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Hill of Tara › Antique Origins

Definition and Origins

by Joshua J. Mark
published on 26 August 2015
Mound of the Hostages, Hill of Tara (Jehosua)
The Hill of Tara is an ancient Neolithic Age site in County Meath, Ireland. It was known as the seat of the High Kings of Ireland, the site of coronations, a place of assembly for the enacting and reading of laws, and for religious festivals. The oldest monument at the site is the Mound of the Hostages, a Neolithic passage tomb, dating from c. 3000 BCE. The ring forts and evidence of other enclosures, such as the Banquet Hall, date from a later period. The Lia Fail (stone of destiny), by which the ancient kings were inaugurated, still stands on the hill. The site is also associated with the Tuatha De Danaan, the pre- Celticpeoples of Ireland and with the mystical elements they came to embody. The great sabbats of pagan Ireland were announced by a bonfire on the hill which, at an elevation of 646 feet (197 metres), would have been seen for many miles in every direction. It is said that St. Patrick announced the arrival of Christianity in Ireland by lighting his own large bonfire across from Tara at the Hill of Slane before going there to preach before King Laoghaire in 432/433 CE. The name comes from the Gaelic Cnoc na Teamhrach, which is often translated as "place of great prospect", though it has also been argued it comes from a corruption of Tea-Mur, burial place of the ancient queen Tea.

TARA IN LEGEND

The Hill of Tara plays a key role in the 11th/12th century CE work The Book of Invasions, considered today a mythical construct of Ireland's early history by Christian scribes, who attempted to link Ireland's past with biblical narratives and Greekand Roman history. It tells the story of early colonization by descendants of the biblical Noah and then a series of invasions culminating in the coming of the Milesians from Spain. Although the work is regarded as folklore and myth today, it was understood as history by its original audience and for centuries afterward.

THE HIGH KINGS OF IRELAND WERE CHOSEN BY A SYSTEM OF ROTATION AMONG CHIEFS, AND THEIR INAUGURATIONS AT TARA WERE GREAT FESTIVALS.

The Milesians defeated the people known as the Tuatha De Danaan (the children of the goddess Dana) and, according to one version of the legend in the Book of Leinster, the Milesian poet and judge, Amergin, was given the task of deciding which race would hold what land. He divided Ireland between the two by giving his own people all the land above ground and the Tuatha De Danaan everything underground. This legend explains the homes of the 'fairy folk' of Ireland who live in caves, under the ground in holes, and in the nooks and crevices of rocks.
Two Milesian brothers, leaders of their people, divided the land between them with Eremon taking the northern half and Eber the south. With the land divided, the brothers then divided their armies equally and then the craftsmen and the cooks and so on with men and women of all the arts until there remained only two left: a harpist and a poet. The writer Seumas MacManus relates the rest of the tale: "Drawing lots for these, the harper fell to Eremon and the poet to Eber - which explains why, ever since, the North of Ireland has been celebrated for music, and the South for song" (11). The brothers, with everything equally divided, then settled down to a long peace.
Stone of Destiny, Hill of Tara

Stone of Destiny, Hill of Tara

It was the Hill of Tara which broke the peace. Eber's wife told him she wished to have the three most lovely hills in Ireland and, especially, the most beautiful and scenic: Tara. Tara belonged to Eremon in the north and, when Eremon's wife (Tea) heard of the request,she became furious that this woman could not be content in her own realm. The two of them argued and drew their husbands into the fight resulting in war. Tea died and was buried at Tara, giving the hill her name. Eber was defeated and Eremon, now sole ruler of Ireland, was crowned at Tara. This event marked the beginning of the tradition of the High Kings of Ireland's coronations at the site.

