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Pagan Christianity?
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Branwen
824 posts

Edited Oct 05, 2009, 03:02
Re: Pagan Christianity?
Oct 05, 2009, 02:41
dodge one wrote:
As for Magus....As you said, magicians, magic, and Magi too.....I suppose an immaculate conception and birth populated by speaking animals around the manger{have you ever heard of that legend?} would not be complete without the MAGI.


I've seen that one in the library, you maybe have the collectible version huh? Still jealous.

I had a group of americans who latched onto my storytelling group at the Winter Solstice one year, and I taught everybody chants to help the Child of Light into the world. We joined the 15,000 processioners with torches to the top of a hill where a wicker bull and viking ship were set on fire, at which point these americans said... "wait, isn't the child of light jesus, this doesnt seem right". I explained it was a pagan festival. They explained, with some shouting, about the whole immaculate conception and birth in a manger thing at that time, LOL. That was when I pointed out that when they paid for their storytelling tour, its made very obvious it was pagan, at which point they stopped shouting at me and wandered off. LOL

hotaire wrote:
I agree with Branwen (4th Oct.) in that St. Patrick's banishing snakes from Ireland was metaphorical, and means that he really banished the Druids.

We have the same metaphor in other areas. St. Hilda, for example, is said to have turned all the snakes in the Whitby area to stone (and for centuries, ammonites, of which there are hundreds on the beach between Whitby and Ravenscar, were held up as evidence of her act). A similar legend is attached to the misty St. Keyna, of whom we know little except that Keynsham (Somerset) is named after him/her. However, anyone who knows the North York Moors cannot for a moment take the Hilda story literally - we've a very sizeable population of adders here to this day! Metaphorical - yes.

One last - hopefully helpful - point, Branwen. The Northumbrian Priests' Law, written circa 1023 in York, banishes several pagan practices. Item 54 bans any "sanctuary round a stone or a tree or a well". Item 15 bans priests from consecrating the host "in a wooden chalice". Both these might well be c.11th references to the oak. What do you think?


I think you know your stuff Hotaire. I have to say I don't just think it was just the banishing of the druids though, but serpent worship too. If you look at stories like Patrick and Crom Ruadh or Patrick and the stone circle of Crom Cruach you see he was banishing suchlike too. (Crom and Croman meaning Crooked or Warped One). The white serpent worship which wasn't malign like Crom worship was said to be isn't featured as much, though, perhaps because it had less unpleasant aspects to it, being a healing cult. Most don't know much about Nethy the White Serpent, and variations on that name, so they did a good job taking it over. Wiping it out might have left more of a mark like it did with the Crom legends.

Still, it took a brass neck to claim to be the reason there were no snakes in Ireland, even in metaphor, lol. BTW, the festival of the serpent was a three day festival starting on the Ides of March. The last day was the 17th March, now St Patricks Day.

I hadn't heard the one about the wooden chalice There does seem to have been an endless list of bans and punishments for pagan practices, from the start of the christian period right up to until the first world war, in Scotland at least. Ireland too, actually, so druid worship wasn't wiped out like Patrick was metaphorically claiming. Spin doctoring.

Lot of well worship going on up here too, they sanctified nine maiden healing sites where serpents were the symbol of healing with stories of maidens and dragons and dragon killers, and placed those following the nine maiden cult of st Bridget's nuns to make doubly sure of sanctification.

You only have to read charms from something like the Carmina Gadelica to see how successful they were. People used the new terminology, as it were, but carried on with their beliefs in magic and reverence for nature and the sun and moon, regardless.

As to oak references, the oak was revered, sure, but just as much as the hazel, or to a lesser extent, the rowan. The wood of the chalice could be oak though, it would be a good wood to work with. The other tree references I'm not sold on their being an oak. The tree and well would probably have been a Cloutie Tree and Well, in which case they could be hawthorn or elder, as well as oak, and occassionally a rowan. All are common as Cloutie Trees. The oak in Scotland is less common, dunno about England though, where they grow better. So I could be wrong.
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