#also i may not know hungarian culture at all but i am american and god damn ill cling to that one half of fender just for jokes

[xbruised-peachx]

since you are staring to like fender do you have any headcanons for him 👀

SO, the problem I'm having is I actually know very little about Hungary, so often with my headcanons, I try to also make them accurate for someone who is actually that nationality. Unfortunately I don't know anyone from Hungary to ask either so unlike Gromsko, mine are gonna probably have some inaccuracies and I do apologize and they may seem a lil standard but, I'll give em a shot bc there is so lil content abt Fender anyway!

Fender Headcanons

Tags: none actually! these are just general headcanons that could be applied anywhere :)

Let's start with one that's basically canon you can't convince me otherwise; His call sign is Fender, the guitar brand, he has multiple lines referring to music ("Now we're jamming!" "Shows over!" "Get the fuck off my stage..." "Very rock and roll 🤔" "Let's get the band together!" etc.), and his voice actor can sing really well. He is definitely a musician of some sort and strikes me as a metal head for sure. Some of his favorites are System of a Down, Slayer, and Avenged Sevenfold.

His bio states he was father was a CIA op and mother was a "guerrilla revolutionary" in communist Budapest. Communism ended in Hungary around end of 1989, so at the youngest, he's 33 since the game takes place at the end of 2022.

With his father dying when he was young, he's definitely a mama's boy. However he also give off eldest sibling energy so I think he has a few younger half-siblings. He also has daddy issues, sorry that's canon.

He is definitely a gym rat with that gym skin he got April. But I want to combine it with the Mtn. Dew skin because he's gremlin coded and yeah no, he's combined his pre-workout powder with Mtn Dew and swears he saw God while using a stair climber.

He's had his tooth gap since his adult teeth first started coming in, but he absolutely despised the dentist. Being his mom's first child, and just generally not growing up in the most wealthy household, he managed to convince her he didn't really need an orthodontist or braces. Hence, his cute lil smile he has now.

In general, he's very confident in his abilities, a little abrasive but charming in his own way. He will always remain friendly at first until wronged. He got bullied as a kid so he does have his guard up and it takes a bit to truly gain his trust. He also is a bit hot headed and will stay angry for quite a few hours.

He will often use the fact he's half American as a joke... a lot. He says that's why he loves Mtn Dew, why he learned English so early in his life despite his dad already being gone, and that he definitely got his love for explosives from his dad's side of the family.

He's not super patriotic though for Hungary. He likes his home country but doesn't quite like speaking Hungarian around the others in Kortac knowing they won't understand him. Only rarely will they catch him talking under his breath to himself or when he's startled in battle (example, "VIGYÁZZ!").

He will however, cuss someone out in his language. There are no holes barred there, he will say some the most jaw dropping shit if they knew what he was saying. This often leads to him laughing mid-cuss out as they look to him incredibly confused.

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Thu., May, 7, 2020

St Alexis Toth , Confessor of orthodoxy in N. America

Our holy Father Alexis, the defender of the Orthodox Faith and zealous worker in the Lord’s vineyard, was born in Austro-Hungary on March 18, 1854 into a poor Carpatho-Russian family. Like many others in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Toths were Eastern Rite Catholics. Alexis’ father and brother were priests and his uncle was a bishop in the Uniate church. He received an excellent education and knew several languages (Carpatho-Russian, Hungarian, Russian, German, Latin, and a reading knowledge of Greek). He married Rosalie Mihalich, a priest’s daughter, and was ordained on April 18, 1878 to serve as second priest in a Uniate parish. His wife died soon afterwards, followed by their only child—losses which the saint endured with the patience of Job.

In May, 1879, Father Alexis was appointed secretary to the Bishop of Presov and also Administrator of the Diocesan Administration. He was also entrusted with the directorship of an orphanage. At Presov Seminary, Father Toth taught Church History and Canon Law, which served him well in his later life in America. Saint Alexis did not serve long as a professor or an administrator, for the Lord had a different future planned for him. In October, 1889 he was appointed to serve as pastor of a Uniate parish in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Like another Abraham, he left his country and his relatives to fulfill the will of God (Gen 12:1).

