While I maintain that the nymphs of the King Laurin myths are the basis for the portrayal of the mountain/water nymphs in the Voynich ms. – a Hellenized version of motifs from indigenous nymph mythology of alpine northern Italy – there is another, and better, account of the rings held by some of the nymphs.
It is the simpler account.
Namely, the rings are spinning whorls.
This symbolism follows if we identify the instrument being held by the nymph at the top left of the page as a spindle.
It is awkwardly drawn, but it is a reasonable identification, and far better than many.
Here is a medieval style spindle and whorl:
The nymph at the top of the page f80v is holding a spindle and whorl.
The rings held by some of the nymphs, then, would be spinning whorls, on a natural reading.
There is thus no need to suppose they are exaggerated wedding rings, or magical rings to protect asgainst malevolent chthonic powers, or that they have theological meanings: they are spinning whorls.
To put this in further context, we should notice that the image on a previous page, f79v, is made according to the same pattern and presents an intended contrast.
On that page, rather than a nymph holding a spinning whorl, we see a nymph holding a Latin Cross in the same gesture.
The parallel then is:
Crucifix = Spindle
In the case of the crucifix, examples abound. We need only think of the crucifix atop a globe – the Cross of Christ as the axis upon which the whole world turns.
In the case of the spindle, the Classical model is from Plato: the Spindle of Necessity (in the Myth of Er, in the Republic) where the spindle (and whorls) are a model of the geocentric heavens turning on the axis of the poles.
In the Voynich, we are given the Christian symbolism – the nymph with the Cross.
And then we are given the Hellenic symbolism – the nymph with the Spindle.
The Cross and the Spindle are interchangeable inasmuch as they are axial.
It is surely a Humanist gesture to identify them: Christian and Pagan Hellenic images with a shared symbolism.
And in this move the nymphs are at least nominally Christianized.
* * *
To extend the axial symbolism, by my reading both of these nymphs are depicted at the top of mountains.
Both images are hydrological and meteorological. We see the nymphs amidst rainclouds at the peak of mountains.
The pinnacle of mountains are also axial, according to the same parallelisms. A mountain peak is also symbolic of the axis upon which the world turns.
This images, then, need to be understood in terms of such basic axial symbolism. These particular nymphs attend the AXIS.
The symbolism is cosmological. The COSMIC AXIS.
The whorls, in this symbolism – explicit in Plato – are the various wheels of the cosmos – the paths of the planets and stars – that turn about the axis.
Aside from Plato, it is no doubt a very ancient observation natural to craft-based civilizations. The heavens seem to circle an axis in the way a whirl circles a spindle.
Here, in context, we have a Christian Platonism.
And so – contrary to my previous hypothesis that saw a motif from the King Laurin myths, Magic Rings – the oversized rings held by the nymphs are whorls, and by extension the whorls of the Cosmic Spindle.
This is the simpler and more consistent reading (although the two might not be incompatabile.)
* * *
What, though, of the armadillo? voices throughout the Voynichero community will cry.
Between the nymph holding the object that we have identified as a spindle (and whorl), and the nymph holding one of the rings that we have identified as whorls, there is the strange illustration often identified as an “armadillo”.
Sundry proposals have been made concerning this illustration, most of them convinced it is an animal, real or mythic.
Certainly, it seems to have an animal form. Most people see a scaled animal, but in that case the scales must be unnaturally backwards.
Anyway, most of the proposed scaled creatures (armadillos, pangolins etc.) are from the New World and unknown in Europe at the relevant time.
It is perplexing.
The simplest and most straightforward reading – in context – is that the illustration is a zoomorphic cloud, and the creature alluded to is a sheep – and they are not scales but a stylized depiction of wool.
Such wool symbolism would follow from the symbolism of the spindle – obviously, an implement for spinning wool.
We can therefore explain the image as meteorological, without having to import weird or exotic creatures.
As always we should follow the simplest, most adequate and most cogent explanation.
Let us consider the image in sequence.
At the top we have a nymph standing in the clouds at a mountain peak. She is holding (an exaggerated) spindle.
Below her: a zoomorphic cloud. Clouds as wool.
