Old Europe (Vinca) language and culture in early layers of Serbian and Irish culture

Hi Tank

There were many migrations into Ireland in many different times. Some of them were from the Balkans some of them were from the south Baltic. All these people left their mark in the Irish language. This is why it is so difficult to determine who brought what. I have described this problem in the very first post on this thread. Did you read it?

Wait a minute, I could be wrong here, but the people you're suggesting moved from modern day Serbia to Ireland would have been pre-Slavic, would they not?

If you are referring to vinca people and bregians (phrigians) then yes they were pre Slavic. However they were the ancestors of both Serbians and Irish and have left their mark in our genes and our culture and language.

And Serbian is a Slavic language, so the language these pre-Slavs would have brought to Ireland would have been very different, perhaps completely unrelated to the language spoken in Serbia today

This is where you are wrong. The language spoken in Serbia today is ancestor of the old Balkan languages. It is (with other South Slavic languages) the oldest Slavic language, the ancestor language of the Slavs. It has also preserved a lot of features and vocabulary that does not exist in any other Slavic language but exists in Irish. How do we explain this? I believe that these features and vocabulary come from the old Balkan languages. The same goes for cultural traits like for instance Crom Dubh. He exists only in Ireland (and Scotland) and Serbia. In Serbia he is well defined and known. In Ireland he is a mystery. How do you we explain this? These are questions that i am trying to answer here. Hopefully with help of others on this thread.

therefore rendering the similarities between modern Serbian and Irish null and void.

Now similarities and more than similarities do exist. We can't ignore them. If it were couple of words, or place names we could say that they are coincidences. But if you read through this thread you will see that we are talking about hundreds of words, grammatical constructs, place names, mythological themes, customs.... There is no way that they could be a coincidence. How did they get to exist? Some through Vinca migrations. Some through early Indo Europan (Vucedol culture) migrations. Some through Bregian (Hittite) migrations. Some through "Celtic" central European cultural links. Some through South Baltic Slavic migrations to Ireland during early medieval Anglo Saxon and Viking migrations. If you have any better explanation for all the cultural and linguistic links that i have presented on this thread so far, please put it forward here. For instance how to explain the cluster linked to Cur Gur word group? It does not exist in any other European language except Irish and South Slavic languages. And add to that that slang word for penis in Serbian is "budza" and in Irish is "bud, bod"? And believe me i am nowhere near finished with presenting the material that i poses. I don't think i have presented even one third so far.

Correct me if I'm missing something of course...

Please read this thread from the beginning. I am not making any of the claims i am making lightly.

Here is what other people say about South Slavs (including Serbians) of the Balkans as possible carriers of the ancient cultural and linguistic characteristics:

High levels of Paleolithic Y-chromosome lineages characterize Serbia.

Regueiro M, Rivera L, Damnjanovic T, Lukovic L, Milasin J, Herrera RJ.

Abstract

Whether present-day European genetic variation and its distribution patterns can be attributed primarily to the initial peopling of Europe by anatomically modern humans during the Paleolithic, or to latter Near Eastern Neolithic input is still the subject of debate. Southeastern Europe has been a crossroads for several cultures since Paleolithic times and the Balkans, specifically, would have been part of the route used by Neolithic farmers to enter Europe. Given its geographic location in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula at the intersection of Central and Southeastern Europe, Serbia represents a key geographical location that may provide insight to elucidate the interactions between indigenous Paleolithic people and agricultural colonists from the Fertile Crescent. In this study, we examine, for the first time, the Y-chromosome constitution of the general Serbian population. A total of 103 individuals were sampled and their DNA analyzed for 104 Y-chromosome bi-allelic markers and 17 associated STR loci. Our results indicate that approximately 58% of Serbian Y-chromosomes (I1-M253, I2a-P37.2, R1a1a-M198) belong to lineages believed to be pre-Neolithic. On the other hand, the signature of putative Near Eastern Neolithic lineages, including E1b1b1a1-M78, G2a-P15, J1-M267 and J2-M172 and R1b1a2-M269 accounts for 39% of the Y-chromosome. Furthermore, an examination of the distribution of Y-chromosome filiations in Europe indicates extreme levels of Paleolithic lineages in a region encompassing Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, possibly the result of Neolithic migrations encroaching on Paleolithic populations against the Adriatic Sea.

What this means is that population of the Balkans consists of people who lived there since paleolithic times and all the migrants who went through Balkans since that time. And majority of the people actually belongs to the oldest European populations, still living in the same place after all these millenniums. They definitely preserved some of the old cultural and linguistic characteristics. But to extract them from all the later overlaying cultural and linguistic layers, you have to compare Balkan cultures with equally old European cultures like the Irish culture. I believe, and maybe i am wrong, that the intersections will give us old European culture.

Also do you remember Opanak, the old European shoe still preserved as a traditional folk footwear in Serbia whose name can only be explained through Irish?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84754227&postcount=39

Here is the oldest known depiction from Vučedol culture. The identical ones are still worn in the same area of the Balkan today 5000 years later:



Genetic and cultural continuity exists int the Balkans since paleolithic times. I believe that language continuity exists as well.

Hi Tank

Thank you for your continuing interest.

Fair enough, you make a good case I have to say although I'd remain skeptical as to the extent of this Balkan/Germanic/Baltic you talk of. I'm sure there was some, I a firm believer that most European countries are well mixed up with each other.

The connection between Baklan and Baltic are Serbian, Sirbian, Sorbian people who live along the Carpatian mountains From Balkan to Baltic. They still live there and share language and customs. How long have they been living there i don't know, but considering that central Europe (Balkan - Baltic) is the birth place of I haplogroup, they could have been living there since at least late neolithic. The Balkan - Baltic - British Isles cultural transmission line is well attested and supported by archaeological finds. Cultural traits would first appear in the Balkans, then move up through central Europe to South Baltic and then they would appear in British isles. South Baltic was the main sea exit for Central European cultures from most ancient times. Between central Europe and Atlantic coast lay huge forests which were until late medieval times impenetrable. It was much easier to travel between central Europe and the British isles via south Baltic and then along the Atlantic coast.

The Serbian-Germanic-Irish connection is something that popped out quite unexpectedly. But more and more i look at particularly the Irish language and culture, the more and more i find Germanic influences.

For instance holy kings who were venerated as bringers of the good times of plenty and blamed for the bad times of famine and pestilence, is a well attested Germanic custom. The killing of the holy kings as a sacrifice for the return of the good times is also well attested in Germanic lands well in the historical times. We find the same custom in Ireland. Are there any other mentions of this king sacrifices anywhere else in "Celtic" lands except in Ireland? And if not, how did this Germanic custom end up in Ireland? I have been writing a lot about potential Slavic and Germanic presence which somehow failed to be recorded in Irish Annals. Is this another proof that a lot of what we think as being "Celtic" in Ireland is in fact Germanic? But this custom of sacrificing kings for prosperity originated in the Balkans in Lepenski vir culture, 7000 bc. They sacrificed kings every year. Human sacrifices continued to bi practiced in the Balkan well into medieval times.

As for similarities in stone sculptures etc. I wouldn't read too much into it, the oul' swirly patterns seem to have been very common in multiple cultures and not necessarily related.

The swirling pattern and chevron are vinca invention and we can trace the spread of the vinca symbolism from the Balkan to all the other parts of Europe, middle east, north Afrika, Mesopotamia, and further east. They are related. They are being spread by proselytizing vincans who one day, in the mid fourth millennium bc, looked at their metal weapons, and said: "hey, guys, you know what, we can actually take over the world?". And they did. It took over a thousand years for them, or their descendants to reach Ireland, but when they did they built almost exact replica of tablet from Potporanj in Newgrange. What else did they bring with them i am trying to find out in this study.

I think maybe you should emphasize more that the "Serbs" you believe came to Ireland are very different from the Serbs of today, more of an Illyrian stock perhaps than Slavic?

There is no difference. Ilirians, Thrakians through time and through mixing with other people morphed into Slavs. These are the same people. In diplomatic and historic records of many European countries up to 19th century Slavs from the Balkan were called Illyrians. The Illyrian cultural traits continue to be found in Dinaric alps among the Slavic population. What i am trying to say is that there was no population, cultural and linguistic replacement in the Balkans. There was an evolution. This cultural evolution in the Balkans preserved the old cultural and linguistic layers going probably all the way back to Vinca.

As for the similarities you mention in vocabulary, this is something that can be easy to get wrong, for example I see you referenced the word "bud" as a link between Irish and Serbian, there's one big problem with that though, "bud" is derived from German/Dutch and so has nothing to do with Irish and therefore cannot be used as a link between Irish and Serbian.

I don't know where you got this. Bud, Bod is an old Irish, old Celtic word for penis. Bud meaning penis was an Irish slang word brought to America where became a root for word Buddy meaning friend.

Any Irish dictionary will give you this:

bod - penis(n m1)

bodach - a strong, lusty youth

Buddy is another Irish Gaelic word, which comes from the Irish expression, a vuddy, or a bhodaigh, which means something like "pal." The root of the word bhodaigh is strangely, bod, which is the Irish word for penis, and pronounced like bud.

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/the_keane_edge/dirty-irish-gaelic-words-litter-new-york-city-slang----how-a-lot-of-american-words-for-vice-come-from-irish-88839767.html

Dictionary of early Irish:

penis - bot

http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/CelticLanguages/EnglishEarlyIrishWordList.pdf

Proto Celtic dictionary:

penis *butto- (?) / *bosdo- (?)
penis *muto- (?)

http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/CelticLanguages/EnglishProtoCelticWordlist.pdf

By the way here is another word for penis that is the same in "Celtic" and Serbian: muto. In Serbian word is mudo and means di*k. According to the linguists, the words for genitals are some of the oldest and most conservative words. They point to a very old link between Serbs and "Celts" or Irish.

Another pitfall in comparing languages is that people sometimes think that because two words are spelt similarly they must be linked, the problem here is that spelling is a relatively recent invention that wasn't around at the times we're talking about, it's all about the actual pronunciation of the word and if they're similar

I am aware of this. I have in depth knowledge of South Slavic languages and dialects. Also very good knowledge of several other Slavic languages. My knowledge of Irish is ok and is getting better every day. I am not really interested in modern Irish, so i am more concentrated on the the old stuff. I also have lots of Irish people that i can consult on dialectic issues regarding Irish language pronunciation. One of the reasons why i decided to publish my finds on an Irish board is precisely because i need help from Irish speakers regarding my understanding of the Irish language. What i am finding though, is that once you start digging into the Irish language things get pretty murky and muddy and i am a lot of times on my own trying to figure out why some things are the way they are.

For instance take the word "rath". There are actually two old Irish words today spelled as "rath"

ráth m - earthen rampart, ring-fort

rath - granting, grace, gift, success

When you look at O Donaill's dictionary, you can find two pages worth of words derived from the second "rath" but only one single line for the first "rath". When we look at the pronunciation of the word we find this:

Pronunciation note: “th” is pronounced “h” in Modern Irish, but in Old Irish it was pronounced like the “th” in “thing”.

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/donncha/focal/focal107.html

We have hundreds of place names with "rath" in it (for instance Ráth Cruachan) and all of them are pronounced as rath (raθ) not as rah.

In Serbian we have word rat meaning war. Was rath originally rat, which became rath: place where you go during war times, fort? Is there any possible root for rath in Gaelic? Rat has no root that i know in Serbian. Maybe Serbian Rat (war) came from Irish Rath (the time of forts and fighting) who knows. What i wanted to Illustrate is that you can not actually depend on modern Irish pronunciation either.

One last thing. I mentioned old shoes representation from Vučedol culture. Numerous were found of different types of Opanak. The fact that these shoe depictions were made points to religious significance of these shoes for the people of Vučedol culture. The same shoes, opanak, still have retained some cult status among the Balkan Slavs.

Opanak is shaped like a boat and represents a boat that takes you over land. They are like boats connected with travels and search for knowledge and wisdom. They are often magical and can cover huge distances and carry its owner at huge speeds. Some of them can even allow you to cross any water without getting wet.

They are through folk beliefs linked to gaining wisdom through experience. Someone's experience is measured by number of opanaks he had worn out. Opanaks are also sign and symbol of power and authority. Who ever puts his opanak first rules. Restringing opanak is a cure against nightmares so opanak is a magical tool as well. Opanak is also simbol of male power. In serbian folk poetry only women are barefoot, men never unless they are presented as completely fallen and broken. Opanak and even more boot is also very often connected with gold, money, treasure booty . Treasure is often found in boots symbolizing link between travel, experience, wisdom and fortune. Bribe money in Serbian folk songs and stories is always given in shoes or boots.

In Serbia St Sava, patron saint of Serbia, took all attributes of god Dabog, Hromi Daba. In the same way St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, took all attributes of Crom Dubh. St Sava traveled a lot while fighting Dabog and preaching. His opponents often stole his shoes in an attempt to steal his wisdom. St Sava is patron of cobblers and shoe makers, which means that the teacher and shoe maker are connected. Opanak is sown on the knee. Knee is also place where kids are placed when they are being taught by their fathers. In Serbian language, knowledge is passed "from knee to knee" meaning "from generation to generation".

The only place where you are not allowed to enter in Opanak is a holy place. In Serbian tradition home is the most holy place, the ancestral temple, and this is why people take their shoes off when they enter someone's home. In christian tradition, shoe as a symbol of knowledge and authority was replaced with hat. This is why the only person wearing a hat in church is the priest, the teacher and leader.

To take your shoes off means to say everything, to revile everything, to be completely truthful.

This was a partial translation of the below article:

http://www.exodus-cudo.com/2012/09/obuca/

Now have a look at this interesting unexplained thing about Lugus (Lugh):

[Scholars have long noted the interesting parallel between Lugus being worshiped by shoemakers in Spain and his Welsh counterpart Lleu being represented as a shoemaker in the 4th branch of the Mabinogion[11][12]]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugus

The emphasis on shoemaking in both the Third and Fourth Branches, taken together with the dedication to the Lugoues by the Spanish shoemakers' guild, suggests that this was an ancient and important attribute of Celtic "Mercury". It may, of course, have been no more than a symbol of craftsmanship in general, but some recent finds in Romano-Celtic cemeteries imply a more specific association of this image with the god. In British graves of the 3rd and 4th centuries, together with other paraphernalia related to the cult of Lugus, one typically finds a pair of hobnailed boots, obviously intended for the use of the dead in the Otherworld.30 "Mercury", as the archetypal mover between states, is the patron of all roads and travelling, but particularly of the ultimate journey between the realms of life and death. Shoes are a basic need of the traveller, in this world and the next, so Lugus, in his knowledge of all crafts, is the specific provider of this necessity.)

http://www.imbas.org/articles/lugus.html

I believe that Serbian tradition sheds some new light on this "emphasis on shoemaking" of the "Celtic" Lugus, Lugh

ezra

Yes but if you were speaking Irish you would hear : raw - as in silent t.

Are you talking about "rath" meaning fort as in all the place names, or "rath" meaning granting, grace, gift, success. I do believe that the second rath is pronounces with silent t, but not the first.

slowburner

Thanks very much for your comment.

I have never heard rath pronounced 'rah' or 'raw'.

Me neither. It was always pronounced as "t" harder or softer. But if you look at the irish pronunciation rules you will see that "th" is pronounced "h" or "w". Everyone i asked bout this peculiar case of "mispronunciation" told me that "it's the English who got it wrong and they forced everyone to pronounce it wrongly...". This doesn't make sense as invaders would usually ask the locals: "what do you call this place" and then they would try to capture what ever they heard.

I just wanted to give an example when things don't make much sense when you put it all together. I really believe that these type of words are foreign to Gaelic and are being "Gaelicised".

