: The Myrmidon connection seems very strong. The Homeric
: Myrmidons are barbaric, almost psychotically addicted
: to war, and their leader is famous for his beauty and
: vanity (though the vanity was directed more toward his
: status and battle prowess.) Also, like the Myth
: Myrmidons, Achilles was offered a choice determining
: how his life would play out, and chose pretty badly
: (as Achilles seems to admit after a while.)
: The Ileum-Ilium connection is also strong, and suggests
: that (as GURPS says) that Ileum was the fortress of
: that ill-fated Leveller.
: Skamandros-->Skamander is VERY likely.
: "Skamander" or "Scamander" is
: actually a common Anglicization or Latinization of
: "Skamandros," just like
: "Telemachus" for "Telemakhos" and
: "Ulysses" for "Odysseus." If you
: read old translations of the Iliad, you'll often see
: the river as "Skamander." It fits well with
: the archaic feel of Myth's English to use this
: version.
Yeah, I like that myself. Interesting language this Bruig is…
: The closest famous classical name to "Tireces"
: is actually "Teiresias," the blind prophet
: most well known from the Oedipus stories and the rest
: of the Theban cycle. AFAIK we've never been able to
: figure out if there actually is a connection, though.
: Someone might have found a closer name in some other
: mythological system.
: Ermine is a word taken directly from the Greek
: "Hyrminos," IIRC. Don't trust me on that,
: though.
Yeah, agreed.
: Rhi'anon is a Celtic name, and Myrgard is (I think)
: simply made up to sound vaguely Nordic. The
: "Gard" ending means "fortress,"
: IIRC; the world was viewed as a series of huge
: fortresses more or less stacked on each other--Asgard,
: Midgard and so forth.
Fortress? Doesn't it make much more sense if it means land or garden or earth? For instance, the translation of "Midgard" that Tolkien gives is "Middle Earth". Also, "heim" in Norse seems to translate as "abode" or "land" as well.
What about "Myr"? This is a very common prefix in a lot of words and names in Myth, as well as some myths: Myrgard, Myrmidons, Myrdred, Myrkridia, etcetera. It doesn't look particularly bad or good. It's also in the TLOTR: Myrkwood. This is directly akin to the Old Norse Myths of Mythvith, a dark and dense wood like Myrkwood, basically the same thing. ("Myrk" seems to mean darkness.)
Wow! What a little dictionary work can do! It seems that "Myr" is very closely related to "Mur", which makes sense since the Ancient Greek 'Y", Upsilon, represented both "y" and "u", and still in German today the 'Y', called Üpsilon, is pronounced like an umlauted 'u' more than a 'y'. Here:
•••
Main Entry: myrrh
Pronunciation: 'm&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English myrre, from Old English, from Latin myrrha, from Greek, of Semitic origin; akin to Arabic murr myrrh
Date: before 12th century
: a yellowish brown to reddish brown aromatic gum resin with a bitter slightly pungent taste obtained from a tree (especially Commiphora abyssinica of the family Burseraceae) of eastern Africa and Arabia; also : a mixture of myrrh and labdanum
•••
They are directly related, it seems. Myr also means a million years, perhaps like an aeon to a billion.
"Myrkridion" is entirely straight-forward. The Old Norse 'myrk' and its English forms all mean dark, cloudy, murky, mirey, and so forth, just like the Myrkridia.
'Myr' itself shouldn't be hard either, as it is a real word with "Myrmidon".
Here is the greatest find: "murre" and other forms seem to be directly related to birds and flight. Remember my theory that Myrgard was related to flight, perhaps settled by Dwarven Paratroopers or some other flying Dwarf organization, and that's why only and all the Myrgardians would have the tatoo of Hammer and Wings, and so it being the symbol for Myrgard in Myth III would work? Well, I thought this would solve the problem of the paratroopers not being the only ones who had the symbol, and it being the symbol of Myrgard. (This was a critical error by MJ! I cannot believe they didn't figure this out! Damn!) Anyway, if Myr means flight or something similar, then that makes sense why the Myrgard symbol has those wings on it, if MJ didn't fix that. "Myrgard" would then translate as "Garden of Flight/Those-that-fly" or "Land of Flight/Those-that-fly". That works out nicely :-).
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