Cross-dressing nuns and other fun things

After letting my membership at the university library lapse for a good while (mainly because the expense wasn't really justifiable), I decided it was nigh time to sign up again... It's way more cost effective to borrow than to buy, especially when most of the books I really want to read are often on sale for £60 plus – more than the library membership and more than I can excuse splurging on.

The kids are on holiday with my mother-in-law this week, so while they're away it seemed like a good time to go and sort things out; I get to spend as much time trawling through the shelves as I like, and I also spare them the abject boredom and effort of traipsing across half of Glasgow just to browse through stacks and stacks of musty books in an always overly stuffy building. Sometimes I'm a nice and thoughtful parent like that...

Anyway. Off I went and signed up again without any problems, and I went up to the Celtic floor on level 9. I had a list of books I was interested in, and I got the ones on my list that were still available (and looked more immediately interesting to me), along with a couple that I randomly picked up off the shelf. I also had a look through the Anthropology section to hunt up a book I'd borrowed last time but never had the chance to read, but unfortunately it wasn't there, and I took a look at Hilda Ellis-Davidson's The Celtic Seer. It's a small volume – a collection of articles by various authors – and from the looks of things only the first half is explicitly related to Celtic subjects. Of those, only one or two of the articles piqued my interest so I'm going to photocopy them next time I go if I can't access them online.

The books I did end up borrowing are:

• Studies in Irish Mythology – Grigory Bondarenko
• Playing the Hero: Reading the Irish Saga Táin Bó Cúailnge – Ann Dooley
• Constructing Gender in Medieval Ireland – Sarah Sheehan and Ann Dooley (Eds.)
• Early Irish Satire – Roisin McLaughlin
• Selected Essays – Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

So not too many, because I'm aiming to actually read them (I have until October), or most of them, at least. And also the bookshelf in the living room collapsed under the weight of all my books so I don't really have anywhere safe to put too many at the moment... 

I've started on the first one listed and it shouldn't take too long because as a collection of Bondarenko's essays I've already read some of the ones that are online or published elsewhere (one of them being his article on 'Roads and Knowledge in TBDD' that was published in Celtic Cosmology, which I reviewed a while back, from the looks of it). It looks like there's some good stuff in here, cosmology-wise, so I think I'm going to enjoy it. I may well add it to my wish list so it becomes a permanent member of my collection. 

Playing the Hero is a book I've had my eye on for a while, and my interest is more because I spent a good amount of time studying it at uni than because it's relevant to my current research interests (though it has potential). The Constructing Gender book – a collection of articles from various authors – looks good too. Who can't resist a book with a chapter that starts with the sentence, "One of the odd things about early medieval Irish hagiography is its lack of cross-dressing nuns." 

I mean, really. 

But seriously, there does look like some good stuff here, including a chapter on Macha Mongrúad ('Playing for Power: Macha Mongrúad's Sovereign Performance'), another titled 'Travelers and Settled Folk: Women, Honor, and Shame in Medieval Ireland,' and one from Dooley called 'Speaking with Forked Tongues: Gender and Narrative in the Acallam.' 

I picked up McLaughlin's Early Irish Satire on a whim, but it really does look good – detailed, with lots of primary source material given and copious amounts of notes. I'm really hoping the library will get Jacqueline Borsje and Fergus Kelly's The Celtic Evil Eye and Related Mythological Motifs in Medieval Ireland in soon (I believe it's on order, though I think it's more that it's in the queue to be ordered once funds are available) because I'd really like to read it; it's come down in price so if I get impatient enough I might just buy it, but I think my credit card has received enough of a sponking lately for that to happen any time soon... 

All in all it was a fairly successful trip (and a bonus that Oscar didn't pee all over the house while I was out – he's a big boy now) and I'll try to put some reviews up as and when I have the time.  

Book review: Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland

Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland
Edited by Jacqueline Borsje, Ann Dooley, Séamus mac Mathúna, and Gregory Toner

Based on the papers submitted to a colloquium held back in 2008, "Celtic Cosmology and the Power of Words," this is a book I'd been looking forward to for quite a while. When it came out I was a little disappointed in the price -- just under £60, I think -- but it didn't exactly come as a surprise given the price of most academic texts these days. Given the cost of producing them, it's a necessary evil, I suppose. Still, this was a luxury splurge and I could only hope it was damn well worth it.

The contributors are all names that are well-known in Celtic Studies today, and each article deals with a different topic (or focus on a topic). Some of these topics are familiar territory -- the three realms, the Othererworld, and so on -- while others offer something less than usual. At the time of the colloquium itself there was a website that gave an idea of the kinds of papers that were being read there and I was particularly interested in the stuff on the three realms. As it turned out, this was the first article in the book but it's little more than an amalgam of articles the author's already published (and which I've already read) so it doesn't offer much more of a perspective on things. I was hoping for something new there, but as disappointments for this book go, this is about the only major complaint I really have. If I were reading the article without having read the ones it's referencing then I think I'd get a good idea of the major points that are being made, but I'd probably want to read those articles anyway.

As a minor compaint, I'd kind of hoped for more on creation myths and so forth, which ended up being pretty lacking, sadly. With that said, for what is in the book, most of it is pretty interesting, and it's well written and edited. It can be dry and dense -- some articles more than others -- but this isn't unexpected.

There are too many articles for me to go into in any detail individually, and some of them just weren't as interesting to me as others, so I'll just give the ones I enjoyed the most a mention. First off there's Grigory Bondarenko's 'Roads and Knowledge in Togail Bruidne Da Derga,' which makes some truly interesting points about the way the tale uses roads and the (possible) ritual significance of them in pre-Christian belief. Edel Bhreathnach's' Tara and Cashel: Manifestations of the Centre of the Cosmos in the North and South' precedes Bondarenko's article and fits in nicely with it in taking a look at the ritual implications of the layout of Tara and Cashel, and the way they're described and used in literature. These two stood out for me in offering a lot of good food for thought, and they're ones I might chew on in some notes at some point. The same goes for Séamus mac Mathúna's 'The Relationship of the Chthonic World in Early Ireland to Chaos and Cosmos,' which gives a good discussion on the cosmological relationship between sacred landscapes and water. There are frequent comparisons with Vedic examples and so forth here, and I'm not much of a one for that kind of approach but I can appreciate the different perspective. If you're interested in the stories of Boann or Macha then it's definitely worth a read, and it gives some discussion of the relationship between fire, water and kingship, as well.

Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart takes a look at the celebrations of Michaelmas, and offers a huge amount of good stuff here. First of all he looks at the sources we have that deal with Michaelmas -- in particular, Alexander Carmichael's highly detailed description, which, Stiùbhart points out, is an amalgamation of various notes Carmichael collected, and which is also highly idealised presentation of the festival. Then he explores the decline of the festival and the reasons for it (which is to say: bassically religious and economic reasons). The article goes over more than just the usual territory here and offers something that most discussions of this subject don't, which is always good to see.

The final article in the book, Gregory Toner's 'Landscape and Cosmology in the Dinschenchas' takes a look at the way places are shaped and named, and the underlying cosmology of that, bringing in some comparative evidence from episodes in the Táin and the like, which I also really enjoyed but felt was frustratingly too short.

Over all, this isn't a book that's going to be a light read, but it's definitely a read that's worth having. It's not something I'd recommend to the beginner, or to anyone who would find the lack of populist appeal off-putting, but I'd say this is certainly a subject area that's vitally important to understand and there isn't much else that's recent that I can think of to recommend (articles yes, but books not so much). I do think the cost is going to be prohibitive for a lot of people but if you're a compulsive collector like I am then you probably just have to accept that you're going to buy it sooner or later...

If you're looking to try before you buy then you can read one of the articles (another one with some interesting stuff in it) online -- John Waddell's 'The Cave of Crúachain and the Otherworld.'

Book Review: A Single Ray of the Sun

Apparently it's been a whole year since my last book review...

I haven't had much of an excuse to splurge on books and fun stuff like that in quite a while, but this last week I decided it was time to treat myself. It was only going to be so long before I gave in and splurged on Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland, and if you think about it, waiting a whole month or so after its official publication is actually pretty restrained of me. Right?

I'm still waiting for that one to arrive, but the other two I ordered came pretty quickly. The first one I picked out is The Cailleach of Sligo, and I'm only two chapters in but finding it thoroughly disappointing. Oh well, you can't win every time, I guess; if I ever end up finishing it, I'll probably review it but I can see it's the sort of book I'll only ever be half-hearted about tackling. The second book I ordered is the one I'm reviewing just now, John Carey's A Single Ray of the Sun: Religious Speculation in Early Ireland. It's a short and quick read, and I really enjoyed it. It was also only a fiver, so yay.


A Single Ray of the Sun: Religious Speculation in Early Ireland
John Carey


I'd heard pretty good things about this book for a while now and I've always enjoyed John Carey's articles and the other books I've read by him. He tends to deal with areas that are especially useful for Gaelic Polytheists (for a start, I'd recommend getting your hands on his articles, 'The Name "Tuatha Dé Danann,"' and 'Notes on the Irish War-Goddess,' if you can), mostly dealing with the way Irish literature has evolved, and how it reflects pre-Christian ideas, and so on.

