Study into folklore shows a 7000yr old link to the past.

a reply to: beansidhe

I have to take it back...or rather re-spell it, correctly.



Dissemination. Most humble apologies.

De- and dis-, quite different meaning and I didn't mean the former...to be clear.

There is a story that when Thoth gave the gift of writing to the Egyptians, that King Thamus was concerned that it would contribute as much to learning as it would to ignorance, hence why it remained accessible only to a few. It did lead to forgetfulness and that led us here, destroying that which sustains us. The stories of peoples long past can contribute but we absorbed the earlier people, and they contributed to who we are, their stories are our stories and vice versa.

I love the walnut story, thanks, reminds me of this...



The robustness of stories, whatever their source, is in their ability to maintain relevance, that requires flexibility and an understanding of the key material that requires retention. Written records, the setting of versions in stone, has rendered some stories devoid of relevancy or accessibility, but with others, we are beginning to see the value in extracting what was important to the authors, be it to further plant science, or to build a greater, deeper level of understanding of those people and how their experiences can inform our own experience of survival in a rapidly changing world.

a reply to: beansidhe
Beansidhe,
I would not doubt that some of the more mystic and metaphoric old stories much have an archaic origin.
I doubt the giants were Neanderthals, I'm only five six and I could look one right in the eye, Homo Erectus and Homo heidlgergensis had very tall community members though.
I have a theory about the western native American tales of giants, particularly the red haired giants.
In many western native mythos the term giant is used in several contexts, among the miwok/mono/yokuts the giants are giant birds of prey, anthropomorphic giants,Bigfoot? and giant monsters.
The most famous giants, the red haired giants that the Shoshoneans did battle with , at Lovelock cave, were the Washoe people, who were of a much bigger stature than the Shoshoneans.
But I belive the the red haired attribute is truley ancient.
A couple of summers ago a butchered Mammoth was uncovered, from what appears to be a midden near Monterey, that revealed that Columbian mammoths had red hair.
Newly disovered rock art in Colorado? shows Indians in conflict with a Mammoth, and the mammoth has a person held in their trunk.
That imagery might have translated to the giant that captures ndians and puts them in his burden basket, on his back(mammoth back hump?).

a reply to: Spider879

Hello Spider, thank you very much. I read Slayer's thread, and your post - I haven't seen him for ages, I do hope he's ok. Your post was fascinating. Could they have seen other meteor lakes form in Ghana and applied the same story to their one? That seems quite unlikely, really.
Why on earth would they think it came from a meteor (because it did ) - surely it would need to be viewed from above at some point to even consider that? Maybe not. Or... is the evidence which dates it that far back wrong? I don't even know how to date a lake - soil levels?
Thanks so much for adding that story to this thread, cheers Spider.

eta: Slayer's 10 stories are from none other than Professor Nunn of this thread's story too!

a reply to: Anaana

Don't you dare change it! If Marduk doesn't like to deseminate, that's his lookout

King Thamus' concerns of forgetfulness remind me of the Druids and how it was said (by Caesar, I think) that they relied on an oral poetic tradition specifically to improve their memory.

Written records, the setting of versions in stone, has rendered some stories devoid of relevancy or accessibility,

That is exactly right, just like Baddogma was saying earlier. If the stories are alive today, it is because they are still relevant. We can't hope to know the intent of the author or the meaning of her words if we are 2000 years apart. We can guess, but we have a dead tale - it hasn't breathed in centuries.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Hello there. Are you sure there wasn't an offshoot of Neanderthals who were particularly lanky, because that pretty much destroys my theory if there weren't.

I like your mammoth theory a lot. That would make a lot of sense, because if the kernels of that story are 'red hair' and 'giant', potentially the story shifts ever so slightly down through they years until mammoths are no longer a threat to people. The protaganist changes to human - who were a threat to different clans/tribes/groups - but the key features remain.
I think that's genius, P.

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: punkinworks10

Hello there.[b] Are you sure there wasn't an offshoot of Neanderthals who were particularly lanky, because that pretty much destroys my theory if there weren't.

