Questions about the "Bardic origin of Tarot" theory

venicebard

Since I was rushed (by being at the end of my hour, though not my rope), let me restate (in more complete form) the necessary ingredients without which there is nothing to talk about here:

1. The tree-letters in their Gravesian form (TWG, chapters X and XI), to include the two hidden letters he hypothesizes (TWG chapter XIV, illustrated on p. 252) to fill in the remaining two corners of the dolmen (as he puts it), that is, to go along with Kk [Q] and Ss: Aa-palm and Ii-mistletoe/loranthus. (The name for A, ailm [pronounced alev], meant both fir and palm, according to Graves.)

2. The numbers said to have been used to refer to them in Irish medieval literature (TWG, pp. 295-6), and evidently also in Wales, judging from the fact that they are given in numerical order by one of the bards contributing to The Barddas of Iolo Morganwg.

3. The idea that the consonants make the 13 months of a calendar (with Kk and Ss doubling K and S), beginning at winter solstice (waxing of days), and that the vowels mark the seasons: A-Yule, O-spring, U-summer, E-autumn, and I-winter. (Aa as palm and Ii as mistletoe evidently signify the promise of better weather to come, since the days commence lengthening at yuletide, A, and continue to do so throughout winter, I.)

4. Orientation of the year or zodiac (a) with respect to the human form seated in meditation, such that spring springs up towards aries the head, summer blossoms out in the direction of the breasts or cancer, fall falls down towards libra the loins, and winter tests one's backbone, the mid-spine being capricorn (until one stands up and the round opens up once again to its broken-and-extended form, where scorpio through pisces extend down the legs to the feet), and (b) with respect to one's environment, where forward or cancer is one's line of sight towards other (one's 'bosom buddies') and back is back towards (or within one-) self ('backbone').

5. The 'twins' hypothesis of Graves, wherein the year is divided into an upper or heroic side (winter-spring) -- which he calls the oak-king -- and a lower or satiric side (summer-fall) -- which he calls holly-king, or 'tanist' (overthrower of the oak-king).

6. On occasion it is also helpful to mention two ramifications of the Boibel Loth names for ogham letters: (a) the answers to the riddles in the Hanes Taliesin Graves gives in (TWG) chapter V and lists at the beginning of chapter VI (p. 97) and again with the questions they are attached to in chapter VII (on pp. 119-20), from which he deduced it was the Boibel Loth that was being referenced, and (b) the Greek expressions close to these names from which Graves constructed (in chapter VIII) a sort of Orphic hymn he calls 'Hercules on the Lotus', whose text appears on page 137 (with the expressions for the vowels on the following page).

7. The trumps of the Tarot of Marseilles (my own preference is Grimaud, as the coloration seems most correct there).

PS. Some Welsh tourists I had in my cab the other day told me Taliesin is pronounced tah-lee-ESS-in, so I thought I would pass this on.

Since much of the above derives from Graves, let me say that if he is to be dismissed utterly, then there is nothing to discuss. But if you will give him a little credit for being a serious scholar as well as poet and humorist (judging from his absolutely delightful short stories), then it will not be difficult to accept, tentatively, this limited subset of what he put forth in TWG that opens forth into deeper understanding of tarot.

The credibility of the above-listed items in my mind is based on the fact that they resonate so well with the trumps and with so much else I have been able to dig up concerning shapes of letters, names (and shapes) of runes, meanings clearly embodied by these, and so on. Without the big picture, the greater context in which the meaning and structure of the tradition can be 'fleshed out', one is denied much of the corroborative evidence. Still, I think that the clarity with which most can be seen to fit their trumps even without said greater context should at least cause deeper interest in this line of investigation.

It is of course with the hope of stimulating interest in those better equipped to research certain aspects with greater thoroughness than I can that I speak to you at all, not simply some desire at self-aggrandizement. Why else would I have beat my head against your wall all this time with so little result? (No, I am not a masochist.)

To work, then.

venicebard

I don't know how to make a table here, since it doesn't even let me indent! So I'll just do the best I can to arrive at some clear format.

