Category Archives: Origins

A Bridge Not Too Far?

PublishedOctober 29, 2017 Post authortorino

The reports of the Tollense (Slavic dolenzia) battle (re)raise a bunch of interesting questions.

Was that battle something major politically or more like a skirmish of invaders with locals? You could see a few different local tribes fighting but you could also see a group of marauders roaming the lands, the locals becoming aware of them and their activities and, eventually, facing them somewhere at some strategic point. For example, the Bridge at Tollense.

From the Krueger article

Curiously, although the battle of Tollense took place about 1200 B.C., that bridge had been built about 600 years before that. This is nothing short of fascinating. In fact, the bridge with its apparently complicated and sophisticated construction is as much of interest as the battle itself.

Getting back to the combatants. We have “locals” who seem to have come from the Baltic area where the battle took place and we have people that may have come from the “south”. The “south” here seems to be somewhere in the Danube region (speaking in generalities), perhaps the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) on the Czech-German border, perhaps Silesia a bit further East.

Now, there are a number of questions about this battle that we are unlikely to learn the answer to.

First of all, the assumption that the “southerners” and the “northerners” constituted two separate groups is just that an assumption. It may well be that each group that fought was composed of both northerners and southerners. In fact, there may have been multiple groups.

Second, the numbers of combatants are as yet unclear and may never be clear. As far as I understand, the reports are based on a number of dead or, more precisely of bones (reconstructing the number of dead from merely scattered bones is not that easy either), found on the battlefield and the assumption that only about z% of the battlefield has been explored. From that German archeologists have extrapolated the total number of dead. Then they needed to extrapolate the size of the battle based on a yet another assumption, that the typical number of fallen corresponds to y% of total combatants. From all that the assumption came back that the number of warriors was about 4,000 give or take.

Third, there is the question of who “won”? If the north-south divide described above was real -and, again, it may not have been – then the answer to this may well be found one day. All you would have to look for is burials of southerners nearby. If they lost, there would likely be no further such remains found in the area. But if they won, they would likely have stayed in the area, seized the locals’ wives and the rest is, as they say, history. Of course, even this would not be “clean.” For example, it may be that some of them could have been kept as thralls/slaves but if you could isolate their y-dna you probably could test whether any later dna (if you found it) matched that. Slaves tend to have fewer chances at procreation. But even that is unclear… Suppose they were freed later.

Can we guess who these intruders (if indeed they were intruders) were? Here we can let the reins of fantasy loose a bit. The person that we can look to is a professor of the l’École d’anthropologie de Paris, one Sigismond Zaborowski-Moindron. He wrote Les Peuples Aryens d’Asie et d’Europe. Zaborowski, was one of those Polish-French hybrids who contributed to Slavic studies like Mr. Motylinski. His specific contribution was in this article:

Les Slaves de Race et Leurs Origines (Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris, 1900)

This was translated into Polish by Luc. M. (?) in the XVIth volume (1902) of the excellent ethnographic magazine Wisła:

Thereafter followed an English translation of most of Zaborowski’s themes in the 61st “Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution” for the year ending June 30, 1906:

So what were Zaborowski’s main themes?

Zaborowski did not specify who the Slavs “were” before the Bronze Age. But he did say how, in his view, they came about became and, so to speak, where they “came from”. Specifically, Zaborowski claimed that all the Illyrian, Moesian and other Danubian people were Slavs. But they became Slavs as a result of a “historic” event: the movement of the Veneti up the Danube and northwards. These Veneti brought with them:

eastern culture and customs, most specifically, cremation burials, and
brachycephaly

As to the latter, this is questionable as no data as far as I know exist for pre-Bronze age Central European populations but the former claim is attractive.

As to the former, the appearance of cremation burials and the worship of the Sun and fire among the Slavs and, earlier, among the Suevi and some Celts may have indeed originated with a Late Bronze Age invasion by the Veneti – originally under Antenor or Jason – escaping the remains of Troy.

Zaborowski’s theories were known at the time and were mentioned, for example, by Edward Boguslawski:

One might add to it that with the Veneti there may have come – to Greece and then northwards – the worship of Iasion who had been identified with the Sun (and who later, among the nomads of the steppe may have been “reinterpreted” into, for example, Svarog).

There is also this curious fact that the metal found at Tollense includes tin. Tin is relatively rare in Europe. It is found in northwest Spain, Bretagne, Cornwall and in the Erzgebirge. When the below map was put together (showing the various suffixes with an “-in”) I did not see anything in Cornwall. I don’t want to stretch this but there are some names that could be read as “-in” even if they are not spelled that way: Treen, Pendeen… And then you have Trescowe or Morvah or Boyewyan. Most probably have nothing to do with the Veneti or Slavs. On the other hand maybe a Truro has something to do with Truso? There is Ludgvan and maybe Botallack does have something to do with Ballack? (Michael Ballack’s name is of Slavic origin).

Note that the Cornwall-Bretagne tin trade has been a matter of interest for a long time and the role played in it by the Veneti, a topic much speculated about as here by the Reverend Saunders:

Note too that the reason Bretagne is called Bretagne is also because the people who fled to it came from Britain once the Anglo-Saxons and others invaded the latter. So the connections across the water seem to have been present even half a millennium after Caesar. What to read into those connections is another matter altogether, of course.

Tin is cín in Czech and cyna in Polish. Brueckner thinks that came from the German Zinn but this is not necessary as similar names appear already in Greek (for example, cinnabar κιννάβαρι). The word cena (Polish) comes from “meal” (Latin, cena) and yet it is tempting to connect price (cyna?) with the tin trade.

Whether the Veneti had something to do with the Phoenicians is yet another question.

So was Tollense the end of Central European peoples? A victory by the Veneti? A day after which the word Windisch came to be born and the children of these people named Wends? Did the word Wende signify “change” from that day on? And were the Suevi another Venetic tribe? This is all speculation, of course. But as the Avars were said (by Fredegar) to have slept withe Wendish women, did the Veneti do the same to the women of… who exactly?

Lengthy Thoughts

PublishedOctober 26, 2017 Post authortorino

Incidentally, dług means “debt” in Polish and corresponds to the Russian долг.

There is a supposed connection between that word and the word długi (Polish) and до́лгий (Russian).

As Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff says “[t]he semantic connection between the Proto Slavic ‘long’ and ‘debt’ is explained by describing ‘debt’ as something that a creditor is being kept waiting for [presumably for a long time].”

Or maybe you have to “work off” your debt for a long time…

Or maybe the Russian (and indeed East and South Slavic) form is derived from the word for “hole” from dół > dołek (diminutive) > dolg that is долг.

In other words you are in debt when you are “in the hole” and the word “long” does not come into it at all.

