People have opinions, preferences, and personal experience. Nowhere is this more true than in the world of Celtic paganism and spirituality. I have mine, and if I think that they are important then I am going to talk and write about them. I love it when others do the same.

If my profile is a little higher than some because I choose to write publicly, and to teach, I don’t think that makes me particularly special, and there are others with much higher profiles – some of whom hold themselves up as special, and some who don’t.

Celtic neopaganism is quite a new thing, really, and its diversity is often a strength, but it can be difficult to organise something that is both inclusive and still meaningful. Herding cats might fit the situation, but no one wants to be accused of trying to herd the cats.

There are a few points where one can be right or wrong. (What a particular Medieval text does or doesn’t say, a specific date in history…) Mostly, we are all feeling our way, and that’s one reason I try to avoid too many hard and fast statements. I prefer to qualify most things with “in my opinion” or “according to ___” or “this is what works for me”. A lot of people don’t bother to do that, and I’ve always thought a lot of arguments could be avoided if they did. At the same time, I don’t think a lot of people hear me when I do qualify my statements with “I think” or “Cormac’s glossary says” or whatever. They just hear my opinion, and if they hold a different one, they jump to the conclusion that I am criticising them. They feel attacked, or that all they hold dear is being threatened.

This seems to be a particular issue when it comes to my love of Medieval Irish and Welsh texts, and the scholarly study of them, or the fact that I hold the preservation-through-memorisation of lore by the bards and druids of the past in very high regard. This is my area of interest, and yes, I do think it is important and deserves a bit more attention. That’s why I spend a lot of time making things which I hope give more people access to it, or spark interest.

None of this means that I think personal gnosis is silly, or that your experience of a deity is worthless if it doesn’t fit what the texts say. But just as you have every right to talk or write about those experiences, which are very real to you, surely I have every right to talk and write about mine. I have lots of personal gnosis, too. If you’ve followed my work over the years, you’ll know that. If I don’t write more about it, maybe that’s because I think it’s just that. Personal gnosis. Maybe it’s just for me.

But what if I told you that my personal gnosis tells me that the Medieval texts are preserving something that is vitally important to us today. My interest in them is partly because of that belief. I talk about it a lot because of that gnosis. Not instead of direct contact with deity. This doesn’t mean that I think it’s more important than what others believe or experience – but it’s what I’ve been prompted to focus on, and it is often during deep study of early texts that I feel closest to the gods.

I have noticed something, though, about personal gnosis or revelation. We’re heavily influenced by whatever we expose ourselves to, or immerse ourselves in. If people consume a lot of popular fiction about deities and ancient cultures it very often influences what they experience in meditations or visions. If people are exposed to certain information as doctrine, like “the lord and lady” or “hard polytheism” their personal experiences tend to reflect it.

Sometimes gnosis is also contagious. One person tells their group they have visions of Taliesin flying an airplane. It’s not up to me to judge the truth or meaning of that vision. But if several other people have the same vision after hearing this, it would be sensible to question whether it’s a product of imagination rather than gods or spirits.

Those who make a study of early texts tend to have experiences of deity which agree with, or build on, what those texts say. People who are drawn to folklore collected in the last couple of centuries are more likely to have experiences in line with that folklore.

Of course, there are things we must question about Medieval texts concerning the gods (or maybe-gods). There is a biggish gap between the pre-Christian era and the scribal era. We don’t know what was going on culturally in that gap, for the most part. Professional bardic traditions in non-literate societies can be extremely good at preserving material with minimal change but, especially in Britain, those professions were interrupted and suppressed repeatedly by incoming influences.

For some people, the elephant in the room is that the scribes who put these texts onto vellum were Christians. Therefore, some people conclude, they must be Christian propaganda, or at the very least, heavily censored; yet a close study of the texts suggests that only a minority could possibly be intended as pro-Christian or anti-Pagan in intention. Removal of some material is much more likely, and yet, there must have been a desire to preserve or they wouldn’t have been written down at all.

Another question is whether they really reflect long-preserved cultural material, or are “just literature” composed by, or in near proximity to, the scribes who placed them on the page. This is where comparative study is useful. Does the text, or the story the text tells, exist in other times or places? Do characters with cognate names have similar stories or functions across different texts? This is even more useful if we know whether a scribe in one time or place had access to a text from another. The continued work of Celticists is answering more of these questions as time passes.

One result of Celtic neopaganism being so diverse is a lack of willingness to recognise leaders. This may or may not be a good thing, but it appears to be very different than its pre-Christian counterpart. Everyone wants to be the druid or the prophet. No one sees any value in priesthood unless they get to be the priest. It’s all about personal viewpoint and the only hope of any shared vision is in looking for the lowest common denominators of understanding – whether that’s scholarly or revelatory. Mostly we opt for the currently popular idea that each person’s reality is equally valid, and leave it at that. It’s democratic, but consensus is rare.

Personal revelation is important, but doing it without the grounding of cultural material can leave people untethered. Folklore is important, but it is diverse and often extremely localised. Removing it from its original context often strips it of its original meaning. Repeating it without understanding of that meaning results in new meanings being applied. That’s how folklore operates, of course! Medieval texts are hard work for all the reasons I’ve outlined, and there are linguistic problems, too. They are very difficult to translate, and although scholarship is improving, many translations done a hundred years ago, or more, are not being superseded by better ones, because there’s no money in doing so.  