Calendar-order is based on the bethluisnion or tree alphabet, related to ogham but differing in the order of the 3rd through 5th letters: ogham's first sequence runs B-L-F-S-N, while the Irish word for alphabet (bethluisnion) supports the order B-L-N-F-S, which Graves also found corroborated by an alphabetic inscription at Callen, County Clare (TWG, p. 272). I should add that this latter order is confirmed as the more fundamental by phonetics: the top five signs of the round as L-N-V/F-S-H (F can be voiced or unvoiced) go out the tongue voiced and back unvoiced, forming a coherent pattern, whereas as L-V/F-S-N-H they would simply jump to and fro without apparent pattern.

B-beth-birch, 5
Salient qualities: white bark, diminutive size
1st month: birth of the twins, that is, of the sun-hero personifying increase of days and of his (potential but inevitable) nemesis, the tanist who undermines him, who stands for the decrease in the length of a day on the return trip (ending at yuletide or winter solstice).
V LePape: shows the mother's arm (entering card from right) presenting her twins to be blessed, the hand raised in blessing reminding us also that at birth the digits of hands and feet are counted (in hopes they are 5).

L-luis-rowan, 14
Salient qualities: nick-named quicken, used to make whips to tame bewitched horses, and tends to shelter young of other species which later overshadow or displace it.
2nd month: education of the sun-hero (waxing year) [Here one should mention its Tifinag form, two sticks, and its Scandinavian name (according to Fell), liki, 'like', since this explains its number . . . but I won't (oops, too late).]
XIIII Temperance: following birth is the tempering of the soul, the education of the sun-hero, mainly accomplished by teaching classification, that is, likeness and difference, and the number is two 7s, 7 being the number of manifested signs (number of signs as points contained on the half of the round that we can see (the half turned towards us).
Note: the 2 lambdas in Apollwn (Apollo, w standing for omega) thus indicate the 28 days of a lunar-stellar month (the kind we are dealing with here, of which there are 13 in a year, Apollwn ending in the next letter, N or 13).

N-nion-ash, 13
Salient features: wood of handles, spear-shafts, and oars, the world-tree of Scandinavian mythology precisely because (I surmise) it is where man grasps nature (or the tools with which to shape nature).
XIII: pictures the Grim Reaper, who holds his scythe-handle like an oar and stands, as N does, for negation (and the renewal this makes possible), one hint being the fact that it is given no actual title.
Note: ash, in the fable (one of Aesop's) where it is offered by the forest to man for his use, ends up being the death of the forest; but its Greek term (in the hymn 'Hercules on the Lotus') is NE-AGATON, 'newborn', but the rebirth that happens in life (precipitated by negation); its being death-overthrow-negation is consistent with its coinciding with the last sign, pisces, of the zodiac beginning at aries, to which the calendar starting at yuletide forms a sort of counterpoint (since Keltic druids were accomplished astronomers, one would hardly expect them not to have known of the zodiac, though scholars love to see such cultures as if they existed in glorious-but-improbable isolation).

F-fearn-alder, 8
Salient features: symbol of spring's springing forth, this is the tree of Kronos-equivalent Bran or Vran, whose head (in the legend of his invasion of Ireland and its aftermath) partied on with his comrades long after it was severed (as with the singing/prophesying head of Orpheus, but forget I said this). Also, it resists moisture well and hence is used for pilings and in ship-building (but this relates to its Tifinag and Libyan forms, so forget I mentioned it).
VIII Justice: Bran was chief or lawgiver, and as Kronos-equivalent stood for the fertility of the land, a sort of Corn Spirit, hence the scales for weighing grain, the strong outlining of the head in this card pointing to its station, aries (up being the direction grain sprouts forth from its seed, to each of which one hopes nature will do justice). Its number is part of the sequence 4-8-16-0, spring's O-F-S-H, signifying spring's increase ending with the sacrifice of the flower in order to spread pollen, with 8 itself signifying the weighing of two earthly things, earth being 4 (the 4th or last element in nature's progression from light to heavy, and also that out of which spring springs).
Note: Bran was evidently the original god of the poetic mysteries (evidenced in part by F's being the first rune of the Elder Futhark [but forget I said this]), and Graves even suggested his overthrow by the ash-god (Gwydion/Woden) might have triggered the alteration from B-L-N-F-S to B-L-F-S-N in ogham, but he was unaware of ogham's dating back to at least the early 2nd millennium B.C.E., so I am doubtful of his 'take' here.

