The Exile's Bazaar
  • Home
  • About
  • Destinations
  • Book
  • Publications
  • Contact

Notes from a fascinating world.

The world is like a bazaar, full of interesting odds and ends, and I've been exiled into it. This is my all-over-the-map (literally and metaphorically) attempt at capturing some of the world's many wonders.

The Bear-Slayer and the Black Knight

9/2/2019

 
PictureLāčplēsis on a Latvian stamp.
On my second visit to Latvia recently, I was introduced to the Latvian national epic, Lāčplēsis. Written by Andrejs Pumpurs in the late-19th century, the epic poem puts together traditional legends about its eponymous hero, whose name in Latvian means “the bear-slayer.”

I claim no particular knowledge about Latvian history and culture. But what strikes me about Lāčplēsis and to some extent Latvia itself is the sense of contradiction. One contradiction that has fascinated me is linguistic: the Latvian language and its sibling Lithuanian are the two living languages most closely related to Proto-Indo-European. Listen to a Lithuanian or a Latvian speak, and you are hearing the best modern approximation of what the distant pre-historic ancestors of Europeans (and Indians and Iranians and others) might have sounded like thousands of years ago. Yet despite its antiquity, the Latvian language was not attested in written sources until the 16th century.
​
So the tale of Lāčplēsis strikes me with its contradictions. “The Bear-Slayer” is so-called because as a young man, he killed a bear by tearing apart its jaw with his bare hands. But it turns out that in reality Lāčplēsis is half-man and half-bear, his mother having been a bear. And although Lāčplēsis has mostly human features, his ears are those of a bear. In fact, Lāčplēsis derives his great strength from those ears, so that if an enemy cuts them off, then he loses his strength.

PictureLāčplēsis beer.
The resemblance to the Biblical Samson is striking. Samson gets his strength from his hair, and his wife Delilah betrays him and cuts off his hair, so that Samson, captured by the Philistines, eventually kills himself and them by bringing down the building. When Lāčplēsis fights his enemies, the German Crusader knights, the Latvian holy man Kangars betrays the secret of his strength to the Germans, so that his adversary “the Black Knight” cuts off his ears. With his last remaining strength, Lāčplēsis throws himself and the Black Knight into the Daugava River.

And the struggle between Lāčplēsis and the Black Knight seems once again emblematic of this contradiction between the old and the new.
​
Lāčplēsis is Latvia’s national hero, but he is a hero of the past, of the old and primitive Latvia now lost in the mist of time. His semi-beastly nature demonstrates that primitiveness, as though he were a missing link in the evolution of man from our animal cousins. And the symbol of the bear has always represented for Indo-Europeans a kind of elemental and terrifying strength. The English word “berserk” refers to an ancient Viking practice of wearing bearskin in order to assume the strength of the bear.

Picture
Lāčplēsis on the facade of the Latvian parliament building.
(Digression: In many Indo-European languages, the modern words for “bear” are euphemisms, because earlier peoples were afraid to speak the animal’s name. The Latvian word “lācis” means “trampler,” which replaced an earlier name that ancient Latvians dared not speak. The Russian word is “medved,” which means “the honey-seeker,” replacing another old name of terror. And the English word “bear” really means “brown,” another euphemism replacing the lost Old English name, cf., e.g., “Bjørn” in Norwegian and similar words in other Germanic languages. The true Indo-European name for “bear” should be something like “hrtkos,” like “árktos” in ancient Greek, whence the name “Arthur.”)

And in this, Latvia’s national epic written seven centuries after Christianization, the hero is an animalistic pagan fighting on behalf of the old gods, and the villains are the Christian Germans on their “Northern Crusade” wishing to replace them with Christ. Those villains include Bishop Albert, founder of Latvia’s capital city Riga and the man who laid the foundation stone of the cathedral that stands at that city’s center.​

It’s supposed to be the story of a nation. It reads to me also like the story about a soul at war with itself.
Picture
Riga cathedral.

Comments are closed.

    Author

    Writer, traveler, lawyer, dilettante. Failed student of physics. Not altogether distinguished graduate of two Ivy League institutions. Immigrant twice over. "The grand tour is just the inspired man's way of getting home."
    Follow me on Twitter (@W_T_Han) and Instagram (@wthtravel).
    ​https://www.scmp.com/author/william-han

    同是天涯淪落人,
    ​相逢何必曾相識?

    Updates Mondays.

     
    Want to be notified of new posts?
    Get newsletter
    Powered By Constant Contact
     

    Archives

    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016

    Categories

    All
    Afghanistan
    Africa
    Amazon
    America
    Antarctica
    Anthropology
    Archaeology
    Architecture
    Argentina
    Armenia
    Art
    Astronomy
    Books
    Brazil
    Buddhism
    Caribbean
    Caribbeans
    Caucasus
    Central America
    Central Asia
    Chile
    China
    Christianity
    Cinema
    Colombia
    Costa Rica
    Criticism
    Cuba
    Culture
    Easter Island
    Economics
    Ecuador
    England
    Essay
    Ethiopia
    Etymology
    Europe
    Family
    Film
    France
    Goths
    Halloween
    Hinduism
    History
    Huns
    Iceland
    Immigration
    Inca
    Indonesia
    Iran
    Iraq
    Islam
    Japan
    Kenya
    Korea
    Law
    Linguistics
    Literature
    Maldives
    Martial-arts
    Mathematics
    Medicine
    Mexico
    Middle East
    Mongolia
    Mythology
    Nepal
    New Zealand
    Pacific-islands
    Panama
    Persia
    Peru
    Philosophy
    Politics
    Portraits & Encounters
    Portugal
    Psychology
    Race
    Refugees
    Religion
    Rome
    Russia
    Science
    Sherlock Holmes
    Singapore
    South America
    Spain
    Sri Lanka
    Superman
    Syria
    Taiwan
    Television
    Travel
    Travel Advice
    Ukraine
    United States
    USA
    Uzbekistan
    Vaccination
    Voltaire
    Women
    Writing
    Zoroastrianism

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • About
  • Destinations
  • Book
  • Publications
  • Contact