NEW STUFF

A heads up from Gaol Naofa:

While it may seem we’ve been quiet for a while, much has been happening behind the scenes as we’ve celebrated five years as an organisation. Our council has been very busy, creating new content for this site, as well as for private use by the members of Gaol Naofa. All of the site documents have been updated and restructured. While much of this site will still be familiar to our long-term readers, there is a lot of new material here.

If you happen to hang out on our Gaelic Polytheism group on Facebook, you'll already have seen the announcement, but otherwise: Gaol Naofa Uachtarán Treasa, Kathryn and I have been busy Doing Stuff over the past year or so in particular, updating and expanding the website and figuring out a few things. There's more in the works, but we're at the point where the first lot of Stuff is ready to be unleashed. You can read the proper announcement at the Gaol Naofa link above, or on our new page over on Facebook, but here's an overview of what's we've put out so far:

The Gaol Naofa FAQ
The link above will take you to the main page, click on the link for the pdf file (we had to put it in a pdf because it clocks in at a good 90 pages long). The FAQ has been substantially expanded and outlines the nitty gritty of our organisation and our vision for it, and it also goes into some of our beliefs and outlooks on certain areas. In that sense it might be of interest to Gaelic Polytheists in general, but I hope it's clear that the contents of the FAQ (as with everything else we've done) speaks to our own points of view as an organisation and no one else's. Even though some other groups might overlap with us in places, that doesn't mean one size fits all.

Then there's:

Rowan and Red Thread: Magic and Witchcraft in Gaelic Cultures
Again a pdf (I think it's fair to say that the length of this one is pretty much my fault), clocking in at a more modest, but still meaty, 57 pages... We cover the general gist of the article in some of the questions in the FAQ, so this offers a bit more of our thoughts on this, with plenty of references and historical goodness. It's a huge area, though, and this is really only scratching the surface, for sure.

And then we have:

Prayer in Gaelic Polytheism
Another pdf but a bit shorter than the two above. The title is fairly self-explanatory, so we go into how we approach prayer and how we make our prayers, and the kinds of sources we look to and how we deal with the problems those sources present. Some examples of prayer are given, with a suggested reading list at the end as well.

As you'll see on the articles page, the Offerings article has been slightly overhauled recently, and there is an article from Treasa and Kathryn yet to come (soon!). Elsewhere on the site you'll find that the reading list has been expanded, and the "About" pages have been overhauled too, and to celebrate five years of the organisation, Treasa has given the website a bit over a makeover with new headers and icon thingies...

A big thanks, once again, to everyone who helped us out and supported us during the first, second and however many final drafts we got to!

Healing (revisited)

To recap: I had a "microdiscectomy" in September, after spending 18 months dealing with disc problems that doctors were convinced didn't exist (next time doctors tell me I have a 5% chance of having such and such a problem asymptomatically, I'll laugh in their faces)...

So anyway. It's been a long road, and I'm by no means at the end of it but I'm (touch wood) well along it. So far I've successfully weaned myself off one kind of medication completely, and I'm in the process of reducing my morphine intake gradually - slowly but surely so far. The nice doctor I saw last month or so tells me that given the type of surgery I've had and the healing process etc, it might be more realistic for me to anticipate that I should reduce the morphine to the point where I might go back onto Tramadol and then - perhaps - lesser drugs before weaning off the painkillers completely, but I'm taking things one step at a time. Given the length of time and the levels at which I've been on the morphine, I'm in officially in "difficult" territory as far as coming off it goes (though not impossible), so reducing it by levels seems to be the easiest way to go. Easy, ideal, and doable are entirely different things, however. So I'm taking things a day at a time in that respect and I'm not looking into The Google, as my doctor charmingly calls it, too much, so I don't really know what to expect. I figure that way I can still feel like I'm me, rather than a bunch of symptoms or side-effects, even though most days I feel like I have PMS and then some...For a few weeks after reducing things, anyway. The pain increases for a while too, while I adjust, but in a way it's a good thing because it keeps me going with the physiotherapy I've been given.

