Pagan Christmas (29 page)

Paradise Plant

The paradise plant is said to be so strong that you can bind the devil’s legs with it, and whoever decorates his horse with this herb is protected from a witches’ curse.

FINK 1983, 80

Daphne mezereum L., Thymelaeaceae (daphne)

OTHER NAMES

Buschweide, daphne, elendsbluem, gemeiner kellerhals, seidelbas, spurge laurel

Of all the thirty herbs, paradise plant or daphne has perhaps the most complex relationship with Christmas and the smudging nights:

According to legend, the plant was once, long ago, a mighty tree. But when the cross of Christ was made from its wood, it degenerated more and more and became a lowly shrub (Prahn 1922, 157).

The poisonous paradise plant was very popular with witches: “With the rind, the mark, the seed of the paradise plant, and toads, a very strong poison was made for the Sabbath,” explained the inquisitor Pierre de Lancre in the year 1612 (Fillipetti and Trotereau 1979, 41). Presumably, this is why paradise plant was called “deadly nightshade” in old Bohemia!

The botanical name of the plant goes back to the Greek dáphne, which originally meant laurel. Because the paradise plant (also sometimes known as wood laurel) looks a little like laurel and the name Laurus had already been given to the bay laurel, the poisonous plant was called Daphne. In earlier times, girls used the red fruit of the paradise plant as a beauty trick to make their cheeks red—instant Christmas cheeks! (Schenk 1943b, 106).

Witches’ Smoke*

The following three smudging substances are called “witches’ smoke” in the German vernacular:

Frankincense or olibanum (Boswellia carteri)

Asafetida (Ferula assa-foetida) and black seed (Nigella sativa)

Valerian root (Valeriana officinalis)

*From Arends 1935, 122.

Devil’s Dirt and Witches’ Smoke

On the twelfth night or eve of epiphany, in Catholic areas of Germany, houses and stables were smudged with frankincense as a protection against witches and bad women.

SELIGMANN 1996, 285

Smudging with smoke is a magic practiced to protect against witches—but also to help witches or to summon them. Witches themselves smudge as part of their magic art. From the roof of the world to the Alps, from the Far East to the Baltic Sea, many recipes for witch smudges have been handed down to us. Witch smoke is an inheritance from shamanic culture that is still in practice, according to current ethnobotanical lore. “Witch smoke” is supposed to be an offering made in return for well being and magical protection. Often, the smudging incense is made from the very same substances that witches use for their witchcraft. So just as nine-herb bunches were an old Germanic magic and smoking substance for the smudging nights, it is the same substance the witches used to create their lightning magic. In this manner, the “nine herbs” are akin to the folk Christian “holy bush.”

Asafetida is the resin of Ferula assa-foetida, a plant in the parsley family that is called food of the gods in English, merde du diable (devil’s dung) in French, and teufelsdreck (devil’s dirt) in German. “Just imagine that you are standing at the entrance to hell, and you will know how the devil’s dung smells” (Wieshammer 1995, 97).

The smoke of pure asafetida is supposed to help cleanse and drive out impurities. This foul-smelling “devil’s dirt” has been used as an aphrodisiac and is also used, in very small amounts, as a kitchen spice. “That we, on the continent, just as much as the English, take devil’s dirt in spicy sauces, on mutton, etc., is known to every gourmet” (Most 1843, 580). Today asafetida is valued especially in the Indian kitchen and gives crispy papadam its characteristic aroma.

The combination of asafetida and black cumin seed (Nigella sativa) as a witch smudge or a basis for other smudge mixtures was very popular in Germany. The belief in the protective power of black cumin seed is ages old: “Black cumin seeds are in medicine for all illnesses but death,” says an Arabic proverb. In earlier times, black cumin seed was often mixed with seeds of thorn apple (Datura stramonium) (von Chamisso 1987, 190).

[In Old Germany] A mixture of asafetida and stinking juniper (Juniperus sabina) combined with “blackstone oil” (Ol. Animale foet.) was used to “drive out witches” (Höfler 1994, 108). In Transylvania, on epiphany, people baked hemp pancakes to ward menacing witches away from the fire. Common juniper (Juniperus communis) was also popular for this purpose:

“Witch smoke.” Devil’s dirt or asafetida ground together with fenugreek and black cumin seed is used as a smudge against witches and the devil.

