witches and pagans women in european folk religion 700 1100

Here dwelled the Buhr-rūnan, female ancestors, “fates, furies, fairies, spirits of the mountains and wild rugged country” who were the avengers of wrongs, especially against the mothers.īy the early middle ages, the Church banned women’s night vigils and burning candles on graves to look into the future at tombs and funeral pyres, as a desecration of the dead.

References in Old English, Germanic and Norse texts describe the haliorunna, helliruna, helrun, helrune, helrynegu, and hellraun as “witches” ”necromancers” and “sorceresses” who whispered and sung over the graves and barrows where the dead were interred “to make the dead speak or send something out.”Īccording to Dashu, their various names are derived from the word “rune” which can also be translated as, “mysteries of the burial mound” a “tomb elegy, epitaph, burial song, and can be interpreted as those “having knowledge of the secrets of the dead”, “those skilled in the mysteries of hell” or “hell-whisperers”.īut this wasn’t the Christian hell of Brimfire but the realm of the Norse goddess of the underworld Hel, and the German underworld (Hölle). It was Max Dashu’s wonderful book Witches and Pagans Women in European Folk Religion 700 – 1100 that introduced me to these women who communed with the dead and ancestor spirits through what the Anglo-Saxons called leód-rūne or “song-mysteries.”( See this excerpted link for the source material for this post and so, so much more.) Never heard of them? They were the oracular priestesses of the “underworld mysteries” whose rites of divination and ancestor veneration were demonized and extinguished by the Church. Which makes it a perfect time for cake…not just any cake, but a cake in remembrance of the Haliorunna.

Halloween takes its roots in ancient festivals and feasts honouring the dead, like Samhain.

Witches and pagans women in european folk religion 700 1100