The Wood Beyond The World Forum World Building: Festivals

We have just come of Easter and the Spring Equinox and are heading into Passover and Easter for the Orthodox Christians. Festivals are abounding.

For me, I had a great Easter Sunday. Good food, friends and fellowship. And an interesting series of religious conversations with a wide cross-section of Christians and non-Christians. Stuff I will have to use in the near future.

Anyway, we are creating our own worlds. Festivals are an integral part of the social fabric. Where are you drawing from to create your times of celebration?

For me, I've focused on the Celtic festivals like Samhain, Beltaine, etc. The world is still somewhat agrarian so the seasons are important. Yet many of the rites of the festival seem outdated to many people.

A good example is during the principle fire festivals like Samhain. As the sun sets, the community would extinguish all the lights in their homes. Then they would gather about a central bonfire. The sun would set, plunging the community into darkness. At that time, the bonfire would be lit and each member of the community would light a stick to carry the fire to relight the lights in their homes. As I wrote in Volume 3 of Tangled Threads:
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So what festivals do you draw on as you are building your world?

An excellent point. I have been slack with festivals. In the second book of The Quollellan I mention a festival approaching but do not go into any detail. When I polish that book I must consider that.

The book I am writing now, Redd, has a Summer Gathering. It is a time for the farming community to come together. The young men are initiated and the young women are inspected and married off. Since it is still in the first draft I haven't given it much thought as to what this festival entails besides the women being paraded like livestock and the men playing rough and tumble ball games. I will have to do some research into such gatherings. I am terribly lazy with research preferring to make it up as I go along but I know I must research somethings. I usually go back after the second draft when the story has been sorted out and add details.

When we were in Thailand a few years ago we witnessed a ceremony where they placed small candles in paper boats and set them afloat. The boats were supposed to catch alight and release your wishes or something to the gods. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called or why they were actually doing it but it was very pretty to watch. 

Gayna

Mr Research and repository of useless yet intriguing information here.

I think the festival you saw, Gayna, is Loy Krathong. It is celebrated in November on the day before the full moon and and marks the end of the rainy season & and the rice harvest. The boats you saw are krathongs and it is believed that they will carry away sin and bad luck. Also this festival is (or was) used to beg forgiveness from the Goddess of Water for any pollution that may have occurred over the previous year.

Yes, festivals and spiritual life are intensely important in my stories.

As a Catholic I celebrate all the major feasts of the Church, of course, and as someone with a good liberal arts education I'm aware of the many pagan ingredients in those feasts.  My personal tradition is a mix of Judeo-Christian, arctic animist, and general Western European pagan.  I don't believe in the old nature religions, but I embrace their psychological and cultural significance.  I'm glad that the oldest Christian tradition found a way to incorporate many of their aspects. Similarly, in my stories Alidorism incorporates older more localized traditions in its religious observance.

In Vaaseli the most important holidays are Midsummer and Winter Solstice -- Harvest (at the autumnal equinox) is very important too.  There's a kind of May Day (Beltane?) holiday celebrated in the country. Bonfires are a feature of each of these -- for a northern people fire is life itself, in many ways.  The Telmi observe the same seasonal festivals as the agricultural people further south, but with a different emphasis, as they're not agriculturalists, but herders, hunters, gatherers.  They also have an intimate cultic relationship with all the animals and plants they depend on for survival, that's manifest in everyday life.  In a way, their entire lives are a religious festival, constantly reaffirming the interdependence of Creation.

One division of the telepathic mages in Albrahar, Ravella, and Vaaseli forms a religious hierarchy for the world religion of Alidorism -- in Albrahar think imams, I guess -- in Ravella and Vaaseli think the hierarchies of Christian churches like the Catholic or Orthodox.  In Xanthia matters are slightly different, with many religious traditions co-existing, and their priesthoods contributing telepaths to the secular government of the empire -- both to the civil bureaucracy and the diplomatic service.  Alidorism in Xanthia is a social and political philosophy without the burden of being a religion as well.

Thanks for starting another juicy discussion, Loekie.  I'll be back to see what others have to say about it.

What can I say, Leah, I am just such a juicy fruit! Hee-hee.

I am curious about your own festivities, though. What has been fascinating over the past couple of years, with some of my Catholic and other Christian friends is how they are starting to incorporate Passover into their lives. Also Sukot. Something I am investigating a bit more. What is your take in go back to some of the more traditional Jewish festivals and bringing a Christian angle to them? This is also a fascinating area in world building with respect to cross-pollination of festivals.

It makes perfect sense to me as a Christian to incorporate Jewish traditions in our lives. The Last Supper was in fact a seder, of course.  The first Christians considered themselves Jews, and only gave up dietary and other special restrictions so they could incoporate Gentiles into their communities more readily -- there were spiritual and philosophical reasons too, but I believe it was mostly a practical compromise.

The parish where I was welcomed into the Church held a seder during Passover.  I've made sure my own children understand the Jewish traditions their grandfather broke away from years ago.  (He never abandoned the foods of that tradition, though, and we had potato pancakes around Hannukah and hamintashen around Purim. His idea of a table wine was Mogen David concord grape.)

Drinking a little Carlo Rossi even as we speak.  Well, maybe not, depending on when you read this.  Hey, CR ain't too bad! Course, I prefer foo-foo-ier wines, but I can afford the cheap stuff.

As for my story, I have several festivals, one in the spring to celebrate the time when the Finlars won themselves a god.  The festival is called Trolach.  And, around the time of the summer solstice they recognize Holgunnach, which means strong night, the time when magical powers are at their zinnith.  There are others, but I won't bore you with them.  I have a multicultural world, so different peoples celebrate differnt things.

In book three, I plan to have games to coincide with the three day Trolach festival.  I would apprecaite any ideas regarding games that early peoples might have played.  Think the Greeks and the Vikings, but throw in monsters and magic.  I thought about a troll toss. . . .

And of course, there will be races and tests of strength and swordsmanship.  I am open to suggestions though,if anyone has any.

Jeanie

On the subject of games and competitions, I was researching for Vaaselian culture last night and discovered that a town in Finland hosts the World Championship of Berrypicking.  It's for real. (Last year the Thais swept the team competition.)

www.arctic-flavours.fi/ve_tied04/berrypicking07.pdf

There's also wife-carrying championships, haymowing, crowbar walking....

I bet every country has it's own weird traditions.

(Troll-tossing sounds a bit like midget bowling, but much tougher.)

Berry picking, huh?  I must admit, I never thought of that one.  Thanks for the link.  I will check it out.

Jeanie

Berry picking and troll tossing? Hum, we need Nick to jump into this one :-)