This is so called Donderbezem (thunder broom), a protective symbol used in Holland and northern Germany as a protection from lightning strikes and evil spirits.
These symbols were either built into brick walls of the houses...This example is from the city wall of Elburg, Holland, and dates to 14th century...
Or they were engraved on the metal parts used as wall or door frame reinforcement...This one is from Nijmegen, Holland, and dates to 16th century. It is even made to look like a broom...
Or they were placed on the ridge of a roof pointing to the sky...This one is from Vleerbosch, Haarle/Tubbergen, and dates to 20th century.
Most sources will tell you that these symbols were connected with the Germanic god of thunder (Thunar/Donar/Thor) and that the origin of this symbol is the Younger Futhark Haglaz rune which means "hailstone"...
What is interesting is no one really knows why this symbol is called "thunder broom"...Apart from a vague belief that a broom would keep evil spirits from entering your home, cause broom is used for cleaning, expelling...
That thunder broom being a broom is important, can be seen from the fact that there is a variant of Donderbezem symbol built into brick walls which actually looks like a broom. This example is from Altengamme near Hamburg, Germany, and dates to 20th century.
The broom pointing up looks very much like another rune, this time Elder Futhark rune, Algiz...Which means "Protection"...From thunder and lightning?
That thunder broom being a broom is important, can also be seen from the fact that most of the Donderbezem symbols placed on the ridge of a roof actually look like a broom too...These examples are from Rekken in Berkelland province, Holland.
That thunder broom being a broom is important, can also be seen from the fact that sometimes actual brooms were hang under the roof as a protection from thunder...
Originally a Donderbezem was just a bundle of twigs stuck under the roof of the house...Technically brooms were originally just bundles of twigs. Like these ones...So it was in affect a broom stuck under the roof of the house that was the original Donderbezem (thunder broom)...
But as I said, I couldn't find any explanation in Germanic mythology or folklore for why people would believe that a broom was able to protect their houses from thunder strike. I have to admit I didn't do a thorough search, so I could've missed some important info. Anyone knows?
Traditionally, brooms are made from the twiggy growth of the birch tree, and the craft was particularly strong in areas where birch coppices abounded...
So I thought: could it be that the reason why broom was used as a protection against thunder strikes was because birch tree was believed to protect against thunder strikes?
Again, I couldn't find anything in Germanic mythology or folklore about people believing that birch was able to protect their houses from thunder strike. I have to admit I didn't do a thorough search, so I could've missed some important info. Anyone here knows?
But interestingly, Slavs believed that the birch, planted near the house, repels evil and protects from lightning...And even better, they believed that stuck under the roof of the house, birch branches (broom) protected the house from the lightning, storm, and hail...🙂
Wow...Strange...So what about Donderbezem? Where did that belief come from? This is map of Utrecht, city in Central Holland, dated to 1581...
And this is Willibrord (658 – 739 AD), a Northumbrian missionary saint, known as the "Apostle to the Frisians" in the modern Netherlands. He became the first Bishop of Utrecht...I talked about him in my post "Axe of Martin"....
Bede says: "Pepin gave Willibrord a place for his episcopal see in his famous castle, which, in the ancient language of those people (who originally built it), is called Wiltaburg (the town of the Wilti), but in the French tongue Utrecht..."
Wilti, of Wiltzi were a West Slavic tribe. During the time of Charlemagne, Wilti were in alliance with the Saxons, fighting against the Franks who were allied with another Slavic tribe, Obodriti...
You can read more about Slavs among Anglo Saxons in my post "The origin of Anglo-Saxon race" which talks about the 1906 book "Origin of the Anglo – Saxon race" by Thomas William Shore...
Slavs lived all over Northern Holland and Northern Germany (Donderbezem country) until they were either exterminated or germanised during hundreds of years of Anti Slavic crusades...
So is it possible that Donderbezem is a remnant of old Slavic belief that birch and birch twigs (broom) can protect the house from thunder strikes?
Interestingly, some of the roof Donderbezem look like this...
See that rosette? That's Perunika, The flower of Perun (Slavic thunder god). Also known as "Gromoviti znak" (Thunder mark), it was carved into wood, stone, plaster on Slavic houses as a protection against...thunder...
Like this...BTW, do you notice how much Perunika looks like Donderbezem aka Haglaz rune???
Interesting, right? And mysterious...
Now it is possible that this is also linked in some way to the shape of the κεραυνός (keraunos), the lightning bolt of Zeus...
And is it possible that this is also linked to वज्र (vajra) the thunderbolt of Indra...
