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Originally Posted by Pharaohs Army
Witches' Sabbath (Samhain) Oct. 31st
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According to Hans Baldung Grien (ca 1484-1545) and Pierre de Rostegny, aka De Lancre (1553–1631) human flesh was eaten during Sabbats, preferably children, and also human bones stewed in a special way.
The most common belief on which authors agreed is that Satan was present at the Sabbat, often as a goat or satyr, and many agreed that more demons were present. Another belief said that sometimes a person could offer his/her own body to be possessed by some demon serving as a medium.
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Samhain is seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could more easily be crossed. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into our world. Most scholars see the Aos Sí as remnants of the pagan gods and nature spirits.
In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold"[1]) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold"[2] between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.
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The Wild Hunt is a European folk myth involving a ghostly or supernatural group of huntsmen passing in wild pursuit. The hunters may be either elves or fairies or the dead,[1] and the leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Woden[2](= Odin) (or other reflections of the same god, such as Alemannic Wuodan in Wuotis Heer ("Wuodan's Army") of Central Switzerland, Swabia etc.), but may variously be a historical or legendary figure like Theodoric the Great, the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag, the Welsh psychopomp Gwyn ap Nudd, biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul or spirit either male or female.
Seeing the Wild Hunt was thought to presage some catastrophe such as war or plague, or at best the death of the one who witnessed it.[3] People encountering the Hunt might also be abducted to the underworld or the fairy kingdom.[4] In some instances, it was also believed that people's spirits could be pulled away during their sleep to join the cavalcade.[5]
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