Sunny Side Down...

[Gladys]

You see them running in different directions all over the place. I thought they were supposed to be running away from England, but then you see them running towards it. Probably poor reseach or a slap dash approach, but they aren't consistently running in either direction. I will, possibly, make a note of the ones that run towards England.

[Sneaky Dolores]

Many moons ago, when I was in the Brownies, I was told that the important thing about the 3 legs was that one of the feet should be on the ground and if two knees were on the ground, it was the wrong way up? Is this right, or was Brown Owl lying to us?

[keyboarder]

Brown Owl, two knees on the ground? Steady on, ... ; )

[Freggyragh]

19th century Manx pun

With one leg I spurn Ireland,

With the second I kick Scotland,

And with the third I kneel to England

catch is anti-clockwise ! - maybe that is why they now officially run clockwise ? - however look at the coins www.manxnotebook.com/manxsoc/msvol17/plates.htm

notice anything ?

 

Go on then ...

[VinnieK]

19th century Manx pun

catch is anti-clockwise ! - maybe that is why they now officially run clockwise ? - however look at the coins www.manxnotebook.com/manxsoc/msvol17/plates.htm

notice anything ?

 

Go on then ...

 

They run in both directions. Do I win a stick of Manx rock?

[Freggyragh]

From Wikipedia:

 

"Before clocks were commonplace, the terms 'sunwise' and deiseil (from the Scottish Gaelic from the same root as the Latin dexter, "right". The word is also used for "ready") were used for clockwise."

 

Deiseil is pronounced the same in Manx, but spelt jeshal. The root part of this is jesh which in Manx means 'right, fitting, proper, active, spruce, neat, nice' etc.

 

Superstition connected with clockwise motion is common to all the Celtic countries - in fact, at one time perhaps to all of Europe. I'm not sure if it survives in English superstition, but it is well known in Manx folklore and dance. A Manx fisherman for instance, would not go out to sea if he inadvertently stirred a pot of paint in an anticlockwise motion first.

 

I doubt if the reversal of direction was either a deliberate affront or anything to do with kicking or kneeling to anyone - it is just that the superstition is not so well observed these days.

[Frances]

From Wikipedia:

I doubt if the reversal of direction was either a deliberate affront or anything to do with kicking or kneeling to anyone - it is just that the superstition is not so well observed these days.

and the date of these coins was ... ?

[Skeddan]

maybe that is why they now officially run clockwise ?

 

Oh - I thought they were now running anti-clockwise - see my first post on the topic....

 

Frances - what makes you so sure they now officially run clockwise? Is there some explantion that demonstrates how this is sunwise, is it how you see it, or is it rather based on official pronouncement that this way IS clockwise and other such assertion?

 

I could never quite understand why anyone would think the current Triskellion is running sunwise, especially given the stories of Manannan rolling down hills. As far as I can see in the 'official version' of today this would be rolling down a hill right to left, and be spinning anti-clockwise (assuming the legs are rolling in the direction they're facing, rather than doing odd back flips). Moving in the the other direction - left to right is more postive and less oppositional (basic principles one finds in film-making for example), and it gives one a sunwise motion. This rolling down a hill like a cartwheel and sunwheel connections are also linked in the old tradition that used to take place before the midsummer Tynwald - rolling a flaming cartwheel down a hill. The legs have been likened to spokes in a wheel, and the direction they are running in indicates the direction the wheel is turning - which now is anti-clockwise.

 

I can sort of see that perhaps one might see the legs as running around some kind of mousewheel / circular track, and spinning like a propellor or cogwheel in a clockwise direction. It just seems very much a modern sophisticated way of looking at it which has more to do with cogs, propellors and 20th C mechanistic engineering notions - rather than fiery cartwheels rolling down hills, tying the symbol in with sunwheels and Manannan. Still, if its official that this is how one has to see it....

 

I'm not sure why there are inconsistencies in the direction prior to 1765, however overall the direction appears more often than not to be sunwise - or opposite that shown today. Even so the inconsistency is odd given what Freggyragh says. Maybe for some reason it wasn't such an issue, or maybe it was like the Bhuddist and Hindu swastikas that run either way (a bit like yin and yang). Maybe it did matter to many, who felt it should be sunwise, hence the rhyme from the 19thC (which in some form might go back even earlier - or may have arisen to emphasise that this was now in the wrong direction). However it seems after 1765 it becomes consistently in the opposite direction of what was 'prevailing' beforehand, and the Triskellion is now firmly fixed as being anti-sunwise - perhaps for the reasons that I think I touched on in my second post on this topic - i.e. a reversal and a mark of abatement. Ooops - that would be a bit embarassing - so it is perhaps much more respectable to play along with the 'official story' which 'reassures' us that this is really going clockwise and everything is Very Proper (even that raven).

 

BTW Sneaky Dolores - I'm sure Brown Owl would not have lied to you, and was quite right - though perhaps she may have been a bit simplistic when she said two knees - but you get the idea and it was easy to remember. If you turn it, at a certain rotation you get one foot on the baseline and one knee - making it look like someone kneeling down on one knee and static, rather than being a dynamic motion (and not kneeling). So don't worry, you were quite right to pay attention to Brown Owl's wise words

[Skeddan]

The first mention of abatements in a manual of heraldry was made by Iohannes de Bado Aureo, who wrote his Tractatus de Armis at the request of Anne, Richard II's queen. Iohannes wrote that if a person was to break his promise, showed cowardice, or acted in a grossly unworthy manner, he was to be brought on trial, and, if he was found guilty, his coat of arms were to be displayed upside down, or reversed. This is the first, and direst, abatement.

