Germanic

Revisiting the ‘Celtic vs. Germanic’ question

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Followers of the Atlantic Religion blog will possibly be aware that I have made allusions to my belief that the pagan faith-ideologies of ancient northern Europe stem from a common unified root-system buried in the mists of the Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological periods (roughly 4000-1000 BC). This underwent a protracted process of differentiation as a result of the trans-European religio-militarist cultures (Greek, Celtic, Roman) of the late Bronze Age and Iron Age periods (roughly 1000BC-400AD).

These complex influences have resulted in modern historians ascribing an artificial and arbitrary division of northern European paleo-religious culture into ‘Celtic’ and ‘Germanic’. Reasons for this division as it stands today can be ascribed to the following factors:

(i) Linguistic differences between Germanic and Celtic cultures which caused Greco-Roman authors to categorise them as different.

(ii) Reliance upon limited and highly-biased contemporary (Greek and Roman) written source-materials on north European Iron-Age religion. Greco-Roman authors tended to split peoples up into ‘civilised’ peoples, worthy of understanding, and ‘barbarians’ – the unconquered fear-inducing rabble. The latter category, were only generally to be understood so far as they interfaced with civilised cultures, which between the 4th century BC and the 4th century AD was limited to portraying their fierce unruliness in need of taming, and their unsophisticated inferiority requiring civilisation.

There is a pervasive fallacy – committed initially by the ancient Greeks and Romans and still prevalent today – that ‘barbarous’ culture is static, unchanging and timelessly primitive and lacking sophistication until exposed to ‘civilization’

(iii) Biased, incorrect or acontextual information provided in early to late medieval christian and ‘secular’ literature. A 3rd century Christian within the Roman empire was an edgy revolutionary in a new-order of portable enlightenment not tied to any mystery cult. To them establishment paganism was meaningless and archaic and easily dismissed! LIkewise, an 8th century Christian writing about contemporary Nordic pagan practices of which he is in horror is hardly going to be sympathetic, just as an 8th century Irish hagiographer is hardly going to treat a history of his religion’s triumph over that of the past with true sympathy to the ‘defeated’ religion.

(iv) Historical confirmation bias: The 13th century AD Eddas from Iceland were written by authors in a relatively newly-Christianized culture, for a contemporary audience versed in the popular and prevalent European ‘Romance’ literature, which dealt specifically with christianized pagan themes and heroic sagas. The same can be applied to Irish literature during the same period. These were later ‘recovered’ and popularised during the ‘Enlightenment’ period when European cultures (such as Denmark, Britain and Ireland) sought prestige in their own ancient pagan past as well as their own Christian present, and were treated officially as having historic as well as literary merit.

(v) There was a relatively early death of Iron Age ‘Celtic’ religious culture as it was largely subsumed into Greco-Roman civic, pagan and Christian cultures by the 5th century AD. In contrast, the Nordic and Baltic pagan cultures would continue to evolve for nearly another 1000 years before fading from common practice, with enclaves still identifiable in parts of Lithuania, Estonia etc as late as the 16th century, if not longer. This long gulf of time has left us struggling to see any similarity between 13th century Icelandic descriptions of pagan mythology with that offered about ‘Celtic’ religion in scanty reports of ancient Greeks and Romans a thousand years earlier. There has been a constructive tendency to use scanty intermediary evidence from Jordanes about Gothic religion, from Bede and contemporaries about Anglo-Saxon religion in the 7th century, and undetailed but supportive comments from Beowulf and Saxo Grammaticus etc, as well as more modern archaeological finds to support the narrative of the Eddas as representing an ancient ‘Germanic’ continuum, but this is no more reliable than Homer’s speculations about what was actually believed in Mycenaean Greece 1000 years before his writing of the Iliad. Stating that Germanic Europeans worshipped different gods in a different way to Celtic Europeans is about as useful and nonsensical as claiming ‘the Romans worshipped Jupiter, Mars, Minerva and Juno’! You have to qualify that with a time-period, and be more nuanced: ‘People of Rome in the 4th century BC followed the state-religion in worshipping Jupiter, Mars, Minerva and Juno’ would be more specific. It is quite possible that ‘Celts’ of the 3rd century BC were worshipping a raging, wise, possibly one-eyed warrior god as they conquered and looted the great oracle at Delphi. Dionysus, Belinus and Wotan have many similarities, save for their names.

(vi) Archaeology has tended to reinforce perceived differences between ‘Celtic’ and ‘Germanic’ by relying upon the forgoing preconceptions based upon mythological and historical literature for its own interpretations, although modern thinking is beginning to change this situation. What is apparent however, is that increasing accrual of material evidence coupled with progressive sophistication in archaeological techniques is forcing us to re-examine historical interpretations. We know that peoples in Bronze Age Denmark were performing similar ‘religious’ behaviors to those of Bronze Age Ireland, Holland, Spain, France, Germany and Britain, and that these were connected somehow to material cultures seen in Mycenaean Greece. Many of the material and behavioral cultural indicators of religion – deliberate submersion of objects in water and other ‘votive’ and inhumation practices continued through into the era of the eventual Romanisation of most ‘Celtic’ lands, many of which come under the modern conception of ‘Germanic’ or ‘Nordic’. Why, for instance, was the archetypally-‘Celtic’ Gundestrup Cauldron discovered deliberately concealed in a Danish bog? Even ignoring the fact that its workmanship is typically Thracian – from the southern Balkans, modern Bulgaria – this tells of a more widespread shared belief-system.

Contemporary dissatisfaction with the portable religious franchises of Judaeo-Christian-Islamic thinking, and the deeply divisive, unsettling and damaging effects these have been having on the world of late, make the drive to rediscover the original indigenous European/Eurasian (Indo-European) philosophical and religious systems all that more pressing.

 

Loki, Lugh and Logos

/ Atlantic Religion

Apologies to my followers for my absence of nearly a year! Much has happened in the world, and with the imminent demise of the European Union and the election of the anti-globalist, Donald Trump, as president of the United States of America, I have felt compelled to write a number of articles surrounding the subject of the Norse myth of the ‘day of judgement’, Ragnarok (which translates literally as ‘Twilight of the Powers’)…

Loki, also called Loke or Loptr, is perhaps the most enigmatic of the many characters populating the surviving pagan myths of the old Norse people, details of which are preserved largely in the surviving corpus of medieval literature known as the Eddas and Sagas. In some of these poems and tales Loki appears as an adventurer and a loyal and helpful companion to the gods, yet ultimately he seems to ‘turn bad’ and function as a murderous trouble-maker and rebel who challenges their authority. He taunts and angers the high gods in the poem Lokasenna and causes the death of Baldr – an act recounted in Snorri’s prose text Gylfaginning. For these acts he is punished horribly and cast out from their company, only to return to reek his vengeance on the day of Ragnarok  as recounted in the poem Völuspá.

As a character who defies the conventions of the elemental world and nature, Loki seems able to change his sex at will, and becomes the mother of Odin’s horse Sleipnir as well as father to many of the mighty beasts and monsters (often referred to by the term troll) against whom the gods struggle and eventually fall prey to, most notably the Midgard Serpent, Jörmungandr and the giant wolf, Fenrir. His status as a god or jötunn (giant) is never explicitly clear. Indeed, he often seems to assume whatever sex, form or shape suits his poetic or prosaic purpose as provocateur! He embodies unto himself, as is perhaps suggested in the origin of his name, the concept of Logos or ‘Reason’.

Of course, the existing written myths concerning Loki come from a Christian era and were written down by persons with an interest in incorporating their ancestors’ legends into this new intellectual continuum. It is quite possible that Loki is portrayed in these retold myths as analogous to the biblical and Christian idea of Satan or the Devil as tempter and confounder of humanity. However, another aspect of this metamorphic mythological personality is to function as a confounder of the heathen gods, and as such he may well have represented a kind of anti-hero to a 14thC Christian audience. Of all the gods and their virtues, be it the strength of Thor or the wisdom and guile of Odin, his is perhaps closest to the fallible human condition. It is usually his tongue which lands him in trouble, in turn convulsing him into some form of desperate action by which he hopes to make good again.

The poem Lokasenna (“Loki’s Quarrel”) is an explicit case where Loki takes centre-stage in criticising all of the gods during a feast to which he arrives uninvited. Among other choice insults, he somewhat piously criticises their sexual morality – particularly that of the female gods. This in itself marks his performance as potentially Christian in its intent, and certainly of interest to medieval church leaders who were keen to consolidate their power and reduce the risk of kin-strife within Irish and Norse dynasties, resulting from monarchs having many concubines and bastard children. For his transgressions, Loki is eventually bound to stones with the entrails of his son and forced to endure poison being dripped upon him – a scene somewhat redolent of both the crucifixion of Jesus and the punishment of Prometheus. In Gylfaginning, Snorri claims Loki is so punished for causing the death of Baldr – the theme of kin-slaying again. That the event of the binding of Loki appears to be displayed on a number of surviving viking-era syncretic memorial stone crosses from England, is telling of the sense that Loki’s function was viewed in some way as analagous to that of Christ. Indeed, at Ragnarok, the Völuspá tells us that Loki will escape these bonds and return at the head of the raging hosts of trollfolk and giants to overthrow the old gods – another theme with distinct parallels to the Christian belief in the apocalypse and second coming of Christ.

His renegade activities, mixed parentage and adventures bring to mind Ireland’s Lugh Lámhfhada with whom Loki bears a close resemblance in name as well as certain mythological attributes. Lugh was, in Irish mythology, the leader of the ‘fairy cavalcade’, much as Loki leads the great charge from Jötunheim at Ragnarok. The names of Loki and Lugh appear to derive from a common Prot-Indo-European linguistic root: leuk, meaning ‘flashing light’, being the root of the Latin words lucis (actual light) and lux (spiritual light) and the Old Norse worse logi (fire) as well as the Greek word for ‘white’ or ‘bright’. The Hurrian/Luwian (Anatolian) god Aplu, and his Greek and Etruscan counterparts: Apollo and Apulu respectively also contain the -lo/-lu designator. Loki certainly rages like an untameable fire in the Norse narratives, and it is notable that he leads the army of giants out of Muspelheim (land of the fire-giants) during the Raganrok event. Like the Hurrian Aplu and Greek Apollo, Loki’s actions cause panic, dismay and dis-ease. Where Apollo was believed to have used his mighty arrows to inflict disease, Loki fashions the misteltoe spear or arrow with which Hermod poisons/kills Baldr, whereas Lugh Lámhfhada was a caster of spears. There appears, at least superficially, to be a link. Both Lugh and Loki are tricksters, much like Apollo’s brother Hermes, and both certainly charge around on quests in a similar manner to the wing-heeled Greek god of mischief and errands. Hermes and Thoth (egyptian god of language and writing) were often worshipped together as equals in Hellenistic era Egypt, and among the early proto-christian sects of Gnostics and Hermetics, bringing us back to the concept of ‘Logos’ which these syncretic religions developed as a key concept.

