Elen of the Ways

The ways of the deer trods, the starry sky, the marching legions, and also the way home

An image by the late, great Susan Seddon-Boulet that connects a dreamer with the moon, a stag, a temple, and what may be both a spiderweb and a constellation.

I first encountered the mysterious figure called — by modern convention¹ — Elen of the Ways in Ken Follett’s masterpiece The Pillars of the Earth. The mother of the main character was named Ellen. She was the daughter of a knight and literate in English, French, and Latin, but she lived as an outlaw. She was rumored to be a witch because she cursed the men responsible for having her first husband unjustly hanged, and she is judged by criteria that are applied only to women and never to men. Unlike most other women, who had to make difficult compromises with men or patriarchal social structures, Ellen quietly quits and lives on her own terms. She captured my imagination for not being intimidated by authorities from the church and state, and living fully in her own convictions; self-sovereign, loyal to many, but bowing to no man, and provisioning herself comfortably from what the land offered.

Now that’s a hell of a legend !!!

This is Natalia Wörner portraying Ellen in the 8-part Pillars of the Earth TV series.

The Oldest Traces of Elen

The Age(s) of Reindeer

The name Elen (along with its many variations) is connected with deer and with goddesses and powerful women associated with deer. Deer goddesses date back to the Paleolithic period. Especially in very cold places and eras, deer supplied nearly everything people needed: not only meat, but also bones, antlers, and skins that could be worked into weapons, tools, clothing, and shelter. The animals also showed bands of humans where they should go: following the reindeers’ seasonal migration led people to places where there was more plentiful food of all kinds. Thus, for many reasons, non-agricultural herding people considered deer to be sacred gifts and guides, and the deities of deer-following people were concerned not only with deer or reindeer but also with guiding people along the correct pathways. Some of these, of course, were the deer trods (migration pathways used by the animals), but taken farther, it also applied to pathways into and out of embodied life. Much later, when people had a more settled way of life, deer goddesses were also associated with the sovereignty of kings or peoples.

The earliest traces of deer cults are found in the Magdalenian era, dating from about 17000 to 12000 BCE — a period that has also been termed the “Age of the Reindeer” (L'âge du renne) by Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy. This epoch also witnessed a kind of Paleolithic Renaissance; extraordinary works of art were created in locations that are now famous, such as Lascaux and Altamira, and in many lesser-known caves as well. For around 3000 years, reindeer coexisted in Europe with temperate fauna such as red deer and roe deer. Then they gradually disappeared from northern central Europe and southern Scandinavia as their habitats of light birch and pine forests were succeeded by thicker pine and deciduous forests.

Reindeer reached Britain and Ireland via Doggerland, a land bridge that flooded sometime between 6500-6300 BCE. Did the ancestors of the Sámi people, whose language includes many terms that refer to reindeer and seem to be cognates with Elen, contribute to the rich lore found on the islands? It’s hard to say, because the proto-Samic language is not as old as the submerged lands. But maybe even older roots were intertwined.

Map of Doggerland by the National Geographic Society.

In the far north of Europe and Asia there are still reindeer and reindeer herders. The Sámi people of Sápmi, a cultural region of Europe and Russia that spans the northern parts of Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia, are an example of a culture closely connected with a reindeer-herding lifestyle. Sámi myths tell of the close bond between reindeer and people. For instance, the goddess Geijen-neite came to earth “to remind people of the need for reverence for the reindeer and to teach them how to care for their beloved animals.” You might say that the hagiography of St. Hubert, which also contains teachings about reverence for animals and about ethical hunting, is a late echo of ideas like these. Or perhaps people who are sufficiently sensitive to natural balance arrive at such conclusions intuitively.

Today, although some Sámi own reindeer herds, very few are still truly nomadic. In 2007 the Reindeer Husbandry Act was passed in Norway in an effort to protect Sámi culture and customs. This act declared that only people who are Sámi and have a parent or grandparent who practices/practiced reindeer husbandry as their primary occupation are allowed to own and herd the animals. So, thanks to Sámi activism, reindeer herding is still hanging on by a thread in Europe.

