Tales From the Otherwood

New Moon ♒️

Logo designed and created by my very good friend, Kraig at Adaptive

Tales From the Otherwood is my podcast, I launched it at the end of 2022 and have aimed for each monthly episode to come out on or as close to the 2nd of the month as possible.

It’s a storytelling podcast that explores the folk tales and folklore of the East Midlands (Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Rutland, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire) with the occasional “Guest Slot” episode of a tale being from either another county of the United Kingdom or from another country.

I realise that focussing on a region of six counties makes it pretty niche within an already niche subject; but as I have lived in Nottingham and the East Midlands for the past 17 years, it makes sense to do so. Especially as my original idea for the podcast was just going to focus on Nottingham. It wasn’t until I was doing a talk on magpie folklore and used the story of The Wizard of Lincoln to illustrate this, that I realised: why limit myself to one area? The East Midlands as a whole has a wealth of lore and stories which have been recorded, and it should be preserved and shared.

Plus, no one else has done it. There are other podcasts that concentrate on folk tales from all around the UK, there are others that tell Celtic folk tales and myths (I’ll set the record straight right now: I have nothing against the Celtic stories and may even cover some in future episodes) but no one specialises in the East Midlands.

I don’t have guests or interviews, at least not at this stage, it’s just me (under my stage name of “Dylan Knight”) talking to the microphone, talking to you. I tell a story then I discuss the folkloric themes and elements that come up from or are associated with the tale being told.

My format is simple: I’ll introduce the story and where it is from; there’s the story itself and then what I call ‘The Chat’. That section is where I talk about the finer details of the themes that come from the story. It might be history, it might be what the particular folkloric subject is or what that tradition is all about, it might even be a combination of all of those things. It depends on the story of the episode. For example, in the episode The Woodman and the Hatchet I discuss the water fairy in the story and comparing the ancient belief of rivers being the embodiment of water goddesses from the pre-Roman past.

I will say though, the amount of time for research, scripting, recording and editing an episode is anywhere between 5-6 hours (maybe more!) and I’ll be honest: as much as I enjoyed my Anglo-Saxon Year series of blogs, I was creating a LOT of work for myself. In fact, I had to REALLY push myself to finishing that series. In between researching and writing my blog, researching the Anglo-Saxon runes (another blog post for another day!) and researching, writing and producing my episodes, I was in danger of burning myself out. I won’t be blogging as much anymore as the podcast has become my primary creative outlet.

This doesn’t mean I’m quitting ‘A Wise Fool’, it just means that this blog will no longer be monthly and will become ad hoc on when posts come out.

I’ll still be here on WordPress reading the blogs I follow, I just won’t be posting as often anymore.

Even if you don’t live in or aren’t from the East Midlands, you might find a story that you really connect with or, even better, may possibly recognise (you think you know Robin Hood?….. check out Robin Hood and the Monk).

Tales From the Otherwood is available on pretty much all available podcast platforms and you can even listen to the episodes straight from my website too:

https://talesfromtheotherwood.buzzsprout.com/

You can contact me to discuss anything about the episodes, or if you’d like to share a story you would like to hear, maybe even share a traditional custom from where you are from…. For the roots of the Otherwood grow far and wide, especially beyond the United Kingdom.

Email: talesfromtheotherwood@gmail.com

Instagram: @tales_from_the_otherwood

For artwork, you can contact Kraig at Adaptive: https://adaptivemedia.weebly.com/

Brightest Blessings to you all and Be Well!

Locksley (“Dylan Knight”).

The Studio!

Final Thoughts on the Anglo-Saxon Year.

New Moon ♑️

Gin with ginger ale and cranberries….. WASSAIL!

Since November 2022, I’ve been reading all about Anglo-Saxon history and even how they saw the year through their poetry too.

The reasons for this are because the last time I learned about Anglo-Saxon history I was in my single digit years at school and that was a LONG time ago. So, really I didn’t know much about the original English history and knew even less about the people of that time.

Over the decades I picked up a little more information and came to regard the Anglo-Saxons as nowhere near as cool as my beloved Celts. As the original Britons were here before the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, I simply disregarded the latter as “not important” and was therefore quite happily ignorant of my own people’s history. Besides which, they totally lost to the Viking and Norman invasions and who cared about that?

I am disappointed in myself to admit these were the thoughts and prejudices I had developed over time until early 2022 when I went to Sherwood Forest to witness and take part in a public Wassailing ceremony….. and it awoke something within me.

That particular ceremony had origins in English folk culture and from Anglo-Saxon times…. So who were these people? What were their beliefs? And how did they see the year?

These were the questions that led me into a very deep exploration of a people I had heretofore simply dismissed…… and by doing so I had grossly misunderstood and dishonoured my ancestral past. And so began the journey into how they perceived the world around them and how much….. respect into the land they held.

I was both surprised and interested on how, through their poetry, the Anglo-Saxons saw the world in the seasons:

Winter: Death and decay.

Spring (Lenten): Awakening and preparation.

Summer: Enjoyment and work.

