The Mother Of The Lares  

Posted by Unknown

The Mother Of The Lares Cover
The Mother of the Lares (Mater Larum) has been identified with any of several minor Roman deities. She appears twice in the records of the Arval Brethren as Mater Larum, elsewhere as Mania and Larunda. Ovid calls her Lara, Muta (the speechless one) and Tacita (the silent one). Cult to Matres Larum is known through the fragmentary Arval rites to Dea Dia, a goddess of fruitfulness. The Arvals address Dia herself as Juno Dea Dia, which identifies her with the supreme female principle. The mother of the Lares is addressed only as Matres Larum; she is given a sacrificial meal (cena matri Larum) of puls (porridge) contained in a sacred, sun-dried earthenware pot (olla).

Prayers are recited over the pot, which is then thrown from the temple doorway, down the slope on which the temple stands; thus, remarks Lily Ross Taylor, towards the earth as a typically chthonic offering. On another occasion, the Arvals offer sacrificial recompense to various deities for a necessary pollution of Dia's sacred grove; the Mater Larum is given two sheep. The Arvals also invoke her children, in the opening lines of the Arval Hymn to Dia, which begins enos Lases iuvate ("Help us, Lares"). The Mater Larum may have been offered cult with her Lares during the festival of Larentalia as she was, according to Macrobius (fl. 395 - 423 AD), during Compitalia. Ovid poetically interprets what may be a variant of her rites at the fringes of the Feralia: an old woman squats among a circle of younger women and sews up a fish-head. She smears this with pitch then pierces and roasts it; this, she says, binds hostile tongues to silence. She thus invokes Tacita (silence). If, as Macrobius proposes, the Lemures are unsatiated and malevolent forms of Lares, then they and their mother also find their way into Lemuralia, when the vagrant and malicious Lemures and (perhaps) Larvae must be placated by midnight libations of spring-water and offerings of black beans, spat from the mouth of the paterfamilias to the floor of the domus.

Again, Taylor notes the chthonic character of offerings made to fall - or deliberately expelled - towards the earth. Varro (116 BC - 27 BC) believes that she and her children were originally Sabine and names her as Mania; the name is used by later Roman authors with the general sense of an "evil spirit". In the late 2nd century AD, according to Festus, nursemaids use the name of Mania to terrify children. Macrobius applies it to the woolen figurines (maniae) hung at crossroad shrines during Compitalia, thought to be substitutions for ancient human sacrifice once held at the same festival and suppressed by Rome's first consul, L. Junius Brutus. The only known mythography attached to Mater Larum is little, late and poetic: again, the source is Ovid (Fasti II, 571 ff), who identifies her as a once-loquacious nymph, Lara, her tongue cut out for betrayal of Jupiter's secret amours. Lara thus becomes Muta (speechless) and is exiled from the daylight world to the underworld abode of the dead (ad Manes); a place of silence (Tacita). She is led there by Mercury and impregnated by him en route. Her offspring are as silent or speechless as she. If their mother's nature connects the Lares to the earth they are, according to Taylor, spirits of the departed and their mother a dark or terrible aspect of Tellus (Terra Mater). The Lares and the Mater Larum have been suggested as ancient Etruscan divinities; the title or forename Lars, used by Rome's Etrucan kings has been interpreted as "king", "overlord" or "leader". Greek authors offered "heroes" and "daimones" as translations for Lares and Plautus employs a Lar Familiaris where Menander's Greek original has a heroon (hero-shrine).

Keywords: black death  primordial goddess  baphomet bathomet  charge goddess  rites nameless  goddess nephthys  goddess life  black death  wiccan rituals  wilt shall whole  wicca  magical operations performed  pagan symbols  wicca love  

Goddess Aine  

Posted by Unknown

Goddess Aine Image
"AINE" IS AN IRISH GODDESS OF SOVEREIGNTY; HER NAME MEANS "BRIGHT SPARK". SHE GOVERNS THE SEASON OF SUMMER HER SPECIAL FEAST WAS AT M"IDSUMMER NIGHT", THE "SUMMER SOLSTICE", WHEN TORCHES WERE LIT IN HER HONOR. "AINE" IS A GODDESS THE MOON AND OF HUMAN LOVE. SHE IS THE RULER OF AGRICULTURE, AND THUS REIGNS OVER THE FERTILITY OF PEOPLE, CROPS, AND ANIMALS. BECAUSE SHE HAS STRONG CONNECTIONS TO THE LAND, HER BLESSING IS SAID TO ENSURE FERTILE FIELDS. " AINE" IS ALSO LINKED WITH THE FOUR ELEMENTS...EARTH, AIR, FIRE, AND WATER.

