Sunday, June 28, 2015

The Handwriting

The Old Permic or Abur alphabet was created in the 14th century by the Russian missionary Stepan Khrap (1373- 1395), who become St Stephen of Perm. It was modeled on the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, but many of the letters resemble the Komi religious "Tamga signs". (...) Komi (Коми), which is also known as Zyrian, or Komi-Zyrian, is spoken by about 350,000 people mainly in the Komi Republic (Коми Республика) in the northeast of European Russia.

Hauksbók ('Book of Haukr'), Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar

Above is an example of myriad Medieval manuscripts to be found within the golden hoard of Norse literary tradition. This Icelandic manuscript dates from the 14th century and was created by the Icelander Haukr Erlendsson. It recounts Eiríks saga rauða or the Saga of Erik the Red.

Medieval Norse history is inextricably woven into the history of the northern British isles because quite early on as well as Scandinavia the Norse settled there in substantial numbers. The culture of Orkney, for example, may be said to be far more Norse than that of Britain south of Hadrian's Wall. This is good to keep in mind when studying the Voynich manuscript because the script closest to it hails from Scotland.

Take a look at the following word from a different manuscript and see if you can read it.

Perhaps you came up with saPro.

Or outio.

Or oaPro.You're getting along about as far as most scholars who are studying the Voynich.

This word in fact does not come from the Voynich at all but rather from a letter that gained some renown in June of 2013 for its re-identification as being written by Robert the Bruce to Edward II. It was originally attributed to Robert's son.

Here it is in full.

The word above is, in fact, Latin.

Had it been written in a far more obscure tongue, scholars might still be stumbling about with its transcription and translation, but since it is Latin, the translation came rather easily, especially compared to the Voynich.

Take a look at some other words in this letter from Robert the Bruce, written roughly a hundred years before the Voynich.

Here's just a snippet from the Voynich.

Since it's in Latin, the letter "k" is at best scarce in Robert the Bruce's letter and may be completely absent, just as it appears to be in the Voynich. Rather, the "k" sound, if it appears, is presented as double c's as in ecclesie. Here's some Wiki on it.

In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters C, K and Q were all used to represent the sounds /k/ and /g/ (which were not differentiated in writing). Of these, Q was used to represent /k/ or /g/ before a rounded vowel, K before /a/, and C elsewhere. Later, the use of C and its variant G replaced most usages of K and Q. K survived only in a few fossilized forms such as Kalendae, "the calends".

When Greek words were taken into Latin, the Kappa was transliterated as a C. Loanwords from other alphabets with the sound /k/ were also transliterated with C. Hence, the Romance languages generally use C and have K only in later loanwords from other language groups. The Celtic languages also chose C over K, and this influence carried over into Old English. Today, English is the only Germanic language to productively use hard C in addition to K (although Dutch uses it in learned words of Latin origin and follows the same hard/soft distinction in pronouncing such words as English).

But let's say that in the Voynich, the language used is very fond of k's yet the writers are more familiar with (or have only an example of) Latin script. What they may do is for every k they wish to write pen a pair of c's.

The Handwriting

A manuscript written in Sweden at about the time the Voynich manuscript was written.

Detail from 'The Mirror of the Life of Christ', an illuminated 15th-century Scottish manuscript.

Below is a Register of Sasines for Glasgow, 1654-1656, written in Scottish secretary hand and taken from a superlative site on the subject, Scottish Handwriting.com. If you can read this without looking at the transcription, then you're on the road, at least, to reading the Voynich manuscript.

The words, of course, are Scots, not the language used in the Voynich, but if you transcribe a passage from the Voynich using letters from this alphabet, you get something strongly suggesting an arcane Fenno-Norse origin. The secretary hand was developed a century after the Voynich was written, so it would be absurd to say that the Voynich was written in Scottish secretary hand. In fact, it may be the other way around. Whatever hand this is in the Voynich may have heavily influenced the development of the Scottish secretary hand.

