1490 lines
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1490 lines
81 KiB
Plaintext
This file contains 9 seasonal articles by Mike Nichols. They may be
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freely distributed provided that the following conditions are met: (1)
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No fee is charged for their use and distribution and no commercial use
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is made of them; (2) These files are not changed or edited in any way
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without the author's permission; (3) This notice is not removed. An
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article may be distributed as a separate file, provided that this
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notice is repeated at the beginning of each such file.
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These articles are periodically updated by the author; this version is
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current as of 9/28/88. Contact Mike Nichols at the Magick Lantern BBS
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[(816)531-7265, 7pm. - 11am., 300 baud ONLY] for more recent updates,
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or to leave your own comments on them.
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===============================
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The Eight Sabbats of Witchcraft
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===============================
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by Mike Nichols
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copyright by MicroMuse Press
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<1> Halloween
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<2> Yule
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<3> Candlemas
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<4> Lady Day
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<5> May Day
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<6> Midsummer
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<7> Lammas
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<8> Harvest Home
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<9> Death of Llew: A Seasonal Interp
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ALL HALLOW'S EVE
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================
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by Mike Nichols
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Halloween. Sly does it. Tiptoe catspaw. Slide and creep. But
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why? What for? How? Who? When! Where did it all begin? 'You
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don't know, do you?' asks Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud climbing
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out under the pile of leaves under the Halloween Tree. 'You don't
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REALLY know!' --Ray Bradbury from 'The Halloween Tree'
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Samhain. All Hallows. All Hallow's Eve. Hallow E'en.
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Halloween. The most magical night of the year. Exactly opposite
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Beltane on the wheel of the year, Halloween is Beltane's dark twin. A
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night of glowing jack-o-lanterns, bobbing for apples, tricks or
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treats, and dressing in costume. A night of ghost stories and
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seances, tarot card readings and scrying with mirrors. A night of
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power, when the veil that separates our world from the Otherworld is
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at its thinnest. A 'spirit night', as they say in Wales.
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All Hallow's Eve is the eve of All Hallow's Day (November 1st).
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And for once, even popular tradition remembers that the Eve is more
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important than the Day itself, the traditional celebration focusing on
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October 31st, beginning at sundown. And this seems only fitting for
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the great Celtic New Year's festival. Not that the holiday was Celtic
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only. In fact, it is startling how many ancient and unconnected
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cultures (the Egyptians and pre-Spanish Mexicans, for example)
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celebrated this as a festival of the dead. But the majority of our
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modern traditions can be traced to the British Isles.
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The Celts called it Samhain, which means 'summer's end',
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according to their ancient two-fold division of the year, when summer
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ran from Beltane to Samhain and winter ran from Samhain to Beltane.
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(Some modern Covens echo this structure by letting the High Priest
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'rule' the Coven beginning on Samhain, with rulership returned to the
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High Priestess at Beltane.) According to the later four-fold division
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of the year, Samhain is seen as 'autumn's end' and the beginning of
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winter. Samhain is pronounced (depending on where you're from) as
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'sow-in' (in Ireland), or 'sow-een' (in Wales), or 'sav-en' (in
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Scotland), or (inevitably) 'sam-hane' (in the U.S., where we don't
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speak Gaelic).
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Not only is Samhain the end of autumn; it is also, more
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importantly, the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.
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Celtic New Year's Eve, when the new year begins with the onset of the
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dark phase of the year, just as the new day begins at sundown. There
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are many representations of Celtic gods with two faces, and it surely
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must have been one of them who held sway over Samhain. Like his Greek
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counterpart Janus, he would straddle the threshold, one face turned
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toward the past in commemoration of those who died during the last
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year, and one face gazing hopefully toward the future, mystic eyes
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attempting to pierce the veil and divine what the coming year holds.
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These two themes, celebrating the dead and divining the future, are
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inexorably intertwined in Samhain, as they are likely to be in any New
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Year's celebration.
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As a feast of the dead, it was believed the dead could, if they
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wished, return to the land of the living for this one night, to
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celebrate with their family, tribe, or clan. And so the great burial
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mounds of Ireland (sidh mounds) were opened up, with lighted torches
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lining the walls, so the dead could find their way. Extra places were
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set at the table and food set out for any who had died that year. And
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there are many stories that tell of Irish heroes making raids on the
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Underworld while the gates of faery stood open, though all must return
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to their appointed places by cock-crow.
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As a feast of divination, this was the night par excellence for
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peering into the future. The reason for this has to do with the
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Celtic view of time. In a culture that uses a linear concept of time,
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like our modern one, New Year's Eve is simply a milestone on a very
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long road that stretches in a straight line from birth to death.
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Thus, the New Year's festival is a part of time. The ancient Celtic
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view of time, however, is cyclical. And in this framework, New Year's
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Eve represents a point outside of time, when the natural order of the
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universe dissolves back into primordial chaos, preparatory to re-
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establishing itself in a new order. Thus, Samhain is a night that
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exists outside of time and hence it may be used to view any other
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point in time. At no other holiday is a tarot card reading, crystal
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reading, or tea-leaf reading so likely to succeed.
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The Christian religion, with its emphasis on the 'historical'
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Christ and his act of redemption 2000 years ago, is forced into a
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linear view of time, where 'seeing the future' is an illogical
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proposition. In fact, from the Christian perspective, any attempt to
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do so is seen as inherently evil. This did not keep the medieval
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Church from co-opting Samhain's other motif, commemoration of the
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dead. To the Church, however, it could never be a feast for all the
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dead, but only the blessed dead, all those hallowed (made holy) by
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obedience to God - thus, All Hallow's, or Hallowmas, later All Saints
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and All Souls.
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There are so many types of divination that are traditional to
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Hallowstide, it is possible to mention only a few. Girls were told to
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place hazel nuts along the front of the firegrate, each one to
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symbolize one of her suitors. She could then divine her future
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husband by chanting, 'If you love me, pop and fly; if you hate me,
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burn and die.' Several methods used the apple, that most popular of
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Halloween fruits. You should slice an apple through the equator (to
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reveal the five-pointed star within) and then eat it by candlelight
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before a mirror. Your future spouse will then appear over your
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shoulder. Or, peel an apple, making sure the peeling comes off in one
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long strand, reciting, 'I pare this apple round and round again; / My
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sweetheart's name to flourish on the plain: / I fling the unbroken
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paring o'er my head, / My sweetheart's letter on the ground to read.'
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Or, you might set a snail to crawl through the ashes of your hearth.
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The considerate little creature will then spell out the initial letter
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as it moves.
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Perhaps the most famous icon of the holiday is the
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jack-o-lantern. Various authorities attribute it to either Scottish
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or Irish origin. However, it seems clear that it was used as a
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lantern by people who traveled the road this night, the scary face to
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frighten away spirits or faeries who might otherwise lead one astray.
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Set on porches and in windows, they cast the same spell of protection
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over the household. (The American pumpkin seems to have forever
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superseded the European gourd as the jack-o-lantern of choice.)
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Bobbing for apples may well represent the remnants of a Pagan
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'baptism' rite called a 'seining', according to some writers. The
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water-filled tub is a latter-day Cauldron of Regeneration, into which
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the novice's head is immersed. The fact that the participant in this
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folk game was usually blindfolded with hands tied behind the back also
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puts one in mind of a traditional Craft initiation ceremony.
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The custom of dressing in costume and 'trick-or-treating' is of
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Celtic origin with survivals particularly strong in Scotland.
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However, there are some important differences from the modern version.
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In the first place, the custom was not relegated to children, but was
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actively indulged in by adults as well. Also, the 'treat' which was
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required was often one of spirits (the liquid variety). This has
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recently been revived by college students who go 'trick-or-drinking'.
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And in ancient times, the roving bands would sing seasonal carols from
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house to house, making the tradition very similar to Yuletide
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wassailing. In fact, the custom known as 'caroling', now connected
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exclusively with mid-winter, was once practiced at all the major
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holidays. Finally, in Scotland at least, the tradition of dressing in
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costume consisted almost exclusively of cross-dressing (i.e., men
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dressing as women, and women as men). It seems as though ancient
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societies provided an opportunity for people to 'try on' the role of
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the opposite gender for one night of the year. (Although in Scotland,
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this is admittedly less dramatic - but more confusing - since men were
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in the habit of wearing skirt-like kilts anyway. Oh well...)
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To Witches, Halloween is one of the four High Holidays, or
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Greater Sabbats, or cross-quarter days. Because it is the most
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important holiday of the year, it is sometimes called 'THE Great
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Sabbat.' It is an ironic fact that the newer, self-created Covens
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tend to use the older name of the holiday, Samhain, which they have
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discovered through modern research. While the older hereditary and
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traditional Covens often use the newer name, Halloween, which has been
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handed down through oral tradition within their Coven. (This is often
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holds true for the names of the other holidays, as well. One may
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often get an indication of a Coven's antiquity by noting what names it
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uses for the holidays.)
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With such an important holiday, Witches often hold two distinct
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celebrations. First, a large Halloween party for non-Craft friends,
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often held on the previous weekend. And second, a Coven ritual held
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on Halloween night itself, late enough so as not to be interrupted by
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trick-or-treaters. If the rituals are performed properly, there is
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often the feeling of invisible friends taking part in the rites.
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Another date which may be utilized in planning celebrations is the
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actual cross-quarter day, or Old Halloween, or Halloween O.S. (Old
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Style). This occurs when the sun has reached 15 degrees Scorpio, an
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astrological 'power point' symbolized by the Eagle. This year (1988),
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the date is November 6th at 10:55 pm CST, with the celebration
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beginning at sunset. Interestingly, this date (Old Halloween) was
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also appropriated by the Church as the holiday of Martinmas.