To be fair, this book focuses more on early Christian thought than anything pre-Christian, but there's still plenty of food for thought. The book is really a collection of three essays by Carey, collated here into one cohesive volume: The first essay (or chapter) is called 'The Baptism of the Gods,' and this is the most interesting and useful from a Gaelic Polytheist perspective. The second essay, 'The Ecology of Miracles,' has a few tidbits that would be of interest (a few references to druid teachings that will pique your interest if that's your thing), while the final essay, 'The Resurrection of the World,' doesn't have much to offer from the perspective of pre-Christian evidence, but it's one of those things that's good for background on some of the sources that deal with early Christian cosmology.

The first chapter is the most useful because it talks about the different ways the medieval writers, who recorded all of the myths in the manuscripts, dealt with the issue of the gods. There were obvious concerns about how the gods of their pre-Christian past could fit into a Christian framework, but the Irish seemed quite happy to embrace the gods and preserve their stories, tweaking them here and there to accommodate a Christian perspective. Carey talks about the two main ways the gods were dealt with - euhemerisation and demonisation. Euhemerisation was basically a way to argue that the gods of the pagan past were really human ancestors, who were elevated to divine status by the pagan Irish at some point because of their amazing deeds or achievements. That makes it easier to view the pre-Christian Irish as simply being mistaken, allowing the gods to be remembered for their merits while demoting them to human or Otherworldly status. In some ways it's a more forgiving way of reconciling them, because it allows for their being mistaken by virtue of the fact that the word of God hadn't got to Ireland yet. Demonisation is pretty self-explanatory - viewing them from the purely Christian perspective as demons who tricked and deceived the pre-Christian Irish into worshipping them as false gods. It's a less forgiving way of interpreting them, but although both viewpoints are articulated at various points in the myths, Carey argues that unlike elsewhere the Irish never really embraced either view wholeheartedly, which is why the gods persisted so stubbornly - in early Irish prayers, for one, but especially as the aes síde.

The whole subject is important to us in how we look at the myths and interpret the way the gods are portrayed. The gods are explicitly referred to as gods many times, in contradiction with Christian doctrine, so when we see them being reduced to nothing more than Otherworldly beings it raises questions. How do we reconcile all of this? How do we deal with it? We can't see them as less than divine, because they clearly are divine. But there are also hints (when we consider the idea of the Dé ocus an-Dé, for example) that there were always distinctions between divine and non-divine, but still Otherworldly, beings.

One of the things that really caught my eye is that Carey mentions that references to the mortality of the gods can only be dated to the end of tenth century, in a poem by Eochaid ua Flainn, and the concept then recurs in the Lebor Gabála Érenn a century later. So the implication is that this idea of their mortality is Christian in influence, not pre-Christian, and a product of euhemerisation. When we consider the references to their deaths, we can't take them literally, then.

The later chapters have their own merits but I don't think they're going to be of much interest for all but the seriously ie-hard Irish Studies fans. I enjoyed them, but I've studied this kind of thing, so it's probably fair to say that it's a pet subject of mine and I don't expect that most folks would find them as enthralling. But all in all, the book is a quick read and it's reasonably priced, so I think it's worth the splurge - at some point - even if it's not necessarily going to change your life significantly. If you're looking for something to help flesh things out beyond the basics and you have a keen interest in this area then this is a book I'd recommend adding to your wish list.

JSTOR

One of the biggest problems for most people who are keen on doing their own research is the limited access to academic journals. The kind of articles you can find in journals are often some of the most useful resources because they can deal with the kind of minutiae and specialist areas that won't fit into a book, or else they provide the kind of bite-size burst of information that's a lot easier to chew on than a dry and dense academic book. But unless you have access to a university library, or academic resources like JSTOR, you pretty much have to rely on what's freely available online (such as ones I've listed here), or hope you can find someone who might trouble themselves to obtain a copy for you.

For a while now, JSTOR have been offering access to some of their articles that are already in the public domain, but now – and finally, because they've been promising to do it for ages – they're allowing members of the public limited access to their still-copyrighted catalogue. From what I've read, you won't get access to all the brand new articles that have just been released, but if what you're looking for has been published for a good three years or so, then you might be able to access it (if it's included in the scheme). You have to sign up to the site, and then you'll be able to add no more than three articles to your "shelf," where you can then view them. You don't get to download the articles, you just get access to images (so you can't cut and paste them to keep forever and ever), and whatever you add will stay on your shelf for two weeks, after which you can remove it and then pick something else to read.

So it really is limited – and frustratingly so if you're relying on it to do research for a particular piece you might want to work on – but it's better than nothing I suppose. For me, while I have access to a university library and can get a lot of articles there, I don't get access to JSTOR or other kinds of online resources, so it's a bugger if I want to access an article in a journal the university doesn't carry. Now, though, I can access journals like Béaloideas, whereas otherwise I'd have to jump through hoops to get what I want to look at when I happen to be able to visit the library. So that's a definite YAY.

I'm still holding out for unlimited access, though...

The Otherworld

I saw this posted on the Carmichael Watson Facebook page and it looks really interesting:

The world of the fairies may seem like a long way from our world of skinny lattes and social media. But open the pages of the book The Otherworld, and listen to the two CDs that come with it, and you’ll find yourself carried off – as if by magic – to another realm. 

This enchanting selection of songs, tunes, black-and-white photographs and snippets of story is taken from the National Folklore Collection held at University College, Dublin. The musicians and storytellers describe a wide range of encounters with the supernatural, from the smile-inducing to the seriously spine-chilling.

A Day With the Fairies

Seeing as I was given just the right amount to treat myself for Christmas, it should be arriving within 3-5 days...

Book review: Celtic Curses

Back at the start of summer I got a good haul from the library that I planned on working my way through for reading or research purposes, and of the ones I decided to read all the way through, I got an lot of good stuff from them, which is always yay-making. I didn't manage to read two of them before I had to take the haul back so I decided to renew them and I've been making a concerted effort to get through them as fast as I can, and now I'm one down with half of the other to go.

Like the other books I've reviewed from the haul so far, these two are relatively recent publications, so they're more up to date than a lot of the recommended reading on Celtic Reconstructionist reading lists and I think they'll make good additions to any wish list. The one I'll be reviewing just now is from 2009 and of the two I think it has a wider appeal. Gaulish and, to a lesser extent, Brythonic or Welsh Polytheists will benefit from this book as well, I reckon.

Celtic Curses
Bernard Mees

Going by the title alone it's the sort of thing that could go one of two ways, being either the kind of book that would be more at home amongst the likes of your common or garden variety ye ancient Irish potato goddess fluff, or else one that lurks on my wishlist for many a birthday until I can justify splurging on it. Or, y'know. Get a job. Considering it's the latter, the title seems a little provocative and I think to a certain extent it is. But I'll get to that.

Just like the title suggests, we're dealing mainly with the subject matter of cursing in Celtic contexts. The "Celtic" in question is primarily Gaulish to start with, before moving to Brythonic areas (particularly the evidence from Bath), and then Irish evidence. Some Scottish and Welsh gets a look in, but that's mainly incidental, to be honest. Other kinds of magical practices are considered too - ones that might also share some sort of similarities with cursing that might indicate common origins in practice, or perhaps even direct influences. In these cases we're especially looking at Irish evidence like gessi and lorica prayers, and things like the Song of Lugh and the Morrígan's (or Badb's) prophecy from Cath Maige Tuired. Gessi and loricae get chapters to themselves, but things like the prophecy and the Song of Lugh get a few pages or so in the penultimate chapter "Incantations."

The first part of the book primarily deals with the Gaulish evidence while the latter half concentrates more on the Irish and (to a lesser extent) the Welsh evidence, although there are frequent cross-overs. As far as the Gaulish evidence goes we're primarily looking at defixiones, and Mees argues that while the practice certainly owes a lot to Classical influence, Gaulish defixiones also bear the hallmarks of "indigenous" beliefs at play as well. This is mainly borne out by the fact that Gaulish defixiones are often metrical, where as they aren't in Classical practice. Mees also points to the fact that the Irish word for charm or incantation, bricht, also refers to poetic metre of eight syllables, implying the metre itself was originally an integral part of magical charms, and the Gaulish word brixt which is clearly related to the Irish bricht suggests that the metrical element is ultimately a Celtic feature of magic in general. 

This is where the slightly provocative part comes in; from the beginning Mees makes it clear that he views the evidence as a continuum between the earlier and later evidence - i.e from the early evidence in Gaul to the later evidence in Ireland. In supporting this theory, Mees sets out to show coincidences and possible continuity in the evidence (like with brixt --> bricht) in order to argue that such practices bear underlying "Celtic" features. I'm sure there will be strong critics of Mees' idea, and I think it's safe to say that some points are more convincing than others. One of the quibbles I had is that in some places there is very little discussion of the kinds of issues affecting the sources we're looking at, and it seems assumed that because it is written, it must be authentic and representative of actual practice. Given the amount of issues that affect Irish myth in particular, this could have done with being addressed in a bit more detail than it was.