But how on earth, you might ask, did an arcane Fenno-Norse language end up written in a hand related to one used centuries later in Scotland?

A stigma has arisen against the Scots perhaps starting with the Romans, who became so sorely frustrated with them. By the time of the Glorious Revolution, especially the Scots in the Highlands were deemed for the most part incorrigible and illiterate. The potshots that Westminster takes to this day at the Scots (who have recently dared to clap in that non-clapping place) reflect this centuries-old stigma.

Since, like the Nordics, Scottish culture was not imbued with Judeo-Christian or Greco-Roman culture but something quite different, it was next to impossible for those south of them to admit they had any culture at all. (This is akin to researchers today clinging habitually to the canon to try to interpret the Voynich manuscript and shoehorning the imagery into explanations that they are familiar with in lieu of waking up to the presence of another, completely different culture which more than likely birthed it.)

It is good to keep in mind that Scalloway, Shetland, is a hundred miles closer to Bergen, Norway, than it is to Edinburgh. Especially in northern Scotland and most markedly across Orkney and Shetland, the Norse have had far more of an influence on Scottish culture than any people south of Hadrian's wall. The Scots language can be traced back to mainly Norse origins. For centuries the people on either side of the North Sea have traded, the Finns and the Sami being frequent visitors, along with north Germanics, and, going back all the way back to the Kvens up to the 15th century, nordic aristocrats owned tracts of land in north Scotland.

Below is a record from the county court of Chester, held on Tuesday after the feast of St Nicholas in the year 1310. It lists a fellow by the unfortunate name of Roger Fuckbythenavel preparing to be outlawed. This is so far the earliest sighting of the swear word in the English language. What is even more interesting for our purposes is the court hand in which the record was written. Note that the f appears as a double f and the l has two bizarre little top loops. In addition, the e is extremely rounded. Finally, the u and the v are identical.

Here is an example of how the smoke screen about Scottish culture has been recently lifting. A researcher at the University of Glasgow has discovered the oldest surviving non-biblical manuscript from Scotland. Although the Boethius manuscript (the 'Consolation of Philosophy') which dates to c.1130-50, was known and had previously been catalogued, scholars had believed it to be English, with Durham being the most likely place of origin. However, closer inspection has revealed that the manuscript's handwriting and illustrations do not match those of Durham, or other English books, from this period. Identifying the manuscript as a product of David I's Scottish kingdom means that Boethius was being read in Scotland 300 years earlier than previously thought. Dr Murray, who is conducting a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship project on Boethius's 'Consolation of Philosophy' in Scotland, believes that this is proof that intellectual and literary cultures were flourishing in Scotland at a far earlier date than has been realised.

The Voynich derives from a medieval progenitor of Scottish Secretary Hand. The language is not Gaelic, but it is a combination of proto-Germanic and proto-Finno-Ugric, possibly a rare survivor from the Kvens.

Perhaps you can see now, these is indeed a context for the Voynich manuscript's actual script. It's simply of course in a more obscure tongue than Latin and in a far more delicate hand than that of Robert the Bruce.

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Sunday, June 14, 2015

A North European World View in the Voynich

The above discussion on distaffs is from: A Distaff from the Russian Arctic

The tripartite division of many pages in the Voynich is only the tip of the iceberg in discovering indications of a north European world view. Indeed, nearly every page contains images that hark back to an ancient symbolism, as demonstrated below.

The the quern and the world tree or pole as metaphors for the cosmos

In north European symbology, the quern-like circle divided only on the top, is reflected in the Eurasian shamanic drum pattern that depicts the world tree. This is an ancient concept from which is derived Yggdrasil in Norse mythology and in Celtic mythology the Crann Bethadh. In Sami mythology, the tree is represented by the central pole of their dwelling or the stytto.

Kalevala Mythology, Revised Edition
By Juha Pentikäinen

In various north European traditions, the quern is a metaphor for the world with the polar star its pivot or nail.

