Ashara was a Selkie

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

So there is a bunch of Mermaid / fish people / Innsmouth references around Ned, Ashara, and Jon that had me confused.  But today by accident I listened to the Scottish folk tale about a fisherman who married a Selkie and it all made sense. 

Selkies are mermaids that look like seals, but once a year for a single day, they can come to land and take off their seal skin and underneath they are a beautiful young woman.  So this one Selkie comes to land and leaves her seal pelt on the beach, and the fisherman comes home and finds the seal pelt on the beach and takes it home thinking he can sell it for great profit.  Later that night the beautiful young Selkie woman shows up at his cottage wrapped in rags asking for help, and he thinks she must have survived a sea wreck. 

She cannot return to the sea without her pelt, and she doesn't learn that he has it, and they get married and have kids together, and live happily for a number of years.  But then one night the fisherman is out on his boat, and a terrible storm comes up.  And the Selkie wife is certain his ship will sink, and she wishes she had her Selkie pelt so she could save him.  And that night the kids find the key to the chest where her Selkie pelt had been kept all these years, and she dons it and goes out to sea and rescues the fisherman who was adrift, clinging to the last remnants of his ship.

But due to the Selkie curse, once she donned her Selkie pelt again, she could not return to land as a human, and remained a Selkie for the rest of her life.

 

 

In Celtic myth, Neid had two wives, Cath and Nemain, who were two of the three sisters that made up the Morrigan, the third sister was Macha.  Ned gets shipwrecked at the Three Sisters islands.  (suir means "sister" and siuirin means "little sister, sweetheart" and nad means "little sister")  [reference to the Sirens and shipwrecks?]
 

Ranger Snow was the name of a ship from Lovecraft's the Shadow over Innsmouth, and it was a ship that belonged to Gilman-->gill man-->man with gills-->fish man.  And that story is all about humans interbreeding with fish people.  The narrator visits Innsmouth and discovers that he is part mermaid.

There are mermaid / Innsmouth references all around the Three Sisters island chain.  In gaelic innse / innsean means "island" and innis-mhuir means "archipelago" and

ion-mhutha means "alterable" and the Innsmouth people turn into squishers as they get older. 

 

 

In Gaelic iaschaire means "fisher" and gean means "daughter"--Ashara is the Fisherman's Daughter that saved Ned from his ship sinking in a storm. 

Eascair  means “storm, blustering wind” and Earchaire means “storm, hurricane” and Ned and the Fisherman’s daughter encountered a bad storm.  aescere means "boat"

 

suire  ('shara) means "mermaid, siren, sea-nymph" and suirghe means "courtship, wooing, lover, sweetheart" and suir means "river"

Naiad  (~Ned) means "water nymph"

Nixe means "mermaid" in German and in Latin Nix  means "snow" / "white" and the Nixi  were guardian deities of women giving birth.  And Nox mean "night"

Snow is half mermaid/Selkie.  

muirgean means "sea born, mermaid" and

muirghinn muire / maighdean mhara  means "mermaid"  and Jon's mother is Dayne/Lemore 

maidean means "dawn"

 

Lemore

la mere  means "the Mother" and le mer  means "the sea" and le morte  means "the dead" 

muir means "sea" and leim means "to leap" and "cliff by the sea" and "to breed"

so leim muire literally means "to leap into the sea" (leim also means "milk")

luch-mhor means "seal" and roin means "seal"  and Lemore was on the Rhoyne, where she loved to swim in the water, as Selkies do.

 

Dagan means "dawn" and Dagon is the fish/mermaid god from Lovecraft.   and Gryja means "dawn" and the Greyjoys are descended from the Deep Ones.  (asha gryja = Ashara Dayne, aescere means "ship" and she is the Shy Maid)

Dagon was a Caanaanite god, so was Asherah, who was the Mother Goddess, and one of her titles was "she who walks on the sea"

 

 

Ned and Ashar take refuge at White Harbor where the Manderly's are obsessed with mermaids and mermen, and his court is under-the-sea themed and the Manderly's are walrus men (i.e., mermen).   Ned tells people that Jon's mother is "Wylla".  And the Wylla Manderly is dressed up like a mermaid with green hair, in the Merman's Court, under the sea.

In Welsh gwymon means "seaweed, wrack"  and Ned and Ashara are wrecked at sea and wash up at White Harbor.  On the same page as gwymon is gwyll means "ghost" and gwyllias means "wild passion" and gwyllnos means "night-watch" and gwyl means "shy"

He marries her at White Harbor, and she has his child, and later she leaps into the sea, never to be seen again.

