45: Part two of miscellaneous etymological and pre-IE discussions

Written and published by Linden Alexander Pentecost on the 16^th of October 2024. This article/web page was published in the UK (as are all of the author’s publications) and the author is a UK resident. This article/page contains the following sub-sections: Urðarbrunnr and *urd- place-names in southeastern Scotland; Possible proto-writing, symbol of glyph inside Victoria Cave in the Yorkshire Dales, “Falkor”; the name “Uyulala” and sacred language in Michael Ende’s Die Unendliche Geschichte – “The Neverending Story”; References:. This article contains a total of 1834 words.

 

There is a seperate article: 41: Part one of miscellaneous etymological and pre-IE discussions (part one, whereas the page you are currently on is a separate article with separate content, part two). The link to part one is: https://www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk/website-articles-30-45/41-part-one-of-miscellaneous-etymological-and-pre-ie-discussions.
The article just linked to and this article (on this page) are both miscellaneous in that they contain information published which has not been put into any of my online articles or ebooks, which is shared on these (many more to come) miscellaneous pages and is relevant like my other published work.

 

Urðarbrunnr and *urd- place-names in southeastern Scotland

 

A little while ago I came across the name Hvergelmir, the name of a sacred well in Icelandic traditions. The initial root word, hver- means something like a spring or water source, and is also associated with heat, thus it can mean “cauldron” and is related to words for “kettle” for instance.

The Old Icelandic name Urðarbrunnr refers to a well of some kind beneath Yggrasil of a different meaning. The first root word, Urðar is the genitive of the name Urðr as the name of the Norn of fate. This is related to the Old English word wyrd and to wider roots referring to changing of direction and wind, thus the whole meaning may perhaps be understood as a watery force or energy, which, is connected to the wind, to balance, direction and to fate.

In terms of the Urðarbrunnr itself, I noticed some interesting in terms of a group of place-names south of Edinburgh located close to the Pentland Hills. These names are: Kirkurd, Lochurd, Ladyurd and Netherurd. I think it possible, likely even, that these place-names possess a root element *urd- which may be some kind of deity name, but also equally importantly possibly cognate to the Old Icelandic Urðr and to Old English wyrd. The form *urd- is closer to the Old Icelandic form, but could well be pre-Indo-European in origin, in my opinion.

Another possible piece of the puzzle here is the presence of a historically marked sulphur well located somewhere in the vicinity of these *urd- place-names. With the Old Icelandic root being connected to a spring or a well, is there any other evidence that might suggest specifically that the likely ancient sulphur well near the Pentland Hills could be connected to the root word *urd- with a symbolic connection to Urðarbrunnr in Old Icelandic folk religion?

Well, whilst the link is interesting, it is difficult to make any specific theories on the context of sulphur in Old Icelandic folk religion, although sulphur is an aspect of volcanic activity, of which there has been much in Iceland throughout history. The only further comments I have concern sulphur in a more general way. I have heard before that water horses, eich uisge in Scottish Gaelic, have been associated with the smell of sulphur. In a wider context, sulphur is associated with the underworld, and is neither good nor bad in symbolic nature, but is dangerous to humans in the literal sense.

 

Possible proto-writing, symbol of glyph inside Victoria Cave in the Yorkshire Dales

I have recently been in contact with some experts on the paleo-archaeology of Yorkshire and who have been involved in cave excavations. A little known, but perhaps important find, is that of a symbol, letter or glyph of some nature that was found carved into a part of the roof of the Victoria Cave close to Settle in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The cave itself is famous for its prehistoric human presence, and I have been to the cave before, but was unable, after several hours, to locate the symbol. I have it on good authority that it is indeed there, and was pointed out to one of the people I spoke to, but I do not know exactly where it is, and after in 2019 looking for it for several hours, and being unsuccessful, I fear that perhaps the symbol may be either obscured or the part of the cave upon which it was inscribed may have collapsed and now be somewhere on the floor of the cave, or ruined. I spent many hours trying to precariously climb up bits of the walls to take a lower look, but did not locate it. I hope that perhaps somewhere, a person might have a photograph of the symbol, or perhaps made of a copy of it.

 

“Falkor” and Finnish "luck", the name “Uyulala” and sacred language in Michael Ende’s Die Unendliche Geschichte – “The Neverending Story”

 

The German author Michael Ende, who published Die unendliche Geschichte, “The Neverending Story”, is not to my knowledge known to have consciously connected to Finnish mythology in the writing of this book. One of the most famous characters from this story is the “luck dragon” Falkor/Falcor. This concept of “luck” as a divine agent plays an enormous role in the story. It is interesting to note then, that in Finnish traditions, luck, was considered of great importance, as a kind of spiritual guide, compass and guardian spirit.

