May Day is snake day

New ideas for May Day 2019:
- Saint James is Ogun in Haitian Voudou.  I found this in the novel, Masters of the Dew.  It needs further research, keeping in mind that Santiago de Compostella is dedicated to Saint James.
How does the name, James get translated into Iago? And into Jacob?

-news article on the BBC about a town in Italy that has a snake festival on May 1st every year.  They have a procession with a statute of a saint draped in snakes.  I read the article thinking that this smells strongly of a pre-Christian tradition.  Warning, all the photos in the article show garter snakes.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48132701

-Thanks to Patricia Robin Woodruff, I learned what is a bucranium.  Such a delight!  I’ve been wondering what those things are for a long time.  Bucranium: the image of an ox head carved on buildings, often with garlands.  It’s very ancient.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucranium

-See also:  Oscilla, little faces hung up near Lares on holidays to represent each person who lived there.  Pilae, dolls made of wool, similar to Oscilla.  I have lots of wool, and there is a rock nearby that I call, “Larry” because it seems to have a smiling face.  So I might try making some pilae.  This does not mean I believe in anything.  For me, it’s all about connecting with something very ancient.

[See also:  Lares, protective spirits sometimes described as household gods.  Lares statutes were placed outside villages like watchmen.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lares  ]

Saint Sidwell

I find this Wikipedia page highly entertaining.  I’ve found a Saint who could represent the last ear of corn at harvest time.  If you like finding blends of paganism and Christianity, you will like this too.

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

I think she was once known as Sitha (not sure where I found that name, but I was reading about Bidwell Priory yesterday - almost certainly a site of pre Christian female religion).  I went into a daydream about Sitha -> Cynthia -> Cinderella.  Certainly my daydreams do not count as decent research.  But it’s intriguing to think that these names might be connected.

Saint Sidwell is pictured with a scythe.  In her story, her evil stepmother ordered reapers to cut off her head with a scythe.  How much more pagan can it get?  It’s pretty obvious to me that she represents that last special grain at the end of the harvest, the one you save for next year’s seed...


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Why are there so many flowers in European art?

Often I don’t write because it seems hopeless.
This morning, I was staring at Pinterest as usual.  I imagined getting to talk to an art history professor and an anthropologist at the same time.  I would start by asking, “Why are there so many flowers in European art?”

Either they would say, “So what?  It’s nothing.”  Or they might say, “That’s interesting, tell me more about one specific culture and their beliefs about fertility.”  Of course, I would be stuck there because I’m not as precise in my thinking as they are.  I’m vague, I’m looking at an overview, everything mixed together.  My so-called research is very casual -ok, not perfect.

I’m having a hard time trying to describe what I’m seeing.  It seems to me, when you look for fertility motifs in any European art, it all starts to make sense.  One part connects to another, everything seems to fit together.  Parts that were unexplained begin to make sense.  I should give an example here but can’t think of a good one - has anyone written about pagan symbols in the paintings of Watteau? (I’m thinking of 1. Girl on a Swing and 2. Giles)

How about a not-example:  I can’t think of a way to link Celtic art (pictures of animals knotted together) to the flowery fertility motif art.  I had a sense that there were strange ideas about animals that would link the idea of the zoo to medieval bestiary books.  That’s the edge, or the next thing to think about.  I wonder if knotwork and vines are both meant to show flowing good fortune?

I’m going to try to write more often, even if I don’t have something big to write about.  Later I can go back and put an asterisk on the useful pages.

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a List of Apotropaic stuff

You don’t need to read this.  I’m just practicing - maybe someday I will be able to express myself clearly.

I imagined a Venn diagram of things that appear near Willies/Sirens/Mermaids.  Things that often turn up near Willies in medieval manuscripts, hmm... I think dragons occur near Willies.  And plump sea monsters...what else?

I think that I see things differently from most everybody.  I’m not sure I can describe it without pictures.  Maybe if I copy my list here, and refer you to my Pinterest.com collection, you will be able to see it my way.

Here is my list of things to look for in my search for European Pagans:

Red & white
Checkered / gingham fabric
Flowers & calico print fabrics
Ducks - geese - swans
Windmills and anything that whirls
Fat bellies: partridge in a pear tree, pigeons - doves - chickens
Diamond shapes as womb, as Harlequin, as a coat of 1000 furs
Blackface / whiteface / carnival masks / “Moors”
Possibly battles between good and evil
Anything apotropaic (it’s all about apotropaic)
Girl on a Swing, swinger of birches, carnival rides, death defying tightrope walkers
Dance
Seeds / dots
Hair and anything that looks like hair, brooms, fringe
Vase, bucket, flowerpot, basket
Water and vines
Hand spinning?
Anything that seems to be moving: busy patterns, crowded artwork, (optical illusions?)
Reflections, mirrors, reversals & symmetry in artwork
Things that may symbolize male fertility:  arrows, spears, swords, clubs, walking sticks with a “Y” shape at the top, lions, unicorns, (griffons? Centaur?)

All the good luck symbols...
And all the symbols woven into Lithuanian sashes
All the symbols stitched into Romanian blouses

So, basically I’m looking for Pagans, but not looking for spiritual nor occult pagans.  I’m looking for a worldview.  I guess I should read something about Wicca.  But I don’t want some crazy California type to tell me what European Pagans believed.  I hope to explore source material and find out myself.

