847 replies to this topic

[Abramelin]

I was thinking about this "White Island of the Dead", and then I remembered once seeing an area called "White Bank" on some map of the North Sea.

Here's a map from my former post:



Look into the direction of the arrow that points to this White Island ("witte Aland").


Now a map dating from 1790:



A Chart of The German Ocean or North Sea. London c. 1790, coloured. 185 x 260mm.
Depicting various sand banks between the East Coast of England, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, including Dogger Bank, the Long Forty, Buchan Deep, Broad Fourteen, Well Bank, White Bank and Brown Bank.

http://alteagallery....;search=subject


And HERE you can play around with that map:



Why was the White Bank called white?

According to this pdf, the White Bank got its name bacause it was probably the remains of a chalk range.

Apparently, although 20 meters(?) deep, people could see its color.

Here it is again:



It's exactly located where this "White island of the Dead" was located.

Does this mean it was above sealevel during historic times? Or does it mean the Frisians fabricated a myth around that White Bank?


++++++++

EDIT:

Here's a modern bathymetric chart of the area:





.

Edited by Abramelin, 28 July 2011 - 01:58 PM.

[Abramelin]

Ok Bloemen, here is the Frisian story about the "White island of the Dead".

However, I did not translate from the link you gave, http://82.168.69.203...tte Eiland.html , but I used a translation of a more original and earlier version as described by Heinrich Heine in his 1853 "Die Götter im Exil"/ The Gods in exile (one of the references in the Dutch article):


======



(...)

An analogous tradition is extant along the coast
of East Friesland. In the latter legend, the ancient
conception of the transportation of the dead to the
realm of Hades is distinctly recognizable. In fact,
it underlies all those legends. It is true that none
of them contain any mention of Charon, the steers-
man of the boat: this old fellow seems to have
entirely disappeared from the folk-lore, and is to
be met with only in puppet-shows. But a far more
notable mythological personage is to be recognized
in the so-called forwarding agent, or dispatcher,
who makes arrangements for the transportation of
the dead and pays the customary passage-money
into the hands of the boatman : the latter is gen-
erally a common fisherman, who officiates as a
substitute for Charon. Notwithstanding his quaint
disguise, the true name of this dispatcher may
readily be guessed; and I shall therefore relate
the legend as faithfully as possible.

The shores of East Friesland that border on the
North Sea abound with bays, which are used as
harbors and are called fiords [Me: Huh?]. On the farthest
projecting promontory of land generally stands the
solitary hut of some fisherman, who lives here
with his family, peacefully and contentedly. Here
nature wears a sad and melancholy aspect. Not
even the chirping of a bird is to be heard, save now
and then the shrill screech of a sea-gull flying up
from its nest among the sand-hills, — an omen of
the coming storm. The monotonous plashings of
the restless sea harmonize with the sombre, shift-
ing shadows of the passing clouds.

Song is hushed on the lips of the human in-
habitants of these desolate regions, and the strain
of a volkslied is never heard. The people who
live here are an earnest, honest, matter-of-fact race,
proud of their bold spirit and of the liberties
which they have inherited from their ancestors.
Such a people are not imaginative, and are little
given to metaphysical speculations. Fishing is
their principal support, added to which is an occa-
sional pittance of passage-money for transporting
some traveler to one of the adjacent islands.

It is said that at a certain period of the year,
just at mid-day, when the fisherman and his family
are seated at table eating their noonday meal, a
traveler enters and asks the master of the house
to vouchsafe him an audience for a few minutes to
speak with him on a matter of business. The fish-
erman, after vainly inviting the stranger to dine,
grants his request, and they both step aside to a
Httle table. I shall not describe the personal ap-
pearance of the stranger in detail, after the tedious
manner of novel-writers : a brief enumeration of
the salient points will suffice. He is a little man,
advanced in years, but well preserved. He is, so
to say, a youthful graybeard : plump, but not cor-
pulent ; cheeks ruddy as an apple ; small eyes,
which blink merrily and continually. On his pow-
dered little head he wears a three-cornered little
hat. Under his flaming yellow cloak, with its
many collars, he wears the old-fashioned dress of
a well-to-do Holland merchant, such as we see de-
picted in old portraits, — namely, a short silk coat
of a parrot-green color, a vest embroidered with
flowers, short black trowsers, striped stockings, and
shoes ornamented with buckles. The latter are so
brightly polished that it is hard to understand how
the wearer could trudge afoot through the slimy
mud of the coast and yet keep them so clean.
His voice is a thin, asthmatic treble, sometimes
inclining to be rather lachrymose; but the address
and bearing of the little man are as grave and
measured as beseem a Holland merchant. This
gravity, however, appears to be more assumed
than natural, and is in marked contrast with the
searching, roving, swift-darting glances of the eyes,
and with the ill-repressed fidgetiness of the legs
and arms.

