A stone age matriarchal religion being replaced by a patriarchal one in the Bronze Age. In most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the neolithic is directly followed by the Iron Age.

In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 700 BC. Immigration brought new people to the islands from the continent, recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicate that at least some of the immigrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. These Ballaugh hollows are in a porous substratum of gravel, but are close to the margin of the Curragh, and would all be filled with percolating water when that area was a fresh-water lake.

The Norn(s) or the Nornir live beneath the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree at the center of the cosmos, where they weave the tapestry of fates. It is preordained that even the gods have their own threads, though the norns do not let the gods see those. The counterparts of the Norns among the Greeks were the Moirae, known to the Romans as the Parcae. Moirae personified the fates or destiny, one of the Germanic Norns. Nyx ("Night") was also the mother of the Moirae as she was of the Erinyes, in the Orphic tradition.

In Greek mythology, the white-robed Moirae or Moerae (Greek the "Apportioners", often called the Fates) were the personifications of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, "sparing ones", or Fata; also equivalent to the Germanic Norns). The Greek word moira literally means a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death (and beyond). Even the gods feared the Moirae. Zeus himself may be subject to their power, as the Pythian priestess at Delphi once admitted. The three Moirae were Clotho (Nona): who spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle, Lachesis (Decima): measured the thread of life, Atropos (Morta): was the cutter of the thread of life... The Moirae were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. The Greeks variously claimed that they were the daughters of Zeus and the Titaness Themis or of primordial beings like Nyx, Chaos or Ananke. The Moirae existed on the deepest European mythological level.

The Norns (Old Norse: norn, plural: nornir) of Norse mythology are three dísirs by the names of Urd (the past), Verdandi (the being) and Skuld (what is to come). (Skuld was also the name of a Valkyrie.) The counterparts of the Norns among the Greeks were the Moirae, known to the Romans as the Parcae. Thus everything is preordained in the Norse belief system: even the gods have their own threads, though the norns do not let the gods see those. In Macbeth by William Shakespeare, three witches called the Weird Sisters tell the protagonist about his destiny. Weird is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wyrd, which is cognate to urd. The three weird sisters appears to have been a late version of the Norns.

 

 

The Book of Deer is a 10th century Gospel Book, in Latin, Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic, from Old Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is most famous for being the earliest surviving Gaelic literature from Scotland; a 9th century illuminated manuscript, written in Latin, of the Gospel of St. John and parts of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.


  • Gospel of Matthew: 5:15-48; 6:1-32; 7:12-29; 8:1-34; 9:1-38; 10:1,23-42; 11:1-25; 26:70-75; 27:1-19,42-66.
  • Gospel of John: 5:45-47; 6:1-71; 7:1-53; 8:12-59; 9:1-41; 10:1-42; 11:1-47; 12:1-49; 13:11-38; 14:1-31; 15:1-27; 16:1-33; 27:1-26; 28:1-40; 29:1-13.
  • Gospel of Luke 1:1-80; 2:2-52; 3:1-38; 4:1-44; 5:1-39; 6:1-49; 7:1-50; 8:1-56; 9:1-62; 10:1-30; 14:9-35; 15:1-32; 16:1-24; 17:3-37; 18:1-43; 19:1-48; 20:1-47.
  • Gospel of Mark: 1:1-45; 2:1-28; 3:1-35; 4:1-41; 5:1-5; 5-43; 6:1-56; 7:1-37; 8:1-38; 9:1-50; 10:1-52; 11:1-33; 12:1-38; 13:16-29; 14:4-72; 15:1-47; 16:1-12 (+ 16:13-20).


 
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