Skinchanger Zombies: Jon, the Last Hero, and Coldhands

[ravenous reader]

9 hours ago, LmL said:

Thanks for spending your precious time with all of these great comments, I am always excited to see a "RR commented on your thread" notification  This is a great one!!

Thanks for your compliments.  You can be quite charming when you're not 'bemoaning and agroaning' about me derailing your celestial focus...well, actually I enjoy your latter laments as well, on occasion, since it spurs me on to new and cheeky heights of Patchface poetry...

9 hours ago, LmL said:

OK. This is really cool. I think I am on board, but here's the problem with that: the lion is usually solar. The pelt reminds Dany of Drogo, obviously a solar character. That's not an insurmountable problem, but it has to be addressed.

I agree, this is the main flaw in the 'theory.'  Do you think GRRM is adhering to classical mythological schema as religiously as sweetsunray suggests?  

Given that he's fond of subverting the gender roles and mixing it up, so that you can't always tell 'one from the other', why couldn't a traditionally solar figure be a moon?  In that quote you referenced, Asha the lunar figure dons a fur around her shoulders (analogous to to Dany's hrakkar 'mane') and mounts Qarl the Maid-- in effect, she's 'solarised' and he's 'lunarised'...

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A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

Asha draped the furs across her bare shoulders and mounted him, drawing him so deep inside her that she could not tell who had the cock and who the cunt. This time the two of them reached their peak together.

Little bit of trivia:  Lion societies are matriarchal.  The lionesses in the pride (usually sisters or other close relatives) do most of the work -- i.e. the hunting and killing.  And they do this at night, which is a lunar not solar province.

[LmL]

49 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Thanks for your compliments.  You can be quite charming when you're not 'bemoaning and agroaning' about me derailing your celestial focus...well, actually I enjoy your latter laments as well, on occasion, since it spurs me on to new and cheeky heights of Patchface poetry...

I agree, this is the main flaw in the 'theory.'  Do you think GRRM is adhering to classical mythological schema as religiously as sweetsunray suggests?  

Given that he's fond of subverting the gender roles and mixing it up, so that you can't always tell 'one from the other', why couldn't a traditionally solar figure be a moon?  In that quote you referenced, Asha the lunar figure dons a fur around her shoulders (analogous to to Dany's hrakkar 'mane') and mounts Qarl the Maid-- in effect, she's 'solarised' and he's 'lunarised'...

Little bit of trivia:  Lion societies are matriarchal.  The lionesses in the pride (usually sisters or other close relatives) do most of the work -- i.e. the hunting and killing.  And they do this at night, which is a lunar not solar province.

Are you saying the Lion of Night is really a lioness of night? That's interesting because the GEOTD has it the opposite - the Maiden Made flight is the bright day sun, and the lion of night is the night sun. The MMOL hides her face during the Long Night, while the LoN comes out to ravage. 

To answer your question, no, I don't think George is overly constrained to much of anything, and you can always find a myth where shit is 'reversed' form the classical patterns anyway. I don't throw the classic ideas out wholesale or easily though - a lion really is about as distinctly solar an animal as there is. Everyone gets that one. So if we are to associate the lion with the ice moon, we need some strong clues... but that's kind of what you found. 

I don't necessarily agree Asha is solarized, however - she is the wandering bride, which is a moon thing. She plays the moon role in no less than 5 metaphors in this one chapter (I've broken it down extensively).  I think it's probably more accurate to say that seeing the mane on a distinctly lunar character like Asha is actually a point in favor of lunar lions. However I guess you could see it as similar to Dany's moments of maleness during the alchemical wedding.  

As I was saying, I have previously interpreted this scene as Asha, Qarl, and Tris all symbolizing three parts of one moon which is broken apart in this chapter, just as the MMOL and LoN represent a solar duality. But now I am reconsidering. Asha, as I said, is definitely a fire moon maid. Qarl is a maid too, and a pale one, so he seems like a moon, and there's the line about Asha, Qarl, and Tris all running away together, and another instance where Asha and either Tris or Qarl fight in the woods back to back, and Asha thinks about them both getting skewered against a tree together. But perhaps this is a fire moon ice moon thing, with the pale maid, Qarl, being the ice moon, and Asha, with her course black hair and Black Wind / Ironborn symbolism, is the fire moon meteor lodging in Qarl, at least in that part of the scene. I'll have to go re-read the chapter again (one of my favs). It's so dense with symbolism - like a forest, really - that it bears a lot of scrutiny.

If Asha is the fire moon meteor being inserted into Qarl, then this act also symbolizes the black meteor skinchanging the ice moon.. so perhaps Asha's fur on her shoulders symbolizes wearing skins as she mounts him. 

[LmL]

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

The Norse-Germanic solar goddesses were Aine and Graine, with Aine the summer sun and Graine the winter sun. It's not surprising that Northern European mythologies would make a distinction between the two, because the summer sun barely sets in summer, whereas the winter sun barely rises in winter, and is thus certainly an underworldly sun, like the Egyptian night sun - except that with the Egyptians the underworld sun is a nightly sun, but with the Norse it's a seasonal underworld sun as it would be night almost for weeks if not months depending your northern position.

Anyway, there is certainly logic behind having dual sun symbols as much as there for having dual evenstart/morningstar symbolism. And this could not be just expressed in the color of the lion symbol (pale or dark), but for the Egyptians Re becomes Re-Atun in the underworld most of the time and has a ram's head, or the old-man figure with a cane. Atun was the creator of the world for the Egyptians, but when he was old he had grown so weary he wished to destroy his creation. 

Right on, that's exactly what I am talking about, and thanks for those great examples. The pale sun works well for a seasonally week sun, such as in the far north, while the idea of an inverted or dark sun is more apt to he idea of the sun during the nighttime. During the Long Night the sun would have been barely visible through purple grey clouds, so you might have seen the disk from time to time, but darkly. The sun underground is the "cave of night" where the sun goes to hide, and this ties in to both ideas. The Sun of Winter white star of the Karstarks is on a black field, after all, which suggests an underground sun, or a sun to weak to dispel the darkness. They are kind of overlapping ideas, both of which are suggested in ASOIAF.

As for the lion question, and this is to @ravenous reader as well, it may be that the sun / mane symbolism simply denotes being on fire. If a moon catches on fire, it's like a sun. If it drinks the fire of the sun, it becomes a second sun. If and when the comet returns and hits the ice moon, it will indeed light up the sky for "half a heartbeat," just as the lightning strikes turn darkness into day for half a heartbeat. This would be the white lion, the ice moon lit up with solar fire, and this is when our white lion would give birth to lionstar children. 

The lion and it's mane are a match for the fire of the sun, the rays projecting outward, so it kind of makes sense that a moon that drinks the sun's fire and catches on fire would become an honorary lion. 

[Bluetiger]

12 hours ago, LmL said:

Damn, now you got me. Where is @Blue Tiger???