--Note that the below comments regarding Uyulala and Finnish and Quechua are unrelated to my already extensively published works regarding similarities between Quechua and Finnish, different parts of which are published in different books, the most recently of which being a PDF-only ebook published only on this site, titled: Some interconnected vocabulary links between Indigenous American languages and languages outside of the Americas, with references to underlying mysticism and philosophy 05/10/2024, published via BookofDunbarra in the UK and only published as an ebook and only in PDF format – note that in this book I also discussed another word from Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. I have discussed The Neverending Story in other books too, none of which is related to the information I am publishing on this web page (the one currently in front of you). Some of my other work on Finnish and Quechua similarities was published in my recently published article series (only parts 1 and 3 have been published) in the magazine Silly Linguistics, titled: "The mystical nature of Finnish & of language in Finland" By Linden Alexander Pentecost. More work on Finnish-Quechua similarities are published in other books written by the author not mentioned here--

Main article continues below with regard to Uyulala, its meaning and Finnish and Quechua:

On a different note, one of my favourite personal names in the "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende is Uyulala. This is the name given to the “Southern Oracle”, which, in the book, is a kind of voice, presumably connected with the southernmost pole regions of Fantasica. From what I understand and interpret, Uyulala seems to “sing” in order to be present, known in our world and to communicate it. Within the name Uyulala we see the root *la-, *lala- which is used in an onomatopoeic way in English to imply the act of singing, often joyous singing. Compare also English “lull” and Finnish laulaa – to sing. The first root of this name, *uyu-, could arguably be connected to Finnish ujo – shy or timid, thus from this interpretation Uyulala could be thought of via Finnish as ujo-laulaa or ujo-laulaja – “quiet, coy sing or singer”, which matches up pretty well to the spiritual role of Uyulala or the Southern Oracle in Die Unendliche Geschichte/The Neverending Story. The root *uyu in Uyulala could also reflect in a sense Quechua uyay, which means “attention”, but is also a verb root meaning to grasp or understand something, e.g. noqa uyani – I understand, or noqa simikunata uyani – “I understand the languages”. Quechua uyay – attention, understand is not that similar in meaning to Finnish ujo – shy, coy, but if we look for a wider philosophical meaning, perhaps “shy, coy” can be seen in terms of “quiet, observing, understanding” and lend to the idea of quiet, unspoken wisdom and understanding, which again would seem to describe the nature of Uyulala or “The Southern Oracle”. We can thus build a Finnish form of Uyulala as ujo-laulaja; if we were to try to build a similar word using Quechua root words, we might build something like Uyay-llullay. But whilst Finnish laulaa – to sing, and Quechua llullay – to lie, may well be connected, in terms of “lies” being sung or spoken, the Quechua expression of this “lala” idea has more negative connotations, where the “lulling” is of falsehood. This may indicate a different understanding or interpretation of this potentially ancient root word in Finnish and Quechua.

On a final note for this website page/article I wanted to look at something specific in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story when the character in the story known as the Empress or the “Golden Eyed Commander of Wishes” is given the new name in reference to the moon. This aspect to the story in my opinion speaks of the concept of giving things their correct and right name. I believe that the “Golden Eyed Commander of Wishes” is symbolically connected to Sophía in Greek Gnostic tradition, and to Ilmatar in Finnish tradition. Michael Ende (originally in German) gives this quote translated into English in the Neverending Story, which pertains to this: “Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.” - Michael Ende, The Neverending Story.

This article (the one in front of you) relates to pre-Indo-European root words in the contexts given.

 

I hope that this article was an interesting read. Written for my parents and for the "Golden Eyed Commander of Wishes" and written in honour of Michael Ende and of my cat, Gmork, also called (G)m(o)rk(i), who I also named in part after the character Gmork in Michael Ende's The Neverending Story, although I pronounce the name of my cat differently, and gave him this name because my cat resembled a wolf a bit, but my cat, who has now sadly passed away, was not in any way bad or a bad wolf. He is an angel, and is like Falcor in a lot of senses.

 

References:

I needed no references for this article beyond referring to Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, but I must make clear again (I have already done so in the text), that the names Uyulala, and Falkor/Falcor and the “Golden Eyed Commander of Wishes” and "Gmork", and the quote given about the “right name”, are, as already stated, from Michael Ende’s book “The Neverending Story” or Die Unendliche Geschichte in German.