It started with a story. In the quest to to verify the story, a trail of breadcrumbs started to appear leading me deeper into a familiar rabbit hole but with new occupants.
Our Guides, including our Ancestors, can work often in this way. Starting with a story – a sign – a vision, that drives us to dig deeper, to scour through various resources, to go within our mind and sift through all that we find, and reflect with an open and honest mind.
This isn’t about a truth – but all the possibilities that lay within that perception of truth. Our history is written and rewritten over and over from another’s perspective, their view point. Hints of truth lay within it, but it is not the “Truth.” Thus as we seek answers to the story we have to look for the breadcrumbs of truth, envisioning all the possible perspectives, listening to the Guide walking us here, and then deciding what feels true to us.
Adeliza’s Story
While conversing with one of my ancestors, Adeliza, she told me a story about her life. I am a person who likes to have “checks” things that can help me verify the information I am receiving. Perhaps it is a fault, but it is a fault then that serves me well because it strengthens my trust and belief.
She told me a story about the beginning of her life and one from the end. There is not a lot directly written about her, but there is about her husband and family in general. So I started digging and looking at the events that were recorded to piece it together.
She told me about being sold into marriage as a child. Jumping from the whims of a carefree child to the pawn of politics. A warrior’s heart to endure and rise above. A journey that led to an understanding and then a life that was hers. All the while following the snake.
One set of words that would continue to be heard on this journey “Hidden in plain sight.”
Some Reality
It was not uncommon for families of importance and wealth to marry off their daughters at a young age. Done for alliances and treaties between families. Adeliza came from a prominent Norman family and was married to another at the age of about 11. There was most likely a 20 year age gap or so between her husband and herself, though there are some conflicting records in this as well. Again not uncommon, but did account for Adeliza’s feelings that she conveyed.
Her husband was directly involved in politics, holding many titles, and working directly for the kings Henry I and Stephan. His father was a high rank within William the Conquers army that took England, so there isn’t really a surprise there either. Politics is warfare, and to survive she would have had to learn and adjust quickly.
These things were useful in seeing some perspectives and basic verification, although a common ones. It was the last part of her life however that really interests me and that led me down into the rabbit hole.
The Abby and a Mystery
It starts with the abby of St Osyth. Built in the 12th century and heavily patroned by Adeliza and her husband. So much so, that this is where she spent the last two decades of her life. It is also where her son Willam was a canon, and wrote a book on the life of Osyth, before becoming the bishop of Hereford, where he would instill the cult of this little known saint, Osyth.
This woman Osyth was the breadcrumb. There are various spellings of her name with stories and different accounts as with most history. Some of the common aspects though are this: She was the daughter of the last Pagan King in England – King Penda of Mercia ( mid 600AD). Although he did not forbid the christians from preaching there, he also refused to adopt it as a religion in his area. Under Penda’s rule, his country was a diverse mix of religions and cultures. After his death, one of his eldest daughters and one of his son’s “converted” to christianity founding a new abby.
There is not a lot of historical accounts of the abby itself and political structures but there are clues. The leadership was passed down through the family line. Starting with the older daughter, to the younger one, and then to another female relation (most likely a niece). There also appears to be an apprenticeship aspect that was common among pagan priestesses as well. Other abbys that would rise later who were dedicated to the cult of Osyth, and had an interesting hierarchy structure.
There were two sides, a male and female side. The abbess seemed to be the one in control of everything, including the male side. It was generally 1 abbess and around 50-60 women under her. The male side consisted of one head and about 6 others under him. Both sides had their own libraries, and it has been alluded that the women’s was much greater and contained things the male side did not, at least in one I found. The male side seemed to be there solely for the purpose of appearance and dealing with the church since women were considered “unworthy” of significant position or say – yet the abbess held the true power there.
The motto attributed in various areas being “Hidden in plain sight.”
A Theory
Perhaps the “conversion” to christianity was not as encompassing as modern context would like us to believe. This is not a new thought to me because we can see this in many areas. Christians pulling from and combing old pagan stories, feats of their Gods, traditions, celebrations, and blending it into their own. Families that passed down the old beliefs in both open and disguised ways. The conversion didn’t happen overnight either. It took hundreds of years just to get to an organized point and hundreds more to get into the hierarchy of society and their politics.
