PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

'Maiden in the Moor Lay'

Who is the mysterious 'maiden' of the '14^th' century Middle English carol 'Maiden in the Mor Lay?'

(A carol was originally, not a song, but a round dance performed to sung, rather than instrumental, accompaniment. Witches still use the term this way.)

Is she some enticing witchly daughter?

Is she, perhaps, some woman of Faerie?

Or is she the witches' Goddess herself, Maiden Earth in her Springtime?

In the interest of readability, I have rendered the original Middle English lyrics directly into their Modern English equivalents. The reader will note a certain amount of semantic 'slippage' in the course of the six intervening centuries.

To my eye, this only adds to the carol's charm.

Maiden in the Moor Lay

(English, '14^th' Century)

Remarks from a Pagan Funeral

In his quite remarkable book European Paganism: The Realities of Cult, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Ken Dowden makes the observation that all over ancient Europe, it was customary to end funerals with a dance: specifically, with a round dance, preferably performed around the grave itself.

A funeral ends with a round dance. This is profound and articulate action. Ancient Europe was a large place, much larger than it is today: a place of many peoples, many languages, and many cultures; and yet everywhere, across ethnic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries, funerals ended with a round dance.

A funeral ends with a round dance. Now why, do you think, would the ancestors have done this? Anyone?

[Field responses from people.]

The pagan religions are preeminently religions of praxis: they're about what you do. For pagans, to dance is to pray. (Reporter: Do witches pray? Witch [thinks a moment, then smiles.] We dance.) Among the Kalasha of what is now NW Pakistan, the only Indo-European-speaking people who have practiced their ancient religion continuously since antiquity, the same word—the same word—means both to dance and to pray. Consider the implications of this.

OK, today we're going to learn one of the sacred dances of the Witches. It's a Wheel Dance, a wheel of many spokes, as you'll see, and it's called the Carol.

These days, of course, we tend to think of a carol as a song associated with a particular holiday—a Yule carol, a May carol—but in the old days, a carol was a round dance performed to singing rather than to instrumental music.

This is a really useful dance to know, because you can do it to any 4/4 song with a chorus.

So, you start off with the left foot, of course. In dance, you always start off with the left foot. By the way, does anyone know why?

Well, yes, it's the heart side, but does anyone know the story? There's a story to pretty much everything witches do; that's what makes us a people, the stories.

Well, back in the Dawn of Days, when the Horned first came down from heaven, He landed [stomps] whump! left foot first.

I'm learning how to flatfoot.

First, and most importantly, keep your elbows tucked in tight against your body.

Now wave your hands and forearms helplessly around. Think flippers or penguin wings, but keep those elbows pressed in. Good!

Now you're ready for the feet. Pull them close together. Now slide one forward: not too far. Now the other. Now the other. Now the other. Now the other.

There you go: you're got it! You're doing our sacred dance: the Minnesota shuffle, also known as the Minnesota Duck-Walk. You want to look like you're penguin-stepping along on smooth ice, afraid to fall down.

In fact, that's exactly what you are doing.

But wait, we're not done yet. The exciting part is yet to come.

So, at our coven meeting last night, we were out in the backyard, dancing the dance for the New Moon and...

Well, let me just stop right there.

We were dancing the dance for the New Moon.

You know the one that I mean: the one with the arms held up like the horns of the Moon. The one with the great wheelings and the little wheelings, and the ebb and flow of the tides?

You know that one, don't you?

Of course witches have a dance that they dance for the New Moon. Once you hear it, you know that it's so.

Now, when you hear this, you may think: Yes, I love that dance. Or you may think: That's not the New Moon dance that I know. Or you may even think: Why don't I know that one? My coven doesn't even have a New Moon Dance.

What's more, having said “a dance for the New Moon,” you've implied much, much more.

“Some day we'll have sacred dances again.”

When my friend Doc said this to me more than 20 years ago, his tone was wistful.

Today, decades later, though we may not quite be there yet, we're closer, closer, to the day that he foresaw.

In 1890, avant-garde French composer Eric Satie (1866-1925) published a mysterious, haunting piano piece that he titled Les Gnossiennes.

The word is Satie's own coinage. What he meant by it is unclear. At least some commentators have derived it from Knossos—in Latin, Gnossus—the First City of Minoan Crete. If so, it would mean either “the Knossian Women” or “the things (fem.) of Knossos.”

American dancer-choreographer Ted Shawn (1891-1972) read a Minoan reference in the term. Accordingly, he choreographed a dance for solo male dancer to Satie's music that presented—in Shawn's own words—“a priest of ancient Crete going through a ritual at the altar of the Snake Goddess.”