#herds

DISCLAIMER: The witch-cult hypothesis has been discredited. An extract from Murray—an eminent Frazerian—is here presented because of its importance to the mythology of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, as well as for its enduring value as a creative work.

“IT APPEARS FROM the evidence that certain changes took place in course of time in the religion; and, as might be expected, this is shown very markedly in the festivals. The ancient festivals remained all through, and to them were added the festivals of the succeeding religions. The original celebrations belonged to the May-November year, a division of time which follows neither the solstices nor the agricultural seasons; I have shown below (pp. 130, 178) that there is reason to believe these festivals were connected with the breeding seasons of the flocks and herds.

Medieval sheep pen, from the Luttrell Psalter (c. 1325-35).

(Source: Luttrell Psalter, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

"The chief festivals were: in the spring, May Eve (April 30), called Roodmas or Rood Day in Britain and Walpurgis-Nacht in Germany; in the autumn, November Eve (October 31), called in Britain Allhallow Eve. Between these two came: in the winter, Candlemas (February 2); and in the summer, the Gule of August (August 1), called Lammas in Britain.

Walpurgisnacht, by Albert Welti (c. 1896-7).

(Source: Albert Welti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Red wicker raven at the Samhain (Halloween) Festival in Derry, Ireland.

(Source: Nmckittie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

For the Candlemas, by Teodor Axentowicz (1898).

(Source: Teodor Axentowicz, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Lammas-tide loaf.

(Source: Synthiaks, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

"To these were added the festivals of the solstitial invaders. Beltane at midsummer and Yule at midwinter; the movable festival of Easter was also added, but the equinoxes were never observed in Britain. On the advent of Christianity the names of the festivals were changed, and the date of one—Roodmas—was slightly altered so as to fall on May 3; otherwise the dates were observed as before, but with ceremonies of the new religion. Therefore Boguet is justified in saying that the witches kept all the Christian festivals.

A fire of Beltane.

(Source: Beltane1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Yule log wrapped in ivy.

(Source: Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Vibrant Easter-tide decorations.

(Source: ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

"But the Great Assemblies were always held on the four original days, and it is this fact which makes it possible to distinguish with certainty between the Sabbath and the Esbat whenever dates are mentioned…. The actual hour at which the Sabbath was held is specified in very few cases; it appears to have been a nocturnal assembly, beginning about midnight and lasting till early dawn or cockcrow.”

—M. A. Murray, The Witch-cult in Western Europe (1921, p. 109; pp. 111-112)

Sabbat, by Tony Grist (c. 2011).

Azula and Zuko constantly fought over who would be the Alpha of the pack.

Mai and Ty Lee accepted Azula as their Alpha, because Zuko was rarely around.

Zuko reluctantly agreed to let Azula be the Alpha when she defended them in an uncontrolled animal.

Mai and Ty Lee were always scented by Azula, and Zuko never had the courage to ask for it too.

Zuko accepted that he would never have Mai when he saw a mark on her neck.

No one in the pack knew that Azula was studying how to be a good Alpha, much less that it was Lu ten who was teaching her.

When everyone left for the first time, Azula immediately shut down.

When everyone was back together they noticed how Azula surreptitiously perfumed them with her pheromones.

They noticed how Azula was ready to be abandoned again, they didn't know what to think.

@munlun-the-bard @verirothestar

HERDS is the name of an OCverse I recently started making notes for! It takes place in an sci-fi alternate modern day, where humanity as a whole is under threat from otherworldly beings called Incursions (or Outsiders). HERDS also happens to be the name of the only OC I have for it right now.

Incursions come from a separate reality that overlaps with ours called Otherworld, and they are not like any creature that originates from Earth. They can change shape at will and appear to lack cells, although scientific data on them is very incomplete. They are predators that prey on humanity, and are not known to have any (natural) predators of their own. Additionally, incursions are capable of limited environmental manipulation, and significant mental manipulation of humans. Current data indicates that incursions are responsible for an amount of paranormal experiences (especially experiences with abnormal animals, although there's no reliable method for filtering out ordinary animal activity, mundane changed behaviour like in the case of a sick animal, and ordinary encounters elevated to a perceived abnormal level due to poor lighting, anxiety, or misremembering), and are also responsible for an amount of missing persons. The actual figures vary wildly, as any missing persons who were taken by an incursion would have ended up in the otherworld and expeditions into the otherworld are currently non-viable due to safety concerns with human expeditions and technological incapability with remote operated or robot expeditions.

Humanity needed a way to mentally and physically defend themselves against incursions. After incursions were discovered, humanity ended up uniting globally to pool resources and information. Due to incursion's ability to change their shape and mentally manipulate humans, a great amount of incursions mimic humans or animals in order to trick humans into trusting them. It was decided that a method of determining who was or was not actually human was needed, and that this method needed to be separate from humanity so it couldn't be manipulated the same way they could. This lead to the construction of the Humanoid Entity Realism Detection System, or HERDS.

Research into incursions allowed humans to determine how their telepathy worked, and harness it for our own ends. Thus, HERDS is telepathically connected to most humans that exist right now. HERDS has a significant amount of processing power, so it can think multiple times faster than a human, capable of gathering more data and analysing that data faster than a human could even process it. HERDS' existence is vital to humanity's war against incursions.

That's pretty much the whole write-up. Now for my notes, which go a little further in-depth, mostly on HERDS.