Crazy Basque pagan tradition: Azeri Dantza

 

Basque people have unique ancient traditions that they still preserve such as the fox dance "Azeri Dantza" in Hernani where a man wears the skin of a fox and whips people with the inflated bladder of a pig! This derives from ancient Roman pagan traditions of Lupercalia and Bacchanalia.

Real Life Wicker Man - The Earl of Rone

 

The Hunting of the Earl of Rone is an ancient ceremony in the village of Combe Martin in England which resembles the film “The Wicker Man”. Although local legend has it that the ceremony derives from the capture of the Earl of Tyrone who fled from Ireland in 1607, I demonstrate in this documentary that it has clear parallels in European pagan customs and in Hinduism, which proves that the procession, the hobby horse, the fool, and the drowning of the straw idol originate in pre-Christian seasonal Anglo-Saxon rites. 

Sources:

-Ashe, R., Ashe, G., ‘Folklore, Myths And Legends Of Britain’ 1973
-Fern, Chris ‘Early Anglo-Saxon Horse Burial of the Fifth to Seventh centuries AD’ in Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 14, (Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology, 2007).
-Frazer, James George. ‘The Golden Bough; a Study in Magic and Religion’, 1935.
-Walker, C. ‘Strange Britain’ 1989
-Tacitus, Cornelius, The Agricola; and, The Germania, H. Mattingly (trans)
- Sources for Earl of Rone
- Marzanna

The Royal Indo-European Horse Sacrifice

The most important sacrificial animal in the original Indo-European religion was the horse - The very power of their kings depended on an elaborate ritual horse sacrifice. In this video we will look at the rite of horse sacrifice in various Indo-European traditions in order to get an idea of why the Proto-Indo-Europeans considered it such an important royal ritual and what it looked like. Beginning with the enormous Ashvamedha in India, and moving on to Rome's October Horse rite and ending on old Norse written sources combined with archaeological evidence from the Nordic Bronze age through to the Viking age - we get a pretty clear picture of the gruesome and often sexual rituals associated with the inauguration of kings and the necessary solar horse sacrifice. This video is mainly based on the recent book on the same subject by Kaliff & Oestigaard.

Sources:

Dumézil, G. 1970. ‘Archaic Roman Religion. Volume One.’ The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London. Eliade, M. 1993. ‘Patterns in Comparative Religion.’ Sheed and Ward. New York. Eliade, M., ed., ‘Encyclopedia of Religion’ (NY: Collier Macmillan, 1987), VI:463; Kaliff, A., & Oestigaard, T., ‘The Great Indo-European Horse Sacrifice: 4000 Years of Cosmological Continuity from Sintashta and the Steppe to Scandinavian Skeid’ (2020) Outram, A., et al. ‘Horses for the dead: funerary foodways in Bronze Age Kazakhstan’ - (March 2011) Puhvel, J., ‘Comparative Mythology’ 1987 Rowsell, T., Riding To The Afterlife: The Role Of Horses In Early Medieval North-Western Europe. (2012) Sikora, M., ‘Diversity in Viking Age horse burial’ in The Journal of Irish Archaeology(Belfast: 2003-4). P.87. Solheim, S. 1956. Horse-fight and horse-race in Norse tradition. Studia Norvegica No. 8. H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nyaard). Oslo. Veil, Stephan & Breest, Klaus & Grootes, P. & Nadeau, Marie-Josée & Huels, Matthias. (2012). A 14 000-year-old amber elk and the origins of northern European art. Antiquity. 86. 660-673.

Yule and Saturnalia - the pagan Christmas story

 I appeared on History Bro's channel again, this time to discuss Yule!

 

 The episode is also available as a podcast on Spotify and other platforms.

What is Slavic Paganism?

British May Day Folk Traditions - Old Oss and the Maypole

Easter and May day are pagan

Now begins Eastermonth! This is an entire month which the Anglo-Saxons devoted to the goddess Ēastre. Her name is not, as some erroneously claim, related to the Semitic goddess Ishtar, nor to the hormone estrogen, but is in fact Germanic. Ēastre, or as she is known in modern English, "Easter" was equivalent to the continental German goddess Ostara and both names are derived from that of the ancient Indo-European goddess of dawn *H₂ewsṓs (→ *Ausṓs), from whom the Vedic goddess of dawn, Ushas, is also derived. One of the holy names of Ushas was Bṛhatī (बृहती) "high" which is cognate with Proto-Celtic *Brigantī meaning "The High One", and the name of a British goddess Brigantia (Brigid). The Greek goddess Ēōs, Baltic goddess Aušrinė and Roman goddess Aurora are all etymologically derived from the same IE word and likely from the same PIE goddess. The month is attested by Anglo-Saxon monk Bede, who said feasts of the goddess were celebrated in April, but when we can only guess. There is no reason to believe it was on the exact day Christians now celebrate Easter. Some aspects of Christian Easter resemble paganism because the symbolism of eternal life and rebirth are important for both. The Roman pagans had a flower festival called Floralia on 27th April which may well have had equivalents in Britain, but surely the largest celebration for the dawn goddess was at the end of the Easter month on the eve of May day which heralds the dawn of summer. I consider May day, or specifically the night before it, to be the climax of Eastermonth and a holy celebration to this sacred goddess. I have covered the diverse celebration of May day around the world in a video already (see link below). The photo above is shows the May queen in Devon in 1955, a young girl who symbolises the dawn goddess Easter who heralds the start of Summer, and the May pole which is a phallic fertility symbol.