That the stranger is a Holland merchant
is evidenced not only by his apparel, but also by
the mercantile exactitude and caution with which
he endeavors to effect as favorable a bargain as
possible for his employers. He claims to be a for-
warding agent, and to have received from some of
his mercantile friends a commission to transport a
certain number of souls, as many as can find room
in an ordinary boat, from the coast of East Fries-
land to the White Island. In fulfillment of this
commission, he adds, he wishes to know if the
fisherman will this night convey in his boat the
aforesaid cargo to the aforesaid island ; in which
case he is authorized to pay the passage-money in
advance, confidently hoping that in Christian fair-
ness the fisherman will make his price very mod-
erate. The Holland merchant (which term is in
fact a pleonasm, since every Hollander is a mer-
chant) makes this proposition with the utmost
nonchalance, as if it referred to a cargo of cheese,
and not to the souls of the dead. The fisherman
is startled at the word " souls," and a cold chill
creeps down his back, for he immediately com-
prehends that the souls of the dead are here meant,
and that the stranger is none other than the phan-
tom Dutchman, who has already intrusted several
of his fellow-fishermen with the transportation of
the souls of the dead, and paid them well for it, too.

These East Frieslanders are, as I have already
remarked, a brave, healthy, practical people ; in
them is lacking that morbid imagination which
makes us so impressible to the ghostly and super-
natural. Our fisherman's weird dismay lasts but
a moment ; suppressing the uncanny sensation that
is stealing over him, he soon regains his com-
posure, and, intent on securing as high a sum as
possible, he assumes an air of supreme indiffer-
ence. But after a little chaffering the two come
to an understanding, and shake hands to seal the
bargain. The Hollander draws forth a dirty leather
pouch, filled entirely with little silver pennies of
the smallest denomination ever coined in Holland,
and in these tiny coins counts out the whole amount
of the fare. With instructions to the fisherman
to be ready with his boat at the appointed place
about the midnight hour when the moon shall
become visible, the Hollander takes leave of the
whole family, and, declining their repeated invita-
tions to dine, the grave little figure, dignified as
ever, trips lightly away.

At the time agreed upon, the fisherman appears
at the appointed place. At first the boat is rocked
lightly to and fro by the waves ; but by the time
the full moon has risen above the horizon the fish-
erman notices that his bark is less easily swayed,
and so it gradually sinks deeper and deeper in
the stream, until finally the water comes within a
hand's-breadth of the boat's bow. This circum-
stance apprises him that his passengers, the souls,
are now aboard, and he pushes off from shore
with his cargo. Although he strains his eyes to
the utmost, he can distinguish nothing- but a few
vapory streaks that seem to be swayed hither and
thither and to intermingle with one another, but as-
sume no definite forms. Listen intently as he may,
he hears nothing but an indescribably-faint chirp-
ing and rustling. Only now and then a sea-gull
with a shrill scream flies swiftly over his head ; or
near him a fish leaps up from out the stream, and
for a moment stares at him with a vacuous look.

The night-winds sigh, and the sea-breezes grow
more chilly. Everywhere only water, moonlight,
and silence! and silent as all around him is the
fisherman, who finally reaches the White Island
and moors his boat. He sees no one on the strand,
but he hears a shrill, asthmatic, wheezy, lachry-
mose voice, which he recognizes as that of the
Hollander. The latter seems to be reading off a
list of proper names, with a peculiar, monotonous
intonation, as if rehearsing a roll-call. Among the
names are some which are known to the fisherman
as belonging to persons who have died that year.

