Arianrhod the Welsh Mars
Caer Sidi, the fortress island of Arianrhod at the north pole of Mars
The primary deity in every culture from the creation of mankind around 3700 to 687 BC was Mars, which orbited close to the Earth in a geostationary orbit over the TransHimalayas. It was the Vedic Indra, the Hindu trimurty (Brahma, Vishnu Siva), the Egyptian Horus or Ra and the Chinese Yellow Emperor. There were two Welsh or Celtic deities associated with Mars, Fenris Wolf and Arianrhod. Arianrhod was the Welsh goddess of the ‘whirling stars’. Her name implies a huge, humped, silver wheel – humped because of the distorted shape of Mars – given the epithet ‘dog star’ by the Egyptians (not the star Sirius) and ‘an ugly child’ in the Rg Veda. The wheeling stars are the Welsh counterpart of the circum-polar stars in many other cultures. These were the many volcanoes in the northern hemisphere of Mars, which remained facing the Earth during each encounter. There were so many that the Vedic peoples knew the names of 27 asterisms, like constellations of the stars we have today. Arianrhod was the Welsh goddess of reincarnation because Mars returned to the Earth one hundred times, and each capture was considered a rebirth.
Arianrhod’s realm was Caer Sidi, or ‘revolving castle’, pictured as a great turning island in the north surrounded by the sea. It is also one of the names for the annwn or the Otherworld, which was the land to which the souls of the dead first ascended. This was the solid heaven, paralleling the firmament, or the Egyptian duat, the risen land at the north pole of Mars (which can still be seen in the NASA photograph). Just as the Egyptian Horus and the Vedic Yama-Yami, Arianrhod was responsible for collecting the souls of the dead warriors, and each time Mars was released from its orbit, carrying them to Emania or Moonland – ‘to the stars’. One of Arianrhod sacred animals was the wolf, indeed Fenris Wolf was a Celtic name for Mars which, in addition to being called ‘the dog star’ in Egyptian myth was pictured as the head of Anubis, a clearly dog-like image.
These myths are universal because Mars could be seen from practically every point on Earth. Mars lost all of its oceans, atmosphere and biosphere to the Earth during this period. Meanwhile the astrophysicists of the world today tell us that Mars’ water and atmosphere were lost billions of years ago. Its presence in the heavens only 34,000 km above the surface of the Earth some 2700 years ago makes a mockery of their ‘antiquated’ ideas.
No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated. To sieze the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality. Ellen Glasgow
