#styrian mythology

[austrian-mythology]

Ferryman of the Silverlake / The Mountain King

Not much is known about this god-like being, not even its true name. It appears to be some sort of king, prince, mountain spirit or maybe a long forgotten god.

Appearance

He takes the form of a young man or child, yet his mature behaviour and serious facial expression create the impression that he has lived through numerous human lifetimes. One of the most remarkable visual characteristics is his hair, which shimmers in a shade of green, a colour which is entirely unnatural for both humans and animals. Complementing this extraordinary hair color, he wears a tiara crafted from silver adorned with an array of gemstones. He also wears a mantle decorated with emeralds and a belt made from corals. In his hands, he wields a luminous staff, scepter, or spear crafted from a single, large gemstone.

He is accompanied by a small boat with its keel made out of the red hues from a sunrise and its sails are blue like the heavens themselves. The boat features a golden mast and golden oars. Inside, the boat is lined with silver moss.

Behaviour

When the Mountain King makes his presence known, it begins with a violet light that gradually intensifies and transforms into a calming blue, eventually filling his entire cave or realm.

He travels by boat across an immense underground silver lake, where the most beautiful rainbow stretches from one side of the lake to the other. Additionally, small blue flames hover above the lake and a captivating and melodious tune can be heard. The gigantic cave is full of precious stones and its roof is like a starlit night sky.

It appears that the Mountain King is cautious of humans and endeavors to discern the genuine intentions of those who find themselves in his domain. However, he also seems eager to ensure that any worthy humans who enter his realm depart with a precious gift from him.

Environment

The cave in which the ferryman appears is difficult to reach. Inside the cave is a gigantic lake behind which an enormous gap appears. Behind the gap is a treasure hidden, which is guarded by two goats.

Origin

This figure originates from a tale in Styria, situated near the city of Weiz, but not much is known about its mythological background. In folklore, this being is regarded as a mountain spirit. However, it stands out as such spirits are typically depicted as gnome or dwarf-like creatures that either aid or disrupt miners.

The description of the Mountain King incorporates several motifs. The presence of the rainbow is reminiscent of Irish Mythology, where it signifies a treasure concealed at its end. In Norse and Greek Mythologie, rainbows symbolize a connection between Earth and the Realm of the Gods.

The concept of a silver lake or a vast underground lake is a recurring theme in Alpine tales, as seen in the Ladin Fanes Saga. In these stories, such lakes often hold magical items like arrows that never miss, or they feature mythical beings guiding humans to a treasure hidden beyond the lake. In some tales, the lake and the cave vanish once the human departs, adding an element of enchantment and mystery to these narratives.

The association of water with the dead in Alpine tales, along with a possible interpretation of the hovering flames as souls, adds depth to the symbolism surrounding the Mountain King. In this context, he can be seen as a figure similar to Charon from Greek Mythology, who serves as a ferryman transporting souls to the realm of the dead.

Due to a lack of sources, the truth about this being will remain a mystery, leaving its nature and origins open to interpretation and imagination.

[alpaca-clouds]

Perchten [Fluffcember Day 15 - Hector, Isaac & Striga]

Today's story for @fluff-cember. With the Naughty List I went with a bit of Styrian mythology and such.

Perchten

Fandom: Castlevania (Netflix) Relationship: Hector & Isaac & Striga Genre: Fluff & Slice of Life

Hector gets surprised by rituals the people of Styria still keep alive.

[lailoken]

Fraw Holt or Dame Holda, the northern witch-goddess travelling upon her sacred goose through the night.

—

“Frau Holda , Venus Mountain and The Night Travellers

From the 10th Century c.e. onwards Frankish clerics and churchmen such as Regino of Prum fulminated sourly against the devilish ' belief of 'certeine wicked women that in the night times they ride abroad with Diana, the goddess of the pagans, or else with Herodias, with an innumerable multitude upon certeine beasts. This was echoed in the fourteenth century law-code of Lorraine which censured those who rode through the air with Diana. The image of the Wild Ancestral Goddess had a powerful influence upon the mediaeval imagination; the author of ‘The Romance of the Rose' wote that a third of the people have dreams of nocturnal journeys with Dame Habondia.

In Northern Europe, the sect of night travelling witches were held to fly through the sky in the retinue of the goddess Herodias or Holda, who leads the ancestral spirits of the Furious Horde in the winter months around Samhain and Yule. Like the Cymric goddess Cerridwen, Frau Holda is the archaic underworld Earth Mother, mistress of death, initiation and rebirth, who rules over the chthonic realm of Hel or Annwvyn. In Scandinavia she is known as Hela, the daughter of Loki, of whom it is related that half of her is fair and half black with decay. This signifies her bright and dark aspects as Freyja/Holda mistress of life and death. The Veiled Goddess encompasses the cosmic dualities of day and night, growth and dissolution, radiance and shadow. Her association with the Wild Hunt is strong in Germany where the ride of the death powers is sometimes called the Heljagd and in Normandy, Mesnee a Hellequin. The Indo-European original of this Witch Goddess is *KOLYO, 'the Coverer' the funereal Otherworld Queen of the Indo-European peoples from which figures as diverse as the Celtic Cailleach and Greek nymph Kalypso are descended.

The life/death aspects of Dame Hela were referred to by the German wizard, herbalist and crystal scryer Diel Breull of Calbach who confessed in 1630 that he had travelled to the pagan holy mountain, the Venusberg, 'four times a year, during the fast.' He had no idea how he got to the mountain. He then confessed he was a night traveller and 'the Frau Holle (to whom he travels) is a fine woman from the front but from the back she is like a hollow tree with rough bark. It was in Venus mountain that he came to know a number of herbs.'

