The Hag. The Hunter.
Hunter, I name thee Bone Man of the Crossroads |
Divine archetypes that reflect the animistic nature even of seasons and worldly phenomena are common and far reaching.
Among the most common is the personification of winterstide and the darkyear as an old woman of snow hares and owls, of bones and storm winds, and she is personified by many names, The Hags of Winter, and a skeletal king of wood and beast and branch and seed known as the lord of silence, the Hunter, the bone father, king of the host.
They are not exactly the gods- they are the force of the season personified, they are the mask worn by gods so old their names are ancient sounds, hard to pronounce and too numerous to recount. They are the old gods of the winter bones that are sacrificed to in the harvest time to appease their hungers. She the owl, he the wolf, they the frost and ice and cold. She the hammer, he the silence.
Not all witches personify the seasons. Not all pagans do or did. Some of us were influenced by Graves and Frazer and Leland as well as the rituals found cross culturally between our European ancestors' land veneration and seasonal animistic rites, and those of our Native and African ancestors who also marked the wheel of the year, the turn of the land's fertility and the rise and gods of the different spirits of the seasons. In some lore, they say the faeries of the dark court of the green mantle reign supreme for now until the spring. In some lore, this is the time when snailwoman and owl women steal children and Stormwind battles Northwind. In other lore, this is the time for An Cailleach and all those other old women of winter, and those bone gods of silence.What seems common is the theme of sacrifice, the essence of survival and the steady retreat of warmth.
Hag of winter, I name thee Queen of Witches |
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