So I've reduced things to a level I'm comfortable with so far and I've just reduced things again. Apparently, less morphine makes me a tad grumpy, which makes me a bit anti-social. That's part of why I've not posted much over the last month or so, I think. Hopefully some of the other reasons will be announced soon.

Anyway. As I mentioned in my last post about all this, while I was in the middle of it all and looking for answers, I tried looking into prayers and charms as a way of trying to deal with the situation and perhaps improve it. Post-surgery, my daughter made me a wee charm, along the lines of the thread a ban-fiosaiche had made for a journalist as described by Mary Beith in her book Healing Threads (I highly recommend it - it's a great read):

Which I've been using as a key ring, it being a slightly more practical way of carrying it around. It's a little delicate and I don't think it would stand much wear as a bracelet.

Kathryn pointed me to a traditional prayer for "sprain," which you can find in the Carmina Gadelica amongst other places. It has a very long pedigree, being found in Irish myth, and Vedic and Germanic sources too, and the formula of repairing bone to bone, flesh to flesh, sinew to sinew etc works nicely with the kind of operation I've had. So the prayer is something I've been using when I feel like I need it.

And as I noted in my initial bletherings on all of this, there's a folk remedy for sciatica recorded in North Uist:

Some of the natives [of North Uist] wear a girdle of the Seal-skin about the middle, for removing the Sciatica, as those of the Shire of Aberdeen wear it to remove the Chin-cough.

Which I airily dismissed at the time, and then again in my second post on the matter, seeing as seal-skins aren't exactly ten a penny. Plus, it's kind of frowned on these days, really. But in the mysterious ways of the world, what should arrive in the post - not long after my surgery - but this:

My wonderful and wise friend Judith happened to have saved an old seal-skin belt some years ago, and upon reading my post in September decided the belt had finally found its purpose. When the belt arrived in the post I showed it to the kids and they were fascinated by it at first, until it sank in that an animal had died for the sake of it (originally, at least). They were kind of horrified for a bit (Tom decided it was mean) so we talked about it, and I explained that the seal had died a long time ago, and that now it's just sitting around not doing much. We agreed that while there wasn't much we could do about the poor dead seal now, we could at least give the belt a good home and put it to good use, and I made some offerings for it. Every now and then the belt disappears and I find it up in the kids' bedroom, where Rosie's been looking after it (she likes to stroke it, to "look after" the seal because it might be missing its mum).

And so as I do my physiotherapy, I can put the belt on and feel like a bit of a fanny as I stretch and step and look a bit bonkers, but so far it's all good (and it's not like anyone's watching). Many thanks, Judith!

Best laid plans and all that...

After all my planning ahead and idle musing on things a few weeks back - and then feeling all smug and organised - Samhainn rolls around and we here in our corner of the universe celebrate it with the delightful aftermath of Norovirus.

Which was nice.

If ever there's a sign that winter's here - you know, aside from the frost and snow we've had - the dreaded Great Affliction is pretty much a dead giveaway, I suppose. So things were a little more scaled back than planned, although all of the important stuff got done, fun was nonetheless had, and I think it was - all in all - a success.

The downside of being a parent is that your kids will inevitably bring varying kinds of snot and bugs home from school so you get to live it all vicariously through one child and then another before you get to experience the delights first hand (my child-free friends are grinning smugly at me through the internet, I can feel it...). By the time it comes around at least you know what to expect, I suppose. On the plus side, by the time the eve of Samhainn rolled around we were all over the worst of it and we were all feeling just a little tired and delicate rather than properly unwell, so at least we were able to celebrate. The feasting element of the proceedings were not something I was particularly keen on, though; nor was Mr Seren. But for some reason, as if my own body was trying to tell me something, I'd had a real craving for gingerbread at the weekend so I'd done some festive biscuits:

And that was all I could really stomach on the eve itself; the ginger helped settle any rumblings quite nicely. I was originally going to let the kids decorate them but Rosie couldn't stomach it and Tom only decided to help out once I'd done most of them. He was very proud of his efforts, though. "The red's blood, mum," he said helpfully. I'd baked a whole load of cake with the intention of sculpting a festive cake, too, but that just wasn't going to happen in the end - so much for great ideas.

