Lorath, Norvos and Qohor worship 3 aspects of the same god.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

21 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

I just bought a Welsh dictionary, inspired by your deep dives. There's a lot of 'w' action going on ... 

What one did you get?  Pughe's Welsh dictionary is the best, I have two copies from 1865, and I am currently digitizing it, because the current pdf is very low quality.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

Since I mentioned goat  meaning "a fiery meteor" I may as well get into the Starfall stuff.

I think the word weirwood comes from the Welsh word

chwydawyr  which means "star fall, vomit" 

chwood + aweir ~ wood + weir ~ weirwood.  And chwydr  means "ejected matter, what is vomited"  ["chowder" is Boston slang for vomit]

[carth- means "vomit" in Welsh, and caoirth  means "fiery meteor" in Gaelic,  and gwrthwyne- means "vomit" and "devil" in Welsh]

 

So weirwood means "starfall" and the Daynes followed a falling star, where it landed there is Star Fall, and a White Sword Tower rises up where it landed, and the white magic meteor sword Dawn is kept in the White Sword Tower .  It is describing a weirwood/starfall  landing on Earth and growing a White Tower.  dwyr  means "dawn" so dwyr wood.

And Dany followed a falling star to Qarth.  and carth/caoirth means "vomit, comet" and caoirtheen means "valerian" in Gaelic.

 

 

In gaelic there is a phrase sgeith nan reulta  "glutinous substance vulgarly supposed to fall from the stars" also called Starfall, Star Jelly, Frogspawn, Starch [Stark], Witches Butter, vomit from the stars.   And many of Lovecraft's characters are sgeith/shuggoth from the stars--Cthulhu, the Color out of Space, the Crinoids, the Fungus from Yuggoth, Yog-Sothoth, the shuggoths, the Tree on the Hill, all are version of the Black Goat/meteor.

 

In Irish folklore there is a notion that the little fairies (sidhe ~ "shee") who live in hollow hills (siodh) cause strong blasts of wind, called sidhe gaoithe (pronounced "shee-goth") and in fact sidhe means "a blast, a puff, a leap or bound" and "fairy, magic" and the aos sidhe  ("fairy folk") or sluagh sidhe ("the fairy host"), was believed to actually ride on the blast of wind and carry off mortals.  

 

So a shuggoth is something that falls from the stars, and that also is a blast of wind from a cave that carry off fairies.

 

 

George has borrowed a ton of lore from Lovecraft, and I think the weirwood is directly based on Lovecraft's the Color out of Space.  Where the Black Goat/ alien meteor lands on Earth, it contains a glutinous vampiric almost-invisible monster that sucks the life out of living creatures, is symbiotic with trees/roots, lives in a well, absorbs energy from lightning strikes, and then launches itself back into space.  The area surrounding the impact site becomes the blasted heath, and the launch of the shuggoth is accompanied by a huge blast or gust of interstellar wind.

Black Goat of the Woods = alien meteor = sidhe gaoithe = shuggoth

 

and wyr  means "spreading" in Welsh.  And the weirwood is a spreading blight, like the Blasted Heath.  so combine that with chwydawyr  meaning "starfall, vomit" and the weirwood is a version of Lovecraft's Color out of Space.

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth

[Sandy Clegg]

1 hour ago, Fun Guy from Yuggoth said:

So I think Bran really is the Great Other.

Your whirlwind approach to word references often makes my head spin, but there's always something to tickle my brain. That's quite the leap there, though. I'm still researching axes and you're already skipping to the endgame!!

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

35 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Your whirlwind approach to word references often makes my head spin, but there's always something to tickle my brain. That's quite the leap there, though. I'm still researching axes and you're already skipping to the endgame!!

Mel pretty much tells us Bran is the Great Other

"She wondered if it had been his face [the Great Other] that she had seen, staring out at her from the flames. No. Surely not. His visage would be more frightening than that, cold and black and too terrible for any man to gaze upon and live. The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf's face … they were his servants, surely … his champions,"

 

braon  means "corruption, rotteness" and bran means "black"  and braonan means "icicle" and all the stuff surrounding Bran being a winged wolf that swallows the sun, that is all very Night King, and his army is rotten, black, icicle corpses. 

