Hello everyone, and welcome back to Scholar Minor.
Last Sunday was Mother’s Day in the United States, and the festivities got me thinking about all of the strong and wonderful women in my life, moms and non-moms included.
Mother's Day itself has some interesting origins. Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia in the United States began organizing child care classes in the 1800s, which she called “Mother’s Day Work Clubs”, and in 1868 she created "Mothers' Friendship Day" which brought bereaved Civil War mothers - from both sides - together to support each other and reconcile. A few years later, suffragette Julia Ward Howe campaigned for a "Mother's Peace Day" intended as a call-to-arms for mothers to unite together in preventing further violence and war.
Mother's Day became a holiday here officially in 1914, with some of its roots also coming from the English tradition of Mothering Sunday. Mothering Sunday was the fourth Sunday in Lent, a day on which folks were expected to return home to their neighborhood church for a special service. Over time Mothering Sunday began to evolve from a religious celebration to a secular one, and mothers would be given flowers or gifts. Eventually this holiday merged with the modern tradition of Mother's Day.
In celebration of all the tough and awesome mothers, new mothers, mothers-to-be, mother figures, and non-mothers in our lives, this week we’ll be taking a look at three of the most badass ladies of mythology: Demeter, Freyja, and Bast.
A couple housekeeping notes before we get started - starting next week, I’ll be putting out new episodes of Scholar Minor on Fridays instead of Wednesdays as that will work a little better with my somewhat crazy work schedule. Also - you may hear some strange noises in the background of my recording this week - a new building is going up across the alley and there’s been a lot of hammering and stapling and . . . everything else going on pretty incessantly the last week.
That aside, thanks for joining me and I hope you enjoy.
The Greek goddess Demeter, described by the poet Ovid as the golden-haired mother of grain, is one of the most well known mother goddesses of mythology. To the Romans, she was known as Ceres.
Demeter was the daughter of the titan Cronus and Thea, goddess of light and mother also to the sun, moon, and the dawn. While Zeus was married to the goddess Hera, Demeter was his consort, and with him she had a daughter named Persephone.
One day, Persephone was abducted by the god of the underworld, Hades, for consuming a single pomegranate seed while in his realm. Unaware of where or why her daughter had been taken, Demeter travelled the world searching for her. As she was too upset and preoccupied to tend to her agricultural duties, crops everywhere died and failed to produce, leaving mankind in the grips of a terrible famine.
Seeing the sorry state of humans in Demeter’s absence, Zeus finally intervened and got to the bottom of the situation, demanding that Hades return Persephone to her mother. Unfortunately, though, because Persephone had eaten that pomegranate seed - a part of her was eternally bound to Hades and to the Underworld.
It was decided that Persephone would spend part of the year with her mother, Demeter, and part of the year with Hades in his realm. This is why, the myth tells us, the weather turns and crops wither and freeze in the wintertime: Persephone is with Hades, and Demeter refuses to deal with mankind’s agricultural needs until her daughter is returned home.
Demeter and Persephone is an example of an aetiological myth - which we’ve encountered before - intended to explain the changing of the seasons, and quite possibly the germination of seeds. Some historians believe that Persephone may have been representative of a seed herself - spending the winter buried below the Earth, in the Underworld - before blooming into the world of the living again every spring.
Demeter was the goddess of the harvest and worshipped as the grain mother, responsible for the fertility and reproduction of crops, plants, and living things - including people. While the story of her daughter Persephone is fairly well known, there is certainly a harder side to Demeter reflected in some of her history.
Demeter was worshipped in Sparta at the festival of Chthonia as a goddess intimately connected to death and the afterlife, this particular festival including the ritual sacrifice of a cow by four elderly women. Since Demeter didn’t take the abduction of her daughter lightly, She was known to some by the epithet Erinys, meaning “vengeance”, and it was believed that she was accompanied by a serpent in her occasional visits to the Underworld.
