Baubo

This is one of many "Baubo" figurines which were found in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Priene and dated to the 2nd c. BC. 

Who was Baubo? One of the most misunderstood figures from Ancient Greek mythology. Here is why:

Apparently, Baubo is one of the "minor figures" featuring in the story about the abduction of Persephone, depicted on this fresco from, Vergina, 340 BC, Macedonia, Greece.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, here is the story in short:

Hades, the god of the underworld fell in love with beautiful Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter. He asked his brother Zeus for permission to marry her and Zeus agreed. But knowing that Demeter would not agree to the marriage, Zeus permitted Hades to abduct Persephone...

So one day while she was gathering flowers with her friends, Hades burst out of the ground in his chariot, snatched Persephone and took her into the underworld...

Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, disguised herself as an old woman and with lighted torches in her hands roamed the Earth looking for her daughter...

In the depth of her despair, she forbade the earth to produce fruit (or she neglects the earth which results in nothing growing)...

Finally, Demeter met Hekate, the old Witch. Hekate took pity on Demeter and told her to seek help from the all seeing Helios, the sun god. She did and Helios told Demeter all about how Hades had dragged Persephone into the underworld...

Persephone’s mother, Demeter, then begged her brother Hades to allow Persephone to come back to the world of the living, saying that the young Persephone was not supposed to live in the world of the dead. Hades first ignored her pleadings...

But finally Zeus intervened and forced Hades to let Persephone leave. He did that because he was pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the complaints of other deities, who because of the famine, weren't getting their sacrifices...

Hades complied with Zeus's order. But first he tricked Persephone, giving her some pomegranate seeds to eat. And because she had tasted food in the underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of each year (the winter months) there...

Based on all the animal and plant calendar markers contained in the legend about the Abduction of Persephone, she was abducted at the beginning of winter, Oct/Nov...You can find full discussion in my article "Abduction of Persephone"...

This would explain why Demeter is looking for Persephone "disguised as an old woman". In continental Europe, the beginning of winter is the time when fertile earth (Demeter) turns into infertile old earth (Old Demeter)...

And why "in the depth of her despair, she forbade the earth to produce fruit (or she neglects the earth which results in nothing growing)". In continental Europe, winter is the time of the year when nothing grows and no fruit of land is produced...

So where is Baubo in all this? While wandering the earth looking for her daughter, Demeter, disguised as an old woman, eventually came to the city of Eleusis. The disheartened old woman, who no one suspected to be Demeter, was welcomed into the home of the king...

Everyone in the king's household tried to console and lift the spirits of the severely depressed woman, but to no avail, until Baubo showed up. Baubo, offered Demeter red wine, but Demeter refused...

Clement of Alexandria in his "Exhortation to the Greeks" says that Demeter declines to drink wine, being unwilling to drink on account of her mourning. But maybe she refused the red wine because of its link with the dead...

Considering the context, it is interesting that Ancient Greeks believed that blood was the favourite drink of the dead...

Undiluted red wine was the closest thing to blood, which is why eventually blood letting (blood libation) was replaced with the red wine libation...I talked about this in my article "Blood red wine"...

In Serbia, during funerals, and during annual visits to the graves, undiluted red wine is poured on the graves of the dead. During the communions, the living drink diluted red wine...

So maybe this is the reason why Demeter refused red wine...

And why in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter Demeter refused red wine, cause "it was divinely ordained that she not drink red wine". 

Then she ordered that they prepare a special drink for her by mixing some barley water with pennyroyal, and to give her that potion to drink...

Barley water seems fitting choice of drink for Demeter considering that she was the "Mother of grain" and barley being the most important grain in Ancient Greece...

Grain sheaf (Demeter) is the mother of grain seed (Persephone) which in turn produces grain sheaf...

I Talked about Mother Earth in her role as The Mother Of Grain first in my article "Mother of grain"...

Articles about the Mother of grain in Europe, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant: "Mother of grain", "Altyn Tepe mother of grain", "A person in a little boat", "Sabi Abyad venus", "Arjoune venus", "Mother of grain from Yarim Tepe", "Hathor grain pendants", "Cup of Nestor", "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor",  "Mother of grain from Mari", "Baba, last sheaf of wheat"...

