Tag: Pagan Blog Project

Daphne’s Appeal to Gaia

June 23, 2012

Apollo is usually depicted with a crown of laurel leaves. Roman coin 56 b.c.e. Photo by Classical Numismatic Group.

I have egg on my face. I thought I had scheduled this essay to post yesterday, but for some reason it did not.

As a followup to last week’s quiz, I’ve decided to begin writing about how the goddesses in the quiz are associated with their respective trees. I will be starting with the Greek goddess Daphne.

Daphne was a nymph (a young priestess) of the earth goddess Gaia. She attracted Apollo’s attention when he warned her about the deception of a man named Leucippus, who had dressed in women’s clothing to penetrate her sacred circle. The priestesses made Leucippus strip naked, confirmed the deception and killed him, but Apollo in the meantime had become obsessed with Daphne. She did not return his interest.

Apollo’s ardor was persistent, and Daphne eventually fled in terror. As Apollo gained on her, she called to her mother Gaia to save her from Apollo’s rape. Gaia responded by transforming Daphne into a laurel tree. In remorse Apollo pulled a branch from the tree and vowed he would always wear laurel leaves in remembrance of Daphne. This is why Apollo is usually pictured with a laurel crown, and why a person of high achievement in the arts or another realm of Apollo is said to “receive laurels.”

From Patricia Monaghan’s The Book of Goddesses and Heroines:

A priestess of Gaea, this nymph led secret women’s rituals in celebration of the Earth’s femininity. But the mortal Leucippus tried to penetrate their rituals in female disguise. The all-seeing sun, who had ulterior motives for his action, suggested to the women that they conduct their rituals nude, to be certain that there were no male intruders.

So the mortal was found and destroyed for his sacrilege. Then the sun-god’s motives became clear. He accosted the beautiful priestess and demanded that she sleep with him. She refused. Apollo grew violent. Chasing her, intent on rape, he overpowered Daphne. But she cried out to the goddess she served, Mother Earth, and instantly was transformed into a laurel tree. The repentant Apollo thereafter wore laurel wreaths in his hair and honored the tree as the symbol of inspiration.

From Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths:

Apollo was not invariably successful in love….he pursued Daphne, the mountain nymph, a priestess of Mother Earth, daughter of the river Peneius in Thessaly; but when he overtook her, she cried out to Mother Earth who, in the nick of time, spirited her away to Crete, where she became known as Pasiphae. Mother Earth left a laurel-tree in her place, and from its leaves Apollo made a wreath to console himself.

Graves usually relates the more violent myths to Greek political upheavals:

His pursuit of Daphne the Mountain-nymph, daughter of the river Penius, and priestess of Mother Earth, refers apparently to the Hellenic capture of Tempe, where the goddess Daphoene (“bloody one”) was worshiped by a college of orgiastic laurel-chewing Maenads. After suppressing the college — Plutarch’s account suggests that the priestesses fled to Crete, where the Moon-goddess was called Pasiphae. Apollo took over the laurel which, afterwards, only the Pythoness might chew. Daphoene will have been mare-headed at Tempe, as at Phigalia; Leucippus (“white horse”) was the sacred king of the local horse cult, annually torn in pieces by the wild women….

The Maenads were priestesses who practiced ecstatic rites, often involving drugs or alcohol.

The story of Daphne and Apollo was popular amongst the Greeks and there are many variations. It is interesting, considering the cross-dressing angle of the story, that one of the priestess daughters of Terisias was named after Daphne. (Teresias was the soothsayer famous for transforming from man to woman back to man.) This was probably once a complex myth that we only have in truncated form.

Daphne and Apollo
by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1625.
Photo by int3gr4te.
The Daphne myth was a fairly common theme in Renaissance art. The lyrics of this song by John Dowland (1563-1625) speak of Apollo’s unrequited desire for Daphne.

Rest awhile you cruel cares,
be not more severe than love.
Beauty kills and beauty spares,
and sweet smiles sad sighs remove:

Laura faire queen of my delight,
Come grant me love in love’s despite,
And if I ever fail to honour thee,
Let this heavenly light I see,
Be as dark as hell to me.

If I speak, my words want weight,
am I mute, my heart doth break.
If I sigh, she fears deceit,
sorrow then for me must speak:

Cruel, unkind, with favour view
The wound that first was made by you,
And if my torments feigned be,
Let this heavenly light I see,
Be as dark as hell to me.

