CIVILIZATIONS
BEFORE ARYANS
1.
Civilizations before Aryans :
Here, we will try to understand the Matriarchist Cult which existed
before Aryans. The Nav Durga (9 forms of Goddess Durga) which is
present in Hinduism and celebrated during Navratri, serpent worship,
etc. is of Matriarchist Cult and not Aryans which we will see below.
According
to Lieutenant Colonel Laurence Austine Waddell :
The
Phoenician Origin of Britons, Scots, & Anglo-Saxons (1924 -
1st. edition)
Part-olon's
invasion of Ireland about 400 B.C. discovers first peopling of Ireland
and Albion in Stone Age by Matriarchst Van or Fen "Dwarfs"
Disclosing Van or "Fein" Origin of Irish Aborigines and
of their Serpent-Worship of St. Brigid and of the Matrilinear Customs
of the Irish and Picts.
"Two
score days before the Flood,
Came Ceasair into Erin . . . .
Ceasair, daughter of Bheata
The first woman Ban [Van ?] who came
To the Island of Ban-bha [Erin] before the Flood :"
Keating's Hist. of Ireland, 48 - 50.
In
searching the Irish-Scot traditional records for references to Part-olon
and his Phoenician invasion of Ireland, the relative historicity
of a considerable part of the Irish tradition for the remoter pre-historic
period, extending back to the Stone Age, becomes presumably apparent.
Although the old tradition, as found in the Books of Ballymote,
Lecan, Leinster, etc., is manifestly overlaid thickly with later
legend and myth by the medieval Irish bards who compiled these books
from older sources, and expanded them with many anachronisms and
trivial conjectural details, introduced by uninformed later bards
to explain fancied affinities on an etymological basis; nevertheless,
we seem to find in these books a residual outline of consistent
tradition, which appears to preserve some genuine memory of the
remote prehistoric period. This enables us, in the new light of
our discoveries in regard to Part-olon, to recover the outline of
a seemingly genuine tradition for the prehistory of Erin and Alban,
and for the first peopling of Erin in the hitherto dark prehistoric
period of the later Stone Age, in the nomadic Hunting Stage of the
early world before the institution of agriculture, marriage, and
the settled life.
Part-olon's invasion of Ireland (which, we have seen, occurred about
400 B.C.) is referred to in the Irish-Scot books as "the second"
of the great traditional waves of immigration which flowed into
that land. The first of these traditional waves of immigration into
Old Erin, in so-called pre-diluvian times, is of especial interest
and historical importance, as it seems to preserve a genuine memory
of the first peopling of Ireland in the prehistoric Stone Age.
This first traditional migration of people into Erin is significantly
stated in the Irish-Scot records, as cited in the heading, to have
been led by a woman, Ceasair or Cesair. This tradition of a woman
leader appears to me to afford the clue to the matrilinear custom
(or parentage and succession through the mother and not through
the father), which "Mother-right" according to the Irish
and Pict Chronicles, prevailed in early Erin (seelater). This custom
is admittedly a vestige of the primitive Matriarchy, or rule by
Mothers, which was, according to leading authorities, the earliest
stage of the Family in primitive society, in the hunting stage of
the Stone Age, when promiscuity prevailed in the primeval hordes
before the institution of Fatherhood and Marriage (see Fig. 20 for
archaic Hittite rock-sculpture of a matriarch).
This tradition, therefore, that the first immigrants to Ireland
were led by a woman is in agreement with what leading scientific
anthropologists have elicited in regard to primitive society, and
is, therefore, probably a genuine tradition. It is also in keeping
with the first occupation of Erin having occurred in the Neolithic
or Late Stone Age period (a period usually stated to extend from
about 10000 B.C. to about 1500 B.C. or later), as is established
by the archeological evidence in Ireland. It is also in agreement
with the physical type of the early aborigines of Hibernia, as elicited
by excavations, and of the bulk of the present-day population, who
are mostly of the dark, smaller-statured, long narrow-headed "Iberian"
or "Mediterranean" type (see Chapter XII.), as opposed
to the element of the tall fair Aryans, the Irish "Scots"
of Bede and other early writers, now presumably located mostly in
Ulster.
(1.
This chapter was written before the appearance of Prof. Macalister's
work on Ancient Ireland, and is in no way modified by the latter.
2 . Book of Invasions by Friar Michael O'Clery, 1627, based on Book
of Ballymote fol. 12, and Book of Leinster, etc. B.O.I., 14. etc.;
and K.H.I.J. 63)
![](images/mix/van.jpg)
FIG.
20 : A prehistoric Matriarch of the Vans (?) of the Stone Age. From
a Hittite rock-sculpture near Smyma.
(After Martin)
Note : The primitive type with low forehead and eyebrow ridges.
(1.
This rock-cut bust was carved at the entrance to a sacred grotto,
presumably of the Mother-cult, near the alpine village of Buja,
to east of Smyrna, and near Karabel, with its Hittite sculpturings.
Its drawing by A. Martin is given by Perrot (P.A.P. 68).
2. A.Y.E. 160 etc.; and V.D. 361.)
The
name of this first Matriarch of Erin, "Ceasair" appears
to be cognate with "Kvasir" of the Gothic Eddas, who was
the "wise man" of the sacred magic jar or cauldron, and
a hostage given by the Wans, Vans or "Fens" (presumably
the "Fene" or "Fein" title of the early Irish)
to the Goths. While the Matriarch of the Vans and priestess of the
cauldron, was herself the "wise-woman" or wizardess and
priestess of the Serpent and other demonist totemistic cults in
primitive times-cults which survived into the modern world as witchcraft.
This Matriarch Ceasair, or Cesara, is reported to have landed with
her horde at Dunn-m Barc or "The fort of the Barks or [Skin-]
Boats" now Duna-mark in Bantry Bay on the south-west coast
of Erin-the bay adjoining Part-olon's traditional landing place
at Scene in Kenmare Bay.
This name "Bantry Bay" means Bay of the Shore of the Bans
and is in series with "Fin-tragh Bay" or Bay of the Shore
of the Fins further north, in which "Ban" or "Fin"
appears to be an ethnic title of this matriarchist horde.
The next neighbouring town on the east is Ban-don or "Town
of the Bans" with a river of that name, which attests the great
antiquity of that title; and to its north is Ban-teer, and further
east along the south coast is Bann-ow River and the Bann River in
Wexford, which, we shall see, is associated with a stand made by
the tribe of this matriarch against later invaders, and the Boinne
or Boyne River on the east coast, admittedly named after the River-goddess
"Boann" with the old Irish epic town of Finn-abair (or
Fenn-or), and vast prehistoric dolmen tumuli at New Grange with
intertwined Serpent symbols, all presumably belong to this same
series of the Ban, Fen or Van horde, or its descendants.
Indeed, we find in Ptolemy's map of Ireland, drawn before 140 A.D.,
that the tribe inhabitating the south-west of Ireland, from Kerry,
where Cesair landed, and extending through Cork to Waterford were
still called by Ptolemy "Ioueoni-oi" (i.e. "Weoni"
or "Veoni," the Greeks having no W or V) which we shall
see is a dialectic variant of "Wan", "Van" or
"Ban". And the chief seat of Cesair's descendants at the
epoch of Part-olon's invasion of Erin, and where he defeated these
aborigines, was called "The plain of Itha" which was thus
presumably so named after "The plain of Ida" which in
the Gothic Eddas was the chief seat of the Van or Fen Matriarch
and her Serpent-worshipping dark complexioned dwarfs.
The name "Ban" or "Bean" by which this Irish
Matriarch as well as her country is called literally means in Irish
"Fian", "female" or "woman" and is
thus probably cognate with the matriarchist tribal title of Van
or Wan and Fene and its cognate is applied to the traditional aboriginal
dwarf people of both Ireland and Alban, who were popularly associated
in legends and myth with the Picts. It also seems to be the source
of the later popular term, "Fene" or "Fein"
for those claiming to be aboriginal Irish. Those primitive Fenes,
Fins or Bans appear, I think, to be clearly the primordial, aboriginal,
dark dwarf race "Van" or "Fen" in the Gothic
Edda Epics, who were the chief enemies of the Goths, in the solar
cult of the latter. And, significantly, this primitive dark race
of Van of "The plain of Ida" is called in the Eddas (which
I have found to be truly historical records of the rise of the Aryans)
"The Blue Legs" implying that they painted their skins
with blue pigment, which suggests that they were the primitive ancestors
of the "Picts" as they now are seen to be.
This same "Van" or "Ban" people, moreover, were
as we shall see clearly, at least in the later Stone Age, the early
aborigines of Alban or Britain. Their name survives widely in the
many prehistoric earth-work defensive ramparts and ditches over
the country, still known as "Wans' Ditch" or "Wans'
Dyke" used synonymously with Picts' Dyke".
(1. In addition to the Ban and Fin local names noted, it will
be seen in the text cited in heading that the whole of Ireland was
called "Ban-bha" or Ban the Good (?)".
2. 'M.F.P. passim.
3. "Blain legiom" in Volu-spa Edda, E.C. l. 20, and cf.
Ed. N., p.2, verse 9 and Ed. V.P., i, 1941, 38.
4. P.E.C. 3, p. xiii., notes that those Wans' Dykes which have been
excavated were "Roman" or "post-Roman" in the
cultural objects found. This, however, merely implies that these
prehistoric Wans' Dykes which are in best preservation occupied
such good strategic positions that they were utilized by the Romans
and in post-Roman times, just as we shall find the Romans utilized
old pre-Roman Briton roads, such as "Watling Street" by
repairing and appropriating them.)
This ancient ethnic name of "Wan" or "Ban" also
survives broadcast in many places in Britain especially in the neighbourhood
of these old Wan's Ditches and subterranean "Picts' Houses"
and the so-called, though erroneously so, "Early Briton settlements".
Instances of the survival of such ancient "Van" and "Ban"
names in Britain are cited below. In examining these series of the
ethnic name "Van" in different dialects we shall see the
dialectic equivalency of the labials B, P, F and V, and the interchange
of the latter with W, the OU or IOU of the Greeks, which are all
dialectic variations in spelling the same name, well recognized
by philologists.
[Instances of the survival of these "Van" and "Ban"
ethnic names in Britain are seen in the following :-Wan-stead near
Houndsditch east of London, Wands-worth, Fins-bury, Finchley, Banbury,
with its legend of "an old woman," Wantage, Wainfleet
on the Wash, Wensley, Winslow, Win-chester, the Venta or Vends of
the Romans, Win-chelsea, Windsor, Ventnor, Wendover, Windermere
with Wans' Fell Pike, numerous Ban-tons, Bangor or "Circle
of the Bans" on the Welsh coast, with so-called "Druid"
circles and its namesake on Belfast Loch, and Banchory in Aberdeenshire
with the same meaning and prehistoric "circles" and an
early seat of the Picts. And there are several Roman station names
at important pre-Roman towns and villages bearing the fore-name
of "Vindo" and "Venta" in series with Pent-land
as an ancient title for Mid-Scotland, surviving in the "Pent-land"
Hills of Lothian, and in the "Pent-land" Frith for the
sea-channel on the extreme north of Britain, which "Vent"
and "Pent," we shall see, is in series with "Vindia"
as an ancient title of a Western Van region in Asia Minor.
In Wales the famous "Van Lake" was until lately a place
of popular pilgrimage for the Welsh, and significantly it was sacred
to a fairy Lady of the Lake, presumably a deified Van matriarch-priestess;
and South Wales, in which it was situated, was called Vened-ocia
or Vent-uria (the Gwynned of the Welsh), and the ancient Briton
capital there, Caerleon, was called by the Romans "Venta Silurum"
and Gwent, i.e., "Went," was a title for the whole of
Wales. And the "Guenedota" or "Uenedota" of
Ptolemy appears to be Cumbria.
In North Britain also, in Roman times, were many stations at pre-Roman
towns bearing the prefix Vinda or Vindo, of which two were at the
Tyne end of Hadrian's Wall, which is sometimes called locally "The
Picts Dyke," namely at Vindo-bala in the line of the wall,
and Vindo-mora to its south and not far from the earth-works called
"Early Briton settlements" in Northumbria. In Ptolerny's
map, which from its practical accuracy remained the old navigating
map up till about the fifteenth century, are several important Ban,
Vin or Fin towns and peoples which have since lost that title.
Thus
inland from the Solway, a chief town of the Selgovte (who, we have
seen, were the "Siliks" or "Cilician Britons")
was named "Bantorigon" (with the prefix Kar, i.e. Caer=
"fort"). In the Frith of Clyde, or "Clota" of
Ptolemy's map, Vindogara appears to have been the ancient name of
Ayr or Ardrossan and Vanduara was the name of Paisley, where the
old local name for the Cart River on which it stands was Wendur
(or Gwyndwr. Banatia was the chief town inland between the Clyde
and Fife, and there are more than one Vinnovion. In modern times,
besides the survival of several Ban-tons. Findon or Findhorn, several
bays called Fintry, Loch Fin or Fyne, are the Pent-land Hills in
the Lothians, centring at Pennicuick, and on the extreme north the
"Pent-land Frith."]
These latter facts suggest that the whole of North Britain, from
at least the Lothians to Caithness, if not the whole of Britain,
had formerly been known as "The Land of the Pents, Venets,
Bans, Fins or Vans." Indeed, as we shall see later, the old
name for Ancient Britain as "Al-Ban" means probably "The
Rocky Isle of the Van or Ban."
The "Finn-men" pygmies also, in their skin-boats, of Orkney
and Shetland tradition and legend, who were the Peti (or "Picts")
dwarfs whom Harold Fair-hair is said to have exterminated in Shetland,
and who, according to local tradition, were the ancestors of the
small dark element in the Shetland population were obviously, I
think of this same prehistoric dwarf matriarchist race of Van or
Fen, of whom Cesair in the later Stone Age led a horde from Alban
into Bantry Bay and first peopled Ireland.
Similarly, stretching across the continent of Europe eastwards,
I find traces of the prehistoric presence and presumable routes
of migration for the east, of this primitive dark dwarf race of
Vans or Fens by the tracks left by their old ethnic title in place,
district and ethnic names, which have persisted many millenniums
after the primeval sway of these primitive Van hordes had been swept
away by countless later waves of new invading tribes of different
race and higher culture who dominated these primitive people, but
yet retained many of the old Van place-names containing that ethnic
title.
An early and presumably the original chief centre of dispersion
of the main horde of dwarf Vans in the Stone Age was, I find from
a mass of evidence which cannot be detailed here, the shores of
the inland sea or great Lake of Van in Armenia, on the west flank
of Ararat at an elevation of 5,200 feet above the sea (see map and
Fig. 21).
![](images/mix/fig21.jpg)
FIG.
21 : Van or "Biana" ancient capital of Matriarch Semiramis
and "The Children of Khaldis" on flanks of Ararat. (After
Miss Bishop)
(This
represents the modern city foun ded
on that of the Hittites and Greco-Romans)
Lake Van, which is about twice as large as the Lake of Geneva, was
traditionally the common head-water source of both the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotomia, until separated by a prehistoric
volcanic upheaval, and the local geological and topographical conformation
of those regions is in keeping with this tradition. The large town
of Van and its lake thus stands on the old land-bridge connecting
the three continents of Europe, Africa and Asia for Asia Minor is
west of the Caucasus, and in its flora and fauna, and also geologically,
is part of Europe rather than Asia proper.
Situated on the great immemorial trade-route running east and west
between Europe and Asia, it was traversed by Xerxes and his famous
Ten Thousand, and an actual inscription by that Persian emperor
on his hasty return from the Grecian campaign and Hellespont in
480 B.C. is engraved on the citadel rock there, showing the directness
of the route to Europe. And significantly the founding of the town
of Van is ascribed by Armenian tradition to Semiramis, that is,
the great legendary Queen-matriarch of prehistoric times. And this
part of Eastern Asia Minor was a centre of the Matriarchist cult
of the Mother-goddess and her "Galli" priestesses down
to the Greco-Roman occupation.
These matriarchist aborigines of Van, disclosed to be presumably
of the primitive stock of the pre-Aryan Fein, are called "Biani"
in the cuneiform inscriptions of their Hittite rulers about the
ninth century B.C. They are also called therein "The Children
of Khaldis," or "Children of the River" which title,
we shall find, is apparently the source of the names "Chaldee",
"Galatia" and "Kelt" and anthropologists find
that primitive men distributed themselves along the river-banks,
and were literally If Children of the River.
These Van or Biani were clearly, I find, the "Pani" aborigines
of the Indian Vedic hymns and epics who opposed the Early Aryans
in establishing their higher solar religion before the departure
of the eastern branch of the Aryans to India. They were possibly
also, I think, the remote prehistoric originals of the "Fan"
barbarians, as the Chinese still term generally the barbarous tribes
on the western frontiers of the Celestial Empire, as far at least
as Asia Minor, In physical appearance the primitive Vans, as the
"Pani" of the Vedas and epics, are described as "dark
or black-complexioned" and "demons of darkness" who
lived with their cattle in caves. They were presumably of the smallish-statured,
dark, long-headed "Dravidian" tribes of Indo-Persia, akin
to the Iberian type, and represented by the present-day nomadic
Yuruk and Gipsy tribes of Van and the adjoining region of Armenia,
as opposed to the modern "Armenians" in that region, who
are one of the intruding round-headed Semitic races which swept
into Asia Minor in later times, making it a medley of diverse races.
The westward line of migration, in the Stone Age period, of these
primitive hordes from this early centre at Lake Van, when scarcity
of food and pressure of over-population set them "hunger-marching,"
appears to be indicated, I think, by a more or less continuous chain
of their ethnic name left along the trail of their movements from
Lake Van westward, through Asia Minor to the Dardanelles and Bosphorus
and across Europe to Alban or Britain.
This
line of "Van" and "Khaldis" or "Galatia"
names extends along the Upper Euphrates to the Halys Valley of Cappadocia,
to Galatia and along the "Vindia" hills to Phrygia and
the old "Phrygian Hellespont" and Bosphorus and across
those straits along the Danube to Vienna and Austrian Galicia to
Fin-land and the southern shores of the Baltic and westwards to
Iberia and Iberian Galicia and Gaul, and thence to the British Isles.
Remains of an interesting survival of the warrens of these primitive
cave-dwelling Vans are found still tenanted at the present day,
on this westward route at Venasa (modern Hassa) to the west of the
crossing of the Halys River (Turkish, Kizil Irmak) and south west
of Casarea (or Kaisarie), in the south west of Cappadocia, on the
ancient trade route to the sea through the Cilician Gates of the
Taurus.
Here
in the great plain, studded with cliffs of soft dry volcanic rock,
an area of "about fifty miles each way" is honeycombed
with countless caves and subterranean branching burrows, resembling
generally the "Picts' houses" and the so-called, but wrongly
so, "Early Briton settlements" found in Britain.
