The Role of Prayer in Wicca and Paganism
PATTI WITTINGTON
Our ancestors prayed to their gods, long ago. Their pleas and offerings are documented in the hieroglyphs that adorn the tombs of Egyptian pharoahs, in the carvings and inscriptions left for us to read by the philosophers and teachers of ancient Greece and Rome. Later on, as Christianity moved in and replaced many of the old Pagan cultures, Irish monks wrote down stories, illuminating their manuscripts with vivid and colorful artwork. Information about man's need to connect with the Divine comes to us from China, India, and all over the globe.
Some prayers survive to the present day because they have lived on not in written documentation but in the oral traditions of the area -- via folktales, songs, legends, etc. Although we don't know how much of the existing wording is really "ancient" and how much was added through the ages, the message remains essentially the same. A prayer is our way of saying to the gods, "I can't do this alone, and I could sure use some help."
