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?

Not us

High status families in late Neolithic and Bronze Age Germany kept slaves from other tribes which were genetically unrelated to them... 

Also, analysis of strontium and oxygen deposits in bone revealed that the men remained in the community across multiple generations. The women, in contrast, were largely born outside the area – some coming from region more than 350 km away, on the other side of the Alps...

This custom of marrying women from "unrelated" clans was preserved in the Balkans until recently. Men from my paternal grandfather's village always used to marry women from villages "across the river" who were "not one of us"...

Interestingly, the article entitled "History of Diplomacy" from Encyclopedia Britannica says that:

"...the earliest diplomatic negotiations occurred during the time of the earliest tribal societies which had to negotiate marriage, trade and hunting rights."

Diplomats are sent to the foreigners as the first contact (before all other) to represent us, (stand for us,  before us). Interestingly Greek word for embassy is "πρεσβεία" pronounced "presvia" which in Serbian literally means "before all other"??? I talked about this in my post "Embassy"...

Serbian wedding customs have preserved the memory of the time when getting a woman to marry was dangerous business. Wedding parties going to get the bride from her house to groom's house are little clan armies, armed to the teeth and ready for battle. I talked about this in my post "Wedding party graveyards"...

 

Holy water

@another_barbara:

I've read that our ancestors believed that on the evening of January 18th and January 19th until noon water is sacred and has healing and protective powers. People sprinkled this holy water in their homes. Bathing in this water was a cleansing ritual.

There are many legends about healing or holy springs in Slovenija. One of them is spring “Gospodična” (Maiden, Young woman) on Gorjanci hills. The story tells that an ill old countess became healthy and young again after drinking this water and washing her hands and face with it. 

Why this specific date?

The Christian explanation was this: John the Baptist baptised Christ on the 27th day after winter solstice. But this is most likely just s substitute tale for an older ritual.

So...What could be that "older ritual"???

Check this out:

This is winter zodiac...I talked about it in my post "Trentar"...

In one of my favourite zodiac related legends, the Slovenian legend about Zlatorog, the Ibex goat with gold horns, it is the "hunter from Trenta valley" that hunts and fatally wounds the magic goat, from whose blood springs magic Triglav rose...Which dying magic goat eats and gets healed (magically)...

So hunter, pursues Ibex goat, shoots it, it bleeds, from it's blood grow flowers...What does this mean?

Well, what you are looking at is the winter zodiac: Sagittarius (end of autumn, start of winter), Capricorn (mid winter), Aquarius (end of winter, start of spring)...

Spring starts in Aquarius...Which represents the snowmelt...This is where frigid old hag, winter earth, turns into hot young maiden, spring earth...Who then gets her first "period"...Becomes fertile again...

BTW, the same transformation of winter into spring is contained in a Slovenia ritual calld "Bablji mlin", meaning "Granny's mill" scene. An old hag is being milled, and thus transformed, into a young maiden. Winter being transformed into Spring...I talked about this in my post "Babji mlin"...

The same story of rejuvenation, rebirth (of the mother earth) is preserved in the Scots Gaelic ritual song "The old woman of the mill-dust":

Will you give me your daughter old lady of the mill dust?

Will you give me your daughter old lady of the mill dust?

Will you give me your daughter 

I will be happy with her

I will dance with her

From Carmina Gadelica, 19th c. Gaelic Scotland

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"...

Interestingly Cailleach, or Cailleach Beira, is the Scottish "Queen (Goddess) of Winter". She appears as a blue-skinned hag carrying a magical staff that freezes the ground and a hammer for shaping hills and valleys. At the end of her seasonal reign, she drinks from the Well of Youth to become young again...

Spring of youth being of course the snowmelt, which begins in February, in Aquarius (!!!) 🙂, which marks the beginning of spring...And the arrival of the "Bride" (Brigid), the spring earth maiden, snowmelt being her first "period"...

Effigy of St Brigid taken from house to house to collect money while saying these rhymes: 

"Here's St Bridget dressed in white,

Give us some money to honour her night,

She is deaf, and she is dumb,

And she can't talk without a tongue"

St Brigid, The Bride, Gaelic Mother Goddess turned Saint is associated with wells (running water)...

Slavic equivalent is the effigy of Marzana (winter) which is made and paraded around in Slavic countries at the same time. The effigy is then burned or drowned to symbolise the end of winter. This can give us the clue who Brigid originally was.

Also, The Witch of Winter, The Old Hag, has to be burned (and drowned) or spring will not come...Burning is heating up of the earth and drowning is the snowmelt...Burning and drowning of Marzana, Slavic name for Winter Earth...I talked about this in my posts "Gryla", "Living stone", "To kill a which", "Babele"

Oh and don't forget The Snow-White...From the article:

"What we have here is the story of Earth going through seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring...