Whatever you may think of those explanations, what is noticeable about both of those words – debt and long – is that the East and South Slavic (and Upper Sorbian) languages have the vowel before the “l”:

so that you have долг (dolg) and до́лгий (dolgij)

whereas in Polish, Czech, Slovak and Lower Sorbian, the vowel follows the “l” or “ł”:

so that you have dług and długi

In other words, you have:

о́лг (olg) in the East and ług in the West.

Brueckner thought that the West Slavic version is derivable from the East Slavic and that this was attested in an early 12th century document.

But how the nobility of Poland spoke and how its people spoke are, as we know from among others this, two different things.Maybe he was right. Maybe not.

Note that the Lithuanian version iłgas does not have the “d” in the beginning.

Note too that this is the same word as the Greek dolichocephalic (long-headed) and, indeed, this is the same word as the English word “long”.

In fact, the Polish historian Jan Długosz is sometimes Latinized as Johannes Dlugossius but at other times as Johannes Longinus – a fact mentioned by Brueckner above.

Which raises another question.

There is a tribe of the Langiones. It is mentioned by

Julius Honorius
Aethicus (not Ister)

So what you say? After all, Aethicus may have adapted what Julius Honorius put together (plus Orosius) so really only Honorius mentions these Langiones, right?

But not so. Earlier, as we discussed previously, we also have Longiones. These are mentioned by:

Zosimus

who says:

“Probus also brought other wars to a successful conclusion without much trouble. He fought a fierce battle first with the German tribe of the Longiones whom he defeated, taking prisoner their leader Semno and his son, but after receiving suppliants, in return for the confiscation of all their prisoners and booty, he freed those he had captured, including Semno and his son, on fixed terms.”

The Polish scholar Aleksander Bursche writes:

“The identification of the Longiones in Zosimos with the Lugii seems almost certain.”

Even such meek doubts as expressed by Bursche, are happily ignored by the manly Thomas Gerhardt and Udo Hartmann who declare with disarming certainty that:

“When it comes to the “Longiones” (or Logiones) we’re talking about the cultic community of the Lugii.”

They then go on to describe more Vandals = Lugii wishful nonsense straight out of that prince of bull fables – Wolfram (and others) without any citations, of course. (Certitude never needs be slown down by pesky proofs and footnotes).

(And earlier, in Gall, we have the Lingones and the Leuci (not to mention the Lexovii)).

So could the Lugii be the “tall/lank/long ones”? That would explain why the same people could be called by some Longiones and by others Lugii. Of course, you have to explain that falling off “d” but Lithuanian also dropped it.

More mysteries or is the solution really simple?

And, regarding the Tollensee battle, someone just forwarded from a published dissertation by Christian Sell a statement that – based on “f3 values”:

“The most similar modern populations [to the Tollensee combatants] are the Polish, Austrians and the Scottish.”

I have no idea what f3 values are but “Scottish”, really!?

Well, of course:

Hey now!

🙂

You Owe Us a Better Explanation

PublishedOctober 21, 2017 Post authortorino

That even decent books are not immune to dumb reasoning (or lack of reasoning really) is proven by Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff’s “The Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic.” The book, as I said before, is not half bad but it proves that knowledge of arcane linguistic reconstruction techniques is no cure for an occasional lack of perspective and immunity to basic logic.

Here is an example regarding the word dług (meaning “debt”):

“From a semantic viewpoint, it is much more attractive to regard the word as a loanword from Gothic because the meanings of the Slavic and Germanic words are identical and there are a large number of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic relating to money, trade, etc… Because of the exact formal and semantic correspondence between the Germanic and Slavic forms, PSl. version is likely to be a Germanic loanword… Origin: Gothic; this is the only Germanic language in which the word is attested.”

To break this down:

“From a semantic viewpoint, it is much more attractive to regard the word as a loanword from Gothic because the meanings of the Slavic and Germanic words are identical”

It is not the “Slavic” and “Germanic” words that are identical. It is the Slavic and Gothic words that are identical. In other words, the word appears in all Slavic languages but appears (as admitted by Prosk-Tiethoff a sentence later) only in Gothic and not in any other Germanic language.

“…there are a large number of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic relating to money, trade, etc.”

This is only partly true. For example, the word targ (marketplace) is actually a borrowing into some Germanic language from Slavic.

But even if that were true (and it is not), so what? Does the fact that some Germanic words related to commerce are borrowed into Slavic mean that every word with a Germanic correspondence must be too?

If that were the case, would we be automatically assuming that were a Slav to invent a word and (through an exchange in the marketplace) the same word was then used by one German, the word would become Germanic?

It seems the answer is “yes” according to Prosk-Tiethoff. She goes on to say:

“Because of the exact formal and semantic correspondence between the Germanic and Slavic forms, PSl. version is likely to be a Germanic loanword…”

Thus, by default, all that is Slavic is automatically Germanic. But, of course, it does not go the other way.

The conclusion is charmingly disarming:

“Origin: Gothic; this is the only Germanic language in which the word is attested.”

Now, if a word were present in one Slavic language and in all Germanic languages, no one would question the theory that it is a borrowing into Slavic. It seems, however, that it is enough for a word to appear in one Germanic language to have its origin accepted as Germanic – even if the word appears in all Slavic languages.

Even Alexander Bruckner, the philo-Germanic editor of the Polish etymological dictionary thought this suggestion to be nonsense (Gothic etymology was also rejected by Vasmer):

But, all of this is a sideshow lead in to something even more interesting.

Sisenna, Honorius and the Suavi

PublishedOctober 16, 2017 Post authortorino

Sisenna

The very first mention ever of the Suevi comes from Lucius Cornelius Sisenna. Sisenna (circa 120 BC – 67 BC) says:

Sparis ac lanceis eminus peterent hostes
Galli materibus, Suevi lanceis configunt

There are three interesting things here.

First, this mention predates even Caesar’s Gallic Wars.

Second, it is curious that “spears” are mentioned here (Sparis). Although this is Latin and not Greek, recall that Procopius remembers that the Sclavenes used to be called Sporoi. Was he wrong about the origin of that word and was it a Latin word referring to spearmen? As we know, the Slavs were known for their javelins (Procopius and Maurice). Right after that, we see that:

“The Galls toss [stuff [?] materibus], and the Suevi lances.”

This is actually an interpretation of an otherwise nonsensical sentence that runs like this:

Galli materibus [?] Sani [?] lanceis configunt

which has been rendered as:

Galli materibus Su[e]vi lanceis configunt

Third, about these Suevi. We know that by the time of Procopius and Jordanes, the Suevi were referred to as Suavi. That is the “e” was seemingly replaced by the “a”. But it seems that some manuscripts of Sisenna also could be read as Suavi particularly since the “a” is apparently an “a” and not an “e”. I mentioned this already here and here but it’s worth reiterating.

