Voynich Rosette Map Records An Ancient Pilgrimage

No one would dispute that during the 11th and 12th centuries the Finnish (Komi) migration drained the Urals of much of its Finno-Ugric population and that by the late 12th through 14th centuries other populations that made for the ancestors of the Bashkir largely took their place in the Perm region of Russia.

However, the Voynich Manuscript proves that a seasonal pilgrimage voyaging to the region of the Perm from Fennoscandia took place in the 15th century. These voyagers were navigating the waterways around the metropolises of the day, skirting Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and more secular strongholds, such as the Hanseatic League, and most likely aided by tribes along the Volga and tolerated by the Khanate of Kazan. As the translations indicate, the tongue called Voynichese is an old Fenno-Norse, perhaps the tongue of the old Kvens.

The Voynich Manuscript's Rosette Map shows the pilgrims' path.

Whether this translates into genetic markers for any early migrations from the Perm region to show up in long time residents of Lofoten, Norway, would neither prove nor disprove this theory, for it would be like looking for Jesus' DNA in a Catholic. Pilgrimages are made by followers of a belief system, not necessarily members of the same clan or tribe. Again, judging from the diversity of head-dresses worn in the Voynich manuscript, the people about which this manuscript speaks ranged from all over Europe, and the map itself appears to be a sort of funnel system drawing people to central focal points where they would enter the flow of sojourners. As the transcribed page indicates, flowers blooming at certain times of year along certain river banks flagged pilgrims as to when it was getting time to head downstream to their rallying point--an amazing coordination effort 600 years before GPS and social media.

The Perspectives Assumed in the Voynich Rosette Map

Directional perspective 

This perspective is clearly from the North. Põhi/pohja means both "north" and "bottom". When you look at the map, you are in essence standing somewhere along the Arctic Circle, looking down onto Europe. So as you go south, you go up, farther from the hands holding the map, not down, so the southern tip of Italy, for example, will be closer to your head than, say, Lake Ladoga in Karelia. This makes sense from a Karelian sojourner's perspective, but for everyone else, it might take a few hundred years.

Topographic 

The map's topographic perspective is mainly riverine, some of which is subterranean. It cares about mountain run-off, water flow, tributaries, the size of bodies of water, some quick landmarks to flag whereabouts, but I'd say mainly it cares about currents. Each rosette appears to be a funnel of sorts--a locus or gathering point, although the middle seems somewhat different. This is Russia's Golden Ring, within which certainly participants in this pilgrimage also resided. Since they are in a central spot, they appear to have the most choice as to where/when to join up in the journey.

Cultural 

The people who made this map obviously were interested not in commerce or conquest but to get to a certain destination. What they cared about most of all was to arrive and return safely. The map itself speaks as much. That's why the map looks so strange to us. What we are used to seeing depicted in celebratory style is depicted solely as a marker--little castles, onion domes, walls... The rosettes contain the huge political powers of the day that needed to be negotiated on such a journey: the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, Sweden, the Hanseatic League, the Khanate of Kazan, as well as myriad ports and tribes. Needless to say, what was going on in these corners of the world mattered hugely to pilgrims wishing to avoid calamity. The most violent scene in the whole of the Voynich manuscript is of one woman pulling another woman's hair. I will leave it up to you to hunt it down and spot it. The rest of the Voynich world depicted is otherwise extraordinarily peaceful--remarkable for the 15th century, which could be so very violent, war-ruled, and death-packed an age.

Other

If you haven't a clue who these people were, you might think, "How very strange and mysterious." But if you DO lend some logic to it, these sojourners' bent toward elusiveness makes perfect sense as does the map's fantastic obsession with symmetry and proportion.

Pudasjärvi: Kuivalihavelli, barley flatbread, bread and cheese karpalokiisseli;
Leipäjuusto (bread cheese) or juustoleipä, which is also known in the United States as Finnish squeaky cheese, is a fresh cheese traditionally made from cow's beestings, rich milk from a cow that has recently calved. Reindeer or even goat milk can also be used. The cheese originally comes from Southern Ostrobothnia, Northern Finland and Kainuu. 

Use of orbicular rock in southern Finland to draw Mount Elbrus

Their metaphorical language was based on their reference points and therefore, it made perfect sense to them.

To get you started on thinking who they might be, do a quick count on who is represented: how many males, how many females. Feel free to post the ratio in the comment box below. The fact that it is not a male-centered document is crucial to understanding it. Seems I keep hammering on this. In fact, the manuscript does. We've missed that boat for 600 years and STILL keep calling it "the most mysterious..." Bloody ironic if you ask me, and not a little pathetic. The fact remains, these pilgrims are about as far from the Mayflower as you can get; and one of the biggest favors you can do for yourself in studying the Voynich manuscript is to leave ALL classical studies--Ancient Greece, Rome, Judeo-Christianity, Islam, Egyptology, Mithraism, Gnosticism, Hindo-Buddhism, Alchemy and Kabbalah, Asatru and Rodnovery, UFO theory AND Goddess worship in its conflated, touted, skewed form--any of these big, hot, hubristic canons--leave these all firmly at the door. Not a one of them is here.

The Voynich Google Map

I am constructing this post in tandem with a Google map that will further analyze the details of the Voynich Rosette Map. 

Quite a few of the discoveries astonished me. The research has been very involved, so please bear with me as I fill in the details. It is still a journey of discovery, as the research is ongoing.

1 - Nordic Rosette

We begin in Scandinavia, northwest Norway in fact, at a set of islands called Lofoten. A popular story is that the name means Lynx Paw because of their shape. This is not proven. Sticking with solely Old Norse, Lofoten could mean simply a good landing place, or the foot of a cave. Shining a Finnish light on it yields all sorts of gems, many of them mythological and tied to places in Finland and Karelia, even as far east as Russia.