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Of all the Witchcraft holidays, Halloween is the only one that
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still boasts anything near to popular celebration. Even though it is
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typically relegated to children (and the young-at-heart) and observed
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as an evening affair only, many of its traditions are firmly rooted in
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Paganism. Interestingly, some schools have recently attempted to
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abolish Halloween parties on the grounds that it violates the
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separation of state and religion. Speaking as a Pagan, I would be
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saddened by the success of this move, but as a supporter of the
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concept of religion-free public education, I fear I must concede the
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point. Nonetheless, it seems only right that there SHOULD be one
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night of the year when our minds are turned toward thoughts of the
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supernatural. A night when both Pagans and non-Pagans may ponder the
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mysteries of the Otherworld and its inhabitants. And if you are one
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of them, may all your jack-o'lanterns burn bright on this All Hallow's
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Eve.
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MIDWINTER NIGHT'S EVE: Y U L E
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================================
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by Mike Nichols
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Our Christian friends are often quite surprised at how
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enthusiastically we Pagans celebrate the 'Christmas' season. Even
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though we prefer to use the word 'Yule', and our celebrations may peak
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a few days BEFORE the 25th, we nonetheless follow many of the
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traditional customs of the season: decorated trees, carolling,
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presents, Yule logs, and mistletoe. We might even go so far as
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putting up a 'Nativity set', though for us the three central
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characters are likely to be interpreted as Mother Nature, Father Time,
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and the Baby Sun-God. None of this will come as a surprise to anyone
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who knows the true history of the holiday, of course.
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In fact, if truth be known, the holiday of Christmas has always
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been more Pagan than Christian, with it's associations of Nordic
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divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism. That is why
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both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred it, why the Puritans
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refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it (to them, no day of
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the year could be more holy than the Sabbath), and why it was even
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made ILLEGAL in Boston! The holiday was already too closely
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associated with the birth of older Pagan gods and heroes. And many of
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them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Dionysus,
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Apollo, Mithra, Horus and even Arthur) possessed a narrative of birth,
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death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably close to that of Jesus.
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And to make matters worse, many of them pre-dated the Christian
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Savior.
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Ultimately, of course, the holiday is rooted deeply in the cycle
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of the year. It is the Winter Solstice that is being celebrated,
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seed-time of the year, the longest night and shortest day. It is the
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birthday of the new Sun King, the Son of God -- by whatever name you
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choose to call him. On this darkest of nights, the Goddess becomes
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the Great Mother and once again gives birth. And it makes perfect
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poetic sense that on the longest night of the winter, 'the dark night
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of our souls', there springs the new spark of hope, the Sacred Fire,
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the Light of the World, the Coel Coeth.
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That is why Pagans have as much right to claim this holiday as
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Christians. Perhaps even more so, as the Christians were rather late
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in laying claim to it, and tried more than once to reject it. There
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had been a tradition in the West that Mary bore the child Jesus on the
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twenty-fifth day, but no one could seem to decide on the month.
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Finally, in 320 C.E., the Catholic Fathers in Rome decided to make it
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December, in an effort to co-opt the Mithraic celebration of the
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Romans and the Yule celebrations of the Celts and Saxons.
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There was never much pretense that the date they finally chose was
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historically accurate. Shepherds just don't 'tend their flocks by
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night' in the high pastures in the dead of winter! But if one wishes
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to use the New Testament as historical evidence, this reference may
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point to sometime in the spring as the time of Jesus's birth. This is
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because the lambing season occurs in the spring and that is the only
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time when shepherds are likely to 'watch their flocks by night' -- to
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make sure the lambing goes well. Knowing this, the Eastern half of
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the Church continued to reject December 25, preferring a 'movable
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date' fixed by their astrologers according to the moon.
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Thus, despite its shaky start (for over three centuries, no one
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knew when Jesus was supposed to have been born!), December 25 finally
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began to catch on. By 529, it was a civic holiday, and all work or
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public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that contributed
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to the delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the Emperor
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Justinian. In 563, the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas
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Day, and four years later the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve
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days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season. This
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last point is perhaps the hardest to impress upon the modern reader,
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who is lucky to get a single day off work. Christmas, in the Middle
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Ages, was not a SINGLE day, but rather a period of TWELVE days, from
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December 25 to January 6. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in fact. It
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is certainly lamentable that the modern world has abandoned this
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approach, along with the popular Twelfth Night celebrations.
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Of course, the Christian version of the holiday spread to many
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countries no faster than Christianity itself, which means that
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'Christmas' wasn't celebrated in Ireland until the late fifth century;
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in England, Switzerland, and Austria until the seventh; in Germany
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until the eighth; and in the Slavic lands until the ninth and tenth.
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Not that these countries lacked their own mid-winter celebrations of
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Yuletide. Long before the world had heard of Jesus, Pagans had been
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observing the season by bringing in the Yule log, wishing on it, and
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lighting it from the remains of last year's log. Riddles were posed
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and answered, magic and rituals were practiced, wild boars were
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sacrificed and consumed along with large quantities of liquor, corn
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dollies were carried from house to house while carolling, fertility
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rites were practiced (girls standing under a sprig of mistletoe were
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subject to a bit more than a kiss), and divinations were cast for the
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coming Spring. Many of these Pagan customs, in an appropriately
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watered-down form, have entered the mainstream of Christian
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celebration, though most celebrants do not realize (or do not mention
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it, if they do) their origins.
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For modern Witches, Yule (from the Anglo-Saxon 'Yula', meaning
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'wheel' of the year) is usually celebrated on the actual Winter
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Solstice, which may vary by a few days, though it usually occurs on or
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around December 21st. It is a Lesser Sabbat or Lower Holiday in the
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modern Pagan calendar, one of the four quarter-days of the year, but a
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very important one. This year (1988) it occurs on December 21st at
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9:28 am CST. Pagan customs are still enthusiastically followed.
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Once, the Yule log had been the center of the celebration. It was
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lighted on the eve of the solstice (it should light on the first try)
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and must be kept burning for twelve hours, for good luck. It should
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be made of ash. Later, the Yule log was replaced by the Yule tree
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but, instead of burning it, burning candles were placed on it. In
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Christianity, Protestants might claim that Martin Luther invented the
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custom, and Catholics might grant St. Boniface the honor, but the
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custom can demonstrably be traced back through the Roman Saturnalia
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all the way to ancient Egypt. Needless to say, such a tree should be
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cut down rather than purchased, and should be disposed of by burning,
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the proper way to dispatch any sacred object.
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Along with the evergreen, the holly and the ivy and the mistletoe
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were important plants of the season, all symbolizing fertility and
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everlasting life. Mistletoe was especially venerated by the Celtic
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Druids, who cut it with a golden sickle on the sixth night of the
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moon, and believed it to be an aphrodisiac. (Magically -- not
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medicinally! It's highly toxic!) But aphrodisiacs must have been the
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smallest part of the Yuletide menu in ancient times, as contemporary
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reports indicate that the tables fairly creaked under the strain of
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every type of good food. And drink! The most popular of which was
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the 'wassail cup' deriving its name from the Anglo-Saxon term 'waes
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hael' (be whole or hale).
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Medieval Christmas folklore seems endless: that animals will all
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kneel down as the Holy Night arrives, that bees hum the '100th psalm'
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on Christmas Eve, that a windy Christmas will bring good luck, that a
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person born on Christmas Day can see the Little People, that a cricket
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on the hearth brings good luck, that if one opens all the doors of the
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house at midnight all the evil spirits will depart, that you will have
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one lucky month for each Christmas pudding you sample, that the tree
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must be taken down by Twelfth Night or bad luck is sure to follow,
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that 'if Christmas on a Sunday be, a windy winter we shall see', that
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'hours of sun on Christmas Day, so many frosts in the month of May',
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that one can use the Twelve Days of Christmas to predict the weather
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for each of the twelve months of the coming year, and so on.
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Remembering that most Christmas customs are ultimately based upon
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older Pagan customs, it only remains for modern Pagans to reclaim
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their lost traditions. In doing so, we can share many common customs
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with our Christian friends, albeit with a slightly different
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interpretation. And thus we all share in the beauty of this most
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magical of seasons, when the Mother Goddess once again gives birth to
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the baby Sun-God and sets the wheel in motion again. To conclude with
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a long-overdue paraphrase, 'Goddess bless us, every one!'
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C A N D L E M A S: The Light Returns
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=====================================
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by Mike Nichols
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It seems quite impossible that the holiday of Candlemas should be
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considered the beginning of Spring. Here in the Heartland, February
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2nd may see a blanket of snow mantling the Mother. Or, if the snows
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have gone, you may be sure the days are filled with drizzle, slush,
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and steel-grey skies -- the dreariest weather of the year. In short,
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the perfect time for a Pagan Festival of Lights. And as for Spring,
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although this may seem a tenuous beginning, all the little buds,
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flowers and leaves will have arrived on schedule before Spring runs
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its course to Beltane.
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'Candlemas' is the Christianized name for the holiday, of course.
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The older Pagan names were Imbolc and Oimelc. 'Imbolc' means,
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literally, 'in the belly' (of the Mother). For in the womb of Mother
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Earth, hidden from our mundane sight but sensed by a keener vision,
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there are stirrings. The seed that was planted in her womb at the
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solstice is quickening and the new year grows. 'Oimelc' means 'milk
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of ewes', for it is also lambing season.