Each of these three areas is rich in potential for helping us reach an understanding of Celtic cosmology. If you find yourself focused on one of these approaches, I’d say it’s important to listen to people who are focused on the others with an open mind. We don’t need to be in competition.

I’m writing a lot about reading material these days, but people seem to like it, so here’s another post on the topic, sparked by a discussion in a class today. Not for the first time, someone said something like, “I’ve got those books you recommended, and I’ve read some of them, but . . .” The implication was ‘I’m not sure it did me much good.’  

I think this follows on pretty logically from what I was saying in a recent post about people buying up Celtic Studies books and not using them. It reminded me of why this happens, because I know people buy them with good intentions. I often recommend what I see as reference books, but people are trying to read them cover-to-cover.

If you’re interested in Celtic myth and related things, then ultimately the goal is to join up what you learn in one book with what you’ve learned from other books you’ve read. Some books are meant to be read cover-to-cover. That’s obviously the best way to read fiction. It also works really well for non-fiction books with a more-or-less linear narrative structure. Books on history for example, or any topic in which the author is building up a picture – starting with background material, building up layers of knowledge and presenting theories, tying things together in the final chapter.

Books like Celtic Heritage by Alwyn and Brynley Rees, or John Waddell’s Archaeology and Celtic Myth work well read cover-to-cover, as do many others. However, scholarly books such as these are also very useful if you just read the chapters that look most interesting to you. In fact, you may remember what you read better that way, because although these books are somewhat linear, each chapter stands pretty well on its own. And you might get less discouraged by the density of them if you go for things that interest you.

The two books mentioned above are about mythology, but books of mythology are usually collections. I’m thinking of things like Cross and Slover’s Ancient Irish Tales or Koch and Carey’s The Celtic Heroic Age. Many of us like big books. We’re used to reading modern fictional trilogies, for example. But mythology doesn’t read like fiction. It rarely spends much time on what the characters are thinking, or even on description. The narratives are often concise, sometimes downright terse. A lot can happen in a sentence or a paragraph, and you need to adjust the pace of your reading to make the most of such texts. Slow down and give yourself time to picture the details of scenes, consider the motivations and possible emotions of characters, and so on. (There are exceptions. The Tain, or Culhwch and Olwen, for example, are very wordy in places.)

However, the conversation which happened today in class was about a different class of books altogether. One was Rachel Bromwich’s mighty tome Trioedd Ynys Prydein. ‘The Triads of Britian’ seems an innocent enough title, but this is mostly a reference book, or a book to pick up and leaf through for interesting bits. Its two main sections are the triads themselves in Welsh and English with some very interesting notes; and the ‘Notes to Personal Names’. This section has significant essays about the people mentioned in the triads. Essays which reference almost every text outside the triads in which that person appears, plus the etymology of their name, scholarly ideas about them, etc. It’s a gold mine, but you need to know that section is there and use it, not just when you stumble on a triad somewhere, but to find out more about many characters from the Mabinogi and Welsh legend, generally.

Another book which came up was the Legendary Poems from the Book of Taliesin by Marged Haycock. This is an excellent scholarly translation of a very difficult collection of poems. I love this book, but I can’t imagine most people getting much joy from reading it straight through. Or, at least not unless you go slowly. You could spend a couple of days on the introduction. It's not that long, but if you’re new to the subject it’s still quite a bit to take in.

Each of the poems has a lengthy headnote which is worth reading. Each poem also has many footnotes. Most of these discuss why Haycock translated a word or line the way she did, and possible alternatives. They’re pretty interesting to me – maybe not to you. It’s enriching to read them and perfectly okay to ignore them. Honestly, I’d say one poem a day is enough with this book. Read it thoroughly, read the notes, do it justice. Sleep on it, or go read something a bit lighter. I generally go to this book because I'm reading something which mentions one of the poems, and then I want to go deeper into it.

If you want to read the poetry of Taliesin in a more relaxed but slightly less scholarly format, you might like Lewis and Williams’ The Book of Taliesin, which is another modern, still quite scholarly, translation. It offers you enough information to help you make sense of things, but is more manageable.

Obviously, I can’t talk about ALL the books here! There are lists everywhere of “the best books to read” about Celtic myth or history. Unfortunately, such lists rarely tell you what the book is like, what it’s for, or how to get the most out of it. If you’re asking people who are more knowledgeable than you for book recommendations, it’s helpful if you tell them what, specifically, you want to learn. You want stories. You want the history of ancient Scotland. You want a good dictionary of Celtic mythology. Whatever. There is also no shame is saying, “I got myself a copy of ___ but it’s not making much sense. What am I supposed to use it for?”

You could even ask me in the comments!

Someone just shared the meme on the left on social media. I am blatantly ignoring possible copyright infringement by adding it to this post. (For educational purposes, of course.)

 Now, as iffy memes about Celtic things go, I’ve seen a lot worse. They’ve managed to spell the Irish words correctly, even if they don’t quite understand the meanings, and there’s a nod to Welsh language which also isn’t terrible, but again, a bit off. People are often wrong on the internet, but this post isn’t really about that. 

​My question is why people are so desperate to talk about Celtic things that they don’t actually get? Or to talk about everyday things like holidays, but to dress them up in faux Celtic ideas? If something is a modern Pagan idea or new tradition, why not just say so? 

