The Hall

This symbol on the tombstones is always overlooked, since it is believed not to be relevant in confront to other more characteristic ones, but I do think this symbol is worth being researched.

As we have already discussed in the previous posts, the tombstones are connected to the symbology of the house, this is evident if we look to the architectural constructions, like columns and arches, carved on the stones.

In the Germanic tradition this connection can be seen in the mythical place of the Valhöll, which literally means "hall of the slain". So, it is no coincidence that this symbology is present also on the Bosnian tombstones; the symbol of the house was in our European tradition always connected to the chthonic aspect of our mythology, where there is death there is also rebirth, and the eternal house as the place in between them represents nonetheless then the womb of the mother.

I want to recall your attention to a little detail, often on the stones there is a sense of repetition from one arch to the other, the same image is showed multiple times, or there is a sense of movement like a film, with scenes that move through the screen. This could not only be an artistical choice but also a way to describe some kind of rebirth. The scene is always the same because we thought our previous lives to be practicing the same traditions over and over again; these repetitions can help us regain our lost memories like a process to cure some kind of amnesia.

In the same way as a sequence of scenes represents movement from one point to the next, so do these images on the tombstones in a symbolical way, from a “dimension” to the next, as a way to represent the process of rebirth.

 The fairy and the stone

Once upon a time the fairies carried those heavy

Stones, a young fairy was carrying one

But she got tired, so to rest she put it on a hill,

But when the fairy tried to lift the stone, she couldn’t.

driven by her anger she scratched the surface,

from there came the signs on the stone which

can also be seen today.

Nekada davno vile su raznosile to

kamenje. Mlada vila nosila je onaj teški

kamen i kad se umorila.

spustila ga na uzvišenje da se odmori.

Poslije ga nije mogla podići, pa je od

ljutine grebla po njemu. Otuda i danas

tragovi na kamenu.

 

This is apparently a very short and simple story and probably is not even complete, because of its simplicity would have been probably overlooked by most of us but we can find a few very important details in this story that can help us to understand it deeply.

Vila is the local name for fairy it’s derived from the PIE*uel that means Death, tear or wound, many figures and deities in our European mythology that are connected to death and the underworld share the same root name like for example “Veles” the chthonic god in Slavic mythology or the “Valhöll” (hall of the slain) in Norse mythology, from this example we can understand that fairies are directly connected to the chthonic aspect in our tradition and represent the ancestral spirits ( they carry the identical symbology as Elves).

Little details are always important , in the tale it is said a Young fairy was carrying a stone, the fact that she is young could make us think that she is still a maiden a virgin ( not in the modern interpretation of the word) so in this situation the stone is light and easy to carry, suddenly it has become heavy so the Fairy put it on a hill/mount to rest but when she tries to lift it, she couldn’t do it anymore.

When in our tales appears the symbol of the mount it has always a very precise meaning, it is no coincidence that burial sites in Europe were often literal mount (hence the name “burial mount”), the mount is like the tombstone itself a symbol for the womb, the stone that the fairy is carrying has become heavy because that is the symbology used to explain that now she is pregnant with her child.

The tales continues by saying the fairy gets angry because she is not able to lift the stone anymore, so driven her fury she scratches the surface of that same stone leaving some marks on it, the story use the emotion of anger in a symbolical way in reality it wants to represents adrenaline, this hormone is very important for child birth (in our myths Gods like Pan and Veles are supposed to be scary because they symbolize this special hormone, when we experience fear or anger we release high levels of adrenaline).

The fairy is going through a metamorphosis, from the beautiful young girl she is transforming in a ferocious creature and with her claws she scratches the bare rock as if she had become a troll or maybe the best option would be a bear since cave bears in Europe used to leave marks of their claws on the walls of the caves, so we are now like transported inside the cave or better inside the womb and we need adrenaline/fear/ anger to be born.

If the tale was not yet clear to you well this tales is symbolically showing a childbirth so in conclusion we can say the story alludes to some kind of rebirth/reincarnation, the fairy symbolize the ancestor that metaphorically enters in a metamorphosis becoming a she-bear when she start her pregnancy (the tombstone and the hill symbolize the womb) he needs the spark of life, the adrenaline to give birth to himself and be reborn.

  Mythological Question 

Not many legend about these standing white stones were preserve by the local folk and the one that survived the test of time died out with the last keepers of the tradition but we do have some stories and details that are worth researching, those stories will probably  make no sense to our modern eyes and will be overlooked as mare children tales made by a bunch of superstitious people.

It is no coincidence that these tombstones were shaped as houses (as I showed you in the previous post they were also called Kuća or Vijećna kuća that literally means eternal house), since the Neolithic and even earlier Europeans connected the symbol of the house with the underworld, so you will often find funeral urns shaped like houses all over Europe which clearly resemble that symbology. The symbol of the house was also connected to the „cult“of the earth mother, we can see this relation for example in some early Neolithic sculpture where a woman figure  (probably a goddess ) has its lower body shaped like a house. For those that already know the key the ultimate symbology of the house is clear, the house is a metaphor for the womb, so the house shaped tombstones allude to some kind of rebirth.

The origin of these standing white stones was always matters of controversy among the local folk, so the only sources available were legends and myths, one legend tell us that once a race of giants lived in these regions and they were the creators of these stones, it is said that these “giants” could live 900 years. The translation of giant in the local language is Div the word is directly derived from the PIE *dyeu (shine, bright) from which we get the name of the sky-father in the European tradition (Zeus, Dievas,…), during the Christianization process our tales were corrupted and we were no more eable to recognize the mythological symbolism in them, so by looking at the etymology of the word giant in the local language it is clear that those giants in reality represent the gods themselves that are the mythological representation of the collective ancestral energy or the accumulated honor, so those white stones were built by our ancestors…us!

We can now analyze why they lived 900 years, the number 900 can be a symbolical number, so the only number that is really showed is the number 9 which is over present in our European tradition since is connected to the pregnancy period and thus rebirth itself, to reinforce this thesis there is an other legend that talks about a female giants (we already established those are not giants) that carried the tombstones on her head, it was said she could live 900 years: 300 years as virgins, 300 married and 300 as a widow. I want you to think about the practice of carrying a chest on the head in pre-industrial rural Europe, this technic aloud you to carry great weights with little effort and it was almost exclusively practiced by women, in this legend the image of a women carrying a weight on her head was used as a metaphor for the pregnancy. I’ve already shown you the symbolical equivalence of the tombstones as a symbol for the womb, this image can also be connected to the myth of atlas that carries the world, so in conclusion we can say that the female giant was carrying us all.

Throughout history the tombstones were often moved from their original spot and the dirt beneath them has been digged up, this happened because there were rumors about a big treasure that was buried under those white stones, this treasure is both symbolical end physical, indeed under the tombstones that were not robbed often were found  golden and silver objects, we can connect this practice with the common European tradition of burying someone with his objects ( often made of gold since gold can be preserved for a long period of time) that he possessed during his life time, these objects will be later collected by the initiate (the one that want to be reborn ) during the Halloween ritual. The symbology of the treasure can be found in a lot of our tales, where the hero will need to fight and kill the horrendous creature to get the treasure that can also be symbolized by a maiden that need to be saved. These two views symbolical and physical are obviously directly connected with each other.

We too will have to defeat the horrendous creature in the cave and reclaim the treasure and finally regain our lost memory.