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The holiday is also called 'Brigit's Day', in honor of the great
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Irish Goddess Brigit. At her shrine, the ancient Irish capitol of
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Kildare, a group of 19 priestesses (no men allowed) kept a perpetual
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flame burning in her honor. She was considered a goddess of fire,
|
|
patroness of smithcraft, poetry and healing (especially the healing
|
|
touch of midwifery). This tripartite symbolism was occasionally
|
|
expressed by saying that Brigit had two sisters, also named Brigit.
|
|
(Incidentally, another form of the name Brigit is Bride, and it is
|
|
thus She bestows her special patronage on any woman about to be
|
|
married or handfasted, the woman being called 'bride' in her honor.)
|
|
|
|
The Roman Catholic Church could not very easily call the Great
|
|
Goddess of Ireland a demon, so they canonized her instead.
|
|
Henceforth, she would be 'Saint' Brigit, patron SAINT of smithcraft,
|
|
poetry, and healing. They 'explained' this by telling the Irish
|
|
peasants that Brigit was 'really' an early Christian missionary sent
|
|
to the Emerald Isle, and that the miracles she performed there
|
|
'misled' the common people into believing that she was a goddess. For
|
|
some reason, the Irish swallowed this. (There is no limit to what the
|
|
Irish imagination can convince itself of. For example, they also came
|
|
to believe that Brigit was the 'foster-mother' of Jesus, giving no
|
|
thought to the implausibility of Jesus having spent his boyhood in
|
|
Ireland!)
|
|
|
|
Brigit's holiday was chiefly marked by the kindling of sacred
|
|
fires, since she symbolized the fire of birth and healing, the fire of
|
|
the forge, and the fire of poetic inspiration. Bonfires were lighted
|
|
on the beacon tors, and chandlers celebrated their special holiday.
|
|
The Roman Church was quick to confiscate this symbolism as well, using
|
|
'Candlemas' as the day to bless all the church candles that would be
|
|
used for the coming liturgical year. (Catholics will be reminded that
|
|
the following day, St. Blaise's Day, is remembered for using the
|
|
newly-blessed candles to bless the throats of parishioners, keeping
|
|
them from colds, flu, sore throats, etc.)
|
|
|
|
The Catholic Church, never one to refrain from piling holiday upon
|
|
holiday, also called it the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed
|
|
Virgin Mary. (It is surprising how many of the old Pagan holidays
|
|
were converted to Maryan Feasts.) The symbol of the Purification may
|
|
seem a little obscure to modern readers, but it has to do with the old
|
|
custom of 'churching women'. It was believed that women were impure
|
|
for six weeks after giving birth. And since Mary gave birth at the
|
|
winter solstice, she wouldn't be purified until February 2nd. In
|
|
Pagan symbolism, this might be re-translated as when the Great Mother
|
|
once again becomes the Young Maiden Goddess.
|
|
|
|
Today, this holiday is chiefly connected to weather lore. Even
|
|
our American folk-calendar keeps the tradition of 'Groundhog's Day', a
|
|
day to predict the coming weather, telling us that if the Groundhog
|
|
sees his shadow, there will be 'six more weeks' of bad weather (i.e.,
|
|
until the next old holiday, Lady Day). This custom is ancient. An
|
|
old British rhyme tells us that 'If Candlemas Day be bright and clear,
|
|
there'll be two winters in the year.' Actually, all of the
|
|
cross-quarter days can be used as 'inverse' weather predictors,
|
|
whereas the quarter-days are used as 'direct' weather predictors.
|
|
|
|
Like the other High Holidays or Great Sabbats of the Witches'
|
|
year, Candlemas is sometimes celebrated on it's alternate date,
|
|
astrologically determined by the sun's reaching 15-degrees Aquarius,
|
|
or Candlemas Old Style (in 1988, February 3rd, at 9:03 am CST).
|
|
Another holiday that gets mixed up in this is Valentine's Day. Ozark
|
|
folklorist Vance Randolf makes this quite clear by noting that the
|
|
old-timers used to celebrate Groundhog's Day on February 14th. This
|
|
same displacement is evident in Eastern Orthodox Christianity as well.
|
|
Their habit of celebrating the birth of Jesus on January 6th, with a
|
|
similar post-dated shift in the six-week period that follows it, puts
|
|
the Feast of the Purification of Mary on February 14th. It is amazing
|
|
to think that the same confusion and lateral displacement of one of
|
|
the old folk holidays can be seen from the Russian steppes to the
|
|
Ozark hills, but such seems to be the case!
|
|
|
|
Incidentally, there is speculation among linguistic scholars that
|
|
the vary name of 'Valentine' has Pagan origins. It seems that it was
|
|
customary for French peasants of the Middle Ages to pronounce a 'g' as
|
|
a 'v'. Consequently, the original term may have been the French
|
|
'galantine', which yields the English word 'gallant'. The word
|
|
originally refers to a dashing young man known for his 'affaires
|
|
d'amour', a true galaunt. The usual associations of V(G)alantine's
|
|
Day make much more sense in this light than their vague connection to
|
|
a legendary 'St. Valentine' can produce. Indeed, the Church has
|
|
always found it rather difficult to explain this nebulous saint's
|
|
connection to the secular pleasures of flirtation and courtly love.
|
|
|
|
For modern Witches, Candlemas O.S. may then be seen as the Pagan
|
|
version of Valentine's Day, with a de-emphasis of 'hearts and flowers'
|
|
and an appropriate re-emphasis of Pagan carnal frivolity. This also
|
|
re-aligns the holiday with the ancient Roman Lupercalia, a fertility
|
|
festival held at this time, in which the priests of Pan ran through
|
|
the streets of Rome whacking young women with goatskin thongs to make
|
|
them fertile. The women seemed to enjoy the attention and often
|
|
stripped in order to afford better targets.
|
|
|
|
One of the nicest folk-customs still practiced in many countries,
|
|
and especially by Witches in the British Isles and parts of the U.S.,
|
|
is to place a lighted candle in each and every window of the house,
|
|
beginning at sundown on Candlemas Eve (February 1st), allowing them to
|
|
continue burning until sunrise. Make sure that such candles are well
|
|
seated against tipping and guarded from nearby curtains, etc. What a
|
|
cheery sight it is on this cold, bleak and dreary night to see house
|
|
after house with candle-lit windows! And, of course, if you are your
|
|
Coven's chandler, or if you just happen to like making candles,
|
|
Candlemas Day is THE day for doing it. Some Covens hold candle-making
|
|
parties and try to make and bless all the candles they'll be using for
|
|
the whole year on this day.
|
|
|
|
Other customs of the holiday include weaving 'Brigit's crosses'
|
|
from straw or wheat to hang around the house for protection,
|
|
performing rites of spiritual cleansing and purification, making
|
|
'Brigit's beds' to ensure fertility of mind and spirit (and body, if
|
|
desired), and making Crowns of Light (i.e. of candles) for the High
|
|
Priestess to wear for the Candlemas Circle, similar to those worn on
|
|
St. Lucy's Day in Scandinavian countries. All in all, this Pagan
|
|
Festival of Lights, sacred to the young Maiden Goddess, is one of the
|
|
most beautiful and poetic of the year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
L A D Y D A Y: The Vernal Equinox
|
|
=====================================
|
|
by Mike Nichols
|
|
|
|
Now comes the Vernal Equinox, and the season of Spring reaches
|
|
it's apex, halfway through its journey from Candlemas to Beltane.
|
|
Once again, night and day stand in perfect balance, with the powers of
|
|
light on the ascendancy. The god of light now wins a victory over his
|
|
twin, the god of darkness. In the Mabinogion myth reconstruction
|
|
which I have proposed, this is the day on which the restored Llew
|
|
takes his vengeance on Goronwy by piercing him with the sunlight
|
|
spear. For Llew was restored/reborn at the Winter Solstice and is now
|
|
well/old enough to vanquish his rival/twin and mate with his
|
|
lover/mother. And the great Mother Goddess, who has returned to her
|
|
Virgin aspect at Candlemas, welcomes the young sun god's embraces and
|
|
conceives a child. The child will be born nine months from now, at
|
|
the next Winter Solstice. And so the cycle closes at last.
|
|
|
|
We think that the customs surrounding the celebration of the
|
|
spring equinox were imported from Mediterranean lands, although there
|
|
can be no doubt that the first inhabitants of the British Isles
|
|
observed it, as evidence from megalithic sites shows. But it was
|
|
certainly more popular to the south, where people celebrated the
|
|
holiday as New Year's Day, and claimed it as the first day of the
|
|
first sign of the Zodiac, Aries. However you look at it, it is
|
|
certainly a time of new beginnings, as a simple glance at Nature will
|
|
prove.
|
|
|
|
In the Roman Catholic Church, there are two holidays which get
|
|
mixed up with the Vernal Equinox. The first, occurring on the fixed
|
|
calendar day of March 25th in the old liturgical calendar, is called
|
|
the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or B.V.M.,
|
|
as she was typically abbreviated in Catholic Missals). 'Annunciation'
|
|
means an announcement. This is the day that the angel Gabriel
|
|
announced to Mary that she was 'in the family way'. Naturally, this
|
|
had to be announced since Mary, being still a virgin, would have no
|
|
other means of knowing it. (Quit scoffing, O ye of little faith!)
|
|
Why did the Church pick the Vernal Equinox for the commemoration of
|
|
this event? Because it was necessary to have Mary conceive the child
|
|
Jesus a full nine months before his birth at the Winter Solstice
|
|
(i.e., Christmas, celebrated on the fixed calendar date of December
|
|
25). Mary's pregnancy would take the natural nine months to complete,
|
|
even if the conception was a bit unorthodox.
|
|
|
|
As mentioned before, the older Pagan equivalent of this scene
|
|
focuses on the joyous process of natural conception, when the young
|
|
virgin Goddess (in this case, 'virgin' in the original sense of
|
|
meaning 'unmarried') mates with the young solar God, who has just
|
|
displaced his rival. This is probably not their first mating,
|
|
however. In the mythical sense, the couple may have been lovers since
|
|
Candlemas, when the young God reached puberty. But the young Goddess
|
|
was recently a mother (at the Winter Solstice) and is probably still
|
|
nursing her new child. Therefore, conception is naturally delayed for
|
|
six weeks or so and, despite earlier matings with the God, She does
|
|
not conceive until (surprise!) the Vernal Equinox. This may also be
|
|
their Hand-fasting, a sacred marriage between God and Goddess called a
|
|
Hierogamy, the ultimate Great Rite. Probably the nicest study of this
|
|
theme occurs in M. Esther Harding's book, 'Woman's Mysteries'.
|
|
Probably the nicest description of it occurs in M. Z. Bradley's
|
|
'Mists of Avalon', in the scene where Morgan and Arthur assume the
|
|
sacred roles. (Bradley follows the British custom of transferring the
|
|
episode to Beltane, when the climate is more suited to its outdoor
|
|
celebration.)
|
|
|
|
The other Christian holiday which gets mixed up in this is Easter.
|
|
Easter, too, celebrates the victory of a god of light (Jesus) over
|
|
darkness (death), so it makes sense to place it at this season.
