by Sean Jobst
29 April 2026
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| The most well-known
image of Walburga was made by the Master of Meßkirch around 1535 nearly 800 years after her death |
Walpurgisnacht’s namesake was the Benedictine nun Walpurga, who proselytized to Germanic Heathens in northern Bavaria in the 8th century. Stories of her “miracles” were such that she was canonized a hundred years after her death. I intend to show that when we decode the secrets hidden in etymology and mythic symbolisms within her hagiography, and draw correspondences to known Heathen traditions – that Walpurga as the “saint” (not as the actual historical person), was a Christianized archetype created by the Church/State authorities to co-opt and ultimately replace veneration of various Germanic Goddesses; and to demonize liberatory magical practices (as opposed to their own dark bind-magic of archonic control).(1)
She was born in 710CE into an aristocratic Anglo-Saxon family of saints in Devonshire - her parents were Richard the Pilgrim and Wuna of Wessex, while her uncle was the infamous Boniface, who chopped down Donar's Oak of the Chatti in Hessen (who were descended from the Irminones just like the Suebi, Alamanni, and Bavarians). Boniface sent for his nephews, the saints Wunnibald and Willibald, and his niece Walburga to join him in efforts to convert Bayern, Schwaben, Franken, and Hessen in the 740s.(2) All of this “saintly” family actively burnt down sacred groves and carried out instructions of the Church (and the Levantine spirit possessing it) to build new Christian sites over the pre-existing sacred Heathen sites to harness their spiritual energy and thus facilitate conversion. She was made a nun in the Bavarian town of Heidenheim, whose monastery was founded by Willibald.
Using Heidenheim (“Heathen home”) as their base was meant to
symbolize “conquest” over the Heathen. Yet the very existence of Heidenheim and
similarly named towns throughout Bayern and Schwaben reveal lingering remnants
of Heathenry, for despite the oft-repeated claims of Christian apologists – who
repeat ad nauseum the “2,000 years” mantra or otherwise rewrite history to
assert our ancestors “eagerly” adopted the new religion convinced by its
“superior” arguments – South German regions still held on to our ancestral folk
faith well into the 7th and 8th centuries before they were converted – and even
then only after a long process of syncretism and absorption by the church.
Remnants survived longer in folklore and customs, as one modern Heathen writer
has eloquently expressed:
"Germania in Ketten", by the German
Heathen artist and mystic Ludwig
Fahrenkrog. It perfectly captures
resilience and determination of the
spirit, overcoming adversities
“This continuity is not found in textbooks or official holidays. It is found in the patterns of folk life: in the way bread is baked in a certain village, in the way a harvest is celebrated, in the carvings on an old barn beam, in lullabies passed down through grandmothers’ lips. In Northern Europe, these echoes abound. In Swabia, the Fasnet masks worn during pre-Lenten processions still bear the faces of pre-Christian spirits – wild men, hags, horned beasts. In Sweden, the Majstång [May Pole] raised on midsummer recalls a world where trees were not timber but ancestors. In the Harz Mountains, the Walpurgisnacht fires still burn on April’s final night, flickering shadows across rock formations said to be the seats of ancient witches.
“These are not accidents. They are survivals. Even when
Christianity swept the North, it did not erase these customs. It baptized them.
It dressed the old gods in saints’ robes and renamed the sacred groves as
‘Devil’s Forests.’ It reoriented time itself – marking years not by the sun’s
turning but by the birth of a single foreign prophet. But the old rhythms did
not vanish. They were absorbed. Transmuted. And in some cases, buried.”(3)
Desiring to break the indigenous cohesion of an area, the
church tended to send foreign priests, monks and nuns to convert local tribes
to Christianity. So it was that the church sent missionaries from newly
converted regions of the British Isles to convert Germania, bending it to the
political authority of the Merovingian/Carolingian dynasties.(4) After
Willibald died in 751, Walpurga rose to become the monastery’s abbess and its
superintendent after Winibald’s death in 760.(5) She propagated for the destruction
of sacred groves throughout Germania, culminating in felling of the Saxons’
Irminsul (with its deep and transcendent symbolism for all continental Germanic
tribes) by Charlemagne’s christhadist armies in 772. Walpurga died on February
25, in either 777 or 779. This day became her initial feast day until her
canonization by Pope Adrian.(6)
.jpg)
Constructing a Mythic Hagiography
Walpurga’s canonization commenced with a ceremony on May 1,
870, when her relics were moved from Heidenheim. “Her bones were 'translated'
(that is, moved) on May 1 - which became her feast day - sometime during the
870s to Eichstätt, where her brother Willibald had been bishop. Ever since then
an oily liquid has oozed out of the rock on which her tomb rests and has been
renowned among pilgrims for its great healing power.”(7) This indicates that,
much like Heidenheim, Eichstätt was a sacred site in Heathen times, perhaps a
healing spring. We can certainly point to the widespread devotion to the Celtic
healing Deities, Grannus and Sirona, when Celtic tribes still held sway over
the lands we now know as Schwaben and Bayern. Willibald clearly would choose a
site that held some significance to the Heathens he was trying to convert.
