Partridge and mirror

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...

Partridge is known for its mad passionate mating. It starts at the beginning of spring, in February with loud love songs. It culminates in March with mad fighting for females. The shagging continues into April. So it basically spans the whole of spring...

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...

Siberian smith god

Two of many similar figures made by the people of the Kulai culture, which thrived along the Ob River and its tributaries in western Siberia between the 5th century BC and the 5th century CE. From "Frozen magic, the ancient art of Siberia"...

According to the authors of the "Frozen magic, the ancient art of Siberia": The most distinctive feature of these figures is the disproportionate human form. It is unlikely that this effect was unintentional and was probably done to emphasise that we are dealing with a deity... 

The figure have a limping stance, a consistent trait among all known figures in this style. Ancient artisans intentionally crafted one leg shorter than the other, creating a deliberate asymmetry that contrasts with the figure’s symmetrical facial features... 

The authors of the "Frozen magic, the ancient art of Siberia" then propose that these figures might depict a limping blacksmith deity, that fits the common archetype found in other mythologies...  

Mythological figures such as the Greek Hephaestus, Scandinavian Völund, Scythian Targitaus, and the celestial blacksmith Kurdalagon of the Ossetian-Nart people all share a limp. BTW, if you want to know why they are all limping, check my post "Vučedol dove" out...

The gist is that the first, most primitive form of bronze made was arsenic bronse. Arsenic is extremely poisonous, and it gets released into the air from the molten metal in a form of toxic fumes... 

The first sigh of arsenic poisoning is the loss of the sensation in the legs, which then expands throughout the body and finally leads to death...Therefore forging this metal was a dangerous job... 

But if you got out of your workshop on time, then the danger passed, although limping due to loss of sensation in the legs remained for some time...Sounds familiar so far? A lame, limping smith...

Anyway, the authors of the "Frozen magic, the ancient art of Siberia" then go to say that this deity is obviously connected to the underworld...Because both fish and lizard are chthonic animals...

Eeeee what? 

I would first like to agree that this figure is most likely a blacksmith deity. I would then like to propose that this is also a solar deity. Why? Cause of Svarog (Сваро́гъ) is a Slavic god of celestial fire and the father of Dažbog, Slavic sun god... 

Svarog was in the 15th c. Hypatian Codex, a Slavic translation of the Chronicle of John Malalas, equated with Hephaestus, which means that he was not only the god of sun's fire but also of the smith (crucibel) fire...His name comes from the root "svar" which means fire...

Interestingly, Dažbog, who is among Serbs known as Dabog, was imagined as a lame, limping god...He was also the god of the underworld...Strange for a sun god to be the god of the underworld, I hear you say...

No, not really...Where does the sun spend every night? Where is the sun's palace, whose gate the morning star opens up every morning so the sun can drive his chariots into our world? It's in the underworld, the land of the dead, of course... 

So I also agree that the strange objects made by the people of the Kulai culture depict a deity which is connected to the underworld. But not because "fish and lizard are chthonic animals"...They are not. They are animal calendar markers for the hot half of the year...

Lizards are obvious animal calendar markers for summer. They are cold blooded creatures, which are only outside when the outside temperature gets high enough to warm their blood. Siberian lizards emerge from hibernation in Apr and mate in May/Jun... 

I talked about lizard as an animal calendar marker for summer in my post "Bes" about Onega Lage petroglyphs...

This is also a great example of lizard being used as an animal calendar marker for the hot half of the year. 

A (strange) griffin killing a lizard. 6th century mosaic, Great Palace Museum, Istanbul. Another complex animal calendar marker, this one depicting cold half of the year killing (ending) hot half of the year. Full analysis of the symbolism in my post "Griffin killing lizard"...

So that's lizard. What about fish? 

The people of the Kulai culture who made these strange figurines lived along the Kazym river, the right tributary of Ob river. The Kazym river is fed mainly by snow. It freezes in early November and begins to thaw in late May.

Which is when Taimen, the biggest salmonoid in the world, starts its upstream spawning migration towards the upper reaches of the small tributaries where they spawn in the shallows in May/Jun. 

I talked about migratory fish used as animal calendar marker in my post "Pisces". 

25000 years ago a Palaeolithic man carved salmon into the ceiling of a cave near the Vézère River in France. Why? Because in the past, salmon fishing season, which starts in Pisces (fish) 🙂 was one of the main food gathering seasons in Continental Europe

I also talked about migratory fish used as animal calendar marker in my post "The dragon gate" about jumping carp from China. Porcelain Dish c.1700, depicting the Chinese legend about The Dragon Gate. If a carp manages to swim up Yellow River and climb up the waterfall to the gate and jump through it, it will turn into a thunder and lightning dragon.

And in my post "Apkallu" about the giant Mesopotamian carps which migrate upstream for spawing every year during the annual flood season . 

