The wheel of fire

In "The Golden Bough" by James George Frazer we can read that:

"Among the Slavs from Masuria the new fire for the village was made on the Midsummer day by making a wheel to revolve rapidly around the axle of oak until the axle took fire..."

"Also among the Magyars in Hungary on the Midsummer Eve in many places it is customary to kindle bonfires on heights by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapped in hemp."

In the "Balder the beautiful : the fire-festivals of Europe and the doctrine of the external soul" by Sir James George Frazer we read that:  "In the Island of Mull in the Hebrides, the need-fire was as late as 1767 kindled like this..."

"People would carry a wheel and nine spindles of oak wood to the top of the Carnmoor hill. Every fire in the vicinity of the hill was extinguished. The wheel was then turned rightward, over the nine spindles...to produce fire by friction. The fire had to be produced by noon..."

We know that wheel is a symbol directly linked with sun. But it is also linked with thunder and fire. We can see this through the symbols of Svetovid (sun) and Perun (thunder): their wheels. The wheel of Perun is "like" the wheel of Svetovid, a fiery version of it...

Sun creating fire through lightning...

Q: "It is a great secret how Svarog (heavenly and earthly fire) is at the same time Perun (thunder and lightning) and Svetovid (Sun)."

Science: easy...Solar fire creates solar winds which trigger lightning which creates earthly fire...I talked about this in my post "Sun, Thunder, Fire"...

Also don't forget St Elijah, who was in Balkan Slavic countries known as St Elijah the Thunderer...And was depicted blazing and thundering over the tops of the clouds...

When I was a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents. One year, around the 2nd of August, the day of the St Ilija the Thunderer, a late summer storm was rumbling over the village. My grandmother turned to me and said: "It's St Ilija the Thunderer driving his chariot over the clouds. The rolling thunder and flashing in the clouds are made by the fiery wheels of St Ilia's chariots bouncing off the bumpy tops of the clouds".

I talked about this in my post "Thundering sun god"...

In North Germany too, the peasants say, when they hear the low rumbling of distant thunder, "Use Herr Gott mangelt" meaning 'The Lord is mangling, or rolling the thunder...

Rolling the burning wheel down the hill was part of the celebrations usually linked with summer solstice across Germanic and Slavic world. I talked about it in my post "Burning rolling wheel". Pic from Belarus.,.

Hence Taranos

In the "Curiosities of Indo-European tradition and folk-lore" by Kelly, Walter Keating, we can read that:

"It appears from the preceding accounts that, both by Celts and Germans, a wheel was often used for kindling the needfire..."

"Jacob Grimm was the first to make it evident that, for the Germans at least the wheel was an emblem of the sun, and numerous facts which have come to light since he wrote, abundantly verify his conclusion..."

"He mentions...that in the Edda the sun is called fagrahvel " fair or bright wheel," and that the same sign ☉ which in the calendar represents the sun stands also for the Gothic double consonant 'hw,' the initial of the Gothic word 'hvil,' Anglo-Saxon 'hveol,' English wheel..."

"In the needfire on the island of Mull the wheel was turned, according to Celtic usage, from east to west, like the sun..."

Digression: Talked about the importance of the "sunwise" movement in

Q: "Which way to turn myself I know not?" 

A: "If you worship the gods, right-hand wise, I apprehend."

Ever wondered why "clockwise" means "circle to the right" and "anti clockwise" means "circle to the left"? 

Cause the original clocks were sundials...

I talked about this in my post "Sunwise"...

"There was a twofold reason for this use of the emblem of the sun, for that body was regarded not only as a mass of heavenly fire, but also as the immediate source of the lightning..."

"When black clouds concealed the sun, the early Aryans believed that its light was actually extinguished, and needed to be rekindled. Then the pramantha [firedril] was worked by some god in the cold wheel until it glowed again..."  

Digression:

Thread: "Hestia, you who tends the holy house of the lord Apollo...come now into this house...having one mind with Zeus the all-wise..." From "Homeric Hymn To Hestia"

What does this mean?

It means that the lightning which was the source (essence) of fire...

I talked about this in my post "Having one mind with Zeus"... 

