Candlemas - The Light Grows Longer

Sulamith Wulfing (1901-1989): The Candlemas. Light and darkness,
new and old, summer and winter are dueling.

Now it is the middle of the winter. The darkness of the autumn and the festivities of the Yule are past. There is more and more sunlight every day. However, the light is not yet the warming light of the spring, but a cruel light exposing the dead season in the nature; plain grey fields, black naked trees and birdless skies.

The climax of the great Yule celebration has faded after forty days, and there is nothing to wait for for a long time. The new year has begun, but new life is still sleeping in the womb of Mother Earth. What to do? Where to get strengt and joy from?

The Purification of the Goddess

The second day of February is among other things called The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin and The Meeting of the Lord (in Greek: Hypapante) with Christian terms. 

It originates from the Jewish custom (in Hebrew: Pidyon HaBen, redemption of the son), where the firstborn son is taken to the temple forty days after his birth to complete the mother's purification after childbirth, and to perform the redemption of the firstborn in obedience to the law of Moses.

Because it is thought that Jesus Christ was born on Yule, then his redemption would have been the second of February. It is told that Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple on this day. They met Simeon the Righteous and elderly prophetess Anna, who both prophesied the redemption of the whole world by Jesus.

However, there is no reason to believe in Christmas being Jesus's birthday, because it only is a christianized  pagan celebration. Thus the second of February as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is also merely a part of Christian propaganda. However, there is no fable without a little truth in it: Here we have the first hints of the real purpose of the day, the goddess in form of Virgin Mary and purification.

The Celebration of Light

Another name for the second of February is Candlemas. I am not entirely convinced whether it originally is a Christian term, even if it is used as such. In Danish it is kyndelmisse, kærtemisse or Kjørmes Knud, in Swedish kyndelsmässodagen, in Finnish kynttilänpäivä, in Latin festum candelabrum or missa candelarum. All these names can be translated as the candle mass. In practice this was (and still is) the day when Christian priests blessed candles for use throughout the year and torchlight processions were held.

Here we have another hint of the true meaning of the day, that is, Candlemas has something to do with candles. In other words: The celebration of returning light and life.

The Return of the Goddess

The idea of the returning light and life can best be considered in terms of an ancient Greek(-Roman) myth of Kore aka Persephone (Proserpina). It is a part of the Eleusian Mysteries explaining the change of the seasons by the abduction and return of the goddess. The Eleusian ceremonies were, not suprisingly, held on the day of February second.

 Persephone together again with her mother Demeter in Eleusis, admiring sacred ergot mushrooms.

In brief, Persephone is the daughter of Demeter (Ceres), or Mother Earth. She is the embodiment of the Earth's fertility. The god of the underworld, Hades (Pluto) fell in love with her, abducting her to the underworld as his captive. At the same time Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter and the earth is having an eternal drought.

This threatened the natural balance in the cosmos, and the gods decided to release Persephone back to her mother. However, Hades was not pleased; he planned an intrigue giving Persephone a pomegranate. She managed to eat six pomegranate seeds and as a result, Persephone had to remain in the underworld with Hades for for six months every year. The other six months she could stay with her mother in the world of the living.

When Persephone returns to the surface on the second of February, her mother becomes joyful, winter ends, light increases and the cycle of life and growth begins anew.

The Field Penance

So far the ancient Greece, the ancient North-Europeans called the second of the February Æcer Bót (Old English), or Akr Bod in Old Norse and Holy Penance Day in medival Norse. Æcer Bót means Field Penance, meaning that one makes penance for the field in hopes of getting a good harvest.

The penance here consisted of some flat cakes of corn, buried in the field so that the field could give them corn in return. These cakes were called placentas, representing the female organ. In Danish the cakes were not called placentas, but afterbirths (moderkager), which actually means Mother's cakes. This stands to reason, for it was Mother Earth who would get them both the cakes and the afterbirths.

The same kind of plowing ritual is described in the Indian Rig Veda, although the Mother has here become the male Lord of the Field:

1. We through the Master of the Field, even as through a friend, obtain what nourisheth our kine and steeds. In such may he be good to us. [...]
3. Sweet be the plants for us. [...] May the Field's Lord for us be full of sweetness [...]
4. Happily work our steers and men, may the plough furrow happily. Happily be the traces bound; happily may he ply the goad. [...]
7. May Indra press the furrow down, may Pūṣan guide its course aright. May she, as rich in milk, be drained for us through each succeeding year.
8. Happily let the shares turn up the plough-land, happily go the ploughers with the oxen.With meath and milk Parjanya make us happy. Grant us prosperity, Śuna [Vayu or wind] and Sīra [Pūṣan or Sun].

Rig Veda, Book 4. HYMN LVII. Ksetrapati

The Day of Goddesses

We can understand from the previous examples that the day of Candlemas is originally a holy day of Mother Earth, who in the course of time received many other names and figures. In Scandinavia there were sacrifices on this day for Freja, the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, harvest, domestic animals, (child)births and death.

The Celts and other West-Europeans had another name for the same kind of goddess: Brigid (or Brighid, Brighde, Bride, Brigantia, Brigandu, Bridget and so on, nowdays St. Brigid), who was worshipped on the second day of February: Imbolc. Brigid is the goddess of poetry, love, inspiration, art, Moon, women, childbirths, healing, light, fire, cows, wells, wisdom, perfection, intelligence, craftsmanship and warfare.

Left: John McKirdy Duncan (1866-1945): Semele [a Greek goddess who lookes like a classical Brigid here]. Right: John Bauer (1182-1918): Freya  

One Celtic midwinter tradition still continues, namely Brigid's Bed. The unmarried women create a corn doll Brideog to represent Brigid on the eve of Imbolc. On the following day, the girls carry the corn doll through the village, from house to house, where she is welcomed with great honour.

In Russia the same kind of corn doll is called Kostroma or Maslenitsa. After the worship she is actually burned in a bornfire. Afterwards her ashes are spread over the fields in hopes of good harvest. I suppose this kind of corn doll originates from some very old religious practices requiring human sacrifices.