 

 

Godric Borrell tells Davos that Ned Stark passed through at the beginning of Robert's Rebellion, and that Ned impregnated the Fisherman's Daughter with Jon Snow.

"They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn."

sel-ver / sel-vara means "seal pelt" in Norse.   Selkies have magical seal pelts.

 

 

 

The Sloe-Eyed Maid

In Anglo-Saxon aesc means "ash" and aescere means "ship"--Ashara is a ship.

Ashara is the Sloe-Eyed Maid, and sloes are dark, blue-black fruit of the Blackthorn bush.  To have sloe-eyes is to have dark blue eyes, verging on black. 

sluagh and daoine / duine  and sealb  all mean the same thing in Gaelic. 

 

In Gaelic eascha means "slough" and "slough" means to shed your skin and the Selkies shed their seal skin.

 

Ranger Snow was the name of a ship from Lovecraft's the Shadow over Innsmouth, and it was a ship that belonged to Gilman-->gill man-->man with gills-->fish man.  And that story is all about humans interbreeding with fish people.  The narrator visits Innsmouth and discovers that he is part mermaid.

 

The Sloe-Eyed Maid was carrying saffron, and cro means "saffron" in Gaelic.   Ashara was carrying the Crow.  And crocus flowers are purple and white, Dayne colors.  uallach (wylla) means "cargo" in Gaelic.  The Sloe-Eyed Maid was carrying "cro" and lost its cargo.

 

In Icelandic the word for "sloe" is starkbarsbuske,

In Welsh, eiry means "snow" and eiryn (~Arryn) means "sloe, plum"  and Jon was named after Arryn/eiryn

In gaelic draighean means "sloe, black thorn" (drai + gean)  [and dein means "wing" in Welsh]

 

In gaelic sloinnead ("sloe eye" + Ned) means “naming, family, surname”

 

In gaelic airne / airnead means “blackthorn and sloe” and “night watch”

In Welsh, eiry means "snow" and eiryn (~Arryn) means "sloe, plum"

In Latin pruina  means "snow" and prunum  means "plum, sloe"

[deja vu]

I've always thought the N+A = J theory makes narrative sense. Poor Cat.

[Moiraine Sedai]

43 minutes ago, deja vu said:

I've always thought the N+A = J theory makes narrative sense. Poor Cat.

Plus the better than even chance of Jon Snow taking the Dawn sword. Being half Dayne opens that door.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

The Seed is Strong

In Gaelic seoid / seadh means "strong" and in several languages stark means "strong" and niadh means "strong"---The seed is Ned Stark's

Jon was the 998th Lord Commander, and on the 998th page in Dinneen's Gaelic is the word sead which means "likeness, or equivalent" and "track, path, trail" and "nest" [Nead means "nest" also]

When Ned is following the clues about Robert's bastards we are told that we should be using genetics and inheritance of the father's characteristics when there is uncertainty about parentage. 

In Dinneen's gaelic dictionary oidhre means "inheritor of paternal characteristics, a strong likeness, a copy" and Jon looks just like Ned, and Robert's bastards all look just like him, Jaime's bastards look just like him.   And right below oidre is oidreacht which means "heir" and Edrick Dayne is Ned Dayne, and naoidean (Ned + Dayne) means "baby" 

In O'Donovan gaelic dictionary  oidhir (~Eddard) means "snow" and oidhre (~Eddard) means "ice, heir" and oidhreacht (~Edrick) means "heirdom" and oidean (~Edd + Dayne) means "love" and gean means "love"

 

Also on the 998th page in Dinneen's Gaelic Dictionary is the word for "seven and septa" which is seachd.  (sea + Ach)  And Ashara became a Septa in the Faith of the Seven at the Sept of the Snows in White Harbor. 

Ashara faked her own death in a fall and joined the Faith of the Seven.  In Gaelic faoth means "fall"

aschedan (Asha Dayne) means "to separate" and she and Ned separated at White Harbor

nuin  means "ash tree" and Ashara became a nun.  (nuin ~nun) 

nuinean means "dwarf" and acharaidhean  (Ashara Dayne) means "dwarf"

In Gaelic nuin sounds like "9" and in Old Norse niun means "9"  The grove of 9 is special to Jon, and he was the 998th Lord Commander--soon to be the 999th, when he returns as the Night's King. 

 

Heimdal is the Lucifer / Lightbringer of Norse mythology and he represents the rays of dawn, and he had 9 mothers.

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

18 hours ago, deja vu said:

I've always thought the N+A = J theory makes narrative sense. Poor Cat.

Ned wasn't her first choice either--she wanted Brandon.  It was a political marriage and they both had to settle for their second choice.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

At White Harbor Davos sees mermaid statues that are cradling bowls filled with whale oil for lighting.

