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Phallic saints are representations of saints or local deities who are invoked for fertility. The representations of the phallus are benevolent symbols of prolificacy and reproductive fruitfulness, and objects of reverence and worship especially among barren women and young girls.
Phallic saints are representations of actual saints or local deities who are invoked for fertility. More than vulgar representations of the phallus, phallic saints are benevolent symbols of prolificacy and reproductive fruitfulness, and objects of reverence and especial worship among barren women and young girls. [1]
The phallic Deities of the Slavic godhood include Yarilo (Yarila, Western Slav. Yarovit, Gerovit, Serbian-Croatian Јarilo) - God awakening nature. His name comes from the root yar - "ardent, frantic, strong" and is associated with ideas about spring fertility. Wed: rus. ardent, spring, ukr. yarny "spring", yarny "spring, young, full of energy, passionate." The Slavic verb yariti has the meaning "to have sexual intercourse." One of the hymns, written on behalf of Yaril himself, says: "I covered the plains with grass and trees with foliage. I bring crops to the fields and offspring to livestock". [2]
Many are legitimate saints who acquired their priapic attributes through the process of folk etymology. Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803) [3] reported that, among the wax representations of body parts then presented as offerings to Cosmas and Damian at Isernia, near Naples, on their feast day, those of the penis are the most common. [4] Hamiliton's observations led Richard Payne Knight to write his Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, in which he reproduced examples of the effigies.
Hermes is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.
Vesta is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. She was rarely depicted in human form, and was often represented by the fire of her temple in the Forum Romanum. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestals, who tended the sacred fire at the hearth in her temple. As she was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the Vestalia, was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays. During the Vestalia matrons walked barefoot through the city to the sanctuary of the goddess, where they presented offerings of food. Such was Vesta's importance to Roman religion that hers was one of the last republican pagan cults still active following the rise of Christianity until it was forcibly disbanded by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in AD 391.
Fertility rites are religious rituals that are intended to stimulate reproduction in humans or in the natural world. Such rites may involve the sacrifice of "a primal animal, which must be sacrificed in the cause of fertility or even creation".
Sexual rituals fall into two categories: culture-created, and natural behaviour, the human animal having developed sex rituals from evolutionary instincts for reproduction, which are then integrated into society, and elaborated to include aspects such as marriage rites, dances, etc.
Slavic paganism or Slavic religion is the religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The South Slavs, who likely settled in the Balkan Peninsula during the 6th–7th centuries AD, bordering with the Byzantine Empire to the south, came under the sphere of influence of Eastern Christianity, beginning with the creation of writing systems for Slavic languages in 855 by the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius and the adoption of Christianity in Bulgaria in 863. The East Slavs followed with the official adoption in 988 by Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus'.
Lada and Lado are alleged Slavic deities. Lada was first mentioned around 1405-1412 in the sermons of Lucas of Wielki Koźmin, which warned against worshipping Lada and other gods during spring ceremonies and folk performances. They owe their popularity to Długosz, who in one of his sources recognized Lada as a goddess and in another as a god of war, the Polish equivalent of the Roman god Mars, to Aleksandr Faminstyn, who recognized the word Lada in Russian songs as the goddess of marriage, and to scholar Boris Rybakov, who insisted on recognizing her historicity. However, the vast majority of religious scholars and Slavists reject the historicity of these deities, believing that they owe their divine status to a misunderstanding of the song refrains by medieval scribes.
A pysanka is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with traditional folk designs using a wax-resist method. The word pysanka comes from the verb pysaty, "to write" or "to inscribe," as the designs are written (inscribed) with beeswax, not painted.
Khors is a Slavic god of uncertain functions mentioned since the 12th century. Generally interpreted as a sun god, sometimes as a moon god. The meaning of the theonym is also unknown: most often his name has been combined with the Iranian word for sun, such as the Persian xoršid, or the Ossetian xor, but modern linguists strongly criticize such an etymology, and other native etymologies are proposed instead.
Georgian mythology refers to the mythology of pre-Christian Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus.The mythology of the Kartvelian peoples is believed by many scholars to have formed part of the religions of the kingdoms of Diauehi, Colchis and Iberia.
The Priapeia is a collection of eighty anonymous short Latin poems in various meters on subjects pertaining to the phallic god Priapus. They are believed to date from the 1st century AD or the beginning of the 2nd century. A traditional theory about their origin is that they are an anthology of poems written by various authors on the same subject. However, it has recently been argued that the 80 poems are in fact the work of a single author, presenting a kind of biography of Priapus from his vigorous youth to his impotence in old age.
Ratha Saptami or Rathasapthami is a Hindu festival that falls on the seventh day (Saptami) in the bright half of the Hindu month Maagha. It is symbolically represented in the form of the Sun God Surya turning his Ratha (Chariot) drawn by seven horses towards the northern hemisphere, in a north-easternly direction. It also marks the birth of Surya and hence celebrated as Surya Jayanti.
Illyrian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices of the Illyrian peoples, a group of tribes who spoke the Illyrian languages and inhabited part of the western Balkan Peninsula since at least the 8th century BC and until the 7th century AD. The available written sources are very tenuous. They consist largely of personal and place names, and a few glosses from Classical sources.
Foutin was a syncretic amalgam of Priapus with Pothinus, a figure of uncertain historicity alleged by Irenaeus to have been the first bishop of Lyon. The similarity of the name Pothinus and the Old French verb foutre led to linguistic assimilation; the name Foutin may have originated from "foutre", which meant "to fuck", but it may also have been an intentionally altered version of Pothinus' name.
A phallus is a penis, an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic.
In Greek mythology, Priapus is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia.
Phallic architecture consciously or unconsciously creates a symbolic representation of the human penis. Buildings intentionally or unintentionally resembling the human penis are a source of amusement to locals and tourists in various places around the world. Deliberate phallic imagery is found in ancient cultures and in the links to ancient cultures found in traditional artifacts.
A lingam, sometimes referred to as linga or Shiva linga, is an abstract or aniconic representation of the Hindu god Shiva in Shaivism. The original meaning of lingam as "sign" is used in Shvetashvatara Upanishad, which says "Shiva, the Supreme Lord, has no liūga", liuga meaning he is transcendental, beyond any characteristic and, specifically the sign of gender. Lingam is regarded as the "outward symbol" of the "formless Reality", the symbolization of merging of the 'primordial matter' (Prakṛti) with the 'pure consciousness' (Purusha) in transcendental context. It is typically the primary murti or devotional image in Hindu temples dedicated to Shiva, also found in smaller shrines, or as self-manifested natural objects. It is often represented within a disc-shaped platform. It is usually shown with yoni – its feminine counterpart. Together, they symbolize the merging of microcosmos and macrocosmos, the divine eternal process of creation and regeneration, and the union of the feminine and the masculine that recreates all of existence. The lingam is conceptualized both as an emblem of generative and destructive power, particularly in the esoteric Kaula and Tantra practices, as well as the Shaivism and Shaktism traditions of Hinduism.
Folk Orthodoxy refers to the folk religion, syncretic elements, present in the Eastern Orthodox Christian communities. It is a subgroup of Folk Christianity like Folk Catholicism. The peasantry incorporated many pre-Christian ("pagan") beliefs and observances, including coordination of feast days with agricultural life, etc.