Sekirica

The (most likely ceremonial) battle axe "sagaris" of the Scythian period, 7th century BC. The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (Russia)....

The sagaris (Ancient Greek: Σάγαρις) is an ancient Iranian shafted weapon used by the horse-riding ancient Saka and Scythian peoples of the great Eurasian steppe. It was used also by Western and Central Asian peoples: the Medes, Persians, Parthians, Indo-Saka, Kushans, Mossynoeci, and others living within the milieu of Iranian peoples. According to Aristarchus of Samothrace, the legendary Amazons used the sagaris, as well. In The Histories, Herodotus attributes the sagaris to the Sacae Scythians in the army-list of Xerxes the Great...

The word "σάγαρις" is apparently a "...foreign word without known etymology...but one would rather...expect Iranian origin, and it is probably a cognate to Latin secūris (broad axe) and Proto-Slavic *sekyra (broad axe)..."

Hmmm....

Slavic word for an axe is sekira (sikira). While sekirica (pronounced sekiritsa), sikirica (pronounced sikiritsa) means "little axe", from sekira (axe) with "ica" diminutive ending which put together means "small (head) axe"...

Sounds very much like "sagaris" right? Which was a small head axe on a long handle...Like Scythian battle axe...Is there any etymology for σάγαρις (sagaris) in Iranian languages I wonder...If not, is it possible that σάγαρις (sagaris) came into Ancient Greek via an intermediate (Proto) Slavic???

Anyway, It gets more interesting...Enter the Akkadians...

In Ancient Greek, the word for an axe was πέλεκυς (pelekus) and for axe handle was πέλεκκον (pélekkon)...Apparently:

"... πέλεκυς is often considered a Wanderwort (A loanword that has spread to many different languages, often through trade or the adoption of foreign cultural practices), because of the similarity to Arabic فَلَقَ‎ (falaqa) meaning to split apart which comes from Akkadian 𒁄 (pilakku, pilaqqu) meaning wooden handle; spindle, harp, which itself comes from Sumerian 𒁄 (balag) meaning wooden handle; spindle, harp; possibly a split piece of wood or wooden wedge..."

A Wanderwort you say...Well if πέλεκυς is a Wanderwort, why is σάγαρις not one too? Because

Bronze axe head, Akkadian, c. 2340-2200 BC, inscribed with owner's name. Akkadian 𒅆𒆕 "šukurru" (metal wedge, spear, axe)...Officially "not related" to Slavic sekira (axe), Latin secūris (axe) and Ancient Greek σάγαρις "ságaris", Scythian axe. 

Definitely is related...

One of the Akkadian words for "destiny" is "isqu" meaning "lot" which derives from "esēqu" (to make a drawing, to incise a relief) and specifically "to apportion lots"...Etymology of the Akkadian word from: "Luck, Fortune, and Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia Or How the Sumerians and Babylonians Thought of Their Place in the Flow of Things"...

Which is very interesting, considering that in Slavic languages "sek" (From PIE "sek" meaning to cut) means "to cut",  and "isek" means "to to cut out, to apportion".

How are these words not related? When it comes to Ancient Greek πέλεκυς (pelekus), apparently "...some suggest that the Proto-Indo-European terms are ultimately borrowed from...Akkadian..." Is it possible that  Akkadian words with "sk" root were borrowed into Akkadian from som IE language? Considering that the "sk" root only exists in IE languages...

And interestingly, we again find link between Slavic and Akkadian...I talked about few more in my posts "Kurban", "Pelasgos", "Kaunakes", "Zib-Ba-An-Na"...

Strange...Slavic being "the youngest IE language branch" and all that...

Pop = Djed?

The main column (stake) which supported the roof in old Slavic houses was once called "djed" (grandfather). I talked about this in my post "Baba the main beam that supports the house"...

What is interesting is that in some parts of Serbia (for instance Levče area) this column was also called "pop" (priest).