However, back to the pagan goddesses: Even Pope Innocent XII believed Candlemas was invented as an alternative to ancient Roman traditions:

Why do we in this feast carry candles? Because the Gentiles dedicated the month of February to the infernal gods, and as at the beginning of it Pluto stole Proserpine, and her mother Ceres sought her in the night with lighted candles, so they, at the beginning of the month, walked about the city with lighted candles. Because the holy fathers could not extirpate the custom, they ordained that Christians should carry about candles in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and thus what was done before in the honor of Ceres is now done in honor of the Blessed Virgin.

William Shepard Walsh: Curiosities of Popular Customs and of rites, ceremonies, observances, and miscellaneous antiquities, 1898

Peasant Traditions

The European post-medieval peasants were not too interested in the theological themes of the Christian Candlemas, nor did they remember how and why the day was celebrated before Christianity. They only knew that some things had to be done on Candlemas and that was the way it should be.

First, the Yule was completely gone. If one hadn't removed Yule decorations yet, now was the last moment to do so. However, lots of candles were burned exactly in the same way as on Yule.

This day was stock raisers' great day, because the cattle breeding began. It has been traditionally associated with the onset of lactation of ewes, soon to give birth to the spring lambs. It was also a day for grinding the whole year's flours.

There was a feast on the eve of Candlemas in the same way as on the Yule eve. The main dishes were the previously mentioned (buckwheat) pancakes, soup, cabbage and beer. Pork was eaten to prevent hunger as they also did on Yule in Scandinavia.

Peasants stood up very early on the morning of Candlemas. They would eat again and go to a field for plowing a little patch. A maid would  lead a horse, while a male farm labourer would plow. They should have their gloves on for the ritual to succeed. Of course, this procedure has no pragmatical agricultural value, but it is a way for preparing the female earth, so that it can receive the fertile and lifegiving rays of the male Sun. Even the fruit trees were whipped with twigs for getting a good harvest. Both of these traditions were certainly some distant memories of the original Candlemas, the day of Field Penance, Æcer Bót.

 A plowing man in a Danish 15th century painting, Elmelunde church. Link

According to an old folklore St. Peter was throwing warm stones into the water on this day, so that the ice would melt and the spring would come.

Divination, watching omens and weather prognostication for the next year were as popular as on Yule and the New Year. For example, if the midwinter day is bad, then the harvest will be great and the spring begins earlier. Old Norse proverbs say: As many days as a lark sings before the Candlemas, as many weeks it shall be silent afterwards. And another: If it blows so much on Candlemas that eighteen hags can't hold the nineteenth on the ground, then the spring is surely coming.

It was also believed that bears emerge from hibernation and wolves and serpents come out from their burrows on the day of Candlemas.They would check the weather, going back to sleep if the winter was to continue. In the United States and Canada, Candlemas evolved into Groundhog Day, when groundhogs are supposed to come out checking the weather.

As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger
If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas be cloud and snow
Winter will be gone and not come again
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay

This old Scottish poem features another strong belief of the Candlemas, which was known in the western and northern Europe: A farmer should have half of the harvest back, otherwise he could have problems.  Thus, one used to examine stocks and depots on the day of midwinter.

What to do?

Life feels so fragile and depressing at midwinter. Only the strongest will survive and see the new spring. However, everything is how it should be and it couldn't be otherwise. Seeds in the ground need frost, silence and darkness to be able to shoot again.

We too need this time, just as the nature does. We can prepare our life, body, mind, soul, home and environment for the new experiences by resting, cleaning and contemplating. We can make plans and new goals, because Persephone is coming back from the underworld, bringing the promise of spring with her.

By doing this, we are following the way of the nature and do the same on Candlemas: Turn own glance within, concentrate, work under the surface, hear the soft whispers of the Mother Earth and hope for a new spring. We should be inspired of the ancient goddesses and follow them in purification, wisdom, visions and healing.

One should keep in mind that there are holy days in the same way as there are holy places. The holy places are doorways to other worlds, while the seasonal holy days are like doors, which bring us closer together with the nature, the ancestors and ourselves. Therefore we shouldn't like one season or celebration more than the others. All have their right places and we should try to feel ourselves home in the present time and the present season: Feel this very moment of life, observing the ancient powers in the nature.

 Sulamith Wulfing (1901-1989): The Purification, which crystallizes the meaning and the feeling of the midwinter. 

Stone dead?

An Erratic Granite Block

There lays a big erratic granite block on the southern beach of Stevns. It glances silent and alone over the long sandy shores to the eternity. The tall beeches shelter its back from the ruthless sea. There is nothing special with its colour or surface, it is just a plain rock, little greyish and a bit grooved. The speciality is due to the fact that it merely stands there.

The Mouse Stone

Where did it come from during the Ice Age? Did it see how the land was formed by the fierce forces of the nature? Why did it stop right there, while the others of its kind moved forwards? Why was is allowed to stay on the beach even if it could have given economical profit for the 19th century peasants as a building material?

The stone cannot answer in verbal language. However, it gives one a feeling, a quiet touch of something unchangeable, permanent, ageless, mightly, massive and unshakeable. The seasons follow each other in the world, where everything is in a constant cycle of life and death, everything but the stones. Apart from that, there are only few rocks in this land of sand.

No wonder, that the first people inhabiting the area considered erratic blocks as sacred. And they certainly didn't say stone dead or have a heart of stone or as cold/dump as stone/rock, because even if externally lifeless, the rocks were regarded living entities with their own will. This had some practical consequences; for example every person, farm and village had their own sacred stones for protection from all kinds of evil things.

This rock has a name: the Mouse Stone. Presumably because it looks like a giant mouse. But there is more: It is also a cast boulder and a child stone.

John Bauer: Pojken som aldrig var rädd

Annoying Church-Bells

The local folklore explains how the Mouse Stone came to its present place: An abbey (still-existing) was built not so far away from the beach and the church-bells started to chime. However, there was a female troll, either from the island of Møn or Sweden, who became so annoyed at the ringing that she took the Mouse Stone and threw it towards the abbey with her garter. But he missed and the stone didn't reach the abbey.

The Vemmetofte Abbey after the Reformation

This is an extremely popular and common folklore about rocks, which can be heard everywhere in Europe. It sounds silly and naive, but it actually deals with some very deep religious and archetypical issues. The church-bells are not just church-bells, but a Christian long-distance missile, announcing the bliss of the new God, the Saviour Christ and a new order all over the land: Believes could be in peace, and confident that the old gods had lost their power. The non-believers could not stand the ringing, so they either had to either emigrate towards the north or destroy the church.