 

ETA:

Just noticed that braon means "rotten, corrupt" and othair means "dirty, filthy, foul" and othar means "cripple" and "grave" and in Welsh uthr means "terrible"

and brain/bran  means "chief, prince, leader, captain"

 

 

And when Mel is talking to Davos about the Great Other, she talks about rotten onions.  And I just noticed that leac means "onion" and leac / lich means "stone, gravestone"  and Davos means "black" and Onion Knight, onion night--leac night, lich king ~ Night King.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Fun Guy from Yuggoth

[Sandy Clegg]

15 minutes ago, Fun Guy from Yuggoth said:

Mel pretty much tells us Bran is the Great Other

"She wondered if it had been his face [the Great Other] that she had seen, staring out at her from the flames. No. Surely not. His visage would be more frightening than that, cold and black and too terrible for any man to gaze upon and live. The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf's face … they were his servants, surely … his champions,"

 

braon  means "corruption, rotteness" and bran means "black"  and braonan means "icicle" and all the stuff surrounding Bran being a winged wolf that swallows the sun, that is all very Night King, and his army is rotten, black, icicle corpses. 

And when Mel is talking to Davos about the Great Other, she talks about rotten onions.  And I just noticed that leac means "onion" and leac / lich means "stone, gravestone"  and Davos means "black" and Onion Knight, onion night--leac night, lich king ~ Night King.

You probably will need to give more citations for some of these, Yuggoth. As much as I love the etymology dives, you need to stand on rocky foundations becauase a lot of word etymologies can be squeezed and moulded to mean pretty much anything if you're not careful.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

10 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

You probably will need to give more citations for some of these, Yuggoth. As much as I love the etymology dives, you need to stand on rocky foundations becauase a lot of word etymologies can be squeezed and moulded to mean pretty much anything if you're not careful.

So in the Wheel of Time  the devil visits people in their dreams in the shape of a raven, and he pecks them, and that is how they are marked by the devil.

And Bran is visited in his dreams by a 3 eyed crow, that pecks his 3rd eye, cro means "eye" and "bloody" in Gaelic, and Bran means "crow" and braon  means "dropping, falling" and braonan means "icicle" and in brion means "dream" and brion- / branns- means "branch"  and "deceiver, trickster".  And Bran has weirwood dreams about falling onto icicles, that feature crows, trees, and eyes. 

And I was the first to suggest that Bran opened his own 3rd Eye through a time-loop from the future.  Bran is himself the # Eyed Crow, the Devil, the Deceiver.  And Mel says "Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night."

And in Celtic myth, Bran had a magic cauldron that brought the dead back to life.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

More aex/axe wordplay.  Just noticed that the Bolton sigil is an x-cross, with a man being flayed alive on it.  And the x-cross is one of the forms of crucifixion, crux decussata.  

bwyell- means "axe" in Welsh  and X is ten in Roman numerals.  bwyell + ten ~ Bolton.  xx = death

and bwl means "bole, round hollow body"   Bolton is a name from Lovecraft's The Color out of Space, about the Black Goat (aex) that comes to Earth in a round hollow body meteor. 

 

bole = tree trunk, boletus = fungus, and bolide = explosive meteor (and bolis is greek for "missile")

[Evolett]

12 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

We're getting a broader picture, it seems, of the winged storm god. It's a popular theme, in real world and in ASOIAF. The Native American 'thunderbird' myth also refers to a great winged animal which has weather-controlling powers: 

That's really interesting. Daenerys could then also be seen as a winged storm goddess. She is indeed "Stormborn." I've had an eternal debate on whether or not to associate Daenerys Stormborn with the tale of Duran Godsgrief and Elenei. Elenei's godly parents never managed to destroy the seventh iteration of Storm's End to this day. Daenerys and Robert Baratheon are adversaries, Robert brought down the Targs, crushing Rhaegar with his hammer. What if the gods have finally "birthed" their avenger in Daenerys? This line of speculation would take us way back into history of course so I'll leave it at that. 

I also have a thought on the storm / maze / hammer or axe symbolism. Garth is described as a fertility god. Close parallel to Garth is Robert who embodies the fertility aspect but is also a Storm Lord. I've always assumed that in order to be a proper fertility god engaged in the promoting of agriculture, Garth must have been a weather god as well, certainly to provide rain. Both wore antlers. The upward- reaching and branching form of antlers lends itself to the symbolic representation of lightning and is viewed as such in the mythologies of several cultures. Now, House Gardener and Highgarden were founded by Garth's first born son and in this context of mixed storm, lightening and hammer symbolism we find Highgarden's unique feature, a maze:

Quote

Between the outermost wall that girdles the foot of the hill and the middle wall above it can be found Highgarden’s famed briar maze, a vast and complicated labyrinth of thorns and hedges maintained for centuries for the pleasure and delight of the castle’s occupants and guests … and for defensive purposes, for intruders unfamiliar with the maze cannot easily find their way through its traps and dead ends to the castle gates.

tWoIaF

So this association is by proxy because Highgarden and Storm's End are  two different Houses heading two different regions. We however see the coming together of these two in Renly and Margaery. 

