The Silie Season

According to the modern calendar, August 8^th is Lammas. This is a corruption of Hlafmaesse, or Loaf Mass, the celebration of the beginning of the Harvest, "when loaves of bread made from the new grain were consecrated" (Encyclopaedia Britannica). But the importance of that festival is much older - it pre-dates Christianity by at least three thousand years.

In Celtic Europe, the first day of August was Lughnasadh. The date has been altered by a few days, but it is the same festival as the Christianised Lammas. (It would appear that Lughnasadh was not originally celebrated on the first, but that the date has been "rationalised" at some point. It remains unclear why this was done, or when, or why the Celtic festivals were shifted but not their Christianised equivalents.) Lugh was a god of the Sun or of Light; his name means "the shining one," and also appears in the forms Lugus, Lugh Lamfada, Llew Llaw Gyffes, and Ildanach ("The All-Craftsman"). He may tentatively be identified with another Celtic sun-god, Lludd or Nudd, Nodens to the Romans, Nuada of the Silver Hand to the Irish. (It should be noted though that in one Irish legend Nuada abdicates the throne of the High King of Ireland in Lugh's favour, suggesting that perhaps there were indeed two separate characters.) Lugh also had attributes of a god of the Underworld, inherited from Balor, his grandfather. Lugh's foster-mother was Tailtu, a goddess of agriculture. (Her name also appears as Taltiu and Telta.) She is identified in Irish mythology as the daughter of the King of the "Great Plain," which is generally taken to be the Land of the Dead. The God of Death, Balor (also known as Bel or Bilé, or by a considerable number of variations on the theme), grandfather of Lugh, appear to have been inherited by the Celts and is not the same as this un-named King of the "Great Plain".

Already we have two instances of Death being associated with the bringer of Life; the former being Tailtu's father and Lugh's grandfather, the latter the Harvest as Tailtu or the Sun as Lugh. Lugh's father (or possibly foster-father) was Kian, another sun-god.

Lughnasadh, like the other three major Celtic festivals, is celebrated with fire:

• Samhain, Celtic new year, perverted by Christianity into All Saint's Day, but still celebrated as Hallowe'en or "Bonfire Night" in Britain
• Imbolc, the festival of the goddess Brigid, mutated by Christianity into Candlemas, Brigid becoming St. Bride, whose feast day falls on the same date - February 1^st
• Beltaine, "the fires of Bel," falls on May 1^st.

The Gaelic name of the month of May is Bealtaine, August is Lúnasa, November is Samhna. Other months have names which are clearly "borrowed" from English, except December whose Gaelic name is Nollaig, Latin for Christmas. All of these festivals, with the exception of Samhain, have had their dates moved by between 1 and 8 days, but the Christianised versions retain the old dates: Lughnasadh on August 8^th, Imbolc (now Candlemas) on February 2^nd, Beltaine on May 6^th. The reason for the change is not entirely clear, but it may have been some kind of attempt at rationalisation: there is evidence that Lughnasadh (or the predecessor of that festival) was actually celebrated on the date of the nearest full moon, which would have been a different date each year.

Surviving Celtic myths and legends generally date to the first few centuries AD. When the Romans settled in Britain during the first century AD they discovered that worship of a goddess was widespread. As was their habit, the Romans added this goddess to their own pantheon, identifying her with their own Minerva, goddess of wisdom. The name of the British goddess appears alongside that of Minerva in several Roman temple dedications, and may also be found in several place names, both Roman and British. Her name is Sel, or Sil. Exactly how many place names are involved is difficult to estimate, because there are also a great many "salt-" place names. But the Roman name for Bath is indisputable: Aquae Sulis. There's also a nearby hill fort on the summit of Little Solsbury Hill. A hundred miles to the East is the Roman town of Silchester, and half way between Aquae Sulis and Silchester is the great and ancient Silbury Hill.

Fig. 1: Silbury, 1995.

