Earth Mother Goddess

Spring is underway, Easter heralds the return of the Sun, and wildlife begins springing forth once again. As the Sun regains her strength, the Earth thaws and is once again becoming fruitful.

If you have the means, this is the time to start your gardens (if you are in northerly climates like me). So let’s take a moment to fix our gaze down, away from the sky, and toward our Mother beneath our feet.

The Earth Mother is a relatively well preserved Goddess across IE myths. She is the consort of the Sky Father, in some pantheons the mother of the Storm God, and/or the mother of the Divine Twins. In Germania, Tacitus tells us her name is Nerthus, and that she represents a Terra Mater (Mother Earth) worshipped by many tribes. In addition, he says of the Angles: “the noteworthy characteristic of the English, to foreign eyes, was that they were goddess-worshippers; they looked on the earth as their mother.”

Let us take some time to call upon Her for fertile gardens this year. The Æcerbot is a preserved poem which does just that. The ritual is an 11th century (possibly earlier) recording by a Christian monk, and no doubt contains some Christian contamination. Nevertheless, it displays a continuation of the reverence by the English people of the Earth Mother described to us by Tacitus almost 1,000 years prior, and should serve as a useful backbone for constructing our own rituals to this generous Goddess.

The ritual itself is very lengthy, too lengthy to get into completely here. However it is worth researching on your own, as a starting point for creating our own rituals, as it is much closer to the pagan mindset of our ancestors.

From the ritual, in modern English:

Erce, Erce, Erce, Earth Mother,
May the all-ruler grant you, the eternal lord,
fields growing and flourishing,
propagating and strengthening,
tall shafts, bright crops,
and broad barley crops,
and white wheat crops,
and all earth's crops....

Whole may you be Earth, mother of men!
May you be growing in God's embrace,
with food filled for the needs of men.

From: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kjolly/field.htm

-Hariwulfaz, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

Lithuanian Earth Goddess

In Lithuania, one of the most important goddesses to the Romuva religion is Žemyna, also sometimes referred to as Žemynėla.

Her name is undoubtedly connected to the Lithuanian word “žemė”, meaning earth, from the Proto-Indo-European word *dʰéǵʰōm. Contrast this with the English word “earth”, rooted in the West Germanic *erþu, (perhaps the source of the Germanic Earth Mother “Nerthus”, attested by Tacitus), itself rooted in the the PIE word *h₁er.

In Lithuanian folklore and mythology, Žemyna is the daughter of the the Sun goddess Saulė and the moon god Menulis. Her holiday is known as Žolinės, however in modern times this holiday has been absorbed by the Catholic Church as the cult of the Virgin Mary.

-Hariwulfaz, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

https://telegra.ph/The-organisation-of-the-Celtic-sacerdotal-caste-and-the-Druidic-revolution-04-08

The organisation of the Celtic sacerdotal caste and the Druidic revolution

Every year, they met in the same place, the center of the country, for a session that had two objectives: examine religious matters and render judgments in legal disputes. We can see that in numerous domains, bards, vates and druids were competing with each other. Yet soon the latter would bring a new type of belief that would be irreplaceable...

Kudos to pagangmommy for her help with the English phrasing!

Matamoro, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

The Moralism of the Druids

“The bards composed and sung odes; the Uatis attended to the sacrifices and studied nature; while the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy. So confident are the people in the justice of the Druids that they refer all private and public disputes to them; and these men on many occasions have made peace between armies actually drawn up for battle.” - Strabo

“Druids make their pronouncements by means of riddles and dark sayings, teaching that the gods must be worshipped, and no evil done, and manly behaviour maintained.” - Diogenes Laertius

- O’Gravy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

Druids were an initiatic caste, akin to the vedic Brahmin, passing wisdom from one generation of Druids to the next through the oral tradition. Anyone alive today who claims to be one is beyond arrogant and should be shamed.

The priestly class needs to be re-established, but it will be a new tradition largely based on the foundation of knowledge we have inherited. We are perennialists, we revere the sacred traditions, but also innovate further.

Through practice and development, we will be inspired by the Druids of the past eras, and aim to get as close as possible, perhaps even achieving Brahmin/Druid tier development when we enter the Golden Age once again.

Hail the Druids, we will forever remember you, and continue to develop ourselves and our traditions, in your honour.

- Owen, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

LESHY: SLAVIC GUARDIAN SPIRIT OF THE FOREST – Part I

Leshy (he from the forest) is a higher spirit which rules and governs a forest he inhabits. He is the protector of all the beings which reside in his realm and is the master of the hunt. Because of his role as the protector of a forest, a leshy is able to manifest his will through it, hence why in folklore he appears as a plant, animal or an anthropomorphic creature, however, he can also appear in the form of relatives and acquaintances of the person that spots him. Some people described his as being small as a dwarf, while others described him to be as tall as a giant, which awoke the belief that he could change his height. Some stories say that a leshy is a humanoid covered in fur, while others point out that he is covered with branches, leaves and cones.

