The Rise of the Sorcerers: Chapter Fifteen - JOURNEY AROUND NUMINOR

Rick
Rick
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The Silver Hand and the Miraculous Fountain. - Water, land,
moon, death. - The Godsare from the sea and those from the sea Heaven, - The Missing Manuscripts. - Conspiracy against the Celtism. - An Akpallu-type legend. - Military organization and metallurgy. - Druids, bards, and oubages. - On initiation and esoteric burial. - May 1st, Saint John's Day and Christmas.- Numinoë and Numinor. - The city of Ys. - The Myth of the Citadels Submerged.

Numinor, the Atlantis of the North, the Celtic Atlantis, is much less Atlantis proper. His name awakens It had a certain literary echo in the Anglo-Saxon countries, as it served as a basis for to two great imaginative trilogies: that of C. S. Lewis and that of J. S. R. Tolkien. However, even for those of you who have read these magnificent trilogies, Numinor remains a vague symbol of a polo around which the Nordic influences would have been concentrated.

We are even ignorant of the geographical position of this center. But if something has a probability of being true is that, considered the of the legendary data, the Celts must have had a Athens, a Rome. We do not have any specific indication as to whether foundation, or about its fall. Is it a mythical city of the most there? How can this point be elucidated?
 
We can study the history of the Ancient Ireland looking for a trace of Numinor. But I don't Found. However, let's look at it anyway, because this history was passed down to us in a symbolic way. To understand it, we have to try a kind of psychoanalysis of this symbolism.

After the great Great Great Flood, the island that was to be more Later Ireland was originally inhabited by the Wizard Queen Cessair (reincarnation of Circe) and his subjects. Cessair perished, with all his race. About the year 2640, B.C., the prince Partholon, coming from Greece, landed in Ireland with twenty-four couples. In the beginning, Ireland was a single plain, pierced by four lakes and watered by nine rivers.
 
Enlarged by Partholon, it will henceforth have four plains and seven new plains. lakes. The prince's companions multiplied after Three hundred years was already five thousand. But a mysterious epidemic has taken hold of them annihilated when the feast of Beltine, on the first of May, the On the occasion of the tercentenary of their landing. His burial The collective is located in Tallaght, near Dublin. Meanwhile Around the year 2600 the race of the "Sons of Nemed" (whose name means "Holy"), coming from Scythia, had set foot in the island, which they believed to be deserted.
 
Another mass of invaders landed around the year 2400, the day of Lugnasad (1 August), the third Great festival of the Celtic year. The Fir Bolg (the "Belgian men"?) constituted its main element, to which were added different tribes, such as the Gaileoin ("Gauls"?), and the Fir Dominan ("Dummonm") of Great Britain"?), but all forming one race and one domination. Finally, from the 'Western Islands', where studying the art of magic, the members of the Tuatha De Danann, who are of divine race.
 
They bring with them their talismans: the Nuada's sword, Lug's spear, Dagda's cauldron, and the "stone of destiny" of Fâl, who cries out when the king sits on her of Ireland. These successive invaders had to all of them against a race of monstrous giants who He dwelt at first in Ireland. Some had "one foot, one foot only, one foot." eye and one hand"; others had animal heads, mostly goat's skin.
 
These monsters were the Fomoiré (from fo, below, and moiré or Mahr, a female demon, whose name is in the French word rubber, nightmare). A fight ensues between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fir Bolg. The first battle takes place in Moytura (Mag Tuireadh, the "Plain of the Pillars," i.e., of the Menhirs), near Cong, in present-day Mayo County. The Tuatha Dé Danann come out on top.
 
In the course of the battle, their king, Nuada, loses his right hand. This mutilation brings with it the deprivation of sovereign power. The skilful healer Diancecht replaces the limb amputated by an articulated silver hand. Forced to resign, Nuada Mano de Plata is replaced by Bres ("Beautiful"), son of Elatha ("the wise"), king of the Fomoiré, and of the Godof Dé Danann Eriu (anonymous goddess of Ireland).
 
