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(Number 370)
Answer to a question of what a Wicker Man is
Greetings all and Steph, who posted the last piece, and to be honest
Steph, actually I didn't know I was answering to another question
from before. I was merely going off on a tangent into another
subject to post for interested parties in Wicca, but as you have
brought it up by saying, "My original question was not in regard to
the word "wicca" but more focused toward the old English film once
watched years ago by me named 'The Wicker man" from the early 70's."
Anyway, as I say, to continue on this now it's being brought up…..
From the little I know about the Wicker Man, (besides the movie
stuff of course) it seemed to me that I could remember no less than
three ancient sources making a reference to this very specific type
of ritual human burning (perhaps and most probably a fire sacrifice)
that I could remember, in which victims were, as you said, packed
into a great hollow image of a man, made of wicker or straw, and
burnt alive (as an offering to the gods?) I knew though I had
something relating to it all in my library and went looking.
Actually, the ceremony of the Wicker Man is recounted by both Caesar
and Strabo that I did indeed remember - plus; in addition, I knew it
appeared also in a ninth century commentary on Lucan's Pharsalia.
I guess it's like anything of this age though; it's so hard to sort
fact from fiction and even ancient accounts might indeed be biased.
In saying that then, to what extent we can believe Strabo's
testimony is anyone's guess, and I'm thinking that perhaps he might
be like other classical writers in being guilty of popular press
sensationalism, or is he faithfully recording a genuinely observed
religious practice?
However, as has often been pointed out, the only historians besides
Caesar who make this accusation are those who have themselves read
Caesar. and in fact, if you wish to read Caesar's 'Gallic Wars',
Caesar never claimed to have actually witnessed such a sacrifice,
nor I suppose does he claim to have talked to anyone else who did.
It might be possible that the very similar accounts of both Caesar
and Strabo both derive from a common source, Posidonius.
Likewise, the commentator on Lucan's text had probably read one of
the two earlier documents and then interwoven the description with
Lucan's own reference to the three savage Celtic Gods he mentioned
in the poem: these were Taranis, Esus and Teutates, who the poet
associates directly with human sacrifice.
Actually, the rite of burning straw men (happily without their live
victims) was retained until quite recently in the spring festivals
of post pagan Europe. In Germany, images burned at Easter time were
known as Judas Men.
In one of my books I found both Caesar and Strabo's reference to the
Wicker Man which I copy here for those who might be interested.
`Some tribes build enormous images with limbs of interwoven branches
which they then fill with live men; the images are set alight and
the men die in a sea of flame.' Caesar, Gallic War VI, 16, 4.
`Having devised a colossus of straw and wood, [they] throw into the
colossus cattle and wild animals of all sorts and human beings, and
then they make a burnt offering of the whole thing.' Strabo,
Geography IV, 4, 5.
From what I understand it was more the Celtic Gauls who were fond of
human sacrifice and not so much the British Celts, (often implying a
link to the Druids) remembering that the Celts were not the original
indigenous people of that isle, (and not all Celts were Druids of
course) but who settled there a few thousand years BC.
Even in Britain however, there have been a few obvious sacrificed
corpses found all over Britain, (Ireland and many, many more in
Europe) most of them in bogs after having being ritually killed
(sometimes buried alive) and then weighed down with stones and a
birch branch pinning them beneath the bog. These finds show
remarkably good preservation due to the bog's preserving qualities.
There are, I believe, strong similarities between the observations
of Diodorus and Strabo, also writing in the first century BC. We
have seen Strabo's comments, but Diodorus says, `In matters of great
concern they devote to death a human being and plunge a dagger in to
him…and when the stricken victim has fallen they read the future
from the manner of his fall and from the twitching of his limbs, as
well as from the gushing blood.'
Diodorus says that such acts are never performed without the
Druids. (Again probably more in Gaul than Britian, but who knows
for sure). It is worth remembering that the Romans hated the Druids
and were probably extremely biased against them. So biased were
they in fact that they succeeded in (almost) wiping them out at
their holy island, Mona, (now called Angelsey). Tacitus actually
describes during the time of the Roman governor, Suetonius Paulinus,
attacked the Druid stronghold there. He first refers to the
imprecations screamed by the Druids against the Roman desecrators,
and a few lines later; `The groves devoted to Mona's barbarous
superstitions he [Paulinus] demolished. For it was their religion
to drench their alters in the blood of prisoners and consult their
gods by means of human entrails.' (Annals XIV, 30)
Of course the Chinese were doing that too and were not Druids, so I
wonder what connection could possibly be found, or did it indeed
work?
Lucan refers to human sacrifice in general terms, but a commentator
on his poem, writing in Switzerland in the 9th century AD, clearly
had access to early documents, for he elaborates on Lucan's comments
in his description of the most appropriate human sacrifice for each
of the three gods. Taranis, the thunder god, was appeased by fire;
the victims of Esus (the Lord) were stabbed and hanged from a tree
until they bled to death; and those assigned to Teutates were
drowned. The link between Taranis and fire has led to the
assumption that construction of the Wicker Man, described by Caesar
and Strabo, were associated with the "Thunderer". No one can be
sure about this though, but I guess that the immolation of human
victims by fire was a fitting rite for a god who was responsible for
lightening.
Just out of interest, and I thought I'd add it here to give merit to
the fact that it wasn't just the Celts who did this sort of thing,
is to a sacrificial curse found in the silt dredged from the Little
Ouse River at Brandon in Suffolk, near to the Hockwold Romano-
British temple.
It read, `[Whoever]…whether male slave or female slave, whether
freedman or freed woman, whether woman or man… has committed the
theft of an iron pan, he is sacrificed to the Lord Neptune with
hazel.'
Well, actually this is remarkable for three reasons: first, it is an
inscription mentioning sacrifice in connection with human beings;
second, the Roman cursive script dates it to the 4th century AD,
long after the demise of the "free" Celtic society (also I think
about the time the Anglo-Saxons came over too); and third, it
alludes to Neptune, a Roman water god, in association with hazel,
which has a strong symbolic significance in early Irish mythology.
It is also worth noting I think, that hazel has been found in
association with several Iron Age bog bodies, themselves most
probably sacrificial victims.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now.
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