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A place for Aryan (European) Folkish Pagans
^ note the snake cloak. Just like the statue from Old Temple of Athena (Archaios Neos)
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The Minoan snake-goddess was a house goddess. She was a snake-goddess, not because, as Sir Arthur Evans asserts, she was the lady of the nether world and of the dead, but because she was a house goddess. The guardian spirit of the house had been anthropomorphized, and the house snake had become her attribute.
M.Nilsson
We all know that Athena is the Goddess of wisdom and war as well as a patron of Athens, but often forget that she has a strong connection to snakes.
For example, she is frequently depicted with a shield or cloak with snakes. You can see the latter on this statue of Athena from the pediment of the temple of the Peisistratidai.
Athenians say that a great snake lives in the sacred precinct guarding the acropolis.
The monthly offering is a honey-cake.
In all the time before this the honey-cake had been consumed, but this time it was untouched. When the priestess interpreted the significance of this, the Athenians were all the more eager to abandon the city since the goddess had deserted the acropolis.
Herodotus
Pagan Finns used to feed snakes in the vicinity of their house, usually beneath a sacred tree, such as a spruce (Picea abies) or rowan (Sorbus aucuparia). A sacred birch (Betula pendula or Betula pubescens) might be called Jumalankoivu (God's birch).
These snakes were called elättikäärme (lit. "a snake that is fed / supported").
In the Finnish village of Kieppi in Mäntyharju there were two snakes called Pissu & Sussu living beneath a sacred rowan. They were given the first fish caught in the springtime, tidbits from slaughter during fall, and the first milk after a cow or a woman had given birth.
The tree itself was sacred, as were the snakes, and offerings were brought to it, even after it had been felled for one reason or another.
In Tunnila in Sulkava there used to be a tree underneath which offerings of food were left for the dead, the elves, and various spirits.
Ill fate would befall those who disrespected or mistreated a sacred tree or snake.
Photo: Sacred spruce of the house of Kinnunen.
The problem with Christianity, if anything, is just that it's not authority-based enough.
Your heathen religion is right because the vast majority of your ancestors said so. It's not some groovy middle finger to the man. It's the ultimate in humility and obedience before the divine.
Christianity is the ultimate in hubris. It's you telling almost all your ancestors that you know better.
Words had separated me from my body. The sun released me. Greece cured my self-hatred and awoke a will to health. I saw that beauty and ethics were one and the same. Creating a beautiful work of art and a beautiful oneself are identical.
Yukio Mishima
Today is the start of Yule according to the Misseri calendar! Happy Yule to all.
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The idea that Odin was supposedly c*ckolded by Freya is often used to oppose mythic realism and needs to be dispelled.
It's found in three places: Lokasenna, Saxo Grammaticus, and Ynglinga saga. Let's take a look at each:
1) Lokasenna – The slanders of Loki. Freya denies it.
2) Saxo – This is not a myth but euhemerized history. Odin and Freya are made into mortal humans by a Christian author who calls Freya a shameful woman "unworthy to be the consort of a god" who had sex with some unnamed servant. It's clear from the context of the passage that this Christian author means to convince his audience that Odin was not a god but some sort of magician trying to fool people into thinking he was. It was not handed down from a heathen audience and is not a real indigenous myth that our forefathers believed.
3) Ynglinga saga – This is the only source that provides us a legitimate case for this supposed infidelity. In it, Odin goes on a journey and appoints his brothers Vili and Vé to rule his kingdom in his absence. Odin is away much longer than expected and his brothers naturally presume him dead, and as a result the kingdom is divided and Freya is married off. Upon returning, Odin again takes her to wife. This is not an episode of infidelity but a quite common occurrence in traditional societies. Far from being a moral crime, it was in fact the moral duty of a brother to wed his brother's widow and support her upon his death. Every single one of you have ancestors who practiced it.
So we can see that where this myth is valid at all, it's not a moral error, and far from blasphemous, it's a model of virtue. It's not a metaphor but a real event that happened.
Achilles rejects Hector's plea for mercy and kills him
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One can buy a house spirit (domovoi) as they are sold at some places in a bottle or a sieve, in which they sit just like cats.
The one who can’t control a spirit can perish easily. Domovoi can bring wealth, long life and honour.
V.Gnatyk
Art byBendis https://www.instagram.com/bend1zart/
Even at the molecular level, the body expresses a spiritual essence. Our DNA is the coded experience of our lineage in the physical world. Our genetic template transmits information across space and time to literally shape us. Science has shown that hereditary influences not only mental traits such as personality and temperament. When we consider that even our personal values are partly hereditary, it becomes apparent that the link between the body and the spirit is a profound one.
