Anglesey

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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 5:38 pm

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. The animal associated with Hermes is ermine aka ferret/polecat, the rabbits' nemesis!
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Malmaison » 1:52 pm

Maribel wrote: There may be a connection between maen and mine in English. I know this site seems to be getting obsessed with mining matters but that is apparently the reason why Greeks, Latins and others were interested in Britain in the first place.

The Welsh don't seem to be into mining like the Cornish (though Welsh and Cornish is practically the same language). They all became coal-miners for a time of course, which is quite different.

I thought the Anglesey copper mine at Parys Mountain was a bigger mine than Orme Head which (I think) was more of an open cast pit. Parys mountain is named for one Robert Parys who was given the land as a reward for collecting taxes but it was originally called Mynydd Trysglwyn. This name is translated as "a hillside covered in a thick grove of rough trees covered with scaly lichen growth" on the Parys Mountain website which sounds suitably ornery or even ormery.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Malmaison » 3:03 pm

Penny wrote: The symbol of the trinity occurs in many cultures, most commonly it represents the father, mother and child but in Celtic stories and myths the moon goddess is specifically three-in-one, i.e. maiden, mother and crone. The IOM is named for Mannanen a sea-god according to place-name experts. Could it be that Man is Moon? There is after all a strong correlation between the sea and moon.


Men = stone, as in menhir and dolmen; Møn is an island in south-eastern Denmark; and Mön is Icelandic for the Isle of Man. The simple Mon = mount is discredited, though I don't see why that name shouldn't apply to all of these Isles of Man (including the Isle of Wight), especially when the sea was lower. (Were they literally isles of men then the sea cut them off?)
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Re: Anglesey

Postby DP Crisp » 3:35 pm

I had an idea that the Irish Sea/St. George's Channel is (equivalent to) the River Styx and Ireland is the Underworld or Land of the Dead. The far West is associated with death... then there's that stuff about Patrick and snakes that's all mythic and Platonic and Underworldy... and more stuff about Anglesey-that-shall-be-called-Mon that's all geometric and snaky... and then there are Hebrews crossing over...

Something shifted my attention: what if Anglesey is the (or a) Land of the Dead? That would make the Menai Strait the River Styx.

Menai Strait in Welsh is Afon Menai, the "River Menai". {Which is technically correct, since it goes between two banks.}

I thought this might be a clue: Caernarfon "comes from Welsh Caer yn Arfon = castle in Arfon" and "Arfon means [region] opposite Anglesey". But it ain't: Arfon is the region opposite Anglesey, but that's not what it means. Best guess is that Arfon = afon/avon, being the region alongside the "river" Menai.

Presumably, Menai comes from the same place as Mon, which seems to be too 'basic' to trace. But there's loads in the frame. Barmon/barmyn = barman, suggesting mon = myn = man, but maybe only because in loanwords: hwsmon/hwsmyn (houseman, surely) = husbandsman, farmer, foreman... iwmon/iwmyn = yeoman... emyn = hymn...

Hang on, hymnus/humnos = song in praise of a god or hero, so it could be Welsh/Hyperborean just as well as Greek.

Some other interesting things:

myn = kid, a variation on man, perhaps a reborn man?

mynach = monk. Relevant or a loan? A relevant loan?

mynd = to go; mynediad = going, access, admission; mynegai = index; mynegair = concordance; tremynt = view, sight; tremynu = to walk, to travel... Myn is all about directed movement, pointing, travelling... That could refer to the strait, to right-angles, to the journey into the Underworld...
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Re: Anglesey

Postby DP Crisp » 3:40 pm

Mynyw (Monnow?) means Menevia, which covers most of southern Wales, and is said to derive from Menapia and the Menapii. Menapia also refers to Wexford in Ireland, directly across from Menevia.

There's a book called The Menapia Quest: Two Thousand Years of the Menapii - Seafaring Gauls in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, 216 BC-1990 AD {Catchy.} and this particular sea-faring bunch (linked with the Venetii in their resistance to Caesar) evokes Odysseus and the Argonauts (most likely Atlantic tales, if anywhere), sacrifice, the Underworld... and the metals trades of Wales and Ireland...


"A suggested etymology of Menapii: *Meen + *ape. Meen = main house, large house in a village where people met, justice was spoken, decisions proposed and voted. ape = follower, low ranking farmer, imitator (a German substrate word)... It refers to a (Celtic) social organisation. [hypothesis]"


If there's anything to this, Men/Mon could just be main/man and refer to Anglesey being a headquarters.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Marko » 3:53 pm

Ynys Mon - Lonely Isle..... perhaps.

Anglesey literally means 'Island of Teachers'.

Old Irish - innis = island
Old Irish - múnim = teach, instruct.



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'.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 11:56 pm

Marko wrote: Ynys Mon - Lonely Isle..... perhaps.

Anglesey literally means 'Island of Teachers'.


Old Irish - innis = island
Old Irish - múnim = teach, instruct.


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.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 10:36 am

DP Crisp wrote: Something shifted my attention: what if Anglesey is the (or a) Land of the Dead? That would make the Menai Strait the River Styx.

Menai Strait in Welsh is Afon Menai, the "River Menai". {Which is technically correct, since it goes between two banks.}

Horses' hoofs are legendarily the only material that can withstand the Styx, reminds me of dragon legends (dragons can only be defeated by thunderbolts and iron) which ties in with the orme stuff.

Why should Anglesey be the/a Land of the Dead? After mining activities the land is wasted/poisoned? But Boreades' 'island of the mind' sounds promising and fits in with Anglesey as a headquarters...
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 11:14 am

Charon, the ferryman who rows souls across the Styx, sounds very like carn i.e. cairn, a burial mound or hump, or hoof.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Maribel » 11:16 am

Ynys Mon - Lonely Isle..... perhaps.

Sounds right. Ynys i.e. island, Mon i.e. Monad, meaning isolated.

Mon could mean both single and moon as in mono and Moon. The Druids are reckoned to be astronomers. Singular Island or Moon Island suits Anglesey in just about every sense, including ones where Angle = Snake.
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