Of course, all this Suevi talk causes a problem for some writers who believe that the Germanic/Suevic [?] tribes were not known for their missile weapon skills:

As noted above, however, the Slavs were known for their javelins. Moreover, it is not exactly true that the Suevi (or at least Suavi) were not known for throwing or launching something. There is a description in the Jordanes Getica of the Battle of Nedao where he says:

“For then, I think, must have occurred a most remarkable spectacle, where one might see the Goths fighting with pikes, the Gepidae raging with the sword, the Rugi breaking off the spears in their own wounds, the Suavi fighting [“on foot”] [or “fighting with slings”], the Huns with bows, the Alani drawing up a battle-line of heavy-armed and the Heruli of light-armed warriors.“

The word is pede but that seems silly since the other warriors types wield some sort of a weapon (bows, spears, pikes, swords) at least up to the Alani. Froehner therefore read lapide – meaning that they used stones – presumably with a sling.

Slings, if these were slings, are not javelins or spears. Nevertheless, the point is worth making.

Honorius

At the back end of the history of the Suevi we also have, in addition to Procopius and Jordanes, Julius Honorius (Julius Orator). Honorius was mentioned by Cassiodorus on whom, supposedly, Jordanes relied. Some of Honorius’ manuscripts also have the form Suavi.

So, it is interesting how it is not so simple and the Suebi may not be Suebi but Suevi and maybe not even that but Suavi while on the Eastern fringes of Europe we have in the 6th century appear the Sclavi (Sclaveni at first but then quickly Sclavi). Note too that the Sclavi spelling is a Greek spelling that was only later imported into the decapitated post-Roman world. What would the Sclavi have been called in Rome if the Western Empire had lived to see their arrival?

Suavi > Suevi > Suebi > Suevi > Suavi
? Sclavi ?

Das Gibt’s Doch Gar Nicht

PublishedOctober 9, 2017 Post authortorino

This is from Dr. Jochen Rath (of the Stadtarchiv und Landesgeschichtliche Bibliothek Bielefeld) Bielefeld’s city portal:

“Der Name „Bielefeld” wurde jüngst von Birgit Meineke als eine alte Raumbezeichnung für das Gebiet am nördlichen Ausgang des Bielefelder Passes gedeutet.”

“Sie griff damit ältere Erklärungen auf, unterstützte diese mit anderen Namensgebungen und verglich sie sprachwissenschaftlich mit weiteren Deutungen. Demnach wird das Grundwort „feld” durch das Bestimmungswort „Biele” ergänzt, dessen Wurzel in „bīl” (schlagen, spalten) zu finden ist. Gemeinsam bezeichnen sie eine Fläche am „Spalt im Höhenzug des Teutoburger Waldes”. Frühere Deutungen, die auf einen Personennamen „Bili” weisen oder unterschiedlichste Interpretationen des „Biele/Bile/Byle” vorlegten (schön/angenehm – Beil – ansteigender Stein – Jagdplatz – Bühl/Hügel – Grenzpfahl – etc. etc.), sind damit bis zum Vorliegen schlüssiger Neuinterpretationen zurückzuweisen.”

(the reference is to: Meineke, Birgit, Die Ortsnamen der Stadt Bielefeld (Westfälisches Ortsnamenbuch, Bd. 5), Bielefeld 2013) who lists these as the oldest names (albeit notes that there may be some even older versions which, however, are uncertain):

So Meineke mentions the old ideas and the new idea for the prefix Bel- or Biel.

Old Ideas – Pretty

This old idea involved something like “pretty” or “pleasant”.

Compare this with, for example, Thietmar 6(56):

“The army was to assemble on Margrave Gero’s lands at Belgern, which means [in Slavic] ‘beautiful mountain.”

Here the reference is to Bel-gern is the Germanized versions of Biała Góra (White or Pretty (Bela) Mountain). Belgora is mentioned earlier already in 973 in one of Otto I’s documents parcelling out Slavic lands.

Bylanuelde, the first mention above seems very similar to the Polish Bielany as this one near Cracow.

New Idea – Beaten

This is almost too easy:

You can reconstruct hypothetical words but why do that when you have ones that are still in use?

Of course, two caveats are in order. First, you still have to explain the third person singular past tense bił.

Second, the word “field” feld is Germanic – on the other hand, it is related to the Slavic pole. Other relations include Volk, pułk, połk. This last one, some people, say is from Turkic.

Polish Pantheon

PublishedOctober 8, 2017 Post authortorino

Who were the Polish Gods? Jan Długosz is actually quite clear about this question but it’s worth to summarize again. To call these Names a “pantheon” is in some respects an exaggeration. They were made a pantheon by Długosz but each Name has its own development and history and it is quite possible that some of these Names had a different tradition and came from, at least at some point, different tribes or even peoples (Sarmatian, Venetic/Lusatian, Suevic).

The Długosz List

Yessa/Yassa/Yesza/Yasza (in Polish spelled with a “J” in lieu of a “Y”) – the head of the Polish pantheon – His equivalent being Jupiter; this God’s name survives in Polish folk songs as Jasień is probably the same as the “Germanic” Jecha and Tacitus’ Isidi/Isis; He is also likely the “Greek” Iasion (the Czechs spoke of Chasson sive Jassen) and perhaps the “Greek” Jason; in Aethicus Easter, it seems Yassa as Iasion appears with the Eastern Slavic Paron; As the “yasny” or “light” God, He is also probably the “God of Lightning” mentioned by Procopius, the One who comes “first” (Jeden/Odin) and who is followed by thunder (Thor or Wtory, meaning the “second” or Perun/Paron or Baltic Perkunas); He seems to be also the God of Light and of fertility/harvest rites perhaps equivalent to Jarilo/Yarilo; He may also be linked to Ossirus or Odyseus; at war He may be identical with Yarovit/Gerowit; perhaps too Master of Waters (wenda (water in Old Prussian) > wendrować > wędrować – to wander about; also woda (water in Suavic) > wodzić – to lead); As to the form Yesha/Yessa or Yesza/Yassa, note that the Slavic “sh” or “sz” is nothing more than a diminutive form (compare it with, for example, Sasha); the original Name must have been Iasion or Jasień; later, after introduction of Christianity, a traveller, wanderer – much like Odin but, unlike the scheming and bitter Odin of later Icelandic mythography, Jasień remained the simple Jaś Wędrowniczek – a young boy who travels the countryside – very much in line with the original Iasion/Jason;

