Yule log in English tradition

Have you cut your Yule log yet?

"The ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice...has survived...in the custom of the Yule log...[once]...widespread in Europe, it seems to have flourished especially in England, France, and among the South Slavs"...From "The Golden Bough"... 

I wrote about South Slavic Yule log customs in my posts "Badnjak" and "First footer"...

I wrote about old French Yule log customs in my post "La buche de noel"...

In this post I will write about Yule log customs from England:

Robert Chambers, in his 1864 work, "Book of Days" notes that "one of popular observances belonging to Christmas is more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors: the burning of the Yule log."

Clement A. Miles in Christmas in "Ritual and Tradition" published in 1912, says: 

"...within the memory of many [Yule log] was a very essential element in the [Christmas] celebration...not just for warmth, but as possessing...magical properties..."

"In some remote corners of England it probably lingers yet. English customs, they can hardly be better introduced than in Robert Herrick's words:  

"We may note especially that the [Yule log] must be kindled with last year's brand; here there is a distinct suggestion that the lighting of the log at Christmas is a shrunken remnant of the keeping up of a perpetual fire..."

Another tradition and its origin are thus described by Sir Laurence Gomme in "Folk Lore Relics of Early Village Life"...

"From there being an ever-burning fire, it has come to be that the fire must not be allowed to be extinguished on the last day of the old year, so that the old year's fire may last into the new year"...

"In Lanarkshire it is considered unlucky to give out a light to any one on the morning of the new year, and...if the house-fire has been allowed to become extinguished recourse must be had to the embers of the village fire [on New Year's Eve a great public bonfire is made]"...

J. Ashton, in "A righte Merrie Christmasse!!" says: "In the north of England...[over Christmas] it was useless to ask a neighbour for light, so frightfully unlucky was it to allow any light to leave the house between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day"...

Georgina F. Jackson say in "Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings": 

"In Shropshire the idea is extended even to ashes, which must not be thrown out of the house on Christmas Day, 'for fear of throwing them in Our Saviour's face'"...

"Perhaps such superstitions may originally have had to do with dread that the 'luck' of the family, the house spirit...might be carried away with the gift of fire from the hearth"...

"In the 1880s there were still many West Shropshire people who could remember seeing the Christmas Brand drawn by horses to the farmhouse door, and placed at the back of the wide open hearth, where the flame was made up in front of it"...

"The embers, says one informant, were raked up to it every night, and it was carefully tended that it might not go out during  the whole season, during which time no light might either be struck, given, or borrowed"...

"At Cleobury Mortimer in the south-east of the county the silence of the bells during 'the Christmas' points to a time when fires might not be extinguished during that season"...

In 1849 "Notes and Queries" George Bell says: "The place of the Yule log in Devonshire is taken by the "ashen faggot" (sticks of ash fastened together by ashen bands), still burnt in many a farm on Christmas Eve...

In 1740 "Observations on Popular Antiquities", Henry Bourne writes: "Our Fore-Fathers lit up Candles of an uncommon Size, which were called Christmas-Candles, and layed a Log of Wood upon the Fire, which they termed a Yule-Clog, or Christmas-Block"...

"The Yule-Clog therefore...seems to have been used, as an Emblem of the return of the Sun, and the lengthening of the Days. For as both December and January were called Guili or Yule, upon Account of the Sun's Returning, and the Increase of the Days"...

"So, I am apt to believe, the Log has had the Name of the Yule-Log, from its being burnt as an Emblem of the returning Sun, and the Increase of its Light and Heat"...

H. J Rose says in 1923 "Folklore Scraps": "In the last generation the Yule log was still burned, and a piece of it saved to light the next year's log"...

In the 1790 "The Gentleman's Magazine", we can read that: "In England the Yule log was often supplemented or replaced by a great candle"...

"At Ripon in the eighteenth century the chandlers sent their customers large candles on Christmas Eve, and the coopers, logs of wood"...

