Tir Nan Og In New England?/ The Lesser and Greater Deluges/ Venus Enters the Picture
There is an ancient Celtic tradition (and perhaps originating in pre-Celtic times) of TirNanOg, the "Lands to the West, Across the Ocean." This place was the Land of Perpetual Youth, the Land Of Milk and Honey. After researching Stone Sites in the New England area for years, I am strongly inclined to believe that Stone Chamber sites may be of an ancient Celtic origin. Concerning the Ceremonial Stone Landscape of the Native Americans, the ancient indigenous people did in fact have holy sites around erratic boulders, and most obviously erected stone and earth burial mounds, effigy piles, and U-shaped constructions such as Prayer Seats. The Earthen Mounds have gone largely unnoticed.... the larger sites of these may have been from an earlier, unknown civilization from a different era of pre-history we know virtually nothing about, a tradition which later people, the ancestors of modern homo sapiens, which would certainly include Native people, inherited but did not build- their later constructions would have been on a smaller scale, more along the lines of what we see of certain cairn fields which are most certainly of Native Origin. Author John Keel, in his book "Our Haunted Planet" wrote, "...they [the ancients] methodically constructed giant mounds of Earth all over this planet for some purpose which still escapes us. They scattered peculiar artifacts of stone and metal across every continent, and they sailed every ocean, mapping the entire globe systematically. And then they vanished." So here we are talking about an ancient super-civilization which vanished. Perhaps, as author Richard J. Dewhurst has investigated, and as people have been affirming for well over 150 years, this was the ancient race of Giants who flourished before the Greater Deluge. The atmosphere, and even the influence of cosmic rays (see Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds In Collision" ) would have affected life on Earth differently in those days.
But back to the Stone Chambers. What do we really know of them? There is no clear evidence whatsoever that they are exclusively Native American in origin. If they are Native in origin, I propose this is the result of diffusionism, which is not a dirty word. In this respect, earlier authors such as William B. Goodwin who wrote "The Ruins of Great Ireland In New England" and Barry Fell who wrote "America B.C." may have been on to something. For instance, William Goodwin points out in his book (which I recommend) that the voyages and settlements of earlier Irish monks are in fact mentioned in the Icelandic Sagas. Their settlements were known, over 1,000 years ago, as "Great Ireland." There is every reason to suppose that their settlements were in New England. How far back Celtic people had been coming to the New World is not known- but they were skilled sea farrers and navigators of the ancient world. They most likely did precede the Norse Vikings. In fact, the Stone Chambers in New England are of an ancient Celtic style of architecture and dry-stone masonry. If I haven't said this before, I will say it again: one could take pictures of a Stone Chamber in the Irish, Scottish, or New England country-side and one could not tell the difference, for the origin of these structures is all the same. Even the very architectural style/ technique of the stone masonry building style is the same. This cannot be a coincidence. Again, the legend of TirNanOg, where important people from the ancient Celtic world would have been laid to rest (such as King Conn and Queen Eda of Ireland) supports a settlement to the Lands of the West, as does a Great Ireland (their "colonies past the Ocean in the West.") Now, William B. Goodwin and Barry Fell may have been both wrong about some things, but that does not mean their work should be rubbished. Even Byron Dix and James Mavor, authors of Manitou, although they were right about a many great things, were flat-out wrong about some of their hypotheses/ conclusions. It seems to me to be fashionable these days for the leading researchers within the NEARA organization, for instance, to dismiss the implications of early Celtic settlements/ influence in the New England area as ludicrous. Just because Fell and Goodwin may have made a few errors in scholarship is not grounds to dismiss the greater insights and evidences of their research. In fact, by this same measure, they (the researchers at NEARA) should also be throwing the Mavor and Dix in the trash, yet this has become their new standard for trying to understand these early sites- they are simply going by what seems in vogue, or perhaps politically correct, while their followers are merely going along with consensus. Again, I understand and am fully aware that there is a Ceremonial Stone Landscape imprinted upon the landscape, left behind by the Native culture. This in itself is awe-inspiring and sacred. Sacred boulders and hillsides, stone effigy markers, offering/donation piles, stone and earthen mounds U-shaped enclosures, etc. all fit into this category. However, I think we are making a BIG mistake if we lump the Stone Chambers into this category. Let us examine what William B. Goodwin said in the introduction of his book, "The Ruins of Great Ireland in New England" back in 1946, as pertaining to the Stone Chamber structures: …"They represent a Celtic style of crude architecture found in Europe and parts of the British Isles and are the work of the discoverers and first settlers in Iceland, Greenland and Labrador some time before the Scandinavian race began to settle definitely in the same last three countries. In support of our contention that these Celts, finally fleeing before the Northmen as the latter spread out, were Irish we give all the known historical references....If we are correct in our opinion that these stone ruins compose all that is left of what has been termed Great Ireland, alias Whiteman's Land, we humbly think our labor is not lost, but on the contrary has materially added to the early history of America."
