History Of Labyrinths

Labyrinths have always fascinated people's minds. All the way from ancient Greeks and the labyrinth of the minotaur to the labyrinth of Versailles and English, French and Italian gardens labyrinths and have brought joy and excitement to people's lives. In Scandinavia there are stone circle labyrinths that have been used in shamanic rituals.

Transcript

Today I was thinking that I could talk to you about labyrinths and labyrinth as a symbol.

So I think the first idea of labyrinth comes from ancient Greece and the story of Minotaurs.

Minotaurs is a mythical creature,

A hybrid between a man and a bull.

The story of Minotaurs goes that the king Minos of Crete,

He wanted to sacrifice a bull to honor the god Poseidon.

So he made a pledge for Poseidon to send him a beautiful bull.

Poseidon sent him a white Cretan bull,

But Minos,

He thought the bull was so beautiful creature he did not want to kill it.

He wanted to keep it for himself.

So Poseidon got really mad from this and he cursed the bull and he cursed Minos' wife,

Pasiphae.

So Pasiphae would fell in love with the bull and this created this child,

Minotaurs,

Half man half bull and Minos,

He was outraged and he captured this Minotaurs and he hired a famous architecture,

Daidalos,

To create a labyrinth underneath his palace in Knossos and there he hit the Minotaurs and then the king Minos,

He was not in good terms with the king of Athens,

I choose,

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right,

Because the king of Athens had killed his son,

Antrocheus,

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right either,

And Minos was mad.

It was penalty for the king of Athens to send Minos seven maidens and seven youths from Athens once each year or once in each seventh year or once in each eighth ninth year.

How many possibilities this submit?

So Minos got these sons and daughters of Athens and each once in a year or seventh or ninth year he sent these youth and maidens to the labyrinth where Minotaurs would kill them.

Some of the archers,

The king of Athens,

His name was Theseus,

He volunteered himself to go to the labyrinth and within the labyrinth,

Cretan princess,

Ariane,

The daughter of Minos,

She fell in love with Theseus and she guided Theseus inside the labyrinth with a red thread and inside the labyrinth,

In the heart of the labyrinth,

Theseus killed Minotaurs and he saved the princess and this is really a Greek tragedy.

The whole story of Minotaurs,

In the king of Athens,

Aetius,

He had told his son that he is alive at the task he should pull a white flag to the ship,

The pole of the ship,

And if he is not alive they should pull a black flag there.

Theseus forgot this so his father jumped to the ocean,

Killed himself and he also abandoned princess Ariane,

The island of Naxos and he fled back to Athens and he became the king.

Well I think that is a church deed for everyone else except Theseus.

So that is the mythology behind this labyrinth of the Minotaurs.

This has captured people's minds for thousands and thousands of years.

I think labyrinth is very interesting,

You can find that in many books like Alice in Wonderland there is the labyrinth in the garden and labyrinths in the gardens they were really popular in the 17th century France in Versailles.

When I went to Versailles a few years ago they don't have the labyrinth there anymore I was quite disappointed.

Those were like amusement labyrinths that kind of garden labyrinths where the king or the royal people they could stay somewhere in a tower and watch how people got lost there or give them directions so it's like fun for the people in court.

That was very popular in England and in France in 17th century.

In England you can still find that kind of labyrinth in some gardens.

Then there is the creepy labyrinth in Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire where the labyrinth is really meant to haunt the person.

In a way it's about solving mystery,

Finding the answer and when you get to the middle point that's where you find it so it's like a metaphor for enlightenment.

In Finland and in many parts of Europe you can find these stone formations that are like labyrinths.

You can find them from Finland,

You can find them from Sweden,

Norway,

Iceland,

Northern Russia,

Southern coast Estonia,

Britain,

France,

Germany.

They look like this.

This is from Finland.

In Finnish we call this as jatollin tarha.

Jatolli is an old Finnish word for a giant and people believed that before the Sami people arrived to Lapland and northern Europe it was populated by giants.

However there isn't any historical or archaeological evidence of this that the early people were somehow massively bigger than Sami people so it's just believed to be folklore but that's where they got their names.

People believed that jatolli was the person that built these stone circles and that they had some kind of rituals there and jatollis people thought they were witches and shamans and very evil creatures,

Very oppressive enemies but I think this is something that has mixed up with within the past with different religious views and such.

I think it probably started as a fear for another tribe because in the past there has been many different tribes living in northern Europe and within Lapland.

Different Sami tribes for example meeting with Vikings but even among Vikings there are stories where Sami people were described as giants and from Estonian people the early Estonian tribes there are stories how they describe Finnish to be giants but when it comes to these stone circles that is something I am really really fascinated about this jatollin tarha.

I think it's actually about mystery place the Swedish name for them is jungfrådans,

The virgin dance or dance of the maidens so it's possible that they were used for fertility rites like in Outlander in the that stone circle but these stone circles they are a bit different than like Stonehenge or that kind of massive circles.

This is more smaller and it has a spiral usually it's not necessarily a labyrinth because there isn't any dead ends in these jatollin tarhas.

They are just stone circles and they're spirals quite often and it's really really fascinating and the stones they are like stepping stones you can step on them we don't really know what they stand for and we have about 20 of them in Finland and usually majority of them I think are in northern Finland which is quite interesting there are some in south Finland as well.

It's really hard to say which time period they come from many people think that they come from pre-historical times and maybe even from the times of the earliest populations in Finland.

I personally think that they are related to fertility rites or be even more earlier than that to different shamanistic rites and possibly some kind of rituals that are related to enlightenment or initiation I think that is that has connection to the whole story of Minotaurus as well and a few years ago I was on a field trip with some of my witchy friends and we went to this kind of jatollin tarha and had a ritual there and it was quite interesting but I remember the place was really really beautiful.

The stone formation it was very close to the sea it was built on a beach but not really straight on the beach but to the forest that where you could see the sea or you could hear the sea.

The stones they were about as big as my head you say that and they were like flat stones somewhere bigger than others and some of the stones they had like burning marks,

Oil marks like someone had burnt incense there maybe it was done in shamanistic rituals a couple thousand years ago I don't know and I remember when I went to the middle of this spiral and I looked up there was this tall pine trees and spruce trees there and they all the tops of the trees they created a star pattern or a cross pattern and when you are where straight right in the middle of the spiral I could feel this kind of loop there and it was very empowering experience to stand there and hear that kind of energy going then I've also heard some explanations from different researchers what is the meaning of these stone circles but then again people haven't even found the original labyrinth of minotaurs they have been done lots of digins in Knossos and Minos palace but there isn't evidence of the labyrinth it is very labyrinthic the palace but there isn't evidence of the exact labyrinth or maybe the way we now imagine labyrinth to look like might have been a bit different for the ancient greeks I don't know maybe labyrinth of minotaurs was originally more similar to the labyrinth that we have in northern and in northern europe I do think that they are very connected to initiation and shamanism and magic like when I was standing there I didn't have hard time to imagine some kind of shaman doing a ritual there and people dancing in a in that circle going quite in a certain dance routine following some specific rhythm and in many other countries like in iceland and in sweden these stone formations are connected to writing and they are seeing as castle formations which might be also true so maybe they've been used for war games or something so there is definitely some kind of connection to mystery place and and some kind of magical purpose they had thank you for watching guys I will see you next time bye