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When you pour out sacred drink, what do you pour it into?

If you're Wiccan, probably a chalice.

If you're heathen, probably a horn.

Now, I've got nothing against horns. (Some of my best friends wear them.) Nor, for that matter, chalices, although it's a matter of history that they derive their current stemmed shape from Christian liturgical necessity: not that there's anything wrong with that.

But when it comes to sacred drinking, as for me, I like to stick with ancestral precedent. Make mine a drinking bowl, please.

Drinking bowls tend to be smaller than bowls that you eat from, but that's the main difference, really. Whether richly carved or elegantly plain, drinking bowls read as “archaic,” ancestral, dating from a time when one single, undifferentiated vessel served all functions. It's interesting to note that while “bowl” is an indigenously Germanic word, “cup” was originally a Latin import.

Bonfires, drinking, music, raucous celebration: Walpurgisnacht is a wild night that celebrates the coming summer – longer days, sometimes brilliant heat, and bursting fruitfulness. Since the medieval period, the bonfires were believed to ward off witches, but it may have been witches themselves who first lit the fires on hill-tops and mountains. Last year, I discussed the broom lore associated with this holiday. This year, I’d like to take a look at another favorite aspect: the alcohol, or more specifically, beer.

Homecrafted and Wholesome

Beer is one of the most-consumed drinks in the world, and an entire subculture has built up around craft beers, ales, and ciders over the past decade. Where I live, there are at least four or five craft breweries in a 30-mile radius. I love it. Beer is sacred to me (as it has been to many peoples since time immemorial), and the smaller and more artisanal a brewery is, all the better in my opinion.

You know the Grain God: him they call John Barleycorn.

You've heard the songs; you know the stories. It's pretty disgraceful, really, what they do to that poor guy.

They cut him with scythes. They tie him up. They stick him with pitchforks. They beat him with sticks. They crush him. They drown him.

As if that's not enough, they eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Not to worry: he's a god, after all. He always springs up again.

And in the end, he'll have his satisfaction.

Today is “Beer Day” in Iceland.  On this day in 1989 - yes, 1989- beer became legal in Iceland after a long and arduous struggle with prohibition.  This is the story of beer’s long journey through the Land of Fire and Ice.

Geneticists and physicians consider the mutability of the gender binary. An ancient beer recipe is uncovered in China. And the writer of the hit sci-fi book The Martian talks about priorities for human space travel. It's Earthy Thursday, our weekly segment on science and Earth-related news! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!