As for "lios" we already talked about it as being the actual Gaelic word possibly at the root of Ilios:

Troy (Ancient Greek: Ἴλιον, Ilion, or Ἴλιος, Ilios; and Τροία, Troia; Latin: Trōia and Īlium;[1] Hittite: Wilusa or Truwisa;[2][3] Turkish: Truva)

In Irish we have this word cluster:

tré- triad - trojstvo
tréad - flock, heard, congregation - stado,pastva
tréadach - pastoral - cobanski, nomadski
tréadai -shepard, pastor - cobanin, pastor
tréadaioch - hearding -skupljati uterivati stado
treabhcas - tribe - pleme
treabhann -tribune, leader - tribun, lider, bodja
treablaht - household,family - domacinstvo, porodica
treabh - plough - plug
treibh -house, homestead, tribe, race - kuca, domacinstvo, pleme, rasa
trea- spear - koplje
trean - warior- ratnik. So Trean or Trajan is awarrior.
treas- battle - bitka
treasair - conquer - osvojiti
treis - strong,in power - jak, na vlasti
triath - lord, prince - gospodar, princ

This is an incredibly important cluster. I have never seen any other word group that describes iron age society in a better way. And it shows us that Trean or Trojan means warrior. So Is Trea Treas, or Troja, Troas the land of warriors? And if so was the original Troja in the Balkans in the second millennium BC and that Troas in Anatolia is the second Troja ? I think that there are things that point to exactly that.

The other name, Ilios, Ilion probably also comes from Irish:

lios - ring,ring fort,halo,fairy round
il - many, varied
il + lios(san) = many ring forts, the land of ring forts

Was Troy or Ilios, Iliosan, Ilion the land of warriors who live in ring forts? Both names have etymology in Irish which perfectly matches what we know about troy, but no etymology in any other language. So what do we make of this?

Tank

I see what you're saying now has much wider implications than just linking Serbia to Ireland (essentially you're saying these Vincan's spread around Europe, Middle East and North Africa?) An interesting theory, one that I personally would place many question marks over

This is not actually my theory. I came across it while i was researching the links between Serbians and Irish and when they lead me all the way back into neolithic. The theory of Vinca and Cucuteni being the birth place of ancient civilizations such as Sumer and Egypt is becoming fast the mainstream theory. After it was discovered that all Sumeran and Egyptian early cultural traits existed in vinca much earlier, including religion and writing, people started accepting that we could be talking about the mother culture in the Balkans. Add to that that first copper and bronze and iron was invented and first time industrially made in the same area of the Balkans and you get clear picture of a power center which wielded huge economic and cultural influence on the rest of the world at that time. By the way, last week they discovered the oldest metal ring in Vinca Plocnik site. It is over 7000 years old.

Here is and article that shows where the European historiography is at the moment. When translated from double talk it says: There used to be a great civilization in Central Europe before there was any in the Mediterranean. We don't know who these people were, or where they went, but what we know doesn't fit into any of our hi(stories) so we will have to rewrite them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1369823581-LrzjtexT+I4BT9ZQO+DskQ&

If you dig around you will see more and more articles being written on the influence of Vinca.

I commend you for following it up, always good to see people go against the grain and form their own hypotheses, it can only add to our overall knowledge.

Thanks for your encouragement.

As you can see from the above example of Troy, relationship between Serbia and Ireland is a lot more complex than just vinca people reaching Ireland from the Balkans some time after the 4th millennium BC. I believe there were many contacts going both ways at different times all the way down to the last Celtic invasion of the Balkans in the 3rd century BC. This is what makes it difficult to determine which cultural traits originate in which time and which migration.

Here is another example. I believe that South Slavic traditional shoe "opanak" points to something very very important.

We find opanak for the first time in Vučedol culture. The same type of shoes are still used in the Balkans. The word "opanak" has no etymology in Slavic languages but it has clear etymology in Gaelic. Does this point to Vucedol culture being Gaelic? Or were their neighbors to the east in the Carpatian mountains Gaelic? I always suspected that Serbs and Irish lived together in the Balkans in the neolithic, i just couldn't figure out who could be the carrier of the Gaelic language and who could be the carrier of the Serbian language. If I was an Irish historian I would start looking very carefully at Vučedol culture. Particularly because it is believed that it could have been the ancestor culture of the "Celtic" Volcae and Later "Slavic" Volci from south Baltic.

The Vučedol culture (Croatian: Vučedolska kultura) flourished between 3000 and 2200 BC[1] (the Eneolithic period of earliest copper-smithing), centered in Syrmia and eastern Slavonia on the right bank of the Danube river, but possibly spreading throughout the Pannonian plain and western Balkans and southward. It was thus contemporary with the Sumer period in Mesopotamia, the Early Dynastic period in Egypt and the earliest settlements of Troy (Troy I and II). Some authors regard it as an Indo-European culture.[2]

Following the Baden culture, another wave of perhaps Indo-European speakers came to the banks of the Danube. One of the major places they occupied is present-day Vučedol ("Wolf's Valley"), a location six kilometers downstream from the town of Vukovar, Croatia. It is estimated that the site had once been home to about 3,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest and most important European centers of its time.Coordinates: 45°21′N 19°00′E According to Bogdan Brukner,[3] proto-Illyrians descended from this wave of Indo-European settlers.
The early stages of the culture occupied locations not far from mountain ranges, where copper deposits were located, because of their main invention: making tools from arsenical copper in series reusing double, two-part moulds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vu%C4%8Dedol_culture

The main Vucedol culture site was in Vucedol (meaning wolf valley in South Slavic languages) which lies on river Vuka (meaning wolf river in South Slavic languages). What is interesting is that the old name of this river was "Volcos". This indicates that "Volcos" actually means "wolf(s)" river.

Vuka is a river in eastern Croatia, a right tributary of the Danube river. At 112 kilometres (70 mi) it is the 11th longest river in Croatia and it has a drainage area of 644 square kilometres (249 sq mi).[1] The river is located in Vukovar-Syrmia County, in Slavonia region. It empties into the Danube at the town of Vukovar, which got its name from the river.
Ancient name of Pannonian Illyrians for Vuka was Volcos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcos

The Volcae (Latin pronunciation: [ˈwɔlkaj]) were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon c. 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC. Though a modern view of Celtic tribal configurations has to be pieced together from mentions in Greek and Latin sources, for archaeology determines no tribal identities purely through material culture of the late La Tène Celts, tribes called Volcae were to be found simultaneously in southern France, Moravia, the Ebro River valley, and Galatia in Asia Minor (Anatolia).

Traditional etymologies have attributed Volcae to a word akin to Welsh golchi 'to wash' and Irish folc 'to bathe' (Proto-Celtic *wolkiō), making this tribe the 'river people' after a rough semantic adjustment. A more likely scenario is that this or a cognate in Pannonian Illyrian was used to name the river Volcos, from which the Volcae took their name.[citation needed] C. W. von Glück[18] derived the name from a word related to Old Irish folg 'agile, energetic'.[19]
Most Celticists today seem to agree that the tribal name Uolcae is related to Welsh gwalch 'hawk', akin to Latin falco 'hawk', (and they compare the Gaulish personal name Catuuolcus to Welsh cadwalch 'hero', literally 'battle-hawk'), though some prefer to translate Gaulish *uolco- as 'wolf' and, by semantic extension, 'errant warrior'.[20] There seems to be indication that their name is related to their breed of war greyhounds since before the 600 BC when the Tectosages and Tolistobogii Celts sacked Delphi. Survivors left accounts of the fierce Celts and the huge dogs who fought with them and at their side. They were described by Julius Caesar in his war reports, The Gallic Wars.

When you manage to wade through the etymological gibberish saying that the fierce Volcae had the name which meant "to wash" , you come to wolf river and Slavic volk (wolf), Irish faolchú (wolf )and Gaulish uolco (wolf) and the reports of terrifying war hounds that they used in Battle. Both the Irish and Serbians have tradition of war dogs, wolf hounds. We know that Volcae came from Central Europe and that they were in the Balkans living peacefully way before their invasion of Greece as latest archaeological data shows us:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85056467&postcount=67

This could explain a lot of Gaelic toponims and hidronims in the Balkans. But how do we explain things like this:

Mag Muirthemne [Murtemne] – Mag Muirthemne “in Brega” or “in Conaille” was one of 12 plains
cleared in Nemed’s time. “Mag Muirthemne is the maritime plain of Co. Louth.” Fodbgen, king of the Fir
Bolg, was slain on Mag Muirthemne. The plain, Mag Muirthemne, was named for Muirthemne son of
Breogan one of the chieftains of the Milesians. Three battles were fought here between Conmáel son of
Éber and the descendants of Érimón. The river Nith Nemandach burst over the land of Mag Muirthemne
during the reign of Rothechtaid, the 15th king of Ireland. Óengus king of Conaille of Muirthemne died in
the battle of Mag Sered. Cobthach, son of Ugoine Mór, was granted as his share of Ireland “Muirthemne,rich in mead.” (source: Macalister, LGE, Vol. 3, p. 123, 135, 173, 191; Vol. 4, p. 9, 19, 33, 45, 51, 78; Vol.
5, p. 23, 119, 201, 231, 393, 467)

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/LGLM.pdf

And then we have this:

Mag Muirthemne, whence the name? Not hard to say. The sea covered it thirty years after the Flood, and hence it is called Muirthemne, that is, ‘darkness of the sea’, or ‘it is under the sea's roof’. Or there was a magic sea over it, and an octopus therein, having a property of suction. It would suck in a man in armour till he lay at the bottom of its treasure-bag. The Dagda came with his 'mace of wrath' in his hand, and plunged it down upon the octopus, and chanted these words: ‘Turn thy hollow head! Turn thy ravening body! Turn thy resorbent forehead! Avaunt! Begone!’ Then the magic sea retired with the octopus; and hence, may be, the place was called Mag Muirthemne.

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/T106500D/text099.html

Here Dagda, like Thor or Perun uses Thunder Hammer or Axe to destroy the Serpant of the Underwarld and water (Veles) which was here depicted as Octopus. But the most interesting thing is the explanation for the name: "Muirthemne means darkness of the sea".

In Serbian word "Tamno" or "Tavno" or "Temno" means dark. More means Sea. So Muirthemne = Muir themne = More Tamno = Sea dark = darkness of the sea. Here we can also see how people who did not know how to use these foreign words changed the ending of "tamno" into "tamne" to match the ending of "more". Maybe i am wrong but i could not find word in Irish that sounds like Tamno Temno which means dark.

Who and when brought this name to Ireland? The story obviously talks about one of the catastrophic weather events probably the one that occurred in mid 3rd millennium BC when it rained for years and a lot of Ireland was flooded. Could the name be that old?

You can see now how difficult it is to figure out who did what to who and when. But Serbs and Irish definitely had lots of fun together.

dubhthach

Check out pronunciation on Forvo, form two native speakers (Connacht Irish vs. Munster Irish)

No one is denying that the pronunciation of "rath" in modern Irish is "rah, roh". What i am saying is that it used to be "rat, rath", which is attested by all the "rath" place names which preserved the old pronunciation . All the linguistic sources also say that the old pronunciation for "rath" meaning fort was "rath" and that it changed to "rah". Probably the word was actually "rat" without h and h was added to the end later. Or the pronunciation has drastically changed.

If "rath" as in fort was ever in the past pronounced as rah all the place names like "rathcormac" would not be pronounced by the locals as "rathkormak" but as "rahkormak". Maybe they are but i am not aware of it.

Bod (Bot in Old Irish) had two meanings these been Tail and Penis (membrum virile -- as noted in eDIL)

Have you ever seen pictures of the Devil with his tail between his legs pointing down looking very much like a penis?

Bod probably comes from "bod" - to prick to stab. In Serbian this is the root word for words like:

bode - it pricks
bodež - knife
ubod - stab

budža - penis, large metal rod, someone important
budžiti - to stuff in forcefully, to put a rod or shaft through a hole.

interesting anyway.

slowburner thanks for this link it is great. It shows that slide carts were used in Ireland, so it is plausible that this is what the story refers to. Here i am adding two excerpts from the book:

Did you notice how all the example are from the north, the land of cranogs which i already connected with the south Baltic in so many ways. Some of the types seem to be exact copies of the south Baltic ones.





What is very interesting about this is the conservatism of the rural substance farming life. What works gets used for thousands of years almost unchanged. You have an example of opanak and now sledge. I believe that these rural communities are equally conservative about their taboos, beliefs and customs as well as language. If you have a custom that you believe brings you good harvest, you will not abandon it even if official religion of the land changes. The example is Crom Dubh day and all the harvest rituals in Serbia which survived arrival of Christianity for centuries.

Fire steel, fire, sun. They give life but also connect Serbians and Irish:

serbian:

greje, grije - emits heat.
sunce greje, grije - sun heats us up
sunce sine, sija - sun shines

Look at the English verb to shine. It seems again only South Slavic and Germanic languages have this word.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shine

grejati, grijati - to heat
ogrev - firewood

Irish:

grios - hot ashes
griosach - glowing
griosagh - fire
grios(c) - broil, grill
grian - sun

For grian we find this:

From Old Irish grían, from Proto-Indo-European *ghreinā, from Proto-Indo-European *gher- (“to shine, glow; grey”).

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grian

Do you know any other language except the Irish and South Slavic languages that have these words?

We also have these words which show that the connection between the Irish and Serbs is indeed very very old:

Irish:

tine - fire

From Old Irish teine, from Proto-Celtic *teɸnet- (“fire”) (compare Breton and Cornish tan, Welsh tân).

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tine#Etymology_2

Serbian:

tinja - to smolder but also a verb that describes the behavior of the first small flame of fire that catches the tinder wood when a spark from the flint falls on it.

vatra tinja - fire is catching, starting its life from a spark or dying as hot coals. tinja, tine is the first fire a man managed to make, the fire which had a mind of its own, which was not easy to "catch" and which had to be conjured as if by magic. This kind of fire, made by hand, using the oldest known way of making fire by rubbing two pieces of wood against each other, or using two stones, or using stone hammer and piece of iron, or using fire steel and stone, is still called "live fire" in Serbia and is considered to have magic properties.

Live fire is made once a year in a special ceremony during the month of July which used to be called Gorešnjak, the fiery month. The ceremony was done in every village. All the fires would be extinguished in the village in the evening. All the villagers would then gather usually on top of a hill. The fire making ceremony took place in the middle of the night or just before dawn. In some parts of Serbia people were part naked. The fire was made by twins or by the oldest and the youngest brother in a family, or by two men born on the same day, or by two men with the same name...who for couple of days before the ceremony had to leave particularly clean and good life. The ceremony took place in complete silence. When the fire is finally burning strong, every woman would take a burning brunch and bring it home, where a new young fire would be lit in the house hearth. There the fire would be burning for the rest of the year, because the hearth fire in Serbia was never extinguished except just before the new live fire was about to be made or when someone dies in the house. This tradition probably comes to us from the earliest times, probably paleolithic, when making and maintaining fire was a magical and sacred duty and shows us again how resilient customs and traditions are (at least among Serbs) and how long they could be preserved.

Lighting of the live fire:

http://www.pmfbl.org/irena/radovi/vatra_u_srpskoj_tradiciji.pdf

Folk names for months

http://tinyurl.com/kdn43jm

Then I have these two words:

Irish:

creasa - flint fire
tinechreasach - sparcling

Serbian:

kresati - to smash two stones against each other in such a way that their sides slide over each other making sparks. to do the same with fire steel and a stone. to make sparks.
kres - fire steel, flint
kresivo - tinder

How old is this? I believe that these words are ancient. And they prove that the connection between Serbian and Irish language is ancient as well.

There is even a Slavic god of fire called Kresnik:

Kresnik (or rarely Kersnik and Krsnik) is a Slavic god associated with fire, the summer solstice, and storms. His mythical home, a sacred mountain at the top of the world, represents the axis mundi....Kresnik gradually evolved into a Slovenian national hero who lives on a golden mountain, sometimes as a deer with golden antlers. As a human, he is a great king skilled with magic, but who interests himself in farming....

Kresnik is the son of the great creator deity, ruler of heaven, who has been identified in various sources as Svarog[6] or Perun.[7] He lives in a fantastical country, sometimes called the "Land of the Rising Sun", "Eastern Land", or the "Ninth Country", and rules on the "world mountain", which is frequently described as being golden, crystal, or glass.[7][8][9]
Kresnik is described as having golden hair and golden hands or arms.[1][10] He was born either with horse earlaps, horse hooves, or a birthmark shaped like hooves, and he frequently is said to be able to take the form of a horse.[10][11]
Connected to sun and fire, he travels the sky on his golden chariot, armed with thunderbolt, axe, hammer, club, or sword. Like Hercules, Kresnik performed twelve great deeds. Sometimes he is helped by his brother Trot or his four-eyed dog. His chthonic opponent steals his property, cattle, or wife-sister, but Kresnik defeats him. Rain or wheat falls from the sky after such combat.[12]
In most tales, his wife is his sister, a goddess of spring named Alenčica, Marjetica, Vesina, or any number of variations.[7][13] In some versions, Kresnik also has a lover who is the daughter of a chthonic snake deity, his perpetual enemy, and Kresnik is eventually killed due to either his wife or lover's jealousy....

