Ivan Kupala, Fortunetelling for Wreaths, 2009.

Oil on panel by Simon L. Kozhin (1979 - Present).

Midsommersol i en Grønlandsk Fjord (Midsummer Sun in a Greenlandic Fjord).

Oil on canvas by Emanuel A. Petersen (1894 - 1948).

Midsommardans (Midsummer Dance), 1897.

Oil on canvas by Anders Zorn (1860 - 1920).

Drihten of Death

Woden, truth's body and wisdom
Of awakened mind and might
I have called on your starry kingdom
Drihten of Death and heaven's light

We drink from skulls way up high
Ashes of the world on our skin
With skilled love does it die
Cured of cruel, titannic sin

Woden you are the very void
Where all things we know come
The good and gruesome, all enjoyed
With your will of power, never done

Crazed and loving without illusion
The intellect in all, the all knowing
Grim and cold, without confusion
crossing the vast river current, far-going

We are dancing blood-drinkers, blithe
Gathered 'round gorey fires
Under the Sky's pale scythe

A slightly esoteric poem I made with the help of the great O'Gravy. It is inspired by my studies into Eastern traditions and the connections to the Germanic tradition I have seen. May it inspire you and not come off as too edgy.

- Kalin, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

🌊MANANNAN IS AGNI🔥

The YouTuber Fortress of Lugh has asked the question of how the Irish Sea God, Manannan, can really be the Fire God, equivalent of Agni.

Not only is this a certain fact, but none of Manannan’s actions can be understood without knowing this identity, nor can the very creation myth of the Celts be understood without this knowledge.

The Manannan question is a classic litmus test to see if someone knows the Vedic and comparative material well enough to differentiate Agni from the related Descendant of the Waters god, Apam Napat (the defender of the “Shining Glory” in the waters, see: Heimdallr), and then to correctly see this Agni underneath the outward form of the Irish Sea God.

For the convenience of the reader, I will give here the short version of the evidence showing Manannan to be the Celestial form of Agni.


- Manannan uses fire to kill 2 other gods (Fuamnach and Midir), and decides whether to use fire to kill a criminal. Irish gods using fire as a weapon is not a common occurrence, so why is a supposed “sea god” burning other gods to death and deciding whether to burn people?

- Manannan has scorched red and yellow spears, while Agni also has a flaming spear.

- Manannan has the cup that tests truth and falsity, which is a main feature of “trial-by-fire” as can easily be found in Indo-Iranic tradition with the “cup of brimstone” that tests truth, along with other variations. Only the Fire God would have the trial-by-fire cup, the cup of truth and falsity.

- Manannan shapeshifts to test humans just like Agni does, this also embodying the idea of trial-by-fire, fire as the tester of virtue and that which transforms and purifies.

- Agni has 3 legs, Manannan is described as rolling around on 3 legs in Irish folklore.

- According to AA Macdonell (Vedic Mythology), the most well-established detail about Agni is that he is born from the waters and his domain is the waters. Manannan is “son of the sea” and his domain is there. He is simply a version of the Fire God who became more identified with his watery domain.

- Manannan is a psychopomp like Agni and both are associated with the East.

- Manannan crafts various items and has the hook and belt of Goibniu the Smith, yet he is distinct from the Smith God proper. Why does he do and have these things but isn’t the Smith per se? Because fire is necessary to the smith and the Fire God was seen as the arch-Smith (Greek Fire God Hephaestus is an Agni parallel who has more fully been identified with his smith role).

- Manannan’s wife Fand (“Tear of Beauty”) becomes lover of warrior demigod Cuchulainn and then Manannan has to intervene to bring her back using his magical cloak that he places between them. This is the parallel of when Fire God Hephaestus’ wife Aphrodite (goddess of Beauty) becomes lover of war god Ares and Hephaestus intervenes with his magical net that he catches them in, and this again parallels when Agni’s wife Svaha becomes lover of warrior god Krishna but Krishna says she has to go back and be wife of Agni first.

- Manannan serves the food to the gods at the Feast of Age, while Agni brings the burnt sacrifices from Earth to the tables of the gods as their food.

- Agni is the overseer of marriages (hence the importance of circling the fire in Vedic marriage ceremonies), as Manannan also is said in The Fosterage of the House of Two Pails to be given authority over all marriages and births.

