“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 from the “Eofores Holt Heorþ” Category
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 individual Heathen identity is often subsumed under group and communal identity. This is understandable, given the nature of human society, and how we collectively buld social bonds. If we are to take someone like Ken Dowden at his word in his book European Paganism: The Realities of Cult From Antiquity to the Middle Ages, as heathens our polytheistic practice by its very nature is unconsciously designed to encourage the growth of a form of greater-than-personal identity [1]. While I heartily disagree with this assessment of the native spirituality of these pre-Christian peoples, there is truth in the idea of the coalescing of identity within a larger group. As we as a society (especially American) progress from one of hyper individuality and a disillusionment…
Categories: Anglo-Saxon, Eofores Holt Heorþ, Generalist Paganism, Germanic, Hearth Cult, Heathenry, It me, Theology, Thoughts
Of Axe and Plough 