And is it possible that this is also linked to the unnamed lightning weapon wielded by Ninurta?
And is it possible that this is also linked to the the "bundle" with unknown meaning held by Hadad
Don't they all look like the original, double broom Donderbezem?
Also just remembered this.
Serbian Folk song from Bosnia collected by Kosta H. Ristić in 1873.
It talks about quarrel between Sun and Vila. Vila is mostly translated as Fairy or Mountain Nymph. The problem is that the word Vila literally means trident, pitchfork, fork...
Pitchfork being one of the ancient weapons of the thunder gods means that Vila is actually lightning personified...The best discussion about Vila's identity and her identification with the thunderstorms and lightning can be found in "Stara vjera Srba i Hrvata" by Nodilo...
The song describes the two competing forces, sun and thunderstorms during summers, when sun wins over thunderstorms, skies dry out and droughts arrive...
And here is another Serbian ritual song which talks about a (disastrous) marriage between Vila (literally "pitchfork"), a mountain fairy (but really personification of lightning) and Davor (Dabog), Serbian (Slavic) sun and rain (sky) god...I wrote about this in my post "When bride dies soon after the wedding"...
Is it possible that this is somehow linked to the the "pitchfork/broom" weapon of Ningirsu?
Most Vedas interpreters agree that Maruts are deified moisture laden monsoon storm winds, turned into rain bringing deities armed with thunder and lightning. Even I agree with that and I even wrote this post, "Maruts" talking about this through analysis of this 7th c. Maruts relief, Sambor Prei Kuk, Kampong Thom Province, Cambodia.
But, the Mysore Palace edition of the Rigveda, which gives in 36 volumes an exhaustive introduction, the text, traditional meaning, ritual application, grammatical explanation, and the Sanskrit commentary of Sâyan says that: Vâyu (winds) and Maruts are distinctly different...
And so in the above paper, R.N. Iyengar proposes that Maruts were, in the oldest layers of Rigveda, a deified meteorite shower, resulting from a close encounter of Earth with a comet. And I actually agree with his proposal...
So...I can hear you ask, you believe that Maruts are deified storms and deified meteorite shower? Actually I do. It will all make sense at the end of this post. So read on...
Here are some things that Vedas tell us about Maruts, and which R.N. Iyengar interpreted as description of a meteorite shower, resulting from Earth's close encounter with a comet. You can find a lot more in his article. It's well worth reading...
Agni was born (among gods, in the sky) bright like the sun and was moving in the night sky along with smoke. After that Maruts were born with great commotion holding shining spears. Then the Maruts stood surrounding Agni with their lights.
Maruts then came (to earth) along with Agni from above. They are visible at a distance shining like stars. They come down in thousands to earth together. They are shaped like drops and are bright like fires. They gleam like serpents as they approach the earth.
They roar as they fly towards on the ground. The whole world is afraid to look at them during their brightened travel. They move/shake/crash the hills and mountains and disturb the oceans.
A flash of bright light, the sound of explosions - what witnesses report and cameras captured as a meteor broke apart as it entered the atmosphere...
They have an epithet "asurâh", which, apparently, means "one who throws". The material of the weapons of Maruts is made clear by Agastya in: "Far be from us, your impetuous shaft. Far from us be the stone you hurl". So Maruts are deities which "throw stones towards earth".
I love this in particular: They can bring "airless showers to deserts" (apprently, an intense meteoritic shower can make the target region airless for some time).
The author concludes that: Three broad phases can be discerned in the description of Maruts.
The first, probably the earliest in time, are hymns which express awe at the approach of Maruts. These also express a sense of fear that Maruts are prone to kill people on earth.
In the second group are prayers that the shower of stones may avoid the worshippers of Maruts.
The third layer contains hymns wherein Maruts are invoked to arrive at a prayer or worship.
It may not be wrong to conjecture that this trend should have been directly matching with the frequency of the storms of Maruts.
As Maruts were constant companions of Indra, the author concludes that originally Indra was the equivalent of the Celestial Agni and the personification of the comet which created the Maruts meteorite shower.
A point to be reconciled is the meaning of Maruts as storm wind deities in later literature. We guess, with the status of Indra getting downgraded in time to a mere rain god, Maruts always linked with Indra, were also brought down as wind deities.
This has happened notwithstanding the fact parjanya and vâyu are the independent rain and wind deities in Rigveda. One reason for this mismatch should be the absence of recognisable Indra and Maruts in the skies...
Important!!! I would beg to disagree with the last sentence...
Evidence for the evolution of the concept of Indra from the concrete to the abstract is found in RV itself. In the hymn (VI.21.4) the poet wonders: "Where the famous Indra is now located? Where he travels, among what people? What prayers summon him? Indra!"