 

http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/abate.html

 

Doesn't sound very good does it? I read somewhere that it was also used to signify arms being borne without right, which maybe isn't quite so dire. I guess once its been reversed like this, it would stick that way.

[Freggyragh]

The following is a link to the MacLeod coat of arms, which also features the three legs:

 

http://www.clanmacleod.org/about-macleods/index.php

 

I don't know the date of this, but it is highly relavent, because the MacLeod heartlands of Lewis, Harris and Skye are still Gaelic speaking areas where adherence to tradition is particularly strong.

 

Clan MacLeod have a strong connection to Mannin. MacLeod is pronounced mac-aw-looj in Scottish Gaelic. Mac means son, Leod was the name of one of the sons of Olaf the Black, King of Mann and the Isles. The convention in Manx is to drop the ma of mac to get Corlett (the double t must have been pronounced more like a j in the past).

 

The original Leod had two sons; Torquil and Tormod. If you know your Gaelic you will know an initial T softens to an H after a preceding noun to show the second noun belongs to the first. - Mac Horquil = Son of Torquil, Mac Hormod = Son of Tormod, remove the ma and you get Corkill/Corkhill and Cormode.

[oldmanxfella]

Clan MacLeod have a strong connection to Mannin. MacLeod is pronounced mac-aw-looj in Scottish Gaelic.

 

The clan MacLeod .... there can be only one!

 

(By the way the logo looks like the Manx Millenium logo in 3d set on fire. But at £300 who is to criticise).

[Frances]

if 'spurred' then post 15th C - the MacLeods quartered the Manx Arms by some claim to the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles via descent from Magnus Barefoot, King of Man c.1100) - catch is that the Norse kings had a ship as their seal with the 3-legs not found prior to the Scottish takeover.

 

don't forget the links of the Norse kings to Sweden where I think the legs can be found in threes and also singular - book by Barney Young - "The three legs go to Scandinavia a monograph on the Manx royal family and their Scandinavian descendants"

[Freggyragh]

So, Frances, are you saying that the three legs came in wth the Vikings or the Scottish? Isn't it more honest to call these people by their earlier name the Norse-Gaels, (Goal-Ghael in Manx spelling, Gall-Ghaidheil in Scottish spelling). The Gall (Foreigner) bit gave us the Gaelic placenames Donegal, Gallway, Galloway, Innse Gall (alternative name for Eilean Siar / Western Isles) - all places that have, (or had, in the case of Galloway) particularly strong Gaelic traditions. Ethnically mixed, but fervent Gaels culturally.

 

oldmanxfella - as the history of The Kingdom of the Isles is not taught in any depth in Manx schools you may not know the Manx connections to the fictional Highlander feud. - Leod, progenitor of the Corletts was either a poet - or named after one - Ljóð was Old Norse for poet. Lewis is named after him - Ljóð + hus (home) = Lewis. Lewis and Harris remained within the Manx Kingdom until 1266, long after Antrim, Kintyre, the Inner Hebrides and most the rest of the Outer Hebrides had been lost. Interestingly, the last King to hold the whole of the Kingdom of the Isles was Somerled - progenitor of the MacDonalds. Somerled's DNA is said to be the world's second most prolific so far discovered, after Genghis Khan. His greatest victory was in 1156, and it was this victory that enabled him to re-unify the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, oust Goraidh Mac Amhlaibh from Mannin, and into exile in Norway.

The Battle that finally re-unified Mannin and the Isles - but under the Scottish Crown - was The Battle of Largs on October 2nd 1263. Largs is a placename with little meaning in English but the placenames of Scotland, Ireland and Mann are mostly just a jumble of syllables if you don't know any Gaelic. Largs is derived from the Scottish Gaelic An Leargaidh Ghallda - which means 'The Norse Legs'.

[Frances]

the "Ethnically mixed, but fervent Gaels culturally. " I'll leave to you though certainly the Western Isles have a very strong Gaelic component, Orkney + Shetland make much more of their links with the Norse, Shetland in particular with its links to Norway + the Faroes) There is no doubt that many of those that settled in Mann were of mixed race via the Western seaboard of what became Scotland possibly via the failed Viking Kingdom of Dublin though it is interesting that based on latest findings the 'viking' buried in the ship burial at Balladoole was most likely from southern Sweeden (luckily his teeth survived and the dental enamel can provide a good estimate of the area he came from) - there have been many attempts to 'explain' the 3-legs but no-one has found a date for its appearance in connection with Mann pre Alexander of Scotland.

 

I guess you have read the latest book by R. Andrew McDonald Manx Kingship in its Irish Sea Setting 1187-1229 which covers some of this (other books + comments at www.manxnotebook.com//history/reading.htm

[Freggyragh]

No, Frances, I haven't read R. Andrew MacDonald's book - but I did go to the lecture when he was over here last year. The Goal-Gael haven't traditionally stressed the link to Norway in the same way as the Orkadians and Shetlanders, but that may be because they intermarried with the Gaels and ditched the Norse language and culture pretty fast.

 

Anyway, what do you make of the suggestion that the Three Legs only partly originate from the Celtic sunwheel tradition, but may actually be a commemoration of the 1266 Scottish takeover - made possible by 'The Battle of the Norse Legs'? Because if this is a correct guess, then it doesn't really matter in which way the legs go. I mean, superstition about clockwise motion is common to all parts of Eurasia, particularly in subcultures which experience regular danger, such as fishermen. You wouldn't pass the port to the left, would you? But then again, for the average Joe it isn't that important. I would say general confusion / ignorance about the correct direction of the legs is typical - and I don't see 'abatement' in the arms either - it is an interesting line Skeddan, but a little bit Dan Brown for me to go along with.