These cave-dwellings and burrows in the Venasa district are still
occupied to the present day by swarms of a nomadic people commonly
known to Europeans as "The Troglodytes (or 'Cave-dwellers')
of Cappadocia. "These people live of choice in these old burrows,
like conies. They are reported by travellers to be in appearance
a race distinct from other modern races in Asia Minor, but have
not yet been examined by anthropologists. From the name of their
district "Venasa" and their cave-dwelling habits, they
are presumably an isolated detachment of the primitive Van horde,
which has become hemmed in and stranded by the passing tides of
alien invaders which have swept over that land in later ages, from
East and West. A recent visitor to these cavedwellers, Mr. Childs,
gives graphic descriptions of these people and their warrens, from
which the following account of one of the burrows is extracted :-
It, too, was honeycombed with passages and cells, of which some
had been exposed by weathering as in the cliff. While I looked at
this primitive dwelling, something moved in a hole close to the
ground, and the head of a chubby brown-faced child appeared. It
came out as much at home and unconscious of its surroundings as
a slum-child in an alley; but on seeing me drew back out of sight
with the startled manner and instant movement of a wild animal."
After such a picture of the subterranean lairs of the primitive
Van in "The Land of the Hittites," we can better understand
how the highly-civilized ruling Aryan race, the Hitto-Phoenicians,
living in fine timber-built houses above ground, should distinguish
themselves from the lowly aboriginal cave-dwellers by the epithet
"Mansion-dwellers" - Khilani or "Gyaolowonie".
The chain of Van names left by the various swarms of these Van hordes
of hunters in their progress westwards from the Van Lake region
of Asia Minor into Europe and up the Danube valley by Vienna and
its "Vanii regnum" or "Kingdom of the Vans"
and Wend-land of Germany to Fin-land, and westwards to Vannes, the
port of the Veneti in Brittany bordering AIban, seems evidenced
by the following amongst other such names, ancient and modern, surviving
even in regions where the dark Van dwarfish type is no longer prominent,
or has been swept away.
Vanand was the Greco-Roman name for the district between Van and
the Upper Halys at Sivas. Vanota was at the crossing of the Halys
near Caesareia on the border of Galatia, where St. Gregory wrote
his twentieth epistle and noted that the name "Vanota"
was not Greek, but native Galatian. In Galatia, Vindia on the old
Hittite royal road to Ephesus and the Bosphorus and Fanji. In Phrygia,
Oinia or Vinia and Panasios, and to the south Oionandos or Vinandos
in Cilicia, Bindeos in Pisidia, and Pinara in Lycia. On the Hellespont,
Banes with its lake on inner end (modern Bari), and Pionia in Troad
on flank of Mount Ida on Samnos River.
On
the Bosphorus, Pandicia or Pantichion, the first stage on ancient
road from Rum (or Constantinople) to Asia Minor and all in the traditional
area of the Matriarchic Mother-cult and "Amazons".
Across Europe from the Hellespont and Bosphorus, up the Danube valley,
the undoubted Van names in various dialectic forms are especially
abundant. Wien or Vienna, the Vindo-bona of the Romans with its
"Vanii Regnum" or "Kingdom of the Vans" still
preserves the name of its original settlers. To its south is Veni-bazar
in Albania, and in Roman times the Vennones and Pannonii tribes
of the Vindelici race, which included the Briganti (i.e. Phrygian
Vans), peopled the Upper Alpine Danube to the Rhine. "North
of Vienna along the Upper Danube was located the old Wend tribe,
extending across Austrian Galicia and Bohemia to Eastern Germany,
with several "Vend" place-names, to the Baltic opposite
Fin-land. And, regarding the latter name, it now appears possible
that the modern stigma attaching to the name "Fin" may
be owing to an old tradition based on the forgotten memory of the
lowly origin and status of the race formerly bearing that name.
(1.
The old Greco-Roman records for Asia Minor, derived from Ramsay's
Historical Geography (R.H.G.), are mostly those of ancient Byzantine
bishoprics and important mission stations.
2. R.H.G. 290, who finds that that district extended from Kars to
Sebasteia (Sivas).
3. lb. 288. 4. lb. 142. 5. lb. 226 and 405. 6. lb. 144. 7. lb. 386.
8. lb. 159, etc. 9. lb. 155. 10. S. 206: 4, 6, 8.
11. There are now two racial types in Fin-land, the tall, fair,
long-headed Aryan type, and the short, darker, round-headed Slav
or "Alpine [Swiss]" type, neither of whom are of the dark,
long-headed type of the Van dwarfs who were of the Dravidian or
"Iberian" type.)
The whole southern coast of the Baltic from Sarmatia westwards to
Denmark was occupied by the Venedse and Vindili tribes (with a sound
bearing the name Venedicus). In Iberia also the Viana port on the
Linia river and another Viana in the Eastern Pyrenees may possibly
preserve this ethnic name. Similarly may the Vienne and Ventia on
the Rhone, Vanesia in Aquitania, retain that name and clearly so
Vannes, the capital of the Veneti of Brittany in Gaul, who gave
Ceesar so much trouble and who were tributaries or allies of the
Britons.
