Roots of Proto-Celtic/Germanic Mythos, folk faith in prehistoric Swabia? (Part 2)

by Sean Jobst
24 February 2020

Continuing on from Part 1, there are more archaeological findings from Swabia that illuminate our understanding of prehistoric folk faith while also telling us about ourselves. Found at Hohlenstein-Stadel ("hollow-rock barn") in the Lonetal region in 1939, its dating to between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago makes it both the oldest zoomorphic and figurative art ever found. It was not until 1969 that the 200 fragmented pieces were assembled together again into the 12.2 inch/31cm tall male figure with a lion's head.(1) As with the others, the Löwenmensch was carved from mammoth ivory. That many spears found within Paleolithic burials were also made from mammoth ivory despite its fragility, demonstrates an early "autonoetic" purpose for another existence after death symbolized by the material itself.(2)

The Löwenmensch's human features are evident in his upright posture and sloping shoulders, while the head, shorter arm, decorative spots and vertical scratch indicate a lion. The figure was carved primarily with a flint stone knife, with seven parallel and transverse gouges intricately carved on its left arm. Other tools were needed to separate the torso from the insides of the arms and to shape the distinctive head and shoulders. The basic shaping would have taken at least 200 hours which, except if created slowly at intervals, meant the one who carved it would have been excused from other tasks.(3) This indicates the importance of the figurine. The process itself is a spiritual cycle: a human manifesting through the creative work of both mind and hands a representation of vital natural forces using an animal material.

This was a crucial moment in the development of modern cognition, not just accessing their own human mind but also "thinking" as the animal through analogy: "It is not the image, per se, but the abstract concept behind it that argues for modern executive function and working memory. A single figurine of a lion, or a human, would not carry such weight."(4) Nicholas Conard, the Tubingen University archaeologist who led the team that excavated the Hohle Fels, has suggested that the Löwenmensch "should be considered strong evidence for fully symbolic communication."(5) Miami University anthropologist Homayun Sidky proposes:

"Shamanic thought is founded upon the type of cognitive capacity demonstrated by the artist who produced the lion-man figurine. This involved cross-modular thinking by accessing and applying information from different cognitive modules, for example, applying social intelligence upon natural history intelligence (i.e., the basis of attributing agency to non-human phenomena) and combining it in novel ways to conceive of the idea of animal-human transformation. This is the same kind of cognition that generates the notions of a sentient universe and the existence of nature or elemental spirits and all the related features of the shamanic cosmos."(6)

Archetypes from the Caves and Forests: As Above, So Below - As Within, So Without

The culture that created the figure was the Aurignacian, which spanned across most of continental Europe between 26,000 and 43,000 years ago. This explains the remarkable similarities with Aurignacian-era cave paintings from the Aquitaine region of southwest France, including the "Sorcerer" from Trois Frères and the "Bison-man" from the Grotte de Gabillou.(7) "Caves are entrances to the otherworld and regarded as the womb of the Earth Goddess, the mother of the animals. Here, deep in the earth, in her belly, animal souls mature until the goddess releases them into the external world. The shamans, the mediators between the worlds, enter these dark depths to negotiate with the goddess."(8)

Indeed, the Löwenmensch was found inside a chamber 30 meters beyond the cave entrance, along with several other objects, including pendants, ivory pearls, perforated animal teeth, and tools made from mammoth bones. Also found were a large number of thin pieces of reindeer antlers from female reindeer that threw off their antlers in the spring and several of which contained small cut marks. This led archaeologists to propose the chamber was used for cultic purposes, around which the Löwenmensch was the center piece.(9) The antlers suggest a symbolic use, especially since many chambers were used to channel sunlight. "For the ancient Europeans, the stag was a symbol of the sun spirit visiting Earth and the forests; its antlers are golden, and it possesses the gold of wisdom. If it touches a spring with its antler, then the spring becomes a healing one."(10)

Is it any coincidence that the various coats of arms for Schwaben and Württemberg have always included stag antler motifs? I suggest prehistoric roots for the stag archetype which became a common motif throughout Germanic and Celtic folk-faith. Such animals embodied the "soul" of the forest in Animistic fashion and the Druid ("oak-true") was expected to live "like the deer" within the forest for at least 20 years to learn its secrets.(11) Also related to "elk", the Algiz Rune epitomizes heightened awareness - much like an elk or stag having to stay alert within the forest - beyond our perceptions of only our physical world. Within our continental cosmology, this realm is Mittilgart -> Proto-Germanic *midjagardaz "middle yard" -> Proto-Indo-European *medyosgordos "middle enclosure". Scholars have linked this cosmology to a time when Paleolithic hunters and gatherers continued to see the forests as an extension of their "home", before the Neolithic farmers began the distinction.(12)