Never hour of pleasing rest,
Shall revive my dying ghost.
Till my soul hath repossess’d
The sweet hope which love hath lost:

Laura redeem the soul that dies,
By fury of they murdering eyes:
And if it prove unkind to thee,
Let this heavenly light I see,
Be as dark as hell to me.


Sources

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. London: Penguin Books, 1960.

Monaghan, Patricia. The Book of Goddesses and Heroines. St Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1990.

The Goddess and Her Sacred Trees: A quiz

June 15, 2012

Olive tree in Pelion, Greece. Photo by Dennis koutou.

Back when I posted the quiz on Bird Companions of the Goddess I had requests for a tree version. So here it is. This will be a bit harder, because I’ve only mentioned one of these trees on this blog. Match the tree on the left with a goddess from the right column.

Laurel

Birch

Olive

Myrtle

Ash

Cedar

Willow

Pine

Pomegranate

Apple

Rowan

Acacia

Linden

Sycamore		 Laima

Nimue

Daphne

Athena

Persephone

Frigga

Aphrodite

Hecate

Neith

The Norns

Cybele

Hathor

Brigid

Ishtar



Answers are here.

Bonus question. Name the gods linked with these trees: Ash, Pine, Laurel. (Hint: they are also associated with the goddesses of these trees.)

Continue the tree discussion in the comments.

On the Non-existence of Woman Hatred

June 8, 2012

Title page from the seventh edition of Malleus Maleficarum, printed in 1520.

I’ve been reading a long excerpt from the Malleus Maleficarum this past month. If the name sounds familiar to you, but you can’t quite place it, this was the prime resource manual used during the European witch persecutions. Written by two Dominican inquisitors, it became, as Charles Kors and Edward Peters say in their introduction, “the first encyclopedia of witch beliefs…constantly cited in support of those beliefs by Catholics and Protestants down to the eighteenth century.” Its usefulness for pagans today is limited. How much direct knowledge of witchcraft (outside of the courtroom or the torture chamber) either cleric had cannot be known, as this is a question that would not occur to most historians. The breadth of the authors’ theological knowledge, their familiarity with prior writings on the topic, and their understanding of various legal theories come across clearly. These two men took themselves very seriously. Reading their arguments it is easy to see how hard it would be for an accused witch to defend herself.

The Hammer of the Witches, as the book is also called in English, is essential reading for witchcraft students who reference legal, scholarly or ecclesiastic documents of the time, not because it has much credible information in itself, but because it delineates the stereotyped confessions that interrogators sought to coerce from their victims. In other words, it lays out the witchcraft belief that should probably be discarded, at least where it appears after 1487 when the book was published. I do not mean to infer that ecclesiastic writing on witchcraft prior to 1487 was sound, but this is the point where the distortion becomes re-distorted. Think of a stained glass filter imposed on an inverted black-and-white photograph.

I read the entire Malleus in the mid 1990’s (you can find the book in any mid-sized public library) and the thing that struck me most about it was the intense misogyny. It made me quite ill. The default male pronoun is not used here, and the hypothetical witch is almost always a “she.” The most emphatic condemnation is reserved for the village midwives, who in those days were the herbal doctors for ordinary people. They “surpass all other witches in their crimes” while at the same time “there is scarcely any tiny hamlet in which at least one is not to be found.” There is a long rigamarole averring that not only evil-doing witches, but witches who heal or break evil spells, are guilty of heresy and subject to prosecution. And the text is littered with remarks such as “Women also have weak memories; and it is natural vice in them not to be disciplined, but to follow their impulses without any sense of what is due” or (citing Seneca) “When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil” or “through this defect [bent rib from Adam] she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives.”

But the authors of Malleus are not woman-haters, as they take pains to establish, and this is why I wanted to discuss the book. They freely admit that “When they are governed by good spirit, they are most excellent in virtue” and “they have brought beatitude to men, and have saved nations, lands and cities” and even “by faith led nations and kingdoms away from the worship of idols to the Christian religion.” The problem is that “they are more credulous, and since the chief aim of the devil is to corrupt faith, therefore he rather attacks them” and “since they are feebler both in mind and body, it is not surprising that they should come more under the spell of witchcraft.” The problem is not women per se, but the weakness of the flesh, since “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable.”