And finally: In 1841 "Medii Aevi Kalendarium", Hampson says: "Candle that is lighted on Christmas Day must be so large as to burn from the time of its ignition to the close of the day, otherwise it will portend evil to the family for the ensuing year"...

So basically Christmas candle is just a Yule log in disguise...

Anyway, may your fire burn bright...

Merry Christmas eve to all who celebrate Christmas tomorrow...

Holy carp

Ancient Egypt, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, ca. 1352-1336 BC. Ceramic vessel in the form of a fish, with a narrow, flared-mouthed spout projecting from the top where a fin would be...

According to the object description, "the fish depicted is a Nile carp which plays a significant role in the Osiris mythology"...

So apparently, Set, the brother of Osiris, was pissed off that Osiris was made the Pharaoh of Egypt instead of him after the death of their father Geb...

Set believed that he was the rightful heir to the throne of Egypt, and that Osiris was the usurper...So he decided to kill his brother and take what's rightfully his own...

And so he did...And after killing Osiris, Set then cut his body into bits and scattered these bits all over Egypt. Finally, he threw Osiris's penis into the river Nile, where it was promptly eaten by a Nile Carp...

Apparently, this legend explains why Nile was seen by the Ancient Egyptians as "the water of life", as "fertilising semen emanating from the severed phallus of Osiris"...

This story was reenacted every year as part of the "great mystery festival". This festival which commemorated the death and resurrection of Osiris, was celebrated at the end of the Inundation (Annual flood), on the same day that grain was planted in the ground...

One of the rituals performed during the festival was the construction of "Osiris Beds". They were originally wooden, and later ceramic containers in shape of Osiris, filled with fertile black silt brought in by the Nile river during the Inundation, and sown with barley seeds...

The germinating seeds symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. Basically rebirth of nature, and most importantly, rebirth of grain. These Osiris beds were also placed in tombs, symbolising resurrection...

Interestingly, Horus, the son and the avenger of Osiris, was the lord of the black, fertile (soil) land. While his enemy, Set, the killer of Horus's father, was the lord of the red, infertile (desert) land...

In all fairness, when we look at Egypt, we can see why Set, the lord of the desert, might have thought that he should have been the Pharaoh...It's all red desert...Except for this thing green line in the middle, the land of the black soil...

In "Isis and Osiris", Plutarch says that...[during]...the festival "the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water...and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris was found (or resurrected)...

Then they knead some fertile [black] soil with the water...and fashion therefrom a figure, which they cloth and adorn, this indicating that they regard these Isis and Osiris as the substance of Earth and Water"...

Symbolic, right? It is this fertile black soil, the mix of Earth and Water, which every year allowed Horus (the lord of the black, fertile, Nile valley land) to defeat Set (the lord of the red infertile, desert land)...

That black soil is brought to Egypt from the southern highlands, by the the annual Nile flood, without which, Egypt wold have been swallowed by the desert, making Set, the god of the desert, the (rightful) Pharaoh of Egypt...

So what does this have to do with Nile Carp? Well, this is the annual flow chart of the river Nile. You can see that the river flow peaks during the period July-September. This is the flod that brings the black fertile soil which makes life possible in the middle of the desert...

According to the research data found in this paper "Study of Some Biological Aspects of the Nile Carp, Labeo niloticus (Pisces, Cyprinidae) from Khashm El-Girba Reservoir and Atbara River, Sudan: I Abundance; Sex Ratio; Gonado-somatic Index and Breeding Season" "gonado-somatic index of Nile Carp...starts rising in late Apr, reaches its peak between Jul and Sep, then starts to decrease decreases until February...

Translated into normal English, this means that Nile Carp mating season coincides exactly with the Nile flood...Sounds like a great candidate for an animal calendar marker?

As the water starts to rise, the carp starts to mate. And when carp mate, you know about it. The fish all come to the shallows, where males fight each other over the right to fertilise female's eggs...Lots of jumping, splashing, wallowing...And fish fucking...

Not a chance to miss this, if you were living by the river, from the river...No wonder that the Nile Carp ended up in the Osiris myth...