Algiz Rune

Antlers were still paired with war-armor in Swabia even in
the medieval era. (Picture taken from my visit to the
Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, 8 July 2016)

Important Concepts for Understanding our Spiritual Reality

Löwenmensch speaks much to us about our own psychology vis a vis our ancient ancestors. While we are accustomed to think within corporate "logos"(13) and other sophisticated sigils, this was different for the next two human stages after the Paleolithic. Like the Paleolithic, the Mesolithic tended to use images of animals, people and places within caves such as the Aurignacian sites. For the Neolithic, the same levels of information were conveyed into lines, circles and other shapes, often as if "charged" in alignment with astronomical and seasonal events. The underlying "sophistication" of modern logos and concepts was already apparent but able to be conveyed more simply.(14)

It could also be that later names were given for realities so apparent and second-nature our earlier ancestors needed none. Nevertheless, these concepts help us to understand our natural way of being. The Germanic reality of Megin came from the Proto-Germanic *magina "might, power", representing a supernatural exchange of energy. I would suggest such Paleolithic use of the bones to create a symbolic object through the exchange of energies I described earlier, was later encoded in the story of the god Donar - who best represents Megin and indeed what we now term electromagnetism and boundaries - reanimating a goat from its bones.(15) Literally a story about Donar's own divine abilities, on a deeper level it conveys many other allegories.

"Donar-Thor" (1906), by the Prussian
artist Max Friedrich Koch

These are similarly encoded within Wodan's ordeal on the World Tree for nine days and nights that obtained the Runes - although more deeply it represented a metaphoric "killing himself to himself" to seek true self-knowledge. Similarly, Germanic priests "experienced their initiation by hanging upside down from the branch of an ash tree for three whole days, without eating or drinking. The shamans undertook this ordeal to loosen the soul from the body, allowing it to fly into transcendental worlds." The same underlying idea behind the "witch" entering the body of her animal "familiar."(16) What the Norse knew as Fylgja, was the Alemannic Folge -> Old High German Folgen "to follow" -> Proto-Germanic *Fulgijana. All refer to the family guardian spirit often appearing in animal form, harkening back to these ancient understandings of soul and body.

Shamanic Wolf-Warriors of Alemannia

Much like their common ancestors who created such objects as the Löwenmensch, Celtic and Germanic tribes had warrior brotherhoods centered around wearing of certain animal skins. This conveyed the shamanic understanding that combining the bodies of two entities creates a new spiritual entity combining the powers of both. Alongside other scholars, the Austrian Germanist Otto Höfler argued for the continuity of ancient Germanic traditions in modern folklore. One of his contributions is identifying the Wild Hunt with ancient cult processions where people dressed as various deities or wild animals and experienced moments of ecstasy.(17) Within Swabian regions, this manifests even today in the Perchtenlauf traditions around Jul season.

Representation of the Gutenstein Scabbard, taken from my visit
to the Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, 8 July 2016....
The original Scabbard was looted by the Soviets from Berlin
and displayed in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow. 

One way this survived among the medieval Alemanni was the wolf-warrior (equivalent to the Norse úlfhéðinn "wolfskin warrior"), as appeared on the 7th-century Gutenstein Scabbard. It was found inside a grave during construction work at the St. Gallus Church(18) in Gutenstein, near Sigmaringen. It shows a warrior wearing a wolf skin, holding a large sword and spear. His Vendel-style helmet reveals trade links between the Alemanni and the Norse in Sweden. As with the closely-related Bavarians, wolf-based names were common among the Alemanni and these warriors dedicated themselves to the ecstasy god Wodan; indeed "Gutenstein" meaning "Wodanstone" following the "g" -> "w" words that were often used interchangeably for Wodan as I discussed in Part 1. As the German military historian Michael P. Speidel writes:

