tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77582676161062399502024-02-21T17:37:39.019+00:00TairisGaelic Polytheism from ScotlandSerenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.comBlogger435125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-44824337760682846982024-02-19T13:44:00.001+00:002024-02-19T13:44:12.731+00:00Tairis is Down (Sorry)<p>A number of people have got in touch this past while asking about the fate of tairis.co.uk, which has been unavailable for a while (and/or difficult to access). </p><p>So first of all, I'm so sorry the site's been down for so long! I'm not actually sure what's happened but I've been assured it can be fixed, so the Tairis site <i>will</i> be back – at some point (I hope...). I'm just waiting for my husband (and resident person-who-knows-what-the-heck-they're-doing-with-this-sort-of-thing) to find a moment where he's actually able to sit down and take a look at it. Things are quite hectic at the moment, to say the least, though, so as much as I'm hoping that will be soon I can't make any promises. </p><p>In the meantime, the site can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine, so try the following link below (I've chosen a snapshot from a time when the site was less broken than it's been in recent years... oof):</p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200619043626/http://www.tairis.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tairis.co.uk </a><br /></p><p>Second of all, I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's got in touch in the past few months or so to ask what's going on and express their sadness that the site might have gone comletely. Your kind words have meant a lot, I really appreciate it. </p>Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-15307975984131720242019-09-15T12:57:00.000+01:002019-09-15T12:57:46.852+01:00The Grianán of AileachFurther adventures on holiday...<br />
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After being generously indulged with all things archaeological on our last holiday to Ireland, back in 2014, this time around the only thing I really really wanted to do, besides visiting the statue of Manannán, was a trip to the Grianán of Aileach (the 'Sunny Place' of Aileach), which is situated just across the Irish border in Co. Donegal:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Credit to <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Grianan_fort_at_sunset.jpg" target="_blank">Mark McGaughey</a> via Wikimedia Commons</span></div>
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As you can see from this overhead shot (most definitely not taken by me) it's an impressive stone hillfort with really thick walls – they're about 4.5m thick, or nearly 15ft for you imperialists.<br />
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Historically speaking, the site is thought to have been occupied as a hill-fort of some sort or another from as early as the Bronze or Iron Age, although evidence of activity may go back as far as the Neolithic. It's situated at the top of a hill that commands an impressive view. To one side there's a view of Lough Swilly, while to another there's a view of Lough Foyle, which heads off towards the Atlantic.<br />
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The walls as they stand today are thought to have originally been built some time in the sixth or seventh century, and the place was occupied for several centuries until it was destroyed in 1101 by Muirchertach Ua Briain, the king of Munster (and self-proclaimed king of Ireland at the time). By the nineteenth century it was in a state of disrepair, and restoration work was undertaken in 1874-1875. After the walls partially collapsed in the early 2000s, further restoration was undertaken, which proved rather controversial.<br />
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Given how exposed its situation is, the walls do a good job of protecting the interior of the fort from the elements.<br />
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There's only one entrance, so it's pretty good for defence, too.<br />
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The hillfort served as a royal capital for the Cenél nEógain ('the Kindred of Eógain,' or 'Owen' as the name is Anglicised), a branch of the Uí Néill ('Descendants of Niall'), but it's the mythology that's attached to the site that interests me. There are several <i>Dindshenchas</i> ('Placename Lore') stories that explain the origins of the site and how it got its name, and even within these stories there are several explanations that may be given. <br />
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The main version of the story tells of how a son of the Dagda, Áed, had an affair with a married woman. The name of the woman is apparently irrelevant because we're never told it, but her husband, Corrcend, is not a particularly happy bunny upon discovery of the news. He murders Áed in cold blood and then decides to leg it right quick in order to avoid the consequences. The Dagda, however, being king at the time, marshals his resources and sends out a search party or two. Corrcend is eventually found and brought before the grieving king.<br />
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The Dagda decides to punish Corrcend for his crime and orders him to build a suitable grave for his son. Corrcend is forced to trudge down to one of the local loughs where he must then carry rocks back up to the top of the hill in order to build a grave-mound for Áed. As the grave is very near its completion, Corrcend carries an especially large rock up the hill. By this point Corrcend is exhausted and using every last ounce of strength in his reserves, but soon he finds he can't take it any more. As he reaches the top, he cries out from his exertions. First he shouts "Ail!" which pretty much means "the rock!" and then he shouts "Ach!" which pretty much means "ach!" And Corrcend's heart gives out and he dies on the spot.<br />
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The Dagda, evidently having a sense of humour even in the midst of a personal tragedy, declares that Corrcend has given the place a fitting name, and announces that Ailech shall be the name of his son's grave from that point onwards. <a href="http://dil.ie/984" target="_blank">Ailech,</a> as it happens, can either refer to a pile of rocks, or else it can refer to a type of <a href="http://dil.ie/985" target="_blank">satire or an invective.</a> By coincidence, the word <i><a href="http://dil.ie/987" target="_blank">aílech</a></i> may refer to dung or manure.<br />
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So Corrcend's famous last words could effectively be interpreted as a rather stilted exclamation of "Shit!"<br />
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The Dagda then employs a couple of stonemasons to build a hillfort on top of the grave. When the hillfort is finished, the Dagda gives it to Néit and his wife Nemain.<br />
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A while later, after what we can only presume is a glorious reign because we know pretty much nothing about Néit's life, Néit is killed by Nemtuir the Red, a Fomorian. This is during the reign of Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht and Mac Gréine, the three sons of Cermait Milbél, another of the Dagda's sons, and their reign was long after the Tuatha Dé Danann defeated the Fomorians at the second battle of Mag Tuired. The fact that a member of the Fomorians is causing trouble – breaking the peace treaty that was agreed upon after the Tuatha Dé Danann won the battle – is a bad sign.<br />
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Upon hearing the news of Néit's death, the three kings make haste to the Grianán of Aileach, having heard rumours of a crap ton of treasure being up for grabs. There's no indication that the kings made any effort to retaliate or seek justice for Néit's death, their only concern is treasure and this is another bad sign – a king's job is to demonstrate good judgement and ensure justice is done (amongst other things, of course), but to all intents and purposes neither Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht, nor Mac Gréine have shown any concern in this. As traditional narratives go, this is a pretty big sign of impending doom...<br />
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While they're at the Grianán of Ailech, a member of the Milesians, Íth son of Breogán, arrives from Spain. Íth is the first of the Milesians to arrive in Ireland, having spotted land in the far distance while looking out to sea from the top of a great tower his father had built, and he decides then and there to sail over to this new land and see what it might have to offer. Having made his way to the Grianán, Íth finds the three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann still bickering about the treasure, although they stop for a moment to welcome their new guest. During his stay, Íth acts as a peace broker, settling the matter once and for all.<br />
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Íth also comments on how rich and wonderful Ireland is, how pleasant the climate is, and how the country has everything one could want a home to offer. Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht, and Mac Gréine hatch a plan to kill Íth, seeing him as a threat. He hasn't made any threats outright, but his comments clearly imply an interest in muscling in on everything Ireland has to offer, and naturally Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht, and Mac Gréine aren't interested in sharing. Íth is killed on his way back to his ship, the site of his death then taking his name, Mag Ítha, or 'the Plain of Íth.'<br />
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The mysterious disappearance of their beloved relative prompts the sons of Míl, Eber, Donn, and Éremón to sail over from Spain in order to see what's going on. This ultimately ends up in a battle between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians over Ireland's sovereignty, which is fought at Tailltiu. In spite of the Tuatha Dé Danann's best efforts to fend off the invaders, the Milesians win, and the three sons of Cermait Milbél are killed. The impending doom that's foreshadowed by the three kings' bad behaviour is fulfilled. In the resulting peace agreement, the Tuatha Dé Danann take to the hills and the otherworldly<i> síde,</i> and Ireland is handed over to the realm of human mortals.<br />
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As it happens, the fort does appear to have been built on top of a Neolithic grave mound, which might have influenced the story of Corrcend. That's assuming the site's identification with Ailech is correct, however; since Ailech was originally destroyed in 1101, the place remained a symbol of political power in the area, and poets linked named various different places as being the 'real' Ailech, which has confused matters somewhat. In recent decades, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25549872" target="_blank">a number of other sites have now been suggested as the possibly 'original' Ailech,</a> but – as yet – these proposals have yet to gain much traction.<br />
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Whatever the case may be, it's a beautiful and unique place and well worth the visit. If you ever get the chance, go!<br />
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<i><b>Tales:</b></i><br />
<a href="https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T106500D/text022.html" target="_blank">Ailech I in the Metrical Dindshenchas</a><br />
<a href="https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T106500D/text023.html" target="_blank">Ailech II in the Metrical Dindshenchas</a><br />
<a href="https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T106500D/text024.html" target="_blank">Ailech III in the Metrical Dindshenchas</a><br />
<a href="https://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.rc.16.001.t.text.html" target="_blank">Ailech in the Prose Tales of the Rennes Dindshenchas</a><br />
<a href="https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T402563/index.html" target="_blank">Inishowen</a><br />
<a href="https://archive.org/details/leborgablare00macauoft/page/14" target="_blank">Lebor Gabála Érenn Part V</a>Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-71801579589757155952019-09-07T16:39:00.000+01:002019-09-07T16:39:07.208+01:00Visiting Manannán mac LirIt's been a while...<br />
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Back in January 2015, if you recall, news broke that a statue of Manannán mac Lir, which had been erected at Gortmore Viewing Point on Binevenagh Mountain, near Limavady, just one year previously, <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.com/2015/01/statue-of-manannan-stolen.html" target="_blank">had been stolen.</a> After removing the statue (apparently using an angle grinder), the thieves left a large wooden cross in its place, which read 'You shall have no other gods before me.'<br />
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<a href="https://wildhunt.org/2015/01/calling-manannan-mac-lir-back-home.html" target="_blank">The theft, which appears to have been religiously motivated, received a huge amount of attention,</a> both locally and internationally, and even prompted a (rather tongue in cheek) missing person's appeal by police to help raise awareness. Although the people responsible for the theft and vandalism of the site have never been caught, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-31567991" target="_blank">the statue was eventually found by a group of ramblers</a> – exactly one month after its disappearance – just 300m from its original position. Aside from having been cut from its platform right at the feet, the thieves had tried to remove the head. It was decided the statue was beyond repair, and <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.com/2015/03/decision-made-on-manannan-statue.html" target="_blank">after some debate</a> (with some vocal opposition railing against restoring the 'paganistic monument'), local councillors agreed to commission a replacement from the original sculptor, Darren Sutton. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-35679046" target="_blank">Just over a year after the original statue's theft,</a> the new statue (which was made with additional reinforcements to make any future attempts at a repeat more difficult) was put in its rightful place. <br />
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Back in 2014, Mr Seren and I took the kids on holiday to Ireland, basing ourselves in Dublin and taking in the Newgrange complex, Kildare, and Tara, amongst other things. In July this year, we decided to take a trip back over the water, and this time we based ourselves in Portrush, right in the far north near the Giant's Causeway and not too far a trek from Binevenagh Mountain itself. It's an amazingly beautiful area and we somehow managed to pick one of the hottest – and sunniest – weeks of the year to do it all, which was incredibly lucky. Being so close, the chance of visiting the statue was too much to resist, so one evening (on our 16th wedding anniversary) we took a drive up, an hour or two before sunset.<br />
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Close up it somehow seemed smaller than what I was expecting, just from having seen photos of it. The details and craftsmanship of the statue itself is absolutely breathtaking, though, from every angle.<br />
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Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture below, there's some minor damage to the statue, including what appears to be a gouge mark on the right leg.<br />
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I couldn't say if this is the result of deliberate, malicious attempts to damage it (again), or if it's accidental, though.<br />
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The statue was erected at the site because of Manannán's reputed connections to the local area; storms and rough seas are said to be the result of his fury. From the viewing point where the statue stands, you can see Lough Foyle as it meets the Atlantic Ocean.<br />
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Looking out to sea it's absolutely stunning, and turning further inland isn't bad, either. </div>
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The statue of Manannán himself stands on a ship, or part of it, at least. At the back of the ship, the sculptor has detailed some of the most iconic items that were found with the Broighter Hoard, which was discovered in a field near Limavady in the late nineteenth century:<br />
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You can see here the torcs and chains, collar, bowl (possibly representing a cauldron), and the miniature boat (replete with tiny oars, benches, and mast), which were all made out of gold.<br />
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When they were originally discovered, the items were squashed and badly damaged by the plough that had brought them up to the surface, and the finders – two men working the field, James Morrow and Thomas Nicholl – sold the hoard to the landowner (and their employer), Joseph Gibson, for just £5. At the time, items like this were often sold for scrap; their great age and significance wasn't really understood or appreciated so it wasn't unusual for old gold like this to end up being melted down and turned into something shiny and new, the original form of the items lost for good. Who knows what's been lost because of this, but luckily in this instance the hoard was saved from this sort of fate. It was sold to a private collector, Robert Day, who then had the items restored by an experienced goldsmith. It was only at this point that the form and intricacy of the boat was uncovered (for one), and Day then sold the whole lot to the British Museum for £600.<br />
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The Royal Irish Academy, who had become increasingly invested in rescuing items of this nature by this point in time, had tried to secure the hoard for themselves, but it had already been sold before a full inquest had been carried out to establish whether or not it qualified as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_trove" target="_blank">treasure trove.</a> The RIA believed it did, and were less than pleased that the British Museum had snapped the gold up for themselves. The dispute eventually ended up in court where it was argued the British Museum had bought the hoard unlawfully, because as treasure trove the hoard would belong to the Crown, not Robert Day himself.<br />
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The key point in the case was in deciding whether or not the person (or people) who had left the hoard in the field ever intended to recover the items. If the judge ruled that there <i>had</i> been the intention to recover the hoard (say if they'd been buried temporarily, for safekeeping), then they would qualify as treasure trove and the hoard would belong to the Crown. The British Museum would have to give up the gold, and that would pretty much suck for them. If they managed to argue that the items were never intended to have been recovered by the original owner(s) (or a rightful heir), however, the hoard would not be treasure trove and the British Museum would be able to keep them and do with them as they wished.<br />
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The British Museum set out to argue that the hoard had been deposited as a votive offering to an Irish sea god, and they brought in an expert to confirm to the judge that there was indeed such a deity – a <a href="http://thehistoryblog.com/archives/27845" target="_blank">'mythical Irish Neptune,'</a> as the judge later referred to him in his ruling – in the form of Manannán, who (crucially) was well-known in local legend. The British Museum also brought in experts who testified that the field in which the items had been found would have been under sea at the time of their deposition, some time in the first century B.C.E., and they further suggested that in order to deposit the items in that particular spot, they would have had to have done so from a boat. As an offering, then, there was no way anyone ever intended to recover them at a later date and that meant the hoard couldn't be considered to be treasure trove.<br />
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Hedging their bets a little, the British Museum then also argued that if the court accepted their argument that the hoard was a votive offering, then it couldn't be viewed as having been abandoned because clearly it did have an owner now – <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7149570/The_Broighter_hoard_-_a_question_of_ownership" target="_blank">Manannán himself!</a> This would mean the hoard couldn't be viewed as treasure trove on two accounts.<br />
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The judge, however, had little time or patience for any of this. He dismissed the whole idea as 'fanciful,' and instead accepted the ‘commonplace but natural inference that these articles were… hidden for safety in a land disturbed by frequent raids.’ The hoard was subsequently ruled to be treasure trove and the British Museum were instructed to turn the hoard over to the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. Except for the occasional tour or loan, the hoard is still on display there today.<br />
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Since the court case in 1903, however, the controversy over the true nature of the hoard has continued. Rumours emerged that the hoard was not an ancient deposit at all – votive or otherwise – but had, in fact, been discovered wrapped up in a very modern umbrella, possibly having been hastily stashed after a robbery. Claims were also made that the bulk of the hoard was not Irish in origin (except, perhaps, the ornate collar), but had been imported from India. At around the same time as these claims were gaining traction, another gold hoard at the museum that had ultimately been revealed to be a fake was melted down. As doubts grew about the Broighter hoard, it could have easily suffered the same fate.<br />
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In more recent decades, studies have concluded that the hoard really is genuine. The gold itself is not local, and some of the items may be Roman in origin, but none of it is Indian in origin. The craftsmanship of the torcs and the gold collar are clearly Irish, and were probably made in the same area they were ultimately deposited in, around the first century B.C.E. The bowl and boat are so unique there is nothing really to compare them to, but the boat in particular appears to represent a large <i>currach</i>. The rings on the bowl suggest it was meant to have been suspended, just like a cauldron, although its shape doesn't appear to reflect any local examples of that period. Analysis of the local landscape has shown that while the place in which the hoard was deposited wasn't permanently underwater, it would most certainly have been intermittently flooded, and otherwise marshy.<br />
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Based on comparisons with other depositions from similar sorts of sites around Ireland, it now seems clear that the Broighter Hoard really was a votive deposit. Whether they were actually intended for Manannán himself is not something we can ever really know, but I think it's rather striking that these repeated controversies (and attitudes of religious intolerance, or dismissiveness towards anything pagan) have worked in favour of raising Manannán's profile so effectively on more than one occasion. Had the statue never been stolen by bigots, I don't think so many people would have heard about the statue in the first place – I certainly didn't know about it until the news broke, for sure. Clearly, Manannán wants to be seen.<br />
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<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-90911376273386083322018-02-04T15:29:00.001+00:002018-02-04T15:29:41.534+00:00An update for Tairis with added plagiarism (again...)Là Fhèill Brìghde arrived, and our little household welcomed in Brigid, and the Spring with ceremony and feasting. Rosie did the honours with making our <i>dealbh Brìde</i> this year, which now takes pride of place on the shrine in the kitchen, and she also took charge of inviting her to come visit us. Brigid was welcomed with the words of a very shy, but excited, ten-year-old.<br />
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As I posted a while ago, last year, I bought a mould with the idea of making some small candles, and I finally got around to having a go at them. For a first effort they came out pretty good, I think, in spite of the bubbles (I need to regulate the temperature of the wax better, I'm guessing is the problem). I tried out a few colours and the kids are still debating which ones they like the best. I think Rosie did a fantastic job with our Brigid doll – she made several and then picked out the one she thought was most appropriate for the occasion, which she kept under wraps until the big reveal:<br />
