
> nickname for Irish warriors. The Druids themselves liked to call
> themselves "swineherds" (for obvious reasons). :-)
>
> > Most of us know that the Celts held the head as sacred. When in
> > battle, it was written (somewhere sorry) that they drank a bit of
> > blood from the Fallen Warriors (I believe their own) from the head to
> > take in the Fallen Warriors greatness and battle experience. A bit of
> > their spirit.
>
> > Which is why I asked here somewhere recently but was never answered,
> > if possibly this could be where the term Vampire came from or Dracula?
> > Not sure how I put it.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> It's not where the idea of vampires comes from. Drinking blood from a
> fallen hero or relative is an old Irish and European custom. It's also
> have bonds and oaths are instigated. Using the head as a drinking cup
> by Celts or drinking from a head is considered to be taking in the
> soul or spirit of the fallen. That is why so many sacred wells are
> said to have heads within them.
>
> Searles O'Dubhain
Yes, I agree. One of our teachers in the ODI, a native born Irish
speaker, graduate in Irish History and of course the Irish language,
college Vice-Principal and teacher for 35 years, and of a line of
Hereditary Druids (Ben McBrady was not the very last of a line of
hereditaries, there were and are others) always said that the Serpent
was venerated in Irish Druidry. When they say that Patrick "drove the
snakes out of Ireland" they actually mean that he drove the Druids
out ! This comes from Christian propaganda, for instance in the Bible
the Devil is portrayed as a snake/serpent in the Garden of Eden story,
and the Devil is always portrayed to this day, in kindergarten, by
Catholic and Protestant teachers as a serpent/snake.
There were adders in Ireland up to Christian times, just as there are
adders in parts of Britain to this day.
What happened in Ireland, as we know, is that Rome decided to conquer
us on the mind when it could not conquer us any other way. It seems
that Jesus as the son of God was not of much use as a tool of
conversion to the Irish who had their own colourful gods and giddesses
a plenty. So instead they concentrated on preaching Hellfire and
damnation - Patrick was an absolute lunatic on this sunject. It comes
through the literature time and again, Hellfore and damnation for all
eternity is preached incessantly, non-stop, day in, day out, all
across Ireland. Purgatory figures massively, as does Limbo (if the
Irish don't get their babies baptised) - and of course there is the
promise of Paradise for all eternity, but it is more a fanatical
preaching of the fire and brimstone type that the missionaries
employed all across Ireland. And all the time, the Devil who ran Hell
and who came for you if you were not 'saved' was portrayed as a
serpent - as the local adder, which indeed was the very symbol of the
Irish Druids. As a result the Irish as they were converted went out
and actually destroyed all nests of adders across the land, as actual
earthly symbols of Satan, the Devil. I do not know the actual reason
why there was such a connection between the Druids and the Serpent.
Perhaps they were used for medicinal purposes ? As the symbol today of
medics is intertwined serpents, which comes from Egyptian healing.
That's all I can offer. The monks themselves were actually terrified
of the serpent, believing even a simple adder to be of the devil,
which is why we don't read anything about the serpent in the
mythology. To this day you will not see the serpent in the art of the
Catholic Church - except where "The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of
God" crushes the Serpent under her foot as God himself promosed in the
Garden of Eden story, "I shall send a woman who shall crush the
serpent under her foot. "
Irish Christianity even back then was of the Arian/Pelagian variety,
it still is, where Irish Catholics actually believe Jesus to be of a
different substance than God the Father - and the Irish, from those
early converting missionaries have a devout actual worship of Mary to
an extent unknown anywhere else in the Catholic Church, even more
intense than Spain, Portugal or the South of France.
For the converting missionaries to Ireland preached Mary in opposition
to the Druidic Goddess/Earth Mother and made her far superior. They
made her a Goddess whom God himself would never turn down if she makes
a request for you - and that is still the practice. The Protestant
Churches (that is, "The Brits", the Anglo-Irish) have always publicly
deprecated this Teaching of the Catholic Church (to this vert day) in
Ireland, and the actual fanatisism of the Irish about Mary to this
very day as well. In fact the Irish suffered religious persecution and
oppression in the Name of Mary down through the centuries - not in the
Name of Jesus ! The Irish Catholic Church right up into the Hierarchy
is to this day completely obsessed with the veneration and worship of
Mary, and Rome has even taken it on board, Pope after Pope, from the
Irish College in Rome and all the thousands of Irish religious on
Rome, many of them important functionaries and advisers in the Vatican
down through the ages.
Anyway we were taught on the ODI by this nationally recognised Master
of the Irish language, Irish Hostory, and Irish Mythologogy and Druid
too, Seamus MacCraith of the Rinn Gaeltacht, still alive but very ill
with chronic asthma, a Founder of the ODI who stood with us for three
years running on Tara (in a suit, collar and tie!), who recited his
magnificent poetty to is and sang us his own songs over many a bottle
of whiskey, that the word 'Us' or 'Os' is the word in the Old Irish
for |Serpent, and thus Osraiocht or Usraiocht (Ossory, Kilkenny,
Ormonde) meaning "The Kingdom of the People of the Serpent, the tribe
that inhabited here being the famous 'Osrai'. Mone of the U.K./U.S.A.
Druid Orders have this, because they have no Hereditaries teaching
them - though they will now:-)
Seamus never preaches against the Church, or against any Church. In
fact he says that the young priests he was in class with at
University "had brilliant minds but they're all dull today! "
His personal address is : Seamus MacCraith B.A., H.Dip.Ed., Sean
Chill, Rinn O'gCuanach, The Rinn Gaeltacht, Dun Garbhain, Portlairge
(County Waterford), Ireland. Write to him with any intelligent queries
you may have by snail mail, as he is mostly confined to bed these days
- and have patience as he still keeps up a lot of correspondence from
his home, and depends on his daughters to mail his replies, he is not
well enough, because of the asthma, to sit at a keyboard, and he is
under doctor's advice not to, but to walk in his fields whenever he
feels well enough to do so. And he still has the whiskey, never
without it, living proof that one may drink regularly and still remain
a scholar and a gentleman. And Seamus has always sworn to us on the
ODI, as he will tell you, that Michael McGrath (Micheal MacCraith),
his Kinsman from West Waterford, is "The Appointed Hereditary" and not
he. They both descend from the MacCraith of the Clanna Bui of Sleady
Castle, Modeligo, West Waterford, Michael more directly. Many of the
Clanna Bui on turn descend from "The Scoundrel of Cashel" , Archbishop
Myler McGrath on the Rock of Cashel, who was the only man in history
to be Catholic and Protestant Archbishop of Cashel at the same time
(though as a Druid he despised both!), had several wives, 23 children,
drank a quart of whiskey a day, fought and plundered his enemies
throughout Munster, was one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, a
favourite of Elizabeth the Great, and lived to be 99 years. He in turn
was a direct descendant of the Druid Mog Roith, Founder of the Mac
Craith clan ! Another ancestor of Michael McGrath (but not of Seamus)
is An Filidh Andrias MacCraith of Thomond, known famously as The Sweet
Pedlar, "An Sugain Mongaire".
The O.D.I. has a list of 71 Hereditary Druids in Ireland (most of them
want to keep quiet about it, being in the professions in what is still
a Catholic - and Protestant ! - country). People like Gina McGarry and
Melvyn Lloyd wanted to see those lists, but Michael decided No, as he
does not know Gina or Melvyn well enough, out of respect for the
confidentiality of the persons concerned who wish to lead private
lives. For the past five years Seamus MacCraith wants to lead a
private life as well. But he will answer intelligent questions by mail
on Irish Druidry etc only, and will not answer anything of a personal
nature with respect for his family, all in the professions. If he
suspects anything of a conspiratorial nature, he will not reply at
all:-) You can of course send your queries to the ODI who will pass
them on to Seamus with recommendation.
The Hereditary and Traditional Druids of Ireland DO have great respect
for the Druids of other lands, especially Brittany and Wales who we
have been in contact with since our inception, amd Michael McGrath
alone has developed great and friendly relationship with the English
Druids, that saw its height when we declared The Peace of Tara
together between Ireland and England on the Hill of Tara, Midsummer
Day, 1997, attended by 700 people to that purpose, with a Great Circle
of 150 Druids, reported in all the Irish media - you can still see the
photographs for free in the archives of The Irish Independent, 22nd
June 1997. Contact: http://www.unison.ie or just google Irish
Independent ( Ireland's mass circulation daily newspaper, Dublin).
Photographs and report also in The Irish Examiner, also in The Irish
Times, but the latter want ten euros for a day's membership/access to
their archives as Kent recently discovered. Pity, as The Irish Times
has, down through the years the best coverage of the ODI of all Irish
national newspapers, it also being the Intellectuals' breakfast table
choice.
Re: Dragon, I don't know. I believe that the Druidic title 'Pendragon'
in all of today's Druidic Orders (except the ODI where the Office
doesn't exist)) comes from the Welsh word Pen, meaning Head or Chief,
and Dragon meaning a file or a line, thus Chief of the Line. And, as
Searles says, Dragon has to do with warrior - in Wales ! As the
Pendragon of a Druid Order is, amongst other things, charged with
maintaining discipline and physical defending the Order when it came
under attack in ancienbt times. Looks like they did a bad job :-)
Mairtin O'Druachain
>
> Diodorus says the Irish ate their enemies, and Pausanias describes
> the eating the flesh and drinking the blood of children among the
> Galatian Celts. Drinking out of a skull the blood of slain
> (sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy, and Solinus
> describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood of the
> slain and drinking it.[821] In some of these cases the intention may
> simply have been to obtain the dead enemy's strength, but where a
> sacrificial victim was concerned, the intention probably went further
> than this. The blood of dead relatives was also drunk in order to
> obtain their virtues, or to be brought into closer rapport with them.
> [822] This is analogous to the custom of blood brotherhood, which also
> existed among the Celts and continued as a survival in the Western
> Isles until a late date.[823]
Aone, those classicists were describing the ancient Celts of Gaul, not
the Irish.
1X2Willows
Nomen est Omen
aine
>
> - Show quoted text -
So the Gauls were the Head Kults?
aine
>To this day you will not see the serpent in the art of the
> Catholic Church - except where "The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of
> God" crushes the Serpent under her foot as God himself promosed in the
> Garden of Eden story, "I shall send a woman who shall crush the
> serpent under her foot. "<
Oh the cleverness of....
Hmmm. My Life has suddenly become The Da vinci Code. I don't think
there is any joking my way out of this.
Thank-you for all the information. I really do appreciate it. Very,
very much.
1X2Willows
Now that, I can confirm.
Valid to the present day.
Irish Catholes preferred.
Dan
Kevin
news:fd25gc$2t2$1...@news.albasani.net...
Wheel symbols. Definitely the attribute of a god.
Mind you, genius loci was the term the Romans used when they didn't know
what to call the spirit or deity at a shrine.
Kevin
Kevin
Kevin
The Maoris also ate their enemies, but from their POV - as explained to me
by a Maori - "well, there's not a lot of huntable meat in New Zealnd. After
a battle there was all this meat lying around, and it seemed a shame to let
it go to waste!" :-) He also taught me how to cook someone. :-) At the time,
there were still folk amongst his people who could remember eating people
and the method fo how to do it was still traditional knowledge.