"A clue to the meaning of the Gutenstein scenes is the right-facing wolf-warrior who bows his head, drops his spear, and (with outsize thumb) offers his sword to Woden. The god, if one may judge from the way he holds the spear, dances the war dance, spurring on the warrior....It is nevertheless unlikely that the Gutenstein wolf-warrior following Woden and offering his sword is a fallen warrior who joins the god of death, for it seems untoward for a leader to advertise on his helmet that death is in store for his men. Self-dedication to Woden by no means meant imminent death....However they moved, one may say, with Mircea Eliade, that 'he who...could rightly imitate the behavior of animals - their gait, breathing, cries, and so on - found a new dimension of life: spontaneity, freedom, 'sympathy' with all the cosmic rhythms...ecstasy could...well be obtained by choreographic imitation of an animal.' This may be one roof of the wolf war dance, the other being representation of wolf-warrior ancestors. From such twin ecstasy it is but a small step to mad attacks."(19)

Whether lupine (wolf-like), or ursine (bear-like) such as Berserkers, elite warriors donned its skins in battle to symbolize merging its power with his own. Both Germanic and Celtic lore invested the bear with deeper solar connotations based around hibernation, which was allegorized as "rebirth". Italian philosopher Julius Evola saw these allegories encoded within the "King Arthur" legends (his name likewise related to "arctic"), which had their root in native Celtic and Germanic myths long preceding Christianity.(20) Germanic warriors wearing animal skins such as the bear, carried on the "ecstasy" personified by Wodan but also the related Germanic concepts of inherited "luck" and the "guardian spirit" which was often a totem animal.(21) Their "ecstasy" represented a shamanic journey beyond confines of place, just as the survivals of our most ancient folk-faith have transcended notions of linear time.

Illustration of Iron Age Alemanni warrior
by Frithjof Spangenberg, based on
archaeological reconstructions

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Claus-Joachim Kind, "Das Lonetal - eine altsteinzeitliche Fundlandschaft von Weltrang," Archäologie in Deutschland, Dec. 2016, pp. 22-25; and Jarrett A. Lobell, "New life for the Lion Man," Archaeology, vol. 65, no. 2, March/April 2012.

(2) H. Sidky. The Origins of Shamanism, Spirit Beliefs, and Religiosity: A Cognitive Anthropological Perspective. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017, pp. 115-116.

(3) Jill Cook. Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind. London: British Museum Press, 2013.

(4) Frederick L. Coolidge and Thomas Wynn. The Rise of Homo Sapiens: The Evolution of Modern Thinking. Oxford/West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, p. 232.

(5) ibid., 2018 edition, p. 250.

(6) Sidky, op. cit., p. 115.

(7) Claus-Joachim Kind, Nicole Ebinger-Rist, Sibylle Wolf, Thomas Beutelspacher, and Kurt Wehrberger, "The Smile of the Lion Man. Recent Excavations in Stadel Cave (Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany) and the Restoration of the Famous Upper Palaeolithic Figurine," Quartar, Vol. 61, January 2014, pp. 129-145.

(8) Wolf D. Storl. The Untold History of Healing: Plant Lore and Medicinal Magic From the Stone Age to Present. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2017, p. 93.

(9) "Depot – Versteck – Kultplatz?," Museum Ulm.

(10) Storl, op. cit., p. 105.

(11) ibid., p. 15.

(12) ibid., pp. 102-103; and Philippe Descola. Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014, p. 59.

(13) I wonder about a link between this term for corporate symbols and Christian theologians' "logos" concept (and Islamic equivalent "aql") they co-opted from a Greek philosophy that was becoming more henotheistic and abstract as per the Axial Age, i.e. further removed from original Hellenic faith. In their own respective ways, Abrahamism and the modern Corporate or Statist use of viscerally-charged sigils rest upon the same abstract separation of humans from natural cycles. Disorder and confusion masquerading as "order" and "reason". As for the changes that occurred with the Axial Age, I highly recommend the work of Carolyn Emerick.

(14) Thomas Sheridan. The Druid Code: Magic, Megaliths and Mythology, Second Edition. Street Druid, 2017, pp. 30-31.

(15) Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Vol. 3, trans. James Steven Stallybass, 1883; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 995.

(16) Storl, op. cit., pp. 16, 258.

(17) Otto Höfler. Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen. Frankfurt: Moritz Diesterweg, 1934, p. 101; and cited in Claude Lecouteux. Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2011.

