Slavic pyramids

"As the Sunday dawned in the early morning after the service of the Mass had been completed, Otto, the servant of God, having put on his episcopal headdress and with the standard of the cross borne in front of him, went forth to the multitude of the people in order to preach to them. He took with him Udalricus, who wore a dalmatic, as a deacon, and Adalbert who served as a sub-deacon and others to assist in preaching. There were there some large pyramids surrounded by walls to a considerable height in pagan fashion. The good preacher ascended one of these pyramids with his companions, and through his interpreter Adalbert began to explain the way of truth to those who had gone wrong and to threaten them with eternal destruction if they did not turn from their apostasy."
This is the description of Otto's missionary work among the Slavs of Stettin, from "The life of Otto, apostle of Pomerania, 1060-1139"
Were those "large pyramids built to considerable height in pagan fashion" which Otto saw in the 12th century among the Baltic Slavs, the same pyramids Slavs all over Slavdom still make on St John's day (Summer solstice)
Like this one on the picture:

Burning rolling wheel

"At Lower Konz, a village situated on a hillside overlooking the Moselle, the midsummer festival used to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw was collected on the top of the steep Stromberg Hill. Every inhabitant, or at least every householder, had to contribute his share of straw to the pile. At nightfall the whole male population, men and boys, mustered on the top of the hill; the women and girls were not allowed to join them, but had to take up their position at a certain spring half-way down the slope. On the summit stood a huge wheel completely encased in some of the straw which had been jointly contributed by the villagers; the rest of the straw was made into torches. From each side of the wheel the axletree projected about three feet, thus furnishing handles to the lads who were to guide it in its descent. The mayor of the neighboring town of Sierck, who always received a basket of cherries for his services, gave the signal; a lighted torch was applied to the wheel, and as it burst into flame, two young fellows, strong-limbed and swift of foot, seized the handles and began running with it down the slope. A great shout went up. Every man and boy waved a blazing torch in the air, and took care to keep it alight so long as the wheel was trundling down the hill. The great object of the young men who guided the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the top of the mountain; and the shouts were echoed by the inhabitants of neighbouring villages who watched the spectacle from their hills on the opposite bank of the Moselle. If the fiery wheel was successfully conveyed to the bank of the river and extinguished in the water, the people looked for an abundant vintage that year."

This is a passage from the book "The Golden Bough" by James George Frazer.

The book then goes to say that similar custom of rolling a burning wheel down a hill side existed in many other places in Europe:

At Eisenach on the fourth Sunday in Lent young people used to fasten a straw-man, representing Death, to a wheel, which they trundled to the top of a hill. Then setting fire to the figure they allowed it and the wheel to roll down the slope.

In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar customs have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on the first Sunday in Lent, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to the top of the hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope.

In the Rhön Mountains, situated on the borders of Hesse and Bavaria, the people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday in Lent. Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and poles swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapped in combustibles, was kindled and rolled down the hill;

In neighboring villages of Hesse, between the Rhön and the Vogel Mountains, it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll, the fields will be safe from hail and storm.

Bonfires were lit in almost all the hamlets of Poitou on the Eve of St. John. People marched round them thrice, carrying a branch of walnut in their hand. Shepherdesses and children passed sprigs of mullein (verbascum) and nuts across the flames; the nuts were supposed to cure toothache, and the mullein to protect the cattle from sickness and sorcery. When the fire died down people took some of the ashes home with them, either to keep them in the house as a preservative against thunder or to scatter them on the fields for the purpose of destroying corn-cockles and darnel. In Poitou also it used to be customary on the Eve of St. John to trundle a blazing wheel wrapt in straw over the fields to fertilise them.

In Wales three or nine different kinds of wood and charred faggots carefully preserved from the last midsummer were deemed necessary to build the bonfire, which was generally done on rising ground. In the Vale of Glamorgan a cart-wheel swathed in straw used to be ignited and sent rolling down the hill. If it kept alight all the way down and blazed for a long time, an abundant harvest was expected.

