The Teutonic Weapon-Myth

The source for much of this post is from Teutonic Mythology by Viktor Rydberg (1891); the content is based upon the figure of Ivalde, known to the English as Wade or Wate and the Sons of Ivalde-Wade. My own slant on this is the connection we have with The Hooded Man and the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex, England. This concerns three weapons and their links to certain figures -

Grandfather - Ivalde/Wade/Wate - Spear-Elf - Ger-Waendal (*)

Father - Orvandil/Egil - Bow-Elf - Or (Arrow)-Waendal.

Son - Svipdag - Sword-Elf - ? (**).

(*) I have used the spelling to make it easier to understand the connections between these figures, all of the Elven Kin of Wade. 

(**) I have found no name connected to the last of these, though it seems logical to assume there was one originally, and it may be 'lost' somewhere. 

It is usually assumed that the Long Man had Twin-Spears, thus linking him to Ger-Waendal. That the hundred near to the hill-figure is named after the Helmetted Waendal does connect this to the theme here. But, since there is a comet-shaped mound to the east of the figure, known as Hunter's Burgh, we may have a link between either a Spear or a Bow, both weapons of the hunter and Hunter-God. 

In the Myth of Hamlet Orwandil (Arrow-Waendal) is murdered by his brother Fengo; Hamlet is the son of Orwandil-Egil and seeks his revenge upon his uncle. In doing so he plays The Fool or The Simpleton to avert suspicion as to what he is doing. In my own experience on April 1st 1997 the Long Man is The April Fool, and this is the Great Initiator. Earendel is the English equivalent to Orvandil, and we know that they used the name for the Morning Star - Venus (which is a 'Double-Star' both male and female). There are two important links here -

William Tell - his name 'Tell' stems from a root meaning 'fool' or 'simpleton' and it is he who cut through the apple on his son's head with an arrow from a crossbow.

The Hooded Man - Robin Hood's weapon is a Bow and Arrow, and he is connected to the Tarot-Card The Fool numbered 0 (The Void - The Un-manifest). 

Of course, the brother of Orvandil-Egil is the famous Weland the Smith who, according to Rydberg, forged the Sword of Victory in order to wage war against the Gods. It was this sword that Freyr gave away to the Joten, and is the Flaming-Sword wielded by Surt at the End-Time. The word wandal stems from vanda meaning 'to apply care to something in order that it may serve its purpose' (according to Rydberg). The Elves were great weapon-smiths as we know from the myths, and Weland the Smith is the most famous of these. 

In fact, Rydberg gives a very interesting account of the origin-rulers of various Teutonic Tribes, especially the Inglingas.

Ivalde - Swedes.

Wayland & Egil - Langobards.

Slagfin - Burgundians & Saxons.

We have an account in which Ivalde-Wade 'wades' across the waters bearing his son (Weland) upon his shoulders; this is transferred to Weland who 'wades' across the waters bearing his son Witega-Wudga. This, of course, can be seen in the figure of 'St. Christopher', transferred to a Christian 'saint'; of of interest here is that 'St. Christopher' is said to be 'healfhundinga' or 'half-hound'; Wayland is connected to the Wolf-Totem. These 'waters' are near to Elivagar in the North. (***)

(***) We should not forget that these figures were once Race-Heroes, but in time some of them broke with the Gods and waged wars against them. This is reflected in the wars here in Midgard, waged between Teutonic Kin.

According to local legend Hunter's Burgh is where 'The Giant' (The Long Man) rests after being 'slain' by the Firle Giant (an area to the west of the Long Man). This being so it is Earendel-Orvandil who is 'buried' in the Long Barrow. It seems that Earendel-Orvandil-Egil sided with the Gods, unlike his father Ivalde-Wade. From this we can deduce that Or-Wandal is murdered by Fengo (The Firle Giant) and he is buried in Hunter's Burgh. That is if we take the hill-figure as being Or-Wandal, and not his father Ger-Wandal. 

Rydberg quotes Vigfusson as assuming that Or-Wandal is associated with Orion the Hunter, who, as Herne the Hunter, appears as the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. The ideas centred around Or-Wandal-Egil do in some ways match those around Orion the Hunter. Egil seems to be linked to the Boar and we find the Constellation of the Pleiades, according to Rydberg, linked to the Old English name of an 'unknown constellation' - Eburthrung or Eburthring. Here is an interesting thing, since this spelling is usually attributed to the 'German' name, which in Old English is eofor from which comes 'Eoforwic', the English name for 'York'. Long ago I pointed out that the old 'Romano-British' name for York - Eburacum - was rooted in the Germanic Ebur- meaning 'Boar'. This seems to suggest this was actually Old English - at the time of the Romans! (****)

