Trade Secrets

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty-Nine

But it is ‘as the crow flies’ that is the most significant corvidian trait. It is commonly observed that ‘crows are afraid of water’ and that therefore when let loose from a ship will fly ‘straight to the nearest land’. This is an odd way of putting things. Crows do not have any strong feelings about water but since it is not their natural element, when released at sea, they naturally fly up to see where the nearest land is and fly directly towards it. Nothing very mysterious there.

But since being 'released at sea' is not something that will ever happen to a natural crow, we can perhaps put the whole thing into a more Megalithic context. Since crows (or a close relative) have been trained to fly in straight lines on land – to help out with surveying leylines and also demonstrating them to travellers – this learned behaviour has been applied to the sea. Or, one has to say, they were trained for maritime work and this skill was exploited on land or corvids fly straight naturally (for some unexplained reason) and this trait was exploited by humans when abducting and then training their nestlings.

But the point is crows, when released from a ship, will fly up to the necessary height and fly straight towards land. As we have seen, two thousand feet means England-to-the-Channel Islands so theoretically crows can handle most relevant sea-crossings. However, this is only moderately useful to sailors since knowing that the nearest land is ‘thataway’ does not solve many navigational problems. Sailors would much prefer to know ‘which land lies thataway’. Can crows distinguish between places? Can, for instance, crows tell tidal islands from the mainland? Or, since the various tidal islands have a differing number of Venus Pools, can they tell one tidal island from another? Can they land at a ‘monastery’, be given the name of the island and then fly back to the ship and repeat that word?

The answer to all these questions is, given the remarkable intelligence of the corvids in general and the peculiar aptitudes of the various corvidian species, is a resounding though entirely theoretical ‘yes’.

[Mick Harper]

Extract Sixty

The etymological support for the the theory is as usual best preserved in the Channel Islands. The most obvious is that the journey from Guernsey to Jersey via the Michael Great Circle is from the southern point of Guernsey at Corbiere to the south-western point of Jersey at Corbiere, corbiere meaning ‘place of crows’. The most northerly point of the Channel Islands is Corbelets Bay in Alderney (corbelets = baby crows) and the nickname for the inhabitants of Sark is corbins (=sea-ravens).

There are claimed to be four hundred place-names in Britain with raven etymologies but whether this would be accounted a lot or a little given the ubiquity of the bird is a matter of opinion. Perhaps a better route is mythology. If it is accepted that the Vikings are a late efflorescence of Megalithia Inc then their attitude to the bird is likely to be of significance.

To the Norsemen the Raven was the sacred bird of their religion - Odin was apparently accompanied by two Ravens, Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory).

Presumably the twin requirements of a navigational system: discovery and recording the discoveries. Sure enough:

Each day they flew across the world, returning in the evenings to Odin's shoulders to report to him what they had seen.

The link between (W)Odin and Hermes (=Mercury) as the ancient version of Michael is preserved in the two names the Channel Islanders have for the middle day of the week:
Wednesday (=Woden, English)
Mercredi (= Mercury, Norman-French Patois)

[macausland]

Dwelly's gaelic dictionary acknowledges the Norse connection with ravens and their supernatural attributes.

'fitheach

-thich, sm Raven — corvus corax. Tha fios fithich aige, he has raven's knowledge — supposed to be supernatural; fios fithich gu ròic, raven's knowledge to a feast — said of one arriving accidentally and opportunely; thug na fithich aran ann, the ravens brought bread. [The raven which is the Clan Dougall bird, was considered sacred in Scandinavia and is supposed to have been introduced into the clan by a daughter of Olaf the Red]. [** gives Vulture]. '

It's fitting that the Dougalls (black foreigners) should have taken such an emblem into their clan.

[Mick Harper]

Highway Sixty-One

It is very difficult for us, living as we do in a literate world, to appreciate how difficult it is to operate a relatively sophisticated economy, especially one involving long distance trade, without writing. Everything has to be done, as it were, in real time. The use by such non-literates of talking birds that can fly long distances in known directions is rather more than a fanciful speculation.

The matter can be viewed in two ways: 1) the existence of birds (corvids) that are easily trained, can speak and can fly in known directions is something likely to come to the attention of people on the lookout for non-literate means of long distance communication or 2) the existence of birds (corvids) that are easily trained, can speak and can fly in known directions suggests that people on the lookout for a non-literate means of long distance communication might domesticate suitable birds for this purpose. Birds which became feral when such functions were no longer needed.

The release of corvids by boats needing to know where and in what direction land lies is not at all something that is alien to basic bird behaviour. A terrestrial bird will naturally fly towards land and a trained one will 'naturally' fly back to its 'parents'. The talking bit is something of a bonus, except that since corvids are quite extraordinary talkers, it clearly isn’t.

This is on the day-to-day level. Looking at things more strategically, it should be appreciated that birds naturally fly in Great Circles. Unlike our own (literate) attachment to compass bearings and charts – which results in journeys that do not ordinarily follow Great Circles – a crow flying from, say, Burgh Island to Mont St Michel results in a journey that does follow the Great Circle.

In such a situation, a crow flies by direct observation. By flying up to several thousand feet, it can actually see Mont St Michel from Burgh Island and its journey from one to the other will pass over Crow’s Point (Corbiere) on Guernsey and Crow’s Point (Corbiere) on Jersey. When revisionist historians later reconstruct the route they will find it is a Great Circle.

[macausland]

Can we be sure that ancient people had no writing systems?

Youtube has a good selection of videos showing 'alphabets' showing remarkable similarities from various parts of the world from a very early age.