The word "pop" comes from Old Church Slavonic попъ (popŭ), which from Ancient Greek παπάς (papás) meaning father...Today this means "father of the congregation" but originally this literally meant "the father of the family"...

In Serbia even today it is the oldest man in the family that officiates all the family rituals, which are many. Basically he is playing the role of the family priest...

Now in Serbian the word "baba" (grandmother) also means mother, birth giver, any female ancestor... I talked about this in my post "Baba's day"...

I wonder if the word "djed" (grandfather), once also meant father, any male ancestor...Why? Well, because of an interesting fertility ritual recorded in the Levče area of Serbia.

There is a belief there that a woman which wants to give birth to a male child has to put a placenta from the last birth on the "pop" column, pillar and say "I put you on the priest (pop) so that the priest (pop) can ask god to give me a male child".

Serbian ethnographers and anthropologists believe that this (djed/pop) column once played the role of a house idol, the representation of Dabog, the ancestral deity of all the Serbs, the tribal "djed" (Great, Great, Great...grandfather) of all.

So after Christianisation, this "djed" (male ancestor) column became "pop" (father, male ancestor) column?

Possibly...

Or maybe this comes from the fact that in the Medieval time the local "heretical" Slavic priests from the Balkans were known as "djed" and "starac" (both meaning elder), and "pop" is the literal translation of this term?

The description of the ritual from "Srpski Mitoloski Recnik - Grupa Autora"

Veliki Vetren

In 1997, a group of hunters was chasing a fox up the slopes of the Veliki Vetren peak on Mount Juhor, Central Serbia. 

Finally the fox reached the area which surrounds the peak and which is littered with giant bedrock outcrops. 

There it disappeared in a hole under one of the rocks...

The hunters sent the hound in, and when it emerged back out with the dead fox in its mouth, the hunters noticed that the fox had "a piece of ceramic in its jaws" and that it was entangled "in some rusted irons"...

Tomica Stefanović from the local museum, who heard the story from the hunters, went to the fox hole to see it for himself. And after some poking around, he managed to get out of it a bronze spearhead...

He immediately informed dr Milorad Stojić from the Archaeological institute about his find. The fox hole dig led by dr Stojić unearthed over 400 metal objects: 

Jewellery of Celtic type

Buttons with a Celtic triskelion 

But the most amazing find was a complete equipment for 14 riders. A complete cavalry unit...A Celtic cavalry unit...From the 2nd c. BC...Why was this equipment buried on Veliki Vetren?

Now who were these Celts from Veliki Vetren? Most likely Scordisci, who at that time controlled northern Balkans...Apparently according to dr Milorad Stojić, the historical sources say that Scordisci cavalry units were lead by a leader and two lieutenants. The equipment found on Veliki Vetren confirms this, as three of the cavalry sets were more luxurious than the others. 

The further digs in the area discovered that the whole top of the Veliki Vetren peak was fortified and turned into a Celtic oppidum. 

Celts built the oppidum walls around the existing bedrock outcrops which they incorporated into the walls. 

They also used large boulders to form the rest of the wall

Why would anyone want to build a fortress on Veliki Vetren? Those who controlled the Veliki Vetren peak, controlled the transport along the Morava valley below it, which was the main North-South transport route across the Balkans...

That controlling this part of Serbia was very important throughout Balkan history can be seen from the fact that remnants of 40 fortified settlements were found so far on the mountain Juhor...

So Celtic oppidum on Veliki Vetren was an important military centre, as can be seen from the military equipment found on the site, but it was also an important metallurgical centre, as can be seen from many smelting furnaces found on the site too...

Local villagers say that Veliki Vetren peak "attracts lightning"...Probably because huge amount of metal deposits, particularly slag, located in and around the Celtic oppidum...

Dr Stojić believes that the Celtic opidium was destroyed during the campaign against the Scordisci lead by the Cornelius Scipio Asiagenus in 74BC. 

