Diabolical!

Bishops' Nightmare!

 A new spectre is haunting Poland…the spectre of spectres!  Alas, no sooner had the country got rid of communism than an even greater danger has appeared - Halloween.  Polish bishops recently urged worshippers to ignore the festival because it “promotes harmful and diabolical behaviour.”

The poor old prelates face a more dreadful challenge.  The battle against communism was easy: there are no laughs in communism; there is no fun.  There is lots of fun and laughs in Halloween, which makes the danger all the more diabolical.  The archbishop of Warsaw, Kazimierz Nycz, said the festival went against the Church's teaching by promoting "the occult and magic". 

The truth is that Halloween, which has become increasingly popular in Poland in recent years, undermines the authority of a church that is becoming as literal-minded and humourless as the old communist oligarchy.

No word from the Vatican itself this year, silence perhaps being the best policy.  A few years ago the Holy See was warning parents not to allow their children to dress up, dismissing the festival as a celebration of ‘terror, fear and death.’ So, they are a bit worried then! The message went out in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, in a piece headed Halloween’s Dangerous Message.

So, what, one asks, is this ‘dangerous message’? Is Halloween not just about having fun and maintaining traditions, ancient traditions? No, it’s not; it’s riddled with a dark current of occultism and is “absolutely anti-Christian.”

Aldo Bonaiuto of the Church’s anti-occult and sect unit said that the event could spurn Satanic sects without scruples. “Halloween”, he continued “pushes new generations towards a mentality of esoteric magic and attacks sacred and spiritual values through a devious initiation to the art and images of the occult. At best it gives a helping hand to consumerism and materialism.”

Let me get this straight: Halloween initiates people into the occult and encourages materialism. So it seems to cover all angles!

No, I don’t take this silliness seriously from an organisation that not so long ago condemned the Harry Potter books and then in its fallibly infallible way changed its mind. Let’s strip away the Satanic nonsense.  Halloween or Samhain is simply an ancient Celtic festival marking the passage of the seasons, one celebrated in Christian and pre-Christian times. It has nothing to do with ‘trick or treat’ or Satanic cults and everything to do with casting light on a dark season.

But the desperation of the Church is understandable because it is largely of its own devising. It’s part of an ancient investment, it might be said, now bearing unexpected dividends. For, you see, I cannot think of a single Christian festival, major or minor, that was not based on the Church’s early usurpation of an older pagan holiday, from Ostara to Yule/Saturnalia. Even St Valentine’s Day was created around the festival of Lupercalia. Christmas Day itself is no more than the old Roman festival of Sol Invictus, the Sun God, whose birthday was celebrated on 25 December.

The simple truth is that as Christian faith falls away these old holidays re-emerge, have been re-emerging for years, partially in their original form, material and celebratory rather than spiritual and introspective.  So remember this when you see yet another jeremiad, as you inevitably will, bemoaning the ‘materialisation’ of Christmas. 

I have no idea how Polish Catholics received this latest piece of nonsense, but I rather suspect most will simply ignore it. People will continue to enjoy themselves, to have fun on Samhain or Saturnalia, without fear of the Archbishop of Warsaw, the Pope…or of Satan.

I had a good one.  I hope you did too.  

 ...Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! 

Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!
I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset;
I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky...

Gently Johnny; Sex, Sacrifice and the Wicker Man

If you go to my profile page here you will see that I’ve listed The Wicker Man as one of my all-time favourite movies. I do stress that this is the 1973 original directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer, not the ghastly 2006 remake with Nicholas Cage. The movie recently came up in a discussion on Blog Catalogue in a post by my friend Yun Yi. So, taking my cue from this, I thought I would say a little more on the subject, really just to clarify any confusion that might remain.

To begin with I’m not quite sure exactly when I first came across it. It was on television, certainly, but how, where or when I simply can’t remember. What I do remember is that I made a huge impact on me (I was just beginning my flirtation with witchcraft and paganism), particularly the ending, when Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) is sacrificed by a modern-day pagan community, anxious to appease the gods of the earth and thus ensure a fruitful harvest. I’ve watched it dozens of times since, and that is not an exaggeration.

The movie has an interesting history. It was made in the days when cinemas offered two features in a single sitting, the main dish and a minor starter. The Wicker Man was the minor starter. No matter: the studio executives in both Britain and the United States were so perplexed by the movie and its themes that they insisted on quite hefty cuts, which had the effect of completely distorting the time sequence as well as removing some superb scenes.

The movie was shown in a bowdlerised version and that was that; it was expected to die, the usual fate of the B feature. It did not; it grew and grew, catching the imagination of horror fans everywhere, until it acquired a huge cult following. Now fully restored in the director’s cut, it holds a 90% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, an aggregate of all reviews, not bad for a film made almost forty years ago.

As I said in a previous blog, so far as I am concerned The Wicker Man is the best pagan-themed movie ever made, full of drama, sexuality, ritual and song. The sacrifice at the end recalls the fate of the Roman captives after the Battle of Teutoburger Wald in 9AD, when many were allegedly burned to death inside huge wicker effigies.

