magic is everywhere

Happy Summerween! 💀🦇🎃

psst. gay people who like ghosts. what if i told you i just released a huge collection of gay ghost shirts (and sweatshirts and tank tops and hoodies and even some mugs, available in tons of different colors and styles, including tie dye) on my bonfire shop? what if you could bridge the time between pride month and halloween in style & also help me pay rent this month?

My youngest sister was going to cut up a pineapple for her kids' snack and had an idea, hehe

Walpurgis Night. Hexennacht. April 30.

A Short History of the Night of the Witches The origins of the image of Walpurgis night being a witches’ sabbath are unclear. However, it is striking that it coincides with Beltane and maybe other pagan festivals in earlier time. Goethe presumed in one of his poems such an origin.

St. Walpurga For Christians, Walpurgisnacht is also known as the Feast of Saint Walpurga, that is celebrated from the evening of April 30 to the day of May 1st. Saint Walpurga or Walburga was the daughter of St. Richard the Saxon Pilgrim and sister of St. Willibald and St. Winibald. When her father went on a pilgrimage with her two brothers to the Holy Land, he left Walpurga, who was only 11 years old at the time, with the nuns of Wimborne Abbey, where she was educated and learnt how to write.

She traveled in an attempt to bring German pagans to the Christian faith and she also authored Winibald’s biography, which is why she is considered as one of the first female authors in Germany and England. Walpurga became a nun in Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm, the monastery founded by her brother Willibald, where she became the abbess after his death in 751. Walpurga herself died on February 25 on 777 or 779 and she was canonized by Pope Adrian II on May 1st, around 870, when her relics were transfered to Eichstätt, Germany.

St. Walpurga is prayed to for protection against witchcraft and it is believed that during the night of April 30, she is able to ward off spells, witches, and evil spirits. This belief may stem from the overlapping of her canonization with Hexennacht or the Night of the Witches, the celebration that has its origin in ancient fertility celebrations. Hexennacht is a Germanic tradition more prevalent in the 17th century, when witches and sorcerers gathered together celebrate.

To protect against their magic, the Western Christian Church appointed the night of April 30 to St. Walpurga’s Feast. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Walpurgisnacht was popularized and its witchy connotations were revived through the literature of the time, such as in Jacob Grimm’s work who wrote in 1833: “There is a mountain very high and bare… whereon it is given out that witches hold their dance on Walpurgis night”.

Goethe also dedicated a poem to the celebration called “Die erste Walpurgisnacht” (The First Walpurgis Night), which was set to music by Felix Mendelssohn and published as his Opus 60 in 1843. The poem contrasts sharply with the Walpurgisnacht described in his main work “Faust”. In his ballad, Goethe relates the superstitions around Walpurgis night to the usage of devil’s masks by pagan’s in order to exploit the superstitions of their Christian suppressors and to protect their identities.

An Irrlicht (stray light, also called a stray wisp, swamp light and ignis fatuus) is a certain luminous phenomenon that is supposedly occasionally sighted in swamps, moors, mires or in particularly dense, dark forests and (more rarely) in cemeteries. It is the same phenomenon commonly called will-o'-the-wisp in English.

In folklore and superstition, Irrlichter are usually seen either as the malicious work of supernatural beings or as the souls of the unfortunate deceased. According to popular belief, following Irrlichter or even trying to catch them brings bad luck. In the natural sciences, their existence as independent entities is fundamentally rejected. Reports of alleged sightings are nevertheless investigated, however, because in nature there are both living creatures and gases that can produce lights that are very similar to descriptions of an Irrlicht. Scientists therefore suspect that reports of an Irrlicht are simply due to confusion and optical illusions. In art and poetry, as well as in modern subculture, Irrlicht motifs are widespread and popular.

Descriptions of Irrlicht sightings vary; they are usually described as small flames, but more rarely they are said to be fireballs the size of a fist or even a head. Their colour is usually described as bluish, greenish or reddish. There are also different reports about how the Irrlicht moves. They are said to either remain motionless in one place or to light up wildly and then immediately go out again. Less credible reports tell of an Irrlicht moving away from the observer or actually pursuing them, as if they were being controlled by someone else or were intelligent beings with a will of their own.

Irrlicht sightings can be scientifically explained by life forms capable of bioluminescence such as glow worms (Lampyris noctiluca) or fungi such as the bitter oyster (Panellus stipticus). Marsh gases consisting of methane, hydrogen sulfide, and phosphanes or phosphines may combust spontaneously if they reach a critical concentration, causing luminous phenomena.

In folklore and superstition, Irrlichter are said to have an ominous or even malicious nature. In many myths and legends, they are the souls of the deceased who were either evil during their lifetime and must now walk the earth forever as punishment, or who cannot find peace after death and are looking for redemption. Similar stories are told about the souls of stillborn children. Some legends interpret them as the sad souls of murder and accident victims who drowned in the moor.

Most of the time, however, they are understood to be the work of evil goblins, nature spirits, ghosts and/or demons. These are said to summon an Irrlicht or transform themselves into one in order to then deliberately harm people. The light is said to lead travellers, adventurers and the curious to their doom: the victims, who have already ventured dangerously close to the swamp or forest, are lured even deeper by the Irrlicht until they sink into the mud or get lost in the deep forest and die there.