During the reading of the list, the boat is evidently
being gradually lightened of its load, and as soon
as the last name is called it rises suddenly and
floats freely, although but a moment before it was
deeply imbedded in the sand of the sea-shore. To
the fisherman this is a token that his cargo has
been properly delivered, and he rows composedly
back to his wife and child, to his beloved home on
the fiord.

* * *



Notwithstanding the clever disguise, I
have ventured to guess who the important mytho-
logical personage is that figures in this tradition.
It is none other than the god Mercury, Hermes
Psychopompos, the whilom conductor of the dead
to Hades, Verily, under the shabby and prosaic
garb of a tradesman is concealed the youthful
and most accomplished god of heathendom, the
cunning son of Maia. On his little three-cornered
hat not the slightest tuft of a feather is to be seen
which might remind the beholder of the winged
cap, and the clumsy shoes with steel buckles fail
to give the least hint of the winged sandals. This
grave and heavy Dutch lead is quite different from
the mobile quicksilver, from which the god de-
rived his very name. But the contrast is so ex-
tremely striking as to betray his design, which is
the more effectually to disguise himself Perhaps
this mask was not chosen out of mere caprice.
Mercury was, as is well known, the patron god
of thieves and merchants, and, in all probability, in
choosing a disguise that should conceal him, and
a trade by which to earn his livelihood, he took
into consideration his talents and antecedents.

* * *

And thus it came to pass that the shrewd-
est and most cunning of the gods became a mer-
chant, and, to adapt himself most thoroughly to
his role, became the ne phis iiltra of merchants,
— a Holland merchant. His long practice in the
olden time as Psychopompos, as conveyer of the
dead to Hades, marks him out as particularly fitted
to conduct the transportation of the souls of the
dead to the White Island, in the manner just de-
scribed.

The White Island is occasionally also called
Brea, or Britannia. Does this perhaps refer to
white Albion, to the chalky cliffs of the English
coast ? It were a very humorous idea to designate
England as the land of the dead, as the Plutonian
realm, as hell. In sooth, by many a traveler Eng-
land is so regarded.


=============

Source:

http://www.ebooksrea...heine-hci.shtml

[Abramelin]

I'd like to add that the Dutch article mentions some names and data too.

It claims the saga dates from at least 6th century AD, and that it was known from Westkapelle in the province of Zeeland to Baflo in the province of Groningen, and also in Ostfriesland in Germany.

And it was in Ostfriesland that this version of the story takes place (always on the shortest day of the year, December 21th, at the stroke of midnight), in a town called Nesmerzijl, on the corner ("hörn") opposite the small island of Baltrum.

The fisherman's name is "Jan Huigen", and he not only sailed/ferried from Baltrum, but also from Nordeney.

The article also mentions from Procopius' "De Bello Gothico" (6th century AD), that the dead were ferried across the North Sea from (maybe) Domburg (>> "Nehalennia") to "Britia".

[Abramelin]

"Jan Huigen" is a historical figure, and he's still being remembered in a Dutch kid's rhyme: "Jan Huigen in de ton".

http://en.wikipedia...._van_Linschoten


In my former post you may have read about a small island, called "Baltrum".

Some might think it had anything to do with the "White Island of the Dead" of the Frisian saga.

Well, forget about it: it's not white, there is no tradition of graveyards or 'the dead', and it's not that old.

I put my money on a submerged area, a remnant of a chalk cliff/range, an area now known as the "White Bank".

.

Edited by Abramelin, 28 July 2011 - 07:17 PM.

[Abramelin]

I have noticed there are still many who think Doggerland is the prime candidate for Plato's Atlantis.

Ulf Erlingsson tried it, and he had a nice theory: Ireland was Atlantis, and the Flood story came from these Irish people witnessing the submergence of Doggerland/-Island in the North Sea.

But I miss elephants, and lots of other things Plato mentioned.

If anything, the Doggerlanders were hunter-gatherers, and maybe, MAYBE, Doggerland was the place of origin of the much later Megalithic people/culture.

But up to now, nothing has been found that could corroborate this theory.

