The Sword

In appearance a very simple symbol, which might tempt us to think that it is only a way to represent the status of a deceased person, but there is much more underneath the surface.

The sword was always an object with an important role in our legends; the most famous example being the Arthurian stories, but what does this faithful steel companion of ours hide?

The answer is to be found directly in our tradition, it was common practice the passing of a sword from father to son, it was not only a simple inherence of an object, but with it the accumulated honor was also transferred, this sword would be connected with the deeds of the possessor, by committing a dishonorable act the name of all those who have carried the sword would have been stained.

The sword is a symbol of the ancestral energy also called Honor (Hamingja from old norse that can also mean luck) that can be transmitted exclusively through a specifical bloodline.

The Knighthood initiation (the accolade in French, deriving from the Latin ad "to" + collum "neck", this term was later used generally to mean "praise" or "award" or "honour") is another example of a common medieval tradition with a deep meaning: the king lays its sword on the shoulder on the kneeling initiate, only then the initiate arises and the king gives him the honor of the new role. This elaborated ritual is clearly symbolical: the king represents the Sky God (the crown is a symbol of the sun rays), with his sword which is as well a symbol of the sun/vital energy/thunder/divine light is transferred to the initiate/fetus/newborn. This ceremony is used as a symbolical rebirth.

It was a common practice to bury someone with a sword on his chest, this custom was not only a way to show the prestige and the warrior class of the deceased person, but it is an ancient tradition that can be traced back to the European Bear-Cult, where instead of a sword a biface stone/axe was placed on the heart of the buried person. During the period of today’s Halloween feast, a group of initiates around the seventh year of age descended in the Burial mount (that was often a cave) to dig up the dead and collect the previously mentioned stone with which they would light a fire. This ritual symbolized the rekindling of life and thus the rebirth of the ancestor, the biface stone represented the heart that was revived symbolically because the fire is an avatar of the blood in our mythology.

Near the tombstones archeologist have found traces of fire used for ritualistic purposes, some have thought about a possible cremation practice, which could be possible, but I think it is also connected to the previously mentioned stone age tradition that can also be found in the symbol of the sword, which represent the rekindling of the fire/vital energy and thus it represents rebirth.

 

The Golden Apple

Bili stećci ispod Šuvara, danas ih nema. Na jednom bila zlatna jabuka. Krali je, ali se preko noći vraćala. Dosjeti se jedan mladić ukrasti stećak i jabuku. Podigne jabuku lagana, pa je stavi na pod. Podigne stećak, lagan i on, ali kako sad dohvatiti jabuku. Stavi on jabuku na stećak, ali ih ne može uopće podignuti pa odnese jabuku i vrati se po stećak kad na njemu jabuka. Donese onda torbu pa stavi u torbu jabuku, a stećak ispod ruke. Kad bi nadomak svoje kuće, ispred ga dočeka starica. Upita je tko je i koga čeka, a ona mu kaže: “Čekam mladoženju već 50 godina”.

Once upon a time there were some tombstone near Šuvar, on one of them there was a golden apple. People were always traying to steal it, but the apple reappeared in the same spot every night. A young man came up with the idea to steal both the stone and the apple; he tried to lift the apple and it was light, so he put it on the ground, then he tried to lift the stone and it was also light, but now he had not hands to carry the apple, he then put the apple back on the stone but he was not able to lift both, so he decided to take the apple and return later for the tombstone. When he came back, the apple had reappeared on the stone, he then took a bag and put the apple in it and carried the stone with his hands. When he returned to his home, an old lady was standing in front of the door and he asked her “Who are you? Who are you waiting for?” She responded, “I’ve been waiting for my husband for 50 years.”

European myths are full of stories about golden apples; for example: in Greek mythology with Paris and his choice of the most beautiful Goddess and in Germanic mythology with the goddess Idun and the golden apples of youth. From our myths and fairy tales we can say that the golden apple is always a symbol of youth, beauty but also marriage. We can say that whenever there is a golden apple, there is also a choice, not everyone is worthy to have one. We can also connect it to a common European tradition in which a young man asks his maiden to marry him by giving her an apple.

Our story starts with the information that on one of those tombstones there was once a golden apple, people used to steal it, but the apple returned always in the same spot. We can see that not everyone is worthy to possess the apple, we can draw a parallel with the Arthurian legend of the sword in the stone. A young man has come up with the idea to steal both the apple and the tombstone, here we have two objects: the stone and the apple, but in fact they symbolize the same thing, which is the ancestral knowledge. The apple and the stone (which also symbolizes the womb) can’t be separated because the ancestral knowledge is tied to pregnancy and thus the process of rebirth. The young man tries to lift both the objects without success (from the previous fairy tales we have seen that when the stone is heavy this symbolizes that the pregnancy have started), he then brings a bag to put the apple in; this is again a symbol of the womb and the amniotic bag which in our mythology is symbolized by the Phrygian hat. The young man/fetus has been chosen and now he is ready to be reborn. The bag and the stone are both the womb, only in different physical/mythological stages.