Logos:

The essence of this early christian thinking about λογος or Logos and the concept of light is expressed succinctly in the opening passages of the Christian Gospel of John (KJV):

1 In the beginning was the Word (λογος, Logos), and the Word (Logos) was with God, and the Word (Logos) was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

The concept John is embodying with the Koine Greek word λογος, translated in the KJV Bible as ‘Word’ is more than just the idea of ‘word-as-thing’, but instead closer to ‘word-as-meaning’ or ‘reason’. To Zeno of Citium (3rdC BC) and the Stoic school of philosophy, Logos embodied the divine animating principle or reason behind nature and existence, to which man should strive to conform his thoughts and deeds in order to live a life sublime. This is the sense in which John employed the term, except that his divine order was expressed through a monist deity whose Logos had manifested itself in a man: Jesus Christ. His comparison of the divine logos to divine light was not in itself a new concept, being derived from oriental ideas which filtered in earnest into the Greek continuum through Asia Minor (particularly Lydia and Ionia) with the expansion of the Achaemenid empire during the 6th century BC. Plato of Athens wrote about this specifically, connecting the idea of light to that of the soul (which gave sentience), to reason and to thought. Of all the Greek gods, these concepts became embodied in the solar god Apollo, who himself had origins – apparently known to Homer – in Asia Minor, predating the Achaemenids, where he was known to the Hurrians as Aplu and in ancient Mesopotamia as Nergal. These were solar gods of death and disease.

So, to recap: The meanings in Loki’s name encapsulates both the concepts of fire, and pure idea. The ancient philosophies of light and the mind held that thought was a form of divine light and was pure reason itself. Elemental fire is as chaotic and uncontrollable as a cavalcade of fire giants and trollkin rushing from Muspelheim at Ragnarok….

 

Europe’s midwinter ‘wild man’ traditions

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The Christmas period in Europe is marked by some fairly bizarre and decidedly un-Christian traditions, although given that this has been a festive period long before christianity hit the scene these are perhaps unsurprising. Although sometimes savage and alien, they give an insight into the world of spiritual empiricism which formed ancient indigenous cultural and religious philosophies and practices. The fact that many of these traditions enjoy a plasticity and interchangeability of date and can run anywhere from Hallowe’en (31st October) through to Epiphany (6th January) demonstrates perhaps that they are first and foremost midwinter festivals, with roots seated deeply in the ancient pagan world and its beliefs about ancestors, cyclicity and divine manifestation.

The traditions generally involve people dressing up in wild, frightening or outlandish costumes and performing processions and plays in honour of the festive season and of mythologies connected with it. Here are a few examples:

Swarte Piet and Sinterklaas:

Saturn and his Satyr? Swarte Piet and Sint Niklas...

Saturn and his Satyr? Swarte Piet and Sint Niklas…

The ‘Christian Santa’ is based upon St Nicholas of Myra – an early Christian saint from what is now modern Turkey. His festival is attached to the 6th December on the Gregorian calendar, yet by the Julian calendar it lies on the winter solstice. That he became a popular saint all over Europe is indicative of the ability of his traditions to supplant pagan ones, and in the Low Countries he became known as ‘Sintiklaas’, from which we get the name ‘Santa Claus’, and he had an elfen helper – Swarte Piet or Black Peter, who became a character accompanying St Nicholas in the religious festival processions typifying the festival in the Netherlands. The character is immediately identifiable as he has his face blackened. Those following my blog or knowledgeable in ancient Greek history and mythology will recall that the male satyroi celebrants of the midwinter Dionysia in Greece during the 1st millennium BC would blacken their faces with wine lees at the procession of the god’s epiphany, and this appears to be a continuation of such a practice. Like the Dionysian satyrs the purpose is entertainment and the bestowal of gifts. Piet and his boss generally arrive in their processions from a far off land, by boat – another link to Saturn and Poseidon, as well as to Dionysus.

Political extremists have recently made attempts to have Piet banned, claiming that he is an ethnic parody and denigrating the importance of the ancient tradition. The medieval conception of the man with a blackened face as a ‘blackamoor’ or ‘saracen’ always associates him with luck, and no negative ethnic connotations – a phenomenon recognised from across Europe where similar traditions occur. Perhaps the older origins of the face-blackening (the Dionysia of the ancient Greco-Roman world) have been overlooked, but in the very least the character is a positive celebration rather than having any negative connotations. The same might be said of our next winter character-performance:

Krampus:

December 5th (St Nick’s eve) and the first two weeks in December are associated with St Nicholas in Bavaria and Austria, and as in the Netherlands  the saint is accompanied in his processions by an outlandish sidekick, who is either his ‘helper’ or antithesis: Krampus.

A 'Krampus' character - devilish indeed! Half man, half beast - like the Greek satyrs

A ‘Krampus’ character – devilish indeed! Half man, half beast – like the Greek satyrs

Krampus or Perchtemn?

Krampus or Perchten?

Tradition holds that Krampus comes to punish the wicked (naughty children, in particular) and St Nicholas brings gifts for the good. It is a spectacle where children and the public in general get fun from a ‘scare’ from Krampus who brandishes chains, whips and bells and lears through his demonic and entirely terrifying mask. His northern German equivalent is Knecht Ruprecht – who plays a similar role but is of a much less terrifying persona, more human than beast, yet still with hints of ‘Robin Goodfellow’ in both name and deed. Krampus seems almost identical to the related:

Perchten:

Perchtenlauf processions are held just after Christmas in the period up to and including Epiphany (6th January or ‘Twelfth Night’). They occur in Southern Germany, Austria and Slovenia (where Mother Perchta is known as Pehta Baba). Like the Krampus traditions of early December, they involve the dressing up as masked characters, generally divided by their appearance and behaviour into the Schönperchten (“beautiful Perchten”) who wear mild-faced masks topped with floral or decorative crowns, and the (arguably much more popular)Schiachperchten (“ugly Perchten”) who correspond in appearance and behaviour to Krampus and delight in causing a good ‘scare’.

The mask of a Percht - typically worn at epiphany festivities.

The mask of a Percht – typically worn at epiphany festivities.

Badalisk and Bosinada:

Hailing from the Val Camonica region of the Italian Alps is an ‘Epiphany’ tradition corresponding to those of the Perchten further north and east. It involves a person dressing up as a wild creature called the ‘Badalisc’ or ‘Badlisk’ (i.e. – Basilisk) who is ceremonially ‘captured’ out in the countryside by a band of masked characters who parade it in the village of Andrista where it is ‘made’ to recount a rhyme containing humorous gossip and predictions for the coming year etc in return for its ‘release’ back into the wild. The event is marked by popular celebration and feasting and is an annual crowd-pleaser. It may be a remnant part of a wider regional (e.g. – Milanese) tradition of public performance or publication of satirical or excoriating rhyming poetry known as Bosinada, which offered a kind of pre-Epiphany ‘purgation’ of community woes – what might be called a ‘roast’ by contemporary American comics. Upon examination, it becomes apparent that such midwinter satire traditions appear in the ancient cultures all over Europe, and ultimately relate to the Rural Dionysia of ancient Greek culture!

The 'Badalisc' of Andrista, Val Cammonica, north of Milan.

The ‘Badalisc’ of Andrista, Val Camonica, north of Milan.

The ‘Basilisk’ of Greek legend was, by its name, the ‘King of Snakes’ and represented the figurative primal serpent often encountered in ancient European mythology. The Camonica valley was a Celtic region up until it Latinised in the 1stC CE with Rome’s northward expansion.

Wren Hunts:

The tradition of capturing a wren at midwinter and parading it tied to a pole is peculiar to Atlantic Europe and has been recorded in Spain, France (at Carcassone – former stronghold of Catharism) and (in particular) in Ireland, Wales and the Isle of Man. The reason for this distribution is unclear, although it seemingly corresponds to historic sea-routes by which ancient cultural traits have been proven by archaeologists to have spread in this region.

'Wren Boys' procession at Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

‘Wren Boys’ procession at Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

The Irish ‘Wrenboys’ who lead the procession of the bird wear outlandish straw suits and masks, primitively evocative of the shaggy Perchten of Austria, although not quite so fearsome. In the Isle of Man, such costumes were not recorded, although outlandish garb of some sort was known – boys would wear black coats in the early 20th century.

Black, bestial satyrs were the retinue of Dionysus in the DIonysia festival of ancient Greece. Image from an Attic vase 6th/5thC BCE.

Black, bestial satyrs were the retinue of Dionysus in the Dionysia festival of ancient Greece. Image from an Attic vase 6th/5thC BCE.

 

 

 

The pagan roots of St Martin’s day – 11th November

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A German statue of St Martin donating his cloak to the poor man.

A German statue of St Martin donating his cloak to the poor man.

In my previous post I discussed the significance of Armistice Day falling on the 11th of November, which is also St Martin’s day: St Martin of Tours (d.397 CE) was a ‘military’ saint of the early Christian church who evangelised northern Gaul, and who is celebrated as one of the more important ‘local’ saints in northern Europe, along with characters such as St Patrick. St Martin’s day falls on the ‘old’ (Julian calendar) All Saints’ Day (‘Hallowe’en’) and is therefore linked to the celebrations of the Celtish quarter-day festival knownamong the Gaels as Samhain, and which is observed in reverence to the souls of the dead.

Processions and ritual begging:

St Martin’s day (and St Martin’s Eve) customs perhaps unsurprisingly share similarities with those of Hallowe’en: In Germany, for instance, the Gripschen or Heischebrauch customs of children going from door to door begging gifts of food, sweets etc in return for songs (Martinsleid) is associated with St Martin’s day (Martinstag). In Germany – as elsewhere in Europe – this custom was also associated with the medieval ‘souling‘ traditions observed variously on All Hallows day (1st November) or All Hallows Eve (31st October) as well as All Souls’ day (2nd November). In ‘souling’ people would go door to door offering prayers for the dead in return for the gift of ‘soul cakes’. This seems to have evolved into the modern Hallowe’en ‘trick or treat’ custom, but was a feature of other festivals of the ‘winter quarter’, such as the Christmastide ‘wassailing’ and ‘guising’ tradition parties of ancient European tradition. Ritual begging was therefore an ancient and important cultural custom, and the idea of receiving divine favour in return for bestowing hospitality on the poor and needy was a key element to religious observances of the Christian and pre-Christian eras (for example, the Roman and Greek festivals of Saturnalia and Kronia).