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We also put out our brat for Brigid to bless, and Rosie chose to put out a necklace she got for Christmas this year, so she has something she can carry around with her.<br />
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I made a few crosses while the kids were at school, and then when Rosie got home she decided to join in. I helped her make a three-armed cross out of rushes, and then she had a go at some more out of pipe-cleaners. They really are easier for kids to work with, though I have some reservations about the metal in them. If it contains iron, it kind of defeats their purpose, you know? But still, they weren't the only ones we made, so it's OK. The different colours helped Rosie keep track of where she was, as she tried her hand at a four-armed cross for the first time:<br />
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I felt like mixing things up a little so decided to try my hand at something new this year. I've made three- and four-armed crosses most years, as well as the "diamond" type crosses I grew up with, so this time I figured I'd try making a style of cross I've never made before. I settled on the "interwoven" type, which is when, during some searching for images I could work from as a guide, <a href="https://mydevotionstodea.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/symbolism-of-brigids-cross/" target="_blank">I found a web page that's plagiarised my own page on making the <i>cros Bríde</i></a> (or <i>crois Brìghde,</i> if you want to Gaelic it up). So that's nice.<br />
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On the plus side, it helped me realise that the type of cross I was looking to make was wrongly described on my own page, which has followed through on the plagiarist's page and had a knock on effect in wrongly describing other crosses as well (the<i> Bogha Bríde </i>is a cross inside a circle; they've shown the interwoven type as a <i>Bogha Bríde</i> instead). So I've corrected my own page and I apologise for the confusion, folks. My bad – I think an older source I looked at used the same term to describe an "interwoven" cross (referring to multiple crosses woven together) as other sources did to describe something else (the type of cross I was actually looking to make).<br />
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On the negative side, I'm a tad bit annoyed that once again someone is using my words to sell their own religion... I mean, come on. If you want to write about something, use your words! Do your own research! I suppose they at least acknowledge the original source this time, and haven't gone so far as to prevent other people from copying text on their own web pages because they don't want people to do to them what they do to others themselves. Like my previous plagiarist did. Twice.<br />
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It's still frustrating, though. And fucking<i> rude.</i> I could report the page with a DMCA takedown notice, but that requires giving my personal details, including home address etc, which is then publicly available online, and that sucks. You can be sure that negative comments to the blogger herself are ignored.<br />
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Still. <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/celebrations/making-the-cros-bride/" target="_blank">Besides updating the original page,</a> I've also added a new page on Tairis with <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/celebrations/making-the-cros-bride-interwoven-type/" target="_blank">a guide for making the interlaced or interwoven cross.</a> It's an easy cross to make, with a little bit of preparation, and Rosie had a go at making one, too. I tried a simple version with only three strands along the horizontal and vertical (as did Rosie – in the picture below), and then I tried a bigger one with five strands each – that was all I could fit in, based on the length of the rushes.<br />
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From what I've read, these are common to Co. Cork, where much of my nan's side of the family come from. The three-armed crosses are common to Co. Antrim, where most of my husband's family come from.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-68402499574153641502018-01-03T15:41:00.001+00:002018-01-03T15:41:29.792+00:00Book Review: Landscapes of Cult and Kingship<i>Bliadhna Mhath Ùr! </i>Happy New Year!<br />
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I hope your 2018 is off to a good start... Round these parts we celebrated Hogmanay in typical rock 'n roll fashion by cleaning the house from top to toe, feeling less smug once said cleaning magically produced a massive pile of laundry to get through, and then finally sitting down to relax of an evening with Shaun of the Dead before ringing the bells in with the Beeb, while Mungo looked rather worried about whether or not the house-cleaning meant my mother was coming to visit.<br />
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But onto another review!<br />
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<i>Landscapes of Cult and Kingship: Archaeology and Text</i><br />
<b>Roseanne Schot, Conor Newman and Edel Bhreathnach (Eds.)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This is both one of the most amazing and most frustrating books I've ever read.<br />
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It's amazing because it's a collection of essays that are pretty much all firmly dealing with my areas of interest, while it's frustrating because – and do excuse my language – there's absolutely no fucking way to actually own this book at the moment. And that doesn't look like it's likely to change in the near future as far as I can tell.<br />
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The good news (<i>ish</i>) is that some of the chapters are available online in pdf format, so you can get a taster for yourself (hopefully these links all work):<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/handle/10379/2144" target="_blank">The sacral landscape of Tara: a preliminary exploration</a> – Conor Newman</li>
<li><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12152447/From_cult_centre_to_royal_centre_monuments_myths_and_other_revelations_at_Uisneach_2011_" target="_blank">From cult centre to royal centre: monuments, myths and other revelations at Uisneach</a> – Roseanne Schot</li>
<li><a href="https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/handle/10379/2075" target="_blank">Continuity, Cult and Contest</a> – John Waddell</li>
</ul>
The book itself is the product of a conference that was held at NUI Galway back in 2009 (the book being published two years later), and it aims to explore the sacral and religious aspects of kingship and how it relates to the landscape – both in terms of the archaeology its left behind, as well as the way these things are expressed in literature, historical practices, and so on. This inter-disciplinary approach is one of the things I appreciate the most about this book (besides the content itself), and it's very much becoming the in thing these days, so hopefully there will be more to come.<br />
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I mentioned in my last review, for Brian Lacey's <i>Lug's Forgotten Donegal Kingdom, </i>that I have a longstanding interest in exploring how the gods relate to the landscape and the people of pre-Christian Ireland (and Scotland and Man, of course, but they're not the focus here). This book is another one for the bookshelf if that's what you're looking for as well, though it concentrates less on the gods and more on what a ritual landscape really means and how it works (or, more to the point, how it <i>might have</i>). As a collection of articles that covers a broad selection of subjects relating specifically to cult and kingship, it's a very different book compared with Lacey's own, which has a far narrower focus.<br />
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There are plenty of familiar faces to be found contributing to this book, some of them like <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/book-review-archaeology-and-celtic-myth.html" target="_blank">John Waddell</a> and <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/book-review-lugs-forgotten-donegal.html" target="_blank">Brian Lacey</a> have books I've previously reviewed, while others like <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ireland-Medieval-World-400-1000-Bhreathnach/dp/B01A68AIJ8/" target="_blank">Edel Bhreathnach</a> are authors whose books I've yet to get around to reviewing, plus a few others who're on my wishlist (<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1843830906" target="_blank">like this one</a>). There are also some authors I've not heard of before, but for the most part they're all solid contributions. Out of them all I think there are only really two that didn't really blow me away – the first chapter, which just seemed to strike an odd tone, to me, considering the rest of the book, and a much later chapter, Marie Lecomte-Tilouine's "Imperial snake and eternal fires: mythified power in a Himalayan sacred site of royalty (Dullu, Nepal)," that had very little to do with anything Irish at all – I appreciated the striking similarities it suggests, but personally don't feel it's helpful to rely too heavily on a comparative approach.<br />
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I'll concentrate on some of the chapters that stood out to me the most here (though that by no means implies the others are less worthy of note... I just don't want to waffle on too much), and I'll start with Conor Newman's "The Sacral Landscape of Tara" as an especially thought-provoking contribution; while I sometimes struggled to keep up with some of Teh Big Wurdz and felt it relied on a comparative approach a little too heavily at times, I liked it because it gives an excellent overview of the subject but didn't shy away from offering an interpretation of what it all means, especially in terms of Tara as a <i>ritual</i> landscape. This means bringing together the historical traditions as well, like the stories of the <i>Dindshenchas</i> that relate to the area (not just Tara itself, but the broader complex of the Tara-Skryne valley), and I think that this is the sort of thing that's incredibly important to anyone who wants to try to reconstruct an ancient belief system – not in the sense of reviving an ancient concept of sacral kingship (tell me a hideous-looking hag sovereignty goddess came along and slept with you before transforming into a beautiful young maiden who then made you king and I'm going to think something's terribly wrong with your beer goggles, mm'kay?), but in the sense of how a landscape is seen in symbolic, ceremonial terms; how it's used, what it means, what it makes us see and think, how it helps channel the flow of our religious experiences and our senses on a personal and communal level... It's all deliberate, it all has a purpose.<br />
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This brings us neatly onto Bridgette Slavin article a couple of chapters later on, which is titled "Supernatural arts, the landscape and kingship in early Irish texts." Here she makes the point that since the landscape is experienced through our senses, and its form can be used to channel and shape our own sense of it, any change in the landscape therefore changes our perception of it, and how we relate to it. These changes are therefore significant, and this is true in a literal sense, but it's also something that's important in a literary sense, as we see in so many tales where the state of a king's reign is often reflected in the state of his kingdom around him. As Slavin adds, however, there is often a connection between the supernatural arts of the druids, <i>filid</i> and (later on) the saints, with that of the king; they act as a sort of intermediary between the king and the land, being both the king's protector, but also the human agent through which a king might ultimately meet his downfall (Cairbre's curse against Bres for his lack of hospitality, for example). This is a fascinating chapter and well worth a read, I think; it's a shame that this one isn't available online because it really does offer some great insights.<br />
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John Waddell's contribution builds on a similar sort of theme as Newman's chapter but with a broader scope, looking at the landscape as a whole (not just the Tara complex itself). He argues – convincingly, I think – that the landscape shouldn't be looked at in simple "ritual" terms, but in mythological and historical terms as well; the landscape, and the way it came to be used – as a ritual centre, as part of a mythological story, an expression of cosmology or cosmogony, as a legal, political boundary or centre – are all intertwined. Politics and religion are hard to untangle in pre-Christian terms, but as Waddell argues, this carried on well into the medieval period as well, precisely <i>because</i> it was so hard to untangle. He also gives some examples of how the gods in the landscape are used over time to articulate certain things; the continuing importance of Áine in the Knockainey area means that she crops up in prophecy poems that was intended to comment on certain political alliances in the thirteenth century, where she is still portrayed as a guardian spirit, if not goddess outright. He also points to an entry in the <i>Annals of Tigernach</i> where the poet Gilla Lugan describes the cause of a plague (spoiler: demons did it) based on information relayed to him personally by Óengus mac Ind Óc, son of the Dagda.* As Waddell himself comments, "There is no reason to suppose that the power of ancestors had diminished; if anything, they played as great a role as ever in the social and cosmological order of the tribal societies of the time." It seems the same goes for the gods, too, up to a point.<br />
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Roseanne Schot's exploration of Uisneach and its significance answered a lot of questions for me, and she focuses especially on the site's connections with fire as well as water, noting that the stories surrounding Uisneach itself often focus on origins – especially in terms of manifesting various "primordial waters." This has fascinating implications as far as the subject of creation myths go, but considering the frequent associations between rivers and sovereignty in general, it also brings up some food for thought in that area too. As Schot goes on to illustrate, it's no wonder that Uisneach also has associations with Lug. As Schot sees it, Lug is the "archetypal, omniscient 'king'," so his links with Uisneach, as a sacred centre, as well as a royal centre, make sense (but what about Núadu...?).<br />
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Lacey's chapter here, titled "Three ‘royal sites’ in Co. Donegal," is what prompted me to hunt out his book, and for the most part you'll find that they both complement one another nicely. To a degree this chapter is more of the same from the book itself, but that's no bad thing, really, since we get a bit more depth than the book itself has space for – especially in relation to the connection between Lug and local saints such as St Begley (<i>Beag Laoch,</i> meaning "little warrior" or, perhaps originally, Beg Lug, "little Lug"). It offers up some good food for thought for anyone who's interested in Lug, but the broader implications are fascinating too – if this happened to Lug, which other deities got the same treatment that we aren't yet aware of?<br />
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One more chapter bears a mention, and that's Elizabeth Fitzpatrick's (<i>et al</i>) "Evoking the white mare: the cult landscape of Sgiath Gabhra and its medieval perception in Gaelic Fir Mhanach," which gives a great overview of the whole horse controversy – the one where Giraldus Cambrensis described an inauguration ritual which involved the new king "embracing" a horse (yes, in <i>that</i> way) before killing it, bathing in its broth and then eating as much meat and drinking as much of the broth as possible. There's long been a debate on how accurate the description is; old Gerald certainly had an agenda and had no desire to be too complimentary about the Irish (he was reporting to the new Norman overlords, after all), so how far can he be trusted on this? Especially when it's unlikely that he ever actually witnessed such a ceremony himself. Some feel he went out of his way to describe as many lurid and frankly damningly barbaric details as he could possibly come up with. Others point to the similarities in the over all description with that of the ancient Vedic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashvamedha" target="_blank"><i>asvamedha</i></a> ceremony, which suggests there may have been at least a grain of truth in Giraldus's description... Unfortunately it doesn't go into details about the significance of horses in Irish tradition (as they relate to sovereignty), but the chapter does go on to conclude that such a ceremony is unlikely to have taken place during the time of the Méig Uidhir inauguration ceremonies (from the thirteenth century), at least. It also goes on to describe another ceremony – the rite of the single shoe – which was used by various dynasties as a way of laying claim to the kingship; the shoe, being left at a certain spot, was meant to be symbolic of the claim the shoe's owner had to the succession.<br />
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On the whole this is a very academic book that I'm not sure has an especially mass appeal. In that respect I can understand that it's very niche, which probably explains its limited availability (print on demand, please?), and really it's not going to be of much help to the beginner – at first, anyway. Some prior knowledge of the subject would be useful, for sure. Nonetheless, I think it's an important contribution to the subject that would be complemented nicely by a number of volumes, some of which are – unfortunately – just as hard to get hold of now. That said, if you manage to get hold of Edel Bhreathnach's <i>The Kingship and Landscape of Tara</i> or Bart Jaski's <i>Early Irish Kingship and Succession,</i> Elizabeth Fitzpatrick's<i> Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c.1100-1600: A Cultural Landscape Study, </i>and Francis John Byrne's <i>Irish Kings and High Kings,</i> you're probably off to a good start.<br />
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<i>* <a href="https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100002A.html" target="_blank">The Annals of Tigernach – T1084.4</a></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A great pestilence in this year, which killed a fourth of the men of Ireland. It began in the south, and spread throughout the four quarters of Ireland. This is the causa causans of that pestilence, to wit, demons that came out of the northern isles of the world, to with, three battalions, and in each battalion there were thiry and ten hundred and two thousand, as Oengus Óg, the son of the Dagda, related to Giolla Lugan, who used to haunt the fairy-mound every year on Halloween. And he himself beheld at Maistiu one battalion of them which was destroying Leinster. Even so they were see by Giolla Lugan's son, and wherever their heat and fury reached, there their venom was taken, for there was a sword of fire out of the gullet of each of them, and evey one of them was as high as the clouds of heaven, so that is the cause of this pestilence.</blockquote>
<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-12126551019190166512017-12-21T19:29:00.000+00:002017-12-21T19:29:18.111+00:00Book Review: Lug's Forgotten Donegal KingdomGuess who's been back at the library...<br />
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I have a few book reviews to catch up on, but my kids have been spreading various viruses instead of festive cheer these past few weeks. So that happened.<br />
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Onto the review:<br />
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<i>Lug's Forgotten Donegal Kingdom: The archaeology, history and folklore of the Síl Lugdach of Cloghaneely</i><br />
<b>Brian Lacey</b><br />
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One of the things I've always been interested in is learning more about how the gods relate to the landscape and the people of pre-Christian Ireland, because the two are so heavily intertwined. We know that certain kingdoms traced their origins back to certain deities, who they saw as ancestors, and then they named themselves after those deities, and they named important places after them, too. And so the gods became attached to places and people, and people being as they are, they tried to expand beyond the boundaries of their influence and spread their power into other territories. When they succeeded, new alliances were formed, dynastic families intermarried, and this meant that as smaller kingdoms became subsumed into more powerful dynasties, or aligned with them in other ways, they too adopted the genealogies and the connections to certain deities. And so we see one of the ways that the gods spread, working their way into the lives of other peoples and other places...<br />
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I've yet to find a book that gives a comprehensive view of what this might have looked like for Ireland as a whole, if it were to be mapped out, mainly because I think a huge amount of work is yet to be done before that can happen, and the idea itself presents a few problems that aren't necessarily easy to overcome. But this book here is a contribution to the topic, concentrating on a specific area and a specific people in Donegal, and exploring the connections that Lug has with a certain people who at one time claimed a part of Donegal as their home.<br />
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The connection has only relatively recently been established; as Lacey himself notes, the suggestion of Lug's involvement in the area was only posited in 1995, by Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig, who noted that the area of the Síl Lugdach (whose name means "the offspring (seed) of Lugaid") was once occupied by a people who called themselves the Luigne, whose name means "the descendants of Lug." The question arose, then: Is the Síl Lugdach's eponymous "Lugaid" actually Lug in disguise?<br />
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Not to give a massive spoiler, but I think the answer is a convincing yes. The name Lugaid is obviously derived from "Lug" itself, and Lacey looks at the genealogical material that's survived, along with the early dynastic poetry and other historical materials to show how the genealogies were manipulated to essentially "invent" the Síl Lugdach's eponymous ancestor, who is really a euhemerised version of Lug himself, something that was obviously done in the Christian period. Place-name evidence, archaeology and folklore are also brought in to show just how entrenched Lug's associations are with the area, and how he survived for so long. One of the more interesting and unusual things that Lacey explores, in this respect, is the fact that Lug himself may have evolved into (or inspired) at least one local saint (Begley/Beaglaoch) in the area, just as saints such as Brigit, Latiaran and Gobnait are thought to have similar origins elsewhere in Ireland.<br />
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Broadly speaking the evidence is split up into a chronological order in the book, with the various chapters concentrating on a certain timeframe and bringing in the different types of evidence being introduced as necessary. The folklore helps to bridge the gap between the early evidence and the more modern period, and it largely concentrates on the Lugnasad sites, as well as the local legends in the area. The local stories of Balor's fight to avert his prophesied demise at the hands of an un-named grandchild is the most obvious example here, even though the stories don't tend to explicitly name Lug himself. This in itself may be significant. The archaeology supplements the evidence of the Lugnasad sites, and also points to possible sites where the Síl Lugdach kings would have been inaugurated, or where they ruled from. These also preserve the name of Lug, indicating their significance; when you think about it, it's remarkable how these things survived, even when so much has changed and so much time has passed.<br />
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Also included is a chapter that explores Lug himself – as an Irish god, but also as a god with Celtic counterparts to be found elsewhere, so that we get a broader context as well. I think this is possibly (and sadly) the weakest link in the book, but even here it's not that it's bad or wrong per se; it's mostly down to the fact that it seems clear that this isn't the area in which the author's most comfortable or perhaps knowledgeable in terms of the issues and the kind of research that's been done here (or it comes across that way, to me). Over all the chapter here felt a little superficial, and the references that are given aren't necessarily the best or most up to date. The discussion of the meaning of his name, for instance, gives a couple of ideas that have been put forth (neither of which are especially favoured these days). More than that, though, the subject is a debate that rages on, and I think the uncertainty and controversy surrounding it is worth mentioning, at least, even if there's no space to get into the nitty gritty of it.<br />
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Even at his least certain, Lacey does bring up some great points, though. One thing that stood out, to me, was where he points out that in <i>Cath Maige Tuired,</i> the text goes out of its way to note that Lug's foster-father is "Eochu Garb mac Dúach." Lacey comments that this is an "unidentified man," but he thinks that the name is suggestive, since one of the Síl Lugdach's neighbours were called the Cenél Duach (a kingdom they eventually expanded into). So there's a possibility that the name was chosen deliberately, because Eochu Garb could act as a mythological representative of the political ties that existed between the two neighbouring kingdoms at the time. To me, this is a fascinating suggestion, but it gets even more interesting when it becomes obvious that Eochu Garb isn't just some random name the author of the text came up with. He's not the most well-known figure, but he <i>is</i> well-established in the mythology as the husband of Tailltiu, and he is also the grandson of Bres – Lug's adversary in <i>Cath Maige Tuired,</i> whose life he eventually spares in exchange for some key agricultural knowledge. Given Lug's association with agriculture, through his associations with Tailltiu and through his bargaining with Bres to get the specific information he wanted (when is best to plough, sow, and reap), I think Eochu Garb may have more significance here than it otherwise might appear.<br />
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That's not to say that Eochu Garb doesn't, or couldn't, reflect the political connections as Lacey suggests. I think it's possible that the genealogical connections involved add a further element to all of it; one of the current trends that's developing in academic work relating to the myths is looking at the genealogies of the Tuatha Dé Danann as a whole and looking at what they can tell us. This is something Mark Williams touched on in his book last year, noting that some of the names in the genealogies seem to express processes relating to poetic composition. It's clear over all that the genealogies of the Tuatha Dé Danann (as outlined in the <i>Lebor Gabála Érenn</i>) are artificial to some degree, at least, and the <i>filid</i> may have used them to show off or enshrine certain ideas or ideals that were important to their profession. But where there do seem to be authentic elements, the connections we find do sometimes seem to reflect the landscape of Ireland as well – the Dagda and Bóand's connections to the Boyne region, with their affair resulting in the birth of Óengus, who wins the brug from his father (or his mother's husband, depending on the version of the story you're looking at). Etc.<br />
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This is actually a pretty minor point in the grand scheme of the book, but I wanted to mention it because this is the kind of thing I like to find in a book. I want to be informed, but I like to be inspired as well. Even on a relatively throw-away comment that doesn't form a major part of the book as a whole. The work that Lacey's done here is – if not totally unique – unusual, and it's refreshing, too.<br />
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So I really appreciate the work that Lacey's done here (and elsewhere – this is not the only place he's written on the subject, but I think it's perhaps the most accessible in terms of being able to physically own a copy). I think it's important to consider these sorts of connections in the way we view the gods in general. The way the gods relate to the landscape and the people are so intertwined, but these connections are clearly reflected in the way the gods interact with one another, and are related to one another, too. And it also tells us a lot about how they've survived.<br />
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It would be wonderful to see more books like this coming out, which concentrate on other areas of Ireland. What kind of picture would we see emerging then? I'd highly recommend this book to anyone – not just anyone who has an interest in Lug, or because they have heritage from Donegal and want to know more about the area (though both are good reasons to pick up the book as well), but because it reflects an important area of research that I feel is invaluable in terms of our understanding. On the whole, I think it's pretty good as an introductory level book, but the reader might benefit from having their own understanding of the basics, at the least. Since it's a fairly niche sort of topic, it's probably not going to appeal to the absolute noob anyway,Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-88421097698342087852017-09-22T21:48:00.002+01:002017-09-22T21:48:28.314+01:00Finally an answerIt's been a weird, weird few weeks. I think, in fact, the last few weeks have been the weirdest of my life... It started with a terrible tragedy – we had to have Oscar put to sleep. It progressed with the sudden death of an old friend, which snowballed into some awful revelations for her flatmate. Then it was capped off with my kids receiving a suicide note over Skype from a friend of theirs (he's <i>eleven</i>! But no, it wasn't a joke, and yes, he's OK and getting the help he needs now). And those are just the "highlights."<br />
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I mentioned in my last post that Oscar had been diagnosed with epilepsy this last year, and also commented that it's been a bumpy ride... Well, he hit one bump too many after he ate something he shouldn't have, it got stuck in his stomach and it became clear he needed surgery, but the stress of his illness and inability to keep his medication down set off a massive cluster of seizures. In spite of truly heroic efforts (and doses of various medications), the vets were unable to stabilise him and just weren't going to be able to operate. He just didn't stand a chance and on their advice we had to do the kind thing and end his suffering.<br />
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As a parent, I think death is one of the worth things you have to deal with. Just seeing their faces crumple when the realisation hits. The emotions, the questions. It's certainly harder when it comes to losing a human member of the family – like their Papa, last year – but that's not to say it's easy when it comes to the furry members of the family. As wonderful and enriching as it is to have a small menagerie in the house, it's always upsetting when the inevitable worst comes to the worst for one of them.<br />
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Poor Oscar wasn't yet three years old (it would have been his third birthday come Monday, in fact). It was just after we got him that I discovered a lovely woodland not far from our house that I hadn't known existed until my neighbour pointed me in that direction, and it soon became a favourite place of mine (and Rosie). Rosie loved it so much <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-house-that-rosie-built.html" target="_blank">it even inspired her to poetry,</a> so it was devastating to find <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/gone.html" target="_blank">the whole woods completely cut down</a> only a couple of months later. It went from this:<br />
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To this:<br />
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In the blink of an eye.<br />
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At the time we didn't know what had happened – as far as I was aware there hadn't been any notices about logging in the area or anything like that, though I'd assumed that a commercial purpose was the likely cause. Well it turns out that wasn't the case...<br />
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I hadn't walked that way in quite a while but I suppose, with Oscar gone and Mungo all on his lonesome (no one will play Bitey Face with him in the morning now...), I was feeling a little nostalgic about our walks out that way. As a puppy, Oscar was terrified of water so he'd refuse to cross the shallow part of the stream you had to cross to walk deeper into the woods. His attempts at being brave and big were cute, with the noises he'd make like he was telling himself off as he tried and failed to muster up courage, and it was a big day when he finally succeeded in taking that leap into the unknown and got his paws wet.<br />
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So off I went with Mungo this afternoon, wondering (hoping) if they'd maybe replanted yet, and as I walked passed I noticed that there were a bunch of signs up everywhere. The signs explained that <a href="http://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/supporting/forest-industries/tree-health/phytophthora-ramorum" target="_blank">the trees were cut down due to a disease that's been spreading through larches in the area,</a> and the only way to treat the disease is to cut the trees down. The signs said that quick action was needed, explaining the unceremonious nature of the logging, and they described what the disease is and how it's spread. And that in time, the woodland <i>will</i> be replanted.<br />
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It's a small consolation, I suppose.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-45420517561399262662017-08-27T18:20:00.000+01:002017-08-27T18:20:40.490+01:00Fat cakes and kittens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Last week the kids started back at school for the new school year (and a new school for Tom – he started high school!), and it so happened that we made our celebrations for Lùnastal (on the "Old Style" date, seeing as the weather's kinda weird at the moment and the fruits are taking their time) in the run up to the holidays finishing. We did the usual cleaning and tidying from top to bottom, inside and out, and had the requisite feast and games, with a thorough saining for good measure. </div>
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The next day we went into the neighbouring tourist-trap town and had a Proper Good Ice-cream Sundae, as has become our annual end of summer holidays tradition. And we picked up Oscar's medication from the vets, because Oscar is <strike>apparently engaged in an epic and seizure-inducing battle against the demons under the living room carpet</strike> epileptic. (Thankfully we're getting the kinks worked out and the right dosage sorted now, and he's doing a lot better; it's been a bit of a bumpy ride this past year). And we booked Coco in for his first round of vaccinations. Yes: we have a new addition to the family, our very own ginger ninja (cue shameless excuse to post a cute photo of a kitten):<br />
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Oscar is a happy puppy, having finally succeeded in making friends with a cat for the first time in his life. His greatest ambition has been achieved. Their favourite pastime is playing Bitey Face together. Coco doesn't seem to mind Oscar's doggy death breath.<br />
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With new school years, new schools, new uniforms, and new routines for the kids, times are changing round these parts. The seasons, however, seem to be stuck in a weird flux between summer hanging on for dear life as long as possible, while autumn valiantly tries to barge its way in. Meanwhile, a few brambles have decided it's time to ripen but the bulk of the harvest has a way to go just yet, and I'm holding off on trying to pick any just yet (you can't beat a good apple and bramble crumble).<br />
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So while we're waiting, I decided maybe it would be a good idea to make some fat cakes to put out for the birds. It's something I usually do over the winter, but seeing as I had a new mould I wanted to try out, I decided why not whip up a batch a little early:<br />
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I was originally intending to use the mould to make some wee homemade candles – ones that aren't too big, so I can burn them in one go. The wicks I've ordered are taking forever to arrive, though, so I figured the individual triskeles would make a nice offering to put out (I forgot we have a brain mould... those would've been cool, too).<br />
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I'm always conscious of the fact that while birds will usually eat pretty much anything, not everything they'll eat is necessarily good for them nutritionally, so I like to put bird-food out as often as I can. If they're going to eat my offerings, I might as well try and give them a balanced diet, you know? So I mixed some bird seed in with some melted suet until the proportions seemed about right and left them to cool and harden – they don't take long. Rosie, who was off sick on Friday (schools being little more than germ factories, really), helped. We also made a cow and a star, which are considerably bigger and we'll keep those to put out later.<br />
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As it is, the crows seem to be enjoying the triskeles, and I'm sure once the weather clears up the smaller birds will be out in force as well. In the meantime, we're just waiting for the blackberries to ripen. It looks like it will be a good harvest this year, they're just taking foreeeeeever.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-63896506611743824622017-08-23T13:08:00.001+01:002017-08-23T13:08:49.551+01:00Shony revisitedOne of the traditions that has long piqued my interest is the tradition of offering porridge or ale to Shony and its possible connection to Manannán, and since I was poking around a few old journals and found some stuff that provoked some Thoughts, I figured I'd work them all out here. <br />
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The custom has been most famously described by Martin Martin, who wrote about it in his <i>A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, </i>first<i> </i>published in 1703:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"John Morison of Bragir told me that when he was a boy, and going to the Church of St. Malvay, he observed the natives to kneel and repeat the Paternoster at four miles distance from the church. The inhabitants of this island had an ancient custom to sacrifice to a sea-god called Shony, at Hallow-tide, in the manner following: The inhabitants round the island came to the Church of St. Malvay, having each man his provision along with him; every family furnished a peck of malt, and this was brewed into ale; one of their number was picked out to wade into the sea up to the middle, and carrying a cup of ale in his hand, standing still in that posture, cried out with a loud voice saying, "Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you'll be so kind as to send us plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground for the ensuing year"; and so threw the cup of ale into the sea. This was performed in the night time. At his return to land they all went to church, where there was a candle burning upon the altar; and then standing silent for a little time, one of them gave a signal, at which the candle was put out, and immediately all of them went to the fields, where they fell a-drinking their ale, and spent the remainder of the night in dancing and singing, &c.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The next morning they all returned home, being well satisfied that they had punctually observed this solemn anniversary, which they believed to be a powerful means to procure a plentiful crop. Mr. Daniel and Mr. Kenneth Morison, ministers in Lewis, told me they spent several years before they could persuade the vulgar natives to abandon this ridiculous piece of superstition; which is quite abolished for these 32 years past."</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Martin Martin, <i><a href="http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usebooks/martin-westernislands/section02.html" target="_blank">A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland</a> </i>(1703)</div>
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Some of the key points that have been debated over the years include who, exactly, Shony is, and what Martin meant by "Hallowtide."<br />
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Some academics argue that "Shony" is Gaelic for Johnny (<i>Seónaidh</i>), possibly St John the Baptist, and that it's related (in a very roundabout way) to Manannán:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The porridge, gruel or ale was dedicated to a god or saint called Manannan (<i>Manntan, Bannan</i>) or Shony (<i>Seónaidh</i>)... As it involved immersion and was usually performed on the night of Holy Thursday in Easter Week, it appears that <i>Seónaidh</i> is St John the Baptist, having undergone gradual Christianisation from Manannan mac Lir through St Bannan. Some writers, notably Banks and Hutton, have misunderstood Martin's 'Hallowtide' as meaning that the ceremony took place at Hallowe'en. In one recorded instance in Lewis (MacPhail 1895, p.166) Manannan turned into St Brendan the Navigator (<i>Brianailt, Brianuilt</i>) instead, and the ritual took place on his feast-day, 15 May... </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Black, <i>The Gaelic Otherworld </i>(2005), p590. </div>
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Others favour a Scandinavian influence in the name, suggesting that "Shony" comes from the Old Norse <i>son-,</i> meaning "an atonement, a sacrifice:"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As <i>ö</i> from Norse would become <i>o, </i>an <i>fn</i> became <i>nn,</i> one thinks of Sjöfn, one of the goddesses in the Edda. In any case the word is Norse. Captain Thomas thought the word was <i>són, </i>a sacrifice; <i>sjóni,</i> a nickname in the <i>Landnámabók,</i> and akin, suggested Vigfusson, to <i>són,</i> atonement, sacrifice; German <i>sühne, ver-söhnung.</i> In the Hebrides they gave what they had, which would account for the departure from ancient usage. The ancient Norse sacrifice of atonement was thus performed: “The largest boar that could be found in the kingdom was on Yule-eve laid before the king and his men assembled in hall; the king and houseman then laid their hands on the boar’s bristly mane and made a solemn vow… The animal being sacrificed, divination took place, probably by chips shaken in the boar’s blood…. Són was the name of one of the vessels in which the blood of Kvásir, the mead of wisdom and poetry, was kept” (Cleasby-Vigfusson). But <i>cf.</i> N. <i>sjóli, </i>which occurs in an epithet of Thor: <i>himin-sjóli,</i> heaven-prop, heaven-defender (?), hence perhaps king.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Henderson, <i>The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland</i> (1910), pp101-102.</div>
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Henderson has a tendency to assign Norse origins to a lot of things, rightly or wrongly, and it has to be said that the description of the sacrifice doesn't suggest much in the way of similarities with Shony's offerings. This doesn't rule out any Norse influences, conclusively, but (personally) I'm skeptical. Stiùbhart mentions the possible Norse connection, but also suggests that the word may have originally been something like "Sionn" or "Sionnaidh," giving a cognate with Gaelic words like <i>sionn</i> (something mysterious, uncanny, supernatural), <i>sionnach</i> (a fox), <i>sionnachan</i> (Will-o'-the-wisp), and <i>sionnaich</i> (bright). Clearly something Otherworldly or supernatural, either way, and the people of Lewis long had a tendency to refer to supernatural beings and other kinds of phenomena with euphemisms – the <i>sìth</i> being <i>muinntir Fhionnlaigh,</i> for example, or an Otherworldly whirlwind that has a tendency to spring up on the moors being known as <i>uspag Fhionnlaigh.</i> Stiùbhart further suggests that the "Fhionnlaigh" in question here may well be "a modern 'rationalisation' of the original 'Sionnaidh'." Although on the surface this might seem like a bit of a stretch, both "Shionn" and "Fhionn" would sound quite similar to the ear, since the lenition (the addition of the "h" after the consonant) kills the sound of the consonant before it and you'd end up with a "h" sound instead.<br />
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If this is the case, we're probably not looking at an association with Manannán, as far as the offering to Shony goes, but more an offering to the spirits of the place (though presumably originally a deity, before Christianity?). Looking to <a href="http://www.dwelly.info/index.aspx" target="_blank">Dwelly's Dictionary,</a> we find an entry for <i>seonadh</i> that supports this idea:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>seonadh -aidh, sm </i>Augury, sorcery. 2 Druidism. Martin says that <i>seonaidh</i> is the name of a water-spirit which the inhabitants of Lewis used to propitiate by a cup of ale in the following manner. They came to the church of St. Mulway, each man carrying his own provisions. Every family gave a pock of malt and the whole was brewed into ale. One of their number was chosen to wade into the sea up to his waist, carrying in his hand a cup filled with ale. When he reached a proper depth, he stood and cried aloud “Seonaidh, I give thee this cup of ale, hoping that thou wilt be so good as to send us plenty of seaware for enriching our ground during the coming year.” He then threw the ale into the sea. This ceremony was performed in the night-time. On his coming to land, they all repaired to church, where there was a candle burning on the altar. There they stood still for a time, when on a signal given, the candle was put out, mid straightway they adjourned to the fields where the night was spent mirthfully over the ale. Next morning they returned to their respective homes, in the belief that they had insured a plentiful crop for the next season.</blockquote>
It seems clear that as far as the issue of timing goes, Black is right and Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday) was the traditional date, though he kind of glosses over what Hutton actually says about the matter. Hutton doesn't just state that it was held at Hallowe'en, but argues that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The ceremony was ended in the 1670s after a determined campaign against it by the two ministers, but it simply migrated to, or resurfaced upon, the midnight before Maundy Thursday at the opening of the sailing season. </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Hutton, <i>The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain</i> (1996), p369.</div>
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Quite why it supposedly shifted from one part of the year to another isn't commented upon or explained by Hutton, making the claim seem less than convincing.<br />
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Returning to Ronald Black's commentary on the subject, after noting a possible connection with Manannán (above), he goes on to note that R. C. Maclagan records a "development" of the rite, which began involving animal sacrifice:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Dr R. C. Maclagan was told of a development of the custom as practised in Lewis <i>c. </i>1800. Just as the porridge, gruel or ale had formerly been given to the sea to stimulate a supply of seaweed to fertilise the fields, so was a living creature now given to it to encourage the fish (<i>Tocher</i> 20, p.162): "A sheep or goat was offered as a sacrifice. The oldest man of the sea was expected to take the lead, assisted usually by the one who came second in respect of seniority and experience. The animal was brought down to the edge of the sea, and after a certain order of procedure was observed, the officiating person, who was a kind of priest for the occasion, in the midst of dead silence, and surrounded by the whole company of those interested, who stood looking on, went down on his knees, and proceeded to kill the victim, whose blood was carefully caught in a dish. This over, the officiating man waded out into the sea as far as he could, carrying the vessel in which the blood was, and scattered the blood as widely as he could on the water round about him. Then followed the disposing of the carcase, which was cut up into pieces corresponding to the number of poor persons in the district, and a piece was sent to each such person, to be eaten by them; but none else would touch it."</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Black, <i>The Gaelic Otherworld </i>(2005), pp590-591.</div>
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However, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart has since published a letter from 1700 that describes animal sacrifice being involved already, a hundred years before Maclagan described this "development"; even more interesting is that the letter was written by John Morison (Iain mac Mhurch' 'c Ailein), the same person who Martin says was his informant in describing the offerings to Shony that he included in his <i>A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland</i>.<br />
