On the First Day of Christmas, the Dead brought back to me…

The Twelve Days of Christmas; thronged with birds, rings and courtesans as gifts. It’s what we remember, it is what we recall when we see those five words. We don’t think about the dead. We don’t think about wilderness imitations. We don’t think about the hot blood of a sacrificed dog and we certainly don’t…

EPONALIA

Eponalia was celebrated on 18 December in the calendar of Roman Feast days. There is an inscription from Cis-alpine Gaul which counts back to this date from ‘New Year Calends’, seeming to suggest a sequence through the Midwinter period. One of the earliest observances developed by Brython was a placing of Eponalia in this context….

Midwinter Traditions

Midwinter, unlike all of the other seasonal festivals was and still is, less of a singular time or event and more of a season of celebration. Within traditional polytheistic practices, a whole cluster of festivities are marked at this point and even with the much more secular Christmas festivities, the festive period stretches over the…