Nor is the female troll just a troll, but the heathen Mother Earth worshipped thousands of years before the Christianity. Thus the folklore is actually a Christian propaganda contributing an idea of all the old gods as demons, witches, giants or trolls. Apart from that they (and thereby their followers) are always described as evil, ugly and stupid losers in the battle of the two religions. The stones thrown towards churches then symbolize the resistance given by the followers of the original gods.

Venus of Willendorf - Earth Mother

Sacred Stones

The folklore insinuate these stones had originally been sacred and connected to the worship of the Mother Earth; otherwise, the trolls might have thrown something else towards churches. At least the Christians were sincerely afraid of the stone worship and forbade it with a law at the first opportunity. They even attacked the erratic blocks hitting a corner of them for 'killing' them, or used them as building materials for churches.

The Mouse Stone is also a child stone. In other words, it was believed that babies came from it — instead of being brought by storks! This is due to its location on a beach and its round shape. A shore is a place where the elements meet: water merges into the earth giving fertility and nourishment to everything growing in the dirt.

A stone on a shore is thus a fertility deity, who was given bread and butter sacrifices from the Stone Age until the early 20th century. It is told how these kinds of stones could even smell newly baked bread and turned themselfes towards the scent. If one wanted to have a boy child, one had to offer white bread to the stone, while whole wheat bread would yield a baby girl.

On the right: Vilhelm Petersen for H. C. Andersen: Aarets Historie, 1852 

Young virgin girls used to dance around the child stones and sacrifice for them for getting fertility and happiness in their future lives as mothers and wives.

Young couples went to the child stone when they got engaged or married, for otherwise their union was not legal, moral or valid. Additionally they spent their first night making love upon or in vicinity of the stone. There was no need for a priest or a big wedding party, just the couple pledging themselves to love each other forever before the stone as their silent and eternal witness. Thus this agreement between the lovers became as solid as a rock, which is a very beautiful thought. I like it.

Megalithic Marvels

For People's Delight

The Christians left behind great churches, impressive buildings, books and everyday utensils in Scandinavia. Runes and archeological discoveries illuminate the life and religions of the Vikings. All of those and many other things demonstrate an old romantical time of greatness, which can make us proud.

However, the time before the Vikings appears to be very confusing, and too complex to grasp. Some may consider it even boring and irrelevant. People living before the Vikings didn't write books or runes about their thoughts and life. They didn't built houses, which would last the corrosion of time. All that is left behind of them is some scattered pieces of flintstone, bones and crocks, which are not too thrilling. The story these discoveries tell is often experienced as alien and agonizingly primitive.

J. Th. Lundbye: Efterårslandskab, Hankehøj ved Vallekilde, 1847 (Den Hirschsprungske Samling)

However, something besides this still exists from this incredible long and difficult period of time. What I mean with 'this period of time' is the unchanging and continuous time from the first man of Ice Age to the Vikings. This era left some important things behind, namely the burial mounds or barrows (Latin: tumulus), that is, dolmens or megalithic structures.

They defy the landscape with their hemispheric forms. They are a greeting from the time of myths, dreams and folklore, being an essential part of our collective consciousness. We simply coundn't imagine our scenery without them. Their symbolical message, even if we can't understand it, stimulates our fantasy and fills us with questions that have no conventional answers.

However, our ignorance and inability to give answers to the ancient mysteries does not deprive the value of prehistory. It is just a part of the magic of life. It was said about the 19th century romanticism, that it:

[...] considered the old times as new way to view the present. [...It] displays the past making it beautiful, fascinating and informing, above all visible, and in that way [...] worth protecting and for people's [...] delight.

Karsten Kjer Michaelsen: Politikens bog om Danmarks Oldtid, 2002. Translation: Author

I have the same wish, because these qualities of aesthetics and cultural history are being underestimated in our society based on pragmatic values. The connection between mankind and their experience of cultural nature is still far from being harmonious.

A Mound Should Be Raised

Odin established the same law in his land that had been in force in Asaland.[...]Thus, said he, every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile; and he would also enjoy whatever he himself had buried in the earth. For men of consequence a mound should be raised to their memory [...]which custom remained long after Odin's time.

The Ynglinga Saga: 8. Odin's Lawgiving

The burial mounds can be classified according to their materials, location (of the entrance), form, and date of construction. They can for example be called bank, bell, bowl, D-shaped, fancy, long, oval, platform, pond, ring, round, saucer and square barrows, and so on. These categories have no practical relevance for normal people. However, it can be told that the tree mounds were the first ones being built. The chamber inside that kind of mound has walls made of wood. Later on stone chambers replaced the wooden constructions.

In practise, huge stones were dragged and put together to form walls for a chamber. Some of the biggest stones, many of them weighing over twenty thousand kilos, were pulled up atop the other ones, creating a fully balanced ceiling. Then earth was assembled around and upon the chamber, and the mound was fenced in by standing stones.

J. Th. Lundbye: En gravhøj fra oldtiden ved Raklev ved Refsnæs, 1839, Thorvaldsens Museum

It should be remembered that the barrows today are a sad remnant of brilliant ritualistic constructions. Originally they looked completely different. In the picture above, there is only a ruin of a burial mound, not the building itself.

At their own time, the mounds were impressive structures, which could be compared with castles or skyscrapers:

When the burial mounds were holy places, they looked different than today. Often the sacred area was surrounded by a wooden fence, and the foundation of the barrow was encircled by some heavy blocks of stones. An elaborate stony decoration covered the base of the mound.

Jørgen Jensen: Oldtiden i Danmark: Bronzealderen, 2001. Translation: Author

A restored megalithic structure, Newgrange, Ireland

It can be imagined that the row of flat kerbstones [around the mound] are like a wall of granite. It was made of red slates between the bigger stones. Above this was the convex top of the mound, decorated with white burnt flintstones. A real play of colours was made of the red sandstones, grey granite and white flintstones.

Klaus Ebbesen: Stendysser og jættestuer, 1993. Translation: Author

It should be remembered that the burial mounds are an ancient and long-term tradition. They are a result of thousands of years of architectural and religious activity, being built and used for almost six thousand years, from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, and from the Iron Age to the Viking Age. Despite practical life, burial forms and the social structure differing and changing in the course of time, burial mounds were being built.

Distribution of the megalithic culture in Europe.

