A Mythological Swan Lake: The Tale of Aonghus and the Swan Maiden

 Greek, Norse, and even Egyptian myths are pretty popular right now, but the Celtic deities have sadly been thrust into the shadows. This is unfortunate because it's not like we don't have information about Celtic and Irish myths--there's actually a lot of documentation. Maybe the weirdly spelled names have deterred people throughout the ages.

This month's story spotlight will focus on Aonghus, also spelled Aenghus or Aengus, and the literal girl of his dreams, "Aonghus" either being pronounced as "Ah-NESS" or "Angus"--I couldn't find a reliable pronunciation source.

First, a little background. Aonghus was the god of youth, love, and poetic information. He had awesome powers such as breathing people back to life (magical CPR!), shapeshifting, and transforming kisses into birds, which he used as his messengers and tormentors. There's a LOT of legends that involve Aonghus, but today we'll be focusing on how he found his true love.

Aonghus's first pursuit was a beautiful mortal woman named Étaín. He competed with his brother Midir for her hand. Midir won, but that made his first wife angry, so she used sorcery to turn Étaín into a fly and blew her away with wind. Aonghus found Étaín and attempted to take care of her, but she accidentally landed in the cup of a warrior and was swallowed. (Poor Étaín.)

Shortly after this incident, Aonghus began having dreams of a girl playing music to him. She was beautiful, so Aonghus fell in love with her immediately. But when he woke up, she was gone. All day, Aonghus couldn't eat or drink from longing for the girl. When he went to sleep that night, she visited him again. The next day he was even worse. For an entire year, Aonghus wasted away, unable to take care of himself, so great was his desire for the girl.

The other gods eventually realized something was wrong. They called all the doctors in Ireland to figure out what was wrong with Aonghus, but none of them could recognize lovesickness. The gods then sent for Finghean or Fingen, who diagnosed Aonghus with falling into hardship and not daring to tell anyone about it (that's nearly a direct quote from Aislinge Óenguso, but in present tense). So Aonghus confided in Finghean about the maiden from his dreams, and Finghean called Bóann, Aonghus's mother, to begin the search for the girl.

Bóann couldn't find the dream maiden, so Finghean sent for the Dagdae, Aonghus's father. The Dagdae went and talked to a wise man who said that he would try to find the girl.

Fast forward another year, and the wise man had finally found the dream maiden. Her name was Caer Ibormeith, and she was on the shores of Dragon's Mouth Lake. The wise man warned Aonghus that, though he had the power to reveal the location of the girl, Aonghus had to save her himself.

He rushed to the lake and found one hundred and fifty girls chained to each other, all destined to turn into swans at the end of the feast of Samhain (pronounced SAH-win and considered the end of the year, either November 1st or October 31st). When he asked the king and queen of the area if he could marry her, they said yes, but only if he could recognize her in swan form.

They waited until the feast of Samhain and watched as Caer Ibormeith turned into a swan. Being a shapeshifter, Aonghus also transformed into a swan and called out to his lover. Knowing him from their shared dreams, Caer ran to him, and together they flew away to Aonghus's palace on the River Boyne (Irish: Brú na Bóinne) and presumably lived happily ever after.

An image of the River Boyne.

NOTE: This is simply a summary of the story. If you'd like to read more, I highly recommend visiting https://iso.ucc.ie/, where you can read translated versions of the Irish Sagas.

Sources:

“Aengus.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aengus.

O'Donovan, Tom. “ Aislinge Óenguso.” Irish Sagas: Aislinge Óenguso Text, 2012, iso.ucc.ie/Aislinge-oenguso/Aislinge-oenguso-text.html.

“River Boyn.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Boyne.

Staff, IrishCentral. “Top Gods and Goddesses from Celtic Mythology.” IrishCentral.com, IrishCentral, 3 Sept. 2020, www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/celtic-mythology-gods-goddesses.

Wright , Gregory. “Aengus.” Mythopedia, mythopedia.com/celtic-mythology/gods/aengus/.

The God Who Hatched From an Egg: Svarog

This month, our god spotlight will be on Svarog, a Slavic god. 

Who is Svarog? That's a good question, especially because no one really knows.

Norse mythology has its Eddas, Sanskrit myths are told in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and Greek mythology is known from Homer's epics. Unfortunately, the only written records of Slavic mythology come from the Christians who went to eradicate Slavic mythology, so no one's sure how accurate our picture of their ancient religion is.

Svarog in the Creation Myth

The creation myth is just as jumbled and patchy as the rest of Slavic mythology, so there are multiple versions. One says Veles, the trickster god, convinced sky god Perun to create the world, then tried to push him into the waters of the newly-formed Earth. Another says that it was actually Czernobog and Belobog who played these roles. A third interpretation states the Good God and the Evil God both manifested as birds to create the universe. Not sure how that last one works, but okay.

We'll be focusing on another version of the myth--the version that contains Svarog, naturally.

In the beginning, there was only darkness, Rod (the personification of fate), and an egg. The egg hatched, and BOOM, Svarog was born. (Move aside, Helen of Troy. You're not the only one born from an egg.)

Svarog then created the whole world from the remains of his egg: first the ground and waters, then the plants, then humans, animals, and, according to some sources, the rest of the gods. 

And that, humans, is how the Slavs might have believed the world was created.

