Attis and Frey

The cult of Attis may appear bizarre and slightly frightening to us now, but in fact it had parallels throughout the world. It may surprise some people to discover that one of the most powerful gods of old Europe was an emasculated god.

Frey or Freyr was the twin brother of Freya, and both were of the family of gods known as the Vanir. Worship of Frey was as widespread as worship of Odin and Thor.

The emasculated nature of this god is concealed somewhat by the allegorical nature of the most famous tale told of him, which is the Skirnismal, a poem about his courtship of the etin's daughter Gerd.

Frey disobeyed the law by seating himself on Odin's High Throne, Hlidhskjalf. This privilege belonged to Odin alone and as is often the case in old myths and fairytales, Frey was punished for his transgression.

As he sat upon the High Seat, he beheld a woman far in the North. Her white arms gleamed with light and his heart was overwhelmed by her beauty. He became obsessed with her, and neither would eat nor drink. He neglected his duties. When a fertility god languishes, the entire earth suffers. Plants wither on the vine. There is blight and famine...

At the request of Skadi and Njord, Frey's servitor Skirnir went to his master to try to discover the cause of his malaise. Frey told him about the vision of the woman he had seen: 'her arms gave forth light wherewith shone all air and water.'

This is no ordinary woman. This is the Earth Goddess herself in the guise of Gymir's daughter Gerd.

For those who are unfamiliar with ancient Northern tales, 'giant' or 'etin' may be misinterpreted. Giants in nursery tales, like that of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' are portrayed as monstrous rather stupid bloodthirsty creatures who are easy to deceive. In fact, he Etin or Giants may have been the original lords of Earth. Aesir and Vanir both encountered the Etin kind when first they walked on the Earth, and the Etin possessed primal elemental powers that neither the Aesir nor Vanir ever had.

For the most part, Aesir and Vanir are at war forever with the etin kind, in the same way that humanity is at 'war' with Nature, attempting to kerb her greater excesses and to diminish the force of her destructive acts. In some situations, however, gods wed Etins and the offspring of these marriages tend to be beings of enormous potency.

Loki wed an etin named Angrboda. From that mating came the Ouroboros serpent that encircles the earth, the Fenris wolf who will swallow the Sun at Ragnarok and the goddess Hel, half-living, half-rotted, who rules over the realm of the dead.

There is a sense of great foreboding in the Skirnismal, and in fact, the price that Frey pays for marriage to Gerd is high.

Skirnir volunteers to ride to Gymir's hall to court Gerd on behalf of his master. He only asks that Frey lend him 'your steed, which can bear you through the dusk, the flickering walls of flame and your sword which brandishes itself unaided against the Etin race.'

Skirnir rides to Gymir's hall. Before the gates he finds a mound with a shepherd sitting upon it. This is a traditional Northern motif, actually, and symbolises entry into the other realm. Grave mounds were considered to be the entrance to the other realm. Those who sat upon them either were seers or in this case, guides to the otherworld.

Skirnir asks the cowherd how he should approach Gymir's daughter, despite the presence of the Etin's hounds. The cowherd responds: 'Either you are death-doomed or a departed one', giving further evidence of the fact that Gymir's hall is in the 'other realm' and that Skirnir's 'journey' is that of a shaman.

Skirnir retorts that there are far better choices than whining about his fate for one who is prepared to die, then states: 'the day of my Death is fixed, by Fate is my time determined.'

Now Gerd is introduced into the poem. She asks what the cause might be of the terrible sound and the shaking of the Earth, an earthquake so powerful that the wide fields and halls of Gymir tremble'.

The shepherd replies that it is no more than a man who has dismounted and who allows his horse to graze unbridled. This is a clue to Frey's own power. The fact that a huge earthquake is the result of Skirnir's act of dismounting the steed demonstrates the power of the messenger of the Lord of the Earth.

Gerd then bids the stranger enter and offers him a draught of mead, 'although my heart forebodes that my brother's killer darkens the door with his shadow.'

She then asks Skirnir: 'Are you one of the elves, are you one of the gods, or one of the wise Vanir? Why have you ridden here through the wild ring of flame?'

Skirnir replies that he is not elf, god nor Van, but that he has braved the ring of fire to offer her eleven golden apples if she will accept Frey's courtship.