With the rise of Christianity, Kresnik was replaced with John the Baptist. A pre-Christian water holiday was probably preserved by association with John the Baptist.[21] Kresnik's association with midsummer, fire, and rain are tied to St. John's Eve, when in parts of Slovenia, fires are lit and water poured over the people around them.[21] The washing of sin parallels Kresnik, who creates rain by vanquishing the serpent of evil. On St. John's Day, many customs retain memories of the Kresnik mythology, like the lighting of fires, rolling of sun-shaped wooden wheels, and young girls called "Kresnice" singing harvest songs.[14] The Slovenian translation for "Baptist" is »Krstnik«, a similar word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kresnik_(deity)

St. John's Day or Ivandan (7th of July) is one of the old bonfire nights of the Slavs. This one was marking the beginning of harvest. The next one, marking the end of the harvest was on the 2nd of August on the Ilindan, the day of st Ilia, St Ilios, The holy sun day, The Crom Dubh day, Lughnasad.



In the end i would like to show you this word:

tinder - small dry sticks and finely-divided fibrous matter etc., used to help light a fire.

The etymology given is this:

From Old English tynder,[1] from tind. Compare to Swedish tända (“to light, to set on fire”), German zünden.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tinder

From earlier tend, from Middle English tenden, teenden, from Old English tendan (“to kindle”) (usually attested in compounds); related to Danish tænde, German zünden. More at tend.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tind

Isn't it more logical that the etymology is: tinder = tine der = tine derv(o) = tinja derv(o) = wood that catches fire (derv is the Serbian root word for wood)? Word tinder does not come from tender, or tenden. They are related. You have to be tender and you have to tender in order to make (catch) live fire.

Touchwood fungus, Oaks, Fire, Sun and the Drvids

When a fire-steel is used to create a spark, this spark has to be made to land on a substance which is readily flammable and which will hold the ember produced long enough for the fire-maker to start feeding tinder and building the spark into a fire....

...In the Viking Age, apparently the preferred substance was called hnjóskr or fnjóskr, which is usually translated as "touchwood". Touchwood has a wide variety of names, but is technically a fungus of the Polyporus or Boletus family, especially Fomes fomentarius, Polyporus fomentarius or Boletus chirurgorum. Other terms used for this substance are amadou, punk, surgeon's agaric or oak agaric.




The touchwood fungus is shaped somewhat like a horse's foot, with a diameter of from 6 to 10 inches. It is soft like velvet when young, but afterwards becomes hard and woody. It usually rests immediately upon the bark of the tree, without any supporting foot-stalk. On the upper surface, it is smooth, but marked with circular ridges of different colours, more or less brown or blackish. On the under surface, it is whitish or yellowish and full of small pores; internally, it is fibrous, tough and of a tawny brown colour. It is composed of short, tubular fibres, compactly arranged in layers, one of which is added every year.

Touchwood was collected in Europe in August and September, chiefly from oak and beech, the best being from oak.
The substance was then prepared for use by removing the exterior rind and cutting the inner part into thin slices, which were washed first in weak alkali, then in water and then beaten with a hammer and worked until they become a soft, pliable felt-like material that could be easily torn by the fingers. For making tinder, the felt-like material was charred in exactly the same way that charcloth is made, and then soaked in "strong urine" where it was boiled for several days. Urine contains sodium nitrate, which is very similar to the potassium nitrate ("saltpeter") found in gunpowder. The difference is that sodium nitrate tends to be more hygroscopic (absorbs moisture more readily) than saltpeter.

The charred "felt" made from touchwood can be kept smoldering with very little heat. It is thought to have been used to transport fire from one place to another before matches were invented. It was certainly in use in Neolithic times, and was one of the substances that the "Iceman" carried with him. The Iceman (sometimes called Oetzi) is an incredibly well-preserved 5,000 year old Neolithic man found in 1991 in a glacier near the border of Austria and Italy. In his pouch was a black felt-like substance that upon examination proved to be touchwood. Also in this pouch were "several small sharpened flint stones, a small drill-like piece of flint, and slender bone-tool" - an early fire-making kit....

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/fire.shtml

Druid

The modern English word druid derives from the Latin druides (pronounced [druˈides]), which was considered by ancient Roman writers to come from the native Celtic Gaulish word for these figures.[9][10][11] Other Roman texts also employ the form druidae, while the same term was used by Greek ethnographers as δρυΐδης (druidēs).[12][13] Although no extant Romano-Celtic inscription is known to contain the form,[9] the word is cognate with the later insular Celtic words, Old Irish druí ("druid, sorcerer") and early Welsh dryw ("seer").[11] Based on all available forms, the hypothetical proto-Celtic word may then be reconstructed as *dru-wid-s (pl. *druwides) meaning "oak-knower". The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots *deru-[14] and *weid- "to see".[15] The sense of "oak-knower" (or "oak-seer") is supported by Pliny the Elder,[11] who in his Natural History considered the word to contain the Greek noun δρύς (drus), "oak-tree"[16] and the Greek suffix -ιδης (-idēs).[17] The modern Irish word for Oak is Dair, which occurs in anglicized placenames like Derry - Doire, and Kildare - Cill Dara (literally the "church of oak"). There are many stories and lore about saints, heroes, and oak trees, and also many local stories and superstitions (called pishogues) about trees in general, which still survive in rural Ireland. Both Irish druí and Welsh dryw could also refer to the wren,[11] possibly connected with an association of that bird with augury bird in Irish and Welsh tradition (see also Wren Day).[11][18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid

Knowing the connection between the oak and the touchwood fungus and the fire and the sun and all the related words, I have to ask a question:

What were the first Drvids actually collecting in August in Oak groves?

This is the Serbian coat of Arms. It is a cross with four fire steels in the shape of the Cyrillic letter s, the first letter of the word Sunce, Sun, Sol, Sur, Swarozić, which were various names for Sun.



This is the same symbol on a battle flag, on one of medieval engraving. This time the cross is made of fire wood and the fire steel are connected with sun emanating fire. You can say this is an explanation of the true meaning of the Serbian cross: the sun's fire:



Here we see the cross made of dry rotten wooden branches from which the bark is falling off, ideal for catching fire, connected with the fire steel. Please note flames emanating from it. This is the Sun fire cross, where fire steel is in the shape of letter S meaning Sunce - Sun.
Please note how much the fire steel resembles a regal crown.



And the last is showing us an actual crown over the fire steel cross, the sun cross, the sun our lord. The regal power comes from the sun and fire. Who knows the secrets of the sun and fire rules.



In Slavic mythology the Sun is the Son of Svarog, the god of heaven. Being the son of Swarog he is Swarožić (pronounced Svarožich) where -ić is Serbian suffix meaning a son of, a descendant of. Swarožić was Slavic god of fire. But Dabog was also the son of Swarog, so Swarožić is Dabog who who is also Hromi Daba who is also Crom Dubh the sun god "God" our Sun. In Christianity, Isus Hrist is the the son of Heavenly Father. Please note that Serbian word for oak is hrast. And that apparently Hrist is supposed to mean teacher. Oak is the symbol of the sun, because oak and fire steel produce fire on earth like sun produces fire in the sky. And oak tree priests, Drvids are teachers. Is Christianity just the old European religion in disguise? Did Christianity develop as an attempt to conquer old European religion by wrapping it in a cloak of Judaisam until it became almost unrecognizable? This is a theme for another discussion.

What is very interesting is that the fire steel being a symbol of the sun is found all over the world, but that the first place it was found was in Starcevo. The first fire steal cross was found in Vinca. Here you can see it in this partial list of Vinca symbols:



And in the same row you can see the transformation between the Serbian cross and the "celtic" cross, fire and light.

Ireland sun cross with four fire steals (letters s), 2000 BC Dublin national museum:



A "celtic" cross with four fire steals (letters s)



The "son" of the heavenly father is in the center. "Sun" Swarozić, the son (sin in Serbian) of the heavenly father Svarog is shining out on the world.



Serbian cross

Need fire

Need-fire, or Wild-fire (Ger. Notfeuer, O. Ger. nodfyr, Scottish Gaelic tein'-éigin), a term used in folklore to denote a curious superstition which survived in the Scottish Highlands until a recent date.
Like the fire-churning still customary in India for kindling the sacrificial fire, the need- or wild-fire is made by the friction of one piece of wood on another, or of a rope upon a stake. Need-fire is a practice of shepherd peoples to ward off disease from their herds and flocks. It is kindled on occasions of special distress, particularly at the outbreak of a murrain, and the cattle are driven through it. Its efficacy is believed to depend on all other fires being extinguished.
The kindling of the need-fire in a village near Quedlinburg was impeded by a night light burning in the parsonage (Heinrich Pröhle, Harzbilder, Leipzig, 1855). According to one account, in the Highlands of Scotland the rule that all common fires must be previously extinguished applied only to the houses situated between the two nearest running streams (Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folklore, p. 53 seq.).
In Bulgaria even smoking during need-fire is forbidden. Two naked men produce the fire by rubbing dry branches together in the forest, and with the flame they light two fires, one on each side of a cross-road haunted by wolves. The cattle are then driven between the two fires, from which glowing embers are taken to rekindle the cold hearths in the houses (A Strauss, Die Bulgaren, p. 198).
In Caithness the men who kindled the need-fire had previously to divest themselves of all metal. In some of the Hebrides the men who made the fire had to be eighty-one in number and all married. In the Halberstadt district in Germany, the rope which was wound round the stake, must be pulled by two chaste boys; while at Wolfenbüttel, contrary to usual custom, it is said that the need-fire had to be struck out of the cold anvil by the smith. In England the need-fire is said to have been lit at Birtley within the last half of the 18th century. The superstition had its origin in the early ideas of the purifying nature of flame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-fire

Please note that the two places in Germany mentioned in the text both fall withing the Slavic territory occupied by Western Slavs Sorbs. In Serbia, the "Live fire" is used for curing animals as well. There is a curious custom that had survived until 1950 near Belgrade:

"A tunnel was dug big enough for cattle to go through. Then a live fire was lit at one of it's ends. The cattle was pushed through the tunnel towards the live fire, where people wold touch every animal that appeared from the tunnel with a burning brunch to protect it from diseases. This is a ceremonial rebirth where both mother Earth and father Sun, in the form of live fire, are invoked"

Force fire

The force-fire (Scottish Gaelic: teine-éiginn, which also translates to Need-fire), or a fire produced by friction, was used in folk magic practice in the Scottish Highlands up until the 19th century. Believers considered it an antidote against bewitching, as well as the plague, murrain and all infectious diseases among cattle. It is also known as In Scotland and elsewhere as Need-fire or Neatsfire from an old word for cattle retained in the name "Neatsfoot oil".
Method[edit source | editbeta]

The Scottish writer Dr. Martin Martin described the force-fire's use. According to him, all the fires in the parish were extinguished and 81 married men, being deemed the proper number for effecting this purpose, took two planks of wood, and nine of them were employed by turns, who by their repeated efforts, rubbed the planks together, till the heat thereof produced fire, and from this forced fire, each family was supplied with a new fire. No sooner was the fire kindled than a pot filled with water was afterwards sprinkled on people who had the plague, or on cattle that had the murrain, and this process was said to be followed invariably by success.
A differing account suggests that if a family believed that they were under evil influence, all fires in the district between two running streams were extinguished on a set day. Then a spinning wheel was put in motion, and kept going furiously until the spindle became heated. Tinder or tow was applied to the hot spindle, fire was thus procured and distributed to all households under the alleged evil influences. In the nineteenth century, fire was thus procured to check witchcraft in a township in Uist where some sickness, supposed to be evil eye had carried off some cows and sheep. It is odd that neither cow nor sheep died after, possibly because the epidemic had exhausted itself.
In 1812, J. Henderson of Caithness described the process:
"In those days [1788], when the stock of any considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of the charm-doctors, to superintend the raising of a need-fire. It was done by friction, thus: upon any small island, where the stream of a river or burn run on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf . . . in which a semicircular, or Highland couple of birch, or other hard wood, was set. . . . A straight pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong trink in the earth or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across horizontally, having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other end in a similar hole in the couple leg. The horizontal stick was called the auger, having four short arms or levers fixed in its centre, to work it by. . . . By constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, and thus the needfire, would be accomplished. The fire in the farmer’s house . . . was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this needfire, both in the farm-house and offices, and the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them from the murrain."

Last occurrences

The force fire was last made in North Uist in about 1829, in the Isle of Arran about 1820, in Helmsdale about 1818 and in Reay in about 1830. It is interesting to note that the breaking of this tradition occurred round about the same time as the Highland Clearances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force-fire

...There were definite customs which were common at all four Quarter Days.
These included such as their being valued as Holy days. The need-fire, or
communal bon-fire was ritually kindled, though on only two of these days were
household fires extinguished and re-lit from the need-fires....

Samhain

...As with all the fire festivals, fires were lit on
the hilltops Samhain. This festival was one of the two when all hearth fires were
extinguished and re-lit from the communal bonfires. The cattle were driven back
from the mountains where they had been sent for the summer. At this time of
their return they were driven between two bonfires to purify and protect them....

Beltaine

...This season ended at Beltaine. Approximately May 1st. Bonfires were lit and the
cattle were set out to pasture in the mountains, driven between the bonfires to
purify them....

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~kthomas/gaelic/gaelic6.htm

Does anyone know of any other parts of Europe where these live fires were lit? So far it seems that the custom is only found in Slavic lands and Ireland and Scotland and north England, the exact places where we see repeated colonisation from south Baltic Western Slavic people, Sorbs.

Ezra

I said:

Does anyone know of any other parts of Europe where these live fires were lit? So far it seems that the custom is only found in Slavic lands and Ireland and Scotland and north England, the exact places where we see repeated colonisation from south Baltic Western Slavic people, Sorbs.

Obviously i am not assuming anything i am stating the extent of my knowledge on the subject. I am asking for more information. Then you say:

It is incorrect to assume that Germanic practices and customs related to the need fire are of Slavic origin.

I don't know who is assuming things here. You are taking an ancient pan European religious practice and calling it "germanic" just because it is found in some "germanic" countries???

This practice of drawing the live fire, is also found in Hittite records from 2000 BC, to it definitely predates any "germanic" practices. The practice is found in all Slavic lands, hardly place where you could find too many "germanic" religious practices.

Here is a picture showing drawing live fire from Serbia:



But there is a particular type of cleaning practice involving living fire, living water and earth, used for cleaning of people and animals which is also recorded in Hittite records and which, to my knowledge is only found in one more place: eastern Serbia, the land of King Trayan with goats ears. It is similar to the cattle cleaning practices from the area around Belgrade, but more complex:

A tunnel was dug big enough for people and cattle to go through. Then a live fire was lit at one of it's ends. The cattle was pushed through the tunnel towards the live fire, where people wold touch every animal that appeared from the tunnel with a burning brunch to protect it from diseases and bad energy. In Hittite records people were greeted at the end of the tunnel by an old woman (baba) and given bread. In Serbia they were greeted by a "babica" and given porridge. The ceremony took place next to the spring so that "live water" would take the rest of the bad energy, sickness and sins away. This is a ceremonial rebirth where both mother Earth and her water and father Sun and his fire, are invoked to clean people and animals.

Remember all the other things we found which exist in British isles, Central Europe and are also found in Hittite records as well? Do you see the pattern emerging???

I am looking forward to reading about this custom in the book you recommended.