The most popular legend of St Martin is that of him dividing his soldier’s cloak to share it with a freezing beggar (who was then revealed to him in a vision to have been Christ personified), hence the association of Martin’s festival with begging traditions. In modern Germany and other north European countries, children take part in lantern processions on St Martin’s eve and these are usually led by a man dressed as the saint – often depicted as a Roman soldier with a large cape on horseback. These processions culminate in the St Martin’s bonfires, at which people eat traditional foods and drinks (such as gluwein). Similar festivities in modern Britain occur on 5th November (divested of any Catholic trappings, and often with pyromaniac Protestant iconoclasms). In Ireland bonfire celebrations were formerly held at Samhain. It is evident that they are all based on an older seasonal tradition which has diversified with time and changes to the political and religious landscape.

The spirits of the dead were, before and after the advent of christianity, associated with a hunger for the warmth and fecundity of our world. The act of appeasing the needy and hungry can be thought of in technical terms as assuaging this ‘pull’ from the otherworld which might threaten our imminent ‘crossing over’ to join the dead.

Martin the warrior:

The legend of Martin of Tours given us by Sulpicius Severus (4th/5thC CE) says that he was originally a Danubian noble serving in a Roman cavalry outfit who, through a process of divine revelation, transitions from a physical form of warfare to the spiritual one of the Christian narrative. This in itself is illustrative of the ‘spiritual rebirth’ through which followers of his religion defined themselves – then and now. This confusion of death and life was typical of the ancient pagan European worldview about warfare and death, a view which was personified by Martin’s namesake – the Roman god Mars who (unlike his Greek counterpart Ares) represented chthonic wealth as well as war. That Martinmas comes at time when it is traditional in Europe to make a celebration of agricultural fertility and full winter stores is therefore intriguing.

In the skies, the season is marked by the prominence of the great winter ‘warrior’ (or ‘hunter’) constellation of Orion – imagined as a man holding high a sword and shield. Another interpretation might be a herdsman – cattle were generally moved from pasture into their winter stalls by Martinmas, and the ‘campaigning season’ for warfare was over. The warrior-hunter-herdsman constellation being displayed in the heavens might possibly have been viewed as an indicator that such activities on earth should cease. In Germany another old tradition used to be of herdsmen giving a ritual bundle of branches (the Martinsgerte – ‘Martin’s Switch’) to the farmer at Martinmas, which would be used the next Whitsuntide (Beltain) to drive the cattle to their summer pastures. This may represent the fact that herding was seasonal hired work, and in many places St Martin’s Day was a traditional holiday for herdsmen, who also identified with St George. Whatever the case, wands or switches crop up in many European winter folk-traditions and performances from before the modern age.

Association with horses:

Martin was said to have been of Illyrian birth – from the ‘Danubian’ provinces of the late Roman empire. Eastern Europe and Germania provided many of the elite cavalry units of the Roman army, and from the late 3rd century military men from these regions came to dominate the upper echelons of the Roman military hierarchy, even providing Emperors. This rise of the ‘Equites’ would in turn syncretise with the military traditions of the western Celtic tribes and eventually give rise to the European ‘knights’ of the middle ages. Martin bestrode both such worlds and his iconography demonstrates this. In the Gallo-Roman world he came to evangelise, as well as the Celticised Danubian provinces of the late Empire the cult of Epona – supposedly a Celtic horse-goddess – was prevalent, especially among military elites. This appears to have had a special Danubian flavour added to it in Eastern Europe, where her cult was linked to that of the ancient Greco-Roman Dioskoroi – the twin brothers who were expert horsemen, and whose legend suggested one was human and the other divine. It is possible that Martin’s father was aware of or even participated in such a cult, as he was said not to have been Christian. Mystery cults – particularly that of Mithras – were prevalent among the late Imperial military.

Martin’s figurative rejection of his military calling as one of the Equites (as told by Sulpicius Severus) can be interpreted as a rejection of the figurative cultural importance of the horse among his chosen flock, whose coins before the Roman conquest almost universally depicted the image of the horse along with a multitude of spiritually significant symbols. Severus tells a number of stories of Martin destroying the sacred groves and temples of Gaulish pagans, so the narrative of his hagiography needed to account for this. Tours was a ‘Belgic’ part of Gaul, strongly influenced by the military-spiritual late Iron Age cultural movement which appears to have stimulated the Celtic expansion of the ‘La Téne’ era of the second half of the 1st millennium BCE.

Association with birds:

Apart from the ritualised begging and celebrations of altruism, there is another old custom associated with St Martin’s day, involving birds. This is represented in Germany by the eating of a goose (the Martinsgans) at a special meal in honour of the saint, although duck is the more favoured bird in modern times. The reason given for this custom is based on the hagiography left by Martin’s contemporary, Sulpicius Severus, who declared the saint’s modesty as one of his virtues, illustrating it by the tale that Martin hid in a goose-shed when the crowds at Tours wished to elevate him to the rank of Bishop. The geese proclaimed his presence and he was forced to accept the honour.

Irrespective of the hagiographic legends, it was traditional at this time of the ancient subsistence agriculture cycle of Europe  to slaughter geese and pigs (both of which could be salted down to be preserved for the winter). In German ethno-linguistic regions the Schlachtfest (‘Slaughter Festival’) usually coincided with Martinmas. The tradition of animal slaughter at this period might explain the former custom in parts of Ireland of the Martinmas cockerel, which used to be slaughtered on St Martin’s Eve by bleeding. Sometimes a goose was used. The custom survived well into the 20thC – blood from the bird was dripped at the boundaries, corners and portals of the homestead or farmstead in order to procure luck (or protection from the saint) for the coming year. The bird was then eaten at a special meal (meat was only ever an occasional luxury in former times). This bird-slaughtering tradition evolved into the American settlers’ ‘Thanksgiving’ festival, celebrated on the third Thursday of November. All-Hallows or Martinmas were also traditional festivals at which tithes were traditionally paid to churches, and when servants were hired or released from service, sometimes a time when rents were paid. The ‘functional’ aspects of such festivals were sometimes displaced to Michaelmas – and although not practised on Martinmas, the tradition of a goose-feast at Michaelmas (29th September) was observed in Britain. when rents and tithes were often expected. Perhaps variations in the harvest-period between regions have informed this plasticity.

In the Isle of Man the custom of slaughtering a fowl was formerly celebrated on St Catherine’s day (25th November – a closer analogue of Thanksgiving) when a female hen suffered its fate, and was committed to a ‘solemn’ burial (perhaps made less solemn by the inebriated state of the celebrants) as part of the festivities of the tiny island nation’s St Catherine’s fairs. The meaning of the Manx ‘St Catherine’s Hen’ and its ritual slaughter and burial at a public fair is obscure – it could be anything from a pagan survival to a modern form of anti-clericalism or anti-Catholicism. What is similar, however, is the better-known bird-killing ritual involving the slaughter of a wren on the same island on the 26th December (St Stephen’s Day), suggesting a pre-Christian avian tradition. In avowedly Catholic Ireland this custom also occurred and in both countries (Mannin and Ireland) there were legends suggesting the wren was the personification of a powerful female fairy, leaving us to conclude that the ritual slaughter of a bird during the winter quarter had some religious significance in the ancient Atlantic world.

Returning to St Martin (and the 11th of November), it is worth commenting on some other bird-related associations. Not in the least is the use of the name ‘Martin’ for a class of bird of the family Hirundinidae, including the Swallows, House Martins, Sand Martins etc. These are migratory birds who appear in Europe during the late spring-time, and are usually departed to their over-wintering locations by the 11th of November. Anciently it was believed that, rather than migrating, they in fact slept over winter at the bottom of ponds and rivers. This belief may be based upon the observation of these species regularly skimming down over water in order to drink while ‘on the wing’.  By the same estimation, flocks of migratory plovers coming in to roost and feed on estuarine mudflats often appear to be ‘diving’ into the water. In ancient Rhodes (so the 2ndC CE Greek poet Athenaeus tell us) were beggars known as the Chelidonistai (‘Swallow Men’) who would come around in early springtime with the arrival of the swallows and sing traditional songs in order to earn alms. He mentions another class known to him (Coronistai) who carried a dead crow or raven and also solicited alms through a song. Obviously, there is a parallel with the Christianised medieval traditions of ritualised begging, so important to the Christian narrative. These were celebrated in Swabia (Upper Bavaria) at Whitsuntide (the closest Christian festival to Beltain) by the ‘Waterbird Men’, who performed songs for alms. Frazer (‘The Golden Bough’) quotes various German authors saying how these as also going into the forests to gather oak branches and other greenery, as well as sometimes diving into water, or throwing straw effigies of a large bird into water. In medieval times a wooden bird was displayed in Bavarian churches at Whitsun, evidently to depict Jesus, but possibly part of a Christianised tradition of the pagans. Like the Manx and Irish ‘Wren Boys’ these Whitsuntide parties of young men dressed in white, and wore red sashes. Just which ‘water bird’ species (if any) was intended is unclear – it may be that the placing of the bird in water was the origin of the name. Beltain is 6 months from Samhain – at the other side of winter – and St Martin also enjoyed a more ancient midsummer feast (Martinus aestivus, 4th July). The ‘Martin’s Bird’ (Martinsvögel) in Germany might also refer to an old tradition of a bird-shaped harvest sheaf (possibly even the one once cast into the water at Whitsuntide in Swabia), and is also the name sometimes given to other bird species such as the Black or Greater Spotted Woodpecker, the goose or even the Ladybird (also associated in German legend with Frau Holle).

The symbolism of migratory birds seems ideals for expressing the cycles of death and rebirth. These are best represented in European legends by species such as the Martins and Swifts, the Geese and Swans, and aquatic species such as the Plovers. St Martin was credited with bringing Christianity (which promised renewal not in this world but another one) to much of the notoriously militant, formerly barbarian Romanised cultures of north Europe. His name and military aspect seem like a fitting identity for someone who converted the Gauls from their vestiges of druidism, which taught that the soul flies from the body after death and is renewed in a far-off place before returning again in a new incarnation. Such empirical and spiritual symbolism pervades the legends and folklore of  Celtish and related European cultures, and survives the Christian era – testament to the power of the old and mysterious worldview.

Weland, the Swan Children and The Knight of the Swan

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Emerging from the mythic and symbolic courtly story traditions of  12th century Europe, a popular and mysterious set of tales were told of children transformed into swans one of whom grows up to become the ‘Chevalier au Cygne’, or ‘Knight of the Swan’ – a questing knight who is conveyed in a boat drawn by a mysterious Swan which feeds him and guides him to his unknown destinations.

