Festival Confusion

[mucgwyrt]

OK Festivals...

According to the anglo-saxon calendar, June + July are called Ærra Liða and Æfterra Liða - before Liða and after Liða. This implies that Liða is the summer solstice, yes?

December and January is called Ærra Geola and Æfterra Geola, also implying that the solstice is called Geola. However there is then something called Modranect which I read is the Birth of Ing; the sun god which wiccans celbrate the rebirth of in Yule. Implying then, that Yule is called "Modranect" and not Geola, and that if that's the case, casting doubt on whether or not Midsummer is called Liða after all?

I should add though, that I can't find anything (reliable) written saying "Geola is yule" or "Liða is midsummer"; apparently Bede wasn't very specific :rolleyes: and the phrase Liða doesn't relate to "the sun" at all (apparently Liðan means "to sail" though, which could refer to the sun in the sky??).

So my point IS - does anyone have any comments on the anglo-saxon festival system? Or any reliable sources I'm unaware of? Because I'm finding it reeeeally confusing!!
(Where's aefentid when you need her :rolleyes: )
Perhaps someone could set me on the right path!

Also, does anyone know anything about the goddess Hreða? (Hreðamonath = march)
There's nothing classical written on her to my knowledge (damned vague Bede :G ) but I have also read that there is the "modern day Heathens" celebrate her. Not that they must know who she is...

[mucgwyrt]

Can anyone shed some light on how reliable this page (http://haligwaerstow.ealdriht.org/calendop.html) is?
I can't find such things as "Feast of Holda" anywhere else on the net... :whatgives

[mothwench]

i had a quick look at that page. (haven't got much time right now, i'm on a mission again. :rolleyes: housecleaning. ) at first i was miffed to find under yule. there is a fest of holda in saxony, but i think it's in summer, and it's very christianized: they parade a figure of holda through the streets and then burn her. i can't remember where i read this, i'll look for it later.
these are only possible themes for yule, though. and seeing that in germany holda/berchta lead the wild hunt during yule (so does odin, though. i guess they just kind of share the hunting ground?)... then yes, i think it's viable as a theme. it's not stated as fact anywhere, as far as i can tell.

[mucgwyrt]

Hmm, so it appear that this page is more of a personalised "this is how I celebrate" thing do you think?

[mothwench]

The worship themes outlined below are optional suggestions for Ealdriht members' local and personal celebrations.

Three Holy Tides are "officially" celebrated by the whole Ealdriht together: Mothernight/Yule, Eostre, and Hallows/Winternights. The Ealdriht rituals for these holy days will soon be available in the section on Needful Ealdriht Holy Tides.

The rest of the celebration themes described here are for use as one chooses. There is more information about Holy Tides and their historical celebration in Thaet Angelseaxisce Ealdriht Handbook chapter on Worship: Holy Tides, and in the Webpage section about Upcoming Holy Tides, as well as longer articles about specific holy days and practices in the section on Haligwaerstow Articles.


from the first paragraph, it seems so, yeah.
have you found those handbooks and articles they're talking about yet? i'd try and look there.
that's a neat page, by the way. it's gone in my bookmarks. :floating:

[mothwench]

about hreða i could only find out that the name means snowstorm. does that help? :spaceman:

[Nantonos]

Can anyone shed some light on how reliable this page (http://haligwaerstow.ealdriht.org/calendop.html) is?
I can't find such things as "Feast of Holda" anywhere else on the net... :whatgives

I had a quick look - interesting - found this:


Another reason to suspect that what is now called Michaelmas has important Heathen roots is that Michaelmas in England is traditionally one of the days of reckoning and accounting, going way back in history. Rents and payments are due then, assizes are held, and other public functions are observed then.

Reason this is interesting is that Michaelmas is the Autumn Equinox; the solstices and equinoxes were introduced into the 20th century Generic Pagan Year Wheel under their Saxon names. I was unaware of the connection with quarterly rent in England, but was aware that these four days are called Quarter days and the other four, the fire festivals, are called Cross-Quarter days. While in Scotland until very recently the four fire festivals were called Quarter days and were the official rent days etc.