But the morning before the big evening rolled around, the kids came bouncing in excitedly to wake me up so they could have breakfast and get ready for the Hallowe'en parade at school. Tom was going to go as Optimus Prime, but after wearing the costume to the Hallowe'en disco the week before and finding it way too small he opted for his old Power Ranger costume instead. Rosie went as "Bat Cat," as planned. She wanted some face paints to complete the look so I did what I could there, with the hasty help of Google that morning:

So long as she had whiskers she didn't really care, so she was very pleased with her look in the end. I managed to drag myself along to the parade later that morning to cheer them on, and the school was awash with anticipation. And also Norovirus, probably. 

There's nothing like a good bout of lurgy to motivate a thorough housecleaning session, is there? So the house was shipshape and in good order for the evening festivities, and I got some decorations up at least, in between a nap or two during the day. While we did get round to making some more decorations during the half-term holiday we haven't done a seasonal mural yet; our Great Affliction scuppered any plans to do it at the weekend, along with a Hallowe'en party Tom was invited to and the party games I'd had planned.

My mother-in-law had got us a large pumpkin for carving (they were on special offer so she got us one spare), so I'd bought two smaller ones for cooking - in the comments of my previous planning post Judith suggested a bread and butter pudding baked in a pumpkin that sounded delicious, and I was going to give that a go until the Great Affliction happened. The other small one was intended for soup and another lantern if I could manage to get the flesh out without having to cut it up. By Samhainn eve I'd already scooped out one of the small pumpkins so I could use the flesh for soup, which I'd done at the weekend while the kids were ill (and my husband promptly ate the whole lot before anyone else got some, barring a small mug I'd had, to see how it was). By Wednesday, although I had at least one pumpkin ready to carve I wasn't convinced I could stomach doing even that one. Mr Seren chipped in and carved the big one into a Stormtrooper's helmet (ish), though, so I knew we'd have at least one. But when I picked the kids up from school the fresh air did me good and I knew I'd have to keep them occupied until they could could go out guising, so they were set with the task of designing a lantern each. The flesh from the second smaller pumpkin went to another batch of soup, instead of pudding. For that we made do with cake (or the kids did, anyway).

I usually carve the lanterns the night before Samhainn, as a way of kicking off celebrations. That night I usually devote to the ancestors in particular, while I carve and make some opening offerings. But given the delicate nature of my condition that evening, carving was out of the question then. I didn't have the opportunity to get any tumshies at all so this year there were no turnip lanterns - that was a real shame, but while I wasn't convinced I'd manage the pumpkins, to begin with, I knew there was no way my nose/stomach would stretch to accommodate the stench of turnip. But what we ended up with still did the job nicely:

Tom designed the cross-eyed one, and Rosie decided the scariest thing she could think of was a spider after flicking through Google and being told that no, butterflies weren't scary and E.T. was way beyond anything I can manage. I royally ballsed up the legs on hers, but I think Tom's came out pretty good.  Young sir was very pleased with it, anyway, and we had fun talking about all the scary things that would be afoot that night as they got creative.

By the time the carving was done it was time to do dinner - I did stovies, since the soup needed a bit longer to cook (we had that the next day). And then we lit the lanterns and put them in the windows at the front of the house to let the guisers know that they were welcome, with great ceremony and excitment. Mr Seren did some games and dancing with the kids while I was doing the fiddly bits of carving and then dinner, but we just didn't have time for party games proper in the end. Seeing as many of the games are food-based, that was probably for the best! But after dinner the kids did go out guising and that's really all they wanted to do, so as far as they were concerned it was the best Samhainn EVAR. For me, though, it's another year without having tried treacle scones. A sad Gaelic Polytheist am I.

While Mr Seren was out with the kids, I had the opportunity to get my ritual on. The guisers were very thoughtful and managed to space their visits out between my opening offerings, then my prayers and devotions, saining and putting up some rowan and so on. It was a little piecemeal in some respects, but none the worse for that.