HER HOME IS LOCATED NEAR AN ENCHANTED LAKE IN THE HILLS OF "CNOC AINE, "AND IN THE COUNTY LIMERICK THERE IS A STONE CIRCLE DEDICATED TO HER CALLED "THE GRANGE." THE RED MARE, THE RABBIT AND THE SWAN ARE HER SACRED ANIMALS. IN SEVERAL TALES, SHE IS STRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE YEW TREE WHICH SHOWS HER AS A GODDESS OF LIFE AND DEATH. "AINE" IS ALSO CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH LAKES AND WELLS WITH GREAT POWERS OF HEALING, AND HER "TOBAR-NA-AINE (WELL OF AINE") WAS CREDITED WITH LIFE-RESTORING POWER.

SHE IS ALSO KNOWN AS THE "FAIRY QUEEN OF MUNSTER," THE SORCERESS FAIRY QUEEN WHO IS SAID TO GIVE THE GRASS ITS SWEET SMELL. THERE ARE CONFLICTING TALES ABOUT "AINE'S" BEGINNING AND HERITAGE AS A GODDESS, AND IN SOME MYTHS SHE IS DEPICTED AS A MORTAL WOMAN WHO WAS TRICKED INTO BECOMING A GODDESS BY A FAIRY WHO HAD ENCHANTED HER. "AINE "LIKED MORTAL MEN AND OFTEN MATED WITH THEM, PRODUCING FAIRY CHILDREN. IN FACT, SHE WAS ONE OF THE MANY GODDESSES THAT THE CHRISTIAN MONKS SOUGHT TO DO AWAY WITH, MOSTLY BECAUSE OF HER MANY RELATIONS WITH MEN. "

Keywords: descent underworld  primordial night  goddesses every  italian goddesses  italian gods goddesses  alchemical testamentum summi  tangible secret  1618 atalanta fugiens  testamentum johannis gwynn  about hidden  17th poem edmund  

Enyalius  

Posted by Unknown

Enyalius Cover
Enyalius or Enyalio in Greek mythology is generally a byname of Ares the god of war but in Mycenaean times is differentiated as a separate deity. On the Linear B Knossos Tablet KN V 52 the name E-nu-wa-ri-jo is interpreted to refer to this same Enyalios. Enyalios is mentioned nine times in Homer's Iliad and in four of them it is in the same formula describing Meriones who is one of the leaders of warriors from Crete. Homer calls Ares 'Enyalios' in Iliad book xx, A scholiast on Homer declares that the poet Alcman sometimes identified Ares with Enyalius and sometimes differentiated him, and that Enyalius was sometimes made the son of Ares by Enyo and sometimes the son of Cronus and Rhea. Ares and Enyalius are possibly differentiated in Aristophanes' comedy Peace. Aristophanes (in Peace), envisages Ares and Enyalios as separate gods of war. In Argonautica book II, part xiv, Jason sets the chthonic earthborn warriors fighting among themselves by hurling a boulder in their midst: 'But Jason called to mind the counsels of Medea full of craft, and seized from the plain a huge round boulder, a terrible quoit of Ares Enyalius; four stalwart youths could not have raised it from the ground even a little. ' The urbane Alexandrian author gives his old tale a touch of appropriate Homeric antiquity by using such an ancient epithet. Plutarch, in Moralia (2nd century), tells of the bravery of the women of Argos, in the 5th century BC, who repulsed the attacks of kings of Sparta. The survivors erected a temple to Ares Enyalius by the road where they fell: 'After the city was saved, they buried the women who had fallen in battle by the Argive road, and as a memorial to the achievements of the women who were spared they dedicated a temple to Ares Enyalius... Up to the present day they celebrate the Festival of Impudence (Hybristika) on the anniversary [of the battle], putting the women into men's tunics and cloaks and the men in women's dresses and head-coverings. ' http://www. stoa. org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-publiclife160. shtml According to Pausanias (3.15.7) the Lacedaemonians believed that by chaining up Enyalius they would prevent the god from deserting Sparta. Pausanias also mentions at 3.14.9 and 3.20.2 that puppies were sacrificed to Enyalius in Sparta. Polybius' history renders the Roman god Mars by Greek Ares but the Roman god Quirinus by Enyalius, and the same identifications are made by later writers such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, perhaps only because it made sense that a Roman god who was sometimes confounded with Mars and sometimes differentiated should be represented in Greek by a name that was similarly sometimes equated with Ares (who definitely corresponded with Mars) and was sometimes differentiated. Josephus in his Antiquities 4, (3)[115 115] states after telling the story of the Tower of Babel: But as to the plan of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: "Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Zeus Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia."

