Muggle Practices/Religion/Weasley practices

[Richard]

No: HPFGUIDX 78883

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Deirdre F Woodward" 
<dwoodward at t...> wrote:
> Actually, Christains are following Pagan rituals when they
> celebrate Christmas and Easter.  Christ's historical birth
> isn't December 25 -- missionaries hijacked the pagan cele-
> bration of winter solstice.  Likewise, the spring solstice,
> occuring as it does so close to Passover, was hijacked for
> the historically marked crucificition and ascention.  All
> the attendant imagery -- rebirth, et al -- Pagan!
> 
> Pagan = Wiccan = Witch
> 
> Christmas and Easter, then, I would think, are acutally
> wizard holidays that Muggles have reinterpreted at Christian
> rituals.

Says I (Richard the Uncontrollably Analytical) ...

As for the rough dates and some of the symbolism, yes, Christmas and 
Easter were "usurped" by early Christians in various regions.  
However, you miss a few critical points.

The Weasleys and Hogwarts are not celebrating solstice or equinox by 
name, or any other nameable pagan holiday, but Christmas and Easter --
 by name.  One would think that if the Wizarding World, which is 
quite ancient, were celebrating a WW or pagan/witch holiday, they 
would, given the historic divide between the WW and that of the 
Muggles, still celebrate it in an identifiably pagan or wizardly way, 
rather than adopting the (yes, usurped) Christian symbolism and 
names.  Well, they don't.  Even Halloween, which also has ancient 
antecedents, is All Hallows Eve, the eve of All Saints Day.  It would 
arguably be the most likely to have retained a WW ambiance well 
beyond that which it has acquired in the Muggle World as the one time 
each year when witches and wizards could be what they really are in 
front of Muggles without overly much suspicion.  Even the demi-humans 
of the WW would have some tangible cover, "abnormalities" being 
explicable as features of costumes.  Given the manner of Muggle 
Halloween celebrations, even ancient names for the day could be used 
and explained by claims of being "historical for the fun of it."

You also seem to think Wicca is more ancient than it is.  True, it 
has some very ancient threads in its tapestry, but it is itself a 
Twentieth Century synthesis of several classical and pre-classical 
threads.  Further, pagan is a much broader term than the historical 
bases of Wicca, covering, from the Judeo-Christian perspective, just 
about any religion that isn't Judeo-Christian.  (Islam is not 
regarded by most of the people I know as "pagan," but as "wrong," in 
one way or another, yet still of the same god-head.)

JKR's WW is a synthesis of many threads, and parts are decidedly 
Christian, at least in modern symbolism.  Some or mythological and 
quite ancient.  Some at least appear to be more modern and literary.  
Some of it is just plain humor, intended to elicit a smile and a 
laugh, rather than symbolic.  But it is entirely HER World, and she 
has decidedly not brought religion into her World in any overt way, 
pagan or otherwise.  Rather, dates and holidays seem to serve here 
more to provide punctuation and a sense of the movement of time, 
while providing familiar touchstones for younger readers, rather than 
being core material for either plot or theme.  I think of such things 
more as backdrops for the time-scape of the tale.


Richard