All in all it's a fascinating read and the author gives plenty of examples of curses in discussing the kind of forms they took, the context they were found in, and the features that could be considered to be specifically "Celtic" or specific to a particular Celtic culture and why that might be. In most cases the original language is given alongside with a translation, which is extremely useful, and considering the fact that the language can often be very obscure or difficult there's good discussion of how the translation was arrived at, and the kinds of symbolism and meaning might lurk beneath the techncial terms used. You also get the delights of the kinds of phrasing that people chose to use - one Gaulish example invoking a curse on various things belonging to their intended victim, including their lunch box.

For the most part we just look at what the curses say and what that tells us about cursing and concepts like fate or destiny that must be manipulated in order to effect the curse. This is extremely useful in itself, but I couldn't help but feel that it would have been more useful with some discussion of the religious context they were performed in - not just how the curses were made, who did them, and so on, but also the underlying cosmological and religious concepts they drew on. There is some discussion, but more would have been better. I was also slightly disappointed about the fact that bullauns don't get a look in - or really any kinds of more modern "pishrogues" and folk practices. Cursing wells get a brief mention as the final chapter, but that's about it.

There really isn't much else like this out there that's so readily accessible, so in many respects the few negatives are forgivable because it's very much a beginning in looking at this sort of subject, and there is only so much you can fit in to one book. As far as things Gaelic go, the chapter on "Breastplates and Clamours" has a lot to offer, and so do the chapters on ''Geasa and Binding" and "Incantations" (in spite of my aforementioned reservations about how the myths are approached). In a lot of the Gaulish curses there are deities that are called upon that results in good discussion that I think will be of interest - for Ogmios in particular.

If you're at all interested in how magical practices might look in a reconstructionist context then I'd highly recommend it. I've not seen it going for very cheap but if you can get your hands on a copy then I don't think you'll regret it.

Volume IV

There comes a point of blogging and trawling the internet where I'm not sure if I'm repeating myself...Have I said this before? Do I know this already? I'm not sure...I'll blame it on the painkillers.

Anyway, if I didn't already know this and haven't already posted this, then hurrah! Volume IV of the Carmina Gadelica is online:

Carmina Gadelica

It takes a while to load but the formatting is good. Volumes 1-3 are also listed there.

Notes: 'The beliefs and mythology of the early Irish, with special reference to the cosmos'

It's been a while since I've done one of these and I'm not about to leave my spot on the sofa here anytime soon, so...Why not?

The Beliefs and Mythology of the Early Irish, With Special Reference to the Cosmos
Fergus Kelly
Astronomy, Cosmology, and Landscape: Proceedings of the Société Eurpéene pour L'Astronomie dans la Culture (2001)

Considering the scope of the title, I was expecting a huge and dense article here, but it's actually quite brief and light on detail or analysis. That's kind of disappointing to me, but as an overview at least it gives pointers to further reading, although it's probably quite telling that most of the references are very old - mostly from the early 1900s to the '60s. This article has the potential to fill a much-needed hole, then.

We begin with a bit of context - the astronomical alignments of many of the pre-Celtic monuments in Ireland, followed by a little commentary from Classical writers about the Gauls and mention of the Coligny calendar. Then we move back to Ireland and the possible cosmological significance of the decorations on the Turoe Stone in Co. Galway. Kelly concludes, "This was clearly an object of religious significance, and may have been associated with fertility." Which may or may not be a polite way of concluding it looks a bit like a penis.

We then move to examining the earliest written sources - evidence from St Patrick's Confessio, hagiographies (biographies of Saint's lives, that is), and legal texts - which mainly deal with the various references to druids. This is followed by looking at the myths, with some consideration of the names of certain deities and their cognates in Britain and Gaul, and noting the similarities between Caesar's comment on various deities covering certain roles, with how some gods like Dian Cécht, Badb (or Bodb), Goibniu and Crédine are said to have done the same.

Next there is a brief discussion of the connection between some supernatural figures and animals, and the observation that some deities are associated with specific localities, followed by mention of the four main festivals associated with the changing of the seasons. This is all well and good so far, but it's nothing that's particularly new or exciting, and nor does it really...go anywhere.

The latter part is perhaps the most interesting, dealing with the connection between astronomy and mythology, as well as astrology. Kelly says: "...the mythical seer Cormac mac Airt is represented as having in his youth been "a listener in the woods and a gazer at the stars." There is a native term mathmarc ("astrologer, augur") of uncertain etymology; it is attested in a text of the ninth century, but may be much earlier. Another Irish word for astrologer is néllaóir, a derivative of néll ("cloud"). Presumably, the shapes of the clouds suggested images from which the future could be foretold. In general, however, the surviving texts indicate that for the early Irish the world of the supernatural was a place to be entered through a fair mound or by passing through a fairy mist. Most frequently, it was represented as an island or group of islands in the Western Ocean. Consequently, we do not find an extensive vocabulary in the Irish language relating to celestial objects." (p169).

Kelly further notes that except for the Milky Way being known as Bóthar na Bó Finne ("the road of the white cow"), there are no known native words for planets or constellations to be found in early Irish texts. Although astronomy was widely studied in monasteries from around the eighth century or so, the names were all derived from Classical sources.

All in all, the article didn't really go in the directions I was anticipating. I was hoping for a bit on cosmogony, assumed there would be mention of the three realms, evidence for a possible cosmological divide between Darkness and Light, how the gods fit in to it all, the concept of the sacred centre, the bile and the omphalos (although the latter was kind of touched on with the Turoe Stone) and so on. Not so much! The stuff on astronomy and astrology is certainly interesting, but being half-way through Mark Williams' Fiery Shapes I'm perhaps a bit spoilt on that front already.

Worldview and clay

I've been busily reading and note-taking since I went to the library a month or so ago now (and another trip in the meantime...I still suck at photocopying, though this time it was because I managed to completely miss out two pages. The most relevant pages at that...). Even though I have more than enough to get through, I had a little bit of birthday cash that still needed spending so I splurged on a couple of books. One is called Irish Traditions, which is a collection of essays and lots of big glossy (and in some cases hilariously dated) photos; I haven't really looked at it much yet but I mainly bought it because a) it was a penny, and b) there's an article in it by Kevin Danaher. Although I've not seen much about the book, I figure anything with Danaher in it can't be too bad.

I also splurged on my own copy of Lisa Bitel's Land of Women. I've tried to buy it before but the first time it failed to arrive (I suspect because the seller didn't want to ship it from the US at such a low price, then, when the exchange rate was very much in my favour). I'm still waiting for it, so we'll see if it turns up.

The third and last book I got is called The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations by Carole M. Cusack. It was only published last year and I've had my eye on it since I stumbled across it and found that Google Books has a good preview of it and saw that it has some good stuff about the sacred bile in Irish tradition, as well as some handy stuff on cosmogony. I'm a few chapters in and it's proving a useful read so far. Some of it I find myself frowning a little at but for the most part there are some things that have proved illuminating. I should probably get back to finishing off my library books first, but I keep picking at chapters here and there from book to book so I'm kind of making progress.

My next purchase will probably have to be a new bookcase...And maybe a small house extension so I have somewhere to put it...(I can dream).

Anyway, seeing as a lot of the books I've had deal with cosmological kinds of subjects I've been thinking a lot about that and how it all fits into what I do. With a neat bit of synchronicity a quote from the CR FAQ popped up in my tumblr dashboard, and it really struck a chord with me:

Contemplate the world as a cosmology of land, sea and sky, everpresent around you. Feel how you are connected to the three realms. Meditate on the well and tree that are at the center of the worlds and which link all things together; and upon the gateways to the otherworlds that can open in the center or at the edges.

The CR FAQ - How do I get started?

As it happens, just as this turned up in my dashboard I'd started working on something that was pretty much right in this area. I'd had an itch that needed scratching for a while - I'd been feeling the need to make something for my shelf-shrine - and I'd just started trying my hand at making a candle holder out of clay. I wanted it to represent a sort of bile, to underscore the connection with my shelf-as-the-hearth, which I see as kind of filtering down from the concept of the sacred centre: As the bile is to the túath, a sacred centre for the people, so the hearth is to the home, a sacred centre for the household.

So while I was attempting to sculpt out the clay and put it all together in a way that hopefully won't set the house on fire, I found myself musing on this meditation from the CR FAQ. There's the Well of Segais, where the nuts of a hazel tree fall into the water and flow down the stream to get eaten by the salmon, and which can impart mystical inspiration if you eat them. In some versions it's not nuts that flow down the water but bubbles, and this possibly relates to the motif of fire-in-water...From the bubbling - perhaps boiling - water, we see the action of fire and water transform this mystical knowledge into a palatable form, and so on...So I sculpted out a representation of a well for the tealight to sit in.

I cut out the tree shape on a flat piece of clay so it would stand before the well and the light of the candle could shine through the tree shape and throw a larger tree shape across the room (in theory!). The tree stands tall at the centre of the túath, supporting it with its nuts and the shelter it provides. I've been wondering for a while whether or not the tree would represent the king or god of the túath, it being kinda phallic, or whether it represents the goddess of the túath. My gut feeling is that it represents the goddess, since she's at the heart of the land and the túath itself. The gods of the Gaels might wander around the landscape or settle down in their síd mounds, but it's the goddess the king was supposed to wed at his inauguration, and its beneath the bile that such rites are said to have taken place.

