Deciphering the Pagan Stones

a reply to: Logarock

It does seem sun-based, for sure.

In case the idea of bloodlines and emblems seems a bit out-there, did anyone know this?

The Lion rampant was legally used by King William I of Scotland as the great grandson of King Malcolm III Canmore. The Lion Rampant has been used as a heraldic symbol by Royal descendants of Malcolm III beginning with King David I of Scotland The Great Seal was also used by his 2nd great-grandson, Alexander II (1214–1249).[5] Its use in Scotland originated during the reign of Malcolm III (1058–1093), The Lion rampant motif is also used as a badge by those Irish clans who has lineage in common with Malcolm III. They are linked to the legendary Milesian genealogies.[12][13] An earlier recorded Scottish royal standard featured a dragon, which was used at the Battle of the Standard in 1138 by David I (1124–1153).[14]

Royal Standard of Scotland
I didn't know that! The Lion rampant is the emblem of the Milesians? Well I never!

I'm quite excited by this!
You'll remember that Cruithne, son of Cing had 7 sons and he divided Alba between them. One was Ce (said to have been given Aberdeenshire-ish) - but look! In North Uist, a monument to Ce:



Canmore site record

It's called Clach mhor a che (big stone of Ce - sorry if that's not accurate, my gaelic is basic) and it's right beside a chambered cairn! Someone important called Che/Ce spell it how you will, was buried here?

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: Logarock

It does seem sun-based, for sure.

In case the idea of bloodlines and emblems seems a bit out-there, did anyone know this?

The Lion rampant was legally used by King William I of Scotland as the great grandson of King Malcolm III Canmore. The Lion Rampant has been used as a heraldic symbol by Royal descendants of Malcolm III beginning with King David I of Scotland The Great Seal was also used by his 2nd great-grandson, Alexander II (1214–1249).[5] Its use in Scotland originated during the reign of Malcolm III (1058–1093), The Lion rampant motif is also used as a badge by those Irish clans who has lineage in common with Malcolm III. They are linked to the legendary Milesian genealogies.[12][13] An earlier recorded Scottish royal standard featured a dragon, which was used at the Battle of the Standard in 1138 by David I (1124–1153).[14]

Royal Standard of Scotland
I didn't know that! The Lion rampant is the emblem of the Milesians? Well I never!

Yea, the big deal is the sickle, reaper....good things of the sun and, moon, of the mountains and hills.

And yea Zara is rampant, Pharez is crouching. Notice the Winsor house, crouching lion at crown supported by rampant lion Zara and unicorn Ephraim. Thus crown supported by other royal half of Judah and the Birthright holder Ephraim. I have posted this one here somewhere before.

a reply to: Logarock

Yes, I think I remember. I was reading more about the Zara/Zarah lines and the story of the birth, which you also wrote about. Pharez/Faroe Isles maybe? Along with the Hebrew Isles perhaps.

In both stories of Goidel Glas (Gaelic bringer, tower of babel etc) he meets Moses as a child. He gets bitten by a snake which leaves him green coloured (?) hence Glas (green in gaelic). Anyway, Moses cures him and he goes on his way. This is before Moses leads his folk out of Egypt, so the Milesians are not claimed to have been part of the Moses exodus, more of a prior exodus. Which does, strangely, fit in with the Zara's (Czars?).

Speaking of Goidel Glas, I think this is somehow connected. This is some well crafted Pictish web we're unpicking here, I must say. Anyway Goidel Glas is green as we know, both by name and by skin colour. Is this the Welsh Goidel? It can't surely be a coincidence?

In Sir Gawain, the Green Knight is so called because his skin and clothes are green. The meaning of his greenness has puzzled scholars since the discovery of the poem, who identify him variously as the Green Man, a vegetation being in medieval art; a recollection of a figure from Celtic mythology; a Christian symbol; or the Devil himself. The medieval scholar C. S. Lewis said the character was "as vivid and concrete as any image in literature."[4] J. R. R. Tolkien called him the "most difficult character" to interpret in the introduction to his edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. His major role in Arthurian literature includes being a judge and tester of knights, and as such the other characters see him as friendly but terrifying and somewhat mysterious.[4]

In the Gawain poem, when the Knight is beheaded, he tells Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel, saying that all nearby know where it is. Indeed, the guide which is to bring Gawain there from Bertilak's castle grows very fearful as they near it and begs Gawain to turn back. The final meeting at the Green Chapel has led many scholars to draw religious connections, with the Knight fulfilling a priestly role with Gawain as a penitent. The Green Knight ultimately, in this interpretation, judges Gawain to be a worthy knight, and lets him live, playing a priest, God, and judge all at once.