There are no wild lions in Europe

Here is the link that I wanted to put at the end of the previous page:

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/a-pagan-exorcism-in-sardinia

It’s about the mamuthones and issohadores, and I want to point out that the word exorcism in the title just means they are cleaning out misfortunes and assuring a prosperous new year.

I may not be doing my research properly, but at least I’m trying.  And since ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ some of what I’ve found may turn out to be true.  So, I will go on looking for lions.  If lions are somehow pagan, that would give a new meaning to all the pictures of Saint Jerome and the lion...

I’m going on the idea that pagan culture was everywhere in Europe, only thinly covered up by Christianity.  I want to know what the pagan stories were.  What if the fairy tale of the 12 months / twelve old men in a forest, what if that matches up to the mamuthones?  But why not 13 as in a lunar year?

After lions, I hope to write about sea monsters.  I’ve found a picture of a knight aiming a spear at a sea monster.  It looks a lot like St. George and the dragon.  I’m hoping that sea monsters from the 1700’s somehow represent fertility.

I’m sorry I can’t add pictures just now.  There’s a picture in the book, Splendor At Court by Roy Strong - I really want to show you this picture: The Chariot of Minerva (figure 121 on page 167)
The chariot looks like a sleigh, and it is pulled by a creature half lion / half dragon.  Looks a lot like a Russian Embroidery with the Mother of All on her Sun Shallop surrounded by two dragons.  Almost every picture in this book has something that could be pagan, but there’s nothing about it in the text.

Half a blog is better than none.  But I need pictures!
I’d like to show the sirens with their mirrors (figure 116, page 160.)


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Zoo, Circus, Carnival

Zoo, circus, carnival- I think there are pagan origins that link them together.  But the zoo, that’s difficult to prove.  Maybe it’s a crazy idea, but what if I could connect the idea of the medieval bestiary with the zoo?  What if medieval bestiary books were made as royal wedding gifts?  Could these books have been fertility symbols?  Ok, ok, too many what if’s.

So, when I look for sirens in Russian folk art, I keep finding folk art lions...  I got to thinking about lions and unicorns as a male version of the willies.  [Remember, there is a whole book about the willies.  Title: The Dancing Goddesses by E.W.Barber]. What if European Pagans had peculiar ideas about animals, not only lions and unicorns, but all kinds of animals...?  I’m sure there is more to discover about this.

Reading list:

King Herla’s Quest and other medieval stories from Walter Map
by Thomas B. Leekley, Vanguard Press 1956

Splendor At Court, Renaissance Spectacle and the Theater of Power
by Roy Strong, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1973 (GT 4842)

¡Carnaval!
edited by Barbara Mauldin, Univ. of Washington Press 2004 (GT 4180)

Looking at Pagans with Painted Faces

Here is a page from Wikipedia I’m interested in:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Morris
1934 — The idea that pagan blackface is very ancient can be traced to an author who wrote in 1934.  It’s footnote number 15:

Gallop, Rodney (1934). "The Origins of the Morris Dance". Journal of the English Folk and Dance Society. 1 (3): 122–129.

This paragraph from the Wikipedia page (above) is very interesting to me:

“Gallop (1934)^[15] questions the Moorish link, quoting both Douce and Cecil Sharp who felt the English dance was too dissimilar in style and appearance to be derived from the continental European Moorish dances believed to be of Moorish origin. Sharp himself appears to have changed his view between 1906, when he saw a link between the black faces of English morris and the dancers on the Franco–Spanish border, and 1912, when he viewed the dance to be a pan-European custom possibly corrupted by Moorish influence. He argued that the name Moorish was used as a description of an existing earlier tradition, not because the dancers represented Moors. Gallop goes on to examine the linkage between the English morris dance and the mouriscada or morisca dances of Spain and Portugal, which involve ritual, choreographed battles between the Christians and Moors or Turks, often to music, involving swords and handkerchiefs. Gallop asks whether the Christian–Moorish link is actually a later interpretation of earlier pagan mock battles between Summer and Winter, such as that fought on May Day on the Isle of Man between the Queens of Summer and Winter. He argues that in parts of Portugal and the Basque Country, the word moor is also used to mean 'pagan', and that perhaps morris dance originally meant 'pagan dance', and that bells and disguised faces are a common feature of pagan ritual. Thus, for Gallop, the Moorish link is coincidental and the true origins are much older and pagan. This view remains popular for many today.”

Well, first I’d like to go find the 1934 paper and read it carefully.  Then I’d like to do some research, using some technologies that were not available in 1934 (!) to look into the history of pagans.  Why do they blacken their faces? Or whiten their faces as the issohadores do?
How far back in history can this tradition be traced?

I’m spending a lot of time thinking about mamuthones and issohadores.  They are so mysterious.  I can easily find photos and articles about them on the internet.  But I may have to wait a long time - as eventually their secret will get out.  I think eventually someone will explain this tradition in terms of apotropaic magic, averting evil & attracting good fortune.  One article mentioned that the mamuthones in groups of 12 represent the months of the year.  I know nothing about it, but it seems to me that they represent either ancestors or animal spirits.  I just want to point out that even though they seem to be very popular, there is very little written about them.

When I find that article about mamuthones and issohadores, I will add a link here.