The piece of clay that has the tree cut into it I then shaped with a rounded top to suggest a kind of archway; a threshold and a boundary between to places, a liminal space between this world and the otherworld. It's at these places where people might best be able to experience some kind of communication with the gods, spirits or maybe ancestors, so it seemed apt.

Seeing as my sculpting skills are amateur at best, things were looking a bit delicate, shall we say, so I decided to use some leaf-and-wood decorated paper to découpage the whole thing. All that glue and a covering of paper should make things a bit sturdier and hold it all together a bit better. The back of the tree, facing where the well and candle are, I painted gold to help reflect and diffuse the light from the flame onto the rest of my shrine a little. Like I said, my craftsmanship leaves a lot to be desired so it's a very bespoke effort, but it's not so much the execution that counts than the doing, right?:

Putting these photos side-by-side took way longer than it should have...

While I was working at it I got to thinking about how it's this that sits at the heart of what we do: the well and the tree, land, sea and sky, this world and the otherworld...That meditation from the FAQ pretty much sums up the foundations of the worldview that shapes how we see things, how we do things and express our beliefs. Everything on my shrine-shelf has some sort of significance as far as my beliefs go. They express a microcosm of the world - the three realms that comprise it, the sacred tree and the well at the centre, and certain items that represent the gods, spirits and ancestors, or gifts that I've received from them.

If there is a centre, it implies a boundary; as the hearth stands at the centre of my domestic focus, so I go deiseal around the boundaries of my home to affirm not just my space, my property, but because without a periphery there can be no centre in the first place. The direction I go in is auspicious (arguably) because it follows the sun and the natural order of things. In recognising these things - the natural order, the way things are and our place in it all - we find the gateways between this world and the otherworld, where we might find revelation and wisdom.

Without looking at these very fundamental, basic things and finding an understanding of them, whatever we do will inevitably lack a certain depth or significance to us; as we grow and evolve our understanding of these things, they take on new meanings, shed new light on ourselves and our beliefs. Our experience and evolving understanding adds layers to what we do. We don't just go round things in a sunwise manner because it's traditional. We don't believe in offering good hospitality just because we're supposed to, we don't make our observances because it's the done thing, or talk in terms of land, sea and sky because it sounds cool and we're just that speshul. We do all this because they articulate something that's fundamental to us, just like the very concept of tradition itself does. We do not do for the sake of doing, just as we do not read book after book for the sake of intellectual wankery (even if it might seem that way sometimes...).

These traditions add depth to what we do, but more than that they help us to communicate with those we are honouring. These traditions and rituals help to articulate our worldview - they are an expression, a kind of language that becomes our own. Like any language it has its quirks, its own oddities of expression, strange idioms or ways of thinking that might seem alien to us. It can take time to learn. In Gàidhlg, you don't say that you are a doctor, you say a doctor is in you - ('s e dotair a th' annam - literally "A doctor is in me). Like any language it's important to understand the rules that govern it, not just which verbs to use in different contexts, but the proper order all of those words should go in, and so on. We can't use Gàidhlig words and make them into a sentence using English rules, because what we'd end up with wouldn't be Gàidhlig, it would be gibberish. Instead of imposing our own rules, we must learn those of the language we're learning. That can take time, but we can never hope to become fluent without learning the vocabulary and the rules that shape them.

Like any language, our rituals and traditions don't have to be lengthy and complex. We don't need to write a whole paragraph when a simple sentence will get our message across, but some of us might want to. Paragraphs can give more of a sense of what we really mean than a sentence can, perhaps. We can use big words or simple ones, but so long as the message stays the same does it matter? Sometimes, perhaps. Sometimes the occasion might call for big words and long paragraphs. But not always.

Our worldview is at the heart of what we do. Learning it can be difficult, especially when we let our preconceptions get away, or maybe even our fear that we can never truly get the hang of it (so why bother?). Without it, though, we can never hope to express ourselves as effectively as we might want to or need to.

More notes: Brigid themed

Delving back into all of this stuff - the articles, the subject matter; it's like putting an old pair of shoes back on. My library membership lapsed in June of last year, so it's been a long while since I did some serious reading. It feels goooood...

Hopefully I'm not boring you all too much. The next couple of articles I thought I'd do some notes on are Brigid related, and content-wise, not quite what I'd hoped for, really, but a good read in their own way if only for challenging my own views. It's good to step outside of your comfort zone once in a while.

Body of a saint, story of a goddess: origins of the Brigidine tradition
Lisa Bitel 
Textual Practice 16(2), 2002

The main thrust of the article is examining Brigid's portrayal in the three hagiographies (biographies pertaining to a saint) that are still extant, and discussing her portrayal in each of them. Bitel argues that the earliest hagiography of Brigid, by Cogitosus - the earliest hagiography of any saint written in Ireland - does not hint at pagan origins for the saint at all.

The later hagiographies do, however, and Bitel argues that this is deliberate. Without any physical remains for the saint, the hagiographers essentially made a conscious decision to use native, mythological motifs to emphasise Brigid's strength and influence over the political and geographical landscape, just like an Irish goddess, all of which infused and intertwined with miracles and events modelled on the Bible, continental hagiographies, and eye witness accounts. This not only gave her a powerful presence, but also justified her political and ecclesiastical power as a woman:

"Brigit's hagiographers were also purposefully invoking 'pre-Christian' history in their allusions to territory and landscape. Once, they proposed, heroines, warrior-women and territorial goddesses from myths and king-tales had wielded feminine power in a land that denied women political authority. The writers of Vita Prima and Bethu Brigte used these traditional models to cast Brigit as protectress of the Leinster people in danger of invasion by their enemies, especially the invading Uí Néill." (222)

In theory the argument is compelling but I can't help but feel there are elements being glossed over here. It would have been nice to have seen more consideration of the merits of those who argue that there are genuine pre-Christian elements or influences at play here, rather than hammering home the argument that the later Lives made deliberate and conscious use of motifs that are entirely divorced from any possible pre-Christian Brigid.


The Image of Brigit as a Saint: Reading the Latin Lives
Katja Ritari
Peritia 21 (2010)

This one made a good companion to Bitel's article and is apparently based in part on the author's own dissertation, Saints and sinners in early christian Ireland: moral theology in the Lives of saints Brigit and Columba (2009). One for the wish list, I think.

Anyway, here we have more consideration of the boundaries between the Christian and pre-Christian Brigid, but ultimately it's a consideration of the saint's portrayal in hagiography, which emphasises her Christian virtues and purity. There are lots of fiery miracles in the two later Lives in particular, which have been used to argue evidence of the pre-Christian Brigid, but Ritari ultimately argues that whatever the origins or influences of the events contained in the hagiographies may be, the portrayals of Brigid as they stand in the hagiographies are entirely Christian in purpose. She ultimately concludes:

"According to Proinsias Mac Cana, the historical element in the Lives of Brigit is slight while the mythological element is correspondingly extensive. I wish to modify this statement: while the so-called 'pagan elements' in the Latin Lives of Brigit are almost non-existent or at least very scant, and the historical tradition pertaining to her is slight, the christian elements are vital in the representation of Brigit as we have her. The authors of the Lives were not writing of a euhemerised goddess but of a christian saint, and as such Brigit conforms perfectly with the christian image of holiness."

I suppose the problem with articles that are necessarily not too long is that it's difficult to really nail an argument conclusively, but if anything there are some good pointers towards other sources here that will help the reader do further research and make their own minds up, and that's the main thing you hope for in an article. It's worth a read for the pointers alone.

More notes from the library...

The next lot of notes should be a bit shorter...Promise...

The Christianization of the Early Irish Cosmos?: muir mas, nem nglas, talam cé (Blathm. 258)
Liam Mac Mathúna
ZcP Volume 49-50 (1997)

Most folks who've been in the CR scene for a while have probably come across Mac Mathúna's article on the three realms in the Celtica journal (if not, it's really worth a read). I think it's safe to say that this article should be considered to be a companion piece to that one: although this article was published earlier than 'Early Irish Perceptions of the Cosmos,' it begins by referencing that article as establishing the Irish concept of "a three-fold division of the cosmos" as fact.

This article covers some of the same ground as the Celtica article and provides more examples of the three realms concept, but takes a different tack, ultimately proposing the idea that eventually the idea came to be articulated in a pair of words: nem (heaven - or sky) and talam (incorporating both land and sea). Or, as Mac Mathúna puts it - "From being confined to one corner of the nem - muir - talam conceptual triangle, where it shared the horizontal plane with muir, talam may now occupy the whole horizontal, subsuming muir, and finding in nem its sole contrasting opposite."

So. Now you know.

It also provides a wider context for the line muir mas, nem nglas, talam cé ("the beautiful sea, the blue heaven, the present earth") given in the Celtica article:

Ba deithbir do dúilib Démuir mas, nem nglas, talam céco imro-imchloítis a ngnéoc coíniud a ngalgaite. 

"It would have been fitting for God's elements, the beautiful sea, the blue heaven, the present earth, that they should change their aspect when keening their hero." (Blathm. 257-60)

Some Heathenish and Superstitious Rites: A Letter from Lewis, 1700
Domhnall Uilleam Stiúbhart
Scottish Studies: The Journal of the School of Scottish Studies Volume 24 (2000-2006)

This is a lengthy article so I'm just going to pick out a couple of bits I found interesting and potentially important; it's an examination of a letter "Ane Accompt of some heathenish & superstitious rites used in the Isle of Lewis given by a frend to Mr Alan Morisone Minister of Ness 15 April 1700" and there are several bits that prove interesting from a folklore perspective, describing certain customs and rites associated with various occasions and festivals that give details I've not otherwise seen before.

First up, there's probable mention of the practice of making offerings to Shony. The letter tells us:

"Others contribut a quantity of Corn & make malt of it, & brew it into ale, and drink it in the kerk [church] 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 will joyn in this work but now its abolyshed, they called this kynd of sacrifeceing Shion, 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 certane rites and ceremonies promiseing to themselves therby the more abundance of fysh and sea ware to be brought ashore to them." (205-206)

This is a slightly different account to the one Martin Martin gives, and unlike Ronald Black, who links Shony to John the Baptist (Seonaidh) and, ultimately possibly Manannán, Stiúbhart suggests the name is evidence of Norse practice, from the Old Norse word son-, which means an atonement or sacrifice. An alternative explanation might link the word with the Lewis name for fairies, muinntir Fhionnlaigh.

The next bit I want to pick out from the letter relates to Là Fhèill Brìghde. The letter describes the making of the leaba Brìde (the bed of Brìde), made "in a Seive wt a little straw and clean cloaths," into which the icon of Bride was placed. The letter goes on to say:

"Then every persone in the family man woman and child put in something wch he daily wor into the bed, and after all was compleet for the service, all the familie fell on thr faces and wt high voices cryed ndanig briid, gun di riist." (206)

This is interesting in that I've never seen mention of clothes being but into the bed (that I recall!), and presumably it's for blessing, just like the practice of putting clothes outside for Brigid to bless in parts of Ireland. Clearly the bolded words are an attempt at articulating Gàidhlig, which Stiùbhart gives as '[Gu]n tàinig Brìd, gun dì [i] rithist.' Martin describes the ritual as well giving the words as "Briid is come, Briid is welcome." Stiùbhart suggests this is a mistranslation, when it should be as above - "Bride is come; may she come again." That has some implications for reconstructionist ritual, no doubt.

One final thing to note is that Stiùbhart mentions in his notes that Ronald Black is currently working on a book about the Gaelic year. All I can say is, YAY.




OK, I'll finish there for now, since I have to leave the house today. I hope you find these useful!

Notes from the library

I thought I'd make some notes on some of the articles I got from the library yesterday, in case anyone might be interested in getting hold of them. I'll stick to the more interesting ones I got, and try to keep the waffle to a minimum...

The first one is an article by John Carey that has some good food for thought in relation to origin or creation legends of Ireland. I've been compiling as many "creation" tales as I can find over at Tairis Tales, and Carey makes some interesting points here:

'Origin and Development of the Cesair Legend'
John Carey
Éigse Volume 22 (1987)

Cesair is typically credited as being the first settler of Ireland, according to the Lebor Gabála Érenn. Sent west by her grandfather (Noah) in an the hopes of escaping the imminent Flood, she arrives with a bevy of women and only three men to go round. The women are divided between the three men, Cesair herself marrying Fintan mac Bochra. Eventually the Flood comes and those who haven't died already succumb to it - all except for Fintan.

The Lebor Gabála itself is an eleventh century tale but earlier versions of the invasion story can be found in other sources. The lost manuscript of Cín Dromma Snechta, which dates to around the eighth century, lists Banba as the first woman to settle Ireland (lending her name to it). The Chronicon Scotorum, meanwhile (drawing on an eighth or ninth century descendent of the 'Irish World Chronicle'), lists the first woman as 'Eriu or Berba or Cesair.' A version of Lebor Gabála in the Book of Lecan also glosses Cesair's name with .i. Eriu. All this means: earlier versions from around the eighth century probably had the name as Banba or Ériu (or Berba, who Carey later associates with the River Barrow), which then became associated with Cesair.

Carey then goes on to discuss the significance of the legend, with two different theories proposed by other academics being influential: On the one hand, Cesair isn't mentioned in some invasion schemes at all (e.g. Historia Brittonum), suggesting she was added in at a later date - perhaps in order to give Ireland's origin story Biblical roots. On the other hand, Macalister (who translated the LGÉ) and the Rees brothers suggested that Cesair is pagan in origin, her story being 'a tattered fragment of a Flood myth' (i.e. a native Flood myth, not related to the Bible), and that Cesair and Fintan are a 'cosmogonic pair'; part of a native creation story, in which the Flood occurs during the process of the world's manifestation.

In a wider context, Carey notes that there are several different flood stories associated with women (such as the Wave of Clidna) to be found in the dindshenchas tales, and that Cesair's story could have had its origins in a local legend that was adopted and adapted into a broader context for the purpose of the LGÉ. This is the crux of the argument, and so Carey partially agrees with Macalister and Rees in that there are pagan origins for the story, but "it should be emphasized that the story appears to be a local legend, with no necessary connection to traditions either of world deluge or of primeval migration - in other words, I am led to agree with those who see its presence in the invasion sequence as an artificial and secondary development." (p46)

The final point for consideration is the location of the tale: if Cesair's story did start out on a local level, then as it exists today doesn't really help to pinpoint the location. Carey suggests that the tale has undergone a lot accretion, which muddies the waters somewhat, but it ultimately has its origins in a Leinster legend - "in which Ladru and his two companions stole Berba, with the host of her attendant maidens, from the Otherworld. They returned to Ireland and divided the women into three companies at Commar na Trí nUisce, but were overwhelmed by an avenging flood-wave from the sea. The three groups of women were very possibly linked with the three river which meet at that spot." (48)

In which I suck at photocopying

Thanks to some generous relatives sending me thoughtful gifts of cash for my birthday, I decided it was time to treat myself and renew my membership at the university library. I know. I'm just that exciting...

Anyway. I took myself off to Glasgow this afternoon, after enjoying my Saturday lie in, and eventually managed to renew my membership. It took a couple of failed attempts at trying to pay by card (the machine wasn't working), then having to hobble off to the nearest cash machine to get cash out and then try again, only to find I had some unpaid fines still on my account. Luckily I anticipated the possibility and had enough to cover it without having to hobble another half a mile to cash machine, and I was good to go. Off I went, returning to my natural habitat after a long year's absence: the largest academic library in the UK (or it was when I was a student, anyway).

For once I managed to remember the list of books and articles I wanted to look up, which made things considerably easier than usual. Most of them are relatively recent books, published in the last ten years or so, and after a quick flick through of some of them, I think I'll have plenty to be keeping me occupied for the next few months. I've been wanting to find some books that are a bit more up to date, so I'm a very happy bunny. They are, in case you're interested:

Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe - Lisa Bitel and Felice Lifshitz
Celtic Curses - Bernard Mees
Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales, 700-1700 - Mark Williams
Ireland and the Grail - John Carey
The Cult of the Sacred Centre: Essays on Celtic Ideology - Proinsias Mac Cana
Celtic Christianity and Nature: Early Irish and Hebridean Tradition - Mary Low
Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages - Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter

And I got some articles photocopied too. Except some of them didn't turn out too well thanks to my inability to get all of the text on each page in properly...Arse. On the plus side, one of them is already online - Rules and Legislation on Love Charms in Early Medieval Ireland. The others I'll just have to make do until I go back.

I think all of the books I've got justified the cost of renewing my membership. I've already had a look at a preview of Williams's Fiery Shapes online and I've been eyeing it for quite a while. It's been out of my price range, sadly, so I'm glad the university had already bought it (they tend to be quite slow getting new titles in). Celtic Curses is a book I've not heard of before but it looks good - it seems to be mostly covering Gaulish and British examples under Rome's influence but there are several chapters on Irish evidence as well, and it looks like a good read so far.

The book on Gender and Christianity by Lisa Bitel doesn't seem to have much to do with Ireland but there was an article on the idea of sex and gender in medieval Europe in general that gave some food for thought, discussing the idea of a third gender, or a "clergy gender." I'm not totally convinced by the idea but it's certainly something to chew on.

I still have plenty of books to look up on my next visit, though I don't have to return this bunch until September. I'm sure that will give me plenty of time to get everything I need from them, even if I don't get the chance to read them all from cover to cover.

