Pagan/Heathen Origins of Swabian Fastnacht Celebrations

By Sean Jobst

23 February 2023

The various pictures here are public photos of Fastnacht
celebrations. So my Gratitude towards each photographer.

   I used to ask my late Oma about our paternal ancestors and their traditions, collecting all the information I could no matter how small (even daily habits). I felt the importance of Ancestors, knowing we each come from a continuous line of successive generations who made us the individuals we are. Not just the gift of life our Ancestors gave to us – for we are alive exactly because of their choices, love, and overcoming challenges – but even in the subtle qualities we may not even be conscious about. We should cultivate that Gratitude to truly know ourselves. The health and psychological benefits of a relationship with one’s Ancestors is well-known – and second nature to we who reclaim its spiritual implications.

   My great-grandparents and Oma were from Bad Cannstatt, now a part of Stuttgart that I personally visited back in July 2016. But my great-great-grandparents and as far as we could recount, were from two villages in the Ostalbkreis region of the Swabian Alps (on the administrative border of Wurttemberg with Bayern, but in the heart of Schwaben) – Ellwangen and Bopfingen/Baldern. (One of my family lines, the Vaas, were originally from northern Spain but settled in Ellwangen sometime around then. My Schneider line was from Baldern while my Neuner line I found some links to the Swabian part of Bayern). Among my prized possessions are family pictures from the 19^th century of our farm, wirtschaft (inn/guesthouse), and the always-looming Schloss Baldern.

   One of these traditions I learned is Fastnacht, which this year coincided with the New Moon on 20th-21st February. Ostensibly a cultural tradition of our “Catholic” faith, seeing with the deeper perception of a Pagan/Heathen I find remnants of our indigenous faith borne from our ancestral landscape. These were absorbed into the Church but did not originate with them. As readers of my articles are aware, its my firm contention that Paganism was not completely “lost” but has survived continuously in the various folklore, folk medicine, and folk magic traditions; and also embedded in the collective Unconscious, surfacing through various symbols and archetypes – such as occurs in much of the imagery around Fastnacht.

Jesters of baroque Italian style - Wolfacher Schellen- und Röslehansel

   General Thesis. Although it broadly shares many features with the Carnival traditions of other regions and countries, enough distinctions exist from those foreign traditions and common features with each other to identify a distinctive Schwäbisch-Alemannischen Fastnacht throughout all historic lands of the Suebi and Alemanni: Schwaben, Alsatz, Schweiz, and Vorarlberg. That it extends despite artificial divisions between Katholisch and Evangelisch further illustrates pre-Christian Heathen traditions and customs before Christianity was imposed by the Frankish conquerers. 

   Etymology. Fas(t)nacht and its dialect variations (Fassenacht, Fasnet, Fasent, Fasching) seem to originate with fasten “to fast” as celebrations preceding the Lenten time of fasting (Kalchthaler and Sigmund, 8). This leads most academics to presume Fastnacht originated in the civitas diaboli tradition of the Catholic Church (Beitl, Sund, et. al., 15). They operate under the false presumption that fasting arrived as a Christian tradition, whereas there is evidence of fasting as a Pagan tradition: For example, in the 700s the Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore reported in his Paenitentiale Theodori that Anglo-Saxon Pagans were fasting to honor the moon, cure illnesses, and generally for good health. As for Germany, around 932 Bishops outlawed fasting because they identified it as a lingering Heathen practice of divination.

   That fasting existed within both the Vedas and Hellenic philosophers leads us to recognize it similarly within Germanic Heathen practice given the common Indo-European roots with those other traditions. That Fastnacht expressed some Pagan origins can be seen in the Church's claims of "excess" as with other Carnival traditions, ultimately choosing to appropriate and infuse it within their confines as they did with other folkloric celebrations that couldn't be completely suppressed. A good rule of thumb for anyone reclaiming an indigenous faith amidst the official religion is to see what those religious hierarchies prohibited.

"The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" (1559) by the Flemish painter
Peter Bruegel the Younger. An homage to my maternal Vlaam heritage.

   Lent as Seasonal. That Fastnacht is a surviving remnant of the traditional lunisolar Germanic calendar is proven exactly by its link to Lent. Rather than being created by the Catholic Church (much less a Latin term), Lent was simply the Anglo-Saxon term for “spring” and even today the Dutch/Flemish term Lente means “spring”. Its for the same reason that native Germanic words like “Easter” – from the Spring and Dawn Goddess Ostara – prevailed over the Hebrew term “pascha” that expressed a link to Passover. The Christian Frankish chronicler Einhard, in his Vita Karoli Magni (circa 830, Chapter 29), listed the third moon of the Frankish year as Lentzimanod (Lengthening Moon/Month), preceding Ostarmanod as the fourth moon. “The church is more Heathen than those using the equinox to date ‘Ostara;’ as the church, like the Frankish and Anglish Heathens dated their Eostre to a Full Moon. The first day of Lentzinmanoth (a new moon) is about six weeks before the full moon of ‘Ostar’ (and also about six weeks before Easter Sunday). Hence this six week period sorta matches the church's six weeks of Lent” (Sass).