Autumn (Haerfest): Waning of strength/youth and withering.

In our 21st Century minds and lifestyles, the above might seem alien to us. But here were the views of a people whose lives depended on the harvest in both its preparation and reaping of. And so the importance of harvest was linked to what was sown and planted during the spring in order to reap the rewards during autumn. Seen that way made me realise how much both spring and autumn were intertwined, which reads pretty obvious really, but now I have gained a full appreciation of this cycle.

Which leads me to the solar cycle of the solstices and the equinoxes. I found it very interesting that the Anglo-Saxon church used the natural cycles of the Solstices and equinoxes in order to spread their word: the equinoxes to celebrate the conception of both Jesus Christ (the Vernal Equinox, which subsequently also marks his resurrection) and St John (the Autumnal Equinox). The former being born (allegedly) at the winter solstice and the latter at the summer solstice, thus the Christian “Divine Plan” was set out. It actually makes perfect sense to use the cycle of the sun to describe, well, the life of the son.

Yet not everything was completely Christianised and echoes of the older religion remained: the Anglo-Saxon new year being Modranicht ‘Mother’s Night’ harkened to the goddess’s and spirits of maternity and plenty. March and April both contained the names of their associated goddesses, Hreða ‘Victory’ and Eastre ‘Dawn’ not only signifying the return of longer days but show there was still some form of respect for the names of these goddesses, even if they were forgotten. Very much like our days of the week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (the gods Tiw, Woden, Thunor and Frigga).

Even practices such as the aecerbot ‘Field Remedy’ that were practiced by people who would have called themselves Christian would have seen no problem in using ritual that addressed the Earth Mother if it ensured a yield for that year. This ritual, like others the Anglo-Saxons had, showed not simply an agrarian use for the land, but a respect for it as well. It was a relationship of giving back at least half of what you took….. I was genuinely impressed with this view of the world that seemed to transcend both pagan and Christian belief: it was the way of things. Good to know the ancestral English saw the world as something more than property and simply land to be owned.

What I was impressed with was the practices that have continued to this very day: the feasting and decoration of houses around midwinter, the ‘cakes’ of February surviving with the form of pancakes today. There are still places that have a harvest festival too. There are still places in England, if not the rest of Great Britain that hold observances of Whitsun (Pentecost) and Michaelmas.

And even though a lot of these have a Christian association to them, they are ultimately the practices of the people from a past culture that became another past culture until we reach our own. Pagan or Christian, does it really matter? Can we not simply partake of things that are linked back to our own ancestors? By forging a link between now and the past we can connect with something forgotten and perhaps something we need to remember.

I hope you have enjoyed my journey into the past over the previous 12 months (and 12 posts!) and I sincerely wish you a joyful year ahead of peace and plenty.

Locksley /|\

Blotmonaþ – Month of Sacrifices

1st Waxing Crescent (still counts as a New Moon!) ♏️

One November morning……

“Blotmonaþ….. the month of sacrifices…. The cattle were to be slaughtered were consecrated to their gods.” Bede, The Reckoning of Time.

The wheel has turned and we now find our selves in the month of November, the month where autumn truly gives way to winter: the nights are drawing in long and dark, there is mist in the morning and evening, rich golden sunrises and sunsets, leaves blowing off the trees in the wind, and the first stars coming out just before the sky is taken by the black of night.

If Haleg-Monath saw the celebrations of the summer and autumnal harvest, then Blod-Monath saw the preparations of a different kind of harvest altogether: the ritual slaughter of livestock.

In Anglo-Saxon times, and indeed up until the Industrial Age, cattle were killed in order to provide more food for surviving through the winter. This also would have depended on the success of the harvest too. If the harvest was plentiful, then there was assurance you could feed both Man and beast, then cattle was killed at a manageable level in order for its meat to be salted and provide sustenance to see people through. Also allowing for enough cattle for the following year. If the harvest was poor, you’d have to work out how much grain you could share between people and live stock, anything over that would have been for the slaughter. Or if the harvest was a particularly bad one due to foul weather, disease, or even pests, then hard choices regarding one’s livestock had to be made. And this could have consequences on whether or not there would be any livestock left for the new year once winter had ebbed.

It is this responsibility of what to choose to be sacrificed (in the most practical sense of the word) that brings to my mind the rune poem for Nyð “Need”:

Nyð is hard on the heart, and yet for men’s sons, it often becomes help and healing if they heed it before.

-Stephen Pollington translation.

Knowing the harvest would be poor meant having to kill more livestock, then having to procure more in the winter months. But this is assuming you would be close to either another farmer or there was a market that would take place nearby. If not….. choices were grim indeed.

And for the times it wasn’t grim? A celebratory feast took place and bonfires were lit. It also seems this sacrifice of the cattle was performed as a rite for the gods. In certain temples and sites, such as those in Yeavering, East Anglia and in the south east of England, ox skulls had been found buried, it is thought they were either a gift to the gods or were seen as some source of magic.

