“Incipiebant autem annum ab octavo Calendarum Januariarum die, ubi nunc natale Domini celebramus. Et ipsam noctem nunc nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabulo Modranicht, id est, matrum noctem appellabant: ob causam et suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea pervigiles agebant.” – Bede, De temporum ratione That is, the Anglo-Saxon pagans, “… began the year on the 8th calends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, “mothers’ night”, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night”. Mothers’ Night is one of only three formally attested holidays recorded anywhere near-contemporaneously with traditional Anglo-Saxon polytheistic religion. For practicing Anglo-Saxon Heathens, Modranecht…
Anglo-Saxon Heathenry and Roman Polytheism
Posts by Marc
Article updated 31/12/2019 A discussion of “the Sacred” within Contemporary Paganism is often mixed, consisting of varying opinions and views that sometimes clash with each other. This is understandable, as it is a topic of multitudinous perspectives concerning the nature of the concept and what – if anything – that ultimately entails. That which is considered Sacred in Paganism consists of any number of things – items, locations, periods of time, etc., creating an object or location that maintains an essential feature of connection with the divine, that which confers or implies this state of sacredness. Popular opinions in Paganism hold, commonly, that “Nature is Sacred”, or “all land is sacred”, or some quality of existence possesses an intrinsic sacred element that is expected…
Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Community Thoughts, Conversational, Generalist Paganism, Hearth Cult, Theology, Thoughts
Tagged: Anglo-Saxon, Heathen, Heathenry, Hierophany, Pagan, Paganism, Phenomenology, Religion, Ritual, Sacred
In the past I have written about my “hearth”, which is both my residence and the spatial focus of the practice of my domestic religion. As my attention turns more to the development of a comprehensive consideration of what domestic religion consists of – what this practice can be in a contemporaneous Heathen context – I have taken stock of the world of Heathenry as it presently exists around me and I have found it regretfully wanting. This is not to say that I am at all an advocate for the deconstruction of attempts to craft public or communal religion. I am not; I cannot more clearly state this. I believe communal religion to be a natural and important facet of exoteric polytheistic…
Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Community Thoughts, Eofores Holt Heorþ, Fyrnsidu, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Larhus, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts
“The life of the dead is placed in the living.” – The Ninth Oration of M. T. Cicero against Marcus Antonius, Called Also the Ninth Philippic, 10. As the Northern Hemisphere enters the late Summer and early Fall seasons, ancestors and ancestral holidays are on my mind, greatly. In fact, the majority of my observed holidays have some kind of major ancestral component to them. The “season” of such observances, which are commonly concentrated by many Pagans in the fall and winter is really the majority of the year. While I would not say I am particularly “death obsessed”, there is a significant facet of emphasis on my ancestral dead that forms a major part of my cultic practice. I generally refer to August…
From the outset of my time in the public sphere, I have been against a seemingly needless division and splintering of the concept of Contemporary Paganism as a religious grouping or term. As an example, I loathe the term “neopagan” in any of its iterations. If one looks at the history of the word and concept of “paganism” as it has been used inside academia and outside, the term simply does not make any sense. The traditional use of “pagan” has, since the fourth century, meant one who is a non-Christian. This use of the term persisted throughout Christian-dominated discourse, often with strict negative connotations. It has only been comparatively recently that there has been a push to more accurately define traditional “paganism” in…
“<X> is my favorite deity!”, an anonymous Pagan scrawls on the internet. This has always struck me as an odd statement. I understand where it is coming from, in the same vein as “<Name> is my favorite person”. We play favorites as social animals, and it’s been something that’s been criticized for a long time. It’s in the Bible even – well, one of them (The Message). No, seriously. Check out Proverbs 28:21-22. It’s there. If one were to ask me which one of the pets I have known, or friends I have known, were my absolute favorite, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I’m a person who tries to approach people on their own merits. The people I am friendly with are not…
Author’s Note: This is the fourth part of a four part entry for “The Problem of Apples”. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. The sum of this entire discussion is what amounts to the “Problem of Apples” – the problem of a broadly reductionistic association between deities of wildly different spheres of cultural and religious matters and meanings. Though many polytheistic restorations and revivals make similar claims in regards to the reduction of divinity, Heathenry appears to be unique in the frequency with which it is engaged. In some cases, it appears to be the passive reaction to the concept of pluralistic divinity. It is an act of modern convenience and an…
Categories: ACADEMIC ELITISM!!1+1, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts
Author’s Note: This is the third part of a four part entry for “The Problem of Apples”. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. In the last entry we discussed the concept of approaching the deity in terms of their functional status within society, as well as detailing some of the pitfalls in a methodology that seeks to look at the religious tradition outside of the social and cultural structure in which it was found. In this we will endeavor to delve into the background of either deity and discuss how Ēastre and Iðunn compare in deeper terms. Linguistically and etymologically, the words which came to describe both goddesses are unrelated, and do not come from words of similar root…
Categories: Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Theology, Thoughts
Author’s Note: This is the second part of a four part entry for “The Problem of Apples”. Part I can be found here. Previously, we have been introduced to the idea that Heathenry, as a modern polytheistic religious restoration, contains within itself an inherent deficiency in regards to polytheistic theology. In this section we will approach concepts of divine functionality and approach a number of influences that impact what is considered the “function” of a god within its context. Divine concepts are often and commonly related to functional spheres of control “possessed” by the divinity in question. This is one of the key characteristics of polytheistic and animistic religious identity, and in this Heathenry is no different. Recognition of these functional and spatial foci…
Author’s Note: The length of this article got too big for a comfortable readership on the format of this blog, and so I have broken it up into four parts which will be released consecutively. Endnotes will be released along with each part, but will maintain a running total throughout all four parts consecutively. If there is demand, I will format it properly into a .pdf for future use. Heathenry’s approach to conceptions of divinity is unnecessarily limited and self-curtailing, despite being a reconstructed polytheistic revivalist religion. Evidence most often used within Heathen reconstruction generally consists of literary, material, toponymic, or folkloric elements and despite the value of these disciplines, the material with which Heathens have to reconstruct the knowledge of their religious fundamentals…
Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Heathen Theology, Heathenry, Northern Tradition, Polytheism, Regionalism, Theology
