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The Final Sheaf
In many societies, the cutting of the final sheaf of grain around Lammas time was indeed cause for celebration. People celebrated by making corn dolls, which represented the spirit of the grain. Sometimes these dolls were full-sized, made of the last stalks of corn to be harvested, and decorated with ribbons, streamers and even articles of clothing. Ivy was a symbol of rebirth, and so it wasn’t uncommon to dress the corn doll with a headdress of ivy. In some rural areas, the corn doll was kept in a place of honor at a farmhouse in the village, until it was time to make one the following year. At…
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July 19, 1692: Rebecca Nurse
In 1692, nearly two dozen people were put to death in Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft. One of them, Rebecca Nurse, was hanged on July 19. Rebecca was born the daughter of William Towne and his wife Joanna Blessing Towne, in 1621. As a teenager, her parents relocated from Yarmouth, England, to the village of Salem, Massachussetts. When Rebecca was about 24, she married Frances Nurse, who made trays and other wooden household items. Frances and Rebecca had four sons and four daughters together. The Nurse family lived on a tract of land owned by the Putnam family, and they had been involved in a number of nasty land…
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The Mystery and Magic of Sheela-na-Gig
Although the Sheela-na-Gig is technically the name applied to the carvings of women with exaggerated genitalia that have been found in Ireland and England, there’s a theory that the carvings are representative of a lost pre-Christian goddess. Typically, the sheela-na-gig adorns buildings in areas of Ireland that were part of the Anglo-Norman conquests in the 12th century. She is shown as a homely woman with a giant vulva, spread wide open. Sheela na Gig image by Amanda Slater / Flickr / Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) Folkloric evidence indicates a long-standing theory that the figures were part of a fertility rite, similar to “birthing stones,” which were used to bring…
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Witch Trials: Beyond Salem
I first became interested in the Salem witch trials long before I was interested in witchcraft itself. I remember reading about them as a child, and being fascinated by the tales of these girls my own age who had been possessed, taken by spirits in the night in league with the Devil himself. Accusations flew about like gray specters in the dark nights of colonial Massachusetts, fingers pointing, and no one was safe. As I got older, and became more interested in history itself — not just of Salem and its trials, but of the entire country and in particular, the pre-Revolutionary American world — I read more and learned…
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Animism, Spirits, and the Cosmic Whole
Animism is one of the earliest known spiritual structures. From an anthropological standpoint, it is a belief system based upon the concept of all things having a spirit or soul. Humans and animals have souls, as do plants and trees and rocks, thus eliminating any separation between the mundane world and the metaphysical one. Nineteenth-century anthropologist E.B. Tylor defined animism as a belief that all natural objects – in addition to, but not only humans – have souls. This includes living beings — dogs, horses, birds, etc. — as well tangible items like rocks, mountains, the sea, trees and flowers. It also includes natural phenomena such as earthquakes, wind and…
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Hey Nonny Nonny: Pagans & Ren Faires
Every year, especially in the fall, I get a few emails from people asking why Pagans seem to really dig the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance Festival or Faire. This got me wondering – I myself go to a nearby RenFest each year. In a week or two, I’ll get dressed up in full garb, gather a tribe of like-minded people, and drive an hour to spend a day with my friends in the town of Willy-Nilly On the Wash. We drink mead, flirt with large jousters, and we helpfully point confused, non-garbed visitors to the nearest privy (there seems to be an assumption at RenFest that if you’re in…
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The Tradition of Nut Crack Night
For modern Pagans today, divination is something for which we have practically unlimited tools. We have Tarot cards, scrying mirrors, runes, and all kinds of other goodies. However, for our ancestors, things weren’t quite so simple. Early divination was often done using only the items at hand — sticks, vegetable peels, cloud formations, etc. Around the end of the harvest season, there wasn’t often much left in the fields. However, nuts were often plentiful. Pecans, chestnuts, filberts and more would have been gathered up in baskets and stored, which made them the perfect medium for late fall divination. This is a similar celebration to Nutting Day, which falls in mid-September.…
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Sept. 14: Nutting Day
Around the middle of September, the nut season starts. Hazelnuts ripen in the hedges, and they have long been connected to folklore and legends. Hazel is associated to the Celtic tree month of Coll, from August 5 to September 1, and the very word Coll means “the life force inside you.” Hazelnuts are connected to wisdom and protection, and are often found near sacred wells and magical springs. Hazelnuts can be used in workings related to divination and dowsing – tie a ripe one onto a string and use it as a pendulum! In the British Isles, September 14 was the day when children would forage in the woods to…
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No, Salem Ancestry Doesn’t Make You Special
A reader says, “I just found out that I’m descended from one of the witches from the Salem witch trials and I feel like this makes me have witchcraft in my blood. I went to a Pagan event not too long ago, and when I told everyone about this they acted like it was no big deal. I feel like I deserve a little more respect since my ancestors were Salem witches.” I know it’s very exciting to discover that your ancestry contains people who were interesting, or even famous. And sometimes, when we make a discovery like that, we want to share it with others, and we want them…
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Pagans and Renaissance Festivals
Every year, especially in the fall, I get a few emails from people asking why Pagans seem to really dig the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance Festival or Faire. This got me wondering – I myself go to a nearby RenFest each year. I pick a weekend in September, get dressed up in full garb, and drive two hours to spend a day with my friends in the town of Willy-Nilly On the Wash. We drink mead, flirt with large jousters, and we helpfully point confused, non-garbed visitors to the nearest privy (there seems to be an assumption at RenFest that if you’re in garb, you automatically know where stuff…
