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Maponos
Jun 18, 2011 20:51:28 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Jun 18, 2011 20:51:28 GMT -1
Andedion uediiu –mi diiiuion risu naritu Maponon
Aruernatin: lotites sni eθθic sos briχtia Anderon
(Gaulish tablet found in a sacred spring at Chamelières)
Maponos of the deep, great god I come to thee with this plea: Bring the spirits of the Otherworld To inspire us who are before thee.
I have taken some slight liberties with John Koch’s “tentative” translation of this Gaulish tablet and - objections to this permitting (Deiniol?) - perhaps we could consider the implications of a call to Maponos in this way as, apparently, a guide at the portal to the Underworld/Otherworld, perhaps functioning here, as the Romans saw him, in the way Apollo is seen as the patron of the Sybil as prophetess and guardian of the portal to the Nether World.
Asking him, then, for aid in calling on the powers of the Otherworld would seem to be appropriate and particularly at this time of year when the veils between the worlds at Midsummer might be transparent enough for glimpses through the veil to be clearer than usual.
I offer this as exploratory comment towards understanding and developing a common approach to this god.
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Maponos
Jun 19, 2011 0:10:20 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Jun 19, 2011 0:10:20 GMT -1
this is really, really interesting.
in this respect it sounds like Maponos is somehow connected to the Otherworld/Underworld and in some respect that is itself associated with the seas (or lakes/wells kind of thing). this is strikingly similar to Gwyn ap Nudd/Vindos son of Nodons (Tigernonos to some people who is associated with waters).
hmmm.... maybe a lot of free flowing brain activity here at this silly hour.
Maponos the imprisoned hunter who is let lose, similar to gwyn and the wild hunt which Dweiniol tentaively sounds like a very, very possible reflex of the Lupercalia.
makes you wonder if Maponos is somehow connected to Vindos in some way.
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Maponos
Jun 19, 2011 7:22:02 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Jun 19, 2011 7:22:02 GMT -1
My UPG completely agrees with this. I see Maponus as a figure that slips easily between the worlds and can lead others between the worlds as well. I see the forest as the portal though. He will lead you through the mythical forest if you dare to take His hand. In the story I put up on my blog (leading on from Potias tale of Rigantona in the otherworld ;D) I put Maponus as the son of both Rhiannon and the Lord of the Otherworld - and could this be Nodens or Sucellos or... I didn't name Him in my story. But getting back on topic I do see Maponus as the son of the Otherworld Lord and the Mother (who is firmly Rhiannon for me). He is half of this world, the living land, and half of the Otherworld. I also sense a fierce protective streak in Maponus, and I'm guessing this would be something you would want if venturing to the Otherworld or calling to spirits from the Otherworld?
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Maponos
Jun 20, 2011 21:15:27 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Jun 20, 2011 21:15:27 GMT -1
One further piece of (admittedly much later and rather tenuous) reinforcement for this idea:
In The Book of Taliesin there is a poem (38) singing the praises of Owein, son of Urien, in his defence of Rheged. It says he is aided by Mabon "o arall vro" , which can be translated as "from another place or area". Rachel Bromwich actually discusses the reference as if it referred to a warrior from somewhere else, possibly another member of Urien's line. But John Koch prefers to translate the reference as meaning "from the Other World", which seems to reinforce the identity of Maponos as an Other World aid. But - and its a big but - poems in The Book of Taliesin don't usually invoke pagan deities and references in it are usually christian. Ifor Williams did suggest that it was characteristic of the earlier poems in the collection that they were less overtly christian than later interpolations, but he was talking in terms of degree rather than substance. So any attempt to identify an Otherworld supporter to Owein here would be difficult. But it is suggestive.
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Maponos
Jul 18, 2011 9:05:34 GMT -1
Post by potia on Jul 18, 2011 9:05:34 GMT -1
Having just spent the weekend at Lochmaben I got a definite sense of Maponos as a being in the places between. I didn't get the feeling that he was necessarily a guide in these places though but simply that he was to be found there.
My own UPG tends towards the feeling that he can be rather mischevious so not necessarily a good choice as guide, that's not to say he would lead you into trouble you couldn't deal with but simply that he may not lead you where you wanted to go.
But if you are seeking him then my UPG tells me to seek in places that are somehow between or at times that are between as he himself is neither one thing or another but somehow between.
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Maponos
Jul 18, 2011 11:12:00 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Jul 18, 2011 11:12:00 GMT -1
Nice to hear you got to Lochmaben, Potia, as I visited last year after your references to it.
The feelings you report both in relation to the place and in relation to Maponos are not unlike my own after going there.
The places between - yes!