Eating the bodies of the dead is a bit different from a vampire feeding off
the life essence. A lot of cultures do the former in order to keep the
attributes of someone in the family or, as you point out, to bring them into
closer rapport with their spirit. However, the essential point is that the
individual is already dead, i.e. the essence of life has already fled. Same
with drinking the blood of a *dead* enemy, or drinking something from the
skull of a dead enemy. OTOH, the essential point about a vampire is that
they extract the essence of life from the *living*, eventually making them
dead - they don't eat the dead to extract the life essence, because there is
none in the dead, nor do they drink the blood of the dead.
Now you might have a case if Celtic warriors descended on a struggled,
living enemy and sucked all the blood out of him till he was dead, but I'm
not aware of them doing that. :-)
As for sacrificial victims, by analogy with sacrificial animals, the
sacrifice was offered to the gods, with people taking the bits the gods
didn't take by right (e.g. Rome, India, since we don't know much on Celtic
attitudes about sacrfice). There isn't any consumption of an animal's spirit
in animal sacrifices - just its meat. For the purposes of sacrifices, I
don't see why people should be seen in a different light from animals that
were sacrificed.
And of course, eating your enemies makes for a good terror tactic.
Kevin
Kevin
Well, there are references in the sources to Irish warriors collecting
heads.
Kevin
Kevin
Mulling it a bit more, it might be described as the biological difference
between a predator and a parasite. A parasite may cause the death of its
host, but that isn't its purpose, and in fact parasites co-evolve with hosts
to keep them alive until the parasite can reproduce, or else (in the case of
some insect parasites) hijack the nervous system to get the organism into a
position where the parasite can reproduce (e.g. turning an ant bright red,
getting it to climb a stem where it can easily be seen by a predator which
is the parasite's next host, then locking the ant's legs round the stem so
that it is immobile and served up as a meal for the predator).
Parasites otherwise want the host alive, because a dead host is no good to
the parasite - there's nothing it can feed off, and it would have to move to
another host. In short, it needs a living body to provide it with things
that only a living body can provide. If the body of the host dies, it
discards it since it is of no further use.
A predator, OTOH, is just after the meat. It's not too fussed if it has
killed something, or whether something else has killed something, or whether
the animal has died of natural causes. It's got to be dead - a predator has
no interest in keeping an organism alive, nor in any of the products of an
organism that continues to live. It does have a very high interest in a dead
body though.
It's just a functional comparison, and doesn't take into account cultural
practices. However, one could definitely say that a vampire falls into the
category of a parasite.
It is also interesting to note that a lot of causes of vampires seem to
arise from going against the norms of society, and thus of whatever gods
that society believes in - suicide, impiety and so on. this is unlikely to
apply to warriors in, for example, Ireland where victory in battle is an
indication of the king maintaining the laws of the gods aka firenne. The
same mindset, BTW, is seen in Republican Rome - when they lose a series of
battles, they start wondering if they've ticked off the gods. Such
communities are therefore not going to consider doing practices which they
believe lie in opposition to 'natural law'.
In the case of the modern vampire myth, it would be difficult if not
impossible to make a connection with Celtic-speaking people, since the
modern one largely arises from Slavic culture. The only Irishman involved
was Bram Stoker. Not surprisingly, he had spent eight years researching
European folklore - to be more accurate, it may be better to say that the
modern myth is exclusively Balkan, since it includes Greek and Slav elements
(probably Serbian). There have been sporadic accounts of British vampires,
most predating Stoker. Though these largely seem to be the dead getting out
of coffins and attacking the living, they miss out chunks of the modern
myth. One wonders how these would square with ideas in Ireland and Scotland,
and the notion of putting out food for the dead at Samhain. There may have
been an similar ancient idea that has since got submerged, but it probably
had its roots in the idea of Samhain being one of the dangerous times of the
year, when unhuman forces were abroad. Samhain was not, however the only
time such forces were abroad:
"The mouth of the night is the choice hour of the Sluath, the Host of the
Dead, whose feet never touch the earth, as they go drifting in the wind till
the Day of Burning; of the Fuath, the Spirit of Terror that frightens folk
out of the husk of their hearts; of the Washer, who sits with herself in the
twilight; of the slim green-coated ones, the Water-Horse, and what not. The
light that is shadowless, colourless, softer than moonlight, is ever the
light of their liking. At the mouth of the night, along the water-courses by
ways that at the hour of dusk and of lateness you had best be shunning, you
are like to meet them; to west of houses they past - what to do, who shall
say? Their ways being nowise human.""
Amy Murray, "Father Allan's Island"
Kevin
Kevin
"At the mouth of the night, between daylight and dark, come abroad ill
things to meet, from out of the earth, from out of the air, from out of the
water and the Underworld . . . But the mouth of the night is the choice hour
of the Sluagh, the Host of the Dead, whose feet never touch on earth as they
go drifting on the wind till the Day of Burning; of the Fuath, the Spirit of
Terror, that frightens folk out of the husk of their hearts; of the Washer,
who sits at the ford with herself in the twilight; of the green-coated ones,
the Water-Horse, and whatnot. The light that is shadowless, colourless,
softer than moonlight, is ever the light of their liking. At the mouth of
the night, along the water courses, by ways that at the hour of dusk and
lateness you had best be shunning you are like to meet them; to the west of
houses they pass - what to do, who shall say? their ways being nowise
human."
Kevin
Jim
How about Draconis
aine
Mairtin when I Google in Mary and get Mary Magdalene, I come up with
alot of references to Blue Rose. Especially The Order of the Blue
Rose.
I have Googled *Blue Rose* for years now and it never referred to Mary
Magdelene or any of this information or possibly it is pages and pages
down the line and I never saw it.
Not being in the mindset to know this history or apply it to my life
before, I was wondering if you knew if this was true. About the Blue
Rose and Mary?
Thank-you. I have had fitful sleep. I hope that made sense.
Kevin
> On Sep 21, 10:53 pm, Mairtin O'Druachain <DruidE...@gmail.com> wrote:
If Mairtin is a historian, then I'm Coco the clown.
>> When they say that Patrick "drove the
>> snakes out of Ireland" they actually mean that he drove the Druids
>> out !
Hardly controversial. I remarked on that over10 years ago.
>> This comes from Christian propaganda, for instance in the Bible
>> the Devil is portrayed as a snake/serpent in the Garden of Eden story,
The serpent is not the Devil, though the two are often conflated. Nowhere in
Genesis does it say that the serpent is the Devil and you won't find a
theologian to argue for that identification. The most they might say is that
in popular thinking, the serpent as the tempter, became identified with
Satan, even though the Bible does not make that equation.
OTOH you will always find some numbskull who took a correspondence course
with some Southern Baptist college and got a 'degree' in theology that isn't
worth the paper it is photocopied on - they'll argue that the serpent and
the Devil are one and the same. There arguments tend to be along the lines
of "well, what the Bible meant to say . . . " or "well, what the Bible
really says is . . . " They're the same folks who argue that the Bible is
the immutable Word of God, so why they go putting words into God's mouth is
beyond me. :-)
>> There were adders in Ireland up to Christian times, just as there are
>> adders in parts of Britain to this day.
Absolute hogwash, balderdash and piffle! Ask any biologist. There aren't any
vipers in ireland because of the last Ice Age. The landbridge between
Britain and Ireland broke before it was warm enough for them to get there
and survive. This is hardly new knowledge.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/NewsEvents/irelandsnakes.cfm
>> What happened in Ireland, as we know, is that Rome decided to conquer
>> us on the mind when it could not conquer us any other way.
Rubbish! Patrick died some time in the first half of the fifth century. By
that time the capital of the western Empire was at Ravenna, as any historian
with a passing interest in the period would know - not Rome.
"In 402, Emperor Honorius transferred the capital of the Western Roman
Empire from Milan to Ravenna. The transfer was made primarily for defensive
purposes: Ravenna was surrounded by swamps and marshes and had ease of
access to Imperial forces of the Eastern Roman Empire."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenna
By 410 AD Britain was outside what was left of the crumbling Western
Empire - it had been cut off on several occasions by a succession of British
usurpers. Between 455 AD and 475 AD the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the
Franks took power in Gaul. In 476 AD the last Western Emperor, Romulus
Augustus, was deposed by Odoacer, who sent the imperial regalia to
Constantinople. In 486 AD a Frankish army under Clovis I defeated the Romans
under Syagrius (the last magister militum per Gallias) at the Battle of
Soissons, which marks the point where Gaul comes under Merovingian rule and
modern France starts to evolve. Syagrius governed a Gallo-Roman enclave, the
Kingdom of the Gallo-Romans, as dux following the collapse of central rule.
The Kingdom of the Gallo-Romans was a rump state - all that was left of the
Western Roman Empire in Gaul - or by then, pretty much anywhere.
The Western Empire was therefore not only not considering conquering
anyone - it was falling apart at the seams to form the successor states.
The Bishop of Rome gained political as well as religious importance since
Constantine, but he was for a long time under the thumb of the Emperor in
Constantinople. Rome remained nominally part of the Byzantine Empire until
751 AD when the Lombards finally abolished the Exarchate of Ravenna. In the
5th century the Eastern Roman empire (the Byzantine Empire) wasn't about to
do anything really major for another 100 years, and even then Ireland wasn't
even in their sights. Justinian (527-565 AD) was far more concerned about
reconquering the bits of the collapsed Western Empire that surrounded the
Mediterranean - it is doubtful that he even considered Britain, let alone
conquering bits of the world that had never been in the Empire. In 756 AD
Pippin the Short gave the pope temporal jurisdiction over Rome and
surrounding areas, thus creating the Papal States.
Shortly after Patrick's time however, the best that Constantiople could
manage was Leo's abortive attempt to reconquer Africa in 468 AD, and Zeno
sending the Ostrogothic leader Theoderic to Italy in the 490s to govern as
his magister militum. By about that time, Britain - let alone Ireland - had
become so unknown round the Med that there were fanciful accounts of it,
even though we have evidence for trade between Cornwall and the Med after
410 AD.
Rome therefore did not "decide to conquer" Ireland because by then Rome
wasn't the capital of the Western Empire, and the Western Empire was falling
apart and was thus not in any shape for conquering anyone. It ceased to
exist not long after Patrick's death. The Eastern Empire couldn't have cared
less - it was only interested in beating the crap out of those that
threatened its borders, and in reclaiming what used to be the Western Empire
for itself. Even so, its plans for reconquering the Western Empire do not
seem to have included Britain, let alone extended to Ireland. There appears
to be no mention of Ireland in any of the contemporary Byzantine documents
that have come down to us, so they may not have even been officially aware
of the island.
The Church did however decide to have a go at converting people - not just
the Irish, but also the Saxons and other groups - but they really did
believe that they knew the truth and that they had an obligation to spread
the Word.
As for being unable to conquer the Irish any other way - the Romans never
tried. The most you got was, centuries earlier, Agricola considering that it
could be done with one legion. Other than that, the Romans don't appear to
have been very interested in the place. Incidentally, the Romans did have
heavy cavalry - cataphracti. Heavy cavalry wasn't an invention of the
Normans - the medieval European heavy cavalry developed from the Roman use
of cataphracti. In fact the Roman tactics seem to have been very much more
disciplined that the later tactics of medieval knights, and was often
supported by cataphract archers. They would therefore quite probably have
been more effective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphracti
One such unit consisted of 2,500 Sarmatians stationed in Britain in the 2nd
century. They stayed there after their term of service ended.