The translation of earlier works on natural philosophy meant a
greater acceptance of magic so long as it was "natural", harnessing
the power of natural properties, and not the "demonic" variety of
powers and entities outside the Church.(8) Examples of the Church's magical
traditions include the Latin Mass, modelled after previous Roman rituals; doctrine of the Transubstantiation; consecrated altars;
blessed candles and oils; and specified incantations used for exorcisms and
other occasions. So it is that such magical qualities were invented for
Walpurga, first mentioned by Wolfhard von Herrieden's Miracula S.
Walburgae Manheimensis (895/896), but especially the late 10th-century
Vita secunda. Finally in the 11th century, Anno II, the Archbishop of Köln,
declared that “Walpurgisnacht” would be celebrated from sundown on 30th April.(9)
As we will see later, the dating is no accident, designed to co-opt indigenous European festivals coalescing around the 1st of May. And since Germanic and Celtic days began with the moon, significance would also be given to the night before. Knowing this the Church had to construct a mystique around Walpurga, as well as an obvious financial interest in promoting pilgrimage to her site and power of their own “acceptable” magic over that of the Heathens. She was turned into a “protectoress against magic”(10). For this and other aspects of her folklore, James Hjuka Coulter, who reconstructs continental Heathenry as Irminism, argues that she was based upon Walburga Frouwa, known to the Norse as Freya:
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| "Freyja and the Necklace" (1890), by the Irish painter James Doyle Penrose |
“The Frouwa is infamous for her abilities at magan-craft and
witching (she taught the feminine (magical) disciplines to Wodan), and it is of
no surprise to find her as the patroness of witches, and the center of praise
on Walburganaht (a long-standing witches’ holiday). The Frouwa’s wain is drawn
by cats - the popular image of a witch accompanied by a (black) cat originates from
the association of the felines to the Goddess. Over the ages, many
superstitions regarding cats (and their association to Walburga Frouwa)
developed, and along a common theme: treating the creatures well brings the
luck and favor of The Frouwa upon one’s self and home.”(11)
Hagiographies were written after the (real or imagined) mortal lives of their subjects, filled with more apocryphal and mythic stories intended to supplant the living traditions of people they were seeking to convert: “In other instances, older pagan deities were quietly absorbed into Christian hagiography. Tales of a female figure leading nocturnal processions, for instance, sometimes fused with certain saintly legends. While the text itself might avoid explicit references to ancient gods, the new saint’s attributes might echo the older spirit’s domain over fertility or winter storms. Churches in remote regions sometimes dedicated feast days around the same calendar dates once associated with pagan festivals.”(12)
Engraving of Volvas by the Swedish artist
Gunnar Forssell, for an 1893 edition of the Eddas
Decoding the Secrets of Etymology
Walburga’s etymology bearing such a close relation to ancient
Germanic folk magic and witches cannot be accidental. “Clairvoyant, wise women
played such an important role among the forest peoples that it astonished the
Romans. In the Germanic-Celtic settlement area, they were known under the names
Wala and Voelva and in southern and central Germany as Walburg and Walburga,
which means 'staff bearer' (Germanic waluz = stave, staff; from Indo-European
*uel = turn). They carried wands with which they were able to steer things
magically.”(13)
Historical Germanic seeresses lent their names to the Walpurga
archetype. A Greek inscription from second century pottery on Elephantine
Island in Egypt mentions a seeress named Waluburg who served
the Roman governor, calling her “Se[m]noni Sibylla,” or “Sibyl from the
Semnones”, a Germanic tribe that lived between the rivers Elbe and Oder.(14)
Roman statesmen like Tacitus already regaled their fellow Romans with the
mystique and qualities of Germanic tribes, so its no surprise some military
leaders employed seeresses of “barbarian” tribes they associated with more
primal forces than the cosmopolitan ethos that hastened Rome’s spiritual and
military decline. These Romans were reminded of their own ethnic faith which
lost much to the decadent processes of Empire.