For those who don’t know the movie, or who are confused by its themes, as I said on Blog Catalogue it’s essentiality about the cycles of life; about sex, death and reincarnation. The community of Summerisle, a remote Scottish island hidden away from the world, lives by its produce, apples principally. They also worship the old gods and are completely free of any form of inhibition or Christian concepts of morality. Sex is not just practiced, it’s celebrated as the generative force in nature, represented by the Maypole, the image of the penis.

A crisis comes when the crop fails. A sacrifice is needed and that sacrifice has to be a male virgin, Sergeant Howie, a policeman from the mainland, lured to the island on the pretext of a report about a missing girl. He arrives two days before the great festival of May Day and is steadily manipulated to the point where he takes on the guise of Punch, the great fool victim, in a procession. He is king for a day, and who but a fool would take on that roll? In the end the virgin, Christian policeman is led to his appointment with the Wicker Man.



Everyone should be satisfied; firm in his Christian beliefs, Howie is accorded a martyr's death; he will sit in heaven among the elect. Firm in their pagan beliefs, the islanders look to a renewal of their fertility, though whether the gods are listening or not is never revealed.

Apart from the story I just love the mystery, the magic and the music. My favourite scene is that which features the singing of Gently Johnny, as another virgin is sacrificed, this time to Aphrodite in a living form. Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), the community leader, offers a boy, Ash Buchanan, to Willow Macgregor (Brit Ekland), the daughter of the pub landlord, the community’s sexual vamp. Willow and Ash fuck, the people in the bar sing, Lord Summerisle muses;

I think I could turn
and live with animals.

They are so placid
and self-contained.

They do not lie awake in the dark
and weep for their sins.

They do not make me sick
discussing their duty to God.

Not one of them kneels to another

or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago.

Not one of them is... respectable
- or unhappy
all over the earth.

This is cut to a scene with Howie praying by his bedside, as the sounds of Willow’s sexual encounter come through the wall. These are scenes of innocence and guilt, I’ll leave you to decide which, but the pagans will know, yes, they will know. :-)

I put my hand all on her knee
She says to me do you want to see?

I put my hand all on her breast
She says do you want to be kissed?

I put my hand all on her thigh
She says to me do you want to try?
I put my hand all on her belly
She says to me do you want to fill 'ee?

Gently, gently, Johnny,
Oh gently, gently, Johnny,
Johnny, my jigaloo!

Yule and the Blood Red Moon

Today was the Winter Solstice, the beginning of Yule, the shortest day and the longest night. Now comes the turning. Life renews in the sun. Sol Invictus will arise with fresh strength! Light the great fires; have no fear.

Well, maybe you should, if you believe in omens. The day coincided with a total eclipse of the Moon, observable from some parts of this island, the first time that an eclipse has coincided with the Solstice for almost four hundred years, not since 1638, to be exact. Yes, the last time was in December 1638, on the threshold of the Bishops' Wars, an overture to the Great Civil War. This time the Moon appeared blood red in our skies. Not, I hope, a portent of things yet to come!

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn.
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born

I happened to be reading Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia in bed this morning, specifically the one entitled New Year's Eve. He has no fear of death; he celebrates life, existence of the moment;

...I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take it upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism 'such as he is now, I must shortly be'. Not so shortly, friend, perhaps as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! Thy New Year’s Days are past. I survive, a jolly candidate for 1821.

Alas, 1821, a New Year long, long past. Oh, Charles, thou are dust, not even food for worms! No matter; he understood, understood that present joys have present laughter, understood that paradise can never be postponed.

With lusty brimmers of the best;
Mirth should always Good Fortune meet,
And render e'en Disaster sweet:
And though the Princess turn her back,
Let us but line ourselves with sack,
We better shall by far hold out,
Till the next Year she face about.

So, here am I, a celebrant of the Solstice, a votary and an acolyte of Diana, of Pan and of the Sun God, living, surviving, loving, a jolly candidate for 2011. A happy Solstice to you all, witches and pagans, friends of all creeds, all faiths and shades of belief…and none.

Sacred Ancestors

There was a story in the Telegraph and the Guardian yesterday concerning the display of ancient human remains in museums. They report the findings of a new book by Dr Tiffany Jones that museums are removing or partially covering mummies, skeletons and other human remains for fear of protests by neo-pagan organisations, the chief among which seems to be Honouring the Ancient Dead (HAD), an advocacy group founded by Emma Restall Orr, a neo-druid, poet and author.

There is certainly considerable sensitivity over this issue, particularly when some of the remains in question were removed from traditional burial grounds without consultation, something that might be defined as anthropological imperialism, a corollary of political imperialism. Many of these artefacts have subsequently been returned to the rightful communities

But is it right to be equally concerned over remains such as mummies and bog bodies, where no cultural or tribal continuity can be established? The examination of such things is, after all, an essential part of archaeological research, helping to establish a better understanding of the past, of past lives and past cultures.

Speaking personally I approach this question from two dimensions. As a scholar and as a historian I have to welcome anything that throws a greater light on the past, which I love. As a pagan, as an admirer of the ancient ways and ancient customs, I believe that we have to approach human remains, the remains of our ancestors, with a high degree of sensitivity. How could I possibly celebrate Samhain (Halloween) and not feel a link with the spirits of the dead, no matter how ancient?