A historian with an interest in the period would know all of this, and would
certainly research it if he was going to venture an opinion.
>> So instead they concentrated on preaching Hellfire and
>> damnation - Patrick was an absolute lunatic on this sunject.
Patrick was no worse than any other Christian of the period.
>> It comes through the literature time and again,
The only reliable account of Patrick is in the two works accepted to have
been written by him - Confessio and the Epistola (Letter to Coroticus). Of
course these days it is widely accepted by historians, following O'Rahilly,
that many of the traditions later attached to Saint Patrick originally
concerned Palladius, a deacon from Gaul who came to Ireland. This agrees
with Prosper of Aquitaine's contemporary chronicle:
"Palladius was ordained by Pope Celestine and sent to the Irish believers in
Christ as their first bishop."
Prosper associates this with the visits of Germanus of Auxerre to Britain to
suppress the Pelagian heresy. The appointment of Palladius and his
fellow-bishops does not appear to have been a mission to convert the Irish,
but was instead probably intended to minister to existing Christian
communities in Ireland. That's hardly "conquering." Again, a historian
interested in the period would be aware of all of this.
>> As a result the Irish as they were converted went out
>> and actually destroyed all nests of adders across the land, as actual
>> earthly symbols of Satan, the Devil.
I am gobsmacked at this. Not only is there unequivocally absolutely no
evidence for this, there weren't any adders in Ireland for converts to
destroy. The Ice Age had seen to that.
>> I do not know the actual reason
>> why there was such a connection between the Druids and the Serpent.
The same connection existed in Cornwall and Wales. There is some evidence to
suggest that the connection existed in Scotland. I could, with very little
difficulty, make a connection via the iconography to central beliefs. A
historian interested in the subject would note that serpent symbolism is not
unknown in Romano-Celtic iconography and is based upon indigenous motifs,
and not on Classical themes.
>> As the symbol today of medics is intertwined serpents, which comes from
>> Egyptian healing.
A historian would be aware that the caduceus was Greek, and was the symbol
of Hermes, the messenger of the gods. It is not Egyptian. A non-historian
with any wit would Google it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus
Hermes has his roots in the Minoan ermaas (the Mycenaean phase if I recall),
which were roughly phallically shaped stones. However, the caduceus is *not*
the symbol of medicine - the rod of Asclepius is the correct symbol -
although the two are frequently confused, even by the medical profession:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius
It has been suggested that this confusion may have arisen because Hermes,
whose symbol the caduceus is, was the deity associated with alchemy, and
alchemy became associated with medicine by the 16th century. It might
however be better to say that the two have been confused on many occasions
for different reasons.
>> Irish Christianity even back then was of the Arian/Pelagian variety,
It is not surprising that Irish Christianity was Pelagian - Pelagius was
either British or Irish, the Catholic Church regarded Britain and Ireland as
the origin of the Pelagian heresy (it is still called the English heresy by
the Church), and it may well have been a fusion of indigenous ideas and
Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagius
On the subject of his origins:
"While the most trustworthy witnesses, such as Augustine, Orosius, Prosper,
and Marius Mercator, are quite explicit in assigning Britain as his native
country, as is apparent from his cognomen of Brito or Britannicus, Jerome
(Praef. in Jerem., lib. I and III) ridicules him as a "Scot" (loc. cit.,
"habet enim progeniem Scoticae gentis de Britannorum vicinia"), who being
"stuffed with Scottish porridge" (Scotorum pultibus proegravatus) suffers
from a weak memory."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm
'Scotti' being the Latin term for the Irish back then.
It is therefore highly probable that Irish Christianity - and British
Christianity - was therefore Pelagian from the first. To say that it was
Pelagian "even back then" implies that there was a point when it was not
Pelagian.
Kevin
aine
> "aine" <aine_nicne...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Curiosity..Why could they have not been brought in by ship? WA State
is not exactly home to Boas, Pythons and the like of exotic
animals...yet..here we have them. Brought in, breed, escape and live
they do.
aine
>
> news:1190486327.7...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Sep 21, 10:53 pm, Mairtin O'Druachain <DruidE...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If Mairtin is a historian, then I'm Coco the clown.
>
> >> When they say that Patrick "drove the
> >> snakes out of Ireland" they actually mean that he drove the Druids
> >> out !
>
> Hardly controversial. I remarked on that over10 years ago.
>
> >> This comes from Christian propaganda, for instance in the Bible
> >> the Devil is portrayed as a snake/serpent in the Garden of Eden story,
>
> The serpent is not the Devil, though the two are often conflated. Nowhere in
> Genesis does it say that the serpent is the Devil and you won't find a
> theologian to argue for that identification. The most they might say is that
> in popular thinking, the serpent as the tempter, became identified with
> Satan, even though the Bible does not make that equation.
>
> OTOH you will always find some numbskull who took a correspondence course
> with some Southern Baptist college and got a 'degree' in theology that isn't
> worth the paper it is photocopied on - they'll argue that the serpent and
> the Devil are one and the same. There arguments tend to be along the lines
> of "well, what the Bible meant to say . . . " or "well, what the Bible
> really says is . . . " They're the same folks who argue that the Bible is
> the immutable Word of God, so why they go putting words into God's mouth is
> beyond me. :-)
Ask 10 people who the serpent is in the Bible..10 people even pagans
would say the Devil. Even reading the Bible I was led to believe it
was the Devil so, maybe in direct sense it was not stated but they did
a great job of wordplay.
If I was going to bring it up, I would equate the serpent with the
Devil to appeal to the understanding of the masses.
In the middle here I am. I see your point yet I see Mairtins in saying
it the way he did.
> The Church did however decide to have a go at converting people - not just
> the Irish, but also the Saxons and other groups - but they really did
> believe that they knew the truth and that they had an obligation to spread
> the Word.
>
> As for being unable to conquer the Irish any other way - the Romans never
> tried. The most you got was, centuries earlier, Agricola considering that it
> could be done with one legion. Other than that, the Romans don't appear to
> have been very interested in the place. Incidentally, the Romans did have
> heavy cavalry - cataphracti. Heavy cavalry wasn't an invention of the
> Normans - the medieval European heavy cavalry developed from the Roman use
> of cataphracti. In fact the Roman tactics seem to have been very much more
> disciplined that the later tactics of medieval knights, and was often
> supported by cataphract archers. They would therefore quite probably have
> been more effective:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphracti
>
> One such unit consisted of 2,500 Sarmatians stationed in Britain in the 2nd
> century. They stayed there after their term of service ended.
>
> A historian with an interest in the period would know all of this, and would
> certainly research it if he was going to venture an opinion.
>
> >> So instead they concentrated on preaching Hellfire and
> >> damnation - Patrick was an absolute lunatic on this sunject.
>
> Patrick was no worse than any other Christian of the period.
>
> >> It comes through the literature time and again,
>
But you are not denying he was a lunatic.? Whether he was no worse
than another is not important. He would have been the one lunatic at
the time and place. Right?
Kevin
Well, firstly most introductions/reintroductions fail. You need a minimum
number of individuals of any species to successfully establish it in a new
environment, assuming that the environment is favourable - just releasing a
male and female won't do. That's why reintroducing species to an old
environment is so tricky, and why species become endangered when their
numbers drop below a critical amount. OK, that amount may be lower for pack
animals like wolves, or herd animals, cos they all hang round together.
However, for solitary species they've all got to find each other in order to
breed.
Then again,there are considerations as to whether the new environment is
capable of supporting a breeding population, whether the introductions will
be predated shortly after they are released, whether the environment will
allow the species to spread and thus maintain genetic diversity (if it
can't, the introduction will fail), and umpteen other factors, including
climate and humidity. As I said, most introductions have failed - some still
fail even though the factors for success are now understood.
Now exotic introductions like pythons invariably start off as pets - they
are not accidental shipboard introductions. That means that there's a huge
reservoir of genetically diverse potential escapes already present in the
country, which is why various governments ban keeping some species as pets.
Given the right environment and enough people getting tired of their pets,
enough snakes will be released in some favourable areas to successfully form
a breeding population. How many die after being released is another matter -
it is hit and miss. Adders weren't kept as pets, except amongst a very, very
small number of people in some areas, namely charcoal burners, who
traditionally (in some areas) kept one for luck. To suggest a release from
this source, you'd have to argue that hordes of charcoal burners were
regularly going on holiday to Ireland and releasing their lucky adder when
they got there. :-)
Another possibility is domestication - that's why we've now got wild board
in the UK once more. However, adders weren't domesticated.
Then you've got accidental introductions. Mitten crabs have been spread
round the world because they get sucked into ballast water of ships, and the
ballast unloaded halfway round the world in a favourable environment. Mind
you, if the ship unloads its ballast in somewhere like Archangel, the crabs
will die. Not an appropriate model though, because you'd not get a snake in
ballast water or clinging to the hull of a ship.
There is however the rat model - get on board ship. However, this won't
work. Firstly, these days adders tend to be mostly found on moorland, and
other fairly dry environments, unlike the Grass snake which is fairly
amphibious:
"Sufficient habitat complexity is a crucial requirement for the presence of
this species, in order to support their various behaviors -- basking,
foraging and hibernation -- as well as to offer some protection from
predators and human harassment.[2] It is found in variety of habitats,
including: chalky downs, rocky hillsides, moors, sandy heaths, meadows,
rough commons, edges of woods, sunny glades and clearings, bushy slopes and
hedgerows, dumps, coastal dunes and stone quarries. They will venture into
wetlands if dry ground is available nearby. Therefore, they may be found on
the banks of streams, lakes and ponds"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipera_berus#Habitat
Note - coastal dunes are very dry. In the UK they're really not fond of wet
places, possibly because a lot of them don't offer sites for basking
(essential for a coldblooded species) and hibernation. Hibernation places
are critical - they've got to be dry, otherwise the snake will die. In
northern areas water will obviously freeze in winter - if the burrow gets
too wet and then freezes, it could freeze the snake (assuming that it hasn't
drowned), and a frozen snake is a dead snake. It's a function of climate,
temperature and environment.
Being relatively cold-adapted, they'll probably move to drier areas in the
north of their range, tolerating wetter areas in the warmer southern areas
of their range. I'd be interested in their range in places like Norway - I
suspect that like a number of species in that country that are more commonly
found further south, they are restricted to the drier areas in south of the
country. I shall however have to ask a knowledgeable Norwegian of my
acquaintance. However, he has already pointed out that a large number of
common European species (including plants) that are technically present in
Norway are hugely restricted in their range to the warmer south of the
country, and are not found in much of the country at all.
Anyway, adders have never been an urban species, unlike rats - the number of
species that adapt to urban environments is small, compared to the number of
species that there are. They are, for example, damned near extinct in the
London area, where you're more likely to find Grass snakes even on the rural
edges. By contrast, go to parts of Bodmin Moor or Dartmoor and you're very
likely to see one - they need some good undergrowth for hunting.
Since they are not an urban species, they wouldn't hang round ports. In any
case, being a ground dwelling species, I can't see them climbing mooring
ropes - a tree dwelling species could, but vipers don't climb trees. As for
swimming - well Grass snakes are better at that. Finally, people being
people would tend to kill them whenever they found them, cos people are
generally scared of snakes. Rats get out of the way and breed fast anywhere
they can - adders if surprised look at you and hiss, then slither off, which
makes an attack with a broom more likely to be successful. Females tend to
breed once every two years (once every three in some places), which means
that it can never become a pest species, and they are rather more particular
about nesting places than rats.