A Sámi reindeer herder. The animals are herded collectively, but each animal is owned individually. It’s very rude to ask someone how many reindeer they own.

Red deer and roe deer cults and Mesolithic British shamanism

Star Carr, which is located in North Yorkshire, England about 8 km south of Scarborough, was once accessible from Continental Europe, and it was a thriving place of habitation by Mesolithic humans as well as many other species for thousands of years before the waters closed in on Doggerland.

Map via The Daily Mail.

Some of the most notable artifacts found at the site are “barbed points” from spears and distinctive “frontlets,” pieces of headdresses fashioned from antlered red deer skulls. Overall, more than 21 of them were unearthed.

Image from the Yorkshire Museum. Photo by Neil Gevaux

What did the Star Carr frontlets look like when worn as intended? Here is an artist’s impression of another headdress found with a middle-aged woman identified as a shaman. She was buried in a grave along with a baby boy in Bad Dürrenberg, Germany, 9000 years ago, which means they’re from about the same time as the Star Carr findings.

© State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt. Site link.

According to the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, the rich grave goods interred with the woman² attest that her role was special, and ethnographic comparison suggests that some of the things buried with her, such as turtle shells that may have been used as rattles, should be interpreted as objects used in shamanic practices. But most interesting of all is the fact that the woman had a deformity that could have benefited her in her shamanic role: “The analysis of the woman's skeleton revealed that her two uppermost cervical vertebrae were malformed and the blood vessels in the lower skull area could have been spatially restricted … Anthropologists suspect that by holding her head in a certain position, she was able to clamp off a blood vessel. This possibly led to an involuntary eye movement, a so-called nystagmus.”

According to Harald Meller, the director of the Museum of Prehistory, the shaman lived in a time when climate change was leading to lifestyle changes. They no longer followed mammoth and reindeer, but hunted deer and other game and fished in the rivers. As people became less mobile they began to specialize in skills such as making boats, carving wood, and so on. He believes that the Bad Dürrenberg burial provides evidence that spirituality, too, was becoming more of a specialized profession at this time, with specific people delegated to intercede with the spirit world.

Fans of the experimental folk band Heilung may find that the headdresses look rather familiar:

Maria Franz, the singer for Heilung, in a cc image from Wallhaven. Her headdress is based on the findings from both Bad Dürrenberg and Star Carr.

Elen in Celtic Myths

Getting back to the name Elen, we find a deer goddess, deer queen, or deer woman who is associated with granting sovereignty as a recurring motif in many Celtic legends. Often, they feature female characters whose names are variations of Elen/Helen. Examples include Elen from the Dream of Macsen Wledig, whom I will discuss below; Elaine of Astolat (Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott”); and Ellyne or Elene from Libeaus Desconus. Then Elaine of Benoic was the wife of King Ban and the mother of Lancelot, and Elaine of Corbenic was Lancelot’s lover and the mother of Sir Galahad. This Elaine is the daughter of the Fisher King (King Pelles) and one of the Grail Maidens.

The Dream of Macsen Wledig

This story from the Mabinogion tells of a woman whose name was Elen of the Hosts or Elen of the Roads in English, Elen Luyddog in Welsh, and Elen Belipotent in reference to her military leadership skills. Read two articles I recommend on Elen and on The Dream of Macsen Wledig by the folklorist Zteve T. Evans for Folklore Thursday, and/ or the substantial commentary here, or just go with my TL;DR below, which draws from all of these sources.

The tale begins with the legionary warlord “Macsen” (a.k.a. Flavius Magnus Maximus Augustus or just Magnus Maximus for short) going out hunting one hot day. Macsen was descended from an aristocratic family in Spain, and perhaps even back then Spaniards enjoyed taking a midday siesta. During his slumber he had a prophetic dream in which he traveled over mountains, along rivers, and across the sea. Eventually, he landed on a fair island (Wales), and on the island he discovered a magnificent castle. Inside the castle was a stately old man sitting on an ivory throne, carving playing pieces out of pure gold. He was accompanied by two auburn-haired youths, dressed in black silk and playing gwyddbwyll (an ancient Celtic game similar to chess). But that wasn’t all: there was also a maiden with red hair seated upon a red-gold throne.