Blotmonaþ takes its name from the word blot, meaning ‘sacrifice’, although some sources give it as ‘Blodmonaþ’ from blod, meaning ‘blood’. Both are relevant as they both come from the proto-Germanic bloþą. From what is understood of the Scandinavian pre-Christian rites, blood was used in offerings to the gods and was also used to spatter onto buildings and people in attendance with sticks being dipped into the blood and it being ceremonially flung out as a blessing.

We don’t have any evidence if the Anglo- Saxons did this in their own pagan ceremonies, as Bede glazes over this with:

‘Thanks be to you, Good Jesu, who has turned us away from such vanities and granted us to offer you the sacrifice of praise.‘

Indeed, the Christians were unable to stop the sacrifices and bonfires but did succeed in changing the focus of the worship of the gods into the Sacrifice of praise to the Christian God, sacrificing the cattle as a means to survive the winter and giving thanks to God for his bounty as well as his blessing they would survive the winter.

The sacrifices later became part of the Martinmas celebrations, this festival taking its name from the feast of St Martin that takes place on the 11th November. This feast had more of a merry influence from what was reported by Bede and celebrated the cooking and eating of meat that was to be enjoyed rather than that which was salted.

Strangely enough, the word bless actually comes from Anglo-Saxon origin! The term blotan “To Sacrifice” was no longer used by the time Early English transitioned into Middle English. Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon church saw the word as loaded with its pagan past and so sought another word to be their version of the Latin benedicere ‘speaking well’ and found this in the verb bletsian ‘to consecrate with blood’. The church came to use this as bletsung ‘blessing’ and praise of God, until it became the word bless as we know it today.

Now in present day England, we don’t slaughter our cattle as sacrifices to deities, Pagan or Christian, but we do burn bonfires especially on the fifth of November, traditionally celebrating the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Which in turn, has become more of a fireworks display. And who knew that ‘bless’ came from the bloody rites of the past?

Whatever the month of November means to you, may your home be warm and dry and may your winter be kind.

Be well!

Locksley /|\

Winterfylleth: Winter Full Moon

New Moon ♎️

Birch and Elder reaching for the sky of approaching night, the Rowan between them has already lost its berries and leaves are turning fallow.

When most people think of autumn, they think of gold and rust coloured leaves, hot food and cool misty mornings. What they are actually thinking about is the month of October.

Interesting then that the Anglo-Saxon mindset, at least according to Eleanor Parker’s Winters in the World in examining their poetry, sees autumn as the weakening of world, the people and the culture. And after summer’s bright radiance and richness from being in our prime, now must our youth give way to age and all that was lithe and supple now becomes stiff, aged and withered.

Strangely enough this year, here in the UK, October had been one of the warmest it has ever been. The signs of climate change are indeed hard to ignore!

And yet, on the day of writing, this very morning, we had the first frost already!

Bede wrote of Winterfylleth coming from:

“They called the month in which the winter season began Winterfylleth, a name made up from ‘winter’ and ‘full moon’, because winter began on the full moon of that month.”

The moon in question refers to the first full moon after the autumn equinox. Depending on how you look at it in 2023, this would either mean the full of the 29th September (Michaelmas, or the feast of St Michael), or is yet to come on the 28th October. Indeed, for the Anglo-Saxon Christians, the harvest was considered as having ended come the full moon closest to Michaelmas. Perhaps this is where such local traditions such as those associated with blackberries came from? Especially where it is said to be of no good to pick blackberries after the 29th September (again, Michaelmas) as the devil is said to piss all over them and make them horrid! Of course, this has less to do with unholy urine and more to do with mildew and bacteria having set in and making such fruits go over into rot and fermentation.

With its longer nights trees becoming skeletal, the cooler winds and damper air, we can see how the Anglo-Saxons would have seen the full moon of this month as being the herald of winter. It is by the privilege of living in the times we are in that we can allow ourselves the luxury of appreciating the beauty of autumn; whereas for our ancestors, it was a race to get the harvest in as quickly as they could and begin preparations on the home as well as ensuring enough food to last until spring before the cold arrived. Did they see the same beauty we do now? I’d like to think they could, but that must have been hard to appreciate if the harvest of that year was not a good one and there would have been serious choices to have been made who would survive the coming winter.

Whether for you, October is a time of decay and withering, a time of colour, of change, of coziness, or perhaps a time of dread?

I wish you a merry Winterfylleth and may this winter not be harsh with you.

Be well!

Locksley. /|\

Halegmonath: Holy Month

New Moon ♍️

Grapes in our own back garden!

September has come and with it the start of the falling leaves, acorns dropping to the ground and the nights are now drawing in much, much quicker.

It is curious then that this month, which is normally associated with the harvest, is named as being ‘holy month’.

By the Autumnal Equinox, the gathering of harvest has come to its end and the coming of winter draws ever closer….. yet we are no closer as to why September was named ‘month of sacred rites’.