.jpg)
"Veleda, profetisa de los germanos" by the
Spanish illustrator Juan Scherr, Germania
(Barcelona: Montaner y Simon, 1882)
In the early third century, Roman historian and senator Cassius Dio mentioned a renowned seeress named Veleda. The contemporary German folklorist and ethnobotanist Wolf-Dieter Storl traces her etymology: “The Veleda or Weleda goes back to the original Celtic velet or fili, which means 'visionary' or 'poet'.”(15) Cassius recounted that Veleda was succeeded by another seeress named Ganna, whose name related to Proto-Celtic *geneta “girl”.(16) Walpurgisnacht is most prevalent in areas of southern and central Germania settled earlier by Celts, coinciding with the Celtic festival of Bealtaine. Lingering Celtic traditions merged with the Germanic landscape – and the folk traditions it inspired. Both peoples followed a lunisolar calendar, so Coulter links Walpurgisnacht to “the full moon of Wunnimanod”(17), roughly corresponding to May.
The seeress (or perhaps her title) Ganna was known in
Longobard (Lombard) lore as Gambara, who sought the assistance of the Goddess Frea
– their name for Frija, the wife-consort of Wodan (or Godan among the
Longobards). Austrian philologist Rudolf Simek linked Gothic walus “staff,
wand” – recall that word’s direct link to Walburga – to Longobardic
Gand-bera “wand-bearer.”(18) Both these could also relate to Wodan, who
as The Wanderer traversed across the worlds carrying the staff of a traveler (or
pilgrim, as both conveyed esoteric ideas). Here we see the shift of letters, with Frija's qualities often attributed to Frau Holle, who was often known as "Gode"
the wife of Wodan in some German regions. So we establish yet another link between Walpurga and the night processions called the Wild Hunt (although recast in
Christian terms as infernal “witches”).
"Valkyrie" (1864), by the Norwegian
artist Peter Nicolai Arbo
The wal- element of Walpurga could also relate to
the walkuries, the messengers of death who chose selected warriors
off the battlefield to take with Her into the Underworld. Norse tradition held
that Freyja had first pick of these fallen warriors before Odin. Coulter draws
a continental link to Walpurga: “Walburga Frouwa leads Wodan’s host of wish-maidens
(walchuriâ) and is herself said to receive half of the battle slain (in her
hall, Folcwise), with Wodan receiving the other half - hence, her name:
‘Protectress of the Slain’.”(19) Death bore a close relation with fertility
within our cyclical worldview, so the Seeresses
who bridged the different “worlds” united so many meanings within
their very names.
“Freya transported the chosen slain to Folkvang, where they
were duly entertained. There also she welcomed all pure maidens and faithful
wives, that they might enjoy the company of their lovers and husbands after
death. The joys of her abode were so enticing to the heroic Northern women that
they often rushed into battle when their loved ones were slain, hoping to meet
with the same fate.”(20)
.jpg)
"Wodan Frea Himmelsfenster" (1905), by the
German artist Emil Doepler, inspired by the
Langobard accounts.
Other elements in the “saint”’s name includes *walda, “power, ruler, might”, and *wala, “dead, battlefield”.(21) Old High German Walburga combines waltan “to rule” + burg “protection, fortress,” so that her name relates to “ruler of the fortress” or “protector of the realm”. The latter has magical qualities considering the central role of protection within all magical traditions, with one’s mind, will and body as “the realm”. Walpurga’s hagiography ascribes to her a bloodline that is aristocratic (“to rule”) and “saintly”, just as calling upon her provided “protection” from the feared witches and other specters. These qualities were constructed to mentally establish the magical power of the Church over the subjugated Heathens, whose own magical powers were demonized – albeit actually so powerful the church “had” to appropriate and invert it all for their own purposes.
The -purgis and -burga elements could simultaneously relate to burg "homestead" or berg "mountain", both conveying images of the hearth and the motherly womb. The link between mountain and “breast” commonly expressed through mythology and toponyms conveys the same Animistic worldview all Indigenous peoples (no matter which biosphere) held as the natural state of Being. The Rune Berkanan ᛒ expresses dual meanings of “birch” and “rebirth”, so that Walpurgisnacht occurring after Ostara and on the eve of May conveys new life “springing” forth from the darkness that precedes light, as we will see with the Goddess variously known as Frau Holle, Perchta, Berchta - and other correspondences in Part 3. This is also why in her imagery, Walpurga was often portrayed with a sun disc illuminating her head – a myth-theme also conveying ‘authority’ and spiritual powers:
“The porter who one evening refused to carry out Walpurga's
orders and to light the lights of her monastery is the picture of the
unintuitive man who always sees and never beholds, while a light welled up from
Walpurga's pure heart and flooded around her figure, who in the middle of the
night began to shine so brightly that the horde of nuns rushed over in dismay
and, speechless with astonishment, surrounded the beaming woman.”(22)
"The Miracle of Saint Walburga" (1610), by the
Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, expressing
her quality as a sea protectoress. Could this be
an ancestral memory of Nehalennia?