Apart from that, megalithic barrows are to be found everywhere in the West Europe. It is amazing how similar these stone structures are, despite thousands of kilometers and years between them, and the builders having belonged to different cultures and tribes. Thus, it can be concluded that the mounds were a part of something huge, international and important.

The Devil Should Move those Barrows

In the beginning of the 19th century, the western society went throught some great innovations, reforms and changes in many ways. The ideas, born in the Age of Enlightment a bit earlier, bore fruit as people began to look forwards, no longer upwards to the gentry or backwards to old beliefs. An old peasant tells in 1807:

I have had my farm for already thirty years. As everybod knows, I have cleared huge stones away from my field, but never has any little stone or a lump of dirt given me as much agony and expence as the mounds of the Old Ones. I have had to level them down and plow them. I wish the ancestors would have understood how much annoyance these rocks and barrows have given me and the other descendants. If they had known this, they wouldn't have done such madness.

Carsten Henrik Bang: Guide til danske fortidsminder, 1994. Translation: Author

Or as in the play of Adam Oelenschläger:

The devil should move those barrows for they are standing there as futility.

Adam Oehlenschläger: Sct. Hans Aftensspil. Translation: Author

Due to this rather unsensitive irritability the barrows disappeared. The only thing keeping them erect was people's fear of revenge by the dead ancestors. Therefore the sanctity of the grave was sometimes given. The folklore is filled with examples of the horrors meeting the plower of the mound. However, the temptation became often greater than the respect for ancestors and warnings.

Originally the mounds were built in astronomical numbers in the West Europe. It is estimated there were at least 300,000 burial mounds spread over 43,000km² in the Country (seven per every square kilometer!). As the megalithic mania was most active, about a hundred mounds were erected every year. Now there are only 25,000 left and they are still vanishing, despite the protection programs.

TStevns was the place in the country having most mounds, and as such also the place of most destruction. This is due to its very fertile fields, and people craving to cultivate every inch of them in the name of efficiency. The mounds simply disappeared under the plow, or were ripped up for getting stone and gravel.

Sacred Architecture

An official guide for ancient monuments tells:

Thousands of burial mounds are memorials for the deceased.

Carsten Henrik Bang: Guide til danske fortidsminder, 1994. Translation: Author

This opinion emphasizes the barrows as dead. The guide continues:

One had to put enormous amounts of manpower for constructing these monuments that didn't even have any practical meaning. (Ibid.)

Thus the barrows are considered here both lifeless and nonprofitable, both in their own time as at ours. This modern understanding underestimates the life and death of our ancestors. For understanding people who lived thousands of years ago, one has to understand their relationship with the earth, the nature and the seasons they depended on. For the Earth was a living and life-giving body for the ancestors; it was a source of holy energy, fertility and vitality.

The ancient people wanted to use the visible materials from the earth for being able to display the invisible aspects of life understandable for themselves. Everything in the material nature had a natural aspect of spirituality. The ancestors wanted to optimize this powerful contact between the physical and the divine world by building sacred architecture, which really demanded great manpower. These sacred structures were meant to last forever, reflecting the human need for unchangeability in the changing world.

The endurance of the mounds or their use as tombs is not as essential. It has to be understood they were sacred, and therefore it is futile to say they have no productive or practical meaning. Especially when thinking about the huge amount of time and work people have invested in these structures. We can conclude that the meaning of the barrows has been colossal, and this meaning has penetrated the entire society. Therefore, it is naive to believe the barrows were built only for honouring a couple of dead, worldly chiefs.

In the beginning there were no class distinctions in the argicultural society. There is no reason to assume a local prehistorical chief could mobilize all the people of the land to build a great and difficult construction only for himself. Thus, the mounds have been sacred buildings, and the eagerness for building them originates from the feeling of being a part of something eternal and divine. People believing in this kind of divinity will gladly built a sacred structure.

Closer to Heaven

But why a mound of stone, gravel and peat?

Early people considered the mounds and the hills being closer to heaven, divine heavenly bodies and the heavenly gods. They created a connection between the Earth and the heaven, giving a feeling of being closer to the world of eternality and immortals. Additionally the mounds could be seen from afar in the terrain as signposts, usually even located on hilltops.

As regards to stones, they can be considered as eternal, unchangeable and powerful in this changing world. They were even believed to be personal living beings.

The modern man is used to the electrical light and is afraid of dark caves that gave the ancient people a feeling of safety. The narrow corridor leading inside the barrows is like a vagina leading to Mother Earth's round womb, the chamber itself. Thus the mound brings us back to the place we came from. This theory is supported by the burnt white flintstone on the floor of the chamber. It conjures an image of being inside a big egg. The egg is an old symbol of rebirth.

Futhermore, the Sun and astronomy are added to this rebirth. The location and the position of mounds is carefully chosen and calculated in proportion to the heavenly bodies. For example, almost all mounds have their doorway in East, where the Sun rises. Sometimes the doorway is placed so that the first ray of the Sun, on the day of winter solstice, meets a particular point on the back wall of the chamber. Thus the dead ancestors buried in the chamber could be born again by the rays of the rising and returning Sun. In the same way the living could calculate when the time was to plow, to sow, to harvest and to celebrate.

Of course, the dead were not lifeless or dead or powerless in any way. They were living in another place, where they continued their lives as well as possible. Their safety and comfort was vitally important for the descendants, because their task was to help, support and energize the living. Therefore the dead were as essential part of life as the Sun and the Moon. Without their goodwill life coudn't continue.

Outsitting

In folklore it is told how people used to 'sit ouside on the barrows for gaining wisdom', which is called outsitting, wake or omen-taking (Norse: útiseta, in Danish: udesidning, vågenat or varselstagning). In other words, one went to the burial mounds by night for meditating and consulting the ancestors. This happened especially at times of emergency or grief or when a decision had to be made. Additionally this was done at the solstices, equinoxes and at other annual celebrations.

The first thing the Christianity forbade by law in Scandinavia was exactly this social togetherness with the barrows. Therefore it can be concluded that it was a very popular and necessary part of the life in the old days. The mounds were places of energy for our forefathers. Not just did they protect the ancestors, but they also took care of the needs of the living, giving them wisdom, strength and peace of mind.