Łada/Ładon – the guardian of Jessa; this deity is either a Mars-like warrior (Didis Lado) or a Goddess of either love or order; perhaps the best answer to this confusion is that Lada is both Mars and a female Deity; She is an an Athena-like Amazon – the protector of Yassa (Alado gardzyna yesse – which may mean something like “Oh, Lada, protect Yassa”); an alternative is that Lada/Ladon were simply the “titles” (meaning “betrothed”) of Jasień and Marzanna (Mother Earth); interestingly, the Goddess Lada was worshipped, as Długosz says (without himself making the Amazon connection) in Mazovia; notice too that a Leda name appears already in Luccan as the consort/spouse of Zeus; the Greek story of Iasion and Demeter has similar connotations and would also make Lada similar to Demeter (though Długosz makes Marzanna be Ceres which was the equivalent of Demeter); perhaps the best choice of an analogy is to recall that Iasion slept with Demeter at his sister Harmonia’s wedding – ład means simply “order” in Suavic and there is much orderly about “harmony;” it is, thus, possible that the later Greek writers failed to understand that Harmonia, or Lada, was simply the Earth (compare with land) – that is She was Demeter; Lada, in Her “orderly” capacity, could also be responsible for the laws, perhaps because laws could be passed at a general meeting at which people swore something like the Anglo-Saxon Lada triplex and to which people were eingeladen (invited); the forms Dzievanna/Devanna and Marzana (see below for discussion) may have been the summer and winter forms of the same Goddess;

Nya/Niya – the God or Goddess of after life or underworld; the equivalent of Pluto; the God had a temple in Gniezno according to Długosz;

Dzidzilelia/Didilela/Zizilela – the Goddess of marriage and fertility (Didis Lela?); also associated with Venus; this Goddess is probably the same as the “Germanic” Ciza, Zizara;

Dzievanna/Devanna – the Goddess of the forests and hunts; this Goddess is probably the same as the “Germanic” Taefana; expressly tied to Diana as a forest Deity; interestingly, the name also appears in India (Vindi) and in Ireland (Dublin-Lublin!) and parts of Britain (Cheshire with its 20th Legion occupying Devana); it is possible that Dzievanna was an aspect of the summer Lada; perhaps also Goddess of sleep (ziewać?) or the form of Lada when Mother Earth sleeps;

Marzana – harvest Goddess associated with Ceres; it is possible that Dzievanna was an aspect of the winter Lada (when Mother Earth sleeps is frozen – marznąć);

Pogoda – the Goddess of weather, the “giver of good weather”;

Sywie/Ziwie/Zyvie/Ziva – God of Life (Zycie or of the being – zijn or sein);

Some Interpretations

The basic cyclical agriculturally related fact pattern of Polish mythology is pretty easy to establish. The details, however, vary. Specifically, the role of is uncertain:

is Łada the “Mother Earth” or is She a separate Divinity?
Is Łada female or male given that sometimes we see Łado and sometimes Łada?
Given that Łada/Łado is sometimes referred to as a gardzina “of Jasień (hero? guardian?), what role does that title impute to that Divinity?

There are a number of iterations of the myth that are possible and that I have discussed here. Roughly speaking they include:

1A: Two Person Relationship
- Jaś as the Male Sky Deity
- Łada as the Female Earth
1B: Three Person Relationship
- Jaś as the Male Sky Deity
- Łada as His Female Gardzina
- Dzidzilela or Marzanna/Dziewanna as the Earth
1C: Three Person Relationship (seems to me the most likely)
- Jaś as the Male Sky Deity,
- Łado as His Male Gardzina
  - Łado could be the preparer/announcer of Jaś’ arrival (seems to me the most likely) or
  - Łado could be the fertilizing Divinity Himself with Jaś being the Father
- Dzidzilela or Marzanna/Dziewanna as the Earth

The other Divinity to account for in each of these variations is Nya. Nya’s position is even more confusing and some possibilities are discussed below. Another is that it is a female Deity representing the not yet fertilized Earth.

In any event this post expands on the first interpretation (Theory 1A) and also addresses the mysterious Leli. See below “Theory 1A Expansion: Jaś as the Male Sky Deity – Łada as the Female Earth ”

The above assume that Jaś or Jasień is a Sky Deity/Rider (Jaś the Central Hero), the details that are left are basically trying to figure out whether Jaś has a Companion and what are the names of the Mother Goddess related to the Earth.

However, in some lists of Polish Gods, especially the older ones, Łado is listed first. This raises the question whether Łado is the Central Figure and the Rider? This would leave Jaś in, potentially, an important but junior role (maybe along with another?). Let’s call that Theory 2 which this post discusses below as well.

Finally, another theory – Theory 3 – discusses the possibility that Yassa is female while Łado is male and their union may be Nya (understood as wealth not as Pluto of the underworld).

Theory 1A Expansion: Jaś as the Male Sky Deity – Łada as the Female Earth

It is noteworthy that in the oldest examples of these lists we have only:

Yasza/Yesza,
Łado or Łada and
Niya

This is sometimes expressed by saying “Poles had three Gods”.

That said, sometimes we also have Yleli. For example:

lado yleli yassa tija (Statuta provincialia breviter)
ysaya lado ylely ya ya (Sermones per circulum anni, Cunradi)
Alado, yesse, ylely (Sermo De S. Stephano)

The most likely explanation to me is that Łado and Łada are merely titles that refer to a Divine Couple (in fact, these are also nouns that refer to one’s “beloved” or betrothed). The male member of the Couple is Jasień who is the Łado. The female member’s Name (though not certain) is likely Marza who then is the Łada.

Jasień is evidently associated with horse riding and the Sky. He has riders with him and he carries a ring for bonding with or marriage to His Łada. To get “access” however, He needs a Key and indeed the image of a key is associated with both Jasień and his betrothed.

Marza (or Marzanna) seems to be associated with the Earth (compare with marchew meaning “carrot” that is from the ground). Hence we have the Ceres reference in Długosz). Indeed, the very word “marriage” is indicative (Compare with Latin maritare). This Goddess is associated with agriculture and motherhood but also with the main elements on Earth that is land (Lenda the Łada) and water (Wenda but also mare/morze, that is the sea). She is also frozen – sleeps – in the winter but comes alive, after Jasień opens her with his Key (perhaps starting with the lightning strikes or pioruny, the strikes of the Divine “Fork” announcing the arrival of the rains of spring making “dry” Earth suddenly “wet” and ready for intercourse). Think of the chastity belt. During the winter She is asleep (nightmare or marzyc “to dream”) and (see above) maybe associated with freezing (marznąć) but also with death (according to Brueckner, as late as the 15th century mrzeć meant “to kill” – probably cognate with the PIE root *mer- “to rub away, harm” (also “to die” and forming words referring to death and to beings subject to death)). In the Polish tradition Marzanna is initially referred to as “death” which must itself be killed and restored with a gaik – initially a tree.

