The realities of the world
Everyday life is predominantly
determined by the sequence of the seasons and by pertinent processes,
changes and repetitions met with in forests, fields and in gardens and
those human activities dependent of them. Day and night, dark and light
season, growth, ripening, harvest and fallow, the cycles of the
celestial bodies and the times of feasts at the turning points in these
cycles set the frame, set the conditions for human activities.
Into this world and mediated by
it, numerous forces and powers exert their effects. They have their
origin in another world, an otherworld, one that surrounds and
penetrates this here world, one that comprises everything of unknown
and mysterious character, but also everything that is dominant and
decisive. There and from there superior beings exert their influence,
some of them represented here as the Country where mankind lives in, and
the Ground they live on. They may as well be the Ancestors of the clan,
of the people or the entire mankind. Other ones are visible as for
example the Sun, or the Water in all its appearances, or Trees or
Animals. The most varying shapes can be assumed by them, strange and
monstrous ones. But they can as well hide behind the outer appearance of
familiar animals or even human beings, magically gifted men or women.
They bring blessing or disaster, govern war and welfare.
The otherworldly regularities
though incomprehensible to the average man, are reliable, even so that
superior human beings can learn those regularities or some of their
effects. Those men, wise men or druids, offer an interpreting help to
other people. Certain signs emanate from the Otherworld which can and
should be read and obeyed. There are good days and bad days and a wealth
of rules about how to act and behave. Predetermined places are used by
the inhabitants of the Otherworld to enter and leave this terrestrial
world. At certain dates, at the turning points between dark and light
season this is performed with greater ease. Numerous incredible and
incredibly numerous tales are told – mostly by druids - which reveal a
little bit of what happened in the Otherworld and under its impact in
This World.
For human beings from this here
world there is an entrance into the Otherworld: death. He or she who
enters the Otherworld by ways of soil, water, fire or air can expect to
continue life yonder there.
Since Otherworld beings can
change more easily into this terrestrial world, one can never be sure of
a dead person not to return. This happens rather frequently, be it that
the dead one comes to conclude an affair, be it that he comes to fetch
the next one to die, be it for other reasons. Reanimation can be
prevented by separating the head from the deceased body and providing
that they cannot come together. If however the head is separated from
the body before death, it must be expected that the head remains alive.
This is not a usual event and always worth to be notified. Life is
housed in the head, more exactly in its blood.
The saying goes about some
people taking up another body or shape even before death and beginning a
new life. Some even do so several times. Of course this is no less than
usual, and it may well be doubted that they are human beings and not
rather of otherworldly origin.
Death leads into the Otherworld,
new life emerges from there. Anything that is involved in production
and reproduction, in growth, ripening and wealth, the rising waters of
rivers and lakes and the prodigious sun – all this is in the might of
Otherworld beings. They are conceivable or are met with as women,
mothers, old women, and ruling female persons. Many among those who led
the people to their country or founded a ruling clan were otherworldly
mothers. They display a special predilection for human beings.