Pub Crawl

[macausland]

Thanks for reminding me of the title and appropriately named author.

Paris is also the City of Light so it seems appropriate to have a Place d'Etoile. That photograph looks like a giant clock face with the Arc de Triomphe acting as the gnomon on a sundial.

Regarding Pillot apparently he was not the only one to think of the Odyssey in such terms, although he was eminently qualified to put his theories into practice because of his navigational skills and where he lived in Tunisia at Carthage.

Here's a review of other such theories.

http://codexceltica.blogspot.co.uk/2009 ... yssey.html

[hvered]

Here's a review of other such theories.

http://codexceltica.blogspot.co.uk/2009 ... yssey.html

Imam Wilkens' theory about Troy in East Anglia was discussed on the Applied Epistemology site a while back, some people supported his evidence though most seemed sceptical since the astonishing number of bronze or Bronze Age finds didn't appear to have been weapons. Archaeologists tend to describe them as votive offerings but trade goods would be just as likely considering that a prehistoric route, Ermine Street, runs through the area and this is the northern end of the Michael Line.

Interesting about Charybdis as I was looking at Corryvrekan (currach-wrecker?) between Scarba and Jura which features in various saints' legends, notably Sts Columba and Ciaran. Best to keep to official channels and pay the hermit.

[macausland]

In gaelic Coire Bhreacain means Speckled Kettle or Cauldron strictly speaking. Wikipedia and others translate it as Cauldron of the Speckled Seas.

There are also legends about a Viking called Breacon who was drowned in it. These usually involve a test given out by a 'Cailleach' the famous Hag or goddess of winter. She is also supposed to wash her plaid in the whirlpool.

I was told that there is a cave on the hillside opposite called Uamh nan Cailleach.

Adamnan also called Coire Bhreacain 'Charybdis Brecani' so there may be parallels with Ulysees after all.

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

http://www.whirlpool-scotland.co.uk/local.html

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

There are a number of mazes in Britain and Scandinavia which are called by some variant on the name Troy.

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

http://www.somertonoxon.co.uk/Maze.html

[hvered]

We came to the conclusion that Troy means trap, a hunting reference, though we hadn't come across Aberfeldy at the time. Troy seems to be cognate with 'true', rather oddly since the maze design of twisting, turning hidden lines implies trickery.

It may be related to cauldron, cf. Caerdroia ('City of Troy' or 'City of Turnings'), the final destination of the trapped bird or animal. Cauldrons, which are associated with witchcraft but also birth or rebirth, are tended and stirred by a hag. Tudor gardens laid out formal mazes with hedges as barriers as at Hampton Court. [Hag = hedge.]

Troy games are still played up north apparently according to http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=356.

The folklore department of Åbo Akademi reported, as late as in 1985, that old people recalled that turf labyrinth games had been held secretly but regularly during bright summer nights: a girl would stand in the center of the labyrinth while a boy would try to reach her. If he could manage to reach her without taking any wrong turns, he should carry the girl out of the labyrinth the same way. If he was successful both ways, the girl belonged to him. The spectators would be singing and clapping their hands. An 80 year old woman remembered how the participants were sworn to secrecy and that there were many rules regarding symbolic objects and clothing, and that the outcome of the game was used to predict the joint future of the boy who had succeeded and of the girl who had waited in the center

Interesting about trolls, another hunting word (troll is the same word as trawl) applied to fishing with nets.

In 1979, a person from a fishing village in northern Sweden reported that it had been common to let the most beautiful girl in the village stand in the center of the labyrinth while the men tried to seize her or reach her first.[8] According to a 1934 report from another place in northern Sweden, it was believed that the labyrinth was the home of trolls, and that the trolls had taken a girl and kept her captive in the labyrinth.

The girl or bride suggests a bird though bride is a 'bright' word. It may be that bright light was also a way to entrap animals as with rabbit-hunting. In either case the sexual analogy is clear though Christianity managed to sanitise mazes turning the labyrinth into a spiritual package tour. Elizabethans, the ones in the sixteenth century at least, would have been well aware of the many linguistic word games. Come into the garden, Maud.