[mucgwyrt]

If the solstices and equinoxes were introduced in the 20th century, what festivals did the anglo-saxons celbrate traditionally? I know they slaughtered cattle for winter at one point; presumabley a celebration of sorts would have been made of that... plus harvest... ?

[Nantonos]

If the solstices and equinoxes were introduced in the 20th century,

No, they were not introduced as isolated festivals in the 20th century. They were integrated into a unified eight-fold wheel in the 20th century. Sorry I explained it poorly.

There is abundant evidence that Neolithic peoples celebrated the solstices and equinoxes, for example.

[Eirthjona]

"Modranect which I read is the Birth of Ing"
When I look at this I think of the spring equinox. the rune inguz is tied to fertility there for it would be safe to say that is most likely to be spring.
a good rune web page is http://www.irminsul.org/ all though it maybe mostly asatru it has some good links for anglo-saxon faith system which it has close links to.

Eirthjona

[mucgwyrt]

about hreða i could only find out that the name means snowstorm. does that help? :spaceman:

Lots and lots!
So if her name means snowstorm, and the anglo-saxons sacrificed to her every march, perhaps they were trying to appease her in order to ensure there would be no more snow when the animals started giving birth again in march-april. (in england, it pretty much always snows in february and march if it snows at all)

This would kind of be the end "border" of winter, the other end being Novemeber which was "Blodmonath", when they had a feast when they killed all the surplus animals for winter.

:fpipesmok

edit: apparently (according to Bede) Modranecht is "the first night of the new year", whereas Geola is the solstice (the day before Modranecht).
:D

Its aaaaall coming together *rubs hands together in glee*

[Eirthjona]

http://www.thorshof.org/holda.htm
here is a link for the goddess holda.

[Mòrag Elasaid Ní Dhòmhnaill]

http://www.thorshof.org/holda.htm
here is a link for the goddess holda.

But she's not looking for info on Holda. She's looking for info on Hreða. Unless you're saying that there is evidence that Holda and Hreða are the same goddess. :hmmmmm:

[frigga]

Oh, no Holda and Friggaa re often said to be the same Goddess. I've been trying to find something but haven't found ANYTHING on this Snowsotrm Goddess, though I'm sure there is one.

[mucgwyrt]

Yes, there definately is - she was reported by Bede and there's a month after her. But no one wrote down what she was goddess of! :wah:

[frigga]

could she be part of Hod's family? He's the god of winter, maybe a daughter?

[mucgwyrt]

Hmm, I dont know, I think that to assume that would be going out on a bit of a limb though...

[mothwench]

Lots and lots!
So if her name means snowstorm, and the anglo-saxons sacrificed to her every march, perhaps they were trying to appease her in order to ensure there would be no more snow when the animals started giving birth again in march-april. (in england, it pretty much always snows in february and march if it snows at all)

yes! late frosts could probably wreck havoc on the year's harvest. :cutesanta

[banondraig]

yes! late frosts could probably wreck havoc on the year's harvest. :cutesanta
yes! that happened to the local (virginia, usa) apple crop one year. apples are a big deal where i'm from. it was a Very Bad Thing. back when everyone depended much more directly on local agriculture, it would have been somewhere between Very, Very Bad Thing and sheer famine.

[mothwench]

:woah: gah, it must have been bad if it made you use the caps key. ;)

[frigga]

Ok, so this is all new to me( digging for info on the net that just doesn't want to be found!), but I did find something that may help. I did a search for Hreda and found a site that came up with the names Hrede and Rheda , AS spring Goddesses who had sacrifices made to her in Rhedmonath, around late febuary, early March. Could they be the same?

[frigga]

I found some useful stuff at the University of Sheffield -History Department and Ostara's home page.

Sorry I have no clue how to put in a link!! :(

[mothwench]

sounds about right. the months didn't coincide with our months. according to this site i just found, they used the 28-day lunar cycle, which would add up to 250-odd days for one 12-month year. so to make up for the lost days, they inserted a 13th month every two or three years. thus the time of hredhmonath or however it's spelled would be impossible to pinpoint exactly as march of our calendar.
http://ipc.paganearth.com/diaryarticles/history/calendar.html

[mothwench]

I found some useful stuff at the University of Sheffield -History Department and Ostara's home page.

