The Marriage of Juliet Marie Cartron to Anthony Vincent Bochicchio

First, I want to congratulate my good friend, Tony Bochicchio, and his bride, Juliet Cartron, on their marriage, which is occurring today, June 24^th, 2006 in Laurel, Maryland. May you have years of happiness together!

Tony and his fiancée opted for a traditional Catholic ceremony. Since that type of ceremony is pretty much universally known, I thought I would post an alternative ceremony for your reading pleasure. It comes from the Germanic tradition.

I pointed out to Tony the significance of the date, June 24^th, which is also the traditional Midsummer celebrated by Germanic peoples from Iceland to Austria. The Catholics turned it into St. John’s day, but the bonfires celebrating the light of the longest nights of the year remain to this day. Thus this ceremony could also be combined with a Midsummer’s blot, or sacrifice, typical of the Northern tradition, and, of course, including a bonfire.

The following information comes from the book, Götter, Mythen und Jahresfeste, or Gods, Myths and Yearly Celebrations from Geza von Nemenyi, the Allsherjargode, or High Priest of the Germanische Glaubensgemeinschaft. Von Nemenyi takes his examples directly from Germanic mythology, unlike some other Asatru traditions such as The Odinic Rite, who, while creative, in my opinion have ceremonies with less direct relationship to the religion actually practiced by our ancestors. The translation from the German is my own.

Brullaup (Wedding)

From von Nemenyi, Gods, Myths and Yearly Celebrations, Kersken-Canbaz Verlag, Holdenstedt, 2004, p.262 – 264.

The wedding was called “Brullaup”, which comes from the Old Norse brúð+hlaup, meaning “course of the bride”, the bringing home of the girl into the clan and the house of the man.

The girl sadly takes her leave from every corner of her parent’s house, from the pets and livestock and from the fire, at which she says:

“Oh, my holy fire!”

She rides on the day of the wedding with two wagons to the house of the groom. On one wagon are clothing, linens and luggage, on the other the wreath-bedecked bed of the bride, spindle, bobbin, china and other personals. Her friends and musicians accompany her. In Prussia, she is received with a toast in front of her new home:

“As you have kept safe the fire at your father’s, so you will here as well!”

The wedding ceremony, to which a wedding crier has invited the entire village, takes place in the house of the groom (more seldom in the house of the bride, who would then first travel to the groom’s house after the ceremony), but the wedding couple asks for the support of the Gods, Ancestors and Norns at a cult site or burial mound in the area and invites them to the feast. When the bride arrives in the house of the groom, where she is received with bread and salt, she bows three times before the threshold, kisses the ground in front of the door or the threshold itself and is carried by the groom over the threshold. In this manner she greets the household spirits.

The benches in the house are decorated and strewn with greenery such as juniper branches; the bridal pair sits on the bridal bench. The Norns and the Ancestors are called; the life candles of the bridal pair are lit. The Gode (heathen priest) or the father of the bride leads the ceremony, which consists of the consecration of the bride, the vow of loyalty and the marriage consecration itself. A toast to love and other vows are shared, and presents are given to the guests. The bride also gives poorer relatives of the groom’s clan gifts, which are called brúðé.

An old legal practice is the question to all present if they have any objections to the marriage. To consecrate the bride, the Gode lays a hammer in her and says a consecration formula:

“þórr consecrate this bride.”

The bride should be protected from evil magic and ogres through this formula. The goddess Vár is called in the vow of loyalty, which follows, as it is described to us in the song þrymsqvida 30:

“Bring the hammer, to consecrate the bride,
Lay Mjöllnir (the hammer of þórr) in the lap of the maid,
With the hand of Vár consecrate us together.”

Each of the married couple now gives their individual promises of loyalty and their yes-word. At this point the arms or legs of the pair are bound together with a band of woven wheatears. A pair bound in this fashion, being consecrated by the Hammer God þórr, can be seen on a Bronze Age rock petroglyph from Hvitlycke, Tanum, Sweden (see image above). The bride lays her hand in the open hand of the groom. Afterward follows the exchange of rings (Rigsþula 23, Volsunga saga 29) as a symbolic binding of the married couple. To this exchange a Swedish saying from 1529 is passed down, which at this point in time still contained the name of the goddess, Vár (wartekn, “Sign of Vár”):

“And to the sign of Vár, I give you this ring.”

To consecrate the marriage, the Gode raises the hammer and says the following formula from the 7^th century:

“May this marriage be victorious, Wodan, Consecrating Donar.”

These gods shall fasten the bonds of matrimony. The Gode now strikes the hammer on the table. A drinking horn is consecrated to the goddess, Vár, and passed to the bride and groom, who empty it together. Now the band of woven wheat is removed. The bride now belongs to the clan of the man, but she still keeps her family name and her membership in her clan. The children receive the family name of the father, however, when he accepts them.