The gods Agni and Soma are described in the
Vedas as descending to earth to strengthen the
dominion of their own race, the Devas, who are at
war with their rivals, the Asuras, and to exalt men to
the gods. The story of this great event is variously
told. One of its many versions as relates to Agni,
the god of fire, is that he had hid himself in a cavern
in heaven, and that Mitarisvan, a god, or demigod,
brought him out from it and delivered him to
Manu, the first man, or to Bhrigu, the father of the
mythical family of that name. Mitarisvan is thus a
prototype of Prometheus, and the analogy between
them will appear still closer when we come to see in
what way both were originally believed to have
kindled the heavenly fire which they brought down
to earth. The process was the same as that by
which Indra kindles the lightning, and which is
daily imitated in the Hindu temples in the production
of sacred fire. It is so like churning, that both
operations are designated by the same word.

This is the first chapter i read from your book. Did you actually read it yourself?

Drawing of live fire is an ancient practice. Fire came from Agni, the fire of the sky.

Oganj is the Serbian word meaning fire.

Wiktionary says:

From Proto-Slavic *ognь, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ngʷni-.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oganj

Now have a look which "Indo Europeans" use words related to *h₁ngʷni-:

Balto-Slavic:

Latgalian: guņs
Latvian: uguns
Lithuanian: ugnis
Old Prussian: ugnis
Samogitian: ognis
Slavic: *ognь

Indo-Iranian: *Hagnis

Indo-Aryan:

Sanskrit: अग्नि (agní)
Bengali: আগুন (agun), অগ্নি (ôgni)
Hindi: आग (āg), अग्नि (agní)
Nepali: आगो (Āgō), अग्नि (agni)
Romani: jag
Urdu: آگ (āg), اگنی (agní)

Italic:Latin: ignis (but no any other italic language. Strange and telling)

Hittite: (akniš, “name of a deity”) (could be inherited, borrowed from Indo-Iranian, or unrelated)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/h%E2%82%81ng%CA%B7ni-#Proto-Indo-European

No Germanic languages.

Now have a look who received the fire from Agni: Bhrigu.

Bregians, Phrigians, Frigians, Balkan, south Baltic, British Isles, Asia minor...

Hi Ezra

First, thank you very much for recommending "Curiosities of Indo-European tradition and folk-lore". I am currently reading it, but even the first couple of pages which i have read so far, contained some very interesting pieces of information that i was hoping to find about the ancient fire worship. And they are actually confirming that the origin of the live fire cult is ancient, and it did originate in the Balkans. I will explain what i mean by presenting the excerpts from the "Curiosities of Indo-European tradition and folk-lore" related to the live fire cult, and commenting them. But first i want to answer your first question:

"...you did imply that Slavs influenced German traditions in this respect..."


Yes i did. Slavs lived everywhere east of Jutland peninsula since at least the 5th century CE, which includes the whole of north Germany. They are mentioned in early medieval texts as Wends in Lowlands all the way to Utreht (or Wilteburg as the Slavs called it) which they founded, and in Switzerland and the above Frankish lands. They also lived in southern Scandinavia. Even after anti Slavic crusade of the middle ages, and genocidal 30 years war, the bloodiest war ever fought in Europe which decimated Slavic population of Germany, and all the other wars to date, today north Germany contains significant Western Slavic Sorbian minority.
Let me show you couple of maps which show distribution of Slavic place names in Germany. Today there are no Slavs living in most of these places that they named. Where do you think they have all gone? A lot have been killed and expelled. But, 30% of all German surnames today have Slavic origin. This is according to professor Jürgern Udolph, professor of research at the Institute of Slavic names of the University of Leipzig, who published his findings in the book entitled: "Professor Udolphs Buch der Namen. Woher sie kommen". So maybe Slavs do have some influence on German culture.

Slavic place name north of Germany



Slavic place names Rugian area (detailed)



Slavic place names (blue) and mixed Slavic Germanic place names (yellow) in Bavaria



Slavic place names in Austria



Any ancient custom coming from north of Germany, Bavaria, Lowlands, Switzerland, Austria, and which is also found in all Slavic countries including South Slavic countries is most probably of Slavic origin.

Southern Scandinavia had a very significant Western Slavic population which was completely assimilated over the centuries. But place names and cultural traits as well as historical and archaeological records of their presence there survived. Slavic type houses are found all over Scandinavia and Viking held territories in early medieval time. This is significant proof that Slavic population lived mixed with the Norse population, as Norse lived exclusively in long houses or boat houses. Long houses were held sacred by the Norse. They were their temples as well as their dwellings, so any other type house found in Scandinavia must have belonged to some other cultural or ethnic group. And all the houses which were found in Scandinavia and which were not long houses belonged to one of Slavic house types. Slavic type pottery was also widely distributed in Scandinavia and the viking lands in early medieval times, even though Norse did not know how to make pottery and did not use it. They used soapstone dishes and wooden dishes. This is another archaeological proof of the widespread Slavic presence in Scandinavia. And we also have surviving place names as well as toponimes and hydronimes.

Here are some works that talk about Slavs in Scandinavia:

Danemark

HVOR BOEDE VENDERNE PÅ LOLLAND-FALSTER?

af Friederike W. Housted

I dette oplæg har jeg valgt at behandle den væsentligste del af mit oprindelige stednavnemateriale fra Lolland og Falster. Jeg har undladt de lokaliteter, hvor der kun forekommer et enkelt marknavn af slavisk oprindelse, da jeg primært vil koncentrere mig om de steder på de to øer, hvor der kan registreres en øget slavisk aktivitet i form af bebyggelsesnavne, steder, der er relevante for en arkæologisk undersøgelse og områder, der har flere slaviske stednavne, liggende tæt på hinanden.

Translation of the above paragraph:

In this paper I have chosen to deal with the major part of my original place names material from Lolland and Falster. I failed the localities where there are only a single field name of Slavic origin, as I will mainly concentrate on the locations of the two islands, which can be detected increased Slavic activity in terms of building names, places that are relevant to an archaeological survey and areas that have more Slavic place names, lying close to each other.

http://www.aabne-samlinger.dk/venderprojekt/seminar-stedn.htm

The place names Vindeby and Win Mark [2] and Vindbyholt , Vindeballe , Win Helsinge , Vindelev (at Vejle), Vindeltorp and possibly Vinderød [3] are names given by the Sorbian Danish neighbors.

http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendere


Sweden

Study of West Slavic toponymes in Icelandic sagas:

West Slavic toponyms in Knýtlinga tale from the printer's perspective: orthographic adjustments or spelling errors?

This paper examines orthographic adaptation name of the West Slavic place names in three 16th century manuscripts of Knýtlinga tale, Cod. Holm. 41 4to x , Cod. Holm. 55 fol x , and 222 Lbs fol x . The aim of the work is to theoretically and methodologically contribute to the discussion about names adjustment process and especially in orthographic name customization and to study individual orthographic name adaptation in a particular handwriting materials. The study material consists primarily of those in the selected manuscripts coated place name forms at 39 West Slavic toponyms. Among the survey theoretical and methodological results may include delineation and definition of key terms ( names replication , adaptation name , orthographic name customization , etc.) and the development of specific methodological tools for studying the names adaptation phenomenon in writing, eg sorting out orthographic errors in accordance with a determined principle by comparison of the examined place name forms the so called original shapes , ie the place name forms that are coated in the manuscript preserved specimen. There are 28 orthographic adjustments across 11 of the 39 surveyed toponyms. These adaptations can be divided into four types: formal, semantic, formal-semantic orthographic adaptation name and place name replacement. In all of the studied manuscripts it is possible to trace a clear tendency towards formal adaptation of place names. Adaptation rate varies from printer to printer, but it is possible to observe that most adaptations made ​​by Jón Þórðarson, author Lbs 222 fol x . The main reason for the detected adaptations seem to be in the system constraint, then most original forms of place that becomes adapted the material in different ways contrary to onomastikonet / language system. It turns out that one of the factors in the majority of cases examined contributed to the name finally adjusted, the name's synchronous opacity.


...it would be interesting to determine the etymology of the investigated West Slavic place names in Knýtlinga order to examine their development in the Scandinavian onomastikonet. Such a study could for example show early contacts between Slavs and Scandinavians and provide more information about names adjustment process of areas with interrupted language contact and the name orthographic adaptation.

http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:325732/FULLTEXT01.pdf


You also have to consider the strong and long lasting cultural ties between Swedes, Fins and Russians which streach back to at least early medieval time and probably even earlier:

Present-day Finland belonged to the kingdom of Sweden from the 12th century and was ceded to Russia in 1809, becoming an autonomous Grand Duchy. Swedish was retained as the official language and language of the upper class even after this. When Finnish was accepted as an official language, it gained only legal "equal status" with Swedish, which persists even today.

Typical Russian loanwords are old or very old, thus hard to recognize as such, and concern everyday concepts, e.g. papu "bean", sini "(n.) blue" and pappi "priest". Notably, a few religious words such as Raamattu ("Bible") are borrowed from Russian, which indicates language contact preceding the Swedish era. This is mainly believed to be result of trade with Novgorod from the 9th century on and Russian Orthodox missions in the east in the 13th century. For example, the similarity of the words Hirvas (a male reindeer in Finnish) and Irvas (meaning reindeer in Serbo-Croatian), shows very old contacts between Finno-Ugric and Slavic language families. Hirvas is also a name for Eastern Sámi (Skolt Sámi) village which proposes the eastern origin of the word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language

Forest Finns (Finnish: Metsäsuomalaiset, Norwegian: Skogfinner, Swedish: Skogsfinnar) were Finnish migrants from Savonia and Northern Häme in Finland who settled in forest areas of Sweden Proper and Norway during the late 16th and early-to-mid-17th-centuries, and traditionally pursued slash-and-burn agriculture, a method used for turning forests into farmlands.

Eventually, from the 1620s on, the Forest Finns began settling to Norway. There, they settled in the Eastern counties of Hedmark, Oppland, Akershus, Oslo and Buskerud. The largest concentration of settlements, however, was in the forest-rich eastern part of Hedmark, close to the border of Sweden, in what today is denoted as Finnskogen in Norwegian and Finnskog[arna] in Swedish (literally "Finn Forest"). In this rather remote region the Forest Finns were able to move back and forth between the two countries – the border itself was not properly established until 1751.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Finns

Considering the long ties with Russia, there were probably many Slavic settlers in Sweden and Norway as well. This is attested by the introduction of a Slavic log house which replaced Scandinavian long boat house. This house type was introduced by the Russians into Sweden from where it spread all over Scandinavia. Considering that long boat houses were sacred to the Norse, the only way these log houses could have been introduced into Scandinavia was by the presence of a large Slavic or culturally Slavicised population:

The Slavs in the beginning of the Middle ages settled in the extended territories of Central and Eastern Europe from the Elbe in the west up to the Don in the east and from the coast of the Baltic sea in the north up to Peloponnesus in the south and were differentiated in several dialect-tribal formations.

One of those large formations was Prague-Korchak culture formed on the basis of late Przeworsk antiquities (Southern Poland, Western Ukraine and north-eastern Slovakia). Its main markers are hand-made pottery, square semi-subterranean dwellings with heating devices in a corner and cremation burial rite. From the tribes of this group only the Dulebs are known, who appeared in the 8th - 12th centuries divided and scattered in different pans of its former territory. The S-shaped hair-rings are their ethnographical feature.

Another dialect-tribal formation of the Slavs is represented by Sukow-Dziedzice culture, which have been formed also on the basis of late Przeworsk culture in Central Poland. Its characteristic elements are distinctive hand-made pottery, ground timber buildings and surface cremation burials. In the 7th century a part of Sukow-Dziedzice area was captured by the Slavs of another group - the bearers of Feldberg ceramics. On the territory of Sukow-Dziedzice culture the tribal groups of the Obodrits, the Velets, the Pomoryans and the Polyans have been formed. For all of them the S-shaped hollow hair-rings were common.

http://www.rastko.rs/arheologija/vsedov-slavs_2.html

From the book "Across the western Baltic": Slavic type pit houses in Scandinavia found in pre-Roman iron age and "Vendel" period:

In a Late Viking Age context there are examples of a relatively large rectangular type of pit-house with roof-supporting posts at each gable, posts in the corners and an oven, from a number of excavations in Denmark and Skåne. This type is larger and more regular than the average Viking Age pit-house. It is often suggested that it is a sign of Slavic influence, even though the Slavic rectangular or square shaped pit-houses with a hearth or an oven are rare in Mecklenburg and Vorpommern. Examples dating from the 9th and 10th century are known from Holstein and Niedersachsen, but generally Slavic pit-houses belong in Central Europe (Donat 1980; Brather 2001). In Denmark pit-houses are known from the Late Roman Iron Age, and are seen as an adoption of building methods from northwest Germany. From the 2nd to the 5th century pit-houses are few in number and only found at a very limited number of sites, mostly in southern Jylland and in three Across the western B 240 altic. Jens Ulriksen cases on Fyn. In Skåne, though, there are examples of pit-houses that have been dated to the Pre-Roman Iron Age (Tesch 1992, 186 and 204). This is very early compared to Sjælland or other parts of Denmark, and how they are to be placed into the overall picture of settlement development in southern Scandinavia is unclear. On Sjælland, pit-houses do not appear until the 6th century with the exception of one or two examples, and generally the pit-house is a phenomenon of the Vendel Period and Viking Age. Thus there is no constructional evidence of Slavic settlements north of the Baltic Sea. As a contrast, the Slavic pottery style is present in settlement sites and towns in many parts of Denmark in the 10th to 12th century, suggesting a massive presence of Slavs (fi g. 3). However, it is generally accepted that Baltic ware was adapted and produced by the Danes rather than being the result of large scale migration. Rim shapes and - in particular - decoration north of the Baltic are not as varied as in Mecklenburg and Pommern, indicating that potters in Denmark copied a style rather than being an integral part of the original manufacturing tradition. Characteristic Slavic metal objects dating from this period such as ‘Schläfenringe’ and ‘Gürtelhaken’ are rare in the otherwise plentiful material found with metal detectors in Danish settlement sites. However, knife-sheath mounts (thin sheets of copper alloy) are frequently found (M. Andersen 1988), and hack silver deposits from the turn of the millennium contain bits and pieces of both Scandinavian and Slavic origin...

http://tinyurl.com/muu23a7

Book: "About the Introduction of Joint Timber Building in Scandinavia"

The Swedish log-house or lafting tradition started in Sigtuna in the first half of the 11th century and then spread rapidly in central and north Sweden. The technique were used in part of Danevirke and in a well construction or two during the Viking age in Scandinavia but was not part of the house building tradition until Sigtuna (and Oslo and Tromsö, starting at the same time).
From ca 700 e. Kr. houses and forts were lafted on the Baltic east-coast in today’s Poland, the Baltic’s and Russia and bit later in Ladoga and Novgorod. Wladyslaw Duczko, archaeologist in Uppsala believes that the west-Slavs are an important transmitter for the Scandinavian tradition.

I suggest the reason for the delay was cultural. The Scandinavians readily adopted foreign dress fashion and consumer goods, but not so readily foreign housing. They probably had much of their identity in the houses, especially in their dwellings. The dwelling house shows who is the owner, and for the Vikings an old family was important. So a traditional house could be associated with an old and impressing family. In addition, the dwelling house had a religious dimension and had often sacrifices under the posts. Such things made the housing more conservative than other cultural features. There are theories, expressed by Rapoport, about socio-cultural factors having a considerable impact on house form, and about house form having a considerable degree of constancy due to culturally linked aspects.15 These theories point in the same direction as my suggestion. Towards the end of the 10th century, the cultural difference between the Scandinavian and Slavic peoples decreased. They both—or at least parts of them converted to Christianity, they made political pacts, and the royal families married into each other. All this probably made the Scandinavians more ready to adopt the building tradition from the east. And when they did at last, they made important innovations, and in course of time time they developed a very high-level house building tradition. So the meeting of the cultures was indeed most stimulating.

http://www.karinrosberg.se/jointtimber.pdf

So here again, any ancient custom coming from Scandinavia, and which is also found in all Slavic countries including South Slavic countries, is most probably of Slavic origin.