All in all, I'd not reckon an adder's chances on board a small ship. It
would probably soon be seen, and then they'd be hunting it.
So yes, they could be introduced to parts of Ireland. There are environments
that they could live in quite comfortably - the Burren may be one.
http://www.moytura.com/burren.htm
However they are not going to make it there unless someone undertakes a
deliberate reintroduction - the odds are too stacked against them for an
accidental introduction.
Kevin
Kevin
> But you are not denying he was a lunatic.? Whether he was no worse
> than another is not important. He would have been the one lunatic at
> the time and place. Right?
To judge from his own words, he does seem to have been rather more sane than
most Christians of the period. Oh, he had strong beliefs - his Letter to
Coroticus has him bollocking a British ruler for conducting slave raids on
Ireland - but strong beliefs don't necessarily make a lunatic.
I'd read Confession and make up your own mind:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/patrick/confession.toc.html
A few useful paras:
48. You know, as God does, how I went about among you from my youth in the
faith of truth and in sincerity of heart. As well as to the heathen among
whom I live, I have shown them trust and always show them trust. God knows I
did not cheat any one of them, nor consider it, for the sake of God and his
Church, lest I arouse them and [bring about] persecution for them and for
all of us, and lest the Lord's name be blasphemed because of me, for it is
written: 'Woe to the men through whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed.'
49. For even though I am ignorant in all things, nevertheless I attempted to
safeguard some and myself also. And I gave back again to my Christian
brethren and the virgins of Christ and the holy women the small unasked for
gifts that they used to give me or some of their ornaments which they used
to throw on the altar. And they would be offended with me because I did
this. But in the hope of eternity, I safeguarded myself carefully in all
things, so that they might not cheat me of my office of service on any
pretext of dishonesty, and so that I should not in the smallest way provide
any occasion for defamation or disparagement on the part of unbelievers.
Hmm! A missionary who shows trust to the heathens and is scrupulously
careful not to break the law or infringe local pagan social customs so that
the Church might not be defamed by his actions - most unusual for the
period. That sort of scrupulous honesty would probably be unusual today, to
judge from the actions of our politicians.
52. From time to time I gave rewards to the kings, as well as making
payments to their sons who travel with me; notwithstanding which, they
seized me with my companions, and that day most avidly desired to kill me.
But my time had not yet come. They plundered everything they found on us
anyway, and fettered me in irons; and on the fourteenth day the Lord freed
me from their power, and whatever they had of ours was given back to us for
the sake of God on account of the indispensable friends whom we had made
before.
My guess is that he had made friends with some of the brehons (i.e. druids
in charge of the law) - see next para. They'd be about the only folk who
could force the elite to return goods that they had appropriated, and even
then only by applying the law.
53. Also you know from experience how much I was paying to those who were
administering justice in all the regions, which I visited often. I estimate
truly that I distributed to them not less than the price of fifteen men, in
order that you should enjoy my company and I enjoy yours, always, in God. I
do not regret this nor do I regard it as enough. I am paying out still and I
shall pay out more. The Lord has the power to grant me that I may soon spend
my own self, for your souls.
The meaning is unsure, but probably something along the lines of paying for
a licence to preach. I.e. he had to pay the pagan brehons in order to be
able to preach. It's rather at odds with the later characterisation of him
by the Church.
As for the Letter to Coroticus, he reserves his ire for the British ruler
and his soldiers:
"Wherefore let every God-fearing man know that they (the soldiers of
Coroticus) are enemies of me and of Christ my God, for whom I am an
ambassador. Parricide! fratricide! ravening wolves that "eat the people of
the Lord as they eat bread!" As is said, "the wicked, O Lord, have destroyed
Thy law," which but recently He had excellently and kindly planted in
Ireland, and which had established itself by the grace of God"
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1166.htm
Well, he might be a madman for telling a Christian British king where to get
off - it might have unfortunate repercussions, since the kings of the period
weren't above having opponents murdered (see Gildas for the various
behaviours of near-contemporary British kings) - but you can't really fault
his convictions. It's about the only place where he is seriously thundering
about Hell and Satan, and it's levelled at a Christian.
The standards of behaviour for British kings of the time might be
exemplified by Maelgwn Gwynedd. A bright lad, he was educated by Gildas for
the Church - but decided against it. There appear to have been accusations
of him indulging in sodomy whilst he was learning at the monastery, and he
appears to have been either thrown out or left. In one particular later
incident, he put his wife away in order to go off with another married lady
(her sister? trying to recall), then decided to tidy up loose ends by having
his wife and his lover's husband bumped off. Apparently people who got in
Maelgwn's way had a habit of winding up dead, including relatives. Gildas,
when denouncing Maelgwn, was safely in Britanny. Patrick is within reach of
Coroticus' soldiers - they've already raided his area.
Anyway, they don't make sex scandals like that anymore - makes you wonder
why folks were upset by Clinton and Lewinsky. :-)
There were considerably worse that the Irish might have had - which is why
the later Bishop of Armagh had to recreate Patrick as a sort of
ecclesiastical Rambo. The later Irish Church was rather embarassed by the
Patrick they had, so they had to recreate the Patrick they wanted.
Like I said, these are Patrick's own words - not the deeds attributed to him
by later ecclesiastical propagandists. Read them yourself and make up your
own mind. Was he a lunatic or not?
Kevin
odub...@comcast.net
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Padraig the man knew the Irish ways and used then to demonstrate
Christianity to the Irish in ways they could accept. He had more truth
in him than the rest of the Church combined. Those two factors are
what led to his successes in Ireland. The Church did a number on
Padraig's life and teachings just like it did on Pagan tradition (not
to mention the Christ mythos). That is to say, it co-opted both to its
own puposes.
Padraig the man was not insane but the St. Patrick created by the
Church was crazy, insane and demonic in his anti-Paganess.
Searles
Kevin
news:1190571799....@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
About right in my estimation, but I thought Aine should read Patrick's words
for herself and make up her own mind.
Patrick comes across as a brave and intelligent man of his time, and
conscious of how much schooling he lost by spending time as a slave - he
says feels fairly inadequate by the side of more educated men. He seems to
have decided that he should spread his message by the example of his own
behaviour, and by telling people what he believed the truth was. It is
significant that there were no Christian martyrs in Ireland, probably partly
as a result of Patrick's approach and example, and possibly because he was
held to teach nothing new. The way he presented Jesus was probably
responsible for things like the conflation of Jesus and Lugh in the Senchus
Mor, where Jesus is spoken of in terms more usually seen used on Lugh.
Similarly, Patrick would have been emphasising The Truth - which, as
firenne, was a concept already apparent in indigenous Irish religion.
The upshot of explaining Christianity to the Irish in this way, and in
respecting indigenous laws, was that (contrary to Church propaganda)
conversion progressed by way of syncretism rather than replacement. The idea
that it was spread by replacement and persecution is, upon examination,
untenable, even though that is the official Church line in the texts - well,
they would say that, wouldn't they. :-) Of course, syncretism was rather
helped by the independence of the Irish Church, which independence continued
until the 12th century. Rome was therefore not in a position to enforce
orthodoxy - the whole point of the Strongbow invasion was to end the
independence of the Irish Church and enforce Rome's POV - or, as Rome put
it, "restore the faith, which had fallen to the ground in Ireland. Rome was
never happy with Ireland and the state of Christianity there.
The Church was even less happy, after Strongbow, with the filidh, and
regarded them as followers of the Antichrist and outright pagans. A few
years after conducting a pogrom against the Cathars in France, the pope gave
full inquisitorial powers to a pro-Rome Irish bishop, including the power to
call on the secular authorities in using military power to suppress or
reform the filidh. However, Ireland wasn't the south of France, the filidh
were an integral part of Irish society without which it would have
collapsed, and the bishop had to contend with a very public letter from the
Chief Poet stating this, claiming that the paganism in filidecht was the
gift of God, the the pope can't have given any such instruction, and if he
had, he was wrong because the Bible gave no instruction to reform the
'poetic art'. The result was a deafening silence from the Church -
presumably the bishop was led off to a darkened room and asked to sit there
quietly and think it all through. :-) Nothing happened at all, and the
filidh went unreformed and unsuppressed.
After Patrick you've got pagans and Christians living side by side, and
people holding views that Rome thought highly heretical. There were still
highly pagan views being held by countryfolk as late as the 19th century -
not often recorded cos folks ignored them, but now and then there's a
mention, such as sheeogue (fairy doctors - they used trance to get answers
for healing folk) As for repression of witchcraft, well, the only case that
I can recall was Lady Alice Kyteller, and that was more about who controlled
power and land, and had no connection with indigenous pagan ideas. It also
only went the distance because an English bishop was involved.
Finally, come to think of it, there is the possibility that Patrick may not
have been his name, but a nickname he was given. You'd get to Patrick from
the Latin 'patricius', which is a title, along the lines of 'Father'.
However, what we can say it that the guy known as Patrick wrote Confessio
and Epistola, and possibly wrote a little prayer called the Lorica of St
Patrick. A lorica was a bit of Roman bodyarmour for protecting the chest and
abdomen.
Kevin
Kevin
argument that, from Patrick onwards, druids were being carted off to be
burned. As I said at the time, there is no evidence of this at all. The man
who wrote:
". . . the heathen among whom I live, I have shown them trust and always
show them trust. God knows I did not cheat any one of them, nor consider it,
for the sake of God and his
Church, lest I arouse them and [bring about] persecution for them and for
all of us."
is unlikely to contenance druids being executed. Note that he remarks that
he would not consider cheating Irish pagans lest he "arouse them and bring
about persecution for them". I'd say that he had a very full understanding
of the consequences of conflict between pagans and Christians seen elsewhere
in Europe. To my mind, he was trying to find a better way than fire and
sword. That probably makes him the sanest man in Europe of his generation. I
can't think of any other Christian of his time, or afterwards, who wished to
avoid pagans being persecuted.
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
Yes, to hang up outside their doors, but I don't thing it ever
happened - just more black propaganda against the Druids by the
missionaries as the mass prozelytizing of Ireland proceeded.
I simply can't understand how anybody swallows that monkish mythology
hook, line and sinker.
Mairtin O'Druachain
I never said that Patrick persecuted the Druids. He couldn't, they
were still too powerful in his time.
But his worlds did inflame and incite the horror, the exterminations
and the burnings that came afterwards, culminating in the Final
Extermination of the Irish Druid Order, at Kilkenny, in 597 A.D.
The Order was then gone, but Druids, hidden across Ireland lived on.
Outlawed, their names proscribed, under pain of death.
Let's not revisit all that now, Kevin.
People have all the information they require.
Let them decide for themselves.
People now have both sides of the story, the Druid side from me, the
Christian side from you -
There is no need for reinforcement where adults are concerned.
Please let them decide.
Mairtin O'Druachain
> <odubh...@comcast.net> wrote in message
And the Letter to Corotacus.
Mairtin O'Druachain
High King Laoighaire shows himself to be much saner, level-headed, and
cultured than Patrick.
Mairtin O'Druachain
Fire and Brimstone, Patrick's Letter to Corocitus:
http://www.irishchristian.com/stpatrick/Coroticus.htm
Patrick was seriously "off his trolley". A man who knew no restraint,
who incited and inflamed passions.