Not even legal or political decisions could be made without the burial mounds. Only those decisions, judgements and choosing of the king that were made at the vicinity of the mounds — and therefore before the eyes of the ancestors — were valid.

Thus it is wrong to consider the barrows as being only memorials of the dead. They were a part of the life of the living.

The Realm of the Elf King

Gylfe Was Pleased With Gefion

The overlord Odin needed more land and sent one of the goddesses, Gefion (the donor; a name of Freja) to find it for him. She went to visit king Gylfe, who was so pleased with her sexual favours that he promised to give her as much land as she could plow in one day. That is not particularly much land, but Gefion was clever and travelled afterwards to the land of the giants. There she made love with a giant, giving birth to four oxes, which she leashed before her plow. The four great oxes plowed the sea so furiously that a new land, originally called Sealand, came up.

Homestead

At one place the plow went a little deeper, revealing the white limestone. This region was called Stethyumsheret, containing old words steði, heim and heret. Some believe steði should be translated as an anvil, for the limestone's profile on the coast resembles that of an anvil. According to another more plausible, but a rather unknown interpretation, steði is place and heim means home, therefore the region should be called Homestead.

I love this place more than any other places on Earth. This is my home and the home of the Elf King.

Limestone Cliffs

I love the blunt limestone cliffs falling into the turquoise sea as if a giant had angrily cut them. The ominous sea eats the cliffs with a everlasting hunger and the fossils of marine animals, petrificated in the limestone, are washed back to the sea. The powers of the sea will one day conquer both the cliffs made by the Mother Earth, and the man-made church on the edge of the cliffs. Once Stevns was the bottom of a tropical ocean, and some day it is again going to rest at the bottom of the sea...

Beeches on the Beach

I love the Great Beech Forrest by the beach. It gives feeling of how Stevns once was: Wild and impenetrable, covered with tall deciduous trees. Under the green dusk of the trees lies a myriad of old barrows like strange sleeping animals, whispering with ancestral voices. Sand on the beach is silvery and soft, like the dust on the Moon.

Elf Girls by the River

I love the small babbling streams and brooks, and the slow Tryggevælde River, which are winding between the emerald green ridges, gentle valleys and fruitful fields. The slender elf girls (elverpige) are dancing and playing captivatingly in the alder groves near The Tryggevælde; therefore they are also called alder girls (ellepiger). Tryggevælde separates Stevns from the rest of the Country, protecting its speciality. In the old times, people really felt that everything and everybody on the other side of the stream was strange and dangerous. It was better to be safe between the Tryggevælde and the sea, in the kingdom of the Elf King.

The Elf King

The Elf King (Elverkongen) is the one and only, beloved Lord of Stevns, accepting and tolerating no other kings.

In summertime or when it is storming, the Elf King resides at the coastal limestone cliffs, where he has his own cave and thrown. There he is called The Cliff King (Klintekongen), and he scares away all enemies, as in the case of the Englishmen in 1807, who could conquer other places, but not Stevns:

If a tempest rages and waves are wild
There he sits on the white cliffs of Stevns
As th Cliff King, with a scepter in his hand
And seing with pleasure how the ships are wrecked

Johan Ludvig Heiberg: Elverhøj, 1828. Translation: Author

Sometimes the Elf King is having his court on the Elf Mound (Elverhøj), being called the Alder King (Ellekongen). The Elf Mound is somewhere in the inland, but is not localized, despite there being one village claiming to have the honour of hosting the place. At the Elf Mound, the beautiful elves are dancing, singing and drinking from a golden drink horn. The whole mound is as if standing atop flaming pillars. If a human passes by their festivities, he can be taken by the elves, never to return to the world of men:

At night-time he wanders around the bushes
in the light of the Moon and mild summer winds

(Ibid.)

A church in the vicinity of the limestone cliffs has a chamber (Ellekongens Kammer), where the Elf King is believed to be spending his time now and then:

In a wall of a church there is a vault bricked up
it is called the dark chamber of the Elf King
Common men believe he has his hiding place there by day

(Ibid.)

At nights, the Elf King rides as wildly as Odin through his kingdom, inspecting every village and grove. This is his hobby, especially when it is dark and cold. Therefore the time from the middle of November to Yule is called the season of the Elf King, and all the gates should be left open for him and his horse.

I laid my head on the Elf Mound
my eyes went to sleep
then two maidens came to me
and enchanted me with their song and speech
O, such an exceptional dance!

(Ibid.)

The Headless in the Ghost Wagon

Skalk nr. 1, 1990

Once upon the time the following story really happened in Varpelev, shaking the little farm community seriously, and causing a collective mute shame upon the village for over a hundred years. It should be understood this occurred at a time when murder was not an obligatory element of the daily entertainment in television, but a sinful and diabolical act of a freak, whom the god had forsaken. Therefore the painful truth was forgotten, the historical episode became a folklore, and finally the folklore became a fairytale.

This is also a story about a real young man, once very living and alive, flesh and blood. He had to give up his life, family and friends. There is no picture of him, his body was hidden away and his name was erased. Still he refused to die in the collective consciousness, resurrecting as a ghost of all that we have forgotten in the past.

Christening of the Two Babies

In spring 1833 there was a big christening in the village. The freeholder of the farm of Beech Grove, Hans Pedersen, and his wife Kirsten Jensdatter, took their seventh child and only son for christening in the church. The baby got the name Jens Hansen, and all the neighbours were chosen as his godfathers and godmothers.

Gunnar Knudsen: Dansk Bondeliv i forrige århundrede, 1975

One of the godfathers was Hans Jensen, who became a father of a new baby boy on the next day. Thus there was a new christening in the village soon after the first. All the same guests, godfathers and godmothers were invited as in the previous christening. Incredibly, the second baby got exactly the same name as the first: Jens Hansen.

In other words, these baby boys were both sons of freeholders, they were born in the same village, had the same name and had similar preconditions for lifes. They were so identical, but their lives became so different. The younger Jens Hansen became a good-natured and highly respected person, who is remembered as the grandfather of a national author. The first Jens Hansen became a rapist and a murderer and was executed at the age of twenty.

An ancient stone font in the church of the Village

There is a fairytale by H.C. Andersen, where a mother picks up two identical flowers. She is told these represent two different lives, which she can see by looking down in well: One of the lives causes happiness and joy for the person himself and all the others, while the other life is filled with sadness, horror and misfortune. This is the same kind of story.