As for the presence of Slavs in the ancient Gaul and their cultural influence there i will just give you these two links:

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik10/seraf_slavic_gaul.pdf
http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik06/serafimov_celtoslav06.pdf

As for the Slavic presence and influence in the Anglo Saxon lands i will again remind you of the book "The origine of the Anglo Saxon race"

http://archive.org/stream/originofanglosax00shoruoft/originofanglosax00shoruoft_djvu.txt

Here are mentions of Veneti, Wends, Vandals and their equating with Slavs by various sources from Antiquity to medieval times:

Homer (9th century B. C.) records in Iliad[1] the Veneti in Paphlagonia as Enetoi (the Greek did not know the letter v).
Herodotus, historian (5th century B. C.), writes about Illyrian Veneti, about Veneti living around the lower stream of the Danube, and finally about Veneti inhabiting the Northern Adriatic territory.[2]
Polibus (2th century B. C.) added to the description of events during the years 219 to 146 B. C., following: »The land to the Adriatic coast was mastered by another, very old folk, named Veneti ... They speak a different language as the Celts, but what their habbits and their clothing is concearned, they differ from them only slightly /.../ Veneti and Gonomani were persuaded by Roman representatives, to join the Romans«.[3]
Demetrius of Scepsis, grammarian, archeologist (2nd century B. C.), mentions the capital of the Veneti (Enea) in Troas (Asia Minor).[4]
Strabo, historian, geographer (1st century B. C.), designates the (V)eneti in Paphlagonia as the major tribe moving towards Thrace (nowadays territory of Bulgaria) after the fall of Troy (Asia Minor).[5]
Julius Caesar, historian (1st century B. C.), reports about the Veneti living in Gaul (Brittany).[6]
Titus Livy, historian (1st century B. C.), describes how Veneti came up to the coasts of the (northern) Adriatic, also mentioning the river "Timava", which flows through the duskiness of the Škocjan caves (Slovene Ti(e)ma means the darkness).[7]
Pliny the Elder (1st century B. C.) talks about an extensive land, named Eningia, where Sarmatians, Venedi, etc. lived. He also mentions the Venetulani in central Italy.[8]
Tacitus, historian (1st century C. E.), places Veneti on the border of Suebia together with Peucinians, Sarmatians and Fenns.[9]
Ptolemy, geographer (2nd century), mentions exceedingly large nations - the (O)venedi on the whole coastal region of the Venetic gulf (The Baltic sea).[10]
Emperor Julian (4th century) presents evidence of Veneti, who settled in the proximity of Aquilea (Italy).[11]
Jordanes, historian (6th century), notes a numerous nation of Veneti, populating the area between north of Dacia (now Romania) and up to the Visla delta (the Baltic sea). [12]
In Vita s. Columbani[13] (7th century) (the Alpine) Veneti, who call themselves Slavs, are recorded (»termini Venetorum qui et Sclavi dicuntur«).

In the Fredegarius Chronicle (7th century) we can read about the Slavs designated as Vinedi.[14]
Adam of Bremen, chronicler (11th century), mentions an extensive land Sclavania, settled by Winulians, who used to be called Vandals. The land could have been ten times bigger then Sachsen, especially if we include Bohemians (Czechs) and Polians, since they are not distinguishable from each other, nor by their appearance, or by their language.[15]
In Denmark (from latest 12th century and until the year 1972) the title "King of the Vends" (Latin Vandals) was used for enthroning Danish kings.
Helmold, historian (12th century), records a vast Slavic country, where the ancient Vandals are now named Wends or Winulians.[16]
Wincenty Kadłubek / Vincent of Cracow, historian (12th century), affirms that Poles used to be called Vandals.[17]
Heimskringla, the Chronicle of Norwegian kings(12th century) mentions, that the Black Sea »divides three parts of the earth, from which is the eastern part called Asia, whereas the western part is by some called Europe, and by others Enea.«[18]
Miersuae Chronicon (13th century) equates Vandals with Slavs.[19]
Albert Crantz, historian (15th century), reports about Wandals or Wends, and says that they are Slavs, living as a single nation from Poland to Dalmatia. According to him, the mighty acts in France, Spain and Africa are ascribed to the Wends.[20]
Marcin Bielski (16th century) says that Wandals was once the name for Slavs.[21]
The Pomeranian chronicler Thomas Kantzow (1505-1542) writes that the »Slau(v)s and Wandals are the same thing / .../ just like the Germans are called differently - Germani, Teuthones, Alemanni.«: Original text: »Dan Slaui und Wandali ist ein Dinck / .../ gleich wie die Teutzschen werden oft on Unterschied geheissen Germani, Teuthones, Alemanni.«[22]
Christophorum Entzelt von Saluelt (16. century) records ancient populousness of the lands east from the Elbe (Laba) river with Wends. At the same time he equates Veneti and Sclavenes.[23]
Sebastian Münster, cartographer (16th century), mentions a once mighty nation on the East sea (Ostsee) named Vandals or Wends. He also reports on Wandals who settled regions in eastern Germany, where inhabitants are called Sclavs or Wends. Original text: »Mecklenburg-Pommern-Preussen: jtem Brandenburg und was dem Polenland zugelegen, alles Wandali geheißen und ihre Einwohner haben auch Sclaven oder Wenden geheißen.«[24]
Antol Vramec, chronicler (16th century), writes in his chronicle for the year 928 the following: The Heneti, who name themselves Sloveni, were at that time knocked down in Germany.[25]
Adam Bohorič, linguist (16th century), links Heneti, Vene(d)ti, Vinds, Vandals and Slavs together as a single nation.[26]
Mavro Orbin (16th century) numbers Veneti, Vends, Vandals, Illyrians, Sarmatians ... among Slavs.[27]
The Chronicle of Brandenburg (16. century) emphasizes the mighty predecessors of Wends, the Vandals, who sacked Rome and Carthage, and mentions their king Genserich as the king of Vandals.[28]
Johann Weichard Baron von Valvasor, historian, geographer (1689), wrote: »Wends and Sclavenes are one folk, Wandals and Wends one and the same nation.« (»Wenden und Sclaven seynd ein Volk, Wandalen und Wenden einerley Nation.[29]
V. N. Tatiščev, ethnographer (17th -18th century), classifies the Veneti as Slavs, as well as the Vandalic or Vendenic state as the first known Slavic state.[30]
A. L. Schlözer, historian (18th century), defended his thesis about Slavs originating from Illyrians and the Veneti.[31]
Vasilij Trediakovski (18th century) classifies Dalmatians, Serbians, Bulgarians ... among Vandals.[32]
Davorin Trstenjak (19th century) wrote about the ancient Adriatic Veneti, who belonged to a Vindish-Slavic family. He accented their affinity with the Aremoric (Brittany) and Baltic Veneti.[33]
In Helmolts Weltgeschichte (end of the 19th century) it is indicated, that the Veneti, Wends and Winds were actually ancestors of Slovenes, and that they used to settle the old roman provinces Vindelitia, Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia.[34]

I really don't want to go any deeper into this now. I just wanted to show you the extent of the "Slavic" presence in "Germanic" and "Celtic" countries and their potential cultural influence on "Germanic" and "Celtic" cultures.

The reason why i think that we should look for the origin of the live fire cult found in Germanic and Celtic lands in Slavic culture is because the live fire cult is actually Agni cult predating any "Germanic" culture. So this is the answer to your questions 2 and 3. You did suggest that the origin of the cult is Germanic and then you recommend the book which overturns this claim in the first sentence of the paragraph you have recommended:

The gods Agni and Soma are described in the
Vedas as descending to earth to strengthen the
dominion of their own race, the Devas, who are at
war with their rivals, the Asuras, and to exalt men to
the gods. The story of this great event is variously
told. One of its many versions as relates to Agni,
the god of fire, is that he had hid himself in a cavern
in heaven, and that Mitarisvan, a god, or demigod,
brought him out from it and delivered him to
Manu, the first man, or to Bhrigu, the father of the
mythical family of that name. Mitarisvan is thus a
prototype of Prometheus, and the analogy between
them will appear still closer when we come to see in
what way both were originally believed to have
kindled the heavenly fire which they brought down
to earth. The process was the same as that by
which Indra kindles the lightning, and which is
daily imitated in the Hindu temples in the production
of sacred fire. It is so like churning, that both
operations are designated by the same word.

This is why i wandered if you have read the book.

Agni (Sanskrit: अग्नि) is a Hindu deity, one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He is the god of fire[1] and the acceptor of sacrifices. The sacrifices made to Agni go to the deities because Agni is a messenger[2] from and to the other gods. He is ever-young, because the fire is re-lit every day, and also immortal... Agni has three forms: fire, lightning and the Sun...The word agni is Sanskrit for "fire" (noun)...In some Hindu symbolism, Agni's parents are said to be the two components of the firedrill used to start the fire, and when young he was said to be cared for by ten servants, which represent the fingers of the man who is starting the fire...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni

The live fire ceremony is the ceremony performed in celebration of god Agni, the holy fire, the three formed fire, the fire of the sun, the fire of the thunder and the fire of the hearth.

Only people, in whose language Agni, Ogni means fire would have named their god of fire Agni, Ogni. Which people have agni or ogni as the word for fire:

Balto-Slavic:

Latgalian: guņs
Latvian: uguns
Lithuanian: ugnis
Old Prussian: ugnis
Samogitian: ognis
Slavic: *ognь

Indo-Iranian: *Hagnis

Indo-Aryan:

Sanskrit: अग्नि (agní)
Bengali: আগুন (agun), অগ্নি (ôgni)
Hindi: आग (āg), अग्नि (agní)
Nepali: आगो (Āgō), अग्नि (agni)
Romani: jag
Urdu: آگ (āg), اگنی (agní)

Italic:Latin: ignis (but no any other italic language. Strange and telling of the balkan influence on Latin). By the way english ignite is a borrowing from latin and this is why it is not listed here.

Hittite: (akniš, “name of a deity”) (could be inherited, borrowed from Indo-Iranian, or unrelated)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/h%E2%82%81ng%CA%B7ni-#Proto-Indo-European

All these languages come from the lands inhabited mainly by the R1a people, the actual Indo Europeans. What is interesting is that R1a haplogroup most likely evolved in the Balkans. The people of the R1a haplogroup are also the carrier of Indo-Iranian, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic branches of "Indo European" languages, the exact ones that use agni, ogni as word for fire:

Haplogroup R1a probably branched off from R1* around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (19,000 to 26,000 years before present). Little is know for certain about its place of origin. Some think it might have originated in the Balkans or around Pakistan and Northwest India, due to the greater genetic diversity found in these regions. The diversity can be explained by other factors though. The Balkans have been subject to 5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian Steppes, each bringing new varieties of R1a. South Asia has had a much bigger population than any other parts of the world (occasionally equalled by China) for at least 10,000 years, and larger population bring about more genetic diversity. The most likely place of origin of R1a is Central Asia or southern Russia/Siberia.

R1a is thought to have been the dominant haplogroup among the northern and eastern Indo-European speakers who evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Mycenaean Greek, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic branches.

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1a_Y-DNA.shtml
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml#R1a

Haplogroup R1a, Its Subclades and Branches in Europe During the Last 9,000 Years

Igor L. Rozhanskii, Anatole A. Klyosov

ABSTRACT

This study identifies and describes 38 branches of the haplogroup R1a STR haplotypes which currently exist in Europe or which migrated from Europe to areas in the east, south, and southeast between 6000 and 4500 years before the present (ybp). The study is based on 2471 haplotypes which have been tested for either 67- or 111-markers; it essentially creates a unified robust system, which assembles dozens of R1a-SNPs and thousands of STRs and assigned haplotypes to branches, some of which do not have SNP assignments as yet. The assembled system consists of base (deduced ancestral) haplotypes, one for each STR branch and for each SNP-assigned subclade, each with its characteristic (ancestral) set of alleles, arranged in the chronological space from ~ 9000 ybp to 1300 ybp. We found that the most ancient R1a subclades (R1a1-M198- and R1a1a-M198+/M417-) bearers of which currently live in Europe (the present day haplotypes are scattered between England and the Balkans) appeared in Europe at least 7300 ybp, and possibly 9000 ybp. R1a’s three principal downstream subclades, L664 (North-Western branch), Z93 (South-Eastern branch), and Z283 (Eurasian branch), split from their common European ancestor at about the same time, around 7000 - 6000 ybp. L664 apparently stayed in North-Western Europe; its lineage recovered and began expanding ~ 4575 ybp. The Z93 subclade began to expand during the Aryan migrations, on the Aryan's journey to India and the Middle East in the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. The Z283 subclade split ~ 5500 ybp into three branches. One of them, Z280 (the Central Eurasian branch) moved east to the Russian Plain in 4800 - 4600 ybp, and formed at least 16 sub-branches there and in the course of the later westward repopulation of Europe in the 1st millennium BC – 1st millennium CE. Some of the older branches, like the Russian Plain branch, largely stayed in the present Russia-Ukraine-Belarus-Poland- Baltic countries region, and were described by early historians as the Scythians, Antes, Veneti, and a multitude of different proto-Slavic tribes (though many of them belonged to haplogroups other than R1a, primarily I1 and I2). Those R1a branches which are “older” than 3000 years, such as the Russian Plain branch (4600 ybp), the Western Eurasian (4300 ybp), and the Balto-Carpathian (4300 ybp), did not move en mass to Europe but stayed behind at the Russian Plain. In the middle of 1st millennium CE, the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire, multiple migrations of R1a were taking place eastward and westward; these migrations gradually formed the current landscape of R1a in Europe. All 38 branches and their datings are listed in the Appendix of this paper; current distribution maps are shown in the body of the paper.

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=21698

So the most ancient R1a subclades (R1a1-M198- and R1a1a-M198+/M417-) bearers of which currently live in Europe (the present day haplotypes are scattered between England and the Balkans) appeared in Europe at least 7300 ybp, and possibly 9000 ybp.

Knowing this, we can assume that the oldest Slavic languages are west Balkan Slavic languages: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovene. What is interesting though is that up until late middle ages, Slavic language was almost completely homogeneous across huge territories inhabited by Slavic people, showing how conservative the Slavic culture was. Once the unified Slavic language started to split into many local languages, due to Christian missionary involvement and political pressures, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovene stayed the most conservative languages, preserving some of the oldest characteristics of the proto Slavic language:

The Slavic languages are a relatively homogeneous family, compared with other families of Indo-European languages (e.g. Germanic, Romance, and Indo-Iranian). As late as the 10th century AD, the entire Slavic-speaking area still functioned as a single, dialectally differentiated language, termed Common Slavic. Compared with most other Indo-European languages, the Slavic languages are quite conservative, particularly in terms of morphology (the means of inflecting nouns and verbs to indicate grammatical differences). Most Slavic languages have a rich, fusional morphology that conserves much of the inflectional morphology of Proto-Indo-European.[13]

The modern languages vary greatly in the extent to which they preserve this system. On one extreme, Serbo-Croatian preserves the system nearly unchanged (even more so in the conservative Chakavian dialect);

This general process of palatalization did not occur in Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian. As a result, the modern consonant inventory of these languages is nearly identical to the Late Common Slavic inventory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_languages

Here is what some linguists had to say about Slavic languages and in particular Serbian language:

Ami Boue french linguist Stated: ,,... au IX siecle, le slav apparait beucoup plus rapproche que toute autre langue du vieux type indo-europeen."

,,... In IX century The Slav language seems more then any other European language closer to the Indo-European language.

Abel Hovelacque stated: ,,... le latin et le grec sont, en maintes circontances, plus eloignes que le slav de la langue commune indo-europeene..."

,... Latin and Greek in the majority of instances are more distant then Slav in the shared Indo-European languages.
,,... the established fact is concluded that they are the archaic configuration of the Slav language!!!..."

The conclusion of the Great Larousse encyclopedia:

The Slav language seems to be more then any other language closer to the ancient "Indo-European" type"

Georges Dumezil, member of French academy, author of: "Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus ", "Mitra-Varuna", La religion romaine archaique", "Mythe et epopee I, II, III", says:

Georges Dumezil: "Entre la periode de la vie commune (IIIe mollenaire avant J.-C.) et l'apparition des preieres langies europeennes occidentales il y a un hiatus impossible a combler... "

Between the common Indo European epoque (3rd millennium BC), and the emergence of modern Western European languages, there is huge gap which is impossible to fill...