(continued)

- I discovered a structural pattern that repeats across nearly all the branches which confirms Manannan/Manawydan is the Fire God. Manawdyan being the second husband of Rhiannon is a mythic expression of the ancient Indo-European marriage rite, as recorded in Rig Veda 10.85: the archetypal bride and sunbeam goddess (Surya) is passed first to Soma, then to the Gandharva, then to Agni. This sunbeam goddess appears in Welsh myth as the wife of Arawn (Soma) who Pwyll (Gandharva) sleeps next to for a year, then as Rhiannon who Pwyll subsequently marries for himself, with Rhiannon lastly marrying Manawydan after Pwyll dies, thus transferring from “Gandharva” to “Agni” as in the Rig Veda hymn. In the tale of Rhiannon, Manawydan specifically parallels Vasistha, incarnation of Agni and priest of Samvarana.

- Manawydan outwitting the hostile sorcerer and dispelling his magic at the end of “Manawydan, son of Llyr,” is another coded enactment of the Fire God role. One of the main functions of Agni in the Vedas is to dispel hostile magic and sorcerers, especially to open the sacred rite in a purified space. This is what Manawydan is actually doing in his tale. This is why his tale is followed by the myth of the sun rising (Math fab Mathonwy = Savitar, god of the rising sun), which Manawydan, acting as sacred Fire, has brought about (this is Bealtaine).

- With this context Manawydan’s role in “Branwen, Daughter of Llyr,” the Welsh creation myth, can finally be understood. Efnisien, Nisien, and Manawydan, who break apart the “marriage” of Earth and Sky (Branwen and Matholwch) and then confront a child named “Alder” are = to Odinn, Hoenir, and Lodurr, who = Rudra, Shiva, and Agni. Vedic theology saw this trio as one triple god on the esoteric level: the flame (Agni) and the destructive and auspicious luminosity of the flame (Rudra-Siva).



Although the Sea God being secretly the Fire God may be hard to believe at first, little in Irish myth is so well-supported as this counterintuitive conclusion. It would be an uphill battle to assert for Manannan any other identity than that of the Fire God in the face of such evidence. The domain of the ocean is Manannan’s, but this is only the surface level of who he is.

Very fitting for a god of disguises and tests to pass himself off for only a sea god for so long, when in truth he is far more.



See my article on Manannan for an even more in depth look at the details of the evidence: https://taliesinsmap.blogspot.com/2021/06/manannan-and-agni.html?m=1

🌞MATH FAB MATHONWY = SAVITAR🌞

A massive key to understanding the Celtic solar mythology is understanding the myth of Math fab Mathonwy, great-uncle and forerunner of the “Lawful Sovereign” god, Lleu. Upon analysis, it can be shown that the myth of Math is the myth of the sunrise, and the successors to whom he passes his powers are also solar gods, inheritors of the solar majesties.


⁃ Math rises from the lap of his virgin attendant Goewin as Savitar rises from the goddess Ratri, “Night,” his “household maiden.” The rise of Math from Goewin is thus the rise of the god called in the Vedas the “Impeller” of the Sun from the lap of Night, where he rests between sunset and sunrise.

⁃ It is said that Math can only rise when he is going to “war”. The “war” Math goes to is thus the sunrise. This metaphor of the sunrise as a “war” that the god of the rising sun dresses himself for is seen throughout the hymns to the sunrise god Savitar: “he putteth on his golden-coloured mail” (RV 4.LIII, 2). After “Uprisen is Savitr, this God, to quicken” (RV 2.XXXVIII.1) we read “Savitr hath sped to meet his summons. He comes again, unfolded, fain for conquest” (RV 2.XXXVIII.5). He is called “the Warrior” (RV 6.LXXI.1).

⁃ Math hears and knows everything that reaches the wind. Savitar is all-knowing and the wind does his bidding.

⁃ Math enforces justice and is a magician who with his magic gives life to three lineages of animals and a flower maiden. By direct instruction, Math then passes his power of magical generation to his nephew Gwydion, and his power of justice to his grand-nephew Lleu, these two being his successors. The Rig Veda says that Savitar “is” Pushan in his power of generating life and “is” Mitra in his power of justice. “Thou, O God [Savitr], art Mitra through thy righteous laws./ Over all generation thou art Lord alone: Pūṣan art thou, O God, in all thy goings-forth.” (RV 5.LXXXI, 4). This describes the power of Savitar being passed on via succession to Pushan and Mitra, just as Math’s powers are passed on to Gwydion and Lleu. Gwydion and Lleu are Pushan and Mitra, as I’ve shown in my articles. Savitar > Pushan > Mitra = Math > Gwydion > Lleu.

