Beltane purification ceremony

Walter Gregor’s "Folklore of the North-East of Scotland" published in 1881 gives this description of the sacrifice herdsmen performed during Beltane fire ceremony...

The first written reference to Beltane dates from the year 900 CE and can be found in the Sanus Chormaic (Cormac's glossary codex)...

Description of Beltane rituals from "Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I" by Alexander Carmichael [1900]... 

Beltane blessing. From "Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I" by Alexander Carmichael [1900] 

Sunwise

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

You can make a sundial by sticking a stick in the ground, and drawing a circle around it. As the sun moves from east to west, which is in the northern hemisphere "to the right" the shadow made by the sundial stick will move in the opposite direction, to the left...

But by doing that it will draw "rightward" circle around the sundial stick, with the stick, and the sun, always "on the right" side...This movement eventually became known as clockwise, but really it is "sunwise"...

Now for the Gaels (The Irish), doing thing "sunwise" was super important...

According to the 19th century ethnographers, no ceremony "religious or superstitious" could be performed without who ever performed it "turning sunwise" (from left to right)...

Turning to the left, counterclockwise, against the sun...was considered unlucky, evil and believe or not pagan, by the Christian church🙂 who completely adopted the "sunwise" turning as their own...And turning to the left became associated with curses, magic and witches...

In "Traces of the elder faiths in Ireland..." (1901) we can read that: "Camden relates that, in his day, when an Irishman happened to fall, he immediately, upon rising, turned three times to the right..."

In "The origin and history of Irish names of places" (1875) we can read that "Even at this day the Irish peasantry when they are burying their dead, walk at least once, sometimes three times, round the grave yard with the coffin from left to right"...

Also "To the south of the old church of Carran, county Clare, Ireland, there is a small cairn, around which the corpse is carried before burial in the churchyard"...and "whilst on the way to the cemetery, corpse is carried sunwise around the cross at Monkstown, county Dublin"...

Even today in Ireland when holy wells are visited at Gaelic festivals of Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasa, people would pray for health while walking "sunwise" around the wells...

Also processions around the churches are also performed "sunwise"...

The same belief is found among the Gaels in Scotland. In Scottish folklore, Sunwise or Sunward (clockwise), turning from east to west in the direction of the sun, was considered the "prosperous course"...

In "A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland" (1703) we can read that: "Some of the poorer sort of people in the Western Isles retain the custom of performing these circles "sunwise" about the persons of their benefactors three times, when they bless them"...

"Some are very careful when they set out to sea, that the boat be first rowed "sunwise", and if this be neglected, they are afraid their voyage may prove unfortunate"...

Also people avoided turning boats anti-clockwise at all if possible, cause it was bad luck to do so...

"When a Gael goes to drink out of a consecrated fountain, he approaches it by going round the place from east to west, and at funerals, the procession observes the same direction in drawing near the grave"...

"Hence also is derived the old custom of describing "sunwise" a circle, with a burning brand, about houses, cattle, corn and corn-fields, to prevent their being burnt or in any way injured by evil spirits, or by witchcraft"...

In Carmina Gadelica (1900) we find this prayer song performed on the Feast day of Mary, which says: 

"I went sunways round my dwelling,

In name of the Mary Mother,

Who promised to preserve me,

Who did preserve me,

And who will preserve me..."

In "The silver bough" (1959) we read that "The Caledonians paid a superstitious reverence to the sun"...

"Practically every religious festival began with the ceremony of walking thrice deiseil, that is, in the sunwise direction, round the circle, cairn, altar or bonfire that marked the site, the object of the rite being to aid the sun by virtue of mimetic magic"...

"Until recent times...at a wedding, the company went trice round the house before entering...expectant mothers went thrice round a church in order to ensure an easy delivery...fire was carried thrice round an infant before baptism to save it from the fate of changling"...

In " Waverley" Sir Walter Scott describes how the old Highlander, called in to attend the wounded Edward, walked round the patient three times, from east to west, "sunwise", and this ceremony was considered a matter of the utmost importance towards effecting a cure...

In "A smaller social history of ancient Ireland..." we can read that: "When a king of any grade ascended the throne, he usually made a visitation or royal progress through his kingdom, to receive allegiance and hostages from his sub-kings"...

"He moved leisurely in a round-about, "sunwise", from left to right; and during the whole journey, he was to be entertained, with all his retinue, free of charge, by those sub-chiefs through whose territories he passed: so that these visitations were called Free Circuits"🙂...