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Maponos
Jul 25, 2011 8:35:37 GMT -1
Post by potia on Jul 25, 2011 8:35:37 GMT -1
Having read Hilaire's blog post on Cernunnos yesterday evening (http://musingsfromgellifach.blogspot.com/2011/07/concerning-cernunnos-part-one.html) I got to thinking. To my knowledge inscriptions to Cernunnos have only found so far on the continent and not many of them either. The attributes though of a being who deals with the places between, is very masculine and has links to hunter and hunted seem to me to be those we have been talking about with Maponus.
Added to that I was at the museum at Vindolanda (http://www.vindolanda.com/) on Saturday and in it is a plaque with Maponus in a central position with Apollo on one site and Diana on the other. Which connects further with the ideas of Maponus as a god of in-between, in this case between masculine and feminine, solar and lunar as the obvious things that come to mind with Apollo and Diana.
So could Maponos be the Brythonic equivalent of Cernunnos? To me this makes sense.
I look forward to reading more from Hilaire and I can see that there could be links between Cernunnos and Lugos although I don't think they are the same myself.
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Maponos
Jul 25, 2011 11:34:30 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Jul 25, 2011 11:34:30 GMT -1
As far as i can recall, the iconography of the two is very different as as the roman gods they are often equated too in inscriptions. Cernunos is much more like the Dagda i think, prosperity etc whereas maponos isnt.
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Maponos
Jul 25, 2011 14:26:17 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Jul 25, 2011 14:26:17 GMT -1
I have had troubles differenciating between these two figures at times. The liminality they both seem to have in common, and the feeling of exteme maleness. I thought for a while that it was Cernunnos that I was sensing but the trouble was that he never had any antlers...
I think probably Cernunnos is further into the otherworld than Maponus. I see a link between them as, as Potia says, they do have a lot in common. In my way of making sense of this I tend to think of this link as a sort of father/son or uncle/nephew kind of relationship to explain their commonalities to myself:S
Cernunnos and Lugus though is something I find really quite plausible and have wondered at before. Lugus/Mercury's mistletoe crown/winged hat can look rather remeniscant of antlers (tenuous I know!) and both Cernunnos and Lugus carry bags of money. Mercury's caduceus and Cernunnos horned serpant might also show some sort of link? I'm also looking forward to Hilaire's next blog post ^_^
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Maponos
Jul 25, 2011 18:58:34 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Jul 25, 2011 18:58:34 GMT -1
As Cernunnos means 'Horned God' it could refer to any god with horns. But this raises interesting questions about the provenance of god names. It has been suggested on here before that most god names are epithets and therefore descriptions rather than names in the sense that humans have names. But consider, if there was a fertility god with horns who evolved as society became more sophisticated, into one that had to do with music and poetry, that god might have a different name but still be remembered as have his original attributes. I've commented on Hilaire's blog about a story of a competition between Pan and Apollo as to who could play the best music. It has been said about this that Apollo was competing with his past self (I think it was Robert Graves, but am not sure). Cernunnos sits between Apollo and Mercury on that representation which Hilaire shows. Apollo shares some characteristics with Maponos. There is also, I recall, a modern Irish story by James Stephens which imagines Aengus Og and Pan competing with each other. That is very suggestive in this context.