Look, this was basically a Dark Ages Welsh Trump Palace: nearly everything the story names in that palace was gold, gold, gold!

Anyway, Macsen was smitten and wanted desperately to kiss the beautiful girl, but — as it goes both in life and often even in dreams — having her couldn’t be that easy. And, unlike Trump, he wasn’t one to just grab women by the, ehm!

Upon awakening, Macsen found he was in thrall to an all-consuming obsession. Pining and physically ill, he told his counselors that he was “in love with someone who I know not. She may be real and she may be unreal, but I am mortally stricken, so tell, what am I to do?”

He sent his men out to search for her.

The girl of Macsen’s dreams was the Welsh princess Elen, the daughter of Eudaf Hen. Alternately, she was identified as the daughter of Ethal Anbuail from S íd Uamuin – a faery mound located in the territory of Ailill and Medb of Connachta. After she was found, the lovers are united in the flesh, but then they flew off together in the form of swans. (I’ll tell you some more about swans later. For now, let’s just focus on them being monogamously bonded.)

An image of Elen by Kinuko Y. Craft.

This princess was not just a pretty plaything: Elen was a powerful woman who asked for and got what she wanted. As wedding gifts from her new husband she requested the Island of Britain — from the North Sea to the Irish Sea — for her father, and the three adjacent islands for herself, to be held under the empress of Rome . In addition, she wanted three major forts to be built for her in the three locations of her choice with roads constructed between them to facilitate the movement of troops. This is when she gained the epithet of “Lluyddog,” which means “of the hosts” and it is an obvious connection with “ways” and roads.

Eventually, a rival seized control of the Roman empire and Macsen was warned not to go back to Europe. Undaunted, he and Elen and his British allies (the “hosts” led by Elen’s brother Conanus/Cynan Meriadoc/Conan Meriadeg) marched across Gaul and Italy, and after a year-long siege Macsen recaptured Rome. In gratitude to his British allies, Macsen rewarded them with a portion of Gaul that became known as Brittany.

But then the tides turned against him: he fled Theodosius' forces at the Battle of the Save in 388 CE and was later captured and executed in Aquileia in the same year. According to one account, Elen was travelling along the Roman roads in a Snowdonian valley when she received the news. She fell to her knees near a well and cried Croes awr i mi yw hon (a cross hour for me is this), and then she lay down and died.

This, along with some of the other patriarchal aspects woven into the story may grate on contemporary sensibilities. For example, Macsen’s men had to determine that Elen is a virgin (don’t ask how), and Macsen grants Elen’s father sovereignty over the island of Britain. Why not grant it to Elen herself? Well, if she had that much power then Macsen could have just been packed off back to Europe. Giving the power to Elen’s father meant that he put himself — at least formally — under the authority of the local ruling family. He also helped them fight their enemies. All the complex dynastic back stories transcended any simple calculations of the “war of the sexes” type, but it must be noted that women + deer do make for a powerfully subversive motif, which I will discuss in the “Rebellious Women and the Cailleach” section below.

Zteve T. Evans also describes Elen’s role as warrior queen, giving a historian’s account of how after Macsen’s defeat and execution Elen herself reigned over the Britons. “She led the defence of the country against invading Picts, Irish and Saxons. After a long, hard fight she pushed the invaders out, earning the name Elen Belipotent meaning ‘mighty in war’”. The story about the widow killed by grief sounds a lot like PR for her Christian hagiography.

Maybe Elen loved Macsen. Both of them were real people, after all, and we just don’t know. But it’s clear that she and her people gained lasting advantages from their union, because his death marked the end of direct imperial presence in Northern Gaul and Britannia. Whichever way you want to read this story — dutiful and self-sacrificing queen, or champion of Welsh sovereignty — Elen certainly had many admirers, and she was even awarded sainthood in the Welsh Church.