For once I could sain the kids' room properly without disturbing them - I usually have to do it after they've gone to bed, so I had some luxury to be more thorough there and give the room a good sprinkle. This time, seeing as no one was in the house, I tried burning some juniper, too - I couldn't do too much to get a good smoke going and fill the house, but I have to say the bit of smoke I did generate certainly has a powerful quality to it.

Tom was the first to come back, dashing in to go to the loo (and having to do battle with his costume first). Mr Seren and Rosie arrived not long after, Rosie sporting the manic grin of the happily E-numbered and well-sugared. They had been very successful on their tour of the street, with lots of generous treats from neighbours - it was a fairly quiet night compared to some years previous, but I know a lot of the kids' classmates had also been laid low by the bug that we'd had, too, so like us I think folks had a bit more to hand out to those that did turn up. Mr Seren said the kids did well with their entertaining; at the first couple of houses they were pretty much bricking it and Rosie didn't get much further than the first couple of lines from Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar before trailing off into the Shy Mumble, but by the fifth house or so Tom had already fired into a festive cupcake and had to be held back by Mr Seren before he ended up spraying crumbs over whoever answered the door while Tom tried to do his joke through a mouthful of cake. I'd thought about going out with them, but I'd had such a busy day already I didn't want to over do things - my back is doing a whole lot better but I'm still being a little cautious.

After the kids were back we all gathered in the kitchen to share out the sweets (and a good number of apples and nuts, too), then it was time for homework while the last of the guisers knocked at the door, and then it was bedtime. For once, I didn't have to take the lanterns away from the window because the sweets had run out.

Seeing as I'd already done my ritualling before the kids went to bed I had the opportunity to spend a quiet, candle-lit evening in contemplation and just relaxing. Of course for Samhainn there's a big focus on the ancestors and I had a candle up in the window and invited them to come for a visit if they so wished. I had food out for them, and made offerings to them, and I spoke to them and drank a toast to their memory. And the same to the spirits too, with offerings of peace.

I made offerings to the Cailleach and an owl (the cailleach-oidhche in Gàidhlig) struck up a thoughtful song in the woods nearby. I made offerings to my ancestral deities and a crow cawed off in the distance. I thought back on the year and gave thanks for all the good things that have happened, and thought about the maybe not so good things too. I prayed for blessings, for my family and friends. And I looked up at the stars and out into the night and I listened for a while, and breathed in the cold, slightly smokey air, and that night I slept like the dead, and if I dreamed I've no idea what it was.

At the weekend we went to the beach and I made my offerings to the river and the sea. On Monday night - Bonfire Night, here - the fireworks filled the sky, and as the air was heavy with smoke I chopped up the pumpkin lanterns and buried pieces of them at four points around the outside of the house. I can't beat the bounds around the house with a flaming torch but I can reinforce the boundaries in my own way. We didn't manage to get to a fireworks show (they were at the weekend and we didn't realise, but the local event was Disney-themed anyway, so it was probably for the best - we don't do Disney in this house), but one of our neighbours always has a display in his back garden so the kids didn't miss out. Poor Mungo practically had a nervous breakdown, though, wrapped in a towel and cowering beneath Mr Seren's desk. Our older dog doesn't mind them (plus he's basically deaf now) but Mungo can't stand fireworks.

So that was Samhainn. Not quite how I'd planned but it all came together in the end, I think.

An Cailleach Bheara

A post on Samhainn will follow shortly, but in the meantime I just wanted to bring a beautiful short film to your attention.

I can't embed the video here, it seems, but follow this link to watch it - it's only eight minutes long and the visuals are quite beautiful. The film references a few traditional stories about An Cailleach Bheara, although it concentrates on one in particular; I found this ages ago and meant to post it, but lost the link and it's only now I've found it - in good time for the season, perhaps!

Anyway, if you haven't seen it already, enjoy.

The Gruagach, the Guaigean and the Geige

 A gruagach is a local land spirit in Scotland, who is said to look after cattle in the summer pastures, to make sure they don't wander off and come to any harm. It seems that to a certain extent the gruagach has come to be conflated with a brownie, which is probably not too much of a stretch considering the fact that they are both helpful to humans (with caveats), and will both take themselves elsewhere if you give them clothes.

