Godsip Club

Death and All His Friends

Sun, 23 Jun 2024

Death.

One of the most discussed, and taboo, subjects ever. In recent times, it has been personified with countless characters in media entertainment, some of whom I appreciate a lot. But… How was the question treated, in the past?

Of course, this is an enormously vast topic, and there are many things to say — and as many that I ignore. Besides, as years go by, we keep learning something new. In fact, some of the most interesting trivia come from the last few decades. Let’s deep dive in.

Ashes To Ashes #

First, the most material aspects: how was the body handled after the passing?

Maybe the oldest customs we have tracks of come from the ruins of Çatalhöyük, a city in Anatolia populated from 7500BC to 6400BC. There, archeologists found that corpses were buried, often under the house, presumably the family one. In some cases, in a later state of decomposition, it was exhumed and the head was removed. Some skulls have been found in communal areas, maybe used for rituals, and others were plastered and colored.¹

In more recent times, we have written proofs that the civilizations of the Indus Valley, after 3000BC, followed the same fractional burial procedure: “the body was reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements before final interment”. Also, we have evidence of the cremation, that has been widely spread for millennia, all around the world.

Interestingly, in the archeological sites of this civilization, many proto-gods of modern religions have been found. Among them, some figurines of dancing women could resemble the Buddhist and Hindu Apsaras.

Anyway, the odd tradition (for us, at least) to let the body decompose before the burial was reported in modern cultures too. Kol people, in India, burned the cadaver to clean the skeleton, and then buried it. Also in this case, though, sometimes the head was preserved.

Happy Together #

There are many other modern customs, as the wake, that have ancient origins. The presence of food and drinks is super-traditional because it was common to share a last supper with the deceased, as an aggregation rite. Another great example of such latter ceremonies are the Catholic last rites, which help the dying to go through the final transition.

“The Garden of Death” by Hugo Simberg, 1896. For me, one of the prettiest interpretation of the afterlife.

About the mourning period, it always has varied depending on the “rank” of the dead. Centuries ago, when the Chinese Emperors passed away, everything was suspended for days. No markets, no work in the fields, no travels. Just grieving. With the modern society, it would be just unbelievable in any country.

Another convention arrived to the present day is the name of the babies: at least here in Italy, it was common to name a newborn as the grandparent or great-grandparent. This comes from the ancient belief that the spirits of the passed away could reincarnate. If they found a child in the family, maybe even with their name,² they’d be more favorable to come back.

Anyway, one thing that has changed in modern times is the color associated to death: centuries ago, it was white, not black. Bodies were draped in a white cloth, and often the spirits were depicted in that shade.

A Farewell To Kings #

Kings and emperors were among the most peculiar figures in ancient civilizations. For centuries, it was widely spread the idea that the ruler could not die because he was a god himself.³

Later, a bizarre scenario took place: it was believed that, if the king had died a natural death, his soul would have not been strong enough to transmigrate to the successor, who would have been weak. Among the Zulu people, even wrinkles on the king’s face could show a deficiency of power. Some societies were extremely devoted and, as a consequence, they thought that, with a feeble chief, the whole world (the one they knew) would have fallen apart.

So, in order to have good times, the king had to die a violent death. Simple as that.

Memento Mori. As if one could ever forget. (Picture by Martin Kraft - CC BY-SA 4.0)

That problem lead the monarchs to find a clever solution: to sacrifice a substitute. The king would have lost the throne, but not the head.

As Frazer writes in The Golden Bough about Babylon:

A prisoner condemned to death was dressed in the king’s robes, seated on the king’s throne, allowed to issue whatever commands he pleased, to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, and to lie with the king’s concubines. But at the end of the five days he was stripped of his royal robes, scourged, and hanged or impaled.

Well, that is… reasonable, I guess? I wouldn’t know. But surely it can be seen “handy” for two reasons:

The new king would have renewed vigor because of the brutal execution
The prisoner could represent not only the old ruler, but a scapegoat for many evils

Bye Bye Bad Man #

In fact, it was also very common to “sacrifice” a person or an animal as immolation in order to solve most of the problems. Simple as that, again!

In Egypt, two bulls were killed every year, maybe for the same reason.⁴ In ancient Rome, the Saturnalia ritual was so complex that I want to write about it another time… but, at the end, a “fake king” was destroyed. Aztecs, in Mexico, were used to human sacrifice – see the brutal Tōxcatl festival, for example.

If we could have historical stats from Central America, human sacrifices would be like… 🚀🚀🚀

In Greece there was a unique celebration: the Thargelia festival, in which two folks (often male and female) were led round with strings of figs on their necks, and whipped on the genitals with rods of figwood and squills. When they reached the place of sacrifice on the shore, they were stoned to death. Lastly, their bodies were burned, and the ashes spread on sea or land.

It seems… odd, to put it mildly, but let’s observe three aspects: first, the squills. Across the country, it was common to strike the genitals of Pan’s statues with such vines to favor fertility. Second, the figs. They were one of the most loved and precious fruits, and the ritual could have been some kind of symbol of caprification, the pollination of the fig. Thirdly, the act to spread the ashes was connected to fertility too. So, was it bad? Yes. But not entirely.

Anyway, before, I used the term “sacrifice” in quotes because violence wasn’t always the answer. Let me show you another example: always in ancient Rome, there was the Mamurio Veturio (“the old Mars”), a hairy figure that was chased and hit with wooden staffs. It represented the god of the past years. Before becoming the well-known god of war, Mars was a god of agriculture. It is true that, in October, a horse was killed in his honor in order to seek good yields, but the Mamurio ceremony, though, wasn’t just about death: farmers prayed to Mars this way because they wished for his power to be renewed. As for the kings, centuries before.

Twilight to Starlight #

In all those cases, death was very linked with fertility and rebirth. That is the common thread to all the rituals we have listed, but also many of the ones covered in other articles.

We already saw that many Slavic gods were symbolized as death in Winter, and then turned into new, young beings in Spring: in Eastern Europe, when a straw man, depicting the cold season, was destroyed, the warm season was welcomed with Yarilo’s name.

Finally, in Egypt, one of the most famous gods is Osiris: he was the one who brought grain to the country, and has always been connected with agriculture. When he died, according to a myth, his body was divided in fourteen parts. It was auspicious to break a representation of the god and bury it in the fields, in order to have profitable crops. More interestingly, in some festivals, tiny Osiris beds were crafted: coffin-shaped sculptures filled with grain seeds or other cereals.

So, we can conclude that death has always been seen as a rite of passage as many others. It could mean rebirth, resurrection, or just a pass-through to another world (we didn’t talk about the Norse Valhalla, but we will), yet the celebration often symbolized the belief that it was not the end.

It seems this peculiar treatment was given to women. A hypothesis links that to the myth of the Mother Goddess. ↩︎
We already talked about the importance of the name. ↩︎
I’d like to use also a female pronoun in this case, but we all know it was not common at all. ↩︎
There were also two important bull deities in Egyptian mythology: Apis and Mnevis. Who knows if they were related with the killing. ↩︎

Was the Easter Bunny an Ancient God?

Sat, 30 Mar 2024

TL;DR: Probably Easter has a very little to do with bunnies. That is just a consequence of capitalism. Or traditions of just a few centuries ago. Even for non-religious people, this part of the year is often welcome because of the coming of Spring. But… Where does Easter come from? Is its origin linked with Christianity?

Short answer: definitely not. The name, as Wikipedia explains, comes from the Old Germanic pagan goddess Ostara, who was widely known through all Europe with slightly different names. To put it simple, she was a goddess of Spring. About her origins, though, we probably could go back 10,000 years ago: as frequently happens in European traditions, we can find the roots in Slavic pantheon(s).¹ As we already told, these gods had several “forms” and names according to the cycle of the seasons.

Austeja, also called “The Weaver” or “The Bee Goddess”, was a Spring deity. Bees were told to be her messengers because her voice could be heard in their hum. Also, bees weaved the honeycomb in the hive as she weaved humans’ fate.² Because of the deep connection with these insects, in Ireland, she probably became St. Gobnait, who was told to have the power to control swarms of bees. Her day is the 11th of February, which extremely close as St. Harlampy’s one in Bulgaria, when… beeswax candles and honey are blessed. ❤️🐝

Norns? Bees? Who can tell the difference?

Austeja’s name itself has some interesting connections. Indo-european word aus means both “east” and “dawn”. The deity’s proto-indo-european name is thought to be Auesos, which comes from the Germanic Austron, goddess of dawn and spring. One of her other names, as stated before, is Ostara, that in Old English… became Easter.

But Where Are The Bunnies? #

So, before Christianity, what was so special about this day?

Quite simply, we can see Easter as a passage from Winter to Spring; as we already saw, the celebrated god often was sacrificed in order to come to life again — does it sound familiar?

I may sound blasphemous, but chronologically… Jesus wasn’t the first one to resurrect. In Ancient Egypt, Osiris came millennia before, and there are plenty of creatures with this peculiar capability, as the phoenix.³ More specifically, the Greek Adonis and Attis were the closer one to Romans, and probably someone could have been inspired by these stories for the life of ~~Brian~~ Christ.⁴

As already told in past articles, fire was very common during the festivities: large bonfires were lit to cleanse, purify, and cure animals and people from the just-finished season. A new life. What object is perfect to symbolize it if not an egg? 🥚

In Germany, it was tradition to light up a bonfire per village, almost in a competition. In Münsterland and other places, the hills used for this custom were called “Easter” or “Paschal” Mountains. Also, remember that effigies were burned in order to kill/sacrifice the god or old season? Here is a passage from Frazer’s Golden Bough:

Near Forchheim, in Upper Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards on Easter Saturday. The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on which he perished, and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted in the fields on Walpurgis Day (the first of May) to preserve the wheat from blight and mildew.

In all these centuries and beliefs, though… Despite all the names and traditions we came across… We couldn’t find any bunnies related to Easter before XVII Century.

From we have seen, bees perhaps should be the symbol of this season: they were linked with Austeja and, in Spring, they are crucial for nature. Maybe this is the real mystery. 🕵️🐰

Alas, bees' importance isn't recognized as it should.

The Slavic pantheon can probably be defined as the cradle of European religions, and some of its features can be found even in India! ↩︎
In Slavic customs, bees tell important news as births or deaths in the household. Also, the soul could take the form of a bee. In Russia, it is a sacrilege to kill these insects. ↩︎
To be hones, the list of these gods is quite long. ↩︎
Another example, not related to Easter: in Mithraism, the Sun god Sol was born from a virgin… around the 25th of December, very next to the Winter Solstice. Come on! ↩︎

February Stars

Sun, 28 Jan 2024

Since several millennia, February, or these weeks of the year, has always been special. Among Romans, there were many festivities which took part in these days, and were deeply linked with the concept of rebirth or purification. It’s always fascinating, for me at least, to imagine how Winter and Spring could be seen from people from thousands of years ago. Let’s try digging into some ancient gods and celebrations of the past.

Fever All Through the Night #

Romans inherited deities from a few civilizations; the most famous are the counterparts from Greek mythology. Etruscans, though, who had lived in Italy centuries before, passed them Februus, an ancient god of purification; he was also linked to the underworld. In the Roman pantheon, he became Febris, a goddess¹ with pretty much the same traits. She protected the people from fever, which could have been malaria; the festivities dedicated to her had a purifying function, just as one sweats when recovering from a fever.

An engraving depicting Febris, XVI Century (via Wikimedia Commons).

Febris was well-known in many parts of the Empire, and often mentioned with her daughers Tertiana and Quartana: inscriptions from the third century AD naming Tertiana were found even in Habitancum fort, in Northern England. Then, in colder regions, people were devoted to her.

It may be clear that the name of February (Februarius) comes from this goddess, and that during this month her main celebration took place. Anyway, things are a bit more complicated.