This means that western European languages are not direct descendants of Proto Indo European language, but have acquired Indo European characteristics while mixing with Indo Euroepan languages.

Mejer and Vajan say:

Mejer and Vajan: "... le slave continue sans rupture l'indoeuropeen; on n'y epercoit pas de ces crises brusques qui ont donne au grec, a l'italique (et surtout au latin), au celtique, au germanique leur aspect caracteristique. Le slave est une langue indo-europeen fraconne par un long usage, profondement alterre par beaucoup d'influences, mais qui a conserve un aspect general archaique..."2

1 - A. Meillet, "Le slave commun", Seconde edition revue et augmentee avec le concours de A. Vaillant, Paris, Ed. Honore Champion, 1965., p. 13.

2 - Les races et les langues,Paris, 1893.- "Bibliotheque Scientfique Internationale", p. 170.

Slavic language is an uninterrupted continuation of Indo European language. In it you do not see sudden changes that you see in Greek, Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages which give them their characteristic look and feel. Slavic language is pure Indo European language shaped by a continuous long use and which preserved it's archaic look and feel...

In the introduction we find this:

Mejer and Vajan: "L'unite lingnistique du slave est evidente. Aujourd'hui encore elle apparat partout au premier coup d'oeil; et, si on examine les formes anciennes des langues slaves, les ressemblances sont si grandes, qu'elles approchent souvent de l'identite. PAREILLE UNITE NE COMPORTE QU'UNE EXPLICATION: L'EXISTENCE A UNE CERTAINE DATE D'UNE LANGUE UNE, PARLEE PAR UN PEUPLE AYANT CONSCIENCE DE SON UNITE..."

Linguistic unity of Slavic languages is obvious, and you can see it at a glance. If you investigate and compare old Slavic and modern Slavic languages, the similarities are incredible, making old Slavic and modern Slavic almost identical. This is only possible if we have a homogeneous population, speaking one language over a long period of time while being aware of its own cultural identity.

And on the page 18:

Mejer and Vajan: "... Le ton du slave ... se comportait... comme le ton grec, ou vedique. La langue qui donne le mieux aujourd'hui quelques idees de ce ton,.. est le serbe, avec son accent mobil et ses voyelles longues et breves, les unes toniques, et les autres atones... "

Slavic accent...behaves like Greek or vedic accent. Language which today is capable to give you the best idea about the old vedic accent is Serbian, with its moving accent, and with it's long and short vowels, of which some are accented and some are not...

Andre Lefevre:

Andre Lefevre: "... la culture, relativement moderne des langues slaves, ne les empeche pas de remonter aux plus antiques epoques du parler indo-europeen; leur grammaire est empreinte d'un caractere tout-a-fait archaique..."

Relatively modern culture of the Slavic language does not stop the slavic languages to reach to the most remote epoques of the Indo European language. Slavic gramar carries a very archaic characteristics...

Ami Bue:

Ami Bue: "LE SERBE EST ENVIRON AUX LANGUES SLAVES CE QUE LE LATIN EST AUX LANGUES QUI EN SONT DERIVEES."

Serbian language is for Slavic languages what Latin is for the languages which developped from it...

Surrien Robert:

Surrien Robert:"... les serbes d'illyrie etaient vraiment les plus. anciens des slaves!"

Serbians of Illyria are really the oldest Slavs...

Surrien Robert:"CETTE LANGUE.CETTE NATION, CETTE POESIE PRIMITIVE SLAVE, JE C'TOIS LES AVOIR TROUVE CHEZ LES SERBES D'ILLYRIE."3

If you want to learn about the oldest languages you need to learn Serbian, the oldest Slavic language.

So what we have here is:

The origin of the (R1a) people was in the Balkans at about 1000 BC in the Balkans.

The R1a people are people who speak Indo-Iranian, Mycenaean Greek, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic languages.

Indo-Iranian, Baltic and Slavic languages are languages which use agni ogni as the word for fire.

The current carriers of the oldest R1a genes in the world are Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovene people.

They stil live in the Balkans, they practice live fire ceremony, the live fire ceremony which is dedicated to Agni, the oldest vedic god of fire, who was brought to India from the west with white invaders.

Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovene people still use word Vid for knowledge and sight and ved for knowledge,
science and teaching and all the other vid, ved words i listed in one of my previous posts.

Slavic languages are considered the only European languages derived directly from Vedic Indo European language.

Serbian is the oldest Slavic language.

Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovene people still use these words:

Oganj - fire
Ognji - burns
Ognjište - hearth
Ognjilo - fire steel
Ognjen - fiery

So who do you think is more likely to have invented the live fire ceremony, Slavic people (proto Slavic) or Germanic people (proto Germanic)? You could argue that there are some Germanic people who also have R1a genes and that fire cult is R1a rather than Slavic cultural tradition. But the language argument would be against you. This would actually point to all the Slavic (Indo European) people which have been assimilated by other European peoples....

I will continue my discussion on the live fire ceremony in my next post, where it will become even more obvious where live fire ceremony and indeed the whole fire cult comes from.

Hi Ezra

Look of course I'm aware that agni is the vedic god of fire. I'm pretty sure that I've referred to him earlier in this thread.

No one is saying that you don't know who Agni is.

There is an Irish cognate : aedh, the fire God. Aedh from the sane root as agni which completely dispels your theory.

This just shows that you don't understand what i am saying about Agni. First aedh and agni, ogni are not one and the same. The only similarity between them is that they start with "a" and they are names of gods of fire. Otherwise they are completely different words structured in completely different ways. The main block of the name agni is consonant block gn which does not exist in aedh.
But the most importantly aedh does not mean fire in Gaelic. Agni, Ogni, Ugni, is not just the name of the fire god, it is fire itself. Please read what Agni actually represents in Vedic religion. In all R1a languages agni means fire except in Hittite for which i am not sure:

Balto-Slavic:

Latgalian: guņs
Latvian: uguns
Lithuanian: ugnis
Old Prussian: ugnis
Samogitian: ognis
Slavic: *ognь

Indo-Iranian: *Hagnis

Indo-Aryan:

Sanskrit: अग्नि (agní)
Bengali: আগুন (agun), অগ্নি (ôgni)
Hindi: आग (āg), अग्नि (agní)
Nepali: आगो (Āgō), अग्नि (agni)
Romani: jag
Urdu: آگ (āg), اگنی (agní)

Italic:Latin: ignis (but no any other italic language. Strange and telling of the balkan influence on Latin). By the way english ignite is a borrowing from latin and this is why it is not listed here.

Hittite: (akniš, “name of a deity”) (could be inherited, borrowed from Indo-Iranian, or unrelated)

As i said, only people in whose language agni means fire would name fire god, the fire itself, agni. In Irish word for fire is tine so the god of fire, if there was such deity would be tine. Is there such a deity in the Irish mythology? Aedh, as god of fire could be later borrowing from some other language, as Aedh lacks the meaning of fire in Irish.

I never suggested that these fire ceremonies are Germanic.

This is what you said:

It is incorrect to assume that Germanic practices and customs related to the need fire are of Slavic origin. The mythology surrounding need fires is in all Germanic cultures including Norse mythology and the Freya/fro goddess. There are historical records of need fires in Sweden.

I am trying to prove here that the only way these practices could have entered the "Germanic" culture is through the contact with the R1a population which has been living east of Lowlands all the way to India since at least the Corded ware culture. R1a people (not just Slavic) are the only ones which have agni as word for fire. As the live fire practices are linked to Agni, i assume, maybe wrongly, that they have entered Western Europe from the East with R1a, the same people who use agni as word for fire. R1a according to dubhthach's diagram have been in central Europe since 3500 BC, and did not move from there since. So they had plenty of time to influence all the non R1a popularions (including R1b) with which it came into contact within next 5000 years, and pass onto them the Agni cult. This doesn't mean that the fire cults started with R1a people. They are a lot older and probably come from Vinca. Vinca people were smelting metal at 5000 BC. To smelt metal you need sophisticating knowledge of fire creation and maintenance. This predates any Indo European culture by 2000 years. Even the symbols for fire from Vedas are found in Vinca. I will talk about it more in my next post.

They are Indo European and predate Germanic. I am merely stating that to imply that the Germanic fire rituals are influenced by Slavs on such little evidence is ridiculous...

They are Indo European. The question is who are Indo Europeans, and are R1b Indo Europeans. It is not me who said:

"R1a is thought to have been the dominant haplogroup among the northern and eastern Indo-European speakers who evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Mycenaean Greek, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic branches."

This is quote from Eupedia. It is also not my fault that these are the only people who use agni as word for fire. And it is not my fault that Slavs and Balts, and not Germans are the only European "Indo Europeans" who preserved this word in their languages.

Of course I'm well aware that Germany is full of slavic place names. Many of these are from the past thousand years of European geo politics and have no impact on Germanic mythology i.e. Norse mythology.

This just shows how little you know about Central European history. In the 5th century central Europe, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland was almost exclusively Slavic. Look up any history book. The same language was spoken from Balkan to Baltic. Since then the the number of Slavs in Central Europe has been steadily decreasing. So you can not say that most of the places with Slavic place names have been built in last thousands years.

To be honest I've decided to stop posting on this thread because it's not constructive.

I will be sorry to see you leave. I need someone who can challenge my views. This was the whole point of me posting my notes here. If i didn't want anyone to challenge my views i could just have published everything on a blog.

As i said i welcome comments and expect people to disagree with me, but i don't understand comments like this:

First you deny indo Europeans.

Where did i do that?

Then you claim that Indo Europeans are essentially Slavs

This is not true on so many levels. First it was not me who said it it was Eupedia, and second they said that:

R1a is thought to have been the dominant haplogroup among the northern and eastern Indo-European speakers who evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Mycenaean Greek, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic branches.

You also said that i claim that Slavs are:

apparently not only the ancestors of the Indo Europeans but also their true inheritors.

Slavs are, with other R1a people, the direct ancestors of Indo Europeans. It was not me, but a bunch of western European, non Slavic linguists who said that Slavic languages are the closest to the original Indo European language. I am just quoting what they said. And the reason why i am saying this is to point to the fact that we have, in south Slavic languages, and in south Slavic culture, an excellent tool for investigating Indo European language and culture. The fact that south Slavic languages are the most conservative Indo European languages does not make them better or worse than anyone else. These are just facts. If you are getting angry about the facts you should not be involved in historical research.

And you make huge posts with a myriad of different points which makes it impossible to respond to any point clearly.

Sorry about this. I am just trying to document my claims as well as i can.

To be honest your focus on a folk and race in all of this is slightly disturbing.

Folklore and language are the only repositories which preserved the original, old culture that i am looking for. I use genetics only when it is blatantly obvious what it is showing us, and there is no chance that it would change to contradict itself with new research. The fact that most ancient DNA found so far between Europe and India is R1a and that today most of modern DNA between Europe and India is R1a suggests that we are talking about solid, unbroken, geographic, linguistic, cultural and genetic territory spanning the time from 4th millennium BC to today. This is the exact same territory which was supposed to give birth to Indo Europeans. This is also the same territory which was the land of Scythians who are said to be the ancestors of the Slavs. Again these are the facts. This doesn't make R1a people better or worse than the other.

It is preposterous to claim that any nation today can be equated with the Indo Europeans.

Again not a nation but genetic type, which today spans many nations and cultures in Eurasia.

Furthermore your efforts to claim inheritance rights to these people to a race or group of nations is reminiscent of Hitler and his similar efforts to claim that Germans were the true inheritors of the actual indo Europeans.

I am not claiming any "inheritance rights" for anybody. You are completely wrong. I am pointing at facts and tools. You can use them or ignore them, it is your choice. It is funny that you mention Hitler: person who belonged to a totally non Indo European genetic group (Hitler belonged to Near-Eastern Y-haplogroup E1b1b), managed to turn one Indo European group (Nordics and Germanics) against the other (Slavs) causing deaths of millions of Indo European descendants. I would have actually been funny if it wasn't tragic. This has been happening in Europe since Roman times: Divide the Indo Europeans and Conquer them by using one against the other.
The attitude Hitler had towards the Slavs was: untermensch who did not contribute anything to the European civilization bla bla bla....Even today any mention of Slavs actually being originator of anything in European history is considered preposterous, as we know they are barbarians who crawled out of swamps and destroyed Europe. When someone tries to prove that this is actually not true, and that Slavs were actually important member of the Indo European family, this is labeled racism. You are showing the same attitude.

Can we stop this nonsense please. We can all learn a lot if we stop sticking to old prejudices.

As I've said already your ontology for posting here is to fit facts into your proposition rather than basing your proposition on facts. There really is no point in arguing with people like this-fundamentalists who are never going to abandon their basic dogmatic beliefs but rather deny or pervert any facts which contradict them.

I am not a dogmatic or fundamentalist what ever that means. I am an investigator. I spent a lot of time in science and the way science works is this:

1. you do a lot of research in some field
2. you discover some interesting correlation between some facts
3. based on that correlation you form an idea (a theory) which tries to explain the observed correlation
4. you do lots more research to see if there are other facts that support your theory
5. you read a lot of other researcher's works to see if anyone else had the same theory or if someone actually managed to disprove it
6. if you can't find anything that can disprove your theory you publish it. this makes it widely available to potential critics, and supporters.
7. you also publish all the available data that you have which can support your theory. You also continue to collect the data that supports your theory and continue to publish it
2. you argue your case, and try to defend your theory. Your critics attack your theory and try to disprove it using fact not shouting.

Which is what you seem to have problem with. You would like me to abandon my theory just because you or someone else don't agree with it. Science would not advance much if that was the attitude of scientists....

Aodh is an old Irish word for fire.

Thank you ezra. so Aodh fire - Aodh - fire god (fire personified). I should have checked it.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Aodh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aodh_(given_name)

So can you see what i mean when i say that people give the name to fire gods that means fire in their own language, and why i say that Agni is R1a invention?

I do think however that tine is older than aodh and that aodh could still be borrowing from the east.

In Serbian, "Var", "Vur" means fire, to heat to boil to melt. "Varnica" means spark, "Variti" means to heat up, to cook. "Varivo" is cooked food. "Varenik" is a earthen dish used for cooking. "Varjača" is a wooden spoon used for mixing food while it is cooking. "Variti" means to digest.

vrteti - to spin
vrtilo, vratilo - shaft
vreteno - spindle
vrcati - to extract by spinning, like butter or honey
vrca - rope

trljati - to rub
trati - to rub
trenje - friction
trzati, trgati - to pull with a sudden jerky movement, like pulling a rope that sipns the vrtilo in a fire kindling cerremony.

The word vatra comes from vrtr = vrt + tr = vrteti + trljati = to spin + to rub = to make fire by rubbing one piece of wood against another. Another possible etymology is vrtr = vr + tr = var + trljati = to make fire by rubbing one piece of wood against another. So this word not only has full Serbian etymology, but it contains in itself the description of the oldsest way of making fire.


Have a look at these words meaning furnace:

Africaans: fornace
Albanian: furrën
Arabic: furna
Catalan: forn
Dutch: furnace
English: furnace
French: four
Galician: forno
Greek: foúrnos
Italian: fornace
Latin: fornax
Portuguese: forno
Spanish: horno
Turkish: fırın
Welsh: ffwrnais
Irish: foirnéise

Serbian: peć (furuna, vuruna)
Bosnian: peć (furuna, vuruna)
Croatian: peć (furuna, vuruna)

Belorussian: печ (petch)
Bulgarian: пещ
Czech: pec
Macedonian: печка
Polish: piec
Russian: печь
Slovak: pec
Slovenian: peč
Ukrainian: піч

Danish: ovn
German: Ofen
Icelandic: ofni
Norwegian: ovn
Swedish: ugn


Bengali: Culli
Estonian: ahi
Finnish: tulipesä
Gujarati: Bhaṭhṭhī
Hindi: Bhaṭṭhī
Hungarian: kemence
Latvian: krāsns
Lithuanian: krosnis
Romanian: cuptor

In Serbian word "vuruna", "furuna", Vurnja means furnace.

Here is a picture of vuruna, vurnja:




The word comes from vur, var + u + nj = fire + in + it = furnace.

Vurati means to put wood into the fire.

