--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
> I should like to ask if nowadays in the christian folks in Europe
are
> some pagan sacral expresions which call with the title of "saint"
or
> holy elements as earth, stars, sun, sea, moon, water, fire.
Well, in English we have Mother Earth (earliest attestation C XVI),
but that seems to be a classical idea, still going strong
with 'Gaia'.
I take it you aren't interested in 'holy water', meaning water
specifically blessed. I've only actually encountered pagan holy
water. Natural bodies of water are not regarded as holy.
An instance of respect / fear appears in Faeroese _í minkandi
sól_ 'in the waning moon', where _sól_ 'sun' is substituted for
_máni_ 'moon'.
A similar mark of respect occurs with Thai /phra can/ where the
first word marks respects for priests, kings and gods, but although
the second word derives from Sanskrit _candra_, I can't see a PIE
connection. A more normal form would be /duang can/. 'Monday'
is /wan can/, a calque on the European word. /phra/ also occurs,
optionally as far as I'm aware, in the names of the planets. The
only other elements I've noticed respect for are rivers, /mE: na:m/,
literally 'mother of water', and the earth.
The Thais also have Mother Earth, /(phra) mE: thOrani:/, the final
element being Sanskrit _dHaraNi:_ 'the earth, ground, roof beam,
vein (f.)', from PIE *dHer 'support, hold'. (I've read that Thai
women walk gracefully because not to do so would be to insult her.)
The adjective _dharaNa_ means 'holding'. The masculine noun
means 'ridge of land serving as a bridge, the world, the sun, the
female breast, rice, the Himalayas (as king of the mountains), a
dike'. I suspect it's coalesced with a derivative of *dHel 'bright,
shining', but Pokorny doesn't list it! He derives Armenian
_del/in_ 'yellow, fawn, pale' (I don't know what "l/" means in
Starostin's copy) from *dHelenos, which would yield Sanskrit
_dHaraNa_.
Mae Thoranee provides water by rinsing her hair - see
http://www.horniman.ac.uk/collections/new.cfm?object_id=28 for
picture and
http://www.shellthaitravel.com/eng/09/0901b2.asp?title=road_trips
for more text - but the latter uses 200 files! A picture of her is
used as the symbol of the Bangkok Metropolitan Water Authority.
Richard.