Their
capital is significantly the site of vast prehistoric dolmens and
menhirs, a class of funereal monuments which was prevalent amongst
the later Vans or Feins and their descendants in the British Isles
under Briton rule.
Into Alban, latterly called "Britain" these nomad hunting
hordes of primitive Matriarchist "dwarfs" from Van probably
began to penetrate before the end of the Old Stone Age, as the receding
glaciers withdrew northwards from the south of what is now called
England and uncovered new land.
They appear to have been the small-statured prehistoric race whose
long-headed skulls (see Fig. 22) are found in the ancient river-bed
deposits and caves, associated with weapons and primitive "culture"
of the Old Stone Age, and also in some of the long funereal "barrows"
of the New Stone or Neolithic Age, which latter is generally held
to have conunenced in North-western Europe about 10000 B.C.
The first hordes of these Van "dwarfs" probably crossed
from Gaul by the old land-bridge which still connected AIban with
the continent. They appear to be presumably the oldest inhabitants
of Alban (excluding the few stray earlier forms of taller and broader-browed
man of whom traces have been found in the south of England in the
older Stone Age period) and so may perhaps be practically regarded
as the aborigines of Alban, Indeed, the name "Alban" seems
to me possibly coined from their ethnic name Van, Bian or Ban, with
the prefix Al, as Ail in Celtic means "Rock" cognate with
Chaldee al, ili, ala "high mount" aspect of North Britain,
at least, which impressed Scott in his well-known lines :
"O Caledonia ! stern and wild, Land of the mountain and the
flood."
And "Alban" for long remained a popular title for Scotland,
after "England" had replaced "AIban" or "Albion"
for South Britain. Many millenniums must have elapsed after their
arrival in Alban, before the small herds of such primitive dwarf
nomads filtered through the river-valleys of Alban and into the
enlarging northern land left by the retiring glacial climate and
rising beaches. And many more millenniums must have elapsed before
such a rude land-people, under pressure from behind by succeeding
waves of fresh herds from the continent, would venture to migrate
to Ireland across the sea, which would however be narrower at that
period. When ultimately hard pressed and hemmed in by enemy clans
against a narrow sea-board, it is conceivable that a small horde
of these Matriarchists, seeking escape from annihilation, may have
ventured out to sea in their small skin-boats for refuge in outlying
islands, and eventually reached Erin.
And such were probably the circumstances, I think, under which the
Matriarch Cesair and her herd reached Bantry Bay in Erin in the
later Neolithic Age, where, safe from hostile pressure, they naturally
would name that island "The Good Ban Land," (Ban-bha).
(1. Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel, vi, 2.
2. From the traditional landing place being on the south-west corner
of Erin, it is possible that she and her herd started from Vannes
on the western coast of Brittany or Lands End but more probably
from Wales.
3. "Dagda" is usually rendered "the good hero"
from Celtic dag. "good" but it seems to me more probably
to be derived from daig "fire, flame")
The
first of these Ban or Van or Fene Matriarchs in Ireland, Cesair,
presumably brought with her to Ban-try Bay or "The Bay of the
Shore of the Bans," the two especially sacred fetishes of the
Van Matriarchist Serpent-cult, the Magic Oracle Bowl or Witches
Cauldron (Coirean Dagdha or "Churn of Fire" of the Irish
Celts), and Fal's Fiery Stone (Lia Fail of the Irish Celts).
These
fetishes figure freely in the later Irish legends and myths, although
they do not appear to be expressly mentioned until a later period,
after Part-olon's invasion, when they are in the hands of a later
branch of the same Serpent-cult people called "The tribe of
the goddess Danu" (Tuatha de Danaan), who, significantly also
are stated to have migrated to Ireland from Alban.
This tradition of the existence of these two Matriarchist Van fetishes
amongst the prehistoric Feins in Ireland is of great importance
for the origin of the prehistoric Serpent cult in Ireland, and it
affords additional proof of the identity of the prehistoric Fein
Matriarchist immigrants into Ireland with the prehistoric Matriarchist
Van or Fen dwarfs of the Van district of Asia Minor, as described
in the Gothic Eddas.
These Gothic epics-which, after detailed analysis, I find to be
truly historical Aryan records of the establishment of the First
Civilization in the World-make frequent reference to the use of
the Magic Oracle Bowl or Witches' Cauldron for divination as a special
utensil of the Serpent-worshipping Matriarchists in Van and Asia
Minor and Chaldea. This magic bowl was especially associated with
Kvasir, the namesake of Cesair, as already noted. And Fal's Fiery
Stone was the materialized thunderbolt of the Dragon serpent of
Lightning, and the invincible magical weapon of Baldr, the son-consort
and champion of the Van Matriarch in the Eddas and his exploits
therein as the champion of the Matriarch correspond generally with
those of his namesake Fal in the Irish legends. This identity of
the Irish Fal with the Van leader Baldr of the Eddas is further
seen in the frequent title of the champion of the Irish Feins as
"Balor of the Evil Eye".