We have the word Varuna from a root which means to surround, cover or pervade.

http://varuna.org.in/index.php/about-varuna-m/meaning-of-varuna

So in Serbian vuruna actually means that which contains, surrounds the fire. Do we have this kind of etymology for furnace in any other European language?

In Vedic religion, Varuna (Sanskrit Varuṇa वरुण, Malay: Baruna) or Waruna, is a god of the water and of the celestial ocean, as well as a god of law of the under water world....As chief of the Adityas, Varuna has aspects of a solar deity though, when opposed to Mitra (Vedic term for Surya), he is rather associated with the night, and Mitra with the daylight.... Varuna and Mitra are the gods of the societal affairs including the oath, and are often twinned Mitra-Varuna (a dvandva compound)....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varuna

Varuna is the home of the fire on earth, the vuruna, the fire hearth, the furnace, where sun's fire burns during the night and gives us night light. Mitra is the actual Sun, the home of the fire in the sky, that shines during the day and gives us day light.

Mitra and Varuna are two deities (devas) frequently referred to in the ancient Indian scripture of the Rigveda. They are both considered Adityas, or deities connected with the Sun;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitra-Varuna

So Mitra and Varuna are two holders, two homes of fire Agni, two furnaces, the celestial furnace (the sun) and terrestrial furnace (the hearth).

Ezra thank you very very much for helping me. I can see that you care, and i can see that you know a lot. The fact that you question everything i say is great as i need reality check from time to time as everyone else. Plus you know things that i don't so we can cross reference things which always brings up something new and exciting.

I can see that no one noticed how we have complete separation between the Agni and Fire people:

agni people:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/h%E2%82%81ng%CA%B7ni-#Proto-Indo-European

fire people:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/p%C3%A9h%E2%82%82ur#Proto-Indo-European

I find this very interesting.

I can also see that no one answered my question about whether word for furnace means "fire in it, fire within" in any other language that has furnace cognate except Serbian. Let me answer this myself. Here is the list of languages with their words for fire, furnace and in (within):

Africaans: vuur; fornace; in
Albanian: zjarr; furrën; ën
Arabic: hariak; furna; fi
Catalan: foc; forn; en
Dutch: vur; brand; furnace in
English: fire; furnace; in
French: feu; four; dans
Galician: lume, fogo; forno; en
Greek: fotia; foúrnos; entós, se
Italian: fuoco; fornace; dentro, ne, in
Latin: ignis; fornax; intra, in
Portuguese: fogo, incendio; forno; dentro, em
Spanish: fuego, incendio; horno; dentro en
Turkish: yangın, ates; fırın; içinde
Welsh: tân, dan; ffwrnais; mewn, yn
Irish: tine; foirnéise; laistigh de, i

You can see that there is a mismatch between words for fire, furnace and within, in. You get the same mismatch if you look at the word for hearth and compare it with words for fire which are cognate of fire. The only language where vuruna, varuna, vurunj, vurnja, furnace actually means fire within is Serbo Croatian (South Slavic)

var, vur; vuruna, vurunj, vurnja; u nj

Did we here discover a pre Indo European, old Europe, Vinca word cluster, which spread from the Balkans with the Vinca people all the way to India, and which was preserved in Serbian?

I believe we did. And it would be strange if we did not find the old Vinca in the words related to fire. These guys were smelting metal when everyone else was walking around with clubs and stones. 2000 years before anyone else did it. in 6th millennium BC, Serbia must have looked like Mordor to everyone else. Like the land of fire. Just imagine coming from anywhere else and seeing smelting furnaces blazing, smoke gushing, sparks flying everywhere, molten metal pouring out.
This was the place of gods. Fire gods. Agni, Vuruna.

If we look at the life of fire as it is described in Serbian, we notice something interesting:

1. kindling = vrtr, vatra (main word for fire in Serbian) - combination of two verbs in Serbian meaning spin and rub perfectly describing the oldest way of creating heat needed for making fire
2. catching first flame = tinja (tine Irish word for fire, probably pre indo european and probably also coming from vinca) - verb in Serbian meaning to smolder, to catch fire on tinder
3. making the flame bigger, smoldering becomes flame = pir, piriti, raspiriti (the word for fire in lots of languages) - onomatopoeic verb in Serbian meaning to blow into the smoldering ashes to make them into a flame. the sound of blowing "pfffffffffffffiiiiii"
4. adding branches to make fire stronger = grana - branch, gori - burns, gore - up, goreti - to burn, to go up, gorion, gorionik - hearth (Irish word for fire gord and heat gorad (vn. of guirid, goirid))
5. adding logs to make fire last = var, vur, vuriti (the word for stable fire which is now burning logs) - verb in Serbian meaning to ad wood to fire. this is the useful fire and it burns in vuruna. var means to heat, to cook, to burn
6. making fire really strong, like for smelting of funerals and celebrations = ognji (the "Indo European" R1a word for fire) - verb in Serbian meaning roars, burns strongly
7. fire is dying. what is left are hot coals = žari, zari (root word for Ožaris, Ozaris, the shining one) - Serbian verb for shining with heat

All these various words for fire in various languages are verbs describing various stages of the life of fire in Serbian.

If you add to this all the words describing kindling of fire using fire steels and all the other words that are related to fire making and using which we have just started to uncover, and we have a huge connected word cluster which you can find scattered all over the "Indo European" world, but which you can find complete only in South Slavic languages.

This, I believe is very very interesting.

I told you before that Serbian language and culture are very conservative. Village life in Serbia did not change since Vinca time till late 20th century. Most of the implements, tools, furniture, vehicles, clothes found in Vinca archaeological sites, i used or saw being used in my grandparents village when i was a kid in the 70s. And they are still being used. What works, gets used until something better (more practical and cost effective) comes along. The same goes for fire use.

This is vurunj, bread oven, pizza (pita, pitha) oven used in Serbia today. By the way she is actually dressed like vinca woman as well:



Here is the same oven from Vinca:





In my experience, if the implement stays the same, the name stays the same. So here we are looking at Vinca bread oven , still used by vinca descendants who still live in the same place (Serbia) 7000 years later, they use it for the exactly the same purpose and in the exactly same way, and they still use the same word for it vuruna, vurunj.

I think we have arrived, don't you think?

Here are the fire bird stories so you can compare them:

the Russian story:

A king's apple tree bore golden apples, but every night, one was stolen. Guards reported that the Firebird stole them. The king told his two oldest sons that the one who caught the bird would receive half his kingdom and be his heir. They drew lots to see who would be first, but both fell asleep; they tried to claim it had not come, but it had stolen an apple. Finally Ivan Tsarevich, the youngest son, asked to try; his father was reluctant because of his youth but consented. Ivan remained awake the entire time, and upon seeing the bird, tried to catch it by the tail. Unfortunately, Ivan only managed to grasp one feather. The Firebird did not return, but the king longed for the bird. He said that still, whoever caught it would have half his kingdom and be his heir.


The older brothers set out. They came to a stone that said whoever took one road would know hunger and cold; whoever took the second would live, though his horse would die; and whoever took the third would die, though his horse would live. They did not know which way to take, and so took up an idle life.

Ivan begged to be allowed to go until his father yielded. He took the second road, and a wolf ate his horse. He walked until he was exhausted, and the wolf offered to carry him. It brought him to the garden where the firebird was and told him to take it out without its golden cage. The prince went in, but thought it was a great pity not to take the cage, but when he touched it, bells rang, waking everyone, and he was captured. He told his story, and the First King said he could have had it for the asking, but he could be spared now only if he could present the king with the Horse with the Golden Mane.
He met the wolf and admitted to his disobedience. It carried him to the kingdom and stables where he could get the horse and warned him against the golden bridle. Its beauty tempted him, and he touched it, and instruments of brass sounded. He was captured, and the Second King told him that if he had come with the word, he would have given him the horse, but now he would be spared only if he brought him Helen the Beautiful to be his wife.
Ivan went back to the wolf, confessed, and was brought to her castle. The wolf carried her off, but Ivan was able to assuage her fears. Ivan brought her back to the Second King, but wept because they had come to love each other. The wolf turned itself into the form of the princess and had Ivan exchange it for the Horse with the Golden Mane. Ivan and Helen rode off on the Horse. The wolf escaped the king. It reached Ivan and Helen, and Helen rode the horse and Ivan the wolf. Ivan asked the wolf to become like the horse and let him exchange it for the Firebird, so that he could keep the horse as well. The wolf agreed, the exchange was done, and Ivan returned to his own kingdom with Helen, the horse, and the Firebird.
The wolf said its service was done when they returned to where it had eaten Ivan's horse. Ivan dismounted and lamented their parting. They went on for a time and slept. His older brothers found them, killed Ivan, sliced his body to pieces, and told Helen that they would kill her if she would not say that they had fairly won the horse, the firebird, and her. They brought them to their father, and the second son received half the kingdom, and the oldest was to marry Helen.
The Grey Wolf found Ivan's body and caught two fledgling crows that would have eaten it. Their mother pleaded for them, and the wolf sent her to fetch the water of death, which restored the body, and the water of life, which revived him. The wolf carried him to the wedding in time to stop it; the older brothers were made servants or killed by the wolf, but Ivan married Helen and lived happily with her.

the Irish story:

The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener is an Irish fairy tale collected by Patrick Kennedy in Fireside Stories of Ireland. Joseph Jacobs included it in More Celtic Fairy Tales.[1]

A king with one daughter grew old and sick, but the doctors found that the best medicine for him was apples from a tree in his own orchard, outside his window. One night, he saw a bird stealing them. He blamed the gardener for neglecting the orchard, and the gardener promised that his sons, the best archers in the land, would stop the thief. The first night, the oldest son came but fell asleep; the king saw him and the thieving bird again, and though he shouted, the boy did not wake quickly enough. The same thing happened with the second. But the third night, the youngest son stayed awake and shot off a feather, frightening off the bird.
The king admired the feather greatly and said he would marry his daughter to whoever brought him the bird. The gardener's oldest son set out to do it. When a fox came to beg some of his lunch, the son shot an arrow at him. Out of respect for his younger brother, the fox warned him against a merry inn with dancing, and to stay in a quiet inn. The oldest son found the inns, chose the merrier one, and never came out again. Soon after, the second son set out, and ended up the same.
Finally, the youngest set out. He shared his lunch with the fox and stayed in the quiet inn. The next day, the fox told him the bird was at the castle of the King of Spain and carried him there. Then it said that he could go in and carry out the bird and its cage. He went in, but he saw three golden apples with the bird, and a golden cage. He went to put the bird in the golden cage, and it woke. The king gave him the chance for his life: to steal the King of Morocco's bay filly.
The son came out, the fox carried him to that castle, and warned him to not let the horse touch anything except the ground. He went in, and saw a golden saddle; when he put it on the filly, it squealed and woke the castle. The king told him he could have his life and the filly if he brought him Princess Golden Locks, the daughter of the King of Greeks.
The fox carried him to that castle and warned him how to answer when asked a favor. He found the princess and woke her, asking her to let him take her with her, and promising to free her from the King of Morocco. She asked to be able to say goodbye to her father; he refused; she asked to kiss him instead, and the boy agreed, but that woke the king. He said that if the boy removed a great heap of clay, enchanted so that for every shovel thrown away, two came back, he would believe that he could keep her from the king. The boy tried, but the heap grew larger. The fox told him to eat and rest. He confessed to the king and princess his failure, and the princess hoped he did not fail. The king let him take her, though he lamented being alone, as the princess's brother was kept captive by a witch.
The fox carried them to the king of Morocco, and the boy asked to shake hands with the princess before he left. When the king agreed, he carried her off with the bay filly. Then he brought the bay filly to the king of Spain, leaving the princess with the fox, but when the king gave him the bird and the golden apples, first he petted the horse as a fine beast, and when he was done, he had ridden off with both the horse and the bird.
They rescued his brothers, who were begging, and the fox asked the boy to cut off his head and tail. The boy could not do it, but his oldest brother did it for him, and the fox became the prince, the princess's brother. He married the king's daughter, and the gardener's son married his sister.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greek_Princess_and_the_Young_Gardener

The German story:

"The Golden Bird" is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, number 57, about the pursuit of a golden bird by a king's three sons.[1]

Every year, a king's apple tree is robbed of one golden apple during the night. His gardener sets his sons to watch, and though the first two fall asleep, the youngest stays awake and sees that the thief is a golden bird. He tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off.
The feather is so valuable that the king decides he must have the bird. He sends his three sons, one after another, to capture the priceless golden bird. The sons each meet a talking fox, who gives them advice for their quest: to choose a bad inn over a brightly lit and merry one. The first two sons ignore the advice and, in the pleasant inn, abandon their quest.
The third son obeys the fox, but when the fox advises him to take the golden bird in a wooden cage rather than a golden one, he disobeys, and the golden bird rouses the castle, resulting in his capture. He is sent after the golden horse as a condition for sparing his life. The fox advises him to use a wooden saddle rather than a golden one, but he fails again. He is sent after the princess from the golden castle. The fox advises him not to let her say farewell to her parents, but he disobeys, and the princess's father orders him to remove a hill as the price of his life.
The fox removes it, and then, as they set out, he advises the prince how to keep all the things he has won. It then asks the prince to shoot it and cut off its head. When the prince refuses, it warns him against buying gallowsflesh and sitting on the edge of wells.
He finds that his brothers, who have been carousing and living sinfully in the meantime, are to be hanged (on the gallows) and buys their liberty. They find out what he has done. When he sits on a well's edge, they push him in. They take the things and the princess and bring them to their father. However the bird, the horse, and the princess all grieve for the prince. The fox rescues the prince. When he returns to his father's castle dressed in a beggar's cloak, the bird, the horse, and the princess all recognize him as the man who won them, and become cheerful again. His brothers are put to death, and he marries the princess.
Finally, the third son cuts off the fox's head and feet at the creature's request. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess.

In The Golden Blackbird, the king's son set out because the doctors have prescribed the golden blackbird for their ill father. The two older brothers are allured into the inn without any warning, and the youngest meets the talking hare that aids him only after he passes it by. The horse is featured only as a purchase, and he did not have to perform two tasks to win the Porcelain Maiden, the princess figure. Also, the hare is not transformed at the end of the tale.
A similar variant fairy tale of French-Canadian origin is "The Golden Phoenix" collected by Marius Barbeau, and retold by Michael Hornyansky. It follows the hero Petit Jean, the youngest son of the King, who discovers the thief of his father's golden apple to be a golden Phoenix, a legendary bird. Other differences include a battle with 3 mythical beasts, a Sultan's game of hide-and-seek and his marriage with the Sultan's beautiful daughter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bird

the Belgian story: "golden black bird"

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lang/andrew/l26gr/chapter14.html

the Swedish story:

The Bird 'Grip' is a Swedish fairy tale.[1] Andrew Lang included it The Pink Fairy Book.[1] It is Aarne-Thompson type 550, the quest for the golden bird/firebird;

A king lost his sight. An old woman said that the song of the bird, 'Grip', would restore it. The king's eldest son offered to fetch the bird, from where it was kept in a cage by another king; but on his way to fetch the bird, he stayed at a merry inn, where he enjoyed himself so much that he forgot about his journey. His two brothers followed; the second also stayed at the inn, but the youngest said that he had to fetch the bird 'Grip', and continued on instead of remaining at the inn.
He stayed at a house in the woods where he heard shrieks in the night. In the morning, he asked about the shrieks. A girl told him that they came from a dead man, whom the innkeeper had beat and killed for not being able to pay the bill, and whom he refused to bury without the money for the funeral. The prince paid his bill, but was afraid to stay longer, so he asked the girl to help him escape in the night. She told him the host kept the key to the stables under his pillow, but she would help him if he would take her with him. He did so, and got her a place at a good inn before he went on.
The youngest son then met a fox, which told him it could help him. When they got to the castle where the bird was, the fox gave him three grains: one for the guardroom, one for the room with the cage, one for the cage itself. Then he could take the bird, but he must not stroke it. He obeyed with the grains, but when he decided to stroke the bird, it woke and screamed. He was captured. In prison, the fox appeared and told him to answer "Yes" to everything at the trial. He was asked whether he was a master thief and he answered yes. The king offered to pardon him if he carried off the world's most beautiful princess, from the next kingdom.
The fox gave him three grains again: for the guardroom, the princess's chamber, and her bed, and warned him not to kiss the princess, but he failed again at the kiss. Again at the trial, he was asked whether he was a master thief and he answered yes. The king offered to pardon him if he carried off the horse with the four golden shoes, from the next kingdom.
The fox gave him three grains again, for the guardroom, the stable, and the horse's stall, and warned him against the golden saddle, and that this time, the fox would not be able to help him if the boy failed in his task. When the boy saw the saddle, he reached for it, but something struck his arm, and he led out the horse without it. He confessed to the fox, who said that it had been he who had struck his arm. Returning to the princess's castle, he confessed that he would gladly take her to his father's castle on the horse, and so the fox gave him the grains again, and this time he carried the princess off. He asked the fox if he could try the bird again, and this time, he succeeded in catching the bird.
The fox then warned the boy against ransoming anyone with the money. The prince rode on and discovered that his brothers had gone into debt at the inn and were to be hanged. He paid off the debt. His brothers, jealous, threw him into a den of lions and took the bird, the horse, and the princess, threatening to kill her if she did not say they had won them. They told their father that their youngest had been hanged for debt. But the bird did not sing, the horse would let no one in the stall, and the princess wept unceasingly.
In the lions' den, the prince found the fox; the lions did not harm him, and the fox led him out, saying only that sons that would forget their father would also betray their brother. The fox asked him to cut off his head. The prince tried to refuse, but the fox insisted that he would kill the prince if he did not. The prince did, and the fox told him that he was the dead man whose debts he had paid.
The prince disguised himself as a horse-shoer and went to the castle. He put shoes on the horse with four golden shoes, and hearing the bird Grip would not sing, declared that it lacked something and if he could see it, he could learn what it was. He called the bird by name. It began to sing, and caused the princess to smile. The king's sight recovered, and he recognized the horse-shoer as his youngest son. He banished the older sons, but the youngest married the princess and lived happily ever after.