In 1432 the venetian merchant Pietro Querini and his crew shipwrecked at Røst island after drifting for several weeks from the English Channel. Querini supposedly introduced stockfish to the Italian cuisine. The venetians spent 3 months with the locals and then returned to Venice where Querini produced a report for the senate there. Querini's unique and legendary written report was called The first circuit of paradise. Despite the cold and dark winter, he described life in Lofoten as paradise ("we spent 3 months in the first circuit of paradise, to the shame and disgrace of Italy").

Hålogaland was the northernmost of the Norwegian provinces in the medieval Norse sagas. In the early Viking Age, before Harald Fairhair, Hålogaland was a kingdom extending between the Namdalen valley in Nord-Trøndelag county and the Lyngen fjord in Troms county. But who were the people inhabiting this region?

Ancient Norwegians said that Hálogaland was named after a royal named Hölgi. The Norse form of the name was Hálogaland. The first element of the word is the genitive plural of háleygr, a 'person from Hålogaland'. The last element is land, as in 'land' or 'region'. The meaning of the demonym háleygr is unknown. Thorstein Vikingson's Saga, 1, describes it as a compound of Hial, "Hel" or "spirit," and "loge", "fire".

Alex Woolf links the name Hålogaland to the Aurora Borealis - the "Northern Lights" -, saying that Hålogaland meant the "Land of the High Fire",[2] "loga" deriving from 'logi', which refers to fire.

In the medieval accounts of Ynglingatal and Skáldskaparmál, "Logi" is described as the personification of fire, a fire giant, and as a "son of Fornjót". In the medieval Orkneyinga saga and the account of Hversu Noregr byggðist ('How Norway was inhabited'), Fornjót is described as the King of Finland, Kvenland and Gotland. The royal lineages sprung from his children are discussed in these and other medieval accounts.

So here we have some pretty spectacular stuff brought to the table: a king, spirit, the Northern Lights, and by golly, fire. Can it get more poetic? Can it get more epically Norse?

Well, let's just revisit the term briefly. 

Hålogaland, Hálogaland, háleygr

Håla c

a deep hole or cavity; a cave

a place where disreputable or questionable activities take place

an uninteresting or backwards community

From Old Swedish hul, hol, from Old Norse hol, from Proto-Germanic *hulą, from Proto-Indo-European *kuH-, *kewH-.

Gar/gera - give, make, do
From Old Norse gera, gøra, gørva, from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną.
From Proto-Germanic *garwijaną ‎(“to prepare”). Cognate with Old English gearwian, Old Saxon garwian, gerwian, Old High German garawen.

Baseline: This place will give you a cave for shelter.

So now that we are back in a cave practicing questionable rites in a community that was most likely found less interesting than an appropriator's envisioned heroic tales of himself, let's add to this a re-examination of another term tossed into the mix,

The Gothic historian Jordanes in his work 'De origine actibusque Getarum' - a.k.a. Getica -, written in Constantinople in c. 551 AD, mentions a people "Adogit" living in the far North. This could be an old form of háleygir and a possible reference to the petty kingdom of Hålogaland.

Adogit

Irish

adóg

Etymology

From fada ‎(“long”) +‎ -óg.

Noun

fadóg f ‎(genitive singular fadóige, nominative plural fadóga)

• long, elongated, object
• long straw (used in drawing lots)
• shock (of corn)

The most outstanding indication of human habitation would have been the thatching of the roofs in the settlements that most likely resembled those still in existence today in areas such as the British and Faroe Isles. The Kvens were in fact known to inhabit and trade in these isles for centuries.

Garenin Black House Village-Isle Of Lewis, Scotland

Ancient village of Saksun, Faroe Islands

Danish/Norwegian tax records from the 16th century already list some Kvens (Finnish-speakers residing outside of Finland) living in North Norway. Also, the famous map of Scandinavia by Olaus Magnus from 1539 shows a possible Kven settlement roughly in between today's Tromsø and Lofoten named "Berkara Qvenar". Kvens of this time are often connected to the birkarl organization in northern Sweden. In some early documents Kvens are also grouped together with the Sami people, who are the indigenous people of Central and Northern Norway. Wiki

Carta Marina, a wallmap of Scandinavia by Olaus Magnus.  "Marine map and Description of the Northern Lands and of their Marvels, most carefully drawn up at Venice in the year 1539 through the generous assistance of the Most Honourable Lord Hieronymo Quirino."

A - Tromso

B - Maelstrom

C - Lofoten

D - Possible Kven settlement - Berkara Qvenar

E - Some devilish little dude sweeping the floor. (What does he stand for?)

F - An island with mound houses--perhaps earth-bermed Viking longhouses similar to those found in Greenland and Iceland. They appear nowhere else on this map but in Greenland and here. Why?

G - A couple on skis practicing archery. This is a remarkably egalitarian depiction of a woman in the 16th century. Research suggests that the men of this tribe were seafaring traders ranging nearly the entire globe and therefore leaving the women to rule their home base. Hence Kvenland's becoming known as the Land of Women.

For a more indepth discussion on the Kvens, see Kvens and the Voynich Manuscript.

Prehistory

Historically, this area of northern Norway inland toward is also quite significant. Several archaeological finds and features, including caves and rock formations, have established this area as significant to the ancients in quite curious ways.

Below is the Refsvik Cave (Revsvika, Refsvikhula) in Moskenes, Lofoten, North Norway.

by Hans Olav Lien 

This area has many sites named after the Huldra. For a discussion on this ancient north European folk belief, see The Huldra/Hiisi and the Voynich Manuscript. For further details that include Huld, Holda, Holle, Hel, Hörsel, Hlóðyn, Helya, and RHEIA,  see The Rites of the Hidden.