I do not think Osyth and her family converted – I think they hid in plain sight. I think they used the abby and later her cult, as a cover. All of the abby’s associated with her cult were under benedictine charters, which means they ran and organized on their own. Each one in control of themselves and an elected official of the groups to deal with Roman Church when needed. This gave them autonomy and the ability to run as they saw fit. It would be a perfect way to continue their own beliefs without the threat of death the church purposed.
They also did not spend their time in prayer or as a group the way most others did. They valued individual study, solitude, and personal growth above all else. The male side dealt with the community aspects, but the women were the teachers and the keepers of knowledge. Again you can can see similar correlations to many older paganistic and shamanic structures. Where women were more often the ones who formed the “hierarchy” system – doing the work of Priestesses and Spiritual connection.
It would also be people connected to this cult in various ways that would spark certain revival efforts later on. So it does make you wonder what influences and knowledge survived through Osyth and the cult that would follow. A cult that seemed to hide beneath a cloak of conformity, yet breadcrumbs showing different possibilities.
The Snake
I wasn’t looking for it but also wasn’t surprised when I started to see several connections to the symbol of the snake within all this. Carvings and stone works in the abbeys of snakes. A staff, a seal, and some documents with the snake intertwined. Not depicted in a christian way but almost as a protector or symbol of something much deeper. According to Adeliza it is, yet the truth is swallowed in the past.
Another spelling of Osyth was Scyth and Scytha. One depiction of the spelling had the O slightly separate in the way “of” might be placed in front of a name stating a linage – thus it was O Syth. This caught my attention and I started to go deeper into the rabbit hole.
Scyth is an outdated form of scythe – a tool to harvest, but also a symbol of death. It also led me to an old Scythian Snake Goddess. The beginning and the end. Connected deeply to water and earth. Controller of the life cycle, and associated with the cult of the ancestors. Another Death Goddess.
There is evidence that some of the Scythian people traveled and mixed with people in northern Europe/ Scandinavia. I wonder if this contributed to the imagery of the snake and Death Goddesses or just a similarity between them. I wonder if the variations of Osyth’s name is because the other versions (such as Kyneburgha) were her given name, while all the Syth variations were the name she took later on. Did she serve a Death Goddess – a Goddess of the snake? Was her cult a reflection of this? The secrets they held and the focus on personal soul work instead of a life of prayer as many others took.
Is the reason Adeliza has stepped forward and seated herself firmly in my path right now because she too had a bond and worked with a Death Goddess like Hel, or Hel herself? She was a Norman after all and they did not give up all their beliefs and traditions either when they “converted” and settled in Normandy.
Coincidence?
Yes, all of this could be circumstantial. It can be tiny little things, that my brain is putting together because of my personal path. Things that stick out to me and pieces that seem to hold meaning. I think to not at least acknowledge the possibility would be a disservice to myself. The mind is a twisted little place after all. Discernment is necessary.
I however have trust in my Guides, both Deity and Ancestor. There are reasons Adeliza told me the stories she did, which caused me to dig in these certain places, and found what I did. Not looking for anything specific but following breadcrumbs. I also trust the messages my Guides give me, the visions, the words, because I have never been steered wrong and they have held true. There are connections here for things I directly deal with, working on now, and walking within my own path. To me, that is not coincidence, and it never is.
There are more questions to ask, more to discover, and more to learn about all of this from Adeliza. I know there is a longer journey ahead with her. As my Ozark women play a role in one part of my life, and she will in another. I don’t have all the answers right now, but I know the deeper I go they will be revealed.
There are connections though. Connections to Hel, connections to the snake, connections to death work, and something else – something deeper. Having an Ancestor, as well as a Deity, to guide me, allows for multiple perspectives. Different ways to see and understand complex material.
There is much more of our Pagan roots that survived through the christian conversions than are publicly acknowledged, and other parts that have been completely distorted by the lens of christianity – yet they survived – Hidden in Plain Sight.
Additional links:
https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-conversion-tactics-of-the-early-christian-church
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake-Legged_Goddess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Osyth%27s_Priory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianisation_of_the_Germanic_peoples
https://catholicherald.co.uk/ch/anglo-saxon-st-osyth-laid-the-foundation-for-future-female-saints/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyneburga,_Kyneswide_and_Tibba
https://www.cityandcountry.co.uk/history-of-st-osyth-priory/
https://catholicherald.co.uk/ch/anglo-saxon-st-osyth-laid-the-foundation-for-future-female-saints/
a must read article:
https://www.hinduismtoday.com/magazine/july-1999/1999-07-pagan-power-in-modern-europe/
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