Mary Gypsy
Mary Gypsy or Mary the Egyptian is a character from English folklore who is a manifestation of the threefold Goddess presented as a female hero of the Crusades. Her cult was very well established among poor and rural people in the middle ages.
Who is she?
First we must consider the linguistic origins of Mary. It is not and Anglicised version of Miriam as Christian philosophers would have us believe but a development of the very early pagan sea Goddess Mare. In the first European creation legends a Goddess brings life from the sea to land. This myth even finds it way into the woman – hating Old Testament. Look as Genesis Chapter 1, verse 2 “And the Holy Spirit moved on the face of the waters.” Well what moves on the face of the waters? Tides, and what rules the tides?
The main British Goddess was Brigit of the Sacred Flame who was love goddess, water goddess anf fire goddess. Mary Magdalene and Mary Gypsy have strong associations with both water and fire and with other Brigit symbols, fruit and eggs.
So in the post – Crusades world, after the slaughter of the Cathars in France, the Catholic Church ruled spiritual life harshly and St. Mary Gypsy was a convenient disguise for the Goddess.
Sorted.
The Goddess had sneaked into the middle east and North Africa as Maris, an Astoroth lookalike and survived until the Crusades because the Romans did not care who people worshipped so long as they paid their taxes to the Emperor. After the fall of Rome Chistianity fragmented and all soirts of paganistic, Kabbalistic and mystical sects grew up under the “Christian” umbrells.
One that flourished in Egypt and southern Palestine was the Magdalene cult which was based on a softer, more humanist interpretation of the philosophies of the Essene – the sect of Jesus or correctly Joshua although Joshua is an honorific not a name. The Druids of Northern Europe used a similar core philosophy to the Essene, suggesting the cult was very ancient as Druidism can be traced back (not very reliably) to the same origins as Hinduism. Both were around before the flood (about 11,000 years ago)
Some Crusaders were quite taken with this sensual brand of Chistianity they had found in Palestine, which owed more to the Egyptian Coptic Chistianity than the Roman authoritarian version. Remember when thinking of Chistian in this context we are thinking of “Saviourism” rather than “Jesusism” which did not come til later.
So Mary the Egyptian came back to Britain and France with renegade crusaders as a kind, tolerant, healing, nurturing saint who had seashells (later swapped for flowers) in her hair. Aphrodite the Greek love goddess rose from the sea of course and her symbol was a clam shell. Also like Aphrodite and Mary Magdalene, St Mary Gypsy was often pictured in Medieval art holding an apple as a love gift. The apple is a northern adaptation, in Egypt or Palestine it would have been a Pomegranate (classic symbol of female sexuality) or a quince, apples would not do well in that climate.
The rural people, still living a Celtic / Saxon culture as they had not assimilated the ways or the religion of their Norman / French conquerors instantly recognised the new saint as their own Love Goddess, golden haired Goddess of youth, and fertility Goddess, The Maid of The Woods, The Merry Maid, Queen of the Mai, Maid Marian, a descendant of Morgan le Fay and The Lady of the Lake. She was celebrated at Imbolc, Beltane and Lammas and was the divine spirit of an informal religion. A relic of this is the phrase “living ovrer the brush,” Poor couples could marry in her church (the woods) by jumping together over a broomstick and if they could find a renegade Friar to bless the union (usually the offer of a meal would attract plenty of Friars) the law would accept that marriage.
Most people would find it stange this stuff is not widely known but pagans or those well reasd in pagan myth and tradition would not. The Christian Churches have hidden the truth with much bigger lies for centuries.
There are many legends about Mary Gypsy, not well known now. One is that she travelled with the party that came to Britain with the party that escaped Palestine with Jesus who settled near Glastonbury it turns out, another that she came from France and yet another that having come with Joseph of Arimatehea she returned to the Holy Land, paying her fare by prostituting herself to the sailors on her ship, in order to found a Chistian convent. Thus the Church tried to hijack the Maid of the Woods from north European folk legend, having first appropriated her to be Mary Magdalene for the Romans and Greeks.
Mary Gypsy is still around in the Church as well as in folk lore. Any church named St. Marie as opposed to St. Mary is hers. They are usually found in ancient harbour towns.
So Christians are all truly no more than pretentious pagans, if only they would admit it and learn to enjoy life - especially the sex.
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