In many hymns of RV Maruts are said to be the children of Rudra...The author concludes that "It is most likely that Maruts were thought to originate from a particular object or constellation in the sky, called Rudra".
This object, which has not been identified yet, could, according to the author, be planet Mars??? Cause Rudra is red and Mars is red...
Eeeeee....This makes no sense...Considering that he spends the whole paper talking about comets...Why Mars? Why not a comet?
I think that Rudra was originally another name for the same comet which the author thinks was named Agni and Indra. I mean in Rigveda Rudra was called He Who shines like [the] Sun, He Who shines like gold, He Who has [long] matted/braided hair...
Sadhu (holy man) ritual during the holy bathing for Magh Mela, an annual festival that celebrates the beginning of the universe...
What does this remind you of?
I mean...
Anyway...Who's Rudra?
Rudra (the roaring one, the wild one, the terrible one, the red, burning one) is a Rigvedic deity who is praised as the "mightiest of the mighty" and described as "extremely terrifying".
Rudra is one of several deities identified with Agni, most likely the same celestial Agni, the comet, who was said to give birth to Maruts...
Rudra is also called asura (the one who throws). Actually he was called "The great asura of heaven"...Significant I think 🙂
He was so feared, that in Rigveda he was often not named and was referred as "asau devam" (that god) and was given the adjective śiva (shiva) in the sense of "propitious" or "kind".
Rudra is also called Śarva (the archer), Dhanvin (bowman) and Bāṇahasta (Armed with a hand-full of arrows) and bow and arrow are his essential attributes. RV declare that Rudra discharges "brilliant shafts which run about the heaven and the earth" (RV 7.46.3)...
I talked about another heavenly archer in my post "Invisible archer":
If arrows are shooting down from the night sky, there must be an [invisible] archer standing somewhere up there shooting them out of his bow...
Orionid meteorite shower
Orion
An example of an ancient "scientific" explanation for an annual natural event...
Even the gods were afraid of the strung bow and the arrows of Rudra, lest he should destroy them...Sounds familiar? It should. Remember my post "Apollo the great archer"?
Apollo armed with bow and arrows. Why?
"I will remember and not be unmindful of Apollo who shoots afar. As he goes through the house of Zeus, the gods tremble before him and all spring up from their seats when he draws near, as he bends his bright bow..."
Why was everyone so frightened of Apollo and his bow and arrows?
So, the Earth survived the near collision with the comet. It was most likely already broken into 3 really big bits as it approached Earth, which could be the reason why Rudra/Shiva has 3 eyes or 3 heads/faces. Three-headed Shiva, Gandhara, 2nd century AD.
As the comet passed by earth, comet either further disintegrated into many smaller but still big enough bits which could create the chaos described in Vedas...
These large comet bits fell on Earth causing all the death and destruction described in the Vedas. And then every following year the Earth flew through the comet's path full of debris which kept producing a meteorite shower full of destructive large meteorites.
Eventually, after who knows how many years, all the big bits fell down on Earth. And as time passed, the stories about the terrifying Rudra (the comet) and his murderous children Rudras (the large meteorites) turned from history to myths. 11 Rudras, Udayagiri Caves, c. 401 AD...
And now Rudra is indeed just the name for the area of the sky from which the Rudras/Maruts meteorite shower (still) emanates every year.
Important!!!
And the later Vedic texts corroborate the above points. The Taittirîya Brâhmana states that "There is only one Rudra and the innumerable thousands Rudra’s children, and that they are not seen any more but only remembered"...
At the end of his paper, R.N. Iyengar says: This raises the question whether Marut was a generic word for all types of meteoritic activity or it referred to particular types. This can not be answered definitively at present.
Well, I think it can. Here comes the interesting bit:
In his paper R.N. Iyengar talks about the fact that the Taittirîya Âranyaka, says that Rudras appear in the grîsma-rtu, the two month before summer solstice and the Maruts appear in the hemanta-rtu, the two months before winter solstice.
That would make Rudras = Aquarids meteorite shower which falls in May and Maruts = Orionids meteorite shower which falls in Oct/Nov, both result of the Earth crossing the debris full path of the Haley comet, which swings by Earth every 75 to 76 years.
Why was Orion seen by Ancient Greeks as a "the greatest hunter" armed with a cudgel (club)? And why do Bulgarians call Orion "cudgels (clubs)" and why do Serbs call Orion "Baba's (grandmother's) sticks" and all the stars "Baba's (grandmother's) cudgels (clubs)"?
