Story Circles

The Navajo, like the Maya, have a large circle of teaching stories for their children. They tell them and tell them again. They are likely to consider the the time of thunder and lightning before they do.


They have other cycles of stories too. Inside the circle of children's stories is a large circle of the stories and deeds of the people. Within that circle their may be on of stories of legitimization and origins.


Cycles within cycles. Inside the stories of origins and legitimization may be a great cycle of of curing ceremonies which contain other stories. The curing ceremonies may seem a bit like variety shows, operas, dances and more. They can be expensive. There is a set way for them to be done and are meant to be carried out correctly by those who know.


A new story may be created, but it may be very wrong to change and old one.


Deep within the circles of stories may be a cycle of mysteries and hidden things. Near the center may be things that I do not imagine and cannot guess.


For those who can turn the circle of circles inside-out, it may not be necessary to guess.


I am neither Maya nor Navajo nor am I an authority on these things.

Oisin

There are Irish stories and legends about Oisin. Oisin is sometimes called Ossian and pronounced oh-sheen and sometimes written Osheen. Doesn't this seem to be reminiscent of Sheehan?

You might have fun looking into the literature and history of Oisin on-line or at your library.

There are Old Stories

 There are stories that have been told and repeated for thousands  of years. I want a good story teller to tell them to me. I know bits and pieces of them. I just found some bits and pieces of those bits and pieces repeated in Wikipedia! I feel some validation. I sometimes feel that perhaps what I think I remember is inventive fantasy.


What I recall is often not a complete story, but a sort of broken out of joint thing. The following is what I remember of what wants to be a story. Even with a bit of help from Wikipedia, it is still not a complete story. Maybe one of you can help me mend it. 


Remember, my dates are, at best, my best guess of the day.


Some time between about 1500 BC and 1200 BC(we used to just say long long ago) a certain Amorite king of Bashan was called Og. His army was defeated and he was killed by the men of Moses. He came from  a race of giants. It is said that some of them were twice as high as an ordinary man and twice as wide too. A relative of our Og was also called Og. That Og was on the Ark with Noah and a help to him.


Our Og is mentioned in Jewish legends and in the Qur'an. Some say our Og lived 3000 years and is  the same one who helped Noah. Some men will believe anything; some will say anything to make a good story. Phoenicians knew him as a man of ancient times and use his name as a curse. If you did wrong Og would get you.


Our Og is said to have known the Scythian, the tower of Babel, and the Golan Heights.


It is said that his people of Bashan lived in walled towns in a rugged country. It is said that they lived in strong nicely made homes made of slabs of basalt like iron. In Wikipedia a Porter is quoted of having said in 1867, that he stayed in some of those houses and found them to be in good condition. He added that they my be the very oldest specimens of domestic architecture in the world.


In southern Ireland around Kerry, Cork, and Waterford(where lived Sheehan) and to a lesser extent in Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and even on the Devon/Cornwall order is a certain writing on stone. Only about 400 inscriptions have been counted and they contain mostly personal names. But other words have been translated; words that mean ring, salmon, war chariot, kindness, badger, raven,  short, peak, young woman, straw life, crab, hare, horse, rabbit, lobster, herring. They are said to be a bronze age language.  Some say the writing goes back only to the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd century BC. Others say that the writing is much older than the inscription on stone. They say that it was customary to write it on wood long before that. They said that it was written on other materials as well, materials that included gold.


Very similar writing was use to write Old Irish and Primitive Irish.


Irish used this alphabet to write on wood and inscribe on iron as late as 700 AD. In 417 AD scholars from Europe and elsewhere were still coming to Ireland to read manuscripts in that writing. Not long after that Irish Missionaries were bringing their manuscripts to Rome.




From about 1150 through about 1550 the English did a good job of keeping the Irish from tilling their own land, of starving them, of killing their language. After 1550 the English really began to do a job of crushing the Irish ...for a time. The old way of writing was lost, Latin and 'English' was learned


The Old language had been used in literature and history. It had been used in hand and finger signals, and in code. It had power and was used for teaching.


"Sheehan" was written with those letters in that language. The speakers of that language may have named us Shee. They may have called us mound livers or 'sid'  It seems sid and Shee sounded more alike in those days. 


The letters were used to write many languages. The Druids knew them. The earliest Christians wrote Sacred Scripture using the alphabet.


Early Irish accounts say that the alphabet was devised shortly after the the fall of the Tower of Bablel. They may have called it Nimrod's Tower. The head deviser, it seems was the Scythian king Fenius Farsa. Farsa was the son of Baath, who was the son of Magog, who was the son of Japtha, who was the son of Noah. He came to the plain of Shinar with Goidel mac Etheoir, lar mac Nema, his own son Nel, and 72 wise men (nobles, scholars) to study the confused languages of Nimrod's Tower. The people had moved so it took ten years to create The Berl a tobaida and two other languages and a writing system was devised for them.


The writing system and the Beithe-luis-nuin was carried to Ireland.


Ogma mac Elathan and Lug mac Elathan, they may have been on and the same person, carried the writing in Ireland.


Ogma played the harp.


Mac Elthan named the letters of the writing after trees known to the Irish. The word for letters may have been 'nin.' There were originally 20 letters; later  five more were added. The five new letters were called 'feda' which may men trees.


The letters and the writing system may have been named after Ogma, a member of the Tuatha de Danaan. This Ogma may be related to the pre- and post-flood Ogias, at lest one of whom was on the Ark with Noah. His father was Elatha, one o those who developed languages and devised  the system of near Babel. Ogham was named after Ogma in Ireland, but it was Ogmas father who did the devising.


The sysem and the letters and the writing is called Ogham to this day.


Ogham was used to write a number of varied languages. Did the Irish have  a 'phonetic' language before the Phoenicians?

Paramoudras

Who will tell me stories of paramoudras?

Stories

 I feel that an old man ought to be able to complain a lot and manipulate the truth a bit. Still it seems I have learned to practice a fair amount of responsibility for the welfare of those younger than I.

Here I suspect I will complain, manipulate the truth, and practice care for those younger than I am.

People don't tell me stories any more. I think I still listen as well as I did. Perhaps I say 'I've heard that one.' too often.

People used to tell me stories. I liked that.

Maybe people don't appreciate stories as much as they did. Maybe they are waiting for the movie. Do they want a film over their eyes? Not too many years ago I remember beginning a story and seeing xxxxs appear in the eyes of my listeners. I'd get quiet and they'd excuse themselves. I feel a loss.

I'm taking an archeology class and have gotten to thinking about
American Indians. Maybe I'll try to tell a Indian related story in a future post.

Lizard Tails

While getting ready to leave 'the desert' for a time, I have desert memories:

Horned Toads used to live in harmonious accord with rattlesnakes, prospectors, desert rats, birds, and tourists.

These may be lies; they are just stories, some of which go back to my childhood. Like a sign I could read in a bar which my father drank. "You don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps."

Each rattlesnake helps man by killing between 1200 and 150 rats, mice, gophers, and ground squirrels every year.

The black widow spider is so called because she spends most of here time as a widow. She eats her husband soon after the wedding.