TARA & CORMAC MACART

Another version of Tara's past claims that the Fir Bolgs, the race that lived in Ireland before the invasion of the Tuatha De Danaan, were the first to build at Tara and inaugurate kings there. The rituals of the Fir Bolgs were replaced by the Tuatha De Danaan and then by the Milesians, but the importance of the site never diminished. A great banquet hall was built for feasts, houses for dignitaries to stay in during assemblies, other homes for the ladies, a meeting house, and ring forts. Special attention was given to the placement of these buildings in aligning them with astronomical and solar directions. The Neolithic Mound of the Hostages is aligned so that at two of the important sabbats, Imbolc (in February) and Samhain (in late October), the morning sun illuminates the mound's otherwise dark passage. The Mound of the Hostages is so named because it was the place where hostages were exchanged between kings and dignitaries. This suggests how important the site was in antiquity since the exchange of hostages would have been chosen on ground where both parties felt safe. The king was considered a wise father-figure to the people who, in theory at least, would work for the common good above his own interests.
The High Kings of Ireland were chosen by a system of rotation among chiefs; they did not assume the throne through any divine right or heredity, and their inaugurations at Tara were great festivals. According to legend the stone of destiny would cry out when the rightful king was chosen. Two standing stones, which the would-be king would ride toward at a gallop, were said to part if he were worthy to rule. The king considered most worthy was Cormac MacArt (c. 3rd century CE) under whose rule Tara flourished. Although many myths and legends surround this king's reign, he is considered by scholars to have actually existed. He is said to be the son or grandson of the great hero Conn of the Hundred Battles and is always described in terms of great respect as the law-giver and protector of the people. The famous Brehon Laws, considered among the most equitable law codes ever written, are attributed to Cormac MacArt. Women's rights were protected and, unlike in other cultures of the 3rd century CE, women could practice any profession they desired and were considered partners of their husbands in marriage instead of property.
Whether the Fir Bolg actually had a banquet hall in their day is unknown, but it is recorded that Cormac MacArt built a grand hall with 14 entrances, 760 feet long by 45 feet high. He is also supposed to have built a palace at Tara and a number of other structures and monuments. The outline of what may have been a long building can still be seen at Tara in the present day, although whether this actually is a remnant of a banquet house is disputed (as are the claims regarding the other buildings Cormac MacArt is said to have raised). There is still a great deal to excavate at Tara, however, and it is possible that the ancient writers will be vindicated yet. MacManus cites the 14th century CE Book of Ballymote, a work which would be considered semi-mythical today, which describes Cormac MacArt as "A noble, illustrious king" in whose time "there were neither woundings nor robberies...but every one enjoyed his own, in peace" (47). The writer TW Rolleston expands on Cormac MacArt's reign and especially his building projects, writing :
Also he rebuilt the ramparts of Tara and made it strong, and he enlarged the great banqueting hall and made pillars of cedar in it ornamented with plates of bronze, and painted its lime-white walls in patterns of red and blue.Palaces for the women he also made there, and store-houses, and halls for the fighting men—never was Tara so populous or so glorious before or since (178).
Cormac MacArt was considered a great pagan king who, toward the end of his life, converted to Christianity. Whether all the events of his life which came to be written down actually happened, the story of his conversion is in keeping with the Christianization of pagan heroes and rituals which became commonplace in Ireland after the coming of St. Patrick.

ST. PATRICK & TARA

St. Patrick is thought to arrived in Ireland as a missionary in 432/433 CE. Patrick was a Roman citizen who had been captured and sold into slavery in Ireland years before. He escaped, crediting God for his deliverance, and returned to Britain. There he studied to become a priest, was ordained, and returned to Ireland as a missionary.
Statue of St. Patrick, Hill of Tara

