Thanks Chris,
This is strange because there appears to some type of Oenghus-Angus-
Ingui connection. I'm sure this is ground you've covered already,
however I may have something new farther down. It appears that Angus
has a few parallels with the Norse Frea-Ingui deity. Oenghus is said
to be a deity of the Tuatha Dé Danann that resided in an ancient
burial mound. The association with the Tuatha makes Oenghus a divine
foreigner. Traditionally, the burial mound where Angus dwelled is
Bruigh na Boinne (Newgrange Ireland), a large tumulus near Tara. See
here...
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~knowth/newgrange.htm
Because a burial mound is referred to as his court or temple he was
likely a god of the dead. Oenghus is also referred to as a god of
beauty, youth, wit, charm, and love. The tradition of Oenghus (as god
of the dead) and the swan princes may have something to do with
fertility and seasonal death/rebirth. There are also several other
traditions of Oenghus as a lover, followed by death. In a nutshell
he's described as a primal Apollo-like deity who is primarily the
lord of love and death. It appears that because of Angus' association
with love and sex a lot of his tradition was suppressed in the early
Christian era.
From Helgi T. Dagsson Freyr: A God and Society, The name Freyr is a
title that means Lord, it doesn't appear to have any direct
relationship to the deity. When the actual name is mentioned, which
is very rarely, it normally is Ingui. I don't think the Freyr-Ingui
association has anything to do with twins, rather there may have been
some form of name taboo? Regardless the Freyr was a god of fertility,
peace, prosperity, sex, sacred kingship, battle and death. Freyr was
known throughout the Nordic world, however his cult was centered in
southern Sweden. His totem animal was the boar and the stallion was
his servant. The best known example of a Freyr representation is the
small silver figurine from Södermanland (Viking Age). From the
Celtic
and Roman Iron Ages, there are also the phallic wooden figures found
in the bogs of Denmark, which, if they do not represent this god
himself, showed a deity of very similar character.
The strange part is first Freyr-Ingui was considered a foreign god
brought from Denmark and his arrival is associated with a wagon.
However, even more mysterious is that inhumation burial in a tumulus,
and not cremation was very strongly associated with Freyr. It seems
to represent his realm, abode, or personal temple. That's extremely
odd because cremation was by far the dominant form of burial in the
Nordic cultural sphere. Actually cremation is a hallmark of Nordic
culture for the period when Freyr was important. However, inhumation
would be more typical of the late latene culture to the west, or the
culture that preceded the Late Bronze Age Urnfield complex (this
culture is also associated with the wide spread construction of
tumulus burial mounds throughout temperate Europe). Although the
Urnfield label is receded after about 800 BCE the same basic burial
patterns remain, all but unchanged, in some areas as late as the 11th
century CE. Because the tumuli burial aspect is so strong, Freyr-
Ingui is often associated with natural mounded landforms such as
hills.
The reason I'm addressing this issue is because Pliny, writing about
events that occurred between the end of the 1st c. BCE and beginning
of the 1st c. CE in north central Europe, makes a fine distinction
between two geopolitical-military alliances. One he associated with
Ingui-, (which he implies is far older and based in Denmark) the
other Vandi- (implied as more recent and based in Scandinavian). The
interesting element here is that many if not all of the tribal,
confederated, place, and personal names mentioned in association
(through Pliny, Tacitus, and Plutarch) with the Ingui- corporate are
either Gallic or Brythonic in origin. In contrast the tribal names
tied to the Vandi- are clearly Nordic. The situation is similar when
Tacitus writes about the same or slightly later period, in the
annuals, however a somewhat different view is found in his Germania,
which focuses on the situation about 25 to 50 years later. Here, the
Ingui- distinction is no longer recognized. From Ptolemy, 100 years
later still, the Nordic element was clearly dominant and the Gallic
or Brythonic names are either absent or viewed as references no
longer in common use.
When I couldn't find a direct Gaelic or Brythonic root for Oenghus-
Angus, and no obvious Nordic root for Ingui- I realized that although
they may be different words, both were derived from a older
linguistic base, possibly proto-IE root. I checked several regional
none-IE sources with no luck as well. I can see the logic behind the
Oenghus as Oino-gusto equation, however the Ingui as engW or yem-ko-
association appears tentative at best. In this respect would it make
a difference if an evaluation of Ingui- was made more along Goidelic-
proto-Italic lines rather than Nordic? Second could Yngui-Ingui-Angui
represent a relatively late Nordization of a proto-Q Celt root word?
It seems strange that these deities appear to have similar attributes
and superficially sounding names, yet there is no connection at the
proto-IE level. Any thoughts?
Joesph