In Gaelic usch / ushaighe  [~"Asha"] means "fish or whale oil used for lighting"

------

I just listened to Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid for the first time, the Little Mermaid saves a handsome black-eyed [Sloe-Eyed] prince from dying in a shipwreck, she cannot remain with him on land, and dies/returns to the sea.

The Little Mermaid has her tongue cut out by the sea witch, and Wylla Manderly is a mermaid and Wymon says she talks too much and wants to send her to the Silent Sisters.

 

------

The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, [laren means "pig" and dor means "imprisoned"] and it is about a gloomy grey man who wears a wolf's head cloak who loves Sharra and tries to keep her in his magic castle, but saoire means "freedom" and he pushes her out of a tower at the end.

So Ned and Ashara being a retelling of the Selkie myth / Little Mermaid fits right in.

And the Marsh King's Daughter is another Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale that is incorporated into the Starks' family.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

In the Collins Contemporary Greek Dictionary yoneea / goneea means "angle, corner" and "nook, den" and "cornerstone"

iaschaire means "fisher, angler"   ["to angle" means "to fish"]

uille [~"Wylla"] means "angle, corner, nook" in Gaelic

uishe [~"Asha"] means "corner, angle, temple, gills of a fish" in Gaelic

llymu [~"Lemore"] means "angular" in Welsh

 

cuinne means "a litter; an angle, corner, nook" and cuan means "harbour" and cuin / coin  means "wolf" in Gaelic

 

sliosnach means "angled, faceted" and mentions the Greek word gonia ("angle") in the definition

(cearn [~"corn"] and corran [~"qhorin halfhand"] also mean "corner, angle")

 

All this "corner" stuff points to Jon being born at the Wolf's Den. 

 

In Welsh genid means "to be born", and geni means "to be held, contained" and genweiriaw means "to angle, to fish" and is right above geol  "gaol, prison"

--Which points to Jon being born at the Wolf's Den while Ashara was being held there, which is a gaol,

 

Daingean means "stronghold, marriage, vow" in Gaelic

and dyngja  means "dungeon, a lady's bower" in Norse--Davos notes that the Wolf's Den dungeon was once a lordling's chamber.

Gainntire (Jon + tire ["wolf"]) means "dungeon" in Gaelic and doinsiun [Dayne son] means "dungeon" and the Wolf's Den was built by Jon Stark.

 

yoneea is on the same page as dangono [Dayne Jon] which means "bite" in Greek and on the facing page deno [Dayne] means "tie, bind" and is right under dendron "tree"

gion / gean means "bite, mouth, sword, will" in Gaelic--and Wolf's Den is a Dungeon at the Mouth of the White Knife in the Bite

and Ned and Ashara Dayne got married by Wymon Manderly at the weirwood tree at the Wolf's Den.  uaim means "to join" in Gaelic.

(and beal means "mouth" in Gaelic and Jon is associated with Bael)

sloch / sluic [Sloe] means "den, dungeon" in Gaelic

 

In Welsh, esgar means "divorce, separation"

[nimlot]

Love this analysis. N + A = J was my first favorite theory about Jon (after rejecting RLJ). If GRRM really combined that many details together... it would be so impressive. 

At the moment I support the Arthur + Lyanna = Jon theory. Partly because of the huge dawn, sword of the morning and Arthur connections to Jon. Which could work with Arthur as the uncle. But this theory unites nicely with Rhaegar + Ashara = Dany theory. I just feel that both Jon and Daenerys have a Dayne link. 

N+A=J is nice, but then I can't see how Daenerys can be a half Dayne. And I strongly believe Rhaegar to be her father. 

But yet again the etimology build such a beautiful picture around White Harbour, Ned and Ashara. I don't know what to think. 

Sorry for hijacking the thread with parentage stuff. 

Also thank you for the Greyjoy link. I stumbled upon your posts while looking for something about "Sad Arthur".  There is a lot of sadness around Arthur. He smiles sadly. His initials are Sad and his sword can be also read as the Sword of the Mourning. But on the other hand, there are also a lot of joy, smile and laughing words around him. Tower of Joy, the Smiling Knight, maid with the laughing eyes as his sister. 

And Greyjoy is another link. Another joy. And at the same time, greyjoy sounds like something not joyous, but sad. 

I don't know yet where I'm going with it.

[Aebram]

This seems very speculative to me.  Gaelic, Welsh, Norse, Greek ... how many dictionaries does the George have on his desk?  Has he said that he does this kind of multi-lingual research to choose character names?

We've seen some other theories that use this sort of logic. I'm beginning to think that anything can mean anything, if you try enough languages.