Modern Day Autumnal Equinox - Why some won't call it Mabon

Modern Day Mabon

Okay, so Modern Day Mabon came about during the Neo-Pagan movement of the 70's by a man named Aiden Kelly. It's largely celebrated by the Wiccan community and got it's foothold in the United States, but as said in the previous post, it can be found in almost any tradition. In America, September has always had a very holy feel, so it makes sense that we would accept something like the celebration of a harvest during the equinox.

The term was coined after a Welsh, or maybe even Saxon, deity or hero who is the god of the light, Mabon ap Modron. However, this is highly debated to even true among many historians as no one can find any proof that people even worshiped someone named Mabon, however, his name does worship to "Son of the Mothers", so it's possible, but loose. Some believe it was just Kelly's attempt to find a "Pagan" name for this holiday since there really isn't anything known about the history of the Autumn Equinox  and what it was really called. This may come as a surprise to many in the community who fiercely stick to the Yearly Wheel, but that's a more recent invention.

The biggest issue are similar holiday's that have been practiced for century's like the British Harvest Home. The thing that seems to keep Mabon alive as a name is more that it just SOUNDS Pagan, Midsummer and others don't/

Now, the Autumnal Equinox does trace back to the 16th century, so we do know that this practice was real and what it stood for, but it's time varied from tradition to tradition was really just a Harvest Celebration. Which was celebrated whenever they harvested their fall crops. It being on the actual Autumnal Equinox was, again, a more modern improvement and mainly due to a the invention of the calendar.

It's simply a rose by any other name scenario. So whatever you choose to call it, enjoy it. Have a slice of pumpkin pie for me.

So who is Mabon ap Modron?

As I said above he could either be a Welsh or a Saxon king that was represented as more god-like than human and highly coveted by his people and losing his name to what is only now known as The Mothers. The Mothers are a very, very old and long forgotten part of Saxon history which is really only described as the Great Mother archetype we see in almost any religion, including Christianity.

1Now there is only one myth that includes Mabon's name and that involves King Arthur and The Wooing of Olwen. He was taken from his mother's bedside and then rescued only to be imprisoned by his uncle until he was let out to participate in this Wooing.

However, in this article that I'm siting below, it seems we may have found out who this Mabon may actually be, where he came from, and what kind of a Mother he was born of. Click the link below for more interesting lore on the Man who gave his Name for this holiday.

1 : Mabon Lore Revealed.

© 2016, Copyright The Devil & The Dame - Writer Shannon Hinojos, Dame Hexe

The History of Mabon

What is Mabon?

Mabon is the Celtic Pagan holiday that celebrates the Autumn Equinox on September 21-22, or wherever your Autumn becomes officially Autumn. Many of our current calenders go off of these same dates to mark the changes in seasons. Mabon is mainly used to commentate the harvest we have and how thankful we are before the coming winter months.

The name Mabon was only coined the in 1970's and is known by other names such as Harvest Home, Feast of the Ingathering, and Meán Fómhair. The pumpkin is especially sacred to this holiday. It was what kept many families alive to throughout the winter months because it could be kept up to 90 days without rotting and could be added to many different dishes as well as being extremely healthy and having a high concentration of iron.

The history :

The tradition is as old as time, but the name has been made only recently. The name dates back mainly to Celtic traditions, however, almost any tradition will most likely have a celebration centered around their harvest. You may have to run far back as many modern day and even ancient sects of paganism don't, such as Santeria, Palo Mayombe, and other Afro-Cuban practices. The celebrations also differ from area to area as they had different seasons at different times and even different kinds of harvests. So for the sake of this section, we'll settle on many more the European practices and those that were influenced by them.

The early Germanic Tribes would bless herbs, flowers, and foods for healing at this time. Later traditions used this time to make Mead and wines.

Anglo Saxons would sacrifice horses to Freyr and make a God bread to eat as a celebration of the wheat harvest. They also often called this time Lammas, though this is more at the beginning of August than the end of September and now has Christian ties.

England took it a little further by creating corn dolls, dunking them in water, and burning them to represent the death of the grain god. This then adapted into the Wicker Men that were constructed for vegetation sprits and burned. This was reconstructed in the Americas with the Neo-Pagan movement of the 70s.

Even the Japanese took part in these kinds of traditions by visiting their ancestors, cleaning their graves, giving offerings, and burning incense. Much similar to the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, however that takes place after Halloween.

We will go into the modern reconstruction of Mabon in our next post. Stay tuned.