Victor Florence Pollet, Selene and Endymion
‘Aradia: Gospel of the Witches’ (1899, C.G. Leland) includes a legend and spells associated with ‘Tana and Endamone’, or ‘Diana and Endymion’.
The tale essentially tells of the love between a beautiful goddess and a man of supreme handsomeness, and of the witch who takes the form of Tana, the goddess, in order to win the favour of the beguiled young man.
Having enjoyed his passions, the witch takes a lock of his hair and uses it to cast a spell which punishes him for his spurning of her in her true form:
‘It is my vengeance for the love,
For the deep love I had for thee,
Which thou would’st not return to me,
But bore it all to Tana’s shrine,
And Tana never shall be thine!
Now every night in agony
By me thou shalt oppressed be!’
The man is condemned to lie in waking death, trapped within himself and unable to move or talk, filled with passion and desire that he cannot sate and haunted by the image of the witch to a point of insanity.
Fortunately Tana herself is able to ease the man’s plight, even though she cannot wake him from his slumber. With a spell of her own she calms his addled senses and removes his pain:
‘By the love I feel, which I
Shall ever feel until I die…
…And so I pray to her above
To give wild rapture to our love,
And cast her fire in either heart,
Which wildly loves to never part…’
Having worked a charm of her own and beseeching the moon, Tana/Diana is able to enter the man’s mind, rid him of his oppression and be one with him in body and spirit as though he were awake and responsive to her advances.
The conclusion which the legend points to is that, where the love of one who sleeps is desired, the wisdom and ability of Tana is to be sought, and with it the occult power of the moon.
Various other readings suffuse the original Greek myth from which this story springs, just as Keats’ ‘Endymion’ extends the action to a fantastic journey through the Underworld and to the heights of Mount Olympus, all in the name of love – but the core value of the story in all its forms is one which Leland picks out in his own narrative but which is easily overlooked in other forms of the tale.
The moon is the deliverer, one who sees so much that is forbidden (and so performed under cover of darkness) and therefore has a singular understanding of that which would be anathema during the day; she offers blessing to the forbidden, rapture to those seeking refuge, and a world of mystery in which to indulge the passions.
This is not to say that she indulges the depraved; rather, she watches the shadows and casts the spiritual light of realisation onto that which is potential, infusing desire and dream with the means of reality.
The person who knows how to commune with her, offer obeisance to her and live through her is a person able to utilise her mysterious and yet so obvious power and beauty, shining uncanny light on objects and thoughts to prove their genuine worth and giving life to reverie.
There are numerous songs, sagas, myths and tales exploring the occult meanings of the moon and its deities, but there are few which sum it all up so eloquently, so attractively and yet in such an appropriately cloaked manner…after all, however long it takes before we recognise such wisdom, the moon will still be there, waiting to be duly acknowledged and to grant our deepest desires.
Ubaldo Gandolfi, Selene and Endymion