I like your mammoth theory a lot. That would make a lot of sense, because if the kernels of that story are 'red hair' and 'giant', potentially the story shifts ever so slightly down through they years until mammoths are no longer a threat to people. The protaganist changes to human - who were a threat to different clans/tribes/groups - but the key features remain.
I think that's genius, P.

Actually I hold a very controversial view that the earliest Native americans were in fact the "lanky" Neanderthal decendants, running Neanderthal so to speak. As modern humans spread throught Eurasia they and climate changes oushed them from their forests out onto the savannahs of central Eurasia, where they couldn't ambush their prey in the dark woods anymore, so they became runners, HSN was a very good hiker but not built for running.

A little excerpt from

"Aboriginal Oral Traditions of Australian Impact Craters"

Prof. J.B. Cleland was going to investigate stories about the craters (Anon 1932b), but nothing is found in the literature that report on his findings. In March 1932, a local resident of Kadina undertook an independent investigation of the Henbury craters (Anon, 1932a). The resident (name not provided) claimed that he and his friend contacted the Aboriginal “doctors” or “wise men” (elders) from the “Western tribes” to learn more about their perspective of the crater field. According to the resident’s Aboriginal contact, all young [Aboriginal] men and the women were forbidden from approaching the craters. The Aboriginal contact said of the place “Schindo waroo chinka yabbo shinna kadicha cooka," which he translated to “a fiery devil ran down from the sun and made his home in the earth. He will burn and eat any bad blackfellows” (Anon 1932b). (Note 1)
This account is interesting for two reasons. First, it clearly suggests a living memory of the Henbury impact. Second, the destructive event was seen as divine punishment. Such disasters are often attributed to people breaking laws and taboos. In a similar vein, the Indigenous Moki (Hopi) people of Arizona in the United States recounted an oral tradition about a “blazing star which fell years ago, when the oldest of the ancient cliff dwellings was new,” a place called Meteor Mountain(Anon, 1912), known today as Meteor (Barringer) Crater, which formed 50,000 years ago – long before humans are believed to have settled the New World (e.g. Fagundes et al. 2008). According to Hopi traditions, they had “offended a Great Spirit, and this blazing star had come as a warning, lighting up the earth for hundreds of miles around, and spreading terror throughout the repentant tribes,” (Anon, 1912).
It is uncertain if Western scientists influenced the story or if the meteorite impact was conflated with more recent volcanic eruptions nearby about a thousand years BP (Malotki 1987). In either case, the Hopi traditions describe the impact as divine punishment for unrepentant, or “bad”, people. Similar accounts from Australia relating meteors and punishment are evident throughout Australia (Hamacher and Norris 2009, 2010).

Aboriginal Oral Traditions of Australian Impact Craters

The Indians of the southern cal mountains and deserts call meteors Dakwish, and seeing Dakwish is a very bad omen, for when one sees Dakwish indians will die.

In the myths not dealing with the origin of things the same degree of resemblance is found between the Mission Indians and the Mohave. The elaborate Diegueño Chaup stories published by Miss Du Bois have a close parallel among the Mohave. This equivalent Mohave tradition has not been obtained in full, but an outline has been heard related which leaves no doubt of the correspondence of the versions of the two tribes. It is interesting that Miss Du Bois states that her Diegueño informants believe their Chaup story to have been borrowed from the Mohave. Similarly the Luiseño informant from whom the Dakwish or Meteor myth given below was secured stated to the author that what he knew was only part of the entire Dakwish myth, that part, namely, which relates to Luiseño territory: and that another portion of the story, which tells of the doings of Dakwish in the country of the Diegueño, with an accompaniment of songs, was known to these people. Certain episodes and elements of the Diegueño Chaup stories have also been found in other Mohave myths, notably the one of the two Cane brothers, which may be regarded as a somewhat differentiated version of the same story. In this Cane story occurs Kwayu, the meteor, who is mentioned also in other Mohave legends as a destructive cannibalistic being. Chaup himself is the meteor, and while the greater part of the Chaup story has no direct reference to the meteor, the identification is present in the minds of the Indians. That the meteor was important in the beliefs of the Indians of southern California is further shown by the Luiseño Dakwish myth given below, and by a somewhat similar story from the Saboba, a more northern division of the Luiseño, printed in this journal some years ago. It must therefore be concluded that the meteor is one of the most important special conceptions in the mythology of all southern California, not of innate or inherent importance, but through a selection which for some reason or other has taken place. To this personification have been attached whole mythological episodes that have no real connection with it. These enlarged meteor myths have in many cases been made into myth-ceremonies of the kind characteristic of the region. We have therefore to see in the meteor myths of southern California a special, and as it were accidental, but striking development characteristic of the culture area, very much as the story of the deer and bear children is of northern California, and the story of the visit to the dead in pursuit of a wife is of the San Joaquin Valley.

