Two mosaics done by the same craftsman, or a proof of the existence of a Roman "fashionable mosaics copy book"? I will leave this to others to ponder...
This one is from Empuries, Spain.
This one is from Pompeii, Italy.
The bird, red legged partridge, is depicted picking a mirror from jewellery basket...Why? Let's talk about partridges...
This is what made partridge the symbol of spring...And one of the calendar markers meaning spring. Like on this Levantine water vessel which depicts the rain season: winter (Nov-Jan, Ibex mating season), spring (Feb-Apr, Partridge mating season)
I talked about this vessel in my post "Goats and partridges"...
The result of partridge's spring sex madness is the biggest clutch of eggs that any bird in Europe lays...This all made partridge and its eggs a symbol of fertility...Here are partridges with their eggs (painted!!!) on Minoan frescoes from Knossos...
I talked about this in my post "Painted eggs from Knossos"...
The above depictions are of one of three very similar types of partridges: "Rock partridge", "Chukar partridge", "Red legged partridge"...
Now, in Serbian the name for partridge is "jarebica", a word without official etymology, but which most likely comes from "jar" (spring, youth) + "jebica" (fucker 🙂)...Fitting, right? This is the kind of partridge most common in Serbia and the rest of Balkans including Greece, grey partridge...
I talked about this in my post "Partridge"...
That this etymology is most likely right, can be seen from the fact that Serbian name for chukar partridge is "kamenjarka" (stone bird, due to it living in the coastal rocky areas)...This is also an euphemism for a whore...Fitting again I think...
There is someone else who goes through the same passionate courtship at the same time as partridges. Young spring earth. She is born at the beginning of February, the first day of spring. She gets more and more beautiful as the spring progresses...
She is courted by the young sun, who is born on winter solstice "in the land of the dead" (winter). He arrives from the land of the dead with the returning migratory birds...
He is welcomed by a beautiful young spring earth...Their courtship during the spring is nothing else but "jarjeb" meaning "spring fucking", the "union" of the young sun and young earth. It is this union that produces all life and all the bounty of summer and autumn...
This is why in South Slavic folklore, partridge is found in wedding rituals...There is a Croatian ceremonial wedding "play" called "traženje jarebice" (looking for partridge) which was first recorded in 17th century...
The ritual was performed like this:
When groom's retinue arrived at the bride's house to take her away, bride's father would ask them who they were and what they came for. The leader of the groom's party would answer that they were looking for a partridge...
The bride's father would then say that he hasn't seen any partridge. The groom's party would then insist on checking for themselves that the bride's father was telling the truth. The bride's father then lets the groom's party in...
The bride's father then brings out the oldest woman in the house who is holding a flour sieve on her head and asks the groom's party if that is the partridge they were looking for?
When the groom's party say that it wasn't, the bride is brought out and the groom's party exclaim that it is her they were looking for...The groom's party then takes the bride to the church to get married...
You can see that this ritual directly links partridge to female fertility. The groom is looking for a fertile young wife, and this is what partridge represents....
But the partridge is also a symbol for a fertile young earth. The fact that the old woman, which was brought out first, holds a flour sieve on her head, shows that women in this play also represent the Mother Earth, the mother of grain...
The bride is the spring earth, young and fertile, bearing young grain and ready to give birth to it...
The old woman is the winter earth, the old hag, the earth who has already bore her fruit and is about to die and be reborn...Into spring earth, the bride...
Which is what the Snow-white fairytale talks about:
In the original story about the Snow-White, it is the mother and not the step mother who is jealous of the girl and who, disguised as an old woman, kills her with a poisoned apple...That is very interesting...
Every year, a beautiful mother, disguised as an old woman, kills her even more beautiful daughter with an apple. The dead daughter then lies dead in a "crystal coffin" until a young prince comes by and revives her. Two of them then get married. Except this is not a happy end...
The beautiful daughter becomes a beautiful woman and has even more beautiful daughter, who she kills out of jealousy, with an apple, disguised as an old woman...And so on and so forth...Endlessly, year after year...
What we have here is the story of Earth going through seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring...
Beautiful young Spring Earth becomes bountiful Summer and Autumn Earth. Still beautiful, but in no way as beautiful as the Young Spring Earth...
Because of the cyclical nature of the solar year, Autumn Earth is the mother of Spring Earth of the next solar year. As Autumn ends, and the crab apples are the last fruit left on the trees, Autumn Earth turn into Old Hag Winter Earth, who "kills" her own younger self...
Dead Earth lies in her icy coffin until Young Spring Sun arrives. He sees beautiful Spring Earth under the ice, falls in love with her and revives her. Spring Earth, marries Spring Sun...
But seasons pass, Spring Earth turns into Summer Earth and then into Autumn Earth and then into Winter Earth...And the story repeats itself...Luckily, every spring, Young Sun arrives to save the day 🙂...
