Anglesey

[Boreades]

Just found a nice site on the Great Orme Copper Mine

http://www.saintsandstones.net/stones-g ... ourney.htm

[hvered]

There is no 'Mon' in Welsh - its ONLY meaning is 'Anglesey'..... the closest (in sound when spoken in Welsh) is Mwyn (m-oy-n) which means "ore/mineral" and linked with mwyngloddio which means 'to mine'.

Could this be another Hermetic allegory hidden in plain sight?
(a) The literal mining, to bring rough matter out of hiding in the dark underground and transform it into material wealth,
and (b) the teach/instruct, to take a dull unenlightened initiate/student mind and transform it into an enlightened mind with a wealth of knowledge? As above, so below. Or something like that.

Anglesey came up in last night's Pilgrims and Pagans on BBC4 or rather Llanddwyn Island at the south-western entrance to the Menai Straits. It is a semi-tidal island, cut off by the highest tides.

Dwynwen is said to mean 'white wave' though there is some disagreement, e.g. the most sensible etymology derives from the two Cymric components of her name dwyn which as meaning 'to steal' also means 'to lead [a life]' and gwyn literally meaning 'white' but also meaning 'blessed' which underlines St Dwynwen's somewhat ambiguous character. She turned her suitor Maelon into stone yet is the patron saint of lovers.

In megalithic lore people are turned into stone by a witch, or the Devil. Or maybe Anglesey Druids. At any rate our 'saint' looked after a well kept pure by a prophetic eel and seems to have been a typical hermit/guardian. There is still a toll road at the entrance to the island.

[Boreades]

This talk of eels and females that turn people to stone reminds of the Greek legend of Medusa - described as having the face of a female with snakes in place of hair. Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone. She got the snakes after being raped by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon.

[Boreades]

Rabbits are supposedly a Roman introduction though the Phoenicians are generally accredited with the animals' widespread distribution. Phoenician traders in Spain seem to indicate the country was overrun with rabbits.

While I've being playing with my new toys (SABRE's old OS maps), I noticed that some bumps in the landscape were called Pillow Mounds. It wasn't a term I was familiar with, so I looked it up.

Pillow Mounds were artificial, to farm rabbits as a useful delicacy. Coincidentally, a lot of these Pillow Mounds are by old paths. So now I'm wondering if megalithic folks would have done the same. Maybe some of the "barrows", like at Overton Hill on The Ridgeway, were megalithic take-away stalls of tasty snacks for passing travellers?

[hvered]

Recently I wandered up a barrow beside Nine Mile Ride between Bracknell and Crowthorne because it had been mentioned on the Megalithic Portal and decided it was a man-made structure probably for rabbits, surrounded by houses and next to a road connecting two historic villages. Close by is Warren Lane which I hadn't realised at the time.

[Mick Harper]

Rabbits are supposedly a Roman introduction

It's worth pointing out something that's in TME. Until very recently it was received academic opinion that rabbits were a Norman introduction. Shifting them back a thousand years (or adding half as much again to their history) would seem to indicate that rabbits might be intrinsically difficult (or impossible) to date. The reason is obvious enough: rabbits burrow through the archaeological layers.

A corollary may be that archaeologists are a bunch of boobies when it comes to questioning their own methodologies. Any competent group of scholars would recognise flashing lights when such a familiar animal as the rabbit had his ancestry so vastly prolonged overnight and make a detailed search for comparable anomalies and then start a rigorous examination of the limits of the 'archaeological layer method'.

I doubt if a single archaeologist even noticed. In fact, if asked, they would rather claim it a feather in their cap that 'further research' resulted in a deeper understanding of the past re rabbits in Britain.

[Mick Harper]

'Feather in the cap to hide egregious error' syndrome can be viewed nightly on the evening news. As habitués of The Applied Epistemology Library will know, the economy is essentially a chaotic system which means that, like the weather, it is inherently impossible to predict in any long term sense. But, like the weather, human beings prefer to pretend that it is and pay people to make predictions anyway.

So, every time you hear an economist say, "We have adjusted our growth forecast for next year by ... " with a smug expression that betokens many hours spent under the midnight oil to bring you the latest research hot off the presses, always remember that they are actually saying, "Sorry, we got it wrong again and, by the way, this prediction will also be 'adjusted' nearer the date as well."

[macausland]

'Mona, Isle of Man'.

Perhaps there is a link between the meaning alluding to learning and mining.

Could it be to do with 'money'?

Money is made from metal and we do refer to money as 'copper'. Well in my house we do. No gold or silver to be found here I'm afraid.

The Roman goddess Juno Moneta, with Greek roots, is the goddess of instruction and the 'protectress of funds according to Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Moneta

[Marko]

Rabbits are supposedly a Roman introduction though the Phoenicians are generally accredited with the animals' widespread distribution. Phoenician traders in Spain seem to indicate the country was overrun with rabbits.

It's not known if Spanish and north African rabbits were domesticated but the Romans certainly carried out rabbit-farming which could be why the arrival of rabbits was then attributed to the Romans.

From Strabo's description of burrowing hares which he said were the main or only destructive animals in Spain, it doesn't sound like the Romans were all that familiar with rabbits. But it does sound like coney, the old English word for rabbit, is the same as Spanish conejo and the Phoenicians traded with both.

The three hare symbol may be a tinners' lucky charm. It may also be significant that the three hares have been found in China where tin was mined, apparently independently.

A link between learning and mining and money seems reasonable. The Phoenicians are credited with introducing the or at least an alphabet; it's obvious that traders needed words and numbers. Cunning too of course.

[hvered]

The Roman goddess Juno Moneta, with Greek roots, is the goddess of instruction and the 'protectress of funds according to Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Moneta

Menai Straits? Maen (meini) means stone in Welsh as in Cornish, which sounds like money and mining are almost the same word.

It might be referring to a stoney causeway connecting the island of Anglesey to the mainland, more or less where the present Menai Bridge crosses where the strong currents mean the mid-strait region is composed of rocks and stones with very little sediment accumulation except in sheltered embayments

Menai in Greek mythology is all about moon (and tides?)

THE FIFTY MENAI were the goddesses of the lunar months, daughters of Selene (the Moon) and Endymion king of Elis and Olympia, the home of the Olympic Games. The Menai represented the fifty lunar months of the four-year Olympiad - a basic unit in the Ancient Greek measurement of time. The eight year Octaeteris (which was used in place of our modern day counting by decades) consisted of two Olympiads of fifty and forty-nine months respectively. This 99 lunar month cycle equates to 8 solar years, and marks the convergence of these two primal heavenly cycles.

The Welsh Elen seems to be a version of the Greek Selene. Interestingly, there is a small tidal island at the western entrance to the Menai Straits called Ynys Llanddwyn. [St Dwynwen is the patron saint of lovers and sick animals in Wales which is suitably Megalithic as per Guinevere, Winifred, Melangel and assorted 'saints'.]