Apparently, Hestia was for some "inexplicable" reason linked to Hermes...

"...but before this was finally accomplished the pramantha often shot out as a thunderbolt from the wheel, or was carried off by some fire robbers..."

"The word 'thunderbolt' itself like its German equivalents expresses the cylindrical or conical form of the pramantha. When the bolts had ceased to fly from the nave, and the wheel was once more ablaze, the storm was over."

Interestingly, it is Hermes, the younger brother of Apollo (Sun god) who invented fire (!!!) drill...

That's the same Hermes who later became Messenger (Thunder) of Zeus (Thunder god)...

What did Hermes do on the day he was born? He stole Apollo's cows. He then invented fire drill, made fire, and sacrificed one of the cows to the gods...I talked about this in my post about (apparently inexplicable 🙂) link between Hermes and Hestia (fire)...

I talked about this in my post "12 Olympians"...

Also interestingly, the term pramantha is closely associated with the, sacred, ancient symbol of the swastika, particularly in Vedic and metaphysical contexts, acting as a metaphor for the creation of fire and, by extension, cosmic creation... 

In Sanskrit, pramantha is an instrument used for kindling fire through rotary motion (a fire drill)...

The swastika (卍 or 卐) is traditionally seen as a symbol representing the pramantha (drill) and the arani (the baseboard) used in Vedic rituals to produce sacred fire (Agni)...

The rotary action of the fire drill—symbolized by the bent arms of the swastika—represents the creation of life and energy. It is considered a "summary in a few lines of the whole work of creation or evolution"...

Swastika is also a solar symbol, a symbolic depiction of ever turning solar wheel, solar year...

I talked about this in my post "Kolo-Vrt"...

And considering that it is sun that powers lightning that creates fire...

Walpurgis Night

Illustration by Bernard Zuber for Maurice Garçon’s La Vie Execrable de Guillemette Babin, Sorciere, 1926. 

May Day Eve (April 30) is across Northern and Central Europe known as Walpurgis Night, the night when everyone is trying to "ward off, scare, witches"...

Why?

Maybe this has something to do with the old Celtic calendar which divided the year into two halves:

Winter (Samhain, 1st of Nov - Beltane, 1st of May)

Summer (Beltane, 1st of May - Samhain, 1st of Nov)

I talked about this in my post "Two crosses"...

This division of the year, is btw based on the old transhumance shepherd calendar:

Lowland grazing and lambing Oct/Nov - Apr/May

Highland grazing and milking Apr/May - Oct/Nov

I talked about this in my post "April"...

In Serbian Orthodox calendar, the beginning and the end of the "Time of Dragons", the hot sunny half of the year, is marked (guarded) by Two Georges, Summer and Winter St George('s day)...I talked about this in my post "Two Georges"...

This is important to know as a lot of old traditions linked to Beltane were migrated to the Summer St George day...

Where do witches come into the picture here?

Remember this: Hey, you Halloween witches, dressing up in black on the first day of winter...You know that The Witch here is The Hag, Winter Earth, Baba, Cailleach, The Dark, Veiled One...Here she is, all in black, with bare branch, on the four seasons Roman mosaic from the Bignor

The witch here is the Old (Winter) Mother Earth. 

In the Polish Carpathians we find this saying:

"Baba (Grandmother) is already frozen" meaning "The mountain tops are covered with frost or the first snow". 

I talked about this in my post "Gryla" about Winter Hag, Winter Earth...

Baba Dochia was an old woman who insulted the month of March. So, while she was going up the mountain with a herd of goats (symbols of winter), March borrowed frosty days from February and froze her to death...

I talked about this legend from Romania in my post "Baba, cold, winter"...

Slovenian folk play called "Baba (grandmother) and Ded (grandfather)": "As they get older he gets weaker and she gets stronger. At one point she takes over him and rules until spring".  

This makes a lot of sense if Baba (Earth, Yin, Cold) and Ded (Sun, Yang, Heat)...

Ever changing Yin-Yang symbol is most likely description of the ever changing daily amount of light and darkness and the effect this change has on Earth's temperature...

More about it in my post "Yin and Yang"...

The winter earth is actually depicted as a witch in the Snow White. 