World View in Finnish Mythology

Berchta or Perchta, engraving by Karl Jauslin, 19th c.

Engraving from Le immagini de i dei antichi (Images of the Ancient Gods) by Vincenzo Cartari, 1571

More on the Quern

Eldar Heide gave a paper titled "Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian notions about the world axis and the cosmic quern" on 5 April 2013 at the third meeting of the Austmarr Network, Härnösand.

It is well known that Finno-Ugric peoples, like people further east, had a notion that the polar star was a nail in the top of an invisible world pillar. It is also known that among the Baltic Finns, the mythic object Sampo seems to have been this world pillar, but also the firmament (revolving around the polar star) understood as a gigantic mill, as well as a magic hand mill that grinded out prosperity for its human owner in mythic times.

Heide examines to what extent such notions were shared by the (Germanic) Scandinavian neighbours.

Watch full video here.

Gróttasöngr is the work song of two young slave girls bought in Sweden by the Danish King Frodi. The girls are brought to a magic grind stone to grind out wealth for the king and sing for his household. They finally grind and sing his demise.

As the above image suggests, the quern was a metaphor for fate, the wheel of fortune, the cyclic nature of time that made for the seasons, the motions of the cosmos, the way the world goes. As you can see, it was not simply a wheel but rather a circle with a handle, which represented a byway between the mundane and the sacred. This is the byway that becomes most easy to travel during the intercalary period of the year, when the veil between the material and the spiritual was believed to be thinnest. We can see in the imagery and text of the Voynich, in keeping with many folk traditions around the world, that the most important ceremonies were related to turning points in the annual cycle. like midsummer or autumn, as well as the traditional rites in people´s lives, such as childbirth.

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Monday, June 8, 2015

The Huldra/Hiisi and the Voynich Manuscript

Past time for a change in perspective

By now a fair amount of people understand that the Old Norse word víkingr denoted not a nationality, but an occupation: a Viking was anyone who took part in an overseas expedition.

Even so, the term "Viking" is very often used to cover all sorts of artifacts that in fact may simply be from

Punkva, Czech Republic

northern people who existed during the age of the viking expeditions. When we think of a northern woman during this time, we might gravitate toward the image of shield maidens, thanks to the media, because, let's face it, the postmodern male will pay handsomely for such graphics that are both sexy and kickass. And certainly, evidence for shield maidens exists.

But I think classicism as a whole has skewed our perspective miserably on the mythopoeic cosmos that was the playing field for the vast amount of north Europeans up until the late 16th century. We fall back on talk of Pan, Dionysus, Sybils, etc., when in fact it's entirely the wrong vocabulary and as much a bad habit as "Viking"-izing everything coming from the north in the Middle Ages. This leads to an over-simplification of the cultural forces at play in the North lands and furthermore almost entirely nixes an already elusive strain of cultural tradition that can be traced to very ancient times.

It could very well be that warriorhood, while certainly a part of life, was very much seen as a subcontext of the whole and that the main engine that ran the vehicle of Nordic life was in fact somewhere entirely elsewhere--that we've thrown a classical lens up, emphasizing one aspect of their world while wholly missing the boat on the root and crux of it.

Try to imagine a world in which all things Viking are simply a subdivision of that vaster world, and more toward the head isn't Thor or even Odin but the demagogue who spins out, pulls along, weaves, and snips their strings. It's why their world, they knew, had an end, and why there was an entity outside of their world who could tell them the end of it. Some people are not going to like that interpretation, but it is useful to remember that in the Völuspá a so-called god is being hushed.