Svarog Is Hephaestus, But Slavic

John Malalas, a scholar from the early Middle Ages, wrote about the Greek gods and their rule in Egypt. When his writings were translated into Russian, the translator replaced "Hephaestus" with "Svarog," indicating that the two are the same or very similar. However, Malalas is not considered the best of scholars, so it's unclear how accurate his stories were.

Many sources say Svarog is the god of fire and blacksmiths, even without the comparison to Hephaestus. This ties into the creation story, since Svarog used his egg to quite literally "build" the world.

As you can see, modern artists clearly like this interpretation of Svarog:

Svarog, God of the Sky

Yet another version of Slavic mythology names Svarog as a passive sky god. Unlike Zeus or Thor, he does not control the weather or have lightning powers/weapons. Instead, he's more like Ouranos or Caelus--a manifestation of the sky. It's possible that Svarog was simply the name given to the sky.

Another theory is that Svarog was an aspect of Perun, god of thunder, lightning, and storms.

Svarog Takes a Nap

This is in direct conflict with the creation myth, but some stories present Svarog as a deity that fell asleep and created the whole world in his dreams. However, he vowed that he would someday wake up, and the end of his nap would signify the end of our world. 

Did Svarog Even Exist?

As cool as all those myths are, it's possible that Svarog did not actually exist and was invented during the Middle Ages to try to make sense of Slavic mythology.

If you have evidence either way, or know of a source that presents controversial Svarog information, please let me know in the comments. 

Thanks for reading! 

Sources

Hirst, K. Kris. "Svarog, God of the Sky in Slavic Mythology." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/svarog-slavic-god-4777154.

Gliński, Mikołaj. “What Is Known About Slavic Mythology.” Culture.pl, https://culture.pl/en/article/what-is-known-about-slavic-mythology.

Petrovic, Ana. “Following the Traces of a Slavic Mythology: Part II.” Waijiaoyi, 30 Jan. 2019, waijiaoyiblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/following-the-traces-of-a-slavic-mythology-part-ii/.

“Svarog.” Myths and Folklore Wiki, mythus.fandom.com/wiki/Svarog. 

“Svarog.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svarog. 

Wigington, Patti. "Introduction to Slavic Mythology." ThoughtCo, Feb. 14, 2021, thoughtco.com/slavic-mythology-4768524.

5 Words You May Not Have Known Come From Mythology

Everyone knows a few obvious examples of words that come from mythology, like hypnosis and chronological, but what about other words, other mythologies? Let's look into some words that stem from lesser-known gods and cultures.

1. Cloth/Clothing

This one's pretty obvious once it's pointed out. Clotho was one of the Three Fates, or Moirai, in Greek mythology--she spun the thread of life that would later be passed to her sister Lachesis, who dispensed the thread, and finally to Atropos, who cut it, ending an individual's life. In Ancient Greek, "Clotho" translates to "spinner," so it makes sense why we call fabric "cloth."

Fun fact: the Roman names of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos are Nona, Decuma, and Morta, respectively. 

2. Avatar

The word "avatar" is related to the Hindu dashavatara, which is a representation of a deity on Earth. Translated into English, "dashavatara" means "incarnation" or "manifestation." Next time you're designing an avatar for a game, remember the word's magical origins.

Fun fact: Vishnu, one of the three major deities in Hinduism, has ten dashavatara.

3. Cereal

Pretty much everyone knows that Demeter is the Greek goddess of grain and the harvest, but her Roman form, Ceres, is much less recognized, despite being the name of a dwarf planet in our solar system. However, it's Ceres that a common breakfast food is named after: cereal. It would be funny if it was called "demetereal." 

Fun fact: Ceres had her own festival in Ancient Rome, called Cerealia. It took place in April and lasted seven days.

4. Friday

This one comes from the Norse goddess of love and beauty, Freya (also spelled Freja or Freyja). The Vikings called Friday "frjádagr." It later transformed into the Old English "Frigedæg" before becoming the word we know today. 

Fun fact: Modern Norwegians call the fifth or sixth day of the week "fredag."

5. Mentor

When I think of the word "mentor", the first thing that comes to mind is Haymitch from The Hunger Games. But long before Suzanne Collins started writing or even existed, Homer coined the term in The Odyssey. "Mentor" was the name of the man who taught Odysseus's son.

Fun fact: There's a lot of mythological stuff in The Hunger Games. For example, in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, there were twins named Diana and Apollo, just like in Roman mythology.

Thanks for reading!

Sources:

“Fate.” Edited by Amy Tikkanen et al., Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1998, www.britannica.com/topic/Fate-Greek-and-Roman-mythology.

“Friday in Old Norse.” Glosbe Bird, en.glosbe.com/en/non/Friday.

Mandal, Dattatreya. “15 English Words With Intriguing Mythological Origins.” Realm of History, Realm of History, 11 Nov. 2019, www.realmofhistory.com/2019/11/11/english-words-mythological-origins/.

Miller-Wilson, Kate. “29 English Words With Origins in Greek Mythology.” Reference, YourDictionary, reference.yourdictionary.com/resources/roots-english-words-greek-mythology.html.

Steward, Medieval, et al. “The Origin of English Days of the Week - DiscoverMiddleAges.” DiscoverMiddleAges.co.uk, 29 Dec. 2020, www.discovermiddleages.co.uk/origin-of-english-days-of-the-week/.