.png)
''Walpurgisnacht'' - Faun
Of all the anonymous-authored quotes floating around the interwebs, this is probably my favorite...
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
What’s kind of funny about people attributing this quote to a Roman is that anytime I see the quote, I immediately think of the Roman Empire.
When Rome started out, religion was generally an unorganized series of beliefs and rituals that greatly differed from tiny region to tiny region. A region often had a patron/patroness god/goddess such as Athena for Athens. Today this ancient form of religion is known as “Paganism.” However, when the city of Rome became the huge Roman Empire, there were many different peoples with many different beliefs and cults all living under one government.
For a while, the government’s official policy was that anyone could believe what they wanted, as long as they paid their taxes. Actually, there was a fairly new religion called Christianity which was banned for a while. But eventually Christianity was legalized, made the official religion of Rome, and Pagans were heavily persecuted. Because Roman culture was based on Greek culture, and the Greeks love irony. And buttsex.
So in an act that has forever solidified itself with the above quote, the Roman leaders used religion as a way of uniting the multicultural empire. It made sense. It’s pretty hard to have unity when you have a nation full of Latins, Greeks, Germans, Celts, Arabs, Jews, Turks, Iberians, and so on, all believing vastly different things. The Roman Empire needed to be united under the worship of one imaginary friend, as opposed to a diverse tapestry of imaginary friends.
There’s a Musik Video review in here somewhere, I promise.
So this is the part most of us are familiar with. Christians in power began persecuting Pagans in an attempt to stomp out the old religions, a practice that continued well after the empire had fallen, and there were new kingdoms in its place. One of the methods of stomping out both the religion and culture of Paganism, besides a genocide here and there, was the Christianization of Pagan holidays. The Celtic holiday of Samhain became the Catholic holiday of All Hallows’ Eve, now known as Halloween. Ostara became Easter. For those of you wondering what painting eggs has to do with the return of Jesus, it symbolized the return of Spring, which is what Ostara was about. One of the Pagan holidays was May Day, which is the day after Walpurgisnact, and finally here we are!
Yes, dear readers, the Musik Video I’m reviewing today is about Walpurgisnacht. And the reason that massive introduction was needed is because the holiday, the Video, and the band that made it, are all proof that cultural Paganism is alive and well, despite two thousand years of attempts at Christianization.
But first, one last history lesson. May Day, a secular version of which is still largely celebrated, was all about welcoming Summer. The Germanic Pagans celebrated the night before by lighting a bonfire, and dancing around a Maypole which symbolized a big throbbing Schwanz. Yeah, my elementary school teachers left that part out when my class did the Maypole dance. So how does one Christify a holiday like this? Well, the Catholic Church decided that April 30th - May 1st would be a time to celebrate Saint Walpurga, an English missionary that is credited with bringing Christianity to Deutschland. What followed next was perhaps the most awesome discretion in the history of religion.
The night before May Day, known as Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), eventually became a haunted night where witches allegedly gather in Germany to hold rituals and, I assume, do various witchy things. Basically, Saint Walpurga’s night became Germany’s Satanic Halloween. To add yet another insult, The Church of Satan now celebrates Walpurgisnacht as one of its unholy holidays. Ouch.
So now with all that being said, on to the Musik.
“Walpurgisnacht” is performed by German Pagan Folk band Faun, and it’s awesome. Seriously, with all the babbling I just did, it should be obvious that I love this topic, and Faun did a sweet job of honoring such a cool holiday. Faun’s “Walpurgisnacht” paints a really beautiful picture of German Pagans coming out to celebrate.