Here I am, busy and tired, but still full energy when it comes to discussing mythology and astronomy.

I don't have anything new, just one thing I knew for a while - I found it while, surprise surprise, researching certain things for my own writing.

From Wikitionary, the etymology of mane (as in lion's mane):

From Middle English mane, mayne, from Old English manu ‎(“mane”), from Proto-Germanic *manō ‎(“mane”), from Proto-Indo-European *mony-, *mon- ‎(“neck”). Cognate with Dutch maan, manen ‎(“mane”), German Mähne ‎(“mane”), Swedish man ‎(“horse's mane”), Icelandic mön ‎(“mane”).

and måne:

From Old Norse máni ‎(“the moon”), from Proto-Germanic *mēnô, from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s ‎(“moon, month”). See also måned.

 So we have yet another wordplay - moon = mane.

So Dany's horse supports her role as moon maiden:

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And last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to her. An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the camp as he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the whole khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers parted before him, and he led the horse to her.

She was a young filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.

Hesitantly she reached out and stroked the horse's neck, ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said something in Dothraki and Magister Illyrio translated. "Silver for the silver of your hair, the khal says."

 

And here we get another moon destruction metaphor:

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Dany had named him the first of her Queensguard . . . and when Mormont's gruff counsel and the omens agreed, her course was clear. She called her people together and mounted her silver mare. Her hair had burned away in Drogo's pyre, so her handmaids garbed her in the skin of the hrakkar Drogo had slain, the white lion of the Dothraki sea. Its fearsome head made a hood to cover her naked scalp, its pelt a cloak that flowed across her shoulders and down her back. The cream-colored dragon sunk sharp black claws into the lion's mane and coiled its tail around her arm, while Ser Jorah took his accustomed place by her side.

 

and this:
 

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The last thing Theon Greyjoy saw was Smiler, kicking free of the burning stables with his mane ablaze, screaming, rearing . . .

 

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"Lord Dustin and I had not been married half a year when Robert rose and Ned Stark called his banners. I begged my husband not to go. He had kin he might have sent in his stead. An uncle famed for his prowess with an axe, a great-uncle who had fought in the War of the Ninepenny Kings. But he was a man and full of pride, nothing would serve but that he lead the Barrowton levies himself. I gave him a horse the day he set out, a red stallion with a fiery mane, the pride of my lord father's herds. My lord swore that he would ride him home when the war was done.

 

And Ser Daven (maybe after the death of Starks - ice moon, now the time comes for the fire moon - Lannisters)

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"This? Mere stubble, against that mane of yours, coz." Ser Daven's bristling beard and bushy mustache grew into sidewhiskers as thick as a hedgerow, and those into the tangled yellow thicket atop his head, matted down by the helm he was removing. Somewhere in the midst of all that hair lurked a pug nose and a pair of lively hazel eyes. "Did some outlaw steal your razor?"

"I vowed I would not let my hair be cut until my father was avenged." For a man who looked so leonine, Daven Lannister sounded oddly sheepish. "The Young Wolf got to Karstark first, though. Robbed me of my vengeance." He handed his helm to a squire and pushed his fingers through his hair where the weight of the steel had crushed it down. "I like a bit of hair. The nights grow colder, and a little foliage helps to keep your face warm. Aye, and Aunt Genna always said I had a brick for a chin." He clasped Jaime by the arms. "We feared for you after the Whispering Wood. Heard Stark's direwolf tore out your throat."

 

Cerei is the fire moon maiden?

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She will never wash the stain away, no matter how hard she scrubs. Ser Kevan remembered the girl she once had been, so full of life and mischief. And when she'd flowered, ahhhh … had there ever been a maid so sweet to look upon? If Aerys had agreed to marry her to Rhaegar, how many deaths might have been avoided? Cersei could have given the prince the sons he wanted, lions with purple eyes and silver manes … and with such a wife, Rhaegar might never have looked twice at Lyanna Stark. The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled, though however bright a torch might burn it could never match the rising sun.

 

[LmL]

6 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Here I am, busy and tired, but still full energy when it comes to discussing mythology and astronomy.

I don't have anything new, just one thing I knew for a while - I found it while, surprise surprise, researching certain things for my own writing.

From Wikitionary, the etymology of mane (as in lion's mane):

From Middle English mane, mayne, from Old English manu ‎(“mane”), from Proto-Germanic *manō ‎(“mane”), from Proto-Indo-European *mony-, *mon- ‎(“neck”). Cognate with Dutch maan, manen ‎(“mane”), German Mähne ‎(“mane”), Swedish man ‎(“horse's mane”), Icelandic mön ‎(“mane”).

and måne:

From Old Norse máni ‎(“the moon”), from Proto-Germanic *mēnô, from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s ‎(“moon, month”). See also måned.

 So we have yet another wordplay - moon = mane.

Ok, that's really good. The moon has a right to mane as well, and it's no mystery why - the lunar halo looks like a mane when conditions are right. But it's a white mane, hence the white lion = moon or moon on fire. The red horse of Dustin also ties to the fire moon, I think, as House Dustin has the rusted black iron crown thing going on, red, yellow and black coloring, etc. Can't be sure of that though. But the point remains - the idea of a mane seems to refer to a fiery nimbus or halo, which can be worn by sun or moon. 

6 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

So Dany's horse supports her role as moon maiden:

 

And here we get another moon destruction metaphor:

 

and this:
 

Smiler is a black horse, so he would be a fire moon symbol. Theon sees that right before the lights go out, he's knocked form his horse, etc. But the pale mare - that's a horse of another color, ha ha. Again I say the point is that the main is a fiery nimbus, and that can go around sun or either moon. 

6 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

 

And Ser Daven (maybe after the death of Starks - ice moon, now the time comes for the fire moon - Lannisters)

 

Cerei is the fire moon maiden?

 

Ok, so the Lannisters are mysterious. A red and golden lion symbol, that's solar, right? They also have the eyes of green fire - Cersei especially - which suggests greenseeing, at least symbolically (especially Tywin's green eyes flecked with gold).  Joanna plays a fire moon role if she was impregnated by Aerys, producing a gargoyle dragon person, Tyrion. But Jaime is turning into the white lion, as Ravenous Reader said. And there's a lot of coldness form team Lannister as well, both Tywin an Cersei. Also... hands of gold are always cold. 

So I am not sure whether symbolize as a family, or if their entire family can be categorized. It might be more of an individual thing, or perhaps they are all children of the sun who go different ways. As I said, Rhaegar and Lyanna at Harrenhall mimic the impregnation of the ice moon, the covering of the fire moon meteor by the ice moon, and this is where Jamie is covered in snow white armor, so Jaime is showing is the sun which fertilizes the fire moon and becomes a black meteor, only to land in the ice moon. It may be that Cersei is an ice moon person as well - remember the ice moon catches on fire too - and Jaime fucking her is like the fire moon lodging in the ice moon, over and over. Cersei is the one who maneuvered to cover Jaime in a white cloak after all.