Gerd dismisses his offer. There is an implication here that the golden apples are the apples of immortality in Idun's care, so her instant rejection of the offer only serves to emphasise her own power.

Skirnir then offers her the ring Draupnir, set upon Baldr's funeral pyre. From this ring every ninth night, eight rings of equal weight will drop.

Gerd declares she has no need for gold, that she shares her father's incredible wealth.

Skirnir then threatens to behead her with the sword he holds. Gerd tells him: 'I never will suffer compulsion to please any man.'

Finally, Skirnir threatens her with a runewand empowered with a terrible curse: 'I score three Thurs runes, then I score three more runes: filth, frenzy and lust (' ergi, oendi and othola'). He tells her that she will be doomed to be sent where no son of man nor god will see her again, with earth behind her, on an eagle's mound, forever facing Hel. She will be wed to the three-headed troll at the gates of the land of the dead. 'Every day to the Halls of Frost you shall creep, crawl without choice, without any hope of choice.... Hear me, Etins, hear me Frost-trolls, sons of Suttung, hear me! What I predict, what I forbid: No joy of man to this maid, no love of man to this maid.'

Gerd capitulates at the threat of this horrible fate, and calls for the mead cup to pledge her love to Frey. She tells Skirnir that she will meet Freyr at Barri after nine nights to give herself to him.

Skirnir in return is forced to leave Frey's sword in her keeping. At the last battle of Ragnarok, Frey will lament the loss of his sword...

When Skirnir returns with the good news, Frey declares: 'Long is one night, longer are two. Endless is the thought of three. Many a month has moved more swiftly than this half of a bridal eve.'

Although the Skirnismal itself makes no reference to the fact that Frey's sword is the price that he pays to wed the etin's daughter, this fact is related elsewhere in the Eddas. The equation of the sword with Frey's manhood can be made based on a number of elements involved in his cult.

The priests of Frey, like those of Attis, dressed in women's gowns and wore their hair long and unbound. Frey's worship was connected to that of the old Earth goddess Nerthus. There is a description of an annual ritual wherein the statue of the goddess was pulled in a waggon to a sacred lake and there bathed. This is identical to the rite performed on the last day of the Festival of Attis, wherein the statue of Cybele was taken in a waggon to the river and ritually purified.

Freyr or Frey was a priapic god, although not a god connected with any sexual exploits. Those were reserved for his twin sister Freya who is the subject of countless tales of unrestrained sexual performances. Statues of Frey often were ithyphallic. Interestingly enough, ithyphallic gods are not sexually active gods but in many cases are deities who undergo castration periodically. Dionysus was depicted as an ithyphallic god at one season and as a god denuded of his manhood at another. Ouronos was castrated by Chronos. Osiris was castrated and the goddess Isis was forced to fashion an artificial member for him in order to obtain his seed. The castration rites connected with Attis have been preserved in literature and history in dramatic form.

In many ancient religions, therefore, the cult of a priapic god was linked to the cult of the same god when castrated. This castration event was the ultimate hierogamos or sacred marriage between the god and the Earth.

Dionysus declared that unless the vine was cut, it could not live, and in fact, grapevines must be pruned severely in order to flourish. Christ declared: 'I am the true Vine and my Father is the husbandman.' He further declares that even the branches that bear fruit must be cut in order to produce more.

The act of castration is the ultimate act of pruning. Those who experienced this sacrifice joined a class of being that dwelled both in this realm and the 'other'. Neither men nor women, they devoted themselves solely to the Divine. The power inherent in the ritual of castration made it the ultimate sacrifice. In the ancient mystery religions, this great sacrifice produced life for the entire world.

Another New Year: Year of the Boar or Pig

The Chinese Lunar New Year begins on 18 February 2007. The Moon will usher in the Year of the Boar, or Year of the Pig. Actually, the Chinese have two different systems by which the years are designated. There is the Animal system which is a twelve-year rotation, with a different animal as guardian or symbol of each year. The other system is the 'Stem-Branch' system, with a cycle of 60 years. Using this system, the year that begins on 18 February 2007 would be the 8th year of the cycle with the name DingHai. Most people accept this to be the 4705th year in the Chinese Calendar, demonstrating its great antiquity.

