PART 4 – Ch

PART 4 – Ch.XXVI.10

Prehistoric monuments of metallurgic art in Dacia

(Chryseion Koas – The Golden Fleece)

XXVI.10. Nephele or Nebula in Romanian traditions.

The second wife of king Athamas had the name Nephele in Greek poetry, a word which in Romanian means cloud (TN – nor) or mist (TN – negura), and which the Latin authors have translated as Nebula (Hyginius, Fab. 1).

But which was the country of birth of Nephele or Negura, and who were her parents, no author tells us. Only this seems sure, that Nephele or Nebula, was not originated from the Thessalian families.

The circumstance that Phrixus and Helle, persecuted by Ino, their step-mother, run to the region of Colchi, or to the north of the Lower Istru, makes us suppose that they looked for a safe haven not in a totally foreign country, but that they went to their mother’s kin; and that the region Colchis, where the legendary ram’s fleece was later hung, had been at the same time the native country of Nephele or Nebula, a personal name which in the language of the people from Lower Istru could only be Nega.

In the mountainous zone of Buzeu district, especially in the vicinity of Colti village, exists even today a tradition about a legendary “Queen” (TN – Domna), from very remote times, called Nega. But there is no mention about her husband.

Domna Nega, according to local traditions, had lived in the times of the Tatars, but the ancient Tatars, the prehistoric Titans. After her father’s death, Domna Nega reigned alone over this country. Along with her “queenly” halo, her renown, wealth and piety, the legend attributes to her a great number of sumptuous constructions, luxurious palaces, gardens, roads, alleys, etc.

On the territory of Cislau locality, close to the Buda hamlet, and in the middle of a secular forest, can still be distinguished the ruins of a fortified palace, often called Domna Nega’s fortress, out of which the peasants took for their needs, up to our own days, fashioned stone blocks; and near the ruins covered in moss of this palace, raises majestically an oak tree, of an age which we can’t calculate. This palace, according to folk traditions, served to Domna Nega as a safe place of retreat in times of unrest [1].

[1. This gigantic oak tree, known and venerated on the entire Buzeu tableland for its traditional antiquity, has a circumference of around 5.00m and a diameter of around 2.00m (Iorgulescu, Dict. geogr. buzeu, p. 349). We can not know if this ancient tree, planted, or naturally grown near the gate of this legendary palace, had in the beginning some function or a particular history.

But by its aspect, it uncannily resembles the oak tree from the vase painting, which shows the fight of the Argonauts with the Colchic dragon (see Ch.XXVI.4).

Oak trees were always extremely venerated by the Pelasgians and even by the Romans. Planted in front of a temple, near the gate of a fortress, a palace, or a tomb, they had religious meaning.

Even in antiquity, an extraordinary age was attributed to oak trees. Homer’s Iliad (VII. 60; XI. 170) tells us that near the Schean Gate of Troy there was a tall oak tree (fagos), consecrated to “father Jove, the shield holder”. The naturalist Theophrast (Hist. Plant. Iv. 14), born in the 4^th century bc, mentions among the trees famous for their age, the oak trees (fagoi) planted on Ilus’ tomb at Troy, spoken about also in Greek mythology. Pliny the Old also writes (XVI. 88) that near Ilium, or the ancient fortress of Troy, still existed in his time the oak trees (quercus) which, according to traditions, had been planted on Ilus’ tomb when this city had started to be called Ilium. Pausanias (VIII. 23. 5) mentions that in his time (2^nd century ad) the Pelasgians’ prophetic oak from Dodona was still living, and that its age had become mythical. According to what Pliny writes (XVI. 89.1), at Heraclea, in the Thracian Pontus, Hercules had planted two oak trees (quercus) near the altars consecrated to Jupiter Stratius. The golden fleece was hung in the region of the Colchi on an oak tree (fagos), which the Orphic poem deems sacred v. 890). The oak tree (quercus) of Mambra, under which the patriarch Abraham had lived, had existed, as Isidor of Sevilla writes, until the times of emperor Constans (Orig. XVII. 7. 38).

Finally, we also note here that we saw in 1892 in the courtyard of the old church of Pociovalisce, in Gorj district, two very old oak trees, one near the altar, another near the church door, having a diameter of 1.50m each. These oak trees were considered religious. According to people’s belief, whoever will try to cut them down, will soon fall ill and in a short period of time will die (Vasiliu Nasturel, Dict. geogr. Gorj, p. 275). Science could not establish so far with any certitude, the oldest age that oak trees could reach. All that is known is that this type of tree grows slowly and has a very vigorous life.

Maybe the ancient oak tree near the ruined palace of Domna Nega will also soon disappear. So we considered necessary to preserve here its appearance for future times, as it represents old ideas and religious customs].

The old oak tree from near the ruins of the palace of

Domna Nega, in the hamlet Buda, Cislau village.

(After a photograph from the year 1900)

In Romanian documents we don’t find any trace about the historical personality of Domna Nega. On the contrary, everything seems to confirm that the old ruins of her palaces in the mountains of Buzeu, built of fashioned stone blocks, that the roads of Domna Nega, cut through high walls of rock, her legendary gardens and alleys, are reduced to a very remote epoch, of opulence and peace [2].

[2. Some of our younger writers have tried to link the historical age of Domna Nega to the 16^th century of our era, a century full of misery, political and social, which can not correspond to the magnificent palaces and gardens attributed to her. In any case, if there ever existed in the 16^th century a Domna, or a lady called Nega, she can not be identical with the legendary Nega, whose familiar vast domain, embellished with magnificent palaces, had been the tableland of Buzeu].

The cradle of the family of Domna Nega seems to have been close to Colti, in the locality Nehoias or Negoias (Sulzer, Gesch. d. transalp. Daciens I, 1781, p. 311), a locality which had once enjoyed an excellent material wealth. It has even today 3030 inhabitants, four churches and four annual market fairs.

Here, according to traditions, Domna Nega looked for safety when the Tatars chased her, to take her lands; here were the people she could trust most, her kin [3].

[3. We add here that with the poet Lucan (IX. v. 956), Helle has also the name Nepheleias (the daughter of Nephele), an epithet with a form very close to the name of the village Nehoias].

The etymologic origin of the name Nehoias is reduced to one of the oldest, most numerous and distinguished family on the tableland of Buzeu, Neg or Negul, with the derivative forms of Negoiu, Negoias, Negoita, Negosina [4].

[4. On the territory of this village there is the mountain Negoiul, the river Negoiul and the stream Nehoias (Negoias), names whose etymology derives from the family name of an ancient group of free people, Negu or Negul].

Nehoieni is even today the name of an ancient group of free people from the village Paltineni, close to Nehoias; other two groups called Negosani live in the village Canesci and Policiori respectively (Iorgulescu, Dict. geogr. Buzeu, p. 559).

Phrixus’ flight to the northern parts of the Istru, and the holy expedition of the southern Pelasgians to retrieve the golden fleece, an expedition led by the Thessalians, point out the community of race, religion and old family ties which once had existed between the Pelasgians from the Pindus and the Pelasgians from the Carpathians.

The hero Iason, as results even from Homer, was not of Greek nationality, neither his name was Greek. Iason’s mother, according to the historian Pherechydes (Fragm. Hist. gr. vol. I. 87. 59), was the daughter of one called Phulachos. He belonged therefore to the extended tribe of the Thessalian Pelasgians called Fulaci, a word which, as we shall see in the following chapters, is identical in form and meaning with the ethnic term of Vlaci or Vlachi.

And finally, in order to complete as well as possible these ancient memories about Domna Nega, we reproduce here in a note a Romanian tradition, which states that this remarkable Domna, who lived on the tableland of Buzeu, had been the same prehistoric personality as Nephele or Nebula, Phrixus’ mother in the legend of the Argonauts [5].

[5. This important tradition is published by Odobescu in his work Pseudo-Kinegetichos (Ed. 1887, p. 175 seqq). “Once upon a time”, this story tells us, “when men of this world knew more and could do more….lived on the tableland of Buzeu a great queen, whose name was Domna Nega. She had her palaces there, in the woods of Cislau, where one can see even today on a big hill…..the foundations of the walls of her fortress….

Of all the children God gave her and then took back, she was left in her widowhood with only a son, whom she loved like the light of her eyes…..He understood the secret language of birds and beasts…His mother sent him to see the world.

He and his great boyars went up the valley of Buzeu river… When they arrived at the fork of Basca, he spurred his horse, flew with it….over rocks and waters, the horse flew like mad, with mane and nostril in the wind, and the rider saw himself flying like the wind and the thought, over crags, over plains, over chasms, over grasslands….He is a child, wandering through the woods, etc.”.

Wandering through the woods appears Phrixus also in Hyginus’ tradition (Fab. 3)].

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