Thank you for these notes, and that's a good point. We have to wade in... a lot of the stuff I was reading about Elen via the psychic questing literature was associating her with deer...
Caroline Wise writes, "Earth Mysteries writer John Michell directed us to the work of the antiquarian writer Harold Bayley, whose inspired yet frustratingly unreferenced books spoke of Elen. Bayley spoke of Elen guardian spirit or lost goddess of London, claiming that London was named for her. He also speaks of Elen as an ancient British Deity associated with those beasts of the huntress-Goddess, the greyhound and the deer. I'd had a dream in which Elen appeared as a shy female dappled fallow deer. I caught a glimpse of this deer through the trees, as a shaft of sunlight filtered through the trees and spotlighted her. And then she was gone. I felt she was teasing me, saying 'catch me' and wanting me to follow, but I knew her traces would be faint.
My friend Chesca, however, kept seeing impressions of Elen as an antlered woman, a vision that would not go away. As a brilliant visionary artist she was able to capture this persistent image. I had no doubt this vision would 'check out'. A friend directed us to a small antlered female figurine in the British Museum, and I found that Elain was Welsh for 'Fawn', and that Jelen was Czech for deer, but the vision was of Elen as female antlered figure, and female deer didn't have antlers.
In 1990, by quite a magical synchronicity, I realised why my friend was seeing a female deer with antlers. The only kind of female deer to have antlers are Reindeer. As I learnt this, things started to tumble into place in my mind at great speed. I could now fix Mascen's dream of Elen more firmly as 'Shamanic' flight, and with the Reindeer as the key, Elen of the Leys led to Shamans further afield. And a colleague form Bulgaria told us shortly after this, that Elen was Bulgarian for Reindeer (I can find no proof of this!). But it seemed significant that not only does the female reindeer have antlers, but she is stronger than the male and does not shed her antlers in winter. It is an older female reindeer that leads the herds."
At the same time I was reading and learning about the different roads here in Cincinnati. A lot of them started off as different animal traces, then Indian or Native American trails, later to become roads when the different regiments and other settlers came in. I connected this to the idea of Elen of the Ways and that image of her with antlers made a lot of sense to me. There was some stuff in the Robert Moss material I studied and his work with Iriquois people talking about females with antlers, so there was another kind of visceral connection.
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branchandroot
Re: Getting to Know Elen and Heseus
Date: 2024-08-19 04:29 pm (UTC)Caroline Wise writes, "Earth Mysteries writer John Michell directed us to the work of the antiquarian writer Harold Bayley, whose inspired yet frustratingly unreferenced books spoke of Elen. Bayley spoke of Elen guardian spirit or lost goddess of London, claiming that London was named for her. He also speaks of Elen as an ancient British Deity associated with those beasts of the huntress-Goddess, the greyhound and the deer. I'd had a dream in which Elen appeared as a shy female dappled fallow deer. I caught a glimpse of this deer through the trees, as a shaft of sunlight filtered through the trees and spotlighted her. And then she was gone. I felt she was teasing me, saying 'catch me' and wanting me to follow, but I knew her traces would be faint.
My friend Chesca, however, kept seeing impressions of Elen as an antlered woman, a vision that would not go away. As a brilliant visionary artist she was able to capture this persistent image. I had no doubt this vision would 'check out'. A friend directed us to a small antlered female figurine in the British Museum, and I found that Elain was Welsh for 'Fawn', and that Jelen was Czech for deer, but the vision was of Elen as female antlered figure, and female deer didn't have antlers.
In 1990, by quite a magical synchronicity, I realised why my friend was seeing a female deer with antlers. The only kind of female deer to have antlers are Reindeer. As I learnt this, things started to tumble into place in my mind at great speed. I could now fix Mascen's dream of Elen more firmly as 'Shamanic' flight, and with the Reindeer as the key, Elen of the Leys led to Shamans further afield. And a colleague form Bulgaria told us shortly after this, that Elen was Bulgarian for Reindeer (I can find no proof of this!). But it seemed significant that not only does the female reindeer have antlers, but she is stronger than the male and does not shed her antlers in winter. It is an older female reindeer that leads the herds."
https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/elen_1.htm
At the same time I was reading and learning about the different roads here in Cincinnati. A lot of them started off as different animal traces, then Indian or Native American trails, later to become roads when the different regiments and other settlers came in. I connected this to the idea of Elen of the Ways and that image of her with antlers made a lot of sense to me. There was some stuff in the Robert Moss material I studied and his work with Iriquois people talking about females with antlers, so there was another kind of visceral connection.
JPM