Silbury Hill has mystified antiquarians and archaeologists for generations. It has a superficial resemblance to the Bronze Age round barrows which punctuate the local Wiltshire landscape. The round barrow is a mound of earth raised over a burial, generally of one individual, presumably someone of great importance. They are invariably located on hilltops. Silbury looks fairly similar to a round barrow, but there are several significant differences. Silbury has a unique terrace encircling its flat summit. It is situated on a valley floor. The ditch surrounding it (which is the quarry from which it was built) floods regularly. This ditch is not circular, as those around barrows tend to be. It is also crossed by two "causeways" of natural chalk bedrock. Silbury is vastly bigger than any barrow - it is the tallest man-made hill in Europe, standing 130 feet high; its base covers 5½ acres with a diameter of 520 feet. The ditch is 30 feet deep. The barrows in the area range from 15 feet to 320 feet in diameter, stand up to 25 feet tall and have ditches a maximum of 5 feet deep. Silbury has been found, by carbon-14 dating, to date from around 2660BC - the Neolithic, considerably older than the Bronze Age date of round barrows (2000 to 1000BC), but contemporary with Long Barrows, chambered tombs used for burials of many people, probably clan or family groups. But the most crucial difference between Silbury and any round barrow is this: none of the several excavations into the heart of the Hill have found any trace of a burial.

Excavations of Silbury (most recently in 1968-9) have established that it was not constructed in the same way as a barrow, as a pile of earth over a burial, but instead was carefully designed to have the shape and size it retains to this day. On the original ground level a large star-shaped pattern of radiating double-stranded, twisted grass strings was first laid down. A 16 foot diameter core of clay and flint was placed over its centre, and a mound of turf and soil built over it. The circumference of this mound was marked by a wattle fence of about 65 feet in diameter. Four layers of chalk gravel and topsoil were then added, covering the strings, to complete the "primary mound" of diameter 120 feet, and height 18 feet. A ring of sarsen stones was places leaning against the mound. The preservation of the organic material used in the primary mound was such that the grass was still green, and insects could be used to date the cutting of the turf to late July - early August. Over this was built a chalk mound, with an enclosing ditch. Six layers of carefully arranged chalk slabs were then built over the whole structure, with earth, flint and chalk in-fill to make the smooth conical shape of the finished hill. The in-fill was not used to smooth off the step up to the top level, leaving the terrace around the Hill's summit. Since then the form of the Hill has suffered very little alteration: the ditch has largely silted up; Saxons made an attempt to fortify the summit in the 11^th century AD; a burial was discovered, also on the summit, and apparently of Viking origin; visitors have eroded a distinct pathway up the side of the Hill.

Fig. 2: Avebury, 1994. Looking SW, across the N entrance.

Click here for a sketch map of the area. 745x859, 60kb. Opens in new window.

What can we learn about Silbury from her context? The river Winterbourne flows nearby, between Silbury and the natural Waden Hill to the East. To the South of Silbury, the Winterbourne is joined by a stream, and there changes its name to Kennet. The stream emerges from Swallowhead Spring a mere couple of dozen yards from the river, some 4 miles from the source of the Winterbourne. Swallowhead is about ¼ mile due South of the Eastern edge of the Hill. About ¼ mile South East of Swallowhead lies West Kennet Long Barrow, on a hill overlooking Silbury. From the foot of Silbury Hill, if we go due North for a little over one mile, we meet the Western entrance to Avebury, the largest stone circle in the world. Many of the great sarsen stones which were used to build Avebury are now gone, broken up, plundered and used to build the church, manor and houses in and around the village of Avebury, which is largely within the Circle. The original locations of these missing stones are today marked by crude concrete pillars. The Henge consists of a deep circular ditch the outer edge of which rises to the crest of an equally steep bank. Immediately inside the ditch is the great stone circle. There were two smaller circles within this one, one in the North-Eastern quadrant of the big circle, the other in the South-East. There are four gaps in the bank and ditch, where four modern roads gain access to the village. From the Southern entrance an avenue of stones winds South-Eastwards for almost two miles to The Sanctuary, a Neolithic structure generally described as a temple. From Avebury's Western entrance another avenue once led to the South West, but nothing is known to have marked its termination point. A couple of miles North West of Avebury is Windmill Hill, a causewayed enclosure, again of Neolithic date, from which some of the earliest evidence of agriculture in Western Europe has been found. In addition to the Avebury-Silbury-Swallowhead alignment, which touches the East edge of Silbury and the West edge of Avebury, it may be noted that a line touching the East of Avebury and the West of the Hill and extended southwards will pass near or possibly through Tan Hill, the highest point on Salisbury Plain. From Tan Hill a spur of high land extends South to Clifford's Hill. Midway along this spur is Rybury, an enclosure resembling an Iron Age hill fort, but of Neolithic date.