Now, Goodwin would have these Irish monks as settling the New England area around 800 A.D., a century and a half before the Norsemen. However, in America B.C., Barry Fell pushes that date back to as early as 2,500-3,000 years ago. At this point, it may be essential reading to pick up a copy of Cyrus H. Gordon's "Before Columbus". Gordon was a professor at Brendeis University (Fell was a linguistics expert at Harvard, by the way), and is quick to point out that the ancient Phonecians (a Celtic people from the Iberian Peninsula), for instance, had massive sea traveling capability. Indeed, the book does lay out the evidence for ancient European/Medeterranian voyages into the America's as early as 2,500-3,000 years ago. Unlike Goodwin's Culdee Irish monks, however, these voyagers need not have been permanent settlers- simply sea-faring traders exploiting resources (copper, for instance.) Anyway, from my perspective Fell's book "America BC" is worth obtaining on the grounds alone that on pages 242-243, he shows pictures of a collapsed Standing Stone found in the New Hampshire woods which he interpreted, rightly so, as a faded Earth Goddess statue (or, a Venus.) He goes on to note that it is a similar identical likeness to other stones found along the coast of the Medeterranian. I have seen and discovered one of these standing stones personally, in the Massachusetts area. Indeed, upon propping the stone up, I could make the detail of the tip of the stone, which would represent her head, her breasts which jut out, and the torso of the body. I believe I have shown that stone on this blog before, where I wrote something regarding transmutations and consciousness regarding the human interface with these ancient stone sites. The post was probably in September of several years ago if I recall correctly. However, I do not recall if I got a picture of the stone at the right angle or not, because it wasn't until more recently when I had my hands on Fell's book that I drew the connection and similarities between these stones, although I had intuitively known that the stone (the one I found in Massachusetts) was special and perhaps the likeness of a human figure. This is a perfect example, drawing from my own experience in this case, of why it is dangerous for researchers in this field of inquiry (megaliths/ stone ruins), to dismiss any contribution to the literature of these sites, such as America B.C., simply on the grounds that someone does not want to accept a certain theory simply on the grounds that it may not be a popular theory, or perceived as politically correct, or whatever the case. Clearly one must keep an open mind, while using discernment.
The Stone Chambers are not the only clue we have that the New England area was a part of the ancient cosmology of the Celtic people- their TirNanOg, or Great Ireland. In his book Masters of the World, French author Robert Charroux wrote about "The Wine That Causes Insanity" in Chapter 9, titled "Time-Travel Drugs." He writes "After the disappearance of the Atlanteans, the Hyperboreans and ancient Aryans, whose original homeland was North America, the Celts found themselves 'cut off from the land of the Gods'; that is, from the source of initiation and knowledge. But they knew that 'beyond the ocean river, at the limits of the Western world' one could find greal, the marvelous drink of their forefathers. This was the origin... for the quest of the Grail which, under the influence of Christian ideas turned away from it's true path and lost its whole essence." Charroux went on to write, "It's (greal) basic ingredient was probably the juice of the Noha grape... drunk in reasonable amounts, noha wine is no more harmful than any other, yet growing noha grapes is forbidden, just as growing marijuana is forbidden... The wines of antiquity were completely different from those of our time; they were aged in the Sun and often mixed with salt water, various spices and even opium. Our modern hybridized, drugged [poisoned by chemicals] wine is no longer a hallucinogenic drink, but the wine of four thousand years ago was undoubtedly different." It may be a good time to pause here for a second to reflect on something. It sounds to me that the closest drink to the greal of the ancient Celt's that we have on the market today may be Kombucha Tea (I recommend Concord Grape Kombucha by the local Massachusetts company "Katalyst"). However, this drink has a low alcohol content, as it is sold in supermarkets, unlike the greal of the ancients. However, the process of the way these drinks are fermented sounds similar indeed. Let us now get back to what Robert Charroux was saying: "Grapes were not ordinarily grown in Gaul, however; they must have been cultivated only by Druids and priests, for the secret needs of their ministry. Mead was only a substitute; the true greal was the drink that the Tuatha De Danann of Ireland brought from the Mag Meld, the Plain of Joy, beyond the Atlantic. The noha grape, last vestige of the sacred plant of the Atlanteans, is now disappearing..."
