Explores ancient mask customs, rituals, and traditions throughout Europe, from Scandinavia and England to Germany and France to Greece and Rome

• Reveals how mask rituals are akin to shamanic journeying and allow the mask wearer to personify an ancestral presence, spirit, deity, or power

• Examines animal guising and shows how mask customs are tied to creation myths and the ancestral founders of a people, tribe, city, or nation

• Looks at morris dancers and mummers in the UK, Krampuslauf and Perchtenlauf in Germanic areas, the Gorgon myths of Greece, Norse Berserker rituals, and the annual Black Forest rite to awaken ensouled masks every spring

There is a spiritual power in masks that transports one into realms unseen and gives voice to things unspoken. Within the context of ritual, putting on a mask places the wearer at the intersection between the present and the past, the living and the dead, this world and the Otherworld. Masks make it possible to activate ancient archetypes, with the mask wearer reanimating or personifying an ancestral presence or spirit, a deity or power, an animal or a being of the eldritch world.

In this illustrated study, Nigel Pennick explores the magical and spiritual aspects of mask wearing from ancient times to the present. He examines the many mask traditions around Europe, including morris dancers and mummers in the UK, Krampuslauf and Perchtenlauf in Germanic areas, the Gorgon myths of Greece, and Norse Berserker rituals. He explains how, in the Black Forest region, there’s an annual rite in springtime called “Awakening the Masks,” and he looks at the origins of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte Harlequin character often seen in carnival celebrations.

The author shows how mask rituals are similar to shamanic journeying and near-death experiences and can induce ecstatic states that allow the power signified by the mask to take possession of the individual wearing it. He looks at the practice of dressing up as sacred animals such as a horse or a dragon and the ancient practice of hunters wearing animal skins to signify success and prowess. He also looks at mask-wearing as it relates to ostenta, events that occur suddenly and without warning that are considered a token or sign from the Otherworld.

Unveiling the sacred power of masks, the author shows how masks allow us to outwardly reflect our inner spiritual reality, embody ancestors and otherworldly entities, and connect with traditions that stretch back to time immemorial.

Nigel Pennick is an authority on ancient belief systems, traditions, runes, and geomancy and has traveled and lectured extensively in Europe and the United States. He is the author and illustrator of more than 50 books, including The Pagan Book of Days. The founder of the Institute of Geomantic Research and the Library of the European Tradition, he lives near Cambridge, England.

PREFACE
The Meaning and Function of Masks

INTRODUCTION
Incarnating the Spirit Depicted by the Mask
1 Ensouled Artifacts and Death Masks
2 Masks and Representation
3 Gods, Images, and Ostenta
4 Animals as Ostenta
5 Eldritch Beings: The Dark World of the Indeterminate
6 The Furious Host
7 Spectral Animals beyond the Wild Hunt
8 Masks of Invisibility
9 The Powers of Animal Skins
10 Animal Disguise--Horses
11 Animal Disguise--Other Animals
12 Straw Bears, Straw Men, and Jack O’Lent
13 Dragonry
14 Civic Giants
15 Misrule, Comedy, Masks, and Puppets
16 Masquerades
17 Carnival Characters, Mumming, and Mummers’ Plays
18 Mummers: Characters, Disguises, and Costumes
19 Rural Ceremonies, Performance, and Disguise
20 Molly Dancing and Garlanding
21 Fire, Misrule, and Disorder
22 Crime, Rebellion, and Ritual Disguise
23 Pantomime and Futurism
24 Authoritarian Suppression of Festivals Postscript

Glossary

Bibliography

Index