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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 9:46:06 GMT -1
Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2009 9:46:06 GMT -1
Hi all,
Currently many of my pagan friends are swapping Mabon greetings, which has come in to use to denote the Autumn Equinox: does anyone know how and why this came to be?
As far as I know, this usage originated in the USA at some point in the 70s, but I can't make the connection as to the seasonal significance. Mabon (a contraction of Mab ap Modron: the Son of The Mother?) plays a role (albeit a passive one) in one of the tasks in Culhwch ac Olwen, where the eponymous hero must rescue him from an (underwater?) prison. This sub-task (one of several that will lead to Culhwch's eventual betrothal to Olwen) contains various mythic motifs, but to me, none terribly autumnal - can anyone validate it's usage in this context, or is just another example of cultural misappropriation?
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 9:57:39 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Sept 20, 2009 9:57:39 GMT -1
Hi all, Currently many of my pagan friends are swapping Mabon greetings, which has come in to use to denote the Autumn Equinox: does anyone know how and why this came to be? As far as I know, this usage originated in the USA at some point in the 70s, but I can't make the connection as to the seasonal significance. Mabon (a contraction of Mab ap Modron: the Son of The Mother?) plays a role (albeit a passive one) in one of the tasks in Culhwch ac Olwen, where the eponymous hero must rescue him from an (underwater?) prison. This sub-task (one of several that will lead to Culhwch's eventual betrothal to Olwen) contains various mythic motifs, but to me, none terribly autumnal - can anyone validate it's usage in this context, or is just another example of cultural misappropriation? I can't speak for what happened in the USA, but AFAIK the major association of Mabon to Autumn Eqiuinox has come through OBOD and it's Nicholls/Gardner/Graves and OBOD/Wicca connection. Wiccan roots would certainly give rise to it's use in the USA in the '70s. I'm sure someone here with the OBOD material could fill in the details.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 10:07:40 GMT -1
Post by dreamguardian on Sept 20, 2009 10:07:40 GMT -1
I'm sure someone here with the OBOD material could fill in the details. Do I really have to plough through that stuff again, LR
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 10:21:32 GMT -1
Post by littleraven on Sept 20, 2009 10:21:32 GMT -1
I'm sure someone here with the OBOD material could fill in the details. Do I really have to plough through that stuff again, LR YES! It's a penance I'd do it if I could find mine.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 11:01:55 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 20, 2009 11:01:55 GMT -1
I've oft puzzled over this one. I suspect in my wicked, cynical way, that some druid somewhen wanted to call the festival after Modron, as a mother-goddess apropriate for harvest-tide, but got their welsh names crossed.
Oddly when I was about 13 I was a baby wiccan and remember looking through Cunnigham's (useless) list of deity names. Olwen ('the celtic goddess of apple orchards') leapt out at me, and I felt suddenly certain that this would be an important name in my life.
12 years later, this came back to me as I sat in a shabby room in Oxford, leading undergrauates through the text of 'Culhwch and Olwen' by the nose....
Not quite what I'd expected.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 11:45:52 GMT -1
Post by Tegernacus on Sept 20, 2009 11:45:52 GMT -1
in some traditional Welsh harvest-tide things, it's the hag of winter (the mare) that plays her part, but not venerated: you have to protect the harvest from her, get it in without her seeing it. A game of cat&mouse (on speed). The harvest celebration is a celebration on getting one over on her, beating the storms and rains of winter, rather than celebrating "the mother" (or the Christian God) for her bounty. Whether that's a mediaeval/post-Pagan concept I'm not sure.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 12:18:35 GMT -1
Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2009 12:18:35 GMT -1
Aye - I personally think that Modron may have been the original attribute (in some maybe-spurious linking of the sabbats to Goddess/God forms) and someone (possibly under the pressure of a looming deadline...) bungled it to Mabon...and it stuck! I suppose the thematic link of Madron/Demeter - Mabon/Persephone signifies Modron as a seasonally adjusting Earth/Corn mother, which would fit in nicely with what Tegernacus writes above. I was just out for a walk and a memory returned to me of my old Coven teaching notes, where my old HPS gave the name Modron for Autumn Equinox, and I vaguely remember asking her why she said Mabon made no sense, so she changed it! I'll have to dig the notes out and double check.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 14:36:52 GMT -1
Post by dreamguardian on Sept 20, 2009 14:36:52 GMT -1
Do I really have to plough through that stuff again, LR YES! It's a penance I'd do it if I could find mine. I'll deliver mine to your hand, for surelyI've suffered enough ... ??
