A Lughnasadh Lesson Learned

Yesterday was August 1. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the neoPagan community celebrated the cross-quarter holiday of Lughnasadh. The halfway point between Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox is named for an ancient Celtic celebration of the god Lugh. The Christianized name for this holiday is Lammas, a contraction of "loaf mass," because this grain harvest festival retains the tradition of celebrating with breads and other baked goodies.

At Lughnasadh 2012, I wrote a blog post called "The Loki in Lughnasadh." Yesterday I shared the link on Tumblr, thinking a few neoPagans and Wiccans might be interested. I don't know if you're aware of this, but Loki is pretty popular on Tumblr, as are all things related to The Avengers, the movie.

The little blurb I added to my Tumblr link said:

"Barbara G. Walker notes that Loki was sometimes identified as “Logi,” or “flame.” She associates Loki-as-Logi with Lug (or Lugh), the Celtic god of fire, who was celebrated at Lughnasa/Lughnasadh (Lug’s games) on August 1st."

The response I got was enlightening. Tumblr user Answers From Vanaheim commented:

"Oh no, nonononono Barbara Walker is a terrible source for anything that isn’t about knitting.

"Loki and Logi are separate entities. Loki even competes against Logi in an eating contest (and loses because Logi, being a fire giant, eats his plate as well as the food). Someone (I believe it was Wagner) confused the two, and the association of Loki with fire persists."

Now, I am a humble witch/neoPagan/writer/person and I know I can always learn more from people wiser than myself. I take these comments with my listening ears on, because here I've encountered a new bit of knowledge: that Barbara G. Walker, who's been my go-to reference for years, might be a questionable authority.

I first encountered Walker when, as a student at St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, Indiana, I stumbled upon her Feminist Fairy Tales. I don't remember how I first found The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, but by the time I did, I already had it in my mind that Walker was a feminist scholar. The Encyclopedia is heavily footnoted, but because it was originally written in the early 1980s (when I was a small child), I didn't have access to many of the sources Walker cites in her footnotes.

Goodreads

Let's look at some of the other notes I got from Tumblr users yesterday. Tylluan Faolchú-Gealach, building on what Answers From Vanaheim wrote, said:

"Not to mention that Lugh isn’t a fire god - also a very persistent misconception. When I read that first bit I got mad, Lugh is very dear to me, and no disrespect to Loki intended; but they are two worlds apart. You cannot just toss them on the same pile."

Elder Scrolls Witch says simply, "This causes me physical pain." Well, I do apologize for that, sir. I never meant for my ignorance to cause physical pain.

Gaelic Heathenry writes, "Good heavens! Did she really just equate Loki and Lugh? What?" with the following notes:  #This is painful #Holy different pantheons Batman! #They're not even vaguely similar

#Sorry #I was wrong #My source is controversial #I'm learning

Korrigan adds, "That might be the highest sentence-length-to-false-information ratio I’ve ever seen someone stab my eyes out with the gae assail."

Hyperbole is as common on Tumblr as that photo of Jensen Ackles in gym shorts. The Gáe Assail is Lugh's lightning spear, by the way.

Wikimedia Commons 

About the above image, Wikimedia Commons says, "Illustration of Lugh's magic spear by H.R.Millar, published in Celtic Myth and Legend by Charles Squire (1905), and scanned and made available online at sacred-texts.com, according to whom it is in the public domain in the United States."

The Women's Encyclopedia has 88 reviews on Amazon U.S., with 45 5-star reviews and 19 1-star reviews, with an average rating of 3.6 stars. An anonymous Amazon customer wrote in 2002:

"I picked up this book in 1987, and was quite excited at first. My own research, however, quickly proved The Encyclopedia to be highly unreliable as a jumping-off point of feminist/pagan scholarship. A small amount of digging into B. Walker's sources will immediately prove how little research actually went into this work. The actual sources cited in Walker's footnotes frequently don't support her suppositions, and her etymology is just plain fanciful. She seems to feel that, if one word sounds like another word, they must necessarily be related. Ouch!

"Check this out for yourself. Pick a few entries, then look up all of the footnotes in your local university library. How many of Walker's sources have ANYTHING to do with the subject in question, let alone support her theories? It's a disappointing, but necessary, exercise for anyone determined to see The Encyclopedia honestly.

"Enjoy this book for its empowering (and fun) ideas, but don't place any weight on its 'scholarship.' It's a house of cards."

