Lost in Time

My elders are becoming my ancestors now.
It doesn't happen all at once, or on the day they die.
They first must be purified like silver in the fire
A process which is not painful, but necessary.

Slowly they move from the tumbled houses,
Determinedly they step from the photograph pages
To build anew that which was lost,
That which was gained, but could not be held.

Dreamily they drift from their country upbringings
And their suburban upbringings among the roses.
Drift toward halls of learning and drinking establishments,
Smoke filled back rooms of pubs where poets rant.

They drift toward the beaches to collect the seaweed
And toward the moors to cut the peats.
They crack shells and hunt deer
And journey by horseback or coracle.

They sing in folk clubs and work in banks,
Emigrate to Canada or move down south.
They drink too much and rest too little
And then they are gone.


And there's me, always late to the party,
The last to hear today's news.
Nosing around in the past I miss the big event,
But unearth some old treasure.

When I look up, I find my elders have all left.
I shake my head in wonder. Was it always thus?
One day you look around, they've left you the house.
You walk the corridors, you try the beds.

Aeons and aeons pass, I am becoming the elder,
I am becoming the child.
I drift toward my elders, I follow the stream of their poesy,
A strong stream, through the hills of memory.

There's a wild black mare living somewhere up on the common grazing. She stays at the fringes of the herds. Some say she's their queen. No one has really tried to catch her. I don't think they will. She's uncanny.

One old boy said he saw her and she ran right into a deep reedy pool. Went in head first, he said. And never came up. The next day, old Joe saw her come up suddenly out of the river by the pack horse bridge. Forty miles away.

They know her by a white streak in her tail. You only see it when the wind's just so, or she's swishing it at flies.

No. No one has tried to catch her and I really hope they never try. Humans are awfully clever. They can be bloody minded when they want something. It doesn't bear thinking about.

I followed her for awhile. Not to catch her or to try to gentle her, but because she kept whispering to me. In my morning dreams I'd hear her. Just as I was waking. But I couldn't make out words. How did I know it was her? I just knew. And I would pull on my breeks and grab a bit of bread in my hand to eat later and run up into the hills trying to catch sight of her.

There was no pattern to it. One time I saw her in Joe's herd. Just grazing in among his mares, she was.

She saw me. She held my gaze for what felt like hours but I knew that when I finally had to move she would run. And she did.

I thought she'd go off over the tops but she headed straight through the valley following the river. She was so swift my eye could hardly follow her. Then I heard a lot of splashing

I went back the next day, and the next. There wasn't a pony in sight.

The whispering in my head got louder. It started in the evening, too, when I was sitting trying to relax.

But there were no words to it. Just that sound - a horse's breath, the sound of a swishing tail. But there was a kind of meaning behind the sound. I just couldn't make it out and it was driving me insane. I wanted to hear it clearer, or closer. I was sure there was meaning there. That she had some message for me. Some wisdom or maybe some request.

Autumn came. I was lean as a brush handle from walking the valleys and the tops and I saw her regularly. But I couldn't get close

I swear she had a special smell about her. Like gorse and like roses. I'd stay downwind of her and the smell was almost overwhelming some days. She watched me. Oh, yes! She watched me. And I watched her.

Her mane was long. Long and tangled. It hung in ropes, dragging the ground when she grazed. Her nostrils were soft and flaring. Her back and rump were curved like the back of a beautiful woman.

I decided to stop going out up the valley. It was cold. I realised that I was unkempt. Maybe a little deranged. I cleaned my house and mended my clothes, I went to the shops, I raked the leaves, and went to the pub and played darts. The dreams stopped.

One morning I woke up to someone rattling hard at my door latch. I opened the door just in time to see her. To see her skid to a halt on the stone path like she was headed straight for my door. When she saw me opening the door she spooked. She wheeled ‘round on her back legs and pelted up the road whinnying. I stood dumbfounded, then thought If she was running toward the door, who rattled the latch?

