(Another snippet that got a good reception on the internets, preserved here so I can avoid typing it again.)
In the business of restoring polytheistic
worship in a European context we are faced with a variety of difficulties. One of the most notable is the almost total
break in folkloric transmission concerning the nature and desires of the gods
and spirits. Kids just don’t grow up with an intrinsic understanding of who
Dagda Mor is, in the way they may know St Jude,
or the bigger names in the more
common pantheons. We are left to reassemble our ways from the snippets
available in preserved ancient literature, from equally ragged folkloric bits,
and by analogy with modern Non-European polytheisms.
As readers have seen me say before, the long
round of invocation that Neopaganism has been making to the gods and spirits is
paying off. Pagans are hearing the voices, seeing the visions. It is not
unusual for personal experience to contradict scholastic norms (which are never
the same as real lore transmitted by folkloric methods). Those of us who look
to scholarship as a primary (almost scriptural in some cases, though not Yr
Hmbl) source of the nature of the gods can be confounded when worshipper
experiences contradict our understandings.
My friend John Machate asked how we respond
when someone reports actions of a god that contradict scholarly understanding.
Sez I:
…let's start with a little theology...
I'd say that
there's no such thing as a god that isn't worshiped. God-ness is defined by the
relationship of a spirit to mortals. If the spirit is in a relationship of
offering-and-blessing, i.e. if it has cult, then that spirit is a god; if not
it is not. It may be a spirit of some other type; it may just be a character in
a story, provided to help poets make a point.
The tales are not,
after all, mythology. We have no Celtic stories that were provably told by
pagans to pagans (and Norse is little better). Even in cases of unbroken
mythological lines, such as India, or of good preservation of literate
Paganism, such as Greece, the nature of the gods is determined by both story
and cult. The actions of the gods in cult are local, specific and often related
to the needs of their worshipers, rather than their poetic category.
No Celtic God has been more altered by Neopagan gnosis than Cernunnos. |
To speak of a god
and the actions of a god, we can go two routes. We can describe the poetic and
symbolic categories most often associated with that being. We say that Brigid
is a goddess 'of the hearth' or 'of home and kin', or that Morrigan is 'of
battle'. When we attempt to derive these big categories I suppose it makes
sense to draw on the tales we have.
The second source
is the power of the god in cult. I don't suppose anyone would suggest that
Brigid would not defend her worshipers with war, if needed, or that Morrigan
*could not* heal or aid in childbirth. That they might do so for the right
petitioner does not, I suppose, change their greater poetic category. If I were
healed by Morrigan I don't suppose it would lead me to address her as "the
Healer", though I would recite that she had healed me. It's common in
practical world polytheism to ask one's house-gods for what one needs first.
They often come through, without resorting to others in the local pantheon.
So if a modern
Pagan comes to me and says "Morrigan saved my childbirth" I would
congratulate them, and perhaps remind them of their debt. If I hear
"Morrigan is a Goddess of Childbirth" I'd ask for references.
2 comments:
Ian,
Nice post. I think you're on to something. Would you consider giving this a fleshing out?
Fleshed out to book-length is what I meant.
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