Greetings Folk!

In Ælfric's Homily on the Nativity of the Innocents—the pages alternate between Old and Present Day English—the word 'middangeard' used to speak of the 'world' in a Christian text—you can see it in the middle of line 6 on the page 122 of that link. For those unfamiliar with the subject, 'middangeard' is the Old English equivalent of the Norse (i.e., pagan) 'Miðgarðr'; we have a very pagan way of speaking about the world in a very Christian text. 'How interesting!' I thought.

So, I have decided to start a thread where we can amass specific and exampled historical literary instances where words/word groupings or phrasings traditionally used for one religious practice have been adopted or mixed in with writing that is clearly meant for a different religious practice(s). You can pick any instances you can find in any literary work, all that is asked is that you restrict the discussion to only specific examples. Do not post about the pagan origins of modern Christmas celebration traditions. You may, however, post instances in which the Nativity is, let's say, described with words generally reserved for pagan customs. Of course, any and all religions are welcome for discussion, especially if it gets us out of the rut of the old, and often boring, Euro-Christian discussions, though I understand that most of us, myself included, have no familiarity with anything outside of this, and so there will be no discrimination in this regard.

Most of all, we need to have FUN and LEARN something!

I eagerly await all that you have to show!
Jon