Although, Michaelmas, or to use its full name: the feast of the Archangel Michael takes place on the 29th September. Michaelmas was a very important festival for the Christian population as St Michael guided the souls of the dead to where they can go next. He was also seen as a defender and was said to have done battle with the Devil during the war of heaven. So, if you wanted an archangel on your side, you could do no better than St Michael in terms of protecting you against the forces of evil!

Michaelmas was taken as a quarter day, meaning rents were paid, courts were held and feasts of goose were traditionally partaken. In fact, here in Nottingham, the Goose Fair takes place on the 29th September for ten days! Traditionally, the Goose Fair took place at the Market Place (Old Market Square) and geese were sold there from all around. It was also tradition for tenants to give a goose to their landlord as a present, which probably gave rise to the no longer used saying:

“He who eats goose on Michaelmas Day, shan’t money lack his debts to pay.”

It is entirely possible there were older celebrations that September could have been associated with, especially with the legendary king Scyld Scefing (Shield Sheafson). Scyld was said to have been found by the Danes drifting in a boat from the sea. Taking him as one of their own, he grew to become one of their most famous kings and upon his death, his body was sent back out to the sea on a boat filled with treasure.

Even his name gives the two main responsibilities of a king: to protect and keep his people fed.

In Anglo- Saxon poetry, autumn was seen as a time of lamentation, a sadness of the ebbing of strength and of one’s youth as age now catches up. Summer has been and gone and now everything falls to the winter that is to come. And yet, the fruits of autumn and the harvest were seen as the wealth the world had to offer, there was even a phrase: on haerfeste ham gelaedeth meaning: “carry home harvest”, which brings to mind the custom of “Harvest Home”.

Harvest home was actually developed later and had customs such as the last sheaf being formed into a doll, here in the East Midlands it was customary for the last bundle of wheat sheaves to be carried by cart which was decorated with ribbons. This cart had two children in it and there were songs sung to congratulate either the local farmer or lord. This cart had the duty of avoiding pails of water being thrown onto it and a great feast was had once it had reached its destination.

One of the earliest versions of the Harvest Home had it that the local farmer saw to it to feed the field workers with bread, meat, cheese and ale.

Although the celebrations of the last of the harvest aren’t strictly religious rites, they are the festivities of the harvest to feed not only each other, but also livestock as well. If the Anglo-Saxons did have ceremonial rites during ‘holy month’ then they are sadly lost to the fallen leaves of time.

It certainly seems to me that September saw in the end of the harvest and that this was something welcomed and a cause for the community to get together in joy. A time of feasting before the first frosts arrive and marking the end of the lighter days.

Whatever September means to you: be it gratitude, melancholy, celebration, feasting or seeing beauty in the changing seasons…. I wish you well!

Locksley. /|\

Raspberries and secombe in the front garden, the raspberries are nice….. can’t claim I’ve eaten secombe before though!

Weod-Monath (Weed Month)

New Moon ♌️

Blackberry- said to be good for scalds and burns…. And for making ale and wine with!

No, the Anglo-Saxons did not dedicate an entire month to getting totally and completely stoned…. I mean, if they did it was strictly off the record and besides which; wrong kind of hemp!

August comes around with slow, lazy heat. The sunset colours last for longer as the sun lingers lower in the morning and the nights are becoming darker earlier. As well as the first harvest of grain, there is also the hazelnuts falling to the ground, acorns growing on their branches, blackberries are growing dark and glossy. Haw berries are changing from green to red. And the Rowan berries are now a blazing red!

For the Anglo-Saxons, this month also saw the end of summer on the 7th as the season was now classed as haerfest “harvest” until November. It turns out they didn’t have a word for autumn or fall and simply referred to the season as above.

The harvest of grain, in this case: wheat, rye, barley and oats; was celebrated on the first of the month with the feast of Lammastide. Lammas comes from hlafmaess ‘loaf-mass’ and is thought to have been named in a Christian context, especially in reference to mass at the end. We also see this with Christmas, Candlemas, Martinmas; maess meaning both ‘mass’ (religious service) and festival.

Annoyingly enough, there aren’t any records on how exactly Lammas was celebrated, or if it came from a pre-Christian festival. It is thought that Lammas was a celebration of the first loaves of bread were made from the first harvest. Given that the grain harvest was responsible for supplying the winter food for both human and animal, it’s importance is now taken for granted. Perhaps the celebration wasn’t simply about bread, the same grain was also used to make ale!

The importance of harvest reminds me of the rune: Gēr, itself meaning ‘year’ and ‘harvest’:

“Harvest is men’s hope when God allows -holy king of heaven- the earth to give up her fair fruits to warriors and to wretches.”

Translation by Stephen Pollington.

Harvest depends on having the right amount of sun and rain, as well as keeping the grain free of pests and disease, if the circumstances are right then the harvest will be plentiful. Should there be either flooding, drought, the grain getting sick or the weather allowing pests to thrive….. then by harvest time serious thought would have been given to what livestock was to be killed or who would have to go without.

From the above, you can see how whatever harvest was gained, deemed it important enough to have it blessed in church, also how the Acerbot ‘Field Remedy’ was seen as a way of ensuring the success of the harvest for the following year.