In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. In some parts of the canton also they used to wrap old wheels in straw and thorns, put a light to them, and send them rolling and blazing down hill.

All over Northern and Central Germany, from Altmark and Anhalt on the east, through Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, the Harz district, and Hesse to Westphalia the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hill-tops. In some places tar-barrels or wheels wrapped in straw used to be set on fire, and then sent rolling down the hillside.

In Swabia, lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the midsummer bonfire, praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and they set fire to wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill. At Obermedlingen, the “fire of heaven,” as it was called, was made on St. Vitus’s Day, the day of Svetovid. On the summit of a mountain, a cart-wheel, smeared with pitch and plaited with straw, was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole being inserted in the nave of the wheel. The wheel was then set on fire.

In Lower Austria bonfires are kindled on the heights, and the boys caper round them, brandishing lighted torches drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice across the fire will not suffer from fever within the year. Cart-wheels are often smeared with pitch, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the hillsides.

All over Bohemia bonfires still burn on Midsummer Eve.  Sometimes an old cart-wheel is smeared with resin, ignited, and sent rolling down the hill.

The Golden Bough does not mention it, but similar customs are also known from other Central and Eastern European Slavic lands:

In Slovakia, the Midsummer Night is called "Vajana". The root of this word is verb "váľať" meaning "to roll". Basically Midsummer Night is the night when fiery wheels are rolled down the slopes of hills.

In Belarus, Ukraine and Russia one of the solar-fire rituals performed during the Kupala Night (Midsummer Night) was to roll a flaming wheel down a hill and into a river or lake at the bottom, if there was one. The wheel symbolized the wheel (circle) of the seasons, as well as the sun-disk. In this ritual, the wheel was stuffed with straw or hay (the yellowish color of which resembled the sun) so that the wheel itself was barely visible, and in many cases an axle protruded a meter or so on each side, which people used to guide it down the hill. The idea was for it to roll all the way to the bottom, into the water if any; if it did not roll all the way down, the harvest would be bad. A wheel was also burned on a long pole. Wheels were also put on high poles and then burned either alone or a bonfire was piled around the pole with the wheel and then then whole thing was set on fire.

In "THE LITHUANIANS, an ethnic portrait" by Juozas Kudirka we read that "The Midsummer Day is a festival of simple people, connected with the veneration of fire. Young girls adorn their heads with flower wreaths. A tall pole with a wooden wheel soaked in tar or filled with birch bark is hoisted at the top of the highest hill in the vicinity. Men whose names are Jonas (John) set the wheels on fire and make bonfires around it. In some places a second pole is hoisted with flowers and herbs. Young people dance round the fire, sing songs about rye, play games, men try to jump over the fire. The burning wheels on the poles are rolled down the hill into a river or a lake at its foot, men jumping over it all along."

I would like to talk about this interesting ritual. 

First I would like to say that I believe that this was originally a ritual performed only on the summer solstice night. In most parts of Europe it was still performed on that day or on the Christian saint day which replaced Summer solstice day as a holy day. The reason why this ritual was recorded to have been performed in some parts of Europe during Lent, is because Christian clergy tried to remove the original meaning from this ritual by moving it to another part of the year. 

But what was the original meaning of this ritual? 

We know that wheel is a symbol directly linked with sun. But why is the burning wheel rolled down the mountain? 

The most popular proposed explanation is that the burning wheel was rolled down the mountain on the eve of summer solstice to symbolize the decrease of the sun's declination angle which begins on that night. 

The variation of the declination angle over the year is represented by a sinusoidal line. We can see how the decrease of the declination angle can indeed be represented by the image of the sun rolling down the slope of the hill.   

The effect of the Declination variation is the variation of the height of the point the sun reaches in the sky at noon. The sun reaches the highest point in the sky at noon on the day of the summer solstice. From that day, the height of the point the sun reaches at noon gets smaller and smaller, until at the winter solstice, the sun reaches the lowest point in the sky at noon. Then the process reverses. 

