Myth CodexRotA Wiki

All Rites & Festivals in the Codex

Every rites & festivals in the Codex, drawn from all 13 traditions.

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Traditions
22 entries

A

AkituThe Babylonian New YearBabylon's spring festival, when Enuma Elish was recited, the king was ritually slapped, and a claimant to the throne had to take the hand of Bel.Rite & Festival · MesopotamianAugury and the AuspicesReading the Sky for RomeHow Roman magistrates read the will of the gods from bird-flight and lightning before every public act — the state's oldest form of applied religion.Rite & Festival · Roman

B

Beltane (Bealtaine)The Fires of MayThe Gaelic May Day quarter-day, first recorded in a 10th-century glossary as two fires driven between by cattle — not proof of a god named Bel.Rite & Festival · CelticBlot (Norse Sacrifice)The Sacrifice That Fed the GodsThe Old Norse sacrifice: an animal killed, its blood sprinkled on altar and idols, its meat boiled and shared in a hall feast to buy the gods' favour.Rite & Festival · Norse

D

Diwali (Deepavali)The Festival of LightsThe festival of lights lit around the new moon of Kartika — explained across regions and faiths by at least four different founding stories.Rite & Festival · HinduDragon Boat Festival (Duanwu)The Double FifthChina's fifth-month river festival of racing dragon boats and rice dumplings — tied to the poet Qu Yuan's drowning, though the boats likely predate him.Rite & Festival · Chinese

E

The Eleusinian MysteriesThe Rite of Demeter and PersephoneThe secret initiation rite of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, the most prestigious mystery cult in the Greek world for nearly two thousand years.Rite & Festival · Greek

H

HoliThe Festival of ColourThe spring festival of colour and bonfires — burning Holika's cruelty out of the year in the north, and Krishna's play with the gopis in Braj.Rite & Festival · Hindu

K

Koliada (Slavic Winter Festival)Carols at the ThresholdThe Slavic midwinter cycle of caroling, mumming and fortune-telling around the solstice - not, despite popular retellings, evidence of a god named Koliada.Rite & Festival · Slavic

L

LupercaliaRome's Rite of the WolfRome's February fertility rite at the wolf's cave, where near-naked priests struck bystanders with goat-hide thongs — its link to Valentine's Day is unproven.Rite & Festival · Roman

M

MaslenitsaButter Week's Last Stand Against LentA week of pancakes, sledding and a burned straw effigy before Orthodox Lent - folk sun-worship by reputation, church calendar by attestation.Rite & Festival · SlavicThe Maya Ballgame (Pitz)The Game Between WorldsPitz, the rubber-ball game played across the Maya world for three thousand years — real sport, staged myth, and sometimes an execution.Rite & Festival · MayanMaya Bloodletting RitualsBlood for the GodsRoyal self-sacrifice of blood, through tongue or penis, the central Classic Maya rite for feeding the gods and summoning ancestors, best recorded at Yaxchilan.Rite & Festival · MayanMid-Autumn Festival (Zhongqiu Jie)The Festival of ReunionChina's harvest-moon festival of family reunion, mooncakes, and lantern-lit nights under the fullest moon — inseparable from the goddess Chang'e.Rite & Festival · Chinese

N

The New Fire CeremonyBinding of the YearsThe Aztec rite that closed every 52-year cycle by dousing every fire in the realm and rekindling the world on a sacrificed captive's chest.Rite & Festival · Aztec

O

Obon (Festival of the Dead)The Summer Homecoming of the AncestorsJapan's midsummer festival for the returning dead: welcoming fires, decorated graves, the bon-odori dance, and a Buddhist parable behind all of it.Rite & Festival · JapaneseThe Opening of the Mouth CeremonyThe Rite That Woke the DeadThe Egyptian rite that restored a mummy's or statue's senses — touching sacred tools to its face so it could eat, see, and speak again.Rite & Festival · Egyptian

S

SamhainThe Turn to WinterThe Gaelic quarter day that opened winter and the Otherworld alike in medieval Irish literature — not, despite a popular myth, the name of a god of the dead.Rite & Festival · CelticSaturnaliaRome's Feast of MisruleRome's December festival of role reversal and gifts, when slaves dined with masters and the freedman's cap was worn by all — likely not the root of Christmas.Rite & Festival · RomanSeidr (Norse Magic)The Vanir's SorceryNorse trance magic of prophecy and fate-shaping, taught by Freyja to the gods and practised by wandering seeresses — powerful, gendered, and socially dangerous.Rite & Festival · NorseSetsubunThe Bean-Throwing Turn of the SeasonThe eve of spring in the old calendar: roasted beans thrown at oni while households shout "demons out, fortune in," descended from a Heian court exorcism.Rite & Festival · Japanese

Y

Yule (Jol)The Midwinter FeastThe Norse and wider Germanic midwinter festival of feasting, sacrifice and oath-swearing — later fixed to Christmas by royal decree, not by simple continuity.Rite & Festival · Norse