“In den Abendhimmel steigen
Heute Nacht die Zauberweisen
Wildes Volk und Liliths Art
Lauernd Winde heimlich fahrt
Lasst uns zu den Feuern streifen
Raunend nach den Sternen greifen
Gutes und auch böses Wort
Tragen wir heut fort und fort”
In the sky tonight
The witches rise
Wild Folk and Lilith's kind
Lurking, secretly riding the winds
Let us wander to the fires
Whispering, reaching for the stars
Both the good and the bad word
We carry on and on tonight
This type of German is actually an older version. It seems to be a mix of Middle High German and modern Standard German. Which is nice, because it's understandable, but has an extra mystical feel. In addition to the normal mystical feel of German.
I really do love the opening to this song. The very beginning has this nice drum rhythm that lets you know you’re in for something special. Then after the vocalists do some beautiful harmonizing, they move into the catchy chorus.
“Hört die Geigen, hört die Geigen,
Die Feuer sind entfacht
Folgt dem Reigen, folgt dem Reigen
In der Walpurgisnacht”
Hear the violins, hear the violins
The fires are ignited
Follow the dance, follow the dance
In the Walpurgisnacht
It starts out with some scenery porn showing the band travelling through the forest to the Maypole. When they get there, there are sexy Frauen wearing while silk, and prancing around the Maypole/Schwanz. After some more prancing, the girls light a bonfire, and as the flames grow higher, they smear dirt on their skin while looks of ecstasy appear on their faces. Yeah, the forest isn’t the only eye candy in this Video.
But it’s at this point that things really get good if you’re a humungous nerd like me. The shots now alternate between the band singing around a bonfire in the darkness of night, and people dressed as fauns dancing around said bonfire, and waving incense. The shot then cuts to the sky to reveal three moons, and the Triple Moon Goddess of Wicca. After a close-up of the fauns, the shot then goes to show two moons with Wicca’s Horned God. It’s at this point that my head just fucken explodes all over the walls. Yeah, I pretty much marked out like mad the first time I saw this. I totally love Wiccan mythology. Yes, I know its ancient origins go back to the sixties, but who cares? The imagery and stories of Wicca are awesome. And we so rarely see any representation of its mythology in the media. So yeah, I was super excited to see the Triple Moon Goddess and Horned God here. What’s even better is that the Video then goes on to do things that reference other less known aspects of Wicca. The Horned God throws a type of spiritual rope up to the Triple Moon Goddess and pulls her down from the moon onto earth.
This is a reference to a ritual called “Drawing Down the Goddess,” in which Wiccans summon the goddess to come down and possess the body of the High Priestess. I kind of have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, the fact that people believe in literally existing gods is one of the reasons I’m a card-carrying misanthrope. On the other hand, I can’t help but enjoy it from a pure entertainment standpoint. It’s cool mythology, and perhaps the people who worship these gods are a part of the mythology too. After the goddess is brought to earth, she and the god slowly walk towards each other, while a priestess holds a rope. She ties their wrists together, which is a reference to the Wiccan handfasting. And probably the bondage that will occur later that night. The Horny God, amirite?
“Walpurgisnacht” mixes good Musik, interesting stories, and pretty visuals to make a great Video. I also can’t stress enough just how good it is that Faun, who has songs in many different languages, chose the German language for this song. A lot of European bands sing in English in order to reach a wider audience at the expense of quality. English is fine, but die schreckliche deutsche Sprache is an art language. Depending on how one uses German, it can sound brutally violent, soft and sweet, heartbreakingly sad, or seductively sexy. Eisblume manages to do the latter three in “Leben ist Schön.” German is naturally dramatic, which makes it perfect for Musik and movies. “Walpurgisnacht” would have been a good song in the language of Shakespeare, but not nearly as good as it is in the language of Lindemann.
The only problem I have with this Video, because I’m never satisfied, is that it’s kind of obvious that the budget was low. The Triple Moon Goddess looks alright, but not great. The headgear she’s wearing looks a bit cheap, which honestly is enough to take me out of the moment here. Much of the Video looks like it was shot with a home camera, which gives it a sorta low quality feel, despite everything else in the Video being really good. Still, everything else going on is enough to push this flaw aside.