St. Elen, looking stern, chaste, and uncompromising. Some of her other qualifications for sainthood included founding churches and putting her name on sacred wells.

In some regards, Elen Lluyddog’s strategic marriage to Macsen is similar to Ragnelle’s marriage to Sir Gawain and it shows a similar canniness in exploiting existing systems and turning them inside out, but that’s a topic I’m saving for another article. If you subscribe to this blog you’ll never miss a post:

How are deer related to swans and elephants? Rhizomically

You’re thinking: where are the deer in all that Elen and Macsen business? They’re implicit in Elen’s name and in the symbols she’s connected with.

The etymology of Elen’s name is rhizomic, and you can see its spread throughout all the lands with Indo-European languages as well as traces in Saami and Hungarian, which are Uralic languages. Via a reference to a greyish or brownish color, the proto-Indo-European root *h₁el- means deer or elk (and later, we even get the word “elephant” from it). This gives rise to myriad related forms: the Old Armenian եղն (ełn, “hind”); Armenian եղնիկ (ełnik, “doe”); Proto-Balto-Slavic *elenias or *eleňь; Latvian alnis (“elk”, “moose”); Lithuanian élnias, élnis, álnis (“deer”); Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Bosnian (as well as other Slavic languages) jelen; Old Prussian alne, Dutch eland (elk); Proto-Celtic *elanī or *elantī; *h₁él-n̥; Proto-Hellenic *éləpʰos or *elnós; Ancient Greek ἔλαφος (élaphos, “red deer”) or ἐλλός (ellós) or ἄλκη (álkē); Modern Greek ελάφι (eláfi); Proto-Germanic: *algiz, *elhaz; Latin: alcēs; Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hŕ̥ćyas; Proto-Indo-Aryan *Hŕ̥śyas, Vedic Sanskrit: ऋश्य (ṛ́śya); and thence the modern German Hirsch (a deer). See Wiktionary: h₁el (reconstruction).

Tündér Ilona was the Hungarian fairy queen and “mother of life”. Tündér means fairy, and her own name, Ilona, seems to be derived from the Hungaro-Turkic root él or éle, meaning life, and ana or anya, meaning “mother.” Her animal form is the swan, associated with the constellation of Cygnus, and she lays an egg from which the sun god Magor is hatched.

Hungarian/American folklorist and writer Theodora Goss writes:

Géza Róheim, in Hungarian and Vogul Mythology, identifies her as "the Hungarian version of the fairy queen of European folktale," who lived in Csallóköz. There, she swam in the Danube in the shape of a swan. Róheim argues that she can also be associated with an ancient swan–goddess, the consort of the pre–Christian god of the Hungarians. The word tündér, he tells us, is not exactly equivalent to the English "fairy"; rather, it seems to refer to a female supernatural being who is capable of appearing and disappearing, or making things appear and disappear, and is associated with fate itself. In Transylvania, Dömötör points out, the Milky Way is called the Fairy's Way.

Some believe the name Ilona is also related to Helen/Helena/Elen, and Goss cites Fred Hámori, who has claimed 1) that the Hungarian language is related to ancient Sumerian; and 2) that Fairy Ilona is the fairy tale form of the Sumerian goddess Inanna, and, moreover, in Finno–Ugric mythology the Land of Birds is also the Land of the Dead so there could be a shamanic level to the symbolism as well. The connections do not seem absolutely solid, but it would be an intriguing connection for someone with stronger Hungarian language skills than mine (I can read a menu, but that’s about it) to research.

The constellation of Cygnus (the Swan) was later restyled as the Northern Cross or the Cross of Santa Helena, though these versions clip the swan's wings. If you aim your gaze into the Cygnus/the Northern Cross, you’re looking directly into the Milky Way’s flat disk, where most of our galaxy’s stars reside. Many ancient peoples considered the Milky Way a route for souls entering and leaving the world, and the Great Rift at the middle of it has often been seen as a cosmic vulva.

(Remember, viewing angles and constellation orientations will vary with the time and seasons.)

