Morgan le Fay is also known as Morgana, Morgana and is one of the most powerful enchantress from Arthurian lore. She became very popular in the modern times from the novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon. Some of legends have their roots in medieval times which were transformed into the novel which was incredibly popular.
Morgan probably appears the first time in literature in The Life of Merlin by Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100 -1155 AD). This text became one of the classic texts connected with the Arthurian legends. Among the stories Arthur’s of knights and adventures, Morgan is portrayed as a dark character. She often leads the heroes of the legends into danger and has a very sensual part in the stories as a seductress.
It is still open for debate concerning the legends, myths, and literature about Morgan Le Fay’s true character in the Arthurian tales. In the medieval stories, Morgan le Fay is one of the most popular, intriguing, and mysterious women connected with Camelot. She was believed to be a healer, enchantress, and a witch with many spiritual talents.
According to the tale written by Thomas Malory (1415 – 1471), Morgan was unhappily married to King Urien. She became a sexually precious woman who had many lovers – including the famous Merlin. Her love of Lancelot was unrequited and Morgan appeared to be involved either directly or indirectly with King Arthur’s death.
In the later medieval stories, Morgan le Fay was a woman who served the people with her spiritual talents changed. Morgan appeared as the daughter of the Lady Irgraine and her first husband Gorlois which made King Arthur her half-brother. She was also an adviser to Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
Morgan also became Merlin’s lover and he apparently taught her witchcraft. She was a keen became a powerful witch.
In the 13th century, her role expanded in the Vulgate Cycle and Post-Vulgate Cycle. Morgan le Fay became an anti-heroine. She was cast as malicious, cruel, and an ambitious nemesis to Arthur. In these tales, Morgan was sent to a convent to become a nun but this was also the place where she started her study of magic.
One of the most important parts of her story is her unrequited affection for Lancelot. She used all of her knowledge, potent herbs and enchantments trying to make Lancelot love her. In these stories, he appears tries to resist her enchantments but eventually he succumbs to her spells and keeps him in a prison. When he gets ill and is near death she releases him. There are many different variations of this story – in some Morgan appears as seductress and in others, as a lost woman who really loves Lancelot.
The final version of the legend concerns her use of witchcraft. She is described as a witch using her spells for her own goals. In these tales, she gains the ability to transform herself into a crow, a horse, or any other black animals.
When Morgan Le Fay disappears for a considerable time, Arthur believes her dead until he meets her again and she declares she’ll move to the Isle of Avalon. Arthur discovers the rumors about a secret affair between her and Lancelot were true.
The story ends with Morgan dressed in a black hood who takes the dying Arthur to his resting place in Avalon. She seems strongly connected with death and belongs neither the world of the dead nor the world of the living.
Circe was a daughter of the Greek sun god Helios, and his wife the Oceanid Perseis. Her siblings include another powerful sorceress, Pasiphae, the wife of Midas, and their brothers Perses and Aeetes. The brothers didn’t seem to inherit any magical abilities but the niece of Circe, Medea infamous did.
Circe was one of the most powerful enchantresses of Greek mythology, who some have called a witch and others a goddess. Circe is best known as the hostess of Odysseus and his crew when they sought shelter on their return after the Trojan War.
Of the three female sorceresses, Circe, Pasiphae and Medea, it is Circe who is considered the most powerful. She concocted potions and transformed humans and animals into other shapes. She is also known for calling upon Chaos, Nyx and Hecate for assistance.
Circe was banished to the island of Aeaea and delivered there by her father, Helios using the god’s golden chariot.
Aeaea does not appear on any map and in antiquity there was great debate about where it could be found.
Circe remained an important mythological figure through until the Roman period where writers told of the Island of Aeaea as actually being the island of Ponza.
Circe lived within a stone mansion on Aeaea which was located in a forest clearing. She reportedly had her own throne and was attended by nymphs who provided flowers and herbs Circe used in her potions.
She also had a menagerie of animals including lions, bears and wolves and reportedly these wild beasts behave like domesticated animals around her. There are some stories that Circe tamed the beasts but others tell darker tales that they were once men who Circe had transformed into beasts.
One famous take involving Circe was she loved Glaucus, a minor sea deity, but Glaucus knew loved Scylla, a beautiful maiden. Circe poisoned the water in which Scylla bathed, and she was transformed into a hideous monster who later became famous for wrecking ships.
