New
Folklore for the Wheel of the Year
 Many
modern Pagans celebrate eight sabbats or sacred
days that mark the changing seasons. Known
collectively as the Wheel of the Year, these
celebrations have their roots in the pre-Christian
cultures of Europe and the
Mediterranean.
It seems there was no early
culture that actually celebrated all eight of these
sabbats. The solstices (and possibly the spring
equinox) were marked by the Germanic peoples, and
the cross-quarter days (particularly Samhaim and
Beltane) were observed in Celtic lands. It should
also be remembered that documentary evidence
pertaining to these celebrations in early times is
quite scant, and there is room for much
conjecture.
Some of these celebrations
came to be associated with a particular deity
(Imbolc and Brigid, for example, or Lughnassad and
Lugh), but modern Pagans have also been tantalized
with the possibility of an overarching mythological
narrative for the entire cycle of seasons, perhaps
relating to the story of a dying and resurrecting
nature God. There tends to be quite a mishmash of
associations of these sorts in modern Pagan
practice: perhaps the Oak King kills the Holly King
on the Winter Solstice, perhaps Persephone descends
into the underworld on the spring (or autumn)
equinox, or perhaps Samhain, as the final harvest
and the day sacred to the dead, marks the death of
the Green Man or the Horned God.
The series of stories
presented here represent my own creative
revisioning of the mythology of the Wheel of the
Year, presented as folktale. I hope you enjoy them
and that they enrich your own seasonal
celebrations. Please note that this is not in any
way meant to be a "reconstruction" of any actual
ancient mythology, but rather a modern invention
that is informed and flavored by some of the old
myths and stories.
I owe a great debt to Janet
and Stewart Farrar and especially Mike Nichols for
inspiring this particular interpretation of the
mythology of the sabbats.
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