Okay, wow! The above quotes written by Charroux (who wrote the book Masters of the World in 1967) are a very big clue into inquiring as to the whereabouts of the Celtic TirNanOg, or Great Ireland. Perhaps a vestige of ancient Atlantis if you will. Everywhere in the woods of my area of New England (Massachusetts), whether it be Holliston (significant stone ruins in the town forests, some of huge platform cairns), Hopkinton, Ashland, Medway, Franklin, Milford, Upton (site of the well known Upton Stone Chamber, a beehive construction identical to the stone masonry techniques of the Scottish/ Irish countrysides of the Neolithic era), Mendon, etc. there is an abundance of wild grapes growing everywhere. Perhaps this was the Celtic lands of TirNanOg at some point in pre-historic times. It is interesting to note that the Concord grape was cultivated from the same wild grapes I just mentioned in Concord, Massachusetts in the late 19th century. Could these wild New England grapes be related, or perhaps have been substituted for, the Noha grape in ancient times by the Druid priests when on excursions into the "lands of the west?" We actually have a clue that this may have indeed been the case. The later Norsemen (Vikings/Scandinavians) who started coming to the Northeast American region around 970 AD called their settlement in what is most likely the New England area, "Vinland." This means "Vine" Land, referring to the abundance of wild grapes. However, and I forget where I read this, it may well have been from William B. Goodwin or from a Robert Charroux book, or perhaps some other source (my hunch is William Goodwin but I can't find the reference at the moment), the later Norsemen were only describing a characteristic of the more ancient Celtic settlements in the area, or perhaps had conveniently adapted it to their own likings. So beyond the Stone Chambers, the fact of these wild grapes, and the fact that they can be cultivated, as we have seen from the Concord grape, is also some good possible evidence for an ancient Celtic presence.
Barry Fell also points out similarities between ancient Celtic words and eastern Algonquian words, asserting that in the western Alqonquian dialects, the words are closer to their Siberian root, while the eastern Algonquin dialects have similarities with the ancient Celtic. For example, woman = bhanem (N.E. Algonquin) and ban (Celtic.) mountain = monaden/ monadh, gorge= cuiche/ cuithe, everywhere= na'lwiwi/ na h-uile, etc. etc., one gets the point. Astonishingly, there is a place name where stone chambers are located that bears a Celtic name: Gungywamp, in Groton, Connecticut, a site I went to some years back, I think there are several posts with pictures concerning my visit there from a few years ago, featuring the stone chambers and other features. Gungywamp means something like "Church of the People" in Gaelic/ Celtic. Perhaps this was the resting place of King Conn and Queen Eda (originally a princess of Brittany) of ancient Ireland. Connacht, Ireland is named from them, and for all we know, if New England was the land of TirNanOg, perhaps Connecticut is named from them as well. Just like the name "America" itself has several possible origins, perhaps there is more than one interpretation for the place name of Connecticut as well. (King Conn's and Queen Eda's son, Prince ConnEda, went through many ordeals as a young prince, such as crossing the waters and entering the fairy realms. The source of this as it came to my attention is Heinrich Zimmer's book "The King and the Corpse" who was referencing earlier written material.)
Also concerning place names, I have referenced the Milford Hills as "Magomisquog" many times in this blog. This is supposed to mean "Great Rock Affording a Grand View." Milford (MA.) earliest town historian was Adin Ballou who recorded this, although it is not clear where he got his information. In America BC, Barry Fell writes down Magog with a question mark like this: (?) next to it, for Magog may be an ancient Celtic word, although he did not have any place names in New England for itthat he knew of. I got my hands on the book "GogMagog: The Buried Gods" by the late TC Lethbridge. It is a book about Mr. Lethbridge excavating the chalk figure of a representation of a giant in the English countryside, on the side of a hill, no less. This was Magog, or GogMagog. It is a good book, but to my disappointment TC Lethbridge was unable to find the origin of the use of the word, although it is obviously used somehow in the connotation of giants. Now, Magomisquog (Milford MA.) does sound rather similar. How do we really know it means "Great Rock Affording A Grand View?" That may be actually rather redundant. Remember in my last post from late August 2018, I showed how I came across the effigy of a possible Mud Fossil or a possible crude stone statue (it is either one of the two for sure) of a human head. But not just any head, it is rather large in size and would have to be a giant's head, somebody 8-12 feet high. It makes more since to me, for reasons I will get into later, if this was a mud fossil. However, what if the more correct translation for the name of the Milford Hills, since I did find a representation of a giant's head there after all, may be : "The Giant's Rock Affording a Grand View." This translation is less redundant, and conforms to what we in fact do know of the area since the giant's head has come to light (if anyone is even paying attention to what I have to say.) So this is something I did not want to neglect mentioning.