[LmL]

A Merry Christmas and a hearty "OH OH OH" to you and yours! Part 3 is is unleashed, just in time for your holiday travel time.

Sacred Order of Green Zombies 3: The Long Night's Watch

[cgrav]

Only fitting that the latest episode concerning pagan Corn king wicker man mythology would be released on the solstice.

 

edit: can't wait to listen to this during my burnt offering ceremony

[LmL]

13 minutes ago, cgrav said:

Only fitting that the latest episode concerning pagan Corn king wicker man mythology would be released on the solstice.

INDEED, I was hoping someone would notice... and there's a special XMAS tidbit in there on Krampus, St. Nick, etc., for which I thank @Pain killer Jane and @ravenous reader for.. HO HO HO indeed. 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

A Merry Christmas and a hearty "OH OH OH" to you and yours! Part 3 is is unleashed, just in time for your holiday travel time.

Sacred Order of Green Zombies 3: The Long Night's Watch

You are such a prolific writer; I can hardly keep up with you!  Look forward to reading it. 

35 minutes ago, LmL said:

49 minutes ago, cgrav said:

Only fitting that the latest episode concerning pagan Corn king wicker man mythology would be released on the solstice.

INDEED, I was hoping someone would notice... and there's a special XMAS tidbit in there on Krampus, St. Nick, etc., for which I thank @Pain killer Jane and @ravenous reader for.. HO HO HO indeed. 

You're welcome.  Have you seen the poem Shadows by D.H. Lawrence which I posted on my 'poetry thread' to commemorate the solstice and some of the themes we've been discussing?

On 12/20/2016 at 2:53 PM, Blue Tiger said:

From Wikitionary, the etymology of mane (as in lion's mane):

From Middle English mane, mayne, from Old English manu ‎(“mane”), from Proto-Germanic *manō ‎(“mane”), from Proto-Indo-European *mony-, *mon- ‎(“neck”). Cognate with Dutch maan, manen ‎(“mane”), German Mähne ‎(“mane”), Swedish man ‎(“horse's mane”), Icelandic mön ‎(“mane”).

and måne:

From Old Norse máni ‎(“the moon”), from Proto-Germanic *mēnô, from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s ‎(“moon, month”). See also måned.

 So we have yet another wordplay - moon = mane.

That is a good one!

And then we have 'mano' which relates to the human 'hand' and 'ancestral spirits' (I think @LmL has compared the meteor shower to the unfolding of a red hand like a flower blooming in the heavens, mirroring the hand of the greenseer who elicited it from the moon in the first place):

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowing from Spanish mano ‎(“hand”).

Pronunciation[edit]

• Rhymes: -ɑːnəʊ

Noun[edit]

mano ‎(plural manos)

1. A rolling pin-like stone, used to grind maize or other grain on a metate.

Ido[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowing from English manes, French mânes, German Manen, Spanish manes, all ultimately from Latin manes.

Noun[edit]

mano (plural mani)

1. (a single) manes, ancestral spirit

Derived terms[edit]

• mani ‎(“manes, ancestral spirits”)

and 'mana'  relating to supernatural energy and magical power:

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Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowing from Maori mana, ultimately from Proto-Polynesian *mana.

Noun[edit]

mana ‎(usually uncountable, plural manas)

1. Power, prestige; specifically, a form of supernatural energy in Polynesian religion that inheres in things or people. [from 19th c.]  [quotations ▼]
2. (fantasy role-playing games) Magical power.  [quotations ▼]

Etymology 2[edit]

Noun[edit]

mana ‎(plural manas)

1. Alternative form of mina ‎(“ancient unit of weight or currency”).

Etymology 3[edit]

Noun[edit]

mana ‎(plural manas)

1. Alternative spelling of manna.

 

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So Dany's horse supports her role as moon maiden:

I like how you've connected the lion's mane to the horse's mane.  Although not related etymologically, I've just realised the word 'stallion' contains the word 'lion' -- ha ha!

The description of Dany's horse -- although not a stallion but a mare -- as 'grey as the winter sea' brings to mind the greenseers (who are often described like the Grey King having eyes grey or grey-green as the sea) and hints at Dany's connection to Winter -- as Winter's fiery heart...When she's riding the silver-grey winter horse, that's like the black meteor embedded in the ice moon, which then has a mane streaming out 'like silver smoke' (again, Winter's colors, but on fire, hence the 'smoke').

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And last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to her. An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the camp as he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the whole khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers parted before him, and he led the horse to her.

She was a young filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.

Hesitantly she reached out and stroked the horse's neck, ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said something in Dothraki and Magister Illyrio translated. "Silver for the silver of your hair, the khal says."

 

On 12/20/2016 at 1:20 PM, LmL said:

As for the lion question, and this is to @ravenous reader as well, it may be that the sun / mane symbolism simply denotes being on fire. If a moon catches on fire, it's like a sun. If it drinks the fire of the sun, it becomes a second sun. If and when the comet returns and hits the ice moon, it will indeed light up the sky for "half a heartbeat," just as the lightning strikes turn darkness into day for half a heartbeat. This would be the white lion, the ice moon lit up with solar fire, and this is when our white lion would give birth to lionstar children. 

The lion and it's mane are a match for the fire of the sun, the rays projecting outward, so it kind of makes sense that a moon that drinks the sun's fire and catches on fire would become an honorary lion. 

 

On 12/20/2016 at 3:13 PM, LmL said:

the idea of a mane seems to refer to a fiery nimbus or halo, which can be worn by sun or moon. 

That's very well said -- exactly what I was thinking (and meant by my clumsier expression of 'solarisation')!

Einstein's E=mc2 implies that energy -- i.e. the 'fire essence' -- is the main thing into which all things resolve (sorry for that horrendously unscientific paraphrase, but you get the idea).  So whether it's lighting up a sun, a moon, a meteor as it bravely crashes through the 'curtain at the end of the world,' captured by plants in precious packets ultimately fueling most of the life on the planet in the process of photosynthesis, or driving the electrical impulses that keep our hearts beating or our neurons firing, you could say we're all 'lionstar children' or 'honorary lions'! 

P.S.  That's why your Grey King greenseer essay is your best (although I'll confess I haven't read them all, even the first -- sorry, my LmL 'research' is not up to date, having joined the discussion at the tail-end of it, so be patient with wayward RR...)  -- You put the fire in the tree -- and with that, you unified fire and ice!  

After reading about the burning tree in your essay, I realised that fire is the heart of ice (and, because I'm partial to symmetry, and I believe GRRM is too, I extrapolated from there that ice must be at the heart of fire, for which we have since found some evidence).