Beautiful young Spring Earth becomes bountiful Summer and Autumn Earth. Still beautiful, but in no way as beautiful as the Young Spring Earth...

Because of the cyclical nature of the solar year, Autumn Earth is the mother of Spring Earth of the next solar year. As Autumn ends, and the crab apples are the last fruit left on the trees, Autumn Earth turn into Old Hag Winter Earth, who "kills" her own younger self...

Dead Earth lies in her icy coffin until Young Spring Sun arrives. He sees beautiful Spring Earth under the ice, falls in love with her and revives her. Spring Earth, marries Spring Sun...

But seasons pass, Spring Earth turns into Summer Earth and then into Autumn Earth and then into Winter Earth...And the story repeats itself...Luckily, every spring, Young Sun arrives to save the day 🙂"

All these stories, beliefs and rituals basically describe the same thing: End of winter, beginning of spring...

Oh, including of course Christ's baptism ("in living", flowing water) and Mary's purification (first period after giving birth)...

@another_barbara:

After @serbiaireland explained to me what a tale (I teach to kids for 15 years) really means, I had to add that the old countess was barren and she and her husband were sad because of that. After drinking/washing with sacred water she knew she will be able to have children now.

Julenek

"On Christmas morning in Norway every gable, gateway, or barn-door, is decorated with a sheaf of grain, called 'Julenek', fixed on the top of a tall pole, wherefrom it is intended that the birds should make their Christmas dinner"...Julenek, Karl Uchermann 1855-1940...

On Christmas Eve, the Swedes hang out the last sheaf of grain from the harvest, known as the Julkarve, as an offering to the birds. And they believe that the more birds come to feed, the better the next year's grain harvest will be...Bird sheaf, Siegwald Dahl 1827-1902...

The usual explanation for this custom is that that the birds were fed to stop them eating grain from grain stores...But the belief that feeding the birds has influence on the next year's harvest points at another explanation for this custom...Preserved in Slavic folklore...

All over Europe, it was believed that the last harvested sheaf of grain contained the living "sprit of grain"...This last sheaf was turned into a "Corn dolly", which was preserved until the next sowing season,. The seeds from the Corn dolly were then mixed with the seeds about to be sown, and were sometimes the first to be sown into the ground...I talked about this in my post "Corn dolly" 

A hint who this "Corn spirit", preserved in the "Corn dolly", really was, can be found in the Gaelic language and tradition. In Gaelic, the word Cailleach means at the same time An Old Woman, Mother Earth, The Last Sheaf of Wheat and the Corn Dolly made from it. So the Corn Spirit was really the fertility of the Mother Earth, of the life (grain) giving mother of us all...I talked about this in my post "The old woman of the mill dust"...

In Eastern Slavic tradition the identity of the "Grain spirit" is spelled out. The Last Sheaf of Wheat is turned into a Corn Dolly called Diduch (Grandfather, The Ancestor)...I talked about this in my post "Diduch"...

Now Slavs believed that all the good comes from the ancestors...Including grain...Which is why it was so important to keep ancestors happy, well fed and well watered, particularly during winter...

In some parts of Serbia, on Christmas Eve people used to take a table laid with food on the doorstep of the house and would then ask wolves to come to the feast. In other parts of Serbia they would invite the dead to the feast in the same way...I talked about this in my post "Wolf feast"...

Finally, in pre-Christian times, Slavs believed that souls of their dead entered birds and through birds entered otherworld, heaven, Iriy. And through birds returned back to our world to be reborn. I talked about this in my posts "Nav" and "Bird wedding"...

So feeding birds with grain from the last sheaf during winter was basically a form of feeding the ancestors, sacrificing to the ancestors...

Anyway, I wonder if any of this was preserved in Nordic and Finish folklore? 

I will finish this article with the link to my articles "Walking sheafs of wheat" which roam the roads of Europe during the winter...

Yule log in English tradition

Have you cut your Yule log yet?

"The ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice...has survived...in the custom of the Yule log...[once]...widespread in Europe, it seems to have flourished especially in England, France, and among the South Slavs"...From "The Golden Bough"... 

I wrote about South Slavic Yule log customs in my posts "Badnjak" and "First footer"...

I wrote about old French Yule log customs in my post "La buche de noel"...

In this post I will write about Yule log customs from England:

Robert Chambers, in his 1864 work, "Book of Days" notes that "one of popular observances belonging to Christmas is more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors: the burning of the Yule log."