Statue of St. Patrick, Hill of Tara

In c. 433 CE, according to legend, the High King Laoghaire forbade the lighting of any fires on a given night approaching the pagan festival of Ostara when the great bonfire would be lit on the Hill of Tara. This sabbat corresponded to the Christian observance of Easter, and so Patrick lit his own fire on the Hill of Slane, across from Tara, which burned so brightly that the king saw it and sent his soldiers to arrest whoever had defied him and to douse the flame. Patrick and his followers eluded the soldiers through a miracle by which they appeared as a herd of deer and made their way to the king's seat at Tara. Once there, Patrick defeated the king's druids in debate and then preached to the king and his comrades. As this was going on, the soldiers who had been sent to arrest him returned to report Patrick's fire could not be put out. The story ends with a number of the king's court converting to Christianity while the king himself rejected the new faith but was impressed enough by Patrick to allow him to continue his mission.
In the present day, once one enters the gate at the Hill of Tara, St. Patrick's statue is the first monument one sees and, behind it, a church. In keeping with the story of the Easter fire, the statue and the church are fitting symbols of the triumph of Christianity in Ireland. Unlike the struggle between the old faith and the new in other countries, the conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick and his followers was relatively peaceful, and the old statues of pagan gods gave way to those of Patrick and other Christian saints and symbols. In the churchyard there are two ancient standing stones, one of which represents the pagan fertility god Cernunnos. A visitor to the site today will note that St. Patrick's statue is quite prominent, while Cernunnos' could be mistaken for a large rock.

THE HILL OF TARA AFTER ST. PATRICK

Whether one accepts the tales of Patrick and his fire or any of the others, his mission to Ireland was a great success. The Hill of Tara, however, diminished as a political and religious centre as Christianity grew in power and other sites rose in prominence as they came to be associated with Christian centres of learning or miracles performed by Patrick or later Saints.Tara's standing diminished further after the Norman Invasion of 1169 CE and then the later establishment of English rule in Ireland which, for centuries, tried to suppress Irish language and lore. The memory of the ancient seat of the high kings continued to resonate with the people, however. Tara has been the site of peaceful protests and fierce conflicts such as the Rising of 1798 CE or the non-violent demonstration of 1843 CE staged there by Irish patriot and orator Daniel O'Connell. From prehistory to the present, Tara has always been the "pleasantest of hills" and has played a significant role in Irish history.
Since 2007 CE the site has been the focus of a controversy between developers of the M3 Motorway and the preservation group Save Tara over construction of a motorway near the site. Preservationists argue the development will destroy vital aspects of the site and obliterate millennia of history, while M3 Motorway representatives claim otherwise, pointing out how historical preservation and 21st century development have been balanced at other sites throughout Ireland and will be at Tara.Both sides of the controversy offer relevant arguments for their claims, but it should be noted that the World Monuments Fund placed Tara on its list of 100 Most Endangered Sites in 2008 CE. and the proposed motorway development influenced that designation. Still, both sides have won significant numbers of supporters globally to their causes, highlighting the importance of the Hill of Tara to people not just of Ireland but around the world.

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Freyja › Who Was

Definition and Origins

by Emma Groeneveld
published on 19 February 2018
Freyja (James Doyle Penrose (1862-1932))
Freyja (Old Norse for 'Lady', 'Woman', or 'Mistress') is the best-known and most important goddess in Norse mythology.Beautiful and many-functioned, she features heavily as a fertility goddess stemming from her place in the Vanir family of the gods (the other and main one is the Æsir family) along with her twin brother Freyr and father Njord, and stars in many myths recorded in Old Norse literature as lover or object of lust. She lives in Fólkvangr ('Field of the People'), rides a carriage drawn by cats, and is connected not just with love and lust but also with wealth, magic, as well as hand-picking half of all fallen warriors on battlefields to go into Odin 's hall of Valhalla – the other half being selected by Odin himself. She likely played an important role in old Scandinavian religion.

FAMILY

Freyja is part of the Vanir family of the gods who handle all things fertility-related, including harvests (her brother Freyr); wind, sea, and wealth (her father Njord); and her own expertise regarding love, lust, and wealth, too. Her mother appears to have been giant-daughter and wife of Njord, Skadi, and while originally Freyja may have been paired in a brother-sister married couple with Freyr, Icelandic mythographer Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241 CE) – our most comprehensive source when it comes to Norse mythology – has her down as wife of Ódr, who she has two daughters with; Hnoss and Gersimi ( Gylfaginning, 35).These names both mean something along the lines of 'preciousness' or 'treasure' and were possibly used in later poetry as manifestations of Freyja herself.
Ódr is said to have gone traipsing around on long journeys, inexplicably leaving Freyja behind, who would then search for him while weeping golden tears; this tale dates back to at least as early as the 10th century CE. He and Odin are commonly thought to have originally been one and the same person, with Ódr functioning as a shortened form of Odin.