(****) This brings up yet another interesting point, since Wade-Wate (Ivalde) is associated with the Watling Street which is one of the Four Royal Roads of Britain, whose origins are all attributed to the Romans. (The other three are the Ermine Street (Irmin), Fosse Way, and Icknield Way). The clue here seems to be in the name 'Icknield Way', which as I have suggested before is 'Icen-Hilde' Way, named after the famous Icen(i)-Warrior-Queen, Boudicca. Now, why on earth would the English name one of their 'Royal Roads' after a Celtic figure, indeed, a figure who does not appear in 'Celtic' legend at all.) The English associated these 'Royal Roads' with the Milky Way - the Road to the Gods. The Saxons called this Irung's Way or Iring's Way and Rydberg associates Iring with Gjuke; Slagfin is brother to Wayland and Egil. (Widukind of Corvei, around 950 CE tells in his Saxon Chronicle Chapter 13 that the Saxons named the Milky Way Iring's Way.) All this may suggest that these 'Royal Roads' were known to the English before the Romans came to these isles. 

Rydberg equates Svipdag with Ingvi, which emphasises that Ingwe was indeed a Sword-God. Nowhere, as far as I can see, does Rydberg equate Agni with Ingwe, but he uses the spelling Ingvae which gives us the Ingvaeones, one of the three offsprings of Mannus. But he does equate Heimdall (Hama) with Agni, and gives some very good examples from the Rig Veda to prove his point. Pliny states that the Cimbri, Teutons and Chauci were Ingvaeones (the Chauci/Cauci can be found in Ireland before the Roman times according to a map of Ptolemy). 

Ingwe is, of course, one of the Waene-Gods, and thus these are linked to the Elves since Ingwe is 'Lord of the Elves'. There is one thing that is rather out of place here, in Rydberg's ideas, and that is that he equates Svipdag with Dag, the former slaying Halfdan-Gram 'with an Asgard-Weapon', the latter slaying Helgi Hundingsbane 'with an Asgard-Weapon'. But Dag is said to have been given a Spear by Woden, which broke the Sword of Helgi. Thus Dag here wields a spear and not a sword. This may be a small point, and unimportant, but worth pointing out. Rydberg equates Halfdan with Mannus, thus making Helgi Hundingsbane the figure of Mannus. I cannot at this time see the reasoning here.

The Herne Abbas Giant (Herne the Hunter) wields a club, and the only reference to his Saxon name is Heil. The Constellation of Orion is shown in two very different ways, either as a club-wielding giant facing away, or as a giant holding a bow facing towards. The Herne Abbas Giant is Orion the Hunter (as shown by the offset 'nipples' and the 'Phallus of Orion'); the Long Man of Wilmington is Cygnus the Swan, so we have the 'Rising Sun' (East) and 'Setting Sun' (West) or the Green Man (East) and the Wild Huntsman (West). 

I am now going to come at this from a different angle, to try to unravel these English Mysteries. In Hamlet's Mill (Gorgio de Santillana & Hertha von Dechend) we find the Myth of Hamlet where Amlodhi (Hamlet) is connected to the World Mill and to the Precession of the Equinoxes. The authors speak of Amlodhi as Lord of the Golden Age, the Once and Future King, which connects to our own Wodenic Lore in so many ways. What I am interested here is that Rydberg links the World Mill to Mundelfore, and he sees Mundelfore as the father of Heimdall. His work goes through the Origins of Fire through the Need-Fire (Fire-by-Friction), and we find both Heimdall and Agni as Fire-Gods. Mundelfore is the father of Heimdall, as Mataricvan is the father of Agni; Agni comes to the Bhriguians to give them fire, and we find that Scef-Ingwe brings fire to the Folk of Scandi (Ingefolk). 

This being so, then the figure of Waendal appears to be that of Mundelfore, the 'Turner of the World-Mill', whose role is also that of turning the Fire-Whisk, to whisk the worlds into Creation. The Fire-Twirl or Fire-Whisk is shown below in the Cweorth-Rune -

The shape, of course, is that of both the Long Man and the Herne Giant; if, as someone commented on this blog, Cweorth is equated to Sweorth (Old English 'sword') then here again we have a direct link to the 'Sword'. We have figures shaped like this from Sweden, showing a man holding Twin Spears, and with a Sword hanging from the waist - Both Spear and Sword. These are usually connected to Woden. Hamlet, being the son of Orwandil, would thus be Svipdag, as seen by Rydberg. The Myth of Hamlet can be found in the Legend of Kau Khusrau (Persia-Iran) and The Myth of Horus. In the latter we see Osiris (Orion) is slain by Set (The Dark Lord), and Set is thence slain by Horus (The Son). This is the basis of the Ur-Myth of the Aryans - Father is slain by Uncle, Son avenges the Father by slaying the Uncle. In the Egyptian version we find that Isis (Sirius) brings life back to Osiris in order that they may bear Horus the Avenger whose fate is to slay his uncle. 