Sensitivity, that’s the key word, to show things always in context, not to display the dead, many of whom were buried with reverence, simply to be gawped at as objects of idle curiosity. After all, how would you feel if your own ancestors were taken from consecrated ground and put on public display? Ah, but time, the removal of time, excuses such things, does it not? Perhaps, then again, perhaps not.

Jenkins may have a point, though the story seems to me to be about undue sensitivity on the part of museum authorities. I can see no evidence at all that they are threatened with protests for displaying human remains. I’ve had a look at the HAD website. Here are the main points made on the issue of display;

2.1 A display should primarily seek to emphasise the remains’ personhood, i.e. not treat the remains as specimens, nor imply them to be objects, instead presenting the remains as individual human beings and subjects in their own right. Thus even where the remains are of scientific value, this should be expressed entirely within the context of the individual’s life.

2.2 As much information as possible about the human being should be expressed in any display, including what is known of their people, their way of life, and individual story. Where there are various possibilities, it is preferable to offer this information rather than to avoid giving any.

2.3 Displays should not remove human remains from the context of the landscapes within which they were thought to have lived and from which they were exhumed. Displays should provide such information, thus preserving the importance of a person’s connection with the environment. Where possible, this should be enhanced by an understanding of that landscape and its landowners and/or community in the present day.

2.4 Any goods disinterred with the human remains should be displayed with the remains. If this is genuinely not possible, quality replicas should be considered. Best practice would entail every item being referred to and explained, possibly with details as to where more information can be found.

2.5 Dignity should be restored to the individual where possible. For example, where a skeleton is found intact but with the skull not in its correct anatomical position the display should place the skull at the top of the spine, and not as found within the grave. In most instances it is not possible to know the reasons for the original burial configuration; however, restoring the remains to a normal configuration expresses respect for the individual as an ancestor, recognising their part within the human story. The position of bones within the grave can be presented with graphics in a display, or using photographs taken at the time of excavation.

2.6 Care should be taken with the use of nicknames for human remains. While using a name can ensure the remains are not perceived as specimens or objects, doing so can imply a level of familiarity that allows a lack of adequate respect. The giving of a nickname is often a part of the remains’ ongoing story and should be explained as such.

2.7 Remains from different individuals should not be muddled up. Where displays of human remains do contain more than one individual, this must be absolutely clear and justified by the individuals’ stories.

2.8 Best practice would entail the story of the excavation and exhumation of the individuals being told within the display, together with reasons as to why the remains were disinterred and retained, however briefly. The views of those who found the remains could also be included, further adding to the personal relationship between the ancestor and the present community or that contemporary to his or her exhumation.

2.9 Funerary urns should be displayed with explanations of their purpose, together with acknowledgement of the individual and where their remains may now be. They should not be displayed simply as pots.

2.10 Low lighting should be employed at all times on human remains. If this does not allow for detailed viewing, graphics or reproductions should be used to illustrate necessary points. This is as true for isolated bones as it is for skulls or entire skeletons.

2.11 Visitors should be warned that human remains are on display, before they approach them, so that they can make an active choice whether or not to view them.

2.12 Information about the eventual disposal of the remains should be considered as a respectful and valid part of the display, including whether any decision has been made about reburial, if this is under review or not currently under consideration. If the remains are to be retained within a collection, justification for this should be made clear.

2.13 If space does not allow for presentation of sufficient information immediately alongside the display, separate leaflets, information on websites or audio guides could be used.

2.14 Best practice would include providing seating near the display so that those who wish to are given the opportunity of sitting with the dead. In some cases, and in consultation with Pagan and local community groups, the opportunity to leave offerings could also be considered. This may be as simple as a box for monetary gifts with clarity as to which charity the offerings were to be given to; without adequate explanation, however, such a box is unlikely to be used.

By and large this seems perfectly reasonable to me, even if a little eccentric at points. There is no suggestion of any kind of extremism, or automatic protests if remains are displayed. It’s all a matter of context. Either Jenkins is being disingenuous – sensation sells books – or the museums authorities are being stupid. We can honour or ancient ancestors and understand them by making them part of our lives and study. There is no contradiction.

Life, Love and Death

For me Ishtar, the Babylonian and Assyrian goddess, the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna, is an endlessly fascinating figure. She combines attributes that may seem contrary but unite at a deeper level; for she is the goddess of sex and fertility, of love and of war, of creation and of destruction.

She is the great lover, whose cult involved sacred prostitution, and is herself the courtesan of the other gods. But Ishtar is a dangerous lover. Like a spider she is liable to devour her mates. Only the hero Gilgamesh resisted her advances, knowing the dangers of a fatal embrace;

Listen to me while I tell the tale of your lovers. There was Tammuz, the lover of your youth, for him you decreed wailing, year after year. You loved the many-coloured roller, but still you struck and broke his wing…You have loved the lion tremendous in strength: seven pits you dug for him, and seven. You have loved the stallion magnificent in battle, and for him you decreed the whip and spur and a thong…You have loved the shepherd of the flock; he made meal-cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake. You struck and turned him into a wolf; now his own herd-boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks.

