The ritualistic sacrifice/initiation rite of passage of the Wild Boar/Pig
Throughout history the boar and the boar’s-head have been used in heraldry.
The White Boar was the personal device or badge of the English King Richard lll of England and is an early instance of the use of boars in heraldry.
The Wild Boar is mostly seen as a masculine totem for it enriches all the male virtues of bravery, nobility and fierceness in battle, but the Sow (female) is also emboldened with many of the same attributes, including protectiveness and fertility.
I have had many dreams in which the Pig features and if you are lucky to have one as your Totem creature you are extremely lucky and it will guide you to find ways to experience wonderful spirituality.
The fertility god, Frey and his golden solarboar, Gullinborsti. His twin sister, Freya is sometimes shown riding it.
The picture above showing The sun shining behind them, the Vanir god Freyr stands with his boar Gullinbursti, with Freya shown in the picture below.
The root var, for the name of the boar, is to be found in the Nordic languages in the form of bor.
The Norse tradition connected with the Goddess Freya was the Yule Oath Boar. In Scandinavian mythology, Freya is the Goddess of fertility, marriage, love and the hearth. Her sacred animal was a Golden Boar called Gullinbursti (Golden Bristles), which glowed with a golden light strong enough to drive away shadows and turn night into day. At Yule, the midwinter sacrifice of a boar was therefore seen as symbolic of the death of the old sun and the rebirth of the new on the solstice.
The boar also represented fertility and the spirit of abundance and prosperity.
Warrior’s Helmet
Many warrior’s helmets bearing boars-head crests have been found in archaeological sites, and are thought to have been worn as a symbol of the wearers courage in battle. In Beowulf, the epic Anglo-Saxon poem (c. 700), Beowulf himself led his warriors into battle wearing a boars-head helmet as a symbol of his power and leadership.
The boar is a companion of the Celtic Diana and a frequent participant in the “wild hunt,” an otherworldly procession of faeries and ghosts. He then is a representative of the Goddess.
According to Irish legend, the boar is sacred to the Celtic Goddess Arduinna. Arduinna is a regular visitor and keeper of the Ardennes forests in Belgium.
There is evidence for an alternative zodiac or at least a sequence of stars or constellations associated with the changing seasons from a traditional German ’folk’ rhyme.
‘Eber, Riese, Himmelskuh zählen wir dem Winter zu.Hase, Wolf und Menschenpaar stellen uns den Frühling dar.In Hahn und Hengst und Ährenfrau die Sommersonne steht genau.Schwalbe, Hirsch und Bogenschütz sind des Herbstes feste Stütz.’
This has been translated into English as:
‘Boar, giant, and celestial cow we count to the winter.
Hare, wolf and human pair represent the spring.
At rooster, stallion and corn-ear-woman is summer solstice.
Swallow, deer (stag) and archer are the frame of autumn.’
From the above text, which is clearly referring to the night sky, only the human pair (Gemini), the corn-ear-woman (Virgo), and the archer (Sagittarius) are obviously discernible, although the celestial cow may represent Taurus. But noticeably within the sequence we have the appearance of a stag and a wild boar; the stag is associated with the autumn, as Scorpio is, whilst the boar is associated with the winter. In addition, the stag appears in the poem alongside the archer – remembering that Scorpio and Sagittarius are side by side in the Graeco-Roman Zodiac. This perhaps may hint at alternative northern European constellations including a stag and a wild boar; some of these may even be zodiacal.
The boar (varāha), as is well known, not only represents the third of the ten avatāras of Vishnu in the present Mahayuga, but our entire Kalpa, that is, the whole cycle of manifestation of our world, is designated as Shwêtavarāha-Kalpa, the "cycle of the white boar."
The Druids designated themselves "boars," although since symbolism has always many aspects, we may well have here also an allusion to the isolation in which they kept themselves with regard to the outside world, the wild boar always being regarded as the "solitary" one.
Primordially speaking we would then not not say "Hyperborean," but simply "Borean," thus affirming its connection with "Boreas" or "land of the boar."
It is mainly significant that we realise that in ancient times the boar represented the constellation which later became the Great Bear.
Pig Geniee
A drawing below by Jean-Claude Thibault depicting a hairy bipedal humanoid entity of diminutive stature riding a species of central and western African wild pig known as the red river hog or bush pig.
Throughout history the boar and the boar’s-head have been used in heraldry.
