Category Archives: Mythology

“Happy New Year?!” Lady Day 2015

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A Coptic icon of the Annunciation, showing the angel Gabriel presenting a lily as he announces the Incarnation to the Mother of God.

A Coptic icon of the Annunciation, showing the angel Gabriel presenting a lily as he announces the Incarnation to the Mother of God.

Lilies are often associated with the celebration of Annunciation. When Eve was driven from Paradise, lilies bloomed wherever her tears fell onto the earth and Gabriel presented lilies to the Virgin Mary when he announced that her Son would re-open Paradise to mankind. Other legends say that lilies blossomed from drops of milk from Hera’s breasts that fell upon the earth and that the lily was therefore the only flower with a soul. Lilies are traditionally considered to drive away ghosts and evil (esp. the Evil Eye) and can break love spells. The first lily of the season strengthens whoever finds it.

Roses are also associated with Annunciation and are used to cast love spells or in healing magic. If you plant roses in your garden, they are said to grow best if you have stolen the seeds from someone else and will then attract the faerie folk.

The Annunciation is celebrated on March 25 (the traditional date of the springtime equinox). Not only was Annunciation — and the equinox — vital to keeping track of time for secular purposes, many ancient and medieval authors claimed that the Annunciation/equinox date were vital at many points of salvation history: the birthday of Adam and the Crucifixion were said to have occurred on March 25 as well. Some also said that March 25 marked the fall of Lucifer, the parting of the Red Sea, as well as the day on which God said, “Let there be light!”

Sometimes called “Lady Day,” the Annunciation was kept as New Year’s Day in many places; the last to give up Annunciation as the New Year’s Day was England and its American colonies in 1752. The correct synchronization of the equinox with the Annunciation is a critical element in the calculation of the date of Easter and the medieval and Renaissance disconnect between the Annunciation and the equinox prompted Pope Gregory XIII to reform the calendar in 1582.

New werewolf book is in the works

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In WOLFBANE, Alexei inherits his grandfather's magical wolf-pelt and thereby assumes the position of village "metsatöll" (Werewolf) in rural late 1880s Estonia to protect the area by fighting the terrible storms in the sky that could devastate the farms and fields. But he breaks the terms of the wolf-magic and loses the ability to control the shapeshifting, becoming a killer. Heartbroken at what he has become, Alexei flees his home in hopes of finding an enchanter who can free him from the curse.

In WOLFBANE, Alexei inherits his grandfather’s magical wolf-pelt and thereby assumes the position of village “metsatöll” (Werewolf) in rural late 1880s Estonia to protect the area by fighting the terrible storms in the sky that could devastate the farms and fields. But he breaks the terms of the wolf-magic and loses the ability to control the shapeshifting, becoming a killer. Heartbroken at what he has become, Alexei flees his home in hopes of finding an enchanter who can free him from the curse.

My short story/novella Wolfbane was released in August 2013. One customer review on Amazon posted, “An interesting new twist on werewolves… I can’t wait to see where he takes us now.”

Although I had hoped to release a full-length novel featuring Alexei by the end of 2014, another project took my attention but I now have the time to come back to Alexei. I have begun the research and planning necessary for the novel and have written two chapters in Alexei’s unfortunate series of adventures which will take him through Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland or Slovakia and Bohemia. Although these are now individual nation-states, there had been unions of Estonia-Latvia and Latvia-Lithuania dating from the Middle Ages, making for broad sweeps of common cultural heritage(s). There is a wealth of fascinating folklore and history to draw on from these regions which, combined with the social upheavals of early industrialization during the 1800s, promise exciting twists and turns as Alexei makes his way in search of liberation and redemption.

Nimrod

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Building of the Tower of Babel, manuscript illumination from approx. 1410 (British Library Add MS 18850 f17v)

Building of the Tower of Babel, manuscript illumination from approx. 1410 (British Library Add MS 18850 f17v)

The constellation Orion, also identified in some folkloric traditions as Nimrod, is seen most clearly in the night skies of the northern hemisphere from January-March each year. Also, with the approach of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, Nimrod appears in classical Christian hymnography and sermons as one of the archetypal images of opposition and rebellion against God.

In Hebrew and Christian tradition, Nimrod is considered the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, though the Bible never actually states this. (The illumination above shows Nimrod supervising the construction of the Tower of Babel in the lower left corner.) Nimrod’s kingdom included the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, all in Shinar. (Genesis 10:10) Therefore it was likely under his direction that the building of Babel and its tower began; in addition to Flavius Josephus, this is also the view found in the Talmud and later midrash such as Genesis Rabba. Several of these early Judaic sources also assert that the king Amraphel, who wars with Abraham later in Genesis, is none other than Nimrod himself.

Judaic interpreters as early as Philo and Yochanan ben Zakai (1st century AD) interpreted “a mighty hunter before the Lord” (Heb. : לפני יהוה, lit. “in the face of the Lord”) as signifying “in opposition to the Lord.” Some rabbinic commentators have also connected the name Nimrod with a Hebrew word meaning ‘rebel’.

The historian Josephus wrote:

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach. And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.

Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion …

Nimrod, the great hunter, is also said to hunt the newborn Abraham and attempt to slay him, much as Herod slew the infant boys of Bethlehem in an attempt to slay the infant Christ. Nimrod has thus remained in both Jewish and Islamic tradition an emblematic evil person, an archetype of an idolater and a tyrannical king, and often called “Nimrod the Evil.”