Is there any better metaphor, I wonder, any better myth explaining the thralldom, the cruelty of love?

Ishtar was life itself, which leads to death and to a new birth. And who denies sex denies life, who denies death denies life, and such a one will find neither life joyful, nor death easy.

To some the Whore of Babylon, to other the Great Mother, she is one of the most powerful of the female deities. Approach her with reverence and approach her with fear, otherwise do not approach her at all. :-)

Children of the Moon

This has always seemed like a magical time of year to me, Midsummer, the Solstice, Litha, whatever one wishes to call it, it has ever since I saw a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream when I was eight years old. The Sun is now in the sign of Cancer, my birth sign, the sign of the Moon. The magical forces are now at the height, and Robin Goodfellow puts a girdle round the Earth!

Midsummer Eve itself, St John's Eve, is a major holiday for witches and all who love them, all who love the old power and the ancient ways. Traditionally it was a fire and water festival, a central feature of which was ritual baths and bonfires. The bonfires themselves were closely linked with water, lit as they were on the shores of streams, lakes, rivers and oceans.

Midsummer marks the convergence of the Sun and the Moon. The Sun, now at its height, has entered Cancer, the great water sign, the only sign ruled by the Moon, the only sign ruled by Artemis, Diana and Hecate, the lunar goddesses. All those who share the sign of Cancer with me are collectively the Children of the Moon, hunters, witches, flyers and lovers. :-)

This was a time when witch-hunters of the past claimed that witches rode out to meet Satan, whereas the real witches, not the monsters of imagination, simply gathered to renew their sacred bond with the earth, to celebrate its bounty and fertility. It was a time also for gathering magical plants, a time when they were at their most potent. Russian witches use to harvest those which grew on the top of Bald Mountain, considering them to be the most powerful on Earth.

Magic, love and fruitfulness, these are the things Midsummer Eve and the Solstice are about; this is what they will always be about. All hail to thee, Children of the Moon.

Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

Panther, panther, burning bright

In the late 1760s William Cobbett, then only seven years old, saw something unusual in the grounds of Waverly Abbey near Farnham in Surrey. It was a cat but nothing like any cat he had ever seen before, for it was as big as a middle-sized spaniel.

Years later, now established as one of the great radical campaigners of the day, he was to recall the incident in Rural Rides, a kind of personal Doomsday Book. His sighting all those years before is thought to be the first recorded evidence of that most elusive of creatures – the British Big Cats, sometimes known as Alien or Anomalous Big Cats (ABCs), phantom cats or mystery cats. The Beast of Bodmin and the Beast of Exmoor are probably the most famous of the species, ever present and ever distant.

These cats, often described as puma or panther-like in appearance, inhabit the regions between crypto-zoology and folklore. Sometimes a rational explanation for their existence is offered: that they are the descendants of escapees or animals released by their owners into the wild by the passage in 1976 of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, making them too expensive to keep. Other times more supernatural explanations are suggested. It is one of these I want to focus one, bizarre in the extreme. It concerns a grim and awful ritual originating in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, a ritual known as the in Gaelic as the Taigheirm.

Carl van Vechten, an American writer and photographer, reports a story he lifted from Deuteroscopy, a book on second sight by one C. G. Horst, published in the early nineteenth century. This describes a cat sacrifice, clearly originating in pagan times, but allegedly practiced into the seventeenth century. There is an article on this also in the recent issue of The Fortean Times.

The ‘recipe’ goes like this. Take as many cats as you can find. Truss them up on a spit and then roast them one by one before a slow fire, having first dedicated them to all the devils. The howling of the tortured cats must not cease for a moment over the four days and nights required to complete the ritual, so just make sure plenty of cats are on hand. Oh, I almost forgot: they should all be black.

So, sticking carefully to this step by step guide, after a time the infernal spirits will be conjured up in the shape of black cats. More and more of these other worldly entities should appear, adding their own terrible howls to that of their roasting living cousins. Finally a cat of monstrous size appears. Those who conducted the ceremony only desist after granted some boon by the great cat spirit.

The last of these ceremonies was, according to Horst, held in the middle of the seventeenth century on the Hebridean island of Mull. However, the great black cat, once brought into existence, seemingly never went away. It’s most recent appearance on the island was last summer, reported by two walkers. A black panther or a black legend, I can’t really decide which.

Oak Apple Day

The 29th of this month will mark the 350th anniversary of the Restoration of the English Monarchy in the person Charles II. Although in royalist and legitimist eyes Charles had been de jure king ever since the judicial murder of Charles I, his father, in January 1649, England had been governed in the interim period by a republican Commonwealth and then a Protectorate, a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell, certainly a monarch, a king in all but name.

The Restoration by happy coincidence also fell on the King’s thirtieth birthday. Parliament, in celebration, both of the royal birthday and the Restoration, declared 29 May 1660 to be a public holiday and;

to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King's return to his Government, he entering London that day.

In the name of Oak Apple Day or Royal Oak Day the holiday was kept for almost two hundred years, only finally abolished in 1859. It’s rather a pity, really, that this quintessentially English celebration did not survive into the modern age, though I suppose it would have become less and less relevant over the years, certainly in recent times, when the whole notion of Englishness and a specific English identity has been under attack. Still, I’m pleased to say, that a toast is still offered at some halls in Cambridge in memory of the occasion.