Mairtin O'Druachain
AND there is still "The Smoking Gun", that Written Statement form
Oengus in 800 A.D. that "Guilty pagans are being carried away".
1X2Willows
> "1X2Willows" wrote
>> "Kevin" wrote
>>> [....]
>>> since warriors frequently used things like amulets invoking a deity's
>>> power to avert illness, death in battle and so on.
>>
>> Sovereignty or translated "Genus Locii" are the only ones I can
>> think of, in said context. Never a so-called "deity".
>
> Wheel symbols. Definitely the attribute of a god.
Know what you mean, I think, but dunno... I'd still hesitate to
employ such absolutes. Your respective research and inspiration
in honour (and I'll have to admit I still haven't read it all) but
isn't a wheel just a wheel sometimes? <puffing on cigar>
I mean... Take this one for example, just one of many out of
the 200-300'000 petroglyph depictions from Valcamonica
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/inora/discoveries_46_2b.html
and read the caption. Then dig deeper and try to find out why
anyone would come up with such an interpretation. Totally
baseless IMO.
No doubt wagons, carts and especially chariots meant power and
'social status' but amulets like the ones you mention could as well
have been worn for the same reason as "FORD TOUGH" TShirts
or NIKE caps are being worn today. Fashionable means of
identification with any given group. Occam rocks.
> Mind you, genius loci was the term the Romans used when
> they didn't know what to call the spirit or deity at a shrine.
That's why I said "translated" to mean the more modern definition.
Agathias of Myrina says of the Alamanni fighting among the troops of
Frankish king Theudebald they
"worship trees, rivers, hills and gorges as gods, and decapitate horses
and cows, and innumerable other animals, as if it were a holy rite".
Same applied to transalpine Gauls when first met by Roman forces.
The habit of using the words spirit and deity as if they were interchangable
seems to be a direct result of the old Interpretatio Romana on the western
scientific mind; even after all these Centuries. Spirit of place *was* the
focus of reverence and honouring; not just a place holder or analogy for
personified diety. Quite the other way 'round.
Dan
Jim
"Mairtin O'Druachain" <Drui...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1190645597.8...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
Most American Reconstructionist Druids have.
:-) Jim
Kevin
> "Kevin" wrote
>> "1X2Willows" wrote
>>> "Kevin" wrote
>>>> [....]
>>>> since warriors frequently used things like amulets invoking a deity's
>>>> power to avert illness, death in battle and so on.
>>>
>>> Sovereignty or translated "Genus Locii" are the only ones I can
>>> think of, in said context. Never a so-called "deity".
>>
>> Wheel symbols. Definitely the attribute of a god.
>
> Know what you mean, I think, but dunno... I'd still hesitate to
> employ such absolutes. Your respective research and inspiration
> in honour (and I'll have to admit I still haven't read it all) but
> isn't a wheel just a wheel sometimes? <puffing on cigar>
Sometimes it is - but not in this instance. The fact that this symbol is the
attribute of a god is very well tied down. That it is a god is definite -
that the wheel is an attribute of said god is definite. Only thing is,
though it is called a wheel symbol, a careful analysis and comparison with
real wheels shows that it isn't in fact a wheel. It's just that folks, being
unimaginative, decided that a cross in a circle looked wheel-like so it must
be a wheel.
> I mean... Take this one for example, just one of many out of
> the 200-300'000 petroglyph depictions from Valcamonica
> http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/inora/discoveries_46_2b.html
> and read the caption. Then dig deeper and try to find out why
> anyone would come up with such an interpretation. Totally
> baseless IMO.
Hmm! Well, what you've got is a wheel and a probable horse. Not an unusual
combination - you get them on pre-Roman Iron Age coins. Connecting it to
Taranis is baseless, though you could say "Celtic sky god". Arguing that it
is transporting it is also baseless.
You'll have to go over to Wade's site and read my dissertation. :-) I
covered some of this.
> No doubt wagons, carts and especially chariots meant power and
> 'social status' but amulets like the ones you mention could as well
> have been worn for the same reason as "FORD TOUGH" TShirts
> or NIKE caps are being worn today. Fashionable means of
> identification with any given group. Occam rocks.
Only problem is with the wheels=chariots= power equation is that the
earliest wheel symbols are Danish, and predate that culture having spoked
wheels. The Celtic version does not conform to the requirements of real
contemporary wheels - no match whatsoever. For good measure, the symbol is
also seen in pre-Columbian America, where they never had the wheel. The
American version instead describes the position of the sun through the
year - namely the rising and setting points at the solstices. A bit of
analysis of the Celtic 'wheel' indicates that it represents exactly the
same, and that's undoubtedly what the Danish ones represent, given that they
didn't have spoked wheels at all at that time - they hadn't even got north
of the Alps, so they would never have seen a spoked wheel.
From that you can easily go to it being a representation of the divine law
that orders the heavens, thus sorts out the order of the seasons, and thus
the agricultural year, and thus maintains society, none of which is a
million miles away from the notion in both Irish and Roman texts (and the
Vedas) that agricultural fertility increases, the seasons are maintained,
and society is happy if the ruler maintains the laws of the gods. OTOH if
the ruler does not do this, the weather is unseasonal, crops fail, plagues
stalk man and animal and society is in upheaval.
That particular interpretation of the wheel fits the data very well. As for
fashion statements - they tend to change within a matter of years. Folks
were using wheels as amulets and as religious votives for centuries - the
same pattern of wheel that's seen in religious iconography. to argue that it
was a fashion statement would be a bit like arguing that the Christian cross
is only a fashion statement. It may be in some cases - but for millions its
a religious symbol. This is another religious symbol, and it probably has a
longer continuous history than the cross - which is probably why the Irish
Church assimilated it.
>> Mind you, genius loci was the term the Romans used when
>> they didn't know what to call the spirit or deity at a shrine.
>
> That's why I said "translated" to mean the more modern definition.
> Agathias of Myrina says of the Alamanni fighting among the troops of
> Frankish king Theudebald they
>
> "worship trees, rivers, hills and gorges as gods, and decapitate horses
> and cows, and innumerable other animals, as if it were a holy rite".
>
> Same applied to transalpine Gauls when first met by Roman forces.
> The habit of using the words spirit and deity as if they were
> interchangable
> seems to be a direct result of the old Interpretatio Romana on the western
> scientific mind; even after all these Centuries. Spirit of place *was* the
> focus of reverence and honouring; not just a place holder or analogy for
> personified diety. Quite the other way 'round.
True - but we know what the locals called other spirits of place in their
own language, because we have inscriptions saying things like 'god' or
'goddess' in the local language.
People had gods - we know this. They're all over the place. Even in Irish
texts, you have folks saying things like "I swear by the god my people swear
by." There's no reason to suppose that the notion of a god was a Roman
introduction to Ireland - in fact, given that the same concept turns up in
the earliest stratum of the Vedas, which may well be Bronze Age according to
some estimations, it is probably an ancient concept as far as Indo-European
languages are concerned. It is certainly an ancient concept generally - it
turns up in Sumer. In short, neither the Romans, Greeks nor Egyptians
invented the idea.
You can't really say that they were only spirits, and the rest was Roman
misunderstanding or distortion, given the archaic nature of the concept, and
the fact that local people were chiselling 'god' or 'goddess' in their
indigenous language on bits of rock. The only thing that you can try and do
is find out how they understood gods and goddesses. Though don't be too
surprised at the concepts being very similar - the words from Celtic
languages, Latin and Sanskrit are etymologically cognate, as are names like
Dyaus Pitr, Jupiter and Zeus, to take Sanskrit, Latin and Greek examples.
Furthermore, Greek and Roman concepts of deity would have been leaking
across the border long before Celtic-speaking people were absorbed into the
Empire.
Kevin
Kevin
Given that Coroticus' soldiers had just been slaying and carrying off Irish
Christians, I'm not surprised that he was inflamed. I would imagine many
people would have been besides themselves with anger under the
circumstances.
As for 'no restraint'? This about a man who wrote that he dealt with the
pagans honestly and did everything he could to avoid conflict, because of
the consequences for both the pagans and for the Christians in Ireland?
That's not restraint?
As for him inciting and inflaming passions in others - references.
> AND there is still "The Smoking Gun", that Written Statement form
> Oengus in 800 A.D. that "Guilty pagans are being carried away".
Only if you take two sentences from unrelated verses out of context and make
them mean what you want them to mean.
Kevin
Kevin
They haven't heard the Christian side versus the druid side. What they've
heard is the account that can be substantiated with references versus the
account that can't. I've put up the links for them to go and have a look if
they want.
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
> "Mairtin O'Druachain" <DruidE...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Even Hitler could justify his actions to himself as Patrick does by
his anger and incitement to murder here, to me he seems to be bi-
polar, suffering from manic-depression, at the very least, and that
is being kind to him.
No pious person would be so intemperate, no reasonable man so insane
with public anger as Patrick is.
You have NOT given the required references in all cases, just straws
that you grasp at.
You suffer from a head full of split hairs.
Amything and everything, bits and pieces from here, there and
everywhere, often totally irrelevant and dragged in and forced into
place to fit your thesis, your myriad speculations unsupported by any
academic authority.
By "Rome" I mean the Roman Church wherever it is Headquartered, and
its decision to annihilate the Irish Druids - which it very nearly
did.
Your speculations are Grotesque, Unique, Bizarre and Unprecedented,
Unsupported by any authority.
The Catholic Church would be so proud of you that they would give you
a medal, should they hear of your magnificent work here in support of
their blood-soaked hands, hands soaked in the blood of Irish Druids,
their families and clamds:
GUILTY PAGANS ARE CARRIED AWAY, Oengus, 800 A.D. (The Mss. Felire
Oengusso).
(There were snakes in reland, Academia acceots this).
odub...@comcast.net
<snip>
> People had gods - we know this. They're all over the place. Even in Irish
> texts, you have folks saying things like "I swear by the god my people swear
> by." There's no reason to suppose that the notion of a god was a Roman
> introduction to Ireland - in fact, given that the same concept turns up in
> the earliest stratum of the Vedas, which may well be Bronze Age according to
> some estimations, it is probably an ancient concept as far as Indo-European
> languages are concerned. It is certainly an ancient concept generally - it
> turns up in Sumer. In short, neither the Romans, Greeks nor Egyptians
> invented the idea.
>
> You can't really say that they were only spirits, and the rest was Roman
> misunderstanding or distortion, given the archaic nature of the concept, and
> the fact that local people were chiselling 'god' or 'goddess' in their
> indigenous language on bits of rock. The only thing that you can try and do
> is find out how they understood gods and goddesses. Though don't be too
> surprised at the concepts being very similar - the words from Celtic
> languages, Latin and Sanskrit are etymologically cognate, as are names like
> Dyaus Pitr, Jupiter and Zeus, to take Sanskrit, Latin and Greek examples.
> Furthermore, Greek and Roman concepts of deity would have been leaking
> across the border long before Celtic-speaking people were absorbed into the
> Empire.
>
> Kevin- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
The Celts didn't go around making up words and names for gods for
other peoples' gods either. It seems some people just want to ignore
what history teaches us while others like you generally see it's
lessons with 20/20 vision.
The Celts on the Continent had gods. The Celts in Britain had gods.
The Celts in Scotland and Man had gods, The Celts in Ireland
definitely had gods. The only Celts I'm not 100% certain about having
gods might be those in Asia Minor (because I have not see texts or
inscriptions about their gods). They probably also had gods being
Celts.