That's a clear enough message to inform me that Walker's writings are to be taken with a grain of salt, just like using a Wikipedia article as a reference - a fine start, but in need of more reliable back-up.

On Goodreads, the Encyclopedia has 826 ratings and 53 reviews. With an average of 4.27 stars, it has 266 5-star reviews and 12 1-star reviews. The 1-star review that pops up first, written by Colleen the Contrarian, reads:

"Barbara Walker has an obvious bias against all things male and/or Christian. She rewrites myth and history to make everything female-supreme, Goddess centric, anti-male, and full of sexual womyn power. Now, before someone dismisses me as 'obviously anti-female and deluded by patriarchy' or some such, I should state that I am a female neo-pagan with no love for the Church and/or the views it supports towards women. That said - I don't like made up or revisionist history, even if it does stroke the ego a bit. She bases everything on the supposed Pre-historical Matriarchy - which has little to no archeological evidence to truly support in the grand scale she portrays it.

"But besides that, her Encyclopedia and Dictionary are a mish-mash of cultural hodge-podge! She acts as if gods and goddesses from varying cultures are generally interchangeable, offering nothing for the cultural differences which give birth to their own representations of deity. She has butchered myths, made up 'alternate versions' which have no founding anywhere except her own imagination, ignored important details of myths which don't mesh with her agenda, and basically perverted the symbols she pretends to represent.

"Bad scholarship is bad enough... but her fabrications and invented history and myths are just a disgrace to the pagan community, and, in my opinion, an insult to women and to the goddess and gods which exist without the clap-trap found in this book. It does not present women as strong and/or empowered to rely on revisionist pseudo-history, no matter how good it may sound.

"There are many strong female figures out there...many strong goddesses of all ilks. This book does not do them justice."

I never knew! But now I do. See, this is why witches need communities, even if they are virtual ones. We can learn so much from each other, and it's a lifelong process.

Tomorrow: Disambiguation. Who is Logi, who is Lugh, and how did Loki get mixed up in all of this?

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Mabon Greetings

Blessed be! The Wheel of the Year turns to Mabon, the autumnal equinox, also known as harvest tide or the “witches' Thanksgiving.” Its ancient antecedent was the second of the three Celtic harvest festivals, in between Lughnasa (August 1st, also known by the Christianized name Lammas) and Samhain (the harvest of winter meat, when the grazing animals were brought down from the hills for the winter, October 31). 

Mabon is a period of equal day and night, exactly in between Midsummer Night and the Winter Solstice. What exactly is Mabon as a Neopagan/Wiccan celebration? In modern practice, it's largely a harvest festival for enjoying autumn-gathered foods. It's also a solemn time for reflection on mortality; the goddess in her dark/death-bringer aspect may be recalled at this time. 

In agricultural symbolism, Mabon represents the death of the Green Man* – the crops now die so that human beings can store up food for winter. This is sometimes symbolized by the “sacrifice” or burning of a straw man, the Harvest Lord. The last sheaf of grain to be harvested is sometimes dressed up to become the Harvest Queen. The Harvest Queen is not burned, because she represents fertility and the hope for a good harvest again the following year.

I haven't read this one - the Henry Treece that I've read was 'Red Queen.' 

Because the power of the sun appears to be declining as we now head toward the Winter Solstice, Mabon can be a time to mark the passage of loved ones (as well as a time of mourning for the Green Man and/or the sun god). If you happen to pass a grave during Mabon, you're supposed to acknowledge the person who died and make your respects.

Various ancient Celtic legends have to do with Mabon. One has to do with a Welsh god named Mabon who is born from the womb of Mother Earth – the Earth is quite literally his mother, Modron – springing forth full of knowledge and strength he gained from his mother. (The goddess Modron comes down to us in Arthurian legend as Morgan.)

Another legend has to do with the Irish gods Lugh and Tanist. The twin brothers have opposite functions – Lugh is the god of light, and Tanist is the god of darkness. At Mabon, Tanist defeats Lugh, sits on his throne and steals Lugh's lover, the goddess Tailltiu. Nine months later – at the Summer Solstice – Tailltu gives birth to...well, Tanist. He dies and is reborn every year, and the legend of the dueling brothers relates to the legend of the holly and oak kings. 

However, it's a bit difficult to get really good sources for either of these legends, so take them each with a grain of salt. For example, if we turn to Encyclopedia Mythica:

- An article on Mabon is included, mentioning that Mabon is the son of "mother goddess" and lived in Annwn, which the encyclopedia names as the Welsh underworld but does not link with the mother-goddess's womb

- An article on Modron, without reference to her as Mother Earth, calling her only "a Welsh goddess" and a prototype of the Arthurian Morgan. 