The two enemy races are They ally through marriage. Bres marries Brigitte, daughter of Dagda, while Cian, son of Diancecht, marries Ehniu, daughter by Balor Bad Eyes. But Bres is an odious tyrant. It overwhelms its subjects with taxes and taxes; mocks Cairbré, son of Ogma and the larger filé (bard) of Dê Danann. Bres will be forced to abdicate power after seven years.
 
Then, Nuada goes back to To ascend the throne, for his natural hand has been fastened to his wrist, thanks to the skill and incantations of Miach, another son of Diancecht. Out of envy, he has Miach killed.

Meanwhile, Bres holds a secret council at his abode underwater. He convinces the Fomoiré to help him expel Ireland to the Dê Danann. War Preparations Last Seven years, the period during which Lug, the child, develops A prodigy, "master of all the arts."
 
Lug Organizes the Resistance of Dê Danann, while Goibniu forges weapons for them and Dincecht makes A wonderful fountain that heals wounds and revives the Dead warriors. But Fomoiré spies discover her and take her away its efficacy, filling it with accursed stones. After a few duels and skirmishes, a great battle ensues at the Moytura del north (Carrowmore Plain, near Sligo).
 
Numerous Warriors perish in the course of the fierce struggle: Endech, son of the goddess Domnu, dies at the hands of Ogma, who succumbs in turn. Balor Bad Eyes fulminates Nuada with his fatal gaze. But Lug, with his magic slingshot, makes Balor's eyes jump. Expired and Demoralized, the hideous Fomoiré recoil and are thrown into the sea. Bres is taken prisoner, and the hegemony of the giants is broken in the the island.

But the power of the Dê Danann will see a rapid decline. Two deities of the Empire of the Dead, Ith and Bilé, land in the mouth of the Kenmare and take part in political meetings of the victors. Mile, Bilé's son, is going to be reunited with his father, in Ireland, accompanied by his eight children and his entourage. As the previous invaders, arrive on May Day On their way to Tara, meet successively with three eponymous gods: Banba, Fodla and Eriu.
 
Each of them asks the druid Amergin, Mile's divine advisor, to name the island after him. The Island will be called Erinn (genitive of Eriu), because Eriu formulated your request thirdly. After new and bloody battles, in the last of which Manannan, son of Llyr (the "Ocean"), Mile's three surviving sons kill the Tuatha kings. A peace treaty is concluded; the Tuatha they renounce Erinn and retreat to the land of the Hereafter, without further ado. compensation that certain worship and sacrifices celebrated in memory of him.
 
Thus must have begun religion in Ireland.

All of this is mythical. However
"It is better to consider the myth, not as a stupid fabulation of the human mind struggling with the Pascal's famous deceptive powers, but as a technique It is an operation of the same epistemological value as mathematics. Such In this way, the lessons of history will be better understood. It is riddled with myths that dare not speak its name. Herself will understand the Celts, and their intellectual course."(Jean Markale).
We will try to reach Numinor through the myth. The It's a long road. Let's start at the beginning. In Celtic mythology An exact and clearly rational chronology can be observed, founded on the in two inseparable principles: life and death, both associated to the mother earth.
 
There is a parallel between the earth and the man. It passes through three stages: birth, life, and death. death. On a Celtic medal, each of these states is Represented by a steed's head. The three heads are absolutely Identical: there is similarity and a kind of fusion.

Water was closely related to soil (and to the underground). It is the fluid element: mixed with the telluric element, and the sacred characters of these elements remain intimately Linked. (It is curious to note that, according to the Iglulik Eskimos, live in Canada, men, when they came to earth, lived, in the dark; Nothing concrete is said about its origin.)
 
Then There were no animals, and the ground provided a nourishment poor and scarce. But a lonely man was visited by spirits who they came from somewhere else. They advised him to go down to the house of the mother of marine animals. He followed the advice, and Dipped. He brought from there (a curious thing) game and not fish, and, at the same time, joy for their fellow human beings.
 
