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“Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” ― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

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Sound on! This morning, the roe deer/rådjur seemed very upset. I couldn’t spot anything unusual, but I did notice numerous fox tracks in the snow. After a while, she calmed down and rejoined the other roe deer. The sound roe deer make when they are upset is often referred to as a bark or barking call. They use it to signal alarm or warn others of potential danger. Värmland, Sweden (January 28, 2025).

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European Fallow Deer/dovhjort. Ottenby Naturer Reserve, Öland, Sweden (October 3, 2024).

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Josh Pierce

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art by Eloise Lind

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The Oak King and May Queen Talon Abraxas Green Man, May Day and May Pole

Mythology of May Day

First we talk about the Goddess who lies behind May Day; second will be about the bonfires of May Day Eve and third the mythology and rituals behind the Maypole.

Since May 1 lies about halfway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, it was considered a good time to mark the transition into summer. Indeed, in most of medieval northern Europe (meaning the Celtic calendar), May 1 was the beginning of summer. By then the seeds for crops had just been sown (so farmers and their laborers could take a short break), and it was time to drive cattle and sheep out to their summer pastures. Both the sprouting crops and the soon-to-be pastured cattle needed divine protection from the dangers of the natural and supernatural worlds, which is why May Day developed as a holiday and took on the associated rituals and mythology that it did. And a goddess was a good figure to deal with such human concerns.

The Goddess of what is now May Day goes back to ancient times, in Anatolia, Greece, and Rome. Spring goddesses came to be venerated at two Roman holiday festivals that led to our May Day. The Roman Empire is important here because it took over much of Europe and the British Isles. Its mythology, associated rituals, and holidays spread there and merged with local conditions, mythologies, holidays, and customs.

The first of these goddesses of spring holidays was the Hilaria festival (from Greek hilareia/hilaria (“rejoicing”) and Latin hilaris (“cheerful”), held between the vernal equinox and April 1. It goes back to when the Phrygian goddess Cybele was introduced to Rome, at the end of the 3rd century BCE. In her myth, she had a son-lover, Attis, a dying-and-rising god who was mortally gored by a boar. Cybele knew that he had not died for eternity but that his spirit simply had taken refuge in a tree for the winter, and that he would be reborn from the tree in the spring, on the vernal equinox. When Cybele was introduced in Rome, she was given her temple of Magna Mater on the Palatine hill and a also a holiday with corresponding rituals. In her festival, a pine tree (that of Attis) was cut and stripped of its branches, wrapped in linen like a mummy, and decorated with violets (Cybele’s flower, because in the myth violets were said to have sprung from the blood of Attis).

It was then brought before Cybele’s temple on wagons in what resembled a funeral cortege, since Attis was “dead” inside the tree. This was followed by days of frenzied grief and mourning (including scourging) known as the “blood days,” when the tree was symbolically buried in a “tomb.” Attis then resurrected (rose out of the tree) on the day of Hilaria and was reunited with Cybele, symbolizing the beginning of spring. The tree was then erected before Cybele’s temple, and the people celebrated around it. The celebrations ended on April 1, which may be the origin of our April Fool’s day (the people were having a “hilarious” celebration). This has obvious parallels with the Maypole and May Day celebrations.

The second of these holidays was the Floralia, named after Flora, goddess of flowers and spring. Originally she may have been a Sabine goddess, about whom we know nothing other than that she had a spring month named after her on the Sabine calendar (Flusalis, linguistically related to Floralia) and that supposedly an altar to her in Rome was established by the Sabine king Tatius during the legendary period of his joint rule of Rome with Romulus. But none of her Sabine mythology has survived. In Rome Flora acquired her entire surviving mythology from the Greek spring goddess Chloris (from chloros – “pale green”),

who, as Ovid tells us, was originally a beautiful nymph in the Elysian Fields catering to the pleasures of the fortunate dead. There she also attracted the attention of Zephryos, the god of the West Wind and of spring, who quickly had his way with her. But then he married her, in what turned out to be a happy, loving marriage. As a wedding gift he filled her fields (her dowry in the marriage) with a flower garden, the flowers in which were said to spring from the wounds of Attis and Adonis. Zephyros, as the West Wind, brings the spring rains that grow the flowers. Thus, Virgil wrote that “the meadows ungirdle to Zephyros’s balmy breeze; the tender moisture avails for all.” Chloris also bore from Zephryos a son, Karpos, in Greek meaning “fruit” or “crop.” Through Zephyros’s wedding gift she became the goddess having jurisdiction over flowers, which she spread (by spreading their seeds) all over the earth, which until then was monochrome. She became goddess of spring. As Flora in Rome, in the late 3rd century BCE a festival was instituted in her honor that lasted from April 28 to May 2. It included theater, a sacrifice to Flora, a procession in which a statue of Flora was carried, as well as competitive events and other spectacles at the Circus Maximus. One of these involved releasing captured hares and goats (both noted for their fertility) into the Circus, and scattering beans, vetches, and lupins (all fertility symbols) into the crowd. The celebrants wore multi-colored clothing symbolizing flowers and spring, as later was customary on May Day in Europe. It was a time of generally licentious behavior. Flora also had a rose festival on May 23.