- An article on Lugh, which doesn't mention him being a god of the sun or of light (although his fertility magic is related to the ripening of the crops, which was celebrated with a 30-day summer festival which was the antecedent of modern Lughnasa) and names his consort as Rosmerta (the Gaulish goddess of "fire, warmth, and abundance;" J.K. Rowling named the Three Broomsticks barmaid after her, perhaps for Madam Rosmerta's ability to dispense an abundance of butterbeers). 

- No article on Tanist. Wikipedia says that "tanaiste" (with an accent on the first a) is an Irish Gaelic word meaning second-in-command, heir, or first deputy of the clan chief or king. Ireland still uses the word to indicate the deputy prime minister. The Wikipedia entry also says that James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, used the word to designate a "substitute for the sacred king." To say that the god Lugh has a tanaiste or tanist may simply be a way of saying that he had a highly-honored "deputy" who was sacrificed in his place. 

However, in the holly king-oak king tradition, when Lugh's reign was over, Lugh would be sacrificed to make room for Tanist. Then Tanist's reign would end, and Tanist would be sacrificed to make room for Lugh in a never-ending cycle. 

- An article on Tailltu (spelled there with only one L) that names her not as Lugh's consort, but as his nurse. 

However, it's certainly possible that Tailltu and Rosmerta are different aspects of the same goddess, and it's certainly not unknown for a fertility/agricultural god to have a mother who, in another aspect or phase, is also his lover - it's an agricultural metaphor for the relationship between the earth (mother) and seed-bearing crop (son). 

Another myth that accounts for the declining daylight at this time of year is the myth of Persephone's descent into the Underworld, which is sometimes observed at Mabon. The grain-goddess Demeter is in mourning when her daughter Persephone goes into the Underworld, and her mourning is another aspect that gives Mabon a somewhat sad, solemn character in contrast to the joy we usually associated with harvest/thanksgiving celebrations.

Here is a review of the book Persephone (Daughters of Zeus), a book written by Kaitlin Bevis. The review is written by Abbey at Finding My Forever. 

Two more Persephone books that I read and reviewed over the past year:

Miss Underworld by Rachel Kechagias

Cora: The Unwilling Queen by Amy Hutchinson

Read more at The White Goddess, Earth Witchery, Love of the Goddess, and Mystickal Realms.



*In other versions of the legend, the death of Green Man, or the Holly King/Holly Knight (Sir Gawain's Green Knight) is associated with the Winter Solstice and the Lord of Misrule or Fool who was sacrificed after his moment of glory at the solstice festival. In his place, the Oak King would rule until he was deposed by the Holly King at Midsummer, i.e. the summer solstice. In this case, it would be easy to associate dark Tanist with the Holly King and bright Lugh with the Oak King, but then Mabon would only be the halfway point in Tanist's rule. Perhaps rather than his death, Mabon commemorates the Holly King's/Green Man's/Tanist's waning power.



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'Insurgent' by Veronica Roth

My book story: About two months ago, I had a 15% off coupon for Barnes and Noble. I used it to buy the paperback of Divergent. You can read my review of Divergent here. 

I read it. I loved it. I decided to set my copy free and sell it to Powell’s Books. It makes me happy to think that everybody wins: Barnes + Noble made a sale, I got to read the story, and now Powell’s will earn a small profit, and another person gets to enjoy the book without paying the full price.

Did you know you can sell gently used paperbacks to Powell’s even if you don’t live in Seattle, and they pay the shipping?

I went to the post office on August 1st to mail Divergent and a couple of other books to Seattle. The post office is a block from the library, which happened to have a copy of Insurgent waiting for me. Nice synchronicity there.

On August 1st I was celebrating Lughnasa, so while on my walk to the library I went to the coffee shop for the traditional feast of blueberries and grains (and also a coffee smoothie). 

Now I'm finished with the book. Today it goes back to the library. 

My book review:

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to go ahead and give this book 5 stars because, taking it on its own terms, I don't see how it could get any better. My two favorite things about Divergent were how Tris Prior is a strong heroine who grows and continuously becomes stronger and braver, and the way Veronica Roth's writing keeps the reader on the edge of her seat throughout that thrill ride of a novel. This sequel has those characteristics, except now Tris is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, so the "woman versus herself" conflict intensifies - and the stakes have been raised to the tenth power.