You can also It is observed, among the Celts, that the lord of food, Aryaman (etymologically, protector of the Aryans or Indo-Europeans), represents A double role. In this he is a bit like Janus. It also exists in Mazdeism. But his ambiguity – his benevolence, as opposed to terror which inspires at times—does not subsist among the Persians. In the religion of In these cases, there are two opposing forces: the genius of good, Ahura Mazda, and that of evil, Ahriman, who is also the power of darkness.
 
We also find this opposition in his art, particularly in the façade of the buildings, in which the architects combined of light and shadow, obtained with reliefs and concavities. Many Achaemenid monuments attest to this. And it is permissible to imagine this the same character in the buildings of Numinor.

But another element comes to add to the water and the earth: the moon. whose cult is found in the most ancient legends. As in all peoples of antiquity, it is worshipped, not for its own sake, but by its intervention in all forms of life.
 
The Moon exerts a force on the growth of plants, on the periods in women and in the tides. On the other hand, the phases waxing and waning allowed the Celts to acquire notions precise in terms of duration and measurement.
Thus, the first cults are dedicated to our planet and its planet. satellite, not to mention the superiority given to water. Well, the Immersion in it "symbolizes the return to the pre-formal," and the departure from the of water, the cosmogonic act of creation.

Because of this immutable continuity, the dark underworld, which at first inspires an understandable terror, then loses this For the Land of the Dead is also the Mag Mell: the happy plain of the Champs-Elysées, and TIR-NA-N-OG, the land of the Young people. But, after a certain point that cannot be specified, The Godsare subterranean and aquatic and are replaced by others, from space.
 
It seems that this substitution indicates a A shock, a conquest. The invaders are the sons of MIL, who defeated the TUATHA-de-DANANN. They enjoyed immense power for thirty centuries. To convince us of this, it is enough to examine, on the coasts of Ireland, forts or walls of granite which were melted into a thickness of fifty centimeters by a A weapon uniquely similar to a laser or thermonuclear fusion. In addition, they are credited with erecting the megaliths.

Its starting point is related to a crime, as in the episode of the Judeo-Christian fall (and perhaps, also, that of the Numinor's disappearance). This crime is said to have been committed by Morrigana (demon of the night), daughter of Bu-an (the Eternal), or of Ernmas (the Murdered), also called Bodb (the Crow).
 
Be that as it may, Be that as it may, the solar godsmade the spear bow on the side of the fire, and consequently, death, considered from another angle. If, in fact, in the great civilizations of Asia and Greece, the Above all, the sun has the status of creator-fertilizer, and It symbolizes the victory of spirit over matter, its twilight guards also related to decay and disappearance; And so, if It begets man, it devours him also. However, Lug, the most An important solar god, he represents, above all, a beneficent and It possesses great qualities. He is the undisputed master of the arts, both of peace as well as of war.
 
He receives the title of Sahildanach (literally, polytechnic, blacksmith, carpenter, poet, champion, historian, sorcerer). Performs all the higher activities of the tribe. He possesses a magic spear, which single-handedly wounds the enemy that threatens God. Their bow is the rainbow and in Ireland, the Milky Way is called the "Lug Chain". On the other hand, the The brightness of his face prevents you from looking at his face, which recalls the phenomenon that the Bible calls "the glory of the Lord," and the science-fiction "The Great Galactics".
 
It also has some traits of Mercury and, on the other hand, we must not forget the Disastrous Effects of Clarity and Light on Certain Myths Greeks, such as that of Icarus, in Crete.

Dagda stripes at a lower altitude. God of musicians, enchants, though not It arouses great veneration. With his magic harp, he plays successively the airs of sleep, of laughter, of sadness, and their listeners They sleep, laugh, or cry. This is somewhat reminiscent of the virtues of certain Indian musical themes. Some of them even had the power to kill those who heard them, if they were touched unexpectedly.