S.McNallen
Mag Muirthemne, whence the name? Not hard to say. The sea covered it thirty years after the Flood, and hence it is called Muirthemne, that is, ‘darkness of the sea’, or ‘it is under the sea’s roof’. Or there was a magic sea over it, and an octopus therein, having a property of suction. It would suck in a man in armour till he lay at the bottom of its treasure-bag. The Dagda came with his ‘mace of wrath’ in his hand, and plunged it down upon the octopus, and chanted these words: ‘Turn thy hollow head! Turn thy ravening body! Turn thy resorbent forehead! Avaunt! Begone!’ Then the magic sea retired with the octopus; and hence, may be, the place was called Mag Muirthemne.
Edward Gwynn The Metrical Dindshenchas
Greeks and Romans, when they sacrificed, took frankincense and let it fall upon the flaming altar. More rarely they used a censer. This woodcut shows the performance of both these acts. The censer here has two handles.
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Wayland the Smith by Iwobrand
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Restoration of the polychrome decoration of the Athena statue from the Aphaea temple at Aegina, c. 490 BC (from the exposition "Bunte Götter" by the Munich Glyptothek)
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Athena by gracedpalmer
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The statues, by Phidias, of Minerva, represent her as decorated with this emblem. In ancient medals, as shown by Montfaucon, she sometimes holds a caduceus in her right hand; at other times she has a staff around which a serpent is twisted, and at others, a large serpent appears going in front of her; while she is sometimes seen with her crest composed of a serpent.
It is remarkable too, that in the Acropolis at Athens was kept a live serpent who was generally considered the guardian of the place, and Athens was a city specially consecrated to Minerva.
H.Jennings
Why snakes, of all creatures, are the household guarding spirits in European traditions?
One theory I personally support is the chthonic nature of snakes and them representing dead ancestors. In cases when a European tradition has a non-snake household spirit (like domovoi) it’s a dead ancestor. Often both snake and human household spirits coexisted.
Among many European peoples, as well as in other parts of the world, we find the snake as the guardian of the house. In my own country —Sweden—the house snake was extremely common, and only a few years ago there died a farmer of whom I know that he was wont to offer milk to the house snakes.
M.Nilsson
Pagan Rome is the only Rome
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WARRIOR OF THE SUEBI
by Brother Bjorn
https://twitter.com/bjorn_brother
Reconstruction of the 14th century Latgallian female costume
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Raise your children to honor the Gods and Ancestors.
Next generations will have it much easier than us since they are raised Pagan.
The most fundamental difference between polytheism and monotheism, between tribalism and universalism, and between hierarchal values and globalism, is that of plurality vs. singularity. Is the universe many or one? Is it a unification of one vital force manifested in many ways, or many forces that make up an overall collective?
I am a polytheist, and one who believes in the MANY, rather than the ONE. The problem I have with these mono/universal beliefs is that they are by their very nature dividers. They claim to believe in unity but bring division. We believe in division but manifest unity. How can such a paradox exist?
M.Puryear
Found some interesting folklore data. Will take a while to translate.
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Very interesting and rather obscure myth. I think it’s a Celtic version of Chaoskampf. Sure it’s unique and should be seen as it’s own, but the basics are there: a club-wielding warrior God fighting an aquatic monster representing chaos.
A shame there’s no good illustration of this great battle. I only found one and it’s quite bad.
The aspect of altars should be to the east, and they should always be lower than the statues in the temple, so that the supplicants and those that sacrifice, in looking towards the deity, may stand more or less inclined, as the reverence to be shewn may proportionably require. Hence altars are thus contrived; the heights of those of Jupiter and the celestial gods are to be as high as they may conveniently be; those of Vesta, the Earth, and the Sea are made lower.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
I will sing of Heracles, the son of Zeus and much the mightiest of men on earth. Alcmena bare him in Thebes, the city of lovely dances, when the dark-clouded Son of Cronos had lain with her. Once he used to wander over unmeasured tracts of land and sea at the bidding of King Eurystheus, and himself did many deeds of violence and endured many; but now he lives happily in the glorious home of snowy Olympus
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A while ago I did a little research into this, and an interesting take is that these 'werewolves' did not transform into wolves from a human body, but rather possessed the bodies of wolves while their human body remained in stasis. The film 'wolf-walkers' takes this approach last I recall.
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