Wiki - Green Knight

It's also worth noting that in Scotland and Ireland fairies are always clothed in green, and it's seen as a colour of nature but also of the otherworld. Some have suggested (according to Wiki) that the Green Knight represents Jesus in code?

a reply to: beansidhe


According to what some have said in the know on the subject is that the they ruled Egypt or at least half of it. Or simply made up some upper crust level of the society. An Egyptian nationalistic surge drove them out of the country and enslaved the rest of the Israelites. As the story goes the Israelites were given the best land in Egypt during Josephs reign as visor to the King. And he was a powerful visor. The King at the time gave him just about full run of the country in respect for his relationship with the almighty, so impressed they were. Joe moved his brothers into the land and gave them the best of it. Joe was well placed and married the high priest of On daughter. Certainly his sons and brothers were well placed going in. His half brother Judah produced the royal lines from which the Milesians, from Judah's son Zara for the most part.

Now years later when David's son Solomon, from the Pharez line, took the throne over Israle in Jerusalem, his wisdom was compared to the wisdom of the Zaraites. So they were known at that time even though it had been quite a few years since they were separated. It was then shortly after Solomon had died and his son took the throne that the nation split as the Ephraimites basically said they had the birthright and didn't need the Jewish kings ruling them anyway. So really the Davidic dynasty only ruled for two kings as a unified nation of tribes. Its easy really to see where problems would arise under such a unification, even based on family ties, when you have one tribe with the birthright but another tribe given the right to produce the kings.

Apparently the Zara lion became the rampant lion and the Pharez the crouching. Its interesting today to see the rampant lion supporting the crouching lion on current British royal iconography. Oh yea along with the unicorn which represents the house of Ephraim. Apparently a lot of the fighting in the history of the area was to displace the rampant lion line with the crouching lion line. Apparently Owain Glendower and the Earls of the old O'Neill (Eel of the Nile) line in Ireland were from the rampant line (Spain vs England). There also appears to be some unification of the two lines by way of marriage. As you can see that is a very brief explanation of that aspect of the thing. This is all rather a current day manifestation of the fulfillment of old Hebrew prophecy made by Jeremiah, made during a time when the Israelites were totally destroyed as a nation in their home land, that the House of Ephraim or the tribes at large and the birthright tribe would never end really being a nation or nations nor would Judah end from ruling over them as long as there was a sun in the sky and the moon at night or stars in the sky. And the older prophecy given to Abraham and the children of his wife Sara that his seed would become like the sand of the sea and produce many nations and many kings. We find the groundwork for all of this laid down in the book of genesis toward the end.

Another note on the Greeks. During the Jewish revolution against the Greeks after the death of Alexander, not really the Greeks but one of Alexander's generals Antiochus, known as the Maccabees War, the Greeks or certain Greeks sent the Jews down there a gold disk to honor them saying that "we are your brothers" according to the book of record on the Maccabees war.

Have you guys seen the Viking Rune Stone thread?

There's an interesting viking carving on a rock, which appears to show a Dromedary (camel) but it also has a "maltese" style cross, very like some of the pictish ones?

LINK to Post highlighting Pictish Cross

nice.

a reply to: Logarock

This would make sense of extremely complicated genealogies. The Yellow Book of Lecan, of the Irish Annals, states that the Picts were from Thrace. I would have to agree that the iconography bears most resemblance to Thracian designs. The Milesians are said to have granted them wives, ie the Milesians were over first and if they were of the rampant lion (Zara) line, you could see why they saw themselves as rulers.

I don't know how accurate this is, since I haven't had time to look into it properly but there are some interesting links between the Hebrews, the Culdees and Schiehallion (the fairy hill of the Caledonians), a big hill right in the middle of Scotland:

In the Book of Isaiah from the Old Testament there is a curious reference to "the mount of assembly in the far north" (Isa.14:13 Revised Standard Version). Gordon Strachan in his erudite work Jesus the Master Builder: Druid Mysteries and the Dawn of Christianity (1998) comments on this biblical statement saying "There was evidently a mythological mountain in the far north where the gods held their assembly". Furthermore, this sacred mountain appears to be associated with "Mount Zion in the far north" as recorded in Psalm 48 in the Hebrew Old Testament.
Gordon Strachan further says "Commentators have pointed out that 'in the far north' cannot be a geographical description of Mount Zion [in Palestine]....Where was this other holy mountain in the north, this other mythological Zion, the abode of the gods? Was it located at Mount Meru or the Alborg, or the Aralu, or were all these, like Mount Zion itself, pointing towards a common prototype much further north?" According to an esoteric tradition there was a primary trinity of holy mountains, i.e. Mount Moriah in Palestine, Mount Sinai in Egypt, and a mysterious Mount Heredom. The latter is not to be found on any map. Could it be that Mount Heredom was also "Mount Zion in the far north" as recorded in the Davidic Psalm? Moreover, in her work entitled Celt Druid and Culdee, first published in 1938, Isabel Hill Elder refers to the gigantic monoliths placed in circles and piles of stones called si'uns or cairns. She points out: "The similarity of si'un with the Hebrew word 'Zion' (fortress), the Mount of Stone (as the name Zion in Celtic means) is striking."

