 |
| The Winter Queen RL McNulty, 2022 Micron Pen/Colored Pencil |
The Winter Queen comes from Irish and Scottish legends about the Cailleach Bheur, the Blue Hag that ushers in Winter. It's helpful to know that there used to be two seasons, rather than the four we recognize today. The Winter Queen is Orion, riding her battle boar into the sky in mid Autumn, when Winter used to begin on Nov.1. She's accompanied by her storm wolves (Canis Major and Minor), who create the howling winds and biting cold of winter snowstorms.
Her counterpart is the Summer Queen, who first appears (or is born) on the sunrise horizon near Imbolc in February. She is the White Serpent, or Scorpio -- and her peak over the horizon is similar to our Groundhog Day. Either she emerges for and early spring, or she dives back in leaving the old queen to rage on into March.
Undestanding the celestial nature of the dance of these two queens really helps me understand the mythology. As I've been ill this fall and winter, I have woken up mulptiple times at night, so have been able to watch this turning of the wheel overhead. Orion creeps by my window earlier and earlier, gradually giving rise to Cancer and the Beehive, which my detectives may remember as the source of bees who bring souls and the inspiration of the Muses into the world.
Leo follows, and then Virgo lounges as she passes overhead, carried on one of the many serpents in the sky. Libra is up now and Scorpio is just about to become more visible in preparation for Imbolc. If you think of this in terms of the zodiac, a constellation must be far enough away from its month behind the sun that it can be visible again in the night sky.
There are later male versions of this story, too -- the Winter King and the Summer King fighting over a beautiful maiden. The beautiful maiden gradually grows old until she becomes the hag of winter. Like the queens, the kings are associated with the Little Sun of winter and the Big Sun of summer.
After studying stories like these, I think the Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless represent another set of winter/summer battle myths. The Baba Yaga travels in her mortar and pestle, creating stormy winds with her broom. She lives on the border of the underworld realm, and the solar knights of sunrise, midday and sunset emerge from her house.
Koschei strives to kidnap the beautiful maiden and the firebird--and he even has the cauldron and the skeleton knights that show up in the Celtic tales.
In the Celtic versions, the cauldron is represented in the sky by the circumpolar constellations -- the whirling forms represent the place where the Red Bird souls enter and leave the land of the living. This is the origin of our tradition about cardinals and red birds as representing loved ones who have passed away. The Red Birds find their way by climbing the World Tree into the Sky and following the Milky Way to the Cailleach's cauldron of life and death and life again.
A very blessed new year to you all! May the Red Birds watch over you as the Winter Queen does her best to bluster her way out of the rule of the passage of time. It's good to know that in time, even she will have to give way to the new birth of the tiny solar babe that will bring the blessings of spring and summer back to us.