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Goddess Danu 'Tuatha Dè Danann'

Danu, Great Mother Dana, Anu, Ana, Anann, Danand, Dôn (Wales), Danuvius (Roman), Duna (Hungarian), Donau (German)

Danu is an ancient Irish triple goddess who is considered the “Great Mother” of Ireland.

She is the Mother of the Irish gods and faery people, the Tuatha Dé Danann , which literally means the “People of the Goddess Danu”.

Danu means knowledge, wisdom, wealth and abundance. However her name is also connected to water, and could mean ‘the flowing one’.

Danu is thought to have married Bilé and was the mother of the Dagda, the chief leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann. In other myths, she is known as the daughter or lover of the Dagda.

Her other children included Nuada, Dian Cécht, Ogma, Airmid, Etan, Miach, Cian/Kian, Sawan and Goibhniu.

Because of the similarities in correspondences, Danu has been associated with other goddesses, including Anu, the Universal Mother, and the Morrigan, the goddess of war.

Danu is also very similar to the Welsh goddess Dôn, who is the mother figure of the medieval tales in the Mabinogion.

Danu was also sometimes associated with Brigid, the daughter of the Dagda.

It is thought through her association with water, the River Danube was named after her.

Also, there are two round-topped hills in County Kerry, Ireland, called Da Chich Anu/Anann (the Paps of Anu), thought to represent the two breasts of Danu/Anu.

Danu has a strong connection to the land and water. She is a goddess of fertility, bounty, plenty, prosperity, wind, rivers, water, wells, wisdom, and inspiration.

Some of Danu’s symbols include holy stones, horses, seagulls, fish, amber, gold, flowing water, air, wind, earth, moon, keys and crowns.

Danu reminds us that we are capable of realizing our own dreams, empowering us to create our own destiny.

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kernunnos - Wild God of the Forest Talon Abraxas

Cernunnos is a horned god found in Celtic mythology. He is connected with male animals, particularly the stag in rut, and this has led him to be associated with fertility and vegetation. Depictions of Cernunnos are found in many parts of the British Isles and western Europe. He is often portrayed with a beard and wild, shaggy hair–he is, after all, the lord of the forest.

With his mighty antlers, Cernunnos is a protector of the forest and master of the hunt. He is a god of vegetation and trees in his aspect as the Green Man, and a god of lust and fertility when connected with Pan, the Greek satyr. In some traditions, he is seen as a god of death and dying, and takes the time to comfort the dead by singing to them on their way to the spirit world.

A Prayer to Cernunnos

God of the green, Lord of the forest, I offer you my sacrifice. I ask you for your blessing. You are the man in the trees, the green man of the woods, who brings life to the dawning spring. You are the deer in rut, mighty Horned One, who roams the autumn woods, the hunter circling round the oak, the antlers of the wild stag, and the lifeblood that spills upon the ground each season. God of the green, Lord of the forest, I offer you my sacrifice. I ask you for your blessing.

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Working With Cernunnos

The Horned God

Other names: The Green Man, Pan, Puck, Herne the Hunter

Colors: Green, red, black, brown

Herbs: Oak, ivy, mistletoe, basil, juniper, grains, mushrooms, mandrake, pine, fern, cedar, patchouli, cinnamon, sage, thyme, dill, amber, clover, thistle, basil, mugwort, wormwood, sandalwood

Crystals: Malachite, lodestone, diopside, indigo gabbro, bloodstone, quantum quatro, demantoid garnet, moss agate, black quartz, tiger's eye, serpentine, unakite, rutilated quartz, moldavite, peridot

Element: Earth

Planet: Jupiter

Zodiac: Taurus, Aries, Capricorn

Metal: Lead, iron

Tarot: The Lovers, the Devil, the World

Animals: Stags, rams, horned snakes, dogs/wolves, bulls, boars, rats

Domains: The forests and wilds, animals, nature, fertility, travels, the hunt, abundance, healing, manifestation, sexuality, natural energy (prana), virility, strength, primal instincts

Offerings: Wine, water, milk, antler sheds, leaves, soil, incense, plants, acts of sexuality, primal drumming, music, entering an otherworldly state or trance, communing with nature, crystals, bones, blood, stones

Symbols: Horns, torc, cauldron, moons

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