Dakwish
With out a doubt extraordinary events breed legends

a reply to: punkinworks10

Now there was no ordinary way to enter the house of Dakwish, for the door was a large rock; but Tukupar, being a doctor, made himself into a raven.

He was carrying two rabbits with him. He found the mother of Dakwish sitting. She was frightened. "What are you doing here? No one, comes here," she said.
"I came to see Dakwish," he told her.
She said: "Why do you want to see him? He is destructive. He will kill you. Go into the house and I will let you know when he comes."
Tukupar went in and sat down.

In the, evening Dakwish came. It thundered and the wind roared and rocks rolled down the hills. Dakwish greeted his mother. The old woman told him that Tukupar had come. "Yes?" he said. "If my cousin is here I will roast him and eat him because I have caught no one to-day. I have had bad luck."
His mother said: "No, do not do that. He is your cousin."
"Be quiet," he told her.

www.sacred-texts.com...

When you understand that Dakwish is a personified meteor, the story makes sense as a vehicle to carry the message that meteors will kill you ('eat' you). It remind me very much of celtic stories, especially when Tukapar turns himself into a raven, just like Bran does.

Bran is the brother of Branwen, daughter of the sea god Llyr. Branwen is married off to the king of Ireland, but is mistreated, leading to war between the Britons and Irish. The Irish king Maddolwch is defeated but Bran is mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow.
He asks his followers to cut off his head and bury it in London, with his face to the south to stop the land being invaded. If one recalls the Celtic belief that souls become birds, then Bran’s soul becomes a raven and his burial place, Bran’s tumulus, is now the site of the Tower of London.

Tradition tells us that if the ravens desert the Tower, then the land will fall to foreign invaders, giving us an entertaining story and direct link back to Celtic mythology and the starry sky as the constellation of Corvus, the Crow, or “Bran’s raven” as the ancient Britons knew it.

www.lablit.com...

In a similar vein, the Indigenous Moki (Hopi) people of Arizona in the United States recounted an oral tradition about a “blazing star which fell years ago, when the oldest of the ancient cliff dwellings was new,” a place called Meteor Mountain(Anon, 1912), known today as Meteor (Barringer) Crater, which formed 50,000 years ago – long before humans are believed to have settled the New World (e.g. Fagundes et al. 2008).

50,000 years is an incredible timespan for a story to live, and yet like you say extraordinary events breed legends. No wonder our ancestors learned to study the skies!

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: Anaana

Don't you dare change it! If Marduk doesn't like to deseminate, that's his lookout

Haha...hadn't even seen Marduk's correction, glad you mentioned it too as I would have missed the excellent post he made following that.

originally posted by: beansidhe
King Thamus' concerns of forgetfulness remind me of the Druids and how it was said (by Caesar, I think) that they relied on an oral poetic tradition specifically to improve their memory.

Poetry is a technology in itself, it is a highly structured mnemonic device in some cultures. For the Tamil people too, poetry was the primary means of long distance communication that involved festivals that brought together to regional poets, conveyed to them the "news" and enabled standardised, or editoralised, official edicts to be distributed over a wide geographical area. There were also, as with the Celts, more sacred form of poetic expression.

If you apply that to what we have learned since regaining contact with Australia, in between our attempts to destroy that culture, is that they have a complex relationship to their environment that involves a vast knowledge of plant distribution and usages, as well as animal habitats and behaviours. That is all committed to memory because they have no other means of recording it, and because their survival is dependent upon that information, much in the same way as learning to avoid cars when crossing the road is for us, for example. We remember what is useful and what is important for us to know dependent upon the environment in which we need to survive. The key difference, I think, is how much we depend on centralised, edited, sources for our understanding of the wider issues.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
But I belive the the red haired attribute is truley ancient.
A couple of summers ago a butchered Mammoth was uncovered, from what appears to be a midden near Monterey, that revealed that Columbian mammoths had red hair.
Newly disovered rock art in Colorado? shows Indians in conflict with a Mammoth, and the mammoth has a person held in their trunk.
That imagery might have translated to the giant that captures ndians and puts them in his burden basket, on his back(mammoth back hump?).