Dr  Milorad Stojić published his findings in a book entitled "Veliki Vetren". He has since retired... 

When the news about the discovery of the Veliki Vetren oppidum hit the archaeological circles, it caused a sensation..."Celtic lexicon" gave it a special place in its list of Celtic sites. Veliki Vetren is the only known Celtic fort and metallurgical centre south of the Sava and Danube rivers. Way out of the "Land of the Celts"...

One of the world's leading Celts researcher, professor Vaclav Kruta, considered Vetren one of the most important European Celtic sites. 

But, promises made by the Serbian government that they will finance further digs on Veliki Vetren never materialised...No other investigation of the site was done by archaeologists and Veliki Vetren was soon forgotten...Well, by the archaeologists and the press. Not by treasure hunters who are the only people who dig around Mount Juhor today, based on numerous holes that can be seen everywhere in an around the Celtic oppidum...

Now this is amazing in itself. But it gets better...

There are many legends related to the "Devil's Town" on Veliki Vetren peak recorded in the villages surrounding the mountain. And the most famous story is the one about the "14 horsemen who came down the mountain on foggy nights and abducted young girls". 

How incredible is this??? 

Now is it just a coincidence that the archaeologists have found exactly 14 sets of cavalry equipment in the "Devil's town"? I mean the number 14 is not one of the usual mythological numbers, like 1, 3, 7, 9, 10, 15, 30, 100 which are found in so many legends...14 is a very non mythological number...So the chance that this number was picked by the legend makers by chance is very very low... So what then? How old is this legend? Is it possible that it is dating to the time when "riders resided in the oppidum on Veliki Vetren" and from it, terrorised the local population in villages below? How then was it preserved to this day? Passed on from father to son in the villages surrounding Veliki Vetren since the 2nd century BC? 

Now this is amazing in itself...But it gets better...

The legend also says that the riders from the Devil's Town "croaked like ravens" which obviously meant that they spoke in, to the local villagers, foreign and incomprehensible language, which to them sounded like croaking of ravens...

Now, believe or not, in the local Serbian dialect spoken in villages around Veliki Vetren, the word for raven is "gal"...So "the Galli (Celts) croaked like Gali (Ravens)"...

What? Is this a coincidence?

Does this have anything to do with "Galli"??? You know, the Celts? 

I am not entirely sure...This could all be just a coincidence...

But:

Serbian word "gal" which means raven also means black...Black like a corvid...It is the word that gave us Kali and Cailleach...I talked about this in my post "Gal"...

This is indeed very interesting, I can hear you say. But what does any of this have to do with Celts? Particularly when we know that the Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians (Γαλάται, Galátai) to the supposedly "milk-white" skin (γάλα, gála "milk") of the Gauls. 

Well I don't know...

It is this picture that makes me wonder:

"Four Provinces Bringing Tribute to Emperor Otto III" is an illustration from the manuscript: "Gospel Book of Otto III" which was made around the year 1000AD.

What is very interesting is that in this medieval depictions of the people of the Holy Roman Empire, each nation was depicted with different racial characteristics: 

Sclavini, Slavs are depicted with dark skin and red straight hair. 

Germanics were depicted with pale skin and blond straight hair. 

Romans were depicted with pale skin and brown curly hair. 

And

Galls were depicted with dark skin and black curly hair. 

Was this deliberate? Was this based on what people thought Slavs, Germanics, Galls and Romans looked like at the time? Or was this random rubbish which means nothing?

If this was deliberate, is it possible that Gali once meant "people with black hair"???

I think it was deliberate, as Procopius in the 6th century AD says for Slavs: "Their skin is not very white and their hair is reddish".

Just like the depiction of Slavia in the Gospel Book of Otto lll...So I would say the rest is accurate too... 