Circe is most famous for her encounter with Odysseus told by Homer in The Odyssey. Odysseus and his men landed on the island Aeaea not knowing where they were but seeking safe refuge.
Quickly it became clear that Odysseus and his men were in as much trouble as they had been previously. When one the men searched the island, came across Circe’s mansion, and they were enticed to enter by Circe herself. These unwary men ate of food given to them by Circe but as they ate they were transformed into swine.
Circe would have used her magic upon Odysseus as well, but the king of Ithaca was aided by Hermes with the god advising him about a potion to counteract that which Circe had concocted. Circe and Odysseus became lovers and Circe transformed Odysseus’s men back into their previous forms. For a year, Odysseus and his crew lived in the relative paradise on the island of Aeaea.
Eventually, Odysseus decided to leave Circe and she Circe gladly have him aid to enable to return home. Circe tells Odysseus how he can enter the Underworld and afterwards how he can safely traverse between the monster Scylla and Charybdis.
In the generation before Odysseus and his men, Circe hosted Jason and the Argonauts after Medea led the Argo to the island of Circe when Jason and his men fled from Colchis.
To enable the escape of the Argonauts from the Colchian fleet, Medea killed her own brother, Apsyrtus, and then tossed his dismembered limbs into the sea which delaying her father Aeetes, who stopped to retrieve all of the body parts of his son.
For such a crime, Medea and Jason required absolution, and Circe purified them and allowed them to continue their voyage unmolested.
Circe and Odysseus had three sons: Agrius, Latinus and Telegonus. Of these three, Telegonus is the most famous for not only being a king of the Etruscans, but Telegonus accidentally kills his father. Subsequently, Telegonus marries Penelope, while Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, marries Circe.
Circe was apparently made Penelope, Telegonus, and Telemachus immortal through her potions and all four lived on the Islands of the Blest.
Manifestations: She is eternally young, attractive and beautiful. As a great sorceress, and can appear in any form she chooses but as a descendent of the sun god, her eyes shine with brilliant light. That is clue to her true identity.
Sacred animal: Pig
Sacred plants: Alder, nightshade, junipers and mandrake
Skadi (Old Norse Skaði) is a frost giantess. Her name is identical to the Old Norse common noun skaði which means “harm,”. Her name may be related to the naming of landmass of “Scandinavia.”
Skadi’s domain is the highest peaks of the mountains where the snow never melts. She is an keen huntress and her bow, snowshoes, and skis are her most commonly mentioned attributes.
In the Norse cosmos, frost giants are forces of darkness, cold, and death. Skadi has particular associations with winter and was worshipped as a goddess of winter subsistence (skiing, hunting etc.).
Skadi is the daughter of the frost giant Thrazi, who died during an altercation with the Aesir gods. Skadi’s dresses in her armour and marches on Odín and the Aesir demanding reparation for her father’s death. Skadi and Odín negotiate two things of the Aesir: that the Aesir make her laugh (deemed an impossible task) and that she be provided her with her choice of husband. Both terms are met.
She hoped to marry Baldr – the handsome son of Odín and Frigg. After a trick by Odín to make her choose her husband by his feet – she marries the sea god, Njord who had the most handsome feet.
Unusual for a frost giantess, Skadi is allied with the Aesir. It is Skadi who ties a venomous snake over Loki’s head after Baldr’s death. Loki’s had boasted about being responsible for the trickery that led to her father’s death. This enmity towards Loki never faded from Skadi.
Origin: Daughter of the frost giant Theazi
Classification: Jotun or frost giantess
Manifestation: Skadi presents as a tall, strong, beautiful and athletic woman. She travels through the snow mountains on skis and snowshoes and hunts with a bow and arrows. She is often accompanied by wolves.
Attributes: Ice skates, skis, snowshoes
Creatures: Wolves, snakes
Colour: White
Realm: Skadi takes over her father’s domain called Thrymheimr but also dwells among the remote mountain peaks.
Offerings: Images of wolves and snakes. Traditional winter foods.
Hades may be one of the most-well known and most popular gods from Ancient Greek mythology but wasn’t one of the recognised Olympian gods even despite being the brother of Zeus. Hades was the Greek god of the Dead and his domain took on his name and didn’t exist in the mortal realm but an Underworld.
Hades was the son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea which made him brother to Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon and Zeus. Cronus – fearful of his position as supreme ruler and determined to avoid a prophecy about his own downfall, swallowed each of his children when they were born. Hades and his siblings were imprisoned in the stomach of their father.