People in the Summer Night

Julius Exner: Et bondegilde på Hedeboegnen, 1855, Statens museum for kunst

One Sunday in the summer of 1852, the farmer Peder Hansen of Crookbrook Yard was having a little party. There were many young people having fun, and everybody was making their way back home first thing in the following morning.

Jens Hansen of Beech Grove and a maid, Ane Kirstine Jørgensdatter, walked quickly hand in hand ahead of the others. Suddenly they were so far away that the others couldn’t see them anymore, but they could hear some loud screaming. Then they saw Jens Hansen running in the horizon after Ane Kirstine, catching her up and pushing her behind a bank of earth. Afterwards there was only silence. Unluckily the others thought everything being in order again, and they went off.

Silence Behind the Bank

However, the yougsters would have done well to check the situation: Jens Hansen choked Ane Kristine with his bare hands and then raped the dying girl. To be sure, he even took her garter afterwards and choked her once more with that. Finally he dumped the body behind a bank of earth, and walked to his work to the next village, chatting calmly with an acquaintance.

 The field where Ane Kristine was found. 

At five a clock in the morning Jens Hansen arrived at work, meeting his boss, who was angry him being away without permission. The young man was not shaken by the questions, but looked normal and began working as usual.

While this was happening, the farmer Jens Jensen of Willow Yard wondered where his maid Ane Kristine was. After a couple of days, Jens Jensen contacted the public authorities and tried to search the maid in the vicinity. Some days later two little girls walked by his newly sown fields, making the dreadful discovery of Ane Kristine's body lying in a ditch. Jens Jensen was alarmed.

At the home of the murderer Jens Hansen, his parents heard about the case and were having some suspicions. They begged their son to come home and cross-examined him. They couldn’t however find out anything, because Jens denied everything, sounding reasonable and imperturbable.

The Arrest

Five days after the murder the authorities arrived, examining all the young people who had been at the party. Then they travelled to the next village to arrest the working Jens Hansen. His boss told later on:

He [Jens Hansen] looked little depressed hearing what was happening, but he didn’t say a word. Then he ate his sandwich and took a shot. After that he was taken away [to the court house].

The old municipal court in a town

In Store Heddinge, a town with the municipal court it is written down:

19 years, tall, blond, blue-eyes, upright, athletic, ruddy-faced

Jens Hansen was examined at the court. He began to deny everything. However, a bit later on, he confessed the murder and the rape, telling he held his knees on her chest. This was only time he looked a little touched under the whole process. Otherwise, he was described as indifferent and cold.

After the confession Jens Hansen is taken back to Varpelev to show the place of the crime, where a track of a boot was found. The track is identical with Jens Hansen’s boot. Afterwards there was Ane Kristine’s autopsy, where the accused, physicians and authorities participated. Her mutilated body was later given to her mother to be buried in the churchyard of the village.

Old, abandoned gravestones behind the graveyard of the Village

Jens Hansen never explained or told any reason for killing Ane Kristine. Even his version of the incident changed many times. In any case, it is quite clear he wanted to have sex with the maid and she didn’t agree, even if she first had promised that.

However, the murder was not the only case Jens Hansen was about to be accused of.

The Rape in the Beachforrest

Some months before a ten year old daughter of a blacksmith, Johanne Rasmusdatter, was left alone in a strange trading town. She was confused and wanted to walk back to her home village alone. Outside the town, a young man on a wagon catched her up and Johanne begged a ride from him. The man was actually Jens Hansen, and he kidnapped the little girl, raping her in the forrest nearby. Johanne screamed, but nobody heard her. After the rape she tried to run away, but the man was not giving her cloak back. Suddenly a wagon approched them, and Jens Hansen gave the cloak back, driving away fast.

The farmer in the other wagon picked the crying Johanne up. She told him she was hurt and bleeding. The farmer took her to her mother's place in the same village, where Jens Hansen was working. Arriving at the village, they were passed by the rapist on the road and Johanne recognized him, while the farmer didn't know him.

Afterwards Johanne's mother took her to the doctor, and he could tell she was telling the truth. The doctor demanded the mother to contact the authorities, but she wouldn't, because there were no witnesses and she thought it was better for the girl to forget everything.

Later on when Jens Hansen was arrested, he easily confessed to this crime, too.

The Witnesses

The authorities interviewed everybody for understanding the murderer. They had three kinds of witnesses: condemning authorities, the accepting boss, teacher and family, and finally the mute villagers.

Parson Neess from Varpelev tells about Jens Hansen:

Extremely simple and mentally very limited dull person.

Dean Seidelin Birch. (Vallø Lokalhistoriske Arkiv)

Dean Seidelin Birch, who was visiting the prisoner at the municipal court, continues in the same way:

He is certainly not without knowledge of the right and wrong or of the religious truths. He has rationally understood this knowledge and remembers it, but this knowledge is totally fruitless and dead in him, having no effect on his mind or nature. Discussions about his sin towards God and other people have no emotional influence on him. He is always calm, dull and cold, without any regrets or need for consolation. He is not confused, but answers the questions shortly, fragmentarily and coldly, however not improperly or in a confused manner.

All the other authorities had the same opinion of Jens Hansen. However his teacher Dahl from Varpelev had a slightly different opinion:

The accused has very limited intellectual gifts, but he is always polite and obedient.

According Jens Hansen's boss and workmates, he was:

Lazy, but decent. There is no evil in him. He gets along very well with other people. At work he has never harassed any girl or been cruel towards the others.

According to Jens Hansen's family, he didn't get along with them and wouldn't obey. That is why they sent him away to the other village for work. When he was ten years old, a foal had kicked him badly and his mother considered him being mad after that incident. His father wouldn't agree. According to him, his son's mental capacity was normal, even if they had had some violent father-and-son house spectales. Generally the whole family told of Jens as being decent and even-tempered, but they might have had their own reasons for telling this. For if one digs little more in their family history, one finds stories of quarrels, violence and alcohol abuse. For example, just for a couple of years ago Jens's uncle shoot and killed his neighbour in Varpelev.

The authorities couldn't get any answers from the villagers. They kept their silence and refused to know or say anything about the family or Jens Hansen. It is understandable, because the party was held by Jens's godfather, the path he walked with Ane Kristine belonged to his other godfather, and finally the murder happened on his godmother's field. Everybody knew everyone, and everybody was related to everyone. Therefore nobody had seen or heard anything.

