Pagan Gods - Tumblr Posts
Enjoying the view.
This is Llyn Fach (in English, Small Lake), in Rhigos, South Wales. It's a very interesting place.
It's a glacial lake, meaning it was left here by the glaciers that carved these Valleys out of the mountain during the Ice Age.
It used to be much smaller, but was deepened between 1909 and 1913 so it could be used as a reservoir. During this time workmen discovered the Llyn Fach Hoard.
A treasure trove of celtic bronze, most notably a cauldron, as well as several chisels, sickles and axes were discovered. Also an iron sword and spear heads. This means that this site was active during the cross over from Bronze Age to Iron Age for votive offers.
I don't know who the god, goddess or spirit the offerings were left for, but this is a holy place.
Reservoir Dogs
The Immortals of Follyfoot Travelling Circus
I use AI because I can't draw.
Immortals:
According to mythology there was a period known as the golden age when numerous gods walked the earth alongside humans. However, this golden age came to an end, giving way to a dark age marked by the disappearance of the gods.
The reason behind the gods' absence remains a mystery and is the subject of ongoing debate. Despite their disappearance, people believe that the gods still exert influence over our world through two main channels: their Spirit Animals and Immortals.
Spirit Animals can be seen as manifestations or representatives of the gods. Each god has a corresponding Spirit Animal, which acts as a symbolic or spiritual connection between the mortal realm and the divine realm. These Spirit Animals are believed to possess some of the powers and characteristics associated with their respective gods.
On the other hand, Immortals are individuals who are born as regular humans but are considered avatars or embodiments of ancient gods. They are said to carry a unique connection to a specific god, usually indicated by their abilities, which align with the domain or sphere of influence of their corresponding god. While the Immortals are immortal, meaning they do not age or die from natural causes, they are not indestructible and can still be harmed or killed.
The number of Immortals, and how many are yet to be born, is uncertain. The Immortals are seen as both conduits for the power and essence of their gods and as protectors or intermediaries between the mortal realm and the divine realm.
Follyfoot Travelling Circus:
In this word a "Follyfoot" is an archaic word for a roaming performer, this circus uses it as the title of their troupe, but amongst themselves, The Muses, for they use the circus as a cover for their true identities as Immortals. They are all hundreds of years old, incredibly talented and prefer anonymity.
Darellion is the actor of the group, he is the avatar of the God of Storytelling, Poetry and History. He is accompanied by a monkey who collects coins from the crowds and even joins in on comedy performances.
Genesia is the musician, the avatar of the Goddess of Music and Song. She has a blue songbird.
Ori is the fortune teller, avatar of the God of Prophecy who is aided by his magpie.
Yon the Rednose is the jester, avatar of the trickster God of Mischief. His animal companion is a fox. Though he is the oldest of the troupe by centuries he is also the least loyal, leaving for great lengths of time to live as one of his many other personas, his favourites being Ridwyn Sinn, a homeless alcoholic, and Reynard, a highwayman who dons a fox mask.
I wrote a poem. I don't write poetry so it isn't good. It's about the Autumn Equinox.
Happy Autumn Equinox, Blessed Be.
To my Life,
Do you hear the hunters howling?
Clad in the skins they ripped in my name?
Do not blame me.
I gave them the furs, but you gave them the cold.
I gave them the flame, but you gave them the fear.
I am the hunt, but you are the hunger!
They love me not and sing your praises,
But I put the spear where you gave no claws,
I put the arrow where you gave no speed,
And I offered an axe where you denied shelter.
An axe is an axe, an invitation only. Fell the tree or the elements fell you...
they love me not and sing your praises but all ends lead to me.
Yours, Death x
Cernunnos and Nodens
The duality of man
Two ancient Celtic gods who, thanks to the aural tradition of the Druids and the stabbing tradition of the Romans, we know very little about. But I've been thinking about what we do know about them and I have some speculation that has zero evidence but I'd like to share anyway.