Anyway, Demeter refuses the drink, and then according to Clement of Alexandria, Baubo "thereupon uncovers her secret parts and exhibits them to the goddess. Demeter is pleased at the sight, and now at least receives the draught, delighted by the spectacle!"...

So based on this, it is widely accepted that Baubo was "the sacred fool of Demeter...who mocked Demeter out of her sorrow".

Seriously?

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote about Baubo to depict the "shamelessness" of the secret mysteries of the Athenians, actually quotes lines from Orphic poem which pretty explicitly state that the "shameless" act of Baubo was not mocking at all:

Baubo "drew aside her robes, and showed a sight of shame; child Iacchus was there, and laughing, plunged his hand below her breasts. Then smiled the goddess, in her heart she smiled, and drank the draught from out the glancing cup"...

Who was Iacchus? He was "the Strong child" (freshly cut ear of grain) of "the Strong mother" (Demeter)...I talked about him in my article "Iacchos"...

So Baubo reveals her vulva and who's there? An ear of grain (barler/wheat)...Remember, Demeter, "in the depth of her despair, she forbade the earth to produce fruit (or she neglects the earth which results in nothing growing)"...

Demeter is the mother of grain, so the fruit that she is (supposed to be) producing (giving birth to), is grain. And Baubo, who was btw a midwife, reveals her vulva, the part of female body that gives birth, to the Mother of Grain, who is supposed to give birth to grain...

And Demeter's son, ear of grain, was there before Baubo's vulva, smiling at Demeter. And that cheered Demeter up and she drank the drought made of Barley water...

And people think that Baubo was mocking Demeter???

Baubo is not mocking Demeter. She is just reminding Demeter: You are the Mother of Grain. The dark winter will pass and you will give birth to grain again...Cheer up...And Demeter did...

Baubo, the (holy) midwife, was reminding Demeter that she is the (holy) birth giver...

M-a-m-a

Ohoden, Bulgaria, 7th mill BC.

Natural birthing position since forever

Some articles about it: "Birth Giver", "Birth giver from Luristan", "Mama", "Mistress of the house"

That this is indeed what Baubo was doing can be seen from the fact that the second most common Baubo figurine looks like this: A female figure in the natural birthing position, with an exaggerated vulva filling the space between the legs...

What is really interesting (to me) is that Baubo's "obscene" gesture, which made Demeter laugh, symbolically equates to "pouring out grain (Iacchus) before (Baubo's) womb"...

Which is what another Mother of Grain, Inanna, said she did. In "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi" we find these verses:

As for me, Inanna

Who will plow my vulva?

Who will plow my high field?

Before my lord, Dumuzi ...

I poured out grain before him

I poured out grain before my womb...

I talked about this in my article "Baba, last sheaf of wheat"...

BTW, there is another version of Baubo figurines. This one of a (pregnant) woman with her legs held apart, in a natural birthing position again, gesturing to her exposed vulva (womb)...

I talked about the symbolic depictions of vulva linked to Ishtar/Inanna in my article "Rhomb", in which I talked about some items of a sexual nature from the Middle Assyrian temple of Ishtar at Ashur. Models of human sexual organs, with holes for attachment and suspension: phalli of stone, and a pubic triangle and vulva of baked clay...

I talked about (some other) parallels between Ishtar/Inanna and Demeter in these articles, "Inanna and dove", "Demeter and dove", about why dove was the holy bird of Inanna and Demeter, goddesses of grain (harvest). Spoiler: Harvest starts when doves start nesting...Terracotta statuette of Demeter enthroned with a turtle-dove. Sicily, 5th c. BC.

I also talked about this in my article "Cup of Nestor", in which I proposed that maybe Demeter is just Asherah, Ashtarte, Ishtar, Inanna in disguise...Pic: Cup of Nestor from Mycenae...

The last type of Baubo figurines depicts a woman sitting with again in the natural birthing position, this time on a pig(let). 

The meaning of this figurine becomes obvious when you know about the link between Persephone and pig(lets)...I discuss this in my article "Pigging around"...Pic: Terracotta figurine of a female wearing a polos and holding a piglet in her right hand and a torch in her left hand. From the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore (Persephone) at Ancient Corinth. Around 320-200 BC. Corinth Archaeological Museum... 

One thing that I didn't talk about is the fact that according to the Latin writer, M. Terentius Varro: "...For our women...identify the female vulva of virgins with piglet, Latin porcum and Greek choiros..."