Lupercus was a protector of wild animals and of flocks, so he was worshiped by shepherds. There were many common traits with Faunus, which means that they could be the same entity. Both, for example, were deeply linked with fertility. This also explains why, lately, he had been figured as a faun, just like Pan, who was… yeah, quite a sex addict.

So, Lupercalia was the celebration of Lupercus… but of Febris, too. From the 13th to the 15th of February, a peculiar festival was taken: first, goats or sheep were offered; then two Luperci, the “priests” of this festivity, were initiated. Their foreheads were anointed with the goat’s blood, still on the sacrificial knife, and then it was washed away with a cloth soaked in milk.² Then, the two of them had to run, half-naked, round the Palatine hill. They held stripes of goat-skin, and they hit the floor with it in order to draw an invisible wall to keep out sickness and evil spirits.

That had to be quite a party.

Drops of Jupiter #

As ~~often~~ always happens, these festivities had been Christianized. Saint Febronia’s day, despite the clear name, was moved to the 25th of June. Why June? They didn’t even put an effort on — wait. Could make it any sense? Well, actually yes.

Juno was the Roman goddess of childbirth. Does her name sound a little suspicious? Indeed. Was one of her main festivals taken at the beginning of… February? Yes! It was Juno Sospita.

From Wikipedia:

It was an appropriate date for her celebration since the month of February was considered a perilous time of passage, the cosmic year then coming to an end and the limits between the world of the living and the underworld being no longer safely defined. Hence the community invoked the protection (tutela) of the warlike Juno Sospita, “The Saviour”.

So, the names Februata, Februalis Februa, and Februlis referred to Juno, not Febris. The goddess purified the puerpera, the new mother, by letting the placenta out after the baby.³

A goddess called Februa did not exist. Could that be Juno, instead? Maybe.

It is important to take a moment to clear one thing: in ancient times, to be new mothers was rough. Not only because of the lack of medical help and hygiene; there was a lot of superstition towards the women who gave birth. There have always been weird rites of passage for them, all around the world.

Since the fourth century BC, among Jewish people, the woman was believed to be impure until the baby was presented to the temple. That had to happen after twenty days from the birth, in case of male babies. Forty days in case of females — weird, women were never seen as impure in more recent times.

Which day falls exactly forty days before the 2nd of February? Yes, Christmas. But… shouldn’t be Jesus a female, if he was brought at the temple after forty days?

To make it simple, Candlemas was established in this day in order to follow the original Juno’s feast. It was very typical: old traditions acquired, then made their own. We can say that the Christianity invented the EEE tactic: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

After all this confusion, there is one certainty, one thing that remained steadily on February: Valentine’s Day, on the 14th. Why was this claimed the day of love? Because… love is a fever. Simple as that.

It’s unusual that a male god was transformed in a female; typically it was the opposite. ↩︎
That ritual could have the meaning of death and rebirth. Remember that Februus was linked to the underworld? ↩︎
Still confused? Wait until you hear about Juno Februata – the ultimate combo! ↩︎

Tales Are for Boys, Myths Are for Men

Thu, 04 Jan 2024

Last month, as a short vacation, we went to the Dolomite Alps, more specifically to Val Pusterìa. Among several hikes, we visited the lovely village of Bruneck. With great surprise, there was a huge exhibit underground with fossils and a few displays about local legends. My girlfriend went on, while I stopped to write down some notes.

Unluckily, I forgot of the nice miniatures exposed, but the subject was the Crodères, the beings who were said to inhabit the Marmarole mountains. They looked like us, but they had hearts of stone, so they didn’t feel any emotion. The story told was their queen’s, Tanna. At first, while standing in that sort of museum, I didn’t get the sense. Back home, with calm, I found an amazing analysis by Clara Mazzi, who I’d like to thank very much. In here, she analyzes the process of growth of the goddess, and… it is quite different from the other myths I came across, that’s why I found it so interesting.

I’ll briefly recap it, but I invite you to read the full version in the link above.¹

Heart of Gold Stone #

As mentioned, the Crodères had stone hearts, so they couldn’t feel any emotions. Young Tanna, though, was different: just ten years old, and she was chosen to be the Queen. Misfortunately to her people’s eyes, she loved helping humans: she listened to her prayers, so she prohibited to the avalanches to fall, the rivers to flow out their beds, and the wind to blow too violently. Her people didn’t agree with that behavior, and they advised the woman.

She didn’t listen and, grown up, fell in love with the Count of Aquileia, a human. The Crodères then asked help to their oldest person, a man with the heart full of hate. He proclaimed that Tenna was no more worth of the title of Queen, or at least until her fate would be accomplished. Her crown, a blue tiara, disappeared, and she went to live with her baby – the Count vanished too, but for more mere reasons.

The newborn was called Salvanel, and her mother kept telling him that his good father was about to return. Eventually, when he grew up, the boy decided to go down to the human villages and seek for him. And he succeeded: he did found his father, but also discovered that he was married to another woman, and had other offspring. The boy asked him to return, and the other refused. He even challenged the man, but the latter hurt his son. Then, things got a bit complicated: Salvanel fell in love with Marcòra, his stepsister, and they run away together, chased by the guards.

One of the photos I took during the vacation. It really is a majestic place.

Tanna, who was patiently waiting on the mountains, then suddenly heard a cry for help. It was her son, lost on the bottom of the valley: too much snow covered the path and he couldn’t find the correct way. Too much time had passed since the last time she went down that road, and Tanna couldn’t remember the directions to give him. So, she asked for help to the other Crodères, but they were helpless since only the Queen had the power needed. Going back, the woman saw that the young couple almost succeeded to climb the high mountain. She tried to help them, but Salvanel’s hand slipped away; he fell in a crevice, and died.²

Tanna and Marcòra then lived together. The mother knew that the glacier would have returned the body, it was just a matter of time. So, patiently, every day they went back to look for the boy’s body. The humans they met had called them the two witches of the ice. Eventually, Salvanel’s body was found, and her beloved one fell dead next to him. Only then, the tiara appeared on Tanna’s head. She became again Queen of the Crodères when her destiny was accomplished.

She did become the Queen again, and she removed the limits she had previously put: rocks, wind and water started again to take the course of nature. She got her powers back, but she has to pay a price, even nowadays: each year, one day called the Quiet Day, the elements calm down, as she had promised. In this day, men –mostly the miners, given the location– can access a cave in which they can find a statue of the woman wearing the blue tiara. She sits, mourning, between two golden coffins.

In the Hall of the Mountain King Queen #

I admit my ignorance, but this myth is quite different from any other I have read. First, it doesn’t follow the usual structure of the tales: there are no twist or climax. It is as genuine and hard as the rock of the mountains — and as life as well.

It is a story of a woman. A woman that has the strength and the courage to follow her way and her heart despite her whole people were against her. Many tales are about fairies or gods that marry “miserable humans”, but in this case the queen is left… by everyone. First, her love, an unfaithful husband, then her people who dethrone her, and finally her son. Despite this continuous loss, the story never uses words as “desperation” or “sadness”, even if we can of course imagine her feelings.

Clara Mazzi, in her analysis cited before, explains it well: Tanna keeps working on her pain. When she and Marcòra walk every day, back and forth, to search for Salvanel’s body, the mother must be reflecting on the duality of life — joy and gloom.

Tanna’s destiny, i.e. being the Queen of the Crodères, will be fulfilled when she’ll be ready for this role, meaning when she’ll accept it with awareness, maturity, and decision. When she saw her son hopelessly slide into that crevasse, in her head, and her heart she must have had lots going on but not – this is what the myth hints to – becoming the Queen of the Crodères. This is why that wasn’t the moment of her mutation. Tanna must first work on her pain.

She continues with wise words, which one comes across… with maturity:

Difficulties will arise mostly when we’ll try to give sense to something that happened to us but it was so big that we’re not able to find an appropriate meaning.

And finally, the key to read the myth is exposed so clearly that opened my eyes:

Myths talk to adults while tales talk to children. These two audiences differ because they own different category of analysis and perception of reality. It is not that the myth is sad, while the tale is happy: it is rather than the myth talks to people able to analyze the world, sift through different experiences, classify them, prioritize them, process them, in other words people capable to understand that Tanna’s myth is only apparently sad but actually it isn’t at all because it tells the story of an adult, our story. […]

After reading this, I examined the myth again, and I was speechless. It really is a tale like no other I have read until today. Maybe it is because I stumbled upon Tanna’s tale in my mid-thirties, but its apparent sadness hit me in the stomach.

A Saucerful of Secrets #

With this story, I discovered yet another new author who spent much time to write down oral Alpine tales onto paper: Karl Felix Wolff. He wrote German books, luckily translated in Italian and English, too. Surely I will write more about this lore in the next future.

Overall, as morale of this story, I indeed learned something new about ancient tales. I already knew from Slavic folklore that some characters and myths could be harsh, but I didn’t know they could transmit such maturity lessons over the centuries. They are indeed “fairy tales”, but some can also make us think more than we imagined — just like a perfect book.

The website requires an account to access the articles, but it’s free, and there are many other gems! ↩︎
Another version of the tale I found online says that Salvanel fought with the guards, and eventually falls. This shows how orally told myths often vary. ↩︎

The White Ladies

Fri, 27 Oct 2023

During my last vacation in France, we came across one of the dozens of medieval castles open to visitors: the Château de Puymartin. The structure itself was amazing to visit, but with great surprise I found a couple of floors of the ancient tower full of mythological paintings and related panels. Needless to say, we spent at least thirty minutes over there. Then, walking up to the next level, my mind was blown: there were two whole rooms dedicated to the local folklore! 🤯

To quote George and his coffee… “What else?”

Among many interesting insights, there were some about the mysterious figure of a woman, dressed in white, that haunted the castle. On the panels, she was referred as White Lady. I immediately thought about a “local ghost”, but reading on, I discovered that this figure is much more spread than I thought. This article will focus on this being and some other ghastly findings proper to the spooky season. 👻

The Washerwomen #

Reported sightings of spectral figures dressed in white come from all over the world, and understandably inspired a gazillion different stories. The White Ladies were first “reported” in Europe in the Middle Ages in the form of fairies or supernatural creatures. They were often linked with other eerie creatures as goblin and forest spirits, and they weren’t always seen as malevolent.

They were, indeed, linked to to water: White Ladies always appeared at night, by a river, alone or in a group of washerwomen. Because of that, they have been linked with Melusines and, later, with Undines, creatures with their half lower body of a fish or serpent. These particular two were spread in France and Germany, but beings with these characteristics have always filled mankind’s imagination. Each region of the world has its own legends and names: Selkies (Shetlands), Merrows and Mermaids (Ireland), Morgen (Wales), Sirens (Greece), and Rusalki (Slavic countries) have always depicted creatures deeply linked with water.

Long before Christianity, water was venerated and linked to the feminine figure. Then, the Church condemned any pagan apparition as demonic, and introduced some confusion between fairies and witches, virgins and saints,… washerwomen and White Ladies. Nowadays, however, there are still plenty of places associated with cults of nature, water and healing.

“Rusalki”, or “The Mermaids”, by Iwan Kramoskoi, 1871. (Wikimedia Commons)

Focusing on the White Ladies, they can be found in many tales from Celtic culture and Southern Europe. They were seen as ghosts, or messengers, of young women dead in tragic circumstances. They came from noble families, so the spirits were mostly found around castles. After the French Revolution in 1789, mistrust rose against nobility, and castles became sources of legends with curses, ghosts,… and wolves — we’ll see that in a minute. The Ladies’ representation, since they were linked to the places they haunted, then changed consequently: they became ghosts of women who had buried their husbands in dirty shrouds, or mothers who had killed their children… and were depicted as silent, or shrieking funeral laments, to announce a future death — as Banshees.

Dance Owl Night #

Many lonely or nocturnal animals, because of their –at the time– inexplicable behavior, were deeply linked with supernatural appearances. Wolves were extremely dangerous for both man¹ and grazing animals, so they quickly were bounded with evil forces, or witches. These animals were so feared that only gods could control them, as Dazbog, who was called “Shepard of Wolves”. He was pictured as a lame old man without an eye — like Odin, being without an eye meant to be able to see into the Spirit World.