Clement A. Miles in Christmas in "Ritual and Tradition" published in 1912, says: 

"...within the memory of many [Yule log] was a very essential element in the [Christmas] celebration...not just for warmth, but as possessing...magical properties..."

"In some remote corners of England it probably lingers yet. English customs, they can hardly be better introduced than in Robert Herrick's words:  

"We may note especially that the [Yule log] must be kindled with last year's brand; here there is a distinct suggestion that the lighting of the log at Christmas is a shrunken remnant of the keeping up of a perpetual fire..."

Another tradition and its origin are thus described by Sir Laurence Gomme in "Folk Lore Relics of Early Village Life"...

"From there being an ever-burning fire, it has come to be that the fire must not be allowed to be extinguished on the last day of the old year, so that the old year's fire may last into the new year"...

"In Lanarkshire it is considered unlucky to give out a light to any one on the morning of the new year, and...if the house-fire has been allowed to become extinguished recourse must be had to the embers of the village fire [on New Year's Eve a great public bonfire is made]"...

J. Ashton, in "A righte Merrie Christmasse!!" says: "In the north of England...[over Christmas] it was useless to ask a neighbour for light, so frightfully unlucky was it to allow any light to leave the house between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day"...

Georgina F. Jackson say in "Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings": 

"In Shropshire the idea is extended even to ashes, which must not be thrown out of the house on Christmas Day, 'for fear of throwing them in Our Saviour's face'"...

"Perhaps such superstitions may originally have had to do with dread that the 'luck' of the family, the house spirit...might be carried away with the gift of fire from the hearth"...

"In the 1880s there were still many West Shropshire people who could remember seeing the Christmas Brand drawn by horses to the farmhouse door, and placed at the back of the wide open hearth, where the flame was made up in front of it"...

"The embers, says one informant, were raked up to it every night, and it was carefully tended that it might not go out during  the whole season, during which time no light might either be struck, given, or borrowed"...

"At Cleobury Mortimer in the south-east of the county the silence of the bells during 'the Christmas' points to a time when fires might not be extinguished during that season"...

In 1849 "Notes and Queries" George Bell says: "The place of the Yule log in Devonshire is taken by the "ashen faggot" (sticks of ash fastened together by ashen bands), still burnt in many a farm on Christmas Eve...

In 1740 "Observations on Popular Antiquities", Henry Bourne writes: "Our Fore-Fathers lit up Candles of an uncommon Size, which were called Christmas-Candles, and layed a Log of Wood upon the Fire, which they termed a Yule-Clog, or Christmas-Block"...

"The Yule-Clog therefore...seems to have been used, as an Emblem of the return of the Sun, and the lengthening of the Days. For as both December and January were called Guili or Yule, upon Account of the Sun's Returning, and the Increase of the Days"...

"So, I am apt to believe, the Log has had the Name of the Yule-Log, from its being burnt as an Emblem of the returning Sun, and the Increase of its Light and Heat"...

H. J Rose says in 1923 "Folklore Scraps": "In the last generation the Yule log was still burned, and a piece of it saved to light the next year's log"...

In the 1790 "The Gentleman's Magazine", we can read that: "In England the Yule log was often supplemented or replaced by a great candle"...

"At Ripon in the eighteenth century the chandlers sent their customers large candles on Christmas Eve, and the coopers, logs of wood"...

And finally: In 1841 "Medii Aevi Kalendarium", Hampson says: "Candle that is lighted on Christmas Day must be so large as to burn from the time of its ignition to the close of the day, otherwise it will portend evil to the family for the ensuing year"...

So basically Christmas candle is just a Yule log in disguise...

Anyway, may your fire burn bright...

Merry Christmas eve to all who celebrate Christmas tomorrow...

Jack and the magic beans

In this article I will propose that some of our myths about sky gods are in fact very very old scientific theories which tried to explain the available observed phenomena in the best possible way with the knowledge of the universe people possessed at that time...

Actually I would even argue that we would most likely explain the same observed phenomena today in the same way, if we weren't taught all that "science stuff" at school that some "smart scientists" figured out already, so we don't have to...

So I will start with telling you where the super cool image from the first tweet is from. It's from Prohodna cave in Bulgaria, which was possibly used as an early sky god temple. I talked about this in my post "The eyes of the sky god"...

This is a bit of a knotted story, and I have been struggling which thread to pick first. So I will start with a fairytale: Jack and the magic beans. 

Jack, not the brightest  boy in the world, sells his family's only cow for handful of "magic beans"...

Everyone thinks this is the most stupid thing done by the most stupid kid, but the beans turn out to be really magic, and grow into enormous plant that reaches all the way to the "land in the sky"...