Crab apples are the last fruit to stay on the branches in Continental Europe, well into winter. 

Winter, which was imagined by our ancestors as "an old hag, and old witch" veiled in black, the bringer of death...

The one Slavs called Morana (the goddess of death) and Marzana (the goddess of cold). From my post "Snow-White"...

Some Slavs performed burning of the witch of winter/goddess of death at the beginning of spring (Jan/Feb)...

"Maslenitsa" by Simon Kozhin. 

As I said, Slavs equated The Goddess of Death, Morana (mor=death) with The Winter Earth, Marzana (marz=frost). She is ceremonially burned (warmed) or drowned (thawed) or both (to de sure to be sure 🙂) during Slavic spring festivals...

Here are some posts in which I talk about this ritual and related customs: "Gryla", "Party" "Bannock", "To kill a witch", "Baba's day", "Living stone"...

And some Slavs performed burning of the witch of winter/goddess of death at the beginning of summer (Apr/May)...

Like Sorbs (Slavs) from Germany, who at the end of April perform "Chodojtypalenje" (the witch burning). A large stack of branches is piled and a straw witch effigy is placed on top. The whole thing is then set ablaze symbolically "killing winter" (witch=hag=winter) 

As I said above, in Serbian and Celtic calendar, year had two seasons: winter Samhain (start of November) to Bealtaine (start of May), and summer Bealtaine to Samhain. Hence Sorbian witch burning at the end of April, just before the start of summer...  

Here is a picture of one of these "witches" (hags) being burned. 

Christianised version of this custom is Walpurgis Night. "As a result of Saint Walpurga's evangelism in Germany, the people there converted to Christianity from heathenism. Saint Walpurga was also known to repel the effects of witchcraft..." 😉

I think that by now you can all see that what was burned on these bonfires was not a witch but the Hag, Ugly, Evil, Winter earth, The Goddess of Death. Who is transformed, every spring, by the fire of the sun into Beautiful, Good, Summer Earth, The Goddess of Life...This "burning" is not destruction but transformation by fire...

The fire lit at these ceremonies is supposed to ignite the reproductive fire of the mother earth. We don't want frigid winter hag, we want hot spring maiden 🙂 burning with desire for her young sun lover. Without this fire there is no life...

In the Balkans they also performed the scaring of the witch of winter

As part of end of winter, beginning of summer rituals, men and boys in Bosnia blew willow horns to scare the witch (winter) away...As I said, the old Serbian year, just like the old Celtic year, was divided into summer (Apr/May-Oct/Nov) and winter (Oct/Nov-Apr/May)...

I talked about this in my post "May horns"...

This link between Mother earth and Yin, dark, wet, cold weather, resulted in the women being the ones who in Slavic tradition performed Yin, dark, wet, cold magic. 

I talked about this in two posts, "Weather stones", about the use of "weather stones" among Slavs and "The last megalithic ritual in Europe", which talks about a ritual from Belarus, where women (Yin, dark, wet, cold) raise Dabog's (sun and rain god) stone during drought to get cool and wet weather...

And in the post "Thunder book" where we read about the prosecution of female witches in medieval Serbia for performing weather magic...

The association between (Yin, dark, wet, cold) magic and women seems to have been common in the past in the rest of Europe too. 

Two witches conjuring a hailstorm, an illustration from the 1489 book "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus" by Ulrich Molitor which talks about weather altering magic (witchcraft) performed by women...

Did you know that the sudden climate change which resulted in the medieval mini ice age was blamed on the weather controlling witches and was the excuse for the subsequent witch-hunt? I talked about this in my post "De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus"...

Now that we know who witches were, I think it is interesting that witches seem to have liked riding on two things which are both associated with storms and winter: brooms and goats...

Broom...Remeber my post "Donderbezem" about Donderbezem (thunder broom), a protective symbol used in Holland and northern Germany as a protection from lightning strikes and evil spirits.

Goat...Goat is universally associated with dark, cold, wet half of the year (Oct/Nov - Apr/May) in Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, Western Asia, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran...This is because ibex goat mating season starts in Oct/Nov and the ibex goat birthing season finishes in Apr/May...