The Guardian site has an article on what they think are writing symbols from Lascaux which may be 30,000 years old.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012 ... -evolution

Another site gives similar information with a clickable diagram.

http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/4520102 ... -cave-wall

If ancient mariners had the ability to write down a symbolic 'written' route it must have made navigation a bit easier.

Whether they taught the crows to read or not is another question.

[hvered]

The link between (W)Odin and Hermes (=Mercury) as the ancient version of Michael is preserved in the two names the Channel Islanders have for the middle day of the week:
Wednesday (=Woden, English)
Mercredi (= Mercury, Norman-French Patois)

I read that there is an etymological link between vates (prophet/bard) and Vatican and that both are 'Wodin'. Why would the centre of Catholic Europe be named for a Celtic priesthood or Germanic nature god?

[macausland]

'I read that there is an etymological link between vates (prophet/bard) and Vatican and that both are 'Wodin'. Why would the centre of Catholic Europe be named for a Celtic priesthood or Germanic nature god?'

Somebody calling himself Michael Tsarion has posted a series of videos on youtube and discusses the supposed connections between Egypt, Israel, the Vatican and Ireland.

He claims that there was a network from megalithic Ireland stretching across Europe and the Middle East and the 'druids' had an enormous influence on Egyptian culture. He touches on the idea that the Pharaohs were of European origin. I think he made these videos before the recent dna evidence for Tutenkhamen showed a European connection.

A lot of what he says seems to make sense although he does seem to make some basic errors. He seems to say that the first invasion of Britain was the work of Augustus Caesar rather than Julius Caesar and I think he slips up regarding Claudius.

Much of his argument revolves around the etymology of words such as Hibernia, Erin, Iberia, Hebrew etc. He gives a variety of interpretations of the word 'druid' which I haven't come across before.

His main claim is that their was a world wide catastrophe which destroyed a world wide civilisation. He brings Atlantis into it which would make his arguments suspect to many. I think he says that the British Isles were connected with Atlantis. The Pillars of Hercules were the Giant's Causeway and the similar features in Scotland and were not the Straits of Gibralter.

I won't go on as the series of videos is on youtube if anyone is interested. Whatever the validity of his claims he does seem to be down to earth and has based his ideas on extensive research.

He sees the megalith builders as living in a 'golden age'. The later one of the mining in Britain he sees as a degenerate exploitation by incomers who he identifies with the 'mythical' invaders, Milesians etc.

The connection with the Vatican is through Christianity which he claims was a continuation of the 'heresy' started by Akhenaten and his followers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM1Z5kEhdgs

[hvered]

Macausland, thank you for the link to Michael Tsarion's talk. It's completely riveting. Just got to the point where he discusses Ovates and Vatican.

The significance of Callanish according to Tsarion is literally global. Immensely cheered as I'd 'discovered' Callanish when examining the meridian between the North Pole and Tarifa, increasingly 'there for all to see' and less a product of wishful thinking.

Back to Tsarion. Still a way to go!

[macausland]

I once attended a 'Geography' evening class to get an 'O' level.

I left after the teacher told the class that proof that the British isles were covered with ice except for the south of England could be seen by the 'fact' that there were no standing stones or stone circles in the north.

Having just returned from Stornoway and having visited Callinish in the company of someone who had been born in that village I thought that this teacher hadn't much to offer in the way of geographical enlightenment.

Until that point I had always assumed the 'experts' knew what they were talking about.

By the way the BBC site has an article detailing how they think that the large stones in the Forbidden City in Beijing were transported 47 miles from the quarry on special roads covered in ice. They were dragged along by teams of men hauling them with ropes.

There are other videos on youtube regarding the Egyptian pyramids which show how building techniques in the times of the Pharaohs were much inferior to what had been built at the time of the Pyramids themselves. The stone blocks were smaller, cemented together and show none of the expertise of the older builders.

This difference in building quality is also seen in Peru and other places. The suggestion is that there was indeed some sort of catastrophe as Tsarion mentions which set the survivors back to a more primitive culture than they had enjoyed before.

I imagine we would be in a similar situation if anything happened today.

[Boreades]

Can we be sure that ancient people had no writing systems?

Youtube has a good selection of videos showing 'alphabets' showing remarkable similarities from various parts of the world from a very early age.

The Guardian site has an article on what they think are writing symbols from Lascaux which may be 30,000 years old.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012 ... -evolution

Another site gives similar information with a clickable diagram.

http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/4520102 ... -cave-wall

If ancient mariners had the ability to write down a symbolic 'written' route it must have made navigation a bit easier.

Whether they taught the crows to read or not is another question.

How old is ancient?

As always, the orthodox historians lead us astray. What with their obsession with "High Status Priests and Elites", it's no surprise either. The truly high-status elites, like Druids, went to an extraordinary amount of trouble to keep the teaching and practice of their knowledge and ritual as a verbal tradition. Maybe the highest-status folks in ancient Phoenicia did the same. From whence we have the traditions of Hiram King of Tyre, whose people had the skills and expertise to be the actual builders of King's Solomon's Temple, but it seems how they did it was never written down. We have distant fragments of that in Freemasonry's verbal ritual.

Whereas more ordinary folks get on with life, trading and accounting. I would suggest that the Phoenician alphabet was created by practical folks who needed to keep track of everyday things. Like stock control, shipping inventories, land surveying records, and so on. As such, Phoenician traders would of necessity have spread the use of an alphabet along with their trade across the Med and the Western Atlantic seaboard. Maybe places like Mount Batten in Plymouth were the first places a recognisable alphabet reached Britain, with bills of sale for trade goods?

I don't think it's any coincidence that the first organisation in Britain to build what we would recognise as a truly usable computer was Lyons with LEO, for payroll, stock control, order processing, etc.