This word play with porcus/choiros referring both to piglet and to the vulva of virgins indicates that the pigs offered in the Thesmophoria could have been substitutes for (and symbolic of) the sacrifice of a young girl, just as Kore had been sacrificed (abducted)...

Or maybe what was sacrificed was virginity. You need to kill the piglet (rapture the hymen) in order to conceive, to produce life...In order to become the birth giver...

Thesmophoria, the festival commemorating the abduction of Persephone, was celebrated by married women only. And every one of them "had to sacrifice a piglet" to be allowed to participate...

Just like (Virgin) Earth (Persephone) has to be ploughed (raptured) so the grain seeds can be sown into it, and so she can become (Mother) Earth...More precisely Mother of Grain...Demeter...

And so, Baubo, sitting in the natural birthing position, on a pig(let), sometimes touching her vulva, as if to emphasise that the pig(let) and the vulva of the virgins were symbolically, at least from the point of view of the Eleusinian mysteries, one and the same...

Sooo far so interesting. But here comes the most interesting bit...We still haven't answered the question: Who is Baubo actually? 

And I think that to answer this question we fist have to answer this question: What does Baubo mean?

Empedocles who wrote in the 5th c. BC proposed that Baubo means belly...Some understand this as "the place where babies (fruit) are before birth". And some understand this as "association to the belly laughter that she provoked in Demeter"...

But M. Olender in her "Aspects of Baubo" noted that the root word "bau", which was used in a few words associated with nursing an infant – "to lull to sleep, to rock, a cradle, a pacifier", was not common to Greek and may have been a foreign import...

For this and several other reasons she thinks Baubo was a foreign goddess – possibly arising from the Sumerian goddess Bau...Who was also a divine midwife...

Interesting...Even more interesting is that others interpret Baubo's name to mean "old crone"...

Old crone, Old woman...In Slavic languages the word for an old woman is Baba...Which is also the original reading of the name of the goddess Bau, before the reading was (controversially) changed for some strange reason...Baubo was also an old woman...

The Slavic word Baba, apart from meaning Old woman, also means Grandmother, Mother, Birth Giver, anyone who gave birth...And Midwife...The Sumerian Bau/Baba was the holy midwife...And so was Baubo...Or should we call here by her original, old name, Baba...

In Bulgaria, Old Thrace, people still celebrate the day of Baba (Midwife), every January with wild "women only" parties full of "obscene" jesting...

Proverb/riddle from the Balkans:

Q: Who is more important than the king? 

A: Any child. 

This is why women who helped deliver children were so highly respected.

From my article "Baba's day" about Babinden (Midwife day) celebration from Bulgaria:  

In "Iambe and Baubo: A Study in Ritual Laughter", Olga Arans presumes that these are remnants of the Baubo cult...

I would suggest that they are indeed remnants of the original Baba cult before Greeks adopted her and started calling her Baubo...

In the Balkans, Baba is also a name used for rocks, crags, rocky mountains...basically the bedrock that gives birth to all life...Mother Earth...

Great pic by @another_barbara 

Bedrock is in the Balkans known as "živi kamen, živa stena" (living stone, living rock) because it is believed to be still part of the living body of the Mother Earth which gives birth to all life...I talked about this in my article "Living stone"...

In the Balkans, and in general among the Slavs, Baba is also linked to grain. The last harvested sheaf of wheat which contained the Spirit of Wheat, was commonly called Baba and sometimes the woman that cut the last sheaf of wheat was also called Baba...

Olga Arans in "Iambe and Baubo: A Study in Ritual Laughter" again points at a possible link between Slavic Baba (The Mother of Grain) and Baubo...And I agree that there is a definite link. Baubo is an echo of Baba...

This link between Baba (birth giver) and Baba (Mother of Grain) is also found in Germanic and Gaelic folklore. 

I talked about this in my article "Baba, last sheaf of wheat"...

In my article "Baba, last sheaf of wheat" I also mentioned that Balkan Slavs called making, tying grain sheaves "bаbičenje" which also means to perform midwife duties, like swaddling babies...

This can help us understand another [strange] part of the Baubo myth...

In most versions of the story, Demeter meets Baubo in the home of the Eleusian King. After Baubo gets Demeter out of her depression, the queen Metaneira gives her son Demophon to Demeter to nurse him...

