Boreas
Boreas is the north wind, son of Astraeus and Eos and the most violent of the four brothers. He carried off Oreithyia, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, to Thrace, where she bore the winged Boreads, Zetes and Calais, and their sister Chione.
The Athenian cult of Boreas after 480 BCE is historical and well attested for a wind; Herodotus reports the wind's intervention as an Athenian belief, not as fact. Roman Aquilo is a near-identification rather than the same figure, and the Thracian setting of the Oreithyia myth is a northern framing that also makes him a foreigner at home.
Correspondences
Offerings
- Offerings
- Red wineIronA fire kept burningA meal set outside in winterThe first cut of wood
Sacred timing
- Sacred Timing
- Moon phasesHoursMidnightThe cold hour before dawn
Symbols and forms
- Alternate Names
- Boreas the ThracianAquiloThe North Wind
- Gender Expression
- Masculine
- Titles
- The North WindThe ThracianThe Cold OneRouser of the Sea
- Symbols
- NorthWingsConch shellSnowThe stallion
Practice
- Invocation Approach
- ToneBlunt and strongAddressBoreasNorth WindThracian LordRelationshipThe wind that does not slow for youWarningHe was prayed to by a city that wanted him weaponisedResonanceSailors winter workers those who need a storm to pass
- Modern Practice
Boreas is called on for a storm to break, for a thing to be carried off and ended, and in winter work that treats cold as a force rather than a mood. The practice is outdoor and unsoftened: make the offering into the wind and do not expect it to be gentle.
Nature and meaning
- Domain
- The north windWinterStormsColdSwiftnessAbductionThrace
- Mythology Summary
Boreas is the north wind, son of Astraeus and Eos and the most violent of the four brothers. He carried off Oreithyia, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, to Thrace, where she bore the winged Boreads, Zetes and Calais, and their sister Chione. The Athenians credited him with wrecking the Persian fleet off Cape Sepias in 480 BCE and gave him a shrine by the Ilissus and a state cult, which is unusually formal footing for a wind. His Roman counterpart is Aquilo.
Details
- Correspondences
- ColorsWhiteGreyBlueBlackScentsPine resinJuniperCedarMetalsIronTinAnimalsHorseEagleWolf
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