Smudge to Protect Against Witches*

Ingredients

4 parts devil’s bit scabious (Succisa pratensis)

1 part asafetida (Ferula assa-foetida)

4 parts alpine leek (Allium victorialis)

½ part black cumin seed (Nigella sativa)

Thoroughly grind and mix the ingredients. Place the powder on the burning embers in small portions. Three knife points of the powder should be swallowed (Söhns 1920, 45).

*From Mecklenburg, Germany

… the smoke of juniper “drives out snakes and any other poisonous things … and purifies the air of evil foul pests.”… When the farmer from the Alps goes through the house and stables with his smoking pan on the eve of epiphany to ward off evil spirits, the smoke has a purely magical meaning—and then, for the same reason, he writes the initials of the three magi on the doors (Nemec 1976, 90).

THREE KINGS DAY: THE END OF THE CHRISTMAS SEASON

Because the New Year repeats the cosmogonic act, even today, the twelve days that separate Christmas from epiphany can be considered a prefiguration of the twelve months of the year.

ELIADE 1966, 57

The smudging nights end with Three Kings Day, which signals the end of the Christmas season. The children may now plunder the Christmas tree. Now is also the time of epiphany, the holy day with which the Befana custom is associated. “The Almighty wakes bodies and souls on the day of epiphany” (Ephraim the Syrian, Hymn, I, 1).

Depending on one’s cultural background, January 6 is a Christian holiday celebrating the three kings, a pagan one honoring Befana or Frau Holle, or the birthday of the Greek god Dionysus. Dionysus is, above all, the god of vegetation, of all fruit trees, and especially of grapes. This is why he appears with a face covered with leaves on the capitals of Roman basilicas. His cult and his other names reflect the floral nature of his being: Bakchos (shoot),Anthios (blossom god; literally, holy flower), Dendrites (tree god), and Kissos (ivy god; literally, ivy). Many trees were holy to him, including the spruce, the oak, and the laurel. Of all the flowers, roses and lilies were most dear to him. In a sense, he is the godfather of the evergreen Christmas botany. “Dionysus is the god of a wonderful and enchanted world” (Merkelbach 1988, 109). “On the island of Andros … the people believe that in the temple of Dionysus a source of liquid with the taste of wine flows every nonen of January [January 5]: This day is called ‘God’s gift’” (Pliny the Elder II, 231).

On epiphany (January 6), Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of ecstasy and the “age-old ram,” was born. Here, the baby Dionysus, crowned with ivy and riding a ram, jumps over the threshold into reality and toasts the world. (Advertisement for Berlin Schultheiss brewery; tin plaque from twentieth-century Germany)

In his work Protreptikos, the Church father Clement of Alexandria (140–215 CE) wrote that Dionysus’s birthday was on January 6 and associated it with the birth of Jesus: “The birth of God happened with a lot of Dionysian wonders, such as the changing of water into wine” (Giani 1994, 123). It is no surprise then that “On Three Kings Day, as many stars as you can see through the chimney is the number of glasses of wine may you drink that night” (Früh 2000, 61). On the same day, the Christian feast of epiphany celebrates the event in which Jesus changed water into wine at a wedding.

The Pagan Magi from the East

Age-old magic! Practiced for thousands of years by priests and kings all over the world, you raise the human being up to a higher consciousness, and you make him live up to your age-old picture, and teach him to see the hidden things in his life!

ROVESTI 1995, 80

In our calendar, January 6 has a solid place as the holiday of the three magi, commonly known as Three Kings Day. Even today, priests go from house to house in the Black Forest on January 6, smudging them for protection from evil influences. With chalk sanctified with blessed salt, they write the letters C., M., and B., plus the year, over house and stable doors. This magic formula is supposed to keep away witches and devils and ward off evil in order to protect the animals and the stored bounty brought in from the fields. The letters are the initials of the three magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Yet the original, often-forgotten meaning of the three letters is the Latin blessing Christus mansionem benedicat (may Christ bless this house) (Schilli 1968, 36).

Similarly forgotten is the cult of the three kings, who are celebrated as saints under the supervision of the Church only in Cologne. Apart from this city—with one exception—the cult has been acknowledged nowhere else. The exception is Milan, Italy, where the relics of the three kings were kept in the Basilica of the Three Kings between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Later, Rainald von Dassel, Barbarossa’s chancellor in the twelfth century, presented the relics as a gift to Cologne. Ever since, the three kings have been worshipped there too.