⁃ Thus what we are seeing in this myth is the power of the God of Sunrise or “Impeller” of the Sun (Math/Savitar) being extended via the god of the glowing power of vitality within the Sun (Gwydion/Pushan) into the sphere of “Generation” and then the power of solar sovereignty and justice being passed on to the Sovereign of the Daylit Sky (Lleu/Mitra). With this key you have understood the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, Math fab Mathonwy. This sunrise is made possible by the Fire God Manawydan defeating the hostile sorcerer and clearing the wasteland just prior, at the conclusion of the Third Branch.

⁃ The rising of the Sun here mythically depicted would also correspond to a cosmic date within the cycle of the year, the year being seen as single cosmic day. The “sunrise” of the year is thus marked by the Celtic festival Bealtaine, also known as May Day, where the story of the flower-endowed May Queen, with the rivalry of her husband and lover, replays the love triangle of flower maiden Blodeuwedd (“flower-face”), her husband Lleu (the sovereign of Daylit Sky), and her lover (the god of the risen Sun) Gronw.



For parallels of Math/Savitar, see Norse Dellingr and Greek Phanes. For the same function seen outside of the Indo-European world, see Egyptian Khepri.

For a much more in-depth explanation of the evidence showing Math to be Savitar see my deep-dive on the topic: https://taliesinsmap.blogspot.com/2021/09/math-fab-mathonwy-celtic-savitr.html?m=1

🌲🐷GWYDION/CIAN IS PUSHAN🐷🌲

The next piece of the puzzle of Celtic mythology is the identity of the fathers of Lugh and Lleu respectively: Cian and Gwydion.

As I’ve claimed, Cian and Gwydion are versions of the same god and are the equivalents of Vedic Pushan, the retriever of cattle and mage of the mountain wilds.


⁃ Cian is the father of the Irish Lugh; Gwydion is the uncle, but implied father, of the Welsh Lleu, as several scholars have noted. Both Cian and Gwydion transform into pigs at one point. They are the same god, as a view of the larger pattern will confirm.

⁃ A Gaulish parallel of Gwydion is known, named Uiducus, clarifying the meaning of the god’s name as being from *Uidugenos, “born of the woods”. Gwydion is also exiled to live in the wild in the form of a series of animals for a period of time.

⁃ Cian steals back the cow of the wondrous milk, Glas Gaibhnenn, from the Fomorian Balor and sleeps with his daughter, and this myth is the clear parallel of the Norse myth in which Odin steals back the mead from the jotunn Suttungr and sleeps with his daughter.

⁃ This myth, with Odin turning into an eagle when he escapes with the mead, also parallels when the Vedic Agni, in the form of a hawk or eagle named Shyena, steals the sacred drink, soma, from the mountain.

However, the scholar Stella Kramrisch (in the essay “Pusan”) has clarified that it is actually Agni-Pushan who finds and then steals back the soma. It is Pushan who “finds” the lost soma, compared to a lost animal, and then Agni who takes it in the form of a bird. Pushan’s famous tool is an awl drill, with which he drills into human hearts. Meanwhile, Odin uses a drill to drill into the mountain to find the mead, then escapes in the form of the eagle, thus acting parallel to Pushan and Agni in turn, exactly in alignment with Kramrisch’s statements about the Vedic material.

⁃ In the Irish version, Cian is the one who seeks the wondrous cow, a lost animal that gives a magical liquid, but who is it that conveys Cian from the fortress of Balor once the cow is secured? It is Manannan, who I have shown is Agni, who ferries Cian home on his magical ship. Once again we have the exact same duo in the same roles: “Pushan” the seeker of the sacred drink, and “Agni” the conveyor home. “Pushan-Agni.”

⁃ As I’ve noted, Gwydion also appears in the “Pushan” role in the succession of powers from Math. Math > Gwydion > Lleu = Savitar > Pushan > Mitra. The relationship of Math to Gwydion, Math teaching him the magical powers of Generation and using him as an extension of his own powers, exactly mirrors the relationship between Savitar and Pushan as described by Kramrisch. As she explains, Savitar is like formal cause, and Pushan like efficient cause, of the same solar power. Pushan is thus a manifest extension and successor of Savitar, as Gwydion is of Math.