[Evolett]

On 6/19/2023 at 1:52 PM, Sandy Clegg said:

So, where else do we find hints of a 'bat-like' deity or demon?

The bat-like deity has materialised quite unexpectedly! While listening to the Jaehaerys chapter in Fire and Blood, I came across this concerning Rego Draz, Jaehaerys' master of coin:

 

Quote

 He was said to be godless, for he did not worship the Seven. Many a queer god is worshipped in Pentos, but Draz was known to keep but one, a small household idol like unto a woman great with child, with swollen breasts and a bat’s head. “She is all the god I need,” was all he would say upon the matter.

There's no further mention of this goddess but she puts me in mind of the Venus of Willendorf, also small, and other "Venus figurines" found to be extremely ancient in the real world. With her human body and bat's head, she's also another chimeric figure. It's possible that the next line in which Rego Draz is described as a "mongrel" hints at her origins:

Quote

He was said to be a mongrel, an assertion he could not deny, for all Pentoshi are part Andal and part Valyrian, mixed with the stock of slaves and older peoples long forgotten. 

Perhaps the name Rego Draz is also a clue, being reminiscent of the Valyrian inspired "Rhaego" and the Ghiscari-sounding "Draz," and could be a nod at proto Valyrian and proto Andal roots. Being great with child and having swollen breasts suggests a fertility or mother goddess while the bat head suggests she was also a chthonic deity, the two often associated in mythology, for example, Persephone. Maybe the Harpy of Ghis evolved from this goddess?

Quote

Twenty feet tall she reared. She had a woman’s face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion’s curled and venomous tail. The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought.

 

  The Harpy of Ghis also has this mother goddess symbolism though the water gushing from her heavy breasts is yellow and sulfurous, like milk gone bad. And of course she has the bat / dragon wings. Perhaps she is a fertility goddess grown vengful, bearing a greater resemblance to the actual harpies of myth than a nurturing earth goddess.

Rego Draz himself is known as the "Lord of Air," which alludes to having mastered flight. 

Quote

As he was a lord without lands, sworn men, or a castle, however, some wit about the castle dubbed him “the Lord of Air.”The Pentoshi was amused. “If I could tax air, I would be a lord indeed.” F&B

 

 Rego Draz was a very able master of coin and is remembered for the various taxes he imposed to finance Jaehaerys' two pet projects - improving King's Landing and building the Dragon Pit at KL. He was hated by the people for these taxes which they no doubt perceived as punishing. Now, axes are not at all mentioned in connection with Rego but there is probably a pun on axes and taxes. And there is also this element of "punishment" attached, which I see as relevant to the axe (and to the harpy) in general. This is also holds true for the bat:

Quote

“My old ma used to say that giant bats flew out from Harrenhal on moonless nights, to carry bad children to Mad Danelle for her cookpots. 

Mad Danelle uses giant bats to capture bad children who are punished by being cooked and eaten. As an emblem of slavery, the Ghiscari Harpy snatches people and feeds them to the slave machine. 

 

And there is probably a connection between the goddess-related "labrys," female double-headed axes, the female driven agents of punishment such as Danelle's bats, the Harpy, Lady Lu, and I concede ... the dragons. 

Then, it makes sense for Novorshi slave soldiers "marry" their double-bladed axes (a representation of the goddess) and have her branded onto their chests. Not the arm or the face, nor the leg, but the chest (breast). 

Quote

And he smelled the stench of burning hair as the bearded priest touched the brand to the center of his chest. The pain had been so fierce that he thought his heart might stop, yet Areo Hotah had not flinched. The hair had never grown back over the axe.

 

 

Rego Draz and Ilyrio Mopatis have similar backgrounds, both merchants from Pentos, evolving from rags to riches, hold high office. Ilyrio is obese while Rego is stout. Both wear sumptuous clothing and wear jewelry, especially rings - Rego wore rings set with rubies. This makes me wonder if Rego represents the evolution of the bat goddess into the dragon or a branching of the religion represented by the idol into yet another faith, that of fiery R'hllor.  

Interestingly, Rego has has the cutting off of fingers motif: 

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Thus died the Lord of Air, his skull crushed by one of the very cobblestones he had helped the king lay down. Even then, his assailants were not done with him. Before they ran, they ripped off his fine clothes and cut off all his fingers to lay claim to his rings.

ETA - Tyrion thinks one could live comfortably off Ilyrio's rings but would have cut his fingers off with a cleaver to obtain them. 

Perhaps this ties back to the Venus of Willendorf figurine motif - they never have feet - and to our black Qohorik goat, Vargo whose trademark torture was cutting off the hands and feet of his victims. 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Evolett

[Alester Florent]

Is worship of Boash in Lorath not effectively extinct? I thought it had been pretty much eliminated centuries ago, and its presence in the world book was as part of Lorath's history rather than the current setting. I may have misremembered.

[Sandy Clegg]

2 hours ago, Evolett said:

The bat-like deity has materialised quite unexpectedly! While listening to the Jaehaerys chapter in Fire and Blood, I came across this concerning Rego Draz, Jaehaerys' master of coin:

 

A hearty Tormund 'har!' to you Evolett  

I had mainly neglected to re-read Fire & Blood as part of my re-read. Now it seems I might have to. I just wish the www.asearchoficeandfire.com guys would add it to their database! 

Rego Draz, bat-woman-worshipping Lord of Air who has his fingers cut off. I mean, how are we supposed to ignore the significance of imagery when we're bombarded with stuff like this? Amazing catch.

2 hours ago, Evolett said:

And there is probably a connection between the goddess-related "labrys," female double-headed axes, the female driven agents of punishment such as Danelle's bats, the Harpy, Lady Lu, and I concede ... the dragons. 

Well, we hardly need the axe symbolism here, as the only purpose of that is to lead to bats/dragons. Here, George has just cut to the chase. I'm honestly going to need to read the passages in more detail, so possibly an update tomorrow. But for now, great stuff and many thanks!

[Evolett]

1 hour ago, Sandy Clegg said:

I had mainly neglected to re-read Fire & Blood as part of my re-read. Now it seems I might have to. I just wish the www.asearchoficeandfire.com guys would add it to their database!

Honestly, F&B isn't exactly my favourite read. I had a hard time finishing it first time round but listening is ok. Imagine my surprise upon hearing that stuff. I could hardly believe my ears! 

 

1 hour ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Rego Draz, bat-woman-worshipping Lord of Air who has his fingers cut off. I mean, how are we supposed to ignore the significance of imagery when we're bombarded with stuff like this? Amazing catch.

Indeed, so much packed into the guy. Mega cool. That whole section is tantalizing. 

1 hour ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Well, we hardly need the axe symbolism here, as the only purpose of that is to lead to bats/dragons. Here, George has just cut to the chase. I'm honestly going to need to read the passages in more detail, so possibly an update tomorrow. But for now, great stuff and many thanks!

Oh, I do think it's integral to everything. The point that's fascinating to me is the double-bladed axe's association with females in particular and its origins possibly being a mother goddess figure. That would explain the named female axes as well as gel with Mormont's axe "Answered Prayer." He may have given it to Craster but the "anwered prayer" references Craster's wives. They could have avenged themselves with that axe. 

Many more roads lead off this path, potentially bringing some other ideas together as well as more wordplay to enjoy. Consider "batty," another expression for "mad." That definitely suits Mad Danelle. 

Another thought on the fingers: could Lady Hornwood also be part of this bat symbolism? The Hornwood sigil is a brown bullmoose with black antlers on orange. The antlers of moose differ markedly from stag antlers. They are shovel-like, wide and flat-surfaced with branches along the rim. Rather like a bat's wings. Elk antlers are more like stag antlers. 

[Sandy Clegg]

20 minutes ago, Evolett said:

Many more roads lead off this path, potentially bringing some other ideas together as well as more wordplay to enjoy. Consider "batty," another expression for "mad." That definitely suits Mad Danelle. 

Indeed. Well then I might also use mad as 'potty' as it refers to Jon (John) - as in chamber-pot. 

I think the e.g. lesbian movement's use of the labrys axe may lead us towards female axe imagery, yes. I mean, Dany is the mother of dragons. 

By the way, the inspiration for Mad Danelle, Elizabeth Bathory, does bring us wordplay (BAT-HORY) on the hoary bat ... a species with wintery colours, and quite appropriate as being connected with Harrenhall, the seat of House Hoare.

Mad Axe would also be a 'batty axe', of course!

Edited August 4, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[maesternewton]

Great theory and very interesting thread.

Perhaps a bit tinfoil, maybe most of those gods are false and are aspects of the many faced god who is the Weirwood net, AKA Bran the Broken. 

[Sandy Clegg]

Looking at the Faith of the Seven now and a connection to the axe imagery which features in worship around Norvos, etc.

Take a look at the front cover of this book ... (the Seventh Function of Language).