Pagan Christianity?

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Branwen B
Branwen Oct 20, 2009 17:48:50
Replying to nigelswift

Beltane and Samhain definately predate the celts, they were the feast of the Nine Maidens and Three Fates etc... all over Europe and were calcualted astrologically on conjunctions of the Moon, Venus, Pleiades and sunset and sunrise. Samhain, in particular, was the time of year when the dead are judged for their lives and the living judged for the coming year by the Weird Sisters, and as such the veil between the worlds is thin and all sorts of things happen. Beltane was the opposite, where nothing you did would be judged and you could go a bit mad.

There's some doubt as to whether these were just the four main ones which had law court sessions attached to them too, and the other festivals weren't mentioned by early christian chroniclers as being vulgar pagan folk festivals.

I like Ellis-Davidson, got a few titles mostly relating to northern tradtions though. MacNeill, Máire: The Festival of Lughnasa (Oxford University Press) 1962. Republished 2008. ISBN 0-906426-10-3. It's the book all the other books used to quote, but was very rare to find a copy. It's 900 pages, but I heard the new print might be in two books and somewhat abbreviated.

H hotaire
hotaire Oct 21, 2009 18:30:13
Replying to Branwen

Branwen wrote :

There's some doubt as to whether these were just the four main ones which had law court sessions attached to them too, and the other festivals weren't mentioned by early christian chroniclers as being vulgar pagan folk festivals.

We do have hints from the old Anglo-Saxon pagan year. These are recorded by Bede in 'De Temporum Ratione' (c.725). To be more precise, Bede listed the old months, but, in giving the meaning of their names, he suggested that most of them had a religious significance. These were :

Guili (Yule, which corresponded roughly to our December and January, and, of course, the winter solstice).
Solmonath (the month of cakes, reflecting the blessing of fields by placing a loaf or cake in the first furrow).
Hretha (a goddess, corresponding to our March).
Eostre (a goddess, corresponding to our April).
Thrimilci (our May, when cows had to be milked three times a day) .
Litha (literally ‘moon’, corresponding to our June and July, thus balancing the two-month ‘month’ at winter solstice).
Weodmonath (our August, the month of weeds)
Halegmonath (literally ‘holy month’, corresponding to our September, and incorporating the Autumn equinox)
Wintirfyllith (literally, ‘winter full moon’, corresponding to our October).
Blotmonath (the month of sacrifices, corresponding to our November, and referring to the killing off of all but breeding stock and storing them for winter, with the accompanying religious sacrifice).

Two of these – Litha and Wintirfyllith – definitely refer to lunar events, and, given the two-month status of the two solstice months, it seems likely that Guili refers to the solstice full moon as well. Two others – Hretha and Eostre – are named directly after goddesses. Solmonath refers to the blessing of fields, Halegmonath to either the solar or lunar Autumn equinox, and Blotmonath to the token sacrifice of stored up food. So eight out of the ten months have some religious significance.

If Anglo-Saxon and ‘Celtic’ pagan religions bore any similarity whatsoever, then it tends to back Branwen’s suspicion that there were more than the four main ‘Celtic’ festivals we know about. And we have to suspect she’s right that early British Christian writers ignored them because they didn’t agree with them.

(Note : when I say an Anglo-Saxon month corresponds to one of ours, it is a rough correspondence. There’s nothing precise about our knowledge of their extent. Without Bede, we wouldn‘t know of them at all! He was the first to establish the rule that an historian should record the facts, whether or not he agreed with them. The guy showed us all how to do it).

D drewbhoy
drewbhoy Oct 26, 2009 16:29:19
Replying to Branwen

Branwen wrote:
Beltane and Samhain definately predate the celts, they were the feast of the Nine Maidens and Three Fates etc... all over Europe and were calcualted astrologically on conjunctions of the Moon, Venus, Pleiades and sunset and sunrise. Samhain, in particular, was the time of year when the dead are judged for their lives and the living judged for the coming year by the Weird Sisters, and as such the veil between the worlds is thin and all sorts of things happen. Beltane was the opposite, where nothing you did would be judged and you could go a bit mad.

There's some doubt as to whether these were just the four main ones which had law court sessions attached to them too, and the other festivals weren't mentioned by early christian chroniclers as being vulgar pagan folk festivals.

I like Ellis-Davidson, got a few titles mostly relating to northern tradtions though. MacNeill, Máire: The Festival of Lughnasa (Oxford University Press) 1962. Republished 2008. ISBN 0-906426-10-3. It's the book all the other books used to quote, but was very rare to find a copy. It's 900 pages, but I heard the new print might be in two books and somewhat abbreviated.

On the subject of Lughnasa, I read this in James Moffat's Before Scotland,

Bull's Blood

"Paganism took a very long time to die out in remote parts of the Highlands and Islands. In connection with the Celtic festival of Lughnasa, at around the end of August bulls were sacrificed on an island in Loch Maree. This feast had a formal association with St. Maelrubha, an early missionary, but his name had been clearly substituted for a pagan deity. In the 17th century the presbytery of Dingwall was outraged at the persistence of this: 'amongst other abhominable and heathensiche practices that the people in that place were accustomed to sacrifice bulls at a certaine tyme on the 25th of August, which day is dedicate, as they conceive, to St Mourie as they call him'. In much earlier times Druids supervised the sacrifice of bulls both in pursuit of divination and also for votive purposes, often on behalf of a king. Perhaps the bulls of Loch Maree were sacrificed for the kings of the Caereni, the Sheep Folk."

Some would say that the Pagans and Druids are still on the go................