At best guess, red hair in the AMM population is around 30,000 years old, but could be much older. The data is lacking, particularly in the key area, Siberia. It has been established that while Neanderthals carried a gene for red hair, it is not the same as ours. AMM developed the mutation independently.

originally posted by: beansidhe
50,000 years is an incredible time span for a story to live, and yet like you say extraordinary events breed legends. No wonder our ancestors learned to study the skies!

As we are learning though, meteorites are a pretty common phenomenon. The oldest huge crater in the region that has been identified may be 50,000 years old, but that is not to say there are not smaller undiscovered craters that enabled such a story to be kept alive...though 50,000 may be a stretch for a continuity of transmission...however, there is some suggestion, a slight one, in India of transmission between Homo erectus and AMM, and we definately mixed it up with the Denisovians...so it is likely that Denisovians and Neanderthals mixed with other hominid groups in some capacity, could, may have been there to pass it on.

Incidently, I am a big fan of the Bran the Blessed myths, and am loving the giant stories being exchanged here to pad out that interest.

a reply to: Anaana

As we are learning though, meteorites are a pretty common phenomenon.

Yes, meteors are fairly common, but witnessing an impact or airburst big enough to kill people and leave a sizable hole in the ground is extremely rare. Likewise, observing the passage of a large fireball or comet is also very rare.
The hero/god/demon/star, falling /being cast out or thrown down either alone or after a chase or battle with another hero/god/demon/star, is a very common motif in ancient lore.
The casting down of Lucifer , the Son of Light, is a perfect example of a story that has its roots in witnessing an impact event.
In fact the Judeo/Christian/Islam tradition is full of stories whose imagry recounts several discreet impact or passage events in the last 13k years.

These events left their mark in the common memory of a good part of the planet.
The Feathered Serpent, Dakwish and Passover, are likely related to accounts of the same event, and this event might also have influence the idea of "dragons" that seem to be nearly ubiquitous in ancient lore.

a reply to: punkinworks10

a reply to: Anaana


I was reading a dragon story to my children last night, and although they've heard it a hundred times they asked for it again. It's an old story about the Stoorworm (stoor is dust, where I'm from) which comes to Scotland, and destroys the land. It burns the crops with its fiery breath, it eats people and no one can kill it. Eventually, after burning it from the inside out with a glowing peat (like coal), Assipattle destroys it. He cracks it on the head with a sword sending it back to the skies. Its eyes fall out and become the spinning Corryvreckan whirlpool, its teeth make the Shetland Isles, its tongue shears Scotland from Norway (Doggerland?).

Story of the Stoorworm

The usual themes are all there - a destroyer from the skies, which initially ruins crops and creates a wasteland, which goes on to change the landscape for ever. Assipattle is the seventh son of a seventh son (seven would represent the Pleiades in the sky, I would think?). It's very like the King Arthur legend too. I am convinced these stories are telling us about catastrophic meteor strikes, with dragons being the meteors.

There are two well known meteor craters in the area, the Ullapool impact and the contested Silverpit crater. Both of these are millions of years old, so unlikely the culprits but these have only been identified in the 21st century. There could easily be craters, as yet unrecognised on the land or under the sea.

originally posted by: punkinworks10

These events left their mark in the common memory of a good part of the planet.
The Feathered Serpent, Dakwish and Passover, are likely related to accounts of the same event, and this event might also have influence the idea of "dragons" that seem to be nearly ubiquitous in ancient lore.