|
|
Ironically, the name 'Easter' was taken from the name of a Teutonic
|
|
lunar Goddess, Eostre (from whence we also get the name of the female
|
|
hormone, estrogen). Her chief symbols were the bunny (both for
|
|
fertility and because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon) and
|
|
the egg (symbolic of the cosmic egg of creation), images which
|
|
Christians have been hard pressed to explain. Her holiday, the
|
|
Eostara, was held on the Vernal Equinox Full Moon. Of course, the
|
|
Church doesn't celebrate full moons, even if they do calculate by
|
|
them, so they planted their Easter on the following Sunday. Thus,
|
|
Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first Full Moon, after
|
|
the Vernal Equinox. If you've ever wondered why Easter moved all
|
|
around the calendar, now you know. (By the way, the Catholic Church
|
|
was so adamant about NOT incorporating lunar Goddess symbolism that
|
|
they added a further calculation: if Easter Sunday were to fall on the
|
|
Full Moon itself, then Easter was postponed to the following Sunday
|
|
instead.)
|
|
|
|
Incidentally, this raises another point: recently, some Pagan
|
|
traditions began referring to the Vernal Equinox as Eostara.
|
|
Historically, this is incorrect. Eostara is a lunar holiday, honoring
|
|
a lunar Goddess, at the Vernal Full Moon. Hence, the name 'Eostara'
|
|
is best reserved to the nearest Esbat, rather than the Sabbat itself.
|
|
How this happened is difficult to say. However, it is notable that
|
|
some of the same groups misappropriated the term 'Lady Day' for
|
|
Beltane, which left no good folk name for the Equinox. Thus, Eostara
|
|
was misappropriated for it, completing a chain-reaction of
|
|
displacement. Needless to say, the old and accepted folk name for the
|
|
Vernal Equinox is 'Lady Day'. Christians sometimes insist that the
|
|
title is in honor of Mary and her Annunciation, but Pagans will smile
|
|
knowingly.
|
|
|
|
Another mythological motif which must surely arrest our attention
|
|
at this time of year is that of the descent of the God or Goddess into
|
|
the Underworld. Perhaps we see this most clearly in the Christian
|
|
tradition. Beginning with his death on the cross on Good Friday, it
|
|
is said that Jesus 'descended into hell' for the three days that his
|
|
body lay entombed. But on the third day (that is, Easter Sunday), his
|
|
body and soul rejoined, he arose from the dead and ascended into
|
|
heaven. By a strange 'coincidence', most ancient Pagan religions
|
|
speak of the Goddess descending into the Underworld, also for a period
|
|
of three days.
|
|
|
|
Why three days? If we remember that we are here dealing with the
|
|
lunar aspect of the Goddess, the reason should be obvious. As the
|
|
text of one Book of Shadows gives it, '...as the moon waxes and wanes,
|
|
and walks three nights in darkness, so the Goddess once spent three
|
|
nights in the Kingdom of Death.' In our modern world, alienated as it
|
|
is from nature, we tend to mark the time of the New Moon (when no moon
|
|
is visible) as a single date on a calendar. We tend to forget that
|
|
the moon is also hidden from our view on the day before and the day
|
|
after our calendar date. But this did not go unnoticed by our
|
|
ancestors, who always speak of the Goddess's sojourn into the land of
|
|
Death as lasting for three days. Is it any wonder then, that we
|
|
celebrate the next Full Moon (the Eostara) as the return of the
|
|
Goddess from chthonic regions?
|
|
|
|
Naturally, this is the season to celebrate the victory of life
|
|
over death, as any nature-lover will affirm. And the Christian
|
|
religion was not misguided by celebrating Christ's victory over death
|
|
at this same season. Nor is Christ the only solar hero to journey
|
|
into the underworld. King Arthur, for example, does the same thing
|
|
when he sets sail in his magical ship, Prydwen, to bring back precious
|
|
gifts (i.e. the gifts of life) from the Land of the Dead, as we are
|
|
told in the 'Mabinogi'. Welsh triads allude to Gwydion and Amaethon
|
|
doing much the same thing. In fact, this theme is so universal that
|
|
mythologists refer to it by a common phrase, 'the harrowing of hell'.
|
|
|
|
However, one might conjecture that the descent into hell, or the
|
|
land of the dead, was originally accomplished, not by a solar male
|
|
deity, but by a lunar female deity. It is Nature Herself who, in
|
|
Spring, returns from the Underworld with her gift of abundant life.
|
|
Solar heroes may have laid claim to this theme much later. The very
|
|
fact that we are dealing with a three-day period of absence should
|
|
tell us we are dealing with a lunar, not solar, theme. (Although one
|
|
must make exception for those occasional MALE lunar deities, such as
|
|
the Assyrian god, Sin.) At any rate, one of the nicest modern
|
|
renditions of the harrowing of hell appears in many Books of Shadows
|
|
as 'The Descent of the Goddess'. Lady Day may be especially
|
|
appropriate for the celebration of this theme, whether by
|
|
storytelling, reading, or dramatic re-enactment.
|
|
|
|
For modern Witches, Lady Day is one of the Lesser Sabbats or Low
|
|
Holidays of the year, one of the four quarter-days. And what date
|
|
will Witches choose to celebrate? They may choose the traditional
|
|
folk 'fixed' date of March 25th, starting on its Eve. Or they may
|
|
choose the actual equinox point, when the Sun crosses the Equator and
|
|
enters the astrological sign of Aries. This year (1988), that will
|
|
occur at 3:39 am CST on March 20th.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Celebration of M A Y D A Y
|
|
================================
|
|
by Mike Nichols
|
|
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * *
|
|
'Perhaps its just as well that you won't be here...to be offended
|
|
by the sight of our May Day celebrations.'
|
|
--Lord Summerisle to Sgt. Howie from 'The Wicker Man'
|
|
* * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
There are four great festivals of the Pagan Celtic year and the
|
|
modern Witch's calendar, as well. The two greatest of these are
|
|
Halloween (the beginning of winter) and May Day (the beginning of
|
|
summer). Being opposite each other on the wheel of the year, they
|
|
separate the year into halves. Halloween (also called Samhain) is the
|
|
Celtic New Year and is generally considered the more important of the
|
|
two, though May Day runs a close second. Indeed, in some areas --
|
|
notably Wales -- it is considered the great holiday.
|
|
|
|
May Day ushers in the fifth month of the modern calendar year,
|
|
the month of May. This month is named in honor of the goddess Maia,
|
|
originally a Greek mountain nymph, later identified as the most
|
|
beautiful of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. By Zeus, she is also
|
|
the mother of Hermes, god of magic. Maia's parents were Atlas and
|
|
Pleione, a sea nymph.
|
|
|
|
The old Celtic name for May Day is Beltane (in its most popular
|
|
Anglicized form), which is derived from the Irish Gaelic 'Bealtaine'
|
|
or the Scottish Gaelic 'Bealtuinn', meaning 'Bel-fire', the fire of
|
|
the Celtic god of light (Bel, Beli or Belinus). He, in turn, may be
|
|
traced to the Middle Eastern god Baal.
|
|
|
|
Other names for May Day include: Cetsamhain ('opposite Samhain'),
|
|
Walpurgisnacht (in Germany), and Roodmas (the medieval Church's name).
|
|
This last came from Church Fathers who were hoping to shift the common
|
|
people's allegiance from the Maypole (Pagan lingham - symbol of life)
|
|
to the Holy Rood (the Cross - Roman instrument of death).
|
|
|
|
Incidentally, there is no historical justification for calling
|
|
May 1st 'Lady Day'. For hundreds of years, that title has been proper
|
|
to the Vernal Equinox (approx. March 21st), another holiday sacred to
|
|
the Great Goddess. The nontraditional use of 'Lady Day' for May 1st
|
|
is quite recent (within the last 15 years), and seems to be confined
|
|
to America, where it has gained widespread acceptance among certain
|
|
segments of the Craft population. This rather startling departure
|
|
from tradition would seem to indicate an unfamiliarity with European
|
|
calendar customs, as well as a lax attitude toward scholarship among
|
|
too many Pagans. A simple glance at a dictionary ('Webster's 3rd' or
|
|
O.E.D.), encyclopedia ('Benet's'), or standard mythology reference
|
|
(Jobe's 'Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore & Symbols') would confirm
|
|
the correct date for Lady Day as the Vernal Equinox.
|
|
|
|
By Celtic reckoning, the actual Beltane celebration begins on
|
|
sundown of the preceding day, April 30, because the Celts always
|
|
figured their days from sundown to sundown. And sundown was the
|
|
proper time for Druids to kindle the great Bel-fires on the tops of
|
|
the nearest beacon hill (such as Tara Hill, Co. Meath, in Ireland).
|
|
These 'need-fires' had healing properties, and sky-clad Witches would
|
|
jump through the flames to ensure protection.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * *
|
|
Sgt. Howie (shocked): 'But they are naked!'
|
|
Lord Summerisle: 'Naturally. It's much too dangerous to jump
|
|
through the fire with your clothes on!'
|
|
* * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Frequently, cattle would be driven between two such bon-fires
|
|
(oak wood was the favorite fuel for them) and, on the morrow, they
|
|
would be taken to their summer pastures.
|
|
|
|
Other May Day customs include: walking the circuit of one's
|
|
property ('beating the bounds'), repairing fences and boundary
|
|
markers, processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, archery
|
|
tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking,
|
|
and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of May morning to retain
|
|
their youthful beauty.
|
|
|
|
In the words of Witchcraft writers Janet and Stewart Farrar, the
|
|
Beltane celebration was principly a time of '...unashamed human
|
|
sexuality and fertility.' Such associations include the obvious
|
|
phallic symbolism of the Maypole and riding the hobby horse. Even a
|
|
seemingly innocent children's nursery rhyme, 'Ride a cock horse to
|
|
Banburry Cross...' retains such memories. And the next line '...to
|
|
see a fine Lady on a white horse' is a reference to the annual ride of
|
|
'Lady Godiva' though Coventry. Every year for nearly three centuries,
|
|
a sky-clad village maiden (elected Queen of the May) enacted this
|
|
Pagan rite, until the Puritans put an end to the custom.