The oak reference itself is to the famous incident after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, when the King was obliged to take refuge from victorious parliamentary troops in an oak tree near Boscobel House in Shropshire.

The holiday was more than a celebration of a political event. England under the republic had been a bit like Narnia under the rule of the White Witch, a place where it was always winter and never Christmas. Oak Apple was therefore an opportunity to revive customs displeasing to the puritans, including many with obvious pagan associations. The monarchy was celebrated, yes, but so to was the Green Man, the abiding spirit of the woods, of an even older England that not even Cromwell had been able to destroy.

Eggs, Bunnies and Witches

Easter is almost upon us, a term I prefer to Ostara, favoured by those in the Wiccan movement. Yes, I know it's the most significant day in the Christian calendar but many of the things most associated with Easter have nothing at all to do with Christianity, most particularly those egg-delivering bunnies! It also has links with old pagan fertility rituals, of the renewal of times, of new birth and new beginnings. It is Persephone emerging from the Underworld.

The name itself honours a Germanic deity, variously spelt as Astara, Easter, Eostre and Ostara, thought at least by some to mean 'Radiant Dawn.' In essence Easter was the spirit of the spring, whose annual return was celebrated with flowers bell-ringing and singing. At dawn new fires would also be lit, another sign of empowerment.

Easter comes in the form of a beautiful young woman, whose male consort comes in the form of a rabbit; and what more fecund symbol is there than that! The eggs the rabbit brings is another indication of a resurgence of the Earth's fertility. It's not so far in the past that the symbol of such fertility was even more direct: in French, German and Italian villages special phallic-shaped cakes were carried in procession, not stopping short of the local church!

Easter is also another of the seasons of the witch, at least it is in Sweden and parts of Finland. It was a time when witches here traditionally joined together in celebration, beginning on the night before Maundy Thursday and continuing through Easter Eve, when witches mounted on brooms flew up chimneys in the company of their cats. Such was the fear of the Easter Witch that people would lock the doors of their homes and barns, as well as blocking up chimney flues. More than that, anything that could possibly used by witches, including brooms, pitchforks and rakes, were locked away least one was accused of helping the witches have fun! Crosses were also drawn on doors to let passing witches know that they were unwelcome, just as fires were kept burning in hearths to prevent them being used as a point of entry. Some of these traditions still survive; for it is Easter that children dress as witches in Sweden, not Halloween.

The Myth of the Green Man

The Green Man has become one of the iconic figures of the neo-pagan movement. No; I would go further -he has become the iconic figure; he has been ever since the 1930s when he had that name bestowed on him. Rather ironic, really, for the simple reason that he has nothing at all to do with traditional paganism. The Green man, rather, is a Christian symbol, a personification of evil, not of benevolence and fecundity.

No sooner had the latest issue of History Today landed through my post box with its usual reassuring and heavy thump than my attention was drawn to the lead article, Ballad of the Green Man by Richard Hayman, an excellent overview of the genealogy of a myth. It the whole thing fascinates me on a number of levels; but most particularly, and most immediately, in the way that history becomes myth and myth history, one feeding of the other in and endless cycle of reinforcement. Here we have 'tradition', here we have Olde England, where the Green Man walks hand-in-hand with Robin Hood, another figure of the wild woods, closely accompanied by the Queen of the May or the Lord of Misrule. I think it's time to get back to basics.

The Green Man, as Hayman says, first made his appearance in the eleventh century, a face sprouting foliage from his mouth, to be found in church carvings and decorations. He was part of a Medieval iconography which disappeared with the Reformation only to make a reappearance during the nineteenth century Gothic revival. Modern interpretations-entirely alien to the Medieval mind-saw him as an earth figure. William Anderson in The Green Man, published in 1990, saw him as "the archetype of our oneness with the earth", while John Williams in the more recent The Green Man Tree Oracle, says that he promises "ancient wisdom from the spirit of nature." And thus something is conjured from nothing in a fog of cloudy an essentially meaningless words!

Most of this nonsense can be traced back to the early part of the last century, when the folklorist Julia Somerset, Lady Raglan, started to take an interest in Green Man carvings, linking the figure to pagan tree worship, for which she drew heavily on Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough. This whole drift was given added reinforcement by the publication in 1921 of The Witch Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Murray, as fraudulent a piece of 'schlarship' as ever made its way into the English language. All this fashion achieved was to obscure the true significance of the foliage-disgorging face.

As I said at the outset, the Green Man only makes sense in the context of Christian symbolism; there is no evidence at all that the figure existed in pagan times. To understand him we must take account, Hayman says, of the way the Medieval Church viewed nature. In Christian art nothing ever appears in a wholly neutral form; plants or animals, rather, embody a virtue or a vice. Vice and sin are most often to be found in wild nature, places where the greatest dangers lurk. For you see, the wild wood was the place where Satan hid, ready to entice the faithful from the true path. Rabanus Marus, Archbishop of Mainz, an influential ninth century theologian, even described leaves as representing the sins of the flesh.