If anyone should eat the penis of the god of fertility, which was thrown into the Nile River, who better than Nile Carp whose copulation coincides with the annual flood, the outpouring of the "water of life" (semen) of Osiris...And the source of fertility in Egypt...

This could have been maybe stretching it a bit, if we didn't find animal (and plant) calendar markers embedded into the core of the Egyptian religion since the Pre Dynastic period...I wrote about this in my post "Markhor goat from Naqada"...

Have you ever wondered why we have all these cow mother goddesses in Egypt? Because the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle, Aurochs, which once also lived in Egypt, coincides with the beginning of the rise of the Nile...I talked about this in my post "Holy cow"...This is also the reason why we find the worship of the holy calves in Egypt too...I talked about this in my post "White calf"

Have you ever wondered why sun was worshiped as the source of life in Egypt? In the desert! Cause life giving Nile flood starts at the beginning of the hot part of the year (Apr/May), and ends at the end of the hot part of the year (Oct/Nov)...Hence Ra, the dude...

And have you ever wondered why lionesses are so important in Egyptian mythology? Cause the Nile flood peaks in Leo, which marks the beginning of the mating season of the Eurasian lions...But if the Nile doesn't flood, the season of life becomes the season of death...

Which is what is described in the stories about runaway "goddess of moisture" who got pissed off and left Egypt, bringing famine and destruction had to be "brought back" by baboons...Who mate at the beginning of the monsoon season which feeds the Nile flood...I wrote about this in my post "Baboon"...

I wrote about the monsoon season in my post "Menat" about the holy couple "Shu" (wind) and "Tefnut" (moisture) who together mean "wet wind" = eastern monsoon...

And then we have dogs and dog days, the beginning of the mating season of the old dog breeds, which coincides with the peak flood and the helical rising of Sirius...I wrote about this in my post "Dog days"...

And cats and their veneration around the time of the harvest, when rats multiply and cats give birth to lots of hungry kittens...I wrote about this in my post "Bastet"...

And there's more...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Gilgamesh and hurling

Article about Gilgamesh. And hurling...

Pic: "Hurlers appearing through the icy mist" by John McIlwaine...

Hurling, Gaelic "game" described as a "cross between hockey and murder". Probably developed to train warriors in hand to hand combat, it could be thousands of years old...

Excerpt from "Gilgameš, Enkidu and the nether world": 

"...The tree [of life], he [Gilgamesh] uprooted it and stripped its branches...He gave it [wood] to his sister holy Inana for her chair. He gave it to her for her bed..."

So far so Mesopotamian...Now it turns very very Irish 🙂 Anyone from Ireland who ever played Hurling will know what I am talking about...For those not from Ireland, and not familiar with Hurling, check these articles about "Gaelic sports"...

"...As for himself, from its roots, he [Gilgamesh] manufactured his ball and, from its branches, he manufactured his mallet [or hurley stick?]..."

"...He played with the ball in the broad square, never wanting to stop playing it, and he praised himself in the broad square, never wanting to stop praising himself [🙂 see]..."

"...The young men of his city were playing with the ball. For him who made the team of the widows' children [basically they played the game so much their mothers never saw them], they lamented: "O my neck! O my hips!" [it's a tough game]..."

"...For those that had a mother, the mother brought bread for her son; for those that had a sister, the sister poured water for her brother..."

"...As the evening came, he marked the spot where the ball had been placed, and he picked up his ball from in front of him and took it home. But early in the morning as he …… the place marked..."

"...the widows' accusation and the young girls' complaint caused his ball and his mallet [hurley stick???] to fall down to the bottom of the nether world..."

"...He could not reach them...He tried with his hand but could not reach them, tried with his foot but could not reach them..."

"...At the gate of the nether world, he sat down. Gilgamesh wept, crying bitterly: "O my ball! O my mallet [hurley stick???]!...I am still not satiated with its charms, the game with it has not yet palled for me!..."