(Out of time again.)

DianeOD

Making a case

Even if, for arguments' sake, it happened to be true that the tarot evolved from ancient Celtic mysteries and script, the question is then how cards came to the notice of medieval Europe, how and why they made sense of them at all, and if they did make sense of them, why they became so enthusiastic of a sudden about using them... at the same time (apparently) as thinking, and saying in written documents, that the use of cards and the purpose for using cards, became known in the west from some region within Islam.

If you were thinking that perhaps when the Italians "invented' Atouts, they used a book of ancient Irish lore .. well that's not impossible at all if such a book existed, but other sources are far more likely (such as a certain lateclassical/early Christian Roman religious calendar, known as the Philocalia... at least for some figures.)

Anyway, that's the sort of thing you'd need to discuss and prove before anyone would take up your conclusions. Of course, as you know, I think the story about the Italians inventing Atouts, and adding them to an *ur* pack of 40, or 52, or 52+4 etc. etc. is incorrect too.

venicebard

Housekeeping

firemaiden said:
If the tale does not explain how the letters were interpreted in divination, is there any documentation to establish a tradition of meanings, older than modern neo-pagan fantasy?

Ogham in Irish tradition rests on more solid basis than one single tale. Mr. Beresford Ellis in his book Druids even points to evidence of a library of ogham writings having been burnt by St. Patrick!

As for the meanings, the Book of Ballymote discusses the ogham letters at length, and though much of it seems almost like metallic 'litter' thrown out by jets to confuse enemy anti-aircraft missles, it does list versions found much earlier in places far distant from Ireland.

Comparison of each letter's tree with the various versions of the letter found in demonstrably related other alphabets (Tifinag, early Hebrew, Libyan, Meroitic, and Runic, most especially), as well as comparison with the (again demonstrably related) Hebrew tradition concerning letters, quickly fills in the picture; but this path of argument is being 'held at bay' here to begin with anyway, in order to 'clear away clutter on the threshing floor' (for people who like to tackle one tradition at a time). If you wish to hear more concerning this bigger picture, either (1) wait patiently for others on this thread to desire same, (2) start a thread with a question to me about it, (3) scan enough of my early posts on this site to find a detailed exposition of its 'other alphabets' aspect, or (4) give me a few days to 'catch up' on this thread and I will then go collect a few of my earlier posts and link them in a 'just for background' post here.

Next hurdle -- the tarot as a divination tool has documented meanings going back no earlier than late 18th century, so hmmmm.

No hurdle (to mimic a well-known bardic formula): as I recall, I have never believed the early use of tarot was for divination per se, although certainly those who played the (enlightening anyway) game of Triumphs or Tarocks or whatever-it-was-called would almost surely have included (early on anyway, and perhaps for several centuries) a few who knew its deeper meaning. Most likely the process of the game itself was a divination process to those in the know, to whom the particular order of cards played, what trumped what, and so on presented a constant stream of divinitory patterns to interpret (poets are like that!).

Furthermore, even if we could miraculously establish something like a set of documented authentic original meanings for Ogham letters, and documented authentic original meanings for tarot cards, . . .

Wait a minute: it's the tarot cards we are trying to explain by this method, which would be an exercise in redundancy if we already had the "documented authentic original meanings for tarot cards" you think would settle the matter!

. . . would that really advance us in establishing the Celtic alphabet as the origin of tarot ? Does commonality of meanings really imply origin?

The argument is the specific distribution of common meanings amongst the numbers ranking the trumps.

DianeOD said:
Even if, for arguments' sake, it happened to be true that the tarot evolved from ancient Celtic mysteries and script, the question is then how cards came to the notice of medieval Europe, how and why they made sense of them at all, and if they did make sense of them, why they became so enthusiastic of a sudden about using them... at the same time (apparently) as thinking, and saying in written documents, that the use of cards and the purpose for using cards, became known in the west from some region within Islam.

It is quite possible the idea of four suits originated somewhere in Islam; indeed it was Islam that introduced Europe to much of the ancient (Alexandrian) lore of alchemy (which tarot is intertwined with). I find it interesting, however, that the Mamluks' deck had only three male court cards per suit -- as if they had dropped the Queen (based on Muslim sensibilities).