|
|
|
|
The Puritans, in fact, reacted with pious horror to most of the
|
|
May Day rites, even making Maypoles illegal in 1644. They especially
|
|
attempted to suppress the 'greenwood marriages' of young men and women
|
|
who spent the entire night in the forest, staying out to greet the May
|
|
sunrise, and bringing back boughs of flowers and garlands to decorate
|
|
the village the next morning. One angry Puritan wrote that men 'doe
|
|
use commonly to runne into woodes in the night time, amongst maidens,
|
|
to set bowes, in so muche, as I have hearde of tenne maidens whiche
|
|
went to set May, and nine of them came home with childe.' And another
|
|
Puritan complained that, of the girls who go into the woods, 'not the
|
|
least one of them comes home again a virgin.'
|
|
|
|
Long after the Christian form of marriage (with its insistence on
|
|
sexual monogamy) had replaced the older Pagan handfasting, the rules
|
|
of strict fidelity were always relaxed for the May Eve rites. Names
|
|
such as Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Little John played an important
|
|
part in May Day folklore, often used as titles for the dramatis
|
|
personae of the celebrations. And modern surnames such as Robinson,
|
|
Hodson, Johnson, and Godkin may attest to some distant May Eve spent
|
|
in the woods.
|
|
|
|
These wildwood antics have inspired writers such as Kipling:
|
|
Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
|
|
Or he would call it a sin;
|
|
But we have been out in the woods all night,
|
|
A-conjuring Summer in!
|
|
|
|
And Lerner and Lowe:
|
|
It's May! It's May!
|
|
The lusty month of May!...
|
|
Those dreary vows that ev'ryone takes,
|
|
Ev'ryone breaks.
|
|
Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes!
|
|
The lusty month of May!
|
|
|
|
It is certainly no accident that Queen Guinevere's 'abduction' by
|
|
Meliagrance occurs on May 1st when she and the court have gone
|
|
a-Maying, or that the usually efficient Queen's Guard, on this
|
|
occasion, rode unarmed.
|
|
|
|
Some of these customs seem virtually identical to the old Roman
|
|
feast of flowers, the Floriala, three days of unrestrained sexuality
|
|
which began at sundown April 28th and reached a crescendo on May 1st.
|
|
|
|
There are other, even older, associations with May 1st in Celtic
|
|
mythology. According to the ancient Irish 'Book of Invasions', the
|
|
first settler of Ireland, Partholan, arrived on May 1st; and it was on
|
|
May 1st that the plague came which destroyed his people. Years later,
|
|
the Tuatha De Danann were conquered by the Milesians on May Day. In
|
|
Welsh myth, the perennial battle between Gwythur and Gwyn for the love
|
|
of Creudylad took place each May Day; and it was on May Eve that
|
|
Teirnyon lost his colts and found Pryderi. May Eve was also the
|
|
occasion of a fearful scream that was heard each year throughout
|
|
Wales, one of the three curses of the Coranians lifted by the skill of
|
|
Lludd and Llevelys.
|
|
|
|
By the way, due to various calendrical changes down through the
|
|
centuries, the traditional date of Beltane is not the same as its
|
|
astrological date. This date, like all astronomically determined
|
|
dates, may vary by a day or two depending on the year. However, it
|
|
may be calculated easily enough by determining the date on which the
|
|
sun is at 15 degrees Taurus (usually around May 5th). British Witches
|
|
often refer to this date as Old Beltane, and folklorists call it
|
|
Beltane O.S. ('Old Style'). Some Covens prefer to celebrate on the
|
|
old date and, at the very least, it gives one options. If a Coven is
|
|
operating on 'Pagan Standard Time' and misses May 1st altogether, it
|
|
can still throw a viable Beltane bash as long as it's before May 5th.
|
|
This may also be a consideration for Covens that need to organize
|
|
activities around the week-end.
|
|
|
|
This date has long been considered a 'power point' of the Zodiac,
|
|
and is symbolized by the Bull, one of the 'tetramorph' figures
|
|
featured on the Tarot cards, the World and the Wheel of Fortune. (The
|
|
other three symbols are the Lion, the Eagle, and the Spirit.)
|
|
Astrologers know these four figures as the symbols of the four 'fixed'
|
|
signs of the Zodiac (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius), and these
|
|
naturally align with the four Great Sabbats of Witchcraft. Christians
|
|
have adopted the same iconography to represent the four
|
|
gospel-writers.
|
|
|
|
But for most, it is May 1st that is the great holiday of flowers,
|
|
Maypoles, and greenwood frivolity. It is no wonder that, as recently
|
|
as 1977, Ian Anderson could pen the following lyrics for Jethro Tull:
|
|
|
|
For the May Day is the great day,
|
|
Sung along the old straight track.
|
|
And those who ancient lines did ley
|
|
Will heed this song that calls them back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A M I D S U M M E R ' S CELEBRATION
|
|
=======================================
|
|
by Mike Nichols
|
|
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
The young maid stole through the cottage door,
|
|
And blushed as she sought the Plant of pow'r;--
|
|
'Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light,
|
|
I must gather the mystic St. John's wort tonight,
|
|
The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide
|
|
If the coming year shall make me a bride.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
|
|
In addition to the four great festivals of the Pagan Celtic year,
|
|
there are four lesser holidays as well: the two solstices, and the two
|
|
equinoxes. In folklore, these are referred to as the four
|
|
'quarter-days' of the year, and modern Witches call them the four
|
|
'Lesser Sabbats', or the four 'Low Holidays'. The Summer Solstice is
|
|
one of them.
|
|
|
|
Technically, a solstice is an astronomical point and, due to the
|
|
procession to the equinox, the date may vary by a few days depending
|
|
on the year. The summer solstice occurs when the sun reaches the
|
|
Tropic of Cancer, and we experience the longest day and the shortest
|
|
night of the year. Astrologers know this as the date on which the sun
|
|
enters the sign of Cancer. This year (1988) it will occur at 10:57 pm
|
|
CDT on June 20th.
|
|
|
|
However, since most European peasants were not accomplished at
|
|
reading an ephemeris or did not live close enough to Salisbury Plain
|
|
to trot over to Stonehenge and sight down its main avenue, they
|
|
celebrated the event on a fixed calendar date, June 24th. The slight
|
|
forward displacement of the traditional date is the result of
|
|
multitudinous calendrical changes down through the ages. It is
|
|
analogous to the winter solstice celebration, which is astronomically
|
|
on or about December 21st, but is celebrated on the traditional date
|
|
of December 25th, Yule, later adopted by the Christians.
|
|
|
|
Again, it must be remembered that the Celts reckoned their days
|
|
from sundown to sundown, so the June 24th festivities actually begin
|
|
on the previous sundown (our June 23rd). This was Shakespeare's
|
|
Midsummer Night's Eve. Which brings up another point: our modern
|
|
calendars are quite misguided in suggesting that 'summer begins' on
|
|
the solstice. According to the old folk calendar, summer BEGINS on
|
|
May Day and ends on Lammas (August 1st), with the summer solstice,
|
|
midway between the two, marking MID-summer. This makes more logical
|
|
sense than suggesting that summer begins on the day when the sun's
|
|
power begins to wane and the days grow shorter.
|
|
|
|
Although our Pagan ancestors probably preferred June 24th (and
|
|
indeed most European folk festivals today use this date), the
|
|
sensibility of modern Witches seems to prefer the actual solstice
|
|
point, beginning the celebration on its eve, or the sunset immediately
|
|
preceding the solstice point. Again, it gives modern Pagans a range
|
|
of dates to choose from with, hopefully, a weekend embedded in it.
|
|
|
|
Just as the Pagan mid-winter celebration of Yule was adopted by
|
|
Christians as Christmas (December 25th), so too the Pagan mid-summer
|
|
celebration was adopted by them as the feast of John the Baptist (June
|
|
24th). Occurring 180 degrees apart on the wheel of the year, the
|
|
mid-winter celebration commemorates the birth of Jesus, while the
|
|
mid-summer celebration commemorates the birth of John, the prophet who
|
|
was born six months before Jesus in order to announce his arrival.
|
|
|
|
Although modern Witches often refer to the holiday by the rather
|
|
generic name of Midsummer's Eve, it is more probable that our Pagan
|
|
ancestors of a few hundred years ago actually used the Christian name
|
|
for the holiday, St. John's Eve. This is evident from the wealth of
|
|
folklore that surrounds the summer solstice (i.e. that it is a night
|
|
especially sacred to the faerie folk) but which is inevitably ascribed
|
|
to 'St. John's Eve', with no mention of the sun's position. It could
|
|
also be argued that a Coven's claim to antiquity might be judged by
|
|
what name it gives the holidays. (Incidentally, the name 'Litha' for
|
|
the holiday is a modern usage, possibly based on a Saxon word that
|
|
means the opposite of Yule. Still, there is little historical
|
|
justification for its use in this context.) But weren't our Pagan
|
|
ancestors offended by the use of the name of a Christian saint for a
|
|
pre-Christian holiday?
|
|
|
|
Well, to begin with, their theological sensibilities may not have
|
|
been as finely honed as our own. But secondly and more importantly,
|
|
St. John himself was often seen as a rather Pagan figure. He was,
|
|
after all, called 'the Oak King'. His connection to the wilderness
|
|
(from whence 'the voice cried out') was often emphasized by the rustic
|
|
nature of his shrines. Many statues show him as a horned figure (as
|
|
is also the case with Moses). Christian iconographers mumble
|
|
embarrassed explanations about 'horns of light', while modern Pagans
|
|
giggle and happily refer to such statues as 'Pan the Baptist'. And to
|
|
clench matters, many depictions of John actually show him with the
|
|
lower torso of a satyr, cloven hooves and all! Obviously, this kind
|
|
of John the Baptist is more properly a Jack in the Green! Also
|
|
obvious is that behind the medieval conception of St. John lies a
|
|
distant, shadowy Pagan deity, perhaps the archetypal Wild Man of the
|
|
Wood, whose face stares down at us through the foliate masks that
|
|
adorn so much church architecture. Thus medieval Pagans may have had
|
|
fewer problems adapting than we might suppose.
