Author’s Note: This article was originally posted to “Of Axe and Plough” on March 17, 2017.  It is posted here with permission.

In developing a more comprehensive character to one’s religious identity, inspiration for practice can come readily from scraps of information or otherwise from the barest of inspiration.  As a reconstructionist religion, Fyrnsidu is distinctly benefited from the use of various comparative methodologies in order to flesh itself out so that it does not remain in a static or otherwise stunted form.  Incidents of holidays and a religious calendar are one such facet which are underrepresented in the historic record and must be worked around in order to craft a proper identity.  The following is presented for practitioners of Fyrnsidu and the followers of the Larhus Fyrnsida to consider.

Bosworth-Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary includes a definition:

blōstm-frēols es; m.

A floral festival

Blōstmfrēols >>floralia<<.[1]

This definition is an Old English gloss for the Roman festival Floralia.  This may hint at an early-Spring festival that was associated with that more ancient observance, and was thus suitable for a proper Old English gloss for the Latin term.  It is known from the Anecdota Oxoniensia, the Old English Glosses, edited by Arthur S. Napier.

It is not unusual for an Old English gloss to exist for a corresponding Latin concept without proof of an existing practice.  Questions necessarily surround the extent of such a commonality of practice between these two terms.  But in this instance it may be reasonable to assume, with the prevalence of regional Spring festivals across the whole of Northern Europe that some measure of festival occurred within the Anglo-Saxon period that the scribes best associated with Floralia.

European folk traditions that take place in late-April and early-May are commonly known.  Of these, to modern practitioner, “May Day” celebrations are perhaps the best known of these Spring festivals.  It is common for contemporary Pagans to treat “May Day” as the archetypal spring festival honoring fertility, abundance and growth, given over to modern practice from a culturally syncretic Wiccan religious apparatus that combined Gaelic Beltane and traditional English folk practices.  

Blōstmfrēols is of interest in the quest of establishing a unique holiday practice to enrich the practice of Fyrnsidu as distinctly Old English practices for Heathens are largely nonexistent.  Blōstmfrēols, as a gloss of Floralia, gives us an insight into the nature of the period, and the position of that Roman holiday provides the foundations for a future construction of worship.

We are not alone in making these comparisons with Floralia, nor is this found only in Bosworth-Toller.  Such a comparison had been previously made in the monograph Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire, by Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock.  Published in 1908, it was one of several printed volumes of collected folklore remnants at the time.  Floralia is intimately associated with the practice of “going a’Maying”, an old custom observed by children on the 1st of May.  Particularly, garlands of flowers were constructed that were adorned with dolls, explained by Gutch and Peacock as the chief doll “being representative of the goddess Flora, in the festival of the Roman Floralia” [2].

While it is untenable to assume that the survival of pre-Saxon Roman practices into modern memory, the comparison nevertheless lays an important groundwork for the exploration of what could constitute a development of a particularly Old English Heathen practice.  Independent of Gaelicized-Wiccan observances, this practice can be explored through comparative study with the Floralia, in order to give more substance to what the writers of these glosses were describing.

Behind Blōstmfrēols: Floralia

As a festival celebrating the fertility and fecundity of the Spring, Floralia is the Roman festival for the goddess Flora and consisted of a festival post-dating the expansion of the original Flora cult in 238 BCE [3].  In the veneration of Flora, it consisted of hares and goats being released within the Circus Maximus and various seeds and beans scattered among the attending people gathered taking place on the 28th of April through the 3rd of May.  Given the emphasis on fertility and the bloom of the Spring and dealing with the fructification of the earth and humanity both, it was functionally and undeniably a festival for the common folk [4].

Flora is an old Italic deity who is associated with both Ceres, as the agricultural goddess of fertility, and with Venus, as the goddess of love and fecundity [5]. She is nevertheless set apart from these two deities.  She is not simply an “agrarian” deity in the same nature of Ceres, but deals specifically with the celebration of the Spring bloom of flowers.  Historically, the temples of Ceres and Flora were established separately, and their respective holidays were likewise kept apart.  Despite the apparent links between this holiday and the Cerealia, the celebration of Floralia-as-fertility festival was independent of celebration of agricultural cultivation

Floralia is representative of the fertility of the land through nonviolent means.  The release of the hares and goats, themselves herbivorous animals, were not sacrificed.  This positions Floralia against a bloodletting festival which would otherwise ensure the fertility of the land.  It takes place at the end of April when the flowers and fields are beginning to bloom for much of the northern hemisphere.  Much like Ēastre and Beltane, it would fall in the transitional period between April and May.

The festival of Floralia has been classified as a ‘propitiatory sacrifice’, or a piacula.  This denotes a ritual action reserved for sacrifices that are designed specifically in order to ensure the continuation of or otherwise protect against some specific outcome.  As much of a celebration of flowers and the Spring, it appears to have been a ritualistic safeguard to continue the natural order of spring growth.  

Blōstmfrēols in Contemporary Practice

The literal definition of Blōstmfrēols as a “floral festival” in Bosworth-Toller places flowers, flowering plants, and fructification as the highest concern in this holiday.  It celebrates the growth of those vibrant attractants and their importance within agriculture.  What does this include?  Flowers.  Bees.  Pollination.  Life.  It is more than a Spring festival, but one that actively worships the vibrant attractants which inevitably help produce the fruits and vegetables we as a society depend on, as well as the creatures that make that happen.

The question remains: How can one appreciate and celebrate this holiday if they so wish?  What are ways that practitioners of Fyrnsidu and their hearths can potentially approach such a holiday?  What would the requirements of ritual be?

It would perhaps be best to determine when the festivity should be.  Floralia is positioned late in the month of April, sometime between April 28th and May 3rd.  A similar positioning for Blōstmfrēols is absolutely appropriate, although individuals in different growing seasons are more than welcome to move it further ahead or behind, depending.  For instance, late April is a good time for those in what is considered “hardiness zone 5”, when things are entering their bloom.  Those that are in warmer climates further south may decide that close to Ēastre may be preferable.

It is a festival of both levity and solemnity, one that both celebrates flowers and new growth as well as seeks to ensure that the coming Spring and growing season are fruitful and prosperous.  Given its roots in the non-violent Floralia, it is unsuitable to celebrate Blōstmfrēols with offerings of meat or game products, relying instead on wines, honey, oils, and other products of agricultural practices which are benefited by the proliferation of flowers and pollinators.  Suitable sacrifices are poured out in libation or are otherwise “gifted back”, and coupled with votives (hares and goats in particular) and other offerings as deemed appropriate.

Though we do not have a comparative figure associated with Flora in Old English folklore, Ēastre provides a suitable focus for worship.  She is honored from the full moon of Ēastremōnaþ to the end of Blōstmfrēols, and celebrated as the bringer of the Spring and the flowers.  In this manner She is approached as the Goddess of flowers (Ēastre Blōstmbǣrende), of bees (Ēastre Bēomōder) and honey (Ēastre Hunigflōwende)[6].

Blōstmfrēols could then be seen as the end of the “Ēastre season”, the finished culmination of the honoring of the equinox, and the hope for the growth it should bring.

We can utilize later-period Lincolnshire folklore as an example for suitable actions, as well. The creation of flower garlands[7], especially utilizing native flowers to the area and grown at the appropriate time and adorned with ribbons and other festive decorations, is appropriate. Votive representations of either the hares or the goats, or of a divine figure placed within those garlands, can hang prominently throughout the period of the observance, only to be deposited on a body of water or buried in the soil at the end of the festival, as hearth practice entails.

Given the dire state of the bee population in the West, especially the United States where they suffer from Colony Collapse Disorder, the celebration and protection of pollinators is of paramount importance for our continued survival as a society.  Seeding local types of wildflowers or maintaining a space conducive for their growth will only aid in the proliferation of the bounty which Blōstmfrēols ultimately seeks to ensure.

In Summary

It is highly unlikely that the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon tribes maintained a festival that was undeniably drawn from Roman practices, as a simple reading of the gloss would otherwise intimate.  No matter the thoughts of folklorists and gloss scribes, it is simply unlikely to have happened.

It is, likewise, undeniable that Blōstmfrēols is a contemporary holiday that is built upon very ancient practices.  There are no claims to antiquity in the present practice of the observance.  Instead it takes the tradition of established Spring festivities and brings them to the fore for Fyrnsidu practice, incorporating a perspective of our world and employing it in a fundamentally unique way.  This is vital in the performance and continuation of a modern religious identity, for if those holes which we have are not filled, we will remain in the mire of intellectualism and academic debate and not a living religious identity.

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[1] Bosworth, Joseph, ed. Thomas Northcote Toller and Others, Comp. Sean Christ and Ondřej Tichý “An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online.” Blóstm-freóls. (Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, 21 Mar. 2010), Accessed: Web. 29 July 2016. http://www.bosworthtoller.com/040634.  There is also another word given for Blōstmfrēols in Bosworth-Toller, “Blōstmgeld” which serves as an alternative.  This word also is translated as “floralia”.

[2] Eliza Gutch and Mabel Peacock, County Folk-lore Vol. V., Printed Extracts No. VII: Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire (London: Long Acre, 1908), pg. 200.

[3] W. Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic: An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans, (London: Macmillan and Co. LTD.), 1899, pg 91.

[4] Fowler, Roman Festivals, pg. 95.

[5] Fowler, Roman Festivals, pg. 92.

[6] This would syncretize Her with Flora, Chloris and Mellona, respectively, providing additional clues for an appropriate practice of the holiday period.

[7] Gutch and Peacock, Printed Folk-Lore, pg. 200. Traditional descriptions of these garlands include an “oval shape”, and were otherwise composed of cowslips, wood anemones, crab-blossom, wall-flowers, primroses, and daisies. Given the geographic conditions of modern Fyrnsidere, it is advised that one uses locally procured flowers.