The Greek myth of Helen of Troy begins with a swan motif, since Helen and her sister Clytemnestra were hatched from an egg that was conceived in a union between their mother and Zeus, who had disguised himself as a swan. (Nice going, Zeus! Appropriating yet more goddesses by making them your children.)

Part of this Helen’s mythology that is not as widely known as Homer’s much more famous Troy Story is her role as Helen Dendritis, the goddess of the tree. A temple to Helen built at Rhodes gave her this epithet.

After the death of Menelaus, Helen was driven from her home by two natural sons of her husband. She fled to Rhodes, and sought the protection of her friend Polyxo, the widow of Tlepolemus. But Polyxo bore Helen a grudge, since her own husband Tlepolemus had fallen a victim in the Trojan war. Accordingly, once while Helen was bathing, Polyxo sent out her servants in the disguise of the Erinyes, with the command to hang Helen on a tree. For this reason the Rhodians afterwards built a sanctuary to Helena Dendritis.

And that neatly brings us back to the ancient tree motifs that Goss connected with an ancient shamanic cosmology with upper, middle, and lower worlds, and the speculative association with Inanna who was not hanged on a tree, but killed and hung up on a hook when she had given up her power to her sister. She is liberated by two nonbinary-gendered beings sent by her father.

The thing to keep in mind is these stories propagate in every possible manner: by roots, shoots, and fruits. And they cross-fertilize like maize from adjacent fields.

What I’m getting at is that the answer to the question of Is Elen one or many? is YES.³

Rebellious women and the Cailleach

In a small-scale nomadic society where there are no great kings or emperors, no taxation, and no organized church, faith in reindeer deities and priesthoods (priestesshoods) are part of the conventional order of things. But when there are only distant cultural memories of these more egalitarian arrangements and the generous gifts of animals that support all the people the motifs can be used to back rebellion. Thus, when you mix the themes of women and stags, at least in feudal and Christian contexts, you see pictures of rebellion against power structures.

A fascinating article by J. G. McKay, “The Deer-Cult and the Deer-Goddess Cult of the Ancient Caledeonians” (1932) raises the possibility that there was a connection between deer-women and outlaws in Scotland. (Remember how Ken Follett’s Ellen was an outlaw? I wonder if he had been reading McKay.) This article speculates on ancient cults led by priestesses who wore antlers and were associated not only with deer but also with a giant Cailleach figure.

Who or what is the Cailleach?

Seán Padráig O'Donoghue calls her the dark twin of the bright May Queen. She is the dark part of the year and the “dark” forces of nature; she is the herald and spirit of winter; she is the merciful rest and space of dreams between one day and the next and one night and the next; and she is also an initiator. The Cailleach brings storms and keep secrets.

The Low Edge of the Storm, by Catherine Hyde

Sometimes the name Cailleach or Cailleach Mhor (Huge Old Woman) is used in the plural when referring to giants who sang to deer, calling them their “darling deer” or “beast of my love.” Deanne Quarrie points out that all the beings in these tales show no signs of domestication, and probably date back to the Paleolithic period.

High Tor Guardian, by David Wyatt.

Anyway, McKay's "The Deer-Cult and the Deer-Goddess Cult of the Ancient Caledeonians" tells us that folklore attributed the power of shapeshifting to Scottish deer priestesses: they were able to change into hinds, which, curiously enough, were grey.⁴

When hunters gave chase, the deer women might reveal their human form to avoid being struck by weapons, and in some stories they married these hunters. The women’s sympathies seem to have been with the common people and outlaws, and were generally against the aristocracy who “represent some invading and conquering race, who had promulgated game-laws and arrogated to themselves the right to hunt.” The notions that an ancient deer priestess order once guarded access to venison and fish, and that when they were refused their ancient tribute and role in regulating the take they became enemies of the new rulers, are very intriguing.

And they can perhaps be pursued through ballads such as “The Famous Flower of Serving Men”, but we know we’re seeing late workings of our themes because the king is a sympathetic character who behaves chivalrously and helps avenge a foul murder, and he grants sovereignty and justice to the woman. Note the repeating motifs of the name Ellen and the white hart in the versions of the tale I linked above.