The White Boar was the personal device or badge of the English King Richard lll of England and is an early instance of the use of boars in heraldry.
The Wild Boar is mostly seen as a masculine totem for it enriches all the male virtues of bravery, nobility and fierceness in battle, but the Sow (female) is also emboldened with many of the same attributes, including protectiveness and fertility.
I have had many dreams in which the Pig features and if you are lucky to have one as your Totem creature you are extremely lucky and it will guide you to find ways to experience wonderful spirituality.
The fertility god, Frey and his golden solarboar, Gullinborsti. His twin sister, Freya is sometimes shown riding it.
The picture above showing The sun shining behind them, the Vanir god Freyr stands with his boar Gullinbursti, with Freya shown in the picture below.
In the Prose Edda, a name listed for boars is "Van-child". Vanir originally represented pre-Indo-European deities or fertility Gods, and have theorized a form of the gods as venerated by the pagan Anlgo-Saxons.
In Norse Mythology, the Vanir are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom, nature, magic, and the ability to see the future.The root var, for the name of the boar, is to be found in the Nordic languages in the form of bor.
The Norse tradition connected with the Goddess Freya was the Yule Oath Boar. In Scandinavian mythology, Freya is the Goddess of fertility, marriage, love and the hearth. Her sacred animal was a Golden Boar called Gullinbursti (Golden Bristles), which glowed with a golden light strong enough to drive away shadows and turn night into day. At Yule, the midwinter sacrifice of a boar was therefore seen as symbolic of the death of the old sun and the rebirth of the new on the solstice.
The boar also represented fertility and the spirit of abundance and prosperity.
Warrior’s Helmet
Many warrior’s helmets bearing boars-head crests have been found in archaeological sites, and are thought to have been worn as a symbol of the wearers courage in battle. In Beowulf, the epic Anglo-Saxon poem (c. 700), Beowulf himself led his warriors into battle wearing a boars-head helmet as a symbol of his power and leadership.
The boar is a companion of the Celtic Diana and a frequent participant in the “wild hunt,” an otherworldly procession of faeries and ghosts. He then is a representative of the Goddess.
According to Irish legend, the boar is sacred to the Celtic Goddess Arduinna. Arduinna is a regular visitor and keeper of the Ardennes forests in Belgium.
There is evidence for an alternative zodiac or at least a sequence of stars or constellations associated with the changing seasons from a traditional German ’folk’ rhyme.
‘Eber, Riese, Himmelskuh zählen wir dem Winter zu.Hase, Wolf und Menschenpaar stellen uns den Frühling dar.In Hahn und Hengst und Ährenfrau die Sommersonne steht genau.Schwalbe, Hirsch und Bogenschütz sind des Herbstes feste Stütz.’
This has been translated into English as:
‘Boar, giant, and celestial cow we count to the winter.
Hare, wolf and human pair represent the spring.
At rooster, stallion and corn-ear-woman is summer solstice.
Swallow, deer (stag) and archer are the frame of autumn.’
From the above text, which is clearly referring to the night sky, only the human pair (Gemini), the corn-ear-woman (Virgo), and the archer (Sagittarius) are obviously discernible, although the celestial cow may represent Taurus. But noticeably within the sequence we have the appearance of a stag and a wild boar; the stag is associated with the autumn, as Scorpio is, whilst the boar is associated with the winter. In addition, the stag appears in the poem alongside the archer – remembering that Scorpio and Sagittarius are side by side in the Graeco-Roman Zodiac. This perhaps may hint at alternative northern European constellations including a stag and a wild boar; some of these may even be zodiacal.
The boar (varāha), as is well known, not only represents the third of the ten avatāras of Vishnu in the present Mahayuga, but our entire Kalpa, that is, the whole cycle of manifestation of our world, is designated as Shwêtavarāha-Kalpa, the "cycle of the white boar."
The Druids designated themselves "boars," although since symbolism has always many aspects, we may well have here also an allusion to the isolation in which they kept themselves with regard to the outside world, the wild boar always being regarded as the "solitary" one.
Primordially speaking we would then not not say "Hyperborean," but simply "Borean," thus affirming its connection with "Boreas" or "land of the boar."
It is mainly significant that we realise that in ancient times the boar represented the constellation which later became the Great Bear.
Pig Geniee
A drawing below by Jean-Claude Thibault depicting a hairy bipedal humanoid entity of diminutive stature riding a species of central and western African wild pig known as the red river hog or bush pig.
