This year, the vernal equinox falls on 20 March. The equinox is a moment of balance, when day and night are of equal length. The Sun, reborn at the winter solstice, has gradually been gaining strength, and at the equinox the light finally overcomes the darkness, and the days will gradually become longer than the nights. The Saxons called March Lentmonat, ‘lengthening’ referring to the lengthening of days, a word the Christians adopted as ‘Lent’, the days leading up to the festival of Easter.
It is not surprising that many places of the ancient world celebrated New Year at the spring equinox, when the Sun entered Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, and the natural world renewed itself. The Babylonian New Year, for example, began after the vernal equinox with the twelve-day festival of Akitu. It commemorated the defeat of the dragon-goddess of chaos Tiamat by the god Marduk, and the beginning of creation with the emergence of order out of chaos. To mark this, New Year was celebrated with a temporary subversion of order, [1] reminiscent of the customs of misrule in later western Europe, when the king was stripped of his jewellery, sceptre and crown before kneeling before the altar of Marduk and praying for forgiveness on behalf of himself and his subjects, before all his emblems of authority were restored, symbolising the annual renewal of his authority and nature alike. Influenced by these ancient rites, Iranians, Zoroastrians, the Parsis in India, the Kurds and members of the Ba’hai faith still celebrate New Year at the spring equinox with the festival of Nowruz (‘New Day’), and this has taken place in Iran for at least 2500 years. It celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, order over chaos, and the rejuvenation of the world as the warmth of the spring conquers winter.
This regeneration was celebrated in other ancient customs during this month. In ancient Greece the festival of the Anthestêria was celebrated [2] in honour of the god Dionysus Anthios (Dionysus the Blossoming), as the first flowers heralded his return in spring. [3] It fell when the fermentation of the wine made in the autumn was complete and it was ready to drink, reminding everyone that life and the seasons are cyclical, that what is born will die and be reborn again. All the temples of the gods were closed except the Limnaion, the temple of Dionysus ‘in the Marshes’, which contained a sacred spring, a passageway to the underworld. The temple was only opened on this one day of the year, and its opening unlocked the way between the worlds of the living and the dead, enabling the vegetation god Dionysus, who had been dwelling in the Underworld during the winter, to return, along with the shades of the dead attracted by the scent of the opening of the pithoi (large wine jars), left fermenting over winter, half buried in the Earth, and now ready to taste. Swaying masks of the Dionysus were hung in the trees, sending good luck and fertility wherever they looked.
In ancient Rome, a ten-day festival in honour of the vegetation god Attis, son and lover of the goddess Cybele, took place. A young pine tree representing Attis was carried into the city like a corpse, swathed in a linen shroud and decked with violets, then placed in a sepulchre in Cybele’s temple which stood on what is now Vatican Hill, near where St Peter’s stands. [4] On the Day of Blood, also called Black Friday, [5] the priests of the cult gashed themselves with knives as they danced ecstatically, sympathizing with Cybele in her grief and helping to restore Attis to life. That night was spent holding a vigil over the tomb. The next morning, a priest opened the sepulchre at dawn, revealing that it was empty and announcing that the god was risen. This day was known as Hilaria or the Day of Joy, a time of feasting and merriment. [6] The worshippers cheered as the priest announced, “Be of good cheer, neophytes, seeing that the god is saved; for we also, after our toils, shall find salvation!” [7] The longer, warmer days of spring had come, and vegetation was emerging from the earth.
In an echo of the rites of Attis, in Western Christian tradition, Easter often falls during this month. It marks the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sacrificed on a cross, but when his tomb was opened after three days, it was found empty, and he was declared to have risen.
