Trade Secrets

[hvered]

St Margaret's well at Binsey was a 'treacle' well, as mentioned in Alice In Wonderland. Treacle seems to have meant 'treatment' or healing. Like many holy wells, this one was said to cure eye problems

Algar, in search of her, was blinded by lightning. Frideswide cured his blindness by water from St Margaret's Well, which she caused to appear close to the west end of the church by praying to St Margaret of Antioch. In medieval times, "treacle" meant "a healing fluid", and Lewis Carroll referred to it as a "treacle well" in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

St Margaret being such a famous 'dragon saint' is presumably why the therapeutic well was named for her rather than Frideswide. The etymology proposed for 'treacle' is somewhat garbled but quite interesting if taken with a dose of salt

treacle:
From Old French triacle, from Late Latin *triaca, late form of theriaca, from Ancient Greek θηριακή (thēriakḗ, “antidote”), feminine form of θηριακός (thēriakós, “concerning venomous beasts”), from θήρ (thḗr, “beast”).

Lewis Carroll would have been au fait with the Frideswide story as her shrine is in Christ Church where he lectured.

[Mick Harper]

Perhaps people in ancient times didn't know that.

You mean before we came down from the trees?

And let's face it if you are a water diviner you're not going to say something like 'why don't you do it yourself it's easy. I don't want your money honest.'

Water divining is (probably) a nineteenth century thing. The million dollar prize (or whatever) for passing a simple test under controlled conditions is still unclaimed. Makes no difference. Belief is belief. A distinction though should be drawn between ordinary wells and Holy Wells which usually feature some local geological phenomenon i.e. a spring or a sylvan setting or whatever.

I would suggest it's all a garbled memory from a very long time ago.

Yes, this is a standard orthodox view -- folk memory, local tradition, 'it is said' etc etc. They are in fact very carefully crafted from whole cloth.

Another strange thing about this lady is that her name appears to have not been used very much in England except in a Germanic form among the Norman nobility.

I mention this in Forgeries p 130. The Church is generally an arm of the state so each regime crafts saints for their own purposes. The people pray to whoever is on the board outside, just above the Roof Appeal.

Treacle seems to have meant 'treatment' or healing. Like many holy wells, this one was said to cure eye problems

Anything new and expensive is always proffered as a medical treatment. Molasses was new and expensive once.

[hvered]

Someone who watched the YouTube of Mick's talk at Megalithomania commented how much he enjoyed the book but

it seems he does not "get" the dowsing aspect 

I can't remember if we actually mentioned dowsing but I too suspect it's a modern (Wiccan?) practice. Animals often seem better equipped than people to 'sniff out' water. [Come to think of it, water-avoiding animals were preferred on ships, mainly corvids (crows) and cats/ferrets]

Llans and churches on hilltops/beside main routes routinely own a well or spring, presumptively for the benefit of animals rather than people that were passing through. They weren't necessarily potable or even clean, most pictures show distinctly murky-looking water.

It is plausible for a 'holy man' to be assigned with healing powers reminiscent of cunning men/ women ('curate'?) especially in more remote locations. Perhaps pulling the wool over their eyes came into it.

[Mick Harper]

Perhaps pulling the wool over their eyes came into it.

This is, I think, unfair. Two aspects:
1. The placebo effect is entirely real but works best when both patient and therapist believe in the efficacy of the cure
2. Most medical conditions were untreatable before germ theory/big pharma and it is far better for people to believe there is a cure even though there isn't than believe there isn't.

[hvered]

The Megalithic Portal has posted up some pretty pictures of Wolin, the location of the largest German-Scandinavian-cum-Viking re-enactment festival in the world. Possibly it was a centre of the Baltic amber trade?

Wolin has a strikingly Megalithic aspect. Aerial photos on the Wiki page show its position between the Baltic Sea and the Szczecinski lagoon aka Stettin or Oder lagoon (the northern end of the all-important Oder-Neisse Line)



Not much happened/is known about Wolin during the 8th to the 11th centuries even though that is generally reckoned to be 'the Viking Age'. Enough Stone Age archaeology seems to have survived but after that things are less clear: "indicate that", "abandoned", "approximately" come into play and the evidence somehow elides a 500-600 year gap.

The ford across the river Dzwina on which Wolin is located has been used as far back as the Stone age. Archaeological excavations of soil layers indicate that there was a settlement in the area during the Migration period, at the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries. The place was then abandoned for approximately one hundred years.