Zeus was the only one if the sibling to escape being swallowed by Cronus and escaped to Crete – where when he reached maturity- he returned to confront Cronus. Aided by Cronus’s wife Rhea and Gaia, Cronus was presented with a potion he was told would bring gift him invincibility. Instead, it made him regurgitate all his imprisoned children.
Zeus led a rebellion against Cronus and Hades was presented with a Helmet of Darkness by the Cyclopes. The helmet would make the wearer invisible and in later legends, Perseus would make use of it. During the war against the Titans, Hades wore it was was responsible for bringing the war to an end when Hades entered the Titans’s encampment and destroyed all their weapons.
Victory over the Titans meant the cosmos was divided between the three sons of Cronus. A drawing of lots saw Zeus became lord of the heavens and earth, Poseidon the lord the earth’s waters and Hades the lord of the Underworld.
The ancient Greek underworld holds many realms and was more than Tartarus, the fiery pit – it also included the Elysian Fields, a realm of paradise. The dead would be judged as to how they had lived their lives and an eternity might be spent in Tartarus, the Elysian Fields or the nothingness of the Asphodel Meadows.
The dead were a population of Hades’s realm but the god did not take judgement over them. Instead, he gave those tasks to others and was revered for the fear and power he invoked. Hades doesn’t bring death either – this was carried out by the god Thanatos, a son of the goddess Nyx.
Hades had an ebony throne and held a sceptre in one hand and a two-pronged spear in the other. When travelling, his black chariot was pulled by four coal-black horses. The most famous association to Hades was his guard dog, Cerberus, the monstrous three-head offspring of Echidna.
Other Names: Aidoneus, Pluto
Manifestation: A large man with a curly black beard
Attribute: A helmet of invisibility
Familiar: Cerberus, the monstrous three-headed guard dog
Plants: Black narcissus, mint, cypress tree, fava beans
Colour: Black
Metal: Iron
Animals: Black ram, wolf, bear
Sacred site: A shrine on Mount Mentha in Tryphelia, Elis. Hades was also worshipped with Athena at her temple near Koroneia in Boeotia.
In Aztec cosmology, the soul intakes a journey to the Underworld after death and they have four destinations: the Sacred Orchard of the Gods, the Place of Darkness, the Kingdom of the Sun, and a paradise called the Mansion of the Moon.
The most common destination for a soul is Mictlán (Place of Darkness) with nine levels, crashing mountains and rushing rivers, and four years of struggle. There are 13 Heavens over which various gods and goddesses preside and provides the cultural basis for the Day of the Dead customs and celebrations.
Mictlantecuhtli is the skeletal Lord of the Land of the Dead – the supreme ruler of Mictlán. He oversees the place of eternal smoke and darkness along with his consort Mictlancihuatl.
Mictlán ruled by its Lord and Lady, is a gloomy place a soul reaches only after wandering for four years beneath the Earth, accompanied by a “soul-companion,” usually a do which was customarily cremated with the body.
Aztec myth tells how Quetzalcoatl (Nahuatl language means “feathered serpent”) journeyed into Mictlán at the dawning of the Fifth Sun (the present world era), and restored humankind to life with from the bones of those who had lived before. Bones are like seeds: everything that dies goes into the Earth, and from it new life is born in the sacred cycle of existence.
Quetzalcoatl’s Descent To Mictlán
At sunset, Mictlantechutli (Lord of Underworld) and Tonatiuh (Star God) take their place to illuminate the world of the dead.
Legend tells that after Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca created the world, the day and night, they placed Mictalntecuhtli and his wife Mictlancihuatl as Lord and Lady of the underworld.
The counterpart of Mictlán is the paradise known as Tlalocán, or the home of the god Tlaloc, where the dead who drowned or were struck by lightning would dwell.
The 4 houses of the dead:
•Chichihuacuauhco
•Mictlán
•Ilhuuicatl-Tonatiuh
•Tlalocán
Chichihuacuauhco is the first mansion, a place of dead children. In its middle there is a large tree whose branches drip milk so the children could might feed and gain strength. These children will return to the Earth when our world of the Fifth Sun is destroyed. That is why children died young so they might repopulate the Earth for the future.
Mictlán is the second house. Those who succumbed to illness and old age went to dwell in Mictlán. The soul must make a 4 year journey and pass through nine layers of the Underworld and various daunting tests. These included the dead coming to the river Apanohuaya which is impossible to cross without the help of an Itzcuintli (xoloitzcuintle), a special dog each family raised and cremated alongside the mourned deceased.