But the trumps were clearly the invention of clever bards, which also accounts for my answer to your preceding question: they knew exactly how to generate enthusiasm, being bards, for it was their bread n' butter. And no, I don't buy an Italian origin to a phenomenon associated with the Rhone River (Marseille and Lyons ['Lugh's town']): the Marseille version is clearly the original (the 'standard', hence discarded and replaced, not saved as were early non-standard versions), as reflected most faithfully (in my opinion) by the Grimaud version.

baba-prague said:
I'm not sure if I've understood the Bardic theory, but if it's based to any significant degree on taking The White Goddess as factual research - well, I'd see that as a problem as it's really no such thing.

Isn't this somewhat simplistic? What do you mean by 'it'? Are you talking about the parts where he is actually conveying factual research, or the parts where he is offering his own speculations? I'm confused.

I'm not even sure, myself, that Graves meant it to be read as such.

Then why did he convey so much tree-lore in it? And why did he discuss his correspondence with a more specialized scholar of his day, Dr. R.S. Macalister, early in chapter VII?

By the way, there is a good discussion of Graves' sources for The White Goddess here:
http://www.robertgraves.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16

Thank you very much for this: I shall peruse it at length when I can make time for it.

It's worth noting that the person who began the thread says, "Many people have already observed that The White Goddess isn't actually a history book in any sense but is a statement of Graves's poetic system." That's a good way to put what I understand is (and has been for many years) the agreed perspective on the book.

Boy, I'm sure glad I didn't know about the 'agreed perspective' when I set out on this journey, or I might have gone overboard trying to upset it. As it is, I merely happened to inadvertantly upset the apple cart, so to speak, by what I ended up finding out.

venicebard

Back to work

Robert, once I've sailed through the consonant-months, I'll chart them in succinct form before moving on to the vowels, then do the same with the vowels once I've navigated through them.

I have a much clearer picture now of S-saille-willow than I had previously, from surveying the Semitic roots; but I needn't bore any with the why, just the what. So: if F-fearn-alder is spring sprouting straight up (towards aries the head), then . . .

S-saille-willow, 16
Salient features: it is spring 'spilling over' with abundance (weaving its enchantment), a spilling-over onto the side of the round towards nature or other at taurus (mid-spring); also, the weaving (as in wicker) of enchantment, or being swayed by (bending to) inspiration.
XVI LaMaisonDieu: ostensibly a picture of being struck by inspiration, it indeed shows the 'spilling-over', in the form of the persons being ejected from the tower -- representing the drooping boughs of the willow? -- and the little dots that crowd the air around it -- representing the pollen spring spreads.

H-huath-hawthorn, no number (zero)
Salient features: also called may (the month its sign gemini is in to this day) or mayflower, it is a stout hedge, and Graves says of it, "In ancient Greece, as in Britain, this was the month in which people went about in old clothes -- a custom referred to in the proverb 'Ne'er cast a clout ere May be out', meaning 'do not put on new clothes until the unlucky month is over', and not necessarily referring to the variability of the English climate; the proverb is, in fact, also current in North-eastern Spain where, in general, settled hot weather has come by Easter" (TWG, p. 174).
LeMat: yup. Moreover, the dots about his mantle along with the one at the end of his cap correctly diagram where gemini (and May) occur on the round: the seven dots of the mantle are the seven manifested signs (the half of the round turned towards earth), and the red one on the cap shows where gemini is in relation to them (immediately above the left 'rim' of the cauldron made by the seven, when pictured with the signs progressing counterclockwise, which considerations surrounding the four elements show is the correct way to picture it). Moreover, gemini is the shoulders, and in addition to this being someone who would be glad (for a tuppence) to 'put his shoulder to' something, his stick indeed rests not on one shoulder but on both!
Note: being no-thing (zero), he represents the space which separates us (as do hedges).

D-duir-oak, 12
Salient features: its vast reach, wherein it symbolizes compass or domain (if F, straight up, is the chief, then D, straight out, is his domain), 12 being the number of signs in a 'complete compassing' (the round); also, the tree on which and month in which the heroic waxing year is sacrificed (comes to an end, i.e. the summer solstice, which begins the shortening of days).
XII LePendu: well, there he is, and indeed he seems utterly cheerful about it, as if he knows it is his destiny (there is another, more profound reason in the fact that his sign, cancer, is the direction straight out, i.e. one's line of sight, and he is the inverted image on the back of the eye, but only to those who know optics, which I am sure historians can find a reason to deny the bards of the Troubadour era).