August 6^th is St Ann's (or Anne's) Day. There are many "St. Ann's..." place names - usually as a corruption of the Celtic Tan, fire. These place names are frequently associated with beacon hills. As well as the corrupted form, original "Tan" names abound, marking beacon sites all over the country. These beacons served several purposes - communication, navigation, and probably religious. There is also a record of fairs being held on Tan Hill, Wiltshire annually, on St. Anne's Day, till 1932.

Clearly, in the Neolithic, this whole area was of great importance. But what, specifically, does it all mean? We can only guess. But an informed guess, in the light of archaeological evidence, can still be enlightening. It is important though to bear in mind that even our best guess is still more than capable of being wrong.

Fig. 3: Silbury, 1994.

The shape of the ditch at Silbury is intriguing. It was dug and shaped with every bit as much care as was used in building the Hill itself - the 30 degree gradient of the Hill is continued down into the "quarry," which also has a flat floor beneath the centuries of silt. It was apparently designed to flood when the water of the Winterbourne was high. The moat thus formed has a distinct shape, with an elongation to the West of the Hill, and two causeways connecting the South of the Hill to terra firma. Figs. 1 and 3 are both looking from the West; the vegetation in the moat is clearly lighter in colour than elsewhere on the plain. In the background of these two photographs, a line of trees marks the course of the Winterbourne along the foot of Waden Hill. The outline of the moat is shown in the accompanying sketch map of the area. The meaning of Silbury will probably never be found with absolute certainty, but it does seem quite likely that the Hill is a representation of an Earth Goddess. When the Hill and moat are viewed in plan, with West to the top, the outline may be recognised as a heavily pregnant female figure. Limbs are all but absent, and the head is crude to say the least, but these characteristics are shared by statuettes and figurines representing the Goddess which have been found through much of Europe. Another motif to be found in ancient artifacts is that of the eye. This too may be seen at Silbury - if the outline plan is viewed the other way around, with East at the top, then it appears as a head, in profile, with an over-sized eye. It should be noted that the Hill is made of chalk, and may well have been kept clear of turf, shining white and bulbous. When approaching the Hill from any direction its summit is visible over the crest of any nearby hill which blocks the view of the ground at the Silbury site. Silbury watches you approach. Silbury as Eye is probably secondary though to Silbury as Goddess.

But is the Goddess a sensible explanation of what Silbury represents? The figurines mentioned above mostly originate from Eastern Europe - was the "Cult of the Goddess" that widespread? The answer, in short, is yes. Almost every culture, religion, and mythology known has one or more characters or deities with the attributes of the Goddess. From Freya to Minerva to Diana to Ceres to Persephone to Demeter to Isis to Kali to Tailtu and the Morrigan, all are associated with new life and with death, with creation and destruction. Often her attributes and symbols are shared by several goddesses, and her name seems remarkably variable between cultures. Perhaps this implies that she pre-dates all her names. The Greek goddess of the moon was named Selene - the similarity of Selene to Sil should be borne in mind when we come back to the moon in a moment.

An often ignored fact of Neolithic society is that they kept their population under control. Overpopulation is a modern phenomenon, and its explosive growth a very new thing. Ancient cultures the world over practiced population control by means of abortion, infanticide and prolonged abstinence from intercourse. When it was necessary to take the life of a child, it was done by the mother. She was both giver and taker of life. So in a real and practical sense death and new life were associated, to a level beyond the stresses and potential complications threatening mother and child during childbirth. The deity of new life would inevitably be female, a mother figure, and she would equally inevitably also be associated with death, and with the Harvest, when the corn - specifically the part of the plant which is returned to the earth to grow into the next year's crop - is cut down to feed the people.