Sacred Connections

I began an archaeological survey of East Schiehallion, on a voluntary basis, in 1999. In August 2002 I was commissioned by the John Muir Trust to survey all ground up to 600m; a plane-table survey of significant sites was carried out between autumn 2003 and spring 2005.

The earliest evidence lies not far from the car park at Braes of Foss and very close to the new path; it consists of a prostrate hump-backed boulder with at least 25 cups of varying diameter and depth. This most probably dates to between 3000 and 2000 BC. The purpose of these carvings is much disputed; possible theories encompass art, maps, signposts and ritual. Probably of a similar date are two stone axes, now in Perth Museum, which were found somewhere on Schiehallion. One at least of the axes is unfinished. Such axes could have been used to fell trees in preparation for cultivating ground, although some of the highly polished ones may have been used for ceremonial purposes. Thus, there is clear evidence that the lower slopes of Schiehallion were being visited, if not lived on, at the time of the ‘Neolithic’ or first farmers.

The Story of Schiehallion



Schiehallion there, above. The Sacred Connections link is worth a read, and it links the Culdees (who may have been Johannine ministers, from St John the Evangelist, himself suspected to have been a Celt) through to the masons who are said to have met at Schiehallion. There's about a million fairy stories connected to it, it's an interesting place.

Love that avator, by the way! RIP RW, a sad day.

a reply to: beansidhe

That article from 'sacred connections' was interesting. I think that Psalm 48 is referring to Mt. Hermon. It is in the North compared to Jerusalem. It is called the Mountain of the Gods. The word translated as Far North is Zaphon. Saphon is a name for Mt. Hermon.

Mt Hermon Wiki

Gilgamesh passes near Mount Hermon in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where it was called Saria by Sumerians, "Saria and Lebanon tremble at the felling of the cedars".[5][6] In the Book of Enoch, Mount Hermon is the place where the Watcher class of fallen angels descended to Earth. They swear upon the mountain that they would take wives among the daughters of men and take mutual imprecation for their sin (Enoch 6). The mountain or summit is referred to as Saphon in Ugaritic texts where the palace of Baal is located in a myth about Attar.[7][8]

Even though I'm partial to Hermon being the zion in the north, that wouldn't preclude there being a zion in Scotland. There are many Zions, Jerusalem/Moriah only being one.

What I found very interesting in the article was the connection between the Hebrew word Zion and the Celtic word Si'un. Si-un meaning a cairn or the monoliths.

The word Zion has a cognate that is the word for "sign post, monument, way marker, a monumental or guiding pillar"

The 2 words are actually the same letters, just different vowel points.

a reply to: zardust

Aah, Mt Hermon, yes that would make more sense. It's a good article though I agree, particulary the Zion bit. Monument, guiding pillar - wow. I'm looking for si'un in gaelic/goidelic just now to see what comes up.

Also you're right, it doesn't prevent Schiehallion being of interest just because it wasn't the mountain in question in the OT. There could be parallels from long after the OT was written.

I dont know what they could be but i find myself quite drawn to many of these symbols.

a reply to: Aural

They feel familiar somehow, I know. Just out of interest, which ones interest you and why?

Oh, and hi!

a reply to: Aural

Hi Aural!
Welcome into the rabbit hole!

please feel free to describe the ones which have caught your attention?
Sounds interesting!

G

a reply to: beansidhe
a reply to: Gordi The Drummer

The V rod, Z rod, tuning fork, and the cauldron. Also the shape and pattern on the stone balls. They seem familiar to me too. Im not sure why they seem familiar but maybe its because its a style similar to how I like to draw when I feel in the mood for it. I have a tendency to draw patterns with no consciously intended meaning to them mostly consisting of spirals, spheres, eyes, and arrows. Or maybe I just like symbols in general for example I also like crosses despite not being Christian ( I know they have a prechristian history though but not that familiar with it) and I like sacred geometry such as the flower of life.