Many regions have some evidence of meteorites falling to ground, and some of those are related to fire, death and destruction, others just magic and wizardry because the story has lost relevance as time has passed, or a bit of both such as in the case of the Kaali crater. Culturally their impact was much greater, aside from the Black Stone of Mecca, both the Libyans and Phyrigians worshipped a meteorite, as did, in a different way, the Inuktitut. There is a lake in India that while considered sacred, it was lost from memory why, recent research has located evidence of a meteorite at the bottom of the lake. The crater was sacred throughout Neolithic Eurasia though more readily associated with volcanic craters, some of those craters, at some point, may have been impact sites. I think that such events were noticably over incredibly wide distances. I'm not saying it is impossible that that story relates to a single event, but doubtful given all that may or may not have happened in between that there was sufficient fuel to keep it alive and relevant. Or what changes that story has undergone in the interim, that may give it that meaning to us but only in retrospect.

The fire breathing dragon is a relatively modern affectation, one seldom found in ancient lore. Quetzalcoatl, for example, was better known for his flower breathing abilities.

a reply to: beansidhe

That's a lovely one! I will need to take it in and digest it but why the Pleiades? Seven of seven relates to multiples of seven, isn't it more likely to be lunar and/or solar and referencing a particular date or point in the year?

a reply to: Anaana

Mmm, it could you know - I hadn't thought of that. My guess was a winter / summer connection - Assipattle was born of the Pleiades/7 (Winter rising), by Spring (he was young) he had vanquished the dragon (rebirth/renewal etc).
But interestingly, the 7th month of the Coligny calendar, (if that's where we're getting our dates from, thinking celticly ) is Dec/Jan, also Winter. Hmm.

originally posted by: Anaana
a reply to: beansidhe

That's a lovely one! I will need to take it in and digest it but why the Pleiades? Seven of seven relates to multiples of seven, isn't it more likely to be lunar and/or solar and referencing a particular date or point in the year?

The Pleiades are significant because the annual Taurid meteor shower(the remnants of the Taurid progenitor comet that is the source of much of these celestial shenanigans) originates from the Pleiades.
Here is a good link for a bunch of articles on the Taurids,
The Taurids
And Bob Kobres page at the University Of Georgia Atlanta
Bob Kobres

This resource, which began in 1994, is offered as a public service. Though other themes are touched upon, the site is primarily focused on understanding the social and physical influence of a once highly-visible large-comet, in a short-period Earth-threatening orbit. This object, according to astronomical evidence, has been progressively breaking up since the Holocene time period began. The result of such debris scattering was to increase the likelihood of Earth's climate being affected by periodic interaction with extraterrestrial material during this most recent time period.

The subject is fascinating and demonstrably essential to an accurate understanding of our species' behavior over the past 12,000 or so years. Some familiarity with this topic will be seen as necessary by students of anthropology, archeology, classics, and religion who peruse this material objectively. The topic also has philosophic and social policy aspects that need to be explored. As the first species on Earth with the capacity to prevent impact events that would otherwise affect biological evolution--What is our responsibility and what is a prudent course of action?

Hopefully this location will also serve as a forum for this new area of inquiry. Though I began investigating this subject over three decades ago, I certainly do not view my own research as definitive and so welcome constructive criticism.

Also Bobs fantastic article on bronze age comet passage.

In 1927 Franz Xaver Kugler, a Jesuit scholar who had devoted over thirty years to the study of cuneiform astronomical texts, published an essay entitled "The Sibylline Starwar and Phaethon In the Light of Natural History." His tri-decade-plus familiarity with ancient documents of celestial events plus a growing consensus that the crater at Coon Mountain Arizona (Meteor Crater) was in fact produced by a large meteoroid provided the scientific footing for Kugler's assertion that a similarly large impact event in the Mediterranean Sea inspired fire-from-above legends such as Phaethon's ride.

And this tasty little bit

Figure One also shows that different cultures around the world would witness this hypothetical yet plausible approach of the comet; however, the perspective of disparate observers would not be the same. For instance, at minus one hour for an observer on the Nile delta, the phenomena is hovering overhead, while at the mouth of the Amazon (80 degrees to the west) a disconcerting dawn is breaking. It is therefore encouraging to find stories which seem to support the witnessing of such an event embedded within the native lore of this part of the world:


The sun had risen indeed, and with a glory of the cruel fire about him that not even the eyes of the gods could endure; but he moved not. There he lay on the horizon; and when the deities sent Tlotli, their messenger, to him, with orders that he should go on upon his way, his ominous answer was, that he would never leave that place till he had destroyed and put an end to them all. Then a great fear fell upon some, while others were moved only to anger; and among the latter was one Citli, who immediately strung his bow and advanced against the glittering enemy. By quickly lowering his head the Sun avoided the first arrow shot at him; but the second and third had attained his body in quick succession, when, filled with fury, he seized the last and launched it back upon his assailant. And the brave Citli laid shaft to string nevermore, for the arrow of the sun pierced his forehead.


