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Eel Hill

Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art

Miscellaneous

Regarding Hobs comments on the origins of the name, Eel Hill.
I recently read in Gearoid O Crualaoichs wonderful book, The Book of the Cailleach, that the eel is "an emblematically liminal creature in Irish tradition - part fish, part animal, believed to undergo reincarnation and , on occasion, to speak."
I also discovered this little gem which discusses Iormungand, the world sea serpent also known as the Coiling Eel, daughter of Loki and Angrbod.
" In these myths, we see a hint of the idea of the serpent as a symbol of the mother goddess; a role that Iormungand also performs. A link between the goddess and the serpent can be traced well back into the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. Significantly, images of the snake goddess from this period are often accompanied by coils, zig-zags, and meanders; all symbols of water."
Source
http://shadowlight.gydja.com/iormungand.html

If we stretched the point we could also tie Iormungands symbols into the carvings on the hill and the nearby underground stream.

Then again, Eel Hill just simply be a corruption of a previous name just as the OS have corrupted the name of the nearby gill from Osmonds Gill to Osmiril Gill.
fitzcoraldo Posted by fitzcoraldo
13th March 2006ce
Edited 13th March 2006ce

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