faunus

The 5thDecember was an ancient Roman festival, dedicated to Saturn’s grandson, Faunus, a god of the wildwood. The Romans celebrated Faunalia Rustica not in Rome but the countryside, so it is not registered in the calendars. However, it must have played a significant part in the lives of many Romans, especially in the early days.

In rural areas, individual farmers offered a libation of wine and sacrificed a young goat on the ancient altar made of sod. Horace recounts the peaceful holiday in one of his pastoral poems. The farmers relaxed and danced joyfully in the fields where they had labored so long and hard.

At Rome, there was a temple to Faunus on the Caelian Hill and another on Tiber Island, where the public ritual for the festival of Faunus (February 13) was conducted. However, the attempt to introduce the rural cult of Faunus into urban life was not very successful. Faunus remained chiefly a wild spirit of the countryside.

Faunus was an unpredictable deity who could cause havoc to those who farmed the land around his wildwoods. However, if correctly pacified, he could be helpful– especially during the winter season.

The name ‘Faunus’ comes from the root word favere or ‘kindly one.’ But Faunus could be anything but kindly. Dionysius also describes how his apparitions could inspire ‘terror.’ He could become an incubus, pursuing women through their dreams. He could also make life a misery for farmers around his groves.

If they were foolish enough to claim woodland as fields for their farms without first appeasing him, Faunus would appear as an apparition on the edge of the fields, haunting them.

But, by taking precautions and offering him sacrifices, it was possible to pacify and tame Faunus– for a while at least. Ovid describes how country folk would make the “the altars of rural Faunus smoke” with the sacrifices to ensure the god of the wildwood blessed their fields and livestock with fruitfulness– rather than persecuting and blighting them. The merry-making and sacrifices ensured his good offices over the winter months.

Horace’s Odes captures the essence of the festival and its rituals:

“O Faunus, thou lover of the flying nymphs, benignly traverse my borders and sunny fields and depart propitious to the young offspring of my flocks; if a tender kid fall [a victim] to thee at the completion of the year and plenty of wines be not wanting in the goblet, the companion of Venus and the ancient altar smoke with liberal perfume.

“All the cattle sport in the grassy plain when the nones of December return to thee; the village keeping holiday enjoys leisure in the fields, together with the oxen free from toil. The wolf wanders among the fearless lambs, the wood scatters its rural leaves for thee and the laborer rejoices to have beaten the hated ground in triple dance.”

The sacrifice of a goat kid and wine to the god, while villagers danced and celebrated among the autumn leaves, evoked a last festivity before the harshness of winter. But it was also essential to have Faunus’ good favor during the harsh winter season.

The country folk required Faunus’ guardianship of their flocks during the harsh winter months– as well as his good favor if they were to safely mine his woodlands for fuel and supplement their food.

Collected from various sources, including Decoded

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