*Ø* Blogmanac October 21 | Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgins
Feast day of St Ursula, and her companions, virgins (nuns) and martyrs (Hairy silphium, Silphium asteriscus, is plant of the day, dedicated to Ursula)
Much of the little we know of the origins of the legend of St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins we know from Helentrude, a nun of Heerse near Paderborn, whose narrative may date from somewhere between 900 and 1100. In the legend, Ursula was the beautiful daughter of a Christian British king, King Dionotus of Cornwall, and had taken a vow of chastity, but, against her wishes, was betrothed to a pagan prince.
Ursula was warned by a dream to demand as a condition of marriage, his conversion to Christianity, and a delay of three years, during which time her companions were to be 11,000 virgins collected from her own kingdom and that of her suitor. After vigorous exercise in all kinds of manly sports, to the admiration of the people, they were carried off by a sudden breeze in eleven triremes to Thiel in Gelderland. They arrived in Cologne, Germany, sailing up the Rhine to Basel, Switzerland, where they moored their ships and crossed the Alps in order to visit Rome (on the instructions of an angel). On their return, Cologne was being sacked by the Huns, who slaughtered the virgins after Ursula refused the advances of a Hun prince. One of the 11,000, St Cordula, escaped death on the first day by hiding, wrote down the tale for posterity, then gave herself up to join her sisters in martyrdom.
What might be at the root of the tale is that group of virgins were martyred at Cologne, Germany, perhaps under Diocletian in the 4th Century. They probably numbered 11 women, rather than 11,001, possibly an exaggeration from a misreading of a Roman text ...
Ursula as pre-Christian bear goddess
Sabine Baring-Gould in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1867) suggests that St Ursula is the Christianised representative of the old Teutonic goddess Freya, who, in Thuringia, under the name of Horsel or Ursel, and in Sweden Old Urschel, welcomed the souls of dead maidens. Saint Ursula with her bow and arrow, her ship and virginal companions, sails up the Rhine as Urschel, the Teutonic moon goddess, sailed before her, with all the graceful attributes of Isis and Diana. She is likely to be one of the saints who has become confused with the old gods, that is, a real martyr's story has been embellished with that particulars of an old myth. A Slavic moon goddess was apparently known as Orsel.
Helen Farias, founder of The Beltane Papers, proposes that Ursula was originally the German bear goddess, Orsel, and conjectures that her companions are the stars surrounding the constellation of the Bear, Ursa Major, the great She-Bear known to us as the Plough or Dipper (Farias, Helen, ‘The TBP Lunar-Solar Festival Calendar,’ The Beltane Papers, Issue 3, Beltane, 1993).
The bear goddess was known to the Greeks as Artemis (daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo) and in China as Matsu Po, Queen of Heaven and the Sea. According to one source, one of Artemis's frequent animal incarnations was the Great She-bear (constellation Ursa Major), ruler of the stars and protectress of the axis mundi, Pole of the World. The Helvetian (Swiss) tribes around what is now Berne, worshipped her as the She-Bear, and she is still their heraldic arms. Berne, in fact, means ‘She-bear’, just as Urus means ‘bear’. Sometimes the Helvetians called her Artio, shortened to ‘Art’ by the Celtic tribes who married her to the Bear-king, Arthur. As Artio's Lord of the Hunt, the medieval god of witches came to be called, ‘Robin son of Art’. In Irish, Art meant ‘God’, but its earlier meaning was ‘Goddess' – more specifically the Bear-goddess ...
Read more on Ursula at the new page at the Scriptorium
Feast day of St Ursula, and her companions, virgins (nuns) and martyrs (Hairy silphium, Silphium asteriscus, is plant of the day, dedicated to Ursula)
Much of the little we know of the origins of the legend of St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins we know from Helentrude, a nun of Heerse near Paderborn, whose narrative may date from somewhere between 900 and 1100. In the legend, Ursula was the beautiful daughter of a Christian British king, King Dionotus of Cornwall, and had taken a vow of chastity, but, against her wishes, was betrothed to a pagan prince.
Ursula was warned by a dream to demand as a condition of marriage, his conversion to Christianity, and a delay of three years, during which time her companions were to be 11,000 virgins collected from her own kingdom and that of her suitor. After vigorous exercise in all kinds of manly sports, to the admiration of the people, they were carried off by a sudden breeze in eleven triremes to Thiel in Gelderland. They arrived in Cologne, Germany, sailing up the Rhine to Basel, Switzerland, where they moored their ships and crossed the Alps in order to visit Rome (on the instructions of an angel). On their return, Cologne was being sacked by the Huns, who slaughtered the virgins after Ursula refused the advances of a Hun prince. One of the 11,000, St Cordula, escaped death on the first day by hiding, wrote down the tale for posterity, then gave herself up to join her sisters in martyrdom.
What might be at the root of the tale is that group of virgins were martyred at Cologne, Germany, perhaps under Diocletian in the 4th Century. They probably numbered 11 women, rather than 11,001, possibly an exaggeration from a misreading of a Roman text ...
Ursula as pre-Christian bear goddess
Sabine Baring-Gould in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1867) suggests that St Ursula is the Christianised representative of the old Teutonic goddess Freya, who, in Thuringia, under the name of Horsel or Ursel, and in Sweden Old Urschel, welcomed the souls of dead maidens. Saint Ursula with her bow and arrow, her ship and virginal companions, sails up the Rhine as Urschel, the Teutonic moon goddess, sailed before her, with all the graceful attributes of Isis and Diana. She is likely to be one of the saints who has become confused with the old gods, that is, a real martyr's story has been embellished with that particulars of an old myth. A Slavic moon goddess was apparently known as Orsel.
Helen Farias, founder of The Beltane Papers, proposes that Ursula was originally the German bear goddess, Orsel, and conjectures that her companions are the stars surrounding the constellation of the Bear, Ursa Major, the great She-Bear known to us as the Plough or Dipper (Farias, Helen, ‘The TBP Lunar-Solar Festival Calendar,’ The Beltane Papers, Issue 3, Beltane, 1993).
The bear goddess was known to the Greeks as Artemis (daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo) and in China as Matsu Po, Queen of Heaven and the Sea. According to one source, one of Artemis's frequent animal incarnations was the Great She-bear (constellation Ursa Major), ruler of the stars and protectress of the axis mundi, Pole of the World. The Helvetian (Swiss) tribes around what is now Berne, worshipped her as the She-Bear, and she is still their heraldic arms. Berne, in fact, means ‘She-bear’, just as Urus means ‘bear’. Sometimes the Helvetians called her Artio, shortened to ‘Art’ by the Celtic tribes who married her to the Bear-king, Arthur. As Artio's Lord of the Hunt, the medieval god of witches came to be called, ‘Robin son of Art’. In Irish, Art meant ‘God’, but its earlier meaning was ‘Goddess' – more specifically the Bear-goddess ...
Read more on Ursula at the new page at the Scriptorium
Pip Wilson posted item above at 9:32 PM | Permalink
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