Bits and pieces - links to books online

Some useful links to hard to find books popped up on the CR group on Facebook a while ago so I thought it would be useful to make a note of them here as I make some updates to my website as well, for any readers who might not be on the group; following on from the books that were mentioned on the group I decided to have a wander around Scribd to see if there is anything else of interest. It turns out that yes, there's probably a huge amount there, but that would make for a long and boring list that would make even my eyes crossed! So instead, here are just a few that I found or was pointed to via FB:

First and foremost, there is Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia edited by John Koch. It's incredibly expensive to buy otherwise and it's a fantastic resource so it's well worth taking a look at. Of all the Celtic encyclopedias I've seen, I would say this is by far the best, and certainly the most extensive work; a lot of well-respected academics have contributed to the entries here and it makes a great starting point for research. The downside to its extensiveness (all 2000+ pages of it) is that it's an absolute bugger to find anything quickly! But seriously. For any Celtic Reconstructionist I would recommend this encyclopedia as one of the absolute necessities for your bookshelf. In my humble opinion, anyway...

Less useful is Patricia Monaghan's Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore. Her research isn't great and sometimes she's way off base, but I thought it was worth noting in case somebody stumbled across it and wondered about it. You can do a lot worse, but you can also do a lot better (see above...) and personally I wouldn't rely on this book for serious research. This is from the same author as The Red-Haired Girl From the Bog, which I've tried to read many times and have failed...(I know a few folks who love that book but for some reason her tone really grates on my nerves).

Something a little different is a collection of essays in The Vikings in Ireland; there are some contributions in there from well-respected academics and it's a subject that's often neglected so I think it's well worth exploring.

Another book is Graham Webster's The Roman Invasion of Britain. I've yet to read this but I think I have it somewhere on my bookshelf, having inherited it from the library of a friend and colleague of my mother-in-law earlier this year. I've read another book of his, The British Celts and Their Gods Under Rome, which I thought was mis-titled but otherwise not bad.

The Archaeology of Celtic Art offers an up to date perspective on the subject and gives a discussion about the use of the term 'Celtic' within archaeology these days; many archaeologists are reluctant to use the term, preferring 'Iron Age' instead (although they'll happily sap Celtic on the title of the book so it will sell...). This offers its own problems, but there are many who criticise these 'Celtoskeptics' as denying Celtic heritage and everything that entails. Aside from that, there are lots of purty pikchurs of shiny things.

Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art by Miranda Green is one I've reviewed here; it's good, but of more interest to those of a Gallo-Roman flavour rather than the Gaelic or Brythonic Polytheist. There is also Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, which is another one I've reviewed. It's probably good to remember that Green is generally stronger on archaeology than myth.

Finally, I stumbled across a recently published essay by Mary Jones called Rethinking Imbolc. It's aimed at a reconstructionist audience and I think there's good research and references here. The essay offers a different perspective on Imbolc, exploring the associations of the festival with purification, and I think it's well worth a read; there's some good food for thought here.

That's all, folks!

Online research tips for the beginner

After seeing a few things around and about on the subject of books and the internet, as far as the beginner is concerned, I figured I'd put a few thoughts of my own together. Books - and other sources - are a tricky subject for the beginner because it's difficult to know where to start, and what to rely on. And especially when that involves looking on the internet.

It's all well and good being pointed towards a book list - even a short one aimed at beginners, like the one on the CR FAQ. I think the books listed there are excellent choices, but one problem a lot of folks have is investing the money in buying those books. There are plenty of places that these kinds of books can be found second hand at more than reasonable prices, but even so, that might be stretching an already non-existent budget too far for many these days.

There's always the option of trying to find them at the library, but that's not necessarily a satisfactory solution if you have to order them through Inter-Library Loan, if that's an option at all (I'm lucky I can get access to an academic library, because a lot of the books I want I couldn't get at my local library, unfortunately). It's important to remember that these books are recommended for a reason - they're not perfect, by any means, but they offer a lot of good information that wll give any fledgling reconstructionist a good start.

In the internet age, though, people are increasingly used to finding answers straight away, and looking things up on Google offers a much quicker and cheaper solution, and it might be tempting to ignore books that aren't freely available in favour of those that are. There are lots of books and articles available online, in full, along with plenty of websites dealing with various kinds of 'Celtic Paganisms' that might appeal to the beginner. The problem with this, of course, is that websites aren't necessarily always reliable or trustworthy, and nor are books. This post here on Discernment offers a lot of good advice on how to approach and assess the reliability of different sources, and Maya's essay here makes a good compliment to that. 

The internet can be incredibly useful as a tool for research, if it's used wisely. It can also be a minefield, but knowing where to look - and how - can help narrow things down. Instead of just doing a web search, using Google Scholar can help you find far more reliable sources than you normally would (though I find a lot of neo-pagan sources crop up there as well, and while that might not be so bad for some, they're not necessarily the sort of focus I'm looking for), and while much of it may not be freely available, you can often find a few gems that are downloadable as pdfs. For many, admittedly, this is just a quicker route to a rapidly expanding wishlist...
 
One of the biggest advantages researching online can offfer is all of those free books, and occasionally articles or journals that are fully available, for free. Again, though, it's a double-edged sword. It's tempting to assume that just because a book seems to be well-written and well-researched, and has an authoritative or academic tone, then it's all good. This isn't always the case, because the author often has their own approach and bias in how they look at the sources, so it often helps to know where they're coming from, and to read as widely as possible in order to try and balance one view, or one approach, with another. Those pointers I've linked to above will come in handy - I think at the most simplest level, the best thing to remember when you're reading something is asking the question where did that come from? Until you know, and can see it's from a good source, look elsewhere as well and try to verify the point. If it seems a little off the wall, it probably is.

When you're reading academic tomes in particular, it helps to know the kind of angle they're coming from. I've outlined some of the approaches to Celtic Studies and Archaeology here already, and bearing this in mind is a good way to make your own mind up on things. Reading books on the same subject from these different approaches might leave you with conflicting views on certain things, and you're going to have to make your own mind up and decide what you think is right. When you start doing your own research, you'll find that there are rarely any quick answers.

There's sometimes a tendency to dismiss older books in favour of newer ones, simply because they're old and therefore out of date. Most of those books and articles that are available online are out of print, and yes, it's a good thing to remember that there's often a lot wrong with older books, simply because of the way approaches to research and interpretation have changed over the years. But that doesn't automatically make new books better, or strip those older books of any value whatsoever. There's a lot of stuff in those older sources that come in very handy to the modern reconstructionist, not least because there are translations of material that have since been relatively ignored. Since these older sources are now out of copyright they are often easily found online, in full, and this is where we come back to the issue of relying on the internet, and these free sources, in our reading.

Aside from Google Scholar, some of the best places to start looking are on archive.org, sacred-texts.com, or Google Books, and there's also a huge library of Scottish-focused books at Electric Scotland as well as lots of books on the Isle of Man at isleofman.com. (Scribd can also be a minefield of useful books, but they're not always books that are copyright free and there's a tendency for them to disappear once they're discovered, so it can be hit or miss.)

And that's nice and all, but when you're being cautioned about these books being potentially problematic sources, where do you start? While I would say that the histories that you can find are often very outdated in approach and you're probably better off sticking with more up to date books, one of the biggest strengths of some of these old sources is that they can contain eye-witness accounts of customs and traditions that have since died out or only continue privately. Many of these can be found in old journals (for example, when I was researching stuff for the Michaelmas struan, I found some particularly useful articles at archive.org).

Alexander Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica is one of the best sources to look if you're wanting inspiration for practices:

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3

There are six volumes in all, but because of the way they were published, over several decades, not all of them are out of copyright yet. The full six volume set will probably set you back a pretty penny, but you can buy an abridged version that just contains the English translations cheaply, which makes a good starting place. With the abridged version you lose the Gàidhlig and the extensive notes/glossary and indexing that you find in the full volume set. Then again, the first two volumes in particular are the most helpful to the aspiring reconstructionist, because later volumes were 'improved' and 'polished' more so than the first two. The volumes available online are therefore perhaps the most helpful for the beginner (though the others shouldn't be ignored, by any means).

Compare Carmichael's work with Douglas Hyde's Religious Songs of Connacht, and you'll see a lot of similarities along the way, which is especially helpful if you want to work out your own songs or prayers and base them on, and it goes to show that what Carmichael recorded on those remote islands can be just as useful for the Irish Reconstructionist as the Scottish, or simply Gaelic (labels are a tricky thing).

Looking on archive.org, you'll find a wealth of good stuff if you look up Folklore journals, or the Celtic Review, or search for well known and prolific authors like Kuno Meyer and Whitley Stokes. Much of this work will be outdated, and especially in the case of the translations provided by Meyer and Stokes, are much in need of looking at again in a modern context. This is happening, but it isn't necessarily widely available, and in the meantime we can find some gems in albeit somewhat imperfect formats.

As for websites, maryjones.us is a great starting point, which is good for a reconstructionist in particular, and links that I've posted previously, like to the Ulster Institutional Repository and the Carmichael Watson Project. Looking at the various universities who offer Celtic Studies as a discipline can also be helpful, such as Ulster, Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Cambridge, Berkeley, Harvard, and so on. Otherwise - generally speaking - a good way to determine the reliability of a website is that if it actively sparkles, it's probably not too good as far as historical accuracy and research go. References also help.