Upon his arrival in America, Father Alexis presented himself to the local Roman Catholic diocesan authority, Archbishop John Ireland, since there was no Uniate bishop in America at that time. Archbishop Ireland belonged to the party of American Catholics who favored the “Americanization” of all Roman Catholics. His vision for the future was founded on a common faith, customs, and the use of the English language for everything except liturgical celebrations. Naturally, ethnic parishes and non-Latin rite clergy did not fit into this vision. Thus, when Father Toth came to present his credentials, Archbishop Ireland greeted him with open hostility. He refused to recognize him as a legitimate Catholic priest or to grant permission for him to serve in his diocese.

As a historian and professor of Canon Law, Father Toth knew his rights under the terms of the Unia and would not accept Archbishop Ireland’s unjust decisions. In October of 1890, there was a meeting of eight of the ten Uniate priests in America at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania under the chairmanship of Father Toth. By this time the American bishops had written to Rome demanding the recall to Europe of all Uniate priests in America, fearing that Uniate priests and parishes would hinder the assimilation of immigrants into American culture. Uniate bishops in Europe refused to listen to the priests’ pleas for help...keep reading OCA

Acts: 8:26-39 NKJV

 Christ Is Preached to an Ethiopian 

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is [a]desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”

30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”

34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

37 [b]Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.

Footnotes:

Acts 8:26 Or a deserted place

Acts 8:37 NU, M omit v. 37. It is found in Western texts, including the Latin tradition.

John 6:40-44 NKJV

40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Rejected by His Own

41 The Jews then [g]complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” 42 And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, [h]“Do not murmur among yourselves. 44

Source Biblegateway

[dreamingflight]

So apropos of the previous, about experiencing connections to things not your culture?

I'm a typical "fractional identities"/Heinz 57 white-passing American.

I am Austro-Hungarian Jewish, Ukrainian Shtetl Jewish, Scots, Irish, and Coast Salish. My dad is a tribal elder. He is also heavily white-passing: 6'4, blonde haired, and blue eyed. Blood wise, he is 7/8 *not* Native. But identity is weird? His father - 5'5, black-haired, dark-eyed - ran away from a residential school at 15 to join the British Merchant Marine.

I too am very very white passing on the surface but there is "always something different" about me when I meet people who are steeped in American Christian whiteness. Still, if I were to conceal my Jewish half and just go by my paternal surname (the #3 surname in Scotland), dressed square, and wore a golden cross, I'd pass for Peak Whiteness. I could cut my hair short, highlight it, and totally be a Karen... until that "something" tips them off. For a long time I thought I had Asperger's because I didn't realize that "something" was being a Jew. (I don't oppose self diagnosis, but there is some small but nonzero chance that you will realize in 20 years that you were wrong about yourself. That's a thing that itches me about some but not all Zoomer identity stuff.)

Here is something else.

I'm a magical practicioner who grew up in a place that's heavily Hispanic (specifically Mexican, and this matters) and Catholic. There was actually a language and cultural barrier to navigate that isolated my family within the neighborhood; I was socially excluded except for the brief time that i went to a less culturally homogeneous school. I made friends with Mexican kids, but still felt a profound lonely distance between us. As I was a small child unaware of the world beyond my neighborhood, being raised secular in such a Mexican-American environment, Roman Catholicism is what represented local authority.

Every time I do magical work, what reaches out - is often in terms of Catholic, Mexican imagery. Families that lived in my old apartment, the priests who are local genius loci. (If I were ever to become a Christian, which I can't actually fathom, it's not lost on me that Roman Catholicism has some appeal. Certainly not for reasons of politics. Not at all for reasons of... Jesus. But because of how deeply impressed upon my psyche Roman Catholic imagery is.)