Yet She is also the protector of either Jasień (the young Jasień) or the new Jasień or Jasień’s Son – that is Man (like Isis protecting Horus) and in that capacity she is a warrior – an Amazon – Lada aka Minerva aka Athena. (Whether the Sarmatian war cry marha (Ammianus Marcellinus) was a reference to Marza (or just the scream of “death” [to the Romans]) is yet another question the answer to which we will likely not ever know)).

Perhaps Jasień (in Jarilo form?) was not just the Sky God as the Divine Son born of Jasień and Marza, that is the Earth – Man. In fact, whether these are not just a pair but also siblings and potentially a mother and son are another set of matters. See below for more on the complicated relationship between the Sister who is a Wife of and also a Mother to the same Divinity.

There is also an equestrian component to Marza if you are willing to look outside of Suavic languages. Here you have, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary: “the Old English meare, also mere (Mercian), myre (West Saxon), fem. of mearh “horse,” from Proto-Germanic *marhijo- “female horse” (source also of Old Saxon meriha, Old Norse merr, Old Frisian merrie, Dutch merrie, Old High German meriha, German Mähre “mare”), said to be of Gaulish origin (compare Irish and Gaelic marc, Welsh march, Breton marh “horse”).” If the mare were “black” and Jasień were associated with “light” (jasny) then we have a pair of light and dark horses connected to the annual and, importantly, agricultural cycle.

In this telling Nya may simply be nothingness. In other words, if Jasień is always the “light” and Marzanna may or may not be in light or in darkness depending on the time of year, Nya may be the perpetual darkness. But this is not the only interpretation and may also refer to the “New” that is reborn (compare this notion with the Egyptian Horus). Długosz refers to Nya as Pluto but Pluto could also mean wealth (Greek ploutos hence “plutocracy”). That is the new wealth of rebirth or of the land which might even suggest that Nya is the offspring of Jasień and Marza (Jarilo?). That is, after all, what agricultural wealth meant. Curiously the Suavic bóg (God) may have originated from bhaga refers to “master”, “lord”. Yet this word also means “wealth.” If so, Nya that is made “of the Earth” may suggest that a bóg meant, in Suavic mythology, a lesser Being than Jasień and Marza Who would not, in this telling, be “simple” bogi but rather some higher forms of Divinity.

Still, Nya is usually mentioned on par with Yassa and Lada. So, on the one hand, Nya may be the “new” Jasień (Iarilo/Horus) but, on the other hand, Nya may be a sibling to Jasień and Marza (just as Horus may initially have been a sibling to Isis and Osiris).

What of the Leli? Well, the word Leli appears where Nya does not. If so, then Leli would only be another Name for Nya. Given that Leli was sometimes referred to as Heli (Scandinavian Hela and “hell” which is anything but dark) we could have a God of the Underworld that is simply the crushed but therefore incandescent new God of Light. Alternatively, Nya could remain a Divinity in His own right but the Leli could be the children of Jasień and Marza or Nya may be just one of the Leli who may be many.

These Leli could be bogi “Gods” or children in the sense that they are like “wealth”. From my perspective the simplest possibility is to see the Sun and Moon (księżyc or Little Prince or, perhaps, Nya(?)) as their offspring. Either way Dzidzilelia would then be just another Name for Łada/Marza.

Thus, we would have:

Jasień the Łado or the white stallion in the Sky (see here on the very similar Jaryło or Jarilo/Iarilo)

Marza/Marzanna the Łada, maybe aka the Boda (Earth), the (black?) mare but also a warrior (Amazon-like Minerva/Athena), the protector of Jasień (or of the new Jasień, like Horus) and, once a mother, aka Dzidzilelia

Nya possibly a separate Deity of Night (or of the New Moon that is księżyc or a Lel or, if there were many, a member of the Leli, that is the children (or child) of Jasień and Marza (though originally, perhaps, only the night (or winter) form of the about to be “newborn” Jasień) but, perhaps also the replacer of Jasień (acting like Set in Egyptian mythology)

But you might say, Nya must be separate from Leli because we have the mention of lado yleli yassa tija wherein tija is probably Nya.

This objection, however, raises a much more complicated issue, namely what does the above phrase really mean?

It may be an exclamation in vocative wherein tija (or *Tîwaz or *Teiwaz !?) may just be twoja, that is “yours” (that is, it may having nothing to do with Nya). If so, we could have further and different interpretations of this phrase. It could mean:

“Lado! And the Children of your [spouse] Yassa”,

or, if leli were interpreted as a verb meaning lulać that is “try to put someone to sleep” (compare with the English “to lull” or “lullaby”) or ululać (that is to successfully do so), then we might interpret this as:

“Lado! Lull your Yassa to sleep!”

If this is correct, then it might suggest asking Mother Earth to sing lullabies and hence to put to sleep, the Sky God (perhaps the Sun).

This might also suggest that Yassa is the Son of the Earth starting with the Earth “birthing” the Sun (Son) but also the Sun “dying” into the Earth. This mother-son relationship is not necessarily a replacement for the sibling theory discussed above. In fact, the earliest example of a Brother-Sister pair that is Isis and Osiris (also a vegetation God) produce the “new” Osiris, that is Horus. But Horus is merely made from Osiris. Thus, the Sun is “birthed” by the Earth, “mates” with the same Earth and then “dies” into the Earth, only to be reborn as the same but really the New Divinity.

Notice this is also similar not only to the myth of Iasion and Demeter (Ceres and Earth mother?) but also to Jason and Medea. Jason travels to the underworld and is helped by Media. However, on the Douris cup, Jason is being aided by the Pallas Athena (comes out of a dragon of darkness?). The Return of Jason is also reflected in the Iasion myth in that, after fertilizing the Earth and “dying”, at least in some versions, Iasion is restored to life.

It is interesting that Medea’s cognates include the Polish miedza (meaning literally “boundary” but also a wooden balk), the Latin media and the Gothic midjis or the German Mitte. While this “Earth/Boden” concept seems to have been extended to “measuring,” one’s property presumably, it originally seems to refer to both the Earth and to the Middle (perhaps Middle-Earth is thus a redundancy). If you want you may extend it to Midgard. However, it also establishes a three level hierarchy:

Jasień in the “Sky” (or “Out There”)

Marza the Earth, here

Nya in the “Underworld” or, really, everywhere else where Jasień and Marza are not

In fact, another interesting word in Polish is miedź meaning “copper” which may itself be cognate with the German Schmiede or “smith”. Is the prefix smi– from the PIE “to cut”? But cut what? We have the Old English simian but we also have the Gothic aiza-smiþa, that is “coppersmith”. This creates a fascinating possibility of a myth in which there is only nothingness – Nya – until there comes the traveling Jasień who is also a “smith” in the sense that he fertilizes the otherwise “sleeping” Earth Who then becomes the Mother of a new Jasień (Man) while Jasień departs to return later (this is a daily, annual but perhaps an even longer cycle). Incidentally, worshipping such a fertility Divinity might have helped the Suavs to demographically take over the continent.