⁃ Pushan also = Greek Pan, as has long been acknowledged via linguistics and shared traits. Pan is the lord of nature and the wilds who makes plants grow. Cian disguises himself as a gardener and makes Balor’s island become covered in apple trees by his power.

⁃ Gwydion is a magician who is continually demonstrating his powers of Generation and illusion and he is also very much “of the wilds”: as such, he is the model of Merlin Wyllt or Merlin Sylvestris, Merlin the Wild or Merlin of the Woods. Pushan, god of the wilds, is also the Vedic god prayed to specifically by magicians and conjurers, thus making him the Magician of the Wilds like Gwydion.

⁃ Gwydion is one of the three chief Prognosticators (Prophets) named in the Welsh Triads, while Pan is the god of prophecy who even teaches Apollo this art.




A clear and precise structure is shared between each of these mythological branches, and this structure reinforces the Pushanic identities of Gwydion and Cian from all sides. Most today know him by the name of Merlin, the Magician of the Wilds.

For a detailed look at Gwydion and Cian see my full article: https://taliesinsmap.blogspot.com/2020/10/pushan-gwydion-cian-odinn-pan.html?m=1

I will be posting some very simple video versions of my shortened Celtic Mythology posts over the next few weeks.

My hope is that these 5-10 minute videos will give the viewer the keys to Celtic and Indo-European comparative mythology in as quick a form as possible, so that this knowledge can be shared with greater ease. As a collective we must reach a higher understanding of our theology.
Here now is the first in the series.


Manannan is Agni: Celtic Mythology Explained (Response to Fortress of Lugh)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nAsF2uzPgMg

- O’Gravy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

Next we have the figure of Math fab Mathonwy, the key to the solar mythology of the Celts.

Math is Savitar: Celtic Mythology Explained

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SVjLZ5j6HPI

We continue our video series by exploring the Celtic Pushan, retriever of the sacred liquid, the god I have called the prototype of Merlin.

Gwydion and Cian are Pushan: Celtic Mythology Explained

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih-kHhUCNOc

- O’Gravy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

If I were asked what I consider the most important discovery which has been made during the nineteenth century, with respect to the ancient history of mankind, I should answer by the following short line:

Sanskrit Dyaus Pitr = Greek Zeus Pater = Latin Jupiter = Old Norse Tyr.

Think what this equation implies! It implies not only that our own ancestors and the ancestors of Homer and Cicero (the Greeks and Romans) spoke the same language as the people of India – this is a discovery, which however incredible it sounded at first, has long ceased to cause any surprise – but it implies and proves that they all had once the same faith, and worshipped for a time the same supreme Deity under exactly the same name- a name which meant Heaven Father.

Max Müller, Philologist (1823 – 1900)

Unfortunately for us today, the seductive error of the overly-simple equation given above has not yet been wholly vanquished, and continues to influence new forms of confusion. Many linguists and philologists in the century and a half since have pointed to the holes in equating these names — closely related they may be, but of the same signification in every case they certainly are not. Tyr comes from a vṛddhi derivation of an offshoot from the shared root between them, and means “god,” while Dyaus means “heaven,” etc. etc.

All of this, however, has only concealed the larger problem: almost no one knows the actual mythos of the archaic Vedic Dyaus Pitar. Zeus is known, but whether his mythos is the same as that of Dyaus cannot be claimed when one is ignorant of Dyaus’ own mythos.

Ask yourself what you know of Dyaus of the Vedas. He is the Heavens embodied? He is paired with Prithvi, Earth, in a sacred union? He is asked to give rain? He is somewhat in the background relative to other gods?
Already some question marks are raised by these details, but this common superficial understanding of Dyaus is not at all enough to build on if one wants to claim he is the match of Zeus or anyone else. There is hardly anything here to go off of.

Reading the Rig Veda thoroughly is a beginning, but to understand Dyaus one also has to look to the epics, to Bhishma of the Mahabharata and Sarpedon of the Iliad, the heroic incarnations in whom archaic myths of Father Heaven have been preserved. The scholar Nick Allen has laid out what these figures can tell us of the archaic Father Heaven in his essay “Dyaus and Bhisma, Zeus and Sarpedon,” and I have filled in more of the gaps in the section of my “Heroes of the Iliad” series on Sarpedon.

Even these researches do not tell us the most important thing, however: the main myth of Dyaus. Do you know the main myth of Dyaus? We ought to know this if we are going around saying he is Zeus. Zeus we know.

