PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Book of the Horned one

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Tell now of the Horned, His Bestiary.

Soon told.

For is this not his Book of Beasts, and him the All-Beast? in which is told the likeness of each beast, and kind, and singularity: its life and loves and ways, and life within his life?

For are they not in him, and he in them?

Is his life not in them, and theirs in him?

And does he not delight in them, as they in him?

His the life-in-great, and theirs in-small?

And every birth of them an increase to his being, and every death, diminishment?

And, being beasts ourselves, does not our love go out to them, and so to him?

To him the All-Beast, one-in-many, manyness in one?

Last modified on

 

 

If you didn't know it was Christian, you wouldn't know it was Christian.

Check out this horse-headed St. Mark from the 9th-century Breton Evangeliary (gospel-book) of Landévennec. Looks pretty pagan, doesn't he?

For reasons that I won't go into here, the writers of the four new testament gospels are generally associated with certain animals in Christian iconography. Generally these animals—an ox for Luke, an eagle for John, etc.—hover around in the background somewhere behind the figure of the evangelist. It took the Celtic imagination to give the evangelists the heads of said animals, however.

In the humano-centric world of Christianity, the result ends up looking surprisingly non-Christian.

St. Mark is generally associated in Christian art with the lion, not—as we see here—the horse. This figure represents a development specific to Brittany, a visual pun: marc'h in Breton (compare Welsh march; the English word mare is a first cousin) means “horse.”

The hippocephalous saint is here shown wearing a rich robe. I especially love his cloche-shaped halo and the not-altogether-reassuring look in his eye. (Clearly the monastic artist was himself something of a hippophile: note the careful attention to the spotting on the neck, the sensitively-drawn muzzle, and the tossled forelock.) He holds a book in his left hand and presents a pen with his right.

In the context of the Landévennec Gospels, of course, the book and pen refer to Mark's composition of his eponymous gospel.

For witches, though, the book and pen hold a different meaning. (“Sign.” “I cannot write my name.” “I will guide your hand.”)

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Prayer Before the Kill

 

Great Stag, our Stag, we hunger:

hunger, Lord, for you.

Our Life, our Food, our Beauty:

Father, will you feed?

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Book of Shadows: The Musical

A priest and priestess that I know had taken their newest student on an outing to Chicago's biggest occult bookstore.

At the center of one display was a beautiful leather-bound volume, hand-embossed in gold with a pentacle, and the portentious title: Book of Shadows.

The student's mouth fell open: the secrets of the Craft, about to be revealed.

He opened the book reverently, then looked puzzled. He riffled through the pages and shook his head.

“It's empty,” he said.

My priest friend opened the book, laid his finger at the top of one of the pages, and turned to his partner.

“What does that say?” he asked.

Drawing Down the Moon,” she read. “Whenever ye have need of anything, once in the month, and better it be when the moon is full....”

My friend turned to his mystified student.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

All right, I'll admit it; I was pontificating.

“The Horned One's book is a book of names, not a book of stories,” I was saying, drawing an implicit contrast with those other people's scriptures.

But of course I was wrong.

Last modified on

Additional information