50 Fun Facts About Paganism

The word pagan derives from the Latin paganus, which originally meant what?

It also meant civilian in army slang; early Christians saw themselves as soldiers of Christ and everyone else as paganus.

In the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire, pagans were most commonly called what?

The word meant Greeks, but for a thousand years it was a religious rather than a cultural label.

Which church father wrote The City of God against the Pagans after the sack of Rome?

Pagans were murmuring that the old gods had protected Rome better than the Christian one.

Which Roman emperor's persecution of paganism preceded the Visigoth sack of Rome by about 15 years?

Julian, by contrast, tried to restore the old religion and earned the nickname the Apostate.

Which was among the last areas of Europe to be Christianised, in 1387?

Its revived native faith, Romuva, won state recognition in 2024.

The Gaelic festival Samhain marks the beginning of which season?

It falls on 1 November, with celebrations starting at sunset on 31 October since the Celtic day began at dusk.

Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival, is held on which date?

Cattle were driven between bonfires for protection before being sent to summer pasture.

Imbolc, on 1 February, is also the feast day of which Irish saint?

Historians suspect the saint Christianised a goddess of the same name linked to lambing and spring.

Lughnasadh, the harvest festival on 1 August, is named after which god?

Its English equivalent is Lammas and its Welsh one Gŵyl Awst.

Yule was a midwinter festival of which peoples before it merged with Christmas?

Swedish and Finnish still use cognates of Yule for Christmas; modern Heathens keep it as a separate festival.

The modern Wheel of the Year typically has how many festivals?

It combines the four solar quarter days with the four Celtic cross-quarter festivals.

Legend says the father of Wicca harmonised the eightfold Wheel of the Year with which Druid leader?

Nichols founded the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 1964; the two reportedly worked it out at a naturist retreat.

Which 1948 Robert Graves book proposed eight holidays of an 'ancient British festal system'?

Graves also shaped the neopagan Triple Goddess of Maiden, Mother and Crone.

What is the largest and best-known form of modern paganism?

It is also the most extensively studied, and was introduced to the public in 1954.

Which retired civil servant introduced Wicca to the public in 1954?

A plaque on his gravestone calls him the Father of Wicca.

Gardner claimed to have been initiated in 1939 into a coven based where?

He said the religion he found there was a survival of the witch-cult Margaret Murray had theorised.

What was the title of Gardner's 1954 non-fiction book that publicised Wicca?

High Magic's Aid was his 1949 novel and The Meaning of Witchcraft followed in 1959.

Gardner spent much of his career as a civil servant in which British colony?

He ended up Principal Officer of Customs in Johore and studied local folk magic and weapons.

Gardner directed a Museum of Magic and Witchcraft on which island?

He ran it at Castletown with Cecil Williamson until his death in 1964.

Wicca is typically duotheistic, venerating a Horned God and which female deity?

She is Maiden, Mother and Crone, matching the phases of the Moon; the God is tied to the Sun and the seasons.

Which Egyptologist's 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe shaped early Wiccan theology?

Historians reject her theory; the similar confessions came from standard questions in witch-hunting manuals.

In 1964 the secret names of the Gardnerian deities were revealed to be Aradia and whom?

The tradition promptly changed its secret names.

Which High Priestess wrote much of the early Gardnerian liturgy, including the Charge of the Goddess?

Initiated in 1953, she later worked with Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain.

The Wiccan Rede's best-known form is a couplet of how many words?

'An it harm none, do what ye will' was first publicly recorded by Doreen Valiente in 1964.

What is the Wiccan name for the volume of rituals and spells copied by initiates?

Gardner's original was written in the late 1940s; the TV series Charmed made the term famous.

What do Wiccans call seasonal festivals, as opposed to the lunar Esbats?

Esbats follow the Moon and the Goddess; the solar cycle belongs to the Horned God.

A pentagram inside a circle is properly called what?

Wiccans use it widely; the plain star alone is the pentagram.

In which year was the encircled pentagram approved for headstones at Arlington?

It became the 38th approved symbol after ten applications from families of Wiccan soldiers.

Who popularised the terms pagan and neopagan from 1967 in the magazine Green Egg?

He co-founded the Church of All Worlds, named after the religion in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

Which two 1979 books opened a new chapter in public awareness of paganism?

Margot Adler wrote the first, the Reclaiming priestess Starhawk the second.

Roughly how many modern pagans are estimated to practise in the United States?

Surveys find them mostly middle-class, educated and living on the East and West coasts.

Historian Ronald Hutton estimated how many modern pagans live in the United Kingdom?

That is roughly the size of Britain's Hindu community; the 2011 census counted 80,153 self-described pagans.

The Icelandic name Ásatrú translates as belief in or loyalty to which group of gods?

Heathens honour their deities in blóts, offering food and libations, usually a bowl of mead.

What is the most commonly used symbol among Heathens?

Mjölnir is worn as a pendant and used as a gesture in ritual; runes decorate objects and skin.

The Heathen drinking ceremony that toasts the gods is called what?

It often follows a blót, the offering rite that is Heathenry's most important ritual.

In which year did Iceland grant official recognition to the Ásatrúarfélagið?

Founded a year earlier over coffee in Reykjavík, it was led by the farmer-poet Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson until 1993.

The Nine Noble Virtues of some Heathen groups are based largely on which Old Norse poem?

It sits in the Poetic Edda alongside the other main sources, with Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied.

The oldest surviving modern Druidic fraternity, still active, was founded in which year?

It was a fraternal society influenced by Freemasonry and based in London; a schism in 1833 split it.

Which 18th-century Welshman fabricated 'ancient' Druidic sources and founded the Gorsedd?

His Gorsedd became part of the National Eisteddfod and his Druid's Prayer is still recited.

What Welsh-derived word do Druids chant three times to invoke inspiration?

It means inspiration in Welsh and Cornish and is also chanted as A-I-O.

Which group accounts for about 57 per cent of the world's modern Druidic practitioners?

OBOD teaches mostly by correspondence course; ADF was founded in 1983 by Isaac Bonewits.

Stonehenge is aligned towards sunrise at which event?

It also faces sunset on the winter solstice; there is no evidence Iron Age druids ever used it.

The image of druids with golden sickles and mistletoe comes from which Roman author?

A single passage of his did it; Caesar gave the fullest account and Pliny derived druid from the Greek for oak.

Caesar claimed the Gauls burned criminals inside what?

Evidence for Celtic animal sacrifice is solid; human sacrifice rests on thinner ground.

Which horned Celtic god is known from depictions but almost nothing of his myths?

He later became the Gardnerian Wiccans' secret name for the Horned God.

Which Slavic god's idol in Kiev had a silver head and a gold moustache?

Vladimir set it up around 980 and then baptised Kievan Rus in 988, tossing Veles's idol into the river.

Kemetism is a modern pagan religion based on the beliefs of which ancient civilisation?

Kemet means black land, after the Nile's fertile mud; followers call the gods the Netjeru.

In which year did Greece legally recognise modern Hellenism as a 'known religion'?

Recognition let it open places of worship and have its clergy officiate at weddings.

Stonehenge and its surroundings joined UNESCO's World Heritage list in which year?

The Crown owns the stones, English Heritage manages them and the National Trust owns the land around.

What does Heathenry call the web of actions and relationships spun by the Norns?

Örlög is the personal version; the worldview oscillates between free will and fate.