Also, Celts which lived on Veliki Vetren came to the Balkans in the 3rd century BC lead by Brennus. Apparently: 

The recurrence of the name Brennus makes it possible that it was a title rather than a proper name. Some 19th century scholars connected the name with the modern Welsh word "breenhín", and Irish words "branán, braine, braineach" meaning "a prince, a chief, leader". There is also an Irish name "Bran" with the same meaning. 

Now in Serbian the word "bran" means to defend, "brana" means defence, "Branko" means defender...So is it possible that Celtic Bran (prince, leader, chief) and Serbian Bran (defend), Brana (defence) and Branko (defender) come from the same root? Leader's first duty is defence of his people and his land...

Also, interestingly

In  Breton word Bran means Raven and Crow. 

In Welsh, word Frân mean crow and word Gigfran means raven. Fran is in old Welsh also spelt Bran, Vran and Uran.

In Irish, word Bran means raven. 

In Serbian we have these two words: 

Bran - defend, protect, be a barrier

Vran - black, Crow

And

As early as the 12th century AD, authors such as Geoffrey of Monmouth (in his Historia Regum Britanniae were connecting the name Brennus with the Welsh personal name Bran (spelt Vran, Uran, Fran in old Welsh) meaning "Crow". 

I wrote about this in my post Bran Vran...

So I don't know what to think really...

It could be all just a coincidence...

PS: Celtic raven helmet from Romania... 

Gal

There are several words in Serbian that mean black. 

The most common one is Crn, which comes from Proto-Slavic *čьrnъ...

Then we have the word Vran...This word means crow, raven in most Slavic languages, so the literal meaning is "like a crow, raven"...

Then we have the word Garav. This word comes from the word "gar" meaning soot, so literal meaning is "like soot"...

Then we have the word "Mrk" cognate with "mrak" (darkness). 

Finally we have a very little known word Gal. It comes from Proto-Slavic Galъ, and is of uncertain origin...

I would like to talk here about this word...

In dialectic dictionaries of Crna Trava region and South Morava region of Serbia we find these interesting words:

Gal - black, dark

Gal - raven

Galica, Galja, Galjka, Galjes, Galjča - black or dark brown cow or sheep.

Galati - make dirty, black (gal)

Galin - black (gal) horse
Gal, Galić - raven, black (gal) bird

Galjan - black, dark person, negro

Galičast - black (gal)
Galovran - black (galo) crow. This one is very interesting. Because black crows don't live in Serbia...

Galka - chough

Both yellow billed

And red billed

Galobela - Sheep with black (galo) head and white (bela) body
Galoš - black (gal) string plated into hair in Serbia

In the same dictionaries we see that "kalj, kal" is the equivalent of "galj, gal":

Kal - dirt, blackness 

Kaljav, Kalovit - muddy, black (kal)

Kaloka - person or sheep with black, dark (kal) rings around their eyes

Kalušast- person or sheep with black, dark (kal) rings around their eyes

Kaljav - dirty, black (kalj)

Kaljuga - muck, blackness (kalj)

"k" and "g" and "l" and "lj" are interchangeable sounds which depend on dialect and pronunciation abilities which gives us "kal", "kalj", "gal", "galj" all with the same meaning "black, dirty"...

Interestingly we find the same root (gal) with the same meaning several other languages:

In Croatian we find

Galka, Galica - chough 

In Bulgarian we find

Gal - pitch black, dirt

Galica - Black corvid, raven, jackdaw, chough

Galata - dirt, black 

In Czech we find

Gał - pitch (black substance)

In Ukrainian and Russian we find

Galka - jackdaw

In Sanskrit, Hindi, Punjabi, Romani we find 

kala - black

In Nepali we find 

kalo - black

This is the root of the name of the Goddess Kali...

And in Gaelic we find 

"Cailleach" 

which has several very interesting meanings: 

Cailleach dhubh - Cormorant. Cormorant literally means the raven of the sea, the black bird of the sea. So Cailleach dhubh basically means "black black bird". I believe that dhubh was added later when the original meaning of the word Cailleach was forgotten. In Serbian cormorant is called Vranac, meaning black like a crow.

