The Landmother Cycle

This essay collects together some of the many Landmother visions, and places them into a cycle. It is very common for Pagans to attach mythic cycles to the celestial bodies, I have an experimental idea that really the Landmother is the rain cycle – and therefore, far more than the moon or time of day, her attributes respond to what the weather is doing.

Remember that these are fanciful visions, images and stories which reveal aspects of Her divinity. It is right to be both playful and respectful.

Aspects of the Landmother

Springtime/River Running: The River Daughter

A mostly-benevolent, youthful, Lunar and fairylike figure – a water nymph will give you the right impression. In this phase, she is moved only by her pleasure – which is joyful (in contrast to being moved to rage or despair) – although the playfulness of the Good Folk is not always pleasant for man. However Her myth is interpreted, this is Her before duty, fate, responsibility or being bound to a doom, and therefore she is depicted as younger and more carefree, and with the brightest whiteness, and most saturated blues.

It is often associated with the Winter-Spring crossover period. This figure is that which appears in the Wooing of the Landmother myths – the date for these is not yet set, but think March-April april showers and new greenery. She is not often called upon for her own sake, and we approach her as a fairy (who has a degree of autonomy) rather than a fixed spirit – but her particular correspondences might include youthfulness, joy, the delight of fresh water, independence, and so forth.

(This aspect is named after Goldberry, who I don’t think is a Landmother; the name just stuck)

by Lancelot Speed

Summertime/Water Rising: Landmother

This figure is the Sun King’s Consort, and is therefore often depicted as a Queen, and with slightly less wet colours/or with a touch of brown hereabout. She is also typically depicted as a bit heavier-set, as if she is no longer insubstantial but solid, becoming-of-earth. A crown, or a golden disk, also helps - as if it is confining her.

This is the phase of the Landmother who is most loved by man, as it refers to her benevolence in allowing the right amount of sun and rain for crops, peace and prosperity; depicting her with livestock, beer, and wheat is appropriate; as is calling on her for these things to be allowed to pass to you.

Eric Pape – 1919

Autumntide/Cloud Overcast: She who Weeps/Necessity of the Harvest/ The Merciless One

The River Daughter’s opposite pole, associated with the wet-late-autumn. As the River Daughter is unrestrained in her pleasures and whims – which are joyous and playful – so She who Weeps is unrestrained in her grief, rage, fury, might. In her most benevolent weather, She is overcast and heavy fogs; in her most awesome, she is a storm upon the sea that wrecks homes and brings floods.

She Who Weeps is somewhere between the Landmother of the weather and Este-Nienna; and the Necessity of the Harvest is somewhere between She who Weeps, the Fisher’s fate, and the weather once more. She Who Weeps is her Solar form, with a stern but necessary benefit for man: maturity, necessity, grieving, acceptance, and recognition of the greater power of Fate – possibly also, rulership over funerary rites. Her dominant colour is deep grey-blacks. Necessity of the Harvest is her Solar-LunarStellar form, associated with a certain mystery around Lammas, and her most Cthonic form.

Mostly, at this time, we just call her what she is, which is November.

This is the other “most important” Landmother, along with her Summer manifestation, and perhaps most defines who She is as a spirit when she has not been bound. And things keep attaching themselves to it. For example, is she the duality of pestilence and healing? That’s certainly a LunarStellar phenomenon, relating to mans powerless before nature. Is she the Gambler’s Goddess, related more generally to good fortune and luck before fate? And so forth. We might relate this aspect to Demeter, specifically laying waste the land in grief.

Why does she grieve? If one is telling a story in which she is a true lover of the Sun King, it is perhaps in sorrow for his death. If one is telling a story in which she has freed herself from captivity, it is perhaps rage and regret.

by Alois Kolb

Wintertide: the Witch of Winter

The start of my relationship with the Landmother was considering the Bride/Calleach myth. I go back and forth on whether the Calleach-figure is an aspect of the Landmother or a parallel myth. Generally, I come down on a parallel myth, and so she will recieve her own writeup page.

My current thinking is the Landmother is actually absent at the apex of winter – her grieving causes her to go into a deep, dark hibernation of some kind, allowing other spirits to come to the fore.

Another thought is that, perhaps, in this period the Landmother has returned to the world of goddesses, fairies or spirits, and is therefore likely to come in the retinue of other spirits of the dark – for example, appearing as the daughter of the Fisher of Souls, or as a lover of the Witch of Winter, or a co-covener of the Night Queen etc.

Famine by John Dollman

Festivals & Key Tides

St Dwynwen’s Day – Candlemas/ Imbolc – February

Candlemas is the traditional day for the handover between Brigit and the Calleach, and is celebrated by us as a festival of mirrors, ice, cold water, reflections, candles and echoing, perhaps the iciest, wettest and coldest moment in the year. St Dwynwen is a possible related figure, who brings ice and floods and has a political marriage). As a River Daughter kind of time, this is Her in isolation from any outside influence.

The Wooing of the Landmother – March/April

There’s a missing part of the narrative relating to the young king at this time of year, so I am not yet sure when to place it, but the Wooing corresponds to that time of year where it is both raining a lot interspersed with sunny days.

Harvest/Lammas

A key Landmother/Sun King festival, usually a week in length, related to the Necessity of the Harvest.

November

In many ways, the Landmother’s month – the peak time of miserable weather.

“the Coastal Variant”

My background is the coast, and so whenever I contemplate the spirits of Fencraft, what often comes to me is a Coastal Variant – the same myths, but more appropriate to a seafaring people. These can make it very different to distinguish between Sea-related and non-Sea-related spirits and, indeed, might be where that confusion comes from. In this version, the Landmother is still a sky/weather goddess, but the Young King is a young Seafarer, and the Landmother’s Blessing is to calm the seas (and possibly, teach man to fish etc).

Domains

Where is she not? She is not SolarLunar (too hot and dry), and she is not SolarStellar (red winds, not blue winds).

Feb 2021 update: today, while contemplating the frozen waterfalls that cascade in stillness after the snow, I made a new connection. the Lunar-Stellar has links to rivers but also mountains, and I had thought this was because standing atop a mountain gave you the best sense of the sky. However, I was reminded that these mountains were formed by the rivers, cutting down year on year. So perhaps this is another Landmother cycle, mountains to river valleys back to mountains.

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