And there are divers down there ( = Dogger Bank) at this moment (for months), scientists/biologists.


.

Edited by Abramelin, 28 July 2011 - 08:35 PM.

[cormac mac airt]

Abramelin, on 28 July 2011 - 08:25 PM, said:

I have noticed there are still many who think Doggerland is the prime candidate for Plato's Atlantis.

Ulf Erlingsson tried it, and he had a nice theory: Ireland was Atlantis, and the Flood story came from these Irish people witnessing the submergence of Doggerland/-Island in the North Sea.

But I miss elephants, and lots of other things Plato mentioned.

If anything, the Doggerlanders were hunter-gatherers, and maybe, MAYBE, Doggerland was the place of origin of the much later Megalithic people/culture.

But up to now, nothing has been found that could corroborate this theory.

And there are divers down there ( = Dogger Bank) at this moment (for months), scientists/biologists.


.

Well, if Doggerland was what Plato meant then he wasn't very competent in giving directions, as Doggerland is definitely NOT west.  

cormac

[lilthor]

cormac mac airt, on 28 July 2011 - 08:52 PM, said:

Well, if Doggerland was what Plato meant then he wasn't very competent in giving directions, as Doggerland is definitely NOT west.  

cormac

Whatever the origins of the myth, many "facts" would have been skewed by the time Plato got his chance to retell the story, but...

wouldn't one have to travel (by sea) quite a ways west from Athens in order to reach the Dogger Bank?

[cormac mac airt]

Quote

Whatever the origins of the myth, many "facts" would have been skewed by the time Plato got his chance to retell the story, but...

Except that there's no actual evidence that the story ever existed prior to Plato. Therein lies the problem.

Quote

...wouldn't one have to travel (by sea) quite a ways west from Athens in order to reach the Dogger Bank?

That argument could be used for pretty much any place that could be reached by travelling west. In and of itself, it's a pretty weak argument. It would also be a much shorter distance to travel by land, til one gets to the Netherlands or Denmark, THEN sail to the Dogger Bank.

cormac

[lilthor]

Oops...I hadn't meant to post on this thread in the first place.  Oh well...

cormac mac airt, on 28 July 2011 - 09:34 PM, said:

Except that there's no actual evidence that the story ever existed prior to Plato. Therein lies the problem.

This is a good point.  I find it fascinating, however, that the more that is learned about the geologic/tectonic/bathymetric history of the entire region, the more plausible it becomes that mankind did in fact witness events that gave rise to myths and legends.  If there is a grain of truth to it, there's an intriguing mystery waiting.

Quote

That argument could be used for pretty much any place that could be reached by travelling west. In and of itself, it's a pretty weak argument. It would also be a much shorter distance to travel by land, til one gets to the Netherlands or Denmark, THEN sail to the Dogger Bank.

cormac

Well, it really wasn't an argument so much as a rhetorical question.  I'd bet though, if a group traveled overland in 3500 BC from Athens to Denmark, along with all of their provisions, they'd be kicking themselves on the Danish shoreline for not taking their own ship in the first place as they awaited the next passing ferry.

[Abramelin]

lilthor, on 28 July 2011 - 09:21 PM, said:

Whatever the origins of the myth, many "facts" would have been skewed by the time Plato got his chance to retell the story, but...

wouldn't one have to travel (by sea) quite a ways west from Athens in order to reach the Dogger Bank?

I would say north-west...

How?

Not by sea, but by sailing up the Danube, and then travel a relatively short distance on land to either the Rhine or the Elbe, and sail downstream on either of these rivers, and you will finally end up in Doggerland. And it went both ways.

I can imagine people living around the Danube (maybe even the Black Sea) could have been in contact (trade) with the Doggerlanders.






.

Edited by Abramelin, 29 July 2011 - 01:10 PM.

[Abramelin]

I have used and quoted from the next site several times, but here is something again because it appears to be the only serious theory (Oppenheimer) that might give us an idea about what could have been going on on Doggerland (and you might want to read all of it, not just what I will quote):


========


Around 8000 BC, Azelian tribes colonized most of Doggerland (the North Sea) and Britain. Only the very north of Doggerland was briefly (because of the steadily rising water) occupied by northern Maglemosians. The presence of a northern Maglemosian language is required because of the occurrence of the form 'are' of the verb 'to be'. This form is found only in the modern Scandinavian countries, in modern Britain and in one of the oldest PIE languages - the now extinct Hittite language. We think that the 'are' form is very old PIE indeed since it occurs only on the periphery of Europe.