The genius loci of several spaces in Los Angeles appear to me as priests. I'm only allowed to work with the specific spaces I've actually occupied and mostly as relates to work regarding my past.

When I'm in dreamwork and astral work in Los Angeles, I almost never see the local Native cultures, for example Tongva and Chumash and Luiseno. I always see what has come later.

In my dreamwork where I'm in Panorama City or Palos Verdes, it's always later arrived people who step forward.

The thing is, I don't at all touch anything spiritual *from* that culture of Angelenos.

The thing with actually growing up around other cultures, especially in poorer areas, especially when you don't have your own culture to fall back on or other people from it to back you up, is that you learn an etiquette. The consequences of breaking those taboos are not abstract. They are not offending some white girl on a college campus. They are not someone cussing you out on Twitter.

You have to actually know what about a culture you can deploy before you can do so, because even the appearance of mocking others may mean something bad.

You learn to get along.

I knew how to act in my neighborhood. I also knew how to act at my Baptist school, among the white kids, and I knew how to act in my secular Jewish home. The three sets of rules, weren't the same rules. And the rules for being a white kid in Mexican spaces were different from the rules for being a Mexican kid in those same spaces, and different from the rules for a Mexican kid in white spaces.

And all of this applies somehow to my spirit work. What shows up to talk to me, is often what shows up. But it's not the way you'd think - it's fairly drab and mundane looking astral travel/trance/dreamwork with no culture-specific ritual.

One reason I'm a chaos magician instead of anything else isn't the ability to borrow. I don't borrow much or any of my form beyond some fairly generic global practices, and the actual gods I keep connecting to are Hellenic (Hermes especially). (I have had a few Norse encounters and they frankly scared the everloving shit out of me.)

What "cross cultural inspiration" means in my specific case, is the ability to learn from a lot of sources and be open to how other people describe their spiritual narratives. I don't need to make up some kind of fake construct for ancestor work when I live in a Mexican-American area and am with a partner who despite being Asatru and Scandinavian and Karelian, observes Day of the Dead with his mom to commemorate his Mexican-American stepfather, half brother, and family members. It's a tradition he grew up with.

It doesn't mean I make an ofrenda for my own departed. (Why the f would I do that when half of my dead family is going to *always* prefer a Yahrzeit candle and the Kaddish prayer and be deeply offended at any other approach? And shouldn't I learn the proper form for my Salish ancestors?)

But what I can take away is a *lesson* from Dia de Los Muertos. The biggest thing I've picked up is this: what would honor the specific spirits in question? What do *they* like (and or what did they ask for? My own relationship to Hermes is *not* Hellenismos for that reason. But more formal Hellenic approaches *do* teach me about how to perform offerings and about my main god's lore.)

And it's also the permission to *not* work with culture-specific constructs - a lot of my work grew organically from some very generic, global practices such as breath, trance, and dreamwork.

It's also permission to not be trapped in the orthodoxy of any one of my multiple cultural backgrounds.

But what comes forth to talk to me, or ends up crossing my path? So, so often not even related to any culture I'm remotely part of.

So often the cultural relationship concerns the land that I'm connecting to.

And the cultural background of many genius loci is foreign to *me* - but not actually California Native (for very sad reasons.)

[agentharrisonofshield-a]

😑 😴 😙

Emoji mun questions@brooklynislandgirl

😑- what is one charector you refuse to roleplay as and why?

So I guess I’m just going to jump into the potentially controversial shit right off the bat, huh?

I can’t see myself ever RPing as a character from Black Panther.  It’s not that I don’t think people can/should/have the ability to write outside their personal racial experiences.  I just think that Black Panther, especially as it’s presented in the MCU (I don’t know enough about the comics to voice an opinion there), is something that the African diaspora have so often been denied.  The idea of a part of the African continent that’s never known a white colonizer, that’s never been subject to another country’s rule, that remains proud and strong and uniquely itself in a way that defies the harsh reality we live with is something that may be amazing to me, but that I do not have a stake in.  It’s not my story to tell.  The implications of Wakanda’s existence aren’t mine to play with.  There are people for whom Wakanda, everyone in it, and the implications of its existence are incredibly personal.  And I don’t want to play in their sandbox.  I want to leave it to the people who can use it so much better than I ever could because it’s theirs in a way that doesn’t apply to me.

