Sunsets and blue skies

Blue sky is always a novelty here in Scotland - especially on the west coast, that is - but we've been having some glorious blue skies and sunny days recently. I even have a slight sunburn (never a good idea to put sunblock on your own back before going out to mow the lawn...obviously I missed bits). It's sad but true - mild sunburn round these parts actually seems like an achievement.

My husband bought a new lens for his camera recently - a big one, that makes you look like you're a scary stalker or paparazzi (same thing, really). And so of course, with a lens that's perfect for taking wide angle shots of luscious landscapes, the weather turned to interminable grey and dull, with extra midgies for good measure. Typical.

Our planned camping trip has been put on hold for the next few weeks or so - we're probably going to head right up to the far north of Scotland - when hopefully we'll get a window of good weather to accompany us, but with the new lens we're hoping to get some good shots. I've mentioned how I want to go to Tigh nam Bodach (before the developers inevitably move in...) and my dear husband doesn't seem averse to the idea; it's a bit of a trek, but I'm hoping that we'll be able to stop on our way up north.

For now, though, you'll just have to be content with atmospheric shots of round these parts. In amongst the rain and cloud, we've at least had some nice sunsets (you can click them for larger pictures, if you want):

I think this one is my favourite shot, our local beach as above, where I did my Midsummer devotions:

And of course, we can't not have a lighthouse in here at some point...This one's a well-known landmark in the area, the Cloch lighthouse:

A view of the Clyde at low(ish) tide, with the Holy Loch just off in the distance...You can tell how much rain we've been having by the luscious green grass:

And the last one, Inverkip's war memorial, with Argyll behind it:

Tynwald Day - Laa Tinvaal

Today is Tynwald Day on the Isle of Man, a national holiday that sees an open air parliament convene onTynwald Hill, next to St John's Chapel. The tradition is associated with the Midsummer celebrations, and possibly Manannán mac Lir, and goes back at least a thousand years, and is said to be the oldest parliament in continuous existence in the world. The Beeb are live-streaming the events of the day:

Here!

Come 4.30pm the video will start recapping highlights of the day, apparently, and I think you should be able to view the video wherever you are.

There's a brief description of the Tynwald Court from the 17th century here, and a nineteenth century description here. These versions might swallow up a lot of your computer if you don't have a very good internet connection, though, so be warned! Alternative options can be found here and here (pages 29-30 and 10-11 respectively).

Midsummer

I'm a little late posting about my Midsummer, which I celebrated last week, but I'll do a rundown just now anyway. Mainly because I took pictures, and it's a shame to waste them...

It's not a time of year I usually make much fuss about, but I do tend make a trip down to the beach to make my own devotions to Manannán - my version of paying the rents, as it were. Usually I make the most of the longer days at this time of year and take myself off to the beach after the kids are in bed, and I can watch the sun start to set. This year, though, considering the weather has pretty much consistently sucked all summer up until the last week or so, I made the most of some dry weather and went during the day, taking Rosie and the dogs with me before having to pick Tom up from school.

Along with the dogs and Rosie, we took some supplies for a wee picnic, and offerings, and we set off to make an afternoon of it. Somebody had left a wee red spade on the beach (continuing a theme from the red jacket I found at Bealltainn, perhaps?), and Rosie set to searching for 'treasure''. This necessitated speaking in Pirate for most of the time we were there, while the dogs 'walked the plank' and rescued sticks from the sea.

I took in the dramatic scenery:

And managed to find Rosie some treasure:

A heart-shaped(ish) rock, which kind of reminds me of the fossil rock I found on my first Midsummer here. I didn't realise she'd kept it until the next day, when she took it to nursery to show her teachers, but she just had to keep it, she said. It's got pink flecks in it.

We built a wee cairn (Rosie insisted on making it a tower, so it's more like a sort-of-cairn):

And beside that we left some food offerings after we'd had our picnic. Then we moved off and picked our way over the rocks, to a vantage point where I could throw some silver pennies into the sea and have a quiet meditation; I took an old shilling with me, and found another silver penny in my pocket so figured that should go in too.

On our way home I took Rosie through the arboretum that runs through the middle of the village (the good thing about the summer having sucked, weatherwise, is that at least the midgies have been kept at bay for longer than they normally do. They're only just starting to bite and normally I wouldn't bother going to the woods in the afternoon on a sunny day - we escaped unscathed this time); we hadn't been for a while and somebody had set up a rope swing from one of the trees along the path:

This was a great discovery for Rosie, and we spent some time playing on it before having to hurry for Tom. I suspect we'll be coming back here a few times at least, now that the summer holidays have started.

Seeing as Midsummer coincided with the wrapping up of the school year, we've had lots of school work being sent home. I haven't got round to doing any seasonal murals with the kids so far this year, so instead I put up some of the artwork that got sent home, and which seemed apt. This is my favourite piece, by Tom - pretty good for a five-year-old:

And also, to round it all off and celebrate the end of the school year and the arrival of summer - finally! I decided to make a cake (and cheese scones). At school this term Tom's teacher had some caterpillars, which the class looked after while they watched them grow, and then seal themslves off into their crysallis', and then come out as beauuuuutiful butterflies. Tom was fascinated by the whole thing, and couldn't stop rabbiting on about them, day after day. He was sad that he missed the butterflies being let out into the wild when he was off sick with a cold (although I'm glad they were let go). So it was decided that the cake should be butterfly shaped, and the kids helped decorate it with sprinkles and edible glitter:

Not the best photo - the flourescent lighting makes for sucky pictures. There's a butterfly farm near my hometown, so the next time we go for a visit I might take the kids along. 