"...My ball has fallen down to the nether world -- who will retrieve it for me? My mallet [hurley stick???] has fallen down to the nether world -- who will retrieve it for me?..."

Oh, Enkidu, I see you have nothing better to do...Would you mind popping down to the nether world and getting my ball and mallet for me? Good lad...

Of course I am not saying that Sumerians played hurling...

Axe or hammer

Perun, Slavic thunder god wielded an axe...

Thor, Norse thunder god, wielded a hammer...

Both Slavs and Norse wore axe (hammer) protective amulets...

Left: Thor's hammer amulet

Right: Perun's axe amulet

I always thought that Thor's hammer looked like a stylised axe...

That Thor's "hammer" probably was originally an axe, can be seen from this next artifact. A museum in Utrecht has a relic called "the hammer of St. Martin of Tours". 

The "hammer" was made in the 13th or 14th c. from a Bronze Age stone axe dated to 1,000 - 700 BC...

What does this have to do with Thor's hammer? Well, St Martin thunder god in saintly disguise. Oh and Utrecht was founded by Slavic tribe Wiltzi (who worshiped thunder god with an axe) and was originally called Wiltaburg. More in my post "Axe of Martin"...

But the main indication that Thor's hammer was originally an axe, is the etymology of the the Thor's axe name: Mjǫllnir, "which is disputed among historical linguists". You'll quickly see why. Here are proposed etymologies, and you tell me which one is most plausible...

1. Old Norse Mjǫllnir developed from Proto-Norse *melluniaR. This connects it to Old Church Slavonic mlunuji and Russian molnija meaning "lightning", which would make Mjǫllnir "the lightning-maker" (either borrowed from a Slavic or both stemming from a common source)...

2. Another proposal connects Mjǫllnir to Old Norse mjǫll meaning "new snow" and modern Icelandic mjalli meaning "the color white", rendering Mjǫllnir as "shining lightning weapon"???

3. Finally, another proposal connects Old Norse Mjǫllnir to Old Norse mala meaning "to grind" and Gothic malwjan "to grind", yielding Mjǫllnir as meaning 'the grinder'???

Considering the amount of mixing between Slavs and Norse and mutual cultural influences, and the fact that Thor made lightning with his "hammer" (actually axe), I would go with number one...Controversial!!! 🙂 But most logical...

Particularly in light of the fact that stone axes were directly linked with thunder gods for millenniums in Eurasia...And that so many thunder gods wielded axes...I talked about this in my post "Kataibates"...

One last thing: In Scandinavia thunderstones (Neolithic/Bronze Age flint axes) were frequently worshiped as family gods who kept off spells and witchcraft...So...

And finally (promise 🙂) The word "mo(ld)nya" (lightning) exists in all Slavic languages. It's cognates, apart from Norse Mjǫllnir are: Latvian milna (hammer of the thunderer 🙂), Old Prussian mealde (lightning), Middle Welsh mellt, myllt (lightning)...

Also, did I mention that the word for Thursday (Thor’s day) was in the Polabian Baltic Slavic language, Peründan (Perun's day)... 

PS: Someone asked me: Did Perun's axe have a name like Thor's hammer?

Considering that Mjǫllnir just means lightning, and that both Slavs and Norse believed that stone axes were remnants of lightnings, then I would guess that Thor's hammer's "name" is just misunderstanding of Slavs pointing to a stone axe and saying: look, lightning...

The Ram of Agni

"In the beginning, Agni burned all things, but at the insistence of Shiva, Brahma withdrew Agni, and instead created Yama, the god of death" from: "Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World, Volume 1" By Gaṅgā Rām Garg...

Very interesting...Because of this: Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of death, who "represented the high summer sun which scorched the earth...which hindered crop production"...I talked about Nergal in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

In Mesopotamia, Nergal is associated with lions (is actually depicted as a lion, lion-man). Why? Because in Mesopotamia, Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year. The time of drought. The time of death...

Why is Jul/August marked with Leo? Cause the end of Jul, beginning of Aug marks the beginning of the Eurasian lions main mating season...