The land in the sky is where a "giant" lives. And the giant has pile of treasure. Jack, who suddenly gets super smart and cunning, of course steals the treasure from the "stupid" giant...

When "giant" realises what's going on, he chases Jack, follows him down the magic bean, which Jack cuts and "giant" plunges to his death. The End...

What does this have to do with sky gods? It's just a silly story...Well, first this is not the only version of this story...There are many more from many different cultures and you can read about them here:  "The Composition of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'"...

Interestingly, in some versions it is St Peter, the gatekeeper of Heaven that the hero meets up in the land in the sky, and not a giant...This is very interesting as Heaven was originally imagined as the land in the sky...

Well actually: God made "firmament" and called the "firmament" Heaven...What's a firmament? Well It's a stone dome, covering the flat earth, separating our sky from the rest of...Well the rest...At least Hebrews believed that it was so...

But Hebrews didn't of course invent this themselves. They copied it, like most of their religion, from Mesopotamians...The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky (heaven) as a series of stone domes (usually three, but sometimes seven) covering the flat Earth.

And of course we know who lives in Heaven...God...You know the guy who, according to the story of the prophet Elijah, lights fire on the altar (presumably by lightning) on which an ox was laid as a sacrifice...And then gives rain which ends famine... 

Canaanite Baal, but this time in Hebrew...By the way, the same God in Heaven, is the guy who throws "fire and brimstone" on your head when he gets pissed off...

Interesting...I love this definition of "brimstone": "an archaic term synonymous with sulfur, evokes the acrid odor of sulfur dioxide given off by lightning strikes"...Cause lightning is the only weapon of sky gods, everyone knows that...

So The God is a Thunder God then, and fire and brimstone is just an euphemism for lightning...

I don't think so...

Why?

Cause that would not explain why people thought a solid land in the sky populated by murderous giants (sorry sky gods, you know they were imagined as giants, right?) was something "logical" and "self explanatory"...

And they definitely did think that... And they were definitely shitless of the "wrath of (sky) god"...I mean don't get me wrong, thunder and lightning can be terrifying...

And in agricultural societies, the guy who controls sunshine and rain has absolute power over people's lives...I talked about it in my posts "The power of the thunder giant" and "Lords of divination"...

But as I said that does not explain why people were terrified of giants living in the stone land above our sky...

And why thunder gods wielded (most likely stone head axes) as their weapon, which is why people worshiped prehistoric stone axes as "thunder stones"...I talked about this in my post "Kataibates"... 

But this can help explain all this: people believed that thunderbolts were made of stone...You can read more about it in "The changing meaning of 'thunderbolt'"...

A 15th-century engraving depicts the town of Ensisheim in present-day France being struck by a thunderbolt...

Ha! That looks an awful lot like a meteorite, right? And guess what meteorites smell like? Apparently , sulphur...You know, the brimstone...You can read more about this here and here...

And when they start falling from the sky, they look like this...You know, fire and brimstone...Now that is something to be terrified of...I mean seriously shitless...

I mean giant stones are falling from the sky...Someone must be throwing them down...It has to be a giant...And in order for him to have enough stones to throw on our heads, he must be living on a stone land above the sky. Which has to be a dome, as the earth is obviously flat...

If you were observing rocks falling from the sky, which caused destruction and fire and which smelled like brimstone, how would you explain all that?

I think that the above is the logically tightest explanation based on our ancestor's knowledge of the universe...Anything else would be just a fantasy 🙂

One last thing. Apart from (stone) axes, sky gods loved clubs. Like this one which Baal raises above his head...

By the way, these were stone topped clubs...Like these ones:

Egypt, Pre Dynastic, 3200 - 3000 BC

Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Dynasty of Lagash c. 2400–2300 BC

Like above mentioned Baal for instance...He is holding a mace (club) above his head...Why?

Well stone head maces were modelled after club originally wielded by this guy: Orion. The greatest hunter, the father of the gods...I talked about this in my post "Grandmother's cudgels"...

And the clubs he was armed with looked like this...And they smelled of brimstone as they smashed the sinners to smithereens, and set the their houses on fire...Cause Orion's club is the source of the Orionides meteorite shower...

The Mighty Smighter, the Giant living in the stone sky, armed with a stone club (or a stone mace or a stone axe depending on your preference) and on whom all the later Terrifying Sky Gods were modeled on...

Eventually, stones stopped falling from the sky (as frequently as they once used to fall). When sky gods got pissed off they "shot thunderbolts at you" which people for some weird reason believed were made of stone...

Oh and Proto Indo Europan root for god (deywós) is derived from the root for sky (Dyēus)...

And interestingly the Serbian word "Div" derived from this root for god means giant...