​The Oak and Holly Kings are lovely symbols of summer and winter. The fact that they aren’t old, or Celtic, doesn’t make them less so. Midwinter is a beautiful English-language word, evocative for me of snow and candlelight. If you’re an Irish speaker, perhaps Meán Geimhridh does it for you. If you’re not an Irish speaker – is writing it just so much posturing? You decide.

To be honest, I’m not an Irish speaker, and not sure whether that’s a common idiom for Midwinter in Irish, so I wouldn't use it. I checked several dictionaries (just for you) and meán does mean mid, and geimhridh (geimhreadh) does mean winter, but none of the dictionaries listed that construction for “midwinter” – it might be right, but do people actually say it? Using it would feel pretentious to me because I’ve no claim to Irishness, and I don’t speak Irish.

I do get that if you’re learning a language, or you have some reason to align yourself with a particular culture, that it’s fun to use some words. That’s fine. My beef is more with people who just want to pepper their meme or ritual or whatever with a few words in a Celtic language because they think it will be more authentic or more spiritual, or perhaps it will make them look smarter than the people who don’t know these words. I do speak some Gaelic (the Scottish one) and have learned a tiny bit of Welsh, and to be honest, the first thing I think when I see non-native-speakers throwing words in a Celtic language around on the internet is “I bet they can’t pronounce that”.
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But moving from language to ideas, what does this meme achieve? The first paragraph takes a universal concept shared by pretty much all cultures and ascribes it to “Celtic countries”. Why? The second paragraph talks about the “Celtic Midwinter”. What does that even mean? If I call my dog a “madra” or a "cù" does that make him a Celtic dog?

​As you can see, I have made a new version of the meme. It makes less claims of specialness for the ability to use a few poorly understood words. Of course I didn’t have space to get into the nuts and bolts of everything. The whole questions of “alban” in Welsh is a little wobbly, as far as I know. It only seems to appear in the 18th century, and is used for both solstices and equinoxes, but it doesn’t seem to be used in common speech. More of a fancy word in books, perhaps. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t really mean light – that idea comes from neoDruidy, as far as I know. It means a quarter of the year, or the quarter points of the year.
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​As for “arthan” – well, that means a young bear. Of course, the name Arthur derives from bear, but I’m pretty sure the association of bears and winter isn’t directly to do with King Arthur. That said, I have definitely read neoDruid teaching that claims “Alban Arthan means the light of Arthur” – so I guess it means that to them. Whatever. I think we’re going in circles.

On to the final paragraph! There is some interesting folklore about robins and wrens all over Europe. Is it Celtic? I’m not sure, and I’m not sure how well it really matches up to the Oak and Holly Kings, either. Perhaps I should consult my Robert Graves, but I’m not going to bother, because he got an awful lot of things about Celtic culture wrong.

You don’t have to tell me that my “corrected” meme isn’t as sexy. I’ve taken out all the woo-woo wannabe Celtic, “aren’t the natives spiritual” stuff, and left you with the boring old truth.
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Have a very happy solstice!

It's the middle of October, and in a few weeks the first of the dark time traditions will begin to unfold in Britain. I'm not talking about Samhain, Halloween, or Bonfire Night, but other traditions which are interconnected. Among my favourites are the souling plays of Cheshire. These are simple, traditional plays which have been around for at least a couple of hundred years, but may include elements of something much older. The reason they are called "souling plays" is that they are associated with All Souls Day, on November 2nd, a day that has had a major influence on how we celebrate Samhain/Halloween.

A hundred years ago, folklorists were sure that plays like these were pre-Christian survivals about death and rebirth. That has been discredited now, but whatever the origins, there is something in them that speaks to my Pagan soul, and I know I'm not alone. Kristoffer Hughes says of the Mari Lwyd tradition, "A sure sign of the power within the sacred is when it easily transfers itself into the celebratory practises of secular communities." I fully agree, but I also think that the sacred has a way of seeping into secular traditions, or perhaps finding a way to make itself known through them.

The Cheshire plays are short and based on a formula. Each group - usually associated with a particular village, has its own variation. Performances mostly happen in pubs, although they once went house-to-house, and are performed by adults for adults on the days close to November 2nd. 

King George enters and swaggers about bragging for a few lines, then in comes the knight, Slasher. They have a sword fight and the knight is killed in a joyful combination of ritual recitation and slapstick comedy.

Next to enter is the knight’s mother -- a man in drag. She is distraught at the knight’s death, so a doctor is called to revive him. The Quack Doctor comes in next. After some more joking about, the knight is given some silly remedy and stands up, fully cured. There are other stock characters that usually do their bit – a boozy Beelzebub and a sort of fool, sometime called Little Devil Doubt. He usually collects the money at the end and might try to ride the horse.

The final character (and, of course, my favourite) is The Wild Horse, often named Dick. The Horse is usually a carved horse head, or decorated pony's skull, mounted on a pole, and carried by a man covered by some sort of heavy fabric. He is led in by his Driver, who tells us what a great horse he is, or perhaps once was, and the play ends by asking the crowd to give money to buy The Wild Horse a new cart, or some other necessity.
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I realise that my description is not very inspiring, so I hope you will enjoy this video of the real thing.

This kind of play is well known in most parts of Britain, but Cheshire stands out because the plays are at All Souls, instead of Christmas. From a Wheel-of-the-Year perspective, there isn't really a wrong time for a nod to death and resurrection, but the beginning of the dark time, and the Christian All Souls celebrations add a little extra weight.