Bits and pieces - links of interest and a new CR book

I'm snagging something from Treasa's blog that I meant to mention ages ago, after she brought my attention to it - the Ulster Institutional Repository. It's an archive of articles and work by researchers at Ulster University, and there's a good section on Irish and Celtic stuff there. There are lots of articles you can download as pdfs, on all sorts of things, although some entries are only references. Hopefully they will add to it, because some of the most interesting ones aren't available, but it's still well worth a look. Treasa's also posted a nice video called Lament by Damien Byrne, which won an award in March - it's a reworking of The Death of Aoife's Only Son. 

In other news, I've got a copy of a new CR book on order, called Highland Heathenry by Ikindé Skréja Ominnsaer. It's just out yesterday, and how could I not? My credit card won't be thanking me just now, I'm sure, but the book should arrive sometime next week (while the kids are away - yay, peace and quiet!) and I'll be reviewing it at some point after that, I'm sure. Ikindé's blog is here if you want to check her out.

Reviews

No trips to the library of late, but I've managed to squeeze in a few books from my own bookshelves for once. Off the back of one of them, I've got another book on order - not that my credit card appreciates the sponking, but oh well. Hopefully it will arrive next week and I can get stuck into it then, I'm running low on bedtime reading these days. It's The Old Gods: The Facts About Irish Fairies by Patrick Logan, which Seán Ó Duinn mentioned in his Where Three Streams Meet: Celtic Spirituality. That's one book I'll be reviewing, the other is Cattle in Ancient Ireland, by A. T. Lucas.


Cattle in Ancient Ireland
A. T. Lucas

Yes, every day is a party in my brain...

I seriously doubt that this book will be of interest to anyone other than the most die hard of folk interested in the finer details of Irish life and culture, from the perspective of that fine beast, the cow. Mostly cow. Sometimes, bulls. (And speaking of which, I recommend watching this topical news report at your earliest convenience).

To be fair, I probably qualify as being on the more die hard side of things, and am also writing this review on a Sunday morning clad in the cow-print fleecy dressing gown my mother bought me for my thirtieth a few years ago, so that probably tells you just how much of a party can get going in my brain some days. Cows and Irish history; I'd hesitate to say I'm particularly enthusiastic about the two in combination, but I don't find it totally mindnumbing to contemplate either.

I bought the book because there are some references to it that piqued my interest, mainly to do with the use of milk in baptism (possible evidence of pre-Christian practice), and the offering of cattle in death rites, in marriage, and the bleeding of cattle at certain festivals...That sort of thing. The book does indeed go into these sorts of detail, which aren't really discussed elsewhere, but while it offers something that most other books don't in that respect, the lack of detail in these areas was a little disappointing; I wasn't much better informed than I was having seen the second-hand references.

For the rest of the book, however, there is an almost overwhelming amount of detail. As far as early medieval Ireland is concerned, the importance of cattle as a measurement of wealth, and as the backbone of the economy, cannot be understated, and if you read this book you won't be left in any doubt about that. So really, it's an important book in that respect. It's not exactly a dry read, as such, but the level of detail given in arguing each point made is mind-boggling; points are well made. Perhaps a little too well made to make a decent read, but to be fair I don't think this is a book that qualifies as light, or entertaining reading on any level anyway. Either way, for the most part there isn't much to disagree with in the book, although I couldn't help but feel that the section dealing with the colour of cattle, and the possibility of the actual existence of red-eared cattle from mythological descriptions was a little weak.

However, I can now, with confidence, say that I feel well-informed as far as the practices of transumance and cattle raiding is concerned, along with many other things relating to cattle in ancient Ireland. It's not the sort of thing a normal person would want to boast about, but if you happen to find yourself desperately needing to research the subject, you can't go far wrong in starting with this book. It's well researched, well-written, well-structured, and covers most (possibly all) areas that you'll need to know about. Where it's lacking, it's probably safe to say that this only reflects the dearth of material for Lucas to have gone on in writing anything of substance.

It's a good read for what it covers, but it's very much a niche interest book. I wouldn't recommend you whip out your credit card and order it from the online bookstore of your preference right now, unless you suddenly find an inexplicable and burning need to know all about ancient Irish cattle.


Where Three Streams Meet: Celtic Spirituality
Seán Ó Duinn

This is an ambitious book in some respects, since its purported aim is to weave together the three different strands (or streams) of Irish belief and practice throughout the ages that have come together to give what the author calls 'Celtic Spirituality'. Inevitably, I think, given this ambition there are a few disppointments to be found, but also a few gems...

The three streams that are brought together (no, nothing to do with Ghostbusters) are: the beliefs and practices of the megalithic people of Ireland; those of the pre-Christian Celts; and that of Christianity. These are all brought together to show just how they've shaped modern spirituality - and here is my first niggle, because I would have to say that it's modern Irish (Christian) spirituality being looked at here, rather than anything specifically 'Celtic'. I disagree with Ó Duinn's use of the 'Celtic Spirituality' as a sort of catch-all, because for the most part he's looking at something much more specific - Ireland, with some Scottish evidence thrown in for comparison. Another niggle is the references to 'the Great Mother', but that should be expected as par for the course if you've read other books by the author. It's easily read around.

Given the fact that Ó Duinn is a monk, and the focus of the book is very much on the end result of what he calls 'Celtic Spirituality' - what we see today - it's only to be expected that the pre-Christian material may be somewhat lacking to some extent, and the subject matter weighted heavily in favour of the Christian 'stream'. I would've liked to have seen more detail for the former, and I would anticipate that the fact that Ó Duinn is primarily writing for a Christian audience might be problemmatic for some folks who are more interested in the pre-Christian stuff and might still have some hangups from their upbringing or whatever; not a problem for me since I wasn't brought up Christian, so I can only imagine, really, but I'd have to say that ignoring the Christian material means you'll be losing out on a lot anyway.

Necessarily, the first strand (megalithic peoples) is somewhat lacking in detail, and only superficially dealt with in terms of how the megaliths were effectively repurposed by the pre-Christian Celts in their mythology and practices. This is inevitable, but some might feel that it kind of undermines the stated aim of the book if there's not much that can be said about it. What little there is in there is interesting, but probably not much there that you haven't heard before unless you're completely new to the subject.

For the rest, like I said, I would've liked to have seen more detail about the pre-Christian material and its implications on modern belief and practice, but what Ó Duinn does deal with is mostly well done once you get passed the introductory stuff. There's some good stuff on offerings, ancestor worship, gods and the like, and there are examples of traditional Irish prayers given that show just how similar daily ritual practices are compared to the Carmina Gadelica (some instances of which are also examined) which are also interesting.

While I think that ultimately a lot of people who pick this book up might be disappointed by the lack of depth in terms of dealing with the pre-Christian strand, I'd stress that there's good stuff here, in spite of the problems I have. One problem in particular that I had was the reliance on commentary by Classical authors in the first few chapters, in detailing the beliefs and practices, and cultural values of the pre-Christian Celts, without much attempt at examining just how far we can a) rely on such commentary in taking it at face value, and b) apply it to the Irish, when the Classical authors were only really talking about the Gauls or Britons. And not necessarily reporting first hand knowledge...I can understand why this was brought into the mix, but I think it was given undue weight.

I couldn't help but feel that towards the end of the book, the focus became a little unstuck and was more about Celtic Christianity than anything to do with examining the influences on its evolution. It's interesting and invaluable in terms of pointing out the areas within Christianity that do seem to be genuine hangovers of pre-Christian beliefs, but at times the detail was a little too narrow to hold my interest in any kind of depth.

Over all, this is a good read, in spite of the criticisms I might have of it - it's engaging and well-written, well-researched and referenced, and the bits I disagreed with are - for the most part - easily read around or skimmed over. I managed to finish it within two evenings in spite of it not being a particularly small volume, so it was a quick read for me.

The first half of the book was far more interesting to me than the second half, given that it dealt with things like the gods, ancestor veneration and the like. I can't say that I learned much that I didn't already know, but I think this is the first time I've ever seen it all brought together in one place - ancestor worship, gods and spirits, and so on. Had I bought this book earlier in the year, a lot of my research for the articles I've written in the past six or eight months or so would've been much easier, to be fair...

All in all, for the average Celtic Reconstructionist I think this book will be of most interest to the beginner, or someone who's come so far and might be feeling the need for something to help solidify things in their mind a bit more. You might not find all of it of interest or relevance, but I'd say it's definitely worth a read.

Life, the universe, and spaceships

It's the Easter holidays at the moment, so there's entertaining of small children to be had (and so not much room for deep thoughts). A change of pace and posting is in order, then - domestic life reigns. Aside from roping them in to help me with catching up on the housework and gardening, we've been having a few days out here and there. We were going to try an overnight camping trip over in Argyll sometime this week, but it looks like the weather's turned against us. There's a chance we might go away for Bealltainn with some friends, though, so I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, in lieu of any camping trips, our latest mini-adventure was to go into Glasgow so I could sort out things with the library - I went on Saturday to try and sort the book I lost out, but they said they couldn't make a decision then and I'd have to come back on Monday. I'd bought another copy of the book (the original of which I think I accidentally put into the recycling bin when I was sorting a pile of paper out) in the hopes that it would get back on the shelves a little quicker, so it needed a manager to decide whether that was "the best way to move forward." So I dragged the kids into the city on Monday, with strict instructions to Behave when in the library. They did, and the manager accepted the book with the addition of a small admin fee (which I was expecting), so it's all good. My conscience is salved.