|
|
|
|
In England, it was the ancient custom on St. John's Eve to light
|
|
large bonfires after sundown, which served the double purpose of
|
|
providing light to the revelers and warding off evil spirits. This
|
|
was known as 'setting the watch'. People often jumped through the
|
|
fires for good luck. In addition to these fires, the streets were
|
|
lined with lanterns, and people carried cressets (pivoted lanterns
|
|
atop poles) as they wandered from one bonfire to another. These
|
|
wandering, garland-bedecked bands were called a 'marching watch'.
|
|
Often they were attended by morris dancers, and traditional players
|
|
dressed as a unicorn, a dragon, and six hobby-horse riders. Just as
|
|
May Day was a time to renew the boundary on one's own property, so
|
|
Midsummer's Eve was a time to ward the boundary of the city.
|
|
|
|
Customs surrounding St. John's Eve are many and varied. At the
|
|
very least, most young folk plan to stay up throughout the whole of
|
|
this shortest night. Certain courageous souls might spend the night
|
|
keeping watch in the center of a circle of standing stones. To do so
|
|
would certainly result in either death, madness, or (hopefully) the
|
|
power of inspiration to become a great poet or bard. (This is, by the
|
|
way, identical to certain incidents in the first branch of the
|
|
'Mabinogion'.) This was also the night when the serpents of the
|
|
island would roll themselves into a hissing, writhing ball in order to
|
|
engender the 'glain', also called the 'serpent's egg', 'snake stone',
|
|
or 'Druid's egg'. Anyone in possession of this hard glass bubble
|
|
would wield incredible magical powers. Even Merlyn himself
|
|
(accompanied by his black dog) went in search of it, according to one
|
|
ancient Welsh story.
|
|
|
|
Snakes were not the only creatures active on Midsummer's Eve.
|
|
According to British faery lore, this night was second only to
|
|
Halloween for its importance to the wee folk, who especially enjoyed a
|
|
ridling on such a fine summer's night. In order to see them, you had
|
|
only to gather fern seed at the stroke of midnight and rub it onto
|
|
your eyelids. But be sure to carry a little bit of rue in your
|
|
pocket, or you might well be 'pixie-led'. Or, failing the rue, you
|
|
might simply turn your jacket inside-out, which should keep you from
|
|
harm's way. But if even this fails, you must seek out one of the 'ley
|
|
lines', the old straight tracks, and stay upon it to your destination.
|
|
This will keep you safe from any malevolent power, as will crossing a
|
|
stream of 'living' (running) water.
|
|
|
|
Other customs included decking the house (especially over the
|
|
front door) with birch, fennel, St. John's wort, orpin, and white
|
|
lilies. Five plants were thought to have special magical properties
|
|
on this night: rue, roses, St. John's wort, vervain and trefoil.
|
|
Indeed, Midsummer's Eve in Spain is called the 'Night of the Verbena
|
|
(Vervain)'. St. John's wort was especially honored by young maidens
|
|
who picked it in the hopes of divining a future lover.
|
|
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
And the glow-worm came
|
|
With its silvery flame,
|
|
And sparkled and shone
|
|
Through the night of St. John,
|
|
And soon has the young maid her love-knot tied.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
There are also many mythical associations with the summer
|
|
solstice, not the least of which concerns the seasonal life of the God
|
|
of the sun. Inasmuch as I believe that I have recently discovered
|
|
certain associations and correspondences not hitherto realized, I have
|
|
elected to treat this subject in some depth in another essay. Suffice
|
|
it to say here, that I disagree with the generally accepted idea that
|
|
the Sun-God meets his death at the summer solstice. I believe there
|
|
is good reason to see the Sun-God at his zenith -- his peak of power
|
|
-- on this day, and that his death at the hands of his rival would not
|
|
occur for another quarter of a year. Material drawn from the Welsh
|
|
mythos seems to support this thesis. In Irish mythology, Midsummer is
|
|
the occasion of the first battle between the Fir Bolgs and the Tuatha
|
|
De Danaan.
|
|
|
|
Altogether, Midsummer is a favorite holiday for many Witches in
|
|
that it is so hospitable to outdoor celebrations. The warm summer
|
|
night seems to invite it. And if the celebrants are not in fact
|
|
skyclad, then you may be fairly certain that the long ritual robes of
|
|
winter have yielded place to short, tunic-style apparel. As with the
|
|
longer gowns, tradition dictates that one should wear nothing
|
|
underneath -- the next best thing to skyclad, to be sure.
|
|
(Incidentally, now you know the REAL answer to the old Scottish joke,
|
|
'What is worn underneath the kilt?')
|
|
|
|
The two chief icons of the holiday are the spear (symbol of the
|
|
Sun-God in his glory) and the summer cauldron (symbol of the Goddess
|
|
in her bounty). The precise meaning of these two symbols, which I
|
|
believe I have recently discovered, will be explored in the essay on
|
|
the death of Llew. But it is interesting to note here that modern
|
|
Witches often use these same symbols in the Midsummer rituals. And
|
|
one occasionally hears the alternative consecration formula, 'As the
|
|
spear is to the male, so the cauldron is to the female...' With these
|
|
mythic associations, it is no wonder that Midsummer is such a joyous
|
|
and magical occasion!
|
|
|
|
|
|
L A M M A S: The First Harvest
|
|
===============================
|
|
by Mike Nichols
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
Once upon a Lammas Night
|
|
When corn rigs are bonny,
|
|
Beneath the Moon's unclouded light,
|
|
I held awhile to Annie...
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Although in the heat of a Mid-western summer it might be difficult
|
|
to discern, the festival of Lammas (Aug 1st) marks the end of summer
|
|
and the beginning of fall. The days now grow visibly shorter and by
|
|
the time we've reached autumn's end (Oct 31st), we will have run the
|
|
gamut of temperature from the heat of August to the cold and
|
|
(sometimes) snow of November. And in the midst of it, a perfect
|
|
Mid-western autumn.
|
|
|
|
The history of Lammas is as convoluted as all the rest of the old
|
|
folk holidays. It is of course a cross-quarter day, one of the four
|
|
High Holidays or Greater Sabbats of Witchcraft, occurring 1/4 of a
|
|
year after Beltane. It's true astrological point is 15 degrees Leo,
|
|
which occurs at 1:18 am CDT, Aug 6th this year (1988), but tradition
|
|
has set August 1st as the day Lammas is typically celebrated. The
|
|
celebration proper would begin on sundown of the previous evening, our
|
|
July 31st, since the Celts reckon their days from sundown to sundown.
|
|
|
|
However, British Witches often refer to the astrological date of
|
|
Aug 6th as Old Lammas, and folklorists call it Lammas O.S. ('Old
|
|
Style'). This date has long been considered a 'power point' of the
|
|
Zodiac, and is symbolized by the Lion, one of the 'tetramorph' figures
|
|
found on the Tarot cards, the World and the Wheel of Fortune (the
|
|
other three figures being the Bull, the Eagle, and the Spirit).
|
|
Astrologers know these four figures as the symbols of the four 'fixed'
|
|
signs of the Zodiac, and these naturally align with the four Great
|
|
Sabbats of Witchcraft. Christians have adopted the same iconography
|
|
to represent the four gospel-writers.
|
|
|
|
'Lammas' was the medieval Christian name for the holiday and it
|
|
means 'loaf-mass', for this was the day on which loaves of bread were
|
|
baked from the first grain harvest and laid on the church altars as
|
|
offerings. It was a day representative of 'first fruits' and early
|
|
harvest.
|
|
|
|
In Irish Gaelic, the feast was referred to as 'Lugnasadh', a feast
|
|
to commemorate the funeral games of the Irish sun-god Lugh. However,
|
|
there is some confusion on this point. Although at first glance, it
|
|
may seem that we are celebrating the death of the Lugh, the god of
|
|
light does not really die (mythically) until the autumnal equinox.
|
|
And indeed, if we read the Irish myths closer, we discover that it is
|
|
not Lugh's death that is being celebrated, but the funeral games which
|
|
Lugh hosted to commemorate the death of his foster- mother, Taillte.
|
|
That is why the Lugnasadh celebrations in Ireland are often called the
|
|
'Tailltean Games'.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
The time went by with careless heed
|
|
Between the late and early,
|
|
With small persuasion she agreed
|
|
To see me through the barley...
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
One common feature of the Games were the 'Tailltean marriages', a
|
|
rather informal marriage that lasted for only 'a year and a day' or
|
|
until next Lammas. At that time, the couple could decide to continue
|
|
the arrangement if it pleased them, or to stand back to back and walk
|
|
away from one another, thus bringing the Tailltean marriage to a
|
|
formal close. Such trial marriages (obviously related to the Wiccan
|
|
'Handfasting') were quite common even into the 1500's, although it was
|
|
something one 'didn't bother the parish priest about'. Indeed, such
|
|
ceremonies were usually solemnized by a poet, bard, or shanachie (or,
|
|
it may be guessed, by a priest or priestess of the Old Religion).
|
|
|
|
Lammastide was also the traditional time of year for craft
|
|
festivals. The medieval guilds would create elaborate displays of
|
|
their wares, decorating their shops and themselves in bright colors
|
|
and ribbons, marching in parades, and performing strange, ceremonial
|
|
plays and dances for the entranced onlookers. The atmosphere must
|
|
have been quite similar to our modern-day Renaissance Festivals, such
|
|
as the one celebrated in near-by Bonner Springs, Kansas, each fall.
|
|
|
|
A ceremonial highlight of such festivals was the 'Catherine
|
|
wheel'. Although the Roman Church moved St. Catherine's feast day all
|
|
around the calender with bewildering frequency, it's most popular date
|
|
was Lammas. (They also kept trying to expel this much-loved saint
|
|
from the ranks of the blessed because she was mythical rather than
|
|
historical, and because her worship gave rise to the heretical sect
|
|
known as the Cathari.) At any rate, a large wagon wheel was taken to
|
|
the top of a near-by hill, covered with tar, set aflame, and
|
|
ceremoniously rolled down the hill. Some mythologists see in this
|
|
ritual the remnants of a Pagan rite symbolizing the end of summer, the
|
|
flaming disk representing the sun-god in his decline. And just as the
|
|
sun king has now reached the autumn of his years, his rival or dark
|
|
self has just reached puberty.
|
|
|
|
Many commentators have bewailed the fact that traditional
|
|
Gardnerian and Alexandrian Books of Shadows say very little about the
|
|
holiday of Lammas, stating only that poles should be ridden and a
|
|
circle dance performed. This seems strange, for Lammas is a holiday
|
|
of rich mythic and cultural associations, providing endless resources
|
|
for liturgical celebration.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
Corn rigs and barley rigs,
|
|
Corn rigs are bonny!
|
|
I'll not forget that happy night
|
|
Among the rigs with Annie!