The arrival of Christianity changed nothing in this respect. Actually church adopted this custom wholeheartedly. "For instance, St. Patrick consecrated Armagh, as St. Senan did Scattery Island, each by walking sunwise with his followers in solemn procession round the site"...

But not all saints liked this right turning business. "At the battle of Cooldrumman, fought near Drumcliff, county Sligo, in the year 561, St. Columbkille, in his prayer before the contest, denounces his adversaries for employing pagan rites to assure victory"...

He anathematizes them as: "the host which has taken judgment from us, a host that marches round a earn" i.e. performs the desiul, walks "sunwise"...

"By the strange irony of fate the saint's manuscript of portion of the Holy Scriptures the origin of the conflict, hence styled the Cathach, or 'the book of the battle' became the battle-standard of his tribe, the Cinel Conaill"...

"And an old Irish manuscript recounts that before a fight 'it was proper the Cathach should be carried three times to the right round the army of the Cinel Conaill at going to battle...If that was done, 'it was certain they would return victorious'"...

And so the custom survived and the 10th c. Cormac's Glossary says that: "when the spirit of poetry met Chief poet in Ireland in the time of Guaire Aidhne king of Connaught in the 7th c. it went sunwise round poet and his people"...

And in the 12th c. Vision of Mac Conglinne we read that the hero when parting from his tutor went right-hand wise round the cemetery...

Dr. P. W. Joyce states that Tempo, a little village in Fermanagh is called in Irish An tIompú Deiseal (the right-hand turn) and that the place received its name, "no doubt, from the ancient custom of turning sunways, i.e. from left to right, in worship"...

It is also possible that the name refers to a bend in the Tempo River near the village. But there is also a local legend that Saint Patrick left a manuscript here on his way to Enniskillen and that he told his servant to "turn right" to go back and retrieve it...So...

The belief in the magical power of "sunwise turn" existed in England too...It was considered unlucky to travel in an anticlockwise (not sunwise) direction around a church...

19th c. antiquarian Mr. F. T. Elworthy recounts that: "in Somerset, quite recently, and within his own knowledge, a number of children were brought to be baptized, and, of course, were ranged in a group round the font"...

"The officiating minister, not being accustomed to such a number, or not knowing the custom, began with the child on his right hand, of course following on in order, and going round to the child on his left"...

"This action caused great indignation: parents, who had never before seen the importance of having their children baptized at all, were quite sure that now they had not been done properly"...

"...and that they must be taken to another church, 'to be done over again'. Thus it was held of far greater moment that the parson should proceed from left to right than it was that the children should be baptized or not"...

I don't know if this "superstition" once existed in other parts of Europe...If you have any info about it please post it in this thread... 

But it turns out, references to the "sunwise" turn in religious rituals exist in Roman and Greek culture...

And so in "On the Ceremonial Turn, Called Desiul" we find that in the comedy by Plautus, one of his characters says: "Which way to turn myself I know not"; the other jestingly replies, "If you worship the gods, right-hand wise, I apprehend;" Was Plautus here mocking "peasants"?

Anyway, I will stop here...

Sources:

"A smaller social history of ancient Ireland"

"Traces of the elder faiths in Ireland"

"The origin and history of Irish names of places"

"A description of the Western Islands of Scotland"

"Sanas Chormaic. Cormac's glossary"

"Carmina Gadelica"

"Silver bough"

"On the Ceremonial Turn, Called 'Desiul'"

"Meeting the sun"

Harvest in Scotland

Harvesting in Scotland by a Scottish painter Joseph Farquharson (1846-1935). 

Scottish harvest customs. From "Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I" by Alexander Carmichael [1900]

Reaping blessing. From "Carmina Gadelica - Hymns and Incantations, Ortha Nan Gaidheal, Volume I" by Alexander Carmichael [1900]

The Sun god to whom Scots gave thanks for their grain and their wellbeing is Crom Dubh of the Irish (Scots). The deity to whom the Irish prayed in the Early Bronze Age "Grange Circle" on the first day of the harvest. 

The biggest and the only square stone in the circle is still known as the Crom Dubh stone. And next to it is the pile of flat bread like stones known as the Grain Child...

I talked about this amazing ancient monument in my post "Grange circle" 

He was the good whose holy mountain was and is the holiest place in Ireland. Except it is now called St Patrick's mountain...