There is also a Scotish Story "How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon" but this story only contains the golden bird and no apples and no three brothers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Ian_Direach_got_the_Blue_Falcon

The Fire Bird story is probably one of the oldest stories ever told and is preserved to this day thanks to these folk stories. It comes from Balkans, the land of giants, who caught fire and then learned how to tame it.

Electric universe

Electric Currents in Space.

An electric current in space plasma is generally known as a Birkeland current, after the Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland who in 1903, first suggested their existence. Birkeland is the founder of experimental astrophysics and the grandfather of plasma physics who is famed for his experiments and expions into the Arctic Circle to study the aurora. More specifically, a Birkeland current exists when charged particles in the current follow magnetic field lines. Thus, they are sometimes referred to as field-aligned currents. Birkeland currents often show filamentary, or twisted “rope-like” magnetic structure and this filamentary structure results from the self-constricting magnetic field lines and current paths that may develop in a plasma. Sometimes those twisted shapes are visible and sometimes not - it depends on the strength of the current density being carried by the plasma. Birkeland currents act as powerlines in space.

In our solar system, evidence of these currents were found in 1979, when the Voyager spacecraft detected an enormous Birkeland current connecting Jupiter and its moon Io. Io acts as an electrical generator as it moves through Jupiter's magnetic field, developing 400,000 volts across its diameter and generating an electric current of 3 million amperes that flows along the magnetic field to the planet's ionosphere.

This large-scale structure in the universe, known as the cosmic web reveal galaxies lie along filaments of matter like pearls on a string, and galaxy clusters arise where filaments meet. An international group of astrophysicists used a computer simulation to recreate how the universe grew and and evolved. The simulation image adjacent is a snatchshot of the present universe that features a large cluster of galaxies (bright yellow) surrounded by thousands of stars, galaxies and dark matter (web).

Electric Currents In Space Generate Electric Galaxies!

Computer simulations can trace the development of spiral galaxies over time as two globs of plasma interact and form a pair of filments that eventually produce the entire range of galaxy types. Since 99.999% of the visible universe is in the form of plasma, these charged particles respond to the laws of electromagnetism and because of their small size, more specifically their charge to mass ratio, their low density in space means that gravity and Newton’s laws have very little influence on describing their behaviour.

The adjacent images from a supercomputer simulation trace the development of spiral structure in two interacting plasma blobs over a span of nearly 1 billion years. At the start of the interaction at upper left the filaments are 260,000 light-years apart; all 10 panels are reproduced at the same scale. Simulations such as this can reproduce the full range of observed spiral galaxy types using electromagnetic processes rather than gravitational ones. — Credit: A. Peratt, Plasma Cosmology, 1992. The sequence is animated here.

Incredibly, when plasma physics reveals the interaction of energy pairs, the familiar Ying Yang symbol from Chinese philosophy, appears. This symbology is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn.

The plasma universe may be eternal and infinite, directly contradicting the Big bang model. In this picture, swirling streams of electrons and ions form filaments that span vast regions of space. Where pairs of these filaments interact the particles gain energy and at narrow “pinch” regions produce the entire range of galaxy types as well as the full spectrum of cosmic electromagnetic radiation. Thus galaxies must lie along filaments, as they are observed to do on a large scale. The bulk of the filaments are optically invisible from a distance, much like the related Birkeland currents that reach from the Sun and cause auroras on Earth. —Credit: A. Peratt, Plasma Cosmology, 1992.

These images from a supercomputer simulation trace the development of spiral structure in two interacting plasma blobs over a span of nearly 1 billion years. At the start of the interaction at upper left the filaments are 260,000 light-years apart; all 10 panels are reproduced at the same scale. Simulations such as this can reproduce the full range of observed spiral galaxy types using electromagnetic processes rather than gravitational ones. — Credit: A. Peratt, Plasma Cosmology, 1992.

http://www.joyfirepublishing.com/Joyfire_Electric_Universe.php

http://www.holoscience.com/wp/electric-galaxies/?article=2m1r5m3b

Electric sun

In this day and age there is no longer any doubt that electrical effects in plasmas play an important role in the phenomena we observe on the Sun. The major properties of the "Electric Sun (ES) model" are as follows:
Most of the space within our galaxy is occupied by plasma (rarefied ionized gas) containing electrons (negative charges) and ionized atoms (positive charges). Every charged particle in the plasma has an electric potential energy (voltage) just as every pebble on a mountain has a mechanical potential energy with respect to sea level. The Sun is at the center of a plasma cell, called the heliosphere, that stretches far out - several times the radius of Pluto. As of 9/9/2012 the radius of this plasma cell has been measured to be greater than 18 billion km or 122 times the distance from the Sun to Earth. These are facts not hypotheses.
The Sun is at a more positive electrical potential (voltage) than is the space plasma surrounding it - probably in the order of several billion volts.
Positive ions leave the Sun and electrons enter the Sun. Both of these flows add to form a net positive current flowing through the Sun (entering at the poles and leaving radially at lower latitudes). This constitutes a plasma discharge analogous in every way (except size) to those that have been observed in electrical plasma laboratories for decades. Because of the Sun's positive charge (voltage), it acts as the anode in a plasma discharge. As such, it exhibits many of the phenomena observed in earthbound plasma laboratory experiments.
The Sun may be powered, not from within itself, but from outside, by the electric (Birkeland) currents that flow in our arm of our galaxy as they do in all galaxies. This possibility - that the Sun may be externally powered by its galactic environment - is the most speculative idea in the ES hypothesis and is always attacked by critics while they completely ignore all the other more obvious properties of the ES model. In the Plasma Universe model, cosmic sized, low-density currents create the galaxies and the stars within those galaxies by the electromagnetic z-pinch effect. It is only a small extrapolation to ask whether these currents remain in place to power those stars. Galactic currents are of low current density, but, because the sizes of the stars are large, the total current (Amperage) is high. An electrically powered Sun's radiated power would be due to the energy delivered by that amperage. As it travels around the galactic center the Sun may come into regions of higher or lower current density and so its output may vary both periodically and randomly.

http://electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
http://www.holoscience.com/wp/twinkle-twinkle-electric-star/

Electric thunder storms





Electric fires:

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.[1]
The flame is the visible portion of the fire. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma.[2] Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the fire's intensity will be different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire

Redox (reduction-oxidation) reactions include all chemical reactions in which atoms have their oxidation state changed—that is, redox reactions involve the transfer of electrons between species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidation

Ions in a candle flame are influenced by a horizontal electric field

http://www.plasma-universe.com/Flame

Intense fires have the power to generate dirty thunderclouds that may be influencing the climate, scientists have discovered.

Like volcanoes, the dirty, fire-induced thunderstorms, or pyrocumulonimbus storms (pyroCbs), can funnel smoke and particulates high into the stratosphere, experts announced Friday at an American Geophysical Union meeting in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. The high-flying smoke palls created by the so-called pyrocumulonimbus storms (pyroCbs) may be having unknown effects on Earth's climate, such as warming or cooling the atmosphere, the scientists added. And the fire-started storms aren't just figments of a climate model. Recent satellite images, for instance, show that the forest fires currently raging in Russia (pictures) are generating several pyrocumulonimbus storms of unprecedented size, according to Michael Fromm, a meteorologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C...The fire-started clouds are abnormal in other ways too. For example, while they can produce thunder and lightning and even tornadoes, pyroCbs rarely, if ever, create rain...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100816-fires-thunderstorms-thunder-clouds-volcanoes-science-weather-russia/



Lightning striking a tree



Lightning caused forest fire USA




Electric water

While it's one of the most important and abundant chemical compounds on Earth, water is still a puzzle to scientists. Much research has been done to uncover the structure of water beyond the H2O scale, which is thought to be responsible for many of water’s unique properties. However, the nature of this structure, governed by hydrogen bonds, is currently unknown.

Wikipedia: Water thread experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_thread_experiment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1JirRaUc8Q8


Electric Fields [Unexpectedly] Move Water Droplets

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/22729

Making Ice at Room Temperature [With Electric Fields]

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/22989

Electric fields create hot ice

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29453

Bouncing charged droplet in a strong electrical field

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iHSbeIwhT8A

Water is primarily a liquid under standard conditions, which is not predicted from its relationship to other analogous hydrides of the oxygen family in the periodic table, which are gases such as hydrogen sulfide. The elements surrounding oxygen in the periodic table, nitrogen, fluorine, phosphorus, sulfur and chlorine, all combine with hydrogen to produce gases under standard conditions. The reason that water forms a liquid is that oxygen is more electronegative than all of these elements with the exception of fluorine. Oxygen attracts electrons much more strongly than hydrogen, resulting in a net positive charge on the hydrogen atoms, and a net negative charge on the oxygen atom. The presence of a charge on each of these atoms gives each water molecule a net dipole moment. Electrical attraction between water molecules due to this dipole pulls individual molecules closer together, making it more difficult to separate the molecules and therefore raising the boiling point. This attraction is known as hydrogen bonding. The molecules of water are constantly moving in relation to each other, and the hydrogen bonds are continually breaking and reforming at timescales faster than 200 femtoseconds.[14] However, this bond is sufficiently strong to create many of the peculiar properties of water, such as those that make it integral to life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water#Electrical_properties

Electric life

Living things emit electricity as well as heat. It may be difficult for you to feel this electricity, because air is an insulator. A conductive environment and special equipment are necessary for this electricity to be felt. Water, a natural conductor, and certain life forms that live in water and use the electrical currents in their bodies are examples of this. A living thing that can detect electricity in water and acts according to that sensation has a very effective sense.

For example, sharks can detect all vibrations in water, changes in water temperature and salinity level, and minute changes in the electrical field set up by moving organisms. In addition, their large number of gel-filled cavities (Lorenzini ampules) are perfect electricity detectors. Along with rough rays, they use these detectors to hunt their prey and can perceive currents as small as one 20 billionth of a volt, a truly glorious ability. Imagine the batteries in an average house. Sharks would be able to detect the current emitted by just two 1.5 volt batteries beneath the sea from a distance of 3,000 km (1,864 miles) away.


All plants and animals, whether single-celled or multicellular, from egg or seed to fully developed organism, possess an electrodynamic ‘life-field’ (L-field) that can be mapped at or close to the surface with appropriate voltmeters and electrodes. Its pattern changes during growth and development, correlating with body plan and organisation, as well as physiological and mental states. However, the source of the L-field is still unknown.

New evidence suggests that the L-field is generated by and embodied in the quantum-coherent liquid crystalline water that makes up 70-90 % of organisms and cells and is essential for life.

Water forms quantum coherent domains at ordinary temperatures and pressures. Within organisms, coherent domains become stabilized as liquid crystalline water on the vast amount of membrane and macromolecular surfaces, effectively aligning the entire body electrically to form a single uniaxial crystal. This liquid crystalline water makes life possible by enabling proteins and nucleic acids to act as quantum molecular machines that transform and transfer energy at close to 100% efficiency. It provides excitation energy to split water in photosynthesis, releasing oxygen for the teaming millions of air-breathing species that colonize the earth, at the same time generating electricity for intercommunication and the redox chemistry that powers the entire biosphere.

Living water is the means, medium and message of life.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Life_is_Water_Electric.php

The cells of most, perhaps all, plants are excitable. Stimuli such as chilling, heating, cutting, touching, electric stimulus or changes in external osmolarity result in action potentials, transient depolarizations of cell membrane which are electrotonically transmitted at rates of 10–40 mm/sec and which resemble primitive nerve action potentials1.

The major conclusion of Bose11,13 was radical. As animals had receptors where stimuli were received, a conductor (the nerve) which electrically propagated the stimulus, and an effector, or terminal motor organ, so too did plants. A stimulus was transmitted electrically to the motor organ, the pulvinus in both Desmodium and Mimosa. The major conduction pathway (established with electric probe) for transmitting the electrical excitation was the phloem. Mechanical stimulation could be mimicked by electrical stimulation. Strong electric stimulus of the pulvinus made Mimosa leaves dip, without mechanical stimulation, and a cut in Desmodium stalk prevented the rhythmic leaf movements, but these were restored by an electric current passing through the pulvinus. Transmission of the response was strongly temperature-dependent and influenced by light-levels. Repeated stimuli meant fatiguing and loss of excitatory response.

http://www.iisc.ernet.in/currsci/jul10/articles33.htm

http://www.inspiringhealth.net/uploads/SitemapImage/cache/1000x1000_4f5678b00a42c.jpg

A typical demonstration used as evidence for the existence of these energy fields involved taking Kirlian photographs of a picked leaf at set intervals. The gradual withering of the leaf was thought to correspond with a decline in the strength of the aura. In some experiments, if a section of a leaf was torn away after the first photograph, a faint image of the missing section would sometimes remain when a second photograph was taken. If the imaging surface is cleaned of contaminants and residual moisture before the second image is taken, then no image of the missing section will appear.[35]
The living aura theory is at least partially repudiated by demonstrating that leaf moisture content has a pronounced effect on the electric discharge coronas; more moisture creates larger, more dynamic corona discharges. As the leaf dehydrates, the coronas will naturally decrease in variability and intensity. As a result, the changing water content of the leaf can affect the so-called Kirlian aura. Kirlian's experiments did not provide evidence for an energy field other than the electric fields produced by chemical processes, and the streaming process of coronal discharges.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography

The L-field is a name proposed by the Yale Professor of Anatomy Harold Saxton Burr[1] for the electromagnetic field of any organism. Burr held that the study of this field offered great promise for medicine since it exhibited measurable qualities that might be used in prognosis of disease, mood and viability. The voltage measurements he used are not in doubt, but his conclusions are at odds with mainstream biology, and have not generally been accepted by the scientific community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Field

Bioelectromagnetics, also known as bioelectromagnetism, is the study of the interaction between electromagnetic fields and biological entities. Areas of study include electrical or electromagnetic fields produced by living cells, tissues or organisms; for example, the cell membrane potential and the electric currents that flow in nerves and muscles, as a result of action potentials. Others include animal navigation utilizing the geomagnetic field; potential effects of man-made sources of electromagnetic fields like mobile phones; and developing new therapies to treat various conditions. The term can also refer to the ability of living cells, tissues, and organisms to produce electrical fields and the response of cells to electromagnetic fields.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectromagnetics