Sunny Side Down...

[Skeddan]

Freggyragh, IoM is under suzerainity of England (it transferred from Scotland during reign of Edw. I), and would remain so if Scotland split. Not sure about what you mean about EU. England / UK would still be responsible for defence, etc. regardless of situation with EU. The contractual agreement is with England. Maybe UK will drop its own passports and have EU passports, if so, then UK is under obligation to IoM that Manks should enjoy these also.

 

I'm not sure that returning to this arrangement would entitle you to work in EU. You would have rights of British subject as far as UK is concerned, but not necessarily as far as France, Germany, Spain and rest of EU are concerned. I honestly don't know enough about EU to say with any confidence. The 'EU passport' in example above might thus be restricted, much the same as your passport now is.

[ai_Droid]

Don't get too close you three, you might get beardlock!

[Skeddan]

Triskelion : showing three people in beardlock who'd got into a spin!

[Skeddan]

If making conjectures on the origins of the triskelion… An alternative possibility that might be considered is that the triskelion symbol might possibly be traced back through various migrations to its eventual adoption in the Manks Arms.

 

The triskele is found on a Celtiberian coin, is found in Sicily, and also in Lycia in Anatolia, and the dating of these might perhaps be evidence of maritime migrations across the Mediterranean and ‘Celtic Fringe’. The symbol may possibly have its origins in Lycia, or may have been adopted in IoM to support a ‘mythic history’ (such as that of the Scythian origins or the Scots or the Trojan origins of the Britons). The triskelion might thus relate to some real or believed transmission of Lycian culture.

 

I’ve not examined this in any depth at all, but perhaps an argument could be made for this, particularly given some similarities between the Manks and the Lycian form of representative democratic government, that the Manks ‘Keys’ probably originates from ‘Taxiaxai’, which is a Greek word for assembly, and the Lycians had 23, and in IoM there are 23+1 Taxiaxai (there are refs showing Keys still being officially called Taxiaxai until just a couple of hundred years ago).

 

The Lycians were in the Anatolia region of Asia Minor, just like the Milesians of Hellenistic history, and, as it happens, there are also Milesians who appear in the Irish legends as arriving and settling in the region, and they have been associated with the first Goidelic Celts and so these legengs perhaps relate to the northward migration of Celtiberians. Lycians were called Termilae in Greek, hence possibly the ter-milae became milae–sians, or maybe lycians became mi-lycians, which became milesians. The Hellenistic Milesians were a maritime people, and so may well have migrated across the Mediterranean to Sicily, Spain and then northward, following much the same route as the Phoenicians did. The legends of Sarpedon and Miletos points to a connection between the Lycians and Milesians, and suggests some kind of rift or split. Perhaps the Milesians were a group who splintered off and over time these people migrated west and then northwards, maybe after the defeat of their Trojan allies. Important symbols and political systems which are the basis for the unity of a group can be remarkably resilient ‘memes’ and 'memeplexes' (as for example in Pacific Islander migrations over long periods of time). Perhaps it is not impossible that after some generations of transmission some remnant of the Termilae culture and political system washed up on the shores of the Isle of Man where it survived and took root in the sanctuary of this remote outpost.

 

If so, when Armorial bearings were being adopted in C12th, the triskelion might thus have been the natural choice.

 

Just a thought….

 

(I think it makes a very nice story about the triskelion, IMO much better than it being a symbol of subservience imposed on a subjugated nation after a Scottish takeover that never happened).

[Freggyragh]

Interesting point about Lycia Skeddan - Although little work has been done on the language of the Lycians, the ancient peoples of Galatia which borderd Lycia (and from which the football club Galatasaray get their name) spoke a Celtic language. The wikipedia article on Galatian mentions a few of only 120 words that have been deduced, still the similarity is there:

 

Galatian -- Manx Gaelic -- English

 

marus -- mooar -- large / great

riks -- ree -- king

touti -- theay -- people / tribe

neim -- noo -- holy (of a person)

dru -- dru -- prefix denoting connection to druidism

ed -- ard -- place / area

 

Lycian writing used hieroglyphics, and so it is impossible to decode them wthout some sort of Rosetta Stone. The earliest known examples of Celtic writing that have been found use the Etruscan letter system, but a significant number of Celtic inscriptions using the Greek alphabet that have found in France date to the thrid millenium BC - indicating a westward migration at that time. The Lycians were great allies of the Hittites. The Hittites calendrical system, dating from 1900 - 1400 BC has compared to the Coligny calender. If you are familiar with Olmsted's work on the Coligny calender (a Celtic calender that dates back with incredible accuracy to 1100 BC, described by Bereford Ellis as 'far more elaborate than the rudimentory Julien calender' and even has the month name 'Samon' which survives in Manx as 'Sauin' you will know that it, in turn, is closely related to the Sanskrit / Vedic calendrical system.