Among the Aztecs, the god Xolotl was a monstrous dog. During the creation of the Fifth Sun, Xolotl was hunted by Death and escaped him by transforming himself first into a sprout of maize, then into maguey leaves and finally as a salamander in a pool of water. The third time that Death found Xolotl, he trapped and killed him. Three important foodstuffs were produced from the body of this mythological dog.
Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Dead, had kept the bones of a man from a previous creation. Xolotl descended to the Underworld trying to steal these bones so that man could be reborn into the new world of the Fifth Sun. Xolotl recovered the bones and brought man to life again by piercing his penis and bleeding upon them. Xolotl is seen as an incarnation of the planet Venus as the Evening Star (the Morning Star was his twin brother Quetzalcoatl).
Xolotl is the canine companion of the Sun, following its path through both in the sky and the Underworld. Xolotl’s strong connection with the Uderworld, death and the dead is demonstrated by the symbols he bears. In the Codex Borbonicus Xolotl is pictured with a knife in his mouth (symbol of death), and has black wavy hair like the hair worn by the gods of death.
Upon recognising his dead master, the dog barks, then rushes to help the deceased to cross the river and carries its master upon his back while swimming.
After the crossing, the soul is stripped of all clothes, beginning the second part of his journey between two mountains that conflicted with each other. This pass is called Tepetl Monamiclia, where the deceased would make warily make their way hoping the two mountains wouldn’t clash and crush the passing traveler.
At the end of the pass, a descent down a hill strewn with flints and sharp obsidian (same material used to make knives) and the soul would call to Ilztepetl. But the stones still mercilessly cut the feet of the dead as they passed.
Celhuecayan, the eight mountains is covered i perpetual snow that falls constantly and is whipped up by strong winds.
The soul the arrives at the foot of a hill, the last part in the journey called Paniecatacoyan. These moors here are cold and large, where the dead would walk endlessly crossing the desolated land.
The soul then take a long path, where they are struck with arrows. This place is Temiminaloyan and the arrows are fired by unseen hands.
At the end of the path is Tecoylenaloyan, where the soul exists with thousands of fierce beasts. When any of the beasts reached them, the souks would throw open their chests and let the beasts eat their hearts.
The souls os then forced to dive into the Apanuiayo (black water river), and where the Xochilonal dwells. The soul must swim in this lake, dodging the animals, including the terrifying lizard to get to the next test.
Finally, tired, injured and exhausted with suffering, the soul reaches Chicunamictlan, where they would meet Mictlantecuchtli, the fierce God of the Death who would receive them with vengeance.
Here the soul’s cycle ends forever and here they would live until their bodies and their lives extinguish.
The long journey lasted for four years, in which the deceased came to his eternal rest.
The mansion where most of the dead arrived were those who would diedof natural causes.
The is the Kingdom of the Sun.
Here the warriors, slaughtered at the hands of their enemies, rest. Those souls of women who died in childbirth are counted among these. For among the Aztecs, pregnant women were like warriors who symbolically capture her child for the Aztec state in the painful and bloody battle of birth. Considered as female aspects of defeated heroic warriors, women dying in childbirth became fierce goddesses who carried the setting sun into the netherworld realm of Mictlán.
Mictlán is a place outside of the time. A wonderful infinite place, and a beautiful plain, at every day the sun rose, warriors beat their shields.
After four years, these warriors would turn into rich bird-feathers, small, living creatures eating the flowers.
Those who had died by drowning, lightning, and other deaths related to water and rain arrived at Tlalocán, the Mansion of the Moon, a place of unending springtime and a paradise of green plants. This place belongs to Tlaloc.
Tlaloc is also associated with caves, springs, and mountains, most specifically the sacred mountain in which he was believed to reside. His animal forms include herons and water-dwelling creatures such as amphibians, snails, and possibly sea creatures, particularly shellfish.
The dead arriving here would be happy, fresh and unconcerned. These dead hadn’t been cremated, but buried.
And so, between the mansions the dead Aztecs were divided, each person going to their designated place in the Mexican Underworld.
Loki (Old Norse: Loki “knot/tangle”) is a wily trickster god of Norse mythology. While treated as a nominal member of the Aesir, he occupies a highly ambivalent and unique position among the gods, giants, and the other kinds of spiritual beings that populate pre-Christian Norse religion.