Hamlet, as shown, is The Fool and thus equated with the Long Man as the April Fool, so the figure of the Long Man has to be linked to Bootes (as well as Cygnus), itself linked to Ingwe (and to the 'Once and Future King'). As I have said before, the area around the Long-Man seems to be a 'Time-Clock' that was to awaken certain Higher Powers at a specific time, indeed seemingly around the region of 1997-1999. This 'resurrected' the 'Once and Future King' at just the right time, since this event, as the authors of Hamlet's Mill state, happens at the end of a world-age, and foresees a Great Catastrophe that brings this world-age to an end. In Hamlet's Mill we are told that the Evil Force cannot be destroyed, but must destroy itself. (This, of course, could be done through this Evil Force bringing into being something that is fated to destroy it - namely the Great Catastrophe that would herald the appearance of the Last Avatar.)

When I received The Hooded Man Prophecy in the dream of 1993 there were two symbols connected to this - the Sunwheel and the Crossbow. The former of these may equate to the Turning of the World Mill and the latter to William Tell (The Fool). The dream centred around a resistance movement which arose against the Dark Forces, waging war against the Evil Ones. Since this focussed around a 'made-up' prophecy for the Robin of Sherwood series the synchronicity around the use of Robin Hood as the 'son of' Herne the Hunter, and the link between Robin Hood and the Tarot-Card named The Fool (who is The Hooded Man) is quite interesting. The authors of Hamlet's Mill point out the similarities between the Myth of Orion and that of Robin Hood. 

The date of April 1st is in itself important; we have seen how October 31st and November 11th are connected, and that the addition of 11 days in the Gregorian Calendar means they are the same festival. If we add 11 days to March 21st (Spring Evennight) then we get a date around April 1st! This is indeed of interest since the Spring Evennight is one of those points of the year when the Light and Darkness are in balance - the main feature of The Hooded Man Prophecy. Bootes rises around April 1st; here we have a direct connection between Ingwe and the April Fool. 

The symbolism of The Fool has been said to represent Orion with the Dog-Star (Sirius) at his heels. We should actually note here that the dog in the card is a hunting-dog (greyhound-whippet-lurcher-saluki etc.) and I have shown before how Bootes is represented by a figure with two hunting-dogs. Since we have Canis Major and Canis Minor at the foot of Orion, these two constellations seem to be linked in some way. In the card is a butterfly, which in itself is symbolic of some kind of transformation (caterpillar to butterfly) - in the butterfly we find a transformation from Earth (caterpillar) to Heaven (butterfly). The dog shown here seems to be trying to stop him from walking over the cliff - to stave off a disaster. The bag-on-a-stick suggests that The Fool is a 'traveller', one making a journey, and he holds a White Rose (White Rose of Albion). In occult circles Sirius was of extreme importance, but it is not at all clear why; Gurdjieff stated in one of his books that he had 'buried the dog even deeper' which suggests he hid the secrets but made them less accessible to most people. 

The authors of Hamlet's Mill say that Hamlet's father was murdered by the use of the juice of the Yew-Tree and mentions Uller's Yew-Tree (Wuldor's Yew-Tree) which was 'belonging to Sirius'. Isis appears to be associated with both Venus and Sirius, a point to remember here. It is said here that the name Earendel has been said to stem from the Old English ae, ear meaning 'wave', or 'sea', or from or/ear meaning 'arrow'. Sirius is the 'Dog-Star' but it has also been called the 'Arrow-Star', so we had yet another connection here. It has also been suggested that the term Earendel Jubar means 'Earendel - Ray/Beam', where in MHG and Italian this refers to an arrow. 

mulKAK.SI.DI - 'Arrow-Star' (Sumer.

Tishtriya - 'Arrow' (Persia)

In India the bowman is Sirius, named Tishiya, and his arrow is represented by the stars of Orion's Belt. It is thus suggested, by the authors, that 'Earendel, brightest of angels thou' might be the brightest of stars - Sirius. Both the Ear-Rune and the Cweorth-Rune are similar, and sometimes interchangeable, so the hill-figures could be in some way linked to Sirius, as well as the other links I have made. The Babylonians had this to say - 'Arrow-Star, who measures the depth of the sea'. 

In the Tarot Card named The Star, which Aleister Crowley relates to Sirius, we find a woman holding a Water-Jug, and pouring out the contents into a pool of water and onto the land; there are Seven Stars in the card, likely to be the Pleiades.