Lietuva
0
Äi / Äijö is just another name for Ukko / Uku.Originally Posted by Hercus Monte
However, in my mind, Ait+varas and Kaukas associate with estonian 'kratt' and 'pisuhänd' - which were flying creatures who had to steal riches from others and bring it back to the master.
Here is a nice description:
http://www.para-web.org/archive/inde...read-4511.html
ait (in estonian) = barn
varas = a thief
kaugas = pouch, bag
kaukas = in the bag, in the pouch
Pūkis ~ (in estonian) Puuk = a tick (who sucks the blood / riches of victims)
So, basically, we are talking about thiefs and pocket thiefs here ;-)
I am sure that those words have a different meaning in baltic languages :-)
However, note that 'pisu+händ' actually also relates to Pikne / Pitkne, since 'pisu' is used both as a 'small' and as a 'tall' (in finnish language 'pisin' is 'the longest') and hence 'pisuhänd' designates a flying creature with a long tail. Falling meteorites have long tails.
There are other names for similar creatures - (flying) snakes, Põhja Konn (Nordic Frog), etc.
According to scandinavian sagas, the last European dragon was killed in Estonian Läänemaa.
EDIT.
And even the estonian national epic Kalevipoeg ends with the verse that eerily speaks about another coming of a meteorite:
http://et.wikisource.org/wiki/Lühike...lude_sisust#XX
Aga ükskord algab aega,
Kus kõik pirrud kahel otsal
Lausa lähvad lõkendama;
Lausa tuleleeki lõikab
Käe kalju kammitsasta:
Küll siis Kalev jõuab koju
Oma lastel õnne tooma,
Eesti põlve uueks looma."
(my own free translation)
Once there will come time,
when all lighting sticks
catch fire on both ends;
bisecting flames of fire,
trapped hand (pulls) from the cliff-wall:
then will Kalev come back home
bring his children luck and fortune,
to recreate a new generation of estonians.
The three sons of Old Kalev are likely the three holocene meteorite impacts into Estonia - Tsõõrikmäe, Ilumetsa, Kaali. The youngest and strongest son Kalevipoeg would be the Kaali meteorite, which is also the youngest and largest of the three meteorite impacts. Old Kalev himself could be either the newly-found Vaida crater or more likely the much larger Neugrund crater. Neugrund crater has littered much of the Estonian coastal areas and islands with ejected large stone boulders. As I already wrote once, the grave of Odin in Odensholm island is the closest land spot to the Neugrund meteorite crater. And the Karja church in Saaremaa carries the same symbol (Karja triskele, look to the left) that is also associated with Odin. Due to the Neugrund impact crater, Odensholm / Osmussaar is also near underground faults, which sometimes cause earthquakes - largest in Estonia. Neugrund meteorite crater would be the hallway to Hell that the dead Kalevipoeg was sent by Taara to guard, so that the Devil could not escape. And the fist of Kalevipoeg is stuck either in the crater wall, or in the Baltic Clint (the largest wall in the neighbourhood), which passes by nearby. When Kalevipoeg tries to get his fist free, it causes earthquakes.
The Neugrund crater is an impressive "land"-formation (underwater), it might have been a dry ground shortly at the initial stage of the last ice age, when the Balto-Scandian ice sheet was still forming. It is even possible that the Neugrund "land"-formation had some significance to the early humans who inhabited the region before the last ice age and who somehow guessed the origin of the impact crater.
So, the ending verse is certainly right in the sense that if another meteorite will impact Estonia, it will certainly change the future of estonians. But the verse also suggests that the ancestors of estonians were good at profiting from the fame of the land of fallen meteorites and fallen suns. If another one falls, it would become a significant tourist attraction, for sure ;-)
But this speculation would also again show that the epic of Kalevipoeg is not a far-fetched fairytale, at least not entirely.
Reply With Quote
Armenia
Bookmarks