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
[Verse quotations by Robert Burns, as handed down through several
|
|
Books of Shadows.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
H A R V E S T H O M E
|
|
=======================
|
|
by Mike Nichols
|
|
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
There were three men came out of the West,
|
|
Their fortunes for to try,
|
|
And these three men made a solemn vow,
|
|
John Barleycorn must die...
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Despite the bad publicity generated by Thomas Tryon's novel,
|
|
Harvest Home is the pleasantest of holidays. Admittedly, it does
|
|
involve the concept of sacrifice, but one that is symbolic only. The
|
|
sacrifice is that of the spirit of vegetation, John Barleycorn.
|
|
Occurring 1/4 of the year after Midsummer, Harvest Home represents
|
|
mid-autumn, autumn's height. It is also the Autumnal Equinox, one of
|
|
the quarter days of the year, a Lesser Sabbat and a Low Holiday in
|
|
modern Witchcraft.
|
|
|
|
Technically, an equinox is an astronomical point and, due to the
|
|
fact that the earth wobbles on its axis slightly (rather like a top
|
|
that's slowing down), the date may vary by a few days depending on the
|
|
year. The autumnal equinox occurs when the sun crosses the equator on
|
|
it's apparent journey southward, and we experience a day and a night
|
|
that are of equal duration. Up until Harvest Home, the hours of
|
|
daylight have been greater than the hours from dusk to dawn. But from
|
|
now on, the reverse holds true. Astrologers know this as the date on
|
|
which the sun enters the sign of Libra, the Balance (an appropriate
|
|
symbol of a balanced day and night). This year (1988) it will occur
|
|
at 2:29 pm CDT on September 22nd.
|
|
|
|
However, since most European peasants were not accomplished at
|
|
calculating the exact date of the equinox, they celebrated the event
|
|
on a fixed calendar date, September 25th, a holiday the medieval
|
|
Church Christianized under the name of 'Michaelmas', the feast of the
|
|
Archangel Michael. (One wonders if, at some point, the R.C. Church
|
|
contemplated assigning the four quarter days of the year to the four
|
|
Archangels, just as they assigned the four cross-quarter days to the
|
|
four gospel-writers. Further evidence for this may be seen in the
|
|
fact that there was a brief flirtation with calling the Vernal Equinox
|
|
'Gabrielmas', ostensibly to commemorate the angel Gabriel's
|
|
announcement to Mary on Lady Day.) Again, it must be remembered that
|
|
the Celts reckoned their days from sundown to sundown, so the
|
|
September 25th festivities actually begin on the previous sundown (our
|
|
September 24th).
|
|
|
|
Although our Pagan ancestors probably celebrated Harvest Home on
|
|
September 25th, modern Witches and Pagans, with their desk-top
|
|
computers for making finer calculations, seem to prefer the actual
|
|
equinox point, beginning the celebration on its eve (this year, sunset
|
|
on September 21st).
|
|
|
|
Mythically, this is the day of the year when the god of light is
|
|
defeated by his twin and alter-ego, the god of darkness. It is the
|
|
time of the year when night conquers day. And as I have recently
|
|
shown in my seasonal reconstruction of the Welsh myth of Blodeuwedd,
|
|
the Autumnal Equinox is the only day of the whole year when Llew
|
|
(light) is vulnerable and it is possible to defeat him. Llew now
|
|
stands on the balance (Libra/autumnal equinox), with one foot on the
|
|
cauldron (Cancer/summer solstice) and his other foot on the goat
|
|
(Capricorn/winter solstice). Thus he is betrayed by Blodeuwedd, the
|
|
Virgin (Virgo) and transformed into an Eagle (Scorpio).
|
|
|
|
Two things are now likely to occur mythically, in rapid
|
|
succession. Having defeated Llew, Goronwy (darkness) now takes over
|
|
Llew's functions, both as lover to Blodeuwedd, the Goddess, and as
|
|
King of our own world. Although Goronwy, the Horned King, now sits on
|
|
Llew's throne and begins his rule immediately, his formal coronation
|
|
will not be for another six weeks, occurring at Samhain (Halloween) or
|
|
the beginning of Winter, when he becomes the Winter Lord, the Dark
|
|
King, Lord of Misrule. Goronwy's other function has more immediate
|
|
results, however. He mates with the virgin goddess, and Blodeuwedd
|
|
conceives, and will give birth -- nine months later (at the Summer
|
|
Solstice) -- to Goronwy's son, who is really another incarnation of
|
|
himself, the Dark Child.
|
|
|
|
Llew's sacrificial death at Harvest Home also identifies him with
|
|
John Barleycorn, spirit of the fields. Thus, Llew represents not only
|
|
the sun's power, but also the sun's life trapped and crystallized in
|
|
the corn. Often this corn spirit was believed to reside most
|
|
especially in the last sheaf or shock harvested, which was dressed in
|
|
fine clothes, or woven into a wicker-like man-shaped form. This
|
|
effigy was then cut and carried from the field, and usually burned,
|
|
amidst much rejoicing. So one may see Blodeuwedd and Goronwy in a new
|
|
guise, not as conspirators who murder their king, but as kindly
|
|
farmers who harvest the crop which they had planted and so lovingly
|
|
cared for. And yet, anyone who knows the old ballad of John
|
|
Barleycorn knows that we have not heard the last of him.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
They let him stand till midsummer's day,
|
|
Till he looked both pale and wan,
|
|
And little Sir John's grown a long, long beard
|
|
And so become a man...
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
Incidentally, this annual mock sacrifice of a large wicker-work
|
|
figure (representing the vegetation spirit) may have been the origin
|
|
of the misconception that Druids made human sacrifices. This charge
|
|
was first made by Julius Caesar (who may not have had the most
|
|
unbiased of motives), and has been re-stated many times since.
|
|
However, as has often been pointed out, the only historians besides
|
|
Caesar who make this accusation are those who have read Caesar. And
|
|
in fact, upon reading Caesar's 'Gallic Wars' closely, one discovers
|
|
that Caesar never claims to have actually witnessed such a sacrifice.
|
|
Nor does he claim to have talked to anyone else who did. In fact,
|
|
there is not one single eyewitness account of a human sacrifice
|
|
performed by Druids in all of history!
|
|
|
|
Nor is there any archeological evidence to support the charge.
|
|
If, for example, human sacrifices had been performed at the same
|
|
ritual sites year after year, there would be physical traces. Yet
|
|
there is not a scrap. Nor is there any native tradition or history
|
|
which lends support. In fact, insular tradition seems to point in the
|
|
opposite direction. The Druid's reverence for life was so strict that
|
|
they refused to lift a sword to defend themselves when massacred by
|
|
Roman soldiers on the Isle of Mona. Irish brehon laws forbade a Druid
|
|
to touch a weapon, and any soul rash enough to unsheathe a sword in
|
|
the presence of a Druid would be executed for such an outrage!
|
|
|
|
Jesse Weston, in her brilliant study of the Four Hallows of
|
|
British myth, 'From Ritual to Romance', points out that British folk
|
|
tradition is, however, full of MOCK sacrifices. In the case of the
|
|
wicker-man, such figures were referred to in very personified terms,
|
|
dressed in clothes, addressed by name, etc. In such a religious
|
|
ritual drama, everybody played along.
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
They've hired men with scythes so sharp,
|
|
To cut him off at the knee,
|
|
They've rolled him and tied him by the waist
|
|
Serving him most barbarously...
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
In the medieval miracle-play tradition of the 'Rise Up, Jock'
|
|
variety (performed by troupes of mummers at all the village fairs), a
|
|
young harlequin-like king always underwent a mock sacrificial death.
|
|
But invariably, the traditional cast of characters included a
|
|
mysterious 'Doctor' who had learned many secrets while 'travelling in
|
|
foreign lands'. The Doctor reaches into his bag of tricks, plies some
|
|
magical cure, and presto! the young king rises up hale and whole
|
|
again, to the cheers of the crowd. As Weston so sensibly points out,
|
|
if the young king were ACTUALLY killed, he couldn't very well rise up
|
|
again, which is the whole point of the ritual drama! It is an
|
|
enactment of the death and resurrection of the vegetation spirit. And
|
|
what better time to perform it than at the end of the harvest season?
|
|
|
|
In the rhythm of the year, Harvest Home marks a time of rest after
|
|
hard work. The crops are gathered in, and winter is still a month and
|
|
a half away! Although the nights are getting cooler, the days are
|
|
still warm, and there is something magical in the sunlight, for it
|
|
seems silvery and indirect. As we pursue our gentle hobbies of making
|
|
corn dollies (those tiny vegetation spirits) and wheat weaving, our
|
|
attention is suddenly arrested by the sound of baying from the skies
|
|
(the 'Hounds of Annwn' passing?), as lines of geese cut silhouettes
|
|
across a harvest moon. And we move closer to the hearth, the longer
|
|
evening hours giving us time to catch up on our reading, munching on
|
|
popcorn balls and caramel apples and sipping home-brewed mead or ale.
|
|
What a wonderful time Harvest Home is! And how lucky we are to live
|
|
in a part of the country where the season's changes are so dramatic
|
|
and majestic!
