Benched Gallows

As it happens, it is easy to provide an account of the benched gallows glyphs in the astronomical scheme I have been sketching in recent posts. 

I have avoided doing so for the sake of clarifying the unbenched or standard gallow forms as markers for quarters of the year. 

To reiterate, they mark the quarters of the year as follows:

[t] = winter solstice

[k] = summer solstice

[p] = spring equinox

[f] = autumn equinox

But as other researchers rightly point out, there is a system of eight gallows glyphs operating in the text, because the gallows are found “benched” as [cth], [ckh], [cph] and [cfh]. 

The EVA transcription underlines the visually obvious fact that the benched glyphs appear to combine the gallows glyphs with the glyph [ch]. 

Here I will just place them within my proposed system, without much further analysis. 

I propose they represent the mid-quarters or the half-quarters of the year, the midpoints between the solstice and the equinox, and their other associations follow from that.

* * *

As I have noted many moons ago, there is a tension in the manuscript – evident in the cosmological illustrations – between the EIGHT and the TWELVE. 

We can divide the year into the twelve zodiacal months, or we can divide it into eighths (among other divisions). 

To make the zodiacal months we divide the time between solstice and equinox by three.

But that same time can be bifurcated and divided into two halves instead. 

As we know, the half-quarter days were marked for celebration in many European cultures – notably the Celts – and are also marked with suitable Christian feasts. 

In modern times, neopagans have consolidated these festivals into an ‘Eightfold Wheel’ which is syncretic and ahistorical. It is unlikely there was ever a widespread system of eight festivals.  

But it remains true that one or more of these eight were marked in pagan and Christian calendars across Europe, and beyond, with the half-quarter days, as well as the solstices and equinoxes, regarded as important or sacred. 

Beltane is the best known of these festivals. 

But quite aside from festivals, the midpoints between the solstice and equinox have an important astrological significance, in the first instance.

They mark the fixed or kerubic signs, and in this way they make the ELEMENTAL CROSS. 

Taurus = Earth

Leo = Fire

Scorpio = Water

Aquarius = Air

These are the four creatures, Bull, Lion, Eagle and Man, assimiliated into Christian symbolism as the four Gospel writers. 

The half-quarter days represent the fixed forms of the four elements.

Festivals on these days are typically elemental in character. Beltane is conspicuously a fire festival. 

So when we speak of the four half-quarter days we are also speaking of the four elements. 

Not the celestial roots of the elements, but the elements manifest. 

The roots of fire are in the Spring Equinox, Aries, but the manifestation of fire in the cosmos – the point at which it is FIXED – is, in astrological theory, Leo. Leo is the fixed form of fire. 

The elements have their roots in the cardinal signs, are fixed (made manifest) in the fixed signs, and are dispersed in the mutable signs.

To mark the fixed signs is to draw the elemental cross. 

The eight and the twelve are a unified symbolism. 

Here is the full symbolism of the zodiac set out:

I propose, therefore, that this is the relevant symbolism of the benched gallows glyphs. 

They represent the half-quarters of the year, and therefore, they represent the four elements. 

The distinction between the gallows glyphs and the benched gallows is the distinction between the cardinal signs of the zodiac and the fixed signs. 

The elemental correspondences are thus:

[cth] = earth

[ckh] = water

[cph] = fire

[cfh] = air

* * *

By my account, the benched gallows are part of a sequence of morphological transformations, thus:

In the following diagrams the sequence is stepped out according to the system I have been exploring:

R.B.