Breaking the Chains
Page 12
A fruit that can transform the consumer into a godlike entity has become associated with the serpent. Norse mythology teaches that without the apples of immortality the gods began to age rapidly. Greek tradition states that the wife of the first ruler of the world gave a golden apple producing tree to the wife of the third ruler of the world. She was the daughter of Rhea, the wife of the second ruler of the world. Worship of Rhea seems to have originated on Crete. In Cretan tradition the serpent is the symbol of the Goddess. Evidence of an opium using snake goddess has been found on Crete.
Indo-European languages came to be spoken in Anatolia, Crete, and Greece. Hittite, the most well-known of the Anatolian Indo-European languages, was deciphered early in the 20th century BC. The Hittites possibly arrived in Anatolia about 2000 BC. It is not known from where they came. Scholars favour an area beyond the Black Sea. By about 1800 BC the Hittites had gained political control of central Anatolia. Their empire fell suddenly about 1193 BC. One Hittite story, ‘The Slaying of the Dragon’, tells how the weather god fought the dragon and, after being defeated, used a trick to get the better of the dragon and kill it. The name of the Hittite weather god was Tarhun. He was the most widely worshipped of the Anatolian deities. Tarhun was depicted with a three-pronged thunderbolt in one hand and a weapon in the other. His symbol was the bull. The god on the bull, Jupiter Dolichenus, worshipped by the Roman legions was a development of Tarhun. The principal deity of the Hittites was the sun-goddess Arinnitti.
Her cult emblem was a sun disk. Arinnitti was married to the weather god. There was a Hittite sun-god. His name was Istanu. As in other sun-god traditions, an eagle acted as his messenger.
The Hittite story of Upelluri, whose situation is reminiscent of the fate of Atlas, is only one of many stories about giants. Brutus, legendary founder of Britain, supposedly captured two Cornish giants. Israelite spies reported seeing giants in Canaan. Some traditions make Irish people descended from a race of giants known as the Formorians. Norse mythology has it that giants existed before the gods, and were overcome by them. One ancient European tradition relates that people had once been taller but degenerated after a golden age. Most giants are unlike the giants of Greek tradition. The giants who went to war with Zeus are depicted as part snake. Stories of conflict between gods and creatures described as half-human and half-serpent may be related.
A large amount of giant stories come from Europe. By about 2500 BC Indo-European languages were distributed over much of Europe. Before their conversion to Christianity Germanic culture, on occasions, extended from the Black Sea to Greenland. Germanic religion was significant to the development of civilisation in Europe. However, as the Germanic peoples of Europe were converted to Christianity relatively early less is known about their religion than about the religion of Scandinavia, where Germanic religion survived into the Middle Ages. The important gods of Norse tradition are Odin, Thor, and Freyja. The name Thor is related to the Germanic word for thunder. He was an enemy of the giants. Odin may have been the father of Thor. Odin and his brothers slaughtered the giant Ymir.
Ymir, also called Aurgelmir, is considered the first being and father of all giants. In one tradition he is formed from drops of cold water from the rivers known as Elivagar. Another tradition claims he grew from the drops of water generated when the ice of Niflheim (World of Darkness) came into contact with the warm air from Muspelheim - a hot land in the south guarded by the giant Surt; he will lead the sons of Muspelheim in the destruction of the world by fire in the Ragnarok. Ymir was fed by four streams of milk that flowed from the cow Audumla. Her licking frost from stones brought Odin’s grandfather Buri into existence. Odin had a mistress named Jord, a giantess. He also had a foster brother called Loki, whose father was the giant Farbauti (Dangerous Striker). The blood that spurted from Ymir during his slaughter drowned all but one of the frost giants.
Irish traditions declare Ireland to have been home to a race of giants called Fomorians. Bres, a descendant of the Fomorians, ruled over the Tuatha De Danaan for a time. In the ‘Book of the invasion of Ireland’ the Tuatha De Danaan arrive from the northern islands of the world already in possession of the spear of Lug. Lug is an important god known in Ireland, England, France, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, and elsewhere.
Norse, Irish, and English traditions identify giants as indigenous to parts of north-west Europe. Norse and Irish mythi relate that gods entered territories occupied or previously occupied by giants. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote that Brutus and Corineus encountered giants in England. These traditions suggest giants were in some sense native to parts of north-west Europe, and that at some time in the past areas of north-west Europe were inhabited by tall people to whom the term giant was applied by interlopers - who may have been labelled little people by the natives. In other words, stories about giants and little people could have been generated by contact between groups of tall people and groups of short people. Local mythologies place giants in north-west Europe before the arrival of the Germanic or Celtic gods. While it might not be possible to identify a people called giants, a survey of ancient European peoples might suggest some possible candidates.