So, then, the face staring out from the trees, himself part plant, was a symbol of the grotesque and the dangerous in nature, not benevolence or fertility. This is the Wild Man, not the Green Man. Hayman also says that only a proportion of the extant figures are actually men; the others are demons, masks or cats. Theses figures first came into existence as illustrations on the margins of books, caught in a tangle of vegetation that acted as a metaphor for the human condition-that which trapped people physically also impeded their spiritual progress. When they make an appearance as reliefs or carvings in churches they do so in a demonic form. The further back in time one goes the more demonic they become.

For contemporary audiences the message was clear and immediate. But with the Gothic revival the Green Men lost all of their original spiritual significance, just becoming part of a supposedly authentic Medieval style. It was an easy step from there for people like Raglan to give them a new, entirely contrived message. Reborn for a modern age, an age sinking in forms of nature worship, he made its way into Wicca, one of the great manufactured religions, depending on invented traditions of one kind or another, depending on a caricature of paganism and witchcraft. How the Green Man must be laughing.

Of Fish and Fools

In Greek mythology Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, is abducted by Hades, God of the underworld. In her frantic search for her lost daughter, Demeter neglected to allow the earth to flourish. As hunger grew, and people cried out to Zeus, he forced Hades to return Persephone. But in the meantime she had been tricked into eating six pomegranate seeds which meant that she was obliged to return to the underworld for six months of the year. And thus the Greeks explained the waxing and the waning of the seasons.

In the Epodes Horace says that Proserpina, possibly the Roman equivalent of Persephone, was worshipped by witches. There is really no surprise in this; for she is a goddess who can command both worlds, that of the living and that of the dead. She is the great Necromancer, presiding over death though not dead herself.

Proserpina is often depicted holding a fish, one of her sacred creatures and thereby hangs another tale! For she is the secret deity at the heart of April Fool’s Day, known in France and Italy as April Fish Day. In these countries it was once the fashion to pin a paper fish to the back’s of unwitting victims. Although All Fool’s Day only appeared in Europe in the Middle Ages it can be traced right back to Roman times, to the myth of Proserpina and Ceres, her grieving mother.

After being abducted by Pluto, Lord of the Dead, Proserpina called to her mother for help. But while Ceres could hear the echo she could not find her daughter, no matter how hard she looked. This fruitless search was commemorated by the Romans in the festival of Cerealia, believed to be the origins of the fool’s errand popular on 1 April.

Good Walkers

The Benandanti, which literally means ‘good walkers’, was a Northern Italian shamanistic society accused of witchcraft by the Inquisition. But these people, who first caught the attention of the Church in the sixteenth century, were not easy to pin down. They freely admitted that they practiced what were clearly vestiges of older pagan rites but strongly denied being witches, or at least witches in the sense understood by the Inquisition, hateful, diabolical and evil. Indeed, they said that they practiced magic to serve God by battling other, more malign influences in their community. These nightly battles were alleged to have taken place in the district of Friuli right up to 1610.

It was during the Ember days that the Benandanti were under compulsion to serve their communities. Summoned either by drum call, or by angels, refusal to answer was met with a beating. It wasn’t their bodies that travelled, no; it was their souls. A trance was induced allowing the soul to leave the body and thus engage in combat with those described as the Malandanti, the evil walkers. Their souls travelled to these nightly rendezvous in the form of an animal the came forth from their mouths, most typically in the shape of cats, rabbits, butterflies or mice. In this form they travelled to the centre of the earth to encounter the opposing army.

The Inquisition records contain some lovely details of the nocturnal duels. The Benandanti fought with fennel stalks, their opponents with sorghum. The good walkers were also armed with rue, the most powerful magical plant in the Italian arsenal. Saint Lucy was invoked for assistance. She and the rue both offered protection against the effects of the Evil Eye. If they were victorious then the crops and herds would be abundant over the coming year; if not local abundance would wither away.

These people were clearly just part of an ancient pagan fertility cult; small wonder that they frustrated the Inquisition.

Mother of the Corn

The Corn Mother belongs to an ancient pagan tradition, a deity that embraces creation and destruction, life and death. The two dimensions should not be seen as opposites, as white and black; rather in killing she gives life, and in giving life she kills.

The Corn Mother comes in many forms, sometimes benevolent, other times terrifying. But even in her most fearsome shape –and here I’m thinking of witches like the Russian Baba Yaga and the Ukrainian Iron Woman – she still provides nourishment, just as she can kill in her most benevolent guise.

She embodies the ambivalence of nature itself, fecund and destructive; she embodies human perceptions of the whole cycle of nature. She takes many names over many traditions. For the Greeks she was Demeter; for the Canaanites she was Anat; for the Etruscans she was Ceres; and for the Egyptians she was Isis. The Christians refashioned her as the Virgin Mary, drawing on older traditions, recreating the Mother Goddess in their own image.

Virgo itself is the constellation identified with the Corn Mother. The astrological sign’s modern image is based on the Babylonian depiction of a mother carrying a sheaf of corn, where the sheaf was simultaneously understood to indicate a child. This is the whole heart of so many mystery religions: the child is the mystery; the mother the life-giving deity.

