Celtic, Greek and Pagan Traditions

Allantide was a Celtic festival held on the 31st October, one of the most important parts of the festival would be the giving and receiving of Allan apples, large glossy highly polished red apples. For those that were unmarried, these shiny apples would be placed under their pillows every night, as it was believed that it would make you dream about who your future wife or husband would be.

This is only one of many examples of how apples have been used as a symbol of love over the centuries. In ancient Greece it was said that if a man threw an apple to a maiden, it was his declaration of love to her and if she caught it, or at least attempted to, then his love was reciprocated. It was also believed that the apple was a symbol of abundance and fertility and so it was customary on the wedding night for the bride to eat an apple ensuring sexual desire, fertility to birth children and abundance within the marriage. Apples are often associated with Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, this may well have been because Paris decided to give her the golden apple in exchange for the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Because of this exchange, apples have taken up the mantle of being the symbol of love and desire.

Finally, although not necessarily a gesture of love but more of appreciation, a shiny red apple was often given by students to their favourite teachers.

In paganism the apple is referred to as ‘The All’. This is due to the apple being seen as the fruit of mother earth and it’s connections to other religions and myths such as the fruit of Adam and Eve, Norse and Greek mythology. It has two main functions of symbolism and this is down to the arrangement of seeds inside the apple.

The 5-Pointed Star

If you slice an apple horizontally and look at the cross section, you will notice that the seed are laid out as a 5-pointed star. The 5 pointed star or pentagram has many symbolic meanings in paganism. First of all it is a symbol of humanity, as each point represents each extremity of the human body, 2 arms, 2 legs and the head, think of the Vitruvian Man example from Leonardo Di Vinci where the body is stretched out like a 5 pointed star. The number 5 also represents the spiritual and unseen aspects of life and creation, with the number 2 representing the feminine and the number 3 representing the masculine. The number 5 encompasses the representation of the 4 elements of earth, wind, fire, water and then the final 5th element, which alchemists refer to as the Aether, the vital life force, the Divine Essence which holds everything together and provides the Spiritual Energy, life, to all things in all realms and dimensions. This means that the apple sliced horizontally is a symbol of spiritual energy.

The Seeded Vulva

If you slice an apple vertically and look at the cross section you are likely to see 2 seeds within a darker area of the fruit at the core. The oval shape of this darker area in the core is often referred to as the vulva, the feminine, due to its shape, and inside this vulva are the seeds, the masculine element. When these two parts are combined, the feminine vulva and the masculine seed, it is a symbol of physical reproduction and the symbol of new life, the union of duality.

This is why the apple is referred to as ‘The All’. It encapsulates the physical realm with the seeded vulva and the creation of new life along with the spiritual realm, the 5-pointed star and its representation of the vital life force and spiritual energy, all surrounded by the circle of the fruit

THE ART OF LOVE

Venus with the Apple Awarded by Paris - Bertel Thorvaldsen, (1816)