At the end of the 8th or the beginning of the 9th century the area was leveled and a new settlement constructed. The earliest evidence of fortifications dates to the first half of the 9th century. In the second half of the 9th century there was a central fortified area and two suburbs, to the north and south of the center. These became enclosed and fortified between the end of the 9th and the 10th centuries

All of a sudden Wolin becomes hugely important as a trading emporium

The period of greatest development during the medieval period occurred between the 9th and the 11th centuries. Around 896 AD a new port was constructed and the main part of the town acquired new, stronger fortifications, including a wooden palisade made of halved 50 centimeter wide tree trunks, a rampart and a retaining wall.

Archaeologists believe that in the Early Middle Ages Wolin was a great trade emporium, spreading along the shore for four kilometers and rivaling in importance Birka and Hedeby.

The source for Wolin's trading success is a medieval i.e. twelfth-century Latin document, the Bavarian Geographer, discovered in 1772.

To the west of Wolin is a second island, the island of Usedom

The island is separated from the neighbouring island of Wolin to the east by the Strait of Świna (German: Swine), which is the main route connecting Szczecin Bay with the Pomeranian Bay, a part of the Baltic Sea. The strait between the island and the mainland is called the Peenestrom; it is a downstream extension of the valley of the Peene river, which flows into the westernmost part of the Stettin Lagoon. The island is mostly flat, partly covered by marshes.

The history of Wolin's neighbouring island may be the clue to Wolin's prosperity

Settled since the Stone Age, the area was probably inhabited by Germanic Rugians, before the Polabian Slavs moved in during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. Around the island, Wendish/Scandinavian trade centres such as Vineta/Jomsborg and Menzlin were established. In 1128 the Slavic Pomeranian Duke Wartislaw I was converted to Christianity through the efforts of Otto of Bamberg. In 1155 the Premonstratensians established a monastery in Grobe, generally known as Usedom Abbey, which in 1309 was moved to the village of Pudagla. In the meantime, a Cistercian nunnery was founded in Krummin and soon almost the whole island was in the possession of one or the other of the ecclesiastical orders. During the Reformation, ownership passed to the Slavic dukes of Pomerania, who took over the island.

I'd wondered if there could be a 'wool' connection but Wiki thinks the name Wolin means wetland 'in the old Slavic language'

The origins of the name are unknown, although it is likely of Slavic origin. In the old Slavic language the word wolyn meant a wetland. [citation needed]

[Mick Harper]

The similarity between this 'haff' and Chesil Beach should not be overlooked. Although 'haffs' are treated by orthodoxy as routine naturally-occurring geographical features, they are actually a bit rare for this treatment (cf mermaid pools, tidal islands, tarbets, sea arches etc).

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A palaeoenvironmental study of the area (from 6,000 BC) results in a mix of (probable) causes, which to an outsider sounds like 'we don't know' albeit in crushingly specialist terminology

Simulation results indicate that the development of the barrier system is a combination of long-term effects of climate change, isostatic crustal movement, wave dynamics, aeolian transport and short-term effects of extreme wind events, i.e. storms

http://www.splashcos.org/sites/splashco ... -13-09.pdf

Their conclusions seem to mostly rely on changing sea levels.

The driving forces of this environmental change are complex, and have to be considered in their interdependence. The most important drivers are climatically controlled eustatic sea level change and the vertical movements of the Earth’s crust, primarily in response to glacial unloading and meltwater loading.

In view of relative sea-level change, according to the tectonic setting, but also to geographic position, three subregions can be distinguished for Europe: the Baltic Basin; the North Sea and the open Atlantic shelf; and the Mediterranean Basin together with the Black Sea. Where the land is subsiding or the rate of eustatic sea-level rise exceeds crustal uplift, the continental shelf and its palaeolandscapes are continuously inundated. Here, the migrating highly dynamic shoreline reworks the surface of the palaeolandscape.

No reason given for raised/lowered levels, wouldn't 'crustal displacement' and the like similarly affect other areas? Presumably, though, such scenarios cannot be disproved -- or proved.

Another avenue to be explored is Baltic bogs and they involve humans, at least it gets away from climate change speculations

Peatlands of the southern Baltic type occur in northern Poland in a 40 km wide belt along the coast. This region represents the southern boundary of the occurrence of this type of raised bogs in Europe. It comprises the physical–geographical region known as the Kaszuby Lakeland, constituting the most elevated part of the Polish Lowlands. It is characterised by a transitional oceanic–continental climate that is strongly influenced by the Baltic Sea. The raised bogs of the southern Baltic have never been subjected to a thorough Holocene-length multi-proxy palaeoecological study. Any synchronicities of changes in regional vegetation with changes in hydrology would be of particular interest, because these might suggest a common forcing. Integrated studies of plant macrofossils, testate amoebae and pollen may therefore help to reconstruct the role of climate in the hydrological history of the peatland. Pollen data are in this context of special interest, as they have the potential to track human impacts on the peatlands, which is essential for disentangling climatic forcing on peatland development.