The cat, especially if black, is the most notorious example of animal associated to witches. In The Golden Bough, Frazer tells some examples of how that poor animal was treated when corn was harvested. They were also believed to have some magical powers: if a farmer hurt himself, he had the cut licked by a cat.

This card from 1907 sums up Halloween quite well. (Wikimedia Commons)

However, the animal that was most linked with White Ladies was the Barn Owl. Its plaintive, almost human, cry was associated with the terrifying howl of the wolf on the edge of the dark forest. Also, its nocturnal life and ghostly pallor surely didn’t help to get fondness by folks. The barn owl is often seen as an ill-omen, a White Lady, an intimate of evil spirits. In Spain, it was believed that those birds drank oil from lanterns in churches, leaving priests in total darkness — this explained why they hated daylight. So, hunters killed the owls and hanged them just outside the buildings, to avoid them to enter again.

Here are some more European myths starring this poor bird:

If a pregnant woman sees a barn owl and doesn’t kill it, her baby will die.

Whoever opens their mouth in front of a barn owl will lose their teeth.

Whoever lets a barn owl leave the house alive will lose a loved one.

Wow! It’s just… not fair, poor thing! Luckily, there are also cultures that see this animal differently. In Hinduism, for example, the owl is seen as a symbol of wisdom and intelligence, representing the goddess Lakshmi. Anyway, this animal always keeps an aura of mystery: it is believed to be a messenger between the human and divine worlds.

In conclusion, in the last centuries and millennia, the inexplicable has often been linked with mystery. Since the animals and the forces of nature were the easier to observe, many civilizations have come to similar conclusions, creating akin myths and legends. Only in the last decades, we’ve been able to understand that… back then, it must have been hard to be an animal. Especially an owl.

In the Dordogne region, where the castle I visited lays, until 1929, wolves were considered ferocious beasts: lively, intelligent and the only predators in permanent contact with humans. ↩︎

Brütal North

Sun, 06 Aug 2023

These summer weeks have been amazing for stargazing. I’ve moved to the country and I’ve been able to stay in a darker place than in the past, so I could enjoy a much better vault of the sky. While sitting there, I recalled some of the Norse creation myths I had read in a very interesting book¹, which introduced me to a stunning and complex mythology.

I want to make a quick recap here of some of the coolest facts I noted down, but I warn you: it will get confused. Norse mythology was passed on orally between generations, and there was no writing among Vikings (runes don’t count, they had a different purpose), so most of the information arrived to us from relatively modern poems written after AD 1000, as Poetic Edda, when Christianization was already in progress.

The Nine Rings Worlds #

First, it must be clear that the Norse cosmology is made of several worlds not physically connected, so it should be impossible to travel among them. That is not totally correct though, because Odin often travels by using the branches of Yggdrasil, the tree which connects all the worlds. Because of that, the tree’s name could mean “Horse of the Terrible One”, which is referred to the one-eyed god. Also, some said that Yggdrasil was an ash tree, which a kind of plant often found in ceremonies, as the ashen faggot from England.

About the different worlds, there wasn’t a detailed directory in any resource. For modern demands, it has been filled a list with nine worlds²:

Asgard – home of the Æsir gods
Jotunheim (or Utgard) – home of the evil “giants” called Jötnar
Alfheim – home of the elves, (never described in any resource)
Nidavellir – where dwarves lived
Vanaheim – home of Vanir gods (never described)
Hel – the underworld
Muspelheim – a world made of Fire
Niflheim – a world made of Ice
Midgard – our world, the only one not part of the “Otherworld”

A scheme of the nine worlds by Henry Wheaton, 1843. It really does not help at all. (via Wikimedia Commons).

So, our entire lives are spent in Midgard, where no god or magical creature lives. Shamans, anyway, using trance, can travel to other worlds. To be honest, there are also a handful of fascinating ways that could make the physical travel possible. According to the sources, moving between worlds should be achievable:

By walking on the rainbow 🌈
By diving in certain pools of water 💧
By walking in the dark 🔦
Through memorial barrows 💀
Traversing inaccessible forests or mountains 🏔️

Interestingly, the other worlds don’t have a specific direction (e.g. to the West) – they’re just “far away”. Also, everything is just more extreme in those worlds than in ours: colors are brighter, sounds are louder… We are the boring ones. 🥱

Party Hard. Fight Harder. #

The most important world of the list above is where the Æsir gods live: Asgard. Marvel fans will be familiar with it because of the Thor movies (which, as we already said, is very different from the character depicted in the myths). It is a fortress built around Yggdrasil’s trunk³, and its only access way is the rainbow called Bifrost. Among this pantheon, the main characters were Odin, Thor, Loki, Balder, Tyr, Mimir, and Heimdall.

One of the main fun of the gods was fighting. Thor was the typical example of the “dumb tough guy”, but all of them have stories telling heroic deeds. Among humans, it was important to be a brave warrior to get access to the Valhalla: it was a golden hall with spears instead of beams and shields instead of a roof. The benches at the tables were chest covers. The rules to be welcomed there are not clear, but it seems that a violent death gave more chances. Odin had the last word on the choice, too.

The main foes of the Æsir were the Jötnar, a race of beings always depicted as malevolent. In modern English, their name is mistakenly translated as “giants”, but their appearance was not as the classic huge creatures as the BFG in Roald Dahl’s story: they looked like pretty much like the Æsir – in fact, Loki’s father was a jötunn.

The other gods often mentioned in the sources are the Vanir, who were associated with the concepts of fertility, wisdom, and foresight. A few of them were cited: Frey, Freya, and Njord.

There has been a war between Æsir and Vanir, and there are multiple versions of it. In all of them, there’s an exchange between the two god civilizations: Frey and Freya move to Asgard, and Mimir and Hoenir move to Vanaheim. Also, a common tract is the creation of Kvasir, the wisest living being of all the cosmos.

There are so many Norse myths, but they often differ in some aspects because they’ve been written in different centuries (and, before, they were told orally) and in different countries, so each population of course had its own version.

A Violent Beginning… #

One of my favorite Norse myths is the Creation one – you could say I have a thing for creation myths! So, here is a quick digest.

At the beginning, there was just Ginnungagap, the “yawning abyss”, the Void. Then, Muspelheim and Niflheim appeared, the reigns of Fire and Ice. By crashing, those two created Ymir, the first giant, ancestor of all the Jötnar. From his sweat, other giants were born, and a cow too, named Auðumbla.

By licking a block of ice, the calf slowly freed the first god, Buri (“Father”). He had a son, Bor (“Son”), who had three children with the giantess Bestla. They were named Odin, Vili (“Will”), and Vé (“Holiness”). These gods then killed the giant Ymir and created the world with his body: his blood became the sea and the waterways, his flesh the earth, his bones and the teeth were stones, his hair the grass, his brain became the clouds, and his skull was the vault of the sky. Alas, the flood of blood was so violent that killed all the giants except Bergelmir and his family.

The three brothers decided that the Jötnar had to live in the most outer part of the universe (Utgard)⁴ and Midgard (still to be created) had to be for humans. At last, Asgard was created.

Ymir is fed by Auðumbla, which is licking and freeing Buri from the ice. Painting by Nicolai Abildgaard, circa 1777. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Then, man was made. This is a much less violent story, but shows that gods are capable of empathy: Odin found stranded wooden pieces, so he shaped them manlike, and blew on them, giving them life. Vili, then, gifted them with emotions and wit; finally, Vé gave them the five senses. They were then dressed and brought to Midgard. The first to humans were called Ask (“ash tree”) and Embla.

It is a nice story, but most of the myths are quite rude. There are lots of characters, who may appear just once and never again, and some long-term hatred occur in several tales. The best, anyway, is kept as final serving.

…and an Even More Brutal End #

The end of the world always fascinated humanity all around the globe. Each population (or religion) has its own version, and so had Norse people. And honestly, it’s a kick-ass conclusion. Like a TV series finale, it even puts the roots for a new potential beginning, for a new season! Let’s make it clear: Armageddon is for boys, Ragnarök is for men.

It will start with the Fimbulwinter, the “Great Winter”: three cold seasons with no summer between.⁵ Human bonds will dissolve, chaos will reign: brothers, fathers, and sons will kill each other. The wolves that were chasing the moon and sun, finally will get them and swallow them. There will be an earthquake so violent that it will make collapse everything – even Yggdrasil will be shaken. Heimdall, the guardian of Asgard, will play his mighty horn to alert the gods, and Odin will ask advice to Mimir’s head – but he won’t like his reply.

Jörmungandr, a serpent so long that it can encircle the whole ~~world~~ Midgard, will rise from the water, causing floods that will engulf what had not been destroyed yet. Fenrir, the wolf father of the one who ate the sun, will break free from his chains and will devour everything before him.

Now, grab the popcorns. 🍿

A ship made of nails from human corpses, called Naglfar, will rise from the ocean where it was lying; it will be full of giants, and headed by Loki. From Muspelheim, Fire giants will charge over the Bifrost, lead by Surt, who will have a sword brighter than the (now consumed) sun; they will force the Æsir to leave Asgard. The battle will converge in a plain called Vigrid: on a side there will be Loki, Fenrir, and all the Jötnar – on the other, the gods and the dead from the Valhalla.

Odin will be the first to attack, but Fenrir will slaughter him. Thor and Jörmungandr will face off in a mix of poison and lightning, but eventually the Mighty God will strike his foe with a decisive blow. Anyway, he will be so filled with venom that will fall dead on the ground after just nine steps.

Heimdall and Loki will kill each other. Tyr will do the same with the wolf Garm, and so Frey with Surt. In the meanwhile, the flames will have swallowed the world, which will sink in the water like a shapeless mass. The silence and the void of Ginnungagap will be restored.

Armageddon is for boys, Ragnarök is for men.

But then…

Earth will arise from the water again, lush. Two sons of Odin, Vidar and Vali, survived, and so Magni and Modi, sons of Thor. Balder and Hod will be there too, still alive. Then, two humans who hid in a tree trunk will come out to repopulate the world – they will be called Lif (“Life”) and Lifthrasir (“The one who fights after the life”). Also, the daughter of the sun will come and take its place. And then, gods will find golden pieces of a game they enjoyed a long, long time before. Finally, a new almighty god will appear in the sky to bring justice and righteousness.

And that’s it, that was pretty much the description of the Ragnarök, but as always different sources have slightly diverse versions. That final image of the golden game pieces is… Astonishing, at least, for a legend from centuries ago! It would fit perfectly the Lost finale, or Westworld’s – so mysterious and symbolic.

This was just a brief and confusing introduction to one of my personal favorite pantheon: each character is not “just there”, but has his or her motivations, alliances and enemies. I’ll surely post more Norse myths or brief stories in the future: there’s so much to tell, and some tales are very entertaining. We didn’t even talk about Thor’s goat-driven chariot!

The Viking Spirit by Daniel McCoy, which I totally recommend because it is fast, interesting and full of curiosities. Check also the website in the link, it contains many fascinating information. ↩︎
Nine is a recurring number in Norse mythology, as three and its multiples. ↩︎
Similarly, actual Viking houses were built with a central, tall log. ↩︎
The concept of inside (Innangard) and outside (Utangard) can be a comparable to good and bad, or order and chaos. Note that the Jötnar are confined to the outer part of the cosmos. ↩︎
Well, climate change isn’t helping. 👀 ↩︎

Midsommar

Thu, 15 Jun 2023

TL;DR: in Europe, not all the Midsummer rites are like in the movie. Or that other one. Or the TV series strangely full of weird homicides. In general: Is there fire? Yup. Are animals involved? Often. Is there sacrifice? Sometimes. Wait… Darn.