I talked about symbolism of ibex goats in many of my posts, like 

Europe:

"Pitys", "Goat in European culture", "Patera of Rennes", "Gotland sun stone with horses and ibexes"... 

Levant:

"The tree of life/light", "Lachish animal calendar"...

Mesopotamia:

"Feast plaque from Louvre", "Green pastures", "Problems with Abzu", "Relief from Dur Sharrukin", "Goatfish"...

Iran: 

"Flamingos from Susa", "Goat carrier", "Iranian goat of rain", "Strider", "A vessel from Tepe Hissar", "Rhubarb and ibex"...

Interesting, right?

Anyway, don't just sit there. Go burn a witch. We all had enough of winter...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which were the key to deciphering all this, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Dewy head

"Greetings to the hair of your head, spun like silk,

and to your head with its curly locks,

O George, star brighter than (other) stars!

May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning,

like the rain of grace a thirsty field!"

This is one stanza of the liturgical poem መልክአ፡ ጊዮርጊስ፡, "The Image of George". This genre of poems praises the body parts of a saint from the head and down to the feet...

Ethiopia, 18th c.

I want to thank @ArtEthiopic for all his hard work promoting amazing Ethiopian religious art...

And I want to add few comments that might explain the last two verses:

"May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning, like the rain of grace a thirsty field..."

Rains arrive to Ethiopia in Mar/Apr...Right on time for St Georges day...Full blown monsoon starts in Jun...You can read about Ethiopian climate here...

Interestingly, in Serbian Orthodox calendar, the beginning and the end of the "Time of Dragons", the hot sunny half of the year, is marked (guarded) by Two Georges, Summer and Winter St George('s day)...In Ethiopia, the climate is the opposite to the one in Serbia...I wrote about this in my post "Two Georges"...

Speaking of dew, this also might be of interest:

Irish riddle

Q: I wash my face in water that has never rained nor run, and dry it in a towel that was never wove on spun   

A: A face washed in Mayday dew and dried in the open air.  

The same tradition is in the Balkans linked to St George's day, Jurjevo. 

On the morning of St George's day, girls would go to fields to wash their faces in dew, so that they are beautiful all year round. Recorded in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia.

This ritual was widespread among Serbs too, where dew bathing was done on the so called "herb Friday", the last Friday before St George's day, when medicinal herbs were also collected because people believed that they were the most potent on that day. This would explain why washing your face with the morning dew collected from these the plants on that morning was also the most beneficial...I talked about this in my posts "Morning dew" and "Jani", "Parilia"...

Many other traditions which are in Celtic parts of Europe linked to Beltane, 1st of May, are in the Balkans linked to St George's day, indicating that these two calendar markers are one and the same...

Parilia

Happy Parilia (or Palilia) - This Roman festival, held on 21st April, cleansed shepherds & sheep, honouring the god of shepherds & sheep, Pales. A bonfire was built, with the shepherd and sheep jumping through the flames to be cleansed. The painting by Joseph-Benoît Suvée reimagines the festival

I find it interesting that the Romans didn't know who or what Pales was...But, considering that Ovid says that Parilia predates the founding of Rome, Pales and related rituals are of Pre Roman and most likely of Non Roman origin...

I don't know who or what Pales was either. But I would like here to add few bits of information that might help someone, some day, solve this mystery 🙂 First let's have a look at the Parilia ceremony:

"...After the sheep pen had been decorated with green branches and a wreath draped on the gate, the remainder of the ceremony took place in this sequence..."

"...At the first sign of daylight, the shepherd would purify the sheep: by sweeping the pen and then constructing a bonfire...the shepherd would jump through this flame, dragging his sheep along with him...Offerings of bread and milk were then presented to Pales..."

"...After these offerings, the shepherd would wet his hands with dew, face the east, and repeat a prayer four times...requesting Pales’s protection of the shepherd and the flock..."

"...The final portion of the rural festival made use of the beverage burranica, a combination of milk and sapa (boiled wine). After consumption of this beverage, the shepherd would leap through the fire three times, bringing an end to the ceremony..."

