The Spring Equinox approaches (at least, at time of writing; some weeks have passed since then) - and with it, the onset of the War Season of the archaic Indo-Europeans. Whether the Quinquatrus and Tubilustrium of the Romans, situated within their Month of Mars (mensis Martius - whence our modern name for it: 'March'); the … Continue reading On The Equinox War-Rites Of The Indo-Europeans – As Illuminating The Roman Quinquatria [Part One – The Goddess-Oriented War Rites Introduced]
Manusmriti
On The Funeral Of A Germanic Chieftain Of The Rus Compared With Sati
Recently, we were asked to weigh in upon an interesting point of comparanda - namely, whether the immolation of a Germanic chieftain of the Rus constituted a parallel with the much-hyped (and rather correctly criticized) custom of 'Sati'. As it may prove of a more general interest, here we present a slightly edited rendition of … Continue reading On The Funeral Of A Germanic Chieftain Of The Rus Compared With Sati
On Ritual Substitution And Traditional Offerings [Part One: Understandings In Essence]
Wherever we encounter people looking to engage with Indo-European religions - seemingly, no matter whether it's 'revivalist', or the still-living since ancient times sort … there's fairly inevitably some kind of brew-up claiming that something somebody's doing is somehow 'inauthentic' - often accompanied by demands that everybody "RETURN TO TRADITION" … … with the "TRADITION" in question … Continue reading On Ritual Substitution And Traditional Offerings [Part One: Understandings In Essence]
On ‘Mleccha’ – A Reply To A Query
Every so often, somebody writes in via our website's contact function with a question. Often, these are theological. Sometimes, they are personal. This one, I suppose, was both. As the concept in question is likely to be of some interest to a fair few of our readers, I present both question and answer (slightly edited for … Continue reading On ‘Mleccha’ – A Reply To A Query
The Eddic Mead of Poetry & Vedic ‘Fire Bird’ Agnicayana Soma Rite
Now, to explain what's going on here … This is one of those Vedic - Eddic strong concordancies. Concerning the Mead of Poetry, and Soma: what Griffith translated in RV I 14 as 'Meath' (the actual word he'd rendered thus appears to be Sanskrit 'Madhu' - Sweet - being used as a noun. Which is … Continue reading The Eddic Mead of Poetry & Vedic ‘Fire Bird’ Agnicayana Soma Rite