So
intimately was Fal identified with the early Ireland of the Feins
that Erin was called "Fal's Isle" (Inis Fail) and "Fal's
Hill" was the title of the sacred hill at the ancient capital,
Tara.
(1. In the later Irish legends Fal's Stone, essentially a missile,
is made to be a fetish oracle, which cries out on the Coronation
Day of the Celtic kings, and hence is supposed to be the Coronation
Stone carried by the Scots from Ireland to Scone and afterwards
taken to Westminster, as "The Coronation Stone". See Skene
"The Coronation Stone".)
This early introduction of the Serpent-cult and its fetishes into
Ireland in the Stone Age by these Matriarchist Vans now explains
for the first time the real origin of the numerous traces of Serpent-cult
in Ireland and Alban in prehistoric and early historic times-the
many prehistoric sculptured stones carved with effigies of Serpents,
the interlacing Serpent-coils as a decorative design on prehistoric
stone monuments and on monuments of the Early Christian period,
and the numerous references to Serpents and Dragons in Ireland and
Alban in the early legends.
It
also explains the tradition that "St. Patrick-the-Cat"
(or Khatti or Scot) banished Snakes from Ireland by the Cross, or
in other words banished the old Matriarchist Serpent-worship by
introducing there the Religion of the Cross in 433 A.D. The later
title also of "Brigid" (or "Bridget") for the
female patron saint of the Irish and the Picts, which is usually
supposed to have arisen with a more or less mythical Christian nun
in Ireland, who is supposed to be buried in the same tomb as St.
Patrick, is now seen to be obviously the transformed and chastened
aboriginal old matriarch wizardess who in the Gothic Eddas is called
Frigg, or Frigg-Ida, the "Mother of the Wolf of Fen" of
the pre-Gothic or pre-Aryan aborigines of Van. Brigid is still given
precedence as a "wise one" or wizardess over St. Patrick
in the eleventh century "Prophecy of St. Berchan" :-
"Erin shall not be without a wise one After Bhrigde and St.
Patrick."
Her alternative title also as "St. Bride" is confirmatory
of this origin, as "Bride" was a usual title for Mother
Frigg and her wizardess sisterhood priestesses in the Eddas. These
sister wizardesses are often collectively called in the Eddas "The
Nine Mothers" or "The Nine Maidens" and are described
in the Welsh and other Celtic legends as "The Nine Witches
of Gloster" feeding with their breath the Fire in the Cauldron
of Hell. This now accounts for the many prehistoric monoliths and
series of nine standing stones, called "Maiden" Stones
or "The Nine Maidens" still standing in many parts of
Ireland and Britain.
These
Maiden Stones symbolized the old Van Matriarchs, who are called
"The Nine Mothers" in the Eddas, and who were afterwards
idealized into Virgin Mothers and accorded divine honours by their
Van votaries. And their idol-stones are often decorated with effigies
of the Serpent.
This now appears to explain the prehistoric Van origin of the "Maiden
Stones" of the pre-Aryan period, so numerous throughout the
land as, for instance, "The Maiden Stone" standing at
the foot of Mt. Bennachie to the west of the Newton Stone, and also
"The Serpent Stone" monolith with large sculptured Serpent,
which stood not far from the site of the Newton Stone, and now placed
alongside the latter.
It also accounts for the first time for the frequency of the name
"Bride" in early Christian Celtic Church names in Scottish
Pict-land as well as Ireland, as "Kil-Bride" or "Church
of Bride". It now becomes apparent that on the introduction
of Christianity into Britain the old pagan Matriarchist goddess
"Brigid" or "Bride" of the aborigines was for
proselytizing purposes admitted into the Roman Catholic Church and
canonized as a Christian saint, and appropriate legends regarding
her invented.
The descendants of the Irish Matriarch Cesair and her horde appear
to have been called Fomor or Umor. This seems evidenced by the tradition
that Cesair's was the first migration of people into Ireland and
that the second was that of Part-olon, and that the latter was opposed
by the ferocious tribe of "demons" called Fomor.
(1. Also written Ughmor, K.H.I., 68., etc.; and see R.H.L.,
583.
2. The Fomors have been conflictingly called both "giants"
and "dwarfs under the sea" by different Celtic scholars
seeking conjecturally for a meaning of the name by means of modern
Aryan-Celtic speech, but these meanings are admittedly mere guesses.
See R.H.L., 591.)
