The Spring Maiden wears a cloak woven “from all the flowers of springtime: larkspur and crocus, violets and rose, narcissus sweet as honey, nectar lilies. She needs no perfume, for her robes are as fragrant as her very self. When we inhale the springtime, we are breathing in her beauty.” --The Cyprian Lays, Greek, eighth century BCE (quoted by Patricia Monaghan).
 | The Greek goddess Persephone (also called Kore, meaning “maiden”) may be the most well-known spring deity in the West. Much of what we believe of the Greek gods comes from one place: ancient Athens. But there were over 1000 city-states in ancient Greece, each with its own style of governance, culture, and mythology. And many Greek myths were adapted by the Romans, creating additional variations. |
Persephone was the Grain-Maiden embodying the new crops and daughter of the Earth goddess Demeter. According to Charlene Spretnak, certain city-states in ancient Greece called their dead “Demeter’s People.” Like the Earth she represented, Demeter received the dead as well as bringing forth life. “The early Greeks often conceived of their Goddesses in maiden and mature form simultaneously.” Thus Maiden Persephone shared life-giving and death-receiving with her mother. Through this lens, Persephone’s role as Queen of the Dead is a natural extension of being Demeter’s daughter.
 | In later myths Hades abducted an unwilling Persephone to his underworld realm to become his queen. Spretnak says, “prior to the Olympian version of the myth at a rather late date, there was no mention of rape in the ancient cult of Demeter and her daughter. …evidence indicates that this twist to the story was added after the societal shift from matrifocal to patriarchal, and that it was not part of the original mythology.” Barbara G. Walker adds: “The classic myth of Kore’s abduction by Pluto [Hades] was another instance of the god’s usurpation of the Goddess’s power.” |
The Norse goddess Freya brings spring with the returning sun in Myths of Northern Lands: “White were the moorlands, and frozen before her; green were the moorlands, and blooming behind her.”
And from a Scandinavian song to the goddess in spring (quoted by Patricia Monaghan):
“Out of her golden hair spring flowers fall, tumbling like melodies, sounding the call.
Chaste through the winter, women now pine, wanting their lovers home sharing the wine.”
And from a Scandinavian song to the goddess in spring (quoted by Patricia Monaghan):
“Out of her golden hair spring flowers fall, tumbling like melodies, sounding the call.
Chaste through the winter, women now pine, wanting their lovers home sharing the wine.”
 | Lynda C. Welch describes Freya as the Spring Maiden: “[She] is wild, carefree, exuberant, and very generous with Her gifts. She is blatantly open with Her sexuality and is proud of the manifestation of Her glorious body. She is confident in Her ability to utilize all of Her various talents. …She is the dawn, the new beginning of a brand-new day. …The birds, chirping and singing, are [Her] voice… She is telling us to hurry and partake in this glorious splendor of another sunrise.” Freya was also a warrior goddess. She and the Valkyrie escorted the spirits of the dead to the afterlife: half to Freya’s Marsh-halls and half to Valhalla “the death realm of Hel, the Great Vala,” which Barbara G. Walker notes was later, “taken over by new gods led by Father Odin.” |
Walker says, “Freya was the Vanadis, the ruling ancestress of the Vanir or elder gods, who ruled before the arrival of Odin and the patriarchal Aesir from the east. Myths said Odin learned everything he knew about magic and divine power from Freya.”
 | Welsh mythology gives us a Spring Maiden constructed entirely from flowers: “From mountain primrose, from rose and thorn, from nettle blossoms that bloom in the shade, from gorse and thistle I am made, from lady’s mantle I was born. Nine flowers gave nine powers, nine trees and nine more herbs are what formed me. I am called Blodeuwedd. Earth and magic are in my blood.” --Welsh song to the flower goddess (quoted by Patricia Monaghan). |
Barbara G. Walker says that Blodeuwedd’s beauty disguised “a personification of the blood-hungry soil waiting to be fructified with the lifeblood of the sacred king.”
She became the Flower Bride of Lleu, who fights a seasonal battle with his rival for her favor—as is common in Celtic lore, for Bloudeuwedd’s sovereignty must be earned. Lleu is severely wounded and nearly dies in his battle over Blodeuwedd. This “death” is also a common theme in Celtic stories: heroes undergo a ritual death and enter the Otherworld to be transformed. In this way, Blodeuwedd serves as Lleu’s initiator into the Celtic mysteries (Caitlin Matthews).
She became the Flower Bride of Lleu, who fights a seasonal battle with his rival for her favor—as is common in Celtic lore, for Bloudeuwedd’s sovereignty must be earned. Lleu is severely wounded and nearly dies in his battle over Blodeuwedd. This “death” is also a common theme in Celtic stories: heroes undergo a ritual death and enter the Otherworld to be transformed. In this way, Blodeuwedd serves as Lleu’s initiator into the Celtic mysteries (Caitlin Matthews).
 | Zsuzsanna E. Budapest gives us an exuberant Spring Maiden in her book The Grandmother of Time: “I am all over the place. Resurrection is my game…Even old dying things come alive now on my command. …I am covering the surface of the world once again with blankets of flowers! I am making tulips, lilacs, apple blossoms! …I race my winds to carry the pollen, I revel in the profuseness of my works. …My energy makes older people tired just looking at me.” |
In Seasons of the Witch, Patricia Monaghan gives a bittersweet take on spring: “when growth begins, things break. Shells and bud casings, those intact perfections, fall away. …A fierce storm can shred the new leaf, a cat consume the tiny bird, a hapless word pierce the young woman’s heart.”
 | In the mythology of my fictional world of Kolkha, the Spring Maiden is celebrated during Baelfire (the full moon around May 1st). Revelers paint their bodies with colored clay and “bless” the newly plowed fields with pleasure-making, sharing their fertility with the earth. Her priests, known as Beauties, enact ritual sexual communion during Baelfire and with temple supplicants seeking mystic union with the Maiden in any season. |
She can be invoked with the following prayer:
Spring Maiden, you who spread blossom-beauty across the land, grace us with the sweet nectar of your presence, that we may drink deeply of your divine blessings.
Spring Maiden, you who spread blossom-beauty across the land, grace us with the sweet nectar of your presence, that we may drink deeply of your divine blessings.
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