On 12/20/2016 at 3:13 PM, LmL said:

Rhaegar and Lyanna at Harrenhall mimic the impregnation of the ice moon, the covering of the fire moon meteor by the ice moon, and this is where Jamie is covered in snow white armor, so Jaime is showing is the sun which fertilizes the fire moon and becomes a black meteor, only to land in the ice moon. It may be that Cersei is an ice moon person as well - remember the ice moon catches on fire too - and Jaime fucking her is like the fire moon lodging in the ice moon, over and over. Cersei is the one who maneuvered to cover Jaime in a white cloak after all.

I wonder whether that refrain that nags at Jaime, 'fucking Lancel, Kettleblack and Moonboy too', while on the surface referring to Cersei's sexual liaisons in Jaime's mind, actually all refer to Jaime himself -- just the different archetypes he passes through, from gold to black to white lion, respectively.  The 'Moonboy' is the white lion.  Instead of Jaime the fire moon lodging in the ice moon 'over and over', I think being twins they take turns playing different solar and lunar roles, with plenty of 'gender inversion', just as they did when they were children.  Let me elaborate (...should be pregnant with meaning, so hope it's not too 'laborious' for you to read...):

In the beginning, Jaime is primarily, but not exclusively, a golden solar figure who bangs up too close to his sister the moon.  This configuration is represented by the tableau Bran saw through the tower window in AGOT, with the 'collision of bodies' being very literal indeed, the outcome of which was Bran falling from the window as emblematic of the black meteor resulting from the sun-moon collision and subsequent conflagration ( @evita mgfs cleverly pointed out that Bran is the 'fallen Star-k').  It also makes Bran a kind of dragon, doesn't it..?   

At the same time, the twins are represented as the twin moons, when Bran sees their identical faces floating above him after they break off having sex and come to the window:

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A Game of Thrones - Bran II

Everything happened at once then. The woman pushed the man away wildly, shouting and pointing.

This is the fiery moon Nissa.  Remember Cersei is 'moaning' in this scene (I expounded on the meaning of her moans at length in the notorious 'nennymoan' essay!), the sound of 'ecstasy-agony' Bran cannot, due to his innocence in these matters, differentiate from pain (he thinks Jaime is causing her pain; so in this scenario Jaime is the sun which cracks the moon, accompanied by Cersei's subsequent moaning and wailing for various reasons):

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Bran tried to pull himself up, bending double as he reached for the gargoyle. He was in too much of a hurry. His hand scraped uselessly across smooth stone, and in his panic his legs slipped, and suddenly he was falling. There was an instant of vertigo, a sickening lurch as the window flashed past. He shot out a hand, grabbed for the ledge, lost it, caught it again with his other hand. He swung against the building, hard. The impact took the breath out of him. Bran dangled, one-handed, panting.

Yes, Bran is the meteor Azor Ahai reborn here -- he's even hanging from a stone gargoyle -- in his precarious position about to plummet to earth.

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Faces appeared in the window above him.

The queen. And now Bran recognized the man beside her. They looked as much alike as reflections in a mirror.

So Bran is suspended, dangling in the sky, only connected indirectly to terra firma by one hand and Jaime's and therefore Cersei's mercy, while looking up at the two faces -- who float disembodied in the window like two moons in the sky.

By deduction, this would make Jaime the ice moon here with Cersei as the fiery one, who ironically penetrates her brother.  In this respect, we should look for images of Cersei donning furs around her face and shoulders simulating a mane as emblematic of the gender role inversion, although I suppose her tawny 'mane' of cascading blonde curls qualifies as such, as you've previously highlighted similarly with Ygritte's loose hair as a 'red river of fire' with the power to change the seasons, and which gives her automatic social standing by dint of her 'kissed by fire' lucky hair, analogous to that conferred on a lion by the majesty of his mane:

A Storm of Swords - Jon II

The wildlings seemed to think Ygritte a great beauty because of her hair; red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky. Lucky it might be, and red it certainly was, but Ygritte's hair was such a tangle that Jon was tempted to ask her if she only brushed it at the changing of the seasons.

Likewise, Cersei's hair seems to take on a life of its own, notably here where Cersei's attempting to seduce Jaime into murdering Tyrion for her : 'Cersei removed her hairnet and draped it over a bedpost, then shook out her golden curls'. ASOS-Jaime IX).  In the same scene, after her wily ploy has failed:

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime IX

"You had best go, Cersei. You're making me angry."

"Oh, an angry cripple. How terrifying." She laughed. "A pity Lord Tywin Lannister never had a son. I could have been the heir he wanted, but I lacked the cock. And speaking of such, best tuck yours away, brother. It looks rather sad and small, hanging from your breeches like that."

When she was gone Jaime took her advice, fumbling one-handed at his laces. He felt a bone-deep ache in his phantom fingers. I've lost a hand, a father, a son, a sister, and a lover, and soon enough I will lose a brother. And yet they keep telling me House Lannister won this war.

Cersei is responsible for Jaime's emasculation, and therefore symbolic castration/penectomy.  He feels he has 'phantom fingers' which is the phenomenon subsequent to amputation of still perceiving the presence of the organ which is no longer there -- and she has made another appendage of his feel like a phantom too!  This is highlighted by his humiliation struggling to do up his trousers, while simultaneously thinking of phantoms and the ghost he's become, after she's just taunted his manhood following his refusal of her.  

Long story short: she is the black moon meteor which has dislodged his heart (leaving him 'heartbroken'), or symbolically castrated both him and the ice moon he's become.  Therefore, the heart of the fallen star from which Dawn was forged is a representation of Jaime's 'sword' (with allusions to his lost sword hand literally and estranged penis figuratively) -- yet another way Jaime is symbolically connected to Dawn.  Arthur Dayne wasn't kidding when he said 'blood is the seal of our devotion' and cut him with Dawn!

To recap, Jaime has two 'personas' or 'seasons', namely solar and lunar, summer and winter respectively.  The first half of his arc is the solar persona corresponding to the season of Summer; the second (commonly called 'the redemption arc') is characterised by lunar imagery corresponding with Winter.

The golden phase of his development (stage 'Lancel' or 'young lion'..signifying the innocence or naivete of youth) is the sun, transitioning into the black phase (stage 'Kettleblack' or the 'Smiling Knight' or 'black fire' or 'Azor Ahai'...the corruption of adulthood) which is the sun colliding with moon and producing tainted 'offspring' the black moon meteors.  This half of the cycle is punctuated by his hand being severed -- a symbolic castration directly resulting from the tainted children (e.g. had Joffrey not beheaded Ned, the war of the 5 kings and Jaime's mutilation leaving him 'stumped' would not have ensued)-- and finally switching to the white phase representing the more 'feminine' side of his 'ice moon' persona (stage 'Moonboy'...the wisdom of old age...this is why the crone bears a lantern, or the moon to illuminate the night).

Cersei acts the Nissa or fire moon, whom it's important to realise Jaime himself helped transform into what she is (a 'dark sister') via his solar 'black fire' persona, with the incest and never drawing moral and physical boundaries that would have safely separated their 'orbits.'  