Another topic to clear up on this blog involves The Lesser and Greater Deluges. Readers of this blog will know I have referenced the fact that we, as a species, came out of the Younger Dryus 11,500 years ago. This was the end of the last great Ice Age. This is what will be meant from now on as the "Greater Deluge." The Lesser Deluge is the event which occurred 4,500-4,800 years ago, which raised the water levels of the Atlantic SeaBoard by over 100 feet, making it less navigable to our early ancestors. Miles of land became inundated. Martha's Vineyard, etc. is inundated from the mainland. Same thing happens to the western European lands. Volcanic activity in Greenland and the Mediterranean sounds off. This may also be the event, remembered in different cultures, which finally did away with the remnants of the race of giants. Anyway, in the past when writing about this, I may have discerned poorly between these events, simply because I may not have properly categorized them. After reading Robert Charroux, who imperically categorizes these events as the Lesser and Greater Deluges, I have decided it only makes sense to do the same. There is evidence, if one were to read the works of Immanuel Velikovsky or other authors who reference his work (as Robert Charroux obviously does), that the cause of the Lesser Deluge may have been the arrival of the present location of the planet Venus (if it truly is a planet, and not a star or comet as it may be). Robert Charroux pointed out in "Masters Of the World" that Venus definitely appeared suddenly out of nowhere sometime around 4,500-5,000 years ago. When it first appeared, it seems to have been closer to the Earth's orbit or atmosphere, which could account for the upheavels experienced during the Lesser Deluge. Ancient traditions and mythologies, even artistic representations, all across the face of the Earth, attest to the late arrival of the planet Venus in these conditions. In our time, Venus is still to be revered. It is the Evening/ Morning Star, the brightest object in our skies aside from the sun and moon. When I was inheriting the megalithic stone building construction tradition, this is one of the things I immediately noticed when I stayed out late, atop the hillside- how beautiful the planet Venus was. But that is all I will say about that on the public record.
Concerning Mud Fossils: I would explain it like this. First of all, when the body dies, it usually decays and breaks down. But there are rare exceptions to this. The flash-frozen mammoths in the Siberian mud are an example of a specimen that did not break down in the usual way organisms are expected to, due to extraordinary circumstances. Mud Fossils are similar to this in that they are an extraordinary phenomenon, although different from the example just given. Mud Fossils are specimens that did not break down in the usual way because they were inundated in a flood. Instead, they mineralize and crystalize, and if they remain in this stable condition, then after some millenia the specimens will have petrified- in other words, the living organism will turn into stone, which is different from being a fossil embedded in the stone. Now, cultures from around the world have legends of the giant's perishing, and of people turning into stone. The Abenaki in particular, have a legend (which I have shared on this blog before in the past), of the Creator sending earthquakes and floods to banish and exterminate the earlier race of giants from the face of the Earth. I would say that the Mud Fossil enigma and the ancient legends line up pretty well. If the Ancient's knew of this, it would also explain the Native reverence for sacred rocks and boulders, for the belief was that the rocks themselves were once alive. I have noticed many rocks, especially in the Milford Hills, which seem to be effigies of giant sea turtles, whales, sharks, etc. It makes a lot of sense if these stones were actually once alive, and turned into the very stone itself. I do not see ancient Native peoples as having meticulously carved out these boulders as effigies- place the way the features are set into the stone is like molding silly puddy- obviously not the result of a human agent. So let us please set the record straight concerning these animal representations in the boulders. My hunch is that the ancient Native ancestors knew this. As further evidence of this, I have found many sea shells in the Milford hills, although Milford is quite in-land from the coast, usually around the periphery of construction zones or within the construction site itself. When I showed my archaeologist friend, Curtiss Hoffman these shell specimens, he just threw his hands up and commented that it was "very peculiar, or strange" that shells like these would be found in the Milford Hills. This is also further evidence that the area in general has gone through many changes and upheavals in the ancient past-- who knows, it may even play into supporting the Atlantis theory.