Interestingly enough, it appeared the feast on the first of August had another name during the medieval age: the Gule of August. This would indicate that the beginning of the harvest season was seen as such a cause of celebration that it was dubbed the ‘Yule of August’. There is the possibility that this may have been an Anglicisation of the Welsh gwyl ‘feast’ as the Welsh name for the first of August was gwyl aust ‘Feast of August’. However there is no concrete evidence to suggest the Anglo-Saxons took their celebrations from the Britons as both cultures must have had their own celebrations of the harvest season.

‘Weed Month‘ does seem a strange name for the month of August, who leaves their weeding until then? However, Anglo-Saxon physicians believed that grown herbs were at their best by August to be prepared for medicine (leechcraft) as potions, powders and salves to be applied to the skin. Plantain (Rat’s Tails or Waybread) for antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties). Betony (All-heal or woundwort) for stopping bleeding and ridding one self of ‘elf sickness’. Chamomile for treating skin irritation and encouraging sleep, nettle for pain relief of rheumatism, eczema and general nutrition. Mugwort for stimulating menstruation, relieving cramp, protection from magic, crab apple (heart problems and detoxification). These are some of the ingredients to the ‘Nine Herbs Charm’ which was used to treat wounds and infections.

Indeed, when you look at the vegetation in the land during August, the trees and plants are abundantly grown. Some the trees even have a ‘tired’ look to them now as they prepare to shut down and shed their leaves as autumn continues towards winter. It appears that August was regarded as the month of harvest, with the first fruits being berries and grain. Yet also the harvest wasn’t simply of food stores, it was of medicines from the herbs and plants that grow all around; with all the trials and dangers that come with them.

In our home, our harvest from the wassailing performed earlier this year has seen our fig trees explode in size (we have taken four ripe figs on the day of writing- Sunday. We’ve plucked another 3 since!), plums are ripening and we have an abundance of raspberries and blackberries. As for our cherries, we haven’t had any! The pigeons have eaten them all, so there hasn’t been a yield of them for us. But for what we have had, I am thankful.

May whatever your own harvest be: fruit, fermented products to make alcohol with, food, friendship, I hope it is both abundant and plentiful.

Be well, and ‘appy August!’

Locksley. /|\

Aefterra Litha: After Litha

New Moon ♋️

Rowan, or to use an old fashioned name: “Wiggin Tree” baring it’s fruits as the season passes from midsummer.

July, for almost the past decade, has often felt like the end of summer to me. The days are gradually becoming shorter, rowan berries are turning red, birch seeds are being blown about by the wind, the first chestnuts and beech nuts are falling to the ground; and the sunlight just seems….. different, paler somehow.

Similar to January being “after Yule”, the point of the winter solstice, July sees the decline from the summer solstice. Where everything was growing into its prime, we’re now seeing the fruits and yields of harvest growing towards their time to be plucked, dug up and gathered.

In the build up to midsummer, the Anglo-Saxons would go for communal walks in the woods and some would even partake of taking a feast to enjoy under the shade of a tree, taking in the beauty of the season around them. We’d call that a picnic now.

As the lay-folk would prepare for the harvest season, there isn’t much of what was recorded after the bonfires, feasts and divinatory rites….

There is something, however, that proves particularly interesting in the dichotomy of the solstices and kind of relates to what in Modern Pagan terms is called the “Oak King and Holly King” model. Only, the thing is it wasn’t from Pagan sources….. it’s from the Christian ones!

Both the winter and summer solstices are recognised around the world, that’s a fact. How all the cultures of our world mark these is individual to the peoples who observe. In Modern Paganism, the winter solstice belongs to the “Holly King” whom, at the apex of his life surrenders to the “Oak King” in a battle: either a physical duel or a battle of wits. This cycle continues in the summer solstice with the Oak King, at his apex, surrendering his dominion to the Holly King.

There are, of course, variations of this: some of them have the two ”kings” duelling for the courtship of the Goddess of Sovereignty, for example. Others have the kings on the opposite sides of the year…. Yet none of this is recorded before Robert Graves’ “The White Goddess” came out in 1948. There have been plenty of attempts to attach this model to more archaic, pagan myths and legends: Pwyll and Arawn, Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Gronw Pebr, yet neither were considered to explicitly represent either summer or winter until after Graves’ work came out.

So what has this got to do with Anglo-Saxon Christianity?

For the Christian Anglo-Saxons, the two solstices- or should I say, the two halves of the year: winter and summer were ruled by two figures: John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist was said to have been conceived at the autumnal equinox and was born at the summer solstice.

Jesus Christ was said to have been conceived at the vernal equinox and was born at the winter solstice.

Both the Christ and his Herald were born in the same year.

And so, for these Christians, the year itself played out according to the “Divine Plan.” John the Baptist being born at the height of summer and the time of the waning sun. Jesus Christ being born, that same year, in the depths of decay in winter and the time of the waxing sun.

