Drawing Down The Dream: Monsters, Myth and the Human
Psyche
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The wintry hedge was black; The green grass was not seen; Percy
Bysshe Shelley - 1815
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Harshness vanished. A sudden softness has replaced the meadows'
wintry grey. Little rivulets of water changed their singing
accents. Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth from
space, and country lanes are showing these unexpected subtle
risings that find expression in the empty trees Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Rites of Spring Northern Europe 2000 years ago Series of
rituals defined the beginning of spring People believed that spring
came from the successful union of Nerthus (Mother Nature)with a
male god
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Tacitus Description of the Rites of Spring 1.Nerthus arrives in
her chariot kept in a sacred grove 2.A single priest is allowed to
touch and interpret the arrival of the goddess 3.Nerthus travels
around the countryside inducing a time of peace and rejoicing
4.When Nerthus has had enough, the priest returns her to her sacred
grove
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Tacitus Description of the Rites of Spring Nerthus is washed
along with her chariot and robes in a sacred lake The slaves who
aid in this process are drowned in the sacred lake
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Tollund Man May 1950 Two peat cutters discovered a body in a
peat bog So fresh looking, they thought it was a recent murder
Called the police!
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Who Was the Tollund Man? Older man Naked except for a cap and
belt Believed to have been hung because of the noose found with him
2000 years old
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Tollund Man=Priest of Nerthus? Last meal gruel made of barley,
linseed, gold-of-pleasure, knotweed, green bristle-grass, dock,
black bindweed and chamomile Rope left around neck to form necklace
similar to that of fertility goddess figurines Naked, like
fertility goddess Symbolic insemination?
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Who was Nerthus? Frigg Goddess of Married women Giving birth of
children Lived in Fensalir=Marsh Halls Freyja Goddess of Love
Fertility Gold Seidr War death