Disclaimer: This is not a judgement on any non-black who writes a Black Panther character.  I’m just saying that I, personally, am never going to do so.

😴 - have you ever given up on a blog and regretted it?

So many.  I apparently used up all my ability to stick with a RP blog through the rough part of starting up with Vivian, Ros, and Duvessa.

Um, I have to say the ones I’ve regretted most were Shae and Sera.  (And my MCU multimuse but I really am going to get that off the ground any day now :| )

Shae because the world Gaiman built in American Gods is so good and leaves so much room for more than is in the book.  And the show’s done well in interpreting the book to screen (I mean jfc is Gillian Anderson a shapeshifter??) that I couldn’t resist the chance to jump in on the new fandom.  And, much like Vivian, Shae is a relatively easy muse for me to write because she draws from things close to me.  I grew up in the heart of the slowly-dying Hungarian immigrant community in NJ and it’s remained so much a part of my life that I’m now working for one of the institutions of it.  And I’m just sad that the fandom was never welcoming to OCs because I was really looking forward to playing with obscure folklore.

Idk.  I might revamp her as a fandomless or other-fandom OC and try again.

Sera I haven’t exactly given up on so much as I don’t have the energy for more than three blogs right now - if that, even.  Plus Sera I feel like I might have thrown her out there a little too soon - which is to say I have a thousand questions about her I haven’t answered yet and I should have an answer for at least half of them.  Which in turn makes me super hesitant to reach out to people.  Which is my own problem.  I will say that the MCU and Norse myth fandoms have been great and there have been people who have latched onto my sweet little thread mage and interact with me whenever I do manage to get on her.

😰 - what is one charector you desperately want your muse to interact with

Ohgods.

I’d kill for a Jessica Jones, tbh.  There are some great similarities between Jessica and Vivian but I think that they’re different enough that they’d be one of those ‘they either love each other or they despise each other’ kind of deals.  But if they got along can you imagine the level of ‘I do not want to be putting up with this shit’ that they’d collectively exude?  And the snark.  OMG the collective snark.

And I know it said one but...

Please for the love of gods someone give me a CA:TWS-style Natasha Romanoff.  With the pop culture references and casual discussions about being who someone wants you to be instead of yourself.  And the ass-kicking that leaves Vivian jealous af but also more than a little turned on and um can she maybe try learning that move?  And Natasha being brilliant and clever and unexpected and Vivian just being all hearteyes. 

AND FOR THE RECORD:

I desperately want Vivian to interact with all the OCs.  ESPECIALLY all the amazing female OCs.

[wanderingaxiety]

Peasant Quotes

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He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Peace

Home

King

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

Plato

Nature

God

Men

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

John Updike

Teacher

Marriage

Aristocrat

A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.

John Berger

Difficult

Stranger

Pig

I want there to be no peasant in my kingdom so poor that he cannot have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.

Henry IV

Chicken

Poor

Kingdom

Scratch a Russian, and you'll find a peasant.

Milla Jovovich

Find

Scratch

Russian

They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he'll learn all that is necessary for him to know.

Nikolai Gogol

Good

Man

Thinking

I mean, my people were very, very simple. They were peasant people, you know?

James Earl Jones

Simple

People

Know

I believe in reincarnation. In my last life I was a peasant. Next time around, I'd like to be an eagle. Who hasn't dreamed they could fly? They're a protected species, too.

Lee Trevino

Life

Time

Fly

The peasant must always be helped technically, economically, morally and culturally. The guerrilla fighter will be a sort of guiding angel who has fallen into the zone, helping the poor always and bothering the rich as little as possible in the first phases of the war.

