Alfredo Cattabiani: "The feast of All Saints and the Celtic New Year"

November 1st is the watershed between one agricultural year and another. At the end of the fruit season, the land, which has welcomed the wheat seeds destined to be reborn in spring, enters the period of hibernation. For Christians, two important feasts are celebrated in these days, All Saints' Day and the Commemoration of the dead. But once upon a time, in the lands inhabited by the Celts, which stretched from Ireland to Spain, from France to northern Italy, from Pannonia to Asia Minor, this period of transition was the New Year: it was called in Ireland Samuin and it was preceded by the night still known today in Scotland as Nos Galan-gaeaf, the night of the winter Kalends, during which the dead entered into communication with the living in a general cosmic mixing, as has already been observed in other critical periods of 'year.

Out now! Β«ARTHOSΒ» n.29 / 2020

Finally, with a little delay due to the health situation, the 2020 register of ARTHOS (n.29 of the new series, Arya Edizioni - OICL), magazine of Traditional Studies founded in 1972 and directed by prof. Renato Del Ponte, on which I begin with a contribution extremely dear to me. Obviously, for me it is an absolute honor to have been invited to collaborate in the annual edition of this magazine which is not very historical to define as historical, and it is doubly so by virtue of the theme of the essay that bears my signature, given that it is a subject to which I personally care a lot: THE WORSHIP OF FAIRY IN CELTIC COUNTRIES: AN ESCATOLOGY OF DEATH AND REBIRTH.

Arthur Machen and the panic charm of the uncanny

The new special issue of zothique, magazine of fantastic and "weird" literature published by Dagon Press, in its over 230 pages allows us to retrace the life and work of Arthur Machen, a Welsh writer who between the end of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth was able to look beyond the "veil of reality" and reveal the essence of "Great God Panβ€œ, Establishing himself as one of the greatest authors of supernatural fiction of his time.


The legend of the sunken city of Ys, the Breton Atlantis

The mythical tale that describes how the lost city of Ys was swallowed up by the waves of the ocean most likely derives from historical events that really happened around the fifth century AD, but, as Massimo Centini argues, for example, the moralistic emphasis of an event natural of limited proportions could reveal the attempt by the Christian invaders to strike at the previous Druid religion and its priestly class, especially the female one.

The Sheela-na-Gig and the cult of generative powers in Celtic Christianity

The cult of generative powers that permeated the ancient Celtic (and pre-Celtic) religion remained in vogue in Ireland even after the advent of Christianity, to the point that some scholars speak of a "Celtic Christianity" which, under the veil of the new cult, would have kept the ancient sacred doctrines intact: one of the most meaningful clues in this sense is the representation of the Sheela-na-Gig first in megalithic sites and sacred wells and, later, in Christian churches themselves.

The magic of the Mainarde: on the trail of the Janare and the Deer Man

A visit to Castelnuovo al Volturno, in Molise, allows us to give a face to the characters of local folklore, the Janare and "Gl'Cierv", and to resume some central mythical-traditional aspects ofΒ Cosmic-agrarian cults of ancient Eurasia.

The festival of Lughnasadh / Lammas and the Celtic god Lugh

In ancient times, among the Celtic populations, at the beginning of August Lughnasadh / Lammas was celebrated, the festival of the first harvest, established according to the myth by the god Lugh himself. An analysis of the functions of the latter will allow us to highlight its remarkable versatility and correspondences with other divinities of the Indo-European traditions (such as Apollo, Belenus and Odin) and even with two divine powers of the Judeo-Christian tradition apparently opposed to each other. : Lucifer and the archangel Michael.

Metamorphosis and ritual battles in the myth and folklore of the Eurasian populations

di Marco Maculotti

The zoomorphic metamorphosis topos is widely present in the folkloric corpus of a large number of ancient traditions, both from archaic Europe (on which we will focus mainly in this study), and from other geographical areas. As early as the fifth century BC, in Greece, Herodotus mentioned men capable of periodically transforming themselves into wolves. Similar traditions have been documented in Africa, Asia and the American continent, with reference to the temporary metamorphosis of human beings in fairs: bears, leopards, hyenas, tigers, jaguars. Sometimes, in some historically documented cases of the ancient world (Luperci, Cinocefali, Berserker) "The paranormal experience of transformation into an animal takes on collective characteristics and is at the origin of initiatory groups and secret societies" (Di Nola, p.12).