The earliest written  rescension of  the origin tale of the knight and his swan-kin comes from the late 12thC text ‘Dolopathos sive de Rege et Septem Sapientibus‘, by the monk Jean de Hauteseille. This was a latin version of a popular eastern story tradition known as ‘The Seven Wise Masters’, possibly acquired through contact with the Muslim empires. The birth of the swan children and the ‘Chevalier au Cygne’ tales merged with the Chansons de Geste traditions dealing with Godfrey de Bouillon, first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and popular icon of the First Crusade. These portrayed Godfrey as an ancestor of the Swan Knight, Elias, who had originally gained the Duchy of Bouillon after a swan arrived with a boat which conveyed him from his island home to protect the beleaguered Duchess of Bouillon, who then offered he hand in marriage. Further life was given to the legend in Wolfram Von Eschenbach‘s 13thC Arthurian epic, Parzifal, and versions of the story were retold into the 16thC (for example, Robert Copland’s English translation of the French versions in 1512).

Story of the Swan Children:

The essence of the Dolopathos account of the genesis of the swan-children is this: A knight wanders into a mysterious forest while hunting a white stag, where he discovers a mysterious woman by natural spring (an otherworld woman). They fall for each other and make love, and the knight takes her back to his castle where she eventually gives birth to seven children with gold chains around their necks. The knight’s mother is jealous and orders the children to be swapped in the birthing chamber for a litter of puppies, and has a servant take the children to the forest to kill them, where he decides to simply abandon them. The knight is angry that his wife gave birth to puppies and condemns her to buried up to the neck in the earth for seven years. However, the knight then finds that the children are alive and living in the forest and sends a servant to retrieve them. The servant finds the seven children – six boys and one girl – at a lake in the forest. The boys have taken off their gold chains and are swimming on the lake in the form of swans, while their sister – still in human form (wearing her chain) guards their chains. The servant decides to steal the chains and makes off with his loot to have them melted down by a goldsmith. The girl goes back to the castle to seek bread with which to feed her brothers who are now trapped in swan form, and eventually meets her father who has her tell the tale of what happened. The knight retrieves the chains and the boys can regain their human forms, except for one whose chain was broken by the goldsmith. He goes on to serve (or becomes – the source is unclear) the mysterious hero, the Knight of the Swan.

The story of the swan children is a curious bit of imagery, resonating strongly with the pagan mythical story traditions of Ireland (The Children of Lir, The Sickbed of Cuchullain). These feature birds (explicitly swans in the case of Lir’s children) who are bound with chains. However, the motif occurs in not just Irish and French legendary traditions – in the Norse Icelandic Völundarkviða (Poetic Edda), Völundr (Weland) and his two brothers meet and make love to swan-maidens (Valkyries) bathing  in a lake in the forest while hunting. The implication in the genesis story of the Swan Knight is that the ‘Lady of the Fountain’ is herself of an avian aspect, much like Manannan’s wife, Fand, in the Serglige Con Culainn, in which she briefly becomes Cuchullain’s lover and tormentor. The Norse goddess Freyja was attributed with a ‘feather cape’ in the Eddas, and as receiver of ‘half of the slain’ she may herself have been a or the Valkyrie. The greatest similarity with the Knight of the Swan entrée, however, is the Irish tale Clann Lir (‘Children of Lir’): It shares many features with minor differences – in the Irish tale, there are four children (three boys, one girl). Their mother dies and their stepmother is jealous of them and orders a servant to kill them. However, the servant refuses and the stepmother transforms the children into swans by magic. The swans are connected to each other by silver chains. They wander the earth for 900 years until (depending on the version) their deaths are caused when their chains are broken off by a marauder causing them to immediately age and die, or when they hear the tolling of a church bell or are blessed by a priest.

The tale of children turned into birds is actually a widespread folktale motif (Grimm collected a ‘Six Swans’ tale from Germany) and therefore has an Aarne-Thompson classification of type 451. However, the theme of the chains is not so frequent. Obviously, these stories are widely divergent, but what is the underlying significance?

About the Swan Knight himself:

The Knight of the Swan is named variously as Helias or Helyas in the French traditions, and as Loherangrin in Wolfram’s Parzifal. ‘Helias’ sounds a bit like the Greek name for the sun – Helios. Wolfram Von Eschenbach’s character Loherangrin has  the -angrin suffix, somewhat redolent of the Irish words an grian – the sun! As Wolfram was borrowing from Celtic story traditions, this interpretation is theoretically possible. However, there is another perhaps more likely explanation for Helyas/Helias, this being that it derives from a Celtic word for swan, which in Irish is eala. Nevertheless, the links between Weland and the Celtic solar god, Belenos, that I have discussed elsewhere may add weight to the identity of Helias with Helios.

In the Romance of Godfrey de Bouillon, Helias is born to King Oriant of Illefort (‘Strong Isle’), the introductory part of the tale being a rescension of the Swan Children tale. As the Knight of the Swan he is conveyed overseas on his quest by a swan which tows him in a small boat. The swan looks after the knight, who trusts it to take him where his bravery is needed, and where he might find his fortune, a wife and good honour in combat. This applies to both Helias and Loherengrin. The knight is under a tabu or geas that he must not reveal his name to those he meets, and when he breaks it, the swan carries him off. Other Arthurian heroes trot around on horses, but the Chevalier au Cygne stands aside as a water-bourne character. The ‘magic isle’ motif was common to the Celtic tales of Europe’s Atlantic seaboard – for instance, the Breton ‘Isle of Lok’ comes to mind. Perhaps this is the origin of the ‘Loher-‘ prefic of Loherangrin?

The stories are full of themes of captivity – a feature all too familiar to men of the crusader age, whose favoured saint became the chain-loosening St Leonard. The captivity of form in the case of the children, the captivity of knightly obligation, and the captivity of the geas or tabu. The swan – a white bird – is also an otherworldly creature with a propensity for migration and sitting on water, itself one of the gateways to the otherworld. The chains of the swan-children are like an unbreakable link with the otherworld and simultaneously evocative of the art of smithcraft, itself often equated with magic, itself a form of ‘binding’ of unseen powers. This brings us back to the question – already touched on – of the legendary (sometime captive) smith, Weland, known in Ireland as Cuillean…

Link to Weland and Cuillean:

The Poetic Edda’s ‘Lay of Weland’ (Völundarkviða) starts with Völundr (Weland – a prince of elves) and his brothers coming across three swan-maidens bathing in a lake, who they take as lovers. Swans being migratory, the girls eventually take off and Völundr’s brothers go with them leaving him alone. Like Manawydan in the Mabinogion, he takes up the life of a craftsman, which causes him to be kidnapped by King Niðhad who wishes to exploit his metalworking skills and has his hamstrings cut so he cannot run away. He extracts a terrible revenge by killing the king’s sons and making their bones into jewels which he gives the unwitting king and his queen, raping their daughter causing her to become pregnant with his child – presumably the inheritor of  Niðhad’s kingdom. Völundr then flees by flying away through the air. This brutal tale is in itself a warning not to abuse the help on offer from the otherworld’s denizens, and as such contains the same themes as the Arthurian legends and fairy romances of continental Europe during the same period.

Weland’s Wilkinasaga tradition (occurring in the Romance of Dietrich von Bern/Thidrekksaga) depicts him as the son of a character called Wade – a giant who fathers him with a mermaid (haffru). It is essentially the same tale of enslavement by the king and description of Volund’s terrible revenge and escape using wings to fly away. His Gaelic equivalent/counterpart, Cuillean, is – as has been previously suggested – identified with the sea-god, Manannan. This would make Wade and Lir coterminous, and it is evident from the continental traditions of the Knight of the Swan (Helias) that his father was the ruler of an Island and that the knight’s father – like Wade – conceived him with a fairy woman linked to water. The 12thC hagiography of St Patrick by Jocelyn of Furness has him visit the Isle of Man and defeat a flying wizard called Melinus, who I have suggested sounds like Manannan and Merlin compounded. Given the link between Manannan, Cuillean and therefore Weland, this flying aspect adds another level of intrigue.

The depiction of Weland/Volundr in the saga and German romances of Dietrich von Bern of him escaping by flying on wings seems somehow to evoke the swan children. His ability to propel himself over water in a hollowed out tree is another theme from the Dietrich saga which evokes the Knight of the Swan’s self-propelling boat, and also brings to mind the legend of Sceaf and Scylding alluded to in Anglo-Saxon mythic texts and poems.

The word ‘water’ has a linguistic link to the name of Weland’s father – ‘Wade’. This can be seen in the Polish word for water, which is wody and the Russian is the same – voda, from which ‘vodka’ is derived. ‘Wading’ is walking through water and it is even possible that ‘Wotan’ could be linked to water. The Welsh name for Manannan, ‘Manawydan’, might also by the same reckoning contain linguistic connotations of Wade. Even the eponymous relater of the Anglo-Saxon Widsith (Exeter Book ca.10thC CE) might have a relation – being so far-travelled and apparently present (Taliesin-like) at different points in history not possible for a mortal human.

Water was definitely the route by which souls and life in general was believed to transit from the Otherworld. The general belief appears to have been that souls left this world in an aerial form – as birds. It is therefore no surprise that migratory water birds such as swans would come to represent the Otherworld’s intermediary animals par-excellence.

Footnote: The Greeks – Even the ancient Greeks had a myth of the ‘Swan Maidens’ coded into the pre-Olympian mythology of their own traditions. These were the three Graeae – daughters of the primal sea-god Phorcys, who appear in the myth of Perseus. They live on an island at the reaches of the world-ocean, Okeanos, (figuratively) in the ‘realm of Kronos’ on the far shores of time, close to the Otherworld itself. Far from being bathing beauties in the Perseus myth, they are aged crones who share one eye between them. They are sisters to the Gorgons, who are also counted among the Phorcydes – monstrous children of the sea, whose numbers include Scylla and Charybdis, Ladon and the Hyda among others. I suppose they were more than capable of transforming themselves into ravishing beauties, as most of the Atlantic ‘woman by the water’ deity archetypes seem to have this ability…

 

 

 

Sirona – another syncretic guise of the Celtic ‘Great Goddess’

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Sirona was another mask worn by the Roman-era Celtic (ie – Atlantic) ‘Great Goddess’. We know of her name because of epigraphic evidence found associated with statues of her image, often at 2ndC CE religious sites associated with springs of water. Her name ought properly be written tSirona (as would be the  case in modern Irish) as the initial vowel sound of her name is the celtic languages’ dentalised ‘s’, pronounced something like ‘ts-‘ and because of this the name was sometimes written Đirona or Thirona.

The most significant areas of her cult stretched from the east of France, and eastward to the waters of the upper Danube in southern Germany, Austria and Hungary. She seems to have been affiliated with hot springs, and was consequently found linked to a solar male god such as Apollo-Borvo or Apollo-Grannus, and both were associated with healing. The name of Sirona is found as far west as Brittany (Amorica) but has not yet been found in Britain – the Britons named their syncretic deity at the great springs in Bath Sulis-Minerva.