The chosen one is now on his journey home when he meets an old lady that has been waiting for her husband for 50 years, she obviously symbolizes the ancestor that is waiting to be reborn. Marriage is often used in our myths to symbolize the birth process; for example: the Slavic myth of the divine marriage between the twins Jarilo and Mara (they are twins because they represent the ancestor and the fetus, they are in reality the same person). In conclusion we can say that the ancestor is giving himself to himself and through the conquest of his lost knowledge, symbolized by both the apple and the stone, he is now reborn.

 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.

 

 

Loss of memory

 Loss of memory

Stećak is derived from the old word stojećak, which is derived from the South Slavic verb stajati (engl. To stand) so It literally means the "standing thing", this is the modern name that the locals in Bosnia use to call those white standing tombstones spread all over the region and beyond, however there are many other names that the common people used, for example hram (shrine), kuća (house), kami/kamen (stone), mramorovi (marble),… The area covered by this tombstones was also called in a very special way like  tursko groblje (Turkish cemetery), Grčko groblje (greeks cemetery), kaursko groblje (infidel cemetery) and my favourite starovirsko groblje (old faith cemetery).

The existence of this tombstones is documented since the early midle ages however scholars have started  reseaching the history and especially the ”mysterious” symbols which are carved on them only in the late 17^th century, of course they came up with all kinds of theories and interpretations often influenced by their nationalistic and religious convictions but strangely they all agreed on one thing that those stones didn’t seem coming from the middle ages in fact they looked more ancient. Today the “official version” of the history tell us that those tombstones were created in the middle ages in a period between the 11^th and 15^th century but beneath them incredibly we can find traces of past burials going back at least to the pre-roman times so even if the stones are not ancient they were reutilized for centuries by the local population.

With the final Christianization and later Islamization of Bosnia and the death of the last keepers of this ancient tradition a real crime and systematical destruction of our heritage happened with those tombstones that were used as building material for churches or because of ignorance were moved from their place of origin, in the centuries that followed a thick fog fell on those standing white stones and they became like mystical ruins without a past or future. Today they are mostly abandoned, the local government have tried to protect the larger sites but because of the still actual “nationalistic” tensions in the political scene of Bosnia a lot of this stones are forgotten and were reclaimed by nature or even worst are used like attraction for tourists or as simple rocks in someone’s garden.

“stećak is for me what it is not for others, things that are on them or in them, others did not inscribe or knew to see. It is stone, but also a word, it is earth, but also sky, it is matter, but also spirit, it is a cry, but also a song, it is death, but also life, it is the past, but also the future.”

~Mak Dizdar

Historical Context

 

Historical Context and legacy

Bosnia for those that didn’t know is a relatively small region in south/east part of Europe that today is called “The Balkans” although this name is not the native name for the region but it is derived from the days of the Ottoman Turkish occupation, in anticity all the way through the middle ages the most common name for this mountainous place was Haemus that according the classical Greek legend it was the name of a Thracian king (it is derived from the Greek root word αίμα-aima that means literally blood).

The Balkan region was always home to many tribes thought out all its history which were considered barbaric by their more civilized neighbors, they were regarded as unpredictable and warlike by both Greeks and Romans, their temperament but also the not favorable environment in which they lived made them stay relatively isolated from that advancing plague that we today call civilization even today some areas are still completely untouched,  for example Bosnia is still today heavily covered by forests ( 53% for a total  25,599km² of forest area).

Because of this natural isolation the new Christian faith spread relatively late in  Bosnia, when the neighboring kingdoms accepted very fast the “gospel”, Bosnia was still a question mark for many so it became quickly a refuge for all kind of “heretics” like cathars, Manichaeism, bogumils, Arianists,…. Who were running away from the persecutions all over Europe.

With the independence of the Bosnian Kingdom in the year 1377 (but it started before that)  from the Hungarian hegemony a religious hierarchy was beginning to form, this new formed religious organization was traditionally called “the Bosnian Church” ( Crkva Bosanska in the local language ), we don’t have many sources about this new formed church but we can suppose that it was an admixture of various Christian “heresies” that was also heavily influenced by our European traditional religion, an example of this influence might be the name of chief priest that was called Djed that means literally grandfather or elder, it was a figure much similar to a pagan druid then a Christian bishop.

We need to take in mind that this religious organization didn’t have any church buildings (most of the ceremonies were celebrated in nature ) or dogmatical influence on the local population so we can say that the majority of the people were still practicing their native European traditions which can be seen on the motifs and symbols depicted on their tombstones (I will explain this in detail in a future post) , the figure of the Djed was only a support figure and only assisted in social events like marriages or funerals.

Eventually also this new formed religious organization will be destroyed and the Bosnian people will fall under more dogmatical religious contexts but even then the local folk will never stop practicing their native traditions but unfortunately they will not succeed in conserving the meaning and mediocre scholars will trough out our history create all kinds of theories and lies about our heritage but I can feel the fog that surround those white stones is slowly disappearing and  the sound of people singing and dancing can be heard in the distance.