T-tinne-holly, 11
Salient features: Graves defines this tree as both of martial quality and as the symbolic 'crown of thorns'; but it is clear to me at least that its primary symbolic meaning -- its actual physical meaning, if you will -- is that many small pricks can inflict one large one on any who try to step through the holly, hence it is the power of the phalanx, whereby those who are less than heroic (being mere mortals) can by their cohesion overcome even the heroic (which the sun does every year). As Graves's 'tanist', the holly-king can be seen to represent the pin-pricks of scorn and satire, the weopon of the poet (the measure of his force being its ring of truth).
XI LaForce: it is control of the lion's roar that sharpens its 'edge', when wielding satire, which the holly-king represents (in a martial setting, the satirization of him who threatens the cohesion of the phalanx by his unsteadiness, shaming even the timid into stout contributors to the tribe's survival).
Note: its number, 11, in one sense emphasizes that the tanist is less than the oak-king, who is 12, but has deeper meanings outside the scope of this thread so far.

Oops, outta time again: see y'all Monday, at which time I'll tell you what I decided last night might make things a bit more clear.

le pendu

Hi venicebard,

I've started a page on Tarotpedia with a table of correspondences.

It's bare bones from what I understand so far from what you have posted. Ideally, I hope to fill out what is there currently, and then start adding in the pictographs of the alphabets, as well as Hebrew and other relationships... if this makes sense to you.

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bardic_origin_-_table_of_correspondences

firemaiden

Yes, the alphabet is fascinating. Yes, I can see that Oghams like runes could have been used for divination. Yes.... yay alphabets.

But nowhere here have I seen you address the question of the alphabet's relevance to tarot. Why do you feel that a celtic alphabet could have any relevance to the tarot? Why are we talking about alphabets?

venicebard said:
Ogham in Irish tradition rests on more solid basis than one single tale. Mr. Beresford Ellis in his book Druids even points to evidence of a library of ogham writings having been burnt by St. Patrick!
As for the meanings, the Book of Ballymote discusses the ogham letters at length, and though much of it seems almost like metallic 'litter' thrown out by jets to confuse enemy anti-aircraft missles, it does list versions found much earlier in places far distant from Ireland.

Okay, I looked up the book of Ballymote, wikipedia tells me it was written about 1390 or 1391, so it is possible its contents could have been known on the continent, I guess. Does the discussion of the Ogham letters include divinatory type meanings for the letters, or discuss their use in divination?

VeniceBard said:
Wait a minute: it's the tarot cards we are trying to explain by this method, which would be an exercise in redundancy if we already had the "documented authentic original meanings for tarot cards" you think would settle the matter!The argument is the specific distribution of common meanings amongst the numbers ranking the trumps.

Pardon? You claim <<the trumps were clearly the invention of clever bards>>. We are interested to know on what basis you think this could be true. I thought the whole exercise was to try to find some basis of comparison between meanings established for tarot trumps and for Ogham letters, to see if we can discern some sort of relationship. I was pointing out the what I see as difficulties (absurdities?) of making any such comparison.

Can you explain the reason for your theory in words that an educated person such as myself can read without feeling the need to decry it as "crackpot"?

DianeOD

Memory alphabets and Ogham

I must say, there is one historical question that might illuminate this, but I think noone has every really investigated it properly, and that is the possible relationship between the earlier sea going peoples (who included Etruscans, and Phoenician-Canaanites as well as the 'sea peoples') and the land we call Ireland.

THe Irish themselves say that their ancestors came from Scythia via a period of residence in Egypt - presumably the delta - and in north Africa. One finds Phoenicians and sea-peoples there too. I tend to give more weight to that Irish tradition than a lot of modern scholars. Our culture can't imagine that centuries might pass and absolutely nothing change. But the more ancient peoples seem to have accepted that"if it aint broke, dont fix it". Customs, and accurate minutae of legends and histories,persisted in the older world for literally thousands of years.