In Ireland, the Lord of the Lord is venerated under the same name of Dagda. Cauldron, which elsewhere is called Teutates. In any case, the The cult of the cauldron was practiced in all Celtic countries.

In addition to Lug and Dagda, we can cite Don's sons. The Gauls they called the constellation Cassiopeia Lys Don (Don's court), and Fall Gwydon (Gwydon Castle) into the Milky Way.

After a certain time, superiority is reasserted Telluric. Though Mile's sons had transformed the fire destroyer in beneficent fire, it seems that they entered into a deal with the subterranean gods. They took refuge in the dark regions from the center of the planet; But they come out of them periodically, they come back to the surface and, visible or not, but always tangible, they participate in in the lives of men.

In the meantime, the Celts are still waiting (if not for a redeemer or a Messiah) a predestined being, Gilead, which will indicate the exact meaning of each action, so that the functions are regenerated. Well, the The world of the "sacred" is ambiguous. If a thing possesses, by definition, On the contrary, there is a force that engenders a fixed nature. good or evil, according to the direction it takes or is imprinted on it.

If we consider the importance that the Celts attributed to the myths, we will realize that these are not simple fabulations. Myths represent all that could have existed as opposed to the Logos of the Greeks and to the History of the Latins. According to the Christians, are beliefs not confirmed by Scripture and that, therefore, they are completely unfounded. But we could reply to them that few events came to confirm the Scriptures.

The truth is that they were transmitted for a long time, generation by generation, orally. Thus, the first texts Irish, who form the basis of folklore, cannot considered to be prior to the fifth century of our era, even though it say the enthusiasts. Admittedly, it has not been proven that this is not the case. Breton manuscripts existed, which may have been lost when the Norman invasions. It is plausible that these manuscripts, in the that no one understood outside the peninsula, they ended up in the certain monasteries, where they would be set aside, to be destroyed after.

We do not know exactly when the legends whose origin is lost in the mists of Indo-European prehistory and (most of the texts that have been preserved are written in Gaelic and Middle Gaulish).
The last form adopted by the Celtic myths was the cycle of the Arthur's Round Table. But, in this form, the symbols continue to being obscure, and, in addition, Christian morality added elements of alien to pagan legends.
 
These, being esoteric, are presented shrouded in mystery. "The man in the crowd doesn't he will receive the knowledge," Taliesin wrote. In addition, some manuscripts were kept safe, either so that they would not be to free him from invaders and depredations. of thieves.
 
From time to time, we hear of a "hiding place" or of a manuscript depository, discovered by chance or as a the result of meticulous searches. One of the authors of the This work was on the point of finding one of these hiding places while, in 1938, he was carrying out research in Rennes on the cult of Alkar-az.
 
But, in the end, he was denied access. Numerous researchers, in the course of the last few centuries, They tried to interpret the abundant Celtic literature. Some specialists, such as G. Dottin, devoted several books to the analysis and to the literary and historical commentary of the texts that have come down to us. to us. We have already said, at the beginning of this chapter, that others were inspired by different themes, such as Numinor.
 
And Some, in short, distorted them pitifully. Such exaggerations are due, perhaps, to the fact that, for a long time, He disdained the study of this civilization prior to the arrival of the Indians. Greeks to Western Europe and the Roman conquest.
 
The Hellenists And the Latinists strove uncontrollably, for centuries, to deny any contribution on the part of the conquered peoples, or minimizing their merits and the interest of the riddles, which, For two millennia, they have only become more complicated. The Historians looked down on the Celts to the point of often confuse them with the Shorers, which, despite having allied with the Celts and Teutons, they had a completely distinct.

This conspiracy continues even today, for fear of tarnishing the brilliance of culture dispensed to Gaul by Julius Caesar and and also by Christian evangelizers. Fortunately, some researchers who have not been ostracized have attempted, especially from the nineteenth century onwards, to reconstitute, at least fragmentarily, the civilization that allows us to believe in the existence of Numinor, or to place it exactly.
 
