Re: Vanir

>
> --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> and Nane became Athena; only Barshamin retained his
> > original form.
> > "
> >
> > from:
> >
> > http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/papazian/armenia.html
> >
> > Vahagn? Does anybody know whom the Vani in the Caucusus were
> > worshipping? And identified with Hercules? Whom Tacitus (or was

it

> > Caesar) insists the Germani knew?
> >
> > Torsten

--- In cybalist@..., "malmqvist52" <malmqvist52@...> wrote:
> Torsten,
> I found this in Bell, Women of classical mythology:
>
>
>
> ANAITIS, sometimes written Anaea, Aneitis, Tanais, or Nanaea, was
an
> Asiatic divinity representing the creative powers of nature. She
was
> worshipped in Armenia, Cappadocia, Assyria, Persia, and other parts
> of Asia. She had slaves often taken from prominent families as
> attendants in her temples. The female slaves were temple
prostitutes,
> and the males were priests and keepers of the land adjoining the
> temples. Anaitis was identified by Greek writers with Aphrodite for
> rather obvious reasons and with Artemis for somewhat more obscure
> reasons. [Strabo 11.8.4, 12.3.36, 15.3.15, 16.1.4; Plutarch,
> Artaxerxes 27, Pausanias 3.16.6; Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation
> to the Greeks 43.]
>
>
Aha! Tanais, also the name of the Don river, and related to the root
*d-n-, which I suspect to be in the name of the Danes (there are lots
of interesting postings on the subject on this list, if you want to
look).
Thanks, Anders!

Furthermore:
Barshamin and Nane = Balder and Nana?
And if Greek Herakles, Etruscan Hercle, Latin Hercules was borrowed
into pre-Proto-Germanic it would (assuming they dropped the
unfamiliar <h>) become *er(V)x(V)l- (zero or one V) in Proto-Germanic
and *er(V)l- in Proto-North-Germanic (<x> is dropped in inlaut and
auslaut causing long vowel which would shorten and then disappear in
unstressed syllable). So if Hercules is *wagn- is Mars, then the
bloodthirsty rites of the Heruli are rites for Mars, also described
similarly. (Perhaps even the "borrowed <h>" might explain "h-
droppping" in herul-/eril- that linguists (or historians?) have
permitted themselves, without sufficient explanation.

Torsten