It’s a girl! A subtle parody of the three magi. (Christmas card, Germany, from around 1998)

The Christian worship of the holy three kings comes from the worship of the newborn king of the Jews. The three magi from the “land of the morning” not only followed the light of the star shining above the stable at Bethlehem, but the passage that describes the star in the Bible was inspired by the words of the Roman poet Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE): “There is also a white comet with a silver tail. And from such a glittering brightness that you can hardly bear to look at it, within is revealed the picture of a God in human form” (Pliny the Elder II, 90). The only part of the New Testament that mentions worship of the three magi is the book of Matthew, which was written about the same time as Pliny’s work:1

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him” (Matt. 2: 1–12).

Thus, the three magi played a role in the ethnobotany of the Christmas season in old Germany:

In old folklore, wishing rods for the detection of gold, silver, and water are associated with the three magi. At the same time, one should remember to cut down branches of a white hazelnut with three cuts, in the name of the three magi. The cut must be made with an unused knife. The three branches are baptized with the names of the three magi, so success will come (Fink 1983, 317).

WHO WERE THE THREE KINGS?

Who were these far-traveled ones who brought presents for the newborn babe from the morning land of the east? Depending on the source and Bible translation, the three are variously called “kings,” “wise men,” or heathen “magi.” The Greek word magoi means “astrologers.” According to Greek sources from antiquity, the Persian priests under the ancient prophet Zoroaster (sixth century BCE), who came from the east, were called magoi.

“These wise ones from the east are priest-kings, noble Chaldeans; their knowledge of occult things includes astrology and can be defined as the ‘wisdom of Solomon’”(Luck 1990, 387). Sicardus, Bishop of Cremona (circa 1215 CE), called them “mathematicians from the royal family of the Zoroaster.” In the Legenda Aurea,2 they were described as star-interpreters, philosophers, and magicians. From the perspective of his pagan contemporaries, Jesus himself was among those considered magoi (Graf 1996, 99).

The Persian priests of the sun god Mithras were called magoi as well. The meaning of this amounts to “those who are initiated in the rites of the worship service.” Mithras said about himself, “I am a star that goes with you on its path and lights up the depth” (Giebel 1990, 210). Did the three magi see Mithras in the star of Bethlehem? Is the baby Jesus Mithras reborn?

The holy three kings bring Christmas beer to the manger of the baby Jesus. (Beer bottle)

The Church father Tertullian (circa 160–225 CE) was the first to call the three magi “kings.” In his verdict, astrology was invented by fallen angels and should not be practiced by any Christian. Yet he also believed that the three wise men from the east were astrologers (Luck 1990, 390). From the severe perspective of the Church, this carried a touch of heathenism and explains the restraint of the Church with regard to worshipping the three magi.

Since the twelfth century, artistic renderings have associated the three kings with the three stages of life: Caspar represented childhood and youth, Melchior age, and Balthazar adulthood. In the thirteenth century, the three magi were connected with the three known continents of the world: Africa, Asia, and Europe, respectively. Caspar became a dark-skinned Moorish king. Thus, the three collectively embodied old and young and all races of humanity, legitimizing the worldwide worship of the newborn founder of a new religion.

The Gifts of the Three Magi

Of myrrh [Hebrew mor] and aloe[wood] of cassia, your dress smells.

PSALMS 45: 9

Boswellia sacra Flueckiger, Burseraceae (frankincense, olibanum)

Commiphora molmol Engl., Burseraceae (myrrh)

Commiphora myrrha (Nees) Engl., Burseraceae (myrrh)

Commiphora opobalsamum (L.) Engl., Burseraceae (Mecca myrrh)

The wise men from the east brought the “King of the Jews” three presents: frankincense, myrrh, and gold.3 Caspar brought the myrrh; Melchior embodied “the light” of the orient (Asia) and bestowed frankincense; and Balthazar, “the lord of the treasure,” gave the gold. Frankincense is for religion, myrrh for the art of healing, and gold for earthly power. We do not know which gift the baby Jesus grabbed for first, as the written sources and paintings are silent on this matter.