Because of the ages-old association of mineral-rich hot springs with healing, Sirona’s imagery borrows from the Apollonian family of Greek gods and goddesses, in particular that of Hygeia, daughter of Apollo’s medical son Aesculapias. The syncretic-era statues of Sirona often show her twined with a snake after the manner of her Greek counterpart. Remember, the Celtic peoples of Europe were not late-comers to Greek philosophical, religious and cultural influence: they had at least 600 years of exposure to Greek religion before the era of their conquest and assimilation by the Romans. The Romans also relied upon Greek religious philosophy to underpin their own version of it, and Apollo was perhaps the most influential of Greek gods.

 

The Sirona statue from the temple discovered at Hochscheid, Moselle, Germany. Note the snake coiled on her arm, eating from a patera of three eggs.

Modern replica of the Sirona statue from the temple discovered at Hochscheid, Moselle, Germany. Note the snake coiled on her arm, eating from a patera of three eggs.

The iconography of Sirona tended to depict her as a young woman wearing a long gown (sometimes she was half-naked) with a diadem on her head. A snake was often coiled around her right arm, and she sometimes held a patera containing three eggs in her other hand. The snake in the Hochscheid example appears to be either guarding or interested in eating the eggs, and the combination of these two together is redolent of the ‘Orphic Egg’ of the ancient Thracian/Greek mysteries. Other features of her imagery indicate further references to the chthonic mystery cults, including ears of corn, associated with Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Linguistic aspects of Sirona’s name:

It has been speculated based upon linguistic evidence that Sirona was a ‘star’ goddess. The ancient Transalpine Gaulish word for ‘star’ was ‘sirom‘, related to the Latin word ‘Sidus‘ (from which we get the word ‘Sidereal’). For the Greeks the word was ‘Aster’. The initial ‘tS’ sound of Sirona was a metathesis to ‘sT-‘. ‘Sirona’ could therefore have derived from ‘Sterona’. To derive the Greek ‘Asteria’ (the name of Hecate’s Titaness mother), the word is preceded by the Celtic ‘definite article’ (‘the’), which was pronounced ‘a’, giving ‘Asteria’ or ‘Asterona’. The diadem on the head of the Hochscheid statue is usually cited as support for this theory of naming. However, modern Gaelic orthography may have preserved some early Celtic language conventions: In particular the ‘tS’ and ‘sT’ metathesis. This makes us, by necessity, examine another word which may relate to the name of Sirona, and has been linked to Bridget – Ireland’s goddess of smithcraft: This is the Gaelic word ‘tSaoir’, which means ‘craftsman’ or ‘smith’, and which is demonstrated in Gaelic family names such as ‘MacTeer’ or ‘Teare’, and the Irish mythological name of the ‘Gobban tSaor’. These, of course, relate to Bridget ‘Goddess of Smithcraft’… So ‘Sirona’ might have nothing to do with stars and more to do with the mysteries of nature’s secret re-forging, as suggested by her snake and eggs and veneration at sacred springs.  

 

Frau Holle

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In the mythology of the people of Hesse in Germany, perhaps the most well-known character is that of ‘Frau Holle’. Exposed to the world at large in the writings of  Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century, she has remained an important and intriguing cornerstone of German folk mythology, and is generally considered to represent a demoted form of the great European goddess of old. That she appears to share such similarities to ‘An Cailleach’ of Gaelic folklore is all the more interesting given the supposed divide between the ideas of ‘Celtic’ and ‘Germanic’ mythology.

‘Frau Holle’ was in fact only one of her many names – the version common in Hesse and Thuringia, from where many of her traditions are recorded. Throughout the northern German and Scandinavian regions she went by a number of other epithets, including ‘Holda’ and ‘Frau Gode’. In the southern regions of Germany she was often known as ‘Perchta’, ‘Berchta’ or ‘Bertha’. As befits the protean Great Goddess of old Europe, the names exhibit a degree of plasticity, having been preserved in oral traditions beyond the era when ‘she’ was officially accepted as a deity. However, in the face of modernisation and the rejection of old customs during the 19thC, we owe her existence in thought and memory today largely to Willhelm Grimm and his tale ‘Frau Holle – Gold Mary and Pitch Mary’, first recounted to him by a Hessian woman called Dortchen Wild on 29th September 1811. The following is the revised 1857 version of this tale:

A widow had two daughters, the one was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. She greatly favored the ugly, lazy girl, because she was her own daughter. And the other one had to do all the work, and be the Cinderella of the house.

Every day the poor girl had to sit by a well, next to the highway, and spin so much that her fingers bled. Now it happened that one day the reel was completely bloody, so she dipped it in the well, to wash it off, but it dropped out of her hand and fell in. She cried, ran to her stepmother, and told her of the mishap. She scolded her so sharply, and was so merciless that she said, “Since you have let the reel fall in, you must fetch it out again.”

Then the girl went back to the well, and did not know what to do. Terrified, she jumped into the well to get the reel. She lost her senses. And when she awoke and came to herself again, she was in a beautiful meadow where the sun was shining, and there were many thousands of flowers. She walked across this meadow and came to an oven full of bread. The bread called out, “Oh, take me out. Take me out, or I’ll burn. I’ve been thoroughly baked for a long time.” So she stepped up to it, and with a baker’s peel took everything out, one loaf after the other.

After that she walked further and came to a tree laden with apples. “Shake me. Shake me. We apples are all ripe.” cried the tree. So she shook the tree until the apples fell as though it were raining apples. When none were left in the tree, she gathered them into a pile, and then continued on her way.

Finally she came to a small house. An old woman was peering out from inside. She had very large teeth, which frightened the girl, and she wanted to run away. But the old woman called out to her, “Don’t be afraid, dear child. Stay here with me, and if you do my housework in an orderly fashion, it will go well with you. Only you must take care to make my bed well and shake it diligently until the feathers fly, then it will snow in the world. I am Frau Holle.”

Because the old woman spoke so kindly to her, the girl took heart, agreed, and started in her service. The girl took care of everything to Frau Holle’s satisfaction and always shook her featherbed vigorously until the feathers flew about like snowflakes. Therefore she had a good life with her: no angry words, and boiled or roast meat every day.

Now after she had been with Frau Holle for a time, she became sad. At first she did not know what was the matter with her, but at last she determined that it was homesickness. Even though she was many thousands of times better off here than at home, still she had a yearning to return. Finally she said to the old woman, “I have such a longing for home, and even though I am very well off here, I cannot stay longer. I must go up again to my own people.”

Frau Holle said, “I am pleased that you long for your home again, and because you have served me so faithfully, I will take you back myself.” With that she took her by the hand and led her to a large gate.

The gate was opened, and while the girl was standing under it, an immense rain of gold fell, and all the gold stuck to her, so that she was completely covered with it. “This is yours because you have been so industrious,” said Frau Holle, and at the same time she gave her back the reel which had fallen into the well.

With that the gate was closed and the girl found herself above on earth, not far from her mother’s house. And as she entered the yard the rooster, sitting on the well, cried:

Cock-a-doodle-doo,
Our golden girl is here anew.

Then she went inside to her mother, and as she arrived all covered with gold, she was well received, both by her mother and her sister. The girl told all that had happened to her, and when the mother heard how she had come to the great wealth, she wanted to achieve the same fortune for the other, the ugly and lazy daughter. She made her go and sit by the well and spin. And to make her reel bloody, the lazy girl pricked her fingers and shoved her hand into a thorn bush. Then she threw the reel into the well, and jumped in herself.

Like the other girl, she too came to the beautiful meadow and walked along the same path. When she came to the oven, the bread cried again, “Oh, take me out. Take me out, or else I’ll burn. I’ve been thoroughly baked for a long time.”

But the lazy girl answered, “As if I would want to get all dirty,” and walked away.

Soon she came to the apple tree. It cried out, “Oh, shake me. Shake me. We apples are all ripe.”

But she answered, “Oh yes, one could fall on my head,” and with that she walked on.

When she came to Frau Holle’s house, she was not afraid, because she had already heard about her large teeth, and she immediately began to work for her. On the first day she forced herself, was industrious, and obeyed Frau Holle, when she said something to her, because she was thinking about all the gold that she would give her. But on the second day she already began to be lazy, on the third day even more so, and then she didn’t even want to get up in the morning. She did not make the bed for Frau Holle, the way she was supposed to, and she did not shake it until the feathers flew. Frau Holle soon became tired of this and dismissed her of her duties. This was just what the lazy girl wanted, for she thought that she would now get the rain of gold.

Frau Holle led her too to the gate. She stood beneath it, but instead of gold, a large kettle full of pitch spilled over her. “That is the reward for your services,” said Frau Holle, and closed the gate.

Then the lazy girl went home, entirely covered with pitch. As soon as the rooster on the well saw her, he cried out:

Cock-a-doodle-doo,
Our dirty girl is here anew.

And the pitch stuck fast to her, and did not come off as long as she lived.

The tale exhibits certain key traits that equate Frau Holle with the old European goddess: Firstly, Frau Holle’s world is reached through water into which a bloody spinning reel is dropped. She lives in a beautiful meadow or garden, where her work appears to be baking bread and growing apples. These are, as it happens, the ‘bounty’ depicted on Roman era statues of the goddess known as ‘Nehalennia’ from Zeeland in the Low Countries. She has the power to reward respect and hard work with worldly wealth, and to punish idleness in equal measure. Other traditions about her were subsequently collected and written down, inspired by the recently-recovered Icelandic Edda literature which opened peoples’ eyes to the Old Gods of the Scandinavians and Germans. People were eager to trace a link between folktales and childrens’ rhymes with these, and Frau Holle/Holda became a representative case of a recovered goddess, taken to task by the other Grimm, Jacob, in his seminal work Deutsche Mytholgie (1835).

Grimm found Holda/Perchta strongly associated with the female art of spinning, firmly connected with the traditions of Yuletide and 12th night, the rider of a wagon who was engaged to do work for farmers. She was ascribed a golden bucket from which rivers of water fell as she climbed hills. Holda/Perchta was also associated with the care of unbaptized souls (i.e. – children who died before baptism), and was portrayed as a leader of the ‘Wild Hunt’ usually associated with Woden himself. This led Grimm to make the equation of Holle/Perchta with Frigg and Freyja. She certainly fitted the type of the kind of chthonic fertility goddess we see depicted on Roman era shrines to the Matres/Matronae and Nehalennia, however Grimm had little to say about an identity between Nehalennia and Holda, who I suggest are the same. The name ‘Halen’ is derived by removing the celtic definite article Ne- and the terminal -ia. ‘Hollen’ was another of Holda’s names – associating her with the ‘Tree of the Dead’, the Elder (Sambucus Nigra).

Early references:

The earliest reference to Holda by name appears to come from the pen of a 13thC Cistercian monk, known only to us as Rudolph, who noted the following custom:

“In nocte nativitatis Christi ponunt regina celi quam dominam Holdam vulgus appelat, ut eas ipsa adiuvet.”