Sorry I have no clue how to put in a link!! :(


oh, i'd love to see that. putting in links is easy.
umm, when you're on the page you want to link to, you just right-click in the address bar of your web-browser. then you should see a drop-down menu. select "copy" now open a new post or quick reply at MysticWicks. right click again. select "paste" or "insert" in the drop-down menu. voilá. :smile:

edited to add: ;) right mouse button opens the menu. select with the left mouse button.

[Nantonos]

sounds about right. the months didn't coincide with our months. according to this site i just found, they used the 28-day lunar cycle, which would add up to 250-odd days for one 12-month year. so to make up for the lost days, they inserted a 13th month every two or three years. thus the time of hredhmonath or however it's spelled would be impossible to pinpoint exactly as march of our calendar.
http://ipc.paganearth.com/diaryarticles/history/calendar.html

That is the same luni-solar system as the Coligny calendar, then - 28-day months and 'extra' months (inserted to give a five year repeating cycle in the case of Coligny) to make it work out to the length of the solar year on average.

Its also interesting to look at this moveable feast in connection with Easter, which is calculated as the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, thus also having a luni-solar basis.

[mothwench]

didn't the coligny calendar have alternating 29 and 30 day months?
can you help me out, i'm trying to find out which month in the coligny calendar i would have been born in. what month would the beginning of november be, likely? samon or dumann?

[Nantonos]

didn't the coligny calendar have alternating 29 and 30 day months?

Sorry yes, you are right :shift: it has 1838 days divided into 62 months of 29 or 30 days; the average month length is 29.645 days thus approximating to the synodic period of 29.53059 days. This gives a year of 355 days, corrected by two intercalary months in the five year plan, one befoe Samon in year one and one before giamon in year three.

Le Contel, Jean-Michel and Verdier, Paul (1997) 'Un calandrier celtique: le calandrier gaulois de Coligny', Paris, Editions Errance, pp. 6-15.


can you help me out, i'm trying to find out which month in the coligny calendar i would have been born in. what month would the beginning of november be, likely? samon or dumann?

There are unfortunately several different theories, since the name Samon relates linguistically to 'summer' some people place it at the Summer solstice and others link it to the Irish Samhain and thus see it as 'end of summer'.

Once you have chosen which of these theories to follow, you would still need to know the epochal date of the calandar to find out which part of the five year cycle a given modern date falls under.

Lastly, the calendar was good but not of atomic precision - it would have drifted at greater or lesser rates (again, depending on whether the calendar was simply started afresh on getting to the last day or whether there was some complex peg-counting hole-shifting extra correction applied as has been suggested by some people (expert astronomers but not so expert archaeologists, I fear).

[mothwench]

would you hazard a guess? where would you put it? where would you put your birthday?

assuming samon is linked to the irish (i thought it was welsh?) samhain, was samhain the time from the end of october or was it the time until the end of october? :spaceman: or was it simply the last moon of summer, before the one in "november" ?

[Mòrag Elasaid Ní Dhòmhnaill]

Nope, Samhain is definitely Irish. Welsh is...Nos Calan Gaef (First Day of Winter), though that is probably Modern Welsh, not Old Welsh.

[Eirthjona]

Here we go have found a link for you.
http://www.wyrdwords.vispa.com/goddesses/hredha/index.html
dh = ð
It also has other goddess I have found it useful.

[mucgwyrt]

:woah: gah, it must have been bad if it made you use the caps key. ;)

Sily moth :T

Yeah, I hadn't thought about frosts, I was thinking more about the damage the snow would cause to newborn lambies, but they would both be devastating!

[mucgwyrt]

Ok, so this is all new to me( digging for info on the net that just doesn't want to be found!), but I did find something that may help. I did a search for Hreda and found a site that came up with the names Hrede and Rheda , AS spring Goddesses who had sacrifices made to her in Rhedmonath, around late febuary, early March. Could they be the same?#

Do you have a link?