Below that: a nymph holding a red whorl (ring).
Both nymphs are in the classical nymph pose, one hand on her hip, with the other arm extended.
There is nothing to say they are not the same nymph. They have different builds perhaps, but have identical gestures.
In any case, we could unite all three images in a single wool/spinning metaphor.
* * *
In Plato’s famous account, the Cosmic Spindle is held by Ananke, the primal goddess Necessity. She is a mighty goddess of fate and destiny. The cycles of the heavens and all their configurations come about of necessity.
I doubt this is Ananke depicted here, or that the Platonic account is being followed in any detail.
Rather, the mountain nymphs – who populate the mountain peaks above the boundary of the clouds – understand the axis of the cosmos.
The whorls represent the cosmic cycles. These cycles, of course, govern meteorological cycles: rain, snow, mist, cloud, storms, as well as snow-thaw and rivers and streams and lakes. (And by extension vegetation and herbs.)
This is why we see the nymphs who are below the boundary of the clouds in possession of the whorls. They know the cycles.
The so-called Rings of the Nymphs are the whorls of the cosmic spindle and represent the nymph’s knowledge of the cosmic, as well as corresponding natural, cycles.
This, I contend, is a consistent interpretation of the imagery.
* * *
I can extend it.
Notice that the nymph holding the spindle holds it above a large initial the glyph [p].
In my account of the Voynich glyphs, this gallows glyph represents the Spring Equinox.
In that case, the “armadillo” is not a sheep, but a ram, and the allusion of the zoomorphic cloud formation is astrological, namely to Aries, the zodiacal sign that commences at the Spring Equinox.
We could hazard the surmise that the page concerns the Spring Equinox and perhaps the Spring season more generally.
In short, it is about the cosmic cycles that bring the spring rain.
* * *
The matter of boundaries is important in Voynich symbolism.
We find occcasions in medieval symbolism where the nebuly – the curly cloud-bands – signify ontological boundaries, dividing the human world from the angelic realm, for example.
There can be no quarrel with this, but another order of the same symbolism needs to be appreciated in the Voynich manuscript.
The nymphs, I insist, are mountain nymphs. On some pages we see stylized pictures of rain falling on mountaintops and then filtering down through the subterranean channels of a mountain, emerging as mineralized ponds at the bottom.
This is the domain, and the work, of the nymphs.
It is important to understand the basic axial symbolism of a mountain, and how the mountain mimics, and reiterates, the climatic zones of the globe.
It is best understood from experience. Travel up a tall mountain from sea level to the peak.
You will see that the vegetation changes, in bands, as you go higher.
At the base of the mountain is lush vegetation.
Half way up, though, is a region that is like the temperate zones of the globe. Less lush, more seasonal temperate zone, woody vegetation prevails.
And then there is a zone, higher up, where vegetation starts to become stunted and sparse. Artic vegetation.
Beyond a certain point, there is no vegetation. The artic circle.
The journey up a mountain repeats, in minature, a journey from the equator to the poles.
The pinnacle is to the mountain
what the pole is to the earth.
Every latitude from equator to pole can be projected upon a mountain’s topography, which naturally falls into the same zones.
And the same goes for projections of the latitudes of the celestial sphere.
The zones are, in any case, marked by boundaries, and in Voynich iconography these are shown by the nebulous cloud-bands, symbolism appropriate to mountains.
Again: one encounters different climatic zones (and corresponding vegetation) as one ascends a mountain – a reiteration of the climatic zones of the earth, with the mountain peak corresponding to the pole, both symbolic of the axis mundi.
The zones are divided by cloud-bands in these illustrations.
I propose that this is how to understand these illustrations. We see a nymph of the mountain peaks holding a spindle, symbol of the axis mundi.
The ‘armadillo’, at the next boundary, is the ram of Aries. Wool = cloud symbolism.
Below that the nymphs possess spindle whorls, which is to say they know the cycles that govern the mountain.
This is a better account of the rings of the nymphs than the account I offered several posts ago.
R.B.
Apologies to the owner of the spindle photographs. I used them because they show a spindle packed in a bed of wool.
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