Etymology

Etymology of Atilla

Are Abdulla and Atilla the same names?

Photo by Uchral Sanjaadorj on Unsplash

An Epic Archaeological Find

A 26.000 year-old, 8cm high male head carved of mammoth ivory, was recently found in Dolní Věstonice, in the Czech Republic.

Historical Footprints

It made me think of the busts I saw once, of the Huns. I have tried to find them again, with no luck, but they looked like the Pirates of Dark Water, a cartoon from the 90s.

That got my mind wandering down the narrow path of speculative history.

Were the Huns simply another Turkish tribe from Mongolia, or is the truth far more intricate?

With almost no historical evidence to go on, I naturally drifted towards etymology.

Atilla the Hun

Finns, or Aestii, easterners, came with amber trade to the Adriatic shores, and they called the land Italia, modern Finnish Etelä, meaning ‘South’. In Estish Edel, meaning ‘South-West’.

This suggests that Atilla was called southerner by the northern peoples.

What about Hun? Well, Chinese annals record “western rebels”, called Xi-Rong, which means the same.

If you put these two together, you can sort of get an image right away. The Huns lived on the steppes west of China, and Atilla was especially southern amongst these, perhaps even living in modern-day Caucasus or Kashmir.

The Legacy-Trail

​​Atle is a Norwegian name. It means “little father” in Gothic. Coincidence ?

Two points to mention here; before the telegraph, you had limited communications — little authority outside your immediate vicinity.

Furthermore, it indicates that he was short.

You could go further, and say that it is a recognition that he had an impact on Western civilization. After all, they brought the composite bow, and a new figting technique, namely the Parthian retreat.

The Very Ancient Clue

​​Atlatl is the most widely recognized term of an ancient weapon, and it´s derived from the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs. A far stretch, but stay with me — The Aztecs are said to originate, way back, from the exact same territory as we´ve suggested Atilla came from.

An atlatl is a sort of “club” — a stick with a caveat at the end, to fit a spear, to increase range.

It´s not unthinkable at all that this weapon was still known, and used, in Europe, in Atillas time. It would also be one of the only defences against a horse archer with some feasibility behind effectiveness.

Furthermore, Turks used to say spear when designating a tribe. “What spear do you belong to?” Hungary is said to come from “Ten spears” by some people. Gard is Germanic word, meaning town, but “on” is Turkish for “ten”, and one word for spear is “cirit”, which in combination opens the door for On-cir(it).

“Atlatl (the) On”, or “Ten Spears”.

Maybe he had no real name at all..?

What if Atilla the Hun is really a pun meaning Ten Tribes?

Spear of Allah

He appeared on the scene only a little bit before Islam.

​​Maybe the above pun was used because of the composite bow being so superior. The atlatl would have dominated for millennia, and now it lost the last final ground to the bow — to the composite bow, which is smaller, lighter and has a longer range than conventional bows.

What´s in a name, huh? …and nobody knows how he died, because he died in his tent, alone. He may not have existed at all, but rather some kind of chieftain that the Romans met called himself Atilla, maybe as a joke — “I am the spear of Allah”, and thereby that´s what was passed down.

Another revolution happened at the same time — I think the horses may have been too small to ride for the longest time after domestication, about 2.500 BC. Combine the two, and you have something that resembles divinity, now don´t you? Ghengis Khan called himself the Wrath of God. Perhaps he didn´t invent that phrase?

Perhaps Abdulla, or “(son) of Allah”, is the same, basic name?

Another possible pun is Father of the Spear, or the atlatl.

The Serial Killer-Trail

Skanderbeg was said to have killed 100 men, in a single battle, in hand to hand-combat. This was when guns appeared, and so you had a lot of people show up to the battlefield with only training in using a poorly devised handgun, which took forever to reload.

What kind of a person walks away from a battlefield with 100 kills? Probably not the same person as walked on to the field? “Ill”, of course, means “sick” today. Languages change a lot, but how many words and names don´t contain -lla in the Arab world?

There´s a circle dance by Sufi called Zikr. If the Zoro Astrians invented it, it´s at least 2.500 years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5goISKPSH8

Can you hear them chanting illa-lah?

I read there is only 5% old growth forest left in Europe. I visited one on Isle of Man, and there was an oak, I think it was, with branches that stood like 8meters out, horizontally.

Point is, if you use arrows, you need wood. Lot´s and lot´s of wood, and it has to be the right kind, like yew, which grows all over in the Black Forest.

The Black Forest, which covers most of Eastern Europe used to be occupied by hunters — it was called Wend-land, which means Hunting Land.

They must have ridden into the Black Forest many times, to find the best material for arrows, and then fled when the hunters came around. An eternal circle dance.

Final Words

​​I heard the coast of Sweden used too be covered in dense oak forest, before they started building ships. Now, there are practically none left.

In Ukraine, the best farmlands lie in the west of the country.

Oak is good for arrows and bows. ​​Oak in Latin is quercus. “Å kverke oss” means “to kill us”, and in a very foul way, in Norwegian. It also links to the old name of Jupiter, before Jupiter — Quirinus.

Oak was by that understanding a holy tree. The Spear of the Ten Tribes was not just killing a lot of people — he was chopping down the holiest forest in their pantheon.

​​I saw a map of France´s forests between 1100 and 1300, and the difference was pretty astounding. It was very warm around 1000, and they also got the horse collar.

Maybe Atilla didn´t just come to rape, pillage and plunder, but to settle.

The Norse Sagas say that Wothan came from Asia 2.500 years ago. A little bit of history repeating ? Let´s say the first major, major migration westwards was due to the horse, and now it was the composite, horn bow.

What separates Western war-methods from Eastern is basically discipline, to put it bluntly.. You had to hold the line, the shield wall, when fighting, or everybody got lost..

They didn´t invade all of Europe because they finally met people who wouldn´t run? Just pure speculation, but something it was, because the horse archer was a weapon to be feared. The only other thing I could think of was that they were more interested in trade, or that their supply lines were growing short.

​​The Icelanders have a martial art which is called Glيma, and it looks like the Mongols wrestling. You hold the other person´s belt and try to flip them over. It was probably used to settle disputes. Another tradition, was “holmgang”, which basically translates as “walking over a hill”. It was one on one-fighting, often to the death.

Perhaps a single man, as was the tradition in the West, went forward to parley with the enemy, perhaps to settle the battle by duel, and this courage impressed the Mongols enough to take a long, hard look at their cowardly kind of warfare — how to win the peace..?

If their motivation was to fight against slave-takers in the West, as a Scourge of God, maybe fighting men in Poland who would gladly fight one on one in hand to hand-combatm, finally, satisfied their blood lust?

Father of the Ring Dance, or Ata-Illah, then becomes a fitting title for the man who made peace on the plains of Central Asia.

Like, share and subscribe! I would love to hear if you have any more angles on this mysterical, pseudo-historical character.