Also, we hear of a library of 60,000 (I think. from memory) books on 'paper' were burned in the second wave of Muslim invasion into the Iberian peninsula, and this is when Gebert d'Aurillac is said to have gained/stolen/rescued a book of mathematics from the people with whom he lived while studying the mathematical sciences in or near Spain. Thing is, we don't really know who originally wrote those books. Logically, probably Phoenician works from the old library of Alexandria, or even Roman works, but not necessarily. Have you looked at historical connections between Ogham and these other forms of ancient writing?

Trouble is the Latin word for 'paper' is the same as for 'papyrus' and so this translation - tho' usual today - is not unequivocal.

No, I don't think its impossible altogether that Ogham and Ireland contributed something overall. Our arcana major, tho, are based on an originally astronomical series, which is not that of the solar circuit. And the details set within the images of the Charles VI set at least, explain the figure's legends, component stars, and illustrate the names of those stars with absolute literalness. The *core* figures in that set are breathtakingly brilliant examples of the medieval mnemonic style, and their reference is clear. Some of the so-called Arabic terms are from North African dialects, and others from Syriac. Use of Arabic, or 'Arab' star-names, does not necessarily imply origins in Arabia, nor in Muslim culture.

Of course, the monks who established communities first in Ireland were themselves "translated out of Egypt" (as the litany of one monastery has been saying since its inception...)

I think it might help if you gave this thesis of Irish/Ogham influence broader historical boundaries, and context.

venicebard

I used up most of my time today trying to reply to firemaiden, but I was unable to finish in an hour. Here's part of my attempt:

firemaiden said:
But nowhere here have I seen you address the question of the alphabet's relevance to tarot. Why do you feel that a celtic alphabet could have any relevance to the tarot? Why are we talking about alphabets?

I sincerely do not understand your predicament: as I said, the insular Keltic tradition concerning letters -- 'the alphabet' -- was part of insular Keltic poetic tradition (which I call bardic to avoid comparison with today's 'poets'), the source of Arthurian legend and of Tristan. That it can have influenced tarot is not disputable: what you're disputing is did it? The answer to that question, I am saying, can be found in the close parallel between the image on each trump and the chief symbolic significance of the tree-sound whose letter-month bears the same number.

The burden falls on pattern-recognition to make a firm case that there is good reason to believe the one expresses the other, it being clear from the historical record only that it is possible. So it is merely a matter of whether you wish to consider the evidence as it is, or wait for that distant, unreachable goal of having everything nicely documented, which, considering the thoroughness with which the early Inquisition suppressed the culture of the Languedoc, remains highly unlikely (though still possible).

Okay, I looked up the book of Ballymote, wikipedia tells me it was written about 1390 or 1391, so it is possible its contents could have been known on the continent, I guess. Does the discussion of the Ogham letters include divinatory type meanings for the letters, or discuss their use in divination?

I presume you mean the symbolic meanings of the letters, that whereby they can be used for divination but also to wield (poetic or magical) power. Yes, as I recall it offers other ogham names besides trees, and phrases such as "refuge of the hind" for apple, and so on. But I am speaking of an oral tradition current in the 12th century, of which this book was a late, written manifestation. That such a tradition existed is already farely commonly accepted, I think, and certainly with the evidence I can add from comparative study of alphabets spanning millennia, its case becomes all the stronger. But here we focus for the moment on one alphabet, the only one known to have been directly associated symbolically with numbers continuing 11-12-13-etc. after 10, Hebrew and Greek continuing 20-30-40-etc. But it is the pattern -- the distribution of meanings in the numbers -- that shows the one a template for the other.

One of your statements requires context. You had said:

Furthermore, even if we could miraculously establish something like a set of documented authentic original meanings for Ogham letters, and documented authentic original meanings for tarot cards, would that really advance us in establishing the Celtic alphabet as the origin of tarot ? Does commonality of meanings really imply origin?

. . . to which I replied:

venicebard said:
Wait a minute: it's the tarot cards we are trying to explain by this method, which would be an exercise in redundancy if we already had the "documented authentic original meanings for tarot cards" you think would settle the matter!The argument is the specific distribution of common meanings amongst the numbers ranking the trumps.

