Threefold death

Last updated

The threefold death, which is suffered by kings, heroes, and gods, is a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European theme encountered in Indic, Greek, Celtic, and Germanic mythology.

Contents

Some proponents[ who? ] of the trifunctional hypothesis distinguish two types of threefold deaths in Indo-European myth and ritual. In the first type of threefold death, one person dies simultaneously in three ways. He dies by hanging (or strangulation or falling from a tree), wounding, and by drowning (or poison or burning). These three deaths are foretold, and are often punishment for an offense against the three functions of Indo-European society. [1] The second form of the threefold death is split into three distinct parts; these distinct deaths are sacrifices to three distinct gods of the three functions.

Literary sources

Welsh legend

In Welsh legend, Myrddin Wyllt (one of the sources for Merlin of Arthurian legend) is associated with threefold death. As a test of his skill, Merlin is asked to prophesy how a boy will die. He says the boy will fall from a rock. The same boy, with a change of clothes, is presented again, and Merlin prophesies that he will hang. Then, dressed in a girl's clothes, the boy is presented, and Merlin replies, "Woman or no, he will drown." As a young man, the victim falls from a rock during a hunt, is caught in a tree, and drowns hanging head down in a lake. [2]

Myrddin Wyllt also reportedly prophesied his own death, which would happen by falling, stabbing, and drowning. This was fulfilled when a gang of jeering shepherds of King Meldred drove him off a cliff, where he was impaled on a stake left by fishermen, and died with his head below water.

Odin

The Norse god Odin is also associated with the threefold death. [1] Human sacrifices to Odin were hanged from trees. Odin is said to have hanged himself and while falling, impaled himself on his spear Gungnir in order to learn the secrets of the runes.

Ibn Fadlan's account

The tenth-century Arab Muslim writer Ahmad ibn Fadlan produced a description of a funeral near the Volga River of a chieftain whom he identified as belonging to people he called Rūsiyyah. [3] Scholars agree that some elements of the funeral correspond to features of funerals distinctive to the north Germanic tribes [4] (such as burning of a ship). Ahmad ibn Fadlan describes a slave girl that, after being asked, volunteers to follow her master in death. She is prepared in many ways over several days including given a lot of intoxicating drinks. [5] [6] She is led onboard the ship where the dead chieftain is placed. After some more rituals an old female ritual leader, referred to as the "Angel of Death", [7] [6] loops a rope around the slave girl's neck and while two men pulled the rope, the old woman stabbed the girl between her ribs with a knife. [8] [6] The ship is then set on fire with the chieftain and the slave girl on it. [9] [6] The slave girl is thereby strangled, stabbed, and burned; creating a threefold death.

Commenta Bernensia

One of the most prominent examples of this threefold death in three separate sacrifices comes to us from Lucan. In his epic poem, Pharsalia , which relates Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, he describes a set of three Celtic gods who receive human sacrifices: et quibus inmitis placatur sanguine diro/ Teutates horrensque feris altaribus Esus/ et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae. ("To whom they appease with cruel blood, harsh Teutates, and wild, bristling Esus, and Taranis whose altar is as insatiable as that of Scythian Diana.") [10]

One set of scholia to the Pharsalia, known as the Commenta Bernensia and dating between the 4th and 9th centuries CE, is highly important for an understanding of how these lines relate to Proto-Indo-European culture. “The later... scholiasts... elaborate on Lucan: they elicit the information that Taranis was propitiated by burning, Teutates by drowning, and Esus by means of suspending his victims from trees and ritually wounding them” [11] This scholium is of huge significance to understanding whether this text contains evidence of the threefold death in Celtic worship. It is a distinctive detail, and it matches closely with numerous other details that relate to ritual practice in Indo-European society.

In recent years an Indo-European pattern of threefold death has been identified and discussed in terms of this tripartite ideology by a number of followers of Dumezil... The pattern is found in myths and legends of various Indo-European peoples in two main forms. The first of these is a series or grouping of three deaths, each by a different means. The second is a single death by three different means simultaneously. [12]

David Evans goes on to cite numerous stories from various Indo-European societies. All of these stories he tells contain this theme of a tripartite death. He argues, following Dumezil, that three distinct methods of sacrifice, corresponding to the three functional deities, was an important Proto-Indo-European ritual.