It is common knowledge that the solstices are very special days: the time when the day or the night are the longest in the whole year. It always fascinated humankind… There has always been some kind of mystic feeling about it. Across the world, many different rites are performed in these days and nights, but some are very similar, especially in the European continent. Sadly, as always happens, many traditions are lost as time passes; but luckily others keep living in the present – mostly because of oral tradition.

Fire Walk With Me #

Frazier, in his Golden Bough, often tells about Fire Festivals in Europe, which mostly occured during Quarter Days. Of course, Celtic ones are the most famous worldwide – I bet everyone heard about Beltane at least once. Analyzing the past Summer solstice celebrations, we can find three main topics:

The large bonfires we already saw
Large wheels set on fire and let roll down a hill (we’ll talk about that in a minute)
A procession through the fields with torches in hand

Among European and North African countries, the festivities were a lot, but they often had one of these three points in common. Some of them were kept alive until 1800s in rural areas.

The fire has a purifying role, but also embodies the power of life. Usually, with bonfires, animals were led through the flames to cure them and prevent illness; for the Summer solstice, though, a wooden wheel was also set on fire. It is said it could have several meanings: it symbolizes the sun, which from that moment (the solstice) starts its descent because of the shorter days. It may also be the cycle of the seasons. Here is a good an explanation (and its source, with several examples):

The idea was for it to roll all the way to the bottom, into the water if any; if it did not roll all the way down, the harvest would be bad.

Firing the wheel (via Wikimedia Commons)

Another custom was to throw wooden disks –on fire, of course– in the air, which symbolyzed the sun even more clearly. It was also common to look at the fire through bunches of larkspur to keep the eyes healthy the whole year. Also, as a good luck ritual, it was propitious to jump three or seven times on the fire.¹ We don’t have much info about Scottish summer bonfires, but herdsmen used to walk three times around stables and folds holding torches to purify the animals. In Lower Brittany, people threw a pebble into the midsummer fire as a good omen.

In Norway, the fires were called Balder’s Bälar, to recall the Norse god’s funeral pyre. Finally, a curiosity about Islamic countries in Northern Africa: usually their festivities follow the lunar calendar, but the solstice bonfires are a tradition too. It could be a remanence of some pagan custom.

God Is in the House #

Irish farmers used to commemorate the Danaan goddess Áine by walking in procession on Kockainey Hill (Kock Aine) with torches. Some tales warn that people shouldn’t linger too much, though: she might appear to those getting late to demand the hill only for the danaan people, in order to celebrate.

In Sweden, interestingly, the Summer solstice is also a festivity about water: people used to walk to springs, which gained healing properties for the occasion. This festivity also combines Maypole dances, which elsewhere usually take place on May. They still happen nowadays, but their origin is very remote. The pole is a very tall tree, often a birch, placed in the middle of a square; all its branches are removed, and then it is adorned and with colored garlands. Sausages or bread loafs are hanged to it too, and boys try to catch them. Then, dances start all around it, until late night. The purpose of this ritual was to welcome the spirit of the woods in the village. In other countries, though, this being had a human form, as Jack o’ the Green in England or, more in general, the Green Man.

Dance around the maypole during the Midsummer celebration in 2003, Åmmeberg, Sweden (via Wikimedia Commons)

Let’s not lose focus, we were talking about the summer solstice and there is still so much to say! Another legend says that Cadbury Castle was the one where King Arthur ruled. Every seven years, on the Summer solstice, a door opens on the side of the hill and a parade of knights comes out to water the horses to the spring next to the church of Sutton Montis. It is said to be their resting place until England will call them back to fight.

Till the Morning Comes #

There are many plants that grow magnificently in June, but the parasitic mistletoe was picked up also on the eve of the Summer solstice, not only in the Winter one, even if it is much harder to see because of the flourishing foliage. As we saw, it symbolizes the life that leaves the tree, so, if gathered, it encloses some kind of vital power, linked to the Sun.

In Eastern Europe, the Slavic deities were deeply connected with all these concepts: the summer form of the gods was often celebrated on the solstice. This day is one of those when they shift into their next form. Kupala, “Lady Midsummer”, is called Marena from there on because at that point of the year she transforms from the goddess of spring-to-summer (Kupala) into autumn-thru-winter one (Marena). She also has a very famous festivity dedicated to her – I’ll let you guess when it’s celebrated. St. Agrippina is the figure who inherited her lore, and her feast day is June, 23rd.

Vit, also known as Svetovid, another slavic god related to Summer (but not the last one, at all!), is often associated with the crowing rooster, and then consequently with the sunlight: he is also called “The Radiant God”. In Serbia, the Summer solstice is Vidovdan, “the day of Sveti Vid”, and a rooster is placed onto a wreath made of the newly harvested grains; if it remains silent, a bad harvest is predicted. Finally, on top of St. Vitus’ Cathedral in Prague, there is a rooster: could it mean that, on that site, was there once a pagan temple of Svetovid?

Could the weathercock be linked with the cult of Svetovid? (via PackingLightTravel.com)

Moving away from Europe, the few customs we know about change a lot. Zuñi people, for example, used to sacrifice turtles because they believe that, every year, their relatives’ souls come back to visit them,² reincarnated in those animals. They killed them to send the spirits home.

But that is the only example of animal violence I cited in the whole article!³ So, as I was saying at the beginning, European customs are always exaggerated in American movies. Pfft. You can come visit us with no worries! Just… Maybe avoid the solstices, just to be sure.

Maybe it was good, but not very safe indeed. ↩︎
It’s not something new at all. ↩︎
It doesn’t mean it was the only one 👀 ↩︎

Yōkai – Ancient Japanese Monsters

Tue, 27 Dec 2022

This December, my girlfriend and I took a brief holiday and went to southern Germany. We wanted to visit weihnachtsmärkte, the famous Christmas markets, and go snow hiking. While walking some trails around Oberreute, more than once, we noticed two intertwined trees, already quite tall and grown up. It is a shame we did not take a picture, but it was interesting to see these two thin trunks, born one next to the other, rising in a spiral-like shape.

I didn’t take a picture, but the trees we found were twined like these ones. (Photo by Adobe Stock)

In the same days, we were also reading Shigeru Mizuki’s Yōkai Encyclopedia, a list of common Japanese monsters and spirits. Reading about the Yama no Kami, the mountain spirits, the book says that those twisted trees are left by them during the Kikazoe (the counting of the plants), in the last days of the year. During this period, it was forbidden to take a stroll on the mountains around Iwate prefecture, otherwise one would risk being transformed into a tree.

Gotta Catch ’em All! #

That strange Japanese encyclopedia is filled with incredible curiosities. There are some interesting connections with popular culture and, sometimes, even occidental folklore. First, it is no secret that Pokémon, known worldwide, are often based on Japanese mythological creatures.

Raichu, for example, #26 of the first generation of the Pocket Monsters —amarcord, Italians would say— is based on Raijū, the thunder beast. It may be depicted as a wolf or another animal¹, and its cry is a thunder. It is said that trees struck by lighting have been scratched by Raijū’s claws. Another curious legend about this creature tells that it sleeps in traveler’s navels and, during bad weather, stomach ache is given by this beast.

About transforming creatures (and maybe Pokémon evolution!), the term Shussebora depicts a shell which, in a time span of 3.000 years, moves from the mountains to the plans, then finally to the sea, and turns into a mighty dragon.

Shussebora illustration (via Yokai.com)

There are so many examples of Pokémon based on yōkai monsters, but that’s not what I want to point out. There are also many deeply scary creatures, whom purpose remains unknown: when reading their description, the reader can just ask: “Why should this thing exist?”

Let’s take the Kurodama: it is a black, smoky globe that appears next to us when we sleep. It slowly moves from a person’s feet towards the mouth; if one wakes up, the monster quickly flies away, hard to be seen. Otherwise, if the victim keeps snoring, the creature slowly chokes him or her. The book says that this spirit has been invented to explain the short breath in hot summer nights; I say that there’s something wicked going on here².

“The Nightmare” by John Henry Fuseli, 1781. Inspired by Holiday’s heavy dinners.

No wonder that the Kurodama is said to be linked to the kanashibari, the sleep paralysis: the state in which a person is unable to move or speak, but often sees something –or someone– observing them. In Europe, we have mares that cause nightmares. They could be related to the Japanese belief.

Maybe it’s better to talk about some “cuter” creatures. 😅 One of my personal favorites is the Moon rabbit: in many Asian countries, a rabbit is seen on the Moon’s surface. In Japan, it is said to be pounding rice for the mochi; in China, it is preparing the elixir of immortality.

You can figure out the rabbit and the “bowl” it is working with. Personally, on the Moon, I see a face. 🌝 (via Wikipedia.org)

There is always a darker version of many legends. 🌓 Other myths say that, on the Moon, a monster called Katsura Otoko can be seen: if one looks into his eyes, the creature will invite him or her to join him, and the victim’s life span will start shortening.

All The Same #

A concept we already talked about is contagious magic, and we can see it is widely applied in Japanese tales, too. One example is about the Suiko, a creature that lives in the water and, at least once a year, claims a human victim. It sucks all the blood out of the body, and then abandons the cadaver. One way to kill the monster consists of building a shrine in the middle of a field, and let the body of the victim decompose in there, instead of laying it to rest. As the body rots, so the blood eaten by the monster will, and it will die consequently.

Another similar tract with other civilizations is the fear and respect for human hair. Three hairs were held by fishermen on blankets and clothes to keep away a sea monster called Iso Onna. They were also used by Irish sailors to prevent rough sea. Also, we already saw how hair and nails were treated when cut from important persons, as the Emperor.

Reading about a terrible monster called Okiku Mushi, it is explained that, in Russia too, butterflies are believed to be reincarnation of human beings. It is a good omen when they fly on the shoulder or on a person’s open hand³: it means that the insect has a human heart. As we already pointed out, in many parts of the worlds, moths are often symbolized as the souls flying out of the body.

The Katsura Otoko. One of the few, wonderful illustrations from the Encyclopedia I could find on the web.

Spiders, too, were often not seen positively, or better said: they were a bad omen when encountered at night or in dream. When seen in the morning, otherwise, they brought luck to shopkeepers and merchants.

Broomsticks are another link to western countries: it is a common belief, in Japan too, that they can help during childbirth. One should be kept in a corner of the same room where the mother lies, and the knot of the old brooms should be untied before tossing them away, otherwise they’d bring a difficult labor.

No Country for Old Items #

As a common rule, we can say that in Japan, every object “gains a spirit” when it becomes old enough⁴. As Mizuki explains in the book, many of the spirits are created by human suggestion. Try to imagine living in the countryside, in the middle of the silence. As Guy de Maupassant wrote in La Horla:

Solitude is indeed dangerous for a working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak. When we are alone for a long time we people the void with phantoms.

In the latest decades, as people tend to live in large urban centers, those old spirits are just… dying. As in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, where divinities disappeared when no more people believed in them, also Japanese yōkai risk to be forgotten—and our traditions too, if we don’t preserve them.

One last note about this Encyclopedia: it contains some unique information that I couldn’t find anywhere else. One example of all: about the Jubokko, a tree that is said to drink human blood. On the internet, I’ve read that, when cut, it spills red blood—and the book agrees on that. But there’s also a short weird story from a Chinese collection of tales called Soshinki. I’ll translate it here:

Once upon a time, a man moved to the Kanan region, and bought a vegetable garden. In its center there was a massive tree with extremely long branches which grew in every direction, not allowing the light to pass; nothing could grow beneath it. So, the man ordered his crew to cut it down. When they hit the trunk with the axe, a huge amount of blood started spilling out – from 110 to 120 liters. “It’s a very old tree, it’s normal if it seems to bleed”, said the man.

As the blood kept flowing out, the workers started cutting down the branches. Then, from a hole in the bark, little people started coming out. They had white hair and looked like old men, but they were neither humans nor animals. They were tall from a hundred-twenty to a hundred-fifty centimeters. The man drew his katana and killed them all. Then the tree was cut down, and everything was back to normal.