The other thing that stands out about Cheshire is the Wild Horse, itself. In most of the plays, the horse and driver are given quite a bit of time for lines and larking about, even though they have no actual involvement in the plot of the play. Maybe horses have survived as part of the plays because people love to see them, but another possibility is that the horse was once a separate tradition, like the Mari Lwyd or Hooden Horse, which at some point was combined with the play.

The Lair Bhan.
There is a tantalizing reference from 19th century Ireland to a Mari Lwyd-like pole horse called the Lair Bhan, in County Cork. “It is not many years since, on Samhain's eve, 31st October, a rustic procession perambulated the district between Ballycotton and Trabolgan, along the coast. At the head of the procession was a figure enveloped in a white robe or sheet, having, as it were, the head of a mare, this personage was called the Lair Bhan, " the white mare," he was a sort of president or master of the ceremonies. A long string of verses was recited at each house.”
​                                                                                                                          – William Hackett, 1853
 
This tradition has completely disappeared, as far as I know. There are other Lair Bhans in Ireland, connected with wren boys or with St. John's bonfires, but they are usually of the type where a frame goes around the "rider's" waist. This one seems to have been part of a house visiting tradition in which people gave food and money to the troupe to avoid bad luck. Sadly, I only know of this one reference.

And speaking of Mari Lwyds at this time of year, I noticed that The Anglesey Druid order chooses to bring their Mari out for the first time at Calan Gaef (Samhain). 

Whatever all these horses mean, I love that people are interested in them again. If you are waiting for me to connect them to the horse goddesses, I will, but I would certainly not say that they are necessarily a remnant of a horse cult, although it's always just possible. Rather I would say that they might be a manifestation of some part of us that quite rightly reveres the Great Mare, whether we can voice it in so many words. Whether the person under the cloak is a devout Pagan trying to honour a horse goddess, or just someone why enjoys taking part in mumming traditions, isn't the main point. I see the Great Mare in the snapping jaws of the horse, and the tingle everyone gets when the horse makes an appearance, and feel that in some way She has honoured us with Her presence, regardless of the intent.
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Intent, of course, can take these traditions to another level!

​Told by the living and the dead, in their own words, Master Jack is a story I had to write, inspired by the people past and present who make folk traditions happen, in spite of their often difficult lives. It is also the story of the spirit of the horses which I believe live through the different hobby horse and skull horse traditions of Britain.  

This was originally posted on Patheos a few years ago. The title is a response to something John Beckett had said, to the effect that complaining about people using "Maybon" as a word for the autumn equinox was "hate". 

It’s that time of year again when I hear the name of a deity I revere on the lips of many people. His name is on my social media feed on a daily basis, too. That would feel great if more people actually knew that the were speaking His name, so this year I’m on a bit of a campaign to get His story out there, since his name is, anyway.
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The name of this deity is Mabon. A few years ago, I made the short video below about how the Autumn Equinox came to be named Mabon in the early 1970s, and a few other cool facts.

You might have seen my post a few years ago on Patheos Agora titled Mabon is a God. It explains Mabon’s ties to the Gaulish/British god Maponos, and mentions his thriving centre of worship in the first century AD along the Scottish/English border. It never occurred to me that any of my Pagan friends would doubt that Mabon is a god, but apparently that’s also a thing, which mystifies me, because I think the evidence for that is pretty sound.
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Brian Walsh seems to agree with me. His Mabon - a God of Spring Misplaced post gets an airing every year, and while I don’t necessarily agree with the theory that Mabon ap Modron and Angus Óg are more-or-less the same deity, I’m glad that other polytheists at least agree that Mabon has deity status. 

An equally important reason that I believe that Mabon is a god, however, is that I have a relationship with Him. Years ago, when I desperately needed to escape from Edinburgh for a couple of weeks, I decided to book a holiday cottage somewhere quiet, and I ended up on the outskirts of Lochmaben. The little town of Lochmaben is surrounded on three sides by three different lochs (that’s Scots for lakes). Perversely, none of them is called Loch Mabon, but it seems like the one called Castle Loch probably used to be.

I definitely needed some emotional patching up at the time, even if I was fine physically, and it was easy to reach out to Mabon there. I ended up making a pilgrimage to the Clachmaben Stone, as well, which was another powerful experience. I went back to Edinburgh renewed in myself and with great respect for the kindness of the god Mabon, as well. He definitely has healing powers.

Over time that experience faded, and I moved on to other things, but I still remember how Mabon’s places touched me. At the time, I’m not sure I was even aware of the Autumn Equinox being called Mabon, so when I moved back to the US and started hearing people say “What are you doing for Mabon?” the question didn’t quite compute. It still makes no sense to me, because from what I can see, most people are doing absolutely nothing for Mabon. They aren’t honouring Him. They aren’t talking about Him. A lot of people only half believe me when I tell them that there actually is a deity called Mabon. 
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When I was researching what I wanted to write about Mabon this year I couldn’t believe that there were no photos of the healing spring Maponos was associated with in the Auvergne region of France. It’s famous largely because there is a museum filled with votive offerings someone once found there during construction work. There are thousands of them. Most take the form of human or animal limbs, as if to show the gods where it hurt, but others take the form of an entire person or animal. Among them was a lead tablet addressed to Maponos. Finally, in a local French paper I discovered that the spring had been neglected and blocked up for decades, but someone has recently cleared it and built a small pool, and there are hopes that eventually there will be a public font. No one is worshipping Maponos there (yet!) as far as I know. I don’t have a photo to show you, but there are several at this link.

