Thank you for that, very interesting.
Regarding Odin, the stories I was referring to were those that suggested he was originally a Scythian warlord who was forced to move north as a result of Roman expansion. This is a poor source, so please forgive me, but
this covers that story. Interestingly I see that he surrounded himself with '12 priests', again, like Christianity, echoing Astrotheology/ Sun worship. Alternatively there is the line of research that suggests Odin was representative of a
'new' norse God who came up from south/south-east Europe, presumably with whatever people brought the runes with them. Looking at the
runes specifically, they also appear to have
originated in Southern Europe.
If one reads this all together, that Odin was a 'new' God to the norse peoples and was central to the invention of runic scripts, it would appear likely that there was some sort of cultural or population migration attached to this event. Most likely from the south to the north. Obviously we can't know for certain, at least not on current evidence. What does seem clear, however, is that he did not originate in isolation.
Regarding 'apples', yes, I agree fully. I think using 'apple' to describe these ancient fruits was largely a metaphor, although
buckets of apples have been found in Viking burials . Also, regarding the what the silver branch referred to, it was
Tír na nÓg , the island of eternal youth. The supposed people who lived there, according to the celts, were themselves ancient celts and that those islands
lay to the north. This parallels the '
island of the immortals' in Chinese and Japanese myths. On its own I'd put such similarities down to coincidence. However, when one looks at the legends of the Taoists and their stories of heating 'cinnabar' (mercury) in such a way as to give a 'golden elixir' this clearly parallels Western Alchemy of the same period yet claims to derive from an entirely separate route.
In case you are not aware, this is how cinnabar looks.
- Cinnabar
- Cinnabarit_01.jpg (1.26 MiB) Viewed 4782 times
The old legend goes that if you heat
Cinnabar in a certain way then it gives a 'golden elixir' that brings wisdom and heath. To try and turn the actual mercury that comes out of heated cinnabar golden the old alchemists used to add sulphur to give it a hint of gold/yellow. This, unsurprisingly, led to the
deaths of thousands. This is equally true in Western Alchemy where they were looking for the product of the '
red king and the white queen'. Again thought to be sulphur and mercury. Even
Newton is thought to have driven himself mad by drinking potions made from these exact same substances. I find it very curious that there exist these almost identical traditions of trying to make spiritual 'gold' out of mercury and sulphur. The Taoists say it came from people who came over their western mountains.
Chinese Emperors sent out armies looking for the 'red mushroom of immortality' and searching for the 'isle of the immortals'. The Western Alchemists thought it came from Egypt via Persia. All very odd, and these people took it all very, very seriously. It was only later interpreted as a metaphorical spiritual quest (in both
China and
Europe). This was probably in no small part due to the amount of people killing themselves and driving themselves mad drinking their various 'elixirs'.
Anyway, to bring it back to the celts and their sacred isle for a moment, this ties in with all the discussion of 'Hyperborea', which the ancients found fascinating. I also note that they also suggested that it was the Scythians who were the original 'Hyperboreans' which again ties back to that origin story for Odin. These Scythians were a nomadic group who wandered everywhere from Europe to China. Perhaps they carried these stories with them. I guess we'll never know for sure, but it is all very interesting. What I think makes all this relevant to this forum is that it is my view that there was a common shamanic element throughout this period, one that I suspect involved the use of Amanita Muscaria. This is why it is behind the various myths we see around the world, from the Golden Elixir of China, to Soma, to Western Alchemy and arguably Christianity and so on.
It's all very complex, but the similarity in these various stories does suggest there was some sort of very specific cultural transmission over a very large area in prehistory. The various tribal/cultural belief systems only becoming fixed upon the advent or writing. From what we can tell, these were legends in the time of the first emperor of China at least, suggesting an historical root even further back in history.
Anyway, I'm far from an expert in any of this, so please forgive any errors I may have made. It is my plan to document all of this properly via the wiki and we can then see whether there is anything we can learn from all this. I intend to go through this in a step-by-step manner so please forgive my broad brush descriptions above but I hope you see what I'm getting at.
It is my view that there is something significant here. On the other hand they may just be a collection of loosely similar myths. We won't know for sure until we lay out all the evidence.