https://godsip.club/tags/central-europe/ Recent content in Central Europe on Godsip Club Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://godsip.club/articles/pagan-gods-trinity/ Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://godsip.club/articles/pagan-gods-trinity/ Get Lucky 🔗Either I’m very lucky, or I keep finding evidence that everything is connected. After Rites of Passage, I’ve been reading one of my Christmas presents: the very recent Woodruff’s Guide to Slavic Deities. I confess that when I discovered it was printed by Amazon, after flipping through the pages, at first I had some prejudices. I thought it was mainly a sort of list, maybe a catalogue… oh boy, I was so wrong! The text is full of interesting notions and –what I look for most– connections among civilisations. In brief, by studying the roots of names (often Proto-Indo-European), very interesting details can be discovered. Especially in countries like the Slavic ones, close each other, some small differences of pronunciation can help to find new details. A photo I took in Slovenia. The “magical” atmosphere is quite powerful! One of the main aspects discussed by this book concerns the polyvalence of the gods. https://godsip.club/articles/christmas-in-europe-is-no-joke/ Sun, 05 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://godsip.club/articles/christmas-in-europe-is-no-joke/ First: Avoid Being Chased Down 🔗I live in Italy and, when I was a child, I didn’t really believe in Santa – I was already asking too many questions. I didn’t mind too much being a good child to receive nice gifts, but a few hundreds of kilometers from me, things were (are!) quite different. In the Eastern Alps, in Austria, Slovenia and other Slavic countries, naughty children are not gifted with black coal by the Befana, as in Italy. In those countries, bad kids are actually hunted down by a horned demon – the Krampus. Every year, the 5th of December, during the Krampusnacht (“Krampus Night”), men and women march down the street dressed up like demons, with horrifying masks that take the whole year to make. The Krampus Run, or Krampuslauf, is a joyful parade for adults, mostly drunk, but a bit less cherish for children, who are continuously scared and chased by these horrible figures.