Why a Heathen Rosary?

[jprussell]

I've written another post over on my main blog about why I'm working out a Heathen Rosary and what I hope the end result will look like.

If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Comments

[causticus]

Jeff, this is so fascinating! I'm eager to see where all of this might lead.

BTW, if you're on the hunt for more lore, one place I've found quite interesting is medieval Germanic folklore. Sure, these peoples were (not-so-thoroughly) Christianized by that time, but as I read through the folk tales, the Christian veneer seems quite thin as the Heathen themes and symbolism shine right through. This might be relevant as you've taken it upon yourself to try and reclaim portions of Christianized Germanic culture. After reading the tale "The Swan Knight" this idea became fairly apparent to me.

On the more magical end of things, I think it was Winifred Hodge who wrote an article (I can't seem to remember the link right now...ugh) in which she used the Merseburg charms as a template to unearth a number of Medieval "Christian" German spells; it then becomes quite clear where the Heathen divine names were etched out and replaced with Christian divine names.

Anyway, I think you're onto something quite promising with all of this work you are doing!

[jprussell]

Thanks very much for the encouragement and the nudges of where to look for more stuff. I'm definitely interested in medieval and early modern Germanic folklore, as a) I'm pretty far to the "Brothers Grimm" end of the spectrum when it comes to "how much pre-Christian stuff survived in folklore?" That article sounds fascinating, I'll have to see if I can find it - Stephen Pollington has written about the Merseberg charm pretty thoroughly in, I believe, Leechcraft and The Elder Gods, but I don't think he talked about it as an example of a wider "class" of charms. Another "Christian" charm with its Heathen showing pretty clearly is the Anglo-Saxon Aecerbot, and it has influenced my own practice (basically I accept the interpretation that "Erce" is most likely the name of an earth Goddess that it is likely right to identify with Nerthus).

Oh, and before I forget, besides the magnum opus of the Grimms, any recommendations for sources of Germanic folklore to check out? I have Lecouteux's Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, which does a good job of giving more "folklore" than Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology, but other than a few books of fairy tales and Anglo-Saxon poetry (like "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"), I don't have a ton of the tales themselves.

One element of your comment I find rather interesting is putting the Rosary in the context of a "Christian veneer over Heathen themes and symbolism" - honestly, that's not an idea I had considered, other than the Spenglerian assertion that the prominence of Mary in Western European Catholicism was a clear Faustian upwelling in the Magian pseudomorphosis of Christianity. I hadn't delved much into the history/origin of the Rosary beyond the basics, but it might be interesting to try to work out if there might have been any earlier practices that influenced it.

If anything, as I've read works like The Secret of the Rosary, I've been inclined to accept more or less at face value the claims of visions, visitations, and miracles attributed to the Rosary by its Catholic proponents and to see that as proof that this particular approach has a lot to recommend it structurally and behaviorally, but as practiced by Catholics, it is obviously very tightly attuned with Mary, and to a slightly lesser extent, Jesus.

At any rate, thanks very much for the food for thought, and I'll try to track down that Merseburg charm article.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

Yeah, I was gonna say, The Grimms collection seems like a great starting point. Lecouteux's work sounds interesting. I have another book of his about the old lore of Household Gods/Spirits and its very academically-thorough.

Regarding "Mary"; the fact that so many people the world over have had visions and religious experiences of her seems to point to the obvious that she's a real goddess or spirit (daimon), and one that undoubtedly long pre-existed Abrahamic religions. She's obvious more than just a pseudo-historical personage jotted down in tale that didn't exist prior to the 1st century CE. It's probably not too much of a stretch to apply the Interpretatio formula as far as associating her with goddesses from other pantheons. That said, where would she fit as far as associations with Germanic goddesses are concerned? I don't know enough to be able to even begin to answer that myself, but someone someday might figure out a compelling association. It's easier with the classical traditions as there seems to be quite a likeness between Mary and Isis (Frige and Isis do overlap in functions but they seem rather distinct otherwise). My wildest guess with the Germanic divinities would be that "Mary" experiences might be some reflex of the Matrons/Disir spirits. But yeah that's totally a wild guess out of left field. From studying faery lore, my general impression is that unseen entities tend to manifest in forms that are intelligible to the viewer's psyche; they first forge a psychic connection with us and then appear as something that makes sense to us. By that, I think just as there are sundry Jesii, there are also a plethora of Mariae(sp?) spirits/goddesses.

Anyway, I've rambled on too long with my wild theorizing, haha.

[jprussell]

Thanks much - I've got Lecouteux's book on Household Spirits and have skimmed through it, but it got shelved for my "year of reading dead folks" (Lecouteux is luckily still with us).

Now, on Mary, as JMG might say, hmmmm! You have taken what was already a complex topic and added more (helpful, interesting) complexities! The thought that Mary/Marys might be best associated with the Matronae and/or Disir is a new one to me, but very thought-provoking! It would certainly jive with the different flavors of various localized manifestations (Our Lady of Fatima doesn't seem to be the same as Our Lady of Guadalupe, and so forth). I'm gonna have to give that one a think.

That being said, if we do want to shoot for a Germanic interpretatio of the better-known individual Goddesses, that's also a tough one. In some ways, Mary covers a lot (all?) of the ground that most polytheistic religions covered with multiple Goddesses. If nothing else, the fact that she is both virginal and maternal makes matching her up with either more maidenly Goddesses or more matronly Goddesses harder. If you lean into the "Queen of Heaven, Mother of the Holy Child who is unjustly killed and Whom she mourns", then Frigg seems like a pretty clear choice. On the other hand, if you lean into "Maker/Keeper of the 'Fruit' of eternal life and salvation", Idun begins to make a certain amount of sense. Gunnlodh has some intriguing similarities here - she is the keeper of something magical (and to some degree, immortality-granting), Odin enters into sexual union with her, and he brings that gift forth into the world. Heck, if you decided to focus most on the pieta, then maybe even Freyja's tears for her lost/wandering husband could make a connection.

Frigg and Idun seem like the clear front runners to me, but if you are more concerned with the maiden aspect of things, that's a bit harder, as I'm having trouble finding any Goddesses known for their virginity in Norse/Germanic tradition (I think one of Frigg's handmaidens is said to take on maidens who die virgins, but without necessarily implying she herself is a virgin).

As you've seen, I've made Idun central to my own take on the Rosary, but that is largely for personal reasons rather than a belief that she is the "best" match with Mary. What strikes me as likely most important is that the set of prayers is largely devoted to a feminine power, with some masculine balancing, and perhaps that a core part of the prayer is the idea of "intercession" - asking a divine being with whom you have a close, deeply personal link to help you get in touch with the less accessible, but no less important, bits of the holy world.

At any rate, wild theorizing of this sort is always welcome, as I'll come right back with my own!