According to Eugène Pictard, however, shows a great reserve and is ahead of the Broca's and Dieterle's thesis, the cradle of the Celtic peoples, the Harz was in Bohemia and Moravia. In the course of the second millennium (no doubt in their beginnings), they emigrated and divided. After For many centuries, some branches even reached Asia Minor, where The Greeks gave them the name of Galatians (from which comes the name of a neighborhood in Istanbul, in which some of them). We will also note that they founded, in the heart of Anatolia, the village of Ancyra, present-day Ankara.

But, for the reasons already expressed, their exploits or their contributions in these regions were carefully minimized or overlooked in silence.

The classical authors alluded above all, when speaking of the intrusion Gaelic culture in Italy and at Delphi, to a savagery that struck terror into the indigenous peoples, as if the indigenous people had not always felt a great fright when other peoples, civilized or barbarians, they made incursions into their territory.

A group of Celts, coming from the Harz, spread out towards the West, fan-shaped, between 950 and 700 B.C., in the time of Hallstatt, or the Iron Age. A branch is installed in Gaul; another passes through Holland, Belgium and the Seine basin, and it reaches Scotland and then Ireland.

There has been much discussion about the exact origin of the Indo-Europeans of those who are part of it. Therefore, it may well be that the Harz would have been nothing more than a stopping point for a nucleus of Aryans coming from elsewhere, from the North or from the Eranvej.

Given this dissemination, and the mixtures of peoples that occurred In this immense melting pot, it is impossible to determine precisely the characteristics of the Celtic race. However, we can say that was brachycephalic, and that this characteristic was attenuated, in the course of of the centuries, due to the admixture with the various populations found in Scandinavia, France, Iberia, Italy, Bessarabia, Poland, etc. In the beginning, back in the year 5000 B.C.

, we stumbled with an Akpallu-type legend:
The race to which Gri-Cen-Chos belongs is that of the Fomore (fo, under; mor, great and sea), Atlantic telluric powers. Are these, according to the myth, "warriors" of one foot, one arm and one-eyed; with the head of a goat, a horse, or a bull; Geniuses snakes were already sedentary when the first immigrants arrived. Against them crashes every new wave, coming from the sea or from the seas. modifying them profoundly, but without going so far as to Eliminate. So we stumble upon the Akpallus again, but without Scuba suits, or seen in profile.
The language soon divides into two groups: on the one hand, Celtic or Gaelic; on the other, the Kyniers or Belgian. Gaelic was spoken especially in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland, and their dialects were progressively differentiated. But, despite the From a distance, we find numerous roots of these in the Pahlavi and even in modern Persian. Let's cite an example: Eyber or Aber It means water in Gaelic, which is called âb in Farsi.

In the early centuries of the Christian era, the Celts used A script: the Ogham, founded on the Latin alphabet and which It consists of perpendicular strokes, on either side of a central edge. After that, they almost always used the Latin alphabet.
 
But just like that as their culture, their military organization has been called into question has attracted a great deal of attention. Their cavalry, their chariots of war, its entrenched camps and, above all, its They struck terror into their enemies. This was happening back in the 1000 B.C.
 
Such a military organization presupposes a technology. However, judging by the lack of importance they have According to historians, the Celts made no contribution to the science and technology. At the very least, it's curious. The UNESCO's work says, for example, in a note, that the horses of Celtic armies carried horseshoes from the beginning. The mass production of horseshoes, as there must have been dozens of of thousands, presupposes a whole industry, on which we would like to have some details.
 
We know of a village, La Tène, which was once the centre of the of Celtic culture. But this village, which dates back to 500 B.C. That is to say, at least two thousand years after the period in which we are is located in Switzerland. It's not likely that we'll have to to look there for Numinor, which, it seems, was a seaport...

Apparently, the Celtic civilization, instead of degenerating, passed into the clandestine on an esoteric plane, while creating, thanks to the use of iron, a powerful military organization, which gave origin of the so-called "Western Hallstatt" culture, and that the Historians generally divide them into two periods: 800 and 650 before B.C.
 