So, let us wrap this post up by returning to the concept of TirNanOg. The jury is not out that Stone Chambers are of Native American origin; the same may be true for certain Standing Stones and balanced boulders. It was Peter Waksman (Rock Piles Blog) and other researchers associated with NEARA who originally brought the Stone Chambers to contemporary Native people's attention. From that point on, a new wave of "politically correct" researchers who have no inkling of the ramifications of an early Celtic presence have dismissed it out of hand, and have rudely rubbished authors such as William B. Goodwin and Barry Fell. Please do not erase the history of an early Celtic presence in this area, that would be wrong. I would say, however, the jury is definitely out as to the presence of the Ceremonial Stone Landscape in general. This is good news, and by people in the know, a lot of stone features do deserve to be recognized as Native American. It could be that some Celtic people inter-married with Native people in ancient times, which could account for some diffusionism linguistically and culturally. We just don't know. Perhaps this place was heavily visited or even settled by Celtic people when there was a sparse Native population in the area- that certainly isn't a popular view but we just don't know. I would propose that for a good 1,300 years or so The American Northeast had never stopped being visited by western European peoples, whether they were early Celtic (possibly 2,500-1,000 AD, perhaps intermarrying into Native populations as a response to the later Viking incursions out of necessity), Scandinavian Vikings (from the 970's through the 1360's), the later Sinclair Expeditions (Oak Island), and finally John Cabot around the St. Lawrence in 1497, fishing colonies throughout the 1500's, and finally the Puritans settling Plymouth in 1620. Notice how Christopher Columbus does not equate into any of this- he was never in this part of the world, he went down and terrorized the Caribbean Islands. The history of the Red Paint People of the American Northeast and their cultural remains, compared with the Red Ochre culture of Scandinavia and the British Isles, from about 6,000-7,000 years ago, speaks of a time after the Great Deluge of 12,000 years ago and before the Lesser Deluge of 4,800 years ago when there could have been yet even more ancient cross-cultural ties and connections. The lifestyles, tools, habits, seamanship, the way the villages were set up, etc., all are strikingly familiar after all. Academics will of course deny any cross cultural connections but this is to be expected (see the 1980's PBS documentary "Search for the Lost Red Paint People." Just don't watch it though, think critically and ask questions and you will see what I mean.)
Those are all the main points I wanted to hit on for now, so I think that wraps this post up.
Now, Goodwin would have these Irish monks as settling the New England area around 800 A.D., a century and a half before the Norsemen. However, in America B.C., Barry Fell pushes that date back to as early as 2,500-3,000 years ago. At this point, it may be essential reading to pick up a copy of Cyrus H. Gordon's "Before Columbus". Gordon was a professor at Brendeis University (Fell was a linguistics expert at Harvard, by the way), and is quick to point out that the ancient Phonecians (a Celtic people from the Iberian Peninsula), for instance, had massive sea traveling capability. Indeed, the book does lay out the evidence for ancient European/Medeterranian voyages into the America's as early as 2,500-3,000 years ago. Unlike Goodwin's Culdee Irish monks, however, these voyagers need not have been permanent settlers- simply sea-faring traders exploiting resources (copper, for instance.) Anyway, from my perspective Fell's book "America BC" is worth obtaining on the grounds alone that on pages 242-243, he shows pictures of a collapsed Standing Stone found in the New Hampshire woods which he interpreted, rightly so, as a faded Earth Goddess statue (or, a Venus.) He goes on to note that it is a similar identical likeness to other stones found along the coast of the Medeterranian. I have seen and discovered one of these standing stones personally, in the Massachusetts area. Indeed, upon propping the stone up, I could make the detail of the tip of the stone, which would represent her head, her breasts which jut out, and the torso of the body. I believe I have shown that stone on this blog before, where I wrote something regarding transmutations and consciousness regarding the human interface with these ancient stone sites. The post was probably in September of several years ago if I recall correctly. However, I do not recall if I got a picture of the stone at the right angle or not, because it wasn't until more recently when I had my hands on Fell's book that I drew the connection and similarities between these stones, although I had intuitively known that the stone (the one I found in Massachusetts) was special and perhaps the likeness of a human figure. This is a perfect example, drawing from my own experience in this case, of why it is dangerous for researchers in this field of inquiry (megaliths/ stone ruins), to dismiss any contribution to the literature of these sites, such as America B.C., simply on the grounds that someone does not want to accept a certain theory simply on the grounds that it may not be a popular theory, or perceived as politically correct, or whatever the case. Clearly one must keep an open mind, while using discernment.