Loki is the father of three monsters with giantess and witch of the Iron Wood, Angrboda (Old Norse: “Anguish-bringer”). Their daughter Hel became the ruler of the underworld; Jormungand, a great serpent (also known as the Midgard Serpent encircled the entirety of Midgard sea) is fated to be slain and slay Thor during Ragnarok; lastly, Fenrir, the giant wolf who bites off one the god Tyr’s hands when chained by the Aesir and slays Odin during Ragnarok.
Loki also had a wife from among the Aesir – Sigyn (“Friend of Victory”) and two sons named Nari and Narfi, whose names might mean “Corpse.” They are sacrificed and their entrails used to bind Loki until he’ll break free at the beginning of Ragnarok.
Loki often runs afoul of societal expectations but also the “the laws of nature.” Loki is also a shape-shifter and in the form of a mare, he birthed Sleipnir, Odin’s shamanic stallion.
In many tales, Loki is a schemer, coward, shallow and focused only on his self-preservation. He’s also playful, malicious, and can be helpful. But all tales portray him as irreverent and immoral.
Loki’s recklessness finds him in the hands of the furious frost-giant, Thrazi who threatens to kill him unless he kidnaps the goddess Idunn. To save his own life, Loki agrees and shape-shifting again, steals Idunn away and delivers her to Thrazi. The Aesir then threaten him with death unless he rescues Idunn. He agrees to this for self-preservation and shape-shifting into a falcon and transforms Idunn again and carries her back to Asgard in his talons. Angered, Thrazi pursues him in the form of an eagle. When he has almost caught up with Loki, the Aesir gods light a fire around the perimeter of their fortress. The flames catch Thrazi’s feathers and burns him to death.
After Thrazi’s death, his daughter, frost-giantess Skadi, marches on Asgard demanding compensation for slaying her father. One of her demands is that the Aesir make her laugh, something which only Loki can accomplish.
Loki both helps and hinders the gods and the giants, depending on what course of action most benefits him at the time.
During Ragnarok, when the gods and giants engage in their fateful struggle and the cosmos is destroyed, Loki joins the giants and captains a ship made by Hel called Naglfar, “Deadmen’s nails,” that brings many of the giants to the battlefield. Loki and the Aesir god Heimdall will mortally wound each other.
Loki is best known for his malevolent role in the death of Odín and Frigg’s son Baldr. The prophesied death of the beloved god Baldr, Frigg secures a promise from every living thing not to harm her son. But no oath is obtained from a young mistletoe. Loki discovers this omission and carves a spearhead from the mistletoe. While the Aesir are enjoying testing the immortality of Baldr, Loki gives the spearhead to Baldr’s brother, the blind god Hodr who isn’t participating in the festivities. Loki aims for Hodr and Baldr is struck and dies.
After Baldr’s death, the Aesir god Hermod rides Sleipnir into the underworld to implore Hel to release Baldr. Hel demands that if Baldr is truly loved by everything and everyone, every being in the Nine Worlds must weep for Baldr and then she will release him from the Underworld. Loki disguises himself as a giantess named Thok (“Thanks”), who is the only one in the Nine Worlds who doesn’t weep for Baldr. In turn, he must remain with Hel in the Underworld.
For this last crime against the Aesir gods, he is bound within a cavern with a venomous serpent hanging above him, dripping poison onto his face (the viper care of Skadi). Loki’s very faithful wife Sigyn, sits beside him holding a bowl catch the venom. But when the bowl needs emptying, she mist leave Loki’s face unprotected and drops of venom fall onto his flesh and he writhes in agonised convulsions that cause earthquakes. Here, he will stay until breaking free at Ragnarok.
For many centuries of Norse mythology study, the meaning of Loki’s name has been elusive. A recent, the philologist Eldar Heide suggests from Nordic folklore in periods more recent than the Viking Age, Loki often appears in contexts likening it to a knot on a thread. In fact, in later Icelandic usage, the common noun loki means “knot” or “tangle.”
Manifestation: A master shape-shifter who appears in many guises.
Consort: Aesir wife Sigyn and the giantess Angrboda
Sacred animals: Wolves, snakes and possibly spiders (web-weaving).