According to many myths told around the world, in the past women used to be disguised as spirits to control

men. Then the men discovered the masquerade and in turn threatened the women as spirits. According to the men, the women never learned that the masked males were not truly spirits, but that was the big secret to be found out at a male's initiation rite:
The Old Man pops open a Beck's, says, "Welp, Junior, the boogie-man scaring the Hell out of your mother and sister is me," haves a good laugh with him; Junior's a man now. A more scholastic example of such a male initiation ceremony is described at the bottom of this post. Very old story, very prevalent. But what's going on from the woman's perspective? What happens when Mom gets fed up? Or Sis? Most women throughout history probably did not want to be big-bosomed, kickass shield-maidens or sex-slaves or chess pieces. They actually probably now and again wanted peace and quiet and a thought or two put behind the actions of men. They may even never have abandoned seeking out a secluded place or two where they could get on with the business of culture: pass on their own knowledge to one another, sing among themselves, tell their stories, paint the walls, come up with inventions like the loom, the flute, the quern, the pot, other necessities of life...

This could be why deep in the recesses of caves you will find art on the walls and they, it has been discovered recently, were most likely made by women.

Of course this is all a gross oversimplification of actual history, but there's a gist to it, and what's more, and utterly fascinating is that there's evidence that women did precisely that--they hid out. It was common enough not to be an anomaly but rather something of a tradition--an accepted fact, and they were good at it.

Various types of past female utopias have been constructed by scholars like Gimbutas, Eisler, Stone, Mor, Sjoo, and Dashu--epochs, whole civilizations where and when "once somehow we got it right though now somehow we lost it," or so the refrain goes. Perhaps to some extent some cultures did grant more freedom and power to higher ranking women than the rest of the world at the time, especially the classical world--Greece, Rome, the Levant, which, you know, if you think about it, isn't really saying that much. We got a sky god swooping down as various animals and raping girls and as his punishment they get turned into stuff by his wife. See that little flower over there? Well there was this pretty little maid and the god Blah-Blah.... We teach these stories in our universities and call them high-brow.

I find them sick.

Anywhere these cultures have touched you're bound to dig up some pretty brutal misogyny, which is going on...still. Adoring his mother and revering the Virgin Mary appears to have done little to stop a man from beating "his" wife, which has been seen as his right, even his duty, to do, in some pockets of the world, still is. Up to the 17th century in Britain, you could even sell your wife. That is, if she survived childbirth, witch hunts, plague, and no washing machine. Until Catholicism and then the Restoration swept through Fennoscandia, those women did fare better than their southern sisters. Various shades of egalitarianism existed. The mere fact that Finnish women owned their own boats should cause anyone to just pause and consider: we're talking having your own wheels in the fifteenth century. That's big.

A map created by Olaus Magnus in 1539 shows a possible Kven settlement in northern Norway - Berkara Qvenap. Nearby is this couple.

If he was a world-class trader, perhaps she was a world-class administrator. Perhaps these were occupations as real as that of any Viking, but far more quiet, far less heard of, and curiously far less celebrated. The great epics of the North lands have as central themes wooing savvy, beautiful, not-easy-to-impress women of a different but indigenous tribe and going to such women for wisdom. She's everywhere in the tales and yet at the same time apart and inaccessible.

The Huldra as a professional escape artist is an ancient theme. She spans epochs and continents. She calls the shots, and if she can't, she disappears underground until she can. It's called survival. She's wily like that, which is why it's so hard to catch up with her. Even her name means hidden. Dylan Thomas speaks of "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." She's that force and the green fuse her tool (read Tannhäuser, Eric of Pomerania, Dvergatals, leeks, or the Dønna stones...), and indeed, there was a whole following devoted to her, which to this day resists a precise name, so let's just say the Huldra (or if you're Finnish, Hiisi).

In Lore

The Huldra is a figure found in Scandinavian folklore, including Norwegian Swedish, and Sámi. In Norwegian, they are known as skogsfru, or skovfrue, meaning “Lady of the Forest”. In Swedish they are known as skogsra, “forest spirit” or Tallemaja, “pine tree Mary”. They are often referred to as Ulda in Sámi. Their male counterpart is known as a huldu, or huldrekarl in Norwegian.