But in Indian subcontinent, Leo is the peak of Monsoon season...The wettest time of the year...

The climate in Leo in India is the opposite to the climate in Leo in Mesopotamia...Which is why lion is a negative symbol in Mesopotamia and a positive symbol in India...I talked about this in my post "Mahishasuramardini"...

So when is the hottest and driest time of the year in India? As you can see on the previous chart, the temperatures start rising during Jan/Feb, beginning of spring, and peak during Apr/May, the end of spring...This is also when we have minimum precipitation...

So the hot/dry season in India is spring, symbolised by ram...I talked about the animal symbols of the seasons in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...

Aries, ram, is the symbol of spring, because spring is sheep lambing season. The most important event in sheep annual lifecycle of both domestic and wild sheep...

And the hottest/driest time of the hot and dry season, the time of drought, the time of death, is during Aries...Which is why, I think, Agni rides on a ram...Love the ram's grin... 🙂

This is the time of the burning sun, sun's fire, Agni, "which destroys all things"...Remember, in Hindu mythology, Agni (fire) was believed to have three manifestations: Sun, Lightning, Fire...Which is why he had three heads...

So, Agni, in his "burning sun" form,  gets replaced by Yama, the god of death, who is in the Rigveda, the son of Surya, the Sun God...Now that makes sense I think...🙂 And Yama is also closely associated with Agni, who is both Yama's friend and priest...That too now makes sense...All very interesting...

BTW, Aries is when Slavs celebrate Jarilo, Sun god whose name means Brightly burning one...The Dragon...Who then got Christianised into St George, The Dragon Killer...I wrote about Jarilo in my post "Letnitsa treasure" about solar symbolism of snakes and dragons in Slavic mythology.  

You can read more about Jario (Pronounced Yareelo), Aries, Georgios (See how it all sounds similar) in my posts "Aries must die", "Two Georges"...

Jarilo, the dragon (symbol of the destructive sun's heat)...Like this Mesopotamian dragon, with 7 snake heads...Snake, symbol of sun's heat, one for each summer hot dry summer month...I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

Hmmm...is it possible that this is why Agni, the personification of (sun's) fire, has "seven tongues"? Agni, the dragon, the one who destroys everything, the one who brings death, who was "replaced" by the god of death, Yama...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Hayagriva

In Puranic texts there is a very strange story that goes like this:

Once Lord Vishnu’s head was cut off accidentally by other gods. The head turned out to be the Sun. The gods then attached a horse head to Vishnu's body, which is how he assumed his Hayagriva form...

Of course this was not an accident, but a Vishnu's plan all along. He was planning to kill the horse-headed demon Hayagrivasura, who had stolen the Vedas, and who had received a boon that he could only be killed by someone who was horse-headed...

Of course 🙂 the fact that Vishnu's head, which turned out to be the sun, was replaced with a head of a white horse,  has nothing do do with the fact that Surya, the old Vedic sun god, was directly linked to white horse...

Surya was depicted riding a chariot harnessed by seven usually white horses. 

Or by a horse with seven heads.

Apparently, "it is believed that they represent the seven colors of visible light, and seven days in a week". Cool...

But is it possible that seven horse represent seven months of summer, the season dominated by the sun? You know like in Mesopotamia, where summer had seven sunny months, and fire breathing dragons, symbol of summer, had seven heads...Just asking...I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

Also, is it possible that this is why Agni, the personification of fire, has "seven tongues"? Love the ram's grin... 🙂

In Hindu mythology, Agni was believed to have three manifestations: Sun, Lightning, Fire...Which is why he had three heads...

Just like Slavic god Triglav (Three headed)...

"Because it is a great mystery how Svarog (heavenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder) and Svetovid (Sun)"...I talked about this in my post "Triglav, Trimurti, Agni"...

Interesting right? Cause before people learned how to make fire, fire descended from the sun through lightning...And in India, the thunderstorm season is the summer season (Apr/May - Oct/Nov)...The season of the sun... Charts are from "Climatology of thunderstorm activity in the Indian region..."