Notes:
(1) For more on this crucial distinction, see my article “Magic
Occulted by Other Names: Demystifying Magic as the Path to Freedom,” in Imagination
Transfigured: The History, Ritual & Symbolism of Magick, ed. Troy
Southgate, Black Front Press, 2024, pp. 103-129.
(2) Rev. Alban Butler, “Saint Winebald, Abbot and Confessor,”
Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, Vol. XII: December,
Dublin: James Duffy, 1866.
(3) Tobias Wolfsberg, Shattered Gods: Pagan Survival and
Christian Suppression in Germanic Europe, Nightfall Arcana Press, 2025, pp.
89-90. I highly recommend his series, each volume devoted to a specific
myth-theme or other aspect of the living Germanic Heathen tradition. For more
on Fasnet, including my own family traditions (couched under the veneer of
Catholic Carneval until I was able to see it fresh with newly awakened eyes),
see my article: “Pagan/Heathen Origins of Swabian Fastnacht Celebrations,” https://swabian-pride.blogspot.com/2023/02/paganheathen-origins-of-swabian.html.
(4) This pattern expresses what psychologists call
abuse-bonding, expanded to these processes of Abrahamic conversion and its
salvationist mind-virus by what John Lamb Lash terms the “Victim-Perpetrator
Bond” (see Not In His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future
of Belief, 15th Anniversary Edition, White River Junction, VT: Chelsea
Green Publishing, 2021). I apply this model to the conversion of Germanic
tribes and other Indigenous peoples in my August 2022 article, “Roots of
Disconnect and the Need to Reclaim Indigeny,”< https://sjobst.blogspot.com/2022/08/animism-and-lessons-of-earths-power-2.html>.
(5) “Walpurgis, St.,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. Hugh
Chisholm, Vol. 28, 11th ed., Cambridge University Press, 1911, pp. 290-291.
(6) “Walpurga,” in Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of
Biography and Mythology, ed. Joseph Thomas, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott
Company, 1892, p. 2423.
(7) Richard M. Wunderli. Peasant Fires: The Drummer of
Niklashausen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992, p. 46.
(8) Peter J. Forshaw, "The Occult Middle Ages,"
in The Occult World, ed. Christopher Partridge. London: Routledge,
2016, pp. 34-48.
(9) Robert Sass, “The Origins of Walpurgis Night,” Aldsidu,
Feb. 7, 2019, < https://www.aldsidu.com/post/asatru-s-most-embarrassing-time-of-the-year>.
(10) Doleta Chapru, A Festival of the English May,
Dodgeville, WI: Folklore Village Farm, 1977, p. 3; and John Canaday, The
Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs, Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 2000, p. 98.
(11) James Hjuka Coulter, Germanic Heathenry: A Practical Guide, 1st Books Library, 2003, p. 81.
(12) Tobias Wolfsberg, The Wild Hunt: Death, Storm, and the
Furious Host, Nightfall Arcana Press, 2025, p. 49.
(13) Wolf Dieter Storl. The Untold History of Healing:
Plant Lore and Medicinal Magic from the Stone Age to Present. Berkeley, CA:
North Atlantic Books, 2017, p. 267.
(14) Wolfgang Spickermann, "Waluburg," Brill's New Pauly, <http://www.encquran.brill.nl/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/waluburg-e12208850>.
(15) Storl, op. cit., p. 267.
(16) Ranko Matasović, Etymological Dictionary of
Proto-Celtic, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
(17) Coulter, op. cit., p. 234.
(18) Rudolf Simek, A Dictionary of Northern Mythology,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007, pp. 135, 333.
(19) Coulter, op. cit., p. 81.
(20) H.A. Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen From the Eddas and Sagas, London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1919, pp. 131-132.
(21) Gunivortus Goos, Illustriertes Lexikon der germanischen
Gottheiten, Usingen, Hessen: 2022, pp. 300-301.
(22) Annette Kolb, "Das Leben der Heiligen
Walpurga," in Wege und Umwege.
Berlin: Hyperion Publishing, 1919, p. 217.
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