Alternatively, a fascinating possibility is that Łado is the supreme Being but it is Jasień and Dzidzilela that are His Children.

Remember the poem:

Pośród sioła kuźnia stała,
A w tej kuźni
Dwa kowalczyki
Łado! Łado!
Biją młoty w pierścień złoty,
Z młodym Jasieńkiem
Ku ślubowi
Łado! Łado!

in translation:

In the village there stood a smithy
And in this smithy
Two smith’s sons [or children?]
Łado! Łado!
Hammers strike a golden ring
With young Jasień
Towards marriage
Łado! Łado!

Indeed, it thus may well be argued that Athena, Marza, Łada, Medea may have all been the same Earth Goddess.

Of course, the above poem raises other questions: Who was the other smith son or sibling? Perhaps, Marza the Łada? And who was the senior “parent” there? Was there an actual senior Smith? (Svarog? Zeus? Nya as the original nothingness? *Djous patēr?). It is possible that Jasień may have, as the above Jason/Iasion myths may also hint, been downgraded as a new God took over (thunder God?). Of course, the poem does not say there was another smith, that is the seeming patronymic kowalczyk may rather just be a diminutive expression to refer to little smiths. After all that is what a man and woman are when they engage in coitus.

Jason betraying Medea thus carries hints of an unfaithful, departing Jasień or Jaryło who comes and goes, perhaps spreading his magical seed around the universe. Incidentally, this seed may not even be “man” per se. In fact, when Marzanna is tossed out of the village, the villagers bring in a “tree” (gaik – compare with Gaia). In some villages, only the gaik ceremony survived. And Jasień is, after all, also cognate with jesion, the ash tree – elsewhere in Northern Europe, also known as the Life Tree or in Scandinavia, Yggdrasill.

As an aside, given that Łado the Rider would have a name similar to that of Wadon or Wodan (compare this with the Suavic title wojewoda – literally, “warrior leader”), an analogy arises with Frigg/Freya who was an agricultural deity. In fact, her name – Freya – means, literally, the “Lady.” That is, Freya/Freyr are not so much names as just titles, arguably, just like Łada/Łado, except that in the latter case, the titles are not lord/lady but beloved female/beloved male. Perhaps, then we have the “The Lady and the Lad”.

In this version the Lad’s (Łado’s) Name is Jasień and the Lady’s (Łada’s) Name is Lela.

Going back to Egypt, it is curious that the early formula of “An offering the king gives and Anubis” became, by the end of the Fifth Dynasty “An offering the king gives and Osiris”. There is thus also the question of whether Nya is the “Nube” the night form of Yassa yet really not Yassa. Compare this with “navel” (according to the Online Etymology Dictionary from PIE *(o)nobh-). The fact that Osiris may be derived from jsjrj suggests that both the Jas and the Jar (Jarilo, Horus, hero?) may be, in essence, the same – though different – the Father and the Son. And yet, as mentioned above, there is also the question whether the Father is replaced (“killed”) by the Son. In that sense, Horus and Set may be the same person. Or the king is dead, long live the king. Or, to the extent, Łado is Odin and Nya/Leli/Heli can be Hela.

(In fact, in alternative you could see a plural Leli perhaps: the good bohater (compare with the Persian bahadur) półbóg that is “Demigod” or “hero” – Turoń or Jaryło or Veles? and the evil (?) Nya or (female?) Hela. This is, of course, even more fanciful).

Note that the Egyptian connections in Suavic mythology may also be seen in Tacitus’ mention of Isidi (Isis) (indeed, there is a possibility that Jassa refers also to the female Earth Goddess just as Łado has a Łada counterpart) as well as in the crowns of Osiris (Atef crown, with a phallic element in its Hedjet) and Isis (more like an egg element – note the ship connection of Isis also has a lunar connection given how a crescent moon looks like a boat).See this here for the “feathers”, “snakes”, “horses” or “dragons” forming the number “twos” in these crowns.

The above interpretation reduces the number of Polish Divinities. Yet it, in addition to the three above, it would leave the following Długosz Divinities in their role as minor Divinities (maybe these are the Leli or “children”):

Dziewana (Dzievanna/Devanna)
Pogoda
Żywie (Sywie/Ziwie/Zyvie/Ziva)

An alternative interpretation of the same basic paradigm would preserve the Trio of Polish Divinities as well as these but make them all into Leli – that is children of the Three. Here we would have:

Jasień
Łada
Nya

but also include some of the other Names as separate Names of the “Leli”:

Marzanna
Dzidzilelia
Dziewana
Pogoda
Żywie

Theory 2

Suppose it is Łado that is the Rider and, further, that Jasień is separate from Łado. What are the interesting (and likely) possibilities?

If Łado is the protagonist then you could see Łado as both the “awaked” and the “impregnator” of Mother Earth (the “Sleeping Beauty”). What is the name of Mother Earth? Well, there are two Names potentially associated with the adjective “great” in Baltic languages: Didis Lado and, arguably, Didis Lela (Dzidzilela). In this telling then Jasień may be the Son of the Sky and the Earth. Or there could be Two such children. If Lela is the Name of the Earth then we can also explain the confusion which led to Maciej of Miechow to conclude that Lada was Leda (of the Greeks).

In this telling you could see Łado throwing out Marza/Marzanna (an agent of Nya, the nothingness?) out of Dzidzilela and putting a new Jasień in her womb.

In fact, a variation could be the idea that Jasień is one of two (Sun and Moon?) children of the Sky Father and Mother Earth. These would be the Lelki.

All of these let’s call Theory 2A.

Is there a Theory 2B?

Perhaps Jasień is something other than a child of Łado and Dzidzilela.

Perhaps Łado can be understood as the guardian, in the sense of “caretaker” of Jasień. Interestingly, Jasień is the name of a tree (jesion) but the ancient Suavs referred to stars as trees (gwiazdy/gozdy). You can easily imagine a caretaker that keeps the trees (or The Tree) alive and then departs (to perform similar tasks elsewhere) to come back later.

In fact, perhaps Łado was the protector/guardian of Jassa in the sense that Łado effectuated the rebirth of Jassa, the ash tree. But had to do so in an annual cycle? This becomes similar to Theory 1C.

Theory 3

Did the Suevi really worship Isis? If so, then another possibility is that Yassa (unlike Łado we never have “Jasso” though numerous -a suffixed names such as “Sasha” or, for that matter, Attila, Totila, may nevertheless be male) is a Female Goddess like Mother Earth and Łado is the male Rider. Łado is the protector of Yassa much as above but their children’s are different perhaps Leli? Is Nya some Dark Lord or simply the New – the ploutos – of the union of Łado and Yassa?