This description corresponds with the female forest spirit called the Skogfru in Old Norse and the woodwife, birch maiden and wild damsel elsewhere who are beautiful women from the front but hollow behind like a rotten log. The woodwives are associated with the Wild Hunt, sometimes being pursued by Woden . (‘Woodwife’ and ‘woodwose’ both stem from the Saxon root-word ‘Wod’ - ‘wild, furious, enthused’). Like many native European initiation sites, the Hurselberg was regarded as the gateway to the underworld, the domain of Frau Venus, the classicized Freyja/Holda. From the Hurseloch cave on the mountain eldritch voices and wailing could sometimes be heard, for it led down into the magical realm of the goddess.

The mediaeval tale of Tannhauser is based upon this initiatory lore for he was a knight minnesinger (troubadour) who while riding past the cavern of the Hurselberg at twilight encountered the beautiful and entrancing Frau Venus, who took him below into the Otherworld regions to be her consort for seven years. In Scottish tradition a related pattern is exemplified by Thomas the Rymer, the thirteen century seer who met the Queen of Elfame beneath the Eildon Thorn and went with her into the world of Faery for seven years.

She gave Thomas a golden apple to eat which conferred the prophetic gift upon him. This is reminiscent of Woden's descent into the heart of Suttungr's mountain where he sleeps with the giantess Gunnlodd to attain the mead of poetic inspiration.

Such goddess forms are comparable to the shamanic Clan Mother of the nether-world in Siberian mythology. And we may note that the worship of the Northern Earth Mother Jord/Hlodyn was carried out at hills and mounds, symbols of the womb of the earth. The Furious Horde at Samhain is esoterically linked with the rune Haegl whose primal form ‘*’ represents the snowflake. This makes sense as Holda is traditionally held to shake down the snow onto the countryside; in the Channel Isles snow showers occur when Herodias shakes her petticoats. Her holy bird, the goose, is also connected with the Wild Hunt, and snow crystals are said to drift from its feathers as it flies overhead. The nocturnal cries of migrating geese are interpreted as the yelping of ghostly Gabriel hounds in Celtic lore and are symbolised by the Bird-Ogham Ngeigh at Samhain. The mystical Ninth Mother-Rune symbolises the nine nights the post-mortem soul takes to travel the Hel-Way, the prototypical Spirit-Road which runs northwards into the Underworld of Helheim.

Frau Holda is the heathen original of Mother Goose, who is remembered at winter tide, and the goose is the magical steed upon which Arctic shamans travel in visionary flight to the Otherworld. The witch Agnes Gerhardt confessed in 1596 that she and her fellow initiates used a vision-salve in order to fly to the dance like snow geese', and went on to describe how she prepared this hallucinogenie ointment by frying tansy, hellebore and wild ginger in butter mixed with egg. Such flying salves' (or Unguentum Sabbati) feature prominently in the worteunning of the night travelling witches.

In fact Styrian witches were still using them in the 19th Century. Hartliepp, court physician of Bavaria, gives a formula used by 15th century Northern witches which involves procuring seven herbs on the appropriate days of the pagan week - heliotrope on Sunna's day, fern on moon day, verbena on Tiw's day, spurge on Woden's day, houseleek on Thor's day, maidenhair on Freyja's day and nightshade on Saeter/Hela's day. This magical operation would ensure that the salve would be empowered with the energies of the principal heathen deities.

In 1582 the Archbishop of Salzburg's counsellor, the erudite mathematician and astrologer Dr. Martin Pegger, was arrested under the charge that his wife had flown with the night travellers to the goddess Herodias in the Unterberg. Within the mountain she had seen Herodias with her mountain-ladies and mountain-dwarves and the goddess is said to have come to Frau Pegger's house by Salzberg fish market on a later occasion. The mention of the goddess' mountain-dwarves is significant for they are sometimes known as the Huldravolk; the folk of the Elder, Frau Holda's holy tree.

The association of cats and hares with witches and night travellers may indicate that they inherited many of the magical techniques from the cult of Seidr, the shamanism of 'inner fire' sacred to the goddess Freyja which included trance journeys and communication with the elves and other entities. According to Saxon lore, Freyja sometimes appears amidst a company of hares and she is known to roam the meadows of Aargau with a silver-grey hare by her side in the night hours. The hare is famed as a totem form in which shapeshifting witches travel.

Freyja, the Teutonic goddess of love, sexuality and mantic sorcery riding a Siberian tiger.

It is know that a strong subterranean current of Freyja worship survived in mediaeval Germany. Closely related initiatory Mysteries existing in the British Isles usually centred on the Faerie goddess, the Queen of Elphame.

An interesting late case is the astrologer and Hermeticist John Heydon in the 17th century, who having imprudently predicted Cromwell's death was forced to flee from London to Somerset. There he claimed to have encountered a green- robed lady at a faery hill. She took him within the mount into a glass castle where he learnt much wisdom and mantic lore. This experience obviously took place in an altered state of shamanic perception.

Frau Holda is the feminine counterpart of the Master of the Wild Hunt, and she is essential to a balanced appreciation of this area of pagan spirituality. The night- travelling witches of the Northern Lands, far from being demonically deluded as ignorant and vindietive churchmen said, were in reality the preservers of a hoary Wisdom Tradition and magical world view which is now accessible to us again at the dawning of a new heathen aeon.”

—

Call of the Horned Piper

by Nigel Aldcroft Jackson