After which, this Celtism is transformed into the civilization of La Tène, the centre of which, as we have just said, is located in Switzerland.

But before that, the Celts, like all the inhabitants of Europe, They went through hard times. In the course of the post-glacial era, the The country was covered with forests populated by wild beasts. In This hostile nature could not yet be practiced by agriculture, which it requires at least relative security. So they remained, for a while, in the wild fruit picking phase. One One of the first characteristics of their way of life is the domestication of horses.
 
Just as they immediately used the iron to shoe them, they replaced their primitive stone tools and flint for metal. But, even at that time, continued to open flint mine shafts, such as those that have been found in Spiennes, Belgium, very well preserved, from more than ten meters deep and with galleries and narrow passages, which a man with his tools.

The skill of the Celts in metallurgy is proved by the a large number of forges discovered in Gaul, and particularly in Lorraine, in Burgundy and Brittany, and by the use made by sailors of the iron chains to anchor their ships, at a time when Roman navigators still used hemp ropes.
 
Their Blacksmiths knew tempering procedures that gave their weapons a Extraordinary hardness. They also worked with silver and knew the way to beat it. However, all these works presuppose a associative organization and, therefore, urban centers or, at least, agglomerations.
 
Undoubtedly, the Mud hut phase. After the lake towns, houses mounted on stilts, there must have been cities near the Important necropolises partially made up of monuments Megalithic. These are found all around the seas of the North and the Atlantic Ocean, also in Central Europe.

R. Grosjean, Research Officer at the National Center for Scientific Research discovered in Philesote, Corsica, vestiges of very old constructions, perhaps dating back to to the second millennium B.C. And the ears and carvings that can be seen in the raised stones, particularly at Stonehenge, they imply that the Celts possessed architectural knowledge and therefore had to build stone houses. They were skilled in various minor arts, They practiced pottery and wove very rich cloths for dressmaking of their dresses.

It should also be noted that they were acquainted with the use of yellow amber (the "elektron" of the Greeks), from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. They used it as an ornament, but also for and with this substance, which, according to Tacitus, was the juice of the From a submerged material, they made necklaces for children. In In effect, it was said that the Amber had therapeutic virtues, and immunized against various diseases.

Both techniques and myths were transmitted orally and They were probably the patrimony of the priestly class. This It constituted a veritable corporation of natural philosophers and philosophers. Spiritualists: The Druids. Although none of its doctrines and activities were recorded in a book, we know them thanks to several Latin writers, such as Diogenes Laerce, Julius Caesar, Strabo, Tacitus, and Pliny the Elder. In addition, we found some information about it in some lives of saints and also, Naturally, in the Gallic legends.

Their confraternity seems to have been related to that of the magicians of the religion of Zoroaster and also, to a certain extent, with that of the possessors of the Vedic dogmas; Which is not surprising, since Celts, Persians, and Aryans from India make up three of the offspring of the great linguistic and cultural family of the Indo-Europeans, while the branch of the Greeks was sensitive differences, because they have absorbed beliefs, knowledge, the Cretan traditions and cultural background, as well as the Latins, who were disciples of the Hellenes and heirs of the etruscans.

The originality of the Druids, therefore, lay chiefly in the naturalistic worship and in the ceremonial of the seasons. In addition According to the Romans, they lacked temples and gathered the faithful in the clearings of the forests.

They were held in high regard. According to the narrator of the Cooley's oxen, It was forbidden for the ulates to speak before the king and kings, before his druid. They acted as political advisers to the sovereigns and preceptors of the young nobles, and practiced a A medicine based on the healing effect of certain plants.

On the other hand, the Celts, as we have said, did not confine themselves to worship the moon as a star, but also in consideration of its multiple influences. After observing her at length, not only did she They gave an important place in the decorative motifs of their medals, but conceived a calendar based on the verifications carried out in this regard, on the basis of the seasons and lunations.
 
