-:- the house of the sky -:-
-:- the miller's tale -:-
home one two three four five six seven eight nine notes
The Miller's Tale is an old story, and one which only just post-dates the Rainmaker in antiquity. As soon as the ancients realised that the Rainmaker brought the rain, it was only a matter of time before they became aware of the Ocean's rising. If even the great giant could be laid low by the flood, then no one could truly escape the World's End. Jews told the story of this particular World's End most magnificently, and it ended in spectacular fashion. We return to the story of Samson. Having had his revenge on the Philistines, he settles at Gaza and marries one Delilah, who betrays him and cuts off all his hair - the attribute that gives him his great strength. He is then blinded and tied to the mill, there to grind out precessional time:
'And Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee"... [But he would not tell]... And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words... so that his soul was vexed unto death. Then he told her all his heart, and said unto her... "If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man."
'And... Delilah...she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines...They came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And she made [Samson] sleep upon her knees, and she shaved off the seven locks of his head... and his strength went from him... The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven.
'Then the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god...and they said "Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy [Samson]"... When their hearts were merry, they said, "Call for Samson, that we may make sport of him". And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and they tortured him: and they set him between the pillars.
And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, "Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them". Now the house was full of... about three thousand men and women... And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines". And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.'
Judges Ch16
This is a fantastic depiction of the House Posts of the sky being torn down to destroy the world. Samson, the Rainmaker Giant pulls down the pillars of the world to bring the sky down on his own head, and the heads of all those under the heavens. The sky rends asunder and slips backwards into the new world. Most importantly, however, in this section of the story is the depiction of the blinded man turning the mill. This, too, is a common image. Wiraqocha in Inca mythology often turned up to offer teachings in the disguise of a blind old man, and on at least one occasion, when he met people who treated him rudely on account of failing to see who he truly was, he set fire to the sky and brought that current world to an end (*7).
In Finnish mythology, the giant god Lemminkainen headed North to recover the the World Mill - called the Sampo - from an old woman who was believed to be a sorceress and who was turning it in order to bring the world to an end. He ended up turning the Sampo, and then unhinging it and casting it into the Ocean. This in turn created the great Whirlpool, into which the excess water of the Ocean flowed, thereby forestalling any further floods (*8).
Old Father Time, turning the World Mill, thereby grinding out time, bringing into creation and continuance the whole world, but by his very actions causing the world to be rent asunder and the sky to flood with Ocean's water. This is an extremely powerful and eternal image, found in every culture where the grinding of corn, or rice, or millet regularly takes place. In India, the image has even been subsumed directly into one of the creation myths of the Hindu religion, known as the Churning of the Ocean of Milk (*9):
'It happened long ago that Indra, king of the gods, was cursed by Shiva, for a slight he put on him. Thenceforward Indra and all the three worlds lost their energy and strength, and all things went to ruin. Then the Asuras ("demons") put forth their strength against the enfeebled gods, so that they fled to Vishnu, the tamer of demons. The gods went along the northern shore of the sea of milk to Vishnu's seat, and prayed his aid. Vishnu smiled and said: "I shall restore your strength. Do now as I command: Cast into the Milky Sea potent herbs, then take Mount Mandara for the churning-stick, the serpent Vasuki for rope, and churn the ocean for the dew of life. Make alliance with the Asuras, and engage to share with them the fruit of your combined labour"
'Thus the gods entered into alliance with the demons, and jointly undertook the churning of the sea of milk. They cast into it potent herbs, they took Mount Mandara for the churning-stick and Vasuki for the rope. The gods took up their station by the serpent's tail, the asuras at its head. Vishnu became a pivot of the mountain as it was whirled around, but he was also seated at the mountain's peak, for he can manifest in all places at once.
