God Chants for Fall Equinox

Celebrations for Fall Equinox honor the sacrifice of the Male Deity. Whether he is in an animal form such as the Stag, or in a plant form, such as the Grain King, the theme of his death in service to life is central to this Sabbat. Here are some pagan god chants you can sing to honor the masculine divine in autumn.

The Stag

Autumn is hunting season, the time for hunting wild deer, elk and other animals to provide meat for the winter. Done properly, autumn hunting can improve the health of the herd by culling the weak and bringing the population down to a size that can survive the winter. Pagans honor the sacrifice of the animals harvested. Through these deaths, the herd can live, and new fawns be born in the spring. Likewise the human community survives the winter. And so the cycle continues. The antlered or horned god represents this spirit of sacrifice and renewal.

Horned One

One of the classic chants for the horned god is Horned One. I’ll be using it in an online Mabon ritual in my home community this year. As you can hear on this recording of the composer, Buffalo, singing it with Deborah and Rick Hamouris, it works as a round and is excellent for raising energy. It’s very easy to learn. I recommend it for rituals where you want to merge the energy of a group of people through singing, drumming and dancing. For even more energy, try challenging people to leap as if they were the stag leaping through the corn.

Horned One, Lover, Son
Leaper in the Corn
Deep in the Mother
Die and be reborn
Horned One, by Buffalo. Recorded on Welcome to Annwfn by Deborah and Rick Hamouris and Friends.

Hoof and Horn

Another song honoring the Masculine Divine that is very well known throughout the pagan community is Hoof and Horn. We first learned it from the iconic Reclaiming recording Chants: Ritual Music, released in 1994 on cassette and still availble in digital form.

The Crow Women included Hoof and Horn in our own chant medley, which you can find here on our website. (You can pick it out at 2 minutes 26 seconds into our version.) But in this blog post, I’ll feature the Reclaiming recording, with great gratitude for their work in creating and disseminating pagan chants.

Hoof and horn, hoof and horn
all that dies shall be reborn.
Corn and grain, corn and grain
all that falls shall rise again
by Ian Corrigan. On Reclaiming and Friends album Chants: Ritual Music

Spirit of the Cloven Hoof

I just recently came across the chant Spirit of the Cloven Hoof by Jana Runnals, although it was released back in 2004. I like this one because it’s a bit more complex, but still within reach of fire circle singing because of the repetition. It’s especially suited for invoking the Horned God into your fall equinox ritual.

Spirit of the cloven hoof is running wild on the land
Spirit of the cloven hoof is running wild on the land
Horned God of this land I call to you, I call to you
Horned God of this land I call to you, I call to you
Pan, Herne, Cernunnous, Pan, Herne, Cernunnous
Spirit of the Cloven Hoof by Jana Runnals, from her album Sacred Home

Hymn to Herne

One of the most rip-roaring, sexy and exciting songs for the Horned God is Hymn to Herne by SJ Tucker. She was the featured guest at our local Mabon festival a few years ago and we did this song as part of our main ritual. This year we are doing our ritual on Zoom and will broadcast this song, with dancers cutting loose in their living rooms across North America. It’s pretty complicated for getting a group to sing in ritual, but ideal for an online event. Here’s the chorus, which can work as a stand-alone chant.

He will call you out, make you sweat,
give you a blessing that you’ll never forget.
So revel in the chase and let your heartbeat run:
Blessed are the children of the Horned One!
from Hymn to Herne on the album Blessings by SJ Tucker. Full lyrics here.

The Grain King

At this time of harvest festivals, the grain is cut down. From tales of John Barleycorn to traditions of the Wicker Man, the sacred nature of the harvest is brought home to us at this time of year. The grain is sown, tended, harvested, and then enjoyed. A part is always conserved for new planting in the spring. This cycle is an apt metaphor for our lives. We sow our choices, and what we reap is a refection of this.

The Harvest

Here’s one of my favorite songs on this theme of the bittersweet nature of the harvest.

So the Sun King dies, as the corn and the wheat
Feel the cool, steel scythe of the harvest
Filled with joy we weep, for the love known and missed
As we reap the seeds we have sown.
from The Harvest by Rick Hamouris, on the album Welcome to Annwfn. Full lyrics here.

The Wicker Man

Want a really memorable harvest ritual? Build a wicker man and burn it! Here’s a wonderful song about such a rite, by Damh the Bard. This video has photos showing how they do it in Damh’s community in England. His website is excellent and he’s doing lots of online concerts these days. Have a listen sometime–it’s such a good way to support musicians now. Highly recommended.

Wicker Man, oh Wicker Man
Like a mighty god you stand
You are guardian of our land
Take our prayers oh wickerman
from The Wicker Man, by Damh the Bard on the album Sabbat. Full lyrics here.

The grain king can be honored as part of the theme of harvesting during any of the harvest Sabbats: Lammas, Mabon or Samhain. Last summer a group of pagan friends spent a whole afternoon creating our Wicker Man, decorating him with flowers, and hanging out with him. Everyone got involved and that synergy made it very magical. And fun!

Then in the evening, we created ceremony together. Each person placed a little scroll into the Wicker Man’s body with a wish for him to carry into the spirit world. Then we lit him afire and drummed and danced and watched our prayers rise in his sparks and smoke. I love this religion.

Death and rebirth

In each these forms, the sacred being dies. Yet, the promise of rebirth is contained within that death. Let’s finish up with the chant Die and Be Reborn. It reminds of us of more symbols of death and renewal. The phoenix is reborn even as it dies within its pyre. Over the course of a month, the moon dies away toward the dark moon, but then is reborn and grows full again. Likewise, over the course of the year, the sun’s energy wanes toward winter solstice, then is reborn and grows toward summer. (Of course, the Crow Women have songs about both the moon and sun that capture exactly these dynamics.) Abbi’s song Die and Be Reborn is very effective when used in ritual. We’ve divided the assembled people into three groups, and had singers lead each group in one of the three chants in this piece, weaving them in and out of an improvised arrangement.

Be born, live, and die then, be born, live and die then…

Die and be reborn again, die and be reborn…

Like the phoenix and the grain king,
like the sun god and the moon queen.
Die and Be Reborn by Abbi Spinner McBride, on the album Fire of Creation

Balance at Mabon

Fall Equinox is so rich in meanings. It’s the time when the day and night are of equal length, and so is a perfect time to explore balance within the self, between parts of our lives, and with the sacred planet we live on. One of the songs the Crow Women included in our album Seasons is about this: Balance in All Things. You can read about a Mabon ritual that featured that song in this blog post. Our Mabon page on this website brings together all of our posts that are related to this time of year. We hope you’ll explore the astrology, recipes, poetry, crafts, rituals and songs gathered on our Mabon page. Let’s turn the wheel of the year together.

For more information about the Crow Women pagan choir, and access to all the blog posts by Alane and the other 9 crowsingers who have written for Pagan Song, you can visit the Crow Women author page here on Pagan Song.

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