In their cultural functions were assisted by the bards, singers of liturgical hymns, who They celebrated the cult of heroes. They also had a power of hidden, and, it is said, they performed wonders in communication with the spiritual forces of the afterlife. For they believed in the immortality of the soul and in metempsychosis, and pronounced prophecies, though this was perhaps the concern of the Druidesses, of whom We know little.
 
The oubages, soothsayers and sacrificers, They also lent their assistance. But the sacrifice didn't amount to it, as one tends to believe, an immolation. It was spoiled and even greedy. It is, Jean Markale tells us,
"of an operation psychic, in the course of which the sacrificed is stripped of the dross that hinder him, by successive degrees, and he tries to reach divinity: the Perfect Being."
The last degree is, of course, the death, to which the initiate abandons himself, no doubt like the Hindus who were crushed by the wheels of the chariot at Jarjenatte, in India.

But even if we have, in an indirect way, a vague idea of his knowledge and of their customs, several of these have been preserved; in certain feasts that were incorporated into the rite Christian. Such is the case with "All Hallows' Eve"; of the Spring Festival, which, moreover, was much earlier than our May Day, and also the bonfires of San Juan. The The same can be said of Christmas.
 
In fact, at this time of During the winter, the Celts used to adorn their houses with mistletoe, and in particular the entrance, to implore the grace of prosperity. More than 1,500 years after the Romans banned the Druidism (especially after having converted to the Christianity), Goethe learned of this tradition, which endured in certain regions, and particularly in Alsace, and spoke of it to his friends, and then celebrated it in his writings.
 
But the mistletoe, very rare in Germany, it was replaced by the spruce branch Immediately, the emigrants spread the custom throughout the country. Europe and North America. Today, it has been extended to Asia, and even in the Muslim homes of Tehran are lit up, the December 25th, Christmas trees loaded with presents, without giving the slightest religious sense to this manifestation which, moreover, It is strictly profane and simply tolerated by Christendom.

All of this seems to take us considerably away from Numinor. In reality, it was necessary, to make the existence of a city credible. of which no trace remains, but whose splendour is sung by the legends, to show that it is, at least, likely, given the level of cultural, artistic, and spiritual aspects of Celtic society.

Someone tried to relate his name to Numinoë's most recent one. much later than the Celtic period, and whose history we are going to relate to better refute this hypothesis.

In 824 A.D., King Louis the Pious appointed him a duke of Brittany and lord of the Bretons to the Comte de Vannes, who called Numinoë.

At first, Numinoe was apparently loyal to Louis the Pious. But when his sons disputed the empire, he regained his absolute freedom of action, acted as a true sovereign, organized Breton unity and earned the title of "Father of the Faith." Homeland." Having declared himself in favour of Lothair, a sovereign removed from the and, therefore, little annoyed, he openly defied Charles the Bald.

He carried out an expedition to subdue and seize him definitely from the peninsula. But it failed, therefore, on the 22nd of In November 845, he was defeated at Ballon, south of Rennes, and forced to recognize Numinoë's authority in Brittany. But Numinoë was not content with this, but took possession of Rennes and Nantes and annexed the famous Marche, thus giving its boundaries to the future Duchy, which are currently those of the five departments Bretons.
 
Blinded by his triumphs, Numinoë became conqueror. He invaded Anjou, Maine and the Vendòmois. He died on 7 March 851 and was buried in the abbey of Saint-Sauveur de Redon, founded under his patronage by Conwoion, Archdeacon of Vannes, and which It became one of the most brilliant abbeys in Breton.

However, Numinoë had had time to draw the lines political, administrative, and religious reform. How He was from Vannetes, he moved the political centre of the country from Nantes to Vannes. He reorganized and delimited the bishoprics of the North (St-Pol-de-Léon, Tréguier, St-Brieux, St-Malo and Dol), depriving them, moreover, of their its monastic character. He purged the clergy of the South, traditionally Gallo-Roman, and tried to separate the whole Breton Church from the obedience of Tours, proposing the creation of a new metropolis, Breton, in Dol.

