Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

Etruscan Dawn

If the Old Gods exist—I would contend that they do—one would expect them to show themselves differently to different peoples in different times and places.

And that, in fact, is exactly what we find.

Forthwith, in this season of Dawn, a tantalizing glimpse of a non-Indo-European Dawn.

In their well-favored land by the Tyrrhenian (“Etruscan”) Sea, the ancient Tuscans called her Thesan, a goddess whose sister-selves include Vedic Ushas, Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, and English Easter.

One thing that's so intriguing about Etruscan religion is that, like the religio Romana, it's been profoundly influenced by Classical Greek ethos, so that it has a certain air of familiarity to it. What's even more intriguing is that, even so, every now and then behind the Greek mask one catches a glimpse of an older, native face.

 

Thesan, for instance. Her name means “dawn/Dawn,” but there's more. The word is clearly related, aptly enough, to words meaning “illumination,” “clear,” and “famous.” It also, interestingly, means “divination.” Like Dawn, divination sheds light upon what has previously been dark. Dawn as goddess of diviners: it makes good, solid sense.

In the Hellenic culture-sphere, She of the Rosy Fingers would seem to have been a figure more of literature than of cult, but Thesan was worshiped at numerous places throughout Etruria, including at the great sanctuary of Uni at Pyrgi. In an antefix from Uni's temple, Thesan is shown standing, winged, wearing a charioteer's short tunic and flying cloak, embracing, like some Mistress of Animals, the twin white horses that make up her team. She is shown between Usil, the rayed and winged Sun, and Lucifer, the Morning Star, also winged and sporting, interestingly, the head of a cock.

As among English-speakers, Etruscan girls were named for her: Thesanthei remained a popular female name throughout Etruscan history. Our understanding of the Etruscan language being regrettably incomplete, we do not know what the second element of this theophorous name means.

Sing the wide-winged Dawn. Thesan is generally depicted in Etruscan art as winged; she is shown this way on the back of numerous mirrors, frequently in the process of abducting one of her numerous amours, for Dawn, like certain other gods (Thunder comes to mind) is said to have a taste for mortal lovers. In Greek myth, Aphrodite, having caught Eos in flagrante delicto with Ares, is said to have consequently cursed her with a taste for mortal love.

 

Thesan's presence on the back of so many Etruscan mirrors is highly evocative; on Greek mirrors, this is often Aphrodite's place. The Dawns of Indo-Europeandom frequently have an erotic character to them. To those of us with a taste for morning eros, this makes excellent sense. (In troubadour poetry, there's a specific genre of love-poetry known as the alba [Occitan] or aubade [French], the “dawn-song.”) Indo-Europeanist Paul Friedrich, in his fascinating monograph The Meaning of Aphrodite, sees the Indo-European Dawn Goddess as ancestral to the latter-day smiling Lady of Love. Interestingly, dawn goddesses are also frequently associated with death, since each dawn brings us a day closer to our own. Eros and thanatos: liebestodt, love-death. Those looking for a love goddess among the tribe of elder (nature) gods need look no farther than Dawn.

From mortal loves spring mortal children. So grieved was Thesan at the death in the Trojan War of her son Memrun (the Greek Memnon) that she threatened to hold back dawn forever. The gods managed to dissuade her, but they say that the ground is daily dampened with the tears she still sheds for her beloved son.

We call it dew.

Ushas, Eos, Thesan, Easter:

wide-winged Dawn, of you I sing.

 

 

 

 

Last modified on
Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

Comments

Additional information