So maybe this is what our ancestors wanted to symbolically represent by rolling the burning wheel down the slope of a hill. The decrease of the height of the point the sun reaches in the sky at noon. 

But there is another possibility. 

In my post "The thundering sun god" I talked about St Ilija the Thunderer. Serbian folk tradition says that every year St Ilija the Thunderer gets so angry, that he wants to  "burn the whole world down". As I already explained in my post "Two crosses", the earth climatic, vegetative cycle lags behind the solar cycle. Becauese of this, the 21st of June, the mid summer, is the day of the maximum sun light. But it is the 2nd of August the day that marks the end of summer, that is the day of maximum sun heat. And this is the day when Serbs celebrate St Ilia the Thunderer. The period three days before and the three days after the 2nd of August, is in South Slavic tradition called Kresovi meaning Fires. These are the days of wild fires and droughts. These days are also known as the dog days, because these are the days when the dog star Sirius is in the sky with the sun.


But thankfully "Ilia the thunderer" does not burn the earth. Every year, on his day, the 2nd of August, the day of St Ilija the Thunderer, he gets persuaded by his wife, Ognjena Marija (Fiary Mary) to calm down. In Serbia there is a saying: "Od svetog Ilije sunce sve milije" which means "From St Ilija the sun starts getting kinder, milder, gentler". The first part of the 2nd of August is considered summer and the second is considered to be Autumn. And thus every year on the 2nd of August the summer ends and the autumn begins.

The 2nd of August is also the day of Perun, Slavic storm god. 

As I said already, 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 and Perun: their wheels. The wheel of Perun is "like" the wheel of Svetovid. It is actually the fiery version of the wheel of Svetovid. 

During the second part of Summer, between mid summer, the day of Svetovid, and the end of summer, the day of Perun, the sun wheel, turns into the fiery wheel. This is symbolic representation of the effect of the ever increasing heat and drought of the second part of the summer. 

But just when the world is about to be burned to cinder by the fiery sun of the late summer, Perun arrives and kills Veles. Veles, the dragon who stole Perun's celestial cows (rain clouds), is the late summer's heat that causes drought. Perun represents the first autumn storms which finally end the drought and ensure that the crops will survive and that the harvest will be successful. The rain water extinguishes sun's fire. Autumn begins. 

Now let's have a look at the ritual again. 

The wheel is lit up on top of the hill. This is Summer solstice sun just starting to get really hot. The wheel is rolled down the hill. As the wheel rolls down the wheel's fire gets stronger and stronger because of the increased air circulation around the wheel. The people handling the wheel aim to plunge the now madly burning wheel into the river which flows below the hill and extinguish the fire. 

I believe that this was actually a magic ritual. 

The rolling of a burning wheel down the hill represents the fact that the sun's temperature increases in the second part of summer even though the days are getting shorter. 
The fact that the wheel is often rolled down the side of the hill which ends in a river or a lake and that it is seen as a good luck if the burning wheel reaches the water is very significant. It shows that the ritual is actually a magic ritual performed in order to insure the "extinguishing of the sun's fire" of the late summer by the water of the autumn rains.

I think this is very very interesting. What do you think?

By the way if you know of any other place in Europe when the same ritual was performed which I didn't list, please let me know so I can update my post. 

King John

Does anyone else think that this picture, allegedly showing king John on a stag hunt, looks strange, and may be hiding something in plain sight?

Well I checked and officially there is nothing special about this picture. It is simply a picture depictint the king who liked hunting chasing a stag day and night.

But maybe, just maybe, there is more in this image than meets the eye.

In Europe, St John's day, (Ivandan, Jovandan in Slavic languages) is Christianized Midsummer, Summer solstice celebration.

In Serbia Midsummer, Summer, Summer solstice day is also known as Vidovdan, day dedicated to Svetovid, sun god. The sacred animal of Svetovid is white horse. This is an image of the solar rider on a white horse is also found on (medieval???) standing stones from Bosnia.

