Classical Themes #4 - Mythical Animals

 Myths, magic, rituals, quests, places, people and animals; all of these elements are helping to shape the tales in my ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series.

Horses provide us with names of people, places, mythical creatures and months of the year. ‘Marrek’ is a Cornish name for ‘horseman’; ‘Equos’ in the Celtic month of June to July means ‘horse time’; ‘Whitehorse Hill’ and ‘Vale of the White Horse’ speak for themselves; Nix and Kelpies, Rhiannon and Epona are shape-shifting creatures that drag or transport the living to the land of the dead. Places like ‘Studley’ tell us there was once an equine stud farm at that location in Saxon times.

Animals have been pivotal in assisting deities, providing tales of destiny and immortality across the world.

Think of:          Athene, the Greek goddess of fate weaving wisdom and war;

Fairy Godmother in Sleeping Beauty, epitomising the ‘Fey’ or Crone spinner of destiny;

Serpents appear in tales from Sumerian, Hindu, Ancient Egyptian and Norse mythologies. A thousand years before the Garden of Eden and Genesis, Sumerian serpent-god ‘Nigizzida’ was consort of the Mother Goddess and Lord of the ‘Tree of Truth’. ‘Kundalini’ is the serpent coiled around the ‘Tree of Immortality’. Norse mythology has the ‘Midgard Serpent’; Egypt ‘Mehen the Enveloper’ who enfolds the sun god ‘Ra’ during his nightly sleep in the Underworld and ‘Ananta’ is the cosmic Hindu serpent in whose coils the gods sleep.

Medusa mosaic

You will have to read my ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series to discover how these influences are woven into my stories, but these and other legends, beliefs and folklore are threaded through the series in various ways, with each tale leaning towards several themes. These layers wrap my saga into real-world legends, hopefully providing access to readers and leading them gently and comfortingly into my fictional legend.

Some underlying threads may be incorporated purely by accident, perhaps where my mind delved into a subconscious ancient memory I am not actively aware of. It would be pleasant to imagine, would it not, that we all possess an element of this ancient subconscious, bringing archetypal elements to us from deep in our paleo-lithic historical memory?

Classical Themes - 2 of 4

Classical Themes within the ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series

Myths, magic, rituals, quests, places, people and animals; all of these elements are helping to shape the forthcoming tales in my ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series. Here is the second of FOUR posts.

The Dark Goddess

She is a pre-patriarchal, ancient belief from Neolithic culture in many countries. Tomb burials, caves and the deep, dark ocean introduce us to the Dark Goddess. She rules the world’s ocean as well as the inner tides (our emotions, passions, psychic perceptions and soul regeneration). The ferryman of souls can deliver us to her in his glass boat, to the Sacred Isle where we enter the cave and pass through the veil to the Otherworld - the land of the dead. There is much to explore here in terms of characters’ responses to water and its powers, but also human emotions and how these fluctuate in various circumstances.

Grey beach of rocks leading to the sea

Boats

Boats and their contents have more than a passing link to the land of the dead. As well as ferrying those near death across a sacred lake to the afterlife, boats can take the form of offerings to the gods and vessels transporting offerings to the gods - treasure hoards defaced and buried in thanks for victory. Found most profusely in Denmark (though also in other countries), boats of war and the weapons of their defeated warriors have for millennia been deposited in lakes in gratitude of the gods’ protection. As well as afterlife journeys for characters, this provides us with response to conflict within societies and the rituals invoked. Boats themselves can have souls and characters, as can weapons such as valued swords or even amulets of the gods and goddesses of the time. Many of these themes are integral to my ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series.

Consider:      Hjortspring and Nydam boats from Denmark – deliberately sunk into lakes, these boats contain a multitude of offerings from vanquished enemies: swords; axes; spears; shields; chainmail; knives; horse tack; brooches; tweezers; ear spoons; bones of horses, lambs, calves and dogs.

Oseberg ship burial

Rainbows

Another way to the afterlife can be via a bridge, often linked to rainbows, found in Christian, Norse, Greek, Chinese and Australian aboriginal cultures, among others. Water was a sacred element through which one could travel to the Otherworld, so to cross it was to, in some respect, cheat death and almost magical. Tales of dangerous creatures inhabiting the undersides of bridges come from this concept, such as Norwegian Trolls, river sirens like the 'nix' and Celtic Kelpies in the form of horses or women, who would drag people down to their deaths. Flag Fen is an excellent example of how bridges over water held magical properties, where Iron Age people deposited metal, stone, ceramic and food gifts from the causeway. Bridges can also represent boundaries between earthly realms like county borders, or unearthly realms, both of which can present characters with problems depending on the purpose of their journey. I tinker with this theme in ‘Wulfsuna’ and also forthcoming ‘Wolf Spear Sagas’.

Think of:

Bifrost – linking Earth to Asgard;

Sword Bridge – crossed by Lancelot to rescue Guinevere from the Castle of Death;

Bridge of Heaven;

Greek goddess ‘Iris’, who guarded a rainbow (from where ‘iridescent’ is derived)

Wooden bridge in dark forest

• What classical themes most interest you?

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Blood, betrayal and brotherhood.

They come to honour a Warrior-Lord’s dream,

An ancient saga weaving their destiny,

But a treacherous rival threatens their fate.

The Wolf Sons are coming.

WULFSUNA

Silbury Hill

Standing 30 metres tall and 160 metres wide, it has been estimated that it took 4 million hours and half a million tonnes of chalk to build Silbury Hill. It is another record-breaker; the largest artificial prehistoric mound in Europe, constructed around 2,470-2,350BC.

It’s astonishing to stand beside it, though bizarre to simply find it lurking in a field and beyond a basic gate. Many theories abound as to the uses of the hill, which at one time was surrounded by ditches as the reconstruction drawing below indicates. No, one conclusion has yet been drawn as to what happened at Silbury Hill and this gives it an air of elusiveness. You can ‘feel’ its secrets hovering around you like invisible spirits as you stand and gawp at the enormity of it.

woman versus mound

You cannot climb it for it is fenced off from the public, but it is possible to stand within a couple of metres of the base. There is a fairly visible spiral ridge climbing up around the hill, similar to the Tor at Glastonbury, though on a smaller scale. My companions and I wondered whether it had once been possible to walk clockwise up the hill to perhaps an altar raised on the top. With so many burial mounds in the surrounding area, could it have been an access platform to become closer to sky gods during funerary rituals? We shall never know.

A reconstruction drawing showing Silbury Hill under construction, surrounded by a massive ditch
© Historic England (illustration by Judith Dobie)

Later that day we drove on to the village of Avebury…




FACTS: COURTESY OF ENGLISH HERITAGE WEBSITE [link]

E S MOXON has had a lifelong passion for history and writing. A childhood filled with family visits to ancient burial sites and stone circles fuelled her imagination. Inspired by classic medieval tales and Norse sagas, Elaine imagined herself inhabiting these Dark Ages and exploring the landscapes in her mind and continues to do so through her novels. The first in her ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series is ‘WULFSUNA’ and books two and three will be out soon. When not lost in pages of the past, she lives in the Midlands with her family and their chocolate Labrador.

Blood, betrayal and brotherhood.

They come to honour a Warrior-Lord’s dream,

An ancient saga weaving their destiny,

But a treacherous rival threatens their fate.

The Wolf Sons are coming.

WULFSUNA