Vita Columbae

There are a number of stories in Celtic mythology that clearly are formed by the Tripartite functions of Proto-Indo-European. The theme of triple-death occurs in several places in medieval Celtic sources. The first story comes from the Life of St. Columba (Vita Columbae):

Aedh, surnamed the Black, descended of a royal family, and a Cruthinian by race. Aedh wore the clerical habit, and came with the purpose of residing with him in the monastery for some years. Now this Aedh the Black had been a very bloodthirsty man, and cruelly murdered many persons, amongst others Diarmuid, son of Cerbul, by divine appointment king of all. This same Aedh, then, after spending some time in his retirement, was irregularly ordained priest by a bishop invited for the purpose... The bishop, however, would not venture to lay a hand upon his head unless Findchan, who was greatly attached to Aedh in a carnal way, should first place his right hand on his head as a mark of approval. When such an ordination afterwards became known to the saint, he was deeply grieved, and in consequence forthwith pronounced this fearful sentence on the ill-fated Findchan and Aedh... And Aedh, thus irregularly ordained, shall return as a dog to his vomit, and be again a bloody murderer, until at length, pierced in the neck with a spear, he shall fall from a tree into the water and be drowned... But Aedh the Black, a priest only in name, betaking himself again to his former evil doings, and being treacherously wounded with a spear, fell from the prow of a boat into a lake and was drowned. [13]

This story of triple-death corresponds to the elements which Evans finds in a whole host of similar stories. In all of these stories, the tripartite death is foretold. Here St. Columba foretells the triple death of Aedh. At the same time Columba's prophecy is a curse or a punishment which he dispenses to Aedh because of his sins. This leads to the next element common in many 'Triple-death' stories, the sins of the warrior. According to Dumezil, the warrior often commits a sin against each one of the functions. [14] He is punished for each sin, with a punishment fitting for his crime. In this passage from the Life of St. Columba, three specific sins are mentioned. Aedh blasphemes by being ordained a priest outside of the Church. This is a sin against the priestly function of Indo-European society. Aedh's second sin is murder; he has killed numerous people, most notably King Diarmuid. This is a sin against the warrior function. Aedh's last sin is against the productive/fertile function in Indo-European society, he has slept with another man—an act which is by its very nature unfertile.

The Tripartite death of Aedh is linked with another story of triple-death. Diarmuid, who is killed by Aedh, also dies a triple death:

When the king sent men to arrest Aedh, St. Ronan hid him and so Diarmuid had Ronan arrested and tried in his stead. He was condemned by the ecclasiastics for this act and Ronan himself uttered the famous curse, 'Desolate be Tara forever!' Soon after, Tara was abandoned, never to achieve its former splendor... [Diarmuid's wife] had an affair with Flann, so Diarmuid had Flann's fortress burnt over his head. Sorely wounded, Flann tried to escape the flames by crawling into a vat of water where he drowned... Bec Mac De [Diarmuid's druid councilor] prophesied that Diarmuid would be killed by Flann's kinsman, Aedh Dubh in the house of Banban... The manner of his death would be by slaughter, by burning, by drowning and by the ridge pole of a roof falling on his head... The Prophecy seemed so unlikely that Diarmuid scorned it, even when Banban invited him to a feast... Aedh Dubh was there and stabbed the High King with his spear. Wounded, Diarmuid fled back into the house. Aedh Dubh's men set fire to it. Seeking to escape the flame, Diarmuid scrambled into a vat of ale. A burning ridge pole fell on to his head. The prophecy was fulfilled (Ellis, 84).

Both of the elements which Evans discusses are present in this story of Diarmuid's death. In this story, there is a prophecy of the threefold death before it occurs. In fact, Diarmuid's death is foretold by three different men in the original story. Diarmuid has also clearly violated two of the three functions. He sins against the sanctity of the priestly function, by trying St. Ronan. For this crime Ronan curses the throne at Tara. Diarmuid also murders Flann, a violation of the warrior function. Diarmuid is punished for his transgressions by the triple nature of his death.

Comparative evidence

The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture cites several more examples of Indo-European myths that evidence a "conjunction of trifunctional signs and death-modes": [15]

Archaeology

Alfred Dieck claimed a high number of up to 1,860 known bog bodies in Europe. [16] Archaeologist Don Brothwell considers that many of the older bodies need re-examining with modern techniques, such as those used in the analysis of Lindow Man. The physical evidence allows a general reconstruction of how Lindow Man was killed, although some details are debated, but it does not explain why he was killed. [17] Archaeologists John Hodgson and Mark Brennand suggest that bog bodies may have been related to religious practice, although there is division in the academic community over this issue [18] and in the case of Lindow Man, whether the killing was murder or ritualistic is still debated. [19] Anne Ross, an expert on Iron Age religion, proposed that the death was an example of human sacrifice and that the "triple death" (throat cut, strangled, and hit on the head) was an offering to several different gods. [20] The wide date range for Lindow Man's death (2 BC to 119 AD) means he may have met his demise after the Romans conquered northern England in the 60s AD. As the Romans outlawed human sacrifice, this opens up other possibilities; [21] this was emphasised by historian Ronald Hutton, who challenged the interpretation of sacrificial death. [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lindow Man</span> Bog body of an Iron Age man found in England

Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The remains were found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat cutters. Lindow Man is not the only bog body to have been found in the moss; Lindow Woman was discovered the year before, and other body parts have also been recovered. The find was described as "one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 1980s" and caused a media sensation. It helped invigorate the study of British bog bodies, which had previously been neglected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Víðarr</span> Norse deity

In Norse mythology, Víðarr is a god among the Æsir associated with vengeance. Víðarr is described as the son of Odin and the jötunn Gríðr and is foretold to avenge his father's death by killing the wolf Fenrir at Ragnarök, a conflict he is described as surviving. Víðarr is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and is interpreted as depicted with Fenrir on the Gosforth Cross. A number of theories surround the figure, including theories around potential ritual silence and a Proto-Indo-European basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matres and Matronae</span> Deities of fertility in Celtic and Germanic myth

The Matres and Matronae were female deities venerated in Northwestern Europe, of whom relics are found dating from the first to the fifth century AD. They are depicted on votive offerings and altars that bear images of goddesses, depicted almost entirely in groups of three, that feature inscriptions and were venerated in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, and Northern Italy that were occupied by the Roman army from the first to the fifth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Indo-European mythology</span>

Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities in mythological concepts found in Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Dumézil</span> French philologist and historian (1898–1986)

Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil was a French philologist, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and mythology. He was a professor at Istanbul University, École pratique des hautes études and the Collège de France, and a member of the Académie Française. Dumézil is well known for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis on Proto-Indo-European mythology and society. His research has had a major influence on the fields of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germanic paganism</span> Traditional religion of Germanic peoples

Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germany, the Netherlands, and at times other parts of Europe, the beliefs and practices of Germanic paganism varied. Scholars typically assume some degree of continuity between Roman-era beliefs and those found in Norse paganism, as well as between Germanic religion and reconstructed Indo-European religion and post-conversion folklore, though the precise degree and details of this continuity are subjects of debate. Germanic religion was influenced by neighboring cultures, including that of the Celts, the Romans, and, later, by the Christian religion. Very few sources exist that were written by pagan adherents themselves; instead, most were written by outsiders and can thus present problems for reconstructing authentic Germanic beliefs and practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diarmait mac Cerbaill</span> 6th century High King of Ireland

Diarmait mac Cerbaill was King of Tara or High King of Ireland. According to traditions, he was the last High King to follow the pagan rituals of inauguration, the ban-feis or marriage to goddess of the land. The last High King to observe the ancient pagan Feis Temrach or Assembly of Tara which took place on Samhain every three years to pass or renew laws, approve annals and records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trifunctional hypothesis</span> Hypothesis about proto-Indo-European society

The trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society postulates a tripartite ideology reflected in the existence of three classes or castes—priests, warriors, and commoners —corresponding to the three functions of the sacral, the martial and the economic, respectively. The trifunctional thesis is primarily associated with the French mythographer Georges Dumézil, who proposed it in 1929 in the book Flamen-Brahman, and later in Mitra-Varuna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norse funeral</span> Burial customs of ancient North Germanic Norsemen

Norse funerals, or the burial customs of Viking Age North Germanic Norsemen, are known both from archaeology and from historical accounts such as the Icelandic sagas and Old Norse poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Celtic religion</span> Religion practised by ancient Celtic people

Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts, and literature from the early Christian period. Celtic paganism was one of a larger group of polytheistic Indo-European religions of Iron Age Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triple deity</span> Three deities that are worshipped as one

A triple deity is a deity with three apparent forms that function as a singular whole. Such deities may sometimes be referred to as threefold, tripled, triplicate, tripartite, triune, triadic, or as a trinity. The number three has a long history of mythical associations and triple deities are common throughout world mythology. Carl Jung considered the arrangement of deities into triplets an archetype in the history of religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archaic Triad</span> Triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus

The Archaic Triad is a hypothetical divine triad, consisting of the three allegedly original deities worshipped on the Capitoline Hill in Rome: Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. This structure was no longer clearly detectable in later times, and only traces of it have been identified from various literary sources and other testimonies. Many scholars dispute the validity of this identification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriel Turville-Petre</span> English philologist

Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre was an English philologist who specialized in Old Norse studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Æsir–Vanir War</span> In Norse mythology, the first war in the world between the Æsir and Vanir