The Stone Chambers are not the only clue we have that the New England area was a part of the ancient cosmology of the Celtic people- their TirNanOg, or Great Ireland. In his book Masters of the World, French author Robert Charroux wrote about "The Wine That Causes Insanity" in Chapter 9, titled "Time-Travel Drugs." He writes "After the disappearance of the Atlanteans, the Hyperboreans and ancient Aryans, whose original homeland was North America, the Celts found themselves 'cut off from the land of the Gods'; that is, from the source of initiation and knowledge. But they knew that 'beyond the ocean river, at the limits of the Western world' one could find greal, the marvelous drink of their forefathers. This was the origin... for the quest of the Grail which, under the influence of Christian ideas turned away from it's true path and lost its whole essence." Charroux went on to write, "It's (greal) basic ingredient was probably the juice of the Noha grape... drunk in reasonable amounts, noha wine is no more harmful than any other, yet growing noha grapes is forbidden, just as growing marijuana is forbidden... The wines of antiquity were completely different from those of our time; they were aged in the Sun and often mixed with salt water, various spices and even opium. Our modern hybridized, drugged [poisoned by chemicals] wine is no longer a hallucinogenic drink, but the wine of four thousand years ago was undoubtedly different." It may be a good time to pause here for a second to reflect on something. It sounds to me that the closest drink to the greal of the ancient Celt's that we have on the market today may be Kombucha Tea (I recommend Concord Grape Kombucha by the local Massachusetts company "Katalyst"). However, this drink has a low alcohol content, as it is sold in supermarkets, unlike the greal of the ancients. However, the process of the way these drinks are fermented sounds similar indeed. Let us now get back to what Robert Charroux was saying: "Grapes were not ordinarily grown in Gaul, however; they must have been cultivated only by Druids and priests, for the secret needs of their ministry. Mead was only a substitute; the true greal was the drink that the Tuatha De Danann of Ireland brought from the Mag Meld, the Plain of Joy, beyond the Atlantic. The noha grape, last vestige of the sacred plant of the Atlanteans, is now disappearing..."
Okay, wow! The above quotes written by Charroux (who wrote the book Masters of the World in 1967) are a very big clue into inquiring as to the whereabouts of the Celtic TirNanOg, or Great Ireland. Perhaps a vestige of ancient Atlantis if you will. Everywhere in the woods of my area of New England (Massachusetts), whether it be Holliston (significant stone ruins in the town forests, some of huge platform cairns), Hopkinton, Ashland, Medway, Franklin, Milford, Upton (site of the well known Upton Stone Chamber, a beehive construction identical to the stone masonry techniques of the Scottish/ Irish countrysides of the Neolithic era), Mendon, etc. there is an abundance of wild grapes growing everywhere. Perhaps this was the Celtic lands of TirNanOg at some point in pre-historic times. It is interesting to note that the Concord grape was cultivated from the same wild grapes I just mentioned in Concord, Massachusetts in the late 19th century. Could these wild New England grapes be related, or perhaps have been substituted for, the Noha grape in ancient times by the Druid priests when on excursions into the "lands of the west?" We actually have a clue that this may have indeed been the case. The later Norsemen (Vikings/Scandinavians) who started coming to the Northeast American region around 970 AD called their settlement in what is most likely the New England area, "Vinland." This means "Vine" Land, referring to the abundance of wild grapes. However, and I forget where I read this, it may well have been from William B. Goodwin or from a Robert Charroux book, or perhaps some other source (my hunch is William Goodwin but I can't find the reference at the moment), the later Norsemen were only describing a characteristic of the more ancient Celtic settlements in the area, or perhaps had conveniently adapted it to their own likings. So beyond the Stone Chambers, the fact of these wild grapes, and the fact that they can be cultivated, as we have seen from the Concord grape, is also some good possible evidence for an ancient Celtic presence.