Keywords: maria cacao  goddess ishtar  hymn persephone  morning darkness lord  song goddess  baba yaga  gospel witches  aztec gods  wiccan religion  magic potions  pentacle  officina practice magic  asatru  pagan rituals  

Goddess Dodola  

Posted by Unknown

Goddess Dodola Image
"DODOLA "(TO GIVE MILK) IS A SLAVIC CLOUD AND RAIN GODDESS FROM THE OLD SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY. SHE RULED OVER THE WATERS AND THE RAIN...WHICH WAS THOUGHT TO BE A FORM OF DIVINE MILK. IT IS SAID THAT EACH SPRING SHE FLIES OVER THE FIELDS AND SPREADS GREENERY WHILE DECORATING THE TREES WITH BLOSSOMS. SHE IS THE WIFE OF THE THUNDERBOLT GOD, PERUN.

THE SLAVS BELIEVED THAT WHEN DODOLA MILKS HER HEAVENLY COWS (THE CLOUDS), IT RAINS HERE ON THE EARTH. THAT IS WHY IN TIMES OF DROUGHT, THE SLAVS ORGANIZED A FESTIVAL WHERE THEY WORSHIPPED THE GODDESS AND PRAYED TO HER FOR THE MUCH-NEEDED RAIN. IN SEVERAL EASTERN AND SOUTHEASTERN AREAS OF THE BALKANS, THIS RAIN-MAKING RITUAL IS STILL PRACTICED TODAY, WHILE IT HAS DIED OUT IN MOST OF THE OTHER AREAS. THE RITUAL, OUTLINED BELOW, WAS THOUGHT TO CONVINCE THE HEAVENLY WOMEN TO RAIN UPON THE EARTH.

AT TIMES OF DROUGHT, YOUNG LOCAL GIRLS (SOME SAY ONLY ONE GIRL) WOULD UNDRESS AND THEN CLOTHE THEMSELVES FROM HEAD TO FOOT WITH VARIOUS COMBINATIONS OF LEAVES, FLOWERS, HERBS, AND BLOSSOMS TO PERFORM THIS RAINMAKING RITUAL. THE GIRLS WERE THEN LED BY AN OLDER GIRL OR A WOMAN, WHO WAS DRESSED THE SAME WAY, IN A PROCESSION THROUGH THEIR VILLAGE. THEY USUALLY STOPPED IN FRONT OF EACH HOUSE TO DANCE AND SING SONGS. ONE OF THE SONGS THEY SING GOES LIKE THIS...

"WE GO THROUGH THE VILLAGE;"THE CLOUDS GO IN THE SKY;"WE GO FAST;"FASTER THAN THE CLOUDS;"THEY HAVE OVERTAKEN US;"AND WETTED THE CORN AND THE VINE. "

THE HOUSEWIVES WHEN THEN COME OUT AND DOUSE THE LEADER OF THE GROUP WITH WATER WHILE THE GIRL/WOMEN SPINS AROUND; SOMETIMES THE GIRLS THEMSELVES WOULD SPRINKLE WATER OVER THE COURTYARD USING SPRIGS AND LEAVES. THE GIRLS WERE THEN REWARDED WITH GIFTS OF FLOUR, FOOD, AND SOMETIMES EVEN A LITTLE MONEY.

Keywords: greek gods and goddesses and their powers  roman god of the underworld  olympian gods and goddesses  king of the gods  roman goddess venus  roman gods and goddesses  god and goddesses  egyptian gods and goddesses  ancient gods and goddesses names  olympian greek gods and goddesses  who are all the greek gods and goddesses  

<< Newer Posts
Older Posts >>