I would also speculate that since, in Celtic and Germanic countries, the folk culture around May eve has focused heavily on sexuality, even in recent times, usually of an unbridled sort normally prohibited by Christian morality, and since the cult of Aurora was often invoked in sexual poetry, we might well assume that the cult of Easter had a heavy emphasis on the sexuality and fertility of young people, especially women. The Greek Eos was cursed by Aphrodite with unsatisfiable sexual desire causing her to abduct handsome young men - a promiscuity very reminiscent of an account of May eve among the English in the early modern era by a puritan who wrote that on that night "Scarcely a third of maidens going to the woods returned home undefiled", similar account are recorded in Ireland. The fecundity of the earth is tied explicitly to that of the wombs of nubile girls of the community. For this reason a sort of transgressive sexuality becomes temporarily permissible due to the divine associations of sex on this night.

Corn God: Endurance of pagan habits in 19th century Sweden!

An account of residual pagan practice in Sweden from 1877!

(Västergötlands Fornminnesförenings Tidskrift, Part 3. 1877. Page 60-61.)

A magazine by Västergötlands Fornminnesförening tells the interesting story of a wooden figure called "the Corn God", which used to be kept in the local church of Vånga. The journalist wrote: 

"Several years ago, Skara Museum was visited by an old man and his wife from Vånga. When he saw the figure he cried, ”Mother, here stands the corn god.” This prompted me to ask him what he knew about the sculpture. He then told me that folk in Vånga called it the Corn God, and that the farmers at spring time would smuggle him out from the church and at sunrise carry him around on the fields to attain good harvest that year. When, despite this, the crops still failed in 1826, one farmer knocked the nose off the figure on a Sunday. Shortly thereafter, the old man added, the sculpture went missing, but no one dared ask where it might have gone to.” 

Even though these people regarded themselves as Christians, they were still aware that this was something the priest didn't want them to do. They even called the figure a god. Not a very Christian thing to do! The figure itself is from late 13th century and depicts an unidentified apostle. The persona of the Corn God, reminiscent of Freyr, was imposed on it by the parishioners, but why? Montelius claimed it was not an apostle but Saint Olaf:

‘The fact that the worship of Saint Olaf [the Norwegian king killed in 1030 AD] was not, like that of the Swedish Saint Erik, limited principally to his own country, shows that there must have been some special reason for the prominent position he occupied within the northern Church … If the Christian Scandinavians looked upon him in the same way as their heathen ancestors had looked upon Thor, we can easily understand why it was so. Just as people in old days believed that Thor could grant good harvests, so even in the nineteenth century they have supposed Olaf to be in possession of the same power. Stories from the south of Sweden and from Denmark tell how the peasants were wont to drag the image of Saint Olaf round the fields after the sowing. The image of Saint Olaf in Vånga church in Vestergötland was carried round in that way, in spite of vigorous protests from the clergy. The peasants had given it the name of the “corn god”’

 

Montelius, O.A. 1910. The Sun God’s Axe and Thor’s Hammer. Folk-Lore 21(1910): 60-78.

This tradition is an obvious continuation of a Germanic tradition of parading an idol around the land to bestow it with fertility. The earliest source we have on this is Tacitus' Germania (98AD) in which he describes how the Germanic peoples worshipped a goddess called Nerthus whose idol toured the country in a ceremonial wagon drawn by Oxen. Similarly, the 5th century Palestinian historian Sozomenos wrote that the Goths under Athanaric had led about a wooden idol placed on a covered wagon. They passed by a tent of Goths who had converted to Christianity and demanded they pay respect to the idol and make offerings to it. He wrote that those who refused to honour the idol were burned alive in their tents. Finally, in the 8th century Einhard wrote that Childeric III, the last of the long-haired Merovingian kings (long haired rulers being a residual pagan custom) was a degenerate king who was purveyed about the country on a wagon drawn by oxen in an annual celebration, which we can infer was of pagan origin, and originally involved the ruler filling a similar role the idol of Nerthus had 700 years earlier. The touring of idols is also common in other Indo-European religions such as Hinduism. 

Montelius provides more on the enduring cult of Thor in modern Sweden:

Writing about Wärend, that old part of Småland where so much of the belief and customs of former ages still remains, Mr. Hyltén-Cavallius says, - ‘They still look upon the thunder as a person whom they call alternately “Thor” or “Thore-Gud,” “Gofar,” and “Gobonden” [The Good Farmer]. He is an old redbearded man. In 1629 a peasant from Warend was summoned for blasphemy against God. He had said about the rain,— “If I had the old man down here I would pull him by the hair on account of this continual raining.” Thus it is Thor that gives the summer rain, which therefore in Wärend is called “Gofar-rain,” “Gobonda-rain” [The Good Farmer rain] or “As-rain.” The rumbling of the thunder is produced by Thor’s driving in his chariot through the clouds. It is therefore called Thordön after him. People also say that “Gofar is driving,” “Gobonden is driving,” “The Thunder is driving.” Thor drives not only in the air but also on earth. Then they say that “he is earth-driving.” … The most noticeable trace of our country’s older worship of Thor is that “Thor’s day” (Thursday) was still in the nineteenth century considered as a sacred day, almost as a Sunday’ (Montelius 1910:76-77).

May Day and Easter Goddess of Dawn

The Sacred Cow in Indo-European Religion