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Maponos
Jul 26, 2011 10:51:56 GMT -1
Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2011 10:51:56 GMT -1
As Cernunnos means 'Horned God' it could refer to any god with horns. But this raises interesting questions about the provenance of god names. It has been suggested on here before that most god names are epithets and therefore descriptions rather than names in the sense that humans have names. But consider, if there was a fertility god with horns who evolved as society became more sophisticated, into one that had to do with music and poetry, that god might have a different name but still be remembered as have his original attributes. I've commented on Hilaire's blog about a story of a competition between Pan and Apollo as to who could play the best music. It has been said about this that Apollo was competing with his past self (I think it was Robert Graves, but am not sure). Cernunnos sits between Apollo and Mercury on that representation which Hilaire shows. Apollo shares some characteristics with Maponos. There is also, I recall, a modern Irish story by James Stephens which imagines Aengus Og and Pan competing with each other. That is very suggestive in this context. I've replied to Heron on my blog but will copy it here as well to save time (Want to plug on with the Cernunnos blog so I can get back to Seamus Heaney and the outdoors!) Because, of the few inscriptions to Cernunnos, there is only one accompanying depiction and that is of an antlered god, I think I'm right in saying that in academia Cernunnos applies specifically to an antlered god - even if it applied more widely originally. Ross says that the bull-horned god is 'nameless'. I think myself that there was a distinction although, as now, people sometimes did conflate the two types of horns and horned gods. In general the iconography of the bull-horned and stag-horned gods is different. The antlered god is characteristically sitting, with animals and symbols of plenty. The bull-horned god is often naked, armed and standing. Also because antlers are not fixed like horns and look like tree-branches there are, I think, associations of seasonality with Cernunnos which you don't get with the bull-horned god. Some of the statues had holes so that antlers could be put on and removed, perhaps at different times of the year. I know David F-W again suggests this was for practical reasons, but I'm convinced. David F-W has also argued that the reason the stag god is shown sitting is for practical reasons - the problem of having to have a large piece of material and wasting the parts round the antlers or showing the figure the same size as other figures on the same piece of material but again I'm not really convinced. The artist of the Reims carving has got round that by having the antlers going off to the side and Cernunnos could have been the same size as Apollo and Mercury and they smaller to make the point of his eminence. I think the reason he is sitting is to emphasise his peaceful nature; it's difficult to fight when you're sitting down and that he is sitting shows he is not adopting an aggressive stance, unlike the bull-horned god. If you think of the association of ideas around bulls (and rams) and stags you can get an idea of the different character of the gods: stag->forest -> the wild, hunting -> food, fertility and bull ->fertility but aggression and, I think,competition between men/warriors(bull-fighting/leaping over the bull's horns), and war (think of bull horns on the helmets of warriors. I accept it might not be so easy to put stag-horns on helmets! but it just doesn't have quite the right associations either.) There are some common attributes and Ross thinks the two cults might have overlapped at some points. They are both related to Mercury which brings them together. (And I think it's possible that the figure of Lugus/Lugh combines characteristic of both types of horned gods - but more of that later.) Cernunnos is shown three-times flanked by Apollo and Mercury. David F-W sees the attributes as Apollo= light and healing opposed by Mercury = psychopomp leading the dead into the dark. But there could well be other meanings and it's an interesting suggestion that in a sense Cernunnos could evolve to take on some of Apollo's other artistic attributes. More of my thoughts on that later - must get on with it!
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Maponos
Jul 26, 2011 11:12:38 GMT -1
Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2011 11:12:38 GMT -1
Having read Hilaire's blog post on Cernunnos yesterday evening (http://musingsfromgellifach.blogspot.com/2011/07/concerning-cernunnos-part-one.html) I got to thinking. To my knowledge inscriptions to Cernunnos have only found so far on the continent and not many of them either. The attributes though of a being who deals with the places between, is very masculine and has links to hunter and hunted seem to me to be those we have been talking about with Maponus. Added to that I was at the museum at Vindolanda (http://www.vindolanda.com/) on Saturday and in it is a plaque with Maponus in a central position with Apollo on one site and Diana on the other. Which connects further with the ideas of Maponus as a god of in-between, in this case between masculine and feminine, solar and lunar as the obvious things that come to mind with Apollo and Diana. So could Maponos be the Brythonic equivalent of Cernunnos? To me this makes sense. I found the similarities when I was researching Cernunnos but further investigation made me think they weren't equivalent. What it does show, I think, as Alexei has said, is how important this boundary-crossing idea was to the Celtic theological imagination and it perhaps helps us to understand what the pre-Christian Celts thought important in their deities and how they related to them. Also, Celtic gods didn't have fixed attributes like Roman gods and so there is overlap and echoing of function between them (it reminds me of the interweaving in the artwork) - and some of it could be accounted for by different narratives or perspectives in different regions.
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Maponos
Aug 8, 2011 11:36:15 GMT -1
Post by dumnorix on Aug 8, 2011 11:36:15 GMT -1
This makes me think of Greek Hermes, Roman Mercury and Viking Loki - normally considered equivalents of Lugus... I have made three posts trying to equate Mabon and Lleu now so I'll stop before I get (myself and everyone) any more confused...
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Maponos
Aug 8, 2011 15:14:24 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Aug 8, 2011 15:14:24 GMT -1
From an intellectual level I can see it's suggestive that Lugus and Maponus might be the same but on an emotional/instinctual level I really don't like the idea at all. I wonder why??!
I think it's more or less agreed that the roman Mercury was 'modelled' on Hermes? And that Loki and Lugus are probably linguistically linked (not to mentions Loki's identification with Odin)?
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Maponos
Aug 9, 2011 12:31:39 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Aug 9, 2011 12:31:39 GMT -1
I think we might be in danger of too much conflation. what we have left over from the past is scraps, small bits and pieces and interpretations thereof. when we see a similarity between two we should be careful not to jump to the conclusion they are one and the same; there would been far more 'depth' to them in the past.
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