So, in (inter)penetrative terms, Jaime first penetrates Cersei.  Thereafter, acting as the errant black moon meteor fueled by green fire or wildfire, Cersei penetrates Jaime the ice moon, symbolically castrating him and giving rise to an ice moon meteor, or a 'Dawn' sword in the process.  The creation of all these 'swords' is accompanied by someone snatching someone else's 'seed'...e.g. seen also in the dramatic visual of the golden kernels of corn falling to earth from Bran's hand/pocket as he's falling from the tower, together with the insistent cawing of the crows ominously circling the tower and calling out for their share of corn.  So when you talk of meteors 'inseminating' the earth, it certainly is cohesive with some of the other symbols we're unearthing, hinting at the ritual sacrifice or castration of the male fertility deity.

[Bluetiger]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

A Merry Christmas and a hearty "OH OH OH" to you and yours! Part 3 is is unleashed, just in time for your holiday travel time.

Sacred Order of Green Zombies 3: The Long Night's Watch

Merry Christmas @LmL !

I knew you'll realease it today, and the timing is perfect, as today is the last day I had 'normal' lessons, and tomorrow I'll only go for the 'Class Christmas Eve'.

I already know what I'll get... yet another book on Norse history and mythology... I imagine I'll continue to spam this thread from time to time.

Everything is just perfect today... I don't have the 1.5 hour lesson of CAE preparation English course... And I don't have to worry anything except a promise to friend I made (yes, again... that Christmas/Yule story I keep mentioning).

Anyway, I'm starting listening and reading, so before I go...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you, Mythical Astronomers, especially you LML, @ravenous reader , @Pain killer Jane , @sweetsunray.

Thanks for all great things you do here and elswehere... Good luck in the future.

Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

 

[ravenous reader]

6 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Merry Christmas @LmL !

I knew you'll realease it today, and the timing is perfect, as today is the last day I had 'normal' lessons, and tomorrow I'll only go for the 'Class Christmas Eve'.

I already know what I'll get... yet another book on Norse history and mythology... I imagine I'll continue to spam this thread from time to time.

Everything is just perfect today... I don't have the 1.5 hour lesson of CAE preparation English course... And I don't have to worry anything except a promise to friend I made (yes, again... that Christmas/Yule story I keep mentioning).

Anyway, I'm starting listening and reading, so before I go...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you, Mythical Astronomers, especially you LML, @ravenous reader , @Pain killer Jane , @sweetsunray.

Thanks for all great things you do here and elswehere... Good luck in the future.

Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

 

Merry Christmas to you too!  Does the Polish you quoted mean 'happy christmas'? 

[Bluetiger]

10 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Merry Christmas to you too!  Does the Polish you quoted mean 'happy christmas'? 

Literally 'wesoły' = cheerful

'świąt' is for of 'święta' = holidays,  celebrations, but Święta Bożego Narodzenia = Christmas (The Holidays of God's Birth)

'szczęśliwy' = lucky, happy, fortunate

'nowy' = new

'rok' = year

So it'd be:

Cheerful Christmas and Happy New Year!

[ravenous reader]

19 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Literally 'wesoły' = cheerful

'świąt' is for of 'święta' = holidays,  celebrations, but Święta Bożego Narodzenia = Christmas (The Holidays of God's Birth)

'szczęśliwy' = lucky, happy, fortunate

'nowy' = new

'rok' = year

So it'd be:

Cheerful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ah, thank you!  That word 'szczęśliwy' makes me smile, although I have no idea how to pronounce it!

[Bluetiger]

29 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Ah, thank you!  That word 'szczęśliwy' makes me smile, although I have no idea how to pronounce it!

Wikitionary has pronounciation:

Here it is

Your nicknames would be tongueg twisters for foreigners...

LML - Lucifer Means Lightbringer = Lucyfer Znaczy Światłonośca

Ravenous Reader = Żarłoczny/Wygłodniały/Drapieżny Czytacz

And me, Lord Bluetiger... Błękitny Tygrys... I'll tell you a secret. I'm not Blue in the original version... 

Niebieski = blue, but 'błękitny' = azul, sky-blue, marine, cerulean blue...

But these are nothing compated to some sentences... Many native speakers wouldn't be able to say them correctly:

- this one comes from movie about WWII... When the Nazis arrest the protagonist, he claims this is his name and birthplace, just to annoy the officer who interrogates him:

'Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz,
Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody'

- table with broken legs: Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami

- 999 000 meters high something - dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięciotysięcznik

Polish can be extremly hard to speak and understand for foreigners, even after long learning...

But it's still fascinating how many words have the same roots.

 

 

 

[ravenous reader]

43 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Wikitionary has pronounciation:

Here it is

Your nicknames would be tongueg twisters for foreigners...

LML - Lucifer Means Lightbringer = Lucyfer Znaczy Światłonośca

Ravenous Reader = Żarłoczny/Wygłodniały/Drapieżny Czytacz

And me, Lord Bluetiger... Błękitny Tygrys... I'll tell you a secret. I'm not Blue in the original version... 

Niebieski = blue, but 'błękitny' = azul, sky-blue, marine, cerulean blue...

But these are nothing compated to some sentences... Many native speakers wouldn't be able to say them correctly:

- this one comes from movie about WWII... When the Nazis arrest the protagonist, he claims this is his name and birthplace, just to annoy the officer who interrogates him:

'Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz,
Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody'

- table with broken legs: Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami

- 999 000 meters high something - dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięciotysięcznik

Polish can be extremly hard to speak and understand for foreigners, even after long learning...

But it's still fascinating how many words have the same roots.

 

ha ha!  Polish extremely hard -- the understatement; although it might suit my style considering the long sentences I'm fond of building 

[LmL]

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

You are such a prolific writer; I can hardly keep up with you!  Look forward to reading it. 

You're welcome.  Have you seen the poem Shadows by D.H. Lawrence which I posted on my 'poetry thread' to commemorate the solstice and some of the themes we've been discussing?

I just took a quick look; I'll come back later and digest it. Anything about moon darkness has my attention.

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

That is a good one!

And then we have 'mano' which relates to the human 'hand' and 'ancestral spirits' (I think @LmL has compared the meteor shower to the unfolding of a red hand like a flower blooming in the heavens, mirroring the hand of the greenseer who elicited it from the moon in the first place):

Yeah you should really read my first essay some time...

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

and 'mana'  relating to supernatural energy and magical power:

 

I like how you've connected the lion's mane to the horse's mane.  Although not related etymologically, I've just realised the word 'stallion' contains the word 'lion' -- ha ha!

The description of Dany's horse -- although not a stallion but a mare -- as 'grey as the winter sea' brings to mind the greenseers (who are often described like the Grey King having eyes grey or grey-green as the sea) and hints at Dany's connection to Winter -- as Winter's fiery heart...When she's riding the silver-grey winter horse, that's like the black meteor embedded in the ice moon, which then has a mane streaming out 'like silver smoke' (again, Winter's colors, but on fire, hence the 'smoke').