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The letter that Stiùbhart published and provides commentary on is "Ane Accompt of some heathenish & superstitious rites used in the Isle of Lewis given by a friend to Mr Alan Morisone Minister of Ness 15 April 1700," and in it the author lists a number of "paganish customes," some of which he fears are "not as yet abolyshed." In giving a list of these customs, he includes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Others contribut a quantity of Corn & make malt of it, & brew it into ale, and drink it in the kerk pouring the first coigfull into the sea, that they may have fish the better that yeir and sea ware for there land, And all the town with joyn in this work but now its abolyshed, they called this kynd of sacrifeceing <b>Shion, </b>but the Etymology of that word I know not. Others killed ane heiffer or bullock and threw the blood of it into the sea wt certaine rites and ceremoines promiseing to themselves therby the more abundance of fysh and sea ware to be brought ashore to them.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Stiùbhart, "Some Heathenish and Superstitious Rites: A Letter from Lewis, 1700," <i>Scottish Studies: the journal of the School of Scottish Studies 34</i> (2000-2006), pp205-205.</div>
<br />
According to Morison, then, the sacrifice of a cow was an alternative method of doing the same thing (perhaps something that was reserved for more desperate times?)<br />
<br />
In spite of the author's claims that the rite was already "abolyshed" by his time of writing, references to such efforts continued up into the 1900s, though it's not entirely clear if the descriptions are from contemporary accounts, or are a recycling of Martin Martin's own description. Alexander Carmichael mentions the custom in the <i>Carmina Gadelica, </i>saying:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Maunday Thursday is called in Uist <i>'Diardaoin a brochain,' </i>Gruel Thursday, and in Iona <i>'Diardaoin a brochain mhoir,' </i>Great Gruel Thursday. On this day people in maritime districts made offerings of mead, ale, or gruel to the god of the sea. As the day merged from Wednesday to Thursday a man walked to the waist into the sea and poured out whatever offering had been prepared, chanting: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
'A Dhe na mara,<br />Cuir todhar ’s an tarruinn<br />Chon tachair an talaimh,<br />Chon bailcidh dhuinn biaidh.' </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
O God of the sea,<br />Put weed in the drawing wave<br />To enrich the ground,<br />To shower on us food.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Those behind the offerer took up the chant and wafted it along the sea-shore on the midnight air, the darkness of night and the rolling of the waves making the scene weird and impressive. In 1860 the writer conversed in Iona with a middle-aged man whose father, when young, had taken part in this ceremony. In Lewis the custom was continued till this century. It shows the tolerant spirit of the Columban Church and the tenacity of popular belief, that such a practice should have been in vogue so recently. </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Carmichael, <i>Carmina Gadelica Volume I</i> (1900), pp162-163.</div>
<br />
Although Carmichael doesn't mention Shony explicitly, it's clear that he's describing the same rite as Martin and our letter-writing friend up above. Mark Williams favours the idea that Carmichael was drawing from Martin and argues that "Carmichael was drawing, not on oral tradition, but on a text that was already two centuries old," (p366) and that he "hedged" with referring to "<i>A Dhe na mara</i>" rather than explicitly naming Shony:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Carmichael's version generalized Martin's highly local account... and ignored his testimony that it had long been extinct. He also gave a Gaelic version of Martin Martin's invocation which looked so suspiciously like a verse from one of the Carmina that it may well have been his own back-translation from Martin's English. If this is so, he inserted another significant hedge, replacing the outlandish 'Shony' with the tactful <i>A Dhè na mara, </i>which he translated 'O God of the sea.' The difference between the 'God of the sea' and the 'god of the sea' exactly encapsulates the tension between piety and paganism that Carmichael was negotiating.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Williams, <i>Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth</i> (2016), p368.</div>
<br />
If this is the case, Carmichael's prayer is effectively artificial, "back-engineered" from Martin's account. One thing that isn't explained here, however, is Carmichael's reference to having spoken with a man from Iona who's father had taken part in the rite; in spite of the problems with Carmichael's work, he very obviously did speak to a lot of people and collect information from them directly. I think here it seems likely that while Carmichael <i>did</i> draw on Martin's description (consciously or not), he also noticed a similarity between Martin and his informant's description. To what extent he may have embellished or blended things to reflect what he <i>thought</i> was "true" is unclear.<br />
<br />
Carmichael also doesn't ignore Martin's reference to the fact that the custom was "long extinct" by his time as Williams writes, but neither does he present the custom as being current to his day. Claims like that – of customs "surviving until recently" – are a common trope amongst folklorists of his day, and if it weren't for the fact that other writers mention the custom as being recently observed it would be tempting to explain Carmichael's portrayal as just that: a common trope. There really does seem to be more to this than authors like Carmichael rehashing Martin and adding their own touches to things, and John Gregorson Campbell might be a good start in helping to explain why and how it survived, in spite of the Church's disapproval and attempts to stamp it out: Campbell mentions the custom a couple of times, first of all commenting that the rite was only observed during stormy weather in the spring after a sparse winter that was lacking in seaweed being brought to shore:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
BIG PORRIDGE DAY (LÀ A' BHROCHAIN MHÒIR)<br />In the Western Islands, in olden times (for the practice does not now exist anywhere), when there was a winter during which little seaware came ashore, and full time for spring work had come without relief, a large dish of porridge, made with butter and other food ingredients, was poured into the sea on every headland where wrack used to come. Next day the harbours were full. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This device was to be resorted to only late in the spring – the Iona people say the Thursday before Easter – and in stormy weather. The meaning of the ceremony seems to have been that by sending the fruit of the land into the sea, the fruit of the sea would come to land.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Black, <i>The Gaelic Otherworld</i> (2005), p134.</div>
<br />
In his commentary on the Gaelic year, Campbell reiterates this point:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
SHORE OR MAUNDY THURSDAY<br />This was the Thursday before Easter, and was known in the Hebrides as <i>là Brochain Mhòir,</i> 'the day of the Big Porridge'. It was now getting late in the spring, and if the winter had failed to cast a sufficient supply of seaweed on the shores, it was time to resort to extraordinary measures to secure the necessary manure for the land. A large pot of porridge was prepared, with butter and other good ingredients, and taken to the headlands near creeks where seaweed rested. A quantity was poured into the sea from each headland, with certain incantations or rhymes, and in consequence, it was believed, the harbours were full of sea-ware. The ceremony should only be performed in stormy weather. Its object no doubt was, by throwing the produce of the land into the sea, to make the sea throw its produce on the land.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Black, <i>The Gaelic Otherworld</i> (2005), pp548-549.</div>
<br />
So it seems plausible that it was only done during times of need (or at least ended up that way, after the Church succeeded in stopping it for a time), and this could easily explain why it keeps on popping up over the centuries after having "died out." As Alexander Carmichael points out, seaweed was incredibly important to the local economy in the Western Isles because it was used as manure:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The people of the Western Isles are greatly dependent upon seaweeds for the manuring of their lands. The soil, being for the most part either peaty or sandy, and containing little lime, mineral salts, etc., is poor and infertile unless constantly refreshed by seaweed, which, though rather poor in quality, is available in large quantity. Seaweed is detached by the action of storms and thrown upon the shores by the prevailing westerly winds. The scarcity of seaweed caused by a prolonged calm period is a serious matter; the people watch and hope and pray for the coming of seaweed, and are anxious at the prospect of impending famine. When the seaweed comes they rejoice and sing hymns of praise to the gracious God of the sea Who has heard their prayers.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Carmichael, <i>Carmina Gadelica Volume IV </i>(1941), pp32-33.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is something that Carmichael had previously written about in his <i><a href="http://www.electricscotland.com/history/grazing.htm" target="_blank">Grazing and Agrestic Customs of the Outer Hebrides</a></i> (1884), which he produced for the Crofter Royal Commission. It's pretty clear that without the seaweed, things could get pretty dire. Old ways die hard, and tried and tested tradition are easy to fall back on when the stakes are raised. </div>
<br />
Returning to the <i>Carmina Gadelica,</i> Carmichael goes on to give an example of a prayer (or hymn) that celebrates the arrival of the seaweed, and then follows it with an <i>Ortha Feamainn, </i>"Prayer for Seaweed." What's interesting about this prayer – published in Volume IV of the <i>Carmina, </i>which came out posthumously in 1941 and well after John Gregorson Campbell had died as well – is that the first two lines of it echo – almost exactly – the last line of Campbell's about "throwing the produce of the land into the sea, to make the sea throw its produce on the land." The <i>Ortha</i> goes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Toradh mara gu tìr,<br />Toradh tìre gu muir;<br />Neach nach dèan 'na ìr,<br />Crìon gum bi a chuid. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Feamain 'ga cur gu tìr,<br />Builich, a Thì na buil;<br />Toradh 'ga chur an nì,<br />A Chrìosda, thoir mo chuid! </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Produce of sea to land,<br />Produce of land to sea;<br />He who doeth not in time,<br />Scant shall be his share. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Seaweed being cast on shore<br />Bestow, Thou Being of bestowal;<br />Produce being brought to wealth, [fruitfulness being caused in kine]<br />O Christ, grant me my share!</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Carmichael, <i>Carmina Gadelica Volume IV </i>(1941), pp34-35.</div>
<br />
The similarities here makes me wonder if Campbell was (independently) aware of the prayer himself and was referencing it, consciously or not.<br />
<br />
But still, Campbell doesn't mention Shony, and Carmichael uses the term "God of the sea" on more than one occasion, which gives a clear hint that he was well aware of <i>something </i>going on but for whatever reason didn't go into details. So far, though, we only have Black's speculation on Manannán's connection with the custom. Both Carmichael and John Gregorson Campbell make clear references to Manannán in other prayers, so clearly they weren't shy of mentioning him or other figures they may have seen as pagan. The fact that they didn't make a connection with him in relation to the offering to Shony, or mention Shony either, suggests that they weren't aware of anything like that, not that they didn't want to say.<br />
<br />
Looking elsewhere, we find a key piece of information that might help to explain what's going on here. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/celticmythologya00macbuoft#page/100/mode/2up/" target="_blank">Alexander Macbain</a> gives us this tidbit after rehashing Martin's description of the offerings to Shony:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This superstition is but lately dead, though the sacrifice had been repressed, for they proceeded in spring to the end of a long reef and invoked “Briannuil” to send a strong north wind to drive plenty sea-ware ashore. </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
Macbain, <i>Celtic Mythology and Religion</i> (1885), p100.</div>
<br />
This is presumably corroborated by the source that Black references above (<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587X.1895.9720294?journalCode=rfol20" target="_blank">an article I can't access</a>), which links Brendan the Navigator (<i>Brianailt, Brianuilt</i>) with Manannán, and was apparently observed on May 15. Either way, it seems clear that the custom continued, and as it did so, it continued under a slightly different guise. This goes a long way to explaining why it's so difficult to pin down just who we're dealing with here.<br />
<br />
So are we looking at Manannán in one form or another here? Or some kind of local spirit? Or what? Following up the references that Black gives in his notes in relation to all this (the ones I <i>can</i> access), I've found an explicit reference to Manannán being connected to the custom from Eoghan Mac a Phi, in his <a href="http://digital.nls.uk/an-comunn-gaidhealach/archive/126113681?mode=transcription" target="_blank"><i>Am Measg nam Bodach </i>(1938),</a> but he doesn't say where this information comes from. The comparatively late date of publication here doesn't help to inspire confidence... Poking around elsewhere, however, brought up an intriguing piece of commentary from Malcolm MacPhail that adds a slightly more convincing link (assuming Black's equation between Manannán and Banann/Manntan is correct):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Lite-cuire</i> (Sowing-porridge), otherwise <i>Lite-Mhanntan</i> (Manntan’s porridge), was porridge made of <i>Ulag</i>-meal, and made once a year only, of what remained over, after sowing, of the grain that had been prepared and set apart for seed-corn. Thick porridge was made of this <i>Ulag</i>-meal. The thicker and richer the porridge the heavier and richer would be the crops in harvest. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This custom came down almost to our own times embodied in the following rhyme: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Là lite Mhanntain,<br />Lá ‘us fearr air bith;<br />An coire ‘us an croucan,<br />’S a’ maide crom air chrith.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The day of Manntan’s porridge,<br />The best day of all;<br />Kettle-crook, and crooked-stick,<br />Shaking like to fall.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Ulag</i> was grain expeditiously dried for the quern, either in a pot over the fire or by a red-hot stone that was being kept perpetually rolling among the grain in a tub. The operator preserved his hands from being injured by the hot stone by keeping both his hands full of grain as he rapidly rolled the stone round. <i>Ulag</i> so made is the origin of the Gaelic proverb, which not many understand now: <i>“Clach fo shiol” </i>(stone under grain); or in full: <i>“Tionndadh na claich fo’n t-siol”</i> (turning the stone under the grain); in other words, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: right;">
MacPhail, "Folklore from the Hebrides IV," <i>Folk-Lore Volume IX</i> (1900), pp440-441.</div>
<br />
It doesn't say what happened with the porridge, but presumably at least some of it was given as an offering, if not all of it. What's interesting, though, is that the custom described here is explicitly associated with the fields, not bringing the seaweed to shore. If offerings were made to the sea to bring the seaweed, it would make sense that similar customs would be observed when sowing the seeds in the very fields that are fertilised with that seaweed, too.<br />
<br />
The frustrating thing is that all of this doesn't exactly add up to much that's especially conclusive... But it does offer a bit more perspective, I think. Clearly there's something going on here and it's a lot more complex than it might seem on the surface.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-22829182559374698862017-08-17T11:30:00.000+01:002017-08-17T11:30:00.533+01:00Book Review: Archaeology and Celtic Myth: An ExplorationBack in June last year, my father-in-law died very suddenly. I posted about it a while ago, and as anyone who's lost a parent or significant figure in their life will know, it's not something that's always easy to deal with. It's a terrible loss, whether it's imminently anticipated or not.<br />
<br />
My father-in-law was unfailingly generous and accepting of others into his family, and he was kind enough to leave something for his children and their spouses with the stipulation that we should use at least some of it to buy ourselves something "selfish," instead of doing something boring and sensible with it. Naturally I immediately trawled Amazon and bought a shit ton of books.<br />
<br />
In his honour, I ended up getting:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Ireland in the Medieval World, AD400-1000: Landscape, Kingship and Religion</i> – Edel Bhreathnach</li>
<li><i>Introduction to Early Irish Literature </i>– Muireann Ni Bhrolchain</li>
<li><i>The Kingship and Landscape of Tara </i>– Edel Bhreathnach</li>
<li><i>Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative </i>(Studies in Celtic History) – Ralph O'Connor</li>
<li><i>Early Christian Ireland</i> – T. M. Charles-Edwards</li>
<li><i>Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland</i> (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic) – Andrew Sneddon</li>
<li><i>Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies </i>– Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm</li>
<li><i>The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context</i> (Studies in Early Modern European History) – Julian Goodare</li>
<li><i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/book-review-celtic-curses.html" target="_blank">Celtic Curses</a> </i>– Bernard Mees</li>
<li><i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/ice-cream-and-another-review.html" target="_blank">Celtic Christianity and Nature: The Early Irish and Hebridean Traditions</a> </i>– Mary Low</li>
<li><i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/book-review-in-search-of-irish.html" target="_blank">In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature</a> </i>– J.P. Mallory</li>
</ul>
<br />
Some of these I've already read but had to return them to the library and I really wanted a copy of my own. One of them I swear I already bought but couldn't find it, so decided to replace it.<br />
<br />
I'm slowly working through the pile (I won't necessarily read them all, but I intend to get through most of them) and without further ado, here comes the next review:<br />
<br />
<i>Archaeology and Celtic Myth: An Exploration</i><br />
<b>John Waddell</b><br />
<br />
I've not read any of John Waddell's books before, but I did enjoy his article on <a href="http://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10379/4394/Cave%20of%20Cruachain.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank">'The Cave of Crúachain and the Otherworld'</a> in the <i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/book-review-celtic-cosmology.html" target="_blank">Celtic Cosmology</a></i> book. He's also got some fascinating lectures you can watch on <a href="https://youtu.be/kIgmrnc3zyQ" target="_blank">Youtube,</a> which he credits as being the "motivation" behind ultimately producing the book I'm reviewing here. For the most part, though, I ordered this one after my interest was piqued in seeing it referenced more than a few times in another book I'd been reading and thought it might be worth a look.<br />
<br />
As the title suggests, we're looking at the points where archaeology and myth collide here, so in some respects it covers a similar sort of ground as Mallory's <i>In Search of the Irish Dreamtime</i> (that I've just reviewed) in discussing the two. On the whole, though, Waddell's interest isn't in looking at whether or not the archaeology can support the myth, or vice versa (as Mallory does), but instead he tries to combine the two strands to paint a more comprehensive picture of a whole, focusing on various aspects of pre-Christian belief and practice. In this respect, I think they make a nice complement to one another, but would also say that this particular book is probably going to provide more immediately satisfying material to Gaelic Polytheists who want to focus more on exploring concepts surrounding religious belief and practice.<br />
<br />
I think it's safe to say that Waddell comes from a very different school of thought than Mallory does, being far more invested in solar mythology/deities and, in places, a keen interest in bringing in comparative examples from other Celtic cultures or Indo-European evidence. Shades of Miranda Green surface with the solar stuff and it's really not something I can ever get on board with, but I found it wasn't too difficult to read around those bits. As much as I might disagree, it's always good to read views that oppose or challenge your own, sometimes.<br />
<br />
The book brings together everything in a fascinating way and I think it's definitely going to be a good read for Gaelic Polytheists. Waddell focuses especially on the mythology and archaeology relating to some of the best-known ritual sites in Ireland (Newgrange, Rathcroghan, Emain Macha, and Tara) and tackles matters surrounding sacral kingship, sovereignty goddesses, cosmology, and the Otherworld (his chapter, 'In Pursuit of the Otherworld,' nicely complementing the article from the Celtic Cosmology book I linked to above, and covering similar areas). His descriptions of the sites – what the archaeologists found in their excavations, and how those findings have been interpreted – are easy to understand, even if you don't have a background in archaeology.<br />
<br />
There's some genuinely interesting stuff here and I particularly enjoyed the second chapter, 'The Otherworld hall on the Boyne,' where Waddell focuses on Newgrange and its related monuments in the area, as well as its association with Bóand, the Dagda, and their son, Óengus mac Ind Óc, and its possible cosmological significance. The later chapters that cover various aspects of sovereignty (goddesses, sacral kingship, ritual sites involved in inauguration, etc) are also good, and I especially appreciated the discussions on the "horse cult" as it relates to Irish kingship. I'm not entirely sure that "cult" is the right word, to be honest, but it is something that lurks in the background of kingship, and it's not isolated to Ireland alone – it seems to be a genuinely "Celtic" concept, and it often gets overlooked so it's refreshing to see the subject being discussed in more detail than it usually is in books like this, which tend to focus more on sacred marriages and sovereignty goddesses and not much else. That, too, is focused on, though.<br />
<br />
The last chapter focuses on sacral kingship and draws heavily on Gaulish examples of "princely" burials in discussing some key themes of pre-Christian belief and the concept of "decommissioning" a king, which are demonstrated in the elaborate burials we find in Gaul, but only really hinted at in Ireland. Waddell is careful to make it clear that the "princely" label isn't exactly helpful (just because the burials are rich and elaborate, it doesn't mean they're royal, and the label is unnecessarily distracting and potentially misleading...), which is important. Normally I'm not so keen on such a heavy reliance on bringing in comparative material, but aside from the fact that I found it all genuinely interesting, I think the chapter did a really good job in providing some food for thought on the subject, and in linking it all back to Ireland. Sometimes it's refreshing to step outside of your own comfort zone and look at things a little differently.<br />
<br />
All in all, I really enjoyed the book, in spite of my strong disagreement with the reliance on solar mythology and symbolism. Although it's pretty short it provides some good food for thought and it's one I'll certainly be coming back to when I'm doing research on various subjects. It's a good one for the bookshelf, and it definitely isn't one that requires an academic level of knowledge or an in-depth background in Celtic Studies – it's aimed squarely at the academic and non-academic, and welcomes a broad audience. Nonetheless, I think you'll get more out of it when you have some background reading under your belt so you can take your own critical view of the ideas and concepts that are outlined here.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-1429583474655405382017-07-31T23:47:00.001+01:002017-07-31T23:47:29.897+01:00Book Review: In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature<i>In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature</i><br />