My library trip on Saturday yielded another haul of books - probably too many to read all the way through, but I'll try. I've nearly finished the first one, and at the least I want to work my way through Peter Narváez's The Good People, and Diane Purkiss' Troublesome Things (can you sense a theme?). I'm not sure I'm going to like the latter. I also picked up Katharine Brigg's' The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, mainly because it was on the same shelf as the others.

While we were in the area, I took the kids over to the Botanic Gardens - I'd promised the kids a treat, and there was supposed to be a Children's Garden there, but when we got there nobody was about and it looked a bit underwhelming anyway. Instead, we headed to Kibble Palace:

It's a Victorian glasshouse (or spaceship, if you're Tom and Rosie). I used to walk passed here everyday on my way to university when I was a student (and it gets a mention or two in one of my favourite series of books, by Ken MacLeod, too), so it's a nostalgic piece of the past, for me. Fun fact: the building you can just see behind the glasshouse used to be the BBC headquarters in Scotland, and they used to film news pieces outside on the pavement a lot. I walked passed a reporter doing an interview once, and tripped over my shoelaces right on camera.

Inside the glasshouse there are lots of tasteful sculptures dotted about the place (tastefully naked, of course):

(This picture's from a few years ago, the statue is of Eve). And there are lots of different plants from around the world - various parts of Africa, America and Australia. The kids' favourite, aside from running around in amongst the paths that form an almost maze to the centre of all the plants in the main section, is the fish pond:

The best part about the place is it's peaceful (moreso when it's not the school holidays, to be fair). And always warm. I used to come here as a student for a little bit of peace and quiet, taking some time to destress from whatever essay or exams I was in the middle of. I could do with a bit of that just now, so a visit was much in order, even if I did have to concentrate on herding small children. Places like this are kind of Otherworldly, to me; completely different from the outside world, a bubble of peace and calm in a sea of chaotic life. It's good to get away sometimes, and when I lived in the city on the top floor of a tenement it was places like this that gave me a taste of earthiness and escapism that I craved.

I promised Rosie a banana tree, so we went over to the hothouse as well, where it happened that they were watering the rainforest section - which meant turning on the sprinkler system to simulate rain. Best fun ever, apparently:

Today, though, with the rain and cold back once again, we'll be off to the garden centre to pick up a few things. I've finally managed to get started with this year's vegetable patch, although so far nothing has come up yet. I put in some onions and leeks during the wane of the moon (so they won't run to seed), and some carrots and sprouts once the moon started waxing (to ensure a good crop). This year I'm trying some purple carrots as well as normal ones, but otherwise I'm not planning on much else. The broccoli and cauliflower I tried last year were a dismal failure (any broccoli or cauliflower I got were tiny buds), and my neighbour said he'd read that they need very compact soil to yield decent-sized veg - so containers probably aren't the best for them. I'll maybe try a few salad items, once I've bought more seeds, but that's about it.

Like an annoying thing on an annoying day, with annoying sprinkles on top...

My oh my, how time flies. No sooner did I go to the library, than a month suddenly vanished and I had to return my books. In my head, it's been a few weeks, tops. But no, the books I got from the grown up library (as the kids call it, because I had to explain why they couldn't come too, and that's all I could think of) were due back today.

I didn't get around to reading even half of what I was intending to, but I did get the research I needed done, at least. I kind of ran out of steam with the Understanding the Universe book - not that it's not good, it just wasn't scratching the itch I was hoping it would and in the end I just didn't finish it. I have a more pressing itch to scratch at the moment, so I might go back to it at some point, because while I was at the caravan I did make good progress with it and I might as well go the whole hog.

I don't like to hold on to books during term time, in case someone else needs them (because if they get recalled, I won't be able to return them immediately, necessarily. Which would be expensive for me and inconvenient for everyone else), so I've returned all but one of them - British Calendar Customs: Scotland - because I'm fairly sure nobody will miss that for another month or so, and when I get the chance I really want to get stuck into it.

This time, at the grown up library, I remembered to take my book list. So that's an improvement on last time at least. I managed to get the articles I wanted to hunt up, and a few of the books I forgot. Yay. But this is also where the annoying part comes in, because I've been trying to work on my next article - on marriage this time, following on from the pieces I did on Afterlife and Ancestors, and then Death and Burial - and I've kind of hit a wall. Marriage is unexpectedly complicated.

I thought it would be difficult in the sense that there's not much to go on in terms of pre-Christian evidence (and there isn't, in terms of ritual pointers, which is what I really want to know about), but noooooo, there's a whole lot of other things to consider, too. I thought it would be a matter of cup rituals - a maiden bestowing a cup of on her intended to signify her acceptance of him, and then vice versa when he accepts it, and so on...then early medieval Irish marriage laws...then more recent folklore evidence. But not so much. 

Research has been a hard slog and I seem to have collected a huge amount to sift through - more so than usual, and I'm already at the point where I know I'm going to have to split the whole thing into at least three parts. This is partly to do with the fact that I want to be comprehensive, and I want to show that marriage as it was is a very limiting topic for some in the present day. But my general aim in writing these articles is to give an overview of historical practices and outlooks, and that kind of conflicts with my own views on the subject. I'm fine with that, but at the same time I'm leery of how my attempts at being somewhat objective, at least, might be construed.

Marriage and babies was an ideal, yes. The laws didn't recognise gay and lesbian partnerships as being applicable for marriage unions (although homosexual relations in and of themselves weren't condemned either), and choosing not to have kids? Unheard of. It allowed for men to have more than one wife, but not women. And so on. As I said, it's complicated. And I'm leery of coming across as saying heterosexual marriage, between a man and woman (who subjugates herself to her husband) is the norm and the ideal in a reconstructionist and Gaelic Polytheist context, while trying to come across as even vaguely objective. I'm leery of coming across as saying that a man and woman should marry so they can have babies. End of. Because although to all intents and purposes I'm a walking embodiment of the heterosexual 'norm' - married, two kids, housewife - I don't think that should be the case for everyone. I don't think that those who choose alternatives to the 'norm' should be marginalised, because with modern technology, modern medicine, modern laws, we simply don't live in a world where such a narrow view should be considered to be desirable. I guess I have to have more of an editorial slant on the subject than I usually prefer, just to be clear.

But I'm kind of digressing. My main problem in writing the article is that there are still bits that I don't feel like I fully understand - not just that I'm not sure I can articulate properly, but I'm just not sure of at all. It's affecting my ability to put down the research I've collated into something even vaguely coherent. There seem to be a lot of holes, and there are conflicting opinions that all seem to confidently state that this is how it was, which then contradict everyone else. Which makes it evident that I need to do more research to fill in a few gaps before I can make up my mind with confidence.

This is where the really annoying part for today comes in. On my list of forgotten items that I managed to pick up today, was Bart Jaski's Early Irish Kingship and Succession. On a whim, I bought a copy of The Fragility of Her Sex? a while ago, because it was relatively cheap and I figured it would get me out of a research blackhole quicker than getting a copy from the library would, since the articles seemed to cover the issue of marriage in early medieval Ireland (turns out: not so much, but what I did find was useful, at least). Jaski has an article on marriage in there, and it was very helpful to what I needed to know, in parts, if not wholesale. I managed to piece bits of the rest together from here and there (and gods bless Google Scholar, Google Books, and Archive.org in my endeavour), and started to feel that at least as far as the cup-bearing issue, and the early Irish law were concerned, I had it covered. Then I looked up 'marriage' in the index of Early Irish Kingship and Succession, and the first thing that I looked at detailed almost everything I've written so far. If not word for word, then pretty much in the same order and not really disagreeing with anything I've said so far.

So much for my attempts at original research. I've basically followed in the footsteps of someone else already, for no good reason, because I should've just got his book instead - and could've, if I'd remembered the damn book list a month ago. I mean, it really looks like a bad case of plagiarism, cheekily disguised by the fact that I've attempted to make it look like I haven't by just referencing the same sources...It's a bit of a bummer, to say the least. Or maybe I should feel buoyed by my apparently on-the-nose research skills.

But it's not all bad - oh no and definitely definitely not. In looking up some of the journals for articles I wanted to photocopy, as usual I picked a few of the other volumes off the shelf and had a quick flick through. As luck would have it, I found a good article called 'The Drink of Death' that essentially looks at the inversion of the cup motif, in relation to the king's marriage to the land, along with an article on tattooing in insular Celtic tradition by Charles MacQuarrie. I read the latter on the train home, and it offers a lot of food for thought, not least in the fact that he points out that as far as the Picts and woad go, they are said to have painted themselves. It's iron needles that they and other insular tribes (certain, and specific tribes, MacQuarrie suggests) used for tattooing, and these tattoos tended to be of animals on the face, arms (close to the wrist) or thigh. They were either indicative of some sort of 'bloodthirsty' pact (i.e. uncivilised, pagan), or else an expression of some sort of spiritual (civilised but arguably not necessarily Christian, given the precedents) ideal. So basically, considering the next tattoo I have in mind, it's all cool beans. Although I doubt it will be on my face...