From Sorbian folklore there are stories about the Blud, who are said to appear as Irrlichter. According to tradition, these are the souls of children who died without being baptized. Now their souls are said to wander around weeping in the form of an Irrlicht.

Irrlichter have often been referenced in art and poetry. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had them appear in his epic work Faust during Walpurgis Night. Hermann Hendrich painted the dance of the Irrlichter for Walpurgis Hall at the Witches' Dance Floor near Thale in the Harz mountains, where according to the legend the witches are having a dance party every year at Walpurgis Night.

Irrlichter are a recurring motif in modern subculture in fantasy and science fiction cartoons, movies, and games. The Pokémon Vulpix, for instance, can conjure an Irrlicht.

Hermann Hendrich (1854–1931)

Walpurgishalle: Witch's Dance, c. 1901

Brockenhexen (Brocken witches) are fictional figures of folklore, which gather at Walpurgis Night on Mount Brocken, the highest elevation in the Harz mountains. Since the second half of the 17th century, Mount Brocken is regarded as the main convention venue for the witches of Germany. Literary representations of witch gatherings on Mount Brocken by Johannes Praetorius ("Blockes-Berges Verrichtung") and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ("Faust") popularized the image of the mountain as a magical place and made it a tourist destination with yearly events st Walpurgis Night, alongside with the sale of pertinent souvenirs by the locals. Rock formations near the summit were named Witches' Altar and Devil's Pulpit. The destination was further popularized by Otfried Preußler's "Die kleine Hexe" ("The Little Witch") and the audioplay series Bibi Blocksberg.

Even before Mount Brocken made its way into literature, it was locally regarded as a gathering place for witches, alongside a number of other summits in the area. This belief probably originated from the times of the medieval witch hunts, which lasted until the 17th century. The summit, being a remote and difficult to access place, was often cited as a place where witches could gather unseen and used as an argument of the prosecutors.

Since the 18th century, the summit of Mount Brocken was believed to be an ancient place of pagan rituals. It was alleged that the Saxons, who were forcefulley christianized by Charlemagne, still performed their pagan rites at remote places. When Charlemagne heard reports about these gatherings, he had Christian guards watch over these places. The Saxons, however, dressed up in scary costumes to chase the guards away. The guards then invented stories about witches flying past them as an explanation why they were unable to prevent pagan gatherings. However, recent archeological investigations showed that the summit of Mount Brocken was ever used as a pagan sanctuary.

With the beginning of tourism at Mount Brocken in 1801, the the hosts of the inn at the summit started to detail the old myths of witches on the mountain. They named prominent rock formations and terrain features "witches' dance floor", "witches' pond", and "witches' well". The second innkeeper, Eduard Nehse, was particularly creative, inventing a "witches' washbowl", which kept filling with water on its own. Other places in the Harz mountains followed suit to attract tourists. This way, you find many places named after witches and the devil. Tourism is still an important line of business in the Harz mountains.

Gatherings at Walpurgis Night, celebrated during the night from April 30 to May 1, started even before the first inn was built near the summit. People gathered to recite the Walpurgis Night scene from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's epic drama Faust. The first innkeeper, Johann Friedrich Christian Gerlach, organized concerts with popular music and handed out broomsticks that guests used to dance. Danish writer and poet Hans Christian Andersen reported about one of these events in 1831.

In 1903, a Walpurgis Association formed to organize a party at Walpurgis Night, which was attended by more than 500 people. However, the owner of the summit, Prince Christian Ernst of Stollberg-Wernigerode, prohibited such activities, so smaller parties were organized at surrounding hotels. From 1908 on, the tourist office of Wernigerode organized the parties, which took place yearly until the end of World War II., with the exception of the years of World War I. During the Third Reich, the Nazis used the Walpurgis Night to spread their own ideology.

After World War II, the summit was occupied by the Soviet Army, so parties were no longer possible there. In the GDR, the evening before May 1 was already occupied with the preparations of the international worker's day for peace snd socialism. The only reminder of the tradition was a tractor named Brocken Witch, which was produced in Nordhausen south of the Harz mountains.

In the West German part of the Harz mountains, Walpurgis parties were still celebrated and quickly spread to the eastern part after the reunification. However, environmental concerns prevented larger gatherings on Mount Brocken. The main event is now taking place on the Witches' Dance Floor near the town of Thale. The tradidion has now spread throughout all of Germany and beyond. There is some criticism that the events primarily focus on entertainment and that the memory of the atrocities committed during the times of the witch hunts is completely missing.

Today, puppets showing Brocken Witches are a popular souvenir. The first known witch-themed souvenirs originate from the time of the first Walpurgis Night celebrations organized by the Wernigerode tourist office. The witches vary greatly in their appearance. There are both old and young, ranging from ugly to beautiful. Their clothing is often patched. Some also wear glasses and slippers, traditionally usually a headscarf, and more recently, a pointed hat.

The Witches Hour by Victoria Veil | Instagram