Cinderella, last of the Vestal Virgins

    Winter Solstice, one of the great fire festivals of the year. People used to light their Yule log at the start of it and have it burning throughout the season. Oak if they could get it, because that was considered most sacred of all.

    Nowadays we are less likely to have a Yule log alight in our homes, but we may go to see a pantomime sometime over the Christmas season. Cinderella perhaps.

   Gustave Dore's illustration from the 1867 edition of Charles Perrault's 'Cinderella'

There can be few people who have never heard of Cinderella. The story of the young girl who overcomes adversity with the help of her fairy godmother is a popular folk tale throughout Europe, where at least 500 versions of it have been  recorded. Less well known, are her connections with vestal virgins, hearth spirits and the cradle of civilisation.

    The roots of the story as we know it can be traced relatively easily to Roman primitive religion, though it is undoubtedly much older than that. Reli­gion in ancient Rome was a family affair in the charge of the head of each family group. Concerned mainly with the personal and material welfare of those involved, it had little room for more than the most rudimentary of moral overtones.

    Worship centred on the home as the gathering point for the family and within the home took as its focus the hearth. Tending the hearth was the responsibility of the younger, unmarried daughters of the family.

    The practice mirrored that adopted by the royal family of Rome in the early days before the Empire. Though the rule was by king, succession was through the female line, as consort to the reigning monarch. This lent an importance to the royal daughters similar to that of the princesses of ancient Egypt.

    The hearth was the centre of Roman life and within it burned a perpetual flame, which was tended for longer or shorter periods, depending on the need. Whilst the royal sons were being sent out into the world to find suitable wives and foreign lands in which to settle, their sisters remained at home until such a time as one of  their number, having been chosen as consort to their successor, gave birth to daughters of their own.

    Proof that the cult was of an antiquity far  beyond that of the growing Rome rests in their choice of sacred animal and of sacred fuel for their fire. The latter - in common with that burnt on sacred fires in many lands which never fell under the influence of the Imperial Empire - was oak. The former was the Mediterranean ass. Basis enough for suspecting that this particular form of worship arose in ancient times in Middle East - the cradle of civilization.

    Wherever she originated, however, and  under whatever guise, there is no escaping the fact that Vesta  was greatly venerated in ancient Rome, where she was believed to belong to the inner circle of twelve gods. Patroness of fire and hearth, she was served by spirits who took responsibility for various parts of the home: the Penates, for instance, who  attended the penus (a cupboard near the hearth where provisions were stored) or the Lares, who were phantoms watching over the house as a whole.

    A legend which is seen as acknowledgement of the divine fire tells of a Lares who assumed the substance of a phallus amidst the the hearth, had intercourse with a slave of King Tarquin's Queen Tanaquil, who was  guarding the hearth, and thus became the father of King Servius Tullius, who arose from the flames like a phoenix.

    Servius Tullius was sixth of the eight kings of Rome, all of whom retained the  perpetual fire as the focus of the community, and their daughters as the most important of the hearth wardens. With the abolition of the kingship this was was no longer possible, however, and the College of Vestals came into being to fill the void.

   At first there were only two, then four, then finally six maidens who served in the temple, which was close to the the king's house in the forum, their own house being next door. They were chosen only from the best families and served under the direction of the chief priest, one of whose jobs was to whip them should the sacred fire  go out. Girls as young as seven years old were taken for training and obliged to serve for at least thirty years before they could retire and marry if they so wished, though few did.

    Vestal Virgins played a prominent part Roman life, particularly the religious aspects of it, and their house was a repository for wills and other important documents. Ordinary people regarded the maidens with the awe and respect such arbiters with the gods attract. They were even allowed the best seats at the theatre at cut price rates. Should the chastity of a Vestal Virgin be violated, however, it was a different matter. The unfortunate victim would be buried alive in the belief that her innocence would be proven should Vesta intervene.

                                Chief Vestal Virgin from a statue in Rome

    How the cult of Vesta came to be associated with that of Diana the hun­tress is not altogether clear. Certainly fire played an important part in the rituals of the latter and was celebrated with holy rites at every hearth on her feast day, 13 August. Her sacred grove at Nemi was guarded by virgins and a sacred fire burned in the round temple similar to that of Vesta in the forum at Rome.

    Nevertheless, Diana was a fertility goddess with a folk-lore reputation far removed from that of the chaste Vesta. Possibly as goddess of the sacred oak which provided the logs she became confused with the goddess of the fire which consumed them. Votive offerings of terra-cotta lamps which were a feature of shrines dedicated to Diana may well have been the forerunners of candles offered in the Catholic churches of the modern world.

    Worship of Vesta and her alter-ego continued throughout the years of empire until the decline of Rome brought an end to the trappings of Imperial rule. By the time the world emerged from the Dark Ages which followed, a new god had swept away the power of Mars, Jupiter, Diana and the rest. Only one of the inner circle survived in a form so altered by folk memory that the new order failed to recognise her and allowed the story to be told unchallenged. So it is that every Christmas, in countless panto­mimes throughout the world, Cinderella, the last of the Vestal Virgins, watches over the eternal fire.



All this information, and much more besides, can be found in the book, Gardens of The Gods, by Brian Taylor, recently given five stars by a satisfied reader. Available from Amazon as a hardback. Or Sacred Plants of the World from Neolithic Times Until the Present Day, its e-book version, available from Amazon Kindle.