Liber ab Solemnitas (The Book of Holidays)^171

Liber ab Solemnitas (Book of Holidays).....................................................

(The Book of Holidays)

A Further Exploration of the Sabbats and Esbats

Or the Book of Twelve Part II

171

ne of the reasons I do not buy into the romantic view of Wicca being an

ancient Celtic religion is that my first introduction to the ‘Old Religion’ was

with both a Greek and Roman pantheon. I distinctly remember an argument

with a school teacher about the nature of the mythology we were studying.

Although the class was focused on Greek and Roman mythology, I’d already

been introduced to Hindu mythology by a babysitter who, looking back, I

believe may have been involved in the Krishna Consciousness movement. It seemed

reasonable to believe that if the mythology of one people was in fact their religion, then

the mythology of another people would be their religion. I claimed the material at

hand was an ancient religion; he claimed it was just stories and not religion. I asked,

“What then is the difference between the Christian Bible and any particular version of

mythology?” His answer was that what is in the Christian Bible really happened. “Ac-

cording to who?” I asked, offering “You perhaps?” Well, the teacher sent me to the

principal’s office. There, I later explained that I was just curious about the subject, the

teacher explained his side of the story, and the principal explained that I was not al-

lowed to discuss the matter in class because we were not allowed to discuss religion in

class. Needless to say I was very, very, very confused.

Shortly thereafter, I found a Pagan group who indeed followed the Roman pan-

theon with a hint of the Greek names. The word Wicca was not used much, and when

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r WB Chap 10.p65 171 7/11/2003, 5:54 PM