By the way, modern science seem to confirm that it is indeed Sun (Surya) which gives power to Indra (lightning) which becomes Agni (fire)...I talked about this in my post "Sun thunder fire"... 

And it is because of the fact that fire in our hearths is the same fire burning inside of the sun, that the ceremony of rekindling of the fire in the hearth, still performed in the Balkans for Orthodox Christmas, is meant to rekindle the fire  of the Sun. I talked about this in my post "Badnjak"...

BTW, anyone else thinks it's funny that the saint celebrated by the Balkan Slavs, on the day when the rekindling of the sun's fire starts, is called Ignatius (Serbian "Oganj", Latin "Ignis", Sanskrit "Agni" all meaning Fire...)??? I talked about this in my post "The end of time"...

Anyay, back to Surya and horses...In some Buddhist artwork, Surya's chariot is shown as being pulled by four horses...

But that is after Greeks arrived to India...Bringing with them their sun god Helios...Who rode in a chariot pulled by four white horses. Like on this Apulian vase dated to 350BC...

Interestingly the same sun god riding on a chariot pulled by four [presumably white] horses also lived in the prime Hebrew real estate, The First Temple...I wrote about this in my post "Sun god from the First Temple"...

Oh and by the way, Slavic Sun god Svetovid, also rode on a white horse, and white horses were kept in his temples...I wrote about that in my post "Svetovid"...

Ok, let's get back to the curious "Horse Avatar" of Vishnu...Apparently "In several sources Hayagriva is a white horse who pulls the sun into the sky every morning"...Curios...Pulling sun like this?

Which is why we see things like these: Bronze Age "Sun Chariot" pulled by a horse, Denmark 1400 BC...

So what's the association between horses and sun? 

Well, did you know that horse mating season is governed by the sun and it peaks on summer solstice?

I talked about this in my posts "Pegasus and chimera", "Trojan horse", "Unicorn", "Re'em", "Gray mare", "The horseman"...

Now remember this post about Surya and his wives?

When his wife Saranyu ran away, "because she couldn't stand Surya's heat any more" she ran away in a form of a white mare...Interesting...

Surya then finds Saranyu, still in the form of a mare, and after finding her, he assumes the form of a white stallion and "makes love to her"... 

After which Saranyu delivers twins called Ashvins through her nose...Ouch...

Ashvins, sometimes depicted with horse heads? Those Ashvins?

Ashvins, "divine twin horsemen, traveling in a chariot drawn by horses that are never weary"? Those Ashvins? 

The ones whose name Aśvínā derives from the Indo-European word for the horse, *h1éḱwo-s???

Ashvins, which just like divine horse twins from Baltic mythology, are [grand]sons of the sky god, and are pulling the sun's chariot across the sky?

Ashvins, son's of the sky god. Just like "Dioskuri", you know, Castor and Pollux, the horse twins. The guys who wanted to marry "the daughters of the white horse"...Just like Ashvins who married the daughter of Surya, who was the white horse?

You know Gemini twins...Which mark summer solstice...

Just like the Slavic deities Lel and Polel, which were originally names of the brightest stars of the Gemini constellation...The sons of the goddess Lada, just like Castor and Pollux were sons of the goddess Leda...

And so many other Horse twins from Indo-European mythology...And no one knows why horse, why twins and why Summer Solstice...

Remember, the natural breeding season of horses, marked by mad stallion fights for mares, is linked to the sun, typically begins around mid-April and finishes around mid September...And peaks on Summer Solstice...

Could this be why? Could horse twins be two fighting stallions, an animal calendar marker marking the peak of the horse mating season, which is also the peak daylight season, Summer solstice? I don't know, but it definitely fits...

Back to Surya...Here is a very interesting thing. In Vedas, Saranyu leaves Surya "because he is too hot" after the birth of Ashvin twins...

In later texts, after Saranyu's complaining about Surya's heat became unbearable, Tvastar, Saranyu's father and maker of the universe, "reduced Surya's glory", making him pleasant...