Nowadays most Celts seem to have Christian gods though they might also
have a few Pagan ones as well.
Now I'm wondering if a person can say they are a Celt if they don't
have gods. Did you ever hear or read about such a creature in your
studies of history?
Searles O'Dubhain
Mairtin O'Druachain
"The links", you mean links you choose and force into your jigsaw ,
bending and cutting off the edges of the pieces so as to fit, and even
many of those that fit do not belong in the puzzle set for they were
never meant to.
Others are just plain wrong. And I have never seen an academic in any
duscipline depend on wikipedia - you simply thrive on it for yout
thesis. I would fail yout thesis on this alone.
Your insistence on forcing history into being an empirical science
dimisses your theses compeletely.
Mairtin O'Druachain
Sorry, Searles, there were no Celts in Ireland. Also, I believe that
our Irish Druids may not have believed in gods and goddesses just
because the ordinary people did. I also believe that if Druidry were
allowed to develop unhindered into our present time, it would have no
gods.
BTW There were no Celts in Britain, that is, England, Scotland, Wales
and Man either - and I doubt if they reached as far north as Brittany,
though this has yet to be investigated forensically.
1X2Willows
> "1X2Willows" wrote
>> "Kevin" wrote
>>> "1X2Willows" wrote
>>>> "Kevin" wrote
>>>>> [....]
>>>>> since warriors frequently used things like amulets invoking a deity's
>>>>> power to avert illness, death in battle and so on.
Since we sort of flip-flop between eras in this conversation and I read
ahead to your answers, I'm going to have to ask you what warriors
you are talking about here, or rather, warriors of what era. Could you
narrow that down to a few centuries or so?
>>>> Sovereignty or translated "Genus Locii" are the only ones I can
>>>> think of, in said context. Never a so-called "deity".
>>>
>>> Wheel symbols. Definitely the attribute of a god.
>>
>> Know what you mean, I think, but dunno... I'd still hesitate to
>> employ such absolutes. Your respective research and inspiration
>> in honour (and I'll have to admit I still haven't read it all) but
>> isn't a wheel just a wheel sometimes? <puffing on cigar>
>
> Sometimes it is - but not in this instance. The fact that this symbol is
> the attribute of a god is very well tied down.
I guess my question was: Was it first a symbol for the "yearly wheel"
and got later adapted as the attribute of a god or was it the other way
around? Don't know for sure but my money is on the former.
> That it is a god is
> definite - that the wheel is an attribute of said god is definite. Only
> thing is, though it is called a wheel symbol, a careful analysis and
> comparison with real wheels shows that it isn't in fact a wheel. It's just
> that folks, being unimaginative, decided that a cross in a circle looked
> wheel-like so it must be a wheel.
Yeah I got you there. So, in short, the point you're trying to make here
(and the one you're probably making in your dissertation) is, that
genuine wheel symbols are the ones with a dot or little concentric
circle in the middle (axle) while the other ones represent the yearly
cycle? As you can probably tell, I'm still confoozled...
>> I mean... Take this one for example, just one of many out of
>> the 200-300'000 petroglyph depictions from Valcamonica
>> http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/inora/discoveries_46_2b.html
>> and read the caption. Then dig deeper and try to find out why
>> anyone would come up with such an interpretation. Totally
>> baseless IMO.
>
> Hmm! Well, what you've got is a wheel and a probable horse. Not an unusual
> combination - you get them on pre-Roman Iron Age coins.
Yes, familiar with that.
> Connecting it to Taranis is baseless, though you could say "Celtic
> sky god". Arguing that it is transporting it is also baseless.
Yup, though the whole notion of some critter named "Taranis"
being at least one of "(pan)Gallic gods" is still baseless to me.
My ancestors were Gauls and they certainly didn't worship gods
in that form at all; especially nothing in the form as can be
seen here, for example:
http://kernunnos.com/deities/Taranis.shtml
What a laugh!
Lucan was Roman and didn't know what the hades he was talking
about when he reported of "The Gauls" as if those Gauls had ever
been as sheeply organized as the society he knew.
> You'll have to go over to Wade's site and read my dissertation. :-) I
> covered some of this.
"Good thing takes while" as the old proverb says and maybe,
who knows, this time has come. ;-)
>> No doubt wagons, carts and especially chariots meant power and
>> 'social status' but amulets like the ones you mention could as well
>> have been worn for the same reason as "FORD TOUGH" TShirts
>> or NIKE caps are being worn today. Fashionable means of
>> identification with any given group. Occam rocks.
>
> Only problem is with the wheels=chariots= power equation is that the
> earliest wheel symbols are Danish, and predate that culture having spoked
> wheels. The Celtic version does not conform to the requirements of real
> contemporary wheels - no match whatsoever. For good measure, the symbol is
> also seen in pre-Columbian America, where they never had the wheel. The
> American version instead describes the position of the sun through the
> year - namely the rising and setting points at the solstices. A bit of
> analysis of the Celtic 'wheel' indicates that it represents exactly the
> same, and that's undoubtedly what the Danish ones represent, given that
> they didn't have spoked wheels at all at that time - they hadn't even got
> north of the Alps, so they would never have seen a spoked wheel.
Again... what era? I'm interested in everything back to about
the early bronze age in Europe, which knew chariots very well.
> From that you can easily go to it being a representation of the divine law
> that orders the heavens, thus sorts out the order of the seasons, and thus
> the agricultural year, and thus maintains society, none of which is a
> million miles away from the notion in both Irish and Roman texts (and the
> Vedas) that agricultural fertility increases, the seasons are maintained,
> and society is happy if the ruler maintains the laws of the gods. OTOH if
> the ruler does not do this, the weather is unseasonal, crops fail, plagues
> stalk man and animal and society is in upheaval.
>
> That particular interpretation of the wheel fits the data very well. As
> for fashion statements - they tend to change within a matter of years.
> Folks were using wheels as amulets and as religious votives for
> centuries - the same pattern of wheel that's seen in religious
> iconography. to argue that it was a fashion statement would be a bit like
> arguing that the Christian cross is only a fashion statement. It may be in
> some cases - but for millions its a religious symbol. This is another
> religious symbol, and it probably has a longer continuous history than the
> cross - which is probably why the Irish Church assimilated it.
No big fan here of any and all attempts to press living breathing history
into an amalgamous and rather linear corset. I hear you well of course,
what all the evidence is concerned, and all the rest, trying to explain
the unexplainable and make sense of the multitudes of ways in which
human beings behave while there isn't really any way to make sense
of it, but still... Think I know what you mean. ;)
>>> Mind you, genius loci was the term the Romans used when
>>> they didn't know what to call the spirit or deity at a shrine.
>>
>> That's why I said "translated" to mean the more modern definition.
>> Agathias of Myrina says of the Alamanni fighting among the troops of
>> Frankish king Theudebald they
>>
>> "worship trees, rivers, hills and gorges as gods, and decapitate horses
>> and cows, and innumerable other animals, as if it were a holy rite".
>>
>> Same applied to transalpine Gauls when first met by Roman forces.
>> The habit of using the words spirit and deity as if they were
>> interchangable seems to be a direct result of the old Interpretatio
>> Romana on the western scientific mind; even after all these
>> Centuries. Spirit of place *was* the focus of reverence and honouring;
>> not just a place holder or analogy for personified diety. Quite the other
>> way 'round.
>
> True - but we know what the locals called other spirits of place in their
> own language, because we have inscriptions saying things like 'god' or
> 'goddess' in the local language.
None from before the Roman conquest (say, 60BCE to make it simple?)
and except for areas which would have been subjected to acculturation
(Roman, Greek, Scythian...) by territorial proximity, no.
If you have any evidence to the contrary at all, please.
I'll be the first one to be interested.
> People had gods - we know this. They're all over the place. Even in Irish
> texts, you have folks saying things like "I swear by the god my people
> swear by." There's no reason to suppose that the notion of a god was a
> Roman introduction to Ireland - in fact, given that the same concept turns
> up in the earliest stratum of the Vedas, which may well be Bronze Age
> according to some estimations, it is probably an ancient concept as far as
> Indo-European languages are concerned. It is certainly an ancient concept
> generally - it turns up in Sumer. In short, neither the Romans, Greeks nor
> Egyptians invented the idea.
I'd agree "People had a sense of awe" about life per se as they do now.
Not everyone calls 'em "god" though. That's a rather deist take.
> You can't really say that they were only spirits,
"only spirits"?
You seem to misunderstand. Probably by subjecting "spirit" to some
hierarchical notion I'm not familiar with, but for whatever reason, you do.
> and the rest was Roman
> misunderstanding or distortion, given the archaic nature of the concept,
> and the fact that local people were chiselling 'god' or 'goddess' in their
> indigenous language on bits of rock. The only thing that you can try and
> do is find out how they understood gods and goddesses. Though don't be too
> surprised at the concepts being very similar - the words from Celtic
> languages, Latin and Sanskrit are etymologically cognate, as are names
> like Dyaus Pitr, Jupiter and Zeus, to take Sanskrit, Latin and Greek
> examples. Furthermore, Greek and Roman concepts of deity would have been
> leaking across the border long before Celtic-speaking people were absorbed
> into the Empire.
Down in the flatlands maybe...
;-Dan (sorry... getting tired)
1X2Willows
<odub...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1190683733....@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> The Celts on the Continent had gods.
Before Alesia and in the heart land?
Positive proof, please.
References
- and don't think "Scholar A said Professor B proved that historian C
was correct in referencing Dr. D in his assumption they had gods"
will do it.
Positive proof, please.
Good luck with that.
Dan
Mairtin O'Druachain
wrote:
> <odubh...@comcast.net> wrote in message
Spirituality does not require the proof or approval of this world. The
Spirit converges, synchronises and the Spirit knows and communicates
regardless of Space and Time, which mean nothing in the Spirit World.
To People with the spirit of a mongrel fox like Dan, this would mean
nothing.
Anyway, History is not an empirical science, there are no formulae ,
and therefore no absolute "positive" proofs.
But Dan, having no professional education, would not know this.
Ignore him totally like the cretin he is - if you want to know.
Given under Guidance,
Mairtin.
1X2Willows
Mongrel Fox!
Now there's a new badge I'll wear proudly on my monitor.
Mairtin O'Druachain
wrote:
> "Mairtin O'Druachain" <DruidE...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Yes, as you are all cleverness, of little intelligence and LESS
EDUCATION
Felber -
"He's a real mowhere man,
Living in his nowhere land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to -
Nowhere Man do you see me at all ?
1X2Willows
Pub's closed I see.
What a shame...
Hey Mikey!
When I'm in Ireland, let's have a pint or twelve.
Whaddya'say?
:-Dan
Mairtin O'Druachain
Will pass on the message to Michael on his return, though it would be
a cafe not a pub as he has not drank alcohol in years. Believe half of
what you see and none of what you hear :-)
Mairtin.
1X2Willows
I don't do "Cafés" hiberno-style; only French.
Never mind then. Scratch that, Mikey.
Mairtin O'Druachain
I am sure he will be only too happy to oblige.
Mairtin.
1X2Willows
Mairtin.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Me too, as anyone would, speaking of themselves
in the third person.