Both the Pig and the Boar have been considered to be powerful and sacred animals in many different cultures and myths. The pig was sacred to Demeter and were a central part of the Eleusian mysteries. Demeter often was depicted carrying a pig. As a symbol of the Great Goddess herself, the pig is an Animal with the power both of life and death. A mother pig can choose either to suckle or devour her young. Furthermore, like the Great Earth herself, the pig consumes all, transforming it into compost in which new life can be brought into being and sustained.

The Attic Thesmophoria was an autumn festival, celebrated only by women in October, but its rites featured the pig. The festival commemorated the descent of Persephone into the Underworld and her subsequent return to the Earth. During the Thesmophoria, pigs, cakes of dough and branches of pine-trees were thrown 'into the chasms of Demeter and Persephone'. Serpents within these sacred caverns or vaults guarded them and consumed the offerings. The festival was an annual affair and every year women designated as 'drawers' would purify themeselves ritually for three days then descend into the caverns, clap their hands to keep the serpents at a distance and bring up the decayed remains of the pigs, cakes and pine-branches from the previous year. These remains, after having been blessed on the alter, would be sown with the seed-corn at sowing time.

In the 'Golden Bough', Sir James Frazer makes a comprehensive study of the Boar, Sow and Pig both as embodiments of the corn-spirit and as Deities in animal form.

In Thüringen, when the wind sets the young corn in motion, Frazer writes that the inhabitants say that, 'The Boar is rushing through the corn.' In Estonia, the last sheaf was named the 'Ryeboar', and the man who cut it would be saluted with a cry: 'You have the Rye-boar on your back!' Frazer provides numerous examples of this custom in different forms. Throughout most of Northern Europe, the last sheaf of grain cut was named 'the Sow' or 'the Boar'. In many cases, the man who cut the last sheaf actually was bound into a sheaf himself with ropes and dragged by a rope along the ground. Other custome including the blackening of the face of the man, shutting him in the pig-sty or feeding him special delicacies while calling to him as one would call to the pigs. Obviously, the man who cut the last sheaf was deemed to play the role of the ancient 'sacrificed god'. Rather than being killed, he would participate in rituals of substitution. In other cases, a real pig was sacrificed at the time of sowing the grain. The Thuringian salutation describing the man with the RyeBoar on his back is a graphic description of a magical synthesis of human with sacrificial god.

In one district in Germany, there was a specific bone of the pig that featured in a special ritual. The flesh from this bone would be boiled on Shrove Tuesday, but the bone itself would be placed among the ashes which the neighbours exchanged as gifts on St. Peter’s Day (22 February, then mixed with the seedcorn.

In many parts of Northern Europe, there was an old custom of eating pea-soup with dried pig-ribs on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas. The ribs then would be collected and hung in the room till sowing-time, when they would be inserted into the sown field or in the seed-bag amongst the flax seed.

As demonstrated by all these old customs, the pig was believed to be a sacred symbol of fertility and blessing.

The Scandinavian custom of the Yule Boar is somewhat familiar in the West. At Yule, it was customary to bake a loaf in the form of a boar-pig and to name it the Yule Boar. The corn from the last sheaf often was used to make this loaf of bread. Throughout Yuletide, the Yule Boar would stand on the table and often would be kept even until sowing time in Spring, when part would be mixed iwth the seed-corn and part given to the ploughman and plough animals to eat. This was believed to bring a good harvest. This custom was derived from the more ancient custom of sacrificing a real boar at Yule as well as the custom of sacrificing a man in the character of a Yule Boar. Even in the 19th century in Sweden, there were places where a man would be wrapped in a skin, carrying a wisp of straw in his mouth so that the straws projecting from his mouth would give the appearance of boar bristles. A knife would be brought to an old woman who, with her face blackened then would pretend to sacrifice him.

Throughout Eastern Europe, old customs of baking loaves from the last sheaf of grain that would be designated as the 'Boar' would be kept on a table, then divided to be used, partly at the New Year and partly at sowing time.

All these folk customs are derived from ancient beliefs in the divinity or sacred nature of the Pig or Boar.