And finally, while most of the garden is running rampant and being woefully neglected, the slugs have at least left some of the strawberries alone:

OMNOMNOM. At least I can claim one success this year, if not for much else. It's a nice, bright finish to the celebrations, and the splash of cheery colour feels almost symbolic of the fact that - touch wood and probably famous last words - my back seems to be getting a little better. Or at least, not worse. Here's hoping, though.

Druid divination with SPOONS

A while ago, I had a little bit of internet rage about a BBC program on the Celts - here, about the suggestion that some gold 'spoons' were used for divination (followed by a demonstration based on made-upness). The section with that part of the program in it can be seen on youtube now, it starts about three minutes in: hopefully around 1:43:35 in this video (or see the comments for an alternative).

Book Review: The Old Gods: The Truth about Irish Fairies

After mentioning I had another book on order in my last post, and hoping it would arrive early this week, it did (on Monday, all prompt), and I managed to get through the whole thing by the following day. It was only short, and a good read - I have another of Patrick Logan's books on my shelf but I haven't got round to it yet besides a quick flick-through, but now I think I'll bump it up a bit on my list. I'm tempted to by another book, though...but I should probably save my pennies, even if it is only 47p second-hand.

As for the one I've just read, now is as good a time as any to get on with a review, while it's still fresh in my mind:


The Old Gods: The Facts about Irish Fairies
Patrick Logan

As much as I enjoyed this book, I have to say it threatened to go downhill very rapidly - there was a bit of a bumpy start, which worried me a little at first, mainly down to the fact that two pages in there's mention of the Scottish Blue Men, with "(Negroes)" in brackets. That threw me a little at first, and made me wary of how this was going to go, but in the end it all turned out nicely. Yes, the author's outlook on certain things is maybe a little old-fashioned. It's not as jarring or unfortunate as reading some of Dion Fortune's work, if you're familiar with her, though...

While the book is quite short (only 150 pages all told), it's still a fairly comprehensive introduction and hits pretty much all of the basics you need to know. One of the main things I liked was that Logan writes about the subject as a living thing - the fairy-faith that he himself has been, and still is, a part of and has experienced. It's a refreshing change from all the other books I've read on the subject - on Ireland or Scotland - that tend to insist on it all being in the past tense.

Logan gives lots of stories and anecdotes throughout the book, which illustrate his points nicely and keep the tone conversational and quite pacey. Some of the anecdotes have a wry sense of humour about them - like how he and two friends dug up part of a fairy mound once, and (unsurprisingly, with hindsight, he says) paid the price for it; they all contracted tuberculosis. To be fair, from some stories I've heard, they got off lightly. Some of the other stories are from Logan himself, or friends, family, and other people he's interviewed or spoken to over the years (often his patients, from his work as a doctor), whereas other are from manuscripts and other folklorists. There's a good mix here, and he's obviously done a fair bit of legwork.

There isn't much in the way of referencing, except for the occasional casual reference to an author, which is a shame in terms of fact-checking, but since much of it is backed up by anecdotal evidence that Logan himself has collected, it's almost forgivable. If it were a modern book, though, I think each contributor would have been carefully profiled in an appendix, and so on, so all in all it does come across a bit dated.

I was really impressed by this book, over all, but aside from the slightly old-fashioned outlook from the author in places, my only criticism - or perhaps more a concern - is that the book doesn't really go into much detail about the more negative aspects associated with fairylore. For the most part I suppose this is because the book is concentrating on the strand of fairylore that pertains specifically to those who can be seen as gods that have been repackaged, as it were, and so tend to be more positively portrayed in folklore. But while the author does go into the more negative associations (the blast, and changelings and so on), and looks at other types of fairies - water horses, leprechauns, the púca, and so on - that tend to have a more ambiguous or just plain malevolent reputation, it often all seems a little too edited for delicate sensibilities, perhaps; sanitised.

I'm not sure whether this was done out of romanticism, or just not wanting to get too deeply into the scarier, darker layers of lore, but it's a shame, really, because over all it makes book seems a little unbalanced in that respect. It's not lacking completely, but I think other authors would have emphasised it more. In a sense, though, I could say that the fact that the book offers so much that you probably wouldn't find elsewhere more than makes up for it; if the view is a little one-sided, it's at least coming straight from someone who is a part of it all, and a native speaker, to boot (he provides some translations to material that haven't been published in English before, that is).

In spite of this, I'd still recommend the book as a good read, especially for the beginner or anyone looking for a short overview. I bought it quite cheap, too, which is always a plus. I would have to say that it's only a start, though; I'd recommend looking to balance it out a bit with the folktales at the least. Definitely one I'm happy to keep on my shelf, though.