Good Night, NaziBoy
Mairtin O'Druachain
Cheerio Yellow Swiss Scumbag
You ain't norhin but a slimy Swiss Toe Rag
Your Dad was a Nazi
Your mother a Jewess
What a Fucked Up Combo you turned out to be
You Ignorant Cowardly Mongrel Fox
Any half decent Paddy would soon kick you to fucking death
As will happen, Felber, if I ever get my hands on you
Fucking Keyboard Killer Boy.
If we ever identify you
we'll put your address up on the Web
Then cower, Asshole Merchant Boy
Cos Paddy will bne comin to getcha
-
That's a Sacred Promise.
And I will fuckin Murder you.
All who are with you
And burn your fuckin house down around you.
You're not dealin with Micko now :-)
Anybody who knows where Felber is, please email me
The Cunt won't live to see Xmas.
That's a Sacred Vow.
Kevin
Umm! Given that the symbol goes back so far, we'll never know. My bet
is that it was always both a symbol and an attribute. Some sort of
divine law established the course of the sun, and thus time and
agriculture, so it's a symbol of that law and the deity that is that
law. My guess though is that this lot, like a lot of 'Celtic' ideas
originated in the Neolithic with the development of farming, and got
refined, adapted and reinterpreted as time went on, and bronze then
iron came into use.
It was a Danish guy who pointed out the orientation of Danish
petroglyphs and a Michigan lass who pointed out why they would be
carved on large flat rocks that far north. In the upper Peninsula
Michigan any pole put in the ground will suffer serious frostheave -
give it 2-3 years and it will be leaning drunkenly to one side. She
sent me photos of old telegraph poles near her, and they were 15-20
degrees out of true. This is hopeless if you want to use pole for
accurate measurements - even 1 degree will bugger it. OTOH, a large
heavy flat rock won't move - it's probably an outcrop. No frostheave.
Carve the right orientation on the rock, and you can use sighting
poles to mark the exact day. They don't have to be permanent.
> > That it is a god is
> > definite - that the wheel is an attribute of said god is definite. Only
> > thing is, though it is called a wheel symbol, a careful analysis and
> > comparison with real wheels shows that it isn't in fact a wheel. It's just
> > that folks, being unimaginative, decided that a cross in a circle looked
> > wheel-like so it must be a wheel.
>
> Yeah I got you there. So, in short, the point you're trying to make here
> (and the one you're probably making in your dissertation) is, that
> genuine wheel symbols are the ones with a dot or little concentric
> circle in the middle (axle) while the other ones represent the yearly
> cycle? As you can probably tell, I'm still confoozled...
Ah, it's rather more complex than that. It's a whole analysis of
several factors such as spoke number. We've got examples of
contemporary wheels, so we know what they look like and how they were
built. As I recall, a good 90% of symbols from religious contexts have
four spokes. They didn't build four-spoked wheels - they'd collapse.
They did build wheels with 16 spokes. The only "16-spoked" wheel that
Green mentions in her survey is actually an 8-spoked half wheel in the
Gundestrup cauldron. It seems risky to me to assume that the artist
intended you to imagine that this was one half of a multi-spoked
wheel, which in any case would have had 15 spokes and not 16. In
short, an 8-spoked half wheel is necessarily intended to represent a
15 spoked full wheel, and shouldn't be treated as such when it comes
to analysis, because that's at best very bad statistics (Green is
appalling on stats) and at worst dishonest.
> >> I mean... Take this one for example, just one of many out of
> >> the 200-300'000 petroglyph depictions from Valcamonica
> >>http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/inora/discoveries_46_2b.html
> >> and read the caption. Then dig deeper and try to find out why
> >> anyone would come up with such an interpretation. Totally
> >> baseless IMO.
>
> > Hmm! Well, what you've got is a wheel and a probable horse. Not an unusual
> > combination - you get them on pre-Roman Iron Age coins.
>
> Yes, familiar with that.
>
> > Connecting it to Taranis is baseless, though you could say "Celtic
> > sky god". Arguing that it is transporting it is also baseless.
>
> Yup, though the whole notion of some critter named "Taranis"
> being at least one of "(pan)Gallic gods" is still baseless to me.
> My ancestors were Gauls and they certainly didn't worship gods
> in that form at all; especially nothing in the form as can be
> seen here, for example:http://kernunnos.com/deities/Taranis.shtml
> What a laugh!
Well, one of my suggestions in the dissertation was an explanation why
the 'Celts' may have originally preferred aniconic deities, however
you want to understand deities.
> >> No doubt wagons, carts and especially chariots meant power and
> >> 'social status' but amulets like the ones you mention could as well
> >> have been worn for the same reason as "FORD TOUGH" TShirts
> >> or NIKE caps are being worn today. Fashionable means of
> >> identification with any given group. Occam rocks.
>
> > Only problem is with the wheels=chariots= power equation is that the
> > earliest wheel symbols are Danish, and predate that culture having spoked
> > wheels. The Celtic version does not conform to the requirements of real
> > contemporary wheels - no match whatsoever. For good measure, the symbol is
> > also seen in pre-Columbian America, where they never had the wheel. The
> > American version instead describes the position of the sun through the
> > year - namely the rising and setting points at the solstices. A bit of
> > analysis of the Celtic 'wheel' indicates that it represents exactly the
> > same, and that's undoubtedly what the Danish ones represent, given that
> > they didn't have spoked wheels at all at that time - they hadn't even got
> > north of the Alps, so they would never have seen a spoked wheel.
>
> Again... what era? I'm interested in everything back to about
> the early bronze age in Europe, which knew chariots very well.
The earliest Danish ones are Late Neolithic. they seem to be the first
appearance of this symbol. Now not claiming that the Danish symbols
are related to the later 'Celtic' ones. However, the existence of the
Danish symbols seriously weakens the argument of it being a symbolic
spoked wheel when the spoked wheel hadn't got to Denmark at the time
that they were carving circle and cross designs. The fact that an
exhaustive statistical analysis proves that there is zero connection
with real wheels, and that the design follows a different logic rather
disposes of the notion of a 'wheel' symbol for good, as well as any
interpretation of the iconography that depends upon it - though for
good measure I dismantled that as well, as well as the notion of a sun
*god* as in masculine deity. The idea that the wheel represented the
sun I demonstrated as fallacious, untested, unproven, unsound, and
unsupported by the evidence.
> > True - but we know what the locals called other spirits of place in their
> > own language, because we have inscriptions saying things like 'god' or
> > 'goddess' in the local language.
>
> None from before the Roman conquest (say, 60BCE to make it simple?)
> and except for areas which would have been subjected to acculturation
> (Roman, Greek, Scythian...) by territorial proximity, no.
>
> If you have any evidence to the contrary at all, please.
> I'll be the first one to be interested.
Ah, well there you have a rub! :-) They picked up writing by
territorial proximity in order to be able to write their thoughts on
things, so of necessity there was some acculturation. There won't,
OTOH, be inscriptions from areas where they are not acculturated to
some degree. :-) We can't therefore say anything about them at that
stage. Which of course rules out all the Irish texts cos they were
close enough to the empire to have some acculturation. :-)
OTOH, given the antiquity of the notion of deity, it's probably
unlikely that unacculturated Celtic-speaking people lacked gods. Of
course, there is the hypothesis that groups that remained
unacculturated by Mediterranean cultures eventually developed a
trading culture centred on the Baltic which led to the development of
the Germanic languages - and the Germanic-speaking peoples certainly
had gods. However, by the time they get round to telling us about
gods, they've also adopted writing and become acculturated. :-)
Problem! :-) We have similar problems with dealing with, for example,
the Neolithic.
> > People had gods - we know this. They're all over the place. Even in Irish
> > texts, you have folks saying things like "I swear by the god my people
> > swear by." There's no reason to suppose that the notion of a god was a
> > Roman introduction to Ireland - in fact, given that the same concept turns
> > up in the earliest stratum of the Vedas, which may well be Bronze Age
> > according to some estimations, it is probably an ancient concept as far as
> > Indo-European languages are concerned. It is certainly an ancient concept
> > generally - it turns up in Sumer. In short, neither the Romans, Greeks nor
> > Egyptians invented the idea.
>
> I'd agree "People had a sense of awe" about life per se as they do now.
> Not everyone calls 'em "god" though. That's a rather deist take.
Well, in many cultures you get these personified bits of the universe
that folks make offerings to or, at the very least, show reverence to.
> Down in the flatlands maybe...
ah - well things might have gone slightly differently up in the
remotest parts of the Alps. :-)
> ;-Dan (sorry... getting tired)
Ah, that's OK.
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
Again, Knitwear Fashion Lady Kevin, you are on about the Celts who
were never in Ireland and have never had anything to do with what went
on here, you are equating Druids with Celts, then if so the Irish must
have introduced the Celts of mainland Europe to Druidry, because if
not, then we could never have had Druidry in Ireland as the Celts
never came here - and not to have had Druidry in Ireland goes against
every historical idea imaginable and existent in the world.
Now why don't you come on out of the closet, out of your anonymity
where you pretend to be an academic historian possessing
qualifications, and tell us all about it, then we may believe the more
splendid of your ideas.
The one thing to be said of Con Connor is that he is there, out in the
open, for you or anybody else to actually go and visit and see amd
press his flesh if you want to (not advisable). The same can be said
for people like Searles, he is real and you can go and visit and see
him.
And that is the open honest truth of us here as well.
No "Druidic" names, no "Celtic" names, no names but our own. No hiding
in closets, everything up front, everything honest and transparent,
everything accountable for, that's us.
Anonyimity is cowardly, this thing of a woman pretending to be a man
suggests a person who needs psychiatric help in a big way. Maybe
"Kevin" you should take time off to find out if you are a male
historian or a lady Knitwear Designer ?????????????
Anonymity has little Truth, little verifiable. Go back to writing
anonymous letters to the editor that nobody takes seriously, why
should people ?
Kevin
> Again, Knitwear Fashion Lady Kevin
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
So you found my girlfriend's place. :-) Whoopee! :-) You didn't read
it very well though. And don't bother thinking that she just does
knitwear design so she can't have a brain - the lass has an MSc, has
done cutting edge research in biology, has more grasp of history than
you ever will, and is competent - even extraordinarily talented - in a
number of other areas. It would be a very foolish person who
underestimated that lass, as Dan is aware.
All I can say is that your on-line research is as good as your
historical research, otherwise you'd know what I looked like and the
twon in which I live. It took me all of 30 seconds. You sir, are a
rank incompetent when it comes to research. However, we already knew
that, and didn't need you to embarass yourself further by proving
it. :-D I am however grateful that you did so. :-) <bows deeply with
an ironical air>
> Now why don't you come on out of the closet, out of your anonymity
> where you pretend to be an academic historian possessing
> qualifications, and tell us all about it, then we may believe the more
> splendid of your ideas.
You know - the one thing I've never been on Usenet is anonymous.
Unusual, I know, but I never bothered. And there are folks on here who
have met me IRL and are even now no doubt rolling around hooting. :-D
> No "Druidic" names, no "Celtic" names, no names but our own. No hiding
> in closets, everything up front, everything honest and transparent,
> everything accountable for, that's us.
>
> Anonyimity is cowardly, this thing of a woman pretending to be a man
> suggests a person who needs psychiatric help in a big way. Maybe
> "Kevin" you should take time off to find out if you are a male
> historian or a lady Knitwear Designer ?????????????
ROFL!! Oh my! You really are an ejit, and flailing around madly,
aren't you? You can't even work out from the style of writing whether
someone is male or female! You're unable to research, you don't even
know the questions to ask, and you just thrash from one illogical
conclusion to another.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ah, you've just made me day! :-D The Great Pretender accusing the one
person who is easily verifiably not pretending of pretence!
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
<weeps from laughter!> Oh it just goes on getting better! :-D
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
Of course Caroline is brainy and qualified and talented in every way,
and really pretty too, I should know, haven't I been engaged in
"combat" with her this past few weeks -
Now that I know who you are, "Kevin", have no fear, I do not intend to
expose you much further or to argue the toss with you, Love, get down
to that business of yours, it will be a huge success.
Love,
Mairtin.
(trying to keep the smile off my face).
Kevin
>
> - Show quoted text -
Oh boy, have you got a lot of egg on your face! :-)
Oh, and I'd not be calling Cal "Love" if she ever decides to get back
on here. Ooooooooooooooooooh no! She'd be feeding you your own
testicles!
Something about the men in our family - we have a weakness for strong
women. :-)
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
Of course, the lady Caroline is strong, like her alter ego, "Kevin
Jones"
Mairtin
(Sniggering now)
Kevin
>
> - Show quoted text -
You know, as my mother would say, once you've got an idea in your
head, hammer and chisel wouldn't shift it. The faintest idea that you
have, once again, made an arse out of yourself, doesn't even occur to
you. You reckon any belief that you hold is absolute, no matter if the
entire world tells you - or even shows you - that you are wrong. You
figure you're right on any issue that you hold a belief on, and get
baffled and upset if folks challenge you. After all, they must be
wrong, mustn't they?
Oh well, your funeral.
Kevin
Jim
"Kevin" <laig...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1190736295....@r29g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
Fantasy Island is just westward across the Irish sea.
Kevin
> "Kevin" <laighl...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
:-)
Somewhere, over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly . . .
Y'know Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more! :-)
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
That's a man's way, an intelligent, highly educated, experienced no-
nonsense Irishman - I knew I was up against a woman in you all along,
mo, mot the style of writing, but your woman's mind. I have known
womens' minds all my life - and I love you all. Cheers, Mairtin.
Kevin
No, that's a poor excuse for a man - someone who gets a bee in his
bonnet, doesn't bother to find out whether he's right or wrong,
charges off on the assumption that he's right, and makes an utter cock
off things, and then proceeds to defend those cockups as right, even
in the teeth of evidence saying that he's ballsed up, and who would
rather everything be destroyed round him than utter a simple sentence
- "Sorry - I cocked up!". That's a fella who might as well not have a
brain in his body for all the use that he makes of it, and a fella
upon whom an education is wasted, because he'll still go off half-
cocked as if he'd never learnt a thing. It's a fella who will never
learn from experience, whatever happens, and who will never think to
look at what he may be doing wrong when he winds up, yet again, flat
on his back face downwards. The thought that he might have some
culpability, some bit of responsibility, for this complete and utter
cock he's made of things, will never cross his mind. Instead, he'll
pick himself up, remark "That's a man's way!", then trip over his
shoelaces and fall flat on his face once more.
That isn't a man's way, otherwise we'd still be up the bloody trees.
That's a child's way - I've known six year olds who are more mature!
That's an excuse, and the most pitiful excuse for abject bleeding
ignorance and stupidity that I have ever heard. And if you're proud of
being like that, and if you think that a bit of forethought is somehow
'unmanly', then god help you, because you're a bigger clown than I
thought that you were, and you're going nowhere fast except into more
and more cockups.
Kevin
Mairtin O'Druachain
You, Caroline, are the 99% Perspiration, I am the 1% Inspiration.
1X2Willows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
wow...
:-)
Stacey Weinberger
This is the sort of threat that can be reported to Google and ISPs.
mlad...@yahoo.com
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
I have seen worse here. Dan not far from it about my son and hoping he
would die. He brings it out in people.
Stacey Weinberger
Threatening to murder someone and to threatening to burn that person's house
down is not quite the same. I believe threats like that are in violation of
Google's TOS agreement.
mlad...@yahoo.com
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
Might not be the same to you..I however found it as disturbing and in
violation of Google TOS agreement. Course, I tend to not overlook one
persons unlawful behavior over anothers based on if I like them or
not. Just me, I guess it is a Druid thing.
Lilith
Bullshit.
Dan said something along the lines of he'd get what he deserved for
volunteering & no one "took" your baby he volunteered, and tough luck
for you if he got hisself killed.
That's a pretty dam far cry from "I swear by all that is holy to hunt
you down and kill you, and all who are with you, and burn your home to
the ground".
If you can't see the *huge* difference between those two types of
comments...
<shakes head>
FFS.
One is a calloused sneer, the other is a death threat - whether it has a
chance of being carried out or not.
I defy you, Aine, to find any post of Dan's that swears a fucking oath
to physically attack, destroy, you, your son, or anyone, for any reason,
let alone because of a fucking usenet feud.
Fuck.
Get a grip on reality and perspective.
If you think this is equitable behaviour... I just don't know what to say.
Total bullshit.
--
Lilith Dragonswife, Yin Bitch
~ "Better to be an enemy than a slave." ~
mlad...@yahoo.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
It is not for you to say how I feel or not. It was the same to me. So
be it that I am a wimp, Dan also uses my real name here even when
uncalled for to assert his control over me and Kevin has put all my
ISP information online. Who knows what Dan would have done. That guy
gets whacked as far as I am concerned and he has done it more then
once.
Lilith
Ain't about how you *feel* or don't feel.
It's about reality.
What Dan said about your son, that was about his own feelings... he's
entitled to them as much as you are.
What mairtin said, that was about promising physical action against Dan
and Dana... that is so far beyond expressing "feelings" I can't even
explain it if you can't get it already.
*HE* *SPOKE* *A* *SACRED* *VOW* *TO* *KILL* SOMEONE*.
Which part of *that* don't you get?
He's either gonna murder people, or he's an oath-breaker.
either/or.
And if you think Dan's behaviour has come anywhere near that, then you
are... unhinged.
I cannot honestly think of another option.
Honestly, and with all sincerity.
Unless you can show a post where Dan's threatening to kill you and your
family. *That* would be the same as what was said to him.
mlad...@yahoo.com
You just don't like him. Taking Drama Queen courses on the sacred vow
thing.
Dan threatened to beat the crap out of my kids and kill him instead of
the war. He swore on the Gods to magically take me out. Difference?
None.
You get a grip Lilith. Use your brain. The dude is here from another
country drooling through his mouth about killing our military
soldiers on his own because they are stupid for going to war.
Hello..ya..you stand for the better principled guy..Not.
Ask yourself just who is in the middle of all these really horrible
flame wars and outing of PI and all the threats made
here.....Dan..Every time. Maybe Dan should tone down and quit pushing
buttons. In the Druid World or Brehon Law or Triads, he is responsible
as well if not more so.
Maybe it would be best to let this one just go. Everybody has let him
go when he does it. It is Dan's choice and all he said was
WOW...so..ya know.
Maybe we should let it drop now before I get all worked up about the
guy again. I think a few of your own chosen words are against Google
TOS...so...ya know. Lets let it go unless it becomes a habit. How's
that?
Lilith
gah, of course I don't like him, what has *that* got to do with anything?
There are people all over that I don't like, but still respect.
I don't have to like someone to respect them.
Someone who makes a sacred vow to murder someone else is either a
soon-to-be murderer, or their an oath-breaker.
Neither is respect-worthy.
... or are you saying that saying it's a sacred vow shouldn't really
count *as* a sacred vow?
> Dan threatened to beat the crap out of my kids and kill him instead of
> the war. He swore on the Gods to magically take me out. Difference?
> None.
>
LOL
You mean where Dan said this?
quote/
"Send him this way.
I'll beat the delusions outta' him in no time.
"Blood and Honour" outside US borders my ass.
These boys ought to be ready to defend; not attack.
Maybe you're able to explain the difference...
Dan "
/quote
Gosh.
That looks *so* like "someone please tell me where he lives so I can
hunt him down and kill him and all who are with him and burn his house
to the ground I swear by all that is holy I will have it done by Xmas."
> You get a grip Lilith. Use your brain. The dude is here from another
> country drooling through his mouth about killing our military
> soldiers on his own because they are stupid for going to war.
> Hello..ya..you stand for the better principled guy..Not.
>
I've looked, Aine, all I found was the above quote.
Show me where he says he's gonna kill anyone.
Or wants to.
And the magickal threats too, for that matter.
I can't find 'em, I don't believe they exist anywhere except in your
very vivid, myopic imagination... or, possibly, are similar to the above
example - your twisting what someone else says to whatever suits you.
> Ask yourself just who is in the middle of all these really horrible
> flame wars and outing of PI and all the threats made
> here.....Dan..Every time. Maybe Dan should tone down and quit pushing
> buttons. In the Druid World or Brehon Law or Triads, he is responsible
> as well if not more so.
>
*Everyone* is responsible for their own selves.
Which does *not* equate to "deserving" to have some asswipe murder you,
your wife, maybe children, and torch your house. Or even deserve to have
such threatened.
*You* get a grip.
> Maybe it would be best to let this one just go. Everybody has let him
> go when he does it. It is Dan's choice and all he said was
> WOW...so..ya know.
>
> Maybe we should let it drop now before I get all worked up about the
> guy again. I think a few of your own chosen words are against Google
> TOS...so...ya know. Lets let it go unless it becomes a habit. How's
> that?
>
>
Is this a threat?
1X2Willows
"Stacey Weinberger" <popp...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:13fjj3b...@corp.supernews.com...
Oh definitely.
- and legal authorities in Ireland as well.
Unfortunately, freedom of speech comes at a price, the result of which
can again be seen here and elsewhere in a multitude of fori and on
countless occasions. Unfortunately, fascist vermin like Mikey and his
sympathizers are hard to get rid of once and for all, but the least we can
do is take advantage of the laws and make their life a bit miserable until
they go one tiny step too far and seal their own demise, which they
inevitably will, time and time again.
http://www.euro-celts.org/media/images/gegen_nazis.jpg
Dan
1X2Willows
news:1190776365....@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
You really are thicker than a load of bricks, are you.
That comment of mine was a direct response to you defending
NaziBoy's constant spewings of hatred and insult with the remark:
"There has always been tongue in cheek with DruidE."
Sarcastic? Definitely.
Hurtful? Yes, on purpose in order to get the point across once and for all,
that not every instance of verbal abuse can be excused by later saying
"aaah it was only tongue in cheek".
About the "beating" part...
One could have assumed you know the expression "beating sense into someone"
if they behave like complete and utter idiots. Apparently even that was too
much to ask for. That's how I used it, that's what I said but it's also less
than surprising that a nut job like you would get it wrong and read some
crazy conclusion like "Druid Curse" into it, or some other BS.
Please, Lynn, get professional counselling already or let RL friends help.
Trying to turn this or any other NG into a self-help tool for your apparent
disconnect from reality certainly won't work.
Dan
1X2Willows
"Lilith" <drago...@telus.net> wrote in message
news:48vKi.15182$nO3.8154@edtnps90...
Thanks, Lilith.
Just wanted to say Thanks and to Stacey too, since I'm at it.
Apparently, there are still people in here who haven't completely
gone over the edge yet, be it for religious zeal, chest thumping
'blood and soil' fasco-nationalism or any other mind numbing reason.
Dan