Fire Ritual Dance

Name: Walpurgisnacht Fire Dance Ritual Pendant - The Wicked Griffin
Price: 248.00 USD
Availability: InStock

To this day, bonfires are held to ‘repel’ the spirits of winter and darkness and to bring about the change from spring to summer. In honor of this tradition, I present to you this Walpurgisnacht Fire Dance Ritual Pendant.

The woman dances around the fire, Her hair flying wild in the wind. She is lost in the moment, Surrendering to the rhythm of the drums.

The fire crackles and spits, Its flames casting dancing shadows on the ground. The woman’s skin is hot and sweaty, But she doesn’t care.

She is one with the fire, One with the music, One with the night.

She dances until she can dance no more, And then she collapses on the ground, exhausted but exhilarated. She lies there for a moment, savoring the feeling of the earth beneath her back and the stars above her head.

Then she gets up and walks away, Knowing that she will never forget this night.

The night of Walpurgisnacht, The night of the witches’ sabbath, The night when the veil between the worlds is thin.

The night when the woman danced around the fire, And became one with the magic of the night.

Handcrafted in solid sterling silver and brass, pendant rests on a 20″ solid sterling silver chain. Look closely and you may just find all 24 Elder Futhark Runes somewhere on her dress…

Pendant 40mm X 27mm
NECKLACE: 20 inches

FOLKLORE

With the arrival of spring, there are many local variants of bonfire rituals across Europe and many of them can be traced back to shared pre-christian cosmology.

These traditions in particularly mostly revolve around the idea of the resurrection of the sun. As mentioned, the pre-christian cosmology was shared across much of Europe and even western Siberia and it is therefore important to note that these traditions can not be reduced to a single linguistic ancestor or culture (e.g. Germanic, Norse or Celtic).

In Germany, the night from the 30th of April to the 1st of May is called Walpurgisnacht which is dedicated to the Saint Walpurga. She came from England to what is today Germany during the 8th Century as a missionary.

Christians venerated her as they believed she had protective powers from pandemics, disease and the powers of witchcraft. (Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 2005). Saint Walpurga established a monastery in the Swabian town of Heidenheim (‘Home of Heathens’) in southern Germany. Her tomb is located in Eichstätt. In central Germany, the mountain range of the Harz mountains is especially rich in folklore and tales about local witches who dance, practice rituals and conjure spirits on this special night.

The Brocken mountain is said to harbor dark spirits who live on the mountain top and its surrounding spruce and fir woods. (Stark Lucien, 1998, Eduard Jacobs, 1897).