The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by a range of modern pagans, marking the year's chief solar events and the midpoints between them. British neopagans crafted the Wheel of the Year in the mid-20th century, combining the four solar events marked by many European peoples, with the four seasonal festivals celebrated by Insular Celtic peoples. Different paths of modern Paganism may vary regarding the precise timing of each celebration, based on such distinctions as the lunar phase and geographic hemisphere.
The Witches' Cottage, where the Bricket Wood coven celebrated their sabbats (2006)
Neopagans honoring the dead as part of a Samhain ritual
Kołomir – the Slavic example of Wheel of the Year indicating seasons of the year. Four-point and eight-point swastika-shaped wheels were more common.
Painted Wheel of the Year from the Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a type of religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse and as a result, they do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion often characterise these traditions as new religious movements. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are denominations.
Heathen altar for Haustblot in Björkö, Sweden. The larger wooden idol represents the god Frey.
A Heathen shrine to the god Freyr, Sweden, 2010
The Parthenon, an ancient pre-Christian temple in Athens dedicated to the goddess Athena. Strmiska believed that modern pagans in part reappropriate the term "pagan" to honor the cultural achievements of Europe's pre-Christian societies.
Samogitian Sanctuary, a reconstruction of a medieval pagan observatory in Šventoji, Lithuania used by the modern Romuvans