Nickanan Night, also known as Roguery Night or Peasen Monday, is a revered #Cornish tradition held on the Monday before #ShroveTuesday. Initially centered on pea splitting, it has evolved into a festivity marked by youthful mischief.
As twilight falls, youths armed with short clubs engage in door-knocking escapades, seeking pancakes from households. Mysterious disappearances of household items add intrigue, with items reappearing the next day as tokens of revelry. In locales like Polperro, festivities culminate in the procession of 'Jack-o-Lent', symbolizing Judas Iscariot. It was paraded through the streets and pelted with rotten vegetables. It was then taken to the beach where it was ceremonially burned — which also recall #Celts and #Imbolc festival.
#Celtic#LegendaryWednesday#WyrdWednesday: There are many examples of the hare having connections with the #Otherworld in #Irish #mythology and #folklore. Hares are associated with #spring, thus with the goddess of the season, and represented love, fertility and growth. In Europe, that goddess was Eostre, after whom Easter is named, but in #Ireland #Brigid is the Goddess of Spring, or #Imbolc.
Source: https://aliisaac.substack.com/
#Celtic#FolkloreSunday: There are many examples of the hare having connections with the #Otherworld in #Irish #mythology and #folklore. Hares are associated with #spring, thus with the Goddess of the season, and represented love, fertility and growth. In Europe, that Goddess was Eostre, after whom Easter is named, but in #Ireland #Brigid is the Goddess of Spring, or #Imbolc, which starts on February 1st.
Source: https://buff.ly/4aO9zLe
The largest gift of February, however, is its ability to help us rededicate ourselves through the fires of purification as a path of opening for the returning sun.
How and when we pagans celebrate Imbolc largely depends on location. Some don't mark this holiday at all. My activities are certainly more subdued, considering I live in a very cold northern climate.
This blog continues my holiday series, which gives a glimpse into how I celebrate the 8 spokes in the Wheel of the Year.
Bruja here reminding you that we are halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, aka… the beginning of #Spring, #LaCandelaria (get your tamales ready), #Groundhog’sDay, #Imbolc, celebrations of the budding earth. Our people are united by our reverence for earth’s cycles. What’s blooming for you?
#Celtic#TempleThursday: "In the belly" is one of the (popular) interpretations for #Imbolc. Spring grows in the "belly of winter", like the lambs that are born from #Imbolc onwards. This was significant for the diet of the rural population, because from now on sheep's milk was available again.
Today is #Imbolc, the day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox in the Northern hemisphere. The year-old apple seedling in a kitchen window sprouted a tiny green leaf. Too early if they were outdoors. Though with #ClimateChange and our warmest Winter, is it? Meanwhile...
In the US, tomorrow is #GroundHogDay. Just saw a large groundhog who seemed wide awake run down the lane. In this "unseasonable" warm, wet weather, cycles are screwed up.
#Celtic#TempleThursday: Beira, the queen of winter, had Bride imprisoned at Ben Nevis. When Angus Og, the God of Summer, found her, winter had to give way to #spring. The painting ´The Coming of Bride` by John Duncan is full of spring flowers: primroses, azaleas, laburnum, lilac, tulips and grape hyacinth. #Imbolc
Source: Angus and Bride - Folklore Scotland
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: During the bleak period of winter #Brighid is held a captive prisoner at Ben Nevis as she awaits her hero, the youthful god Aengus mac Óg who would appear to represent the winter solstice sun returned from the Underworld. It is after he beholds Brighid in a vision that he sets out on his milk white steed from his #Otherworld Island drenched in perpetual summer to rescue the imprisoned goddess. The #Cailleach attempts to stop him at each step of his journey, however, it is in vain as Aengus secures Brighid’s freedom at #Imbolc. As the Cailleach storms away in a fury she flings her wand with one last gasp of resentment towards the roots of a holly bush as a final curse when #spring once again returns.
Source: Wade MacMorrighan „Rekindling the Rites of #Imbolg“
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: „Another in kind parable portrays #Brighid and the #Cailleach not as imminent challengers, but as two sides of the same coin. As the season of #winter draws to a close the Cailleach again journeys to the #Otherworld island of Tír na n-Óg where she searches a deep wood for the magickal Well of Youth. At the moment when the dawn sun crests over the horizon she bends to drink its bubbling waters from the crevice of a rock and emerges renewed as the fair goddess Brighid. Where her enchanted wand once caused all vegetation to wither and die, it now transformed the dormant brown grass into vivid green shoots surmounted by the yellow and white flowers of #spring.“ #Imbolc
Source: Wade MacMorrighan „Rekindling the Rites of Imbolg“ https://twitter.com/RubyFaesRealm/status/1620681046210785281