In a lot of lore about spirits, you tend to find that offerings are very much encouraged when trying to build a relationship with them, but too much gratitude will backfire spectacularly. The gruagach is helpful so long as they are treated right; it is traditional to leave some milk for them in the hollow of a special stone, with offerings given to them at Bealltainn as well, and in some places the offerings are kept up (though unfortunately the one video I've seen about it has now been taken down). Traditionally, if their offerings are neglected the gruagach might not look after your cattle, or worse - they might deliberately lead them to harm. In many ways, the gruagach bears all the hallmarks of a pre-Christian local deity, even if their name might not be known anymore, but according to some the gruagach may be a ghost of someone local, who haunts the glens and looks kindly on people.

Thomas Pennant and Martin Martin both write about the gruagach in their work dating back to the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and you can find an essay on the gruagach in one of Pennant's volumes. Their name refers to their long hair (a motif that points to their Otherworldly nature), and usually they're female. In some parts of Scotland, like on Skye, they're more likely to be male (and tend to be the default explanation for how a pretty young maid might have got pregnant out of wedlock while she was up on the summer pastures).

So in general, they seem to be the kind of spirits that we want to propitiate, and it all seems quite simple. Looking through the Carmina Gadelica late one night last week, though, I found some interesting notes on the gruagach in Volume II, which have coincidentally good timing for Samhainn:

Gruagach, a supernatural female who presided over cattle and took a kindly interest in all that pertained to them. In return a libation of milk was made to her when the women milked the cows in the evening. If the oblation were neglected, the cattle, notwithstanding all precautions, were found broken loose and in the corn; and if still omitted, the best cow in the fold was found dead in the morning. The offering was poured on 'clach na gruagaich,' the 'gruagach' stone. There is hardly a district in the Highlands which does not possess a 'leac gruagaich'--a 'gruagach,' flag-stone--whereon the milk libation was poured. I have seen such stones in Arran, Kintyre, Gigha, Islay, Mull, Lismore, Kerara, Lorn, Iona, Tiree, Coll, Barra, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Heisgeir, St Kilda, Harris, Lewis, Sutherland, Ross, at Culloden, Cawdor, Lochaber, and in various other places. All these oblation stones are erratic ice-blocks. Some of them have a slight cavity into which the milk was poured; others have none, the libation being simply poured on the stone. In making the oblation the woman intoned a rune--

'A ghruagach, a ghruagach,
Cum suas mo spreidhe,
Cum sios an Guaigean,
Cum uap an Geige.'

Brownie, brownie,
Uphold my herds,
Keep down the 'Guaigean,'
Keep from them the 'Geige.'

There is probably no district in the Highlands where the 'gruagach' could not be fully described. A woman living in the remote island of Heisgeir described her so graphically and picturesquely that her interested listener could almost see moving about in the silvery light of the kindly moon the 'gruagach' with her tall conical hat, her rich golden hair falling about her like a mantle of shimmering gold, while with a slight swish of her wand she gracefully turned on her heel to admonish an unseen cow. At intervals he seemed to hear her mellow voice in snatches of eerie song as she moved about among the grassy ruins of the old nunnery--all silent now of the holy orisons of gentle sisters.

 CGII

The thing that interested me the most was the mention of the 'Guaigean' and the 'Geige' - it's not something I've seen much about in Scottish lore in general. In another note from Carmichael (at the same link, as above), there is a description of the Geigean:

Geigean, Righ Geigean, Geigean, King Geigean. This was the term applied to the man who presided over the death revels. These were held in winter. Lots were cast, and the man upon whom the lot fell was elected king of the revels, over which he reigned from midnight till the old cock crew. A tub of cold water was poured over his head and down his throat, after which his face and neck were smeared with soot. When the man had been made as formidable and hideous as possible, a sword, scythe, or sickle was placed in his hand as an emblem of office...

