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Walpurgisnacht

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Mighty_Emperor

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German witches get ready for Walpurgis Night


29 April 2005

HAMBURG - Up to 150,000 self-styled witches and warlocks, New Age practitioners and the simply curious are converging for May Eve revelries on the summit of the highest peak in the Harz Mountains on Saturday night.

Children in spooky costumes will participate in parades and street fairs in villages on the slopes of the Brocken, the mountain immortalised in Alexander Borodin's 'Night on Bald Mountain' orchestral suite.

Bonfires will light the nighttime skies on mountain tops in the Harz region as local communities held their own May Day Eve festivals marking the end of winter and the coming of summer.

In the town of Schierke, a four-hour Walpurgis Night open-air play is
being held, tracing the history of the persecution of witches, with players performing writhing modern dances to Medieval music.

The day of Saint Walburga is celebrated on 1 May. But the night before, 30 April or May Day Eve (Beltane Eve), is called Walpurgis Night, formerly the date of the pagan festival marking the beginning of summer.

Its autumnal counterpart, six months later on 31 October, is Halloween.

According to German legend, this festival has been associated with a witches' carnival, and on this night it was believed that witches met with the devil for one final night of revelry before being consigned to the underworld until they emerge again exactly six months later on 31 October - Halloween.

The Harz Mountains region is the location of many German fairy tales featuring witches and goblins and the Brocken is the highest Harz peak at 1,142 metres.
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Source
 
Stefan Eggeler (1894-1969) ~ etching, Walpurgisnacht, 1922.

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A nice find and a timely reopening of this thread after eleven years!

I have to take issue with the post immediately above. Mussorgsky's famous piece has a somewhat obscure history but he was not inspired by the Germans. In fact he later said, "it seethed within me so, and I simply didn't know what was happening within me ... I see in my wicked prank an independent Russian product, free from German profundity and routine, and, like Savishna, grown on our native fields and nurtured on Russian bread."

Pedantry attack over! :cooll:

It would still be an appropriate piece to celebrate the feast! Try to seek out the original version or Stokowski's brutal arrangement (as featured in Fantasia). Rimsky-Korsakov took some of the bite out of Mussorgsky's orchestration. :)
 
For no apparent reason I have ruthlessly celebrated the coming of May this year. I haven't been to bed since Saturday and still feel joyous, although a tad tired and confused.

It would have been my mum's 81st birthday on May Eve. We did use to have jolly good parties on her birthday.

A bit of ballet never goes amiss...
 
I'm hunting for the 30 April 1988 episode of the late night Channel 4 talk show After Dark. There's only a couple of boring episodes on youtube, this one was called "Bewitched, Bothered or Bewildered?" They never released VHS or DVD copies of the series so I guess I'm left with the long shot that someone VHS home recorded the original transmission...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Dark_(TV_series)
On 30 April 1988 Tony Wilson hosted "a special Walpurgis Night edition...which featured representatives of several pagan, occult and Satanist groups. The general tone of the questioning was inquiring and non-judgmental, and the only hostility was expressed by the "token" Christian spokeswoman, ex-witch Audrey Harper. Before the mid-1980s, it would have appeared ludicrous to discuss British Satanists as a serious phenomenon, still less a social problem."
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It does look like that episode isn't available on line, although the discussion about Satanic Ritual Abuse is there. As a sort of place holder, here's a bunch of docs about witchcraft/paganism. You've probably seen them but it's quite handy to have them in one place.
 
Darn, too interested in trying to commemorate Mayday and "though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the red flag flying here." to catch up Walpurgisnacht and lovely Maypoles.

The people's flag is deepest red; it's shrouded oft' our martyred dead.
And 'ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, their heart's blood dyed it's every fold.
So raise the scarlet standard high--within it's shade we'll live or die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the Red Flag flying here.
 

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GerdaWordyer said:
Darn, too interested in trying to commemorate Mayday and "though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the red flag flying here." to catch up Walpurgisnacht and lovely Maypoles.

The people's flag is deepest red; it's shrouded oft' our martyred dead.
And 'ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, their heart's blood dyed it's every fold.
So raise the scarlet standard high--within it's shade we'll live or die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the Red Flag flying here.
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It's traditional in Sweden to celebrate Valborg with celebrations around a big bonfire. Unfortunately, there's been hardly any rain the last few months and everywhere's a bit dry, so there's a region-wide ban on bonfires. As a result, tonight's celebrations involve partying around large piles of distinctly non-burning wood. Nonfires.
 
Tribble said:
It's traditional in Sweden to celebrate Valborg with celebrations around a big bonfire. Unfortunately, there's been hardly any rain the last few months and everywhere's a bit dry, so there's a region-wide ban on bonfires. As a result, tonight's celebrations involve partying around large piles of distinctly non-burning wood. Nonfires.
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Aw.
 
Tribble said:
It's traditional in Sweden to celebrate Valborg with celebrations around a big bonfire. Unfortunately, there's been hardly any rain the last few months and everywhere's a bit dry, so there's a region-wide ban on bonfires. As a result, tonight's celebrations involve partying around large piles of distinctly non-burning wood. Nonfires.
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That's sad (I love a fire)
May I suggest you light a fire in your soul, with spells:witch:
 
Tribble said:
It's traditional in Sweden to celebrate Valborg with celebrations around a big bonfire. Unfortunately, there's been hardly any rain the last few months and everywhere's a bit dry, so there's a region-wide ban on bonfires. As a result, tonight's celebrations involve partying around large piles of distinctly non-burning wood. Nonfires.
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Yeah, the whole of Scandinavia is bone dry (by Scandinavian reckoning). The drought covers Norway, Denmark and Finnland too. I am actually glad they are being careful, and besides, if the gods of the earth and sky deny you rain and crop fertility, you shouldn't worship them.
 
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