I paced the floor for an hour, drank tea. I shoved bread in my pocket. The frost had burned off by mid-morning. It was almost hot. I wandered the footpaths, scenting the air

Finally I saw her. She was across the valley, two thirds of the way up. She had a different look about her. She was by herself, she looked calm. She was up among patches of black scree. But she was blacker yet in the sunlight

It didn't seem that she saw me as I made my way over tussocks and around boulders. I would have to come down and then up the other side to reach her. It never occurred to me to be furtive. Maybe something had changed. I didn't expect her to run now.

It was hard, getting up the south side of the valley. I followed a sheep path, hoping to cut around the hill toward her. Suddenly the mist came down the way it does. It was a cold mist, but I had been sweating. I remember that. Then I was disoriented. The mist will do that to you. Just come down and blind you. I could make out some boulders  and started carefully toward them to sit down and wait things out.  It would probably lift again.

I heard her breathing and whispering to me. Then I slipped on the wet scree. I slid helplessly but harmlessly down. Thirty or forty feet, I suppose. I was cursing to myself under my breath. Shit! Shit! I didn't know where I was. I couldn't see where I was. My hip was a little bruised and one side of my body was wet where I lay now on wet grass, not daring to move.

The whispering came again. She could have been right beside me but I heard no hooves. She was comforting me, I thought. I felt comforted.

The mist did lift. I knew I needed to go home. I was cold and wet. I picked my way down and made it to the road by dusk.

I built up the fire, fell into a hot bath and a warm bed. I watched the mare birth her twins and get them on their feet. They suckled while I listened to the mare's breathing.

I woke up late and a bit sore. I sorted the fire and tidied up. I went to the pub and had a big lunch and two pints. It was cold and spitting rain when I came out. Already getting dark. 

I tried to have a normal evening. Read a book about local wildflowers. I woke up in my chair by the fire, gave up and went to bed.

I dreamt that it snowed, and there was a lot of noise outside the house. In the morning I went out and there were horse tracks everywhere. All over the garden and in the road. There was thick snow stuck to the sides of the house, and there were horse tracks in the snow on the walls of the house. Probably on the roof, too, for all I knew.

I woke up and looked out the window. It had snowed. I rushed out into the garden searching everywhere for the tracks. I looked in the road and behind the garden walls. There were no tracks.

I went back into the house shivering. I noticed that I was pacing and wringing my hands. I wanted to weep. When I was young I had been deeply and desperately in love. This feeling was similar. And similar, too, to the feeling I had when I was jilted a few months later.

I paced the house, took another bath, went to bed early. The next day I felt better. Life became bearable. The feelings fell away and the dreams stopped.

I went out to the valley a few times. Stayed on the footpaths. Never saw any horses. I tried not to do too much thinking.

I dreamed I was by the Hippocrene Spring where a sleek gray colt recited nature poetry to me. I had never heard such beauty. Birds and flowers, water and trees seemed to flow from his mouth. He flew up toward the sun on Pegasus wings. And for a moment I sat on those powerful shoulders.

I understood why all this was happening. We are all made of stardust. Something to do with meteors and scree. And the wild black mare and I got mixed up together with that black mineral. We both got a dose of it from the same source. And that explained it in the dream. And for a few moments after I awoke it made sense, but then of course. It didn't

I saw Joe in my dreams. He was a boy of fifteen. He was breaking the black mare in to drive. She looked about three years old and she wasn't ready. Joe was hesitant and she stood frozen. He looked at her bridle. He went into the barn. She stood frozen. He took the bridle off. And she relaxed.

What was he doing? Working blinkers onto the bridle. He put it back on her. She stiffened. But he told her to walk on she panicked and rushed between the old stone gateposts breaking the light harness and skidding down the road.

It snowed again. My dreams were filled with snow and the image of the wild mare. Emerging over and over from the river by the packhorse bridge. And a startled Joe, old (as he is now) looking in wonder as she disappears across the hills.

I see the stone gateposts through his eyes. I see his finger reach down and touch the rusty bolt that protrudes from one post, where some tail hairs are caught. There is blood on the bolt and on his finger. An old man's finger.

My dreams are filled with snow. The wild mare is made of water. Snow is water. It's no wonder she can get everywhere. She is in the snow. She is in the water and the black scree. And so am I.

Then spring comes. It comes early. By the end of March grass is outstripping the wildflowers. The morning whispering is starting again. It wakes me, then I lie in bed savouring it. Sometimes I think I can smell the gorse. And the roses.

Not long after Easter I go into the valley one morning with a new idea. A light, damp mist clings to everything. I simply stand by the water. I stand and wait. Calling her in my mind, with my spirit.

She comes and stands right beside me. I stand frozen. I realise how afraid she is of humans. How much this is costing her. Ideas form like her words in my mind.

Tears stream down my face. For what can I do? How can I help her? I try to ask her this but I am standing alone with the sun coming out and the fading smell of roses.

On Friday night I see Joe in the pub. I casually mention seeing the wild mare a couple of times recently.

Joe looks at his hands. He looks out the window.

"I heard she might be yours, Joe. I wonder whether she'd be for sale at all..."

Joe stands frozen. Something in the way he looks makes me feel pity.

"No one knows who that black devil belongs to! Who told you that?"

He's got me cornered there. I tell him I must have misunderstood and offer to buy him a drink, but he makes some excuse and leaves.

I lose a few games of darts and start walking home. Halfway up my road I see her. In the dark, at first I think she's walking toward me. But she is walking away.

I feel completely lost. I don't know what to do. At home I build up the fire but I'm in a blind rage. I fling the poker across the room, break three mugs and throw books against the wall.

Out on the hill, in the night it's lashing rain. The mare is looking for her lost foal. The twin tries to keep up with the mare's frantic movements, but it's cold and tired. She doesn't respond to its little whinnies. She is obsessed with finding the lost one.

There is a flash of lightning. The sodden foal spooks and takes off, running through the dark. It slips on the wet scree. It's dark and the storm is noisy. I can't see anything. In the morning I wake up feeling drained.

Kelpie Weather by Skye-Fyre

I try to make sense of it all. I am tired of this. It's all just blind alleys. It's things I can do nothing about. The pieces of the story don't quite fit, no matter how I try to put them together.

I don't know what a wild mare and foal need. Probably other mares to watch the foal while the mother sleeps. I can't live out on the hills. People would be rounding me up, never mind the mare!

The only thing I can think would be to bring the mare down and put her in my back garden for a few months. But people would notice. A mare like that wouldn't like it there. I’m don’t even know whether it’s legal. Then I laugh at myself. I'd never catch her!

The dreams are all I know for a fortnight. The whispering in my head is strong and I feel like a ghost.

Twice I go up the valley. I stand by the river but she doesn't come. I start leaving the side gate open.

On May eve I decide to walk up the valley. I still have several hours of daylight left. I see Joe's herd right away. Their bellies are big. It's as if they know he'll bring them in soon. Almost as if they're waiting for it. She's not with them.

I wonder to myself whether she's real at all. I try to count the number of times I've seen her. But it's hard to separate which times were dreams. Maybe they were all dreams.

Twice I think I see her up near the tops. Both times it’s a patch of scree.

That night I dream of the storm again. A wet lifeless foal slides grotesquely down a patch of scree.

Impossibly far. Hundreds of feet. Nose first, it slides and slides. Like some kind of birth.

In the morning I wake up to rain and sleet lashing the windows. It's quite bright. It won't last. I sit drinking coffee. Feeling depressed. Again, I try to make sense of this.

If Joe misused a horse when he was a boy, that horse would be more than sixty years old. Horses don't live that long. It never occurs to me that what I dreamt might never have happened.

By lunchtime the sun has come out but I still feel miserable. I do the washing up but I'm still going 'round and 'round with the wild mare. What if she is some kind of ghost? Or kelpie? Is she the ghost of the mare? Or one of her twins? The more obvious answer is that I've gone mad.

I have a vague idea to take a walk up the valley, but I procrastinate. About four o'clock I hear Joe's herd clattering down the road. Joe, his wife and his brother and a young couple I don't know are driving them over to the farm.

As soon as they're away I slip out and head up the valley. I don't really expect to see her. She's probably miles away today with that going on.

I head straight down to the river. Across the packhorse bridge and up the south side I make for the scree and boulders where I fell that day. I sit down in the sun.

Tell me what to do I whisper
The side gate is open
You can slip in and shelter behind the garden wall

I sit for a long time trying to remember the scent of gorse and of roses.

Sometimes at night I think I hear her walk under my window.

The British press have had a new Halloween theme for the past eight or ten years, which involves lamenting the Americanisation of the holiday, and the loss of Guy Fawkes night traditions in its wake. Someone brought this up on a Pagan discussion group recently, and I was amused to see a stream of grumpy responses from US Pagans, stating that the Brit obviously didn't realise that Halloween was Celtic. American Pagans were surprisingly unwilling to accept that the Halloween that is being exported back to Britain has taken British traditions (which are a mixture of Pagan and Christian) and turned them into something tacky and alien.

Samhain (which means summer's end) was an important festival in the Celtic calendar. It marks the time when livestock were brought down from upland summer grazing to be cared for near people's dwellings. Driving cattle through the smoke of Samhain bonfires was a common act of purification or protection. Like Beltane, when the cattle were let out again, it was considered to be a liminal time when otherworldly beings were likely to be about. There are numerous references to meetings, feasting, divination and games at this time in Irish mythology and in history. There are also many customs in Ireland and Britain that may be survivals of pre-Christian Samhain traditions, but most of that is very difficult to prove. The idea that Samhain is "the Celtic new year" is really a neoPagan one, taken, like so many things from Sir James Frazer's writing.

In the 11th century, All Souls' Day began to be celebrated on November 2nd, tacked onto All Saints' Day (or All Hallows, which gives Halloween its name) on November 1st. All Souls' had originally been celebrated in the early spring, and may have been moved to its current date because people were venerating their ancestors at Samhain, but that's another thing that we have no historical evidence for. What is likely, though, is that much of the stuff about ghosts and ghouls is linked to the Christian holiday, which was deeply concerned with the question of purgatory and aiding lost souls. Bonfires, which were already popular at this time of year, became connected in people's minds with lighting the way for the departed, and perhaps warding off unwelcome wandering spirits.

There is another complications to the story of Halloween and Samhain, which is Guy Fawkes. On November 5th, 1605 a group of Catholic dissidents tried to blow up the houses of parliament in order to replace the Protestant monarchy with a Catholic one. The plot was foiled and national celebrations were called for. By 1607 cities and towns throughout Britain were sponsoring public bonfires with drinking, fireworks, and entertainment for the masses to celebrate this new national holiday. Since the date was so close to Samhain/Halloween, and also involved a bonfire and a party, this holiday, which had strong patriotic and Protestant overtones, largely overshadowed and replaced what came before, especially where earlier traditions had died out. The party was back on, and had been re-branded.

Entertainments of The Dark Time
If Samhain is summer's end, then it must be winter's beginning. For those on farms, as most of our ancestors were a century or two ago, this meant a complete change. Livestock brought in-by for feeding and safekeeping required many chores be done during the increasing hours of darkness. Anyone who has had to make the trip from house to outbuildings on cold dark nights knows it can be a bit creepy.  At the same time, people used to spending most of their waking hours out of doors, suddenly found themselves facing long, boring evenings inside. It's no wonder that a rich and varied set of entertainments grew up to fill the long winter evenings. Some of these customs feel like they could be pre-Christian survivals, but, as usual, this can't be proved or disproved. Many of these traditions are now quite localised, and others probably died out unrecorded.

These customs include mumming plays, which might include a hobby horse, and other animal disguises like a bull or a tup (ram) perhaps with a short play or a song. In Kent the 'Ooden 'Oss (Hooden Horse) appears around Midwinter, and in parts of Wales the Mari Lwyd (a white hobby horse) makes an appearance, usually between Christmas and Twelfth Night. In the English counties bordering Wales, Wassailing takes place. In Ireland, the Lair Bhan, a white horse similar to the Mari Lwyd, came out at Halloween, and on December 26th the tradition of wren boys was widespread. Shortly after Twelfth Night came Plough Monday, when groups of agricultural workers would carry a plough from place to place, threatening to plough up farmyards or the entrances to stately homes, if they weren't given what they asked. Plough Monday also involved men dressing as women, and dancing.