We think that northern Maglemosian was a strongly diverting dialect of Maglemosian. We think that mainstream Maglemosians could understand northern Maglemosian only with a lot of difficulty. When agriculture came, Maglemosian changed into proto-Germanic. Northern Maglemosian resisted longer but eventually changed too. However, it kept some archaic features of PIE, which were present earlier in Maglemosian, such as the 'are' form of 'to be'.

When the ice melted completely ca. 8000 BC (at the beginning of the Holocene), and the sea level rose, all Azelian and northern Maglemosian people, who lived on the North Sea plain, were eventually forced to move to higher ground: to the modern coastal regions of the North Sea. Some of them settled in the east of Britain.

The Doggerland Azelians moved to the darker green zone. Much later, the language would be replaced by proto-Germanic with a 'sind' form of 'to be' and gave birth to a different sort of Germanic, now known as coastal German or Ingvaeonic German.

http://www.proto-english.org/o2.html


Migrations of Doggerland people when the sea level rose.


==========

I have always been fascinated by the possibility of really ancient writing, if that's what the next really is:



Words or numbers?

These painted pebbles from Mas d'Azil are typical of an art form known from south-western and southern France, the Pyrenees and southern Italy. Their excavator, Edouard Piette, first identified such pieces in 1889. They date from a phase at the very end of the last Ice Age called the Azilian, between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Azilian pebbles are simply coloured and/or decorated with paint made from red ochre (iron peroxide). It was probably most often applied from the artist's fingers. The decorations include the dots, borders and bands of colour seen here, as well as zig-zags, ovals and dashes. About 1400 pebbles like these were found at Mas d'Azil. Their excavation proved that paint could survive in the ground for thousands of years. They also helped to end doubts that the first paintings discovered on the walls of caves such as Altamira really were the work of even earlier Stone Age artists.


Piette suggested that the painted motifs may be signs representing words or numbers, as in writing. Recent research suggests that the marks may not be random. The signs represented only occur in 41 of a possible 246 combinations. This might suggest that their arrangement represented words or numbers.

http://www.britishmu...ed_pebbles.aspx

=


Paul G. Bahn M.A., Ph.D. and Claude Couraud

Available online 26 August 2004.

Abstract
The end of the Ice Age (c. 9–8000 BC) in the French Pyrenees and other European areas is characterised by, among other things, the production of enigmatically decorated pebbles. Many theories concerning their function have been put forward. A recent analysis indicates that the decoration is non-random, and may represent some sort of notation.

http://www.sciencedi...160932784900784

.

Edited by Abramelin, 29 July 2011 - 03:59 PM.

[Abramelin]

Not one of the resident lunatics here has anything to say about a submerged area the size of Britain.

Maybe I should add that they found a flying saucer at the bottom  of the North Sea??

Or some 'magic crystal'?

Heh.

Reality scares off the ones living in daydreams.

That is one of the reasons I love this topic.

[Abramelin]

I have talked quite a bit about Doggerland/the North Sea as the original 'underworld' or 'hell', and that idea wasn't new. I have posted the next imaginative piece of text long ago, but here it is again as comparison:


ONCE there was a land called Doggerland. It was a rich habitat, where the first men quietly roamed on endless sloping meadows. It was the garden of Eden as imagined in paintings. Then, by the end of the last iceage, Doggerland disappeared under the rising waters. In the south, this new sea was called Helle, a name from which Christianity took the word for the archetype of all fear and terror–hell–originating in the belief that the sea was the resting place for the dead. Further north the sea was referred to as Holle, from which came Holland (A. Cornelis, Amsterdam, 1997). With Doggerland drowned, this paradise was lost.