THE BASELINE OF FREYJA'S VARIOUS FUNCTIONS COMES FROM HER BEING A FERTILITY GODDESS, WITH THE HANDED-DOWN MYTHOLOGY EMPHASISING HER ROLE IN ALL THINGS RELATED TO SEXUALITY.

ATTRIBUTES

One of Freyja's attributes has already been mentioned: her cat-drawn carriage with which she zooms around the Norse mythological cosmos. Another is a garment - a coat, cloak or dress-like thing - made out of falcon feathers. Possibly, the boar Hildisvíni should also be counted among Freyja's attributes; the Hyndluljóð poem has her riding said boar, and a boar connection, in general, is made more plausible by the fact that her brother Freyr is also associated with a boar, in his case named Gullinborsti. Sýr, another name of Freyja's, is sometimes translated as 'sow', too, but it also might mean 'to protect', 'to shield,' in which case it would negate this third boar link. Germanic mythological powerhouse HR Ellis Davidson adds another animal: "Horses were certainly associated with the fertility pair Freyr and Freyja, and said to be kept in their holy places" (104).Her last - but not least - attribute is the necklace Brísingamen.

FREYJA'S MANY ROLES

The baseline of Freyja's various functions comes from her role as fertility goddess as per her Vanir descent. Specifically, her other name Horn (Hǫrn, or Härn) probably comes from Old Norse horr, which means flax or linen. This was an important product which began being cultivated early on in Scandinavia and was thought to ward off evil and give fertility to humankind.Flax manufacture was a female affair, and as bridal dresses were made of linen, Freyja became a sort of defender of love and weddings, too. Another one of her names, Gefn, is Old Norse for 'giver', bringing to mind a role as a goddess of plenty.
Freyja With Carriage

Freyja With Carriage

The handed-down mythology emphasises Freyja's role in all things related to sexuality (apart from childbirth, with which she seems unconcerned). For one, she often features as an irresistible object of lust, mainly in the eyes of the giants. The giant Thrym, for example, is only cool with returning the hammer he has stolen from Thor if he gets Freyja for his own. Besides her being the 'price' of many things - which the other gods try to avoid paying, as such - other myths reinforce Freyja's supposed free and considerable sexuality. Although Loki in the Lokasenna poem badmouths everyone around him and accuses all the goddesses of various sexual acts, Freyja is reprimanded by Loki as follows:
Be silent, Freyja! › for fully I know thee,
Sinless thou art not thyself;
Of the gods and elves › who are gathered here,
Each one as thy lover has lain. (30)
She also consents to sleep with four dwarves in turn in order for them to hand over the Brísingamen to her and is accused in the Hyndluljóð poem of being the hero Óttar's lover. Presumably, then, early Scandinavians looked to Freyja in matters of love and lust.
To make things even better, Freyja is also a goddess of wealth, as attested to by the many poetic references that link her to treasure. Her tears are said to be made of gold, even being synonymous with the material:
Gold is called Freyja's Tears (…). So sang Skúli Thorsteinsson:
Many a fearless swordsman
Received the Tears of Freyja.
( Skáldskaparmál, 37)
The fact that Freyja's daughters' names Hnoss and Gersimi mean 'preciousness' or 'treasure' could arguably be seen as the "product of poetic convention in which Freyja was recognized as the source of treasure: perhaps as the weeper of golden tears, perhaps as a goddess ruling over wealth" (Billington & Green, 61).
Thor Disguised as Freyja

Thor Disguised as Freyja

Her connection with magic is also well-known, and Snorri Sturluson relays how it was Freyja who first taught the shamanistic magic called seiðr to the Æsir. Finally, the way Freyja chooses slain warriors to be on her as opposed to Odin's team carries her into more ferocious spheres, functioning as a goddess of death and perhaps even battle itself. Which god selects you seems to boil down to social or personal status, or perhaps comes from the fact that both the Vanir and the Æsir needed someone to fulfil this role on the battlefield. This link between Freyja and Odin, as well as Odin's own strong proficiency with magic, helps illustrate how Odin and Ódr, Freyja's husband, could plausibly have originally been the same person.