To me they seem to be gods of different aspects of the same things. To quote Terry Pratchett, to be human is "To be the place where the Fallen Angel meets the Rising Ape," we aren't quite animals but nor are we divine. We have one foot in each camp.
Cernunnos represents our beastial side while Nodens represents our civilised side. Here's my reasoning:
Cernunnos is god of wildlife. Nodens is the god of dogs, our first domesticated animal.
Cernunnos is a god of fertility, or at least male virility. Nodens is a god of healing. One is the base lust that creates new life, the other is practiced learning that preserves existing life.
Nodens is a hunting/fishing god, as in the practical activities we do to sustain ourselves. Cernunnos is god of THE HUNT, as in the actual bloody thrill of the chase.
Another way to look at this last one would be; Cernunnos is a hunting god whereas Nodens is a war god. The two forms of violence man partakes in, one is arguably natural while the other man made. However, I feel the need to point out that Nodens isn't exactly a war god, he's a healer god, but the Roman soldiers in Britain associated him with Mars, a war god who from the perspective of a soldier had healer aspects.
A start of shift prayer:
Gorfannon the Smith, guide my hand.
Amaethon of the Plough, give strength to my back.
Let me lose myself in my labours and find peace in my toil,
May my efforts be fruitful and my respite well earned.
The King of Annwn
Brythonic Paganism Essays: Part I
The Usual Disclaimer: The tales of The Mabinogion and other surviving Welsh texts were once shared orally, passed down across generations, and over vast distances. By the time these stories were finally committed to writing, the Welsh had long embraced Christianity. As a result, what remains in these medieval manuscripts offers only a faint echo of the ancient beliefs held by the Brythonic or Romano-British peoples. Yet, by examining these stories in relation to one another, and drawing parallels with other Celtic or even Indo-European traditions, we may catch glimpses of the older beliefs that inspired them. What follows is simply theory, built upon these comparisons.
There are many contenders for the title of King or Lord of Annwn, the Otherworld in Welsh mythology. So many, in fact, that most Brythonic polytheists I’ve spoken to tend to agree that Annwn, like the mortal world, has multiple rulers. However, I believe these deities share too many similarities to be entirely distinct. Rather, I see them as different aspects or variations of a much older, singular god. Before delving into the gods themselves, let’s examine the key motifs:
The God-King is often depicted as a hunter, accompanied by the Cŵn Annwn—the hounds of Annwn—described as pure white with red ears.
He is locked in an eternal, seasonal conflict, where he can be seen as representing winter, battling against an opponent who embodies summer.
This struggle often revolves around a goddess who symbolizes spring, the earth, or fertility. This mythic framework is incredibly ancient, with perhaps the most well-known version being the story of Persephone in Greek mythology.
The conflict often involves a journey to the Underworld and escalates to such intensity that a mortal king must intervene.
The god is also often depicted as a psychopomp—an entity that guides the souls of the dead to their final destination, much like the Grim Reaper. However, it’s important to note that Annwn wasn’t necessarily viewed as an “afterlife” by its original believers. Instead, it was more of a mystical realm, later misunderstood and conflated with Hell or Hades through the lens of Christian propaganda.
Arawn
Pwyll, King of Dyfed, embarks on a hunt and encounters a pack of white, red-eared dogs bringing down a deer. He claims the kill for himself, only to be confronted by Arawn, the true owner of the hounds, who is also hunting. To make amends for his transgression, Pwyll agrees to a request from Arawn: they will swap appearances and live as each other for one year. Arawn explains that he goes to war every year with Hafgan—a name meaning something like "summer song" or "summer white"—for rulership of Annwn. Despite defeating Hafgan in combat each time, Arawn always loses in the end. As Hafgan lays dying, he taunts Arawn to strike again, and Arawn, unable to resist, delivers the fatal blow—only for Hafgan to be magically revived.
Pwyll agrees to the plan and spends a year living in Annwn disguised as Arawn. Though he shares a bed with Arawn’s Wife every night, Pwyll honors the situation and never takes advantage of it. When the time comes to face Hafgan in battle, Pwyll defeats him but refuses to strike the final blow. With Hafgan dead, his followers recognize Arawn as the true King of Annwn.