“On the night of Christ’s nativity, they set the table in honour of the queen of heaven, commonly known as Holda”

This fits with Grimm’s observations about an association with Yuletide. The Cistercians of the 13thC were hell-bent on correcting any slippages back into heathenism, and were perhaps the greatest promoters of the cult of the Virgin Mary, who was their patron saint. The term ‘queen of heaven’ was applied to her in particular. Contemporary Cistercian authors such as Jocelyn of Furness appear to have gone out of their way to re-forge many old pagan narratives into Christian ones, as can be seen in his Life of St Kentigern. They were up against the popular courtly tales of Arthur & Co, which were almost explicit in their dealing with the goddess, as well as opposing religious sects such as the Cathars of the Pays d’Oc and Italy. In spite of adding an overlay of ‘Mariology’ to medieval Europe’s mythology, they failed to expel the memory and stories of ‘Holda’. Of particular interest to this reference by Rudolph is that the Anglo-Saxon author Bede (‘De Temporum Ratione’ – 8thC) recorded that the heathens celebrated an observance called Mōdraniht on Christmas eve: This means ‘Mothers Night’.

 

Nehalennia – the ‘Cailleach’ of Zeeland?

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In 1645, storms ravaging Domberg in the Dutch coastal province of Zeeland uncovered the remains of a significant Roman-era temple sacred to the hitherto unknown goddesss Nehalennia, whose name and image was inscribed on multiple dedicatory altar-stelae. The temple is believed to have served traders at a port who would have had commerce with Gaul and Britain, and also contained dedications to Neptune, Mercury, Hercules and Jupiter, although those to the goddess were by far the most numerous. Her image depicts her wearing a tunic, shoulder mantle and cloak. Her feet are booted and she is almost always accompanied by a small, friendly-looking dog. In common with the many German images of the Matres she is usually (but not always) seated and bears a basket, patera or cornucopia loaded with fruit, suggesting she was considered benevolent.

Nehalennia

Nehalennia

 

Although a local goddess, her imagery – like much of that from between the 1st and 4thC CE is obviously culturally Romanised. Her association with fruitfulness and the dog (which appears to be of the Greyhound type) would place her somewhere between the huntress-goddess <Diana-Artemis> and the fertility goddess <Ceres-Demeter>. Her boots and shoulder-mantle render her redolent of the Roman god Mercury, who (as a god of trade, and conductor of souls to the Otherworld) was depicted wearing travelling-wear. Most Roman(ised) goddesses were depicted in sandles. The overall impression is a goddess of fruitfulness, trade and travel – a fact emphasised by a number of images which depict her standing with her foot on the prow of a ship.

Geographic origins of Nehalennia:

One of the question most often asked of her is whether she was of a ‘Celtic’ or ‘Germanic’ origin. This question itself is somewhat complicated by the issue of if there is actually a cultural distinction to made between either, as this was originally a distinction made by Romans on the basis of (i) language and (ii) conquerability! Nonetheless, it is worth noting that Zeeland lies on the Rhine estuary, and that Nehalennia is known to have been depicted as a triple-goddess making her almost indistinguishable from the more common Roman-Era images of the three Matres found in Germany and France. The Matres or Matronae were typically depicted as seated and bearing pateras and cornucopias as well as sheaves of corn etc. A further shrine with altar stones dedicated to the goddess existed near Colijnsplaat in Zeeland, where a large number of altars and statues were dredged out of the Scheldt, the original Roman settlement of Ganuenta having been lost to the sea. A couple of examples of her shrines were also found as far away as Deutz – now part of Cologne, which was a major Roman civitas on the Rhine in Germania Inferior and therefore on the trade route connecting out to Zeeland and the low countries.

Analysis of the theonym:

The name of the goddess has also attracted quite a lot of speculation. As with many names transcribed and transliterated into Roman inscriptions of this era, a degree of caution is required, as the population using the name would have been largely illiterate, so the inscriptional custom of the name may not have been an accurate interpretation. Once inscribed once, it is likely to have been copied and fixed in this form. As occurs in, for example ‘Andraste’, the ‘Ne-‘ of ‘Nehalennia’ sounds like the definite article (‘the’) of the Celtic languages. In Irish and Scots Gaelic, for example, this might be ‘an’ or ‘na’. Manx is ‘yn’ and ‘ny’ respectively. This leaves us with the suffix ‘-halennia’. The terminal ‘-ia’ is typical of a Romanised goddess (‘Dia’), leaving the word ‘-halenn-‘.  My suggestion is that this is an aspirated from of ‘Callen’ – a name familiar to followers of the ubiquitous Cailleach goddess-name of the Irish and British Isles. Modern Irish ‘Caillín’ means ‘girl’ – the word is evocative of that definitive female garment of ancient times: the veil or mantle – a notable feature of Nehalennia’s statuary appearance. The Irish town of Enniskillen – another trading centre on a river – is named after a pagan goddess whose name appears the same as that behind the name ‘Nehalennia’! ‘Halenn’ may therefore also be an aspirated version of the name which could also be written as ‘Cathlin’ or ‘Ceithlin’, and the seated-goddess aspect of her would fit with the Indo-European word ‘cath’, from which that sapient sitting beast, the cat, gets its name… I’d quite like to know just how old the name Colijnsplaat is for that matter – comments welcome as to if ‘Colijn’ is a version of the name of our goddess!

Aside from Celtic considerations of the name, it may also contain the name of a very German divinity, namely ‘Frau Holle’, who answers in almost every way to the description of the Gaelic ‘Cailleach’. Also known as Holda, Hulda, Huldra as well as Gode, Perchta, etc, she is a common theme in the mythology of Germany and Scandinavia. This name is also linked to that of the Norse otherworld goddess Hel, and it is worth considering that the German word for what is in English called ‘Hell’ is Hölle. The Frau Holle of folktales is generally depicted as a friendly but potentially spiteful aged matron who might be encountered deep in the woods or living on mountains. Like the Cailleach, she is deemed mythically responsible for weather phenomena such as snow, a creatrix of rivers, herder of wildlife (clouds were sometimes referred to as ‘Frau Holle’s lambs’) etc. Like the Cailleach, she possesses a magical veil or coverlet (an analogy of seasonal fertility if you think about). She – like the Cailleach – has also known to have been associated in tales with dogs. It is possible then, that ‘Nehallennia’ might equally be a version of ‘Holle’ – perhaps a ‘Frau Hallen’? As I have said before, the ‘German’ peoples were ‘Celtic’ anyway…

Nehalennia’s Dog:

The dog has an interesting symbolism in relation to both the Otherworld domain and human utility. Dogs are creatures who have followed human settlement for many an age, and have entered into a domestic relationship which is at times uneasy, as they are potentially dangerous. In fact, wolves – long portrayed as an archetype for man’s fearsome bestial adversaries are simply one end of the spectrum of ‘dog’. Wild dogs are features of the liminal boundaries of human habitations and roadways, and for this reason they have a ‘liminal’ aspect ideal for the portrayal of death and the otherworld. Death is feared, yet death is fruitful. A dog can be ‘man’s best friend’ or his incessant enemy. A dog can help the hunter, but the hunter can also be hunted by the wolf. The dog in mythology represents as essence of the dual nature of technologies – to help or to hinder – and was adopted in ancient Greek mythology as a companion of the <Artemis-Selene-Hekate> hypostasis of the mystery cults. The dog was also a symbol and companion of Apollo’s ‘son’ (or aspect), Aesculapias, god of healing. The dog therefore portrayed hunting (or harvest), death and regeneration. Its place at Nehalennia’s feet, along with baskets of apples on the stealae and statues recovered from the Netherlands seems to suggest that she represented cthonic wealth and was therefore also an otherworld goddess.

 

Ancient Greek Hekate or Artemis with her dog. Incidentally, Hekate was also frequently depicted as a triple-goddess!

Ancient Greek Hekate or Artemis with her dog. Incidentally, Hekate was also frequently depicted as a triple-goddess!

That the sea-voyage to Britain was particularly hazardous on account of weather and its notoriously difficult shorelines no doubt also supports the assertion that Nehalennia was a death-goddess. The pagan mindset with its belief in reincarnation had no problems equating death and fertility, as death was part of nature’s cycle of regeneration. The Greek goddess Demeter (known to the Romans as Ceres), seems to have a similar aspect, from which the tale of Hades’ abduction of her ‘daughter’ aspect Persephone/Kore derives. This tale underpinned most of the mythology of the mystery cults of ancient Europe: Eleusis, Samothrace, Orphism and the Dionysian-Sabazian mysteries. In the myths, Demeter is accompanied to the underworld by Hekate. The three-headed dog Cerberus guards the approach to Hades.

A vase image of Herakles completing his 12th task - leashing Cerberus while Hekate watches. Image (c) Theoi.com

A vase image of Herakles completing his 12th task – leashing Cerberus while Hekate watches. Image (c) Theoi.com

And finally…

On the subject of the Zeeland shoreline and its importance to trade in ancient (and modern) Europe, it is worth remembering that this is probably the vicinity mentioned by the early Byzantine historian Procopius (6thC CE) where there was a legend of the dead departing by boat for the isle of Brittia.

“They imagine that the souls of the dead are transported to that island. On the coast of the continent there dwell under Frankish sovereignty, but hitherto exempt from all taxation, fishers and farmers, whose duty it is to ferry the souls over. This duty they take in turn. Those to whom it falls on any night, go to bed at dusk; at midnight they hear a knocking at their door, and muffled voices calling. Immediately they rise, go to the shore, and there see empty boats, not their own but strange ones, they go on board and seize the oars. When the boat is under way, they perceive that she is laden choke-full, with her gunwales hardly a finger’s breadth above water. Yet they see no one, and in an hour’s time they touch land, which one of their own craft would take a day and a night to do. Arrived at Brittia, the boat speedily unloads, and becomes so light that she only dips her keel in the wave. Neither on the voyage nor at landing do they see any one, but they hear a voice loudly asking each one his name and country. Women that have crossed give their husbands’ names.”

There can be no doubt that this is a description of a mystical rather than actual voyage to the Atlantic Otherworld, and was based on accounts heard in Constantinople from Low Countries emissaries. I think it just adds a further frisson of interest to the mystery of this otherworld goddess whose shrines dotted the shorelines in ancient times, and were eventually (perhaps fittingly) taken by the sea…

 

The Gaesatae

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The Gaesatae were a Celtic mercenary force derived from ‘about the Alps and on to the Rhone’ (i.e. – Transalpine Gaul) who were recorded as joining the combined armies of Cisalpine Gauls including the Boii, Taurisci and Insubres in an attempted attack on the Roman Republic in the late stages of the 3rdC BCE. Like the other Celtic ‘tribes’ seen in the post-4thC BCE Europe (during the ‘La-Téne’ material culture period) they were a group based around military exploits rather than of familial and geo-cultural origins. Of particular interest was their tendency (like the later Norse Berserkr warriors) to go into battle naked, except for their weapons and shields. This tactic – also noted to be practised by the Galatians and other factions of central European Celts following the 4th/3rdC expansion. It was likely to have allowed them to be highly mobile, to demonstrate their apparent bravery (or fanaticism) to their enemies, and no doubt to intimidate with their magnificent physiques – a point not lost upon Greek historian Polybius. The image of the naked Gaesatae or Galatian warrior has therefore been a romantic and enduring one, not in the least because of the powerful statuary image of a dying Gaulish warrior, naked except for his neck torc, that survives from ancient Rome – possibly being a copy of a Hellenistic original from the 3rdC BCE.