<b>J.P. Mallory</b><br />
<br />
I've previously reviewed another book by the same author – <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/book-review-origins-of-irish.html" target="_blank"><i>The Origins of the Irish</i></a> – and I really really liked it (for its witty and engaging tone as much as the content in general). So in some respects it's hard not to compare the two, perhaps especially so when this particular book has been written as something of a companion piece to the first one.<br />
<br />
Back in the 1960s Kenneth Jackson came out with the idea that early Irish literature provided us with a "window on the Iron Age," since (he argued) the tales preserved pre-Christian beliefs and concepts that had been passed on by an oral tradition that valued consistency and integrity of the content it conveyed. While Christian elements had been added, strip them away and you could get something close to the pre-Christian original...<br />
<br />
It's an idea that's been much-debated in academia since, and Mallory himself has weighed in on the subject previously, in an article in <i>Ulidia</i> ("Windows on the Iron Age: 1964–1994"), as well as his<i> Aspects of The Táin</i> (as the editor and a contributor), for example. <i>Dreamtime,</i> then, is essentially an expansion of his previous work, taking a critical look at what the literature tells us about material culture (and to a lesser extent, beliefs), and whether or not the archaeology supports what the tales tell us. For example, tales that take place at well-known sites such as Emain Macha or Tara give the impression that these places were occupied as (essentially) royal centres in the Iron Age. They also mention things like weaponry that we might assume are indeed Iron Age in origin, if we can actually assume that the tales were composed in that time frame and were never changed to any significant degree.<br />
<br />
I'll try not to give too many spoilers here, but the results that Mallory outlines may or may not shock you, depending on what your opinions are on the matter... Regardless, it's pretty thorough and convincing.<br />
<br />
For the non-expert, the book does a good job of giving an introduction to the major elements that you need to know in order to form your own opinions (if that's your thing) and keep up with what's going on – the history of the manuscript tradition itself, an overview of the stories, and the context in which they were written. Then we focus on the major areas where archaeology and mythology collide, so we can explore how the two may or may not match up. This includes material culture in general (clothing, dyes, jewellery, games, etc.), warfare and weaponry, transport, the landscape and environment, and matters surrounding death and burial, based on what we see as archaeologists, and what the literature tells us.<br />
<br />
It's an interesting idea for a book and over all it does a good job of proving its point. The first few chapters, with the introductory material, really runs the risk of being overdone and boring but Mallory's wit and engaging style really helps to put a fresh spin on things. Like his <i>The</i> <i>Origins of the Irish, </i>we're introduced to a character who helps take the reader on the book's journey. In <i>Origins,</i> it was Niall of the Nine Hostages, our quintessential Irishman, while here we have various incarnations of Katu-butos, Cattubuttas, or (ultimately) Cathbad – a theoretical<i> fili, </i>or professional poet and tradition-bearer, who would have been responsible for telling the stories we're dealing with. The different names relate to the different linguistic periods we're dealing with – Proto-Irish through to medieval Irish, based on the evidence we have to hand (linguistic, literary, archaeological, though primarily the latter two), and thus the audiences the storyteller is targeting specifically.<br />
<br />
Over all, I found some parts of the book more interesting to read than others. It got off to a great start, and it takes an unusual approach in looking at the <i>Lebor Gabála</i> (for example) and emphasising its supposed historical context for each of the invasions the story outlines, based on the Irish annals. Creating an explicit timeline for that is pretty interesting when you compare it to what was actually happening at the time as far as we know from the archaeological record, and it helps set the tone for what we find in later chapters. It's all very thorough, but in doing so I felt that some of the later chapters got bogged down in details I wasn't particularly interested in, and it began to drag a little. To an extent that may be because the subject matter was something I wasn't overly keen on, but then again the writing did sometimes veer into simply listing facts, rather than commenting much on them. Even so, that didn't last for long, and even where I felt things got bogged down I can definitely see that if anyone's interested in the finer points of life in the Iron Age or early medieval period, this is absolutely invaluable – or if you're a fiction author looking to write an authentic period novel, or a re-enactor of some sort, say, then it has almost everything you need to know about where people lived, what they wore, and what they ate, and so forth. And of course, it appeals to the geeks and nerds like me.<br />
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Considering the scope of the book, it more than fulfils its stated aims, and it really does offer a lot to the reader. It's also rather unique in its focus and the information it gives, and I can certainly appreciate that. Books like this – presenting reliable, factual information that's easily accessible and (mostly) engaging to the non-expert as much as the expert – are few and far between.<br />
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Whereas <i>Origins</i> offers a far broader scope, <i>Dreamtime</i> narrows in on a more specific area and offers a lot more detail. The title of this particular volume, as you might gather, takes inspiration from the Australian aboriginal peoples, "who recognized a sacred time in which both the natural world and human culture and traditions originated and that these beginnings still resonate in the spiritual life of people today." Mallory sees a similarity between these aboriginal stories (their purpose and aims) and this concept, and the myths of the Irish that survive into modern times. I see his point even though I wonder about the value in bothering to use the term in the first place. He recognises that appropriating (or mis-appropriating) the term may not be the best way to frame the Irish traditions we're dealing with here, and he apologises for that, but nonetheless ultimately can't resist the concept. I do wonder why he bothered, given the fact that he acknowledges the potentially problematic nature of it, but I'm not Australian or Aboriginal and I don't really feel qualified to condone or condemn on that front. Still, I can't help but feel that choosing such a title both detracts and distracts from the contents of the book as whole.<br />
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Nonetheless, I did enjoy it, and I think it will be one of those books that I'll come back to time and time again. It's not always easy for an archaeologist to really delve into literature and give a decent, critical overview of it, as well as the issues surrounding it (Miranda Green...) so Mallory deserves recognition for that. But more than that, it's just a good read.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-61035768852427396872016-12-13T16:05:00.000+00:002016-12-13T16:12:49.423+00:00Book Review: Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish MythAs I mentioned in my last post, I was lucky enough to be offered a review copy of Mark Williams' new book. This is a first for me – usually my reviews come from books I've either bought or borrowed from the university library (including Mark Williams' previous book, <i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/book-review-fiery-shapes.html" target="_blank">Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales, 700-1700</a></i>). Another first here is the fact that my website, <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tairis,</a> gets a footnote mention in the penultimate chapter (of an actual book!).<br />
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I'm honoured to have been offered a review copy, and I think it's only right and proper to be up-front about these things lest I be accused of having something to hide or undue bias. With that out of the way, let's get to the review...<br />
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<i>Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth</i><br />
<b>Mark Williams</b><br />
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So we'll start with a quick overview of what this book is about... On the face of it, the aim is simple: To trace the evolution of the gods of Ireland throughout history, from the very earliest evidence through to the modern day.<br />
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As you might imagine, if you want to achieve this in any kind of thorough way, you're not going to do it in a few pages: More like 570+ (which for the price, is a bargain, really). Given the huge scope of the book it's split into two parts, with both of them having a very different focus from the other. The first part concentrates on the very earliest evidence through to the Middle Ages, and the context of their portrayal during a time of conversion and then, later, established Christianity. The second part has a more contemporary focus in looking at the way the gods were (essentially) rediscovered by the early Celtic scholars at the very dawn of Celtic Studies (as an academic discipline), and how they were then adopted by the movers and shakers of the nineteenth century Celtic Revival, and into the present day.<br />
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If the former is more your area of interest then the latter may not muster much enthusiasm in you – and vice versa – but the result it actually quite fascinating, and it's just one of the many things that make me so enthusiastic about this book. One thing part two hammers home is how much the Celtic Revival, and those early academics, has influenced out modern perceptions of the gods, whether we're conscious of it or not. In general, it also helps that the writing isn't dry and dense; there's a dry humour, and it's easy to get swept up in the arguments put forth.<br />
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There are a lot of books out there that talk about the literature in the context of how they were produced; how the monks who recorded them may have changed things, left things out and whatnot. This has been done many many times, and of course it's an important part of the conversation when you're talking about this kind of thing. What those books don't tend to do is explicitly lay out how that treatment may have changed over time and link it to how the gods are portrayed as a result, in a straightforward, linear fashion, or discuss what that can tell us about them. You might find articles and case studies, but I'm hard pressed to think of something that compiles it all into one volume outright. This is exactly what Williams aims to do, using examples of particular myths to make his points. I think in doing so he raises a lot of important questions and implications that we – as Gaelic Polytheists – would benefit in thinking about and discussing (I'll get to some examples in a minute, though). The same goes for those more interested in the academics or the literature for literature's sake.<br />
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The first half of the book is packed full of things that will be of interest to Gaelic Polytheists, and I think it offers a <i>lot</i> of good food for thought. The first chapter <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10827.pdf" target="_blank">(which you can preview here)</a> gives an overview of the kind of evidence we can draw on in finding the gods, and gives a kind of case study of two different deities – one of whom survived into the manuscript tradition (Lug), while the other didn't: *Loigodeva, who lends her name to the Corcu Loígde of Munster. Straight away we're reminded that the evidence is, in many respects, rather arbitrary. We see what remains, but we don't know how much was lost. It also stresses the localised nature (or origins, more to the point) of the gods.<br />
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Further on it's suggested that the story of Dian Cécht's murder of his own son, Miach, in <i>Cath Maige Tuired,</i> is a later addition to the tale (and I think John Carey's comments in <i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/book-review-single-ray-of-sun.html" target="_blank">A Single Ray of the Sun,</a></i> where he points out that the first recorded deaths of the gods only start appearing in the tenth century or so, a century later than the bulk of <i>CMT</i> was written). The discussion of the tale here is fascinating, picking up on points – like the way the tale mirrors so many elements in so many subtle ways – I'd never considered before.<br />
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Part one finishes with Williams pointing out that after the Middle Ages we enter into something of a wilderness, as it were, where the gods "fade" until we come to the nineteenth century. It's not that they're forgotten, as such, but by this point their divine nature isn't especially relevant. On the face of it he's not wrong, but I think it would've been useful to have some discussion of the Historical Cycle – which emphasises the role of the sovereignty goddess – and how that concept became so important in the <i>aislinge</i> poetry of this period, due to the political climate of the time. As the book itself shows, the popularity of certain deities ebbed and flowed over the centuries, and if anything I think the big thing about this period was that the Tuatha Dé Danann were sidelined by the desire of Ireland's greatest poets to assert their nation's sovereignty, drawing on their mythological heritage.<br />
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In part two we delve into the world of the early academics of "Celtology" (as Celtic Studies was then called), the Revivalists who followed, into more contemporary literature, music, art, and Celtic Paganism. What really stood out here was the discussion of how the Revivalists essentially "adopted" Óengus mac Ind Óc and turned him into the quintessential "love god" as he's so often called today. I've long wondered about how – and why – that happened, when it's not really reflected in the myths as a whole. Off on a tangent from this, as Yeats' wonky efforts at filling in the gaps that were left in the myth of <i>The Wooing of Étaín</i> shows, this section can be taken as a lesson in the limitations of "reconstruction" (in whichever sense of the word you want to consider – academic, literary, mythological, religious...), especially when we blind ourselves to anything other than our own biases. A complete version of the tale wasn't available until the 1930s, and so Yeats was working on limited information. As a result, he assumed that Étaín left Midir to be with Óengus because after all, we alllll know he's a love god, right? How wrong he was!<br />
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My biggest quibble with the book comes with Chapter 9, which turns its attention to Scotland, and how figures such as William Sharp (better known as "Fiona Macleod") followed in Macpherson's footsteps and adopted the gods of the Tuatha Dé Danann as their own. There's also some discussion of the more influential folklore collectors of the day – including, of course, Alexander Carmichael. The "pagan nature" of Shony and Bride can be found here as well, and it's this part in particular that I felt was dealt without as much nuance as elsewhere; excellent points are made, but I would have liked to have seen a more rounded, balanced discussion when there wasn't really much room to manoeuvre at all. There are other times I felt the same, but not to such a degree as here.<br />
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As we get to the present, Williams touches on Celtic Paganism, amongst other things (including some wonderfully bad poetry that includes the lines, "Leaning on sword-hilts, their great paps dark as warts/Within the gleam of breast, their scrota bulged in shadow.") It's refreshing to see something like Celtic Paganism – <i>and</i> Celtic Reconstructionism, for once – tackled in a book like this, not just at all, but without condescension or being patronising to boot. Once again we see the vogue for certain gods change as attitudes and influences do; whereas Óengus was arguably the most important and popular in the imagination of the Revivalists and beyond, even up until the late twentieth century, at the turn of the century we start to see goddesses taking over – the Morrígan, Brigid, and the Cailleach are now far more significant than any others today. It would have been nice to see this expanded on within the chapter – why is this the case? How did this come about? Perhaps this is fodder for another book.<br />
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It has to be said, this book is <i>not</i> a simple introduction of the gods in the Irish pantheon (if you can even argue such exists...) – the nuts and bolts of who they are, what they do, who they're related to, etc. If that's what you're looking then I recommend you look elsewhere. This is very much a literary, not literal, overview of how the gods were (and are) perceived. And while this book is definitely aimed at a more general audience than academics alone, I think at least a basic level of knowledge about Irish mythology and literature would benefit the reader. For the most part the book succeeds in introducing need-to-know academic concepts, movements, or jargon in a way that won't overwhelm the non-expert, and there's a handy pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book that will certainly be useful for a lot of readers, but the sheer size and scope of the book might be a little daunting for a total beginner.<br />
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Given the monumental aims and scope of the book, it's inevitable that some things didn't make the cut, and to be fair, Williams himself is well aware of this. While there may be room for so much more to be said, what you get here is a good start, and – to compare it with his first book, while I think that one deals with a more niche subject and fills <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/book-review-fiery-shapes.html" target="_blank">a much-needed hole there,</a> this one made me realise that there was a hole I never really knew existed in the first place until I was showed it. There's so much to talk about here, and it's only the beginning. I think <i>Ireland's Immortals</i> would do well to grace your bookshelves.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-38404868234446254422016-12-06T13:13:00.001+00:002016-12-06T13:13:51.838+00:00Tairis update: New page<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been almost a year since <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/tairis-has-finally-been-updated.html" target="_blank">I overhauled and updated the Tairis site,</a> which was much-needed and very belated after a catastrophic outage that pretty much broke everything (while I was on holiday, no less...).<br />
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So last year, when I was updating and re-coding every single damn footnote by hand (never have I regretted my attempts at being thorough in my research more!), I decided that there was one page that wasn't really serving much purpose anymore – the "Article Downloads" page. I decided not to bother including it.<br />
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When I first made the page, there was no such this as academia.edu and JSTOR didn't offer public access, so finding decent articles freely available to read was something of a rarity. As such, I figured it would be useful to make a list of articles I'd found that might be of interest to my fellow Gaelic Polytheists. By the time I got to updating the site last year, I figured there was so much more that was available now, it was too much of a big job to try and maintain that page.<br />
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Since then, I've had a change of heart – not least because I've been reading some new publications that I've been really enjoying. In particular, I've been lucky enough to get a review copy of Mark Williams's new book <i><a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10827.html" target="_blank">Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth</a> </i>(and I'll be reviewing it in due course), which has resulted in my spending a small fortune on even more books for my already over-stuffed bookshelves, alongside some furious googling to see if I can find some of the articles that are referenced in the footnotes (I've sadly not been as successful as I'd hoped to be...). At a certain point, it became clear that a new list of articles was going to be useful to <i>me,</i> so I figured might as well make a new one for the website.<br />
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<a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/resources/articles/" target="_blank">So here it is: Articles.</a><br />
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I can't exactly call it "Article Downloads" anymore because the nature of JSTOR's open access is that you can view, but you can't keep, the articles that are made available to you. It's still an amazing resource, though, and signing up for a free account is easy enough (or it was when I did it...).<br />
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There are plenty of articles that I would recommend and list on the page, but I'm unable to. Unfortunately, not everything is freely available to read online if you don't have access via an academic institution; journals like <i>Celtica, Peritia, Studia Celtica, Éigse, </i>and <i>Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie </i>frustratingly don't offer much, if anything, to the great unwashed like me and most of you... For the remainder that <b>is</b> available, I've been pretty selective in my listing. I try to make sure that what's there is reliable and useful, and there's a lot more out there that isn't so reliable. If there's something you think is missing then I'd love to hear from you! Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-56753309103590953672016-11-11T15:37:00.001+00:002016-11-11T15:37:50.531+00:00[Link] A Gaelic response in support to Water is life. Water is sacred.Many – even most – of you have probably heard about what's happening at Standing Rock, if you haven't been actively following it. The campaign by water protectors, trying to stop the <a href="https://medichealercouncil.com/nodapl/" target="_blank">Dakota Access Pipeline,</a> is ongoing. The consequences and impact of the pipeline actually being installed is going to be devastating, not just environmentally; the consequences and impact of the struggles so far are more than enough. Sacred sites have already been destroyed and desecrated by the pipeline, and that's only going to get worse. The peaceful water protectors and ceremonial elders, journalists and medics have been attacked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/25/north-dakota-oil-pipeline-protest-arrests-journalists-filmmakers" target="_blank">militarised police,</a> and set upon by private security guards <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/26/north-dakota-pipeline-protest-guard-dogs-charges" target="_blank">illegally using dogs.</a> Meanwhile, efforts have been made to clear camps, resulting in sacred, ceremonial items simply <a href="http://bsnorrell.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/morton-county-dumps-eagle-feathers.html" target="_blank">being dumped</a> by the police and private security firms.<br />
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Now, with Donald Trump (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/26/donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline-investment-energy-transfer-partners" target="_blank">who has financial ties to the company in charge of DAPL</a>) elected to serve as president come January 20, 2017, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/11/10/501597652/fact-check-donald-trumps-first-100-days-action-plan" target="_blank">he's pledged</a> to overturn the "roadblocks" standing in the way of "vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline..." and "lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars' worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal."<br />
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It seems like the struggle is going to continue for a long time to come.<br />