I talked about this in my post "Snow White"...
This same thing is also found in Scottish folklore:
In Gaelic, the word Cailleach means both an old woman and the last sheaf of wheat and the corn dolly made from it. Corn dolly (maiden) which represents Mother Earth, the life (grain) giving mother...
I talked about this in my post "Old woman of the mill dust"
And the same theme is found in Slovenian folk play in which and old woman is transformed through milling into a young maiden...
I talked about this in my post "Babji mlin"...
Remember the flour sieve from the Croatian wedding ritual?
My favorite example of the link between female and earth (grain) fertility comes from Russia. In the past, after the last sheaf of grain was cut, women harvesters would lie down on the ground and roll around the field "to return the strength to the earth".
Fallowed by this ritual from Ireland which symbolically links the land (grain sheaves) and female fertility (bride). These are Strawboys who used to call at the home of the bride on her wedding day. Co Sligo. Ireland. Early 1900s. (National Museums of Northern Ireland).
I talked about this in my posts "Walking sheafs of wheat"...
The link between female and earth fertility and partridges can be seen in these two "funny" (actually ritual) songs from Croatia and Macedonia:
This is the beginning of a wedding song, recorded in Poljci in Croatia, which describes the wedding feast:
I brought my bride home and gave her dinner.
First evening she ate a partridge
Second evening she ate two pigeons and a quail
Third evening she ate three doves, two pigeons and a quail
Fourth evening she ate four ducks, three doves, two pigeons and a quail...
This is obviously a ritual song performed during a ritual feast. The marriage was supposed to result in many children. Which is why a partridge, symbol of sex and fertility, is the first thing given to the bride to eat...
Basically through this act, the fertility of partridge is supposed to be passed onto the bride. The fact that the bride then keeps eating all the animals that a fertile land might give birth to shows that this is about earth fertility too...
This is a beginning of a song from Macedonia:
A grandmother sat down to eat.
She first ate a partridge but was still hungry.
Then she ate a partridge and two pigeons, but was still hungry.
Then a partridge, two pigeons and three fried chicken - still not full....
You can find the full songs in my post "Partridge"...
The word for grandmother in South Slavic languages is "Baba". This word means mother, grandmother, midwife...but also Mother Goddess, Mother Earth...I talked about this in my post "Baba's day"...
In South Slavic folklore, the young earth is represented by the goddess Vesna. Her name means Spring. She is the goddess of youth and female fertility. And the twin sister and lover of Jarilo, the young sun, whose name means Spring too (among other things)...
I believe that partridge was once in the Balkans associated with Vesna, the lover and bride of Jarilo.
Finally...These are tетёрки (pronounced tetyorki), large ceremonial cookies baked for spring equinox in the northern part of Russia. They were given to children who were supposed to look through them at the spring sun...
In Arkhangelsk region, where "тетёрка" cookies are made, the word "тетёрка" means partridge...Partridge, the symbol of spring, spring earth, fertility...Both earth and female fertility...
This is one of the reasons why "тетёрка" cookies were also made as part of wedding rituals. They were made by the bride's mother and were given to groom's family as presents.
Fitting right?
I talked about this in my post "Tetyorki"...
So next time you sing "partridge in a pear tree" just remember that partridge (symbol of female fertility in Slavic folklore) is sitting on a pear tree (a female tree in Slavic folklore)...
Interestingly, in all the above songs, partridge (the sacred bird of Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo) is followed by dove/pigeon (the sacred bird of Aphrodite, the lover of Ares)...
This is why I think this is very interesting. Check this out:
Native Balkan dove
Native Balkan partridge
See how they can be very easily confused?
Now remember:
Vesna, the young earth, was twin sister of Jarilo, the young sun. Just like Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo...whose sacred bird was partridge...BTW, I find it funny that they gave partridge, the uber sex bird, as a sacred bird to the goddess of chastity...
Vesna was also the lover of Jarilo...
Jarilo whose name as I said comes from the root "jar" which means spring, green...But also, brightly burning...and raging...Jarilo was also war god...Just like Ares, the raging Greek war god whose lover was Aphrodite...whose sacred bird was dove...
Slavic Vesna = Artemis + Aphrodite = partridge + dove
Slavic Jarilo = Apollo + Ares
Which brings me back to the original partridge mosaics. Why are partridges picking mirrors out of the boxes? Is it because mirrors were sacred to Aphrodite???
And so, finally, a question: How old are "Ancient Greek" myths? And are they "Greek" in origin? Like the myth about Hephaestus, the lame Smith God and his unfaithful wife, the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite? Why do I ask? Cause of this: "Vučedol dove/partridge" figurine found in a blacksmith workshop of lame smith from Bronze Age Balkan Vučedol culture...
From my post "Hephaestus and partridge"...
That's it. 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...