And let’s not forget rebellion against the Church. In my first first blog post, " White deer as symbols of worldly and spiritual power" I discussed how encounters with magical stags facilitated religious conversions for men. With women, it looks a little different:

This new print, titled Diana, is by David Seed. His shop can be found here.

David wrote:

“I was inspired by one of the carved misericords at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon. The original carving is described as being of a "loose woman rejecting Christianity", the stag apparently symbolising Christ, and her right hand "blocking a flowering rose symbolising the Virgin Mary". If you look at the carving I'd argue that that is a load of old toot. She's actually holding the rose and the stag seems an unlikely symbol for Christ. A lamb would be more the thing. I like to think it might be more about the carvers employing images drawn from older traditions. Diana is sometimes depicted riding a stag. Anyway, my drawing isn't about the dangers of loose women. I'm not entirely sure WHAT it's about. If I was good at describing this stuff I wouldn't have to draw it.”

Below is the carving at the Holy Trinity Church, also supplied by David Seed. I love the extreme clefts in the stag’s antlers — they add a certain diabolical element to the image.

The image below, Death and the Swan Maiden, by Nicholas Kalmakoff (1873-1955), was used by Wudewose on the cover of their 2020 album Northern Gothic.

St. Paul’s Cathedral and St. Michael Church in Wisconsin

As I describe in The White Deer, St. Paul’s cathedral in London has many layered associations with the goddess Diana. This is because it was built over a site where there had previously been a temple to Diana, and they rededicated it to St. Paul. But there seems to have been an ongoing anxiety of the old influences bleeding through. You see, St. Paul was not only a misogynist, but also fanatically dedicated to suppressing the worship of Diana after his religious conversion. The first church eventually grew into St. Paul’s Cathedral, but it’s interesting that one of the things the cathedral was most known for was its relics connected with the third-century saint Helena (known as Elyn in Welsh). This Helena/Elyn was the wife of Constantius Chlorus and mother of Constantine the Great.

And for all that the church’s leaders attempted to suppress the Dianic elements, they also sponsored some very curious hunting rituals. For example, hunters would lay carcasses of deer they had killed on the cathedral stairs, and several deer-themed hunting festivals were documented. On Candlemas (February 2), on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), and on the feast of the Commemoration of St. Paul (June 30), deer—either bucks or does, depending on the day—would be led to the cathedral’s west door. Clergy wearing crowns of roses and robes embroidered with bucks or does to match the sacrificial victim were waiting, and the deer were killed. Huntsmen blew their horns, and the deer’s head, fixed on a pole, was solemnly taken to the high altar.

Lest that give too archaic of an impression, here is a Catholic priest blessing hunting rifles at St. Michael Catholic Church in Wisconsin. Before the Vatican II council there were specific blessings for weapons (the kinds used in warfare), but today hunting weapons are generally blessed under the category of “Blessing of All Things” from the Rituale Romanum.

Is Elen real? Her lore is not as cohesive as other goddesses’ such as Athena or Aphrodite.

People have different ways of relating to deities. For some, they’re archetypes. For others, they are characters in morality tales. Still others have them as friends and confidantes, or embodiments of virtues they’d like to acquire. Others just treat them as lenses to peer into the past or, if they have a certain bent to their thinking, as egregores of other people’s beliefs. Euhemerists believe gods and myths are distorted reflections of real people and events, and in the case of Elen Lluyddog, that wouldn’t be wrong.

Me? I’m an animist and polytheist. Elen of the Ways is quite real to me in the same ways that the other deities I work with are real. There is give and take, and there are flows of communication and inspiration. Simply, my relationships with other-than-human beings are woven into the fabric of my life and I’m glad to have guides on the many roads I walk.