Here, we see the recurring motifs of the hunt, the yearly conflict with summer, and the intervention of a mortal king. In this version of the myth, it is the King who travels to the Otherworld, not the goddess who is absent. While the myth lacks a love triangle with a goddess, Arawn’s unnamed Wife does play a role, with her honor preserved, this was included in the story for a reason. The psychopomp element isn’t explicitly referenced in this story, but other familiar themes remain.
Gwyn ap Nudd
Culhwch desires to marry Olwen, the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden. However, Ysbaddaden knows that he is doomed to die once his daughter marries, so he sets Culhwch forty impossible tasks. One of these is to slay the monstrous boar Twrch Trwyth, a cursed Irish king who now roams Britain as a destructive beast. Culhwch seeks help from his famous cousin, King Arthur, who agrees but warns that to hunt this particular monster, they will need the aid of Gwyn ap Nudd.
Gwyn ap Nudd - whose name means "White Son of Mist" - is somewhat preoccupied at the time, having just abducted the lady Creiddylad from her betrothed, Gwythyr ap Greidawl, whose name means "Victory Son of Scorcher." The ensuing conflict between Gwyn and Gwythyr grows vicious. In one particularly brutal act, Gwyn kills a captured knight, cuts out his heart, and forces the knight's son to eat it, driving him mad. King Arthur intervenes and orders the two rivals to cease their war. From that moment on, they are condemned to battle each other once a year, on May Day, until the end of the world.
Gwyn also appears in the poem The Dialogue of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir in the Black Book of Carmarthen. It can be interpreted from this poem that Gwyddno, unaware that he has been slain in battle, meets a warrior (Gwyn) and asks for his protection. During the course of their conversation Gwyddno learns that the warrior has witnessed many battles and the deaths of many of Britain's heroes, and Gwyddno realises he is now one of those dead heroes as he is speaking to Gwyn ap Nudd.
Later traditions place Gwyn at the head of the Wild Hunt as the King of the Tylwyth Teg, the fair folk, the inhabitants of Annwn, where he rides his host on the night between October 31st/November 1st looking for the souls of the dead. He hunts with the Cwn Annwn, the same pack of dogs Arawn had.
Let's go through all this. We have two examples of a Hunt motif, the Hunting of Twrch Trwyth, and The Wild Hunt. Both can be seen as metaphors for Gwyn's role as a psychopomp, The Wild Hunt is explicitly about the souls of the dead being taken to the Otherworld, and Twrch Trwyth is no ordinary boar, he is a human soul transformed into a monster, and Arthur believes that only with Gwyn with them could they succeed.
We also have a war with summer over a girl. Creiddylad is of uncertain meaning, it could mean "heart-flood", "blood-flood" which is unclear to me, but Gwythyr being "son of Scorcher" seems to be a clear reference to summer, their battle is to commence on May Day, the start of summer, every year, forever. It's also worth noting that the Wild Hunt the night before November 1st is the start of winter. This was of course decided by the (not so mortal) legendary King Arthur.
A note on Gwyn's family: Nudd (pronounced Neathe like breathe) is a god who's name means mist. Getting lost in mist is a sure fire way of getting to Annwn, like a portal, and the Tylwyth Teg, or fair folk of whom Gwyn is king, are said to waylay travelers with mist and fog. Nudd comes from the older Celtic word Nodens, a god associated with healing, specifically but not limited to eyes, as well as dream interpretation. So here we see a god who is responsible for clearing or obscuring vision, both physically and mentally, like mist. Nodens is also closely linked to dogs, hunting and fishing. Lludd is another version of this name, and Lludd is given to be Creiddydlad's father, making her Gwyn's sisters as well as lover, but we don't know for sure if the medieval writers saw Lludd and Nudd as literally the same person, so it's really a matter of opinion.