OOH OOH, Grey King's beard is grey as a winter sea as well. Hmmm.....  Maybe that's Odin's horse she is riding, meaning that it may be a greenseer symbol. A winter greenseer symbol. Have to think about that a bit. Real ice moons have a world-spanning ocean beneath their icy crust, like Europa, so it's possible that the winter sea idea and also the Others' armor looking like a frozen pond are sort of riffing off of this idea of an ice moon having a winter sea under the ice. If green sea = greenseer, a winter sea should be a winter seer, a.k.a. a greenseer using ice magic, which would have something to do with the Others. 

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 

That's very well said -- exactly what I was thinking (and meant by my clumsier expression of 'solarisation')!

I had to beat around the bush for minute to see it but I think it makes sense, especially since George seems to have a propensity for lighting moons on fire.

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Einstein's E=mc2 implies that energy -- i.e. the 'fire essence' -- is the main thing into which all things resolve (sorry for that horrendously unscientific paraphrase, but you get the idea).  So whether it's lighting up a sun, a moon, a meteor as it bravely crashes through the 'curtain at the end of the world,' captured by plants in precious packets ultimately fueling most of the life on the planet in the process of photosynthesis, or driving the electrical impulses that keep our hearts beating or our neurons firing, you could say we're all 'lionstar children' or 'honorary lions'! 

P.S.  That's why your Grey King greenseer essay is your best (although I'll confess I haven't read them all, even the first -- sorry, my LmL 'research' is not up to date, having joined the discussion at the tail-end of it, so be patient with wayward RR...)  -- You put the fire in the tree -- and with that, you unified fire and ice!  

Thanks, and I do feel like my Grey King episode was one of my strongest... it benefitted from having an origin in a much older essay I wrote a year and a half ago, so the ideas were well-developed and finely honed. I also feel like the link between the thunderbolt / fire of the gods / burning tree Ironborn myths and the weirwood is a super important link as well.  It really seems to interlock with what other people such as yourself have been discovering about the greenseers.. it's one of those ideas which snaps tightly into place and gives you that "ah ha!" feeling.  

As for uniting fire and ice, what else is a due named Lightbringer for? HO HO HO HO HO 

Now, please, stop whatever you're doing, even if it's really important, and go read or listen to my first essay. If you have kids, they'll be fine, just let em run free for a bit. Call out of work. Break your plans with your significant other. It does not matter. Astronomy explains the legends of ice and fire, dammit! 

Just kidding of course.  I am however amazed that you're able to make sense of my commentary without having read the basic underlying groundwork of my theory - it must be because you are so brilliant that you can piece things together with very little help. Once you go back and read it, you will realize how amusing your comment was the other day about all the sexual language in Dany's making of the dragons in Drogo's pyre. That was the entire second half of my essay - I call that scene the Alchemical Wedding of Daenerys Targaryen. 

Now stop reading this comment and go read Astronomy Explains the Legends of Ice and Fire. Or click on the podcast and get some chores done while the me from several months ago talks about comets and dragons and flaming swords.

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

After reading about the burning tree in your essay, I realised that fire is the heart of ice (and, because I'm partial to symmetry, and I believe GRRM is too, I extrapolated from there that ice must be at the heart of fire, for which we have since found some evidence).

I have a cautious belief in GRRM's love of symmetry as well... oh so cautious...

I was thinking about this the other day. The HOTU is in the fire moon class of symbols - it drinks the light, it coils like a snake, it has a shadow tower in it, the people in side want dragons, etc. But what else do we find in there, right at the center? A blue shadow heart. That's something that makes us think of the Others, surely. Deep in the Shadowlands, they have the Shadow's Heart. Can we assume it is a cold heart? 

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

I wonder whether that refrain that nags at Jaime, 'fucking Lancel, Kettleblack and Moonboy too', while on the surface referring to Cersei's sexual liaisons in Jaime's mind, actually all refer to Jaime himself -- just the different archetypes he passes through, from gold to black to white lion, respectively.  The 'Moonboy' is the white lion.  Instead of Jaime the fire moon lodging in the ice moon 'over and over', I think being twins they take turns playing different solar and lunar roles, with plenty of 'gender inversion', just as they did when they were children.  Let me elaborate (...should be pregnant with meaning, so hope it's not too 'laborious' for you to read...):

In the beginning, Jaime is primarily, but not exclusively, a golden solar figure who bangs up too close to his sister the moon.  This configuration is represented by the tableau Bran saw through the tower window in AGOT, with the 'collision of bodies' being very literal indeed, the outcome of which was Bran falling from the window as emblematic of the black meteor resulting from the sun-moon collision and subsequent conflagration ( @evita mgfs cleverly pointed out that Bran is the 'fallen Star-k').  It also makes Bran a kind of dragon, doesn't it..?   

At the same time, the twins are represented as the twin moons, when Bran sees their identical faces floating above him after they break off having sex and come to the window:

This is the fiery moon Nissa.  Remember Cersei is 'moaning' in this scene (I expounded on the meaning of her moans at length in the notorious 'nennymoan' essay!), the sound of 'ecstasy-agony' Bran cannot, due to his innocence in these matters, differentiate from pain (he thinks Jaime is causing her pain; so in this scenario Jaime is the sun which cracks the moon, accompanied by Cersei's subsequent moaning and wailing for various reasons):

Yes, Bran is the meteor Azor Ahai reborn here -- he's even hanging from a stone gargoyle -- in his precarious position about to plummet to earth.

So Bran is suspended, dangling in the sky, only connected indirectly to terra firma by one hand and Jaime's and therefore Cersei's mercy, while looking up at the two faces -- who float disembodied in the window like two moons in the sky.

By deduction, this would make Jaime the ice moon here with Cersei as the fiery one, who ironically penetrates her brother.  In this respect, we should look for images of Cersei donning furs around her face and shoulders simulating a mane as emblematic of the gender role inversion, although I suppose her tawny 'mane' of cascading blonde curls qualifies as such, as you've previously highlighted similarly with Ygritte's loose hair as a 'red river of fire' with the power to change the seasons, and which gives her automatic social standing by dint of her 'kissed by fire' lucky hair, analogous to that conferred on a lion by the majesty of his mane:

A Storm of Swords - Jon II

The wildlings seemed to think Ygritte a great beauty because of her hair; red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky. Lucky it might be, and red it certainly was, but Ygritte's hair was such a tangle that Jon was tempted to ask her if she only brushed it at the changing of the seasons.

Likewise, Cersei's hair seems to take on a life of its own, notably here where Cersei's attempting to seduce Jaime into murdering Tyrion for her : 'Cersei removed her hairnet and draped it over a bedpost, then shook out her golden curls'. ASOS-Jaime IX).  In the same scene, after her wily ploy has failed:

Cersei is responsible for Jaime's emasculation, and therefore symbolic castration/penectomy.  He feels he has 'phantom fingers' which is the phenomenon subsequent to amputation of still perceiving the presence of the organ which is no longer there -- and she has made another appendage of his feel like a phantom too!  This is highlighted by his humiliation struggling to do up his trousers, while simultaneously thinking of phantoms and the ghost he's become, after she's just taunted his manhood following his refusal of her.  

