Happy Winter Solstice!

Sven is dressed as a Druid in celebration of the winter solstice. Or not, it’s hard to be sure of authenticity. On the one hand, it is said by some that the Druid winter holiday was on February 1 celebrating the return of the light, rather than on the winter solstice itself. On the other hand, a lot of what's “known” about the Druids is a combination of 18th Century and New Age claptrap, so there's perhaps no harm in making up some claptrap of our own. (Ceasar's De Bello Gallico is the origin of the bulk of what was recorded, and since he was shooting at them at the time, he was not necessarily privy to the details of their holidays. Other writers like Pliny the Elder may also have been mixing fact and fiction in their descriptions.)



Next to Sven is a model of Stonehenge (Svenhenge!) made from dominoes covered with textured spray paint and glued to a pie plate. Not too awful a copy of the original, don’t you think?

The association of the Druids with Stonehenge is a bit dubious – they came along a couple thousand years later, but like many other peoples in the region were surely aware of the megaliths and perhaps incorporated structures like Stonehenge into their ceremonies. Anyhow, the interest of modern “Druids” in the ruins of Stonehenge is pretty strong. So here it is.

Please do not attempt to use Svenhenge for celestial timekeeping! It is calibrated only for wood(-land) creatures like Sven, not for bipedal mortals. And only Sven knows the deep numerology secrets embedded in the spatial arrangement of the dominoes.

Sven is wearing a wreath of real mistletoe, sacred to the Druids. Oak groves were also sacred to the Druids, which is appropriate to our location in the Michaux State Forest. Check out the Wikipeida entry on the “Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe.”

Mistletoe is also relevant to Norse mythology: “Baldr was a god of vegetation. His mother, Frigga, had a prophetic dream and made every plant, animal, and inanimate object promise not to harm Baldr. Frigga overlooked the mistletoe, and the mischievous god Loki took advantage of Frigga's oversight by tricking the blind god Hod into killing Baldr with a spear fashioned from mistletoe. Baldr's death brought winter into the world. When the gods restored Baldr to life, Frigga declared the mistletoe sacred, ordering that it should bring love rather than death into the world. Happily complying with Frigga's wishes, any two people passing under the plant from now on would celebrate Baldr's resurrection by kissing under the mistletoe.”

So, everyone give Sven a big kiss in celebration of Winter!

(Thank you, Diane and Andre!)