Little people? Enough for today! 🙉

In Japanese tales, many animals are believed to be quite mischievous. Among them, foxes and tanuki are the worst! 🦊🦝 ↩︎
It is also said that, before a ghostly vision, a white globe called Hitodama appears. Could it be related to the evil black globe? ↩︎
To be fair, the original text specifies that insects may lay on “the hand of a middle-aged woman”. ↩︎
Even toilets have their own spirits – Kanbari Nyūdō 👀 ↩︎

Monster Mash

Fri, 21 Oct 2022

In Autumn, as days get shorter and colder, men have always tended to be more… sensitive. And long nights are the perfect time for (spooky) storytelling! Many myths and traditions, in fact, take place during the first of November and in the Winter solstice. Today, we can mostly feel the reminiscence of the past Halloween lore. But where does it come from?

This is a complicated question and surely it will cover several articles in this blog. However, we can start with its name: Halloween is simply All Hallow’s Eve, so the day before All Saints’ Day. Hallow is an archaic term to denote a Saint or a holy person, similar to Old Norse helga.¹ It is the first day of the triduum Hallowtide, a set of three days that goes from October 31st to November 2nd.

All Saints’ Day, in Roman times, was held on May 13th, then Pope Gregory III changed its day to the 1st of November. The day originally matched the pagan festival of Lemuria, which was also connected to the dead. It lasted three days too² and its purpose was to please the agitated spirits of the ancestors. It was common to cook a salted cake and, at midnight, walking backwards while tossing black beans over the shoulder. Nope, nothing weird here.

According to Ovid, the festival was started by Romulus to soothe his Remus’s ghost, the brother he had killed. And, in general, the whole month of May was considered unlucky, so brides tended to not marry during it. From Wikipedia:

Lemures may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living: they are thus not attested by tomb or votive inscriptions.

Nowadays, the significance of the festivity is deeply connected to Christianity, but it’s interesting to note that many civilizations have celebrations with the same meaning.

Who knows why Romans were so afraid by Lemu… oh.

We’re in This Together #

Dead have always been memorialized throughout the world. In China, usually in August or September depending on the moon, for the Hungry Ghost festival people prepare food for the souls of their ancestors that come back on Earth and try to communicate. It is said that spirits with no family are malevolent, and joss paper is burned to banish them. Also, at dusk, the famous paper lanterns are lit in the sky to help them find their way home.

In Scandinavia, blót, or blood sacrifices (literal translation!), take place from October, during the period called Winter Nights: livestock is slaughtered to celebrate the gods. In ancient Persia, it was believed that progenitors came back on Earth on the Winter equinox. In modern Iran, there is still the Chaharshanbe Suri festival on the day before, and bonfires are lit. Finally, in Ireland, Samhain is probably the most famous festival associated to the modern Halloween. Large processions with fire take place and it is said that the goddess Cailleach freezes the world with her mighty staff. We’ll talk a lot more about this.

We also find many celebrations where people wear masks or costumes to scary the ghosts and drive them away. In Bulgaria, for example, Kukeri is an old tradition where costumes are used specifically for this purpose. In Wales, though, the 31st of October is Nos Calan Gaeaf, and spirits walk among us because the veil between this world and the otherworld is thinner. Men wear pig skins to terrify the kids. I… I’m just glad to be born a few thousands kilometers away.

For protection against the spirits, hag stones were carried attached to a red string. 🧚💔🪨

Born in the U.S.A. #

So, the costumes may be used to personificate either the spirits or the “guardians” that should cast them out. Nowadays we tend to wear just the monster masks to be scary. In the past, one dressed up as a supernatural being to disguise among the ones, during the night: that is probably the origin of the term “guising”, which is the Scottish name of the tradition. It was the role of a mummer. Somehow, then, this practice arrived to the New World.

“Mummers Play in Poland” (Wikimedia Commons). There are also modern days mummers.

It is indeed in America, though, in the last hundred years, that Halloween became the night as we all know it. It is true that the Día de los muertos and other celebrations assimilated part of the natives’ customs and lore, but it was the migrants from all Europe, in XIX century, that took their traditions abroad. Then, with distance and time, some of the traits remained, but other deeply mutated³ or were abandoned.

It is in Canada, in 1927, that the expression “Trick or Treat” was coined. In less than five years, it was broadly used in all the northern states. Since then, capitalism and cinema helped to spread new trends, thanks to movies, lights, pumpkins, etc.

Smashing Pumpkins #

Last but not least, pumpkin carving is probably the most well-known Halloween consuetude. What is this come from?

Pumpkins have been discovered in America by pioneers, so it wasn’t surely part of the tradition. However, in the past, turnip lanterns were used. They could either depict the ghosts or, in modern times, it was told they represented trapped souls in Purgatory. They were also used to ward off the evil spirits so, as with the costumes, there is never a single point of view.

Definetely scarier than a pumpkin.

About the name “Jack O’ Lantern”, it comes from English folklore: at first, it was referred to Will-o’-the-wisp, a ghostly light mostly seen on moors or graveyards (yes, definitely spooky). It is about old folk tales, spread across all Europe⁴, about young men –often called Will– that are doomed to haunt mortals or to wander on Earth. When, during All Hallows’ Night, the otherworld gets closer to ours, they become visible as faint lights.

There is a lot more to say on this special day, which has been undoubtedly too commercialized, and soon we’ll cover other aspects. For now, speaking about new Halloween customs, I’ll just leave you here Rob Sheridan’s amazing work with house decorating: check it out. Also, last week, on vacation in Normandy, I found an ancient thatched house full of “American” Halloween adornments. I love these contrasts.

Speaking about traditions that go back and forth. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo.

It may be a curious coincidence, but in Icelandic tales, Helga is often a girl who is kidnapped by trolls, and commonly the less loved among her sisters, too. Poor Helga. 😢 ↩︎
It was held on May 9, 11, and 13, all odd days. Well, that’s definitely odd. 🥁 ↩︎
See all the cryptids, which are –strangely– found in the U.S. nine times out of ten. 👀 ↩︎
There are eerie lights phenomenons all over the world, see Wikipedia’s page of Will-o’-the-wisp. It’s fascinating to see how different civilizations give them contrasting meanings. ↩︎

Iron and Blood

Sun, 18 Sep 2022

Ok. First of all, I should apologize with anyone subscribed to this newsletter because I didn’t publish anything for almost nine months. No, I did not have any child, but I’ve been through quite harsh times. I think it’s time to start again publishing some articles. Maybe –but just maybe– in the next few weeks I’ll have some spare time, so, as Rage Against the Machine once said: “What better time than now?”

Dead Man’s Party #

I am currently reading Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race by T. W. Rolleston, which is interesting but quite slow… however, I already found a few passages useful to better understand some of the Irish and English customs. By the way, you can find the whole transcription of the text here, for free.

The shadow says it all.

In this tome you can find many references to the Hallowe’en celebrations, that were extremely important for many populations across Europe. For the Celts, it was the beginning of the year. In the Island of Man, one of the places where Celtic traditions and language held longer, in the Julian calendar, November 1st was New Year’s day until a few centuries ago.

Hallowe’en night is also the transition from autumn to winter, the night when the souls of the departed come back to their old homes to comfort themselves with the warmth of the fireplace. Perhaps it was natural to imagine poor, shivering ghosts out there in the fields, wishing for some comfort. It was instinctive then, for humans, to greet them and celebrate them. We cannot be sure, but probably Hallowe’en night, for Celts, was more important than Beltane, which was the beginning of the summer, on May 1st.

This is what we have reduced Hallowe’en to. 🙈

Music When The Lights Go Out #

Another very interesting concept in Celtic myths is music. According to the legend, it was brought to Ireland by the Danaan race, which were beings “coming from the sky”, described as gods. All of their characters were associated to fertility and prosperity, but in a pre-Christian era they were probably linked to science and music. This is the intriguing part: music, science, and poetry were all deeply connected.¹ From the book cited before:

Some of the most beautiful of the antique Irish folk-melodies, –e.g. the Coulin– are traditionally supposed to have been overheard by mortal harpers at the revels of the Fairy Folk.

The Folk here is the same I already mentioned, thus the Little People or Hidden People. They’re the same Danaans, who went to exile in a concealed world parallel of ours because of the war with the Milesians. Since then, they usually avoid contact with humans, but they are still part of modern folklore as fairies.

This is a very poetic story of the origin of the music, which is seen as a form of art given to us from the gods, as a gift. Then we made those gods run away from our world, but that’s another story.

'Divine Inspiration of Music' by Nicolas Régnier (circa 1860). Is that a Danaan goddess? 🕵️🧚

Sabbra Cadabra #

Fun fact: fairies indeed do love music, but they hate metal. No, not the genre. More precisely, they hate iron: they hate it so much it can hurt them. In fact, it is said they can’t withstand music coming from a Jew’s harp. How… ironic. 🥁

Many people agree on this: metal hurts. But they also like it because of that. 🤷

Ok, seriously: why should a metal hurt an immortal being who can die only of violent death? There are various hypotheses. Maybe the first person who gave us a written answer of something similar has been Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, the first encyclopedia of the world. Unfortunately, it is the only of his books that survived to this day. In there, he explained that iron nails in tombs can repel nocturnal spirits. Iron also has fascinating properties as magnetism that could make it look supernatural. Also, blood tastes like iron, another reason to make it special (I guess…?).

Or maybe, a less intriguing answer could be… the Celts themselves: it is widely known that they were very brutal warriors with ferocious rituals (yes, I refer to human sacrifices). They are also notorious for their bronze and iron weaponry on which we can still admire their art.

The British Isles, before their coming, were populated by some civilization that has left almost no trace. We don’t know much about those ancestors, but probably they’ve been overwhelmed by Celtic armies. Their legacy may have survived in some legends and it may have been integrated in other myths… where Celts are treated as iron. Hence, iron as fairies’ weak point could be a reference to the Celtic military power, distinguished by that metal.

One last note about this: we already said that mistletoe is considered a symbol of the soul, but guess with what tools it should not be never picked up? With iron tools.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik #

Earlier, I mentioned blood. Personally, I cannot even imagine how it could have been seen thousands of years ago, out of a medical context. There are lots of interesting stories about this red fuel that keeps us alive, and some of them are… surprising!

I don’t know about you, but THIS is what I think when talking about blood.

Contagious Magic, according to WordReference, is:

[…] based on the belief that things once in contact are in some way permanently so, however separated physically they may subsequently become.

The same is for blood. If one is hurt, for example, by a knife, the blade must be cleaned because the blood on it behaves as the one still in the person’s body. Also, the bandages should always be burned in order to avoid that an enemy reaches them, potentially causing great harm to the already injured person. Natives of South-Eastern Australia even believe that they can lame a man by placing sharp pieces of glass, bone, or charcoal in his footprints.

As already wrote in this blog, men have always been terrified by menstrual blood. In many parts of the ancient world, when a girl reached puberty, she had to be confined in a remote location for months as a rite of passage. During that time, all the pottery she touched had to be destroyed, and only a very few people (other women) could see her. Women who just gave birth were taken even more seriously: they had to be secluded for at least three months and, in the unfortunate case of an abortion kept secret to others, there would be tragedies in all the world. No pressure!

As mentioned earlier, blood absolutely had not to fall in the enemy’s hands. But sometimes it was also considered sacred because it was thought to hold a person’s soul. So what to do in case of bleeding? Well, the Betsileo of Madagascar had a class of men called ramanga who had the duty to lick all the spilt blood of the nobles. Yuck. And to eat all their nail-parings. Double-yuck. Maybe it’s enough for today.

Interestingly, also sorcery was seen on the same level as music, poetry and science! 🧙‍♂️🎶🧑‍🔬🧑‍🎨 ↩︎

Pagan Gods’ Trinity

Tue, 11 Jan 2022

Get Lucky #

Either I’m very lucky, or I keep finding evidence that everything is connected. After Rites of Passage, I’ve been reading one of my Christmas presents: the very recent Woodruff’s Guide to Slavic Deities. I confess that when I discovered it was printed by Amazon, after flipping through the pages, at first I had some prejudices. I thought it was mainly a sort of list, maybe a catalogue… oh boy, I was so wrong!