Several agrarian festivals were held yearly in her honor, with many taking place in the Fall and Spring. One of the most important of these festivals was Thesmophoria. Thesmophoria was a festival in October attended solely by women, and dedicated to Demeter in the hopes of ensuring a good harvest. As Demeter was also associated with good health, marriage, and motherhood, this was an incredibly important event for the Greeks.
The women in attendance observed chastity before and during the festival, limiting their diets and fasting in recognition of Demeter’s refusal to eat after the abduction of her daughter. Thesmophoria took place over three to five days, depending on location, and featured the sacrifice of pigs and piglets - which were sacred to Demeter - and the baking of breads and cakes in the shape of snakes and phalluses. These were saved and crumbled over fields in the following spring to promote the fertility of the soil. Strangely, Thesmophoria also included the practice of attendees yelling insults at one another and whipping each other with bark sticks.
Demeter’s image is in many ways the mother goddess archetype - and for good reason, as she is very ancient - perhaps even more ancient than the Greeks or even their predecessors, the Minoans.
We can find representations of female deities dating back as far as the Paleolithic Era - about 33,000 years ago. Artifacts like the Venus of Willendorf, carved from limestone, can tell us that the worship of female goddesses is as ancient as mankind itself. There are some very obvious reasons for this. Humans are animals, after all, and procreation is how we’ve managed to stick around since the Paleolithic era. And the female womb is essential to that process and the creation of new life.
But our very earliest ancestors recognized the fertility of the world around us, not just our own. The reproduction of animals, plants, the cycles of the seasons and the cycles of aging and growing, were often combined underneath a single umbrella. The “Mother Earth” concept is an early example of this seen in ancient religions around the world.
Mother goddesses are slightly different but very nearly as old, with more emphasis placed on the conception and the personification of the reproductive process. In many ancient religions, you’ll find that many female goddesses have a male counterpart, and traditions as ubiquitous as dancing around the maypole are direct metaphors for human reproductive parts and the act of coitus.
Let’s head northward to the colder countries and visit the warrior goddess of the Norsemen, Freyja. The goddess of love, sex, battle, and death, Freyja is definitely one of the most imposing mythological goddesses.
It’s important to note that for many years, there was a great deal of confusion regarding Freyja and her fellow goddess of the Norse pantheon, Frigg. Information on Frigg and her legendary roots were very scarce, and what did appear seemed to mirror many of the tales told about Freyja. Frigg was supposedly the wife of Odin, leader of the Aesir gods, while little is known about Freya’s husband, Odr.
Many modern historians agree that Frigg and Freyja were the same goddess for many thousands of years, before splitting into two separate goddesses during the era known as the Migration Period, or about 300 to 800 CE. During this time the Vikings were travelling southward, and it’s possible that Norse myth altered a little in response to interactions with the Romans and their beliefs.
The daughter of the sea god, Njord, and mother of two beautiful daughters Hnoss and Gersemi, Freyja was incredibly important to the Norse. You may be familiar with Valhalla, Odin’s hall where the bravest warriors are taken in the afterlife to wait for the arrival of Ragnarok. But Odin wasn’t the only one collecting an army of the dead. Half of the heroes who were killed in battle joined Freyja instead, in her hall at Folkvangar.
Like Demeter, pigs were sacred to Freyja and her preferred mode of transportation was on the back of a golden-bristled boar, Hildisvini, meaning “Battle Swine”. She also travelled in a chariot pulled by two large, beautiful cats. Over her shoulders, Freyja wore a cloak made from falcon feathers that gave the wearer the power to fly. Her beautiful necklace, Brisingamen, was one of her most valued possessions - though it wasn’t the greatest for us down here in Midgard.
Brisingamen was the most glorious necklace in all the nine worlds, forged by the dwarven smiths Alfrigg, Dvalinn, Berling, and Grerr. When she saw their incredible handiwork, she refused to leave without it - offering them all the gold and jewels they could dream of. But the dwarves weren’t interested in any more treasures, and instead agreed to give it to her if she agreed to spend one night with each of them. Freyja agreed, and after four days - er, nights - the necklace was hers.