The Trial

At the trial the prosecutor Rye described Jens Hansen as a lustful, egoistic and morally corrupted person, who only wanted to satisfy his bestial desires in disregard of all other people, because he had no human feelings. According to the prosecutor, Jens Hansen deserves a threefold death-sentence.

The bleak window of Jens Hansen's cell at the municipal court 

Jens Hansen's defence lawyer Barfoed began his presentation by begging forgiveness for himself. He explained it only was due to his job he had to defend the monstrous person. However, according Barfoed the immoral peasant parties and the pampering at home were to be blamed instead of Jens Hansen. He demanded a mild sentence for Jens, whatever he might have meant with that.

The sentence, however, was harsh. Jens Hansen got the death penalty, for he had previously raped Johanne Rasmusdatter, and therefore the murder was not his first offence. The times were changing and this sentence caused so much disagreement that the charge went through all the court instances.

Even dean Birch and other clergymen got scared and changed their previous opinions. They wrote a new report about Jens Hansen, telling how his cultivation and education were totally neglected at home. Never did he get love or Christianity for his part, but only quarrels, bitterness and brutality.

The old home of Jens Hansen outside the village

Despite the petition of pardon and the resistance from eight judges in the highest court, the death-sentence remained. The case continued to the council of state, and even the minister of justice asked for imprisonment in the penitentiary instead of the death-sentence. However the king Frederik VII disagreed owing to the previous rape. He concluded Jens Hansen could not be pardoned and wanted the sentence be executed right away.

Frederik VII. Painting by I.V. Gertner, 1861.

Head on a Stick

In the 19th century, it was decided that public executions were to be implemented by an axe instead of a sword. It was no longer allowed to cause the convict any pain or suffering.

In some cases, as here, the chopped head was to be hanged on a stick as a warning. However, this was not done in practice anymore after 1843. In the 19th century 137 civilians were executed in the country. The amount of executioners was declining, and after 1866 there was only one executioner left.

Skalk 1990 p. 100

In 1882 there was an execution where the executioner screwed up so badly that he had to chop the neck of the convict three times before the head finally dropped off. People became furious, demanding a stop to death-penalties. In 1892 the last death-penalty was executed, and in 1930 the death-penalty was rejected by a law.

However, this was to be later on, and we are still living the summer of 1853 and the end of July. Schmidt, the executioner, arrives at Varpelev a couple days before the planned execution. A carpenter makes a coffin  and a grave-digger is working at the graveyard. Jens Hansen is allowed to be buried in the holy earth of the church, but this should be the place furthest away from the church and on its north side, because he is a criminal.

An ancient burial mound, Lamb Mound (Lammehøj) near Varpelev, is chosen as a place of execution.

All that is left of the great Lamb Mound

It is impossible to know what Jens Hansen was thinking while waiting for the execution. So far he had been sitting one year alone in a cell, without any toilet or heating.

Very early on the morning of the day for execution, a wagon brings Jens Hansen from the town with the municipal court. There are two guards, a driver and a public servant with him. After a couple of hours they arrive at Varpelev, and Jens sees his homestead again.

Villagers are awake at that point, but nobody is working. Cattle bellows and moos under the burning sun, because nobody is feeding or milking them. All unmarried boys and men are commanded to stand around the Lamb Mound, including the other, more fortune Jens Hansen. Later on, he describes this as the most awful experience in his life, because the executed was not only his namesake, but also his good friend.

A curious crowd is surrounding Lamb Mound. There are even teachers from afar, who have brought their pupils to come and see the 'educational performance'. It is told Jens Hansen's parents drove away from the village, but his sisters climbed up the roof of their house to be able to see the execution.

Finally the wagon with the convict arrives at the main road of the village. Passing by the church, Jens Hansen asks them to stop for a while. He stands up, seeing the hole of his future grave, before the wagon drives to Lamb Mound where parson Neess and the executioner are waiting for him. Neess and Jens have a short discussion, after which the executioner binds his hands behind his back, helping him to bend down on the block. Some of his old friends turn their backs, when the axe rises in the air...

Only in the evening is the family allowed to bury their executed son in the graveyard, leaving flowers on his grave. Silence falls. Even the parson writes nothing about Jens Hansen or his grave in the parish register. No tombstone is erected on his grave. Villagers will hide both the murder and the execution deep in their hearts, keeping silence. Everything is over now, or almost.

After a while people began claiming they were hearing screaming from the place of the murder, and that the earth around it was always 'trampled by non-living'. Many respected villagers were telling about a ghost wagon arriving every evening at eleven o'clock.

An old wagon left behind in the village

The wagon drove scratching through the main road of the village, stopped by the church and continued to Lamb Mound. Some claimed they had seen a strange and translucent wagon, but most could only hear the scratching sound of a rolling wagon that had no explainable cause.

The nocturnal visit of the ghost wagon became so famous and popular that everybody was waiting for the wagon every evening with great anticipation. Especially children refused to go to sleep before the wagon had driven by.

However, over the years the execution and Jens Hansen were forgotten, and the ghost wagon was supposed to belong to somebody nameless and headless. This is how a real episode became a fairytale whispered by black-dressed old women with white bonnets.

Old Yule 6: The Helping Spirits of the Yule

Beloved Creature

 

An old Danish Christmas card

As long as there's been permanent settlement in the history of human race, people have believed in a building and a lot having a spirit of their own. This spirit is in the best case protecting, managing, advicing, healing, helping, taking care of and enriching the place, its habitants and domestical animals. In the worst case, if he gets offended (and he gets easily offended), he will tease everybody and ruin everything, for he possesses immense strength and magical powers, even if he is very small.

There exist no prospering farmhouse without a gnome taking care of the house. In particular, the kitchen maids and stall boys benefit from the gnome's goodwill when he carries the water inside and sweeps up the floor for the maids, and brushes horses for the stall boys. However, if the gnome sees any disorder, he will punish the habitants. Usually he wears gray clothes and a red tapered cap.

Thiele, J. M.: Danmarks Folkesagn, 1843. Translation: Author.