Long story short: she is the black moon meteor which has dislodged his heart (leaving him 'heartbroken'), or symbolically castrated both him and the ice moon he's become.  Therefore, the heart of the fallen star from which Dawn was forged is a representation of Jaime's 'sword' (with allusions to his lost sword hand literally and estranged penis figuratively) -- yet another way Jaime is symbolically connected to Dawn.  Arthur Dayne wasn't kidding when he said 'blood is the seal of our devotion' and cut him with Dawn!

To recap, Jaime has two 'personas' or 'seasons', namely solar and lunar, summer and winter respectively.  The first half of his arc is the solar persona corresponding to the season of Summer; the second (commonly called 'the redemption arc') is characterised by lunar imagery corresponding with Winter.

The golden phase of his development (stage 'Lancel' or 'young lion'..signifying the innocence or naivete of youth) is the sun, transitioning into the black phase (stage 'Kettleblack' or the 'Smiling Knight' or 'black fire' or 'Azor Ahai'...the corruption of adulthood) which is the sun colliding with moon and producing tainted 'offspring' the black moon meteors.  This half of the cycle is punctuated by his hand being severed -- a symbolic castration directly resulting from the tainted children (e.g. had Joffrey not beheaded Ned, the war of the 5 kings and Jaime's mutilation leaving him 'stumped' would not have ensued)-- and finally switching to the white phase representing the more 'feminine' side of his 'ice moon' persona (stage 'Moonboy'...the wisdom of old age...this is why the crone bears a lantern, or the moon to illuminate the night).

Cersei acts the Nissa or fire moon, whom it's important to realise Jaime himself helped transform into what she is (a 'dark sister') via his solar 'black fire' persona, with the incest and never drawing moral and physical boundaries that would have safely separated their 'orbits.'  

So, in (inter)penetrative terms, Jaime first penetrates Cersei.  Thereafter, acting as the errant black moon meteor fueled by green fire or wildfire, Cersei penetrates Jaime the ice moon, symbolically castrating him and giving rise to an ice moon meteor, or a 'Dawn' sword in the process.  The creation of all these 'swords' is accompanied by someone snatching someone else's 'seed'...e.g. seen also in the dramatic visual of the golden kernels of corn falling to earth from Bran's hand/pocket as he's falling from the tower, together with the insistent cawing of the crows ominously circling the tower and calling out for their share of corn.  So when you talk of meteors 'inseminating' the earth, it certainly is cohesive with some of the other symbols we're unearthing, hinting at the ritual sacrifice or castration of the male fertility deity.

Alright, I follow that, and I think I more or less agree. I still wonder about the white sun / white lion figure and if that is the same as the sun of winter and the night sun. But think we are on the right track here. 

Yes, the idea that Bran confuses pleasure for pain is the agony / ecstasy motif, I would think. And yes bran himself is the falling meteor, a parallel to the gargoyles. I talked a lot about that in my Tyrion Targaryen episode, another great one you should read. He's fallen from the heavens but will one day fly. Total Morningstar stuff, and of course the meteors and LB comet are borrowing all the morningstar symbolism (talked about that in Lucifer means Lightbringer). The fact that Bran is now underground, below the weirwood... may be a clue about meteors seeding the weirwoods or whatever that idea turns out to be. Also, when he's in his coma, I believe there is some straw man symbolism laid on him to go with his firewood wicker basket thing. 

As for the castration of a male god... again, it's Morningstar stuff, this time the Aphrodite myth.  She was born in the foam of the sea from Zeus's castrated nuts. Of course that's just another lightning bolt / fire of the gods / falling star symbol, as what is really being described is Venus seeming to sink into the sea in it's Evenstar position. Tat's why Dany wants to wear "starlight and sea foam" for Daario - she's playing Aphrodite.  A female Morningstar figure works well for Dany obviously, whose beauty is of course legendary.

 

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

Wikitionary has pronounciation:

Here it is

Your nicknames would be tongueg twisters for foreigners...

LML - Lucifer Means Lightbringer = Lucyfer Znaczy Światłonośca

Ravenous Reader = Żarłoczny/Wygłodniały/Drapieżny Czytacz

And me, Lord Bluetiger... Błękitny Tygrys... I'll tell you a secret. I'm not Blue in the original version... 

Niebieski = blue, but 'błękitny' = azul, sky-blue, marine, cerulean blue...

But these are nothing compated to some sentences... Many native speakers wouldn't be able to say them correctly:

- this one comes from movie about WWII... When the Nazis arrest the protagonist, he claims this is his name and birthplace, just to annoy the officer who interrogates him:

'Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz,
Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody'

- table with broken legs: Stół z powyłamywanymi nogami

- 999 000 meters high something - dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięciotysięcznik

Polish can be extremly hard to speak and understand for foreigners, even after long learning...

But it's still fascinating how many words have the same roots.

 

 

 

I think perhaps I was failing to appreciate the monumental achievement of translating my stuff into Polish! Good lord, that language is masochistic!  "dziewięćsetdziewięćdziesięciodziewięciotysięcznik" - right. I'm sure this is easier to say than read, but come on. As a believer in efficiency, this is the kind of thing that wants abbreviation. 

Anyway thanks for the holiday cheer Blue Tiger, I always appreciate your commentary, even if it takes me a few days to process all the norse myth. I really appreciate you taking the time to catch me up. 

I think I have some pretty important stuff in this episode that I am eager to discuss. For example, the bit about all the original brothers of the Watch, for thousands of years, effectively swore their oaths to the greenseers. That's kind of amazing. 

[Bluetiger]

I just wanted to show something I've found:

Quote

In Norse mythology, the einherjar (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"[1]) are those who have died in battle and are brought to Valhalla by valkyries. In Valhalla, the einherjar eat their fill of the nightly-resurrecting beast Sæhrímnir, and are brought their fill of mead (from the udder of the goat Heiðrún) by valkyries. The einherjar prepare daily for the events of Ragnarök, when they will advance for an immense battle at the field of Vígríðr; the battle which the "ein" (here meaning single-time) refers to. Heimdall occasionally returned the best of Einherjar to Midgard or Jotunheim with the purpose of killing giants, but they were forbidden to talk with the living.

The einherjar are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, the poem Hákonarmál (by the 10th century skaldEyvindr skáldaspillir) as collected in Heimskringla, and a stanza of an anonymous 10th century poem commemorating the death of Eric Bloodaxe known as Eiríksmál as compiled in Fagrskinna.