The text is full of interesting notions and –what I look for most– connections among civilisations. In brief, by studying the roots of names (often Proto-Indo-European), very interesting details can be discovered. Especially in countries like the Slavic ones, close each other, some small differences of pronunciation can help to find new details.

A photo I took in Slovenia. The “magical” atmosphere is quite powerful!

One of the main aspects discussed by this book concerns the polyvalence of the gods. There are no such distinct categories as “god for fertility”, “god of war”, etc. Each god has a female goddess counterpart, which can be seen as his partner, his daughter or, more simply, another form of the god itself. Of course, there isn’t one Slavic culture – there are dozens! So confusion is inevitable among names and roles.

But mostly, more interestingly, the concept of polyvalence regards mutation: in the time span of a solar year, a Spring god would transform in a Summer god, and the latter would transform then in a Winter god. At the beginning of the year¹, the Spring god will be born again from the Winter one. In ancient times, resurrection was much more “common” than in the last two millennia.

Winter Nightmares #

Let’s get down to ~~business~~ curiosities. One of the main Slavic deities is Mora, which is defined a “dark goddess” because she’s related to the dim part of the year, the Winter and its long nights. In the death/life cycle, Winter would be death with no doubt. She was depicted mainly in two ways: as a beautiful, pale young woman with dark hair, or as an old woman dressed in white. Haven’t we already seen this figure somewhere else?

Mora is also known as a “dream goddess”. Why, though? Well, from her name probably derive mares, spirits that give night_mares_ to sleeping people. In addition, another animal which she is linked to is the moth, which represents the soul flying out the body while we are asleep.

“Wodan’s Wild Hunt” by Friedrich W. Heine. A procession of angry spirits riding across the sky. No wonder it was considered a bad presage.

Another interesting association comes from German language: Mohr or Mahri were “riders of the storm”, spirits that rode among the clouds in winter nights. They can be easily linked to the Wild Hunt, a myth that was spread across whole Europe. Final note: one of the other names is Pethra Baba and her worshippers/followers were called pethra… doesn’t it sound like perchta?

So, we were able to link three topics already discussed in these pages with just one² Slavic deity. Not bad!

Baba Yaga #

Maybe the most popular figure of the Slavic pantheon is Baba Yaga, which is described as a terrible, malignant crone. She recently appeared in Netflix’s Witcher adaptation with a fictional name, but the character has many of her features: she is an evil witch and she lives in a cottage that stands on fowl’s legs – probably her best known detail. A little ~~spoiler~~ about the season finale: when she gets free, she even flies to ride with the Wild Hunt!

Her name was “Voleth Meir”, but she’s clearly Baba Yaga. Fun fact: the name means “Immortal Mother” – immortal as her male counterpart!

Baba Yaga’s temperament hasn’t always been so much negative: as I mentioned earlier, when life was intended more as a cycle of life and death, Winter deities had also great regenerating powers because, from them, life sprang anew. In later centuries, when life became conceived as “linear” (birth -> death), then the witch was seen as “purely evil”. So, even an ugly crone who was said to fly around in an iron mortar, propelling it with a pestel, was originally not feared, but respected.

In fact, she was a harsh “bringer of justice”. Her motto could have been: you don’t disrespect nature or magic without consequences. She was also a spinning goddess, which was a very common figure among cultures because it was said the god(desse)s weaved people’s fate. And finally, as many other goddesses, she had a male counterpart: Koshchei.

Birds and Snakes #

He was known as the deathless. We already talked about him referencing his soul hidden outside the body, so that the owner is immortal until the –fragile– object that contains it is destroyed. As we noticed, it was often an egg. Reading this book, I found a very interesting link: in the stories, the egg was contained in a duck, or a dove – it was always a white bird.

White birds (mostly swans, doves, and ducks) are linked to Siva, the Summer deity known as the “Bird Goddess”. Her name literally means “life” and she represents the blossoming of nature during summertime. She’s connected to the constellation of the Cygnus and the planet Venus (the homonymous Roman goddess was very similar to Siva). In some parts of Russia, it was forbidden to shoot swans because they were related to the fairy world.

Siva was also linked to snakes. It gets fascinating because it was said that white serpents could fly like birds. Also, by eating or licking a snake, a person would get the ability to understand the language of birds. The image of the winged snake could have easily evolved into the winged dragon – remember that in Medieval times dragons were often depicted with extremely long bodies that could envelop a hill.

The zalkis, linked to Mora. It looks like a snake and the infinite symbol, resembling resurrection.

Other than that, going back to the goddess Mora, one of her symbols was the zalkis (see picture above). It resembles both a snake and the infinite loop. According to its description on Latvians.com:

[…] Māra’s sign. Wisdom and knowledge. The changeable. Energy of life and renewal. The waxing and waning of the moon. Latvians believed that catching and eating the zalktis would allow them to commune with their ancestors, to understand the speech of ancient tongues.

Now, last question: what is called zalktis in Latvian? The Grass snake, obviously. This is one of the many connections that link different cultures and show how apparently different pagan deities were associated. Some of them come from a remote past³ while, in comparison, other ones are very recent. Many, though, resisted up to present day thanks to scholars and… Christian Saints.

Actual situation of Slavic deities during festivities.

Can’t Befriend Someone? Absorb It. #

While it may seem a paradox, it is well known that Christianity just made up many of its Saints’ stories. Since many cultures across Europe and up to Asia had to be “converted” into Christianity, their pagan gods and traditions were simply absorbed and mutated in Saints. Temples and holy places were turned into churches. Even the sacred days of the original gods were preserved to avoid altering the heritage.

Some examples: St. George could be Jūrgis, one of Auseklis’s names, or Jarilo – they both were Slavic Spring gods. George’s days is 23rd of April or the 6th of May, according to the versions, and they correspond to pagan festivities. St. Ursula (21st of October) may be related to celebrations of Siva’s transformation in her winter form. The pagan goddess is also related with the Ursa Major constellation (Great Bear), which could have become the Saint’s name.

St. George is often depicted while fighting a dragon… but I hope nobody really thinks he actually fought that animal. I may exaggerate when asking if he actually existed – or I may not.

These may seem overstatements, but it’s easy to go on. One last case: St. Gertrude’s sacred animals are mice and cats. The Saint seems related to Mora again: mice live underground (remember that she is a Winter goddess, therefore related to the Underworld and death); cats have always been linked to witches. And, as I already pointed out, Freya’s chariot was pulled by two cats, so this aspect could connect Christianity with both Norse and Slavic pantheons.

Through time, many calendars have been used. At some point, the end of the year also matched the Spring equinox (the actual March). ↩︎
That is probably wrong. Deities’ roles often exchanged across cultures, so in this case maybe it was not everything linked to Mora… but surely to a figure (or figures) with those features. ↩︎
Some depictions of what looks like a “Bird Goddess” are about 30,000 years old! ↩︎

The Rites of Passage

Thu, 30 Dec 2021

Flea Markets = Source of Treasures #

A few weeks ago, at the local flea market, I was very lucky to find a copy of The Rites of Passage by Arnold Van Gennep. It is an Italian edition from 1960s and it belonged to the library of a nearby village. It shows the signs of time, but for the price (about 1€) I couldn’t really complain! I immediately started studying it and I was glad to find, since the first pages, references to The Golden Bough, which I finished previously!

It may be not in a perfect state, but for me it’s glorious!

I’ll try to (badly) recap some of the most intriguing theories exposed here. Let’s remember that the given examples are general, so similarities can be observed with both our modern society and remote past civilisations around the globe.

First, the life of a human being is a series of stages: childhood, puberty, married life , etc. Also, just as important, throughout life, there are communities which a person belongs to. They can be categorised. The most basic partition is sexual-based: men and women – it’s too well-known that they have never been put on the same level. The other clear separation in everyday actions is based on magical-religious aspects: sacred and profane. It may seem subtle, but the distinction is very used even nowadays.

Similarities can be observed with both our modern society and even remote past civilisations around the globe.

In addition to the previous distinctions, imagine that a civilisation is composed essentially by classes: based on professions, castes, religious associations,… We could find so many examples. Moreover, you can picture the sub-classes that we could find, for example, if we divide them geographically (e.g., local parishes).

IT. IS. A. MESS.

‘I Don’t Belong Here’ – T. Yorke #

Ok, it’s like Monopoly: before starting, we have set many pieces on the table, but it gets easier once the game begins. The golden rule is that an individual cannot be part of different classes¹. So, in order to change group, a rite (or ceremony) must take place. That’s the focal point and goal of the book: to understand the sequence and, when possible, the meaning of the rituals that are performed in such occasions.

Another powerful picture is given in the very first pages: societies are like buildings with many rooms, one for each “class”. In the primitive civilisations, the walls of the rooms were thicker, so the communication among them was more difficult. In modern society the walls are thinner, so the distinctions are less pronounced. In other words, less rites are required to change class. Progress, we could say. Very true indeed, if it weren’t for some very archaic remnants part of our inner culture.

As other anthropologists did before, Van Gennep pointed out that similarities could be found in ceremonies dedicated to completely different situations: for instance, weddings, funerals, and coronations of kings. What is a common point among them?

The veil was used for many types of celebrations, not just for weddings. It acted as a protection.

It was common, since Roman times, to cover the spouses with a veil. The modern bride still wears it while she walks towards the altar. Why, though? It is to protect her holiness from the profane world that she comes from. The wedding is a change of state to a higher level, in which the woman will be seen with more attributes. The same goes for a king, which wears a cloak during the enthroning ceremony. And the same principle is valid for death: corpses were often covered in sheets because the place where the soul is headed is sacred – its journey must not be impeded by our “filthy” world.

Separation - Transition - Incorporation #

So, if the rites of passage are the ones required to pass from a class to another (or even from a world to a distinct one), this three-step sequence is their key:

Separation rites (from the previous reality)
Transition rites
Incorporation rites (to the new reality)

It may seem absurd to force such classification for all the ceremonies, but the results of Van Gennep’s analysis are quite stunning.

One very important concept is the threshold. Our home’s door, for example: it protects us from the outside world. In the past, both Arabs and Jews stroked an effigy or a casket near the door when entering or exiting the house – an incorporation or separation gesture, depending on the case. Also, in some parts of the world, pregnant women can’t enter through the main door of their houses². Even bodies, in funeral rites, are not let pass through the main door because it is seen as a bad omen.

Another great example of this concept, often underrated, is the triumphal arch: in Roman times, armies and important personalities passed under the arch to enter symbolically and physically into the new reality and to “wash away” the contamination of the outside³. The simplest threshold can be seen as a barrier between worlds: among many civilisations, it is spread the belief that spirits cannot cross water courses, which in this case act like some other type of boundaries.

In ancient times, swimmers used to mock spirits that couldn’t follow them into the water.

‘Is He Dead?’ ‘No, It’s Just Puberty’ #

Other similarities between rituals related to different moments in life can be observed analysing the initiation rites for special societies or, simply, just the ones for puberty. In a few words, the initiated boy temporarily dies to exit his previous state and enter the new one (adulthood). The example is clearer in Congo, for instance, where the kid was exiled (separation) and painted white, which is a color often related to death (margin). Other than that, when he was re-admitted in his village, he had to act like a baby for weeks, or months: adults had to teach him again the basic tasks, and he also ate baby food (incorporation).

The book is intriguing because there are many other cases illustrated and explained. One for all: circumcision. Why is it performed, and why at different ages (some cultures do it after a few weeks from birth, others after ten years)? Simple answer: it is a way to show the membership to a special class, or society. Quoting the text:

The mutilated individual is removed from the common mass of humanity by a rite of separation (this is the idea behind cutting, piercing, etc.) which automatically incorporates him into a defined group.

“Circumcision of Christ” by Giovanni Bellini. We’re with you, little fella.