I talked about this in my post "Sun mountain"...

They prayed to him on the last Sun-day in July, which is still known in the area around the holy mountain as the "Domhnach Crom Dubh" which means "Crom Dubh's Sunday"...

People prayed to Crom Dubh because they believed that "It was he who was giving them the light of the day, the darkness of the night, and the change of seasons"...Basically The Sun...I talked about this in my post "Dun Briste"...

Crom Dubh was said to be another name for Dagda, the Giving God of the Irish... 

Hromi Daba was another name for Dabog, the Giving God of the Serbs...

Both of these gods had a bull cult associated with them...

I talked about this in my posts "Bull of Crom Dubh" and "Bull of Grom Div (Hromi Daba)"...

And Dabog (Hromi Daba), The Sun God, is the god to whom Slavs still "raised stones" until very recently "for the weather". 

Just like the Early Bronze Age Irish raised stones and built stone circles to Dagda (Crom Dubh)??? 

I talked about these weather manipulation rituals involving stones in "The last megalithic ritual in Europe" and "Weather stones"...

The Sun God of the Pagan Serbs, Dabog, Hromi Daba, became the Devil of the Christian Serbs. 

The Sun God of the Pagan Irish, Dagda, Crom Dubh became the Devil of the Christian Irish. 

But after all these years, in Ireland "By Crom" still means "By God" 🙂 

From "How old is Crom Dubh?"

The Old Woman of the Mill-Dust

Carmina Gadelica is a compendium of prayers, hymns, charms, incantations, blessings, folkloric poems and songs, proverbs, lexical items, historical anecdotes, natural history observations, and lore gathered in the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland between 1860 and 1909.

In this book, the author Alexander Carmichael recorded a tune, still popular today especially among pipers, called Cailleach an Dùdain (The Old Woman of the Mill-Dust).

You can hear the song here, and here is the note sheet.

Here are the lyrics. I couldn't translate one of the lines

In my post "Gryla" I talked about the Old Hag Winter from European folklore.

I mentioned that in Gaelic lands of Ireland and Scotland her name was Cailleach.

But Cailleach is also a name for a Corn dolly in Irish and Scottish folklore.

At the end of the article about Cailleach corn dollies, I talked about the folk play from Slovenia called "Babji mlin" (Grandmother's mill, or mill for milling grandmothers) in which "an old woman was transformed into a young girl through milling"

In the Slovenian folk play an old woman gets transformed into a young girl through milling.
In the Gaelic folk song "Old woman of mill dust" an old woman is asked to give her daughter away.

How should we understand these two allegorical images?

Like this: In Slavic mythology, there is really only goddess: Mother Earth. But she has three faces. She is young virgin girl, Vesna (Spring), mature fertile woman, Mokosh (Summer, Autumn) and old barren old woman, the hag, Morana (Winter)...

The harvest happens in the summer and autumn and the harvested grains are milled over the winter and spring to make bread. Which is why milling is symbolically used the Slavic ritual play to describe passage of time which turns winter (Grandmother into spring (Maiden).

I believe that "Old woman of mill dust" was a Gaelic ritual song, sang during the reenactment of the transformation of the Old Hag Winter Earth into Young Maiden Spring Earth, probably during Imbolc (beginning of spring) festival...

That this is indeed the case, can be seen from the fact that elsewhere in Carmina Gadelica, Carmichael has a long note about the curious ‘resurrection’ dance which accompanied the playing of this jig:

In this curious dance, the woman playing the Old Hag Winter Earth (Old Lady of the mill dust, flour) dies and is then revived (gives her daughter away), is turned into Young Maiden Spring Earth, by the young man playing the Young Sun...

Remember in Slovenian "Milling of the grandmother" ritual play depictions, it is always young men who bring the Old Hag to the mill and take away the Young Maiden...

This is truly incredible. This is a remnant of the old European religious rituals which were once probably performed throughout Europe, but were to our days only preserved in Scotland and in Slovenia. Again Slavs and Gaels...We find this toooo often to be a coincidence...

I will finish this article with the great picture entitled: "Cailleach aig a bheil cailleach" (An old woman with a last sheaf of wheat) from Carmichael Watson Project page about the Cailleach an Dùdain. 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, birth giving mother of all...

Corn dolly

A 'Cailleach' is a special object woven in Ireland from the last standing sheaf in a field. It was made to mark/celebrate the gathering of the harvest. The word 'Cailleach' means 'hag' or witch.