I don’t suppose a few vocal polytheists will convince wider Pagandom to stop calling this holiday Mabon, but I am on a one woman campaign to at least encourage people to show Him a bit of love and devotion once a year. 

I have been working on material for the class I’ll be teaching about Maponos and Mabon soon. I’ve been reading papers that are either new, or that I hadn’t had time to read before, and thinking about the site of the spring at Chamalières where the famous tablet inscribed to Maponos was found. Of course, I’m looking for images that will help the students to visualise what must have been happening at Chamalières as the last decades BCE moved into the first century CE. Images like the one of the archaeological dig that uncovered all this, back in the early 1970s seem messy and overwhelming. It made me realise that I have not really taken the enormity of this site in, myself. 

Our ideas of deity vary – some things we can’t shake off from cultural Christianity whether we were really raised as Christians or not, plus our own ideas about what a deity is, or what we think deity meant to our pre-Christian ancestors. It’s very personal. But the enormity of this site, the weight of requests for healing and probably offerings of thanks for healing – today, I just felt the weight of it.

If I came closer to understanding Maponos today, it was only that I came closer to understanding the enormity of what was being asked of Him. Like most modern polytheists, I shy away from thinking of deities as all-powerful or all-knowing. If you want their help you have to get their attention, offer something in return, and accept that they probably have more agency in the world than you do, but how much more is never clear.

From what the archaeologists can know, this site was only in use for a hundred years – probably less. Yet the limbs piled up into a solid mass, accompanied by offerings of gold staters and hazel nuts and fibulae. Maponos waited with open arms to receive all that pain, all those hopes.

I’ve had a few visions of Maponos over the years. One, quite unexpected, where he appeared as a tall, self-assured, young man in a cave with flowing water. I sat with my arm outstretched as He poured water over it from a dipper. I had an overwhelming sense of kindness and compassion, but also of the sort of detachment one often finds in people in the medical profession. Detachment which allows them to do their work, keep their sanity, be efficient. Something else, too. A sense from Him that I shouldn’t be surprised by His willingness to heal. A sort of "It's what I do" matter-of-factness.
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Of course there’s more to Maponos than His healing aspect. We lack any mythology for Maponos. We have to do our best to understand Him through His associations with Apollo and Mabon ap Modron, and maybe even Aengus Óg son of Boand and the Dagda. Their attributes include healing, being imprisoned, music and poetry, hunting, association with the sun, maybe a warrior aspect … Recently, I sensed Maponos reminding me that I need to see deities, Himself included, in all their aspects, not just pick one. 
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​If you want to learn more about Maponos and Mabon there are opportunities coming up soon. I’ll be teaching a class about him starting on Saturday, 18th September. You can join just the first week of the class, as a stand-alone talk, or sign up for the full six weeks. There’s more information at this link. 

Sometimes, it feels like the sciences and the humanities, or “liberal arts” as some people call them, are at war in our wider society. I don’t think they should be, and I suspect that to some extent the conversation is being manipulated by the same kinds of forces that like to tell us that the economy is in trouble because poor people are lazy scroungers. Is this tension bleeding over into our paths as Celtic Polytheists? I think it might be.

I’ve often written about the importance of mythology and the problem of people not understanding that “myth” isn’t synonymous with lies, or “old wives’ tales”. Naturally, not everyone sees myth exactly the same way I do, but studying the humanities helps us understand the difference between myth and simple fiction. Fiction is usually authored by an individual acting with intention. Myth is a cultural distillation which takes place over centuries and the subject matter is usually things like deities or origin stories.

The internet has had a democratising effect on how we exchange information. Anyone can write a blog post and claim to know what they’re talking about. Everyone can express their opinion by sharing unverified information via memes. Maybe rumour is no more rife than it ever was but it’s probably more public due to the rise of social media. At the same time, there’s a breakdown of education and objective journalism.

The recent US elections focused everyone on the problem of fake news. The rise in fake news anxiety has resulted in one group going to the extreme of only accepting that which can be ‘proven scientifically’, while another chunk have gone to the other extreme of ‘there are no facts, so everything is equally true’. Who or what should we believe – or believe in?

Enter “science”. Not any particular science, in this case. Not molecular biology, specifically, or an applied science like civil engineering – just Science. We even have a new piece of sarcasm: ‘Because science’. If science is on your side, there is no way that you are wrong. At least until a new discovery comes along, because even science has to revise its cherished truths, sometimes.

Before this turns into a political rant, let’s bring it home to what I usually write about. Polytheism is an approach to religion, or maybe spirituality. Trying to reduce religion/spirituality to a science is always going to be problematic. Of course there’s the reconstructive approach, which is popular in Celtic Paganism. Certainly, the science of archaeology can offer some facts about what altars looked liked, which regions favour inscriptions to certain deities, and so on. But even archaeology, one of the most interpretation-based of all the sciences, can only offer guesses at how people perceived deities, or what they believed.

That’s where history and myth can help us a little – or even a lot. Of course, it’s less factual. Historians have their agendas, or they just get things wrong. Myths were written down after Christianity had become the dominant religious and cultural force in Britain and Ireland. Therefore, it isn’t pristine pre-Christian material at all. These things require interpretation and uncertainty. Interpretation isn’t a science, and no amount of academic research is going to make it so. A good grounding in philosophy, critical thinking, and literary criticism is helpful up to a point – and no more.

