66 The Atlantis Encyclopedia
bearing long swords. They were invaders of the Mediterranean from Atlantis,
during that empire’s later, imperialistic phase, as described by Plato. Their
Atlantean identity is underscored by a number of great, stone watchtowers, found
mostly on Majorca, still remembered as talaia or talayot, derivatives of Atlas.Balor
In Old Irish folklore, he was the king of the Formorach, a giant “Sea People.”
Balor led them to Ireland, where they arrived as its first inhabitants after a great
flood destroyed their former kingdom. Later renditions of his myth put his original
homeland in Spain or North Africa. Although corruptions of the earliest version,
they nonetheless properly indicate the general direction from which the Formorach
came, because the island of Atlantis lay about 200 miles west of Gibraltar.Basilea
In Greek folk tradition, the sister of Atlas, who was elected the Queen of
Atlantis after the death of her husband, Uranus, an early king. Her name, in fact,
means, “queen.” She remarried with Hyperion, and bore him a son and daughter,
Helios and Selene, deities of the sun and moon, respectively. A variant of her
myth had the other Atlantean kings, afraid Hyperion would seize the throne of
Atlantis and establish his family as a usurping dynasty, conspire to assassinate him
and his son. Their deaths occasioned the suicide of Selene and the madness of
Basilea. According to Lewis Spence, “When her subjects endeavored to restrain
her, a terrible tempest of rain, thunder, and lightning broke forth, and she was
seen no more.” He believed her story signified the triumph of the powers of
darkness over light (Helios), a reference to the Atlantis catastrophe itself, when
neither sun nor moon were visible because of ash clouds which encircled the globe.
The “Arcane Tradition,” he writes, reported that, after her disappearance,
Basilea took the place of her dead daughter to become the moon-goddess, and
assisted Atlas in his creation of astrology-astronomy.Basque
The English and French word used to describe a people who refer to them-
selves as the Euskotarak. They inhabit the Bay of Biscay in both France and Spain,
including the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. There are only about
1.25 million Basque people, living mostly in Europe but also in communities in
South and North America, particularly the state of Nevada. Stocky, with auburn
hair and gray eyes, they are genetically distinct from both French and Spanish and
speak a unique tongue totally unrelated to any European language. Euskara is
spoken by approximately half a million persons worldwide. It shares some affinity
with Finno-Urgic Patumnili, the tongue of ancient Troy; Etruscan, as spoken by
the pre-Roman civilizers in west-central Italy; Guanche, belonging to the native