Then all was dismay in the assembly of the gods, and despair filled their heart, for they saw that they could not prevail against the shining one; . . . (emphasis added) (H.H. Bancroft 1886 Vol. 3 p. 61)

and along the same theme:


. . . According to the Annals of Quauhtitlan, Quetzalcoatl, when driven from Tollan, immolated himself on the shores of the eastern sea, and from his ashes rose birds with shining feathers (symbols of warrior souls mounting to the sun), while his heart became the Morning Star, wandering for eight days in the underworld before it ascended in splendour. In numerous legends Quetzalcoatl is associated with Tezcatlipoca, commonly as an antagonist; and if we may believe one tale, recounted by Mendieta, Tezcatlipoca, defeating Quetzalcoatl in ball- play (a game directly symbolic of the movements of the heavenly orbs), cast him out of the land into the east, where he encountered the sun and was burned. (emphasis added) (H.B. Alexander 1919, 1964 ed., Vol. 11 p. 68)

A strong tradition of "Sun Ages" existed among the people who passed these potentially quite valuable stories to our time; memories that relate the transitions of those eras also seem pregnant with information:


. . . "The Sun of Air," Ehcatonatiuh, closed with a furious wind, which destroyed edifices, uprooted trees, and even moved the rocks. . . . Quetzalcoatl appeared in this third Sun, teaching the way of virtue and the arts of life; but his doctrines failed to take root, so he departed toward the east, promising to return another day. With his departure "the Sun of Air" came to its end, and Tlatonatiuh, "the Sun of Fire," began, so called because it was expected that the next destruction would be by fire. (emphasis added) (ibid, p. 91)

This tradition seems to imply that Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent) departed to the east in the last great period of cosmic destruction. A recent palaeoecological study of lakes in the Caribbean region (D.A. Hodell, 1991) reveals a sudden onset of dry conditions about thirty-two hundred years ago, this finding adds to an already robust collection of data which suggest a global perturbation of climate around that time period (1200 - 1000 B.C.E.). It is an intriguing possibility that cultures throughout the world experienced hardships during this era due to a large input of extraterrestrial material.

Comet Phaetons Ride


Back to the Pleiades and the number seven, not only are the seven stars of the Pleiades significant, but classic Mesopotamian sources reference the "Seven Judges Of Hell", so I think that at least one of the bronze age events was a multiple fragment impact.

a reply to: beansidhe
I didn't mean to derail the thread into an impact conversation , I was just using those stories to illustrate the kinds of extraordinary events that get remembered in mythologies.

Many people take the stories too literally or too metaphorically and reject their validity on preconceived notions.
Flood stories world wide, not a global flood, have roots in many different events, some are discreet local floods of note, while others although local were caused by regional or global events.
Another thing is , for a truely ancient story to be preserved, you have to have some sort of cultural and linguistic continuity for the stories to survive.
You have this is Australia and portions of the new world. The native central Californians fill this bill, have been culturally linguistically consistent for at least 8000 years if not much much more. One site has definative occupation going back 17k years. The oldest preserved baskerty, clothing and such is that old and strongly resembles much older materials on the other side of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Even though pre contact California was one of the most linguistically diverse region in world, most of those languages developed in situ and preserved the old stories as the languages changed.
It's in this fact that I put my faith, that the California mythologies best preserved the old tales, for most of the Native population contact came very very late, mid 19th century, and with the exception of the Spanish territories on the coast and southern cal, missionaries didn't make any appreciable inroads into the culture. My father's god mother lived with the last "wild" band the North Fork Mono(north fork of the San Joaquin river), in the 1890's.
Many of the stories were related to professional ethnographers and anthropologists in the late 19th early 20th centuries by native speakers that learned the stories pre contact.
Nearly all of the central cal Indians have flood stories, some are very similar some or quite different.
That is not to be unexpected as the San Joaquin valley is a vast flood plain, but the Bay Miwok of the northern San Joaquin/Sacramento delta, tell of the world being consumed by fire before a great deluge. While the Ah wah Neechee or the Yo Sem ite(the Miwok/Yokut/Mono mixed band that lived in Yosemite) tell a tale about a day when the earth shook, and a great fire and smoke rose from east of the mountains. The fire caused all of the ice Amd snow to melt from the "Sky Mountains" that caused a great flood to drown many of the valley people.
After that the sun went away behind dark clouds and the deer ran away and the people starved in the darkness, with some turning to canabalism.
This suite of stories relates the "proposed" Younger Dryas impact events.
That's 13k years ago.