Below is an account of how Elen of the Ways led me home one evening last year:

I went out on the eve of the Summer Solstice last year when the sun was just approaching the southwestern horizon. The intention was to walk up to Burnt Peak, a local place of interest, and there do a small ritual. This place sometimes has a forbidding feel to it, but it’s also where I received my gift of inspiration to begin writing fiction just over two years ago. When the energy there feels off, I don't pass through the hedge and ascend the hill. There are quite a few things that could threaten one's well-being there, ranging from elk to boars to human beings with firearms, besides the sticks and stones that can break your bones if you're careless.

The meadow grass I walked through on the approach to the hill was face-high, and full of roe deer and infected ticks – but let’s focus on the positive, shall we?

Burnt Peak beckoned, with the last glory of the sunset fading behind it. Its impression was not so foreboding this evening, but that doesn’t mean it gives permission easily.

This time, though, before passing through the hedge, I said an incantation to enable the perception of subtle spirits. I found a thin place in the thick broom and bramble hedge that encircles the forest proper and sets it apart from the meadows. It wasn’t easy to get through, but I was dressed for the terrain in hiking sneakers, jeans, and a thick corduroy overshirt. Once I entered the forest with its widely-spaced hardwood trees and little undergrowth I recited another incantation to a guardian of the forest realms. These spells seemed to help, immensely.

Right away, I saw a fallen branch with dry oak leaves that looked like a Green Man face, but I just thought “hmm” and passed it by. My feet guided me to the top from a different side than I usually approach it from. And then as I got closer to the peak, I saw an unmistakable dragon guardian. This was too obvious to ignore! I cracked open the small bottle of sparkling wine I'd brought and wetted his lips – he seemed well pleased, and the next stop was a place between three oak trees. It felt like a grove, so I left a libation there as well. The “Baba Yaga hut” (which is really a hunter's blind) loomed up ahead, and I went partway around it until I found a stump.

I climbed upon the stump, and addressed the place and its spirits. I then took out my offering of bread and butter, dried plums, and the rest of the sect. I told the spirits I hoped they would like to have a small repast with me there. I took a bite from the bread, ate one plum, and sipped the sect, and made my offerings. Then I spoke from the heart about what I wanted: a doorway into something better. Happiness. Acceptance. Belonging.

It was time to go, and I also spoke to Elen of the Ways, asking her to guide me. I asked her specifically to “light my way” – and she did !!! The first firefly appeared, so I walked toward it. Then another and another, and sometimes two (in these cases, I walked between them). They led me to a perfect gap in the hedge: no brambles, no sticks to trip over. I skirted the hedge to take a way out where I wouldn’t have to go through such high grass, but before I had gone far I heard some ominous noises from the forest: a loud clacking. My first thought was elk antlers, but that wasn’t it. It’s the sound a wild sow makes to warn people to stay clear of her and her little ones — or else.

As I made my way toward home I felt better – like I really was walking into a more blessed life. A maple tree spoke to me, shaking its leaves in a breeze that only moved it and nothing else around it: it told me that the change of seasons had just arrived. It could tell that the days and nights would now change direction. This wasn’t really addressing my issues – it was just a report on the turning of the year's wheel. I kept going, and further down the road an aspen started shaking the leaves it was holding up to the sky – it told me that rain always follows a dry season. Wait and see, it said. (This did actually feel like a personal message.)

I thought: I am blessed. I belong. I am home.

Right after this, I heard some rustling in the field to the right. And then the prolonged death squeals of a wild pig. I was very sorry to hear its anguish. Who or what was killing it? Had a hunter shot it using a suppressor on their weapon? I hadn't heard a shot. Were they keeping silent as they slit its throat? I didn’t linger or turn around – I kept going. Its pain clawed at my conscience, but I didn't want to face either a wounded pig or a furious hunter. I am home. I am home. I am home. I am home in a world where lives are created and destroyed. In a world where pain often has no meaning. I am blessed: I get to live another day.

Memes can sometimes come across as a vulgar shorthand for complex ideas. When they’re not humorous, they often fall flat. But here is one that I find accurately describes an enchanted and creative life:

How can I learn more about Elen of the Ways?

