Seasons of the Witch – Legends and Lore, Ancient Holidays And Some Not So Ancient!
Today Is …
Nessie ~ On this date in the year 1930, the first sighting of the famous monster of Loch Ness was officially recorded in Scotland. Old Nessie (as the monster has been affectionately nicknamed) has since been witnessed by thousands of people and continues to attract countless numbers of tourists with cameras to Loch Ness each year.
Day Dedicated to Arinna – She is an Anatolia Sun Goddess. Spend as much of the day as you can in the sun or try starting a fire using a concave lens and the sun. Place a sunflower on your altar.
Horse God – On the 23rd day of the 6th lunar montyh, the Chinese honor the Horse-god (Mawang).
Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999
St Mary Magdalene – Today is the Feast day for St. Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene is the fallen woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tears and dried them with her hair; thus she is the patron saint of prostitutes. Because of her long hair she is the patron of hairdressers, and because her emblem is the ointment jar, she is the patron of apothecaries. She was also invoked for help with fasting. The red rose is her plant. For a new treatment of her story, see Clytie Kinstler’s The Moon Under Her Feet.
She may have been a devotee of Astarte. There is some connection between the seven demons which afflicted her, and the seven initiations Inanna undergoes in her descent to the Underworld and the seven veils which Salome wears in her famous dance. The village of Migdala (from whence her name) is the Village of Doves, which connects her with Anahit, the Persian goddess honored with a sacrifice of doves and roses at her midsummer festival (see Vartavar, July 28).
She has long been associated with dance and music. In Normandy, in the thirteenth century, nuns danced on her feast-day.
If it rains today, the English say that Mary Magdalen is washing her handkerchief to go to her cousin St James’s Fair in three days time. But heavy rain now can be disastrous for the harvest and the Cumbrians say:
A Magdalen flood
Never did good.
Tristram and Iseult ~ One of the greatest legends of Cornwall is the tragic tale of Tristram and Iseult – sometimes known as Tristan and Isolde. The story is that Tristram, the nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, was mortally wounded in a fight where he killed the brother of the Queen of Ireland. As he was expected to die, he was sent out to sea in a boat without sails. By chance, the boat reached the shores of Ireland, where he was nursed back to health by the beautiful Iseult, daughter of the King of Ireland.
To cut a long story short, Tristram could not stay in Ireland as he was responsible for the death of the Queen’s brother, so he returned to Cornwall. A little later, King Mark sent him back to Ireland to bring back Iseult who was to be his queen. On the way back, the couple accidentally drank a love potion intended for Mark and Iseult on their wedding night.
The young couple fell deeply in love and carried on an illicit affair even after she married. King Mark became suspicious and although Iseult managed to allay these suspicions, Tristram left the country. He married a Breton girl, who was also called Iseult, but he never stopped loving the Queen of Cornwall. When he was wounded in battle, he sent for her to heal his wounds and asked that a white sail be flown from the ship if she was on board when it returned.
Tristram’s jealous wife told him that the returning ship flew only a black sail and he died of grief. When Iseult heard of his death, she died of a broken heart. A cross at Castle Dor is said to mark the grave of Tristram.
Remember The Ancient Ways and Keep Them Holy!
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Courtesy of GrannyMoonsMorningFeast