Star symbol: Sirius also known as Lokabrenna (“Loki’s Brand”) in traditional Norse astrology
Baron Samedi is the leader of the Barons and possibly the Gedés. He presides over a sprawling, confusing, complex clan of spirits. Baron Samedi literally means Baron Saturday, which may sound innocuous compared to Baron Cemetery but a connection through Christianity is Saturday was between the crucifixion on Friday and resurrection on the Sunday. Thus, the Saturday, belongs to Baron Samedi, Lord of the Dead. Or another possible explanation for the name is that Samedi is related to ‘Simbi’ or zombie in Haitian and there is only a coincidental resemblance to the French word for Saturday.
Baron Samedi spends is mostly in the invisible realm of the Haitian voodoo spirits. He is known to be outrageous – drinking rum and smoking cigars, swearing profusely, and making filthy jokes. The other spirits in the Guede family behave similarly but lacking the suaveness of Baron Samedi.
Despite being married to the loa, Maman Brigitte, the Baron chases after mortal women and lingers at the crossroads of life and death in the human world.
When someone dies, the Baron is said to dig their grave and meet their soul as it rises from that grave. He guides them into the underworld and only Baron Samedi has the power to accept an individual into the world of the dead. He also makes certain those who have died rot in the ground as they should, and no soul can return as a brainless zombie. For this act, he will demand payment which varies upon his mood at the time. On many occasions, he accepts gifts of cigars, rum, black coffee, or grilled peanuts but he may ask others to continue wearing black, white or purple.
Baron Samedi, is the head of the Guede family, the group of loas that control life and death. This powerful family of spirits possesses numerous abilities. The Baron is also a giver of life and can cure any mortal of a disease or wound provided he believes it is a worthwhile act to save the individual. The Baron even has the power to overcome voodoo hexes and curses. An individual who is cursed by a hex or other black magic is not guaranteed death if the Baron refuses to dig their grave. As the Master of the Dead and Guardian of Cemeteries, no one can enter the underworld without his permission. In this way, he can prevent death.
He a powerful healer and is especially sympathetic to terminally ill children. He can be just and kind. The Baron prefers children live full lives before joining him in the cemetery and underworld.
Baron Samedi is the crossroads where sex and death meet. The Spirit of an undying life-force and he may be petitioned for fertility. He is the guardian of ancestral knowledge and the link to ancestral spirits.
Baron Samedi is syncretized to Jesus because they both share the symbol of the cross. Baron Samedi’s associations with the cross may pre-date Christianity. In Congolese cosmology, the cross is the symbol of the life cycle: birth-death-rebirth.
Also known as: Bawon Samdi (Creole); Baron Sandi (Spanish); Baron Saturday
Classification: Lwa
Favored people: Children; women seeking to conceive; funeral workers; grave diggers; any whose work brings them into contact with death
Manifestation: an older, dark-skinned man in formal attire, dressed completely in black. He wears a black top hat, black suit, and may be smoking one of his beloved cigars. He wears impenetrable black sunglasses (one lens may be missing because he simultaneously sees the realms of the living and the dead.
Iconography: A chair chained to a cross.
Attributes: Coffin; phallus; skull and cross-bones; shovel; grave; black sunglasses; cross.
Offerings: Black coffee, plain bread, dry toast, roasted peanuts. He drinks rum in which twenty-one very hot peppers have been steeped. Cigars, cigarettes, dark sunglasses, Day of the Dead toys (the sexier and more macabre the better); A skull and crossbones pirate flag; beautiful wrought-iron crosses are crafted in his honor.
Colours: Black but also red or purple
Day: Saturday
Feasts: 2 November, Day of the Dead.
Time: Twilight tends to be a good time to invoke him or make requests.
Consort: Madame Brigitte. They may both be petitioned together for fertility, protection, or to save sick children.
Freyr (Old Norse Freyr, “Lord”) is one of the Vanir gods and is also counted among the Aesir gods as a hostage after the Aesir-Vanir War.
Fryer’s father is the Vanir god Njord. Freyr has been the lover of numerous goddesses and giantesses and rumoured to include his own sister, Freya. Incest seems a common practice among the Vanir deities but not the Aesir.
Freyr was one of the most widely venerated divinities amongst the pagan Norse and other Germanic peoples. The reasons are easy to understand with the well-being and prosperity dependent on his benevolence which manifested in sexual and ecological fertility, bountiful harvests, wealth, and peace. His role governing fertility is symbolised in his golden-bristled boar Gullinborsti and its enormous, erect phallus.
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that Freyr was a frequent recipient of sacrifices at the blessing of a wedding or the celebration of a harvest. During harvest festivals, the sacrifice traditionally took the form of his favored animal, the boar.