Like many Celtic Pagans, I value the work of academics. They are responsible for making myths and history accessible to us through editions and translations. They also help us understand the linguistic history of texts and offer us a variety of possible interpretations of them. People with years of academic training in history or Celtic Studies are more qualified to do at least some of this work that you or I. However, we still have to accept much of that work as interpretive. If you hold up a theory about The Mabinogi or The Book of Invasions and say, “This person has a PhD, I got it from them, so it is correct,” you will soon find that other people with PhDs have other viewpoints. Academia can’t tell you the “correct” interpretation of myth or distant history – it can only present theories and try to defend them. Those theories are subject to fashion, as well as to improving scholarship. Don't expect scholars to hand you "scientifically proven" answers about myth, or even history, in most cases.

Going to the extreme of believing everything isn’t smart, but people living in a world filled with fake news anxiety are more likely to want the opposite: a system in which all gnosis can either be verified or must be rejected. I can’t help but wonder whether some people are attracted to Celtic paths that lack a surviving mythology, like Gaulish or early Brythonic, because they hope to base their practice only on archaeological ‘facts’, and not have to bother with those ponderous and suspicious myths. Of course, they usually find themselves reaching for interpretation pretty quickly, even if it's only interpretatio romana.
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It doesn’t make sense to try to reduce religion or spirituality to a science. Because it’s religion and spirituality. You will ultimately have to trust your own judgement. If you think you hear the voice of a deity, you will have to decide whether you really did, or even whether it’s fine to just assume that you did. If a myth or a piece of archaeological evidence speaks to your soul, you will have to decide whether to follow that feeling or shrug it off. Not every truth is determined by proof.

The Stone of Mannan, Clackmannan, Clackmannanshire. The centre of former Manaw Gododdin.

When I fetched up in Scotland in about 1982, I never felt so welcomed in my life. It was a feeling which was to continue for the entire 25 years that I lived there. Maybe my interest in Scottish culture helped, maybe I just got lucky in making some really exceptional friends in the first few weeks, and first few years, that I lived there. I wish I’d never left, to be honest.

It was also around that time that the call to Paganism (and in my case that always meant the call of Celtic deities) began to get really strong. There was no internet back then, and not many books. I was never drawn to witchcraft or Wicca, so I pieced information together from a variety of sources. I spent a lot of time at the library, and a lot of time at the tops of hills communing with rocks, or just walking. No doubt there were Pagan groups around Edinburgh, but I was a lot shyer in those days than I am now, and extremely busy, so I never connected with them. I kind of regret that now, but can’t change it. I built relationships with Bride, and Lugh, and Belenos early on. Later with Epona and Mabon ap Modron and Manannán mac Lir.

 Back in the US, I have increasingly found myself with a lot of time on my hands, and a desire to really delve into myths and bardic poetry and adjacent history and archaeology. I’ve also been living in pretty remote places, so the internet has been a lifeline, and I’ve met a lot of Celtic Polytheists and other Pagans. I love it that they come in so many varieties! But I notice that I’m not like a a lot of other Celtic Polytheists. One thing that I’ve been given the side-eye for a few times is my tendency to be “pan-Celtic”. That is, I have connections to deities from what are considered to be several different “pantheons”  - Gaulish, Brythonic, and Irish. I would agree that there is a kind of pan-Celticism which can be a bit sloppy and conflate cultures which have very separate identities. “Celtic” isn’t a monolithic idea, more of an umbrella term.

But consider Scotland. Especially southern Scotland, where I come from. It is a complete crossroads of the different Celtic cultures. The entire island of Britain used to be Brythonic-speaking. (Brythonic is the group of Celtic languages to which Welsh, Cornish and Breton belong.) It was undoubtedly a patchwork of different subcultures and dialects – but it is also likely that the similarity of languages implies a similarity of culture and religion. It’s hard to say whether a concrete idea of Pictland, for example, existed before the Romans turned up and defined it by building Hadrian’s wall. So the Brythonic continuum was split, north and south, and it seems like Roman soldiers from parts of Gaul may have imported some deities when they arrived, judging from the inscriptions to deities like Epona and Maponos at Roman settlements and forts, of which there are many along the wall.

Of course, the island of Britain, even the north, had contact with Gaul before that, and since there are no inscriptions to tell us what was going on until the Romans turned up, perhaps these deities were already important, just not recorded. The area around the Forth and Clyde seems to have been a kind of bridge between Hen Ogledd (The Old North) and the Picts. But perhaps Hen Ogledd didn’t really come into focus as an entity until the Romans were starting to withdraw. The wall, itself, must have created its own cultural, political and economic zone. Maybe the wall created Hen Ogledd.

It’s also possible that the Epidii, who were centred around Islay and Kintyre, had cultural connections with the northeast corner of Ireland long before the emergence of Dalriada. (This might account for the strong connections between Macha of the Ulster Cycle and horses – but that’s another blog post!) However that played out, by the 6th century the invaders/settlers from Ireland (called Scots, remember) had arrived, bringing their Irish language which evolved into Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic), which in turn became the dominant language of Scotland over the following centuries. The thing is, though, that by this time both Britain and Ireland were also becoming heavily Christianised, so while the Irish language and culture came to Scotland, it’s hard to say which pre-Christian Irish beliefs or practices were still considered important. My sense is that while the deities we perceive as Irish are in Scotland, too, their roots don’t go as deep.

