Relics of Goddess Worship in Early English Music

The refrain to the ballad is apparently corrupt Scandinavian: Scowan urla grun, Whar giorten han grun oarlac.

(Early green's the wood Where the hart goes yearly.)

Such a refrain explicitly links the imagery of the ballad to the return of spring and KorePersephone archetype, whose equivalent in Scandinavian mythology is Freya: a goddess who holds a similarly seasonal fertility-death duality.

Their names also have similar qualities: Freya (the woman); Kore (the maiden). The mention of the hart could also be an allusion to the magical weapon of Freya: the stag's antler with which she slew the giant Beli. Further implications such as the sexual undertones of the initiatory journey of Kore from maiden to queen of Hades, hardly need elucidation.

The Musicians Phil Legard (recorder, accordion, voice) Layla Smith (harmonium) Seth Cooke (percussion) Simon Bradley (cello) Phil Todd (bazouki) Mel Crowley (clarinet) Sara Sowah (voice)

Inaugural Session

Further Information For more information contact: phil@larkfall.co.uk Websites related to IOSAS members: www.bangthebore.com ashtraynavigations.wordpress.com wyrduk.blogspot.com ricercares.livejournal.com www.larkfall.co.uk

Relics of Goddess Worship in Early English Music

Introduction The precise relationship between pagan goddess worship and the Virgin Mary is still contested. However, the number of parallels between the story of the Blessed Virgin and the myths of the goddess are telling – the bearing of a divine offspring and the close association with both the moon (the Patrisic mysterium lunae) and the sea (her name variously interpreted as 'bitter sea' or 'mistress of the sea') are strongly suggestive of a pagan undercurrent. Furthermore the adaptation of existing pagan shrines (such as that of Isis in Philae) to the Marian cult indicate Christian tendency to adapt and assimilate rarely eradicates pagan tendencies.

Tendencies that resurface from time-to-time: it seems that man always needs a goddess to worship. In the Protestant climes of Elizabethan England, the Marian goddess was ousted and the lunar goddess variously named Cynthia, Diana and Artemis was worshipped by poets in the body of the Virgin Queen. A similar impulse perhaps underlies the resurgence of interest in paganism in present day.

Today, musicians from the Institute of Stone Age Sex will be performing their interpretation of two songs relating to the hidden stream of goddess worship in British culture – the currents of which were notably brought to the fore of the 20th century poetic imagination by the muse-struck Robert Graves, born 116 years ago this week.

Edi Beo Thu Heven Quene This Middle English hymn, whose title translates as Blessed Be Thou, Heaven Queen, has been chosen for its haunting melody and lyrics that mix lines from Latin hymns with the conventions of courtly love. There is a tradition of 'eros' that has haunted religious mysticism ever since Socrates declared to Phaedrus that love could unite heaven and earth. It is no coincidence in this respect that lovers, Eros and angels are traditionally winged and that Mary sails upon a lunar crescent.

In this hymn we find the petition of to Mary as celestial queen - the link between heaven and earth - to 'have mercy on her knight'. The text is full of the imagery of fecundity ('On thee alighted the heavenlty dew; Of thee

sprung the blessed fruit.') and also, more surprisingly, language alluding to a courtly and unattainable sensuality: There is no maiden under the sun That may be your equal.

Nor who so intimately can love; None so sweet in all things; Your love brought joy to each of us; Praised be thou, sweet thing.

King Orfeo Child Ballad 19, King Orfeo, is closely related to the Middle English narrative poem Sir Orfeo, likely composed around the same time as Edi Beo Thu Heven Quene. What is interesting about this account of Orpheus is that it has, in the words of one commentator, been adjusted to the Celtic sensibility: Euridice (or in this version, Isobel) is not lost, but returns safely from the underworld (in this case a fairy hill).

When the story is so adjusted it becomes not the legend of Orpheus and Euridice, but of that of the descent of Kore-Persephone, albeit with a heroic gloss. This was, of course, one of the most important seasonal myths of the classical world and became the central myth of the Elusinian mysteries and a number of modern witchcraft traditions.