A rhyme common among boys at play says:--

'Thaine mi o chri-chas,
Thaine mi o chruai-chas,
Thaine mi o Ghigean,
Thaine mi o Ghuaigean,
’S thig mi uat-s’ ma dh’f haodas mi.

I came from small peril,
I came from great peril,
I came from Geigean,
I came from Guaigean,
And I will come from thee if I can.

'Gigean' and 'Guaigean' are probably forms of 'Geigean.'

So the immediate conclusion seems to be that the offerings to the gruagach are in the hopes that the gruagach will then protect people against the Geige (or Géige, as it should be - Carmichael was terrible for not bothering with accents in the first two volumes especially) and the Guaigean. Considering Carmichael's comments on the Righ Geigean we might suspect that the latter perhaps represent spectres of wintry danger or death, effectively. And/or, considering one of the tales in the first link, of the ghostly gruagach who protected against murrain, she works against sickness spreading.

My first thought was to wonder if the rite described might have something to do with Samhainn (since the festival marks the start of winter); Carmichael was notoriously leery of mentioning Samhainn at all, albeit for a brief entry in the notes in volume II and a few other passing mentions, so he's unlikely to spell it out and it wouldn't be any wonder that he was vague on that point. Pulling out my trusty copy of The Gaelic Otherworld, Ronald Black's notes refers to the Righ Geigean ritual as being performed, specifically, at the beginning of winter (see p457), so that seems to confirm it. It's interesting that the taking of lots seems to mirror a similar practice from Bealltainn, where the men would come together and take turns, blindfolded, to pick out piece of bannock from a basket or cloth. In this case, at Bealltainn, whoever got the burnt piece of bannock called the cailleach beal-tine would effectively take on the burden of failure in the coming season; it would be assumed that they would struggle, in order to allow the rest of the community to prosper. It seems a similar idea is intended for the Righ Geigean - they suffer, so others don't have to.

It's not the only instance of Samhainn practices echoing those found at Bealltainn; it seems the practice of making offerings - by throwing pieces of bannock over the shoulder, with a prayer said - to keep away threats from livestock and family was performed at both Bealltainn and Samhainn. Interestingly, according to Dwelly, a guaigean can be defined as either "a thick, little round cake," or else "a short, stout man or boy." A géige, on the other hand, is primarily a branch or sapling, but can also refer to "a young, superfine female, nymph."

I've not found much else on the Géigean, aside from some hints that it may have been related to the urisk (or ùraisg) who often get lumped in with the brownie and gruagach as a kind of helpful spirit. This is a little confusing, because the ùraisg seems to have something of a more mischievous reputation than the others, but is generally harmless and solitary, preferring to hang around waterfalls or streams. If they happen to live near a farm they might also help out around the farmstead if given milk or cream. So not much like the dangers hinted at in Carmichael's prayer. They tended to have a wilder appearance than the gruagach, though, sometimes being described as half-goat, half-man or quite frightening to those who could see them. According to John Gregorson Campbell, at least some of them did have some association with wintry elements:

"A man passing through Srath Dubh-Uisg (near Loch Sloy at the head of Loch Lomond) on a keen frosty night heard an urisk on one side of the glen calling out: Reoth, reoth, reoth. "Frost, frost, frost."

This was answered by another urisk calling from the other side of the glen: Ceige-reoth, ceige-reoth, ceige-reoth. "Kick-frost, kick-frost, kick-frost."

The man, on hearing this, said, "Whether I wait or not for frost, I will never while I live wait for kick-frost." And he ran at his utmost speed till he was out of the glen."

Black, The Gaelic Otherworld, 2005, p106.

Ronald Black's notes on this say that Reoth and Ceige-Reoth more than likely refer to the names of the two urisks in the glen - Frost and Jack Frost, "as it were" (op. cit. p363). Furthermore, Ceige-Reoth here refers to the Géigean, ceige meaning "a mass of matted hair" and - aside from Ceige and Geige being very similar - the word denotes the "wild figure" of the Géigean himself.

All things considered, confusing though it might all be, it offers some food for thought for the coming season.

See also here, if anything, in case you're wondering how to pronounce guaigean!