Finally, probably the most obvious rite to assign a newborn to a “category”, even unintentionally, is by giving him or her a name. It’s not about using a middle name, as nowadays. In the past, a child could change name several times: first, it was named according to the sex with a generic one; then, an ancestor’s name was chosen; later, depending on the “phase”, or his age, he could change it again. In totemic societies, at the time of initiation, the name could vary once more. And even when a man becomes father, it could be changed again with his son’s.

To conclude the overview of this amazing book, which is such dense of notions yet brief, it is a must for me to spread the word that it is available for free on the Internet Archive!

Of course there are exceptions. It is just a rule to simplify the understanding. ↩︎
Nursing mothers and pregnant women have always been treated as “special”, but not always in a good way. ↩︎
Interestingly, Norse people had a similar tradition and divided their world between inside (Innangard) and outside (Utangard), and the village walls (gardr) were very important. We’ll talk about that. ↩︎

Christmas in Europe Is No Joke!

Sun, 05 Dec 2021

First: Avoid Being Chased Down #

I live in Italy and, when I was a child, I didn’t really believe in Santa – I was already asking too many questions. I didn’t mind too much being a good child to receive nice gifts, but a few hundreds of kilometers from me, things were (are!) quite different. In the Eastern Alps, in Austria, Slovenia and other Slavic countries, naughty children are not gifted with black coal by the Befana, as in Italy. In those countries, bad kids are actually hunted down by a horned demon – the Krampus.

Every year, the 5th of December, during the Krampusnacht (“Krampus Night”), men and women march down the street dressed up like demons, with horrifying masks that take the whole year to make. The Krampus Run, or Krampuslauf, is a joyful parade for adults, mostly drunk, but a bit less cherish for children, who are continuously scared and chased by these horrible figures. Large bonfires are lit in the snowy streets as the quiet Alpine villages come to life.

The Krampus is clearly St. Nichola’s counterpart, or Santa’s villain from a modern perspective – a very bad Grinch. He leaves wooden sticks for bad children and takes the meanest with him. Christianity tried to banish these figures and traditions, but in this case, at the end of 19th century, this folklore was rediscovered because of… consumerism. Since when Austrian government quit the monopolisation of postcards, Krampuskarten boomed: Krampus-themed holiday cards filled with dark humor.

“Greetings from Krampus”… isn’t it lovely? I feel like I designed it myself.

Second: Chase the Origins #

As always, the fascinating aspect of this tradition is its origin – even if these are hypotheses and we will never have the absolute certainty. What is sure, though, is that the Percht (female: Perchta) was widely known in the same regions before the Krampus itself. It’s the figure of a woman considered the goddess of the Winter. She has two forms: one is a beautiful young lady white as snow, while the other one is an ugly elderly woman.

The name Perchta may mean “the bright one”, suggesting the lady’s pale skin, but there are also common aspects with the Krampus and the old hag: in historical descriptions, both have two different feet – one human and a larger one, called “goose foot”. Overall, though, Percht-themed masks were already worn during festivals in past times – and this tradition continues nowadays. They reflected the duality of the figure: some costumes were beautiful and bright, while others were horrible horned demons wearing animal furs. Those festivals are still called Perchtenlaufen, probably an earlier form of the Krampus runs.

This costume represents the duality of the Perchta – both beauty and beast… Maybe a bit tending to the latter.

Probably, the Percht evolved in the Krampus after St. Nichola’s introduction. Nowadays, the two shapes may a bit intertwined, but what is interesting is their past. In fact, similarities with the Perchta and other European figures and names can be observed: Bertha, Holda (who also appears in a Grimm’s fairy tale), the Russian Baba Yaga, and even the Italian Befana that I cited before. All these folklore characters, with so many common traits… must have some common roots! This was one of the thoughts fascinating me when I decided to explore our lore.

Third: Connect the Gods Dots #

A simple answer may be also the best one: those were goddesses, or a sort of. All of them were often referred as “guardians of the animals” and, in the form of beautiful women, probably they were Freya. She, Odin’s wife, was often linked to the nature and the animals – she was often identified with boars and cats. Also, the latter ones are a universal symbol for witches. Freya, indeed, was the most powerful sorceress of the whole Norse pantheon; so powerful that she could have been Odin’s teacher regarding magical arts.

Freya by Johannes Gehrts. Note the cats at her feet… they used to tow her chariot!

It is possible that, in Slavic countries, Freya had been a “Winter queen” and then evolved into figures as Holda: the Middle Ages may have shaped her from Norse goddess into a folklore character. But if Freya had been undoubtedly beautiful, why was the Perchta depicted also as an ugly witch?

Short answer: as often happened in the past centuries, probably some roles were mixed. Freya herself is already a notable example of how deities could be merged together – or even split! Frigg, in fact, is another name with which she is referred to in the poems; it is never clear if they are two distinct goddesses and what are the differences between them. One hypothesis is that, at some point, there had been the tendency to split her in two different beings¹.

But if Freya had been undoubtedly beautiful, why was the Perchta depicted also as an ugly witch?

Another resemblance with Norse mythology is again about the Krampus, maybe inherited from the Percht: it is told to be the son of Hel, the ruler of the homonymous world, the Land of the Dead. Hel was one of Loki’s daughters² and she was portrayed with a gloomy appearance. Her name means “the hidden one” – do you know which name could have the same meaning, according to the Old German language? Percht, that’s correct!

It’s not over yet: it is told that the Perchta howled in the woods in winter nights, as the Wild Hunt did, and lived in the elderberry bush, which is often linked to Freya. The list of common features could be so much longer! But of course (it is mandatory to remind that) all of these are thesis with no “real” proofs. I feel so heavy-hearted when I think about all that past knowledge that we won’t be able to recover.

What is certain, though, is that today is the 5th of December, and tonight the Krampus will run through the snowy streets of small rural Alpine villages, chasing down children – and it will happen again next year, and the next, and the next…

That glance… Enough said. Children, beware! 👀

Unfortunately, we have only relatively “modern” poems of Norse mythology since, until less one thousand years ago, those stories were retold verbally and with rock carvings. ↩︎
Loki had offspring as father… but as mother too! Did you know that he gave birth to an eight-legged horse? We’ll talk about that. ↩︎

If Trees Could Talk

Sat, 27 Nov 2021

It Came from The North #

More than one thousand years ago, Vikings ruled the North Sea. They weren’t mainly sailors, but they had a great knowledge about building ships and taking long journeys. Legend says that, while travelling to colonise the new Icelandic land, wooden pillars were brought aboard the long ships. When the coast was on sight, the great poles were thrown overboard; wherever they had touched the shoreline, new settlements would be built. In their villages, those posts were put in the center of the farmhouses, with other two lower ones on the sides, because they were believed to have a sacred power.

Norse people had a special connection with woods and trees – and they weren’t the only ones. First of all, they hadn’t actual temples, so they primarily held celebrations outdoor. They had special places, or altars, named hörgar, where the presence of the otherworld was stronger. That is a general definition for “all the worlds other than Midgard”, where all the supernatural beings live. In these revered sites, during particular moments –as the start of their year, at the end of the modern October–, the boundary between the worlds was narrower, and strange events could happen.

Among the pantheon of deities, Thor was undoubtedly the most famous. He was the mighty slayer of the Jötnar, the giants which wanted to bring chaos in this world. It was told that, when a lightning was seen, it was Thor hitting the target with his hammer Mjölnir; the thunder, then, was the giant crumbling to the ground. He was the god praised by common people, while the most powerful Odin was worshipped mostly by chiefs or, generally, by “major figures”. So, why was Thor so popular?

Marvel’s Thor is totally different than the Norse god described in the myths (Marvel Studios)

One of the reasons could have been his temper: almost every Norse god had his unique personality, and Thor was particularly stubborn, touchy, and wrathful. That’s pretty much the stereotype of a Viking. More than that, he was also related to important notions as fertility¹ and… trees; oaks, more accurately. It may seem odd that a slaughterer of giants was associated to a shrub, but maybe it wasn’t so uncommon.

Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire #

Fun fact: what is the tree most hit by the lightning? You can guess the answer; or just ~~Google~~ DuckDuckGo it. In the last few centuries, oaks have been observed as especially tending to be hit during a thunderstorm. It probably isn’t a coincidence that this is also the tree related to the god of thunder, but the fascinating fact is that the Norse one is one of many.

See? Told ya! 🌳⚡️ (I didn’t use DuckDuckGo just because Google is better known)

Perkūnas was the thunder god in the Baltic area, and was also related to the same tree. In the Slavic mythology, Perun was its counterpart. The Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus were thunder gods, too. Of course, there were many more, but they all had curiously similar traits. If these already seem cool coincidences… sit back and grab the popcorns.

Amid cultures from Europe, that due to the same latitude had the same calendar, which depended on harvest or shepherding, it was common to light up large bonfires in specific dates, among which:

First days of Spring
Summer Solstice
All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween)
Winter Solstice

Of course, each country had its own customs, names and traditions, and obviously the days may have differed. Norse people, for instance, called the midsummer fires “Balder’s balefires” (Balder’s Balar), which recalled the god’s funeral pyre. In the Highlands of Scotland, in the first day of May, “Beltane fires” were set on – probably with human sacrifices until some centuries ago. Also, they could have different meanings: Celtic people, for instance, were mostly shepherds and probably their observances were different from the ones of the farmers who lived on the Mediterranean Sea.

Bonfires always have a cozy charm… but the ones described were MUCH larger than this!

There were some notable common points between all these fires, though. All of them symbolised the power of the sun, that dissolved all the negative influences and blessed the harvest and the farm animals. Interestingly, fire also was the only weapon known against witches, that long ago were considered the main (or even the only) cause of illness, curses, etc. In many countries, the last sheaf of corn was called “the Old Woman” or “the Witch” and it was burned; but this is so intriguing that it is worth a further discussion.

Fertility could have been another great mutual peculiarity: the sun had the power to make the vegetation grow, so the fire could have resembled the star’s fertilising strength. This could explain why even the farm animals were driven through the flames, sometimes hurting themselves badly.

You’ve Been Thunderstruck #

A lot more could be said about these pyres, and surely there will be occasion, but what links them to Thor and his fellow thunder gods… are the gods themselves, in the form of oak trees. In fact, it was an ordinary tradition to burn a big log of oak in these special events. The Yule log is probably the best-known heritage from those times, but it was not the only one.

The log was burned slowly: it was taken off the fire soon and kept safe for the whole year. In case of thunderstorms, it was put again on the fire. It was said to have the power to keep the house safe from thunders and to protect it from wildfires. Also, chunks of the burnt wood were put in the animal’s drinker to increase their fertility.

To conclude this brief trip through European fires, a question: what grows on trees, very noticeable during the winter, while the plant itself seems dead? Mistletoe. Since it is so flourishing through the winter, while the tree itself flounders, from a primitive point of view it could have been normal to associate it to the soul. It contains its vitality, the life-giving power of the Sun, which will be reborn in the next Spring. And yes, it often can be found on oak trees.

What if the mistletoe kiss tradition was born to commemorate someone? (Paul Zoetemeijer/Unsplash)

Though it is a parasitic plant, that may be why mistletoe is widely picked up during winter, and why it was so important in Europe. It was believed to cure epilepsy because, since it was so tangled to the branches on the tree, a person who had kept it in the pocket surely wouldn’t fall with seizures. Its modern Celtic name in Brittany, Wales or Ireland still means “all-healer” because of its healing power – which is not proven by scientific studies. Druids had specific golden tools to pick the plant, and special rituals: mistletoe had not to touch the ground, otherwise it would have lost its powers, so a white cloth was used to let it fall on it.

Let’s close the loop. Fire, thunder, trees. Three concepts so distant, yet identical in certain ways. A few paragraphs before, the Norse god Balder was quoted. In one version of the myth of his death, he was killed by his brother Hod, who had been tricked by Loki. Classic Loki. With what object has he been able to kill him, even if the god was invulnerable? With a branch of mistletoe.