Her image was corrupted and demonised in the Middle Ages. Corn Mothers became scary cannibal hags, who lay in wait in cornfields for unwitting children. But the old duality persisted, as with Baba Yaga, dangerous but also a source of wisdom, healing and protection.

The Traditions of the Corn Mother and the Corn Maiden were still being celebrated in Europe right into the twentieth century. In The Golden Bough James George Frazer records the following;

In the neighbourhood of Danzig the person who cuts the last ears of corn makes them into a doll, which is called the Corn-mother or the Old Woman and is brought home on the last waggon. In some parts of Holstein the last sheaf is dressed in women's clothes and called the Corn-mother. It is carried home on the last waggon, and then thoroughly drenched with water. The drenching with water is doubtless a rain-charm. In the district of Bruck in Styria the last sheaf, called the Corn-mother, is made up into the shape of a woman by the oldest married woman in the village, of an age from 50 to 55 years. The finest ears are plucked out of it and made into a wreath, which, twined with flowers, is carried on her head by the prettiest girl of the village to the farmer or squire, while the Corn-mother is laid down in the barn to keep off the mice. In other villages of the same district the Corn-mother, at the close of harvest, is carried by two lads at the top of a pole. They march behind the girl who wears the wreath to the squire's house, and while he receives the wreath and hangs it up in the hall, the Corn-mother is placed on the top of a pile of wood, where she is the centre of the harvest supper and dance.

It was all part of an ancient rhythm now sadly gone forever.

Freya of the Witches

Freya, the daughter of Njord and Herta, of the Sea and of the Earth, is the most beautiful and revered of the Norse pantheon, a kind of Viking Venus, with dominion over love, sex, pleasure and fertility. She also has dominion over death, magic, glory and-perhaps most important of all-over witches and witchcraft. From the moment of her arrival in Asgard, the home of the gods, she is immediately identified as a witch, teaching her fellow immortals how to craft charms and potions. It was she who introduced Odin to runes and shamanism.

Most of the other surviving Norse goddesses survive only as ‘wives. Freya, in contrast, answers to no-one. She was married but Od, her husband, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She travels through the heavens in her independent course on a chariot pulled by two large gray cats, Bee-gold (Honey) and Tree-gold (Amber) said to embody her twin qualities of ferocity and fecundity. She also rides a boar into battle, as does her brother, Freyr. Her sacred day is Friday and her sacred number is thirteen. Hence the malevolent associations of Friday the thirteenth by the Christians!

The Christians held a particular fear of Freya and all she stood for, which paradoxically has meant she continued to have a far more vivid presence over time than many other Pagan deities. Constant condemnation, in other words, stopped her slipping into obscurity. In the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, she was even described as a ‘bitch goddess’ by one Christian in the debates leading up to the adoption of the new faith.

Freya was continuously denounced as a Queen of Witches, automatically branding women who revered her as practitioners of the art. But her cult proved particularly resilient. Snorri Sturlsson, the thirteenth century Icelandic chronicler, says that she was the most renowned of all of the goddesses, still worshipped in his day. Her last surviving temple at Magdeburg was destroyed by Charlemagne in the eighth century AD but amazingly as late as 1688 it was claimed that the ‘worship of Frau Venus’ was still live in the area.

Though banished from the mountain peaks of Norway but she continued to dance with her devotees in The Brocken, the highest peak of Germany’s Harz Mountains, where she presides over the annual Midsummer and Walpurgis festivities. She is among the most beloved of deities for Neo-pagans.

Mother Diana

Diana, Mother of the Forest, is the one spirit most associated with witchcraft. Revered by the Romans and closely identified with Artemis, the Greek goddess, Diana is unique to Italy, originating, perhaps, with the Etruscans.

Although Diana has the same attributes as Artemis her associations with night, darkness and magic are much stronger. Also she lacks the virginal aspect of the Artemis cult, being much earthier in that particular respect!

In Celtic Europe the goddess was worshiped in the form of a log. Though revered by women she was also worshipped by men. Werewolves might conceivably be wolf-shamans or lunar priests dedicated to Diana.

Although Diana emerged as a local deity in Italy she became popular across Roman Europe, so much so that the early Christians saw her as one of their greatest rivals. So, when they achieved political power in the late Empire, Diana was one of the ancient deities most reviled.

Her association with witches meant that her name continued to be evoked during the great witch hunts of the medieval and early modern periods. She was described by the Inquisition as Satan’s bride. In 1487 Tomas de Torquemada, one of the most loathsome of all the Inquisitors, went a step further, saying that Diana was the Devil. Indeed another term used by the Inquisition to describe witches was the Society of Diana.

But despite the intensity of the persecution the devotion to Diana survived the Burning Times. Now she is among the most beloved of deities, central to the witchcraft tradition in Italy and elsewhere.

The Sun Still Stands

Today, 21 December, marks the winter solstice, the shortest day, the heart of the ancient Germanic rite of Yule. It is the first day of winter and the Great Hunter God has been reborn. From tomorrow the earth begins to turn as we move by steady degrees to the summer solstice, the earth filling with new life. The sun still stands.