Scholarly theories have been proposed etymologically connecting the einherjar to the Harii (a Germanic tribe attested in the 1st century AD), the eternal battle of Hjaðningavíg, and the Wild Hunt. The einherjar have been the subject of works of art and poetry. Valhalla is the place of Odin. It is told in Norse mythology that einherjar are those with golden auras only seen by Valkyries. The einherjar are the Warriors trained by Asgardians.

So we have a band of undead warriors, waiting for Ragnarok and battle... and in Castle Black we have the Shieldhall:

Quote

Enough to get us there, perhaps. It was the journey back that concerned Jon Snow. Coming home, they would be slowed by thousands of free folk, many sick and starved. A river of humanity moving slower than a river of ice. That would leave them vulnerable. Dead things in the woods. Dead things in the water. "How many men are enough?" he asked Leathers. "A hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand?" Should I take more men, or fewer? A smaller ranging would reach Hardhome sooner … but what good were swords without food? Mother Mole and her people were already at the point of eating their own dead. To feed them, he would need to bring carts and wagons, and draft animals to haul them—horses, oxen, dogs. Instead of flying through the wood, they would be condemned to crawl. "There is still much to decide. Spread the word. I want all the leading men in the Shieldhall when the evening watch begins. Tormund should be back by then. Where can I find Toregg?"

 

Quote

The Shieldhall was one of the older parts of Castle Black, a long drafty feast hall of dark stone, its oaken rafters black with the smoke of centuries. Back when the Night's Watch had been much larger, its walls had been hung with rows of brightly colored wooden shields. Then as now, when a knight took the black, tradition decreed that he set aside his former arms and take up the plain black shield of the brotherhood. The shields thus discarded would hang in the Shieldhall.

Hundreds of knights meant hundreds of shields. Hawks and eagles, dragons and griffins, suns and stags, wolves and wyverns, manticores, bulls, trees and flowers, harps, spears, crabs and krakens, red lions and golden lions and chequy lions, owls, lambs, maids and mermen, stallions, stars, buckets and buckles, flayed men and hanged men and burning men, axes, longswords, turtles, unicorns, bears, quills, spiders and snakes and scorpions, and a hundred other heraldic charges had adorned the Shieldhall walls, blazoned in more colors than any rainbow ever dreamed of.

Rainbow evokes Bifrost, the burning rainbow bridge of Asgard. Btw, some scholars belive that this mythical bridge represents the Milky Way.

Anyway...

In Poland Christmas Eve is very important day, and its supper is the most important meal of Christmas.

The word for it - Wigilia - comes from latin 'vigilare'.

There are many traditions and customs connected with it (there have to be 12 dishes - for each month, the Midnight Mass, carols, one empty plate for the ancestors who passed away, etc.) - many of them seem to have very ancient origins, for example the supper is supposed to start when the first star appears at the sky - usually it's our good old friend Mornigstar/Evenstar Venus, sometimes Jupiter, Vega or Capella.

So, this special evening, I want to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

If you don't celebrate Christmas, still, have fun and best wishes to you.

Let's hope 2017 is a good year.

Thanks to all of you, especially @LmL, @ravenous reader, @Pain killer Jane , @sweetsunray and many others. Good luck with all great things you do.

See you later, and one more time...

Merry Christmas.

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

I just wanted to show something I've found:

So we have a band of undead warriors, waiting for Ragnarok and battle... and in Castle Black we have the Shieldhall:

 

Rainbow evokes Bifrost, the burning rainbow bridge of Asgard. Btw, some scholars belive that this mythical bridge represents the Milky Way.

Anyway...

In Poland Christmas Eve is very important day, and its supper is the most important meal of Christmas.

The word for it - Wigilia - comes from latin 'vigilare'.

There are many traditions and customs connected with it (there have to be 12 dishes - for each month, the Midnight Mass, carols, one empty plate for the ancestors who passed away, etc.) - many of them seem to have very ancient origins, for example the supper is supposed to start when the first star appears at the sky - usually it's our good old friend Mornigstar/Evenstar Venus, sometimes Jupiter, Vega or Capella.

So, this special evening, I want to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

If you don't celebrate Christmas, still, have fun and best wishes to you.

Let's hope 2017 is a good year.

Thanks to all of you, especially @LmL, @ravenous reader, @Pain killer Jane , @sweetsunray and many others. Good luck with all great things you do.

See you later, and one more time...

Merry Christmas.

 

Dear Błękitny Tygrys 

Thank you for your good wishes.

I shall think of you in Poland -- is it snowing there?  While where I am it's raining turning the landscape into an ethereal soup as grey-green as the wintery sea of the Grey King's eyes!

Enjoy your special evening (the 12+1 arrangement of the dishes makes me think of the Last Hero/Stranger), appreciating the ritual all the more as you've been enriched by understanding the deeper resonances of its traditions.  Except yesterday I caught myself thinking about a tree on fire watching the Christmas lights twinkling, and more disturbing I started thinking about entrails adorning the tree observing the Christmas tinsel -- so perhaps there's such a thing as too much enlightenment for ones own good!  

Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!  (...I am taking your word for it that what I just said is what I intended to say!!  Thank goodness for the swipe, copy and paste function; I couldn't have come up with that one my own!)

All my best,

Żarłoczny/Wygłodniały/Drapieżny Czytacz

(which one am I most suited to 'Żarłoczny' or 'Wygłodniały' or 'Drapieżny'..?  Maybe because I'm so 'ravenous,' I get three names to describe my 'ravenousness' instead of just one!)

 

Since you're so fond of the great cats (as am I) as evidenced by your avatar -- here are a few cute lion pictures for you to light up your Christmas eve.  They remind me of the twin moons, life's duality, paradoxical hearts and some of the other themes we've been discussing lately.

White lion and tawny cousin drinking together (I love the dusky reflection shimmering and rippling in the water)

And this one is a surprise (it's a mysteriously enchanting image; here you can read about how the photographer took the photo)

[Equilibrium]

@LmL Hey man,

I have missed this whole thing somehow, just got to reading it.

Great stuff, somewhat long winded, but it is maximally thorough. Some real gems there and prose that continues to improve, you should thank Martin for massive improvement in your writership level. I really can't cite all the thing that were great and I agree with

Just small note, you should definitely think about Coldhands/Judas parallel, you were so close to making it in the essay, but you never stated it, it. If he was one of 12 companions of LH, and hanged himself, and got some penance (for treason?) it is pretty straightforward. 79 deserters confirm that eternal ranging is punishment for desertion or treason. NK could be like 13th of the party, 13th LC and possibly Coldhands.

When we are on the subject Roose is either great representation or potential candidate for NK in that story, as skinchanging and Judas parallels are abound, and he may very well be immortal zombie.

As for NW being zombie skinchangers in the beginning, it would represent extremely good parallel of ravens (messaging), as mundane mimics the magic without full understanding, mostly just repeating the motions. 

If I think of something further constructive to add I sure will.

BTW You should put a word count in the beginning of the essays, it's super easy for you to do it, it is a really helpful and I would very much appreciate it.

Merry Christmas.