Category Archives: Folklore

Decoration Day 2018

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Originally called Decoration Day, the holiday was created to commemorate the roughly 625,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War.

Originally called Decoration Day, the holiday was created to commemorate the roughly 625,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War.

Memorial Day, the holiday which many in the US consider the beginning of summer, was originally known as “Decoration Day” and was the commemoration of those fallen in battle — at first, those who had fallen in the battles of the Civil War and then those who had fallen in any battle. People went to the burial grounds to decorate the graves of the fallen with flowers and banners. They might also have picnics, an American variation on the ancient “memorial meals” held in honor of the dead.

Decorating graves and meals to mark certain anniversaries of death were common in Greek, Roman, and Jewish, as well as early Christian, societies. One of the benefits of joining a burial society or club in classical Rome was that the club members were obligated to hold meals in honor and memory of the deceased. Sometimes food was left atop the grave for the departed, as well as shared among the living. It was these annual memorial meals at the gravesides of the dead that eventually became the annual saints days to mark the “birthday into heaven” of the dead.

Graves would be decorated not only to mark the burial site but to appease the dead as well, who might come back to harass their heirs for neglecting their graves. Flowers, a marker of life, were among the most common means of appeasing the dead although more substantial and permanent decorations — such as carvings, headstones, or statues — were used by the wealthy.

Nowadays often considered a scary or forbidding location, graveyards and cemeteries were common places for communities to gather. Over the centuries, many rules developed to curtail dancing, markets, drinking, and parties among the graves which only means that people kept dancing and drinking and holding markets or parties among the dead. No one makes rules against things that don’t happen, after all.

This year, how many Americans will mark the unofficial beginning of summer by visiting a graveyard?

Invention of the Cross

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St. Helen tests the crosses she discovers during the excavations of Golgotha in Jerusalem.

St. Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, is said to have discovered the True Cross in Jerusalem. (Because her son Constantine has seen a vision of the Cross when God promised him victory, locating and honoring the Cross was important to her.) Her discovery is known as the “Invention of the Cross;” the word invention means discovery, not just that someone invented or made up something that did not exist before.

The legend says that Adam was buried on a hill near what became the city of Jerusalem and that the hill became known as Golgotha. Adam’s son was given a seed from the Tree of Life in Paradise to plant in Adam’s grave. The seed grew into a tree whose fruit healed the sick. But eventually the tree was cut down and the lumber used for building projects. Some of it was used to build a bridge into Jerusalem and when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon in Jerusalem, she realized how special the wood in the bridge was. She got down off her horse and bowed down in reverence to the wood before going across it. Later, when Jerusalem fell into ruin, the bridge collapsed. Much later, the Roman soldiers found the planks from the old bridge and used them to build the cross that Jesus was crucified on. So the lumber from the seedling of the Tree of Life became the Cross and the blood of Christ, the Second Adam, sprinkled Adam’s bones deep within Golgotha.

(The imagery in this legend expresses in poetic form a lot about the Cross—the ultimate Tree of Life—that is true but difficult to express otherwise. Bridges were metaphors for spiritual and religious practice that enable a person to transcend sin or earthly limitations; “pontifex,” the Latin word for “bridge-builder” also came to mean “priest.” The Queen of Sheba reverenced the material through which God would act to save the world; she is also associated with bringing the Ark of the Covenant (a metaphor for the Incarnation and the role of the Virgin Mary as Mother of God) to Africa for safekeeping—so the Queen of Sheba is twice associated with the ways God uses matter to save the world. The death of the Second Adam on Golgotha released the First Adam and all of us who are Adam’s children.)

When Jerusalem became a Roman city in the 2nd century AD, a temple for Adonis was built atop Golgotha. This helped identify Golgotha and the local Christians never forget what had happened there before the temple had been built. So when St. Helen came to Jerusalem in the early 4th century AD to excavate places important during Jesus’ life, the local Christians could tell her where to begin excavating to discover the place of the Crucifixion.

St. Helen began excavations and found three crosses beneath the temple. She had three sick men brought and touched the crosses to them. Two of the crosses did not heal the sick. One did. She had three dead men brought and the cross that had healed a sick man also raised a dead man.

The cross that healed the sick and raised the dead was identified as Jesus’ cross. It is also said to have been surrounded by lots and lots of basil plants; basil is therefore thought to protect against curses. It is also used to decorate the Cross in churches on feast days and to sprinkle holy water on the faithful coming to celebrate festivals in honor of the Cross.

Werewolves, Weasels, Ravens—O, My!

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Tomatoes were an important ingredient in some potions that would turn someone into a werewolf.

Everyone knows about the connections between werewolf bites, wolfbane, silver bullets, and the full moon. “Thank you, Hollywood!” But the real connections between werewolves, tomatoes, and other legends is actually more interesting although less well known.

The most famous werewolf story in Norse mythology–but almost unknown anywhere else–is the story of father and son, Sigmund and Sinfjotli. Wandering in the woods, Norse heroes Sigmund and Sinfjotli come upon a hut where they find two spellbound wolf pelts. Sigmund and Sinfjotli put on the pelts and then discovered that the pelts could only be removed every 10th day and therefore wander in forest as wolves.

Sinfjotli & Sigmund agree to fight together if attacked by more than 7 men but Sinfjotli the son kills 11 men at one time. Sigmund fatally injures his son. But a raven, the messenger of Odin, brings a healing leaf to place on Sinfjotli’s wound. (Some versions of the story say that a pair of weasels bring the healing leaf.)

Sinfjotli is healed, he and his father take off the wolf pelts as the 10th day comes and burn the pelts to free themselves.

It is not a surprise to meet a raven, associated with Odin and death, around werewolves. Weasels, generally thought sneaks and thieves, are also considered extremely talented physicians in traditional tales. Using a magic wolf pelt to become a werewolf is also common in folklore. But the stipulation that the pelt can only be removed 10 days after it is put on is unusual. Perhaps the ten days, which is approximately 1/3 of a lunar month, is a Norse version of the connection between werewolves and the moon.