So...21st of April is very close to the 1st of May...Which was in some parts of the world known as Beltane (Bealtaine)...The day that marked the beginning of the Celtic summer (May-Oct), half of the year dominated by the sun...

On Beltane, in Scotland, they purified the sheep and cattle by walking them between two fires derived from single ritually kindled fire...I talked about this in my post "Beltane purification ceremony"...

And they did the same thing in Ireland on the same day...I talked about this in my post "The City"...

21st of April is very close to the 23rd of April, St George's day...And in the past in the Balkans, at the dawn of the St George's day, two fires were lit between which people and domestic animals (sheep and cattle) walked "for protection from diseases and snakes"...

St George being Christianised old Slavic sun god Jarilo (The Brightly Burning one), and snake being the solar animal which follows sun everywhere, it is obvious why people performed snake protection rituals on the day of the sun...

But there is something really interesting about when we celebrate St George and St Michael...The dragon killers...They mark the beginning and the end of the "Old Summer", the domain of the sun, the domain of the dragon...I talked about that in my post "Dragon always gets killed"...

BTW, in the old Serbian calendar, solar year is also divided into summer and autumn...Where summer starts with summer St Georges day, and winter starts with Winter St Georges day...

Summer George icon. 

Winter George icon.

So the fire purification on the day (around) the beginning of the summer...The season ruled by the Jarilo, the "Brightly Burning One"...The one who "pali" (lights up fires)...

It is interesting that in the past, in the Balkans, on the morning of St George's day kids were woken up by being swished with nettles, "to be healthy"...

Nettle sting feels like burning, and the expression in Serbian for being stung by nettles is "ožariti se" (to be burned)...

In the past, in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia, women swept their houses with nettles early in the morning on St George's day, "to sweep all bad things out of the house, because everything runs away from nettles"...From: Ѓурѓовденски обичаи (1956) which sadly isn't available on Youtube any more...

There is an expression in Serbian "on žari i pali" which means "he burns and lights up fires"...Jarilo, Žarilo, Palilo...The Burning Sun of summer...

Shepherd kids making flower wreaths in the spring, most likely for Djurdjevdan (St George's day)...

From the description of the Parilia ritual:

"...After the sheep pen had been decorated with green branches and a wreath draped on the gate..."

In Serbia, on the St George's day people put wild flower and medicinal herbs wreaths on house gates for good luck and health...

I talked about St George (Jarilo) as the sheep and shepherds god in my posts "April" and "Aries must die"...

From the description of the Parilia ritual: "...Offerings of bread and milk were then presented to Pales..."

St George's day rituals involving bread and milk from Serbia: 

This is "kravaj" (pronounced kravay), a ritual bread made in Serbia. It was in the past used during "premlaz", the ritual first milking of the year which is always done the day before St George's day and which marks the beginning of the milking season...I talked about this in my post "Aries must die"...

From the description of the Parilia ritual: "...After these offerings, the shepherd would wet his hands with dew, face the east...pray..."

Just in case you wondered who the shepherd was praying to facing east at dawn...The sun...god..who "pali" (burns)...

Oh, and why would he "wet his hands with dew" before praying?

Well in places where people believed in purification by fire at the beginning of summer, they also believed in purification by dew at the beginning of summer...

This is one custom that I only read about before. On the morning of St George's day, girls would go to fields to wash their faces in dew, so that they are beautiful all year round. Recorded in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia. From: Ѓурѓовденски обичаи (1956) which sadly isn't available on Youtube any more...

But this ritual was widespread among Serbs too, where dew bathing was done on the so called "herb Friday", the last Friday before St George's day. And the Irish did it too, on Beltane morning...Just another indication what St George's day is...I talked about this in my post "Morning dew"...

Interestingly, the same ritual is performed in Latvia on Jāņi day (summer solstice). Girls wash their faces with the morning dew, so their face will always be white and beautiful"...Great example how ritual dates change because of climate...I talked about this in my post "Jani"...

And that's it from me for today...After all this, I still don't know who Pales was...But I could guess...🙂 Especially after I recently found out that one of the names of the Mesopotamian god of death, Nergal, the personification of the destructive, burning sun of the late summer, was "Palil"...I talked about this in my post "Palil"...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...