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If you haven't seen it already, I urge you to head on over to the (amazing and wonderful) <a href="http://www.cailleachs-herbarium.com/" target="_blank">Cailleach's Herbarium</a> and read their article:<br />
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The travesties that are happening around ours and others countries right now are many. We have fracking underway in England. We have the Dakota Access Pipeline company attempting to cut its way across the major, central rivers and aquifers of North America, including unceded Native American territory, sacred sites and burial grounds. We have displaced people from a war torn country homeless and in danger in Calais. All because of one thing. Oil. Democracy and human rights are being overturned in the wake of this monster. It has me thinking. What do our tales, as Gaels and Celtic descendants, tell us of the actions that are happening right now? What would our ancestors say? What would they do?</blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.cailleachs-herbarium.com/a-gaelic-response-in-support-to-water-is-life-water-is-sacred/" target="_blank">A Gaelic response in support to Water is life. Water is sacred.</a> </div>
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What <i>would</i> our ancestors say? It's a good question.<br />
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As Gaelic Polytheists the land, to us, is sacred, and so are the waters and the skies. The three realms are a fundamental part of our worldview. If we say the land and the waters are sacred but don't do anything to try to protect them in the face of environmental (social, cultural, spiritual...) disasters like Keystone or the DAPL, those words surely become meaningless. <br />
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There are some good links at the bottom of the Cailleach's Herbarium article there if you're interested in offering support to those causes (and are able to, of course). Those ones, as far as I'm aware, are legit. Unfortunately, now that more and more people are paying attention to the situation at Standing Rock, there are a lot of "fundraisers" and "official t-shirts" out there on offer that are little more than fraudulent cash grabs; be careful who you give your money to, and make sure you do your research.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-18010681598966376222016-10-27T12:59:00.002+01:002016-10-27T12:59:47.827+01:00Links and things for Samhainn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Seeing as I didn't get around to doing one of these this time last year, I figured I'd make up for it now...<br />
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Before we get into the links, I thought maybe it would be good to clear up a few things. <i>Samain</i> is the Old Irish spelling; <i>Samhain</i> is modern Irish or Gaelic (Gàidhlig/Scottish Gaelic). In Gaelic, you might also see the spelling <i>Samhainn</i> or <i>Samhuinn</i>, the latter being the "old" way of spelling it (Gaelic orthography was overhauled and modernised in the 70s, so spellings became more consistent).<br />
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<i>Samhain</i> can refer to the month of November – <a href="http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/november" target="_blank"><i>mi na Samhna</i></a> or <a href="http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/november" target="_blank"><i>Samhain</i></a> in Irish, or <a href="http://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx?ID=6C517CDD4A052CB436C740DE95A963D9" target="_blank"><i>an t-Samhain</i></a> in modern Gaelic, for example (click on the links for audio files; note that the pronunciation differs according to dialect). You might see claims that it's incorrect to refer to the festival as "Samhain" because that's the name for the month, not the festival itself, and instead, more specific names should be used – <a href="http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/halloween" target="_blank"><i>Oíche Shamhna</i></a> ("Samhain Eve" – the eve of October 31st) and <i>Lá Samhna</i> (the day itself, November 1st) in Irish, or <a href="http://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx?ID=B116D730EE367A37DA78F56AE58D7547" target="_blank"><i>Oidhche Shamhna</i></a> and <i>Là Samhna</i> in Gaelic. This is true; these are the specific terms that refer to the specific eve/day that's celebrated today as Hallowe'en and you should probably use them if that's what you're talking about specifically. <b>But...</b> As we see in the myths, "Samhain" is used to refer to the festival (in a pre-Christian context), and that's an entirely valid way of referring to the festival in that sense. The reason it's used this way in the myths is probably because the festival was originally celebrated over several days – some sources say three days and nights, others suggest the festival was up to a week long, so it's not just referring to a particular day or night. In context, it's clear that the festival is being referred to, not the month in general, so it's fine to use "Samhain" as a shorthand for the festival. It <i>is </i>good to bear in mind who you might be speaking to and what you're specifically talking about, though. Sometimes, in the context of a conversation, you might want to use the modern terminology rather than the shorthand.<br />
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Clear as mud?<br />
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Cool.<br />
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So now we've got the terms out the way, let's look at what Samhainn is all about and what you can do to celebrate it.<br />
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As usual let's start with a video! This is Gaol Naofa's most watched video on our Youtube channel, which just goes to show how popular the festival is. Here you'll find just about everything you need to know to get started:<br />
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If you'd prefer a little light reading, then how about starting with some articles from Tairis?<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/festivals/samhainn/" target="_blank">Samhainn</a> – introduction to the background and history</li>
<li><a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/celebrations/celebrating-samhainn/" target="_blank">Celebrating Samhainn</a> – some practical ideas for you to include in your celebrations</li>
<li><a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/celebrations/carving-turnips/" target="_blank">Carving Turnips</a> – how to carve a traditional tumshie (if you want to)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/celebrations/samhainn-divination/" target="_blank">Samhainn Divination</a> – outlining some traditional divinations and games that can be done</li>
</ul>
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You've probably heard that Samhain is "the Celtic New Year," but is it really? Where does that idea come from, exactly? Very probably it comes from the nineteenth century antiquarian John Rhys (with a little help from some friends), and I've outlined the evidence I've found so far about that in <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/festivals/the-new-year/" target="_blank">The New Year.</a> Your interpretation may vary...<br />
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Feasting is a huge part of the celebrations, and of course it's a time for divination, games, and giving out treats to guisers. Some of the divination "games" that are played (or performed, if you prefer) involve the use of traditional dishes, including:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/recipes/festival-recipes/#cranachan" target="_blank">Cranachan</a> – a Scottish dessert of whipped cream flavoured with toasted oatmeal, honey, and whisky, usually served with raspberries. At Samhainn, charms can be mixed in as a way of telling the recipients future</li>
<li><a href="http://www.uistwholefoods.com/?p=495" target="_blank">Treacle bannocks</a> – used in a very messy game where they're covered in treacle and hung above the head so the players can try to catch their "prize" using only their teeth</li>
<li><a href="http://www.whats4eats.com/breads/barmbrack-recipe" target="_blank">Bairín breac</a> – an Irish tea loaf which is traditionally baked with charms mixed into it (measurements given in cups)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/food-drink/colcannon-traditional-irish-recipe-118184429-237376811" target="_blank">Colcannon</a> – buttery mashed potatoes with cabbage (and often onions); another medium for the charm game</li>
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Though if you prefer a basic sponge cake works well for the charms, too.<br />
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Protective rites are an important part of the proceedings at Samhainn and the Irish <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20101021222443/http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/parshal.html" target="_blank">Parshell cross</a> is traditionally made and hung over the threshold to protect the occupants of the house. If you keep livestock, you can make one for the barn or stables, too. A Scottish tradition sees <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/recipes/festival-bannocks-and-caudle/#samhainn" target="_blank">a special bannock being baked and then thrown, piece by piece, over the shoulder</a> as an offering to dangerous or evil spirits as a means of keeping them at bay.<br />
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<a href="http://www.museum.ie/Country-Life/Featured-Topics/Halloween" target="_blank">Guising,</a> mummers plays and strawboys are also an important part of Samhainn traditions, and also have a protective tone. <a href="http://www.sligoheritage.com/archmummers.htm" target="_blank">You can find out more about them in Ireland here.</a> Typically guising (kids going around in disguise collecting treats from neighbours) – which can be seen as the precursor of modern-day trick-or-treating – involves the performance of a piece of entertainment to "earn" a treat. The trick, if necessary, is traditionally done later, in secret. There are lots of traditional songs or rhymes that are associated with guising, but jokes are acceptable, too.<br />
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If you'd like your kids to get into the spirit of things and learn some traditional songs, here's one example, called <a href="http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=3492" target="_blank">Oíche Shamhna, Oíche Shamhna</a> – sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques" (video included at the link).<br />
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Finally! Here's a link not directly relevant to Samhain celebrations per se, <a href="https://modern.scot/the-cailleach-scotlands-midwife-the-stories-in-our-landscape/" target="_blank">but it's a wonderful write-up of a trip to Tigh na Cailliche</a> (a place very dear to my heart!), from Scott at <a href="http://www.cailleachs-herbarium.com/" target="_blank">Cailleach's Herbarium.</a> According to tradition, the stones at the shrine (which are said to represent the Cailleach and her family) are brought out from the shrine every Bealltainn and put away inside for the winter, at Samhainn, so now's the perfect time to read all about it!<br />
Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-20168952452768772362016-10-26T11:11:00.001+01:002018-02-20T08:10:05.400+00:00The roll call of the deadFor only the second time since I became a Gaelic Polytheist I have a family member to add to the list of ancestors I'll be honouring at Samhain. The first was my granddad, who got to meet his first great-grandchild (my son) before he died only three months later on New Years' Day, 2006.<br />
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Now I get to add my father-in-law, who died earlier this year. It was very sudden – and tragic and awful – and it's left us all in an aftermath of differing proportions. My mother-in-law lost her husband of nearly 50 years, my husband lost his father, my kids lost their Papa. To me, he was more a father than my own ever was.<br />
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The best we can tell, he fell head-first down the stairs. He didn't try to stop his fall or cry out, so it seems likely that he lost consciousness and it was only when his head met the floor that his fall came to a very sudden stop. He lost a lot of blood and sustained a massive head injury, but the way he landed also meant that his chin was pressed into his chest and he was unable to breathe. He was without oxygen for at least 20 minutes, as far as we can tell, probably closer to 30 minutes. By the time the paramedics/EMTs arrived his heart had stopped, but they managed to revive him – somehow. He never regained consciousness, however. A small mercy, I think. After it was confirmed he was braindead, and his immediate family had managed to come to his side and say their goodbyes, life-support was switched off. He died at 11.55pm on June 15th, 2016, after only a matter of minutes.<br />
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It's been a difficult time since then, in some ways. We've all had to navigate our own grief while accommodating each others', trying to be understanding and sensitive to everyone else's needs as we reach different stages of grief ahead of, or behind, other people. The first night he was in hospital, while Mr Seren was by his side and they were still hoping that there was some hope left, I went outside and prayed (throughout the whole ordeal I stayed home with the kids; we felt it was better for them to remember him as he was, and the days were just too long for them to handle anyway). I prayed and I felt a presence at my shoulder, a brush against my hand, and then a stillness and a peace. I knew then that he was gone. He wasn't coming back from this.<br />
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Acceptance was the easy part for the adults. My father-in-law was a complicated man and he was hard to know in some ways. He was a man of many passions but life had worn him down. Towards the end he was an unhappy man – a little lost after his retirement, depressed and lacking in purpose, angry, in pain from his bad knees, and unable to play the music he so loved. He'd given up in many ways. He was struggling and didn't go out much. In that respect his death has come as a relief and a release. As tragic as it was, he was ready, and in some ways that's a comfort. At his funeral, it was standing room only. Over 150 people came to pay their respects. That was comforting, too. Flawed as he was, he touched a lot of people's lives.<br />
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None of that's offered much comfort to the kids, though. My son, in particular, is having a hard time parsing the loss of his Papa. He's found it difficult to go to his grandparent's house knowing that he won't see his Papa there, even though all of this things are still there. The ghost of his memory hangs heavy in Tom's mind, and he found the funeral a little overwhelming, not knowing what to expect, not knowing how to deal with his emotions. We talked and tried to walk the kids through everything that was going to happen, but I suppose for a child hearing it and living it are very different things. It was a humanist service and the stories that were told were not stories of the Papa the kids knew, really. The Papa who went to seminary but left, the Papa who cycled the Highlands every weekend, and who met Nana at an archaeological dig. The Papa who left the house and did stuff. The Papa who was young once. That wasn't the Papa they knew.<br />
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When I broke the news of their Papa's death to the kids – the morning after, when they were supposed to be getting ready for school – they were shocked. We'd prepared them as best we could and had told them that it was going to happen, but again, hearing it is different to living it. Aside from asking how and why, Tom's only comment was, "But I didn't really know him yet. It's not fair!" The funeral only compounded that.<br />
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The family is planning to go over to Derry at some point – where my father-in-law's mother came from – so we can spread his ashes in the place his mother was born, per his wishes. Hopefully it will help Tom come to terms with it all and find some closure, but in the meantime, with Samhainn approaching, I'm trying to think of things to do to help him (and Rosie) keep processing. He finds it hard to talk about his emotions at the best of times so it's a fine line between helping him open up and picking at an open wound.<br />
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This is the first time we've had someone to add to our ancestor altar, as a family, so I'm going to try and involve the kids in what we'll be doing – finally getting some photos printed so we can set up a small altar to our ancestors, sharing stories (including old favourites like The Time Papa Got Stuck in the Bath, Twice, And Only The First Time Was Really Accidental, followed by The Time Papa Decided To Remove A Wasp's Nest, Drunk, And Surprisingly Fell Off A Ladder), and each of us adding a stone to the cairn out in the garden. We've been working on some decorations (Rosie's crafted a clay headstone with "RIP Papa" on it), and we will have our usual feast (Rosie has requested stovies, a speciality of Papa's), and leave a space for our ancestors to join us. I'm also planning on taking the kids to the beach so we can each pick a stone to bring back and place on our cairn. Knowing Rosie, she'll probably want to decorate it first.<br />
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So as always at this time of year, the ancestors hang heavy in the air. But this year, one more face joins the crowd, and now the kids have something more tangible to frame what, exactly, "the ancestors" really means to them. One more face joins the crowd. Goodbye Papa.<br />
<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-48497239251575065562016-09-04T13:36:00.000+01:002016-09-04T13:36:02.855+01:00(Useful link): Celtic Spells and CounterspellsA while back I reviewed a fairly newish book (published last year) titled <i><a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/book-review-understanding-celtic.html" target="_blank">Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past,</a></i> which I highly recommend. In the review I mentioned a particular article by Jacqueline Borsje titled "Celtic Spells and Counterspells," which is well worth a read.<br />
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<a href="http://dare.uva.nl/document/2/167001" target="_blank">I've just discovered that you can actually read the whole chapter online, so for those who're interested, have at it!</a><br />
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If that direct link doesn't work, <a href="http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/492707" target="_blank">try here.</a> Just click on the pdf icon next to "Download" near the bottom of the page.<br />
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The article is mainly focused on Irish evidence, but it does bring in some comparative commentary, too, and the focus is on examining various examples of charms to try and untangle possible strands of pagan belief and practice. We begin (sort of, ish) with a discussion of the<i> sugere mammellas</i> or "nipple-sucking" episode that Patrick described in his <i>Confessio</i>, a rite of apparently pagan origin which he therefore refused to take part in. Evidence of possible pagan rites as described by Columba then follow, which leads into a discussion of the <i>lorica</i> ("breastplate") type prayers of protection.<br />
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Also included in the article is a discussion of a "spell" or charm attributed to St Brigit, which was meant to help a husband keep his wife (who didn't love him), the instructions for which include sprinkling of water over the marriage bed (which to me is suggestive of a saining ceremony of sorts). There's also a spell for impotence (with a translation given), which is rather ambiguous in nature – is it for causing or curing the problem? This in itself is pretty fascinating stuff, but it then leads into a discussion on the use of "words of power" – the use of seemingly gibberish or extremely obscure words or phrases to give an air of mysticalness etc. All in all you'll find a lot of food for thought here, both in terms of the kind of forms these charms could take, as well as what it can tell us about pre-Christian belief.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-60515202020620551402016-08-28T16:27:00.000+01:002016-08-28T16:27:36.355+01:00A stink in the airSo it's been a wee while since I last posted here – the summer has been an extremely busy and exhausting time – but the whole stink that's arisen thanks to the AFA coming out with their recent "statement" seems as good a time as any to dust this old thing off.<br />
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The AFA have always been utterly racist and bigoted as an organisation. A change in leadership was never going to change that, so it's no huge surprise that they'd come right out and say something that's racist and bigoted (only surprising in that the previous leadership learned to keep more quiet about it and skirt around it, I suppose). And to be fair, the AFA aren't the only racist heathen organisation out there, they're just one of the more prominent ones. So really, it's just the same shit, different day.<br />
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The more disturbing thing that people are up in arms about was a comment from an individual claiming to be CR, saying that CR "embrace the same values" as the AFA espoused in their statement, which, if you haven't seen it, said:<br />
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I understand that after something of an outcry in a certain Facebook group, the commenter backtracked and deleted their comment (I'm not a member of the group so I haven't seen what was said), so if you hunt up the post on the AFA page on Facebook, you won't see it there now. </div>
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On the one hand, it's kind of mind-boggling that somebody would come out with a comment like that when Celtic Reconstructionism was founded on firmly anti-racist, pro-queer principles. So is Gaelic Polytheism. <i>This isn't news. </i>And for every group or individual who's spoken out against what was said – <a href="http://www.gaolnaofa.org/gaol-naofa/statement-from-an-chomhairle-ghaol-naofa/" target="_blank">including Gaol Naofa</a> – they've all said as much. It's written plain as day in <i><a href="http://www.paganachd.com/faq/misconceptions.html#racist" target="_blank">The CR FAQ,</a> </i>which was written by community consensus a good ten years ago now. But then again, there are always going to be people who want to pick and choose the bits they agree with. There are always going to be people who want a folkish and bigoted form of CR, where men are manly and women are womanly (whatever that means), and the women dutifully pop out beautiful, straight, white, cisgender babies in between doing the dishes and making their manly man a bacon (natch) sammich. <i>Swoon. </i>What a wonderful community! (So long as you conform, right?)<br />
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I suppose it's easy to ignore or dismiss a particular stance a community has taken when people like this tend to hand-wave things they don't like as being <a href="http://www.paganachd.com/faq/misconceptions.html#justpolitical" target="_blank">"just modern politics"</a> or whatever. That's usually what I've seen being claimed, and again, it's nothing new. Dismissing something as "modern politics I disagree with, therefore not relevant to me" is one thing, though. I'm not quite sure how these people reconcile their beliefs with the history and the mythology their religious outlook is founded on, because Irish myth (the lone commenter who decided to speak on behalf of CR also claims to be a Gaelic Polytheist) is fundamentally rooted in an origin story where the people of Ireland came from somewhere else – Spain, Scythia, Greece, Egypt, you name it.<br />
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And while the myths in question have been very much messed about with to frame them in a more Christian context, the general idea of "we came from somewhere else" is thought to be an original, pre-Christian part of the tale that's very much in keeping with what we know of Goidelic cosmology and so forth. The point is, though, either way the Irish believed themselves to be immigrants, and some of them proudly traced themselves back to very non-white origins (whether that's true or not is immaterial, really; they didn't have a problem with it and that's what counts here), and that also found it's way into Scottish genealogy and origin stories, too. And let's not forget that the Gaels, and Celts in general, also have a long history of emigration and colonisation elsewhere (sometimes by choice, sometimes not so much), so they've never exactly been averse to mixing their genes in with the locals, either.<br />