Read Rig Veda 10.61.5 and 1.71.5 and you will discover the frequently ignored and poorly-understood central myth of Dyaus Pitar, and doing so you will be ahead of everyone else who chooses to speak on the subject.

What do we find in this myth?

Father Heaven (Dyaus) raping his own daughter, then being violently separated from her by an arrow shot from “the archer,” who is implied to be the terrible archer whose name can hardly be spoken, Rudra in his Rudra-Agni form. The sexual union was only half way completed and the semen of Dyaus spills onto the Earth, marking the sacred site of the primordial sacrifice. (See also The Presence of Siva by S. Kramrisch for a full analysis of the myth).

Given the cryptic and graphic nature of the accounts of this myth as found in these verses, it’s no wonder the average reader is unaware of it. The oft-relied upon Veda translator Griffith puts these verses into Latin rather than English to conceal their shocking nature from the unprepared .
Most people are not thinking about this issue with the full information, and it is showing in the complete lack of understanding of Dyaus.

What other myth of Dyaus is more central than this? What other full myth of his do you know? What myth could be more central than this? From this event the site of the primordial sacrifice is created and the semen that falls to Earth becomes the Fire Priests, the ancestors of humans. This is the very primordial moment, the scene of creation.

So, what is the main myth of Zeus? Is he ever divided violently from his daughter while in the middle of raping her, by any analogue of Rudra himself? Does his seed produce the ancestors of the humans? Is Zeus even mythically present in the primordial moment when he could do any of this? Of course he is not, being the late-born sovereign who completes the cycle.

However, what is the main myth of the god Ouranos? He is divided while in the act of raping his mother, who is the Earth, Gaia. Ouranos himself is the Sky, the Heavens, and he is in a union, an abusive one, though surely a sacred one, with Earth.

He is then divided from Gaia by the violent knife of Cronus.

Could Cronus be aligned with Rudra-Agni? (I have shown that he is, in my article “The Celtic Creation Myth”). Ouranos’ blood and seed then fall to the ocean and produce, among other things, the ash-tree nymphs (Meliae), who are the ancestors of humans. Ouranos then steps into the background, while other gods step forward. This is a natural part of the cycle. As Dyaus is the embodied Heavens or Sky, so is Ouranos, and as the over-arching Sky he remains to give rain and to oversee worldly Justice in other ways.

Zeus then becomes the inheritor of the kingdom (the Heavens), that Ouranos, the original Father Heaven, is. As such Zeus inherits the throne of Father Heaven, and his name indirectly reflects this inheritance, but its signification is not identical to what it was for Dyaus, who was the primordial Heavens, divided from his “female half” by the Rudraic god to create the world itself.

We have this all confirmed again in Welsh myth, where Efnysien, Nisien and Manawydan (Rudra-Siva-Agni) break up the abusive marriage of Matholwch (Father Heaven) and Branwen (Earth), leading to the generation of the ancestors of humans. In Irish myth Eber Fionn (Rudra) and his brothers likewise break up the marriage of Mac Greine (Father Heaven) and Eriu (Earth) in a more compact version of the same.


Until the discourse can move beyond the shallow understanding of Father Sky, with all the projections of what people want this name to mean, all the attachments to an image of a Zeus-type sovereign ruling unchanged in every branch, we will be stalled in a sad incomprehension that will prevent us from understanding the actual theology of Father Heaven, the creation myth that he is a central component of, and what this all means for us in our religious practices. It is pitiable to think that we are still stuck in the 1800s in our understanding of this topic, still unable to free ourselves from an attractive linguistic mirage and our own laziness.

What this also leads to, for those unafraid to admit that they never actually knew Father Heaven before, is that it is instead the Norse YMIR who is the true equivalent of Dyaus and Ouranos, the true Father Heaven in the Vedic sense, the embodiment of the sky itself, which the Eddas make clear he physically is. He is the only one who is divided from his female half by an analogue of Rudra-Agni (Odinn-Hoenir-Lodurr = Rudra-Shiva-Agni) in the primordial moment of creation. Only Ymir becomes the Sky itself and then steps into the background. Only preconceived notions, wishful fantasies around the divine name “Dyaus,” and ignorance prevents the realization of this central pattern and the further understanding of the sacred theology that opens up from there.

Until this is grasped, the seeker of the truth hits a wall, and this is where most contentedly remain today with regard to their understanding of Father Heaven.


This topic and all of its far-reaching implications are explained in my book, link here.
***

- O’Gravy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult