THE SECRET OF THE DOLMEN AND THE SEVEN TINE STAG
BR, RBR:
As seen by the development of agriculture, plants that perish in the winter come back to lifel in the spring.
This is an obvious metaphor for the death and rebirth that nature provides for us.
Humans have clung to the idea that there is an afterlife from the beginning of existence.
Like plants, when we die, we follow the natural cycle and are reincarnated in some manner.
Some religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Gnosticism, and Taoism, hold that while a body decays, the spirit endures.
Pagan and tribal faiths, do not directly associate rebirth with death but emphasize the perpetual rebirth and regeneration of natural elements like water, trees, the sun, and the moon.
The Song of Amergin translation is by Robert Graves, and all extracts below are from his book The White Goddess, published by Faber and Faber Limited, 24 Russell Square London WC1. they appear here under the principle of Fair Use.
I believe as today the counting of the Celtic lunisolar tree calendar began with the full moon nearest Yule. Once they had pinpointed the full moon closest to Yule, (Winter Solstice) then the count off the thirteen moons of the lunar year with their Tree Calendar names began.
I believe that the present Alphabet was in origin syllabic and that it was superimposed in parallel on a Lunisolar four season circular Calendar. Before the superimposition of the consonants 13 and vowels 5 representing the light as sun as the masculine principal as spirit and the moonlight the feminine principal as the soul of the annual natural cycles, from birth to death and rebirth.Robert Graves in his Book 'The White Goddess,' in chapter ten, titled 'The Tree Alphabet' states the following "I first found the Beth-Luis-Nion tree-alphabet in Roderick O'Flaherty's Ogygia; he presents it, with the Boibel-Loth, as a genuine relic of Druidism orally transmitted down the centuries.
The names of the letters in the modern Irish alphabet are also those of trees, and most of them correspond with O'Flaherty's list, though T has become gorse; O, broom; and A, elm.
I noticed almost at once that the consonants of this alphabet form a calendar of seasonal tree-magic, and that all the trees figure prominently in European folklore.
Graves continues in chapter twelve titled 'The Song Of Amergin, "I suggest in the first part of this argument that the 'I am' and 'I have been' sequences frequent in ancient Welsh and Irish poetry are all variants of the same calendar theme. Here, for instance, is the 'Song of Amergin' (or Amorgen) said to have been chanted by the chief bard of the Milesian invaders, as he set his foot on the soil of Ireland, in the year of the world 2736 (1268 B.C.). Unfortunately the version which survives is only a translation into colloquial Irish from the Old Goidelic. Dr. Macalister pronounces it 'a pantheistic conception of a Universe where godhead is everywhere and omnipotent' and suggests that it was a liturgical hymn of as wide a currency as, say, the opening chapters of the Koran, or the Apostles' Creed."
Graves goes on to state that there can be little doubt in his mind as to the appropriateness of this arrangement with which I cant agree. B can only be the Hercules stag (or wild bull) which begins the year if we assume that the calendar is made up of thirteen twenty-eight day months starting the day after the Winter Solstice and ending on the day before the Winter Solstice. The seven fights, or seven tines of his antler, are not necessarily months in prospect and in retrospect. For yes Beth is the seventh month after Duir the oak-month, and the seventh month from Beth is Duir again.
If the seven fights, or seven tines of the stags antlers, were full months in prospect and in retrospect then the stag has no other relevance. Even though the Beth is the seventh month after Duir the oak-month, and the seventh month from Beth is Duir it does not follow that the Stag begins the year, and or that the stag represents the beginning of the year. For what Graves is not including on the wheel of the year is the period necessary compensating for the necessary adjustment or alignment between the sun and the moon phases, which is necessary for the tree calendar spans across different months and must be aligned to the cycles of the moon.
If like Plutarch we reckon in months of 28 days, not 30 then the passage is completed in the sixth of them, thus the stag would represent a period in the seventh at both the winter and the summer solstices.
A lunisolar calendar measuring from the spring equinox 182 days including the Summer Solstice to the fall equinox (6months at 28day +14days = 182) the winter (6x28+15=183)
The information Graves offers regarding the seven confirms to me that there is a lot more to the 'seven' than he offers. For example the Orphic 'ox of seven fights' is hinted at in Plutarch's Isis and Osiris, where he describes how at the Winter solstice they carry the golden cow of Isis, enveloped in black cloth, seven times around the shrine of Osiris, whom Plutarch identifies with Dionysus. 'The circuit is called "The Seeking for Osiris", for in winter the Goddess longs for the water of the Sun. And she goes around seven times because he completes his passing from the winter to the summer solstice in the seventh month.'
The Celtic Calendar
Their calendar year was divided into four seasons or major sections, marked by four Quarter Days. Then, each section was divided in half, creating four Cross-Quarter days. For the ancient Celts, Cross-Quarter days signaled the beginning of a season!
The Ancient Egyptians believed that there are twelve steps on the ladder to eternal life and knowledge and to take the thirteenth step meant going through death into everlasting life, thus the thirteenth step it is said, that the soul reaches the source of itself and attains spiritual completion. 13 is the number they associated with immortality.
Thus the story of Isis and Osiris. The symbolism of thirteen comes into play when we learn of Osiris (the Egyptian god of life, death and powerful solar symbol representing the Solar calendar) was murdered by his brother Set. Isis, Osiris’ wife collected his body with intent to restore Osiris back to life. However, Set stole Osiris’ body and cut it into fourteen pieces and scattered them about the earth. Isis continued her quest to revive her beloved, but could only reclaim thirteen of the fourteen body parts (the fourteenth part being Osiris’ penis (which represents the extra day that falls out of the new 28 day 13 month cmoon calendar of Isis) which interestingly fell into the Nile and was eaten by a school of fish which are also symbolic).
This tale symbolically implies that the meaning of number thirteen is the precursor to completion?
In ancient Egypt, the term 'house of eternity' refers to a tomb, carved into rocks, or built on open land. Burial sites made of natural stone (unhewn Dolmen) were a "sign of immortality". God's instruction in Exodus 20:24-25 regards building Him an altar. An altar made for His worship had to be constructed of earth or unhewn stones. No altar defiled by man's sinful hand was suitable. Dirt and rock cannot sin; it always follows the nature God established. Hewn stone could only be afforded by a few ancient powerful leaders. In the ancient world, we learn from Egyptian mythology, that the construction of a monumental structure during one's own lifetime represented the connection of life with the concept of life after death, in other words eternal life.
In The Song Of Amergin, (or Amorgen) said to have been chanted by the chief bard of the Milesian invaders, as he set his foot on the soil of Ireland, in the year of the world 2736 (1268 B.C.). Dr. Macalister pronounces it 'a pantheistic conception of a Universe where godhead is everywhere and omnipotent' and suggests that it was a liturgical hymn of as wide a currency as, say, the opening chapters of the Koran, or the Apostles' Creed. He writes: 'Was it of this hymn, or of what he had been told of the contents of this hymn, that Caesar was thinking when he wrote: "The Druids teach of the stars and their motions, the world, the size of lands, natural philosophy and the nature of the gods"?' He notes that the same piece 'in a garbled form' is put into the mouth of the Child-bard Taliesin when narrating his transformations in previous existences.