In Norse mythology, the Æsir–Vanir War was a conflict between two groups of deities that ultimately resulted in the unification of the Æsir and the Vanir into a single pantheon. The war is an important event in Norse mythology, and the implications for the potential historicity surrounding accounts of the war are a matter of scholarly debate and discourse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Druid</span> Priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures

A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. While they were reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form. Their beliefs and practices are attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horse burial</span> Ritual burial of a horse

Horse burial is the practice of burying a horse as part of the ritual of human burial, and is found among many Indo-European speaking peoples and others, including Chinese and Turkic peoples. The act indicates the high value placed on horses in the particular cultures and provides evidence of the migration of peoples with a horse culture. Human burials that contain other livestock are rare; in Britain, for example, 31 horse burials have been discovered but only one cow burial, unique in Europe. This process of horse burial is part of a wider tradition of horse sacrifice. An associated ritual is that of chariot burial, in which an entire chariot, with or without a horse, is buried with a dead person.

Udo Mario Strutynski is an Austrian-born American linguist and lawyer. As a linguist, Strutynski specializes in Indo-European and Germanic studies, particularly the study of Germanic and Indo-European mythology. As a lawyer he has distinguished himself to helping out victims of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, of which he is himself a survivor.

Atsuhiko Yoshida is a Japanese classical scholar best known for his research on parallels between Indo-European and Japanese mythology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cimbrian seeresses</span> Priestesses of the Cimbri

The Cimbrian seeresses were priestesses of the Cimbri. The people they belonged to appears to have been a Germanic tribe that became a Celto-Germanic federation during its migrations from southern Scandinavia into southern Europe where they were annihilated by the Romans. The priestesses are mentioned in Strabo's Geographica concerning sacrifices performed after a victory towards the end of the 2nd century BC. The account tells that the seeresses led prisoners of war up a platform where they cut their throats and watching the blood stream down into a cauldron they made predictions about the future. They also cut up their bellies and studied their entrails. They are compared by scholars with attestations of similar customs among Celts and Germanics, involving cauldrons, platforms and divinations from blood and entrails, and there are also supporting finds in archaeology. Some scholars consider the account to have been fabricated based on traumatic memories of Germanic customs by Roman legionaries and knowledge about the seeresses among Germanic tribes. Memories of such practices performed by pagan priestesses, Valkyrie women, may have contributed to the demonization that Christian scribes targeted towards female ritual practitioners after Christianization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mitra-Varuna (Indo-European)</span> Proto-Indo-European divine dyad

Mitra-Varuna is a proposed deity or dyad of deities suggested to have existed in Proto-Indo-European religion and mythology. First proposed by Georges Dumézil, he considered it to have been composed of two distinct elements – Mitra and Varuna – this divine pair represented different aspects of sovereignty, with Mitra embodying reason, order, and benevolence, and Varuna symbolizing violence, darkness, and inspiration.

References

  1. 1 2 Mallory, J. P., Adams, Douglass Q., Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, p. 577
  2. Bragg, Melvyn, "Merlin" In Our Time 30 June 2005, BBC4, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20050630.shtml
  3. Montgomery 2000.
  4. Winroth 2016, pp. 94–95.
  5. Ibn Fadlān 2012, pp. 49–52.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Steinsland & Sørensen 1998, pp. 88–90.
  7. Ibn Fadlān 2012, p. 51.
  8. Ibn Fadlān 2012, pp. 52–53.
  9. Ibn Fadlān 2012, pp. 53–54.
  10. Lucan, "Pharsalia", I.441–446 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Luc.+1.441&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0133 Trans. James Kennedy 2008
  11. Green, Miranda J. Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend. Pg. 85. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992. ISBN   0-500-27975-6.
  12. Evans, David. "Agamemnon and the Indo-European Threefold Death Pattern." History of Religions, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Nov., 1979), pp. 153–166 JSTOR   1062271
  13. Columba, I. 29. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsaintcolum00adamuoft/lifeofsaintcolum00adamuoft_djvu.txt on 24 December 2008
  14. Mallory, J. P., Adams, Douglass Q., Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Pg. 635
  15. Miller, Dean (1997). "Threefold death". In Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture . Taylor & Francis. pp. 577–578.
  16. Brothwell 1995 , p. 100
  17. Joy 2009 , p. 55
  18. Hodgson & Brennand 2006 , pp. 55–56
  19. Philpott 2006 , p. 79
  20. Joy 2009 , p. 45
  21. Joy 2009 , p. 23
  22. Joy 2009 , p. 48

Bibliography