(18) As with many other churches throughout Europe, this one too was apparently built over a Pagan site, in this case perhaps dedicated to venerating the warrior ancestor in whose grave the sword scabbard was found. Similar reconstruction work uncovered 1st century CE Gaullic and Roman altars underneath Notre Dame in 1711. And just this month (February 2020), workers in Rome discovered a sixth century BCE tomb and temple attributed to the legendary Romulus.

(19) Michael P. Speidel. Ancient Germanic Warriors: Warrior styles from Trajan's Column to Icelandic sagas. London/New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. vii-ix.

(20) Julius Evola. The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1997.

(21) Rudolf Simek. Dictionary of Northern Mythology, trans. Angela Hall. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2007, p. 129.

Roots of Proto-Celtic/Germanic mythos, folk faith in prehistoric Swabia? (Part 1)

by Sean Jobst
10 February 2020

Several archaeological findings throughout Swabia (Schwaben) illuminate our understanding of how the traditions and worldview of the tribes later known as Germanic and Celtic peoples first developed. Its my contention that there has been a distinct continuity within the region, so that the people known as the Swabians, Bavarians, Swiss and Austrians are descended not only from the Germanic tribes that migrated down into the Alpine regions, but also from the previous Danubian Celts of the Hallstatt culture.

Other Celtic cultures simultaneously arose in Gaul and Celtiberia, from whence they spread into Britannia and Ireland - where the same intermarriage with the previous prehistoric peoples (not as "backward" as establishment historiography assumes) and the great megalith builders occurred as on the Continent. So its not that Hallstatt culture gave rise to all the Celtic peoples, but specifically those within the Alpine regions with such great sites as Heuneburg.

Continuous history shows that we are indigenous to our region, with later additions of Celtic and Germanic blood shaping our current identity(1) - they came not as invading horsemen, but as settlers who harmonized their traditions with those of the pre-Celtic peoples in what can be identified as our specific expression of Paganism. In turn, this Paganism can be recovered not only in archaeological findings but also in folklore which survived however in thinly-veiled Christianized form(2).

35,000-40,000 year old Vogelherdhöhle horse figure

What the oldest figurine art reveals

Dated to between 35,000-40,000 years ago, figures carved from mammoth bones uncovered at the site of Vogelherdhöhle represent the oldest figurine art found anywhere in the world to date! One of the figurines showed a horse, a motif that was to be found throughout all Indo-European traditions - but their discovery in pre-historic Swabia point to deeper roots than an ancestral Steppe memory. Its my contention the horse has deeper shamanic connotations beyond just a literal representation of a domesticated animal.

The god the Suebi-Alemanni knew as Wuodan(3) was seen throughout continental imagery riding a horse, which connect to his abilities to travel across worlds. Wuodan is a Wanderer steeped in esoteric connotations. His associations included the underworld and death; the "breath" of inspiration, whether it be the ecstatic fury of the warrior or the inspiration of the poet and writer; and with the wind itself(4). All these associations conjure up images of the esoteric - an unseen force present in all directions, just as his wandering extends across different worlds as truly a journey of self-discovery. He is more shadowy and mysterious than other gods such as Ziu the Sky Father, or Donar the Thunderer - but all aspects are within and without us, part of both ourselves and our landscape.

Based on the Merseburg Incantation, the painting
"Wodan Heals Balder's Horse" (1905) by the
Bavarian artist Emil Doepler

In ancient times the horse was a motif representing not just travel by land but also by sea and the sky - all conveying images of the three Shamanic realms: As Above, So Below(5). The Celtiberians linked the god Lugus with horses and the Earth Mother goddess(6), much like Wuodan in Germanic lore was associated with Mutter Erde. Inscriptions similarly connected Lugus with arable lands and soils fertilized by the rain - hence, the sky. However, the god Lugus seems most similar to in the Germanic pantheon is Ziu; although the rain fertilizing the soil would also be similar to Donar's interplay with Sibba(7).

Within the Greek Mythos, the god Poseidon was associated not only with the sea but also with horses and earthquakes. He was said to have first created the horse from a stone. The thundering hooves of a horse conveyed images of an earth shaking, just like the associations of Wuodan with "ecstasy" or "breath". Poseidon shapeshifting into a stallion to mount the agricultural goddess Demeter, is an allegory for fertilization of the soil - the same two-fold exchange of cosmic and earth energies.