Gronw Pebr
Gwydion, a magician, trickster, bard and potentially tree deity (more on this in a future essay), has gone to great trouble to bring about the birth of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Lleu of Many Skills. This includes him stealing divine pigs from Annwn, given to Pryderi ap Pwyll by Arawn and magically impregnating his own sister. As a result Lleu's mother, Arianrhod, has laid three tynghedau on him, which is like a curse or a fate.
One tynged is that Lleu could not marry any woman of any race in this world. So Gwydion, along with his magically talented uncle King Math, created a wife for Lleu out of flowers and named her Blodeuwedd, meaning flower-face. Blodeuwedd and Lleu are happily married until one day, when Lleu is away from home, a hunter arrives.
His name is Gronw Pebr, Gronw the Radiant, and he requests shelter. Blodeuwedd, having never seen another man in her life other than her husband and her creators, falls in love with him. Gronw explains that in order for them to be together, Lleu must die. So Blodeuwedd discovers from her trusting husband the very specific and convoluted means that Lleu could be killed, which involves a spear that takes a year of Sundays to create. She tells Gronw about this, who goes about creating the spear.
When the time comes, Blodeuwedd tricks Lleu into the exact situation in which he can be killed, and Gronw strikes him with the spear. Lleu is "killed" but his body transforms into an eagle that continually rots, and flies away. Using pigs to sniff him out, Gwydion finds the decaying eagle perched in an oak tree, and with his gift of awen (divine talent and knowledge) sings Lleu back to life.
Lleu, Gwydion and Math return for vengeance, and this time it is Lleu who slays Gronw with a spear thrust that pierces the solid stone Gronw used as a shield. Blodeuwedd and her maidens flee, but as they keep looking behind them the maidens fall into a lake and drown and Blodeuwedd is transformed by Gwydion into an owl as punishment, a goddess of flowers cursed to never see the sun again.
This story is a lot more from the point of view of our summer representative Lleu, who's fleshed out far more as a god in his own right in the full telling of it. Lleu specifically is the god of light, as well as being "many skilled" and sharing many characteristics of the "divine son" god that will be explored in the next essay.
Gronw, by contrast, has nothing that indicates winter other than he opposes Lleu and his opposition takes a year of work. He also enters our story as a hunter. The circularity of this conflict is reinforced in the resurrection of Lleu, as winter defeats summer just for summer to return and defeat winter and so on. I am reminded by this resurrection by Gwydion of Hafgan's final strike, which revives him.
Blodeuwedd also gets far more attention in this story than the women in the other tales. A being who is a literal embodiment of spring, fertility and the earth, being made from flowers. It is likely that the owl transformation is a medieval invention. There are other animal transformations in this branch of the Mabinogion that I didn't mention here as they weren't relevant, which also seems to be an addition based on a trendyness of people who shapeshift in medieval literature. However, we also have the maidens falling into the lake, which I imagine is a remnant of the original, in which Blodeuwedd falls in, as the maidens are not really mentioned before so this is an odd detail. Lakes were seen as gateways to Annwn, so here we see Blodeuwedd fleeing to her Otherworldly lover. I personally take the owl to represent Blodeuwedd during the dark half of the year, when she is with her winter lover, awaiting to emerge from the earth in spring.
We have no psychopomping either, but we do have two references to swine herding which seems reminiscent of Culhwch and Olwen. King Math is certainly no mortal, but he seems to be a god involved with magic, judgement and punishment.
A note on Lleu's family: just as Gwyn and Creiddydlad are potentially siblings, so too are Lleu's parents Gwydion and Arianrhod. The story doesn't come straight out and say it, creating the characters of Gilfeathwy and Goewin as stand-ins, probably for the sake of Christian sensibilities. These two are never mentioned again or anywhere else as far as I know, and it is Arianrhod who is pregnant as a result of the whole thing, not Goewin. Some versions even have Arianrhod in Goewin's place as foot holder to Math. Lleu appears as Llefelys in another story, who is brother of Lludd (Nudd). This would make Creiddydlad, the Blodeuwedd-like lady of Gwyn's story, his niece, as well as Gwyn maybe his nephew.