http://cura.free.fr/xv/11ellis1.html

 

There are more than a few linguistic similarities between Gaelic and Sanskrit, but mythology also points that way:

 

"Perhaps the best developed in Western Europe, Gaelic mythology has retained or developed stories which refer to the eastern family. The first Irishman was a Scythian king called Fenius Farsa. He was overthrown and fled to Egypt. His son, Niul, married the Pharaoh’s daughter Scota (i.e. the scythian's wife): she had a son called Goidel, after whom the Gael (Gaedheal) are called. In the fifth century BC, Egypt was part of a Persian Aryan empire, which stretched as far east as the Punjab (Celtic Myths and Legends by Charles Squire - Parragon (2000))"

 

Interestingly, there was an article in 'Family Manx' this month about the 'Crosh Cuirn' and how it can have three or four 'legs'. It seems this symbol, also kown as St Bridget's Cross, could be related to early Indo-Celtic / Vedic mythology.

 

If we look again at the Sanskrit swastika and see how it developed to the East it leads us to the manji - 'whirlwind', of East Asia.

http://altreligion.about.com/library/gloss...bldefsmanji.htm

Which when facing left signfies love and mercy, but when facing right signifies strength and intelligence (no wonder Tynwald opted for the MacDonald flag rather than a triskelle!).

Further East still we get the mitsu tomoe, which is much closer to Tree Cassyn Vannin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoe

Note that it was the ancient flag of The Ryuku Kingdom - but went anti-clockwise. This kingdom was invaded by its larger neighbour when Illiam Dhone was a baby, and finally annexed in 1879 - since when it has just about lost its language, been flattened in one of the worst battles of WW2, occupied by the US until 1972, and since used as America's main base in East Asia - on the other hand, it looks lovely, and its people enjoy perhaps the greatest longevity in the world.

 

Anyway, I'm still not sure if it matters which way round the legs go - Indo-European tradition seems to indicate a clockwise motion, and the experience of the Ryuku Kingdom seems to show that anti-clockwise is unlucky - but, on the other hand, if you spin an anti-clockwise triskelle very quickly, doesn't it appear to be turning clockwise anyway?

 

Well, enough for now - I think I'll go and trim my beard.

[ai_Droid]

Well, enough for now - I think I'll go and trim my beard.

 

Mind you don't get the cuttings stuck in your sandles!

[The Old Git]

Don't get too close you three, you might get beardlock!

 

I don't think Frances has a beard. There may be some ladies in Peel with beards, but I don't think she's one of them.

[Frances]

I thought I'd stay out from this point on - as the discussion has reached the level of pure speculation about equivalent to the 1860's essay by H R Oswald in vol 5 of Manx Society publications who too tried to take us through the history of the Scilian 3-legs as seen on many artefacts from well before 1 AD though he thought the Phoenecians with their search for tin as the vector of transmission to Celtic lands, where its use apparently remained invisible until its sudden blossoming c1266. He too could find no documentary evidence (written or inscribed on statues etc) of the highly distinctive 3-legs emblem prior to c.1266 - the triqueta with the 'magical' three components is indeed a common celtic ornament (and also elsewhere) and the 3-legs does indeed seem to follow its pattern but then so would any symmetric 3-component ornamentation - the 3-legs may well have a much longer history but there is no evidence whereas its appearance post c.1270 is observed in many places but as we all all know post hoc does not imply propter hoc - it may well have arisen during the later days of Kingdom of Man and the Isles (is this Gaelic or Norse ? or are the honours shared) , a dating I'm inclined towards, and then accepted by Scots, English etc.

[Freggyragh]

Frances, I thought you had already contributed to the speculation when you brought up Barney Young's work. But anyway - following up your references to the sip emblem:

 

Is the ship emblem you mention similar to that used by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comhairle_nan_Eilean_Siar

 

The emblem they use is of a birlinn / birling of the type used by Somerled when unifying the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles.

 

Are the emblems you mention of a long fada / lhong foddey - long ship (shallow draught, long and fast) or of a Norse - Gael galley, or birlinn / birling (high prow and stern, slow but highly manouverable, and featuring a stern rudder from about the late 12th C)? The longship was favoured for raiding - it was fast and easy to beach, but the galley largely superceded it for naval warfaret. An additional advantage of the birling was its portability - the placenames Tarbert in Scotland signify places where a birlinng could be carried overland between one stretch of water and another (eg. North Kintyre).

 

if it is clear which design is featured it becomes much easier to date -

 

By the way - when talking about Norse and Gaelic I should point out that mainstream Celtic scholars do not define 'Celtic 'or 'Gaelic' in racial or 'blood' terms, whereas Norse often is.