These same energies in their various forms, were the interplay of Ziu, Wuodan and Donar within the Germanic pantheon with aspects of the Earth Goddess. (See my examination of the Suebi goddess Zisa). Poseidon was honored with horse sacrifices and chariot races, just as Indo-European cultures generally portrayed the Sun being pulled by a horse-drawn chariot across the sky, and the various traditions of the Wild Hunt. To the Irish, the god Mannanan mac Lir was associated with both the sea and horses....So in prehistoric symbolism, the horse could symbolize a shamanic journey across different realms so we can truly know ourselves - the different aspects of ourselves being a reflection of the interplay of land, sea and sky.

 

Mammoth figurine from Vogelherdhöhle

The "Venus of Hohlefels" as a Primordial Earth Mother Goddess

Another figurine found at Vogelherdhöhle represents a mammoth, illustrating not only the prehistory of these findings but likewise - as we will see especially in part 2 - significance that so many of these most ancient objects were carved from mammoth bones. Could it not be that this animal whose meat yielded food, whose fur was used to give both warmth and shelter, also represented the bounties of the Earth? Its my strong opinion that this approach gave rise also to what the great mythologist Joseph Campbell termed "Our Lady of the Mammoths", whom I understand as prototype of the Mother Goddess who our Celtic and Germanic ancestors alike saw as associated with the hunt, the forests and wilderness. 

Campbell based his terminology on findings in the Dnieper Valley of Ukraine, where mammoth skulls were found arranged around a female figurine: "Who, reading of the figure amid the mammoth skulls, does not think of Artemis as the lady of the wild things?"(8) To the ancient Greeks, "Artemis" was the goddess of the hunt - as with most other academics, Campbell used Greco-Roman terms but the same Archetype existed under different names among our Ancestors as well. The mammoth later gave rise to other animals such as the bear - indeed, the Hellenic Artemis' name is linked to arktos "bear" and later gave rise to "arctic" and associated with the "North Star"(9) - and the deer, which was specifically the animal associated with her Roman equivalent, Diana. More on the shamanism behind these animal representations when I discuss the "Löwenmensch" in Part 2.

40,000-year-old "Venus of Hohle Fels" found near Schelklingen  

Aside from Vogelherdhöhle, many paleolithic-era findings were also uncovered at Hohle Fels ("hollow rock"), whose very shape - when seen without the present coverage of tree growth - closely resembles the "mouth" of the mountain.(10) This astonishing fact relates to similacrum which exist within the psyche whilst manifesting throughout Nature, including spirals and various solar symbols. One of the findings at this important site near Schelklingen is the 35,000-40,000-year-old female figurine that has been dubbed "Venus of Hohle Fels". This creation of the Aurignacian culture that extended throughout Central and Southern Europe, predated the "Venus" figurines of the Gravettian culture - further extending back the prehistory of our region.

Much like later Celtic findings from Heuneburg and other Hallstatt sites, whose art was geometric, the "Venus" figurines were abstract, without concrete human features. Like the "Venus of Laussel" figure found in the Aquitaine region of southwest France, the Hohle Fels figure contains massive breasts and hips, but neither face nor feet. As a head or face is what gives individuation, the abstract headless figure with large breasts and hips personified the female principle of fertility - just as the two phalluses found at the same site corresponded to the male principle of fertility. Both the "Venus" and phalluses were carved from mammoth ivory, representing life cycles and the Earth's bounties born out of a symbolic interaction of the two principles.

Academics often have an obsession of giving Greco-Roman names (similar to the Mideastern obsession of their more religious counterparts) to other European cultures, but our Celtic and Germanic ancestors had their own names for the Mother Goddess than the Roman "Venus". Conveying the multiplicity of Nature, her various aspects are personified under different goddess names within our Swabian regions: Frau Holle, Perchta, or Zisa. Frau Holle/Holda/Perchta was associated with the "wind", underworld and hunting - thus her dual role to Wuodan, a "wind" god often linked alongside her to the Wild Hunt, and her regional names ("Gode/Wode") elsewhere linked her to his "wife" Frija.(11)




"Mistress of the Wild Hunt" (1860) by the
Prussian painter Ludwig Pietsch

Both hunting and wind motifs carry deeper shamanic allegories, perhaps why Frau Holle/Perchta was linked by medieval Christian authorities with the folk-healing women they persecuted as "witches". Generally the Christians linked her alongside her fellow huntress Diana as "queen of witchcraft". As documented by French medievalist Claude Lecouteux, traditions about the "Wild Hunt" show the remarkable survival of Paganism long after Europe's Christianization.(12) Holle seems to have her roots in the Neolithic era as theorized by Marija Gimbutas(13), lending credence to my hypothesis that this ancient "Lady of the Mammoth" whose personifications were found at such sites as Hohle Fels represents a prototypal Mother Goddess that later gave rise to Celtic and Germanic Goddesses.