-Daelendil, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

LESHY: SLAVIC GUARDIAN SPIRIT OF THE FOREST – Part II

Due to all these different denoscriptions appearing from one folklore story to another, we can safely assume that a leshy’s physical manifestation reflects his realm, his forest. Some folklore sources mention that a leshy is accompanied by a strong wind, with the power to govern it. A leshy has no shadow and he can become invisible if he wishes so. He is credited with all sorts of forest sounds, though he can speak humanly. Depending on a person’s intentions in his forest, a leshy will either help out that person and bring it good luck or he will sabotage it and bring bad luck. According to folklore, a leshy could provide good luck in hunting and livestock grazing, for this, hunters and shepherds needed to bring him an offering, usually an egg, and conclude an agreement with him.

-Daelendil, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

My long-time friend and colleague Rübezahl has put together a website archiving past articles and effortposts from our community!
Has lots of interesting stuff, mix of academic articles, high-quality effortposts, and user-created artwork. Worth checking out and officially endorsed by myself. Thank you Rübezahl for your years of time&effort put into developing, and inspiring others to partake in our sacred traditions.

https://solarcult.org/

-Owen, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

The Druids of the ancient Celtic world would have a startling kinship with the Brahmins of the Hindu religion and were, indeed, a parallel development from their common Indo-European cultural root which began to branch out probably five thousand years ago. It has been only in recent decades that Celtic scholars have begun to reveal the full extent of the parallels and cognates between the ancient Celtic society and Vedic culture.

Peter Berresford Ellis, Celtologist
(Art: 19th century woodcut)

Vörðr

A vörðr is a type of protector spirit to the North Germanic people. It is thought that each person’s soul is connected to a vörðr, which guides and protects them.

While belief in vörðr has waned, what is preserved folk lore indicates these spirits would follow you, and in times of danger, present themselves. They would cause foreboding feelings or other tactile responses, which would act as warning for trouble. The concept was likely carried over into “guardian angel” after conversion.

The word itself is very interesting, it seems to be rooted in either the Proto-Germanic nouns *warduz (a guard; linguistic root of modern English word warden) or *wardo (protection, care, attention, lookout), both of which are derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *wer- (to cover, heed, notice). While the connection is tentative, it is interesting to note the vörðr may be the linguistic root of the English word wraith, of dubious linguistic origins.

-Hariwulfaz, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

https://telegra.ph/R%C3%BCbezahl-04-22

Rübezahl, the Mountain Spirit

A great example of a regional guardian spirit, Rübezahl is the protagonist of many folk tales.

- pagangmommy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

Dwarves

Dwarves are a type of supernatural being, rooted in the ancient beliefs of our ancestors, which persist into the imagination of the current age.

They are heavily attested in the Prose and Poetic Eddas of early medieval Iceland, with poems such as the Völuspá devoting many lines simply to naming many dwarves. Snorri in the Gylfaginning tells us some dwarves hold very important functions Germanic cosmology; for instance, 4 dwarves, Austri, Vestri, Suðri, and Norðri stand at the 4 corners of the Earth and hold up the sky.

Other attestations paint a different picture. For instance, a skull fragment with a transitional runic innoscription from Ribe, Demark, may possibly be a plea to Oðinn and High Tyr for protection against pain caused by a dwarf.

In addition, dwarves were responsible for the murder of the wise figure Kvasir, and this involved in the creation of the Mead of Poetry. They are often depicted as craftsmen, for instance, smithing the mighty Mjölnir which ends up in the hands of Thor.

So overall the dwarves appear to be neutral beings in the natural order of our world, strong, powerful, and crafty, sometimes greedy and with ill intent, though uninterested in the world. Yet sometimes it seems, they cannot help getting caught up in the world’s affairs.

-Hariwulfaz, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

Tylwyth Teg

The name for the fairy folk in the Welsh folk tradition is Tylwyth Teg. Though usually small in size, there were also said to be rare instances in which they had the size of ordinary humans. This special sort of Tylwyth Teg was said to come out of lakes and dance, and their fine looks enticed young men to follow them back into the lakes, and there marry one of them. If the husband wished to leave the lake he had to go without his fairy wife. They were often seen riding out of the lakes and back again on horses.

Some lived in caves; others of them lived in lake-bottoms. A farmer one morning found in his field many very fine cows such as he had never seen before. Not knowing where they came from, he kept them a long time, when, as it happened, he committed some dishonest act and, as a result, women of the Tylwyth Teg made their appearance and, calling the cows by name, led the whole herd into the lake, and with them disappeared beneath its waters.

- O’Gravy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

https://telegra.ph/On-the-Subject-of-Druids-04-26

On the subject of Druids

Some thoughts on the Druids and their ethnic counterparts across Europe, their ordination in our time-if possible, and some friendly advice going forward.

-Cormac Cás, The Sun Riders
@solarcult