'First from the sea rose up the wish-bestowing cow Surabhhi, gladdening the eyes of the gods; then came the goddess Varuni, the deity of wine; then up sprang the Parijata tree of paradise. Then rose the moon, whom Shiva seized and set upon his brow; and then came a draught of deadly poison, and that also Shiva took and drank, lest it should destroy the world. Next came Dhanwantari, holding in his hand a cup of the dew of life, delighting the eyes of the asuras and the gods. Then appeared the goddess Lakshmi. The Milky Sea adorned her with a wreath of unfading flowers. She was betrothed to Vishnu, but the asuras began fighting for her attention.
The angry demons snatched the cup of nectar from Dhanwantari and bore it off. But Vishnu stole away the draught and brought it to the gods, who drank deep from the cup of life. Invigorated thereby, they put the demons to flight and drove them down to Hell, and worshipped Vishnu with rejoicing. The sun shone clear again, the Three Worlds became once more prosperous, and devotion blossomed in the hearts of every creature. Indra, seated upon his throne, composed a hymn of praise for Lakshmi.' (*10)
Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Sister Nivedita
Here then, the World Mill was churned to transform the old dying world into the new fresh one. Rather than the destructive work of Blind Samson the Miller, the Hindu pantheon work together to form a milky ocean of extraordinary creative power, and make themselves immortal in the process. The preceding stories have shown that in ancient beliefs, the archetypal World Mill had powers that lay in both creative and destructive, as well as preservative powers. But in keeping with the astronomical theme of this essay, where might the Mill have been located? From where did Lemminkainen push the Sampo into the Ocean? This particular myth tells us that in order to rescue the Mill from the sorceress, he had to travel to the far north, and it is this clue which gives us the answer.
Since the World Mill represents the agent of the changes caused by the slow precessional movement of the sky, there can only be one location that is suitable, and that would be on the place known as the North Precessional Pole, located in the constellation of Draco, the Dragon (*11).
As the North Celestial Pole (and indeed the South too) traces out its 26,000 year circular track across the sky, it tracks a path which is centred on a point in the sky that does not contain much in the way of bright stars. Draco itself is rather a dim constellation, and it almost seems as if the location of the Mill is an empty space. Here, then, is the Whirlpool, the centre of changes. Across the world it was anciently seen as an entrance to the World of the Gods. Being very high in the Northern Sky - in fact in the circumpolar region of stars that never set throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere - and remembering the undercurrent across many world mythologies that 'north' is 'up' (see Notes *3 and *6), the Mill would have been located in very elevated celestial ground indeed.
In fact, it might be said that the Mill, being the most northward and elevated, was located on the highest mountain of the world, Villca Coto - and again we find another detail of an Incan myth begins to make sense. Similarly, in the Biblical tale of Noah, the Ark finally comes to a rest on the summit of Mount Ararat. And further, in the myth above of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, we find Vishnu seated at the peak of Mount Mandara. In the Samson tale, of course, the mill is in the prison, but the 'world' is torn down from atop the high steps of a raised pagan temple. Each of these images speaks either of the World Mill itself, or Old Father Time the Miller, a deity of extraordinary power. Indeed the Hindu myth makes this explicit: "For he can manifest in all places at once." On the surface, he looks like an old, enfeebled man, but the technical language of myth shows us that he has the power to destroy the world in a flood, set the sky ablaze, churn the infinite Ocean with his Mill and create the world anew.
And so it is finally that we can tell the full story of the Miller. In the earliest times, there was no Miller, since the world was still. There was however, a Rainmaker, but he became a sacrifice when the rains stopped coming. The rains themselves stopped coming because the sky began to flood, and people therefore no longer knew by the stars when the rains were expected. But when the next midwinter came, his soul stepped along the Bridge to the Gods created by the midwinter sunrise and he settled there, in the far North and built himself a Mill. The Miller began to grind out time - people were now aware that time passed in greater cycles than merely a year, a generation or a lifetime, and so they needed him to churn out the aeons. But again, the floodwaters rose in the sky and the mill tumbled into the Ocean. This time, it took all of the Gods to re-create the world again.
(c) Bruce Rimell, June 2005
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