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl--
|
|
And he's brandy in the glass,
|
|
And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl
|
|
Proved the strongest man at last.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
|
|
T H E D E A T H O F L L E W
|
|
A Seasonal Interpretation
|
|
=================================
|
|
by Mike Nichols
|
|
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
Not of father, nor of mother
|
|
Was my blood, was my body.
|
|
I was spellbound by Gwydion,
|
|
Prime enchanter of the Britons,
|
|
When he formed me from nine blossoms.
|
|
--'Hanes Blodeuwedd' R. Graves, trans.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
|
|
In most Pagan cultures, the sun god is seen as split between two
|
|
rival personalities: the god of light and his twin, his 'weird', his
|
|
'other self', the god of darkness. They are Gawain and the Green
|
|
Knight, Gwyn and Gwythyr, Llew and Goronwy, Lugh and Balor, Balan and
|
|
Balin, the Holly King and the Oak King, etc. Often they are depicted
|
|
as fighting seasonal battles for the favor of their goddess/lover,
|
|
such as Creiddylad or Blodeuwedd, who represents Nature.
|
|
|
|
The god of light is always born at the winter solstice, and his
|
|
strength waxes with the lengthening days, until the moment of his
|
|
greatest power, the summer solstice, the longest day. And, like a
|
|
look in a mirror, his 'shadow self', the lord of darkness, is born at
|
|
the summer solstice, and his strength waxes with the lengthening
|
|
nights until the moment of his greatest power, the winter solstice,
|
|
the longest night.
|
|
|
|
Indirect evidence supporting this mirror-birth pattern is
|
|
strongest in the Christianized form of the Pagan myth. Many writers,
|
|
from Robert Graves to Stewart Farrar, have repeatedly pointed out that
|
|
Jesus was identified with the Holly King, while John the Baptist was
|
|
the Oak King. That is why, 'of all the trees that are in the wood,
|
|
the Holly tree bears the crown.' If the birth of Jesus, the 'light of
|
|
the world', is celebrated at mid-winter, Christian folk tradition
|
|
insists that John the Oak King (the 'dark of the world'?) was born
|
|
(rather than died) at mid-summer.
|
|
|
|
It is at this point that I must diverge from the opinion of Robert
|
|
Graves and other writers who have followed him. Graves believes that
|
|
at midsummer, the Sun King is slain by his rival, the God of Darkness;
|
|
just as the God of Darkness is, in turn, slain by the God of Light at
|
|
midwinter. And yet, in Christian folk tradition (derived from the
|
|
older Pagan strain), it is births, not deaths, that are associated
|
|
with the solstices. For the feast of John the Baptist, this is all
|
|
the more conspicuous, as it breaks the rules regarding all other
|
|
saints.
|
|
|
|
John is the ONLY saint in the entire Catholic hagiography whose
|
|
feast day is a commemoration of his birth, rather than his death. A
|
|
generation ago, Catholic nuns were fond of explaining that a saint is
|
|
commemorated on the anniversary of his or her death because it was
|
|
really a 'birth' into the Kingdom of Heaven. But John the Baptist,
|
|
the sole exception, is emphatically commemorated on the anniversary of
|
|
his birth into THIS world. Although this makes no sense viewed from a
|
|
Christian perspective, it makes perfect poetic sense from the
|
|
viewpoint of Pagan symbolism. (John's earlier Pagan associations are
|
|
treated in my essay on Midsummer.)
|
|
|
|
So if births are associated with the solstices, when do the
|
|
symbolic deaths occur? When does Goronwy slay Llew and when does
|
|
Llew, in his turn, slay Goronwy? When does darkness conquer light or
|
|
light conquer darkness? Obviously (to me, at least), it must be at
|
|
the two equinoxes. At the autumnal equinox, the hours of light in the
|
|
day are eclipsed by the hours of darkness. At the vernal equinox, the
|
|
process is reversed. Also, the autumnal equinox, called 'Harvest
|
|
Home', is already associated with sacrifice, principally that of the
|
|
spirit of grain or vegetation. In this case, the god of light would
|
|
be identical.
|
|
|
|
In Welsh mythology in particular, there is a startling vindication
|
|
of the seasonal placement of the sun god's death, the significance of
|
|
which occurred to me in a recent dream, and which I haven't seen
|
|
elsewhere. Llew is the Welsh god of light, and his name means 'lion'.
|
|
(The lion is often the symbol of a sun god.) He is betrayed by his
|
|
'virgin' wife Blodeuwedd, into standing with one foot on the rim of a
|
|
cauldron and the other on the back of a goat. It is only in this way
|
|
that Llew can be killed, and Blodeuwedd's lover, Goronwy, Llew's dark
|
|
self, is hiding nearby with a spear at the ready. But as Llew is
|
|
struck with it, he is not killed. He is instead transformed into an
|
|
eagle.
|
|
|
|
Putting this in the form of a Bardic riddle, it would go something
|
|
like this: Who can tell in what season the Lion (Llew), betrayed by
|
|
the Virgin (Blodeuwedd), poised on the Balance, is transformed into an
|
|
Eagle? My readers who are astrologers are probably already gasping in
|
|
recognition. The sequence is astrological and in proper order: Leo
|
|
(lion), Virgo (virgin), Libra (balance), and Scorpio (for which the
|
|
eagle is a well-known alternative symbol). Also, the remaining icons,
|
|
cauldron and goat, could arguably symbolize Cancer and Capricorn
|
|
(representing summer and winter), the signs beginning with the two
|
|
solstice points. So Llew is balanced between cauldron and goat,
|
|
between summer and winter, on the balance (Libra) point of the
|
|
autumnal equinox, with one foot on the summer solstice and one foot on
|
|
the winter solstice.
|
|
|
|
This, of course, is the answer to a related Bardic riddle.
|
|
Repeatedly, the 'Mabinogion' tells us that Llew must be standing with
|
|
one foot on the cauldron and one foot on the goat's back in order to
|
|
be killed. But nowhere does it tell us why. Why is this particular
|
|
situation the ONLY one in which Llew can be overcome? Because it
|
|
represents the equinox point. And the autumnal equinox is the only
|
|
time of the entire year when light (Llew) can be overcome by darkness
|
|
(Goronwy).
|
|
|
|
It should now come as no surprise that, when it is time for Llew
|
|
to kill Goronwy in his turn, Llew insists that Goronwy stands where he
|
|
once stood while he (Llew) casts the spear. This is no mere
|
|
vindictiveness on Llew's part. For, although the 'Mabinogion' does
|
|
not say so, it should by now be obvious that this is the only time
|
|
when Goronwy can be overcome. Light can overcome darkness only at the
|
|
equinox -- this time the vernal equinox. (Curiously, even the
|
|
Christian tradition retains this association, albeit in a distorted
|
|
form, by celebrating Jesus' death near the time of the vernal
|
|
equinox.)
|
|
|
|
The Welsh myth concludes with Gwydion pursuing the faithless
|
|
Blodeuwedd through the night sky, and a path of white flowers springs
|
|
up in the wake of her passing, which we today know as the Milky Way.
|
|
When Gwydion catches her, he transforms her into an owl, a fitting
|
|
symbol of autumn, just as her earlier association with flowers (she
|
|
was made from them) equates her with spring. Thus, while Llew and
|
|
Goronwy represent summer and winter, Blodeuwedd herself represents
|
|
both spring and fall, as patron goddess of flowers and owls,
|
|
respectively.
|
|
|
|
Although it is far more speculative than the preceding material, a
|
|
final consideration would pursue this mirror-like life pattern of Llew
|
|
and Goronwy to its ultimate conclusion. Although Llew is struck with
|
|
the sunlight spear at the autumnal equinox, and so 'dies' as a human,
|
|
it takes a while before Gwydion discovers him in his eagle form. How
|
|
long? We may speculate 13 weeks, when the sun reaches the midpoint of
|
|
the sign (or form) of the eagle, Scorpio -- on Halloween. And if this
|
|
is true, it may be that Llew, the sun god, finally 'dies' to the upper
|
|
world on Halloween, and now passes through the gates of death, where
|
|
he is immediately crowned king of the underworld, the Lord of Misrule!
|
|
(In medieval tradition, the person proclaimed as 'Lord of Misrule'
|
|
reigned from Halloween to Old Christmas -- or, before the calender
|
|
changes, until the winter solstice.)
|
|
|
|
Meanwhile, Goronwy (with Blodeuwedd at his side) is crowned king
|
|
in the upper world, and occupies Llew's old throne, beginning on
|
|
Halloween. Thus, by winter solstice, Goronwy has reached his position
|
|
of greatest strength in OUR world, at the same moment that Llew, now
|
|
sitting on Goronwy's old throne, reaches his position of greatest
|
|
strength in the underworld. However, at the moment of the winter
|
|
solstice, Llew is born again, as a babe, (and as his own son!) into
|
|
our world. And as Llew later reaches manhood and dispatches Goronwy
|
|
at the vernal equinox, Goronwy will then ascend the underworld throne
|
|
at Beltane, but will be reborn into our world at midsummer, as a babe,
|
|
later to defeat Llew all over again. And so the cycle closes at last,
|
|
resembling nothing so much as an intricately woven, never-ending bit
|
|
of Celtic knotwork.
|
|
|
|
So Midsummer (to me, at least) is a celebration of the sun god at
|
|
his zenith, a crowned king on his throne. He is at the height of his
|
|
power and still 1/4 of a year away from his ritual death at the hands
|
|
of his rival. However, at the very moment of his greatest strength,
|
|
his dark twin, the seed of his destruction, is born -- just as the
|
|
days begin to shorten. The spear and the cauldron have often been
|
|
used as symbols for this holiday and it should now be easy to see why.
|
|
Sun gods are virtually always associated with spears (even Jesus is
|
|
pierced by one), and the midsummer cauldron of Cancer is a symbol of
|
|
the Goddess in her fullness. If we have learned anything from this
|
|
story from the fourth branch of the 'Mabinogion', it is about the
|
|
power of myth -- how it may still instruct and guide us, many
|
|
centuries after it has passed from oral to written tradition. And in
|
|
studying it, we have barely scratched the surface. |