MYTHS INVOLVING FREYJA

As evidenced above, there are plenty of myths recorded in the Old Norse sources that are keen to dive into the subject of Freyja. The Hyndluljóð poem emphasises she was more than just a pretty face; in it, Freyja visits wise-woman Hyndla asking her to unravel the hero Óttar's ancestry, soaking up this knowledge. However, in the Þrymskviða (the ' Lay of Thrym ', a poem possibly composed in the 12th or 13th century CE and found in the Poetic Edda ), her desirability is once again a core theme.The story tells of Thor's hammer being stolen by the giant Thrym, who will not return the hammer unless he gets his hands on Freyja. Freyja refuses to tag along, however, giving up the Brísingamen to help Thor disguise himself as her. After almost giving things away because Thor gorged himself to such an extent at the wedding banquet so as to raise suspicion - his burning eyes not helping either - Loki luckily smooth-talks his way out of it and ensures they get the hammer back. For good measure, Thor kills Thrym and a bunch of other giants on his way out.
Freyja Amulet

Freyja Amulet

As for other giant-related myths, the giant Hrungnir boasts he would bodily move Valhalla into Jotunheimen (the realm of the giants), sink Asgard (the realm of the gods), and kill all the gods except for Freyja and Sif, who he will take home with him ( Skáldskaparmál, 17). In the tale of the Giant Master Builder, a giant offers to build walls around Asgard as long as he gets Freyja, the sun and the moon. Regarding her necklace Brísingamen, which is assigned to Freyja by Late Old Norse sources (13th and 14th centuries CE), the most famous myth concerns its theft (most commonly by Loki) but is preserved in such a fragmentary and tricky way that it is now rather hard to come up with one comprehensive story. The most detailed version is also the youngest and thus not the pinnacle of reliability: the Sǫrla Þáttr, which survives in the 14th century CE Flateyjarbók, describes how Freyja sleeps with four dwarves to get the Brísingamen, and how Odin then forces Loki to steal the necklace from her. Loki enters her bedroom as a fly, stings her so she moves her hand off of the necklace, and grabs it. By contrast, Snorri Sturluson has Loki and Heimdall fighting each other over the necklace ( Skáldskaparmál, 8).

CULT OF FREYJA

As a fertility goddess, Freyja would have taken up a central role in old Scandinavian religion, playing a part in the circle of life.JP Schjødt explains her special position:
Freyja is one of the few individual goddesses who has had a major role in the more official religious cult (whereas many female deities seen as collectives played a part in both myth and ritual). She incorporates many traits that can be found in fertility goddesses all over the world, among whom is a clear connection also to death.(Brink & Price, 221)
The Old Norse sources do not specifically detail the existence of a cult of Freyja per se, but the large number of place-names in Sweden and Norway related to her name, such as Frøihov (from Freyjuhof, 'Freyja's temple ') and Frǫvi (from Freyjuvé, 'Freyja's shrine'), show clear worship, perhaps even pointing to a public cult as opposed to the domestic cult one would expect of a goddess of love. It is clear that the people of Iceland on the cusp of conversion to Christianity around the year 1000 CE still had Freyja clearly on their mind. The Íslendingabók states that Hjalti Skeggjason, a supporter of Christianity, was outlawed for blasphemy after calling Freyja a bitch (in this case a female dog, but taken to mean he wanted to call her a whore) at the Althing parliament. She was obviously still important enough for people to not successfully get away with these sorts of things.

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