The 'Dying Gaul' or 'Dying Galatian' from the Capitoline Museum.

The ‘Dying Gaul’ or ‘Dying Galatian’ from the Capitoline Museum.

Although linked to the 3rdC BCE Gaulish campaigns against the crumbling Macedonian Empire, the image of the ‘Dying Gaul’ may in fact derive from the Battle of Telamon of 225BCE, fought between the Romans and invading factions of federated Celtic tribes in northern Italy. The Greco-Roman historian Polybius (Histories 2:28 2ndC BCE) recalled the fighting style of the Gaesatae during this event:

“… The Celts had stationed the Alpine tribe of the Gaesatae to face their enemies on the rear, and behind them the Insubres; on their front they had placed the Taurisci, and the Cispadane tribe of the Boii, facing the legions of Gaius. Their waggons and chariots they placed on the extremity of either wing, while the booty they massed upon one of the hills that skirted the road, under the protection of a guard. The army of the Celts was thus double-faced, and their mode of marshalling their forces was effective as well as calculated to inspire terror. The Insubres and Boii were clothed in their breeches and light cloaks; but the Gaesatae from vanity and bravado threw these garments away, and fell in in front of the army naked, with nothing but their arms; believing that, as the ground was in parts encumbered with brambles, which might possibly catch in their clothes and impede the use of their weapons, they would be more effective in this state. At first the only actual fighting was that for the possession of the hill: and the numbers of the cavalry, from all three armies, that had joined in the struggle made it a conspicuous sight to all. In the midst of it the Consul Gaius fell, fighting with reckless bravery in the thick of the battle, and his head was brought to the king of the Celts. The Roman cavalry, however, continued the struggle with spirit, and finally won the position and overpowered their opponents. Then the foot also came to close quarters…”

The Romans had good cause to worry about this army – not in the least because of the success of the Celts in the Balkans, Macedonia, Greece and Anatolia within the last 100 years, but perhaps more so because of the successful attack on Rome by Brennus of the Senones during the 4thC BCE, and the support of Celtic tribes which did so much for Hannibal’s success in the Punic Wars. The Gaulish warbands had a reputation for military fanaticism and bravery born from their religious ideologies. The naked and fearsome Gaesatae, perhaps more prepared for man-to-man combat, were – however – ultimately no match for the javelins, arrows and darts that rained down upon them at Telamon, and ultimately fell before this onslaught. Just like in 279BCE their ‘king’ or leader (who had, like his men, no doubt pledged his life to the Otherworld Lord, Belenos) committed suicide rather than face capture or defeat. Rome’s eventual success at the battle marked the watershed of Celtic hegemony in northern Italy and the Balkans and would lead to a period of rapid extension of Roman influence towards the East, during which Celtic tribes would more frequently find their fortunes fighting on the winning side as auxiliaries. As Rome became more powerful and wealthy, the Celtic warrior followed the gold, and his religious outlook became Romanised…

Thoughts on the Gaesatae:

Polybius – like other Greek and Roman authors before and after him – commented upon the proud nature of the Celtic warrior in order to both honour them as enemies, but also to magnify the Roman soldiers who overcame the worthy adversary. The Gaesatae were evidently not a tribal ethnic group, but – like the Scoridisci and other central and ‘Belgic’ groups – a ‘fighting nation’ drawn from diverse backgrounds. This must have been a particular ‘La Téne’ era phenomenon: Warband groups had attracted young males (and females) from the 4thC BCE, to participate in such exploits as the Punic Wars, the invasion of Rome led by Brennus of the Senones, and the invasions of the Balkans, Macedonia, Greece and Anatolia by the combined armies of the 3rdC BCE. These had specific impacts upon the outlook and fighting style of European barbarian (Celtic) warriors and their subsequent cultural evolutions, not in the least due to the cash injections that their success provided to specific areas of industry:

1. The promotion of a warrior cult which saw death as a brief transition through the Otherworld, or a permanent place in the Celtic notion of ‘Elysium’ as a future ‘hero-helper’ of the people. This promoted a fearlessness and fanaticism which gave these warriors a widespread reputation without which the Roman Republic and Empire (who employed them as mercenaries and allies) would not have succeeded.

2. The stimulation of a weapons and armour industry and tradition within the Balkans and Eastern Europe (e.g. – chainmail and the longsword) which would give birth to the future armoury traditions of the middle ages, supplying technology to both Europe and the East.

3. The idea of the highly-mobile, rapid-response infantry and cavalry army created from across tribal boundaries. These warbands – like the legendary Irish Fianna – provided Celtic society with an outlet for their warlike ways which could remove aggression and conflict from home-soil and export it to bring back wealth and plunder. The Roman Empire thrived upon its ability to deploy legions of Celts and other similarly-motivated foreigners to do their ‘dirty-work’ and relied upon the military developments of Celtic Europe between the 5th and 1stC BCE in determining the format of its conquering armies. In a way, it is possible to consider that the Roman legions took their lead (as well as many of their men) from the militarist fanaticism of the Celtic world.

4. The wealth from the 4th and 3rdC BCE Celtic warband conquests was a potent stimulus to culture and trade, as well as migration and mobility of cultural groups. The ‘Scoridisci’ culture of Eastern Europe was a remnant of the 3rdC BCE wars and expansions, as was the Galatae Celtic groups in Anatolia (modern Turkey). The Belgae of northern Europe, the Volcae-Tectosages, and the Boii people of northern Europe and Cisalpine Gaul were all important trans-ethnic groups who had cultural origins in such martial exploits during the La-Téne period.

The supposed ethnic-tribal group (according to the Romans) of northern Europe known as the ‘Belgae’ were almost certainly a part of this movement which blurred ethnic and linguistic boundaries, and whose cultural influence extended from west of the Rhine to the Atlantic and the British Isles. However, these fell into decline after the 1stC CE following on from the Roman conquests, their identities dissolving with Romanisation, and their warlike culture (like that of the Scottish Highlanders after the 18thC) being employed in the imperial army in a cunning piece of cultural engineering. However, there is no reason to suspect that the culture did not continue beyond the limits of Roman influence in Scandinavia, Germany, northern Britain and Ireland. Due to linguistic and other reasons, the Romans did not identify these peoples with the potent ‘Gaulish’ Celts and their fanatical druid-led religious system. There are many reasons to suspect that they held the same religious and cultural views, however – the powerful image posed by the naked Viking Era Odinist Berserker being one such reason, along with the many parallels I have already discussed.

 

Hallucinosis, battle-fury and oracles of the divine

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When the Gaulish warlord Brennus led his army through the Greek defences at Thermopylae and into a full-on assault on Delphi in 279BC, he was attacking perhaps the most important and wealthy religious centre of ancient Greece, notable for its oracular priestesses who apparently communed with the solar god Apollo in order to answer the questions of suppliants. These suppliants came from across the known world and beyond, and bought great wealth and honour to the sanctuary and its city, deep in the Greek highlands. Although there are no surviving contemporary records of this exceptional assault by the Celtic army, the 1stC Gallo-Roman author Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus of the Vocontii of Gallia Narbonensis wrote about the attack some 200 years later in his ‘Phillipic History‘ (of the Macedonian dynasty and its aftermath) which survives in a slightly later Epitome by Roman author, Justin. Given the role of southern Gauls in tne campaign (the Volcae Tectosages Belgic group settled or returned there after the event – reputedly with great wealth) it seems that Pompeius Trogus’ account is worth paying attention to, albeit embellished with the idea that those who attack holy sites pay with their lives… In Book 25 of Justin’s ‘Epitome’, we learn the following:

“… The Gauls, when the land that had produced them was unable, from their excessive increase of population, to contain them, sent out three hundred thousand men, as a sacred spring, to seek new settlements. Of these adventurers part settled in Italy, and took and burnt the city of Rome; and part penetrated into the remotest parts of Illyricum under the direction of a flight of birds (for the Gauls are skilled in augury beyond other nations) making their way amidst great slaughter of the barbarous tribes, and fixed their abode in Pannonia. They were a savage, bold, and warlike nation, and were the first after Hercules (to whom that undertaking procured great admiration for his valour, and a belief in his immortality), to pass the unconquered heights of the Alps, and places uninhabitable from excess of cold. After having subdued the Pannonians, they carried on various wars with their neighbours for many years. Success encouraging them, they betook themselves, in separate bands, some to Greece, and some to Macedonia, laying waste all before them with the sword. Such indeed was the terror of the Gallic name, that even kings, before they were attacked, purchased peace from them with large sums of money…”

He goes on to describe the defeat and death of the Macedonian king Ptolemy Keraunos and his army by the theophorically-titled Celtic warlord, Belgius. Another Gaulish chieftain, Brennus, appears to have then entered the fray to acquire his own share of the wealth of the crumbling Empire’s homelands:

“…In the meantime Brennus, under whose command a part of the Gauls had made an irruption into Greece, having heard of the success of their countrymen, who, under the leadership of Belgius, had defeated the Macedonians, and being indignant that so rich a booty, consisting of the spoils of the east, had been so lightly abandoned, assembled an army of a hundred and fifty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse, and suddenly invaded Macedonia. As he was laying waste the fields and villages, Sosthenes met him with his army of Macedonians in full array, but being few in number, and in some consternation, they were easily overcome by the more numerous and powerful Gauls; and the defeated Macedonians retiring within the walls of their cities, the victorious Brennus, meeting with no opposition, ravaged the lands throughout the whole of Macedonia. Soon after, as if the spoils of mortals were too mean for him, he turned his thoughts to the temples of the immortal gods, saying, with a profane jest, that “the gods, being rich, ought to be liberal to men.” He suddenly, therefore, directed his march towards Delphi, regarding plunder more than religion, and caring for gold more than for the wrath of the deities, “who,” he said, “stood in no need of riches, as being accustomed rather to bestow them on mortals.”