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It's only recently, in relative terms, that this idea of having an "undiluted" ancestry (unsullied by non-white genes, that is – mixing with other white people is just fine and dandy, regardless of culture) has become a thing. In that respect, then, I'd argue that it's the folkish types who're forcing their own modern views onto things, while ignoring some pretty fundamental elements of their own religion that contradict them. <a href="http://www.paganachd.com/faq/ethics.html#queerqueerqueer" target="_blank">The same goes for the stuff about "our feminine ladies, our masculine gentlemen"</a> (who, it was confirmed in the comments I included above, <i>must</i> be totally straight and gender-conforming). We don't see much about <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/life-passages/marriage-part-five/" target="_blank">non-heterosexual relationships</a> or <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/book-review-constructing-gender-in.html" target="_blank">gender non-conforming individuals</a> in the historical sources, and these are areas of study are only just beginning to take off in academic circles, but we can certainly see that it was Christian influence that introduced an outright condemnation of this kind of thing.<br />
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Aaaaanyway. This isn't a lone commenter, out there in the dark fringes. For anyone who's been kicking around the CR scene for any length of time it's just one more example of an undercurrent that's always tried to push its way in. It's a problem that's not going to go away, and all anyone can do is keep speaking out against it and joining in with all the other voices who are saying the same. The groups and individuals who keep quiet about it... Maybe that speaks volumes in itself.<br />
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<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-73894490102037695482016-06-03T12:09:00.001+01:002016-06-03T12:09:19.815+01:00Book Review: Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past<i>Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past</i><br />
<b>Edited by Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm</b><br />
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I think I've mentioned wanting this book a couple of times before here on the blog, but thanks to the price tag – £95 (and not much less second-hand) – this is not a book that I'm ever going to be able to afford. I expect the same goes for a lot of people, which is a real shame because it's a seriously good read.<br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />I really do understand that books are expensive to produce and a profit is difficult to come by on volumes like this, but I do wish there was some sort of happy medium to be found. The price tag unfortunately means it's really only ever going to be something you'll find in an academic library, unless second-hand prices come down. Seeing as the book was only published last year I was surprised and pleased to find it available at my university library, so damn skippy I'm borrowing it.<br />
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So with the whinging out the way I'll get onto what the book actually is: It's a collection of articles that were originally presented in 2008 at a colloquium in Helsinki, and (as the title suggests) they're all looking at various aspects of what we might call "Celtic Religion." There's a very critical approach throughout the volume, and the topics include a focus on how approaches to "Celtic" religion have changed and evolved over the years (i.e. is there <i>a</i> Celtic religion?), what the material we have available can actually tell us about religious belief, and the way historical approaches to those beliefs evolved as well.<br />
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All in all this is a pretty slim volume with only seven articles, so it's a fairly quick read and not as much of a hard slog as most books like this tend to be. There are obviously some articles that grabbed my interest more than others, but one in particular that seemed rather incongruous when grouped together with the rest; this one dealt with purely Biblical material, and while it was a good read in itself it seemed rather out of place with the rest.<br />
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The first article, from Alexandra Bergholm and Katja Ritari, asks "'Celtic Religion': Is this a Valid Concept?" (Short answer being no, not really) and it does a fantastic job of introducing the rest of the book in general, but also giving a very brief and critical overview of the issues involved in undertaking such studies. This is the kind of important stuff you want to have a good idea of if you're going to make your own study of the field.<br />
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Next up is Jacqueline Borsje's "Celtic Spells and Counterspells," which focuses mostly on Irish material but with some other examples brought in for comparison. Not only is her analyses of these "spells and counterspells" fascinating, but she uses them as a frame for discussing how we can use the historical sources to learn what we can about pre-Christian beliefs – what they can and can't tell us, what we can even if it's not stated explicitly, and so on. Again, this is really good, important stuff even though some of it may already seem pretty obvious to you.<br />
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John Carey's "The Old Gods of Ireland in the Later Middle Ages" is also a solid contribution, and it kind of picks up on some elements Carey covered in his first chapter of A Spear of the Sun and then expands on them, namely how the scribes of the Middle Ages dealt with the gods and grappled with their identity and place in a Biblical scheme. In some ways this may be a topic that's been well-covered already, but I found some bits and pieces here that added to my understanding of the subject and were of genuine interest. Along with Borsje's article, I'd highly recommend a read.<br />
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The next few articles were interesting to me but I didn't feel they added as much as the previous ones in terms of religion or myth specifically. Even so, Robin Chapman Stacey's article on "Ancient Irish Law Revisited" had some good stuff with applying the same sort of critical approach to the law tracts as Borsje did with her chapter, so if that's your thing I'd recommend adding it to your list of things to read.<br />
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The final chapter, however, is one of the chunkier articles in the volume, and I thought it offered a lot of good food for thought. This one is Jane Webster's "A Dirty Window on the Iron Age? Recent Developments in the Archaeology of Pre-Roman Celtic Religion," and it begins with a (fairly provocative, perhaps) quote from John Collis that states, "I am sceptical that there is anything we can label as 'Celtic religion.'" The chapter is a nice bookend to the introduction from Bergholm and Ritari, and Webster contributes a critical look at what archaeology, specifically, can offer us, as well as what it <i>has</i> offered us in the past. She begins with a broad overview of recent archaeological developments in the field, detailing the various approaches and interpretations that have been taken to the material, using some of the bigger names in archaeology as examples for critiquing and explaining further. We then move on to look at the limitations of archaeology in terms of how it can't give us much certainty or specifics about druids, or issues around sacrifice, and so on. <br />
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As the first volume in a new series (titled "New Approaches to Celtic Religion and Mythology") I think it's a really good start and I look forward to seeing the rest of the series come out and exploring other areas in more detail. To be clear, this is not a book that's going to give you a detailed description of what "Celtic Religion" looked like, which I'm sure is going to be frustrating to some if you go by the title alone. The book doesn't really offer much in the way of certainties at all, but it does offer something that's all too often lacking in "Celtic Pagan" spheres, and that's an emphasis on critical thinking and approaching the material on its own terms. It's a real shame that the cost of the book is so prohibitive because for that alone I really would recommend you read it if you can get hold of a copy. If you have access to a library that can get hold of it for you then I think it's definitely worth a try. <br />
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<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-56175631768489432272016-04-25T12:48:00.003+01:002016-04-25T12:48:47.729+01:00Behold the shiny things (with a surprising amount of penis)... Part twoSome more pics from the National Museum over in Edinburgh, though this time with fewer shiny things per se... We'll start with a statement piece, though:<br />
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There were quite a few of these in the museum, though unfortunately <a href="http://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-100-036-323-C" target="_blank">I didn't spot any of the ones with Pictish symbols engraved on one end.</a> As you might guess, the chains are typically thought to be Pictish in origin, probably dating to around the 5th to 9th centuries CE, and they're more than likely to have been worn by those of high status – not just the aristocracy, but royalty, the information board reckons. Just like the penanular brooches the Gaels wore (like the Tara brooch, for example), they were probably worn as an indication of rank. They were worn around the neck and fastened together with a "terminal link" – the bits that have the Pictish symbols engraved on them, which were originally highlighted with red enamel. Each link is made of solid silver (probably recycled Roman silver), and given the weight of them – up to 2.9 kilos (6.4 lbs) each – it seems unlikely that they were worn as regular, everyday pieces of jewellery. Instead it's thought that they were probably worn "during important ceremonies."<br />
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From a slightly earlier period – late Bronze Age – we have the Ballachulish idol:<br />
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Which is surprisingly huge – I didn't know it was actually life-size... The figure was discovered in a peat bog with the remains of some kind of wickerwork structure covering it. The site is situated overlooking a sea loch, so it's thought that the figure was meant to represent a goddess of some sort, "probably associated with fertility" – she's holding a "phallic object over her abdomen" so yeah, OK. I think equally the situation of it, overlooking the sea loch, could imply a protective purpose as well? <br />
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If you get up close then you can see the quartz pebbles that have been used for her eyes:<br />
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Given the long association of white quartz with the dead, could their use be significant? Or were they just convenient?<br />
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Speaking of phallic object, the museum has a surprising number of them. You can blame the Romans for this one:<br />
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It's described as "an undressed stone with carved phallus, Birrens," on the information plate, and dates to the first century CE.<br />
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You can blame the Romans for these ones, too:<br />
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These are pretty small, and were used as amulets to ward against the evil eye, or perhaps as fertility charms.<br />
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Here we have some "mysterious stones" from Neolithic Skara Brae, one of which looks pretty penile at the least:<br />
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We don't know what these stones were for – maybe "ritual," perhaps simply decorative – but number 13 here is one of the better known examples:<br />
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I couldn't get a good close up, unfortunately, but the detailing is spectacular.<br />
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Finally, here we have an unusual carved stone, known as the Bullion Stone (taking its name from where it was found, Bullion, in Angus), which dates to around the tenth century CE:<br />
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It's unusual because it's not often that you find stones that have a comical or unflattering tone to them like this one does, and by this point in time carved stones were almost exclusively Christian in its symbolism. Clearly whoever this guy is, he's a little worse for wear and the bird's head on the end of his over-sized drinking horn is looking a little judgemental there. The man appears to be a warrior, with his shield, but he's old and bald – not a flattering look when baldness wasn't considered to be a desirable trait. His horse looks tired and is maybe a little past it, too, as it plods up the steep hill. The drinking horn is maybe intended to indicate a Norseman here, since they introduced them to Scotland, hence the unflattering imagery?<br />
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<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-31293494607183142612016-04-24T14:21:00.000+01:002016-04-24T14:21:19.890+01:00Behold the shiny things! (Part One)Last October, <a href="http://tairis-cr.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/here-be-zombies-and-celts.html" target="_blank">if you might remember, </a>I took a trip with the kids down to visit my mother in Suffolk. It's not my favourite place on earth, but on the upside I managed to convince my mother to make a day of it in London so we could make a visit to the Celts exhibition at the British Museum.<br />
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Over all I was a little disappointed with the exhibition, but I was interested in seeing it again once it got to Edinburgh in the new year, just to see if it was much different. It's a bit of a trek from here to get to Edinburgh, so I wasn't sure when we'd be able to manage it, but it turned out that our plans to go visit my family and friends down south weren't going to work out – schools in Scotland finished for the Spring break just as schools in England were returning from theirs and the timings just weren't going to align. So instead, seeing as Mr Seren had already booked time off from work, we decided to have a few days out, and Edinburgh was one of them.<br />
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We got there a little late in the day thanks to a slight detour (which meant we got to see the new Forth road bridge that's being built at the moment, and that was pretty cool), so by the time we'd parked up and got into the city centre it was well past lunchtime. It was nearly 3pm by the time we got to the museum, which didn't give us long to look around. Tom wasn't so keen to come and look at the Celts exhibition again, seeing as there was also a Lego "build it" thing on in the museum, so he and Mr Seren decided to do a bit of that before going off to look at the natural history stuff. Rosie decided to come with me so she could look at the shiny stuff again. She likes the artwork.<br />
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In London the exhibition cost £16.50 to get into, but in Edinburgh they're charging £10 for entrance (kids go free). The actual price is £9 but they've added on a pound extra for a "donation" to the museum, and while they do tell you that and ask if you want to make the donation, it's a bit cheeky to do that. Again, there's no photography in the exhibition which still pisses me off. I didn't bother trying to sneak pictures this time because there were way more members of staff around; it just wasn't going to happen.<br />
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Once we got in to the exhibition it was already very noticeably different. In London there was a three-minute slideshow as soon as you walked in, and while that would have been very informative, it clogged everything up from the get go. In Edinburgh we walked straight into a section with a few pieces on display that I think were intended to set the tone for the rest of the exhibition. They were a different selection from the ones chosen in London, in throughout the rest of the exhibition there were some pieces that were very noticeably missing – the bucket and flesh-hook I managed to snag pictures of in London, for one, along with a very impressive Gaulish statue of some dude with a big headdress. Those were the more obvious pieces I noticed missing and I'm sure there were others too. I noticed a few pieces I didn't think I'd seen before but I suspect that all in all there were some major artefacts that didn't make it to Edinburgh from the London exhibit.<br />
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That aside, I think the layout and flow of the Edinburgh exhibit is much better. The Gundestrup cauldron is on display in a room all by itself, and it's been set at a more sensible height so you can see all around it. The lighting is a little better, too, so it really becomes a feature all of its own rather than just one more shiny thing in a sea of shiny things.<br />
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There's a chariot (or replica of what the chariot would have looked like when it was fully intact) and goods on display that were recovered from a burial, and Rosie commented that she wasn't sure the people would be too happy to find all their stuff on display in a museum instead of in the ground where they left it. Wouldn't they want it to be left alone? she wondered. That's a perennial question in archaeology, I said. A lot of the time these things are dug up because they're going to be destroyed otherwise, so is it better to destroy them or try and recover them and preserve them so we can learn about the past? Rosie decided that perhaps the best thing would be to stop building stuff on top of important places like other people's graveyards and put the buildings somewhere else. I couldn't really argue with that, to be honest. But still, she loved looking at all the metalwork and jewellery, and we spent quite a bit of time looking for all the hidden faces and anthropomorphic features. When we got to the statue of Brigantia she was pretty excited and wondered if she was related to Brigid.<br />
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After we came out of the exhibition we met back up with Tom and Mr Seren and I decided I wanted to look at the "Early Settlers" section where all the early Scottish stuff is. We only had an hour left before closing by this point and I really didn't have time to look at everything I wanted to, but even so the place is amazing. One thing I noticed is that where the more well-known items had been taken for the Celts exhibit, they often replaced them with replicas, unlike in London. I thought that was a nice touch. <br />
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There were plenty of shiny things like the Pictish "plaques" from the Norrie's Law hoard (one of which was in the Celts exhibition):<br />
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In pictures you might think they'd make a nice pair of earrings, but they're way too big for that. <a href="http://blog.nms.ac.uk/2015/03/19/the-glenmorangie-research-project-norries-law/" target="_blank">Silver hoards are pretty common in this period</a> of Scotland's history because there wasn't much raw material available, so they had to rely on recycling silver instead. In some cases the hoards consist of Roman silver, which were presumably given to the local Picts, Britons or Gaels as bribes.<br />
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But it's not all about the shiny stuff, and that's one of the reasons I really wanted to go to the museum in the first place, because I wanted to see this – an almost perfectly preserved woollen Pictish hood:<br />
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Which was found in St Andrews parish (I presume that means the St Andrews in Fife, east coast of Scotland) and dates to some time between the 3rd-6th centuries CE.<br />
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There's also a hat, woven from hair moss, that dates a little earlier than the hood, around the first century CE. It was found at Newsteads, near the Scottish border:<br />
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And this is what the hair moss thread or twine looks like close up:<br />
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Things like this are what interest me most because it brings home the fact that we're not just dealing with something so nebulous as "a culture," but actual <i>people.</i><br />
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I mentioned in my post from the London museum that there were the "divination spoons" on display in the Celts exhibition, and they were on display again in Edinburgh with a note to say they may have been used for magical or "healing" purposes. Nobody really knows what they were used for, but I found a set on display in the main part of the museum that had been recovered from the east coast of Scotland:<br />
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There seems to be some deep politics surrounding these things, because while there's the pet theory that Miranda Green pushes about their being "divination spoons," which is reflected in how they're described down in London, Edinburgh chooses to simply describe them as "a pair of sacred spoons, possibly buried with a holy man:"<br />
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These ones are bronze, as you can probably tell, and they were recovered with a bronze dagger, too. They aren't as well preserved as the ones in the Celts exhibition, but if you look closely they have the same kind of markings – one spoon being quartered, and the other with a hole in it. People seem to get weirdly invested in the idea of their being used for divinatory purposes, but there really could be any number of other explanations. I can see <i>why</i> divination has been suggested, but it bugs me that the idea gets treated as absolute truth by some.<br />
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Anyway. One last shiny thing before I finish off:<br />
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These are very late Bronze Age, and while the swords are set next to some moulds, I don't think they're the actual moulds that were used to cast them.<br />
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There's very little evidence for Bronze Age metal-working in Scotland, but a few sites have been found relatively recently that's changing what we know of the practice. I went to a lecture about one such place (just down the road from me, in fact, situated right on the coast) a few months ago and it was mentioned that the layout and orientation of the site had clear suggestions of ritual or religious purposes. The site, which is thought to have been very late Bronze Age in date, was surrounded by a number of palisades and the entrance was oriented to the south-east (very common for this period and into the Iron Age) with what appears to have been some sort of processional way leading into the main enclosure. One of the most interesting things that they found from the site is that the moulds were often transported across the Firth of Clyde so that they could be deposited at the foot of a major hillfort that dominated the area. This practice continued into the Iron Age, and it's thought that the burial of the moulds is possibly ritual in nature – perhaps an offering of some sort? It's no surprise that there seem to have been religious overtones to the production of metalwork, but it's fascinating to me, nonetheless.<br />
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Anyway, I think that's enough for now; I'll continue in another post with some more bits and pieces that piqued my interest another time. Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-28180270487730999462016-04-22T17:11:00.000+01:002016-04-22T17:11:09.844+01:00New video! New(ish) article! Daily Rites in Gaelic PolytheismSo as we announced over on the Gaol Naofa site last week (yes I'm way behind on things...), we've got a new video out:<br />
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And also a new (or at least improved) <a href="http://www.gaolnaofa.org/articles/daily-rites/" target="_blank">Daily Rites article</a> to accompany it, which now has a number of prayers offered in both Gaelic and English translation. To be honest, there was no particular rhyme or reason in choosing to do this particular subject right now, aside from the fact that it seemed like a good idea to continue the more practical theme like our last video on <a href="https://youtu.be/QO5ziOx3LHg" target="_blank">Offerings in Gaelic Polytheism</a> had. <br />