Maybe because of this
Wow, amazing, we solved the identity of Rudra/Agni/Indra and the identity of Rudras/Maruts and we resolved the ancient dilemma whether Rudras and Maruts are one and the same or different. They are both...
Done and dusted...
Weeeeeeell...It all fits except for one tiny thing...
The above interpretation doesn't fit Indian climate and is therefore wrong...You know whose climate it fits? Mesopotamian. Perfectly...But that is a completely different archer...I explained it all in this in my post "Invisible archer" I already mentioned earlier...There the rains arrive when Orion appears in the night sky, right when the rains start, rains that kill drought caused by the sun of the dry season.
An example of an ancient "scientific" explanation for an annual natural event...
So, we can't just take parts of Rigveda that describe Indra and Maruts as respectively comets and meteorite showers and ignore the other parts where they are clearly described as storm/rain deities directly linked with annual monsoon.
Every year, Indra and Maruts slay Vritra, the drought dragon. In India, Orionids mark the beginning of the dry season and Aquarids mark the end of the dry season. Neither of them can be Rudras/Maruts, the bringers of rain. Which means that Helley comet can't be Rudra/Indra.
So who were/are Rudra/Indra and Rudras/Maruts? I think that Rudra/Indra is deified comet Swift–Tuttle and that Rudras/Maruts are deified Perseids meteor shower. Why?
Perseids meteor shower peaks in Jul/Aug, the same time when the monsoon rains peak in India. This means that Rudras (meteor shower) can also be Maruts (thunderstorm shower)...
See I told you it will all make sense in the end...
The comet Swift–Tuttle, whose trail of debris is the source of the Perseid meteor shower, is on an orbit that makes repeated close approaches to the Earth–Moon system...
It seams that (at least) once, it came too close to the Earth, and this terrifying close encounter was eventually deified as the birth of Rurdra/Indra/Agni in the sky...
That we are onto something here can be seen from this:
The abode of Rudra is commonly regarded as in the north, while that of the other gods is in the east. From "Vedic Mythology" by Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. This sounds strange until you realise that: "To see the Perseids meteors, you should look up and to the north"...
In Rgveda Rudra is described as "armed with a mace"...Why? Maybe because mace/club looks so much like a falling meteor...I talked about this in my post "Jack and the magic beans" about "might smiters".
Baal with his battle mace...
But he is mostly seen as an archer, who is still there, shooting arrows that cause plague and other infectious disease...Rudra, just like Apollo, was believed to both inflict and cure infectious diseases...
I talked about this side of Apollo in my post "Apollo Sminthius"...
Coin depicting Apollo Sminthius (Apollo lord of the mice) with his plague causing bow and a mouse/rat at his feet. Minted in Alexandria, Troas/Troad. Around 300 AD. Currently in The British Museum, Department of Coins. London...
The peak plague/infectious diseases season is Jul/Aug, the peak Monsoon season and the peak Perseid meteor shower season...So this again points at Rudra being comet Swift–Tuttle and Rudras being Perseid meteor shower.
One other thing. In "The Presence of Siva" by S. Kramrisch we can read this about Rudra:
So Rudra is (directly linked to) Sirius. Which rises with the sun in Jul/Aug. At the peak of the Perseid meteor shower...
in "Vedic Mythology" by Macdonell, Arthur Anthony we can read that Rig Veda tells us about Rudra's widemouthed, howling dogs, who swallow their prey unchewed...Sirius is also linked to dogs and dog days. I talked about it in these posts:
When our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun in Jul/Aug, when mating season of the old dog breeds began...
And Sirius in Jul/Aug is finally linked to archers and bows and arrows, not just in India, where we find Rudra, but also in Greece (Apollo/Artemis). I mentioned Apollo the archer earlier.
I talked about Artemis, Apollo's twin seister, the archer in my post "Artemis Orthia"...
Mesopotamia (Ninurta/Ishtar, bow and arrow constellation). I talked about this in my post "The brightest star"
This might finally answer my question: Why was Sirius deemed so important that everyone seems to have tracked it? Maybe because it's heliacal rising announced the arrival of the Terrible Archer, who (at least for a while) terrorised people all over the world every Jul/Aug...
It also explains why rising of Sirius was announcing the beginning of the time of fires and why Sirius was called The Scorcher...
July/Aug is the hottest time of the year in the northern hemisphere, so that could explain it...But maybe the "Fire that descends from the sky" also had something to do with such Sirius's reputation...
Anyway...I think this is enough for tonight...
So, what do you think? For the end I just want to send my regards to Perseus...
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...