Unbeknownst to Freyja, she had been followed by the god Loki. After her excursion to the dwarven workshop, Loki told Odin of Freyja’s activities and Odin was furious. He ordered Loki to steal Brisingamen from Freyja while she slept, which he did.
When Freyja discovered her necklace had been stolen, she confronted Odin who only agreed to return it to her if she promised to spread war and misery throughout the kingdoms of men, pitting leaders against one another. Reluctantly, Freyja agreed, but Brisingamen was returned to her.
Freyja was also believed to practice a form of magic called seidr, an ancient Norse practice that involved divination and visionary quests. Practitioners of seidr were usually female, and a Norse seeress - or volva - filled a shamanistic role in Norse communities, exchanging predictions of the future or other magical services for payment.
While many folks turned to the volva for help, it was also a practice looked down upon by many. The hostile treatment of village wise women and healers in later centuries is reminiscent of this attitude. Freyja was responsible for teaching Odin and the Aesir how to practice seidr.
While Freyja was associated with some pretty grim and powerful forces, like war and death, she had a softer side as well. Requests for help with romantic love and childbirth were also directed to Freyja, and some texts tell us that women also went to join her at Folkvangar when they died. Freyja also had a deep connection to the animal world which is evident in her many animal associates.
Among the many creatures sacred to Freyja was the ladybird beetle, or ladybug if you’re here in the States. Ladybirds were called Freyjuhoena, Old Norse for “Freyja’s hens.” In a tradition still present in some Scandinavian countries today, if a ladybird lands on the hand of a young woman, she should expect to be married soon after. The direction the ladybird flies is the direction from which her future husband will come.
Bast or Bastet, of ancient Egypt, was the goddess of health, protection, music, dancing, joy, intoxication, sex, and cats. Now that's a goddess I'd like to hang out with.
She was the daughter of the sun god, Ra, and is often depicted as a woman with a feline head. In early works she sometimes appears as a lioness, while later on after the domestication of cats in Egypt - around 1,500 BCE - she takes on the form of a more general cat. Evidence of the worship of Bast dates to as far back as 3,200 BCE.
Many depictions of Bast show her carrying an ancient percussion instrument called the sistrum. She was widely worshipped in Egypt, and the Cult of Bast in Memphis popularized the creation of small cat statuettes and cat designs worn on jewelry or amulets for luck and good health.
One of Bast's most important qualities was her protective nature. During the day, she rode across the sky with her father, Ra, guarding him from attack along his route. At night, Bast turned into a cat and stood watch beside him - always on the lookout for the serpent god of chaos, Apep.
Egyptians called upon Bast for the protection of their homes, and it was believed that Bast was especially devoted to the safety of pregnant women and cats. Expecting mothers or women trying to become pregnant would wear amulets or jewelry depicting kittens.
Worship of Bast led to the near-deification of cats themselves, and they were given their own golden jewelry to wear and mummified in strict ritual. In fact, during some periods in Egypt’s history even accidentally harming a cat could be punishable by death.
The cat figurines dedicated to Bast are often carved from alabaster, a soft light-colored rock found in the Middle East and North Africa. Alabaster is very soft and works well for creating intricate designs - it was often carved into containers for expensive perfume or religious items in ancient Egypt. Egyptian myth often referred to Bast’s unique perfume, and some historians believe this association with perfume is why alabaster was the material of choice for votive offerings.
I hope you enjoyed this episode folks, thanks again for joining me. I encourage you to check out my website, www.ursaminorcreations.com for additional content, Scholar Minor now has a YouTube channel where you can find the episodes of this podcast and some new video content in the near future. As always my references and email are in the show notes.
Take care everyone, be safe, and I will talk to you again next week.