The temple of Apollo at Delphi is situate on Mount Parnassus, on a rock steep on all sides. A concourse of people, who, collecting from the parts around, through veneration for the majesty of the god, settled on the rock, formed a city there. Thus, not walls, but precipices, not defences formed by the hand, but by nature, protect the temple and the city; so that it is utterly uncertain whether the strength of the place, or the influence of the deity residing in it, attracts more admiration. The central part of the rock falls back in the shape of an amphitheatre; and, in consequence, if ever shouts are raised, or if the noise of trumpets is mingled with them, the sound, from the rocks echoing and re-echoing to one another, is heard many times repeated, and louder than it was made at first. This effect, on those who are ignorant of its cause, and are struck with wonder at it, produces a greater awe of the power of the god. In the winding of the rock, about half way up the hill, there is a small plain, and in it a deep fissure in the ground, which is open for giving oracles; for a cold exhalation, driven upwards by some force, as it were by a wind, produces in the minds of the priestesses a certain madness, and compels them, filled with the influence of the god, to give answers to such as consult them. Hence many rich presents of kings and nations are to be seen there, which, by their magnificence, testify the grateful feelings of those that have paid their vows, and their belief in the oracles given by the deity.

Brennus, when he came within sight of the temple, deliberated for some time, whether he should at once make an attempt upon it, or should allow his soldiers, wearied with their march, a night to refresh themselves. The captains of the Emanus and Thessalorus, who had joined him for a share in the booty, advised that “no delay should be made,” while the enemy were unprovided for defence, and the alarm at their coming still fresh; that in the interval of a night, the courage of the enemy would perhaps revive, and assistance come to them; and that the approaches, which were now open, might be blocked up. But the common soldiers, when, after a long endurance of scarcity, they found a country abounding with wine and other provisions, had dispersed themselves over the fields, rejoicing as much at the plenty as if they had gained a victory, and leaving their standards deserted, wandered about to seize on everything like conquerors. This conduct gave some respite to the Delphians. At the first report that the Gauls were approaching, the countrypeople are said to have been prohibited by the oracle from carrying away their corn and wine from their houses. The salutariness of this prohibition was not understood, until, through this abundance of wine and other provisions being thrown in the way of the Gauls, as a stop to their progress, reinforcements from their neighbours had time to collect. The Delphians, accordingly, supported by the strength of their allies, secured their city before the Gauls, who clung to the wine-skins, on which they had seized, could be recalled to their standards. Brennus had sixty-five thousand infantry, selected from his whole army; of the Delphians there were not more than four thousand; in utter contempt of whom, Brennus, to rouse the courage of his men, pointed to the vast quantity of spoil before them, declaring that the statues, and four-horse chariots, of which a great number were visible at a distance, were made of solid gold, and would prove greater prices when they came to be weighed than they were in appearance.

The Gauls, animated by these assertions, and disordered, at the same time, with the wine which they had drunk the day before, rushed to battle without any fear of danger. The Delphians, on the other hand, placing more confidence in the god than in their own strength, resisted the enemy with contempt, and, from the top of the hill, repelled the Gauls as they climbed up, partly with pieces of rock, and partly with their weapons. Amidst this contest between the two, the priests of all the temples, as well as the priestesses themselves, with their hair loose, and with their decorations and fillets, rushed, trembling and frantic, into the front ranks of the combatants, exclaiming that “the god was come; that they had seen him leap down into his temple through the opening roof; that, while they were all humbly imploring aid of the deity, a youth of extraordinary beauty, far above that of mortals, and two armed virgins, coming from the neighbouring temples of Diana and Minerva, met them; that they had not only perceived them with their eyes, but had heard also the sound of a bow and the rattling of arms;” and they therefore conjured them with the strongest entreaties, “not to delay, when the gods were leading them on, to spread slaughter among the enemy, and to share the victory with the powers of heaven.” Incited by these exhortations, they all rushed eagerly to the field of battle, where they themselves also soon perceived the presence of the divinity; for a part of the mountain, broken off by an earthquake, overwhelmed a host of the Gauls and some of the densest bodies of the enemy were scattered abroad, not without wounds, and fell to the earth. A tempest then followed, which destroyed, with hail and cold, those that were suffering from bodily injuries. The general Brennus himself, unable to endure the pain of his wounds, ended his life with his dagger. The other general, after punishing the advisers of the war, made off from Greece with all expedition… “

Pausanias (Description of Greece, 2ndC CE) added greater detail to his own version of the story, claiming that the disorder that led to the apparent defeat of Brennus and his army was caused by an apparent outbreak of madness within the Gaulish camp which caused them to fight among themselves…

“… At the beginning of the fight the Gauls offered a spirited resistance, especially the company attached to Brennus, which was composed of the tallest and bravest of the Gauls, and that though they were shot at from all sides, and no less distressed by the frost, especially the wounded men. But when Brennus himself was wounded, he was carried fainting from the battle, and the barbarians, harassed on all sides by the Greeks, fell back reluctantly, putting to the sword those who, disabled by wounds or sickness, could not go with them.

They encamped where night overtook them in their retreat, and during the night there fell on them a “panic.” For causeless terrors are said to come from the god Pan. It was when evening was turning to night that the confusion fell on the army, and at first only a few became mad, and these imagined that they heard the trampling of horses at a gallop, and the attack of advancing enemies; but after a little time the delusion spread to all.

So rushing to arms they divided into two parties, killing and being killed, neither understanding their mother tongue nor recognizing one another’s forms or the shape of their shields. Both parties alike under the present delusion thought that their opponents were Greek, men and armour, and that the language they spoke was Greek, so that a great mutual slaughter was wrought among the Gauls by the madness sent by the god…”

gauls_fighting

Considering both accounts, we can see that Brennus’ previously highly disciplined and motivated army arrived at Delphi after a string of significant earlier victories, and plundered (or were given) some wine and subsequently fell into disarray, eventually being repelled. Both accounts agree on a certain amount of chaos breaking out, but Pausanias states that the Gauls suffered a mass outbreak of some kind of hallucinatory and delusional psychosis and paranoia. Assuming that he is not speaking figuratively of the weapons of the god Apollo (divine madness) it would appear that the Gauls were affected by the Delphian wine, which was obviously no ordinary wine…

Herba Appolinaris:

Hyoscyamus Niger

Hyoscyamus Niger

It is likely that Brennus’ army (or a significant part of it) fell prey to the effects of wine laced with the mind-bending herb Hyoscyamus Niger, known in English as Henbane, in Spanish as Beleno, and in German as Bilsenkraut. The ancients (eg – Pedanius Dioscorides (De Materia Medica, Book 4, 1stC CE, also Pliny the Elder)  knew it as Herba Appolinaris – the herb of Apollo. In fact, Dioscorides tells us of the many names for it across the known world:

It is also called dioscyamos, pythonion, adamas, adamenon, hypnoticum, emmanes, atomon, or dithiambrion; Pythagoras and Osthenes call it xeleon, Zoroastres, tephonion, the Romans, inanaoentaria, some, Apollinaris, the Magi, rhaponticum, the Egyptians, saptho, the Thuscans, phoebulonga, the Gauls, bilinuntiam, and the Dacians, dieliam.

That Dioscorides gives the Gaulish word as ‘Bilinuntiam’ is often taken as indicative of a concordance between the gods Apollo and the Celtic deity Belenos, and thus it would seem of interest to those who are intrigued by the genesis of the cultural movement of the Celtic ‘tribes’ referred to under the umbrella term Belgae who were somehow linked to the events of 279BC. Dioscorides’ reference to the name ‘pythonian’ for Hyoscyamus also appears to be a reference to this oracular usage, although the myth maintained at Delphi was that priestesses inhaled the exhalations of an ancient vent in the ground, no doubt supposed to conduct the fumes of the decaying corpse of the giant Python killed by Apollo. The fact that Henbane is also known as ‘Stinking Henbane’ due to its unpleasant odour adds to the likelihood that it was responsible for the mind-bending oracles of the Pythia.

Greek tetradrachm depicting Apollo the archer with the Python and the Delphic tripod

Greek tetradrachm depicting Apollo the archer with the Python and the Delphic tripod

Toxicity of Hyoscyamus goes from mild drunkenness to a total confusion, agitation and frenzy, and from there easily into overdosage and death. Obviously, the Pythia (priestesses of the Apollonian oracle) would have been experts at dosing themselves, and must have possessed a standardised preparation which they consumed. It is possible that they could have inhaled the vapours from burning seeds, but given the accounts of Pausanias and Pompeius Trogus/Justin about the chaos that afflicted Brennus’ army in 279BC it is just as likely that they consumed it in wine. Pausanias’ comment that Brennus died of drinking undiluted wine could well be an allusion to this, in fact. Pompeius Trogus states that the leaders at Delphi ordered that the Gauls be given free access to the wine and food of the city, so a deliberate poisoning may well have occurred…

Berserkers?:

The reputation for bravery and ferocity of some Celtic warriors was commented on by a number of Roman authors – not in the least to allow themselves to congratulate their own soldiers for defeating them. The same ferocity among ‘barbarian’ warriors next receives comment when Christian Europeans encountered the warring aspect of their pagan neighbours from the north during the ‘Viking’ era, this time in the form of the ‘Berserkr‘ (lit. ‘Bear Skin’) warriors. These were men who had dedicated themselves to Odin, their god of battle. The Anglo-Saxon equivalent was Wodan – a name recognisably connected with the Old/Middle English word ‘Wod(e)’, meaning madness or frenzy. It has been suggested that Henbane is a likely drug that could have been used to induce a visionary or frenzied state in Berserkr warriors, and evidence of Henbane seeds among possessions buried in pagan graves (eg – Fyrkat, Denmark) has been used to reinforce this suggestion (although to my mind they could equally have been used for preventing sea-sickness!). Further to this, there was a tradition in Germany and Bohemia of brewing beer using Henbane, suggesting that ‘Pilsener’ was a name fortuitously apprehended by the burghers of Plzen in Bohemia with which to brand their own pseudo-eponymous mass-produced beer in the 19thC, albeit without the ‘Pilsenkraut’ additives. Bohemia, was of course named after the Celtic Boii tribal federation who were undoubtedly involved in the Balkan, Greek and Anatolian Celtic campaigns of the 4th/3rdC BCE.

The 'visionary' man holding a torc and serpent (Gundestrup cauldron - late Celtic iron age). Compare this image to the Delphian tetradrachm above...

The ‘visionary’ man holding a torc and serpent (Gundestrup cauldron – late Celtic iron age). Compare this image to the Delphian tetradrachm above…

Bearing in mind my suggested concordances of the Celtic god Belenos with a number of medieval-era late pagan gods and mythological characters from northern and eastern Europe, the association with Apollo, and similarities between the Pythonian myth and the conception of the pagan Scandinavian universe from the Icelandic Edda texts, a picture begins to emerge of the survival and transformation of an Iron Age visionary religion which reached its height in the 3rdC BCE and which survived Romanisation in the Germanic, Slavic and Scandinavian regions…