[hvered]

Trough is supposed to derive from troy. Watering holes are the obvious places to ambush (enhedge) animals and birds. Perhaps a trough of water, which would be like a light or mirror, placed in the centre of a net is the simplest trap.

The route finally leads to pubs. Pubs are almost always at natural or man-made watering holes.

[hvered]

Current thinking.

The islands off the west coast of Scotland, with or without pubs, are on a potentially all year-round thru-route. Here the sea even in the extreme north-west is relatively warm due to the Gulf Stream.

What I was wondering is how much, if at all, the Gulf Stream would affect prehistoric shipping and trade routes. The Phoenicians weren't the only sea-traders.

[Ajai]

Re Troy: Water sources are potential sites of conflict so Imam Wilkens' Trojan War, in East Anglia, may have taken place though most likely over salt, the region's most valuable resource [Helen is arguably a 'hal' i.e. salt reference]. This section of the coast belongs to the Romans' Saxon or salt-producing shore.

[spiral]

Trough is supposed to derive from troy. Watering holes are the obvious places to ambush (enhedge) animals and birds. Perhaps a trough of water, which would be like a light or mirror, placed in the centre of a net is the simplest trap.

The route finally leads to pubs. Pubs are almost always at natural or man-made watering holes.

I do wonder about us words

They seem to me rather fertile territory for hunting enthusiasts.

Us rush(v), rush(n) risk rescue ruse.....

It's echoic like most things sh, the sound of water over pebbles, invading beaches. Shore.

It's a harm...or ham.....rush....

I reckon the B got added by posh Norman types.

[hvered]

The Aberfeldy material first came up in connection with lameness (thanks to macausland). Quite serendipitously I found St Gilles is regarded as the patron saint of cripples. BehindTheName says Giles is "from Greek" and means 'young goat' though in art and in his legend he is associated with a deer.

One of the islands on the north-south sea-route down to Santiago de Compostela is L'Ile d'Yeu which is opposite Saint-Gilles-sur-Vie at the mouth of the Vie river on the Vendee coast. The town was a Phoenician settlement called Sidunum; its promontory may have been a tidal causewayed island (which perhaps explains people being housed on the 'small island', complete with quotation marks).

But anyway Saint-Gilles was blessed with a priory and fortified church built by monks from Saint Gilles-du-Gard, one of the official starting points for Santiago pilgrims. It's in Languedoc on the edge of the Camargue, France's largest marshland, near the mouth of the Rhone. Incidentally it is also the birthplace of Guy Foulques, later Pope Clement IV and patron of Roger Bacon.

France's second largest marshland is the Poitevin Marsh which http://france-atlantic.com/charente-mar ... itevin.asp describes as completely man-made:

"In the middle of the Marsh a large number of channels have been constructed - in fact the Marsh is artificial, created by human activity over the centuries, with works that made it possible to regulate the water level, limit flooding and extend cultivatable land and canals that facilitated trade and commerce. "

[macausland]

hvered

'BehindTheName says Giles is "from Greek" and means 'young goat' though in art and in his legend he is associated with a deer.'

Male goats and small deer are called bucks. According to Wiki the word buck can also be applied to hares, rabbits, ferrets and rats. It also mentions kangaroos but they might have been thin on the ground in ancient Europe.

Apparently 'buck' was once applied to male and female goats meaning 'to jump'. We still use the word today with that meaning of for example unruly horses.

Stags are five year old red deer. Four year olds are called 'staggerds' or 'staggards'. Perhaps buck and stag could also be applied to cripples in the sense of a halting gait. 'Gait' being another word for 'goat'.

The word 'deer' in English is used specifically for what we know as 'deer' although in the Germanic languages it refers to a wild animal.

Wiki draws the distinction between 'cattle', 'chattel' and 'capital' which are the domesticated animals denoting ownership and wild animals that are free running.