Although not a battle as such, as the two characters were never seen in conflict, this was a perfect example of how the Anglo-Saxon Church used the cycle of the sun to spread their message. It’s also why both the terms midsummer and St John’s Eve became synonymous with each other. There are plenty of herbs and remedies associated with St John, the most famous being St John’s wort.

I must stress here that I didn’t write this article to prove “The Christians did it first” neither am I proving “The Pagans made it up”.

The reason I wrote it is because we cannot look at the Anglo-Saxon people without looking at both their pagan and Christian beliefs. Chances are that Christ was born in March (in conjunction with the Roman New Year), yet the Christian faith found it easier to associate Christ’s birth with the the winter solstice as this would help with the message of his love over coming darkness whilst simultaneously bringing light to the world.

What the modern Oak King/Holly King motif shows is a connection to the year by observing either solstice by recognising that each carries an essence of both: there is growth in the season of decay and there is decline in the season of abundance. Although often seen as a battle, either king contains an essence of his opposite, I see this less as a battle and more of a passing on the responsibility.

Whether Anglo-Saxon, Christian or Pagan, both solstices and both equinoxes naturally mark the noticeable shift in the seasons and the world around us. And although our individual flavours of religion or spirituality may differ on the interpretation, we share the same world and all of its beauty.

Have a wonderful summer and be well!

Locksley /|\

Aerra Litha: Before Litha

New Moon ♊️

Foxglove….. a resting place for fairies. Allegedly.

As we approach the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the days are so long that even when going to bed in our house, it’s still not pitch black when night comes.

Trees are in full bloom, fruit trees such as apple and cherry have already formed their first fruits which are still very green, and the first pine cones are falling to the ground. Our strawberry plants are giving us their first yield and the raspberries have surprised us too!

A complete contrast to its midwinter counterpart, midsummer is approaching and as well as luscious green all around there are blue skies and gorgeous warm sunshine!

Similar to Geola, Litha has a before and after Litha. In fact, there was occasionally a trilitha, or “three-litha” for when the year had three lunar months rather than twelve….. it was how they sorted out their leap years.

Litha means both ‘gentle’ and ‘navigable’ and Bede associated them with sailing. Especially when the weather around June and July is calmer and the winds are gentler for sailing on the sea. Which, if we’re talking about long sunshine, gentle breezes and calm seas reminds me of the entry for the rune Sigel in the Old English Rune Poem:

“Sun to seamen is always a hope when they travel over the fish’s bath, until the sea-steed bring them to land.” -Stephen Pollington translation.

This paints a wonderful picture of glorious sunny skies and gentle seas allowing those at sea to traverse their way without crashing waves. I find it also evokes the idea of fishing at sea too and that this was another source of food as well as the bounty of the land…. and of the ship being gently brought back to shore by the softer waves when the tide comes in.

Any references to a pagan celebration of the summer solstice are sadly gone, unlike the references to Modranicht at the winter solstice. Although the scholar Aelfric (955-1025) referred to the solstice in his writings as Sunstede, sun-still, this only seemed to have been used academically by himself and other Anglo-Saxon writers when referring to the Latin term for the solstice.

Everyone else in Anglo-Saxon England simply called it Midsumor or as it survives today “Midsummer”. And although there are no examples of pagan practice, it appears that even Christians recognised the potency of the summer solstice upon healing plants and remedies. St. John’s Wort being a famous example along with rosemary, thyme, marjoram and sage (three of which were seen to be good for attracting love!).

And speaking of St. John, who was said to have been born around the summer solstice, it was customary during the medieval age in Great Britain and in Northern Europe to burn great bonfires at this time as well as dressing up the home-stead in greenery and celebrate with song and parades. These midsummer fires weren’t recorded until the 13th Century, but midsummer itself seems to be linked with healing rites, divination and ghosts.

Whether or not these associations are echoes of pre-Christian beliefs or that they came later, it is interesting that midsummer later became associated with fairy lore. Especially with Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’ where Shakespeare used the sprite of his time “Robin Goodfellow” to be our window into the workings of the fairy realm.

Around the summer solstice last year I wrote of the beliefs of my own native South Yorkshire (and as it transpires, the people of Derbyshire held these beliefs too!) that the first fruits picked should be given back to the spirits by being thrown over one’s shoulder. Not only that, but the souls of the dead would become fairies and would often rest within the “bells” of the foxglove flower.

So here we have a wonderful blend of late Anglo-Saxon belief being carried all the way up to the 19th century, and although no longer being associated with ghosts, midsummer beliefs have the ghosts being replaced by fairies because people saw the spirits of the dead become fairies!

In modern times, people in the UK don’t associate the summer solstice with either ghosts or fairies, in fact, it’s rather sad to say that most don’t even consider the solstice at all. The solstice is mainly observed by farmers (working with the season, especially for daylight!), modern Pagans or the revellers who turn up at Stonehenge for the party.

Where once bonfires were lit, people now light barbecues and play music from their stereo speakers…. And yet as I write this, one neighbour is celebrating a birthday party and there is the smell of something burning, a bonfire of some kind!