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 15:50:48 GMT -1
Post by potia on Sept 20, 2009 15:50:48 GMT -1
I can't speak for what happened in the USA, but AFAIK the major association of Mabon to Autumn Eqiuinox has come through OBOD and it's Nicholls/Gardner/Graves and OBOD/Wicca connection. Wiccan roots would certainly give rise to it's use in the USA in the '70s. I'm sure someone here with the OBOD material could fill in the details. OBOD materials refer to the Autum Equinox as Alban Elued or Alban Elfed (seems to have changed between revisions) which they give as meaning Light of the Water. The older OBOD rituals include both Modron and Mabon figures. The Mabon in these cases is usually the youngest person there and symbolises innocence and purity. (Happened to be able to lay my hands on the material easily) The overall theme is one of harvest though.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 16:16:47 GMT -1
Post by potia on Sept 20, 2009 16:16:47 GMT -1
A thought - Mabon derives from Maponnos who was linked to Apollo under the Romans. I think it is probably that his major attributes would have included healing for that link to have been made.
As well as harvesting for food would this not be a harvest time for herbs and other plants used for healing? I suspect it would also be a time when remedies for the winter months would be prepared just as we start looking at the cold remedies more at this time of year than in summer. I know some plants used for healing need to be harvested at other times of the year but I would think more might be harvested at this time than at others?
If I'm right then perhaps it's not so odd to be thinking of Maponnos at this time and to ask for his help with that side of the harvest?
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 16:37:31 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 20, 2009 16:37:31 GMT -1
Well, the linkage is certainly not ancient, or even medieval, or even Iolo, as we all acknowledge here: I'm sure some resourceful pagan bibliophile could go through the pagan stodge from the last 50 years and pinpoint the first occurence of the word to mean autumn equinox: my guess wd be in the millieu of neo-druidry c. 1970ish, as you say Tyfach. (Because I've never seen it in the older wiccan material.) On the other hand I doubt Ross Nicholls would make so elementary an error as to confuse Mabon and Modron (my hypothesis) so it was probably someone down the foodchain. As it occurs in 'The Sprial Dance' c. 1980 it might also be a Starhawkian Feri tradition thing, and as we all know what they know about genuine celtic stuff could be written on the back of a beermat. Which had been burnt. (See also: Litha, which is an Old Englishism adopted for the summer solstice.) Ingenious link, Potia, but personally I think this is one of those things with no rhyme or reason and is just down to some big daftie in a white kaftan sometime last century. [Ha! It was Aidan Kelly apparently--- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_the_Year#Autumnal_EquinoxAbsolutely no point looking for any solid reason for the link with Maponos there. You might as well try to plait fog.]
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 16:47:59 GMT -1
Post by megli on Sept 20, 2009 16:47:59 GMT -1
From summat I did elsewhere, back when Bobcat was snuffling up to the OED to get 'pagan words' put in:
Alban Arthan / Eilir / Hefin / Elfed
These are used by modern druids as the Welsh names of the winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, and autumn equinox. The terms are coinages of Iolo Morganwg (late 18th century); he formed alban from al- ‘great, supreme’ and ban ‘peak, region, corner, quarter of the year’. They are attested in his writings (18th-19th century), and the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru places the first occurrences of all four terms in that part of the Llanover collection which is in the hand of Iolo Morganwg. These may well now have been published by the Iolo Morganwg project at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies at the University of Aberystwyth.
Arthan ‘little bear’ (arth, ‘bear’ + diminutive suffix), used for the pole star first in 1772, in John Walters’ English-Welsh Dictionary (1770-94). Often used by modern druids in the erroneous form Arthuan.
Eilir: another 18th-19th c. Iolo Morganwg coinage, which he derived from ail, ‘second, re-’ and ir ‘growth’, thus ‘regrowth’, and meaning ‘spring, regeneration, renewal’. There is a real Welsh word eilir, ‘butterfly’, attested from the 16th c., but this link has not to my knowledge been made by modern druids.
Hefin: a back-formation by Iolo Morganwg from genuine words like cyntefin, ‘start of summer’, Mehefin ‘month of June’; the ultimate root is therefore British *saminos, ‘summer’, but its descendent hefin was not a genuine, stand-alone Welsh word before Iolo.