This really nails home how these tales became so mixed up in their countless retellings over space and time before being written down. They spread out and became something unique then smashed back together time and again, but somewhere in there is the important truth. It can be confusing and frustrating, but bare in mind always:
The Gods are not their myths,
Embrace the mystery!
MCU Fic Prompt
Thor learns that Natasha once wrote an official report saying that Tony was narcissistic. He mistakenly believes this was an official decree that Tony is Narcissus, a demi-god. Of course, Thor has been trained in proper court etiquette and he can use it when he needs to, and a fellow deity, half-god or not, should be shown the proper respect.
Horned God 🫎
Maybe I’m just a little jaded, but I do find it a little frustrating that you have to basically be an archeologist to dig past all of the Christian God stuff to get to anything resembling a pagan God symbol. Even then, to find a “general” god symbol is harder than you’d think considering the patriarchal world we live in. But maybe that just says something about paganism, that they don’t place the “male” on such a much higher pedestal. Really the only symbol that I could find enough information on was the Horned God symbol.
The Horned God symbol is a circle topped by a curve. Some would call it a crescent moon sort of sideways, which ties into its relation to the triple moon goddess symbol, as a male counterpart. However, most people would refer to the curve atop the circle as the horns, hence the “Horned God” moniker. I always assumed that it was a representation of the one Celtic God, Cernunnos, or maybe even of the Green Man from the Old English traditions. I was really pleasantly surprised to find that it actually represented more than that. In fact, it dates back to 13,000 BC, to a cave painting in France of all places. In the cave called the Three Brothers (Trois-Freres), the circle with horns symbol is drawn on the wall, and there, it’s called The Sorcerer. It’s also a symbol for Osiris, Caerwiden, Herne the Hunter, Pashaputi, Pan and the satyrs, Puck, and Robin Goodfellow. Clearly, I was just ill-informed, and it’s more than just a Celtic, or Green Man symbol.
However, I suppose the argument could be made that it’s a symbol for a certain TYPE of God, if not all gods. At its most basic, it represents the male aspect of nature; virility and power. It’s a hunter type of energy, a god of wild animals. There’s something to be said about the association between strong hunters and the strength of seed to impregnate and further the population. It’s protection, and the giving and taking of life. The horns on top of the circle evokes the image of a great stag, king of the forest, and an equal balance to the feminine energy.
God of Thunder🌩️
If I were a jewelry maker, and my specialty was jewelry made of God symbols, anything from the Norse pantheon would probably be my favorite thing to make. When it comes to symbols, their specific ornamentation style would be the easiest to do I would suspect. Yeah, there may be a bit of intricate knotwork, but with most of it being straight lines and hard corners, the designs really lend themselves to line art. The point is, it makes drawing symbols really easy and clean.
In Norse culture, the most popular, and arguably the most powerful, symbol would be Mjolnir. Mjolnir is the hammer, and primary weapon, of Thor, the god of thunder. Everyone knows Thor. Maybe you’re really into paganism, or maybe you’re a comic fan, or maybe you’ve just been alive for the last ten years, but everyone has heard of Thor. His symbol is just the drawn version of Mjolnir, which sort of looks like a cross or an anchor depending on which way is up. It is nearly indistinguishable from the God himself, as he is thunder, and lightning is created when he hits his hammer against something. In most instances, the image of Mjolnir is engraved with a triquetra, which is three vesica piscis overlapping each other. This represents three of the nine realms (Asgard, Midgard, and Utgard) which are guarded by Thor.
With Thor being essentially the main god that the Norse people worshipped, he covered a lot of ground. He was the god of the storm, but also protection from that storm, so Mjolnir was used as an amulet or necklace as protection from negativity or danger. Thor was also the agriculture god, and subsequently, a bit of a fertility god. Mjolnir amulets were used to bless births and funerals, but mostly weddings because it was a symbol of strength for the couple and a blessing of many children. Generally speaking, it’s a real shame that it’s being co-opted by NeoNazis.