So, a god was killed by a plant, which is related to the power of the Sun, which is enclosed in an oak tree, related to a god. From another perspective, we could say that Balder was killed by its own power – or by himself. An impossible paradox? Not at all, we just have to explore a little deeper our past, and maybe ourselves.

Sif, Thor’s wife, had a lush blonde hair that was affiliated to wheat. His husband was related to rain, so he had the responsibility to fertilise the crop. ↩︎

You Better Shut Your Mouth (While You Sleep)

Sat, 20 Nov 2021

A Tiny White Mouse #

Vampires are not the only popular myths from Transylvania: there are other peculiar beliefs, often broaden to other countries – or maybe borrowed from them, who knows. One is about the soul and it is told by mothers to their children: if you sleep with your mouth open, your soul will escape your body in the form of a tiny white mouse.

That’s a powerful image and it’s hard to forget – I’d bet that you will recall it next time you’ll see your partner sleeping. ’Silly Europeans, they have such a fantasy!’ one would think, blaming Medieval exaggerations… Well, sorry to tell you, but centuries before, in Guinea, if a person had waken up with bone pain, he would think that his soul was kicked by another one in the sleep.

It was quite common opinion that, while we are dreaming, all that we see and feel reflects what the soul is doing: if a primitive hunter dreamt about chasing an animal, his soul was actually doing that. In the sleep, something leaves our body and continues living. Because of that, to cover the mouth of a sleeping person would be considered as despicable at least: what would happen if the spirit wouldn’t be able to return to the owner?

Please note how this tiny kitten keeps his mouth wisely closed while he sleeps.

This could also be the reason why it is a common rule to avoid to wake up a sleeper abruptly: his soul wouldn’t have time to get back to the body. Someone says that he would get sicker and sicker until it won’t come back. Worst of all, in Bombay it was considered murder to change a sleeper’s aspect, for instance painting the face. The soul then wouldn’t recognise the person and hence couldn’t return to the body.

When In Doubt, Close It #

In general, the soul is conceived –literally– as a bird ready to take flight. It’s easy to “scare it” or to lose it, especially when a person is:

Asleep
Sick (or about to die)
Eating
Terrified

In all these cases, the spirit could just exit an orifice and fly out. An orifice, that’s correct, not necessarily the mouth. Sometimes the nose and the eyes can be a way out, too!

Note that I don’t want to make fun of ancient beliefs, but sometimes, as a foolish game, I try to imagine what could have meant to live in a society with such great taboos. Just consider that in Celebes, in Indonesia, fishing hooks were fastened to a sick man’s nose, navel and feet to “catch” the soul in case it would escape. Fishing hooks. Marquesans, from French Polynesia, held the mouth and nose of dying people in order to prevent his spirit to fade away – imagine those poor souls¹, suffocated while trying to grasp to their life. We really can’t realise how such far and ancient civilisations lived one or two thousand years ago… Even without going too far in time, there are some intriguing examples from recent times.

Look At This Photograph #

Shame on you, Nickelback, you shouldn’t expose your spirit so much! You see, people from Andaman archipelago, in the Indian Ocean, thought that the soul is in one person’s reflection, even in water pools. People are more vulnerable when they walk next to ponds, so they have to keep their eyes low to avoid hurting themselves and the others. Also, it was believed that those were sorcerers’ hunting grounds, who had the power to steal a man’s soul and therefore make him fall sick. In primitive cultures, a great knowledge meant a great power.

This man clearly has no idea about the risk he’s taking. (Via Marc Olivier-Jodoin/Unsplash)

Since the reflection could be harmful, when someone passed away, in the home, all the mirrors had to be covered with a cloth. Otherwise, the alive one’s spirits could be taken away by the one of the dead, which continued to stay there for some days.

As the title says, spirits could also lie in photographs. Tepehuanes people from Mexico believed that photographers had the power to catch their souls and then devour them as they pleased. Also, a chief of a village by the Yukon River, when he examined an explorer’s camera, after a minute of silence, announced to his people: “He has all of your shades in this box.”

Even in shadows the souls could lie. In Nepal, the Grand Lama was able to defeat Sankara while the latter was floating mid-air, by sticking a sword in his shade. Also, in China, at funerals people next to the coffin take a step back when it is about to be closed or when it is about to be lowered into the ground – their shadows could get caught or fall into the grave. Now it’s a little clearer why grave-diggers tie a strip of cloth firmly around their waist: to avoid such accidents.

One of the most curious facts, though, is the awe and the dread that several cultures, especially in Australia, have towards… mothers-in-law. In some tribes of New South Wales, a man could not have any communication with his wife’s mother; it was prohibited to even look in her direction. It’s a bad omen if the mother-in-law’s shade fell on the legs or any part of the man’s body. In the New Britain Island, one of the solemn oaths was: “Sir, if I am not telling the truth, I hope I may shake hands with my mother-in-law.” Understandable, I guess. 😬

Profit Maximisation #

Until now I quoted some examples that point out how fragile and somehow volatile the soul was believed to be. The question comes naturally: ‘Are there any positive aspects in all of this?’ Of course! People always find a way to yield profit of something. In particular, that’s the case of somebody with a greater knowledge who understands how spirits work: sorcerers and shamans.

Even in the Middle Ages, there were plenty of stories and legends with powerful mages who were invincible because their soul was kept safe somewhere outside their bodies. Russian Koschei is one of the many characters who hid their spirit in nested objects and cannot be defeated until the hero of the story is able to find the magical item that holds their life (which usually is tiny and fragile).

Often, in the lore, the trial to find this treasure is quite absurd. A classic example goes like this: “On a remote island, there is a forest with a circle of trees. In the middle, six buckets of water lie. Under the last one, there is wild boar. In the wild boar’s stomach, there is a goose. Inside the goose, there is an egg. In that egg, lies the soul.” What can we say? 👀

Some videogame bosses require atypical strategies to be defeated, too.

Despite folk tales, souls depicted as objects or animals are quite common: totems are a great example of a deep connection between men and certain animals who are treated as sacred. Dyaks of Borneo believed that humans have seven souls; it’s perfectly possible, from a primitive point of view, to trust one of them to a totem animal. The indivisibility of the spirit is a “modern” religious dogma that never touched many civilisation, even if it was considered by Plato.

The Little People (not those ones!) #

To close the circle, we could say that soul’s perception is quite… diversified around the globe, but indeed evident. Another form it can take is the same of the host – just smaller. Nootkas Indians believed that we have a small man, one-inch tall, in our head. If it holds a standing position, we are healthy; if it happens to lose its upright stance, the owner loses the senses.

By combining some of the concepts above, we get interesting cocktails. Among the Indian tribes of the Lower Fraser River, a person has four souls: the first one has the shape of a mannikin, while the others are the shadows of it. Moreover, until now we didn’t mention trees! It is a firm conviction that a bond exists between men and woods, and there are so many fascinating stories.

Little People, a concept widely spread across the globe — “1Q84” by Degdeg on DeviantArt.com

Despite the credence that spirits inhabit the forestland, which is so vast that it will be addressed in a separate article, it is quite common to plant a fruit tree when a baby is born, even in modern times. Since then, the fate of both beings will be connected. Maori people had the same belief and used to place the baby’s umbilical cord and a tiny plant in a sacred field. In England, to cure rupture or rickets, children were passed through cracked ash trees; therefore, a sympathetic connection was established between them.

Last, but not least, genealogical trees are quite spread. Though, it is told that some families have special affinities with particular physical trees, as the Scottish Edgwells. Nearby Castle of Dalhousie, an old oak tree stands from decades; it was told that every time a branch fell, a member of the family was about to pass away. Even Sir Walter Scott noted it in his journal.

All of these curiosities have been extracted from The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer. #

Poor… souls! Ah! 🥶 ↩︎

The Golden Bough

Sat, 13 Nov 2021

An Unexpected Journey #

First of all, thank you if you are reading this. It will be different from the other blog articles I have in mind: as an introduction, I want to let you know how the idea about this website was born and what it is meant to be – in my mind, at least.

Now, I’d like to point out that I usually didn’t like talking about religion — or generally, that I didnt’ like religions. Despite that, in the summer of 2021, a friend of mine, a neighbor, while chatting about religion(!) and myths, recommended a text: “You should read The Golden Bough by Frazer. Therein, there is everything”. I never heard about Frazer before, so I immediately searched on Wikipedia. The book abstract looked interesting, but not great: starting from the legend behind a painting, the author explores the reasons of a brutal yet methodical ritual that was committed in central Italy, in the woods near Aricia (Ariccia in modern Italian).

“The Golden Bough” by J. M. W. Turner, which ingnited James G. Frazer’s curiosity.

‘Cool, I know that area,’ I thought while my mind immediately went to the famous porchetta. Since it was very cheap, I immediately bought the volume; only the next day, when I could hold it in my hands, I realised how massive it was. In that pocket edition, it is still a 840-page bold compendium about lore. Nevertheless, I wasn’t discouraged and slowly started flipping through its pages.

A New Perspective #

After a while, it was clear to me that it was necessary to take notes about that enormous amount of information. Until then, I used a paper moleskine-like notebook filled with bad writings, but in this case it would have been a mess. Luckily, in those days I became aware of Obsidian, a powerful tool which allows you to link easily one note with another, so I immediately started writing down annotations.

The first hundreds of pages introduce the story of Aricia’s King of the Wood (a high-priest) and the mysterious ritual regarding his succession: he was killed violently using a blade, every year. To simplify, the question is: why using such violence in the Classical era (Greek and Roman), when barbarian traditions should have been abandoned? It was a very interesting question, but the book rhythm is very – VERY – slow. To do a comparison, it was like asking: ‘After how much time should a pancake be flipped on the pan?’ and answering: ‘Well, I’ll first explain why Earth is round’. To be honest, my interest grew very slowly through the first half of the book.

It was like asking: ‘After how much time should a pancake be flipped on the pan?’ and answering: ‘Well, I’ll first explain why Earth is round’.

My enthusiasm was dropping quicker than I expected, but then one of the great strong points of the tome came out: logical connections. Some terrific observations started to make me think and the interest was kept alive with examples and hypotheses: one above all, the evolution of magic into religion. I began to really appreciate the author’s style, but anyway it was a very time-consuming read.

Therein, There Is Everything #

Work duties needed attention, Summer passed and Fall came quickly. Leaves were already on the ground when I opened again the tome; but something had changed in the meanwhile. During these last few weeks –or better, days– I finished the book with a sprint. In the last two-hundred pages, as the end of the journey was approaching, I realised what the big change was: the author’s talent as teacher erupted like a volcano.

I was aware that Frazer’s intention was to explain the common roots of traditions of civilisations from all the globe since the first pages, but only towards the end I became conscious of his great ability to gradually prepare the reader to accept his hypotheses. Of course, he humbly repeats that he could be wrong through his passages; but while the two of them (author and reader) finally close the loop in the very final chapters, everything makes perfect sense. For me, the last pages were almost emotional after such a long trip through time and space!

A little spoiler about the book – meme edition.

Now, despite the huge pleasure that it gave me, I don’t know if I would ever suggest everyone to read The Golden Bough. I’d only make them angry because it can be so heavy. But that’s when the idea for this website came it. Wouldn’t a collection of cool findings about folklore be awesome? An explanation (not to be taken too seriously) about, for instance, why the oak tree is so important for many civilisations? Why Vampirism was accepted in all the continents? Or, simply, a fun fact about why the ocean’s low tide is considered a bad omen?

Out there, in the internet wilderness, it’s full of blogs like this. But this is mine, and it will be replenished of interesting notes as long as I’ll keep doing –in my opinion– remarkable discoveries in my spare time. I LOVE reading and writing about these topics, so I hope to shake up your interest.

Last thing: if I got your attention, you could consider reading or downloading The Golden Bough for free on Project Gutenberg – I hope you will be hooked as I was.