Both the male huldrekarl, and female huldra, are forest and mountain dwelling creatures, that take the form of tall, very beautiful humans with long, flowing hair. Their backs are hollow, like a rotting tree trunk, and they often have animal-like tails. They may appear nude in their most basic form, or disguise themselves and hide among humans, masquerading as farm maidens. If a human manages to somehow see their back or tail, the spell is broken, and the human is no longer susceptible to the huldra or huldrekarl’s advances.

Tales of huldra and huldrekarl tell of them using their beautiful appearance, and seductive charm to lure young men and women back to their caves, or subterranean homes, where they may be kept a slaves, lovers, or worse - depending on the tale. Sometimes the humans are released, but are cursed with the constant temptation to return to their captor. Other tales describe them getting married to humans, losing their tails, and becoming human themselves - but retaining their magic.

Some huldra or huldrekarl are inherently deceptive, and evil, but many respond to the treatment they receive.

If treated kindly, they have been known to use their magic to help humans, and solve their problems. If treated unkindly, they can be hateful, and vengeful.

The Huldra, Hylda, Skogsrå or Skogfru (Forest wife/woman) as a dangerous seductress who lives in the forest is said to lure men down into endless cave systems, that they would not be able to find their way out from, or lure them into the forest in order to secure her freedom or sometimes to suck the life out of a man. One of her methods is to appear suddenly out of the rain and mist, friendly and enticing to the point that no man can resist her charm. She has a long cow's tail that she ties under her skirt in order to hide it from men.

If she can manage to get married in a church, her tail falls off and she becomes human. However, she also becomes very ugly. It is often said, however, that the young and beautiful Huldra is moody and dangerous, but when she becomes old and ugly, she also becomes gentle and caring to the man who made her Christian.

She has an aquatic counterpart called "havsfrun" or "Havsrå" (sea wife/woman) who is very similar to the Sirens Odysseus meets in The Odyssey.

In Iceland

Huldufólk (Icelandic hidden people from huldu- "pertaining to secrecy" and fólk "people", "folk") are elves in Icelandic folklore. Building projects in Iceland are sometimes altered to prevent damaging the rocks where they are believed to live. According to these Icelandic folk beliefs, one should never throw stones because of the possibility of hitting the huldufólk.

President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has explained the existence of huldufólk tales by saying: "Icelanders are few in number, so in the old times we doubled our population with tales of elves and fairies."

They are also a part of folklore in the Faroe Islands. In Faroese folk tales, Huldufólk are said to be "large in build, their clothes are all grey, and their hair black. Their dwellings are in mounds, and they are also called Elves." They also dislike crosses, churches and electricity.

There are four Icelandic holidays considered to have a special connection with hidden people: New Year's Eve, Twelfth Night (January 6), Midsummer Night and Christmas night. Elf bonfires (álfabrennur) are a common part of the holiday festivities on Twelfth Night (January 6). There are many Icelandic folktales about elves and hidden people invading Icelandic farmhouses during Christmas and holding wild parties. It is customary in Iceland to clean the house before Christmas, and to leave food for the huldufólk on Christmas. On New Year's Eve, it is believed that the elves move to new locations, and Icelanders leave candles to help them find their way. On Midsummer Night, folklore states that if you sit at a crossroads, elves will attempt to seduce you with food and gifts; there are grave consequences for being seduced by their offers, but great rewards for resisting.

Michael Strmiska writes: "The Huldufólk are... not so much supernatural as ultranatural, representing not an overcoming of nature in the hope of a better deal beyond but a deep reverence for the land and the mysterious powers able to cause fertility or famine."

Anthropologist Jón Haukur Ingimundarson claimed that huldufólk tales told by 19th century Icelandic women were a reflection of how only 47% of women were married, and "sisters often found themselves relegated to very different functions and levels of status in society... the vast majority of Icelandic girls were shunted into supporting roles in the household." He goes on to say that these stories justified the differences in role and status between sisters, and "inculcated in young girls the... stoic adage never to despair, which was a psychological preparedness many would need as they found themselves reduced in status and denied the proper outlet for their sexuality in marriage, thereby sometimes having to rely on infanticide to take care of the unsolicited and insupportable effects of their occasional amours, an element... related in huldufólk stories."