Peat analysis in the Baltic study area is still at an early stage, they appear to be saying no-one's in charge

However, no continuous peat core from Poland including most of the Holocene has been investigated in a multi-proxy context.

But humans weren't around way back when so it's back to climate affecting the landscape. But I'm still unclear why haffs are here but not there

Former studies in this part of Poland showed that human impact on the landscape was insignificant up to the early Mediaeval (Lamentowicz et al., 2008a), so that the reconstructed palaeohydrology of the peatland depended mainly on climate.

Will dig a bit deeper.

[Boreades]

Looks like the early Orkney people were chomping on roast vole. Which apparently they had brought direct from Belgium as has been previously mentioned. If they were brought for food as we are told rabbits were later on it means that the people probably were Belgians on the move as we are also told the voles came direct from Belgium. Assuming the Belgians at the time were Germanic speakers of one sort or another, although at that time perhaps there wasn't much of a selection, this would mean that the early Orcadians were also Germanic speakers?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37690206

The Belgium Takeaway Theory was rolled-out again today during a AutumnWatch Meets Coast in Orkney special on Al Beeb. Chris Packham was the talking head being shown the Euro-Vole DNA profiles (Vole San Frontieres). Belgium Vole was the best match to Orkney Vole. Spanish Vole, French Vole and Norwegian Vole got Nil Point and were relegated.

The little-intelligence-required but still-logical options (but unstated on the programme) are:
1) Orkney Vole is an immigrant from Belgium, or
2) Belgium Vole is an immigrant from Orkney

TME regulars will already have guessed that there is a higher-insight third option.
3) Orkney Vole and Belgium Vole are both descended from Vole X, which came from somewhere else. Perhaps Doggerland.

Of course, Packham & Co leapt blindly to the first option, on the basis of no evidence at all. Such is the state of archeology and "reimagining the past". Sigh.

Oh, by the way, some Scottish bloke with long hair grabbed the opportunity to claim that the Megaliths all started in Scotland. Especially Orkney.

[hvered]

The editorial board of Archaeologia Baltica has pushed the beginning of the Neolithic (previously 3000 - 1500 BC) back about 1500 years, while the end of the period remains the same, but subdivides Neolithic into 'Early Neolithic', 'Middle Neolithic' and 'Late Neolithic' which covers three more millennia (from 6550 BC).

They say there are no known domesticated animal bones dating to the Early Neolithic but they found 'an abundance of artefacts and structures related to fishing (like boats, nets, net floats and sinkers, weirs). But by the Late Bronze Age "hillforts (and cremations) appeared and roughly 50% of the zooarchaeological material belongs to domesticated animals". They state quite openly that there's a problem with chronology, which relies on radiocarbon dating, and 'investigations have been limited'

recent concerns with Stone and Bronze Age periodization as well as major chronological (including stratigraphical) discrepancies illustrated by recent radiocarbon datings of this time period's archaeological sites further confuse a proper understanding of the evolutionary sequence of prehistoric processes, including the evolution of economy.

I thought the Wolin area was 'wetland' and would not therefore be suitable for growing crops but

During the Late Neolithic, in western Baltic Haff culture sites, not only carbonized Querem and Malm fruits (acorns and apples) have been found, but also pollen and seed analysis show that cultivated plants were Triticum dicoccon (emmer wheat), Hordeum (barley), Panicum and Setaria italica (millet, Italian millet), and Cannabis (hemp).

There is an unexplained gap between a Neolithic 'fishing' culture and the appearance of pottery and agriculture in the Bronze Age. The gap is conveniently bridged by the 'Narva Culture', followed by the 'Corded Ware Culture' which

originated from migrations from the Eurasiatic steppes

and was then widespread enough to encompass almost all of central Europe

Archaeologists note that Corded Ware was not a "unified culture," as Corded ware groups inhabiting a vast geographical area from the Rhine to Volga seem to have regionally specific subsistence strategies and economies

But perhaps this mysterious group were here all along

The Corded Ware culture has long been regarded as Indo-European because of its relative lack of settlements compared to preceding cultures

[hvered]

The Scottish bloke with long hair was investigating the (pre)history of the Vikings on telly last night. I half-watched but am sure I saw him climbing a high conical hill in Denmark dated Bronze Age and twenty or so minutes later climbing what looked an identical one in Sweden only it was 'two thousand years later'. This dating business seems quite idiosyncratic. Terrific boats though.