Elfed appears to have been coined by William Owen-Pughe (late 18th c), from el+med; el was a word of his own devising, meaning ‘spirit, intelligence’ and med was isolated as an independent word by Iolo Morganwg from aeddfed, ‘ripe, mellow’, ?also occurring in Medi, ‘September’; therefore elfed = ‘spirit of ripeness’. Often used by modern druids as Elued, Elved. The orthography of Elued occasionally gives rise to the mistaken pronunciation /elwed/.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 16:50:19 GMT -1
Post by potia on Sept 20, 2009 16:50:19 GMT -1
Ingenious link, Potia, but personally I think this is one of those things with no rhyme or reason and is just down to some big daftie in a white kaftan sometime last century. [Ha! It was Aidan Kelly apparently--- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_the_Year#Autumnal_EquinoxAbsolutely no point looking for any solid reason for the link with Maponos there. You might as well try to plait fog.] Maybe it is a bit too much to hope people had sound reasons for coming up with the names they did - ah well.
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Mabon?
Sept 20, 2009 18:54:53 GMT -1
Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2009 18:54:53 GMT -1
Megli>> Aiden Kelly *rolls eyes* I might have guessed. Nice follow-up info BTW...*doffs cap*
Potia>> Good reasoning. And since it's in such common usage, it's probably worth trying to retro-fit some sane rationale to explain...!
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Mabon?
Sept 21, 2009 5:20:39 GMT -1
Post by dreamguardian on Sept 21, 2009 5:20:39 GMT -1
I can't speak for what happened in the USA, but AFAIK the major association of Mabon to Autumn Eqiuinox has come through OBOD and it's Nicholls/Gardner/Graves and OBOD/Wicca connection. Wiccan roots would certainly give rise to it's use in the USA in the '70s. I'm sure someone here with the OBOD material could fill in the details. OBOD materials refer to the Autum Equinox as Alban Elued or Alban Elfed (seems to have changed between revisions) which they give as meaning Light of the Water. The older OBOD rituals include both Modron and Mabon figures. The Mabon in these cases is usually the youngest person there and symbolises innocence and purity. (Happened to be able to lay my hands on the material easily) The overall theme is one of harvest though. Phew, thanks Potia. I haven't got to do LR assigned penance ;D
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Mabon?
Jun 9, 2013 2:26:19 GMT -1
Post by Chad on Jun 9, 2013 2:26:19 GMT -1
I don't understand it. How can a god of youth be associated with the "dying" of the earth?
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Mabon?
Jun 11, 2013 13:53:27 GMT -1
Post by potia on Jun 11, 2013 13:53:27 GMT -1
Three things here.
First we're all pretty much agreed that although some aspects of modern paganism call the autumn equinox "mabon" it's a made up bit of nonsense.
Second is that Maponos is much more than a god of youth. I think most here would also agree that he has links to healing and the creative arts. Both healing and the creative arts have darker aspects to them, links to death, dying and decay, even if only as sources of inspiration.
Thirdly why would you say that the autumn is the "dying" of the earth? Personally I see it as a time of transformation, of seeds being laid down for the next cycle of growth. For me autumn and winter are a bit like the first trimester of a pregnancy, not much seen from the outside but changes happening under the surface.
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Mabon?
Jun 11, 2013 16:41:46 GMT -1
Post by Chad on Jun 11, 2013 16:41:46 GMT -1
To answer to your first point, I was just echoing that sentiment.
To your second point, I usually, when Maponos/Mabon comes to mind, associate him with the creative arts, not just a god of youth. I'm aware of the other aspects he is considered to have, and I do not deny them. To me, the creativity and youth aspects of this god simply stand out to me the most. Of course, most, if not all gods are much more complex than just a few "neatly boxed" attributes. To me, certain attributes of gods and goddesses stand out more than others, but I do understand they are more than just those things.
To answer your third point, it is quite simply my way of looking at the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. I didn't really "learn" it from anyone. I kind of learned it from trees, and the cycle of their leaves. I know it is a gross oversimplification. I just use it personally. Something I've done since I was a child.
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Mabon?
Jun 11, 2013 16:50:50 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Jun 11, 2013 16:50:50 GMT -1
I've heard that 'Mabon' is dedicated to Mabon in a similar way to Lughnasadh being dedicated to Lugh rather Taltiu- ie. that it was instigated by Mabon for Modron and his name stuck. But in all honesty I really don't know.
Similarly to Potia, I feel that whilst Mabon is a god of youth his existence through the seasons is perennial and that perhaps his harper's cords and healer's touch are needed just as much through the dark half of the year.
For me he's also a hunter and I'd guess that at this time of year as well as harvesting crops people would have been hunting animals for meat to preserve over winter before the cold set in?
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