Other Mentions

Outside of Długosz’s testimony many of the above Names are merely repeated. However, other Names include:

Boda/Bodze – this could be another name for the Earth (swoboda – freedom or one own land and, for that matter, the “body” and Boden the “ground”);
Lel/Heli/Leli – the Polish Castor but perhaps connected with the Germanic Hel; perhaps one of the Tacitean Alcis; connection, if any, with Dzidzilelia/Didilela/Zizilela is unclear;
Polel – the Polish Pollux; perhaps one of the Tacitean Alcis;
Pogwizd/Pochwist/Pochwistel/Niepogoda;
Pan;
Grom;
Piorun (probably Ukraine only since, at the time of writing, that was part of Poland);
Gwiazda (literally “star”; also appears as Gwiazdor – perhaps referring to the World Tree (gozda);

Finally, one book mentions a whole league of Deities and demons (some of these are the same as above):

male:

Farel, Diabelus, Orkiusz, Opses, Loheli, Latawiec, Szatan, Chejdasz, Koffel, Rozwod, Smolka, Harab the Hunter, Ileli, Kozyra, Gaja, Ruszaj, Pozar, Strojnat, Biez, Dymek, Rozboj, Bierka, Wicher, Sczebiot, Odmieniec, Wilkolek [werewolf], Wesad, Dyngus or Kiczka, Fugas

female:

Dziewanna, Marzanna, Wenda, Jedza, Ossorya, Chorzyca, Merkana

For other posts on Polish Gods see here (part I), here (part II), here (part III), here (part IV), here (Part V) and here (Part VI).

Izvestia

PublishedSeptember 28, 2017 Post authortorino

Albrecht Greule’s Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch is a nice introduction to the study of Central European hydronames.

It is, however, far from complete. I am not talking about additional entries that could have been provided or additional thinking that could have been done in respect to certain other entries. All that is true and, not as important for the present point.

Take a look at the entry for Saale. There are three such Saales in Germany: Frankish, Thuringian and one by the town of Duingen.

The entry for the Thuringian one is as follows:

We are told by Greule that this river is mentioned as:

Salas potamos (in a 12th century manuscript of Strabo’s Geography)
Salas fluvium (in a 9th century copy referring to circa 830) (this is from Einhard: Salam fluvium, qui Thuringos et Sorabos dividit)
trans Salam in 945

Then Greule launches into the names of the place in 1109, 1325, 1365, 1433 and 1520 while also mentioning Salauelda in 899 and 942.

But the name that does not get mentioned is the one used by Al-Bakri in his copy of the travel report of Ibrahim ibn Yaqub – Çalâwa or Slawah – which travel report is dated to 965/966.

The later “Polish Annals” (14th century) also say:

“Bolezlavus Magnus, qui Chrabri dicitur, natus est. Iste Bohemos et Ungaros subiugavit et Saxones edomuit, et in flumine Solave meta ferrea fines Polonie terminavit.

This – Soława – is the Sorb name to this day which is pronounced Souava.

For Ibrahim ibn Yaqub’s description in the best edition (based on the earliest manuscripts):

Tadeusz Kowalski: Relacja Ibrāhīma Ibn Jakūba z podróży do krajów słowiańskich w przekazie al-Bekrīego (Pomniki dziejowe Polski Ser. 2, T. 1. Wydawnictwa Komisji Historycznej. Polska Akademia Umiejętności T. 84 (1946) (this includes pictures Kowalski himself took of the codex Laleli 2144 in the Süleymaniye Library (discovered by Ritter) and of codex 3034 in the Nuru Osmaniye Mosque Library (discovered by Schaeffer))

(Incidentally, Kowalski’s daughter, an ethnographer in her own right, was married to Tadeusz Lewicki, the famous orientalist).

For earlier efforts you can locate L. Koczy, G. Jacob (1889), F. Westberg (1898). For the earliest:

Friedrich Wigger in Bericht des Ibrahîm ibn Jakûb über die Slawen aus dem Jahre 973 in Jahrbücher des Vereins für Mecklenburgische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Band 45 (1880) (see here)
M.J. De Goeye in Een belangrijk arabisch bericht over de slavische volkeren omstreeks (1880) (see here)
Arist A. Kunik & Baron Victor von Rosen in Izvěstija al-Bekri i drugih avtorov o Rusi i Slavjanah in Zapiski Imperatorskoj Akademii Nauk, 32, Pril. 2. (1878) (based on the discovery in the 1870s of the Al-Bakri manuscript at the Nuru Osmaniye Mosque in Istanbul) (see here)

For more information about the earliest travels of Jews in Eastern Europe see Teksty źródłowe do nauki historii Żydów w Polsce i we wschodniej Europie (Ringelblum & Mahler, 1930).

So here are some interesting points

if -ava is really a Germanic suffix denoting the fictional Germanic designation of “water” (fictional because never attested), then why is -ava a Slavic suffix in this case but the Germanic version is, repeatedly, Saale?
how does Greule know that the Salas potamos refers to the Thuringian Saale? The quote from Strabo refers to this “And there is also the river Sala, between which and the Rhine Drusus Germanicus died, whilst in the midst of his victories.” Why is this not the Frankish one for example (which, but for Strabo, would, as per Greule be attested in 777 or maybe even in 716). Cassius Dio relates that Drusus died before reaching the Rhine. If Drusus were returning towards Mainz. is soldiers later that year raised the Drususstein in Mainz. If that is where his soldiers ended up then it is also quite possible that that is where they and Drusus were heading – southwest. Probably then they were going for the River Main first and to get to that they may have passed the Frankische Saale and then Drusus died (of some disease acceding to Cassius Dio). This is not the only solution of course but it is just as reasonable as the one that has him die past the Thuringian Saale.
how did the editors of Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch miss this miss?

Wolański Again

PublishedSeptember 25, 2017 Post authortorino

Tadeusz Wolański‘s other claims are also interesting but it is hard to know what to make of them.

Lech of the Scriptures

One of them is the thing he noticed about the so-called Paralipomenon. In his own words:

“[T]he mention there near [the name of] Lech of names: Lada and Maresa makes a strange impression on us, recalling to us Slavic Deities: Ladda and Marzanna.”

What is he talking about? Well, he is describing here this passage of the Paralipomenon:

“The sons of Sela the son of Juda: Her the father of Lecha, and Laada the father of Maresa, and the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen in the House of oath.”

The Chabad version reads:

“The sons of Shelah the son of Judah: Er, the father of Lechah, and Ladah, the father of Mareshah, and the families of Beth-Abodath Habbuz of the house of Ashbea.”

