Alien Space Gods Of Ancient Greece and Rome (44 page)

Cyclopean temples and tombs all over the world show that the Megalithic peoples of the Bronze Age shared the same worship of sun and stars, a cosmic religion taught by the Space Kings later deified as Sky Gods. Those wondrous tales of the Celestials told in the fascinating legends of India, Egypt, Babylon and Greece were surely sung by bards in Ancient Sweden, unfortunately if some Scandinavian poet did pen a 'Mahabharata' or an 'Iliad' no vestige of his verse enlightens posterity.

The Linear scripts of Second Millennium BC Knossos and Mycenae probably encouraged writing in contemporary Scandinavia; the cataclysm depopulating the North about 500 BC completely destroyed the ancient culture, all literature was lost; the runes or phonetic symbols found carved on rocks are believed to originate before the Christian era and evoke the writings of the Greeks or possibly the Celts. The catastrophic changes of climate and vast migrations brought a thousand years of barbarism, a chasm of dark confusion separated people from the past, yet down the centuries the ancient traditions were preserved by scalds not in the sophistication of the Sanskrit epics nor like the lusty Greek legends but in the Eddas, poems of brooding intensity perpetuating the Gods and heroes in Northern twilight, that darksome world of frost and ice.

In times without television which beguiles us today, entertainment during those long winter nights freezing the Northern world was left to the scalds, wandering minstrels welcomed at Court and camp-fire, who sang the ancient lays with wonderful imagery telling of the Heroic Age of the Gods, love and war in Heaven and Earth long ago. Christianity did not dominate Scandinavia until about AD 1000, the Church as in other lands tried to obliterate all pagan traditions, fanatical priests ruthlessly burned heathen records like the Christian Fathers destroyed so much of the literature of Greece and Rome, as centuries later the Jesuits smashed the ancient culture of Mexico. Only a few remnants of Teutonic literature remained, in
England
'Beowulf, in
Germany
the 'Nibelungenlied', dramatised in the operas of Richard Wagner. A legendary history of the Danes, 'Gesta Danorum', source of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', was compiled in about AD 1180 by Saxa Grammaticus, more enlightened than his fellow-priests, who recorded the old stories before they were lost.

The chief collection of the Norse myths are the 'Eddas', a word meaning great grandmother, suggesting the 'old wives' tales. The 'Elder Edda' containing mythical and heroic poems by unknown authors is attributed to Saemund, an Icelandic nobleman about AD 1100. He had studied in
France
and
Germany
and wrote probably in Latin a 'History of the Kings of Norway', since lost. These ancient stories fascinated another Icelandic scholar, Snorri Sturlason, a most picturesque character, a man of many talents, more worthy of the Italian Renaissance than that drab age. He married a wealthy heiress, wrote poetry and history, dabbled in Law and politics, his licentious way of life did not prevent him from becoming President of Iceland in AD 1215 when our own King John was reluctantly signing the Magna Carta, then he went on to Norway as Court Poet.

In 1222, Snorri again became President, made a fortune from the fruits of high office and divorced his first wife to marry another probably younger heiress. Such scandalous conduct aggravated by political intrigue outraged Snorri's kinsmen, he was murdered in 1241 by his son-in-law encouraged by the King of Norway for whom Snorri had once written poetry, a warning to all Poets Laureate. This versatile libertine, loquacious with learning, was surely fitted to discourse on the Gods, he retold those old tales in delightful elegance and wit his work being known as the 'Younger Edda'.

The most ancient records of Celestials visiting India, Egypt and Babylon date only from 1500 BC, Homer and Hesiod lyricised the Gods about 800 BC, the actual events probably occurred many centuries earlier; a farther two thousand years were to elapse before the Eddas expounded the grim mythology of Scandinavia For dark ages despite cataclysms, migrations, wars, which had devastated the Lands of the North, the old Sky Gods still loomed in race- memory dominating the living and the dead with a power Christianity has not eclipsed. Who were these tremendous Cosmic personalities who across the chasms of the past could influence men to sacrifice, whose stern traditions inspired the Vikings to scourge Europe and a thousand years later in grandiose resurrection drove Hitler's Third Reich to crash in Gotterdammerung?