Demeter then decides to make the child "immortal" by putting him on fire every night. Until one night Demeter is interrupted by suspicious Metaneira, who screams when she sees her son in the flames...

Her scream breaks the magic ritual and her son burns in fire to death. It is generally accepted that this child nursed (baked) by Demeter is "The Grain Child", bread...

What is interesting is that Clement of Alexandria says that according to the Orphic sources it was Baubo who received Demeter in her house, made her laugh, offered her the kykeon and then gave "the child" (her child?) to Demeter to nurse...

In one of the "Orphic" texts (Orph. fr. 49 ed Kern) we read the same again. We are not told the identity of "the child", but remember, when Baubo exposed her private parts to Demeter, Iacchus, the Grain Child was there "before he womb"...

So Baubo's child can be no one else by "The grain child"...Bread...

I just remembered something I wrote about years and years ago in my post "Grange stone circle", about the biggest Neolithic stone circle from Ireland, whose name "Grange" actually means threshing floor...

The biggest and the only rectangular stone from Bronze Age "Grange Circle", Ireland, is called Crom Dubh, old Irish sun and grain god. The small stack of flat stones on the left is called  "grain child"...

Probably a stack of flat breads, like these ones...

Oh and this is very interesting...Remember the expression "to have one in the oven"? Another link between Baba and grain found among Balkan Slavs...

This is a traditional earthen bread oven from Serbia. Identical ovens were found in excavated Neolithic settlements in Serbia. 

It looks like pregnant woman's belly, and it is in (some parts of) Serbia called "Baba" (Grandmother, Mother, Birth giver). I talked about this in my post "Baba, earthen bread oven"...

Again, symbolically Baubo, the "birth giver", is Dememeter, The Mother of grain...This is again kind of hinted in "Iambe and Baubo: A Study in Ritual Laughter". Great article...I think it is pretty clear now who Baubo (Baba) was. Right?

For the end: Some of the original Baubo figurines of the Priene type have Baubo holding a lyre...

This makes very little sense unless you know that the original lyre, the lyre which Hermes made for Apollo, is a complex animal calendar marker for Apr/May

I talked about this in my post "Lyre of Apollo", about animal and plant calendar markers embedded into the story about the birth of Hermes, particularly the part related to him making the first lyre, which he later swapped with Apollo for the caduceus...

Animal calendar markers: tortoise, bull, ram, snake...

Apr/May is the month in which grain harvest started in Ancient Greece...I talked about this in my post "Hesiod on grain"...

According to the Orphic theogony, when Rhea (Earth goddess), gave birth to Zeus (storm god), she became Demeter (Grain goddess). Demeter and Zeus then had sex as snakes and fathered Persephone.

Apparently "no one knows what this means"...If only anyone bothered looking at the climatic and agricultural calendar...Grain harvest in Ancient Greece started in Apr/May, which is also the start of the thunderstorm season, and the start of the snake mating season...

I talked about this in my post "Who are Persephone's parents"...

Those Orphic dudes preserved some really ancient knowledge indeed.

So I wonder if Baubo (deified birth giver, deified vulva/womb) in her role as the Mother of Grain is holding a lyre to indicate that Demeter is out of her depression and that the birth giving to grain (harvest) is beginning???

PS: 

South Slavs are descendants of pretty much anyone who ever lived in the Balkans. Look at their genes...

Because of that, South Slavs are also inheritors and preservers of (partial remnants) of the cultures of all these ancient people too...

PPS:

Sculpture from the hearth of house No. 51, Lepenski Vir (9500–6000 BC, Serbia). It shows a vulva in a specific physiological state, just before giving birth, with all its anatomical details...Pic from this site...

PPPS:

Birth giver, a figurine made from a single large Danube river pebble. Lepenski Vir culture, 10000BC-4000BC, Serbia. The precursor of Baubo...

PPPPS:

Neolithic Mother of Grain...The symbolic link between women and earth depicted on this Early Vinča Culture terracotta figurine from Jela, Iron Gate region of the Danube, Serbia, c. 5200 BC, H. 5.3 cm, which has grain growing out of the womb...

PPPPPS: To understand why I wasn't surprised at all to find Baba as the name of the divine midwife in Sumerian mythology check this out:

Sumerian is a language isolate, without any known descendants or related languages...but...Interestingly, in it we find some very important words which (look like they) are direct cognates with Words from Balto-Slavic branch of IE languages...

Like words for:

King, Scribe and Tablet, Mind, Breath, Life, Grain, Weevil (Grain eating insect), Teeth, Sickle, Fly, Set alight

BTW, Akkadian, a Semitic language, also has some very interesting words with (what look like direct) cognates in Balto-Slavic languages...

Like words for:

Axe, Balance (This could actually be a Sumerian word, we don't know), Gown, Acorn and Oak, Blood and Sacrifice, Scorching heat

There is no explanation for how these words can be found in Sumerian and Akkadian, some of the oldest known Non IE languages, and in Balto-Slavic languages, allegedly "the youngest branch of IE languages"...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Baba - Last sheaf of wheat

Among Slavs, the last sheaf of wheat was commonly called Baba. This word means grandmother, mother, midwife, birth giver...In some places the woman binding the last sheaf the last sheaf of wheat is also called Baba...

In the Balkans bаbičiti means to make, to tie grain sheaves. I wonder this is symbolically linked with the swaddling babies cause bаbičiti also means to deliver babies...From the meaning of the word Baba in diminutive form Babica which means midwife...

All kinds of rites and beliefs are connected to the Baba, the last sheaf of wheat, including the  dance of the oldest female reaper, accompanied by banter and jokes...

In Prussia, the woman binding the last sheaf represented the Corn-Mother; After she bound the last sheaf, she would lie down in the field and cry like a woman in labour, while an old woman acted as the midwife. Finally, the "midwife" would announce that a child was born...

In Northern Germany, the woman binding the last sheaf was told: "You are getting the child!" In Bohemia, people believed that the woman binding the last sheaf will have a child in the next year...

The Swabs called the one binding the last sheaf "the Old Woman" (basically Baba, Grandmother) and she was said to be married in the next year...

In East Prussia, the female reapers strove to be the one tying the last sheaf, called "the Grandmother". Whoever  got it, would be married in the next year, but her spouse would be old...

Baba (Grandmother) here is Mother Earth in her role as The Mother Of Grain...Talked about this originally in my post "Mother of grain"...

Mor articles about the Mother of grain in Neolithic Europe, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran, Levant: "Altyn Tepe mother of grain", "Mother of grain from Yarim Tepe",  "A person in a little boat", "Sabi Abyad venus", "Hathor grain pendants"...

Sumerians knew here as Inanna. 

Inanna/Ishtar, was in "A song of Inanna and Dumuzid" described as: "Maiden, glossy mane, lovely beauty...colourful as a pile of grain, fit for the king, fit for Dumuzid! Maiden...a stack of...barley, fully developed in loveliness"...

This is Inanna speaking:

"Before my lord, Dumuzi,

I placed grain before him,

I poured out grain before him,

I poured out grain before my womb..."

I talked about this in my post "Inanna and dove"...

Greeks knew her as Demeter...

I talk about Demeter in my posts "Demeter with dove", "Demeter riding panther", "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor"...

Demeter, the goddess with beautiful golden hair...Here she is as Ceres emerging from the ground holding grain, opium poppies and snakes... 

I explain why in my post "Who are Persephone's parents"...

Hippolytus says that during Eleusinian harvest rituals, the priest raised a freshly cut ear of wheat with the loud cry: "The exalted goddess bore a holy boy, the strong one bore a strong child!" Sounds familiar? 🙂 I talked about this in my post "Iacchos"...

The reason why the last sheaf of wheat is called Grandmother is because all these people believed that last sheaf of wheat contained the "grain spirit", basically the spirit of The Mother of Grain...

The "grain spirit" is in European folklore usually preserved as female "corn dolly" made from the last harvested sheaf of wheat...I talked about this in my post "Corn dolly"...

In Romania the grain from the last sheaf of wheat was used to make the wreath that was then used to crown the most beautiful maiden reaper...

A living corn dolly from Romania. From my post "Wheat cross" about grain harvest rituals from Romania...

In Poland and Ukraine too...

Wheat wreath, worn by the "corn maidens" and made from the last sheaf of wheat, was the first batch of grain to be threshed on the threshing floor. This grain was then set aside for next year's sowing and was the fist grain to be sawn. 