I already wrote about this in my post "The horseman".

The same solar rider and horse are found on many Celtic coins:

The rider of the solar horse on Celtic coins often had solar head, a head with hair sticking out like sun rays. The rider was the sun, sun god. We can see this from the fact that the rider is sometimes the sun disc. John has the ray crown which actually represents the sun rays. The same crown was worn by Sun god in later Roman period of Sol Invictus worship and by emperors who worshiped the sun god. This is Aurelian in his radiate crown on the left with Sol Invictus on the right.

The crown that John is wearing is the same radiate crown, the solar crown.

The line between the light (red) and dark (blue) part of the picture can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly this  could be the line between the day and night, so the evening. Secondly this could be the line between the period of the year when the days are getting longer and the period of the year when the days are getting shorter, so the summer solstice. Regardless of which one of these two interpretations we take, it seems that the painter went through considerable pain to make it obvious that this change from light to darkness is important. King John is depicted right on the line between light and darkness and his clothes are also made of the same light and darkness. Meaning he is related to light, he is light. He is the sun. I believe that the line between the "light" and "dark" part of the picture is the summer solstice, because this fits with St John's day being the midsummer, summer solstice celebration.

King John is chasing the stag.

The same stag hunt scene is represented on many Bosnian medieval standing stones, like this one from Crljivica:

But just like King Arthur and his knights, who are unsuccessfully trying to catch the white stag, King John and the unknown deer hunter from Bosnia will never catch his stag...Why?

Cause stallion is the symbol of summer, while stag is the symbol of winter...Why?

Cause mating season of horses, marked by vicious stallion fights, starts in Apr/May, beginning of summer, and mating season of deer, marked by vicious stag fights, starts in Sep/Oct/Nov, beginning of winter...

This makes Stallion an animal calendar marker for summer, the light half of the year...and Stag an animal calendar marker for winter, the dark half of the year...

King John is also holding his hand in a very strange way, with the palm pointing up, towards the sky, towards the sun. The reason why palm up means salvation is because sun god and heaven is "up". The reason why palm down means damnation is because earth, devil and hell is "down".  And he is pointing up...Towards the sun on the St John's day, the day of the summer solstice. The day when the sun, the king of heaven is on his throne, the highest point the sun reaches in the sky on the northern hemisphere...

Lastly, the corners of the picture are very interesting. They all have the same symbol, "the hands of god" which represent the solar year, divided into four seasons around solstices and equinoxes with three months each...The god whose hands these are is the sun. 

This symbol is found on Serbian Christmas cakes. Christmas is the Christianized winter solstice celebration, the celebration of the birth of the new sun, new solar year. This is why there is so much solar imagery on Serbian Christmas cakes which are votive offerings to the sun god.

You can read more about these cakes and their ritual use in my post "Can you see me".

No what about the lanterns? Well officially they are not lanterns at all, but just "patterns"...In Serbia midsummer celebrations and customs have been during Christian time spread through the summer and associated with several summer saints. One of these is St Peter's day which used to be celebrated on the is celebrated on the 28th of June according to Julian calendar but is today celebrated on the 12th of July according to the Gregorian calendar. During St Peter's day celebrations in Serbia people light up special votive torches called "lile".

I believe that these were once lite up on the eve of the summer solstice.  In Southern Europe (including Angevin domains in southern France) this is the time when grain ripens and the time when fireflies light up the night.

South Slavic words for firefly are "svitac", "svitnjak", "svijetnjak", "svitaljka", "cvitnjak", "kris", "krijes", "kres", "kresnica"...These are also words used for fire and torches which are lit up on the shortest night of the year, as part of the Slavic summer solstice celebrations...

Are the "lantern" like "patterns" on the picture fireflies or votive toches? 

So that's it.

Interesting? 
Possible? 

Well yes and yes. 

Overanalyzing of a pretty but otherwise meaningless painting? 

That is possible too.

We will never know :)