Saint Cucuphas is Harlequin (part 2)

So, the part that I left out is that Harlequin has already been linked to a pagan god in the book,  Santa Claus - Last of the Wild Men. By Phyllis Siefker, in paperback 2006, ISBN-13:  978-0786429585

In fact, there's King Herla - a folk tale from Germany, and maybe now there's this Cucuphas from Spain.  So Harlequin could be a compound of Herla + Quin, the northern and southern versions of the trickster god.  It's pretty cool if it's true.

What if there is a close link in the folklore between Saint Cucuphas and the Cucafera?  I believe that the Cucafera represents the spirits:  all the ancestors, and possibly the spirits of all the animals too.  I mean if people were cooking meat regularly, maybe Cucafera was part of a tradition of honoring the food animals.  I'm remembering that the word, "tragedy" originally meant, "goat song."  While I wish that I were a vegetarian, I know that goat is very delicious.  I helped get a goat for the feast of Eid last year.

And what I learned about Eid, the feast of sacrifice, is that people say, Thanks God it is not my day to die.  I'm talking about the feast that remembers the story of how Abraham was tested by God, how his son Issac was spared and they sacrificed a ram.

Well, my mind was drifting.  All we now know is that Cucufera is similar to other stories about a boogie man called Coco.  I do have another story, a second small discovery.  But it involves human sacrifice (maybe that's where my daydream about Eid was going.). I found something just too horrible about the Spanish Inquisition.

I will just briefly sketch the story.  I found a specific event at the beginning of the Inquisition where some victims were dragged through the streets and then killed.  But this horror took place just at the beginning of the agricultural year.  It had the hallmarks of a pagan sacrifice, which is terrible because in the Inquisition, Christians cruelly destroyed pagans.  Or that's what we thought.  Seems it was much more complicated.

...

Cucuphas is Harlequin

I write about history of pagans, mostly I'm just curious.  I think that I just found another one!  Hooray, another Saint who may have been a pre-Christian god.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuphas

Saint Cucuphas is patron of hunchbacks and of petty theft.  He sure sounds like Harlequin to me.  I wish that I could turn to an expert and ask about this.  Right now, I don't have anyone that I can turn to.  Please leave a comment if you know something about this.

The Wikipedia page about Saint Cucphas has locations all over Europe that were associated with him, mainly in France and Spain.  There is a forest with a small lake called, 'Bois de Saint Cucafa' which I think would be interesting to visit, it's located near Rueil-Malmaison, France.  I will have to look it up.  (It's 8 miles west of the center of Paris.  Wish I could travel!!!)

Here's the exciting thing:  this could explain stuff...  If Cucuphas is Harlequin, it could actually explain two things.  1) Maybe those medieval pilgrims badges with sexual images were for pilgrims to the shrines of St. Cucuphas... pagans were all about fertility.  And, 2). Remember that story about how Rasputin could not be killed?  What if the Rasputin story was some kind of revival of an old pagan tale?  Because the story of the death of Saint Cucuphas is similar to the story of the death of Rasputin.

Is it just a coincidence that this Saint has a name similar to the name of the dragon, Cucafera ?  Or maybe Cucafera represents the spirits of the ancestors or the dead, and likewise Harlequin is king of the underworld?  I can't be certain of this, I need other people's opinions.

I'm collecting medieval names that sound weird to me.  I found Saint Cucuphas when I was looking up the name Mihiel.  Here's the list of odd names that I found today:

Mihiel
Smaragdus
Bobolinus
Fulrad
Gausbert
Waldrade
Pepin the Short (also spelled Pippin the Short)
Wulfoald
and,
Cucuphas, of these, any one would do for an elegant name for a cat or dog, why not?

Then there are also weird place names:  Lièpvre, Guinelat, Conat, Coplian, Rueil-Malmaison - these are just the French ones.  I did not collect the Spanish place names associated with Saint Cucuphas, it's all too much for me right now.  There's more research needs to be done, and I'm happy about that.