Interestingly, some other texts say that Surya asks his father in law to reduce his heat after the birth of Ashvins...Of course, cause he's the dude, and no one reduces his heat without his approval...🙂

It is after this that Saranyu's father tells Surya where to find his daughter...Surya then finds Saranyu as a mare, turns into a stallion, they mate, Ashvins get born...

Wait. What? Doesn't Saranyu leave Surya after Ashvins are born, turns to mare, gets found by cooled down Surya, who turns to stallions, they mate as horses, Ashvins are born, she leaves, he cools down, finds her, they mate as horses, Ashvins get born...

Ahhhhh...It's cyclical...It's all about climate. Cyclical, annual changes of weather in India...Remeber, Saranyu is a wet monsoon wind...Oh look...It blows from Apr to Sep...From the beginning to the end of the horse mating season...

So Saranyu, the wet, monsoon wind, could also be symbolically depicted as a white mare...She gets married by Surya, the sun, who rules the summer, period from Apr/May to Oct/Nov, the hot part of the year...Surya who also during the summer takes shape of a white sun stallion...

They elope at the peak of the horse mating season, on summer solstice, and Ashvin horse twins are born. The Monsoon proper starts after their birth...Did you know that in some stories, Ashvins were also bringers of "sweet water from the sky"?

Anyway, at the end of the monsoon season, Saranyu leaves Surya...Dry wind starts blowing and Saranyu's "lookalike" Savarna replaces her...Savarna is like Saranyu, but not her...And she is not a mare...Cause the horse mating season is over...

The day is getting shorter, until the shortest day of the winter solstice...Sun is cooling down until it reaches the lowest temperature at the beginning of spring, beginning of Feb...

Then the young spring sun, goes on looking for his bride...Saranyu, the wet monsoon. It is the heat of the sun which heats up the sea evaporating sea water, and heats up the Himalays, causing the updrift, which pulls the moist air from over the sea towards the mountains...

Saranyu comes of age...Surya gets all dappered up, goes to her party and dazzles her 🙂 The wet monsoon wind starts, right at the beginning of the horse mating season...And the cycle repeats itself...Interesting, right?

But what about Hayagriva? I almost forgot about him...What is the meaning of his mad story? Well...You know how the deity referred to as Vishnun the Vedic texts, is Surya, the supreme god from the Vedic times...

And you know how later Vishnu, basically replaced Surya on the heavenly throne...And you know how new gods usually turn old gods into demons?

I wonder if Hayagrivasura is actually Surya, taking what is his...Vedas...In whom he is the Man...Well The Sun and The Sun Horse...

And I wonder if the fact that Vishnu has to become a horse headed Hayagriva (new solar horse???) to defeat Hayagrivasura (the old solar horse???) is just a confession that he is in fact trying to be Surya? Don't know...

I mean Hayagriva is depicted "seated on a white lotus" or "holding lotus flowers". Just like Surya...Here is the Hayagriva "returning" Vedas to to Brahma...After defeating his alter ego...

Lotus flowers...The flowers that flower during monsoon season? Interesting, cause Hayagriva's consort is Lakshmi...You know, Goddess of the lotus...This super cool girl...

I talked about her in my post about "Lajjā (Modesty)", Hindu goddess associated with abundance, fertility and sexuality, and invoked for abundant crops (vegetative fertility) and good progeny (human fertility)...

Well actually, Hayagriva's consort is Marichi, who is "an incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi" and "the goddess of...the sun's light which is the life force of all things" and "who is seen as the female aspect of Hayagriva"...🙂

BTW, why lotus? Lotus is the herald of the peak of the rainy season....It's peak flowering season is July-August, the peak monsoon season in the Ganga river catchment area...

Anyway...Maybe now this strange link between the horses and the sun is not as strange any more...Maybe...

BTW, I am actually amazed how much of this ancient stuff was preserved in Indian culture...Hidden in plain sight though...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...