The association of witchcraft with women did not exist in a theoretical vacuum. In places where witch hunts were most severe, eighty percent or more of those executed were women. While it is speculated that many of these women were marginal, vulnerable and powerless, Malleus makes clear that the Inquisition was attempting to target the most rebellious women, those women who clung to superstitions and rejected Church authority.

Even when systematic assault on women is at its most severe (widespread torture and execution under false charges), it is never framed as an attack on women. It is an attack on some commonly acknowledged evil (“carnal lust” or “the Devils’ corruption”) or an exultation of an ideal sentiment (“noble womanhood”). We do not live in enlightened times when women are no longer considered contemptible by the majority of people, because that time of outright popular contempt never existed.

This lesson from the witch hunts is relevant to the current assault on women’s rights, an assault most obvious coming from the Christian Right, but which is actually happening across religious and political ideologies. The slogans used are “religious freedom” or “free speech” or “pro-sex” or “the 99%” or even “equality”–sentiments no reasonable person can disagree with. But we have to look deeper, and examine what the actions and proposals being hidden beneath these flags mean for women. This what the slogan “Never again the Burning Times” really means: resisting systematic attacks on women’s freedom committed under the guise of accepted values.

And What About The God?

June 1, 2012

Shiva lies on his funeral pyre while Kali prepares to straddle his erect penis. Note the sword, the necklace of skulls and her hanging tongue symbolizing her devouring nature. Painting circa 1800.

Sorry to be late in posting. Something came up that I had to attend to.

Many years ago the god Shiva appeared to me in a startling vision. This was not a fleeting glimpse of the deity, which I have frequently, but a long sojourn in his presence. I have since learned that when Shiva appears in this way, it is a sign that you may ask for any boon you wish, and he will grant it. If only I had known this, I would have asked for lots of money, but since at the time I didn’t know any better, I asked for knowledge. Specifically, I had a question that had been provoked by a recent trip to the art museum. The special exhibit on classical Indian religious painting depicted Shiva and Kali Ma, with Kali in coitus with Shiva, or Kali devouring Shiva, or Kali in coitus with Shiva while devouring Shiva at the same time. Like medieval artists who painted the Madonna with Christ Child again and again, Indian painters seemed obsessed with the theme of Kali devouring her mate.

So I asked Shiva, “Do you love Kali?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed.

“But she stood on your stomach,” I protested, “and she ate your intestines.”

He replied, “Everything belongs to her.”

Everything belongs to her. Something to think about for a week. Or a year. Or a lifetime. To me encounters with the God are about understanding, appreciating and accepting the Goddess. He is the model of devotion.

One of the things that is frequently said about Dianics is that we “don’t honor the God.” Consciously or unconsciously, this is meant to criticize us, and repeated over and over again, without reflection, it has become a form of slander. It reflects not only a lack of understanding of our tradition but a lack of understanding of the nature of worship itself.

Dianics do worship mainly the Goddess, in her many forms. Most (but not all) of the images on my alter are of feminine deities, and though I do ritual to the Goddess twice a day, months may go by when I do not invoke a male deity. Yet Dianics also believe in and acknowledge the God. As in many traditions of witchcraft, we consider him the lover of the Goddess, who gave birth to him along with the rest of the universe. Because the Goddess gives birth to all things, and takes all things back to her at will, she is complete within herself, and we see no need to summon God and Goddess together in order to connect with creative power. At the same time there is no taboo about mentioning or connecting with a god. Even the purportedly extreme defender of feminist witchcraft, Z Budapest, talks about the God at times and discusses him a bit in her books. Admittedly, there are a few Dianics who are absolute about not admitting male deities or images into their personal space, and many non-Dianics disapprove of this, yet the compulsion I see in other pagan groups to never invoke the Goddess without the God or vice versa is its own form of extremism. Regardless, worshiping the Goddess alone is not equivalent to “not honoring the God.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

Like me, the God holds the Goddess in highest reverence. She is his entire world, as she is mine. To view the creator of all things as incomplete does not honor the divinities within her creation. And to misrepresent her priestesses, to mischaracterize the living tradition dedicated to the Goddess–how do you suppose the God feels about that? Has he been honored by willful disinclination to understand and accept those who worship what is most precious to him?

There is a great deal of fear and resentment about the presence of a women’s religion, and the reasons are complex. Dianics do not demand that others feel comfortable with us. It would be better, however, if criticism were not cloaked in the hypocrisy of “honoring the God.”

Review: She Is Everywhere!

