From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 1931
Date: 2000-03-23
----- Original Message -----From: christopher gwinnSent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 5:07 PMSubject: [cybalist] Where is everybody? / Nart EpicsIt seems like the list has dried up - where is everybody these days?
I am interested in whether or not anyone on the list can comment on
Proto-Indo European themes in the Nart epics (allegedly the remains of
Scythian myth) - specifically the sword in the lake motif (Batradz commiting
his sword to the waters three times - an obvious parallel to the Continental
Arthurian tales). It has been noted that this motif appears in Japanese myth
- with the theory that it was transmitted to the Japanese by the Scuthians.
Well, if it's some archetypal Iron Age motif, it could have been borrowed by Proto-Celtic myth-makers from some Pontic source (Anatolian??? Caucasian?? Cimmerian?? Scythian? ca. 1000-800 BC?) possibly via some Pannonian intermediary or other. Bronze swords do not seem to have been treated with as much respect or to have had as much symbolic importance as iron ones.However, if the motif is that early, i.e. definitely pre-Arthurian, one would expect it to recur here and there: other dying heroes should have chosen a similar way of parting with their favourite swords whether in Celtic or Celtic-influenced (Germanic?) folklore. As far as I know, it recurs only geographically -- in Britain there are several ponds or 'meres' where Bedivere reputedly threw Excalibur away. I've been near one of them, Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.The connection between the Nart sagas and the Arthurian legend has apparently been discussed in the literature. Here's a whole online bibliography (in case you haven't got this URL):Piotr