[mucgwyrt]

sounds about right. the months didn't coincide with our months. according to this site i just found, they used the 28-day lunar cycle, which would add up to 250-odd days for one 12-month year. so to make up for the lost days, they inserted a 13th month every two or three years. thus the time of hredhmonath or however it's spelled would be impossible to pinpoint exactly as march of our calendar.
http://ipc.paganearth.com/diaryarticles/history/calendar.html

Yes; "March" is simply equated with Hredamonath because of the order :D
It does make it difficult to calculate where the festivals fall though; things like the feast in "Blodmonath" - killing your livestock would be down to season, not month... so you just can't put a date on it using the anglo-saxon calendar. Same with Hlafmaesse; it would never fall on the same anglo-saxon date :rolleyes:

[frigga]

here's my links, I hope this works!
[URL=http://]http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/ostara.html (http://www.geocities.com/cas111jd/norse/norse_habondia_irpa.htm[/URL)
http://www.shef.ac.uk/history/modules/hst114-sf2.html (http://)

[mucgwyrt]

Hrede, Rheda - yes I have since read that this is the same diety as Hretha, but still - no lore appears to remain.

[Kern]

Heres a link to the Coligny Calendar,its the most appropriate IMO.
Coligny Calendar (http://www.roman-britain.org/coligny.htm)
The New Year began at the Full Moon of October.

[Mòrag Elasaid Ní Dhòmhnaill]

The Coligny Calendar was used by the Celtic tribes, and so probably wouldn't be applicable to Germanic Heathenry such as Asatru and in the original poster's (macha) case Anglo-Saxon Reconstructionism. But it is a great link.

[Kern]

The Coligny Calendar was used by the Celtic tribes, and so probably wouldn't be applicable to Germanic Heathenry such as Asatru and in the original poster's (macha) case Anglo-Saxon Reconstructionism. But it is a great link.
Yes I was responding to Mothwench in post 26,where she asked what month according to the Coligny Calendar.. :vanish:

[Mòrag Elasaid Ní Dhòmhnaill]

Ahhh, I see. Makes sense now.

[Kern]

Ahhh, I see. Makes sense now.
:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

[Wodening]

Wassail All!

I found my way here in a rounda bout way when I was searching for Kern's website. For whatever reason, I was getting a 404 when googling it. Anyhow, on the festivals listed at Haligwaerstow; these are modern festivals based on medieval folklore, and therefore not necessarily the ones the ancient A-S Heathens performed. We know the Anglo-Saxon witanagemót met most often on St. Martin’s Day (November 10th), Christmas, and Easter or Whitsunday (Liberman, The National Assembly in the Anglo-Saxon Period). These dates correspond to when Anglo-Saxon kings are reported to wear their crowns (Chaney, Cult of Anglo-Saxon Kingship, p. 65). Further these dates correnspond to the Norse ones said by Snorri in the Heimskringla to be Heathen blot times. Therefore we can only be certain of those the three festivals around those dates, although Bede also mentions Eostre and Hrede as having festivals also.

BTW, it is good to be here and see such healthy discussion!

Welga!
Swain Wodening

[Kern]

Wassail All!

I found my way here in a rounda bout way when I was searching for Kern's website. For whatever reason, I was getting a 404 when googling it. Anyhow, on the festivals listed at Haligwaerstow; these are modern festivals based on medieval folklore, and therefore not necessarily the ones the ancient A-S Heathens performed. We know the Anglo-Saxon witanagemót met most often on St. Martin’s Day (November 10th), Christmas, and Easter or Whitsunday (Liberman, The National Assembly in the Anglo-Saxon Period). These dates correspond to when Anglo-Saxon kings are reported to wear their crowns (Chaney, Cult of Anglo-Saxon Kingship, p. 65). Further these dates correnspond to the Norse ones said by Snorri in the Heimskringla to be Heathen blot times. Therefore we can only be certain of those the three festivals around those dates, although Bede also mentions Eostre and Hrede as having festivals also.

BTW, it is good to be here and see such healthy discussion!

Welga!
Swain Wodening
Wassail Wodening!
What do you mean you found this site when searching for my link...Did ya mean by my Links.I have this site on there.Did ya get to see my site?
Its l;isted 7th down on Google as part of witchvox listing.

[Wodening]

Wes hal Kern!

I was trying to find Heathen Haven, but it wasn't coming up for some odd reason (I was getting a 404)

Welga!
Swain

[Kern]

Wes hal Kern!

I was trying to find Heathen Haven, but it wasn't coming up for some odd reason (I was getting a 404)

Welga!
Swain
Ahh i SEE.