. . . to which you now remark:

firemaiden said:
Pardon? You claim <<the trumps were clearly the invention of clever bards>>. We are interested to know on what basis you think this could be true. I thought the whole exercise was to try to find some basis of comparison between meanings established for tarot trumps and for Ogham letters, to see if we can discern some sort of relationship. I was pointing out the what I see as difficulties (absurdities?) of making any such comparison.

[Edited to add my reply:] If I understand what your objection is, the only answer I can give you is that most of the tree-names speak for themselves. Does one have to document the fact that Irishmen and Welshmen in the middle ages would have remarked at oak's spread or compass? Must it be documented that they would, like us, have found the fir grows to great height, that rowan shelters young of other species, that ash is used for handles and oars?

I have tried to discover the most basic facts concerning these trees, which in many cases includes folklore: for example, the belief in England that to burn elder means to bring the devil into the house! And the most basic symbolic meaning is often clarified by place in the calendar -- the calendar nature of its order is a theory to begin with, but a solid one (to which comparative study of alphabets adds a great deal, as when noting that B-birch, the birth of the spirit of the year, is the profile of a pregnant torso in Greek, Latin [i.e. western Greek], and Runic).

But if you expect 12th-century texts clearly expositing what was essentially an oral tradition based on reality and common sense, then yes, you will remain disappointed with me, I'm afraid. Heck, they have yet to find the Welsh source-text for Geoffrey of Monmouth's History, even though many scholars honestly believe such actually existed: does our not finding it today disprove its existence then, or merely fail by itself to establish that it did exist?

Can you explain the reason for your theory in words that an educated person such as myself can read without feeling the need to decry it as "crackpot"?

Education is hard to undo.

If Bardic knowledge is the root of everything, well then, is it the origin of opera too?

I hope not!

venicebard

DianeOD said:
I must say, there is one historical question that might illuminate this, but I think noone has every really investigated it properly, and that is the possible relationship between the earlier sea going peoples (who included Etruscans, and Phoenician-Canaanites as well as the 'sea peoples') and the land we call Ireland.

THe Irish themselves say that their ancestors came from Scythia via a period of residence in Egypt - presumably the delta - and in north Africa. One finds Phoenicians and sea-peoples there too. I tend to give more weight to that Irish tradition than a lot of modern scholars.

They also say they got their alphabet from Greece by way of Spain, I believe.

I think it might help if you gave this thesis of Irish/Ogham influence broader historical boundaries, and context.

I will say that people forget, I guess, that the ties between Kelt and Phoenician were close: Gauls and Kelt-Iberians formed much of Hannibal's army, for example, while Phoenician inscriptions in the New World are often found in conjunction with those of Kelts whom they brought with them, the Kelts themselves, then, carrying on the trade (largely via the fleets of the Veneti of Armorica) after the defeat of Carthage until Caesar's destruction of their fleet (during his conquest of Gaul).

But here, the notion that Semites and Kelts could have held certain truths about letter-sounds in common is considered far-fetched.

. . . Have you looked at historical connections between Ogham and these other forms of ancient writing?

The connections can only be documented through the study of epigraphy. For example, the earliest known use of ogham (in the form of ogam consaine or consonants-only ogham) is for Low German (about 1700 B.C.E.) and used alongside Tifinag, which survives today (only slightly altered) only in North Africa (amongst the Berbers). But much about the shapes of letters in Phoenician points to its being the same letters the Irish (and undoubtedly others, originally) named after trees. Q as in Phoenician is still fruit-with-stem, for quert-the-apple, D still pictures the oak's great girth (runic name *thurisaz, 'giant'), its form in Phoenician showing the jib of a vessel (whose swing also signifies compass), and so on.

. . . Our arcana major, tho, are based on an originally astronomical series, which is not that of the solar circuit. And the details set within the images of the Charles VI set at least, explain the figure's legends, component stars, and illustrate the names of those stars with absolute literalness.

Well, this is where we differ: I consider the Tarot de Marseille to preserve the trumps' original form, and the tree-calendar they seem to be based on is the solar circuit.

Questions about the "Bardic origin of Tarot" theory

venicebard

venicebard

DianeOD

venicebard

venicebard

le pendu

firemaiden

DianeOD

venicebard

venicebard