Walpurgis (pronounced Val-purr-gess-nach-t) Night is April 30th (though it ends by the evening of
May 1st. It is a holiday celebrated in Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Typical
holiday activities include the singing traditional spring folk songs and
lighting of bonfires. People celebrate it in Germany by dressing in costumes, playing pranks on people, and creating
loud noises meant to keep evil at bay. Gee, sounds somewhat like Halloween to
me.
Many people also hang blessed sprigs of foliage
from houses and barns to ward off evil spirits, or they leave pieces of bread
spread with butter and honey, called ankenschnitt, as
offerings for phantom hounds. This is to avoid bad weather and ensure good
crops, farmers might put out bread with honey and butter in the
fields. Extra care was taken to protect cattle from harm. Okay, not so like Halloween and yet, like it, too.
Other customs done during this time:
The lady of the house would customarily leap over her broom, plus
old brooms would be burned. Walpurgisnacht fires were also used to burn
anything that had worn out over the previous year, and straw men were made and
endowed with things like illness and disease, even bad luck and burned in the
fires as well. Another twist of pagan custom concerned that children would
gather greenery from juniper, hawthorn, ash and elder trees, and hang this
around the house and barn. Once upon a time these were considered offerings to
the goddess, now they were used to frighten off witches and other evil spirits.
In Finland, Walpurgis Night and May Day are effectively merged into a single celebration
usually referred to as Vappu. It is among the country’s most important
holidays, although, initially, Walpurgis Night was celebrated by the Finnish
upper class. Then, in the late 19th century, students (most notably engineering
students) took up its celebration.
The origins of the holiday go back to pagan
celebrations of fertility rites and the coming of spring. After the Norse were
Christianized, they combined it with the legend of St. Walburga, an English-born nun who lived at Heidenheim
monastery in Germany and later became the abbess there. Walburga was believed to have cured the
illnesses of local residents in the area. Walburga is traditionally associated
with May 1 because of a medieval account
of her being canonized upon the translation of her remains from their place of
burial to a church circa 870.
Although it is likely that the date of her canonization is purely coincidental to the date of the pagan
celebrations of spring, people were able to celebrate both events under church
law without fear of reprisal.
On St. Walburga: St Walpurga was born in Devonshire, England in
770 AD. As a young woman she was sent to Mainz, Germany as a missionary under
her uncle St Boniface. After leaving Mainz, she went to Heidenheim, Germany,
where she was made the abbess of the local convent. It was said her brother was
also the the head of the neighboring Monastery, and that after his death, she
took over his position. In her time she oversaw the baptizing of many pagans in
the local Heidenheim Brunnen.
After her death, the walls of her tomb began oozing a healing oil.
Because of this miracle, she was canonized. They chopped up her body and
dispersed across Germany and France to spread the miracle to everyone. Her
feast day is May 1, and she is considered the Patron Saint of Coughs, Storms,
Hydrophobia and Sailors.
The symbols associated with St Walpurga are the
Spindle, Grain and a Dog. There are spindles and sheaves of grain carved into
monuments or shrines devoted to her. These symbols also overlap Pagan
symbols; grain for good harvest, dogs (not cats) are considered the “familiars”
for German Goddesses… and of course, the spindle is associated with Frau Holda
(or Holga) of Grimm’s Fairy Tale fame.