There is an anthology edited by Caroline Wise titled Finding Elen: The Quest for Elen of the Ways (2015). The quality of the chapters varies greatly, but it’s a good place to start if you’re new to learning about Elen and if you want to get a feel for the different approaches researchers have taken.

Much better resources have been gathered by Hilary Campbell⁵ who offers an Antlered Path podcast as well as a course called the Wild Wheel of Elen for women who are interested in year-long remote study in a supportive sisterhood. I have taken this course, and recommend it for those who really want to immerse themselves in the lore and to get to know many different aspects of Elen of the Ways through practice. The Wild Wheel of Elen has a Pagan orientation, and it is participatory and not intended for those who are merely curious from a distance.

Queen of Beasts, by the contemporary Irish sculptor Fidelma Massey Note the egg the figure carries — this, too, is part of the imagery associated with Elen.

Here is an invocation and petition for assistance with the original Welsh alternating with English:

Gynt yr oeddynt oreuddawn

Formerly you were splendid, supreme,

Dair Elen wych dreuliwn iawn.

Three Fine Elens of correct tracks.

Elen hael y galwen’ hon,

Elen, the generous we call the first.

Merch Goel â’r llu meirch gwelwon;

Daughter of Coel and his host of grey steed

A’r ail oedd â’r ael liwddu,

And the second with the blackened brow,

Elen, gwraig i Facsen fu;

Elen the wife of Macsen,

Ac Elen ddoeth, galon dda,

And Elen the wise, of good heart,

Fannog, fodrwyog, Droea.

Exalted, with the rings of Troy.

Elen Luyddog, a’th sarnau didro,

Elen of the Hosts may your unwavering causeways,

I’m gyfair aneglur rho,

To my unclear direction give,

Eglurded fel dy sarnau di,

Purpose and clarity like your tracks,

Cyfair, fforddiant, rho i mi.

Direction, guidance, to me give.

Elen Luyddog,

Lluyddog, llu,

Dy fendith ar fy mhwrpas i.

Elen of the hosts, hosts, host, your blessing on my direction.⁶

This beautiful tarot card is from the Carnival at the End of the World deck by the artistic duo of Kahn & Selesnick.

Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss my next annotated galleries, which will feature the characters of Guinevere and Ragnelle, who are also, of course, connected with deer lore.

1. The name was given to the “culmination of myth, legend, and history” by Caroline Wise.

2. The Nazis knew about the human remains in this grave, but they believed them to belong to a pale-skinned, blue-eyed, fully-abled Aryan man from the Neolithic, and they were wrong on all counts.

3. Let me offer a more explicit perspective on the fruitful, multiplying nature of myth. The anthropologist Roy Wagner wrote:

… every myth or tale is something of an undecipherable "thing in itself'' —or even "symbol that stands for itself'' – sharing its meanings in part, and in part developing these shared meanings into new ones. We can only hope to grasp, to decipher, a myth in terms of these shared meanings, for the new ones it develops ... grasp us. Myths in this respect are like metaphors, using shared associations in such a way as to elicit novel or comparatively unshared ones. Better, since metaphor (and symbol generally) has no dimensions, a myth … is simply a broad metaphor-an expression made up of cumulative additions each of which assimilates the foregoing. (Thus a myth … is not a "structure," but a complex statement that becomes simple as it is spoken; its attainment is its demise.) To put it rather differently, a myth does not say things but makes them, and then disappears into its result.”
From Lethal Speech: Daribi Myth as Symbolic Obviation (1978), p. 252.

4. Were they perhaps reindeer? That would explain both the grey color of the hinds and the antlers on females. Plus, it is the oldest female reindeer who leads the herd. As I discuss in The White Deer, reindeer only died out in Scotland in the 13th century, and they left significant traces in the oral and folk culture.

5. This is a link to Hilary’s LinkTree, which has all of Hilary’s links in one place. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram. Her work, taken all together, is called the Antlered Path, and there are other courses in addition to the Wild Wheel of Elen which I mentioned above.

6. Credit for this poem goes to Kristoffer Hughes.