Barry Fell also points out similarities between ancient Celtic words and eastern Algonquian words, asserting that in the western Alqonquian dialects, the words are closer to their Siberian root, while the eastern Algonquin dialects have similarities with the ancient Celtic. For example, woman = bhanem (N.E. Algonquin) and ban (Celtic.) mountain = monaden/ monadh, gorge= cuiche/ cuithe, everywhere= na'lwiwi/ na h-uile, etc. etc., one gets the point. Astonishingly, there is a place name where stone chambers are located that bears a Celtic name: Gungywamp, in Groton, Connecticut, a site I went to some years back, I think there are several posts with pictures concerning my visit there from a few years ago, featuring the stone chambers and other features. Gungywamp means something like "Church of the People" in Gaelic/ Celtic. Perhaps this was the resting place of King Conn and Queen Eda (originally a princess of Brittany) of ancient Ireland. Connacht, Ireland is named from them, and for all we know, if New England was the land of TirNanOg, perhaps Connecticut is named from them as well. Just like the name "America" itself has several possible origins, perhaps there is more than one interpretation for the place name of Connecticut as well. (King Conn's and Queen Eda's son, Prince ConnEda, went through many ordeals as a young prince, such as crossing the waters and entering the fairy realms. The source of this as it came to my attention is Heinrich Zimmer's book "The King and the Corpse" who was referencing earlier written material.)
Also concerning place names, I have referenced the Milford Hills as "Magomisquog" many times in this blog. This is supposed to mean "Great Rock Affording a Grand View." Milford (MA.) earliest town historian was Adin Ballou who recorded this, although it is not clear where he got his information. In America BC, Barry Fell writes down Magog with a question mark like this: (?) next to it, for Magog may be an ancient Celtic word, although he did not have any place names in New England for itthat he knew of. I got my hands on the book "GogMagog: The Buried Gods" by the late TC Lethbridge. It is a book about Mr. Lethbridge excavating the chalk figure of a representation of a giant in the English countryside, on the side of a hill, no less. This was Magog, or GogMagog. It is a good book, but to my disappointment TC Lethbridge was unable to find the origin of the use of the word, although it is obviously used somehow in the connotation of giants. Now, Magomisquog (Milford MA.) does sound rather similar. How do we really know it means "Great Rock Affording A Grand View?" That may be actually rather redundant. Remember in my last post from late August 2018, I showed how I came across the effigy of a possible Mud Fossil or a possible crude stone statue (it is either one of the two for sure) of a human head. But not just any head, it is rather large in size and would have to be a giant's head, somebody 8-12 feet high. It makes more since to me, for reasons I will get into later, if this was a mud fossil. However, what if the more correct translation for the name of the Milford Hills, since I did find a representation of a giant's head there after all, may be : "The Giant's Rock Affording a Grand View." This translation is less redundant, and conforms to what we in fact do know of the area since the giant's head has come to light (if anyone is even paying attention to what I have to say.) So this is something I did not want to neglect mentioning.
Another topic to clear up on this blog involves The Lesser and Greater Deluges. Readers of this blog will know I have referenced the fact that we, as a species, came out of the Younger Dryus 11,500 years ago. This was the end of the last great Ice Age. This is what will be meant from now on as the "Greater Deluge." The Lesser Deluge is the event which occurred 4,500-4,800 years ago, which raised the water levels of the Atlantic SeaBoard by over 100 feet, making it less navigable to our early ancestors. Miles of land became inundated. Martha's Vineyard, etc. is inundated from the mainland. Same thing happens to the western European lands. Volcanic activity in Greenland and the Mediterranean sounds off. This may also be the event, remembered in different cultures, which finally did away with the remnants of the race of giants. Anyway, in the past when writing about this, I may have discerned poorly between these events, simply because I may not have properly categorized them. After reading Robert Charroux, who imperically categorizes these events as the Lesser and Greater Deluges, I have decided it only makes sense to do the same. There is evidence, if one were to read the works of Immanuel Velikovsky or other authors who reference his work (as Robert Charroux obviously does), that the cause of the Lesser Deluge may have been the arrival of the present location of the planet Venus (if it truly is a planet, and not a star or comet as it may be). Robert Charroux pointed out in "Masters Of the World" that Venus definitely appeared suddenly out of nowhere sometime around 4,500-5,000 years ago. When it first appeared, it seems to have been closer to the Earth's orbit or atmosphere, which could account for the upheavels experienced during the Lesser Deluge. Ancient traditions and mythologies, even artistic representations, all across the face of the Earth, attest to the late arrival of the planet Venus in these conditions. In our time, Venus is still to be revered. It is the Evening/ Morning Star, the brightest object in our skies aside from the sun and moon. When I was inheriting the megalithic stone building construction tradition, this is one of the things I immediately noticed when I stayed out late, atop the hillside- how beautiful the planet Venus was. But that is all I will say about that on the public record.