TEN THOUSAND YEARS LATER in ancient Greece, it was said there existed a coastline where Hades ruled over the Gates of Hell. It was a land of eternal fog, where the sea rushed over the sandbanks into the marshlands behind. The sun never shined over these sandy shores and not a single tree would grow in this silted swamp. The only people that were able to survive in this inhospitable landscape were known as the ferrymen for the dead.

THOUSAND YEARS THEREAFTER, in this unforgiving and uninhabitable land, settlers known as watermen inhabited the edge between land and water. On artificial mounds they lived democratically by the unwritten ewa or Law of Eternal Rights. This law had to be agreed upon at annual gatherings called thing, where he who knows better must say so. Their sole civic duty was to pledge defending their land from the sea (J. van Veen, Den Haag, 1948). On mounds of clay farmhouses and small villages were erected. These terpen were scattered across the land, forming a landside archipelago where the surrounding land was farmed like fishermen harvesting the sea. The external reality of nature conditioned the terp as a model of radical technocratic simplicity. The sea of land remained un-urbanized because it was too dangerous to inhabit, while on the safe terpen a culture of congestion was automatically generated. The level of technological advancement determined the maximum size of the mounds: an archipelago of scattered terpen conditioned this territory of individual parts.

http://universiteitv...n.blogspot.com/

[Abramelin]

Abramelin, on 14 July 2011 - 08:01 PM, said:

Please compare the next maps:






This will be a 'toe-crenching' experience to many, but it's a thing I just have to vent.

The rivers Rhine and Elbe have their sources near the source of the Danube, ergo: contact was easy between the North Sea and the Black Sea.

People traded for many thousands of years, and one of the preferred items to trade in was amber.

Poeple are nothing but human crows, and will do anything to get anything shiny.

People living near the Danube must have traded with people living at the coasts of the North Sea.

And they not only traded goods, but stories too.




========

TANATOS: Thanet Island, in Kent?

(The fact that Thanet has more Bronze age burial mounds than anywhere else in Britain which could have been seen right out to sea, and the Isle and already had the name Tane'tus may be just a coincidence. What do you think??

http://www.bbc.co.uk...h_feature.shtml )

-

TARTAROS: the Silverpit 'Crater' (it's not a real crater, but a collapsed salt dome), south of Dogger Bank?

(In classic mythology, below Uranus (sky), Gaia (earth), and Pontus (sea) is Tartarus, or Tartaros (Greek ???ta???, deep place). It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. In the Gorgias, Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartarus)



ACHERON: the river Rhine?

(Etymology: From Latin Acheron from Ancient Greek ?????? (Acheron) from ? ??ea ???? (ho akhea rheon, “the stream of woe”.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Acheron.

Think 'Rhone', a river in France, 'flowing'/stream)



ERIDANOS: the river Elbe? or the Kattegat??

(The ancient amber trade route ran from the Baltic Sea, down the Elbe River, and on to the Danube. From there roads led overland through the Brenner Pass into Italy, the heart of the Roman Empire. Rome was the undisputed center of the amber industry. The Romans used amber in a number of different objects, including coins. They apparently valued amber even more than the fair-haired Baltic slaves, the harvesters of amber, whom Tacitus regarded as savages. Not until the third century A.D., when wars with the Goths made such trade in luxury items unsustainable, did the Roman domination of the amber industry come to an end. (See Spekke)

http://www1.american.edu/ted/amber.htm)


PALACE OF HADES: Dogger Bank/Island?

(god knows, maybe there was a woodhenge on the top of what is now the Dogger bank, maybe Hades' Castle )

STYX: the more or less east/west flowing river south of Dogger Bank/Island?

PLEGETHON: the river Vecht (it once flowed between Enkhuizen and Stavoren into the North Sea)?

(Phlegethon - This was the river of fire in Hades. It's said that while the fire burned, it did not consume anything within it's flames.
http://www.spiffy-en...mythrivers.html

VECHT:
http://www.nevenzel....lege/NMKDV.html

This river Vecht once run between Stavoren and Enkhuizen (Netherlands). It must have passed the "Red Cliff" south-west of Friesland. This cliff was once considered to be a volcano because it was in flames occassionally. But now they think it was caused by gas that got ignited.)