Every deity has their own special time of year, and the Goddess surely is no exception. The building of Silbury was begun in late July or early August. The harvest begins around this time, and she is above all a Harvest Goddess. Lammas, Lughnasadh and St. Anne's Day all fall in the first week of August. St. Anne's Day, or Tan Day, is celebrated on hilltops, with a fire. Lugh was a God of Light. Could Lugh be a male God who inherited attributes - and the festival - of his mother, the agriculture goddess Tailtu? Lugh also was a god of the Underworld, of Death, another inherited attribute, this time from his grandfather, Balor.

There is a strong association of the Goddess with the moon, particularly the full moon. From deep into prehistory right up to the 17^th century AD, it was widely believed that the moon had an influence on the birth process. How does this relate to the pregnant Silbury? We have established that the critical time of year was the 8^th of August, Lammas by its modern name. Full moons occur every 29½ days. The nearest full moon to Lammas can fall between July 24th and August 22nd, resulting in some variation of the date of the festival, an actual Lammas-eve full moon occurring only every 30 years or so. Furthermore, there is another cycle affecting the Moon, of 18.6 year duration. The effect of this is that even when Lammas and the full moon do coincide, the position on the horizon at which the Moon rises (and sets) may vary by up to 5 degrees to either side. These variations were well understood by the designers of Silbury, for the Event around which the Lammas festival revolved was the Goddess giving birth to the moon. The birth was observed from the terrace surrounding Silbury's summit, looking down into the moat, where the newborn full moon was seen in reflection. The birth event took place through the night, beginning with the birth itself, proceeding with the Mother lifting the Child to her breast, and concluding with the Death of the moon-child as it set, returning its life to the earth.

According to Michael Dames (see further reading, below):

Silbury synthesises the following items:

1. The pregnant seated goddess
2. The Goddess half buried in the ground
3. The eye goddess, supreme intelligence
4. The White Mountain in the primordial water
5. The cosmic egg
6. Sickle, grain and cornstook
7. The throne
8. The stag
9. The umbilical snakes
10. Mother and Child
11. Woman with phallus - the androgynous being
12. The spinning and weaving Goddess

A detailed explanation of all of these is rather beyond the scope of this article, but from what has already been said, several of the items listed should be clear, and others are more or less self-evident. The importance of the names Kennet and Swallowhead has also not been touched on, but should be easy to work out if one bears in mind that Sil was, amongst other things, a fertility Goddess.

What became of the Goddess? Why has she been forgotten, except for a handful of scattered and distorted stories? She pre-dates all of the religions which have been recorded and documented, but she may also be identified within them. It has been a fact throughout history that when a people impose their religious beliefs on others the effort is rarely successful. The subjugated population - and they invariably are subjugated - retain their old beliefs alongside those that have been forced upon them. Sometimes, as with the Romans, the old beliefs are incorporated into the new, but usually the newcomers are intolerant of anything other than their own dogma. The Goddess could survive as long as the later religions made no concerted effort to eliminate her. The Romans didn't evangelise, they were happy to adopt new deities where they found them. It was the later invaders who could not tolerate a great goddess. Monotheism can only tolerate the existance of one God, and that one God must be male. The Goddess had to die. And yet she did not - folk beliefs kept her alive along with a great many other Pagan traditions. Even in the Christian mainstream, the Goddess figure can be recognised in the Roman Catholic veneration of Mary. Compare the Nativity and later, but inevitable, sacrifice of the son with the birth and death of the Lammas full moon. While the parallel here is probably coincidental, it must have been noticed by early Christians. For them it was the Father, not the Mother, who gave life. It is as if they forgot that both parents are necessary. The builders of Silbury were well aware of that. They were a part of the landscape they lived in, just as Silbury is.

So, as August arrives, look out for the Lammas full Moon, born of the Goddess every year in the annual cycle of life, death and re-birth. Whatever name you know her by, the Goddess is probably known best, and most aptly, as Mother Earth.

Enjoy the Silie Season.