Out of the winter, spring comes. Out of the darkness comes light. At the equinox, the world is renewed with youth and vitality, freshness and vigour. The folk customs of the season reflect these themes. New clothes were often bought for Easter, particularly gloves and new bonnets for women. [8] With the increase in light, wild and domestic birds start laying, a symbol of renewal and fertility. Forbidden during the fasting of Lent, they could now be eaten for luck, or given as gifts. In many districts, eggs were coloured or eaten for luck at Easter, and there was (and in some parts of England still are) egg rolling down the hillsides, perhaps to reflect the passage of the Sun, or perhaps just for fun, and the winner is the egg that rolls the furthest. The Pace Egg mumming troupes go out, performing mumming plays in return for eggs and beer. [9] In Germany, it is important to eat something green, and fire wheels are rolled down hills, straw stuffed into large wooden wheels, set on fire and rolled it down a hill at night. If all wheels released roll straight down the hill it is said to bring a good harvest. [10]
Since the 1970s, many modern Pagans have called the spring equinox Ostara, with many books claiming that Ostara is a Germanic goddess of spring associated with eggs and hares who gave her name to the Christian feast of Easter. Sadly, Ostara is not an old Germanic name for the vernal equinox. The goddess Ēostre was mentioned, though only once, in early literature, by the seventh/eighth century English monk Bede in his De temporum ratione (‘The Reckoning of Time’). He wrote that during Ēosturmōnaþ (the lunar month of March/April) Pagan Anglo-Saxons had once held feasts in Ēostre’s honour, but the tradition had died out by his time. Based on this single source, folklorist and recorder of fairy tales Jacob Grimm attempted to reconstruct a possible Germanic equivalent goddess calling her Ostara, arguing that since Germans called April ôstarmânoth while most countries retained the Biblical pascha for Easter, the word must relate to áustrô, from the Old High German adverb ôstar which “expresses movement towards the rising sun”, concluding that the putative deity would have been a goddess of dawn. [11] Given the lack of any evidence for Ostara or Ēostre, scholars have dismissed the goddess as a pure invention of Bede, [12] concluding that the Old English word eastre is a simply an approximation of the Latin albae (’white’), a word sometimes applied to Easter. [13] [14] It has to be said that this doesn’t mean that she didn’t exist – it is unlikely that Bede made her up – but we have one very brief mention of her name, and it may be connected with the word for east, the direction of the rising Sun. We certainly know nothing at all about her worship, and there is most definitely no mention of hares and eggs as cult symbols. There is no linguistic connection with the Latin word oestrus (relating to ovulation and eggs), nor with the Middle Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Astarte.
If we want to mark the vernal equinox, we should take our cue from nature itself and celebrate it as the time when the light gains over the dark, and the world rekindles in response, bursting forth from its winter sleep in a flurry of growth and new birth. The Sun warms the earth, ready for planting. Like the Earth we too plant our own seeds at this time; seeds we literally plant in the garden, but also seeds of goals that we will make into reality.
© text and illustration Anna Franklin
[1] http://www.payvand.com/news/12/mar/1176.html, accessed 12.2.19
[2] The full moon following the full moon of the Lênaia, and two moons following the full moon nearest the winter solstice.
[3] Federica Doria, Marco Giuman, The Swinging Woman. Phaedra and Swing in Classical Greece, online at ojs.unica.it/index.php/medea/article/download/2444/2053, accessed 27.11.18
[4] Anneli Rufus, The World Holiday Book, Harper, San Francisco 1994
[5] https://www.ancient.eu/Cybele/, accessed 15.3.19
[6] James Frazer, The Golden Bough,
[7] Louis Bouyer, (trans. I. Trethowan), The Christian Mystery: From Pagan Myth to Christian Mysticism, T.& T.Clark Ltd, 1990
[8] Brian Day, A Chronicle of Folk Customs, Hamlyn, London, 1998
[9] Brian Day, A Chronicle of Folk Customs, Hamlyn, London, 1998
[10] https://www.thelocal.de/20190415/how-to-celebrate-easter-just-like-a-german-list-traditions-customs, accessed 12.1.20
[11] Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology. (J.S. Stalleybrass edition) George Bell & Sons, London, 1883
[12] Karl Weinhold, Die deutschen Monatnamen
[13] Philip A.Shaw, Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World, Bristol Classical Press (Bloomsbury Academic), London, 2011
[14] Philip A.Shaw, Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World, Bristol Classical Press (Bloomsbury Academic), London, 2011
Hearth Witchery 