Che Guevara

War

Angel

Rich

My wife was the first art collector in the family, and I didn't become interested until around 1973. The first important artwork we bought was a Van Gogh drawing of two peasant houses in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

Eli Broad

Family

Art

Wife

They eat the dainty food of famous chefs with the same pleasure with which they devour gross peasant dishes, mostly composed of garlic and tomatoes, or fisherman's octopus and shrimps, fried in heavily scented olive oil on a little deserted beach.

Luigi Barzini

Food

Famous

Pleasure

What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman, a peasant woman, struggled all her life, worked in the garment center.

Al Lewis

Life

Mom

Me

I cook a little bit. I make a Hungarian dish called chicken paprikash that's out of this world. I'll give a heads-up to all of your readers that it doesn't have to be between Thai and Mexican every night. Toss some Hungarian in every once in a while. You will not be sorry. Good, solid peasant food.

Adam Carolla

Good

Food

Night

You know most of the food that Americans hold so dear - things like hamburgers and hot dogs - were road food, but even before they were road food, they were peasant food.

Alton Brown

Food

Hot

Road

We must always remember that the Chinese revolution was not a peasant's revolution, but one of the extreme Right.

Salvador Dali

Remember

Always

Revolution

We want to overthrow the imperial power not because it is Manchurian but because we want republicanism... We republican revolutionaries can never have the notion of becoming emperors after the revolution, like all the peasant rebels did in the past.

Sun Yat-sen

Power

Past

Never

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

Henry David Thoreau

Stage

Actor

I don't ever want to be like a peasant. I want to always be all right. But motivation is fans - not your kids, your mum, none of that. All of that matters, but number one is your fans.

Young Thug

Fans

Always

Right

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.

Woodrow Wilson

King

Kingdom

Become

I am an African-American woman of dark skin tone, and there are very specific roles that are usually given to African-American women of a darker hue. Let's start with 'Once on This Island': peasant girl. Let's go to 'The Color Purple': young girl, beaten. Let's go to 'Ragtime': Her baby's taken.

LaChanze

Women

I Am

Skin

The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.

Gertrude Stein

World

Earth

Nothing

For an Italian peasant a telegram from anywhere is a wondrous thing; and a cable from the terrestrial paradise of America is not lightly to be disregarded.

Howard K. Smith

Paradise

America

Anywhere

I come from a long line of below-stairs maids and gardeners. Good ol' peasant stock. My mother and her sister made a quantum leap out of that life. Then I made another quantum leap.

Julie Andrews

Life

Good

Long

Remember the valiant Iraqi peasant and how he shot down an American Apache with an old weapon.

Saddam Hussein

Remember

American

Down

I am a peasant from the Auvergne. I want to keep my farm, and I want to keep France. Nothing else matters now.

Pierre Laval

I Am

Nothing

Want

The poor peasant here hives under conditions quite different from those of Russia. Though often terrible, they are not as appalling as they were there.

Herman Gorter

Poor

Russia

Terrible

If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle.

Richard Dawkins

Face

Door

Radio

I like army boots, I like peasant skirts - sometimes together! So I do know that I have odd taste.

Mayim Bialik

Together

Sometimes

Know

I like Sicilian food. It's real peasant food.

Raymond Kelly

Food

Real

Like

I do not have voice for Russian music; I cannot be cute little peasant like in operas of Glinka or Rimsky-Korsakov. I am now never in Russia; I am Austrian citizen. But definitely I am Latin!

Anna Netrebko

Music

I Am

Cute

There aren't many great passages written about food, but I love one by George Millar, who worked for the SOE in the second world war and wrote a book called 'Horned Pigeon.' He had been on the run and hadn't eaten for a week, and his description of the cheese fondue he smells in the peasant kitchen of a house in eastern France is unbelievable.

Sebastian Faulks

Love

War

Food

I am for poetry that is admired by peasant and aristocrat alike.