The Heimskringla, one of the great Norse sagas, describes how Yule was celebrated in the times gone by;

It was ancient custom that when sacrifice was to be made, all farmers were to come to the heathen temple and bring along with them the food they needed while the feast lasted. At this feast all were to take part of the drinking of ale. Also all kinds of livestock were killed in connection with it, horses also; and all the blood from them was called hlaut [ sacrificial blood ], and hlautbolli, the vessel holding the blood; and hlautteinar, the sacrificial twigs. These were fashioned like sprinklers, and with them were to be smeared all over with blood the pedestals of the idols and also the walls of the temple within and without; and likewise the men present were to be sprinkled with blood. But the meat of the animals was to be boiled and served as food at the banquet. Fires were to be lighted in the middle of the temple floor, and kettles hung over them. The sacrificial beaker was to be borne around the fire, and he who made the feast and was chieftain, was to bless the beaker as well as all the sacrificial meat.

It was also traditional to burn a Yule log on the eve of the solstice. The log itself has ancient sacred associations. In the Roman world Dian and Hera were once worshipped in the shape of a log. In the northern world the Yule log has opowerful associations with Frigg, the wife of Odin. The log is incorporated into fertility spells as well as spells for protection. Once burnt the ashes should be kept until the following Yule, as it is said to bring prosperity and protection from evil.

Anyway, a blessed Yule to one and all. :-)

The Magic of Mistletoe

Mistletoe, for reasons that will become apparent as I proceed, is also known as Witch’s Branch or Witch’s Broom. Widely scattered from Northern Europe, parts of North Africa and all the way to Japan, it has long been considered to have magical properties wherever it is found.

It’s unique for one simple reason: it’s not a ‘plant’ understood to be an organic life growing on the face of the Earth. Rather it’s a parasite that attaches itself to trees, and eventually may suck the life out of them. In this sense the identification with witchcraft has distinctly megative connotations. The poisionous berries are also known in Geraman as ‘witches berries.’

Mistletoe was sacred to both the Romans and the Greeks, who believed that it originated from the lightning that struck the trees. It thus reprsesented life energy and generative, magical power. According to Sir James Frazer, authour of The Golden Bough, it was also sacred to Diana, Queen of the Witches.

It was nicknamed ‘thunderbroom’ by the Celts, uniting male and female sexual symbolism. It is the one plant most associtated with the magic of the Druids, who believed it inauspicious for mistletoe ever to touch the ground.

In Germanic tradition it was closely associated with the goddess Freya, bringer of love and fertility. The imagry here is complex, because there are two sides to Freya, light and dark: she brings life but she also brings death.

Because of its pagan associataions, and because of the skill required in its magical preparation, it became closely associated with witchcraft medicine and the magical arts in general. It’s really only on Christmas Eve that it becomes a stimulant for love and romance. :-)

Yule-when the Wild Things Come

In ancient calendars, including those of the Romans, the Celts, the Germans and the Slavs a gap of twelve days occurs in mid-winter, now the Twelve Days of Christmas, celebrated in the song. This was perceived in a sense as a kind of fracture in time, a fracture that allowed the boundaries between the living and the dead to dissolve.

In the German lands it was known as Zwolfen, a time when Woden and Frigg-or Odin and Freya-held forth. For witches it was a favoured time for the Wild Hunt and for ordinary mortals a time of wild merry-making, gift-giving, spell-casting and divination. In the English court prior to the Puritan revolution of the seventeenth century, when Christmas was banned, proceedings were governed by a kind of anti-king known as the Lord of Misrule. By the pagan calendar this was, of course, Yule.

Christmas continues to be rich with pagan residues and traditions. Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, though now generally identified with Saint Nicholas, on very insecure grounds, it has to be said, has a lineage going back to Odin, the centre of the evergreen cult among the Nordic peoples, and the Roman god Saturn, also depicted as father Time, whose midwinter festival, known as Saturnalia or the Feast of Ops, was a time of gift-giving, especially to children.

In general December was a time for dancing, singing and feasting. It was a time also of masquerade and mummery, when men dressed as animals and as the Horned God, the chief figure of the fertility cult. The Horned One travelled around carrying a small broom of birch twigs intended to confer greater fertility, his face blackened with soot to suggest that he had just come down the chimney, yet another link with Father Christmas! In the Dutch tradition Black Peter, who accompanies Saint Nicholas, is one obvious descendant of the Horned God.

There is so much more in Christmas that belongs to the pagan world, including decorated evergreen trees, the Yule Log, associated with Frigg, the wife of Odin, the boar as the Yule animal, an offering to the goddess and, of course, mistletoe, the golden bough.

Witches also have their part to play. In Italy Befana, who flies through the air on a broom, is the gift-giver to children, not Father Christmas. In Germany Lutzelfrau, who prefers to receive than to give, also flies through the air, causing havoc in households that have omitted to leave small offerings for her. In other parts of Germany and Austria children go from door-to-door often dressed as witches, begging small treats in the name of Perchta, the witch-goddess. Perchta is also joined by Hulda, Herta and Freya at this time of year in the aforementioned Wild Hunt, sometimes joined by Odin. Yes, wild times, wild things, wild creatures!