(Untitled)

[gwynethfar]

A friend and I were discussing various Gods and Goddesses of the pan-Celtic pantheon today (like ya do), and she mentioned Danu and her consort... Beli. I was all, "fwuh?" until she told me it was something she read on a website, which immediately raises my hackles because I have a wild distrust of websites

Comments

[benben]

http://www.mythicalireland.com/mythology/tuathade/danubile.html

That website which is a reprint of an article from An Tríbhís Mhór: The IMBAS Journal of Celtic Reconstructionism Vol. 1, No. 4, mentions Bile.

I googled "consort Danu".

[gwynethfar]

You know... sometimes I don't know how my brain has enough power to remember to run vital systems. I didn't even THINK to google "consort Danu." I googled all sorts of different variations of the names, but never something as simple as what I was exactly looking for.

This is a great article, thanks so much for passing it on to me!

[benben]

You're welcome. Computer searches are an art and everybody has bad days.

[pierceheart]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beli_Mawr
"Beli Mawr (Beli the Great) was an ancestor deity in Welsh mythology. He was the consort of Dôn and the father of Caswallawn, Arianrhod, Lludd and Llefelys."

[pierceheart]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beli_Mawr
"Beli Mawr (Beli the Great) was an ancestor deity in Welsh mythology. He was the consort of Dôn and the father of Caswallawn, Arianrhod, Lludd and Llefelys."

That being said, the wiki article doesn't list what primary sources support the contention that Beli is Dôn's consort, so, your mileage may vary.

[gwynethfar]

Yeah, that's exactly the problem. In the places where I've found them connected there isn't a mention of where or how in Mythology they were connected.

[pierceheart]

see if Alexei Kondratiev has an email address out there.
He's one of the neoPagans I would trust for research info on this subject.

[sacredchao23]

Yes, I think he'd be a good source for something like this too.

[lastwaykeeper]

While I'm not sure of the reliability of the site, Encyclopedia Mythica says this:

The Celtic god of light and healing, "Bel" means "shining one," or in Irish Gaelic, the name "bile" translates to "sacred tree." It is thought that the waters of Danu, the Irish All-Mother goddess, fed the oak and produced their son, [An] Dagda. As the Welsh Beli, he is the father of Arianrhod by Don.

The same article put out the suggestion that Bilé and Beli Mawr are, if not synonymous, at least reflections of each other.

[gwynethfar]

I did see that bit, but thanks! My only hesitancy about sites like these are that they rarely cite sources and sometimes they're just parroting around the same misinformation.

I do see the startling similiarities between Bilé and Beli Mawr, though, so maybe I'm just being paranoid.

[alfrecht]

The idea that *Bele- names, including Belenus, Beli Mawr, Bile, and possibly Belatucadrus (and variations thereon) in Roman Britain all mean "light" or "fair" or "shining" is not necessarily tenable. There was an article a few years back in Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie by Peter Schrijver called "On Henbane and Early European Narcotics" which suggests instead that all of these deities, whose names share roots with the name for "henbane" in many I-E languages, actually means some sort of god of the plant, associated possibly with ecstatic states and perhaps healing. Having Bile as the name of a possibly euhemerized divine ancestor as well as the common noun for sacred tree is very suggestive, therefore, but not necessarily definitive. It remains an interesting possibility, in any case.

[parizadhe]

How do you get your fingers on these articles? I mean, that's pretty obscure! ...isn't it?

[fleacircus]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I know that to make accents in Windows, look under Accessories -> System Tools -> Character Map. (Should the matter ever come up again. :) )

[gwynethfar]

May you be blessed with a life free of papercuts! I knew how to add accents in Microsoft Word (it's a keystroke thing), but that trick doesn't work on LJ. Now, I feel much better.

[smarriveurr]

The other option, which can be somewhat faster, is to learn your character codes really well... then you can get everything from î to ╚ or §... just by holding Alt while you hit the numeric keypad.

Then again, I'm a giant dork, I like halmosians and section markers... and I sometimes have to type in German.

[freefloat]

Alt + 0233 (typed on the numeric keypad) renders the accented e.

Alt + 0176 makes the degree symbol.

These work on every PC I've tried - but I don't know about Macs.