   Liminal time between Winter and Spring. Fastnacht with its elaborate mix of “dark” and “light” elements, expresses the liminal time between Winter and Spring. Its well known that St. Valentine’s Day shares more features with the Roman Lupercalia than anything Biblical, so we can use the same logic to many other festivities of this time. As midpoint between Yule and Ostara, Fastnacht is part of the broader tradition of February festivities like Candlemas and Imbolc that were symbolic of “when the pre-spring moon announces that winter is losing its strength and the ‘sun buck jumps” (Storl, 54), devoted to the Celtic Spring Goddess Brigit/Brigantia. Common in Celtic lands, Candlemas is “the Christianized version of the old Celtic pagan Imbolc” with its observable Pagan traditions like caroling and wassailing (Emerick, 54; Owen, 247).

   One of the distinctions to Fastnacht is exactly because our Suebi and Alemanni ancestors absorbed the pre-existing Celts who also form part of our bloodlines. Nor is it any accident, as argued by scholars such as Philip A. Shaw, that the veneration of Ostara thrived exactly in those regions with earlier Celtic veneration of the Matronae. So that Fastnacht is uniquely Alpine going back to the most ancient times. For example, the similar features between Perchta with the Befana figure of northern Italy – through the medium of the Celts who were indigenous to all the Alpine regions.

Hooriger Bär (hairy bear) of the Poppelezunft Singen

   Observing the Shamanic Bear Spirit. In his explanation of Fastnacht, Wolf-Dieter Storl traced its masks and costumes to representations of spirits of the forests and mountains. He even theorized that Groundhog’s Day is a survival of the time when one observed the bear coming out of hibernation in a cave as an omen for whether spring would come or not. Pennsylvania Deutsch Heathens called Urglaawe similar make a connection between Fastnacht (which they called Fawesenacht) and Groundhog’s Day (Schreiwer and Eckhart, 23). There are shamanic qualities to such bear symbolism, including to rebirth and solar cycles, Germanic warriors wearing bear skins to carry on the “ecstasy” (wode) personified by Wodan, and the related Germanic concepts of inherited “luck” and a “guardian spirit” that was often the bear. Fastnacht processions of costumed and masked “spirits” are mock representations of the Wild Hunt.

   Purification and Rebirth. Fastnacht has other shamanic and fertility connotations through the figure of Perchta, whom I discussed elsewhere in greater detail. Fastnacht festivals use birch – considered her material as the one who presides over the spirit of witches roaming across this time of year (leading up to Walpurgisnacht). “During the Alemannic carnival, the archaic, colorful festival at which many costumed and masked people parade as various ‘spirits’ in February, the witches still carry a birch broom, occasionally ‘riding’ it and symbolically swooshing it around to cleanse the atmosphere. The role of the witches is usually played by men because it is believed that women are more receptive in nature and more likely to be possessed by the spirits represented on the masks” (Storl, 70-71). Similarly, the Pennsylvania celebration is marked by such practices as a cackling and crowing called “Du bischt die fawsenacht” (Shoemaker), and a folkloric figure named Butzemann who is honored by taking “vanquished habits and negative energies with him in fire on Allelieweziel” (Schreiwer and Eckhart, 24). The element of fire was understood as purifying, so that bonfires were a common feature of all these liminal festivals that marked the changing of seasons – its about the release of spiritual energies.

   Fastnacht Guilds. The last noteworthy aspect to me is that of competing Fastnacht guilds: “Swabia is the region for the ‘Narrenzünfte’ (in English Narr means ‘Fool’ but it would be wrong to use it; Zunft means ‘guild’, so let’s call it Fasnacht guild). Almost every village and city has its own Narrenzunft in the region of the South-West to the Northern part of Switzerland. Every member of a Narrenzunft has its own costume and mask that is called ‘Larve’. They are made out of wood, fabric, ceramic or wire. Every costume is hand made and shows the specific theme of the Narrenzunft.” To me this harkens back to the decentralized socio-political structures of the Suebi/Alemanni called pagi or cantons. It also expresses the creativity and imagination nourished out of friendly competition. Each one creates something unique and distinctive, together making Fastnacht the vibrant, living Swabian tradition it is.

Rämässer Narrenzunft from Ringsheim, Schwarzwald

References:

Beitl, Klaus; Horst Sund; et. al. Fas(t)nacht in Geschichte, Kunst und Literatur. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1984.

Emerick, Carolyn. European Christmas Lore: Collected Works. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2018.

Kalchthaler, Peter and Sigmund, Hans. Hexen, Lalli, Flecklehäs. Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 2007.

Owen, Trefor M. “The Celebration of Candlemas in Wales.” Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 3, Autumn 1973, pp. 238-251.

Sass, Robert. “The REAL Origins of Lent vs. Historical Sigrblot. Modern Paganism vs. Historical Heathenry”. Feb. 27, 2020. < https://www.aldsidu.com/post/the-real-origins-of-lent>.

Schreiwer, Robert L. and Ammerili Eckhart. A Dictionary of Urglaawe Terminology. 2012.

Shaw, Philip A. Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011.

Shoemaker, Alfred L. Eastertide in Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000.

Storl, Wolf-Dieter. The Untold History of Healing: Plant Lore and Medicinal Magic from the Stone Age to Present. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2017.

Fire-themed Fastnacht mask

Fasnacht in Willisau (2012)