May 25, 2012


She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An Anthology of Writings in Womanist/Feminist Spirituality
Edited by Mary Saracino and Mary Beth Moser.

I had a chance to examine the pdf version of this volume and would recommend it to Goddess worshipers as well worth your time. The volume is quite large, over 400 pages, and contains a mixture of scholarly articles, political essays, personal experiences, poetry, fiction and art. Female divinities pagan and Christian from around the world are represented.

Several of the articles break new ground. Of particular note is “Of Diana, Witches, and Fairies” from Randy P. Conner’s forthcoming The Pagan Heart of the West. Conner examines evidence of a continuing pan-European worship of Diana (or a goddess identified with Diana) throughout the middle ages and into early modern times. This is important, as academic scholars in English speaking countries have for some decades considered Diana’s worship to have been completely eradicated by early Christianity.

Another groundbreaking selection is Helen Hye-Sook Hwang’s “Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia and Her Tradition Magoism.” Hwang’s presentation of Mago will likely challenge perceptions of Asian goddess worship which are built around the popular deities Kwan Yin and Amaterasu.

Laura Amazzone makes a good case for kava plant ceremonies originating as menstural rituals in “The Fijian Kava Ceremony: An Ancient Menstrual Ritual?”

The affinity of the Romani for Saint Sara is explored by Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba in “Saint Sara-La-Kali: The Romani Black Madonna.” This article will intrigue those interested in the Black Madonna, pagan elements of Christianity, Romani spirituality, the Cathars and the goddess Kali.

Max Dashu’s “The Meanings of ‘Goddess'” discusses the ways that goddess worship has been invalidated or erased in patriarchies to the present day, and her broad knowledge base and accessible writing style make this a good article to save for future reference. She also discusses the reverence for maternal divinity in spiritual practices not usually considered goddess-based.

I was less impressed with Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum’s “Story, gifts, standpoint, and methodologies of feminist cultural history,” in which she recounts her journey to write dark mother: african origins and godmothers. Perhaps if I had read this book, I would have found her narrative more compelling. Leslene della-Madre in “The Luminous Dark Mother” discusses Birnbaum’s work in more depth, but both of these articles left me unconvinced about the African goddess-source theory. The idea that homo sapiens sapiens originated in southeast Africa and first spread out from that region about 70,000 years ago is now widely accepted, and the possibility of tracing a common religious thread to this time period is tantalizing, especially given the similarities of earth-based religions the world over. Yet no evidence or even convincing conjecture for a proto-typical African goddess is present in either of these articles. Della-Madre’s discussion of the goddess Isis adds nothing to the theory, since Isis is a once obscure goddess who rose to prominence during a period of heavy Greek influence. Basing an African religious genesis model on Egypt might be plausible, given that the long historical record shows Egyptian religion to have been highly conservative, yet early Egyptian religion was based on animal worship and ancestor reverence, with anthropomorphic deities emerging over time. This is echoed elsewhere in Africa and in Asia and Europe by the heavy animal emphasis in paleolithic cave and rock art, including the earliest rock art from the Har Karkom site in Israel on which Birnbaum bases part of her theory. The archeological and anthropological research that I’m aware of places the emergence of widespread goddess icons long after the first diaspora. Africa may have significantly influenced the evolution of goddess worship, but with Africa itself being influenced by Asia and Europe by this time, it must be considered a co-creator of goddess religion rather than a source.

I did not care for Claudia von Werlhof’s “The Interconnectedness of All Being: A New Spirituality for a New Civilization.” Von Werlhof brought up anti-globalization early in her essay, yet despite the exigency of the issue her subsequent analysis was rambling, lacked cohesiveness and did not offer concrete solutions. The transcendentalists delineated a theory of interconnectedness that was much more coherent, and they were also more effective at relating this theory to the politics of the day. Nonetheless I take the presence of this article as an encouraging glimmer of hope that academics are moving away from the travesty that is postmodern philosophy and political theory.

I most enjoyed the experiential narratives of women connecting with their feminine divinity. Nicole Margiasso-Tran talks about the worship of Brigit in Ireland today in “Healing Wells and Sacred Fire: A Pilgrimage to Brigit’s Land.” Mischa Geracoulis talks about her body hair in “Secret Hair: A Postmodern Self-portrait in Words.” Joanna Clapps-Herman describes her grandmother’s confrontation with abuse of religious authority in “Lotions, Potions and Solutions.”