The mythologies of Greece and Rome confirm those chronicles all over the East telling similar Creation stories, glorying in wondrous Beings from the skies, who ruled the world in a Golden Age, mated with the Daughters of Men to sire Heroes, then warred against the Giants spanning the heavens in aerial cars, flashing death-rays, hurling superbombs, slaying fiery dragons, finally as catastrophes convulsed the Earth the Celestials returned to the stars. Country after country relate these common traditions, the names of the Deities differ, in fact the Gods appear the same. legends from
Greece
,
Egypt
and
India
agree that the Sun God worship originated from the North, Apollo associated with a swan probably symbolised an Extraterrestrial in a spaceship.

All peoples personified the Gods in terms of their own national idiom. The Indians extolled 'the Celestials as cultured, warm-blooded Space Kings, the Israelites as a stem, jealous Jehovah, the Greeks as lustful, genial Gods, images coloured by experience and climate. If the Eddas had not been written, if no Teutonic legends survived, we could fabricate the Norse myths merely by transporting the worldwide traditions of the Spacemen into that harsh, foreboding context of the North. Our theory finds empirical proof. When we 'scandinavianise' the ancient stories there crystallizes the fateful, gloomy, ice-cold epic of the Northern Gods.

The Scandinavian Creation legends share the same cosmic wisdom of the Rig Veda, and Genesis suggesting some common source in far Antiquity from a remote civilisation or taught by Spacemen. The Voluspa (Song of the Prophetess) mentions Ginnungap, a vast primordial gulf containing neither energy nor matter only latent potentiality, the Void postulated by our modern Science. The All-Father, the Absolute, brooding in Eternity summoned order from the Chaos creating Space and Time. In the North appeared Nifelheim, a realm of freezing cold and darkness, in the South glowed the radiant Muspelheim, region of fire. Twelve frozen rivers flowed sluggishly southwards, the Almighty breathed a scorching wind which melted the ice to mists, from the vapours resolved Ymer, the Frost Giant, (male principle) and the gigantic cow, Audhumba, (female principle) symbol of generation in India and Egypt.

From the androgyne, Ymer, sprang the race of Giants. The great cow yielded from its udder four streams of milk, cosmic energies, it licked huge icy boulders covered with a mineral salt from which appeared a noble Being of wondrous beauty, Bure, first of the Gods. Bure's son, Bor, married Bestla, daughter of a Giant, from them issued three brothers, Odin, Vili and Ve, suggesting the Sacred Trinity. The Hindus state that the first Brahman married Daintary, daughter of the depraved race of Giants, Genesis recalls how the Sons of God mated with the Daughters of Men, the Greeks tell of the Gods lusting for mortal wenches, the Scandinavian legends surely stress the same familiar story of Spacemen winging down to marry Earth-women.

For ages before Earth was formed fierce war was waged between the Gods (Aesir) and the Giants (Vanir) echoing those Sanskrit tales of conflict between the Celestials and the Asuras, possibly inspiring the Tower of Babel story in Genesis and those world-wide legends of the Giants assaulting the Gods in the skies, suggestive of some ancient Space-war. Finally the Sons of Bor prevailed destroying Ymir, in a deluge of blood from his body the Earth was formed. Odin regulated the course of the sun, moon and stars and decided the climate, such celestial disorder recalls those cataclysms mentioned in world-wide mythologies confirming some cosmic catastrophe convulsing the Earth long ago.

The Aesir built Asgard, a wonderful celestial city of golden and silver palaces, surrounded by a lofty wall with only one great gate entered by the bridge Bifrost (rainbow), in the resplendent centre-hall, Valhalla, sat Odin on a golden throne, joining him in judgment on the nine worlds. To
Valhalla
the Valkyries translated Heroes slain in battle where they caroused and made love like the Faithful of Mohammed feasting with the Houris in
Paradise
. The Celestials in those erotic Sanskrit tales lived in wondrous realms in the sky like Zeus and his Court beyond
Mount
Olympus
, they too gave judgment to men; most so-called Christians today imagine Heaven as a holiday-camp playing eternal bingo.