When I saw the cauldron one I didnt really think cauldron I thought of something like the rod of asclepius or the ouroboros. With one or two snakes wrapped around a rod and forming a circle. Also reminds me of crop circles because of its simple design.

I am not sure but the stone balls make me think of some kind of sport or game but with an odd shape like that not spherical it must be one of meaning not an ordinary game.

Z rod feels masculine with a bit of feminine to it. The hook looking parts remind me of flowers if they are not hooks but its angularity feels masculine. The spheres of it perhaps are more earthly. The arrow like hooks look different so it may be something of dual forces a type of duality symbol.

Those Viking Runes you mention gordi do not really resonate with me in the same way so I feel they are not directly connected. Although the art style seems familiarish like ive seen it in another culture like a Native American one but not sure which or Aboriginal maybe which would be odd and interesting if so. It feels abstract but organic.

a reply to: Aural

Thanks Aural,

I've just realised...

I used to draw spirals and "maltese" crosses all the time when I was wee too!

I never thought about that until you mentioned it!!! THANK YOU!

G

Oh my brain is starting to hurt again, after reading this. (constellations for beginners i.e. idiots)

Sagittarius and Scorpius point the way to the center of the Milky Way. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see the constellation lines. The Milky Way is our own galaxy, seen from the inside. Sagittarius is at left. Scorpius is at lower right. Ophiuchus is at upper right.

The centaur and the afanc point to the center of the Milky Way.
That reminds me of this -a centaur and afanc surrounding a ...Milky Way/doorway?

a reply to: Aural

The crosses could be Cygnus (I've just learned from my astrology-for-kids site). Ouroboros/cauldron? That's an interesting thought. I couldn't see that so I'm glad you did. I want to go and dig out all the pictures with cauldrons again now!

I agree, the Z feels masculine and mechanical, as does the V rod - a measuring tool of sorts, perhaps. Duality symbol, I would guess, is right on the money. We were looking at Celtic coins earlier, and nearly all of them have pictures within pictures, faces hidden in the main image (as does the book of Kells). I'm glad the symbols said something to you and you recognised something in them. I like your thoughts on them, thanks Aural.

a reply to: Gordi The Drummer

Hmm, just read it there. The Viking stones were sort of 10th century time, if I remember, and therefore wannabes (tee hee!).

Seriously though, in true conspiracy terms, that cross would be better described as a Templar cross...

a reply to: beansidhe

V rod is more feminine to me overall. It feels less mechanical to me. It makes me think of the crescent moon or rising sun combined with horns of an animal. Maybe symbolizing a higher power but sadly I am unsure of this as being exposed to the modern symbols of Wicca probably is tainting my impression. WHen you combine that with the z rod you seem to get a scenery of some sort. The symbols dont have totally separate meanings they seem related.

Thinking of that Scottish rounded stones I think it could have been used for divination rolled down a small grassy hill or tossed into a pile of something soft as if being used like a large dice.

Just in case you dont know, the centre of the milky way is called "The galactic centre". Some scientists think there is a black hole there. The galactic centre is also used in astrology sometimes but I am unsure if that is a modern addition of if it was used in older forms.

a reply to: Aural

I know what you mean, it is hard to separate our biases from the original meanings. V's and crescent moons seem feminine to us now - and to others in the past - but I'm convinced some remnant of these symbols survives in folklore somewhere. Whose folklore is proving harder to uncover, lol!

WHen you combine that with the z rod you seem to get a scenery of some sort. The symbols dont have totally separate meanings they seem related.

Agreed, they are both 'hinged' and feel connected. A Z is half a V, although whether that is meaningful or not - we don't know yet.

Thinking of that Scottish rounded stones I think it could have been used for divination rolled down a small grassy hill or tossed into a pile of something soft as if being used like a large dice.

They feel 'special', magical, imbued with meaning and power which could correspond either to divination or weaponry, I guess. I like your visual-thinking, it's very helpful.

Just in case you dont know, the centre of the milky way is called "The galactic centre". Some scientists think there is a black hole there. The galactic centre is also used in astrology sometimes but I am unsure if that is a modern addition of if it was used in older forms.

I did not know, I am an astronomy idiot unfortunately, so thank you! There was a background of around 3000 years of previous astronomy -maybe longer -so I would bet that the Picts, or the druids at least knew that the Milky Way was the centre of 'space' (not galaxy for them I presume, but then who knows?). In fact, there must be stories somewhere about the Celtic version of the Milky Way, which I'll just go and have a look for...