A tantalizing link can possibly be seen in the word höhle "cave", which we could link with Holle, who within her aspect as the goddess Hel was specifically linked to the underworld - a realm not of "punishment" as per the Abrahamic religions, but of re-evaluation and reflection over future incarnations as life was always and everywhere before those religions conceived as an endless cycle. Holle's name also relates to "hole", symbolic of her coming from a "hole" from within the earth via burial mounds(14), to take deceased souls into the underworld. Yet she was also related like earth mothers(15) to the surface and some aspects of weather - a female counterpart to the god Wuodan who also linked the different shamanic realms:

"The character of Frau Holle is so interesting because she unites both a light and dark divine aspect. Observing the Greek or Egyptian pantheon gods of light and gods of darkness stick out, gods of the upperworld and underworld, Olympian and chthonic gods. Frau Holle unites both aspects; she lingers and acts as well in her underworld as in the light; not for nothing is she also named 'the White Woman'. She rewards and punishes the living but also wanders around with a host of dead. This makes Frau Holle a unique character. In the Germanic pantheon, the frontier between the world of the living and the dead is generally not as clear as in other pantheons. The realm of the goddess Hel (Helheim, which is even lower than the cold realm of Niflheim), where most of the dead linger, is in Germanic mythology an underworld, but Valhalla, a realm for the deceased (heroes) too, is located in an upper-world (Asgard). Thus is united in a personified form an important concept of Germanic religion in the divine character of Frau Holle."(16)



Such spiritual realities as Animism, Magic and Shamanism
were integral parts of our Ancestral faith. (Picture taken from my
visit to the Landesmuseum Württemburg, Stuttgart, 8 July 2016)

In her manifestations as Hel and Perchta, the goddess was portrayed as having two "faces" - one young and beautiful, while the other was old and "deformed". Related to Hel being the realm of self-reflection, this refers to you "choosing" your own experience - will you use your time wisely to grow, or willingly choose to remain within the lower self, the "punishment" is only of your own making while the way she appears to you is based on your own reflection. The Christianized portrayals of Perchta - despite her name relating to "bright" - as a "hag" nevertheless betray a deeper connection with protection as in the Hagalaz Rune. While Germanic warriors inscribed the Tiwaz Rune of the god Ziu upon their sword (Ziu's name among the Saxon tribe directly relates to "sword"), they often inscribed the Hagalaz Rune upon their protective shields.

A similar relation to the Runes is with *Berkanan, meaning "birch" and "rebirth". In the same way, Perchta could be associated with brooms which were often made from birch bark; its no accident that Holle/Perchta was associated with those female folk-healers labeled as "witches" whose own symbol became the broomstick. Her dual nature was similar to the Runes, with dual meanings based on whether upright or inverted. The same "cleansing" nature can be seen in the bells which her "perchten" wear to ward off negative spirits - the vibrations given off by those bells having shamanic allegories of warding off negative energy in the same way Hagalaz is protective. As she was found with a perforated protrusion, archaeologists have suggested the Hohle Fels figurine was worn as an amulet. The "motherly" energy is certainly one that is nurturing and protective, as encoded throughout the lore.

Hagalaz Rune

*Berkanan Rune

That Perchta emerged from an amalgamation of Germanic and Celtic traditions within the Alpine regions has already been accepted by academics(17), but her various qualities indicate a Shamanism which is the primordial origin of both Celtic and Germanic folk faith. As for the fertility aspect of the "Venus"' large breasts, this corresponds to the place-name Cisenberg near Augsburg related to the goddess Zisa, "mountain in the form of a breast (zitze)"(18). As consort of the sky father Ziu, the goddess Zisa naturally represents fertility and earth - while the consort of Wuodan in her various forms as Erde, Holle, Holda personifies other aspects.