I realise that this potted history of Scotland I’ve just given is pretty fuzzy. The truth is that we lack much in the way of detail about Scottish history for the eras I’ve talked about. There are many competing theories, and what you believe may depend on which authors you think are right or what scenario best fits your worldview. I’m old enough to know that fashions in how we interpret the evidence come and go. There is reasonable evidence for the worship of deities that we usually think of as Brythonic, Irish, and Gaulish in Scotland. Not that I think anyone has to justify their relationship with any deity based on where they live.

Are there any exclusively Scottish deities? I’m sure that there were once many, because every river will have had one (usually a goddess) and so will other features of the land, itself. A few names are preserved, or guessed at, based on river names, such as  Clota of the Clyde or Tatha of the Tay.

Some would also claim The Cailleach. Certainly, there are one, or several, Cailleach characters associated with weather, deer, mountains, or creating landscapes in folklore from different parts of Scotland. However, there are Cailleach figures in Ireland, too, and a few very similar figures in Wales. Scottish folklore offers us an array of legendary figures who may or may not be deities – from saints to giants to Fionn MacCumhaill.

Then there is the mysterious Shony/Seónaidh to whom libations were given in Lewis and Iona accompanied by prayers for an abundance of seaweed. Some associate Shony with Manannán mac Lir, but that is just a possibility. Manannán, Himself, has several placenames associated with Him where the mouth of the Forth begins to narrow, which seem to mark out a region known in Brythonic poetry as Manaw Gododdin. (The Gododdin were a tribe whose seat was probably Edinburgh, and who seem to have controlled lands to the south.) And so the gods of the Gaels and the gods of the Britons become difficult to separate, but there are at least a few genuinely Scottish deities who we can still identify.

I recently read a couple of statements saying that Morgan la Fay, a character from Arthurian stories, has no connection to The Mórrigan – and I agree. (Or I mostly agree, we’ll come to that.) However, what I think people are missing is the goddess who did inspire Morgan la Fay: the goddess Modron. And Modron is, at least tenuously, connected to The Mórrigan, as I see it.

Modron is widely considered to be cognate with Dea Matrona of Gaul, the tutelary goddess of the River Marne. (Both names essentially mean “divine mother”.) She is also related to an early Celtic saint named as Modrun, Madryn, Materiana, etc. in Wales, Brittany, and in Cornwall, where she has a famous holy well.

As Modron, She is known from a few references in early Welsh texts. There, She is the mother of Mabon ap Modron, a character in the tale of Culhwch and Olwen. She is mentioned both in the Triads of Britain, and in a 16th century manuscript known as Peniarth 147. Both of these references are to the same story, which pairs Modron with the great king and hero of the Old North, Urien Rheged.

The tale goes as follows:
Urien is told that at a certain river ford, all the dogs of the district go to bark, as if they see something uncanny, which no human can see. Urien approaches the ford and the barking stops. He looks around, and sees a young woman washing clothes in the river. He is consumed with desire for the woman, and has sex with her – whether with or without her consent is somewhat ambiguous.

Immediately after this act, the woman blesses Urien and thanks him, and tells him that she was fated to wash at that place until she got a son “by a Christian”. Modron then introduces herself by name and says that she is the daughter of Avallach (Triads), the king of Annwfn (Pen. 147). She tells Urien to return in a year’s time and she will give him their son. When he does so, she actually presents him with twins – a son, called Owein, and a daughter, called Morfydd.

There is no more to the story than this, but there is some poorly preserved folklore in Cumbria, the centre of Urien’s power, which recalls a “fairy king” called variously Aballo, Eveling, Everling, etc., who has a daughter called Modron. This duo are often linked to local Roman ruins, and there are remains of a Roman fortress near Brugh-by-Sands which the Romans called Aballava, possibly after a local deity or existing placename which may have been linked to the deity.

A further, and also tenuous, link between Modrun and The Mórrigan might be Rhiannon. One famous aspect of Modron’s son, Mabon, is his role as a divine prisoner, a role also filled by Rhiannon’s son Pryderi in Welsh lore. The association of these two stolen infants is referred to in Welsh bardic poetry to the point of conflation, and also in the Triads of Britain. Just occasionally, it appears that the historical Owein is also being associated with Mabon, although this is less clear. Even without Owein, there is still enough to link Modron and Rhiannon, perhaps as reflexes of one another.

I realise that there is probably nothing I can say to convince some followers of The Mórrigan that I’m right about this, or for them to take any interest in it, but it is increasingly important and interesting to me. So, what has any of this got to do with Morgan la Fay?

If you are interested in Arthurian stories, then you may already have picked up on a couple of things. The first writer of an Arthurian saga, Geoffrey of Monmouth, gives the wife of his character, ‘Uriens’, the name ‘Morgan’. Perhaps he didn’t want to give her a name connected with a saint, especially one which in some versions or her story was said to be the daughter of Vortigern. Yet he associates her with the Isle of Apples, or Avalon, which points directly to the story of Modron, daughter of Afallach, in the Welsh material.

Geoffrey’s stories were soon taken up by Chrétien de Troyes, and reworked as French verse. Chrétien also has his Uriens character marrying Morgan la Fay, now cast as the sister of Arthur, and they have as son, Yvain, whose name is obviously based on Owein, so an awareness of Modron’s story is still lurking in the background. Both Chrétien and Thomas Malory portray this Morgan as a supernatural femme fatale.