a reply to: punkinworks10

I didn't mean to derail the thread into an impact conversation , I was just using those stories to illustrate the kinds of extraordinary events that get remembered in mythologies.

That's funny, I was just thinking earlier that I wasn't going to derail this thread with tales of Scottish folklore but - surprise - I did just that, as like many threads before!
But this is the great thing about ATS, everyone brings their own world here and between us all we can learn and share it. I happen to be very fond of impact theory, I think it fits my world very well.

When you think back to many ancient cultures, their floods were their world. They had few visitors and their physical world was much smaller than ours.

Another thing is , for a truely ancient story to be preserved, you have to have some sort of cultural and linguistic continuity for the stories to survive. You have this is Australia and portions of the new world. The native central Californians fill this bill, have been culturally linguistically consistent for at least 8000 years if not much much more. One site has definative occupation going back 17k years.

This is where I get a pang of envy, because your father's godmother knew her past. Where your language has remained consistent for over 8000 yrs, none of the meaning gets lost. None of us now even know what language the Picts spoke! Wrong thread, I know, but it's a disgrace. We were only allowed gaelic on our road and building signs from 2003!
www.gov.scot...

A wee mini rant in there, apologies! Can you imagine the wealth and richness of knowledge in stories which could have survived 17,000 years? Those are people who need to be listened to, whose stories will be 'pure' or as pure as possible given the timescale. With nothing being lost in translation, like so many European stories, where we're hunting for metaphors or like you say, dismissing them as impossible factual events.

the Bay Miwok of the northern San Joaquin/Sacramento delta, tell of the world being consumed by fire before a great deluge. While the Ah wah Neechee or the Yo Sem ite(the Miwok/Yokut/Mono mixed band that lived in Yosemite) tell a tale about a day when the earth shook, and a great fire and smoke rose from east of the mountains. The fire caused all of the ice Amd snow to melt from the "Sky Mountains" that caused a great flood to drown many of the valley people. After that the sun went away behind dark clouds and the deer ran away and the people starved in the darkness, with some turning to canabalism. This suite of stories relates the "proposed" Younger Dryas impact events. That's 13k years ago.

That's incredible, and yet a bit of an unlikely coincidence if it didn't relate to the Younger Dryas interval? Logically, why wouldn't it? If the family is older than 13,000 years then why not?
We've been taught that folk stories are silly, just meaningless stories to pass the time or entertain children. Maybe our forgotten history has been in plain sight all along?

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: Anaana

Mmm, it could you know - I hadn't thought of that. My guess was a winter / summer connection - Assipattle was born of the Pleiades/7 (Winter rising), by Spring (he was young) he had vanquished the dragon (rebirth/renewal etc).
But interestingly, the 7th month of the Coligny calendar, (if that's where we're getting our dates from, thinking celticly

) is Dec/Jan, also Winter. Hmm.

Could be both??? But seventh son of seventh son, does have magical connotations associated with the bardic art, so it may be an astrological characterisation, rather than a date of an event...if that makes sense. For it to be a date it wouldn't be a Coligny calendar, you'd need a Norse one, according to the academics that's the original source of the story...though there are a lot of versions. The seventh son of the seventh son, seems to be a bardic form, especially in conjunction with the narrative where he was idle and of little use around the home. I thought the dragon was a maelstrom in the sea but the mention of peat is nice. I'm wondering if Assipattle can be equated with Bes.