F. Sionil Jose

Poetry

I Am

Aristocrat

To me, the most critical thing in agriculture is investing in the peasant agriculture, transforming peasant agriculture.

Jakaya Kikwete

Me

Agriculture

Critical

The whole world feels that it knows Francis, not so much because he follows Francis of Assisi but because he is always himself. We have seen him pay his own hotel bill and heard that Francis called Buenos Aires for a pair of ordinary black shoes, like John XXIII, who preferred stout peasant shoes to the traditional papal footwear.

Eugene Kennedy

Black

World

Shoes

The Breton peasant is said to have a hard head. He is obstinate and resists outside pressure to alter his creed or his customs.

Sabine Baring-Gould

Pressure

Hard

Outside

I remember I once went to a nutritionist who said I come from good Russian-Jewish peasant stock, which means I can hold a potato in my body for a week, if need be.

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Good

Remember

Body

Border collies predate the British Kennel Club. They've been bred consistently for 100 years. They're the last working dogs in the world, with some minor exceptions. Bench shows, dog shows have ruined the other breeds, like the hunting dogs. Border collies are peasant dogs, and that's protected them.

Donald McCaig

World

Dog

Bench

The knish is a classic example of peasant food evolving into comfort food and even sophisticated fare.

Gil Marks

Food

Comfort

Comfort Food

You go to Europe, and they have their very wealthy elites, and then everybody else is, you know, a couple of steps above a peasant, basically.

Ann Coulter

Know

Go

Europe

There are two classes of women in Soviet Russia. There is the professional class, which has taken the place of the nobility and includes government officials, artists, doctors, composers and writers as well as former members of the old nobility whose sympathy is with the Soviets, and also the peasant class.

Elsa Schiaparelli

Women

Government

Sympathy

Tolstoy didn't know about steampunk or cyborgs, but he did know about the nightmarishness of steam power, unruly machines, and the creepy half-human status of the Russian peasant classes. In 'Anna Karenina,' nineteenth-century life itself is a relentless, relentlessly modern machine, flattening those who oppose it.

Elif Batuman

Life

Power

Know

Most people, throughout history, haven't learned one language to the exclusion of another. You learn to speak differently to a peasant and to a shoemaker. You speak differently to your mother, who comes from Burgundy, and to your father, who comes from Swabia.

[tipsycad147]

Bear Goddesses and Gods Across Cultures

The Origin of Bear Goddesses and Gods

Gods and goddesses of the ancient world held a connection with certain animals. This is because our ancestors’ beliefs were animistic – they believed everything on earth had consciousness and a soul. Wildlife was sacred in ancient times. The bear is one of the most powerful and most feared of the animal kingdom. Dating back thousands of years, the people of Europe left their marks on cave walls—some of these drawings were of bears. Shamans have revered the bear for its power, but also for its motherhood qualities and healing abilities. Bear medicine is strong medicine, according to Native Americans. Its no wonder ancient gods and goddesses were connected to the bear. Learn of the bear goddesses and bear god here.

The Greek Bear Goddesses

Artemis

The typical illustration of Artemis, Greek Goddess of the Hunt, depicts her with either a hunting dog or stag. However, one of Artemis’ most sacred animals was the bear. Artemis had domain over the forest and all wildlife within it. The bear was the largest and most powerful animal, and so Artemis found it to be a special animal. Any time a bear was killed by the Greeks, Artemis would lay a plague on the people as punishment. Artemis’ cult spread over Greece. In Brauron, young girls played she-bears in honour of Artemis and as a preparation for motherhood. They wore bear masks and acted wildly in worship of her. Artemis’ name is theorised to have meant bear-sanctuary. If we break it down—art is close to ark which means bear, and temis is close to temnis which means sanctuary. We will see in the next section how another Goddess’ name reflects this etymology.