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I'm really not sure when the original Daily Rites article was written (I'm pretty sure it was before my time as a member of the GN council), but for the sake of those who prefer the original prayers given there, <a href="http://www.gaolnaofa.org/articles/daily-rites-archived/" target="_blank">we've archived that version of the article on the site,</a> and it's cross-referenced to the new version, too. <a href="http://nicdhana.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Kathryn</a> took charge of the article's overhaul of the piece, and I think the contrast between the prayers given in the original version, and the ones that Kathryn chose to adapt from the <i>Carmina Gadelica</i> in the new version, gives a good contrast and illustration of how different people have different styles.<br />
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When I was first starting to explore CR and then Gaelic Polytheism specifically, the idea of daily prayers seemed kind of restrictive and off-putting. Coming from a completely secular background it was a concept that was alien to me, and it seemed kind of dull... Wouldn't it get boring and become rote? But I kept coming back to the idea for reasons I've never really fully understood, aside from the undeniable urge that I should, and eventually I started looking at the kinds of prayers that were out there, that maybe I could adapt or work with in coming up with some of my own. After a bit of fiddling around I found a routine that felt like it was a good fit, and since I started I've not stopped, really. It was a gradual process as I figured things out, but now I say the same prayers every day (or night...) – at the very least I will pray each night, just as I've got into bed and I'm lying down, since that's most comfortable for me – and it's become an integral part of my bedtime routine now. Even when I'm absolutely exhausted I find it hard to get to sleep until I've said them now. <br />
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I think it's important that the prayers we say as part of our practice have meaning to us, and they flow from the heart. My preference is for the more traditional, like the ones we've given in the new article, and the ones I have over on <a href="http://www.tairis.co.uk/daily-practices/" target="_blank">Tairis,</a> but I also tend to add in prayers of my own making, too – off the cuff prayers that aren't poetic, perhaps, but they're no less heartfelt or meaningful. But the traditional types of prayers – the same words I say over and over again from year to year – form the barebones of my daily routine.<br />
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I'm sure the idea of a daily routine of prayer doesn't appeal to some people and I don't think it's the only way things should or can be done. For one, there are simple traditions and customs that can become a part of your day, too... It doesn't make anyone lesser, or greater, just because of what they do or don't do, though. Religion isn't a competition or a pissing contest, you know? Or it shouldn't be. I'm sure a lot of people <i>do</i> maintain a daily routine of some sort, even if it doesn't follow a particular outline or isn't even a conscious thing. Maybe somedays or most days the sum total is little more than a mental "hey."<br />
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What matters is that it works for the individual, and that – at its core – it helps maintain that connection with An Trì Naomh. It's about being mindful of who you are, who you honour. I've seen some people say they try to keep up a daily routine of some sort but somedays, for whatever reason, it just doesn't happen and then there's a sense of guilt or failure, and it becomes hard to get back into the routine because the sense of whatever starts to snowball... But we're only human, after all. We all have our limits and if it happens, it's OK. If it keeps happening, maybe it's better to scale things back a bit and go easier; don't bite off more than you can chew. At the end of the day... Just do you.<br />
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<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-90791757823701851262016-04-09T14:00:00.001+01:002016-04-09T14:00:51.707+01:00Catching upWe're well past Là Fhèill Brìghde and Là na Caillich but neither went unnoticed for us here. Although given the weather it seems the Cailleach didn't go to her rest without a fight this year...<br />
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Since near the end of last year I've been struggling a lot more with chronic pain issues and I'm awaiting the results of another MRI to see if scar tissue from my previous surgery is the problem, or if the disc has just gone caput again (or maybe something else is up...) and will be attending a group physio session, that's intended to help me live within my limitations a little better, in the coming weeks. All of this – and being busy with other work and some ongoing projects – means I haven't been up to much here on the blog, and celebrations have been scaled back to just about the bare bones lately. As I've written about before, when it comes to being somewhat challenged in the mobility area, it generally means that my devotions are dictated by how much I can handle at the time. I do, but I only do if I can, and as much as I can. And I'm OK with that.<br />
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So Là Fhèill Brìghde was pretty low key, although Rosie joined in with enthusiasm and gusto because this is her favourite time of year. I bought a new doll-making kit for us to make our <i>dealbh Brìde </i>with, and invited the kids to join in. Tom wasn't so keen – he's less interested in crafting than Rosie is – so it was just me and Rosie this year. As usual we made a few dollies and picked the one we thought worked best, and this is what we ended up with:<br />
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We feasted and sained, and lit some candles for Brìde to put in the window. I offered the honours to the kids, if one of them wanted to the lighting, but they both wanted to do it so we ended up deciding they should do a candle each; they lit, and I said the prayer, then went to invite Brìde in. Rosie was very excited to put our dealbh Brìde to bed, and Tom joined in by arranging a cow next to her.<br />
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Then we picked out a few pieces to put out for Brìde to bless on her nighttime rounds – this is serious business for Rosie, because she's taken the idea to heart. Ever since we left her favourite blanket out for Brìde to bless, she's insisted on having it on her bed every night so "Brìde will keep the bad dreams away." The blanket must go under the duvet so it's touching her directly; this is important. So important, in fact, that she didn't want to let go of the blanket for even one night, and even though I told her it's traditional so Brìde can bless it again. In the end we left out a different blanket instead.<br />
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The weather was pretty nasty so I put them in the shed, which I left propped open a little, so they'd stay put, but as it happened Mr Seren's plaid ended up on the opposite side of the garden by morning. It was only thanks to the fence post that it didn't get blown away entirely, and Mr Seren was pretty bemused to find his plaid flapping around. I guess it was a good job it wasn't his underwear...<br />
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A little later on in the month we went on a big long walk up to the forest I took a walk to last year at Là Fhèill Brìghde. This time I took the kids as well as the dogs and we got there right at the golden hour:<br />
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It's been a pretty mild winter but spring seems to have got off to a slow start in spite of the fact that a lot of trees started blossoming even before Hogmanay. Nature seems a little confused lately, and we didn't see many signs of spring on our walk. Plenty of mud, though:<br />
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For Là na Caillich we had a pretty vicious storm so we had to hold off on our usual a visit to the beach for the few days, but we got there in the end and made our offerings to the Cailleach and the Cailleachan. Now I'm just waiting for a bit of a dry spell so I can get out in the garden and start tidying things up (though I might have to get a gardener in this year, just to keep on top of the lawn). It's been such a wet winter that the lawn is more bog than anything at the moment and it's going to need resowing in places. Some of the plants I put in around the new pond are going to have to be replaced, too, because they just weren't able to cope with all the rain – I was worried that might happen. I have a gooseberry bush to put in, though, which I'm pretty pleased about (we'll hopefully be able to pick them for Lùnastal, as is traditional, though I'm not anticipating a crop for a while yet), but so far that's it. I haven't thought about what else I'm going to put in but I'm thinking about expanding the containers – bigger ones so I can maybe put a small fruit tree in, too.<br />
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So spring is officially here and a quarter of the year is gone already. Hopefully next week I'll be going to Edinburgh to see the Celts exhibition (again).<br />
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<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-75811925499012252842016-03-24T15:22:00.003+00:002016-03-24T15:22:54.449+00:00Book Review: The Origins of the Irish <i>The Origins of the Irish</i><br />
<b>J. P. Mallory</b><br />
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Given the recent announcement that <a href="http://irisharchaeology.ie/2016/03/new-discovery-pushes-back-date-of-human-existence-in-ireland-by-2500-years/" target="_blank">proof of an Irish Paleolithic has <i>finally </i>been discovered,</a> this review is both timely and a perfect example of how quickly things can change and our whole idea of history (or prehistory, in this case) can be rewritten thanks to something so small and seemingly insignificant as a few scratches on a bear bone...<br />
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So all in all, in spite of the fact that this book was only released in 2013 it's already out of date in some respects. Such is the way of things in this field, no?<br />
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Up until recently I'd heard of this book but didn't know much about it. More than that, I have to admit the title kind of put me off wanting to know more because it struck me as one of those books that was going to be little more than guff and wind that failed to hide a sad and slightly racist agenda behind some dodgy attempts at science. If I hadn't picked it up in a bookshop I would probably still be thinking that.<br />
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I'm glad to say I was wrong in my assumption, and that I did, in fact, really enjoy this book. In searching for the origins of the Irish <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> where, exactly, the people of Ireland came from, including how they got there <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> Mallory takes a look at the archaeology, the early historical evidence, linguistics, and (still fairly fledgling area of) genetics. Before we get to all of that, though, we begin right at the beginning, with a whistlestop tour of the Big Bang and how the Earth changed over the first few billions of years until we reach the general layout of continents we have today. We are, ultimately, star dust, after all.<br />
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The book is pretty ambitious in its scope, in trying to weave all of these various strands together to give a coherent answer to the initial question. The answer we end up with isn't conclusive, by any means, but it would hardly be reasonable to expect one given the kind of evidence we're dealing with here. It's inevitable that a book like this is going to raise more questions than it answers, and there's a risk that the reader will be left confused or dissatisfied rather than illuminated. My feeling, by the end of it all, is that there may be uncertainty, unknowns, and unknowables, but it's a great ride. This is an extremely well-written book <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> engaging, witty, clearly and logically structured with the minimum of jargon thrown at the reader. It's not glossy or colourful, perhaps, but it doesn't need to be.<br />
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Right at the beginning we're introduced to Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish king who Mallory suggests is our ideal "Irishman" <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> an identifiably historical figure who lived right at the cusp of Ireland's early historical period when, it's suggested, Irish people had a definite sense of being "Irish." This is, of course, open to debate, but for the sake of argument let's just go with it. Throughout the book we return to Niall as we wonder about all the things that had to happen throughout the pre-history of Ireland for such a person, in such a time and such a place, to come about <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> someone who, as Mallory points out, had a non-Irish mother. It's not ethnicity we're looking for here; it's about <i>identity</i>. With all the various peoples and influences that have had a bearing on Ireland, the real point of this book is how do we define an "Irish" person anyway?<br />
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A good chunk of the book is taken up with the archaeology as we stroll through the Mesolithic period, the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age (bearing in mind, of course, that there was no discernible Paleolithic period in Ireland at the time of writing). Mallory does a good job of laying out the evidence for what life was like for people of each of these periods <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> how they lived, what they might have believed, how society and technology changed and evolved, and why these things happened. Of course, we can only deal with theories and speculation for the most part here, and Mallory deftly outlines old theories and new, and discusses the pros and cons for each of them. It's clear which theories Mallory himself favours as we go along but he allows room for the reader to draw their own conclusions, too.<br />
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Once we've dealt with the archaeology, there's a chapter on the literary evidence <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> looking at the origin story of<i> Lebor Gabála Érenn</i> especially <span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;">–</span> followed by chapters on genetics and linguistics. I have to admit that I instinctively balk when genetics tend to come up, because it's so often used as thinly veiled attempts at arguing about genetic purity and crap like that, but I think Mallory deals with the subject sensitively and evenly here. I'm no linguist but the content here is solid and brings up some nifty points, too. Finally, the last chapter brings everything together to make the final conclusions,<br />
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A book like this could easily be dry and dense, but that's really not the case here. It packs in a lot of detail, and I think perhaps it would be of benefit if you have at least a vague idea of archaeology and the basics of the field; the jargon is kept to a minimum but for the total noob it might be a bit overwhelming or distracting; not a major problem, but something some might appreciate knowing going in. Each chapter finishes with a very simplified summary of the major points raised, which is a definite plus.<br />
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I can't say I agreed wholeheartedly with everything in the book. In particular I quibbled with a few details in the chapter on the literature, but any disagreements I had were minor and there's nothing that I'd say was just plain wrong. Over all this is a fantastic overview of the subject and it's something I've been looking for for a long time. This is a book I'd highly recommend to anyone.Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758267616106239950.post-83597209709165633272016-03-10T09:53:00.000+00:002016-03-10T09:53:55.071+00:00Book Review: The Celtic Evil Eye and Related Mythological Motifs in Medieval Ireland<i>The Celtic Evil Eye and Related Mythological Motifs in Medieval Ireland</i><br />
<b>Jacqueline Borsje</b><br />
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Not the pithiest of titles, but it tells you just about everything you need to know here; what you see is what you get.<br />
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I'd had my eye on this book for a good while now, but given the price tag – not actually that bad, for an academic book, but more than I usually spend on myself – I'd been hoping it would turn up at the university library sooner rather than later. I'm often hesitant to buy books without a good preview because you never know what you're going to get – there's a book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seer-Celtic-Other-Traditions/dp/0859762599" target="_blank">The Seer in Celtic and Other Traditions</a></i> by Hilda Ellis-Davidson that I was intrigued by for a long while, and it costs just a wee bit more than this one. When I found a copy at the library, though, it turned out there was only one or two essays in it that I was interested in (the book mostly deals with "Other Traditions"). If I'd bought it myself I would've been disappointed.<br />
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This time, though, Borsje's book didn't seem like it was going to be available via the library any time soon so I eventually broke down and decided to splurge; as much as I may be cautious, I'm also kind of impatient... I figured that given everything I've ever read by Jacqueline Borsje, I wasn't likely to be disappointed here – I'm a big fan of her work. And lucky for me I wasn't disappointed at all – this one is well worth the price tag (would that I could afford <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1783167920/" target="_blank">this one, though.</a> That's definitely going to be a "wait for the university library").<br />
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So here's a quick idea of what this book is all about – it's a collection of articles written by Borsje over the years, all of them dealing with various aspects or elements about the concept of the evil eye, or<i> drochshúil, </i>in Irish mythology. Each article forms a chapter, and you might already be familiar with some of them since some of the articles are available elsewhere (though I'm not sure most of them are published in English?). Chapter One, for instance, is <a href="https://www.dias.ie/images/stories/celtics/pubs/celtica/c24/c24-1-39.pdf" target="_blank">'The Evil Eye' in early Irish literature and law,</a> co-written with Fergus Kelly, though here Kelly's contributions (on the law texts that deal with the subject of the evil eye) have been updated and are split off into an appendix. The other articles have been adapted a little as well, so that they make a more coherent volume all together. The final chapter is specially written for the book, and while Borsje notes that the book can be read in any order – each chapter is self-contained – the over all layout has a logic and flow to it that works well.<br />
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I <i>really</i> enjoyed this book and found so much here that's useful to my interests or just plain interesting. I started off using little post-its to tag bits I knew I'd want to come back to and ended up giving up trying to colour code things with some semblance of order because I ran out of post-its in the requisite colour. Given the nature of the evil eye the book touches on folk practice (and how it relates to, or reflects, the beliefs articulated in the myths) as well as the mythology itself, and it also deals with certain areas of magical practice – <i>corrgúinecht</i> and the power of words in particular. The ritual nature of this practice, and the bestowing of the evil eye (in certain instances) is also dealt with. As much as it might be tempting to thing of the evil eye as little more than a literary motif, it's clear from the early Irish laws as much as folk practice that the concept is very real. Even today it's still a very relevant part of everyday life (as I've experienced myself – when the kids were babies people were always very keen to bless them and show their goodwill by giving them a silver coin).<br />
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As far as the mythology goes, there's a lot of focus on The Second Battle of Mag Tured (<i>CMT</i>) and The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (<i>TBDD</i>) because of the characters found there – Balor of the Evil Eye in <i>CMT, </i>and Nár Túathcháech in <i>TBDD, </i>for example – and the instances of <i>corrgúinecht</i> that are mentioned (or implied), which may involve the casting of the evil eye. There are plenty of other tales referenced as well, like the Death of Cú Chulainn, but given the importance of the first two, Borsje includes translations of both tales in the appendices. These are primarily based on the translations given by Whitley Stokes (partly because they're out of copyright now), with some updates and additional bits (mainly the more obscure <i>rosc</i> parts, though not all of them, unfortunately) based on the work of academics like Kim McCone and Ralph O'Connor (who's book on Da Derga's Hostel is referenced in glowing terms). The translation of TBDD includes a note, from O'Connor's book, on the meaning of the stream of names given by the hag (Cailb, though identified as Badb, or the Morrígan), which is something I've been looking for for a while; <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Destruction-Da-Dergas-Hostel-Narrative-Mediaeval/dp/019966613X" target="_blank">O'Connor's book</a> is definitely bumped up my reading list now. Really, the translations and notes that accompany them are almost worth buying Borsje's book for that alone.<br />
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Because the chapters were originally published as individual articles there's a bit of repetition in places, especially (I noticed) when it comes to the discussion of the meaning and nuances of the term "<i>túathcháech</i>." It's not so repetitive that I minded it, though, and there's some genuinely meaty stuff to get stuck into. In particular, I'd wondered about the relation between the Tuatha Dé Danann being said to have come from the "north" and the traditionally negative connotations of that direction for a while now, and this is something that Borsje touches on (chapter 4, 'Encounters with One-Eyed Beings'). There's also a good discussion on <i>why</i> it's the eyes, or specifically an eye, that's so intricately associated with ill-wishing or cursing.<br />
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The last chapter, which is titled 'The Power of Words: The Intricacy of the Motif of the Evil Eye' (though it covers somewhat similar ground as in <a href="http://dare.uva.nl/document/2/61041" target="_blank">Druids, Deer, and Words of Power</a>) was an especially good read, though it's hard for me to pick just one stand-out chapter. It gives a good overview of who might cast the evil eye the methods used to protect against the evil eye, in the form of prayer like St Patrick's <i>Lorica</i> (otherwise known as The Deer's Cry, or<i> Faíd Fiada</i>), amongst others. A common element of these prayers is protecting against the evil eye by surrounding oneself in spiritual armour – binding blessings to yourself in every direction, and every part of the body. This "surrounding" is also founds in other means of protection, like the <i>crios Bríde </i>('girdle of Bríde') and the practice of leaving things like ribbons out for the saint's blessing – something that has intriguing implications about how old these practices might be. It brought up a lot of comparisons with the <i>caimeachadh</i> prayers in the <i>Carmina Gadelica</i> for me, which I think may be an avenue to explore.<br />
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One thing I would've liked to have seen is more of a discussion on the way Boann loses an eye (and a leg and an arm) in the <i>Dindshenchas</i> tale about the Boyne, and the similarities between that and the stance taken during the performance of <i>córrguinecht</i> and the prophecy performed by Cailb in TBDD. It's something I've wondered about for a while, and it was something that came to the fore again when Borsje delved into the symbolism of "one-eyedness" and its association with knowledge (just one possible meaning, and depending on context). An index would have been nice too...<br />
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This <i>is</i> a very dense read – engaging but certainly not the kind of thing you're likely to devour in one sitting – and I think it's only going to appeal to people who have a real interest in the subject. If you do have any interest in this kind of thing, though, then I think it's an essential book to add to your shelf. It's certainly a book I'm going to be referring back to a lot.<br />
<br />Serenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15106896818087205418noreply@blogger.com0