I talked about this in my post "Wheat wreath"...

The same symbolic link between Old Woman (Grandmother), Last sheaf of wheat and mother earth is preserved in the Gaelic culture...

In Gaelic, the word Cailleach means both an old woman and the last sheaf of wheat and the corn dolly made from it. Corn dolly which represents Mother Earth, the life (grain) giving mother...

I talked about this in my post "The old woman of the mill dust"...

The symbolic linking of female reapers with The Mother of Grain and of tying the last sheaf of wheat with delivering and swaddling a baby is just another example of the believed link between female and earth fertility...Which we find in Europe since Neolithic...

A gynomorphic (woman like) figurine made of "soil mixed with chaff and grain seeds" from Grčac, Serbia. Proto-Starčevo culture, 6200-5500 BC. Direct symbolic link between earth, grain and female fertility. Basically, "Mother of Grain"... 

This symbolic link was still at the core of Slavic agricultural magic in the 20th century. As is shown by this Russian harvest custom:

In the past in Russia, after the last sheaf of grain was cut, women harvesters would lie down on the ground and roll around the field "to return the strength to the earth"...

In Ireland too we find this symbolic linking of land (grain sheaves) and female fertility (bride). These are Strawboys who used to call at the home of the bride on her wedding day. Co Sligo. Ireland. Early 1900s. (National Museums of Northern Ireland).

I talked about this in my post "Walking sheafs of wheat"...

This belief in the direct link between female and land fertility might have had some pretty dark implications in the past. There is an indication that in the past Serbs sacrificed girls to the Corn Spirit in exchange for good harvest...

At the end of the harvest, when only the last sheaf of wheat was left standing in the field, Sorbs would sacrifice a rooster by killing it with a flail...

I talked about this in my post "Cock bashing"...

There are actually many indications that sacrificing a cockerel was among Serbs a replacement for a human sacrifice...I talked about this in my post "Third death"...

Add to that that in some parts of the Balkans Serbs ritually "tied the housewife to the central pole of the threshing floor until she promised them roast cockerel for the end of harvest dinner"...Or the next harvest would be bad...

And you have to ask yourself a question: is this a ritual replacement for the real human sacrifice which once used to take place?

De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus

The other day I came across this illustration from the 1489 book "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" by Ulrich Molitor...It depicts "two witches conjuring up a destructive (hail) storm"...

Ulrich Molitor wrote his book as a response to Heinrich Kramer's 1486 book "Malleus Maleficarum" which "elevates witchcraft to the criminal status of heresy"...And which pretty much ignited "the witch-hunt craze in Europe"...

Now Molitor didn't dispute the existence of witches and witchcraft. He just claimed that "witches couldn't have any powers without god giving it to them"...You can read the analysis of "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" in this article...

What I found very interesting is that apparently the activity most witches engaged in most of the time was "conjuring of destructive (rain, hail, snow) storms"...Basically making wet and cold weather, which would then destroy crops and kill livestock and people...

Have you ever heard of the "Little Ice Age"? It is a climate change which stared hundred years before but descended into "Ice Age" territory around the time the above two books were written, and which caused temperatures in Europe to drop, causing havoc...

BTW, we are just now coming out of this "ice age" and the temperatures today are about the same as they were just before "the witches screwed the climate up and caused the world to freeze"...

It is interesting that it was only when the weather started turning too cold and too wet that (weather) witchcraft was "elevates to the criminal status"...Before that weather witchcraft was obviously practiced and tolerated...

It still was practiced until very recently...Among Slavs...

It is also interesting that this weather witchcraft, which was performed to bring wetness and coldness...was performed by women...

For instance Balkan rain making ritual performed during summer droughts, was performed by a naked girl covered in greenery, called Dodola, Dodolka, who was followed by an entourage of young girls and boys...

This is the last megalithic ritual in Europe, performed until recently (by women) during severe draughts in Belarus to appease the Slavic god Dabog (Giving god) who was also known as Daždbog (Rain giving god)...I talked about this in my post "The last megalithic ritual in Europe"...

In Slovenia, as part of the White Cross ceremony, four young girls span around the circle interconnected by ivy branches, singing prayers for "sun, rain and abundant crops"...

This is the reconstruction of the Beli križ (White Cross) shrine which was once located in the valley southeast of the village of Prelože, Slovenia, and which was used in weather manipulation ceremonies...From the article "White cross" about Slavic weather stones...