In many ancient religions, the God represented by an Animal would be slain by that animal ultimately, a sacrifice of 'himself to himself.' The worshippers of Attis abtained from eating the flesh of swine, as the boar or pig was believed to be the embodiment of Attis, who in another legend slew the god hero. In various tales, Dionysus took the form of a boar or was slain by a boar. (Bear in mind the fact that these gods were slain in different ways in different legends. This may represent the various sacrificial rituals performed at different seasons, or it may reflect a synthesis of diverse ancient mystery religions.)

Frazer argued most convincingly that an animal regarded as taboo often originally was regarded as sacred rather than 'unclean'. Even in the case of the ancient Hebrews, whose contemporary attitudes towards pork are known throughout the world, Frazer writes:
'The attitude of the Jews to the pig was as ambiguous as that of the heathen Syrians towards the same animal. The Greeks could not decide whether the Jews worshipped swine or abominated them. On the one hand they might not eat swine; but on the other hand they might not kill them. And if the former rule speaks for the uncleanness, the latter speaks still more strongly for the sanctity of the animal. For whereas both rules may, and one rule must, be explained on the supposition that the pig was sacred; neither rule must, and one rule cannot, be explained on the supposition that the pig was unclean. If, therefore, we prefer the former supposition, we must conclude that, originally at least, the pig was revered rather than abhorred by the Israelites. We are confirmed in this opinion by observing that down to the time of Isaiah some of the Jews used to meet secretly in gardens to eat the flesh of swine and mice as a religious rite. Doubtless this was a very ancient ceremony, dating from a time when both the pig and the mouse were venerated as divine, and when their flesh was partaken of sacramentally on rare and solemn occasions as the body and blood of gods. And in general it may perhaps be said that all so-called unclean animals were originally sacred; the reason for not eating them was that they were divine.'

In similar fashion, in ancient Egypt, the pig which ordinarily was shunned as unclean, was given special consideration in an annual festival wherein:

'once a year the Egyptians sacrificed pigs to the moon and to Osiris, and not only sacrificed them, but ate of their flesh, though on any other day of the year they would neither sacrifice them nor taste of their flesh. Those who were too poor to offer a pig on this day baked cakes of dough, and offered them instead. This can hardly be explained except by the supposition that the pig was a sacred animal which was eaten sacramentally by his worshippers once a year.'

As this festival occurred on the day when Osiris was believed to have been slain by Set, it is evident that the pig in this festival represented the god Osiris himself.

Later myths identified Typhon, enemy of the god with the pig, declaring that it was in the shape of a black boar that Typhon had injured the eye of the god Horus and in a different myth, that it was when hunting boars that Typhon discovered and mutilated the body of the dead god Osiris. Despite this, it was the pig who was revered as sacrificial victim at the feast commemorating the death of Osiris and thus ultimately, the Pig or Boar represented the god himself. In the same fashion, the baby pigs who were thrown into the chasm representing the entrance to the Underworld were symbols of the goddess Persephone herself.

Even in Christian traditions, the pig is a symbol of good luck. In Europe, pigs made of peppermint are smashed (sacrificed) and the pieces distributed at New Year. Charms or ornaments in the form of pigs are considered to be good luck symbols. The expression 'a pig in clover' combines two traditional symbols of good fortune and signifies happiness and fulfillment of need. Personal 'money banks' often are made in the form of pigs: thus, the 'piggybank' familiar to children throughout the Western world.

The Boar is an ancient Northern symbol of courage as well as prosperity. Freyr's boar Gullinbristi or 'Gold Bristle', one of the magical gifts of the dwarves to the gods, was the ultimate symbol of protection and good fortune. In fact, the Gold Boar was a symbol of the Sun itself, giver of warmth and life. The goddess Freyja rode on a boar Hildisvini when not using her chariot. She transformed her lover Ottar into a boar to conceal his identity. The boar was a symbol of the Vanir, gods of fertility and rulers of earth forces.

One could give innumerable examples from myth and folktale. Suffice it to say here that the pig has attained a negative reputation unfairly. Although, like the dog, pigs are useful consumers of waste materials and therefore have served in many cultures as purifiers of the environment, they are not 'dirty' by nature any more than Nature herself is 'dirty'.

The Year of the Pig therefore should be a year of great good fortune for all. I will write about the Chines astrological significance of the Pig tomorrow when the New Year actually begins.