The Tibetans described Sudarsoma, the City of thirty-three Gods in the skies; this wide-spread conception of a
Celestial
City
peopled by Wondrous Beings who descended to Earth may have originally meant some advanced planet, some of the Spacemen, The Valkyries, Warrior Maidens, recall those seductive Apsaras, who winged down to their lovers in
India
seeking their battles in bed. Below Asgard lay Midgard, the Earth, peopled by the Sons of Bor, parallel to the Golden Age of the Gods in Greek legend. One day by the seashore Odin, Honir and Lodur beheld two trees, from the ash they shaped a man, Ask, from the alder, a fair woman, Embla; it is intriguing to note that the Popul Vuh states the human race was created out of a reed.

Hesiod in '
Theogony
' mentions that men were made from the ash-tree. In Midgard also dwelled a race of dwarf-smiths within the rocks, cunning workers of metal, evoking the Cyclops of  classical mythology and perhaps those Subterraneans alleged to be living inside our Earth today. Beyond Midgard stretched icy Jotunheim, home of the Giants; below brooded Niefelheim, abode of the damned. All Creation was supported by the World-Tree, Ygdrasil, growing from the past through the present into the future, serpents gnawed its roots threatening to kill the Tree and destroy the universe. This mundane Tree, symbol of eternal life, was known to the Tibetans as 'Kampun', to the Hindus as 'Aswatha' and was said in
Egypt
to have been symbolised by the Pyramid, link between Heaven and Earth.

The Babylonians, Greeks, Eskimos and American Indians believed in a World-Tree supporting the sky, origin of our English may-pole. Tree cults featured in ancient religions, this world-wide conception of a Tree or Tower from Earth to Sky leading to a Celestial World, garbled in our own fairy-tale of 'Jack and the Beanstalk', surely originated from, some common source, those far-off days of communication between Earth and Heaven, the 'goings-up' and 'comings-down' mentioned in the Chinese 'Shoo-King', Part Four, Chapter 27, referring to Spacemen.

The twelve Norse Gods lacked the geniality of those twelve Olympians joyously disporting among the Greeks, all seemed obsessed with fate, defeat and death, conscious of inexorable doom; such Teutonic tragedy possibly originated from that cataclysm which once blasted the sunny Northern lands to twilight wilderness. Odin brooded in gloomy loneliness over the follies of men, his somber thoughts were fed by two ravens perched on his shoulders, which flew down to the world to gather news.

In his youth, Odin surrendered an eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom; like the Egyptian God, Thor, he was deeply versed in magic lore and invented the ancient writing called runes, teaching civilisation to mankind. Odin travelled on the wind sometimes winging to Earth as a falcon, he often rode Sleipner a mare with eight legs, evoking the twelve-legged horse of Huschenk whom the peoples of the Caucasus regarded as a wondrous Teacher who built Babylon and Ispahan then flew northwards across the Arctic to a wonderful Continent.

When Odin flashed through the heavens in his celestial car mountains crumbled and Earth blazed, he delighted in suddenly appearing in human form amid battles just as Castor and Pollux were believed to have aided the Romans at Lake Regillus in 498 BC and Athena the Greeks at Marathon, 490 BC; he led the Aesir to crush the Giants assaulting Valhalla driving them back in defeat to Jotunheim. Odin's wonderful spear resembled the staffs of power wielded by magicians. Odin's wife, Helda, was noted for racing her chariot through the sky. Odin was popularly visualised as a venerable figure with a long white beard and a broad-brimmed hat shading his face, symbolism for ancient wisdom; like Zeus he often descended to Earth in disguise bringing aid to men; when recognised he might change his shape or become invisible.