Dolmens normally have three upright stones supporting a large stone slab roof, or capstone. When originally made, it is assumed that most were covered over with sod, however today the majority rise out of the landscape. They are associated with burials but also represent much deeper meaning and purpose. Legends in Brittany say that a race of dwarfs still resides in the dolmen and they can be seen dancing and singing near them on Sabbath nights. A variety of offerings have been found in these dolmen from weapons, jewelry, pottery and even horses and oxen and thunder stones a powerful healing stone,a smoothly polished axe head used over the years as a protector against lightning, these thunderstones were “made in special sanctuaries by a religious caste of priests or magicians.” The image of the axe head is often found carved in various stone assemblages including Stonehenge, indicating that the axe was an important and powerful religious item. Dolmens are a widespread phenomenon in Europe, Britain, Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean area as well as the United States on the east coast and in the mid-western states, as well as in South America. The structures are almost identical and it seems safe to assume that their purposes were as well. In Europe, they served as tombs of important leaders, fighters or religious people. Over time they were used as places of worship as well as for other superstitious reasons.The secret of the Dolmen for me is given away by its position on the life death cycle of the sun, at the threshold, which is the liminal point between death and rebirth. It is a symbolic structure reminding the community at large the reality transformation. For the magic of the Dolmen to work one must be prepared to make the leap of faith for which one simply needs an open heart and pure thought. In English, the world solstice comes from the Latin word solstitium, meaning "sun standing still". It seems to suggest a brief pause as the sun reaches its most extreme point (as experienced on Earth) before the direction of travel is reversed.
In-between Days: Liminal SpaceWhy did the lovers bed together beside a fresh dolmen every night. Yes dolmens are closely connected with the calendar as in the legend of the flight of Grainne and Diarmuid from Finn Mac Cool when the flight lasted for a year and a day, and the lovers bedded together beside a fresh dolmen every night. That fact does not necessarily suggest that the secret of the alphabet also lies with the dolmen. Yes the dolmen marks a point on the calendar, most likely on the threshold of the year marking the one day that falls outside the 28 day 13 month calendar.
Graves says that "It is most unlikely that this poem was allowed to reveal its esoteric meaning to all and sundry." and goes forth and rearranges the order of statements made in two stanzas with a seventh line after each stanza into a thirteen-month calendar form, on the lines of the Beth-Luis-Nion, with the line "Who but I can unfold the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?" To the question, what is a dolmen? We are informed that a dolmen is a burial chamber, a 'womb of Earth', consisting of a cap-stone supported on two or more uprights, in which a dead hero is buried in a crouched position like a foetus in the womb, awaiting rebirth. In spiral Castle (passage-burial), the entrance to the inner chamber is always narrow and low in representation of the entrance to the womb. But dolmens are used in Melanesia (according to Prof. W. H. R. Rivers) as sacred doors through which the totem-clan initiate crawls in a ceremony of rebirth.
He is narrating his transformations in previous existences that Dr. Macalister offers is true than the secret of how these transformations take place become obvious.
Graves informs us that the 'Who but I can unfold the secrets of the unhewn dolmen? is the conclusion of the second stanza, uttered by the New Year God. I would like to add The New Year Sun God. However I believe that the 'Child' represented by the sacred threshold of the Dolmen the central triad of vowels, namely OUE. The Celtic Tree of Life symbol represents strength, longevity and wisdom, all of which were attributes that the Celts revered and they believed that the tree symbolized rebirth.
The Awen – represents the harmony of opposites in the universe.
St Brigid’s Cross – Brigid’s Cross is tied to Brigid of the Tuatha de Danaan, which, in Irish Celtic Mythology, is known as a life-giving goddess.
The Celtic Cross – According to one theory, the Celtic Cross represents the four cardinal directions.
The Green Man represents the lushness of vegetation and the arrival of spring and summer.
The Celtic Tree Of Life – Symbolises the Druid belief in the connection between heaven and earth.
The Trinity Knot – symbolises eternal spiritual life, one with no beginning and no end.
The Triskele – represents three stages of life: life, death, and rebirth.The triple spiral is extremely ancient. It may be older than the first Celtic tribes who used it. The symbol also represents female power, femininity, motherhood, as well as transition and growth.
The Claddagh Ring – represents love, loyalty, and friendship.
The alphabetic formula that represents the threshold between death and rebirth is signified by the diphthong AI which sounds like a glide within a continuum. So I propose the secret of the sacred threshold of the dolmen is out. The solution of the conundrum is not the central triad of vowels, namely O.U.E. that Graves offers, but the triad made up of the two consonants B&R with the phoneme/glide AI in between, on the threshold, the liminal space between life and death on the continuum between the consonants B&R or R&B.
The poem would have been represented by a six-lined, 5+1 pendant which may have run as follows:
A / am the womb of every holt, O / am the blare on every hill, U / am the queen of every hive, E / am the shield to every head, ' I / am the tomb to every hope. AI / am the folded secret, a leap of faith.
A glide is a single phoneme that is somewhere in the middle of the continuum between consonants or consonant and vowel, but is non-syllabic (by itself). a diphthong is a sequence of two vowels, where one of them is often articulated just like a glide.
Above in the title I have introduced the Y sound also as an AI, a diphthong/երկբարբառ in Armenian. In this blog I intend to show that it is probable when the vowels were originally positioned, they were placed on a circle which represented the sun's cycle or on any life cycle. The phoneme A (GK.Alfa) was therefore obviously positioned on the first day of the winter solstice and it represented 'birth' and the vowel I (Gk.Iota) was positioned on the last day of the winter solstice. From the womb to the tomb the poet once wrote. The other vowels o,u,e, were positioned O on the Spring equinox U, the summer solstice and E the autumn equinox.
As in the design on a glass dish of the Seleucid epoch, showing the facade of Solomon's Temple as rebuilt by Zerubbabel on the original Phoenician model, the spirally fluted pillars correspond with Boaz, Solomon's right-hand pillar dedicated to growth and the waxing sun; the vertically fluted with Jachin, his left-hand pillar dedicated to decay and the waning sun. The symbolism became confused when the Jews made their New Year corresspond with the autumn vintage festival, for the pillars were then referred to as Jachin and Boaz, not Boaz and Jachin.
The vowels of the Beth-Luis-Nion make a complementary seasonal sequence, and like the vowels of the Boibel-Loth represent stations in the year. I take them to be the trees particularly sacred to the White Goddess, who presided over the year and to whom the number five was sacred.The first tree is the silver fir, a female tree with leaves closely resembling the yew's, sacred in Greece to Artemis the Moon-goddess who presided over childbirth, and the prime birth-tree of Northern Europe, familiar in the Nativity context.The palm, the birth-tree of Egypt, Babylonia, Arabia and Phoenicia, gives its name phoenix ('bloody') to Phoenicia, which formerly covered the whole Eastern Mediterranean, and to the Phoenix which is born and reborn in a palm. The palm is the Tree of Life in the Babylonian Garden of Eden story. Its Hebrew name is 'Tamar'—Tamar was the Hebrew equivalent of the Great Goddess Istar or Ashtaroth. Both Delian Apollo and Nabataean Dusares were born under a palm-tree.But the silver fir, which also likes sandy soil and sea breezes, is as old a birth-tree as the palm, being the tree under which the God of Byblos was born: the prototype of the pre-dynastic Osiris of Egypt. The Greek for fir is elate. The fir tree of the Birth-goddess is similarly transferred to her son in the myth of Attis, son of Nana, the Phrygian Adonis.The silver fir has its station on the first day of the year, the birthday of the Divine Child, the day after the extra day of the winter solstice when the sun stood still. Thirteen weeks separate these stations and the last of each was a death week.
The fifth tree is the yew, the death-tree in all European countries, sacred to Hecate in Greece and Italy. In the Irish romance of Naoise and Deirdre, yew stakes were driven through the corpses of these lovers to keep them apart; but the stakes sprouted and became trees whose tops eventually embraced over Armagh Cathedral.One of the 'Five Magical Trees of Ireland' was a yew. This was the Tree of Ross, described as 'a firm straight deity" (the Irish yew differed from the British in being cone-shaped, with branches growing straight up, not horizontally), 'the renown of Banbha' (Banbha was the death aspect of the Irish Triple Goddess), 'the Spell of Knowledge, and the King's Wheel'—that is to say the death-letter that makes the wheel of existence come full circle; as a reminder of his destiny, every Irish king wore a brooch in the form of a wheel, which was entailed on his successor. I place the station of the yew on the last day of the year, the eve of the Winter Solstice. Ailm the Silver-fir of Birth and Idho the Yew of Death are sisters: they stand next to each other in the circle of the year and their foliage is almost identical. Fir is to yew as silver is to lead. The mediaeval alchemists, following ancient tradition, reckoned silver to the Moon as presiding over birth, and lead to Saturn as presiding over death; and extracted both metals from the same mixed ore. Fir, womb of silver pain, Yew, tomb of leaden grief. An Assyrian sculpture published by Felix Lajard in his Sur la Cuke de Mithra (1847), shows the year as a thirteen-branched tree. The tree has five bands around the trunk and the sceptre-like branches are arranged six on each side, one at the summit. Here evidently the Eastern Mediterranean agricultural year, beginning in the autumn, has been related to the solar year beginning at the Winter solstice.
Where the hand was used as a signalling keyboard by the Druids we understand that the thumb of Venus was connected with the palm-tree and by its sacredness to the orgiastic goddess Isis, Latona or Lat. Lat was the mother of Nabatean Dusares the vine-god, worshipped in Egypt, and the lowest consonant on the thumb was the Alfa. In French doigt auriculaire—is based on the death-letter Idho and therefore had oracular power; as they still say in France of a person who gets information from a mysterious source: 'Son petit doigt le lui dit.' 'Auricular finger' explained in the earliest sense of 'auricular' it is 'secredy whispered in the ear'.
But what of the extra day? It falls outside the thirteenth-month year and is therefore not ruled by any of the consonants. I am assuming that its natural place is between the letter-months of the consonants R and B, and the vowels marking the cardinal points in time and space abstracted from the sun's cycle. What of the day when the sun appears to stand still, the day in-between the first and the last day of the year, the liminal place in space, that is in-between the last of the light shortening days and the first of the light lengthen days. Liminal .
The vowels A.I. as radicals like the R.B. radicals that recall Celtic word 'robin' define the point in the year, in British folklore, when the Robin Red Breast as the Spirit of both the New and Old Years sets out with a birch-rod of the New Year to kill his predecessor the Gold Crest Wren, the Spirit of the Old Year, whom he finds hiding in an ivy bush.
The Osirian year originally consisted of thirteen twenty-eight day months, with one day over, is suggested by the legendary length of Osiris's reign, namely twenty-eight years— years in mythology often stand for days, and days for years—and by the number of pieces into which he was torn by Set, namely thirteen apart from his phallus which stood for the extra day. When Isis reassembled the pieces, the phallus had disappeared, eaten by a letos-fish. This accounts for the priestly fish-taboo in Egypt, relaxed only one day in the year.
THE SEVEN DAYS BEFORE AND AFTER THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
The month, which takes its name from Juppiter the oak-god, begins on June ioth and ends on July 7th. Midway comes St. John's Day, June 24th, the day on which the oak-king was sacrificially burned alive. The Celtic year was divided into two halves with the second half beginning in July, apparently after a seven-day wake, or funeral feast, in the oakking's honour.
SO THE YEAR BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE WHITE ROEBUCK.
R is the month when the wave returns to the sea, and the end of the year to its watery beginning. A wave of the sea in Irish and Welsh poetry is a 'sea-stag': so that the year begins and ends with the white roebuck.
In Irish legend such gods of the year as Cuchulain and Fionn fight the waves with sword and spear. The corresponding text in the Romance of Taliesin is scattered rather than garbled.
B I have been a fierce bull and a yellow buck. L I have been a boat on the sea. N I fled vehemendy... on the foam of water. F I have been a drop in the air. S I journeyed as an eagle. H God made me of blossom. D I have been a tree-stump in a shovel. T I fled as a spear-head of woe to such as wish for woe. C I have been a blue salmon. M I have been a spotted snake on a hill. G I fled as a brisdy boar seen in a ravine. NG I have been a wave breaking on the beach. R On a boundless sea I was set adrift. The clue to the arrangement of this alphabet is found in Amergin's reference to the dolmen;
The ancient Celts used the Ogham alphabet in performing magick.The last five letters are called the Crane Bag and were given by the sea god Manannan.**
Beth – Birch
Month: November
Color: White
Class: Peasant
Letter: B
Meaning: New Beginnings; Changes; Purification.
Luis – Rowan
Month: December
Color: Grey and Red
Class: Peasant
Letter: L
Meaning: Controlling your life; Protection against control by others.
Fearn – Alder
Month: January
Color: Crimson
Class: Cheiftain
Letter: F, V
Meaning: Help in making choices; spiritual guidance and protection.
Saille – WIllow
Month: February
Color: listed only as bright
Class: Peasant
Letter: S
Meaning: Gaining balance in your life
Nuin – Ash
Month: March
Color: Glass Green
Class: Cheiftain
Letter: N
Meaning: Locked into a chain of events; Feeling bound.
Huathe – Hawthorne
Month: April
Color: Purple
Class: Peasant
Letter: H
Meaning: Being held back for a period of time
Duir – Oak
Month: May
Color: Black and Dark Brown
Class: Chieftain
Letter: D
Meaning: Secrity; Strength
Tinne – Holly
Month: June
Color: Dark Grey
Class: Peasant
Letter: T
Meaning: Energy and guidance fro problems to come
Coll – Hazel
Month: July
Color: Brown
Class: Chieftain
Letter: C, K
Meaning: Creative energies for work or projects.
Quert – Apple
Month: None
Color: Green
Class: Shrub
Letter: Q
Meaning: A choice must be made
Muin – Vine
Month: August
Color: Variegated
Class: Chieftain
Letter: M
Meaning: Inner development occuring, but take time for relaxation
Gort – Ivy
Month: September
Color: Sky Blue
Class: Chieftain
Letter: G
Meaning: Take time to soul search or you will maake a wrong decision.
Ngetal – Reed
Month: October
Color: Grass Green
Class: Shrub
Letter: NG
Meaning: Upsets or surprises
Straif – Blackthorn
Month: None
Color: Purple
Class: Chieftain
Letter: SS, Z, ST
Meaning: Resentment; Confusion; Refusing to see the truth
Ruis – ELder
Month: Makeup days of the thirteenth Moon
Color: Red
Class: Shrub
Letter: R
Meaning: End of a cycle or problem.
Ailim – Silver Fir
Month: None
Color: Light Blue
Class: Shrub
Letter: A
Meaning: Learning from past mistakes; Take care in choices.
Ohn – Furze
Month: None
Color: Yellow Gold
Class: Chieftain
Letter: O
Meaning: Information that could change your life
Ur – Heather and Mistletoe
Month: None
Color: Purple
Class: Heather is Peasant; Mistletoe is Chieftain
Letter: U
Meaning: Healing and development on the spiritual level.
Eadha – White Poplar or Aspen
Month: None
Color: Silver White
Class: Shrub
Letter: E
Meaning: Problems; Doubts; Fears.
Ioho – Yew
Month: None
Color: Dark Green
Class: Chieftain
Letter: I, J, Y
Meaning: Complete change in life-direction or attitude.
Koad – Grove
Month: None
Color: Many Shades of Green
Class: None
Letter: CH, KH, EA
Meaning: Wisdom gained by seeing past illusions.
Oir – Spindle
Month: None
Color: White
Class: Peasant
Letter: TH, OI
Meaning: Finish obligations and tasks or your life cannot move forward.
Uilleand – Honeysuckle
Month: None
Color: Yellow-white
Class: Peasant
Letter: P, PE, UI
Meaning: Proceed with caution.
Phagos – Beech
Month: None
Color: Orange-brown
Class: Chieftain
Letter: PH, IO
Meaning: New experiences and information coming
Mor – the Sea
Month: None
Color: Blue-green
Class: none
Letter: AE, X, XI
Meaning: Travel
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