In Slavic folklore, it is a female dragon, ala, that brings hailstorms and unseasonably cold, wet weather during summer months, which destroys crops...I talked about this in my post "Pozoj"...

And the male, fire breathing dragon, zmaj, brings hot, dry weather during summer, causing droughts...The main worry of the Bulgarian farmers at the beginning of the summer (Apr/May) is drought. Traditionally people thought that drought was caused by a winged dragon (zmey), who "stole and locked up" the waters...I talked about this in my post "Scaring off the dragon"...

Why is cold and wet female domain? 

Ever seen this before?

Yang - up, light, warm, dry...man...Sun...

Yin - down, dark, cold, wet...woman...Earth...

I talked about this in my post "Yin and Yang"...

In Slavic folklore, cold and wet weather was believed to be controlled by "Baba" (Grandmother)...This Baba is Mother (Grandmother) Earth...The Mother Goddess...

In the Balkans shepherds used to pray to Baba (Mother Earth) stones (rocky crags, exposed bedrock) for good weather. Rocks were seen as body of Baba (Mother Earth, Yin) who was also seen as the source of cold, wet (bad) weather. 

This belief is imbedded into Slavic languages...Example from Croatian and Serbian, where "Baba" (Grandmother) is directly linked to winter, cold, damp weather...

I talked about this in my post "Gryla", "Living stone", "Babe(le)", "Sawing the old hag"...

But not just in Slavic folklore...

The Old Sky Woman controls the snowfall across North Cornwall and children were told when the snowflakes began to fall, the Old Woman was up in the sky plucking her Goose....

Here she is again...The Hag of Winter...Winter, Cold, Wet, Earth...

Scottish goddess Beira, Queen of Winter, appears as a blue-skinned hag carrying a magical staff that freezes the ground & a hammer for shaping hills & valleys. At the end of her seasonal reign, & she drinks from the Well of Youth to become young again...I talked about this in my post "Holy water"...

And again, the Ugly Old Witch (winter) killing her Beautiful Young Daughter (spring, summer, autumn) with red (crab) apples, the only fruit to remain on tree branches when the winter arrives...

Crab apples covered in snow...I talked about apple as a calendar marker in the story about the Snow White, and few other interesting things found in various versions of this old story in my post "Snow White"...

This too...

Indian summer is in many parts of Central Europe known as "Grandmother's summer" because grandmother is the euphemism for winter. 

Check these articles out: "Grandmother's summer", "The old woman of the mill dust", "Grandmother's mill"...

In the Earth (Yin) - Sun (Yang) system, in the areas of the northern hemisphere with continental climate, winter is pure yin...In Slavic mythology, this was the domain of Baba, Grandmother, The Old Hag...The Goddess of Cold (Marzana) and Death (Morana)...

But every spring, The Witch, The Old Hag (Winter Earth) dies and gets reborn as The Bride, The Young Maiden (Spring Earth)...

And every Spring, Slavs perform a ritual in which they "Burn the Old Hag, The Witch, The Goddess of Winter, The Goddess of Death, (Barren) Winter Earth"...This symbolically represents the heating up of the Earth by the Sun...

Sometimes, the Old Hag, The Witch, The Goddess of Winter, The Goddess of Death, (Barren) Winter Earth is drowned...Or burned and then drowned (to be sure🙂)...In flowing water... This symbolically represents the snowmelt...The first "period" of the Young (fertile) Spring Earth...

It is really interesting that during the Little Ice Age witch-hunt, witches, whose (apparently) main sin was causing bad, cold, wet, destructive weather, just like The Old Hag, The Witch of Winter...were burned and drowned...Just what the Slavs did with with the Old Hag Winter...Coincidence probably...🙂

Ok, amazing, I can hear you say, but slightly disappointing, cause you didn't get any Animal Calendar Markers into this article...

Funny you should say that...I was just about to talk about animal calendar markers found in the depiction of the ice storm making witches...🙂

The two witches depicted conjuring a hailstorm on the original image from De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, are depicted burning a cockerel (symbol of sun's light) and a snake (symbol of sun's heat)...

Two things you need to get rid of if you want to bring forth darkness, coldness, wetness...Coincidence again (probably)...🙂

That's it. That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...