So while I absolutely agree that Morgan la Fay has “nothing” to do with The Mórrigan, as a literary character, she may well be based on a goddess who, I believe, does have links to The Mórrigan. In my mind, Morgan la Fay will always be just a literary character, however.

There is further information about Modron in a video I made called The Goddess Modron; and much of the same information is included as a section in a longer essay on Mabon ap Modron called Who is Mabon? which includes more complete citations.

In my study of the four branches of the Mabinogi one of the things that fascinates me is the repeated measuring of time by years in the story of Pywll and Rhiannon in the first branch.

This story begins with Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and his courtiers going to the mysterious hill, or gorsedd, of Arberth, where legend has it that they are likely to see a wonder. The wonder they see is a woman riding sedately past, but who proves impossible to overtake. They try on three successive days to catch up with her, and even the great Pwyll, himself, is unable to do so. He finally manages to persuade her to stop and talk to him by shouting after her, and in the conversation which ensues, she proposes marriage to him, and invites him to come to her father’s kingdom “one year from now” for their marriage feast.

At the feast, things go terribly wrong when a previous suitor of Rhiannon’s turns up during the feast and manages to claim her. However, Rhiannon manages to put him off until “one year from now”. She and Pwyll then hatch a plan to trick the unwanted suitor, and at the second wedding feast their plan succeeds, and they are finally wed.

The couple then return to Pwyll’s kingdom of Dyfed, where they reign “that year and the next” but “in the third year” Pwyll’s advisors begin to complain that Rhiannon has not produced an heir. They want Pwyll to choose another wife, but he persuades them to meet him again “a year from now”, and if Rhiannon has not produced a child, then he will consider it. However, before the end of that year Rhiannon bears a son, who then mysteriously disappears on the night of his birth.

The action of the story then shifts from Dyfed to Gwent, where a landholder called Teyrnon has a fine mare who foals every May eve, but the next day the foal has always mysteriously disappeared. This time, Teyrnon vows to keep watch, so he takes the mare into his house for the night, arms himself, and sits up with her. The mare gives birth and soon a great clawed arm reaches through the window and grabs the foal, but Teyrnon manages to draw his sword and sever it, saving the foal. He runs outside to see what monster the arm belongs to but can find nothing. However, when he returns to the house, he finds that an infant has been left in the doorway.

Teyrnon and his wife decide to raise this child as their own, and in a familiar formula for young heroes the child grows at a prodigious rate. At a year old he is like a child of three, at two he is like a child of six, and so on. At four years of age, he is given the colt to ride, and it is at this time that Teyrnon hears of all that has happened in Dyfed, and realises that the boy is Pwyll’s son, and returns him to his parents.
While May-eve is only mentioned once in the story, at the foaling of Teyrnon’s mare, I feel that there is a strong implication that other major events in the story also take place at Calan Mai. This time of the thinning veil would make sense for Pwyll to go out with the hope of “seeing a wonder”. It is at the beginning of the tale that the language is most explicit that the timings of the wedding feasts are at intervals of exactly one year from the meeting of Pwyll and Rhiannon. This establishes a rhythm of exact years for the subsequent parts of the tale, even though the timing of events might be a little less definite. Perhaps we are expected to get the idea after the first few times.
It seems likely that the birth of Rhiannon’s child happens on May eve, the same night that he is delivered to Teyrnon. If we work back, then we have Rhiannon’s first appearance on the May eve five years earlier, and the return of the child four years later, possibly also at Calan Mai. This motif of years isn’t pronounced in the rest of the Mabinogi, suggesting that it is being emphasised intentionally.
The character of the youthful goddess Rhiannon arriving on her magical white horse is certainly one which feels like spring or early summer, and I don’t think it is hard to envision Her as a May Queen, come to bring good things to the land. It feels very appropriate to me to honour Rhiannon, and Teyrnon as well, at this time of year.

Maybe, (or maybe not) connected, are three May horse mumming traditions from southwest England, which once had a language and culture strongly connected to the Welsh-speaking home of the Mabinogi. You may be aware of the famous celebrations at Padstow, where the town has a long history of an all-day festival of stylised singing and dancing, involving their unique ‘obby ‘oss, pictured above. The tradition is at least two hundred years old, but like so many folk customs is likely much older, although we lack proof. At Minehead, in Somerset, there is also a hobby horse tradition, with some similarities and some notable differences to the one in Padstow. In Combe Martin, North Devon, a little later in May comes a festival called “Hunting the Earl of Rone”, which involves another hobby horse of the Padstow type, as well as a live donkey (which seems to be treated very well).

All three of these events are community festivals involving hundreds of local people as active participants, supporters, and spectators. Like the winter horse mumming customs, I wrote about here, here, and here, these customs went through a period of being considered survivals from pre-Christian times, but this certainly can’t be proven, however much it feels like it. One thing I find beautiful and wonderful about these traditions is their tenacity. The people within these small towns seem driven to keep the customs alive and to participate in them. They allow things to morph and grow to suit the times, yet still manage to treat them with a certain reverence. Alongside that respect, however, exists a certain wildness of spirit which can’t be denied when the horses take to the streets, accompanied by ranks of drummers and musicians.  Could this be the wild ebullience of a horse goddess?