The Flaming Wheel Song: A layered pagan song for justice and ending empire
This pagan song, by me, is inspired by the ancient Midsummer/Litha/St. John’s Day tradition of rolling flaming wheels down hillsides as a form of divination and a symbolic act of diminishing power. In the 4th century Acts of the Martyr St. Vincent, there is a description of how the pagans of Aquitaine, in Southwestern France, celebrated a festival by rolling a flaming wheel downhill to a river. The charred remains of this wheel were then assembled in the temple of a sky god. The time of year this took place was not noted, however, this tradition emerges in the middle ages as a Midsummer practice! In the 1800s, for example, villages in England were sending flaming wheels down hillsides, and today this solstice tradition is popular in Baltic and Slavic regions.
The sky god invoked by the Aquitaine pagans could have been one of several pagan deities, including the Celtic thunder being Taranis. However, it’s a wondrous crossover that Midsummer, set in the middle ages as June 24th (St. John’s Day), was also the same day as the older celebration of Fors Fortuna in Rome. Fortuna was a goddess of fate, turning her wheel of fortune and shaping the lives of men. Something marvelous has happened in how Fortuna’s wheel has seemingly merged with the old flaming wheel ritual at Midsummer.
This song is an invocation to Fortuna, or any other spirits you favor, to curb the powers of those who are out of balance, to humble the immense arrogance of those who do malice. “When your favors meet my labors” is a reminder that we do this work too- every day. The spirits can help, but we must be vehicles for this change.
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The flaming wheel tradition continues to this day, especially in Slavic and Baltic regions.
LYRICS
Pt 1:
May the might of empire falter
May the might of empire fall
By the rolling flames and water
May your power extinguish all
Pt 2:
Turn your wheel of justice round
Turn your wheel of justice round (2x)
Pt 3:
Break the fortunes of the mighty
Turn your wheel of justice round
When your favors meet my labors
Sweeter harvests may be found