Gold and lapis lazuli carps found in the grave of the Sumerian Queen Puabi who was buried in Ur around 2500BC...Gold for sun and blue for water...About Mesopotamian carp, carp flood, Enki and his Apkallu...

So both of the animals depicted on the strange oval heads of the Kulai culture figures are animal calendar markers for the beginning of summer in Siberia. So I would suggest that the reason why these figures have such huge heads is because they are supposed to symbolise summer sun...

Ok...But what does any of this have to do with metallurgy and smith gods? Well, as it turns out, in the past, in areas with continental climate with a lot of snow, metallurgy was a seasonal activity performed during the summer. I talked about it in my post "Mishipeshu" about the Ancient Native Americans coppersmiths from the great lakes. 

It's kind of obvious, when you think about it. In the past ore was mostly extracted either from shallow shafts, or from river sediments. Both of which are during the winter covered with pile of snow and ice and inacessible. Also it is impossible to work outside on -50 C...

Hence Siberian lame sun smith god figurines decorated with fish and lizard, the two animal calendar markers for the beginning of the metallurgical season in Siberia...What do you think? Makes sense?

BTW, it just occurred to me why Bronze Age Vučedol culture smith could have had this partridge/dove figurine in his forge: both birds are symbol of spring, animal calendar markers for the beginning of the metallurgical season in the Balkans...

The reason we don't know exactly what bird it is:

Native Balkan dove

Native Balkan partridge

See what I mean?

But what we know is that Partridge is in Greek myths directly linked to lame smiths, like Hephaestus...Dove is linked to Aphrodite...

Hmmmm...

That's it. 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...

Vučedol dove

How old are "Ancient Greek" myths? And are they "Greek" in origin? Like the myth about Hephaestus, the lame/limping Smith God and his wife, the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite? 

Why do I ask?

This is the so called "Vučedol dove"...

This figurine, is one of the most well-known objects from Vučedol culture, a  Chalcolithic/Bronze Age culture which flourished in the Balkans between 3000 and 2200 BC, and was contemporary with Sumerian Mesopotamia, Early Dynastic Egypt and Troy I/II.

Vučedol Culture was a metallurgical culture which made bronze objects on an industrial scale. The bronze made by Vučedol Culture smiths was arsenic bronze, the most primitive form of bronze, and most dangerous, if you are a smith...

Arsenic is extremely poisonous, and it gets released into the air from the molten metal in a form of toxic fumes. The first sigh of arsenic poisoning is the loss of the sensation in the legs, which then expands throughout the body and finally leads to death...

Therefore forging this metal was a dangerous job. But if you got out of your workshop on time, then the danger passed, although limping due to loss of sensation in the legs remained for some time...

Sounds familiar so far? We have a lame, limping smith...who had a figurine of a dove in his blacksmith workshop (this is where Vučedol dove was found)...

So???

Well dove is the bird of Aphrodite...Who was married to a lame/limping Smith God Hephaestus...

So, is it possible that this is an indication that some kind of mythological, symbolic link between lame limping smiths and doves, a precursor of the Lame/Limping Smith God/Love Goddess mythology, existed in the 3rd millennium BC Balkans?

I think so. But there is more...

Recently, some archaeologists proposed that this figurine does not depict a dove, but instead it depicts a partridge, and so should be known as not as "Vučedol dove" but as "Vučedol partridge".

Native Balkan dove

Native Balkan partridge

You can see how it can be difficult to determine which one of these two birds was depicted...

These archaeologists draw the link between limping smiths and male partridges, because when a predator manages to find a partridge nest, male partridge will draw the predator from the nest by running away from the nest pretending to limp, acting as if they are wounded...

Interesting...

Hephaestus, the smith, was a lame, limping Smith God.

The sister of Daedalus, the smith, is called Perdix (partridge) and her son, who became Dedalus's student was also called Perdix (partridge)...

Some say that Deadalus's student's name was Talos and that Perdix (partridge) was the name of Talos's father. Talos was such a good smith himself, that Daedalus, in a jealous rage, threw him off the rock of the Acropolis at Athens...

But Athena intervened and turned Talos/Perdix into a partridge to save his life. According to Ovid, that partridge later watched the death and burial of Daedalus’s son Icarus with glee...

Hephaestus limped like a partridge and was flung from Olympus...

Talos/Perdix (partridge), whose father was "Perdix" (partridge), and whose nickname was "Tantalus" (hobbling, or lurching), was flung from the Acropolis and was turned into a partridge...

So, we have either

1. A lame/limping Vučedol culture smith and "Vučedol dove" = Hephaestus and Aphrodite

2. A lame/limping Vučedol culture smith and "Vučedol partridge" = Hephaestus and Talos

Or both...

That's it folks. Cool, right? 🙂