One other jewel in this volume is a translation by Harita Meenee of the “Orphic Hymn to Nature.” This is a wonderful invocation to the Goddess that can be easily incorporated in ritual.

Bird Dreams

May 18, 2012

I’m in the middle of production for the audio meditation to accompany my (forthcoming) book Invoking Animal Magic. I’ve been collecting bird sounds to use in the background, and I’ve started to become absorbed by the voices in the woods, ponds and fields. Not categorizing them, exactly, but listening to what they have to say, trying to understand the message in a visceral way. After listening to one loud, lengthy, interactive conversation shortly after dawn, I started to wonder if these little birds were talking about their dreams. What would a bird dream about? It takes a lot of observation to get inside their heads and understand the logic of their mundane lives. In the dream state, where possibilities expand, what would be the expanded horizon of a creature that can already fly? It seems like the dreams of birds would be so far beyond definition that they could not be described in words. Maybe in music….



University of Chicago Medical Center thinks they have solved the question of what birds dream about, but to me it sounds like they’re only describing the problem.

Eclecticism or Incompetence?

May 11, 2012


I went to a spiritual event recently that’s been troubling me. It was sortof Native American, pulling in concepts from disparate tribes, but then it included elements of Wicca, without any mention of goddesses or gods. The boundaries of witchcraft were approached but safely skirted while popularized tribal practices were incorporated out of context. I struggled with the question of whether I found the pageant more embarrassing or offensive.

I have a high tolerance for unorthodoxy, a respect for creativity and a cautious appreciation for those who can seamlessly synthesize shamanic practices across cultures, but the effect of this particular ceremony was chaotic. Nothing was meshing well, and the whole thing left me feeling rather flat.

What a lot of people call eclecticism can be called other names: appropriation, lack of cohesion, dilettantism, laziness, fear of witchcraft, disrespect, not knowing better. It’s one thing to study one or more traditions in depth and gradually incorporate other elements; it’s another to jumble things together with no understanding of context. A spiritual practice is not a shopping cart; you can’t just grab what strikes your fancy from every aisle. Or you can, but you won’t get very far with it.

Gratitude Stalks You

May 4, 2012


Gratitude stalks you
Unawares you are ambushed
Smile in surprise

Earlier this week I was in the woods at a stream swollen with spring, and a familiar situation overtook me. It’s similar to coming upon a beautiful scene by surprise or having an unusual interaction with an animal–and of course you left the camera at home. This is the situation of coming upon a sublime space, maybe in some ordinary place where you’ve been many times, and your heart is unexpectedly opened and full to overflowing. Perhaps you can hear the voices of water, rocks and trees. This is the time for ritual, but you have no offering. A simple thank you does not seem like enough. What gift can you leave to signify the importance of this moment?

Fortunately, a priestess twenty years ago taught me that you can leave a strand of hair as an offering. Trees love hair–that’s why they grab at your head as you walk down the trail. In the desert you can offer a few drops from your water bottle, but where I live a water offering seems superfluous. (It’s one thing we have plenty of!)

There are many offerings you can make when you come with just yourself.

If you have a few coins in your pocket, trees also love money. They prefer coin to paper money. Water and earth like coins as well.

A gesture can be an offering: a hug, kiss or pat on a rock or tree. Touch water and rub your forehead. Spinning or jumping are more exhuberant gestures.

The spoken word is a profound offering. A prayer said out loud. A song, not necessarily a spiritual song but even a popular song that comes into your head at the moment. Conversation can be a wonderful gift that trees and animals value. They might not understand your words, but they hear the tone and cadence. Animals particularly like the higher pitched, more melodic voices of children and women.

If the ground is sandy, you can write a message with a stick: a symbol, a picture, a word. Pebbles can also be arranged to send a message.

What other empty-handed offerings can you suggest? Leave a message in the comments.

The Witch’s Broom, part IV

April 27, 2012

Brooms made of sorghum fibers at a Bulgarian shop. Photo by Edal Anton Lefterov.

Let’s examine the phenomenon of flying.

Recall that Doreen Valiente attributes the belief that witches fly on brooms to the traditional riding-pole dance. Participants would stradle their staves and jump high to encourage the crops to grow tall. This agricultural fertility rite continued well into Christian times, with the phallic carved ends of the poles hidden by birch twigs when not in use – presumably to hide the practice from inquisitive eyes, but perhaps for some other purpose. We have already seen how during the persecutions witches were frequently said to be flying on staves rather than brooms. Maybe during the fertility rites they really were flying. Many of us modern-day witches have had the experience of dancing ecstatically during ritual and discovering that our feet were no longer touching the ground, that we were “dancing on air.”