It appears that the summer solstice is one of the oldest celebrated events in Human history, revering the longest day with fire, music, food and celebration. And even though people may not know it, any celebration around this time is a continuation of what their ancestors did before.

Wherever you are in the world, and whatever the solstice, or St. John’s eve mean to you, here’s wishing you a very merry Midsummer!

Locksley /|\

Thrimilce-Monath: Three Milkings Month

New Moon ♉️

I had missed the Flower Moon, but my Dad had taken this photo of the bluebell woods near my parents’ home at the beginning of May.

We’re long into the merry month of May! The days are longer, the trees are greener and the flowers of both tree and plant are open, giving us a multitude of colour.

Now is the time of rich green leaves on the trees and a whole multitude of coloured flowers: bluebells (see above), forget-me-nots, borage, magnolia, dandelions, dead nettle, tulips, apple trees, plum trees, cherry blossom, hawthorn and more!

Everything growing now was important to our ancestors as it provided fruit and grain for the harvest. Everything growing and blooming now would be vital in produce for both Human and animal. The Anglo-Saxons were said to have described the grass being so plentiful during the month of May, you could milk the cows up to three times a day!

Unlike the Irish Bealtaine, which now begins on the 1st May and the modern English May Bank Holiday (normally the first Monday of May), the beginning of May wasn’t really seen as a special time of itself. For the Anglo-Saxons, the beginning of summer started on the 9th May; although this is going on the Julian Calendar rather than the modern Gregorian Calendar.

May was seen during Anglo-Saxon times as the month when everything starts growing, whether it’s plant, tree, harvest crop or cattle. And bizarrely enough, there were rituals practiced by Christians that read like they may possibly be linked to something older….

Rogationtide takes place five or seven weeks around Easter. If you recall from last month’s post, Easter itself is mutable depending on when it can take place. Ergo, Rogationtide can be celebrated as early as 25th April and up to 12th May, perhaps even later. Rogationtide was enacted by prayers of penance, fasting and an annual presenting of holy relics of the saints into the countryside; bringing the power of God from the church and into the open to give blessings of fecundity to the coming crops and growing cattle. As well as praying for the souls of Man, this was ritual and prayers for blessings on the land.

It is believed this practice was a Christianised version of a pagan Roman ceremony called the Amburbium. Which might explain its rather different approach.

The crowds that gathered for this procession into the fields were so popular that they carried on into the late Middle Ages where this blessing extended from fields to the boundaries of local parishes. This was met with local pride and became seen as local folk re-establishing their own parish borders. This, in time became known as ‘Beating the Bounds’ and was marked with sticks being beat on the boundaries themselves, or crosses being placed at these positions. By the late Middle Ages this was celebrated by the people with lots of cheering, noise making, bell ringing, feasting and communal walks in the countryside.

I, myself, was introduced to the “Beating of the Bounds” in a local camp here in Nottingham. The campers met with most of the children (adults were invited too!), who were encouraged to bring pots and pans and we travelled to each of the four corners of the field that became course campsite; where we whooped, hollered, made an absolute din to mark this space as ours and drive away any harmful spirits!

According to the Anglo-Saxons, there was even a ritual called the Aecerbot or ‘Field Remedy’ to be performed when your field was no longer delivering produce. If this happened it meant your fields were sick or were bewitched and so this plough based ritual was enacted:

Before dawn, four pieces of turf were cut from the four corners of the field. A concoction of oil, honey, yeast, holy water milk from every cow you have and portion of every tree and plant you have was dripped on to these pieces of turf. Prayers were offered as was the Pater Noster (the Lord’s Prayer), a priest would then sing four masses over them before sunset. These pieces of turf were then put back- but each had a wooden cross made of Rowan (for repelling witchcraft) underneath them. Whoever performs the ritual bows to the east nine times, saying a prayer to the east. More prayers and a curious act which involves taking seeds from beggars, but with you giving back twice as many seeds as you took from them. These seeds are then set on your plough then you say:

“Erce, erce, erce, mother of earth, may the All-wielder, the eternal Lord, grant you fields growing and putting forth shoots, increasing and becoming strong, tall shafts, bright crops, and the broad barley-crops and the white wheat-crops and all the crops of the earth. May the eternal Lord and his holy ones who are in heaven grant to him that this field may be protected against every enemy, and guarded against every evil from poisons sown across the land. Now I ask the Ruler who created this world that there may be no talking woman or cunning man who is able to change the words thus spoken.”

You then cut the earth with this plough and seeds, say: “Be well, earth, mother of mankind! Be growing in the embrace of God, filled with food for the use of all.”

You then bake a loaf of bread and lay this in the first furrow that was ploughed and finish with more prayers.

So, with the blessing of the Christian God, the Earth Mother was invoked! And “Erce, erce, erce….” Frustratingly enough this is the ONLY mention of Erce, and if I had to guess, I would say this could be a name of the Earth Mother, perhaps even an Anglo-Saxon derivative of the Earth Goddes Nerthus. But without substantial research and evidence, this is purely my personal conjecture.