Callisto

Another close association between Artemis and bears is in the tale of one of Artemis’ followers named Callisto. Callisto was a nymph (demi-god nature spirit), and as followers of Artemis, women were charged to stay chaste and pure from men. Callisto was lured into having relations with Zeus, who impregnated her. When Artemis found out, she changed Callisto into a bear. Other versions say Athena was angered when Zeus impregnated the nymph and so she turned Callisto into a bear. The constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (known to the Greeks as Arktos—bear) are said to be the soul remnants of Callisto and her son, and were placed in the sky by Zeus himself.

Artio: Forgotten Celtic Bear Goddess

We don’t know a lot about Artio, the Bear Goddess of the ancient Celtic-Gauls, but we knnow she was intimately connected to bears. The few pieces of evidence we have of her cult’s existence were found in Switzerland and southern Germany. A bronze statue depicting Artio feeding a giant bear surfaced in Bern, Switzerland. Scholars say Artio feeds the bear with a bowl of fruit in her lap. But could it be the other way around? It seems to me the goddess is being confronted by the bear and she is not backing down. There was once a great tale about this encounter, I am sure; however, over time the lore of Artio has been lost. The inscription on the Bern statue translates to “for the goddess Artio”. As with Artemis’ name, there is a clear link to the bear in Artio’s name. Art translaes to bear in Gaulish. Could Artio, the Bear Goddess of the Gauls, be the same goddess as the Greeks’ bear goddess Artemis?

Ildiko: Hungarian Bear Goddess

Much of what we know of the Hungarian Bear Goddess Ildiko has been lost in time, or perhaps is just not readily accessible by my research methods. However, according to the Encyclopedia of Spirits by Judika Iles, Ildiko was a goddess of the forest and wildlife. One of her most sacred animals was the bear. Ildiko was like Artemis – she was the goddess of the hunt but also protector of forest animals. This is because of the need for balance—she guides the hunters but also protects animals in need of preservation or honour. Ildiko is a common name in Hungary with a Germanic origin meaning “warrior”. We can see how a warrior goddess would also be keen of bears—power, wisdom, and ferocity.

Mielikki: Finnish Bear Goddess

Above all, Mielikki is a healing goddess of Finland. She is associated with the woods and with wildlife, just as Artemis and Ildiko, but her main attribute is her healing abilities. She heals the animals when they are sick or wounded. This corresponds directly with the medicine of the bear. Shamans know bears to be healers, and so Mielikki is like the bear in this way. Mielikki is one of the bear goddess who had a part in the creation of the bear. The story goes that Mielikki left earth and travelled into space, past the moon, in search of the materials with which to make the perfect animal. She returned and stitched together the materials from the heavens to make the bear. The bear is Mielikki’s favorite animal, above all. The tale of Mielikki going into space to find the materials to make the bear correlates nicely with the tales of the other Bear Goddesses Artemis, Callisto, and Zeus putting Callisto into the sky to make the Ursa Major and Minor constellations. There is an asteroid and a mountain on the planet Venus named for Mielikki.

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Odin: The All-Father and Bear God

Odin is a popular god among Scandinavian and Germanic pagans, but has spread as a god to nearly every part of the world in modern times. He is known as the All-Father, the One-Eyed, and the ultimate trickster. He is a wise, yet powerful god and knows how to win a battle. Because of this, the shamans and warriors of ancient times sought Odin for his knowledge and ferocity. When depicted, he is usually illustrated as an older man with white hair and beard, cloaked, and carrying a staff. One of his eyes is missing, as this relates to the legend of Odin receiving the runes while hanging from a special tree.

Odin is almost always flanked by two of his totem animals—ravens or wolves. However, some legends claim Odin can also be guarded by two great bears. I’ve yet to find solid evidence of this claim; however, this could be in part because of Odin’s association with the berserkers (shaman warriors) who often wore the pelts of bears. Either way, a god of war, wisdom, healing, and trickery such as Odin would be well received as a friend of the bears.

https://otherworldlyoracle.com/bear-goddesses-bear-god-across-cultures/