Another theory about flying has to do with “flying ointments.” These had some kind of grease as a base, with extracts of hallucinogenic plants mixed in, especially belladonna. This plant reportedly gives the user the sensation of flying. Some say the ointment was applied to the labia, so that it could be more easily absorbed through the skin. It was never used internally because belladonna and similar plants are so highly toxic. In Apuleius’ second century Latin novel The Golden Ass, the sorceress applies the ointment, assumes the form of an owl, and flies away. Other accounts of eyewitnesses say the ointment users writhed or remained inert on the floor, in an unconscious state, then wakened after about an hour reporting that they had flown. Some have conjectured that the ointment may have been applied to the broom handle, the witch rubbing her genitals against the handle until she absorbed just enough to lose consciousness. (I have a difficult time accepting this explanation, as rational as it sounds from a standpoint of safer flying.)
Wild fennel growing in France. Photo by H. Zell.


With or without flying ointments, European shamans took trance journeys where they flew with broom-like implements. The Friulian benandanti were Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who flew on the backs of animals carrying bunches of fennel to wield against witches bearing stalks of sorghum. Grocery store fennel looks like celery, but the plant gets quite large and rangy in the wild. Sorgham grows in large stalks that can sweep the air like a broom. Livonian Christians of the same time period assumed wolf form to fight witches who had stolen sheafs of grain. These werewolves wielded iron whips while the witches fought back with brooms. Despite their assertions that they were good people fighting bad witches, both the Friulian and Livonian shamans were persecuted by the Inquisition.

Christian authorities frequently bemoaned the peasant superstition that witches used their brooms to change the weather. A witch reportedly would sweep the air with her broom to make it rain or to bring damaging storms that devastated neighbors’ crops. I’m not into storm magic myself, but many witches report that it’s fairly easy to raise winds and storms through magic. Theoretically it would be possible to raise enough wind to fly through the air, although it would take quite a bit of control to stay astride that broom, and there would be the issue of flying debris to contend with.

Astral projection is yet another way to fly, one that doesn’t require a broom. I’m talking about a trance state where the body is inert but the spirit is flying in the regular world, not the otherworld. I used to do a bit of window shopping this way, especially when I lived in San Francisco. It was easier than getting around on buses. One day when I was flying in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, a woman walking along the sidewalk chatting to friend looked up at me and said “Oh, hello!” This is the only time this has happened to me, and I found it so disconcerting that I stopped flying for awhile. The incident proved to me that a person flying in spirit form can sometimes be noticed. Presumably, before perceptions had been distorted by modern narrow-mindedness, more people would have been able to recognize witches flying around.

So there are lots of ways those legendary witches really could have been flying: trance journeys in another world, trance journeys in this world, ecstatic dancing, drug experiences. It’s too bad they’re not here to show us all the ins and outs, but at least the art of flying is still with us.


Sources

Apuleius. The Transformations of Lucius Otherwise Known as the Golden Ass. Robert Graves, trans. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951.

Douglas, Adam. The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf. New York: Avon Books, 1992.

Ginzburg, Carlo. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.

Kors, Alan Charles and Edward Peters, eds. Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Morgan, Adrian. Toads and Toadstools: The Natural History, Folklore, and Cultural Oddities of a Strange Association. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1995.

The Strange House in the Woods

April 20, 2012

Sami storehouse. Photo by m.prinke.

In last week’s bird quiz, the pelican was mentioned as Baba Yaga’s bird. Baba Yaga is the harvest goddess of many Eastern European countries, who appears as a witch in Russian fairy tales. Another of her bird characteristics is her little house, which stands on chicken legs in a clearing in the woods. This hut has the curious ability to walk around on its legs. Sometimes it spins in a furious circle. In folk tales when the heroine reaches Baba Yaga’s hut, she addresses the building politely and says, “Stand with your back to the forest and your front to me.” Obediently, the hut waddles around and allows the door to face her, so that she can enter. It is speculated that Baba Yaga’s house may be built off the ground on tree stumps, similar to the storage building traditionally used by some Sami people.


Sources

Afanas’ev, Aleksandr. Russian Fairy Tales. Trans. Norbert Guterman. New York: Random House, 1973.

Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010.