In other words, Juda/Judah begat Sela/Shelah who begat Her/Er and Laada/Ladah. In turn, Her/Er begat Lecha /Lechah and Laada/Ladah begat Maresa/Mareshah.

This, however, is among a multitude of other names whose connotations are only constrained by your imagination. Moreover, what you think of them, depends on the spelling. Let’s take a look at just a few of these:

Hus/Hushah (like Jan Hus!)
Jara/Jaroah (like Jarowit)
Jacan (like Jason)
Jesisi/Jeshishai (like Yessa)
Jecsan/Jokshan (Jason)
Jesboc/Jishbak (Yes-bog meaning Juterbog)
Buz (like Boz)
Booz (like Boz)
Mosoch/Meshech (like Mieszko)

There are countless others in this list of Chronicles. There is Beor (for the Swedes) and Bela (for the Hungarians) and Huri (for the Danes).

For example, take this passage:

“These were the sons of Abihail, the son of Huri, the son of Jara, the son of Galaad, the son of Michael, the son of Jesisi, the son of Jeddo, the son of Buz.”

or:

“These are the sons of Abihail, the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz.”

But for Michael/Abihail, you could have believed that this was a Viking Saga name list.

It’s not clear what any of these traditions reflect but, whatever they reflect, it cannot be said that they reflect anything clear at all.

Just take a look at this.

Popilius the Popiel

One of the founding legends of the Polish state is that of Duke Popiel and Piast the Plowman. Who was this Popiel? We do not know but Wolański finds one of these in Rome by noting the following name:

Flavius Popilius Nepotianus

This is Flavius Julius Popilius Nepotianus Constantinus, a usurper (that is a rebel who lost) to the imperial throne (perished about 350 A.D.).

Yet Popilius is not unknown name in the ranks of the Romans. Thus, for example, we have the family of Popillii Laenates who, as one might guess, had an ill-reputation – at least in the B.C. era of Rome. (The Laenates were apparently just a branch of the Popilli but we do not hear much of the rest of the family). There was a Via Popilia built by one of these gentlemen and the town of Forlimpopoli may have been founded by them as well (it was called Forum Popilii). Now, this (like the place those Buccios seem to come from) is in the Emilia–Romagna.

What does any of this have to do with Popiel? At first glance not much.

On the other hand, it is certainly true that no one (as far as I know) tried to see how a pre-Slavic language (proto-Slavic) would have been rendered by Latin speaking Romans. Such a task would likely exceed the abilities of any linguist and would, even more importantly, necessarily be founded on such flimsy footing that it could not be taken seriously. I say, flimsy footing not because it is unimaginable that Italians – particularly in the North – spoke such a language before the Latin expansion but rather because we are too far into the future to likely ever be able to uncover any such connections (if, in fact, there had been any) with any degree of certainty – at least not via the tools of linguistics alone).

Take for example this.

The Pople family association home page! They mention that there were Popels, Popleys, Popples, Poppells and, of course, Poples.

In search of their origins they look to Hubba the Viking and the Etruscans… But who was Hubba (who raided England in 866 during the time of Alfred the Great) ethnically? He was most likely Danish but could he have been one of the Veleti? Think Kaszubas. And while contemporaneous sources speak of Danes and heathens being the invaders, Asser later says that the invaders came from the Danube (but probably he meant Denmark). Some sources also suggested Frisians but as we know there may have been Slavs in Holland as well…

If so, the Poples could, of course, have arrived in England as Slavs with Hubba.

And the Etruscans, those are a whole other story.

But why look so far afield? Right next to Somerset lies Wales and, specifically, the old Kingdom of Gwent. Gwent probably comes from the Veneti and so there you have it.

Incidentally, if you want to look for Popiel, you do not need to look so far as England. There are a number of places in Germany that suggest the Popiel name. And as regards Popiel’s feast where he poisoned his uncles, well, all you have to do is look to is look at Gero whose murderous feast Widukind describes approvingly.

Lescho

PublishedSeptember 23, 2017 Post authortorino

Tadeusz Wolański was an interesting character. He was an archeologist and a student of the Etruscan language, a soldier who participated (as an officer) in Napoleon’s 1812 campaign against Russia and an avid collector. He made several rather bold claims about Slavic antiquities including one about the above tablet which reads as follows:

C AVILLIO LESCHO
TI CLAVDIVS BVCCIO
COLVMBARIA IIII OLL VIII
SE VIVO A SOLO AD
FASTIGIVM MANCIPIO
DEDIT

Wolański attributed this to a present by the Emperor Tiberius to Lech the eponymous founder of the Lechs, that is Poles. The above is a funerary inscription that Wolański got, as he himself said, from Raphael Fabretti’s 1699 Inscriptionum Antiquarum.

This marble inscription is featured among the various Italian inscriptions and described here. It is not a description of any imperial gift. It was recovered from a local (?) cemetery at Urbino in 1686 and is interpreted as follows:

C(AIO) AVILLIO LESCHO
TI(BERIVS) CLAVDIVS BVCCIO
COLVMBARIA IIII OLL(AS) VIII SE VIVO A SOLO AD
FASTIGIVM MANCIPIO
DEDIT

It is also featured in Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL VI, 12905):

It is housed in the museum of the Ducal Palace in Urbino – just southeast of San Marino. The inscription has been dated to the 1st century A.D. and refers to a transfer of a burial plot by Tiberius Claudius Buccio to Gaius Avillius Lescho (or Caius, if you will).

Avillius is not an unheard of name in Rome. Thus, for example, we have a bridge inscription from about 3 A.D on the Pont d’Aël bridge/aqueduct in Aymavilles in Aosta Valley, north-western Italy:

IMP CAESARE AVGVSTO XIII COS DESIG
C AVILLIVS C F CAIMVS PATAVINVS
PRIVATVM

Which, actually, is an “imperial reference” to the times of Augustus and the builder of the bridge/acqueduct, one, Gaius Avillius Caimus from Padua, son of Gaius (or Caius, if you will).

So was Wolański just plain crazy? It seems this is a case of trying to make too great and ambitious a claim where a much smaller one would have, perhaps, done the trick.

Thus, for example, we can certainly ask a question that is much more interesting than any “imperial” claims:

While Buccio is a common name from the Emilia-Romagna (though it, too, is interesting), what kind of name is Lescho?

Soulanos and Boulanes

PublishedSeptember 19, 2017 Post authortorino

The cool thing about these days is that you can actually go and check some of these things that you’ve read about. Since the Vatican library is now mostly online, thanks to the efforts of one very generous guy, you can see things for yourself.

So on the Boulanes/Soulanes question, went back to look at two codices.

The results of those three are in and Soulanes seems to be winning the day.

Here are from Book 3, Chapter 5 (Sarmatia):

Vaticanus Graecus 191
(about 1300)