In ancient
Rome a festival was held in December which
was known as the Saturnalia. It is
in this celebration from the
days of antiquity that we find a character titled
The Lord of Misrule. This
particular mythic-rite was to
have more influence upon later
European customs than
perhaps any other. In the pre-Republican calendar the
festival started on December 17th and usually ran for
several days ending on the
Winter Solstice. Bonfires
blazed during this time, and
the celebration was marked by orgies, carnivals, transvestism
and gift giving. Masters and slaves changed places and the world was
turned upside down for a short
period. All of this was overseen by a temporary king called
The Lord of Misrule. The Saturnalian revels and orgies
were not tamed until the 14th
Century when the Catholic Church had enough power to finally
exert its "authority" over both the Government and the people.
The person
chosen to play the Lord of Misrule had
to be a
young attractive man, strong and virile. For 30
days prior to the festival he was
allowed to indulge himself in
any and all pleasures as he pleased. He was dressed in royal
robes and was treated like a king. In
point of fact this young man
represented the god Saturn, in whose honor the festival was
originated. The Romans
considered Saturn to be a god of cultivated fields and
sprouting seed; according to
legend he was the first king
of Latium and first introduced
agriculture. At the end of the festival he was slain upon the
altar of Saturn by having his
throat cut. His blood was then given to the
fields so that his vitality
passed into the soil, revitalizing
the life within the earth and
ensuring a bountiful harvest
for the next year. In the
classical period of Horace and Tacitus this king was a
buffoon figure, but in earlier times he was the sacrificial king.
In the book
The Golden Bough, by James Frazer, we
read these
words: "We can hardly doubt that in the King
of the
Saturnalia at Rome, as he is depicted by classical
writers, we
can see only a feeble emasculated copy of
that
original, whose strong features have been fortunately
preserved for
us by the obscure author of the Martyrdom of St. Dasius. In other
words, the martyrologist's account
of the
Saturnalia agrees so closely with the accounts of
similar
rites elsewhere which could not possibly have
been known to
him, that the substantial accuracy of his
description
may be regarded as established; and further,
since the
custom of putting a mock king to death as a
representative of a god cannot have
grown out of a practice of
appointing him to preside over a holiday revel..."
In Italy
today the winter festival of "Carnevale" (the
Carnival)
closely resembles the revels of the Saturnalia,
with the
exception of the literal slaying of the king, of
course.
Frazer writes of this in the Golden Bough: "The
resemblance
between the Saturnalia of ancient and the
Carnival of
modern Italy has often been remarked, but in
the light of all the facts that have
come before us, we may well ask
whether the resemblance does not amount to identity. We have seen
that in Italy, Spain and France, that is, in the countries where the
influence of Rome has been the deepest and most lasting, a
conspicuous feature of
the Carnival is a burlesque figure personifying the
festive season, which after a
short career of glory and dissipation is publicly shot,
burnt, or otherwise destroyed,
to the feigned grief or genuine delight of the
populace. If the view here
suggested of the Carnival is
correct, this grotesque
personage is no other than a direct
successor of the old king of
the Saturnalia..."
In ancient Rome a pig was sacrificed
at the Saturnalia. In later times this was substituted with a
trickster character and in more
recent times by a great buffoon who ruled as the King of the
Carnival. This character
was carried about upon a throne as he reclined, wearing the
costume of a pig.
Traditionally a
fava bean was baked into a focaccia
cake, and a
young man (among the contestants) who
found the
bean became the Lord of Misrule. The custom
of placing a
fava bean in a focaccia cake still takes place
at Carnival
in Italy, along with many tamed versions of
the original
revels of the Roman Saturnalia. J.C. Cooper,
in his book The Aquarian
Dictionary of Festivals,
comments on the ancient and modern associations of the
Saturnalia: "The
characteristics of this time passed from Rome into Europe,
persisting into medieval times,
having also a Lord of Misrule." Frazer goes into greater
depth of connection in The
Golden Bough where he associates the Lord of Misrule with The
King of the Woods who ruled in the sanctuary of
Diana at Lake Nemi in
Italy. Frazer's book deals with the slain god
mythos which is an integral
part of The Old Religion. In
the Golden Bough we find
these words from Frazer: "We
may conclude with a fair degree
of probability that if the King of the Wood at Aricia lived
and died as an incarnation of a
sylvan deity, he had of old a parallel at Rome in the men who, year
by year, were slain in the character of King Saturn, the god
of the sown and sprouting seed."
Clearly we can see in all presented here
the Slain god mythos of the
Western Mystery Tradition; the lord of the vegetation
(formerly the lord of the
woods) sacrificed into the harvest. It is interesting to note
that yet another northern European Craft Mythos originated in Italy.