Cailleach - old hag winter, old woman (wrapped in black shawl), nun (in black habit). By the way this is how Romans depicted the "winter spirit":

So we have the word kal, kalj, gal, galj meaning black. 

Now, where does this word come from...

Another black bird from the crow family is rook which is in Serbian called "gačac". Here you can hear the sound of rooks. It sounds like "Ga, Ga, Ga". This is why this bird is in Serbian called "gačac", the bird that says "Ga".

One proposal is that the words "gal", "galka", "galica" used for black corvids are onomatopoeic and come from the sound all these corvids make: "ga!"... 

And then the word gal (black) would literally mean "like a bird that says ga" 🙂

This is a very very interesting word indeed...I will come back to it in few of my next posts...

And those who lie

"And those who lie (break promise), may a dog f*ck their wives and their mothers"...

From the letter written in 1432 by Alexander I Aldea, Voivode of Wallachia to the the magistrate of the city of Sibiu...  

Here is the original part from the original text 

According to "Slavonic Letters in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania from the Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries" by D. J. Deletant, it seems that "Slavonic" was the language of choice in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania during medieval time...Why? And which Slavonic, Medieval Serbian or Medieval Bulgarian which was pretty much indistinguishable from Medieval Serbian? 

Only a person who spoke Serbian and was brought up as Serbian could have used the curse from the above letter. This is still one of the worst curses you can utter in Serbian...It comes from the deepest and darkest part of the Serbian culture...I talked about ritual and ceremonial cursing in Serbian culture in my post "Prokletija":  

Do Bulgarians have this curse?

2 questions: 

1. Why would Wallachian (Romanian) ruler be called Voivode (Serbian Voj, Boj + vodja = war+ leader) which is what all the early Wallachian (Romanian) rulers were called? 

2. Why would a Wallachian (Romanian) ruler write the letter in Serbian to German burgers of Sibiu?

Maybe the reason Voivode Alexander wrote his letter to the citizens of Sibiu in Serbian and used the above mentioned Serbian curse to emphasise that he meant business, is because both him and the recipients of his letter spoke Serbian and knew how serious the curse was...

That this was probably the case can be seen from huge number of Slavic (actually Serbian) toponyms all over Romania...I talked about this in this article about Romanian national hero Iovan Iorgovan, who according to Romanian legends came from Serbia... 

All in all a very interesting subject...Oh by the way, Alexander's half brother was Vlad II Dracul, father of The Vlad Dracul, The Impaler...And here is a letter by Vlad II to the citizens of Brașov, another German city in Transylvania. Again in Serbian... 

PS: Both Sibiu and Brasov are Slavic names...

Scribe

I would like to talk about Sumerian writing: Cuneiform. Actually about their words for "write" and "tablet, document"...

Cuneiform emerged in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC to convey the Sumerian language, "a language isolate which has no relationship with any other language"...It is one of the earliest known systems of writing...

Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms...

In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract, eventually turning into symbols...

The pictograms (later symbols) were were cut on clay tablets, using a blunt reed for a stylus. Basically, cuneiform writing was "making marks on clay using chiseling technique"...

Now, the word for writing in sumerian was "sar, šar" written using this symbol:

And the word for tablet, document was "dub" written using this symbol:

Unsurprisingly the word for a scribe was "dub-sar" (tablet, document-writer):

And scribes learned their trade in "e-dub-ba-a" house of documents writing 

Here is a very interesting thing. 

Sumerian document (dub) was clay tablet (dub) with patterns, symbols gouged, chiselled, written (sar, šar) into it...

In Serbian, the word for chiselling, gouging is "dub" and the word for "making patterns, symbols" is "šar"...

So Sumerian dub-šar (scribe) literally means "one who gouges, chisels patterns, symbols" in Serbian...

Eee what? 