The very fact that Neolithic cultures did not give the "Venus" figures a face illustrates the multiplicity inherent within Nature: its various aspects cannot be personified as only one deity. We are similarly multifaceted as individuals; our psyche has different aspects; and the deities on some level are Archetypal representations of our psyche while being Divine in their own right as much as there is a Divine Energy manifesting Nature and the Cosmos. Archaeological evidence, the prehistoric origins of fairy tales(19), and various folk traditions illustrate a remarkable antiquity to and survival of our most ancient ancestral faith which has adapted itself alongside our own growth.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Among good sources about the Celtic element in Swabian heritage are Dr. Wolf-Dieter Storl, the cultural anthropologist and ethno-botanist who was born in Saxony but has lived in Bavarian Swabia for quite some time and brilliantly highlights our ancestral shamanism; and the Ann Arbor, Michigan writer George Weiland, on the "Celtic German" website.

(2) Contrary to those who think we have to "reclaim" something which was "lost", our ancestral Pagan traditions - and this applies to other peoples - survived in a remarkable continuity, despite over a thousand of years of forced conversion. Especially we who descend from Catholic regions, the Church simply co-opted our traditions which can be decoded as remnants of our indigenous beliefs by understanding the inherent allegories and patterns beyond the outer "Christian" terms and concepts. We do not need later Scandinavian texts which were collected by monks who saturated them with Christianized concepts.

(3) The "d" was later rendered as "t" in Old High German, hence his later continental name of Wuotan ->Wotan.

(4) The Vedic god Vayu is also associated with the Wind and his name associated with "breath", so there may be a common Proto-Indo-European etymological root.

(5) As with other occult principles stemming from Natural Law, this "Law of Correspondence" is contained throughout our ancestral lore. It was instinctively understood by Pagans who saw all the realms as reflections of each other, governed by the same natural/cosmic laws. We will see it in Part 2 with "The Adorant" figure and Celtic-Germanic practices of "sun gazing".

(6) A simultaneous interest of mine is Celtiberian Paganism, as a homage to the Spanish aspect of my heritage. Expanding archaeological evidence and academic studies in Spanish universities has uncovered much about the traditions, spiritual practices and worldview of the Celtiberians. Future articles will highlight some of these aspects and hopefully fill in some of the void of this neglected subject.

(7) The "wife" of Donar, her name being the etymological root of modern German sippe "family; kin" illustrates the allegories of us being collectively "born" and nourished by the soil. As with Ziu, Wuodan and Donar, I use the name attested to in Continental sources and not the more-famous Scandinavian names, simply because my heritage is Continental not Norse - while we recognize that close parallels and common patterns exist.

(8) Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1960, p. 328.

(9) See Paul Shepard and Barry Sanders, The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth, and Literature, New York: Viking, 1985, pp. 112-118; and Christopher McIntosh, Beyond the North Wind: The Fall and Rise of the Mystic North, Newburyport, MA: Weiser Books, 2019, pp. 32-33.

(10) See the article at <http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/germanyhohlefels.htm> which links to several other informative articles.

(11) For an excellent and comprehensive discussion of the rich folklore concerning Frau Holle/Holda/Perchta, see: GardenStone, Goddess Holle: In search of a Germanic goddess, Norderstadt, Schleswig-Holstein: BoD - Books on Demand GmbH, 2011.

(12) See Claude Lecouteux, Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2011.

(13) See Marija Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

(14) As in other regions throughout the world, mounds are scattered throughout Schwaben. See my article from 15 October 2018, when I was still discovering only a fraction of what I now have come to know on my journey: <https://swabian-pride.blogspot.com/2018/10/cairns-megalithic-mounds-and-mithraeums.html>.

(15) Its not a stretch to suggest that Erde, the term for the personified Earth, could have related to an earlier word with a dropped "h" -> (h)erde, holle, holda....In similar linguistic transition as the "g" and "w" in medieval Old High German; or the Alemannic "c" and "z" transition I uncovered when researching about Zisa and Ziu.

(16) GardenStone, op. cit., p. 9.

(17) Erika Timm and Gustav Adolf Beckmann, Frau Holle, Frau Percht und verwandte Gestalten: 160 Jahre nach Jacob Grimm aus germanistischer Sicht betrachtet, Stuttgart: Hirzel S. Verlag, 2003.

(18) R. Kohl, "Die Augsburger Cisa - eine germanische Göttin?," Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Leipzig, Vol. 33, 1936, pp. 21-39.

(19) A 2016 joint study by two academics, a Durham anthropologist and Lisbon folklorist, established the prehistoric origins of Indo-European fairy tales: <https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.150645>. The story was even picked up by the mainstream media: <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35358487>.