In Northern Ireland this last sheaf of wheat was called "Calacht". It was ritually cut by the harvesters as seen on this photo entitled "Cutting the ‘Calacht’" by WA Green. Image sourced from the National Museum of Northern Ireland.

In "Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review", Volume 25 published in 1914, we can read a short description of this custom which once marked the end of the grain harvest in Ireland:

Harvest Meal from Co. Antrim. Notice the straw "Calacht" (Cailleach) over the table. Photo by WA Green. Image sourced from the National Museum of Northern Ireland.

The same tradition was once common in Scotland too. There the object made from the last sheaf was called "cailleach-bhuaineadh" (‘the old woman of the harvest’). Here is an example of the cailleach from Scotland.

The reason people gave for this custom can be found on the website "Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic"

Cailleach, The Hag represented Mother Earth in her winter form. At the end of the harvest (literally means autumn) her spirit (ability to produce food) was spent, and the last of it was preserved in this effigy for the next year. Pic: Winter, Roman mosaic

During the winter, as the grain from the autumn harvest was ground into flour, the Ugly Old Hag of Winter transformed into the Beautiful Young Maiden of Spring full of reproductive energy again. Pic: Slovenian folk painting depicting "Babji mlin" (Grandmother's mill)  

Balluderon Stone

This is the Balluderon Stone, otherwise known as Martin's Stone. It is a class II Pictish cross slab in situ at Balluderon, Angus, Scotland.

 Local tradition associates the slab with the Legend of the Nine Maidens who were devoured by a dragon which was subsequently slain by a hero named Martin. Folk etymology names this as the origin of Strathmartine (Strike Martin), the valley in which the slab stands...

The legend is believed to have originated between the seventh and ninth centuries, when the Picts farmed the land in Tayside. I have come across two versions...

In one, recorded by the antiquarian John Pinkerton (1758–1826), the 9 maidens were daughters of a certain Martin. They are killed by a dragon and their father then avenges their death by killing the dragon:

In the other one the maidens were daughters of a local farmer. They are killed by a dragon and St Martin then avenges their death by killing the dragon:

Is this the actual meaning of this story?

I talked about the link between snakes and sun, sun's heat in many articles on my blog. Snakes our in our world during warm part of the year and in the "otherworld" during cold part of the year...Dragon is just another name for the "great serpent"...Basically the sun, sun's heat...

One very interesting thing about the Balluderon stone is this detali. What is this symbol? It most likely represents the beginning and the end of the snake period, considering that it is depicted upward at the head and downward at the tail...

At the first glance this stone looks so much like early medieval Balkan "Stećak" standing stones. And believe or not the same symbol is found on many of these Balkan standing stones. One example:

What is very interesting is that in the Balkans this symbol has "legs" and looks like anthropomorphic plant. Could this be Jarilo, Young sun from Slavic mythology, the bringer of life, the bringer of Spring? His name means Bright Hot one but also Young Green one...

In Croatia he is called "Zeleni Jura" (Green Jarilo) and is during Jurjevo (St George's day, but really Yarilo's day, Beginning of Summer festival) played by a man disguised as a green bush. This is the original Green Man...

So the symbols marking the beginning and the end of The Great Serpent (The Dragon) could actually mark the arrival and the departure of Jarilo (Sun). Jarilo, who was believed to spend winter in "the land of the dead", where he is "reborn" on Winter Solstice...I talked about this in my post "Young god".

Jarilo's day (St George for Christians) marks of the beginning of summer, the time when sun's heat becomes destructive. Jarilo (Whose name means The Bright Hot Raging one) is "The Dragon"...Dragon that has to be killed or the world will be burned too cinder...

And so St George kills The Dragon (Yarilo) 🙂 Hilarious. And very clever. Turning god into god killer...But also necessary and inevitable (thank god) or we would be living in a lifeless roasting desert...

In reality dragon killing is done by Perun, at the other end of summer. It is him who inflicts the deadly wound with his thunderbolt (spear, arrow, axe, club)... But Dragons are "nasty beasts" 🙂 and they don't die easily...

So it is at the end of autumn that they finally go "to the land of the dead"...By "coincidence" the same time when the sun goes to the "land of the dead" too...

Interesting: Annotated drawing of the Strathmartine recumbent grave-slab (no 2), and the reverse and obverse of the Balluderon cross-slab. From the James Skene sketch album, page 15. Date c. 1832