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prehistoric sites Quick reference
A Dictionary of English Folklore
... sites . Visible landscape features which seemed artificial, yet had no practical function and no known history, frequently feature in local legends . They are associated with the Devil , giants , fairies , and legendary heroes or wizards. Many are said to conceal treasures , or to be places where ritual actions (such as running round them) can raise ghosts . How much of all this was seriously believed, and how much merely repeated for fun, is hard to assess. See also BARROWS , STANDING STONES , CADBURY CASTLE , LONG MEG , MERRY MAIDENS , ...
Prehistoric mythology of the Neolithic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
... mythology of the Neolithic The first myths, those of the Paleolithic (“Old Stone Age”) and early Neolithic (“New Stone Age”) are, in the absence of written evidence, locked in mystery and can only be approached in a suppositional manner by way of archeology and comparison with later cultural expressions. Turning to the high Neolithic and the development of Indo-European and Middle Eastern myth, we can be more specific. And as we move into later periods we are on still more familiar ground, even as we remember that myths are often, in part, the...
Prehistoric mythology of the Paleolithic Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
... mythology of the Paleolithic It is impossible to be precise about the origins of mythology. The emergence of a toolmaking proto-human being, Homo habilis , occurred several million years ago and was followed by the more advanced Homo erectus , of whom remains dating from about 800,000 b.c.e. have been found in Europe. It is not until the middle of the Paleolithic, the period marked by the development of stone tools that coincides with the geological and climatological Pleistocene or Ice Age—that is, sometime after 500,000 and before 200,000 ...
ELF-SHOT Quick reference
A Dictionary of Superstitions
...the stone, but found the angles so sharp that they cut his hand. 1855 F. K. ROBINSON Whitby Glossary. Awfshots . Fairies are said to shoot at cattle, with small arrows headed with flint; hence those numbers found in the ploughed soil are accounted for, which belong to the prehistoric period of our island chronology. 1881 W. GREGOR North-East of Scotland 184. Flint arrows and spearheads went by the name of ‘faery dairts’ … and were coveted as the sure bringers of success, provided they were not allowed to fall to the ground. When an animal died suddenly...
Avebury Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
.... Largest prehistoric monument in Britain, in north Wiltshire, 6 miles W of Marlborough. The earthworks with standing stones date from pre-Celtic times, c. 4000–3000 bc . See Aubrey Burl , Prehistoric Avebury (New Haven, Conn., 1979); Michael Dames , The Avebury Cycle (London,...
Samguk Sagi Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
...Sagi and Samguk Yusa Collections of Korean myths and legends of prehistoric times, these two books were compiled by Buddhist monks. They contain epic tales of the founding of the Korean nation, sun and moon myths, and various Korean hero ...
Eildon Hills Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...1,327, 1,385, and 1,216 feet, in the Borders (formerly Roxburghshire) in south-eastern Scotland, especially rich in folkloric associations. Among the oldest are that both Fionn mac Cumhaill and Arthur are sleeping here, waiting to be recalled to action. They also contain prehistoric ruins of Celtic origin, including a cairn and a...
fairy dart Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...dart . Phrase used in Ireland to describe flint arrowheads found near raths , ring-forts constructed in prehistoric times; the Irish original for the phrase, gáe sídhe, ga sí (reformed), is rarely used. ‘Fairy dart’ is also the colloquial name for the unexplained swelling of joints, hands, and feet thought to have been caused by malevolent fairies throwing the darts at...
Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa Quick reference
A Dictionary of Asian Mythology
...Sagi and Samguk Yusa Collections of Korean myths ( see Korean Mythology ) and legends of prehistoric times, these two books were compiled by Buddhist ( See Buddhism ) monks. They contain epic tales of the founding of the Korean nation, sun and moon myths, and various hero...
Gimbutas, Marija Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
...Marija Marija Gimbutas has been the leading proponent of the theory of a goddess -dominated European prehistoric and Neolithic culture that was eventually overrun by 3500 b.c.e. by patriarchal Indo-Europeans . This culture would have been parallel to cultures that developed in the Middle East in such places as Hacilar and Çatal Hüyük...
