Talk:Balor

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Balor would seem to join the ranks of Belovesus, Belus, and Beltaine in the long line of Celtic chieftains, gods, and feast days associated with the Canaanite god Ba'al.

       >That is, to be polite about it, a stretch, based on nothing but very slight phonetic similarity.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.1.179.109 (talk) 01:33, 24 August 2010 (UTC) 

this guy sounds like either the medusa or perseuses father in law. All demons are Chaotic Evil.

wat86.44.213.173 (talk) 00:09, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Tag Update

I updated the tag since there are some inline citations as opposed to completely lacking. A particular area where this makes the article confusing is in the last paragraph-- Other versions of this myth: Gilgamesh, Osiris, Balder, Danaë, Balor in Ireland, the "May Count" in Sweden, and "it has even penetrated to Uganda, where it is told of a local chief.[2]. Combined with the sentence above appears to make a very broad assertion across numerous cultural mythologies. I don't have the books specifically referenced so I can't clean up much more atm. tyvm Pudge MclameO (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The Slavs and Ossetian {Alans] share a figure identical with Balor

Description of Irish/Welsh God: Balor: "Four men used to lift up the lid of the eye with a (polished) handle which passed through its lid" From “The Second Battle of Moytura”. Yspaddaden: "Where are my pages and my servants? Raise up the forks beneath my two eyebrows which have fallen over my eyes" From “Culhwch ac Olwen”.

Description of Slav God: Vii: ”He had twelve mighty knights summoned and said to them: ‘Take a pitchfork, my lads, and lift up my brows and lashes so that I can take a look at the one who slew my sons-in-law and see what he is like.’” and again “The old man had twelve mighty knights summoned, and he bade them fetch an iron pitchfork and lift up his brows and lashes.” From the Tale of Ivan Bykovich.

“In the archaic traditions of Indo-Iranians, Greeks and Slavs, the wind was considered to be an element of a double nature, connected both with life, as the breath of all living beings, and also with death and suffocation. Taking into consideration such figures as the Indo-Iranian Vãyu/Vayu, the Ossetian demon of death Waejugm some personages from Celtic Folklore and especially the Ukranian folklore monster Vij (see Abaev 1965: 111-115; Ivanov 1971; Pistoso 1974), we can reconstruct the image of the archaic god of wind as the horrible doorkeeper of the world of the death, who will stop the breath of a motral by looking at him. The god’s eyes are, according to some traditions, covered by long eyelashes or eyelids, but when he wants to kill a mortal with his glance, demons will lift his eyelids with large metal forks. In the ancient Iranian tradition we find the motif of sewing up the eyes of the god of death, ‘the evil Vayu’, who can kill a mortal with his glance. These themes in Indo-European mythology offer good clues to the semantics of the image of the god, whose face is hidden behind a kind of grill (or is ‘sewn up’) and whose representation was found in a tomb where the grave goods included ritual forks made of metal.” From “South Asian Archaeology, 1993: proceedings of the twelfth International Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists held in Helsinki University, 5-9 July 1993” Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe. International Conference, European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, Asko Parpola, Petteri Koskikallio.

The Insular Celts and Ossetians also Christianized there story: Irish Saint Silan (from the Leabhar Breacc’s copy of Oingus Calendar): “Silan, i. e. the oratio of every wretched man and of everyone who was in heavy disease. For the desire of them all was to see a (certain) hair of Silan's eyebrow, so that they might die straightway. For the nature of that hair was (such), that whosoever saw it at first in the morning early, died straightway. Now he happened (to come) to Lethglenn. Molaisi went early in the morning round the graveyard. He met Silan of the Hair (coming) towards him. ‘This hair,’ said Molaisi, ‘shall not be killing everyone, it shall be no more’ (said he), plucking it out by force. Then Molaisi died forthwith after seeing the hair.”

Russian Saint Cassian: “Perhaps the strangest of all the saints of the Russian folk was ‘Cassian’ the Unmerciful’ (Kas’ian Nemilostivyi), who in truth, as a number of commentators have noted, belongs properly to the order of harmful, demonic personages. His feast occurred only during leap year, which peasants considered unlucky. Cassian’s day was regarded as so dangerous that peasants ceased all work and often refused to leave the house for fear of the destructive glance of the terrible saint. Narrtatives about Cassian tend to fall into two general categories: those that explain his demonic nature and those that explain the occurrence of his feast during leap year. According to one belief, Cassian sits motionless on a chair with downcast eyebrows that reach his knees, unable to see the world. On February 29, however, he lifes his eyebrows and looks at the world, and anything he glances on withers. …” From "Russian folk belief", Linda J. Ivanits, 1992.

A general summary of Slavic: “The lightning was endowed by ancient fancy with the faculty of sight, and the flash of the summer lightning, when it gleams for a moment across the heavens, and then hides itself behind the dark clouds, is still associated by the people in many places with the winking of an eye. Thus the Little-Russians [Ukrainians] call the summer lightning Morgavka [morgat' = to wink], and say as they look at it, "Morgni, Morgni, Morgavko!" "Wink, wink, Morgavko!" The stories of the Bohemians and Slovaks tell of a giant named Swifteye, whose ardent glances set on fire all that they regard, so that he is compelled to wear a bandage over his eyes; and the Russian stories describe a wondrous Ancient with huge eyebrows and enormously long eyelashes. So abnormal has been their growth, that they have darkened his vision, and when he wishes to gaze upon "God's world," he is obliged to call for a number of powerful assistants, who lift up his eyebrows and eyelashes with iron pitchforks. In Servia he appears in the form of the Vii, a mysterious being, whose glance reduces not only men, but even whole cities, to ashes. Nothing can be concealed from his eyes when they are open, but they are almost always covered by their closely adhering lids, and by his bushy brows. When his eyelids have been lifted by the aid of pitchforks, his stare is as fatal as was that of Medusa. This wielder of baleful regards is supposed to have been one of the many forms under which the popular fancy personified the lightning--his basilisk glance, so rarely seen, being the flash which remains bidden by the clouds, till the time comes for it to make manifest its terrible strength.” From “Songs of the Russian People” by W. R. S. Ralston, 1872

Comparing Lightning: If there is a Russian demon called Morgarko, i.e. the Winker from sheet lightning or summer lightning), then is these a relationship with Balor? For I find that “Balor can be seen to have been an original sun god—with his single bright and ‘baleful’ eye that could destroy any it was turned upon in full force. His name comes from the Celtic Boleros, which in turn may have been connected with a very ancient root *bhel, meaning 'flash.” Is this a flash of lightning as in the Mayo saying in a thunder storm:- “’ Lugh Long-arm's wind is flying in the air tonight ! ' ' Yes, and the sparks of his father ! ' Balor Beimeann, the father, had nine folds of cloth over his evil eye. He was killed by a smith who heated an iron bar and thrust it in Balor's eye before he could lift the ninth fold from the eye.] Form “The festival of Lughnasa” by Máire MacNeill, 1962

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_basis_for_King_Arthur#Sarmatian_hypothesis — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.109.155.100 (talk) 12:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Removal

Other versions of this myth are said to be found in the tales of Gilgamesh, Osiris, Balder and Danaë.

This just isn't in the reference. Only Danae is there quote :

'"This is, of course the old myth of Danae, shut up in the brazen tower, but visited there by Zeus as a shower of gold. She and her son Perseus were committed to the waves in a chet, but rescued."

Even so - there's no stated connection with Balor, and the link is not obvious/tenuous. Balor is not even in the book at all ...

Needs a proper reference if true. 5.198.10.236 (talk)

References

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• 20220925 Balor stamp.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:07, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Pop culture: Warframe

There is a community event in Warframe where a giant assault ship called a "Balor Fomorian" is approaching a player hub world. The community must then defeat it a collective number of times or suffer the consequences of having said hub world destroyed, with only a little hope of ever getting it back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BibsideonStatue (talk • contribs) 12:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Ginevra on Balar

Thank you Wikipedians for your amazing work! I happened to see that someone kindly cited my work on Balar, and I hope you won't mind if I ask that my first name be spelled as Riccardo (with two C's), and that the study the page refers to should rather be cited as follows:

Ginevra, Riccardo, 2020. Gods who Shine through the Millennia: Old Norse Baldr, Celtic Belinos, Old Irish Balar, and PIE *bhelH- ‘be white, shine’. In: Luka Repanšek, Harald Bichlmeier, & Velizar Sadovski (eds.). vácāṃsi miśrā́ kr̥ṇavāvahai. Proceedings of the International Conference of the Society for Indo-European Studies and IWoBA XII, Ljubljana 4–7 June 2019: celebrating one hundred years of Indo-European comparative linguistics at the University of Ljubljana = Akten der Arbeitstagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft und des IWoBA XII vom 4. bis 7. Juni 2019 in Ljubljana aus Anlass der Hundertjahrfeier der dortigen Indogermanistik. Hamburg: Baar, 189–208.

See also my other (most recent) paper on the topic: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zcph-2023-0003/html

Thanks again for the amazing work, RG RGinevra (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

 Done Sorry about the misspelling! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 18:07, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

No worries, thank you so much! RGinevra (talk) 17:05, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

McCone on Balor

Hi, it's R. Ginevra again: perhaps you may also be interested on this recent paper on Balor by Kim McCone, a leading scholar in the field of Old Irish linguistics and philology: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zcph-2022-0003/html?lang=en Thanks again, RG RGinevra (talk) 18:08, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@RGinevra: I've added them both to the top of the page as {{ref ideas}}. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 18:11, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Nice! RGinevra (talk) 17:06, 14 April 2024 (UTC)