Short Stuff: Mabon

Josh Clark (0:04)

Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff, I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Jerry here, too, sitting in for Dave, and we're here to celebrate the pagan Thanksgiving that you never knew you needed.

Chuck Bryant (0:17)

Yeah, I don't remember if we mentioned this, because we covered some stuff on Wiccans and other sort of pagan religions years ago, I feel like. But the pagan Thanksgiving is Mabon, M-A-B-O-N.

And it is one of many kind of fall harvest celebrations that have happened throughout history that celebrate the autumnal equinox.

Josh Clark (0:40)

Wow, way to go. Say it again.

Chuck Bryant (0:42)

The autumnal equinox.

Josh Clark (0:43)

Very nice. Yeah. But it's actually kind of new, Mabon is. Because ironically, the original pagans, like the Celts, for example, did not celebrate the autumnal equinox, which is evidenced by, if you go to Stonehenge on the autumnal equinox, nothing happens, nothing special. It's just like any other day. But like you said, cultures around the world have. And today, neo-pagans, druids, wiccans, etc. definitely celebrate it as one of eight sabats.

Sabats, I think, right? Like sabbaths.

And there are eight of them on the wheel of the year. And in fact, Mabon is one of three harvest festivals that occur from August through October.

Chuck Bryant (1:31)

Yeah. I mean, you probably heard us talk about Yule before in one of our Christmas episodes, probably.

That is a sabbat. And we've also talked about Sawin, for sure. Spelled Sam Hain, because that's the one associated with Halloween. So those are definitely much more well known. But Mabon, we got to talk about Mabon a little bit.

Josh Clark (1:52)

All right. Well, first, let's talk about the first harvest festival, Lunasa.

That takes place in early August, where I guess I don't know what you're picking then. Mabon is like the money harvest festival. Late September, that's when everything's ready to be picked, basically. And then Sawan is the third, the one in October. And the autumnal equinox, and this is a big part of Mabon in particular, is balance. The reason why there's a focus on balance is because the day and night are basically evenly split between 12 hours a piece on the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, the spring equinox. So that's a big theme in Mabon.

Chuck Bryant (2:37)

Yeah, for sure. And one of the things that, if you practice any kind of paganism and you want to celebrate Mabon, you want to maybe meditate on that balance in your own life might be a thing to do.

Josh Clark (2:47)

For sure.

Chuck Bryant (2:48)

Another thing you mentioned earlier is that it's a newer thing. This term is only about 55 years old.

The Mabon actually comes from a Welsh god, son of the earth mother goddess. And there was a Welsh text, an old Welsh text called the Mabinagian.

Josh Clark (3:09)

Your guess is as good as mine.

Chuck Bryant (3:11)

Yeah, that looks about right. It tells about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and stuff like that. And one of the heroes of those stories is a god named Mabon, son of mother, who was held hostage as a baby.

Josh Clark (3:28)

Yeah. And as we'll see, the reason that Mabon was chosen to mark the autumnal equinox, despite the fact that the ancient druids and Celts did not, there was no recognition of Mabon or association with them. That's a modern thing, like we said, is that the guy who kind of helped write or put together the Wheel of the Year for modern paganism, Aidan Kelly back in the 60s and 70s, he did his research and he found out that in Greek lore and mythology, the goddess Demeter is celebrated on the autumnal equinox. And Demeter shares in common with Mabon this idea that she was young and was rescued from the underworld just like Mabon was. So he's like, I think this is enough of an association to call this Mabon.

Chuck Bryant (4:24)

Yeah, it's kind of funny. Apparently, he was looking for something Gaelic or Germanic, name-wise, on the pagan calendar based on the solstices, and he couldn't find anything. So he was like, maybe a stretch, but I'm just going to go with this one.

Josh Clark (4:38)

Yeah, that's not to say that, so Mabon seems to be the only one that they put into the wheel of the year. There are some really ancient Celtic festivals, including Sawen and Lunasa, and one called Beltane, and one called Imok, which is spelled I-M-B-O-L-C. And I'm just so pleased as punch that I pronounced it correctly.

Chuck Bryant (4:59)

Nice work.

Josh Clark (5:00)