His prominence even among the Aesir is clear in being included among the receiptients of prized dwarf-made gifts like Skíðblaðnir, a ship which always has a favorable wind and can be folded up and carried in a small bag.
Freyr dwells is Alfheim – the homeland of the elves. Freyr is never stated as a ruler of the elves and the relationship between the gods and the elves is ambiguous in many cases.
On land, Freyr travels in a chariot drawn by boars. This is another mythological feature that was reflected in historical ritual. From medieval Icelandic sources, priestesses and/or priests of Freyr traveled throughout the country on a chariot which contained a statue of the god. A similar practice occurred with the early Germanic goddess Nerthus – a Proto-Germanic form of Freyr’s father’s name, Njord.
During Ragnarok at the doom of the gods, it is Freyr and the fire giant Surt who are fated to destroy each other.
Also known as: Frey; Fro; Frothi; Frodi; Yngvi; Ing
Classification: Vanir god
Favoured people: Seafarers; lovers; brewers
Iconography: In his shrine at Uppsala, Freyr was represented as a virile man with a large, erect penis. An alternative image portrayed him as a young boy traveling across the sea. His image was often featured on armor and weapons.
Attributes: A sword that is removed independently from its scabbard and creates carnage wherever it is directed at. A ship whose sails always attract favourable winds but could be folded up and carried.
Associates Colours: Brown, gold, green.
Mounts: A chariot drawn by two boars. A massive, golden-bristled boar. A horse named Bloody Hooves.
Place of Veneration: Shrine in Uppsala, Sweden, where it continued to be a place of veneration to Freyr long after most of Scandinavia had converted to Christianity.
Associated Runes: Ehwaz, Fehu, and Ingwaz.
Offerings to Freyr: The Yule boar, or a male pig, is the annual sacrificial boar offered to Freyr in winter. Libations of fresh water, barley wine, ale, or mead.
The Ankou (Breton), Ankow (Cornish) or Angau (Welsh) from Celtic legend most commonly occurs in Brittany. Here you can still spot the Ankou haunting many of the churches and cathedrals. What is the Ankou? It’s defiant remnant of Pagan influence that had survived hidden among the stone-work of Christian buildings.
The Ankou haunts the graveyard and he is the last soul to die in the village before the stroke of midnight that year. Doomed to stay another year on earth – he acts as guardian of the graveyard – until another soul takes his place the following year.
The Ankou is described as a tall man dressed in black who is very thin or skeletal looking and has white hair kept under a wide brimmed hat. He is carries a scythe and he either pushes a wheelbarrow or rides a rickety cart that squeaks when it moves. The horse-drawn cart may be drawn by two horse – one is emaciated while the other is fat.
The Ankou is both the harbinger of death and also the collector of souls.
The Fear Gorta means Famine Man or Féar Gortach and refers to the Hungry or Famine Grass in Irish folklore.
The Famine or Hungry Man is a skeletal wraith and a harbinger of death. Féar Gortach is a folklore tale of a cursed patch of land where if you tread, you are doomed to die of starvation no matter how much you eat.
From Cork to Kilkenny and Galway to Connemara, tales of people losing their way on short routes across fields and being caught by the Hungry Grass.
A young man walking home on a sunny day, crosses through the field and is found days later, confuse, not knowing where he is and starving. He is taken home but no amount of nursing or food can save him from starving to death. Others are so overwhelmed by the touch of the cursed grass that they die from hunger where they stand. These victims of the Famine are also predatory, seeking others out to drag others onto the grass. The only protection is to carry a crust of bread in your pocket – but even that may not be enough to save you.
The Hungry Grass and the Hungry Man have two origins but the outcome facing either is much the same. Féar Gortach relates to one of the most dreadful eras in Irish history.
The Origins: The Irish Potato Fammine
It has many names: the Irish Great Hunger, The Great Famine and the Irish Potato Famine. The despair, death and devastation suffered in Ireland for almost a decade at the hands of British tyranny. Class discrimination, religious intolerance, enforced labour, deliberate starvation and forced exile were all endured under the dark skies and harsh winter after harsh winter.
British penal laws meant that parliamentary representatives were primarily British nationals and their male descendants were granted landed estates in Ireland. Irish Catholics who had previously had property had it confiscated and were forbidden from owning or leasing land or voting. The penal law was largely repealed before 1830, however Irish Catholics had to settle for leasing land back from the British landowners.