The Aecerbot was not limited to any particular time of the year, it could be performed at anytime as long as it was started before sunrise.

The importance of gaining a good harvest in order to provide food for both the community and fodder for livestock was paramount. It seems that the Anglo-Saxons wanted to ensure the health of their crops and cattle- as any good culture must in order to survive! And if this depended on praying to the Christian God as well as borrowing processional ceremonies from pagan peoples of the past, or even calling upon the Earth Mother to bless the fields…. Then to borrow a cliche: the ends justified the means.

Whatever this month means to you and however you celebrate it (if at all), here’s wishing your fields are healthy, your livestock are abundant and your harvest will be a plentiful one! May your boundaries be safe and have a Merry May-time!

Locksley. /|\

Eosturmonath: Easter Month.

Writer’s Note: The full moon in the United Kingdom took place on Thursday 6th April. This post is a bit late, sincerest apologies!

Full Moon ♎️

The Pink Moon or Paschal Moon over the budding birches to the east

“ Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated as ‘Paschal Month’, and which was named once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.” Bede, The Reckoning of Time.

Bede’s is the oldest and only account explicitly writing about the whole of the Easter season (and the feast) taking its name from an old goddess.

Unfortunately, there simply are no records of what the Anglo- Saxons celebrated on this month before it became a Christian festival. Neither are there any Pagan links to whom this Eostre was or what she was a goddess of. The only clue being her name in that it is related to other words meaning ‘dawn’: Eastre (Old English), Ôstara (Old High German), Austrō (Proto-Germanic). And because there aren’t any records of this goddess anywhere, Bede has been criticised as having made her up.

It was Jacob Grimm who, in 1835, rose to Bede’s defence in that there could have been a goddess of the dawn…. He had found a “spirit of light” named Austri in the Norse Prose Edda; Gylfaginning. Although this particular spirit was written male and the name used the masculine form for the word “dawn”, Grimm hypothesised that if there was a goddess, this would be the place to look….. especially when the words used by the Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic peoples was the feminine form. Rather than proving the existence of a goddess of the dawn, Grimm supposed this is possibly where it came from…. And if there was indeed such a cult then it was extinct before Christianity became dominant.

If we look at the regional use of the name for the fourth month: Eastro (masculine form) and Easturmonath were Northumbrian (NE coast). Eastre was used by the Mercians (The Midlands) and West Saxons (Wessex) as was the name Eastermonath. Then we can indeed see there was a shared name of the month possibly named for heralding the dawn; most likely because after the vernal equinox of March the days are significantly longer and people awoke to greeted by light.

Interestingly, the Old English used this name to mean “Paschal Month”, after the Hebrew Pesach, which is the Jewish festival of Passover. The rest of Christendom even used Pascha and variations of this to describe the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Yet in England, this was Easter.

For early Christians, calculating Easter was a BIG thing…. Especially in England when there were two forms of Christianity. Calculating when Easter took place involved taking into account when Passover (Jewish celebration of the freedom of the Israelites from Egyptian rule) occurred. Because Passover takes place on the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Nisan in the evening, it typically takes place on the night of the full moon after the vernal equinox. Of course, due to leap years changing the dates of the calendar, Passover sometimes falls on the second full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Passover was believed to have been when Jesus Christ was executed.

Now, this is where the two strands of Christianity differed as when to celebrate Easter: the Celtic form of Christianity (as taught on the islands of Iona and Lindisfarne and was the original version taught across Great Britain and Ireland) taught that Easter was to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal Equinox. If Passover occurred at the same time, it didn’t matter…. They were celebrating Christ’s resurrection not his execution.

However, the newer form of Roman Catholicism viewed this very differently: Easter was to be celebrated on the first Sunday after Passover, after the full moon, after the vernal equinox.

This led to a lot of arguments between the two, especially as the Northumbrian king, Oswiu was celebrating his people’s Easter whilst his Roman Catholic wife expressed her displeasure at this being the “wrong time”. At the Synod of Whitby, 662, the Roman version of Christianity emerged the victor….

There are plenty of theories and conjecture about Eostre and of Bede’s account of the origin of the name.

My own take on it is that if Bede was correct in what he wrote, that Eostre was a goddess, then unfortunately she has been forgotten. I wonder if Eostre was referring not to a goddess as such, but to the red dawn of the sun: for in Germanic belief, the sun is written as female. And after the vernal equinox, the days lengthen and the plant life becomes more abundant with flowers opening and tree leaves and blossom growing too.

I also wonder if Eosturmonath and Eastermonath weren’t just differences in dialect between the Northumbrian and West Saxons….. what if each was attributed to the Celtic and Roman reckonings of Easter?

These are my thoughts and like the mystery of Eostre, we’ll never really know for sure.

Whether this season is about the name of a forgotten deity, the celebration of a more well known one, the freedom of a once-enslaved people, or simply the welcome return of the light and warmth of the sun bringing with it an abundance of flowers, leaves and grass, I wish you a Happy Easter.

Be well!

Locksley. /|\