As beloved children children have many names, so does this very beloved creature. In Scandinavia, no other mythological creature has as many names.These names can be divided in two cathegories; first those which mean a farm-yard resident or protector like in Icelandic: ármaðr, or in Danish: gårdbo and gårdbonde, or in Swedish: gårdsrå and gårdsbonde, or in Norwegian: gardsbo, gardsvord, gardbo, tunkall or tunvord. And in the same group belongs the Swedish and Norwegian tomte, the Norwegian tufte and the Finnish tonttu. They are derived from the words tomt, tuft and tontti meaning a house lot. Usually the word 'old man' is added to these names, like in tomtegubbe, tuftekall or tonttu-ukko.

In English he should be called goblin, which comes together with the German Kobold from the old Anglo-Saxon word cof-godas (gods of the house). But unfortunately the nisse/tomte/tonttu is usually mistaken to be a pixie, a brownie or a (Christmas) elf, which really are completely different kind of creatures.

All the previous original names insinuate we are dealing with a being living at a building ground or a house, taking care of it. He is nowdays associated with Christmas and Santa Claus, but it is probable his roots are in a time before such concepts even existed in any forms.

 

Harald Wiberg: Tomten

Good Lad of the House

Many things point out to the possibility of his being a remnant from the Stone Age cult of Mother Earth, so being one of our oldest deities. So important and beloved, he was easily included both in the patriarchal Bronze Age religions (as the servant and helper of Odin as Father Yule) and in the medieval Christianity, and finally in the Industrial Age atheism as a beloved fable.

The gnome's association with Christianity has given him the other cathegory of names. The Scandinavian nis and nisse are nicknames for the male name Niels, which in turn originates from Nikolaus. This was the most popular male name in the medival times, owing to the popular Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors and small children.

However, gnomes have nothing to do with Saint Nicholas, sailors or children. It was more a case of people giving the most popular name for the most popular creature. Thus in Germany the gnome was called Heinze, Heinrich, Chim or Wolterchen, in France Maître Jean or Thomas, and in English Robin Goodfellow. Many times the word 'good lad' is added to this type of names, like in Nisse Goddreng.

The gnome was the good lad of the house, and one had to keep him good. In ancient times in Europe a little statue of a gnome was worshipped by rubbing him with butter and drying him before the hearth. Later on it was enough just to serve him porridge with butter and beer, especially at Yule. If that didn't happen, the gnome would surely become furious, tie cows' tails together, turn objects upside-down, break things and finally leave the farm, taking its fortune away.

Jenny Nyström: An old Swedish Christmas card

The European gnome is always depicted as a small old man with a long beard, dressed in the everyday clothing of a farmer from the 18th century: gray kneepants, red cap and wooden shoes as depicted below:

Roman and Vedic gnomes

In the ancient Rome there were small house genies called as lares or genii loci (Latin: the spirits of the place), appearing together with ancestors (penates) and with Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home. Their statues were holding a bowl and a drinkhorn in their hands, and they were daily worshipped with prayers and food at the home shrine. Compared with the northern house spirits, the lares were youthful and social, while the former were old and solitary. However, as in the other cultures, the happiness and wealth in a house was totally dependent on the lares' goodwill.

Lares. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

In India this kind of gnome-like spirit is called vastu-purusha or vastospati, which in Sanskrit means the lord of the house. As Rig Veda (book 7, hymn LIV, Vastospati) describes:

1. Acknowledge us, O Guardian of the Homestead: bring no disease, and give us happy entrance. Whate’er we ask of thee, be pleased to grant it, and prosper thou quadrupeds and bipeds.
2. Protector of the Home, be our promoter: increase our wealth in kine and steeds, O Indu. May we be ever-youthful in thy friendship: be pleased in us as in his sons a father.
3. Through thy dear fellowship that bringeth welfare, may we be victors, Guardian of the Dwelling! Protect our happiness in rest and labour. Preserve us evermore, ye Gods, with blessings.

Vastu purusha or vastospati sketched inside the house or the lot.

Both in India and in Europe the gnome was believed to already live at the particular place or house before any people move there. Therefore there should always be a pacifying sacrifice before settling down to a new place. The Grihya-Sutras: III Adhyaya, 4. Khanda:

1. At the sacrifice to Vastoshpati;
2. Having established the sacred domestic fire outside with the words, 'I place here Agni with genial mind; may he be the assembler of goods. Do no harm to us, to the old nor to the young; be a saviour to us, to men and animals!'
[...]4. And spoken over it the words, 'Unhurt be our men, may our riches not be squandered!'
[...] 8. The four Mahâvyâhritis, the three verses,'Vâstoshpati!', 'Driving away calamity,' and 'Vâstoshpati a firm post'
9. Taking with himself his eldest son and his wife, carrying grain, let him enter the house with the words, 'Indra's house is blessed, wealthy, protecting; that I enter with my wife, with offspring, with cattle, with increase of wealth, with everything that is mine.'

House Spirit with Many Forms

As shapeshifter the Indo-European gnome could take any kind of form. In most cases he is a dog as here in Rig Veda (book 7, hymn LV: Vastospati):

1. Vastospati, who killest all disease and wearest every form, Be an auspicious Friend to us.
2. When, O bright Son of Saramā, thou showest, tawny-hued! thy teeth, They gleam like lances' points within thy mouth when thou wouldst bite; go thou to steep.
3. Saramā's Son, retrace thy way: bark at the robber and the thief.
[...] 4. Be on thy guard against the boar, and let the boar beware of thee.

 Left: Böksta-stone, Balingsta, Uppland, Sweden from 1000 CE. Right: Olaus Magnus: Carta Marina, 1539.

The Scandinavian gnome was also a shapeshifter as in Landnámabók: A gnome came to a man called Bjørn and offered him a liaison. Bjørn accepted this right away. After this a new billy-goat suddenly appeared at his barn and the she-goats becan to reproduce tremendously. Bjørn became a very rich man and he was called Goat-Bjørn.

However this tendency to grand riches to the farm by the gnome's unseen work could lead to some problems with the neighbours. If one farmer was more succesful than his fellow, this would lead to accusations of him having a gnome who was stealing from the others.

Morover, Christianity considered gnomes as false gods and devils, telling their worship would put the fate of one's soul at risk. Therefore the direct worship of house spirits died out with time, but they are still remembered and beloved. At least I can not think about the Yule without imagining there are small gnomes peeking behind windows like small agents and checking whether I have been good enough to deserve some presents.

To be continued in a subsequent blog.