Concerning Mud Fossils: I would explain it like this. First of all, when the body dies, it usually decays and breaks down. But there are rare exceptions to this. The flash-frozen mammoths in the Siberian mud are an example of a specimen that did not break down in the usual way organisms are expected to, due to extraordinary circumstances. Mud Fossils are similar to this in that they are an extraordinary phenomenon, although different from the example just given. Mud Fossils are specimens that did not break down in the usual way because they were inundated in a flood. Instead, they mineralize and crystalize, and if they remain in this stable condition, then after some millenia the specimens will have petrified- in other words, the living organism will turn into stone, which is different from being a fossil embedded in the stone. Now, cultures from around the world have legends of the giant's perishing, and of people turning into stone. The Abenaki in particular, have a legend (which I have shared on this blog before in the past), of the Creator sending earthquakes and floods to banish and exterminate the earlier race of giants from the face of the Earth. I would say that the Mud Fossil enigma and the ancient legends line up pretty well. If the Ancient's knew of this, it would also explain the Native reverence for sacred rocks and boulders, for the belief was that the rocks themselves were once alive. I have noticed many rocks, especially in the Milford Hills, which seem to be effigies of giant sea turtles, whales, sharks, etc. It makes a lot of sense if these stones were actually once alive, and turned into the very stone itself. I do not see ancient Native peoples as having meticulously carved out these boulders as effigies- place the way the features are set into the stone is like molding silly puddy- obviously not the result of a human agent. So let us please set the record straight concerning these animal representations in the boulders. My hunch is that the ancient Native ancestors knew this. As further evidence of this, I have found many sea shells in the Milford hills, although Milford is quite in-land from the coast, usually around the periphery of construction zones or within the construction site itself. When I showed my archaeologist friend, Curtiss Hoffman these shell specimens, he just threw his hands up and commented that it was "very peculiar, or strange" that shells like these would be found in the Milford Hills. This is also further evidence that the area in general has gone through many changes and upheavals in the ancient past-- who knows, it may even play into supporting the Atlantis theory.
So, let us wrap this post up by returning to the concept of TirNanOg. The jury is not out that Stone Chambers are of Native American origin; the same may be true for certain Standing Stones and balanced boulders. It was Peter Waksman (Rock Piles Blog) and other researchers associated with NEARA who originally brought the Stone Chambers to contemporary Native people's attention. From that point on, a new wave of "politically correct" researchers who have no inkling of the ramifications of an early Celtic presence have dismissed it out of hand, and have rudely rubbished authors such as William B. Goodwin and Barry Fell. Please do not erase the history of an early Celtic presence in this area, that would be wrong. I would say, however, the jury is definitely out as to the presence of the Ceremonial Stone Landscape in general. This is good news, and by people in the know, a lot of stone features do deserve to be recognized as Native American. It could be that some Celtic people inter-married with Native people in ancient times, which could account for some diffusionism linguistically and culturally. We just don't know. Perhaps this place was heavily visited or even settled by Celtic people when there was a sparse Native population in the area- that certainly isn't a popular view but we just don't know. I would propose that for a good 1,300 years or so The American Northeast had never stopped being visited by western European peoples, whether they were early Celtic (possibly 2,500-1,000 AD, perhaps intermarrying into Native populations as a response to the later Viking incursions out of necessity), Scandinavian Vikings (from the 970's through the 1360's), the later Sinclair Expeditions (Oak Island), and finally John Cabot around the St. Lawrence in 1497, fishing colonies throughout the 1500's, and finally the Puritans settling Plymouth in 1620. Notice how Christopher Columbus does not equate into any of this- he was never in this part of the world, he went down and terrorized the Caribbean Islands. The history of the Red Paint People of the American Northeast and their cultural remains, compared with the Red Ochre culture of Scandinavia and the British Isles, from about 6,000-7,000 years ago, speaks of a time after the Great Deluge of 12,000 years ago and before the Lesser Deluge of 4,800 years ago when there could have been yet even more ancient cross-cultural ties and connections. The lifestyles, tools, habits, seamanship, the way the villages were set up, etc., all are strikingly familiar after all. Academics will of course deny any cross cultural connections but this is to be expected (see the 1980's PBS documentary "Search for the Lost Red Paint People." Just don't watch it though, think critically and ask questions and you will see what I mean.)
Those are all the main points I wanted to hit on for now, so I think that wraps this post up.
i'll tell this to my friends, thanks it really helps a lot, please keep on posting more :)
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