The potato was only introduced into Ireland in the 18th century but it soon became a staple food because of it was hardy enough to survive the Irish weather and it was a cheap product that went far for a family.
Unfortunately, potato crops became infested with an airborne fungus called phytophthorainfestans, also known as potato blight. It soon became a countrywide disaster.
British Corn Laws were still in existence and fixed at an artificially high tariff on imports to protect British corn prices and keep them in control of the market. A petition was put forward for Queen Victoria to repeal the high tax – which did happen – but too late. This, combined with a high level of produce being exported out of Ireland by British landowners and merchants resulted in a food shortage of catastrophic proportions brought Ireland to its knees.
Charles Trevelyan and Black ‘47
Attempts at temporary relief measures were mismanaged and local committees would be unruly and incapable of the organisation required to put these measures in place successfully. Just when it was thought that things couldn’t get any worse, it did,
Charles Trevelyan was assigned the relief effort and he would become one of the most hated men in Irish history. Trevelyan was a civil servant with no compassion, empathy or connection to the Irish people he was tasked to assist.
His methods at creating employment, bringing food to the table and restarting the Irish economy were drawn out, complicated and ultimately, failed. Trevelyan and the British government were operating on the principle that the blight would be short lived and that nature would run its course.
The first year of the potato blight and food shortages was dire, but the Irish kept going with their small import of corn, selling off the little livestock they owned and borrowing money from brutal loaners.
The British Prime Minister Robert Peel had supplied Ireland with its corn imports but following his resignation in 1846, Trevelyan took complete control and cut off Ireland from further imports so the Irish weren’t relying on British support. Despite his procedures to develop a working economy in Ireland had failed.
The collapse of social systems and infrastructure and absence of food, Trevelyan sent soldiers to try to install order. One of the most brutal winters hit Ireland and under Trevelyan half a million Irish were out in the blizzards building roads. Men, women, children – barley clothed, starving and freezing – died where they stood.
1847 become known as ‘Black 47’ – the worst year of the Great Hunger. The population was emaciated and desperately trying to work on Trevelyan’s enterprises for almost no wages or food. Children went without any sustenance as their parents needed whatever food they had to work on road-building.
Disease ravished Ireland and most died from typhus, dysentery and the black fever rather than malnutrition. Finally, all of Trevelyan’s projects were closed down and soup kitchens and charity introduced but far too slowly and on too small a scale. In 1847 the third potato harvest failed.
The Rise of Fear Gorta & Féar Gortach
Death was the common and the dead were tossed into carts and tossed into makeshift graves without so much as a blessing and their souls condemned to Purgatory.
All over Ireland hundreds of mass graves were dug, and these Famine Graveyards as they became known were originally un-consecrated, although in later years many became memorialised and recognised as consecrated ground.
Others remained buried in cold, unhallowed ground and over the top of these mass graves the grass grew sparsely and it was cursed. It was hungry. From this situation, the Hungry Grass and the emaciated figure known as the Hungry Man emerged.
Supernatural origins and Lore
The most common lore behind the Féar Gortach is that is occurs as a result of fairy magic. Found in fields and cursed by the fairies of the Unseelie Court who use dark magic.
Whether as a source of famine or fairy folk, to stand on the Hungry Grass equals death. Slowly, starvation begins and the sufferer descends into madness. They eat and eat but no amount of food will ever satiate their hunger. Ultimately, the victim withers away and dies.
The Fear Gorta, or Hungry Man is not a man at all, but a Fae being. He’s associated with famine because his dreadful skeletal appearance, gaunt and haggard. His sallow skin is stretched thinly over an emaciated body. His clothing is made of tatters and rags and he looks like the walking dead. His appearance during times of great hardship and Famine. The Fear Gorta can be malevolent or benevolent, depending on his mood and the welcome he receives. He is known to call house to house begging and if he is treated kindly, he has the ability to bestow good blessings and wealth on those he deems worthy. Those who are unkind will feel his wrath and suffer abject poverty, famine and death.
There are no certain ways to defend yourself against either the Fear Gorta or Féar Gortach, but there are wardings and protections to carry a crust of bread in your pocket which may protect from the starvation effects of stepping on the Hungry Grass. It is believed that bread crumbs spread on the cursed grass will reverse the curse on those recently afflicted. Ultimately, salting and burning the field will bring closure to the cursed.
The Fear Gorta is a different issue. He is a solitary Fae without a master. There is no protection from his power. Decimation and despair will wake him and his withered, skeletal finger will point to his next victim.
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