How can such important words in Sumerian, language isolate, have roots in Serbian, totally unrelated IE language, which only appeared after Sumerian language died out?

Now this must be a complete coincidence, a fluke. But unfortunately this is just another example where we find Slavic words related to very important words found in Sumerian. 

Like words related to knowledge...You can read more about this in my post "Um"

Or

Like words related to grain agriculture...You can read more about this in my posts "Breath" and "Sickle"

I don't have an explanation for this madness, but...Have a look at this: 

The Vinča symbols, sometimes known as the Vinča script are a set of symbols found on Neolithic artefacts from the Vinča culture (6th to 5th mill BC) from Central Europe with its centre in Serbia...

And these are the Tărtăria tablets, discovered in 1961 at a Vinča culture site in the village of Tărtăria, in Romania. Originally dated to c. 5300 BC. 

Looks familiar?

Here is the best bit. Apparently archaeologists are now proposing much later date, based on the signs!!! And are dating tablets to 2,750 BC-3,300 BC, when Sumerian proto-writing, otherwise known as dub-šar :), was developed...

Now to conclude. I actually believe that Sumerian is a language isolate. And is not related to IE languages, including Serbian. But It is annoying that we keep finding these isolated, important words in Sumerian with IE roots...Why? As I said I have no explanation of this madness...

But we can't just ignore all this...Right?

Sumerian dictionaries:

Sumerian cuneiform English dictionary ed. Peter & Tara Hogan
Sumerian Lexicon Version 3.0 by John A. Halloran
The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary

Lesnik

The most commonly used Serbian word for forest is "šuma". I love this word. Serbian word "šum" means rustling, which is the sound of deciduous forests. This makes forest "the shushing place". 

But this is not the only Serbian word for forest... 

Another word used for forest, but more specifically for mountain forest, and mountain in general is "gora". Like this one on Mt Tara:

I talked about this word a lot when I talked about words for sun, fire and warmth in Serbian and Irish languages

Yet another word used for forest is "dubrava". This word which means "oak forest" comes from Proto-Slavic root "*dǫbъ" (oak). This is a very common toponym found all over Central Europe wherever Slavs live or have once lived...

Oak was the holy tree of the Slavs. It is still considered a holy tree in Serbia, where people in villages still hold masses under ancient oaks called "zapis", like this one from South Eastern Serbia, also marked with a "Celtic" :) cross...

The holy status of oaks can be seen from the fact that when a young oak is cut in Serbia to be used for Yule log, it is addressed and treated as living god...

I talked about Serbian Yule log rituals in my post "Badnjak".

To Serbs, and other Slavs, oak was an extremely important tree. Its hard, durable, water resistant wood was used for building houses, boats, kitchen utensils, tools, furniture, carts...You could say that in the past, Slavic culture was built around oak...

I talked about this in my post "Oaks".

Balkans Slavs also ate acorns until the mid 20th c. Most lowland people only during "hungry years", but some mountain populations regularly. Forests of sweet acorn oaks called "sladun" (sweat oak) "medun" (honey oak) were planted and maintained on village boundaries...

These "sacred" oak forests, cultivated as a source of acorns, for people and pigs, were called "gaj" (cultivated forest), "zabran" (forbidden forest), "lug" (light forest, as oak forests are very airy and bright) and "zabel, zabela"... 

I talked about these cultivated forests in my post "Pelasgos".

Knowing the importance oak held in Serbian culture, I was surprised to discover that one other tree was maybe venerated even more: hazel. 

When village holy oak suddenly died, people planted hazel in its place and prayed to it for protection. Why? 

More about Serbian hazel lore can be found in my post "Hazel".

Well, the last word for forest used in Serbia is: "les" or "lijes". This is a Slavic wide word, found in all Slavic languages. Now interestingly, the word for hazel in Slavic languages is "leska". Now this can mean that "leska" literally just means "tree", or that "les" literally just means "hazels"...You will see why this confusion is very important...

And this handsome guy is Lesnik, Leshy, Leśniczy, Lasowik...a tutelary deity of the forests in Slavic mythology. 

His name basically means "Of the forest"...Except this depiction of Lesnik from 1906 is wrong...It depicts him in a wrong forest...Fir, Pine forest...Not hazel forest...

In Slavic languages "bor" means pine but also a conifer forest...So the forest spirit on the picture above should better be called by his other name: Boruta, Borowy, Боровой (of conifer forest) or even Svyatobor (Holy pine, holy forest) also known as Svyatibog (Holy god)...Interestingly "Bor" is in Serbian also used with the meaning "god", instead of "bog", like in phrases "Bora mi" (instead of Boga mi, meaning May god be my witness)...

Now here is the interesting bit :) 

Few years ago I wrote a post about post ice age floral repopulation of Europe. 

In it I talked about how different tree species migrated back into Europe at different times. 

At the end of the Ice Age, the only trees left in Europe were conifers...

At that time, fir, conifer meant tree, as there were no other trees, and it meant forest, as the only forest left were fir, conifer forests...By the way did you know that "forest" comes from Proto-Germanic *furhiþą (forest, wooded country), from Proto-Germanic *furhō (fir, pine).

Now add to Germanic "fir" (fir, conifer, forest) Slavic "bor" (pine, conifer forest, forest spirit, god)...

How old is this linguistic and cultural root? Could it be that this comes to us from the time when the only trees left around were fir, pine, conifers? From about 12000 years ago? 

Interestingly, after the weather got warmer, the first trees that really moved in, in a big way, and took over were birches...That must have been some site...Dark fir forests and white birch forests...It still is...

But then in the yet warmer early Boreal period (7000 - 5500 BC) hazel and pine expanded into the birch woodlands to such a degree that palynologists refer to the resulting ecology as the hazel-pine forest. Now this is interesting...

We still have fir forests and now pine forests are joining them. 

But hazel forest are taking over, to the point when hazel became dominant tree species in Europe...

Is this when "bor" (pine, tree, conifer forest, forest,  Borovoi-forest spirit) became "les" (hazel, tree, deciduous forest, forest, Lesnik-forest spirit)?

Is this the time when the confusion between les (hazel, tree) and les (forest) was created in Slavic languages? About 7000 years ago?

This was all happening before first Oak (dub) even bothered looking up north...But when they did finally decide to move up north, they truly took over...The age of oaks began...

Now if we look at the chronology, we have Fir (Jela), Birch (Breza), Pine (Bor), Hazel (Les-ka) then Oak (Dub)...All Slavic holy trees...All very difficult trees to spread by themselves because of big heavy nuts, acorns, cones... All edible...

Now in my post about post ice age floral repopulation of Europe I asked whether people helped oaks to move up north after the last Ice age? They just spread too quickly...And we know that people used acorns as food...They are very nutritious and very easy to store. I talked about human consumption of acorns in the posts linked from this page. But did they help fir, birch, pine, hazel too? 

Was this Garden of Eden, the endless forest of edible trees and berries full of wild animals, birds, fish...planted by men or god? Or both? I talked about this in my post "Christmas trees from Garden of Eden"

To be devil's advocate, I tried to think if the links fir-tree-forest-forest god, oak-tree-forest, hazel-tree-forest-forest god could have been forged in recent time too. And the two out of three of these links could:

1. fir-tree-forest-forest god could have been forged in Scandinavia and Northern Russia where fir is still the predominant tree species. Considering that only Slavs have the forest spirit, the link was probably forged by them and then transmitted to their Germanic neighbours

2. oak-tree-forest could have been forged in vast oak forests of Central Europe by Central European Slavs

But the link hazel-tree-forest-forest god, could only have been forged at the time when hazel forests covered most of Europe...And the last time that was the case was during early Boreal period (7000 - 5500 BC)...