In Nordic Names - excerpt from www.nordicnames.de

Old Norse

1) hulda = 'hiding, secrecy'
1) hylja = 'to hide, cover'
2) hollr = 'faithful, loyal, gracious'

Gothic

1) huljan = 'to hide, cover'
2) hulþ-s = 'lovely, faithful, reliable, loyal'
Old High German
1) hullen = 'to hide, cover'
2) hold = 'lovely, faithful, reliable, loyal'

Old Saxon

1) hullian = 'to hide, cover'
2) hold = 'lovely, faithful, reliable, loyal'

Old Frisian

1) hella = 'to hide, cover'
2) hold = 'lovely, faithful, reliable, loyal'

Old English

1) hyllan = 'to hide, cover'
2) hold = 'lovely, faithful, reliable, loyal'

Swedish

2) huld = 'lovely, delightful'

Related Names

See Hulda and Holtti

Combinations
Name
Element Example
BORG    see Huldeborg
DIS    see Hulddís
GUD    see Gotthold (German)
HER    see Huldar
JUL    see Júlíhuld
RAGN    see Reinhold (German)
RIK    see Huldrika
RUN   see Huldrún

First Element Forms

Huld- Hulde-

Last Element Forms

-hold -holdt -holt -holtti
-huld

References

Ferdinand Holthausen: Vergleichendes und Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altwestnordischen (1948)
Leiv Heggstad, Finn Hødnebø og Erik Simensen: Norrøn Ordbok (1997)
Roland Otterbjörk: Svenska förnamn (1979)
Elias Wessén: Våra ord (1997)
Kristoffer Kruken og Ola Stemshaug: Norsk Personnamnleksikon (1995)

Where, Specifically

Fertility cults were common throughout Europe in pre-Christian times, and Norway also still has signs of them.

Tacitus called them the Sitones. Adam von Bremen called them northern Amazons who resided in "The Land of Women." Scholars like to say there was a mix-up with the word "Kvenland," ancient scribes taking the name too literally as meaning women. But upon further study, the evidence mounts that, no, it's not a mistake or a flight of fancy. There really was a land of women, once extensive, and in later years shrinking, receding, getting more and more elusive, until it all but entered myth. The focal point of this land appears to have been Lofoten. Doggerland might have been included in the realm's range. Certainly Orkney and the Shetlands were, and other places in the British Isles. Indeed, the Huldra by various names were throughout Europe, for example, Great Britain's shell grotto of Margate. We don't know them on their own terms and may never know them on their own terms, though the Voynich manuscript should help, as well as studying the cradle of their belief systems, which may be found in the Perm and may also have been influenced by the Scythians.

Hell is a manuscript you can begin to read and yet remain baffled by what in creation they're doing.
Hell is also in Norway, a little north of Trondheim.

If ever you do go hiking deep in the wilderness and stumble across a grotto with lots of intricate, circular, reticulated patterning, sun-swirls, eight-pointed stars, cave entrances, streams flowing as if into and out of the rock, spoons, stone phalluses (scads of them), wittily-named gnomey dwarves carved to resemble that self-same adored shape, implements for spinning like distaffs and drop spindles, a quern motif, a little celebrated lizard or snake, a strange wee roly-poly/pangolin/water vole beastie that could be the Para, a shang-hai'ed musical young man who's a little pale from being kept inside a mountain and milked of his seed, little coracle-like vehicles that seem to fly with the lick of a broomstick, possibly the thunderous sound of water drumming, and you spot some naked women with head-dresses, long single braids down the back, chanting loud and nonlinear songs in a trochaic cadence, then welp, it's too late for you. You are among the Huldra.