LETHE:

"In Greek mythology, Lethe (Λήθη; Classical Greek [ˈlɛːtʰɛː], modern Greek: [ˈliθi]) was one of the five rivers of Hades"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethe

LETHE LINK

This is the German version...




http://upload.wikime...5/Hunte_pos.png


.

Of course I know I am treading on extremely thin ice here, but still I'd like to add the next:

CE′RBERUS (Kerberos), the many-headed dog that guarded the entrance of Hades, is mentioned as early as the Homeric poems, but simply as "the dog," and without the name of Cerberus. (Il. viii. 368, Od. xi. 623.) Hesiod, who is the first that gives his name and origin, calls him (Theog. 311) fifty-headed and a son of Typhaon and Echidna. Later writers describe him as a monster with only three heads, with the tail of a serpent and a mane consisting of the heads of various snakes. (Apollod. ii. 5. § 12; Eurip. Here. fur. 24, 611; Virg. Aen. vi. 417; Ov. Met. iv. 449.) Some poets again call him many-headed or hundred-headed. (Horat. Carm. ii. 13. 34; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 678; Senec. Here. fur. 784.) The place where Cerberus kept watch was according to some at the mouth of the Acheron, and according to others at the gates of Hades, into which he admitted the shades, but never let them out again.

http://www.theoi.com...onKerberos.html


The name "Cerberus" is a Latinised version of the Greek Kerberos, which may be related to the Sanskrit word सर्वरा "sarvarā", used as an epithet of one of the dogs of Yama, from a Proto-Indo-European word *ḱerberos, meaning "spotted"[5] (This etymology suffers from the fact that it includes a reconstructed *b, which is extremely rare in Proto-Indo-European. Yet according to Pokorny it is well distributed, with additional apparent cognates in Slavic, British and Lithuanian).[6] The use of a dog is uncertain,[7][8] although mythologists have speculated that the association was first made in the city of Trikarenos in Phliasia.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus


Is there a similar 'hellhound' in the North Sea area?

It appears so:

In Norse mythology, Garmr or Garm (Old Norse "rag"[1]) is a dog associated with Ragnarök, and described as a blood-stained watchdog that guarded Hel's gate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmr

HERE the etymology of both these 'hellhounds' are being discussed (click on "Hounds of Hell/Hellhounds" in the index), and the conclusion of the writer is that both names have to do with the sound dogs make in general, and not with these dogs being spotted/blood-stained.


Anyway, I thought Kerber-os and Garmr sound quite similar, enough to think that one may have been a borrowing (either from Greek into a Nordic language, or the other way round, from some Nordic language into Greek - or both are derived from a single PIE source)

What I also thought interesting is that Kerberos is being described, not only as garding the mouth of the Acheron (= delta formed by the Rhine??), but also as having 3 or more heads (is branches of the Rhine forming the delta??) and the tail of a snake (the Rhine itself??).

Close to the mouth of the Rhine is the mouth of the Schelde with it's ancient sea goddess Nehalennia on the (former) island of Walcheren, a goddess always accompanied with a - rather friendly - dog (and a ship and a basket with apples).


+++++

EDIT:

'dogs of the sea' = North Sea >> Albinovanus Pedo

A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography - by John Marincola

http://books.google....us Pedo&f=false



Albinovanus Pedo

? Roman poet
flourished 1st century AD

      Roman poet who wrote a Theseid, referred to by his friend the poet Ovid (Epistles from Pontus); epigrams that are commended by the Latin poet Martial; and an epic poem on the military exploits of the Roman general Germanicus Caesar, the emperor Tiberius' adopted son, under whom Pedo probably served. This epic may have been used as a source by the Roman historian Tacitus. All that remains of Pedo's works is a fragment, preserved in the Suasoriae of Seneca the Elder, that describes in a highly melodramatic and rhetorical style the voyage of Germanicus (AD 16) through the Ems River to the Northern Ocean (i.e., the North Sea).

http://universalium....lbinovanus_Pedo


==

Btw, all this is Puzzler's fault, lol !!




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Edited by Abramelin, 01 August 2011 - 05:10 PM.

[Abramelin]

Btw, this is the page with Albinovanus Pedo's poem about the North Sea, in case you couldn't find it: