>The three gods now relate to the "triune goddess" which is found in
>IE as cognates in earlier posts of Danu (Dianna, Dione, Djana, Danu
>etc) She could be a goddess of fresh waters (To Nepos's salt) hence
>the river names. This underground chthonic nature explains the human
>sacrifices to Rivers and springs throughout Celto-Germanic Europe and
>explains Diana of the Nemi Fountain, the story with which Frazer
>began the "Golden Bough"
To be honest I don't know what this "triune goddess" is about but if I'm
right about nomenclature here, *Da:nu would be the primordial waters.
*Da:nu, like Egyptian Nu, would be one of the two most ancient gods in the
pantheon, along with the black bird, *NekWt "Night" (already confused with
the earlier Great Goddess).
From the creation myth as I've outlined before, we could say that either
*Da:nu (aka: Nu, Chaos, Tiamat, the deep) or *NekWt (aka: Nyx, Raven,
darkness) is the parent of the gods. Perhaps, during the flourishing of
Goddess nicknacks in Europe, both the Primordial Waters and the Bird were
considered one and the same Goddess? Hence, *Da:nu personified in female
form.
*Da:nu would be "_primordial_ waters", if not "chaos", while *Da:nu-Nepo:t
is strictly the waters of the later-formed Underworld.
As for a possible interpretation of "water appeasement" in Europe, it seems
to me that if we were to, again, split the Goddess into her three forms
(associated with each realm), and to think of her in a kind of Indic sort of
way, one might see a possible motif...
The "reincarnations" of Goddess would be different aspects of the universe.
The manner in which you deal with these three may also be different. Like
the following:
- you _praise_ the Creator Sky (symbol: raven/vulture/eagle/etc)
and she does Good for you
- you _keep balance with_ the Preserver Earth (symbol: deer/bull/etc)
and she maintains Good vs Evil
- you _appease_ the Destoyer Waters (symbol: serpent/fish/frog/etc)
and she protects you from Evil
Later this concept would be respectively associated with priests,
herder-cultivators and warriors. It's a Vishnu-Shiva thing.
>The astral goddess too would need a name (could it be aspects of
>Brigit?), as would the Goddess to the god of "Middle Earth"
Astral goddess? You mean the lover of War, Venus-Aphrodite? I think that
would be *Xste:r (Ishtar) but you wouldn't like that name, John. Afterall,
its blunt evidence of a Semitoid presence in IE myth and language.
- gLeN
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