As I mentioned earlier, I included that long intro because the history of Walpurgisnacht needs to be known to understand the importance of Faun and their Musik. Faun uses a lot of Pagan themes in both their Musik and live performances. They’re often credited with starting the genre of Pagan Folk. Pagan Metal is also a thing, but it usually sucks because it’s done by people who scream as loud as they can’t sing. Anywho, the fact that Pagan-themed bands like Faun are around, shows that there’s a part of us which still feels connected to the old ways. The fact that the Catholics tried to Christianize holidays like Walpurgisnacht, but failed miserably, show that it’s a lot harder to extinguish an indigenous culture. Sure, they were able to eradicate religious Paganism, but cultural Paganism returned as soon as the Renaissance.
Another important point the Video makes is that Europe’s nature rituals reinvented themselves as Wicca. Wicca’s Moon Goddess and Horned God are not ancient gods. However, they are modern retellings of ancient nature-based European culture. At one point, the song mentions Lilith, which I didn’t like at first. After all, Lilith is a Jewish figure, not a Germanic one. So does she really belong here? Yes, because Neo-Pagans have done to Lilith what Christians have tried to do to Paganism. Neo-Pagans have given a new Paganized mythology to Lilith. This is what happens when an ancient culture is confronted with a new one being pushed on them. It adopts certain figures, and makes them their own. Probably an even better example is Satan. In the Bible, Satan is an incredibly unimportant figure. In the Old Testament, he’s not even a character, rather just a title for angels who test humans. It was Europeans like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Milton, Christopher Marlowe, and Dante Alighieri who gave Satan his devilish character that we all known and heil today. Lilith and Satan aren’t Bibilical Jewish figures anymore, rather they’re Paganized European figures. Walpurgisnacht has become a Neo-Pagan and a Satanic holiday, but at its core, it’s really just become a European holiday. By the way, the fact that cultural Paganism returned in full-force, while religious Paganism stayed dead for the most part, is a very good thing. Worshipping any fictitious figure is bad, whether Odin or Yahweh. Granted, if I had to choose, I’d rather people be Pagan again, but the even better option is culturally Pagan, philosophically Atheist.
So I have one more point to make that, should Faun themselves read this, will probably make them cringe because they’re German, and this involves Nazism.
After World War Two, the Allies launched a propaganda campaign on Germany and Austria the likes of which we’ll probably never see again. After all, the Allies and the Nazis both practiced genocide, slavery, targeting of civilians, and mass expulsion. But the Allies won, so it was okay when they did it. Plus, the Allies were still persecuting and killing Germans (after the war was over) so they needed some justification. Much like the Christians, the Allies tried their best to eradicate German culture through both genocide and propaganda. Paganism itself became a target for a few reasons. Nazism evolved from an Occult think tank called the Thule Society. Heinrich Himmler, the very powerful Nazi who ran the Schutzstaffel, was a Neo-Pagan. And, since the Nazis were some stylish niggas, they often used Pagan imagery in their rallies and uniforms. So after the Germans were thoroughly saturated with Holocaust guilt, Germanic Paganism and mythology became super taboo. And yet, here we are. Paganism is still taboo in Germany and Austria today, yet not so much that it has stopped bands like Faun from making a Musik Video like “Walpurgisnacht.” Once again, some Germans just refuse to let people stomp out their culture. Deutschland über alles, indeed.
Bonus Fact: While most Christian traditions recognize May Day as being a celebration of Saint Walpurga, some Catholic ones use the day to celebrate the Virgin Mary. So basically, a fertility holiday that involves dancing around a giant dick became a holiday to celebrate a virgin, which then became a holiday for witches to gather. Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
“In den Weiden werden unsere Träume klingen
Und die Winde werden unsere Lieder singen
Lasst uns mit den Funken übers Feuer springen
In der Walpurgisnacht”
In the meadows our dreams will sound
And the winds will sing our songs
Let us leap over the fires with the sparks
On Walpurgis Night
0 comments: