Showing posts with label ancient traditions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ancient traditions. Show all posts

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Walpurgis Nacht

 



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Walpurgisnacht is said to be named after an early Christian woman (Saint Walpurga, 710-779) who was missionary to the Black Forest German pagans. Like most saint's stories, I take it with a grain of salt. 

More likely, Walpurga was a wise women or, perhaps even a female divinity of place. If you can't at first get rid of those old gods and their generosity with a good time, the early Christians soon found that these local holidays were easily co-opted. Taking over a night of bonfire and dancing is not too hard, but you have to discourage (first with threats and then by fire) the far older fertility rites of liberated sex in the woods. (Imagine! Women running wild!) Among the English, you'll family names of Robinson or Green or Grove are common, and are often said to have had their origins in babies born after a spring fling in the forest. 

This is one of the stories within Roan Rose, whose heroine is born into the just such a peasant community.


For humble farm folk, the older traditions often quietly continued. After all, the New Religion allows you to repent whatever indiscretions you've committed during the night at the next morning's Saint's Day Mass! Alcohol, a good party and warm weather are stimulants to the young who, in all ages, are universally singing "Born to Wild" after any big celebration with the opposite sex present.

This Walpurgisnacht, or Hexennacht, ("witches night,") falls midway between the summer solstice and the equinox and were therefore once commonly named "Cross Quarter" Days. Like Samhain (Halloween/Hallow's Eve) May Eve is considered another "time between" when the "veil between the worlds" is thin. So, besides a party--if you were inclined to celebrate--you might have a picnic or leave food for the spirits of place, or "bring in the May" by decorating your home with flowers and greens just as my mother showed me long ago. These quieter alternatives to that blow-out bonfire are more in order where I live and to the state of my elder body. However, from sundown on April 30th until sunrise on May 1st, the old rule, bar the caveat "'an you harm none" was: Do what you will!  

While researching the habits of 18th Century Vienna, I learned that there, Saint Brigitte was the proper Lady to celebrate on May 1st. The similar name indicates that she may be a form of Brigid, the ancient Celtic triple goddess of artistic creation, rebirth and renewal. In my reading I learned that so many tried to leave the city for picnics and flower picking in the surrounding fields and woods on that day, that there were, by the late 1770's, traffic jams. Once, I read, the Emperor Joseph himself could not get out of town on one particularly carriage-clogged May Day because he did not drive out sufficiently early in the day.  

In My Mozart, the teen heroine has a name day on April 29th. She attends a fateful party in the Vienna Woods with the louche fellow players from her new workplace, a Volksoper, where she dreams of the blazing kiss of Orpheus.


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In Zauberkraft Black, the hero, a little drunk and sorry for himself, stumbles upon just such a party among his tenants the first night of his homecoming from the Napoleonic Wars. He finds a great deal more is going on there than simply drinking and getting lost in the new green woods with a willing farm girl.  How little, this gentleman will find, he has known his own peasants!

 

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It's probably pretty clear by now that I love this holiday and still keep it with flowers, new loaves of bread, and a of wine. On Saturday too I will pick up a few more native plants from a local Conservancy group--all very formal this year because of Covid--and bring them home to my yard. (Please grow, My New Darlings!)

  Welcoming spring and giving thanks for the seasons while whispering a few prayers for a bountiful harvest can't, at any time or place, be a bad thing. These days, Mother Earth is in need of all the good vibes we can send to her.


~~Juliet Waldron

Julietwaldron.com

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Monday, June 1, 2015

Shirley Martin on Celtic Celebrations

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Before writing my fantasy romance, "Night Secrets," (Book 1 of the Avador series), I knew I needed to give my novel its own culture, its own civilization. The ancient Celts have long fascinated me, so I gave my fantasy a Celtic flavor, with my own variations. To describe the Celtic culture would take a book in itself, so here I've centered only on their festivals.

Celtic festivals weren't connected to equinoxes or solstices but were related to the fertility of the land. The four seasonal festivals reflect the pastoral and agricultural cycles of the year. Another way these festivals differed from more modern celebrations was that they began on the eve of the specific day of celebration. The Celts measured time by the moon.  In all of their calculations, night preceded day. In their festivals, we find traces not only of religious beliefs but also of a magical belief in things.

Samhain marked the beginning of the Celtic year and began on the night of October 31. (Guess what holiday we've derived from Samhain.)  On Samhain, the veil between the real world and the Otherworld was torn aside.  The sidhe--fairy mounds where the people of the Otherworld lived--opened, and spirits walked the land. The sidhe released phantoms and goblins to ride the night winds. The warrior dead came back to life, and bonfires were lit to guide the returning warriors. Gods and demons walked the night places, and humans knew to stay inside. A harvest festival, Samhain is the best-known Celtic celebration of all. (Although it's not part of the Avador series, my fantasy romance, "The Sacrifice, is based on this holy eve.)

Imgolg (or Imbolc) was a fertility festival celebrated on the first of February. It marked the beginning of spring. As believers of magic, the Celts brought divination and watching omens to this celebration. They lit candles and bonfires if the weather permitted.  Fire and purification played a prominent part in this festival. The Celts visited holy wells on this day where they prayed for health.

In more recent times, Imgolc has become a holy day honoring St. Brigid. Before going to bed, people left clothing and bits of cloth outside for Brigid to bless. In the morning, they brought the strips of cloth inside, now believed to have powers of healing and protection.

The Celts also believed that on Imbolg the Cailleach--divine hag--gathers her firewood for the rest of winter.

Beltane is the Celtic May Day festival and marked the beginning of summer, a time when cattle were driven out to pasture. As with Samhain, the people lit bonfires at night and walked around the fire; some even leaped over the fire.  People doused  household fires and relit them at the Beltane bonfire. A great feast that featured lamb accompanied these gatherings.  As a festival of life,decorations of yellow flowers--symbolizing sunlight--abounded, even on cattle. 

Some people say the bonfire was an attempt to mimic the sun and to ensure a plentiful supply of sunshine for the people, animals, and plants. In some places people took oatmeal cakes, a bit of which was offered to the spirits to protect their livestorck.

If tales are to believed, Beltane often became a riotous affair, where not only fire but romances were kindled.

Lughnasad was celebrated on August 1. Some say the god Lugh started the festival in honor of his mother. It marked the beginning of the harvest season. Often animals were sacrificed, the victims placed in baskets and thrown into the bonfire. The Celts held the concept of the vegetation or tree spirit that had the power over rain, sunshine and every means of fruitfulness. A tree held a prominent place in this festival, where tree branches were attached to houses to impart fertility.

This festival, too, involved great gatherings that included religious ceremonies, ritual athletic contests, feasting, and as with Beltane, matchmaking.

Friday, March 27, 2015

ASTARA the ancient Goddess of Easter - by Vijaya Schartz


The 8th century British writer Bede, mentions that the name for Easter is derived from a Pagan spring festival of the goddess ASTARA. Revered by the Babylonians, Sumerians and Persians, this goddess derived from ASTRA and OSTARA the Greek goddess of spring and fertility. The name means STAR and she is sometimes referred to as the Star Goddess.
She is said to be the last Pagan goddess to leave Earth, bound for the stars, during the Bronze Age, and was worshiped throughout the civilized world of that time, even in Asia (under the name of Kali). Ancient Alien theorists will tell you that she must have been an alien visitor, who remained on Earth to teach the populations of the time, then flew back to the heavens.

The familiar Easter bunny and the multicolored eggs (both symbols of fertility) come not from the Christian or the Jewish Passover traditions, but straight from the Pagan festival of ASTARA. Since this was a spring festival, around the same time as the Jewish Passover and it marked the resurrection of Christ, the early Church made both events coincide, and blended the traditions.

In other words, if you cannot prevent the Pagans from celebrating their festivals, join them and call it a Christian holiday. This technique worked well for early Christian rulers, and helped impose Christianity in many Pagan societies.
Even the last supper that inspired the modern communion was a tradition from ancient Egypt, where the priests and priestesses symbolically partook of the body of Osiris during religious rituals.

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Now that we have forgotten the origins of our festivals, we take for granted that Christian or Jewish holidays include only Christian and Jewish traditions, but the deeper roots of these traditions go far back into our ancient past. It seems that religions change and evolve, but somehow, the traditions remain.
Learn more about ancient traditions by reading THE CURSE OF THE LOST ISLE, a Medieval series based on authentic Celtic legends. Find these books on my Amazon page HERE.

Vijaya Schartz
Swords, Blasters, Romance with a Kick

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