The tribal name "Fomor" has been attempted to be explained
by conjectural Celtic etymologies variously as "Giants"
and conflictingly as "Dwarfs under the Sea". "Fomor"
I find, however, is obviously a dialectic variant of the name of
a chief of a clan of the dwarf tribes of the Vans, called in the
Gothic Eddas "Baombur" and it is noteworthy that these
dwarf tribes were of the race of "The Blue [painted] Legs,"
that is, presumably, the primitive, painted Picts. It is probably
a variant also of the name "Vimur" which occurs in the
Eddas as the name of the river-the Upper Euphrates, the modern "Murad"
which separated the Van territory from that of the Goths, and the
ford at which was the scene of battles between the Goths and the
Vans, presumably the seat of Baombar and his tribe.
![](images/mix/rivermurat.jpg)
River
Murat
These Fomors, who opposed Part-olon on his landing in Ireland, are
reported to have been ferocious "demons" and significantly
they were led by an ogre and his Mother. This is clearly a memory
of the Mother-Son joint rulership of Matriarchy, wherein the favourite
son-paramour, who in the Eddas is called Baldr, was the champion
of the Matriarch and her tribe for offensive and defensive purposes.
This
Fomor son-leader was called "The Footless" which is a
designation of the Serpent, and there are references to the Fomors
and their allies having Serpents and Dragons as their defenders.
Significantly also he is frequently called in the later records
of the Fomors by the name of "Balor of the Evil Eye" which
equates with the title Baldr, the son-champion of the earlier Van
Matriarch, and the "Fal of the Fiery Stone" weapon.
That these Fomors of the primitive horde of dark, dwarfish "Khaldis"
or Bans, Vans or Fens, under the Matriarch Cesair, who first peopled
Erin in the Stone Age, were and continued to be the real aborigines
of Ireland, and were the ancestors of the later "Fenes"
seems evidenced by the fact that they appear and reappear in all
the accounts of the invasions subsequent to Part-olon's invasion,
as the resisters of the various intruding invaders. Their leader
also continued to bear the old Van champion's title of "Balor
of the Evil Eye" in the legendary accounts of the later invasions.
Thus he is made to oppose even so late an invasion as the fifth,
by "The Tribe of the goddess Danu" with the Serpent-cult
fetishes, which show them to be a later horde of the same common
stock. This affinity indeed is evident, apart from the Serpent fetishes,
by the name of their champion being "Lug" that is, "Loki"
one of the Vans and the arch-enemy of the Goths in the Eddas and
also called "The Wolf of Fen" (i.e., Van) and his fatal
weapon in Ireland as "Lug" was significantly, as in the
Eddas, a "Sling Stone."
(1.
Vole-spa Edda Codex Regius, p. i, l. 24.
2. See previous references on p. 95.
3. Ed.N. 313. "Farma-Tyr" or "Farma of the Arrow"
a title of Wodan as the opponent of the Goths, may also be a dialectic
variant of the same name "Fornor".
4. K.H.I., 68, etc.
5. "The Footless" - Cichol Gri cen Chos in text cited
by R.H.L., 583.
6. R.H.L., 641.)
The old Matriarchist Serpentine-cult of Van appears to have persisted
in Ireland, even when it was called "Scotia" as the popular
cult of the Feins down to the epoch of St. Patrick in 433 A.D.,
notwithstanding the contemporary existence of Sun-worship amongst
the ruling race of Scots, with their legendary solar heroes, Diarmait
and Conn-the-Fighter-of a-Hundred. The chief idol of Ireland which
St. Patrick demolished by his Cross is described as "The Head
[idol] of the Mound" and it is identified as the idol of Fal
of the Fiery Stone, that is, the son-champion of the serpent worshipping
Matriarchist Fomors, "Balor of the Evil Eye".
These "Fomor" or Ban, Wan, Van, Fen or Fein aborigines
of Ireland, dark, dwarfish "Iberians" who seem to have
arrived in Erin from Albion in the late Stone Age, some time before
2000 B.C., now appear to have been presumably of the same race as
the dwarfish aborigines of Albion, who were called by the Romans
"Picts" or "The [Blue] Painted" and who, we
know, were, like the Feins, of primitive Matrilinear and Matriarchist
social constitution. And we have seen that the "Fomor"
were presumably the prehistoric dwarfish "Baombur" aborigines
of Van, who were described by the Aryan Gothic Eddas as of the race
of "The Blue (Painted) Legs".
This now confronts us with the further great and hitherto unsolved
problems: "Who were the Picts?" and "What was the
relationship of the Picts to the aborigines of Alban, Albion or
Britain?" -questions, the answers to which form an essential
preliminary to the discovery of the date of the introduction of
civilization into Britain and of the racial agency by which that
civilization was effected.
![](images/mix/fig21a.jpg)
F1G.
21 A : Sun-Eagle triumphs over Serpent of Death
From
the reverse of a pre-Christian Cross at Mortlach (of St. Moloch)
Banff with "Resurrcecting Spirals" on face. See later.
(After Stuart I. pl. 14)
Note : The serpent is of the British adder type