People Tris thought were dead turn out to be alive, people who Tris thought were allies turn out to be traitors, and certain snakes in the grass turn out to have surprising advantages. It's another heart-pounding installation in an adrenaline rush trilogy, and the jaw-dropper of an ending doesn't exactly let the reader relax and kick back until the release of Allegiant.

Allegiant comes out on October 22.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

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The Loki in Lughnasa

A few weeks ago, when Tom Hiddleston's erotic reading of Tennessee Williams' The Seven Descents of Myrtle came up in a prostitution-related post, I mentioned Hiddleston-portrayed Marvel Comics character Loki. The Norse god Loki, I said, sometimes has female characteristics, and is the mother of several offspring.

I got curious about the details of this story, so I turned to my trusty Hamilton's Mythology. It mentioned Loki's part in the death of the beloved god Balder, but says nothing of his children. I then turned to Myths and Folklore by Henry I. Christ, which is the textbook from which I studied mythology as a high school freshman and sophomore, ages ago. It, too, was of limited usefulness. It said, "Although handsome, he was fickle and unreliable. His three offspring were the wolf Fenris, the Midgard serpent, and Hela, or Death." 


Hela is often depicted as half alive and half dead. Hela is the death-goddess, an equivalent of Persephone and Kali. Her Celtic equivalent was Scotia, or Scatha, and Scotland was named after her. Also referred to as Skald in Norse mythology, she had to be appeased with the yearly blood sacrifice of a hero. 

I said Loki is the mother of this weird little brood, but Encyclopedia Mythica says Loki is the father and that their mother is the giantess Angrboda, Loki's mistress. Loki was the mother of the eight-legged colt Sleipnir; he took the form of a mare to distract the stallion Svadilfari, which belonged to a giant who opposed the gods. In doing so, Loki saved Freya from having to marry the giant. 


Then I went to Barbara G. Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Walker writes, "Like many of the oldest gods, Loki was bisexual [in the sense that he was sometimes a male and sometimes a female]. He even succeeded in becoming a mother, though only after he swallowed a woman's heart to acquire the power of birth-giving...Loki's offspring was the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, spirit of death, a symbol of the gallows tree on which Odin rode." 

Walker notes that Loki was sometimes identified as "Logi," or "flame." She associates Loki-as-Logi with Lug (or Lugh), the Celtic god of fire, who was celebrated at Lughnasa/Lughnasadh (Lug's games) on August 1st. Hey, that's tomorrow!


Lug, it seems, is an Irish version of the annually dying and returning god. He's the son of Dagda (the great Irish father-god, equivalent to Odin), but also a reincarnation of Dagda. His mother/lover throughout the incarnation cycle is Tailltiu, the earth-goddess. At her eponymous Irish city, Taillten, the annual fair resulted in temporary marriages that lasted a year and a day. Lughnasa is reminiscent of Beltane - a cross-quarter holiday (the halfway point between a solstice and an equinox) at which a stage of the harvest is celebrated with symbolic acts of human fertility - i.e. sex, and not necessarily with one's usual partner. 

However you celebrate Lughnasa - bread and blueberries are traditional symbols of this stage of the Northern Hemisphere's harvest season - have a great one!

Dancing at Lughnasa (Lughnasadh)

Blessed be! The wheel of the year turns to Lughnasa, the first of the major harvest days that conclude with Samhain/Halloween (the harvest of winter meat). It marks the first festival of the waning year, the first major festival since Midsummer Night. In astronomical terms, this is the halfway point between Summer Solstice and Autumnal Equinox.

In Scotland, the name of this festival is Lunasdal, and in Wales it's simply Gwyl Awst, "the August feast." The Christianized name for Lughnasa is Lammas, or "Loaf Mass." The name recalls the Pagan tradition of honoring the first grain harvest of the year, with the added ritual of attending a Christian mass or church service.

The Irish consider it the feast of the god Lugh, who consecrated it in honor of his foster-mother's death. Lugh's foster-mother Tailtiu, "The Great One of the Earth," represents the land of Ireland itself. Thus, her death is symbolic of the harvest: the crops sacrifice themselves so human beings and animals can live. Tailtiu's death was celebrated with feasting, Olympic-style games, bonfires and handfasting ceremonies. Where corn is harvested, the goddess is often visually represented by making corn dolls.

This is the grain harvest, so baking breads and other baked goods is a long-standing Lughnasa tradition. The blueberries are also in season (now through Labor Day) and are also a common ingredient in Lughnasa treats.

Whatever you do today, enjoy!