Ordovices Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...[hammer fighters]. People of pre-Roman and Roman Wales, cited by the ancient geographer Ptolemy (2nd cent. ad ), whose territory extended from Herefordshire on the Welsh border to Anglesey . The gloss of their name may link them with the pre-historic stone-axe ‘factory’ at Graig Lwyd in Caernarvonshire. Tacitus (1st cent. ad ) describes a Roman campaign against the Ordovices, ad 59 , in which the legions were confronted with black-robed women with dishevelled hair like furies, brandishing torches. See Barry Cunliffe , Iron Age Communities in...
cromlech Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...[W crom , bent, bowed; llech , flat stone; Ir. crom , stooped; leac , flagstone]. Preferred Welsh and Cornish word for the pre-historic structure found in all Celtic countries consisting of a large flat stone supported by three or more upright stones; called dolmen in English descriptions of sites in Ireland and Brittany. The word ‘cromlech’ may also describe a dolmen of more circular construction. When the word is borrowed into French usage, it may also describe a squared or circular assemblage of dolmens, as at Carnac in Brittany...
Mot Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
...fertility god Baal , Mot is the god of death itself. His struggles with Baal represent the struggles in nature between periods of draught and those of productive growth. A limestone figurine known as the Venus of Willendorf (c. 24,000-22,000 B.C.E.) is but one example of the prehistoric Mother Earth deity. Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, New York. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna,...
Rape of the Sabine women Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
...of the Sabine women In the mythological days of prehistorical Rome , it is said that the supposed Roman founder, Romulus , and his followers solved the problem of a shortage of women by inviting the neighboring Sabines to a feast and then seizing and raping their women. This act led to a war between the early Romans and the Sabines, a war that ended with a truce and alliance arranged by the raped women themselves, who were now Roman wives and...
barrows Quick reference
A Dictionary of English Folklore
.... Prehistoric burial mounds commonly attract legends. The fact that they are graves was often correctly remembered (or guessed?), but the dating would be inaccurate—they might be linked to Vikings, medieval heroes, or men killed in the Civil War. Long barrows naturally suggested the idea of a giant's grave, as at Castlecarrock (Cumbria). The idea that fairies live inside them is much rarer in England than abroad, but see Willy Howe ; at Pixies' Mound at Stogursey (Somerset) it is said a passing ploughman once mended a broken tool for the pixies and was...
cup Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...third branch of the Mabinogi . The Welsh name Heilyn means ‘cup-bearer’. The prehistoric stone carvings containing distinctive ‘cup and ring’ symbolism do not appear to have Celtic associations, although they are found in all Celtic countries as well as throughout Europe and even outside Europe. R. W. B. Morris has studied the concentration of cup and ring carvings found at Achnabreck near Lochgilphead, Strathclyde (until 1974 , Argyllshire ), Scotland; see The Prehistoric Rock Art of Argyll (Poole, 1977 ). A more general study may be found in Evan...
Cerne Giant, the Quick reference
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
...Giant, the . Huge figure of a nude man cut in prehistoric times through turf to underlying chalk on a hillside near Cerne Abbas, 7 miles N of Dorchester, Dorset. Although of incalculable antiquity, the figure is often attributed to the British Celts who inhabited this region in pre-Roman times. The figure holds a club measuring 167 feet in his right hand and extends his left arm. Cut in 2-foot-wide ditches, the whole figure is 200 feet from top to bottom; his erect phallus measures 30 feet. In recent centuries the hill-side and figure itself were sites of...
Gogmagog (Europe) Quick reference
A Dictionary of World Mythology
...the giant figure cut into the chalk hills near Cambridge. Although the age and identity of this pre-Celtic figure remains a mystery, as do the other chalk-cut figures to be found in southern England, there can be little doubt that it was connected with the fertility rites of prehistoric religion. An Elizabethan edict actually forbade Cambridge undergraduates from attending festivities then held near Gogmagog; they were too lewd. The legend of giants in Britain is old. In his Historia Regum , written in the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth states that the...
Anubis Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
...Anubis (Anpu) was the jackal- headed Egyptian funerary god. He is above all the god of embalming and in prehistoric times had probably been responsible, given his jackal nature, for the destruction of corpses. He played an important role in the Egyptian concept of life after death, serving as an assistant in the underworld to the god-king Osiris , whom he had embalmed and thus made the first mummy. He not only conducted souls to the afterlife realm of Osiris; he served there as a judge of souls. It was said by some that Anubis was the son of Osiris...
Basque mythology Reference library
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology
...Basques, whose language and culture have survived defiantly into the present era and who inhabit the mountainous region between Spain and France, was greatly influenced by the mythologies of the Celts and the Romans , but also developed patterns familiar to students of the prehistoric Neolithic period. The existence of lamniaks , female figures with bird or fish characteristics, points back to the goddesses of Old Europe. An important Basque goddess is Mari, a rain deity associated, like many ancient goddesses, with a serpent husband. The Basque...