The figure of Numinoë is not without greatness or merit. It is one of the the few Breton sovereigns who achieved perfect cohesion in the a country little inclined to unity and torn apart as in times of the Gauls and the insular Bretons, because of internecine quarrels and Struggles for pre-eminence very much in line with the Celtic mentality.
 
But This cohesion would not last long. It seems evident that this Numinoë was the supreme Celtic chief of the time, the Pendragon whose authority extended over the whole of Celtism, and that, by the very By virtue of his name, he pretended to be from Numinor.

It seems much more logical to us to consider cities that have disappeared Celtic literature, although none of them bears the Numinor's name. These disappearances coincide, moreover, with natural cataclysms. Around 1200 B.C., it declined in Europe, the level of seas, lakes and marshes, and This decrease in humidity brought with it an acceleration of the progress.
 
But at the end of the Bronze Age, or First Hallstatt Period (A.D. 530 B.C.) a new change took place climatic. After torrential rains, which caused floods, the coasts of the North Seas were flooded and with them several ports in the Baltic, Brittany, of Wales and Ireland. This allows more credit to be given to the Breton legend of the city of Ys.
 
Although it must be acknowledged that It has come down to us with romantic elements of its own. medieval tradition, thanks to the Lai Graelent-Muer, attributed to Marie of France, and the Mystery of Saint-Gwendolé, Breton drama Armorican (16th century).

So, not everything is symbol or myth in these two stories: Gradlon, King of Cornwall, in the course of a long journey, has married A fairy of extraordinary beauty. During the return trip, she gives birth to a daughter, Dahuit or Abes, and dies immediately after the birth. parturition. The widower devotes all his affection to Dahuit. But it becomes to Christianity. (This part of the legend isn't just so much more It is not only more recent than the rest, but has a moralizing character in the religious sense, as we understand it.)
 
Indeed, Dahuit is still pagan. And, in order to live apart from the Court, she asks to his father to build him a city by the sea. The Father yields to this caprice, and protects the city with a dike equipped with A bronze door.

Albert the Great places it in the bay of Douarnenez. According to the legend, luxury reigns supreme in the city and, in addition, its inhabitants They indulge in continual. God entrusts his punishment to Gwendolé. The The holy man warns Gradlon, a pious and just king, that he will obtain save their property and flee. But Dahuit and its dissipated Comrades drown in the city engulfed by the waters.

Now a similar legend is found in Wales. that of the Black Book of Camãrthen, and another in Ireland, in the manuscript de Leabhar na H. Uidre. In these texts, and in others as well, cities that disappeared without a trace, They observe some variations. In some of them, it's not about the invasion of the waters of the sea, but of a magical fountain that Overflows.
 
In others, a monster (almost always a seafarer) intervenes: the Loch Ness, in Scotland, or the Death of the Curoi, in Ireland. We also find this theme in Scandinavia. For example, Selma Lagerloff refers, in Nils Holgerson, to the punishment inflicted on the inhabitants of Vineta, who lived in lust. The city is submerged by the waves. Although, every century, it emerges for a night.
 
The Epic literature also abounds in tales of a deserted city that appears before the eyes of an army that attacks it and then It mysteriously disappears. Or else of a fading fortress when a visitor, such as Parsifal, approaches in search of the Holy One Grail. Of course, several meanings can be attributed to these Disappearances.

The Christians tried to give a punitive character to these destructions, analogous to that of Sodom and Gomorrah in Old Testament. Testament. But disappearance can also be interpreted as a need to keep secret the spiritual power of the Celts, who decide for themselves to go underground.
 
Recent discoveries of cities such as Çatal Huyuk or of the vestiges of Philatose, but we may hope that Numinor may have actually existed, and that one day, perhaps in the near future, the archaeologists, spelunkers or oceanographers, and provide irrefutable proof of the level he has reached without a doubt the Celtic civilization.

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