All of these traditions have a common theme of disguise and going from house to house, (or public house) offering entertainment in return for food, drink or money. In most cases these traditions were carried out mostly by adult working-class men, perhaps accompanied by boys. Sometimes children imitated the adult entertainments with their own versions.

Although many of these traditions have a fixed date near Midwinter, it wasn't unusual to see some of them making a sort of practice appearance around Samhain. Some customs may have originally belonged to Samhain/Halloween and later shifted to the Christmas and New Year period because people were more inclined to be generous then. To say that any one of these traditions is the origin of trick-or-treating is to miss the point of how widespread it was.

Guy Fawkes, meanwhile, developed its own set of traditions over the years, built on the general love of disguise, fire and mayhem during the dark time. Eventually the patriotic and anti-Catholic overtones were mostly lost. Children often did much of the collecting of fuel for the bonfire, and when I lived in working-class neighbourhoods in Edinburgh, this  included pallets and broken household furniture like chairs and wardrobes. Towering stacks were built in the week or so leading up to Bonfire Night, and guarded so that rival fire builders didn't steal what had been collected. A few children still made a Guy out of old clothes stuffed with straw or paper, maybe put on masks or old sheets, and went 'round collecting "a penny for the Guy", for which they were expected to sing a song or something. The Guy was ritually thrown onto the fire and burned. The money might be spent on fireworks or treats.

Trick-or-Treat?
Some of the traditions I've just talked about definitely had an element of threat about them. Mari Lwyd parties were sometimes feared, as much as welcomed, because they would cause havoc once admitted to the house. Equally, once men and boys were disguised, out after dark, and possibly full of ale, they might see an opportunity to frighten people or get their own back on an unpopular employer or teacher.

In Catholic Britain and Ireland, and parts of the Hebrides, people continued to celebrate All Hallows with fires, feasting, and divination, and children or labourers went from house to house collecting food or money, often in disguise, through the 20th century.  In other areas, Halloween was considered a very minor day on the calendar, associated with a bit of spookiness. Turnip lanterns also became popular late in the nineteenth century, probably introduced from Ireland.

The Irish, if fact, seem to have been the main source of modern Halloween traditions. The massive influx of Irish immigrants to the US in the mid nineteenth century, brought traditions like disguise in elaborate costumes, turnip/pumpkin lanterns, and going door to door to the US, where it slowly spread to the rest of the population and became associated increasingly with children, until by the 1930s it became more like what we know today. By the time of my own childhood in the early 1960s, American Halloween had become the festival of plastic tat, nylon costumes and cheap chocolate overload that we see today - although I'm sure parents probably invested less time and money in it than they are expected to do now.

In the past twenty years, American Halloween has been relentlessly exported back to Britain. The massive Guy Fawkes bonfires are still popular, but the kids going 'round asking for "a penny for the Guy" and doing their wee songs, and giving you black looks if you don't hand over at least a couple of quid, has almost disappeared. All that has been overshadowed by store-bought costumes and trick or treating for sweets. (The corporations win again!) I'm sorry to see it go because, in its way, I think it was a much more "Pagan" holiday than American Halloween will ever be. It belonged to real, working class people. The ones whose ancestors got called pagans by the sneering Romans and the disapproving Christian clergy in earlier times. It was home made. Made from a random mixture of ancient customs, poorly understood politics and stuff kids scrounged up to make it happen, usually without their parents' help. It was an indigenous custom people did, not one they purchased.

So am I proud to celebrate the biggest holiday in the Pagan calendar? Meh! I stopped celebrating Christmas before I even figured out I was a Pagan, because I couldn't stand the commercialism, and the general orgy of stress and spending. My feelings about modern Halloween are much the same. I'm puzzled at how people belonging to a set of beliefs which supposedly values Mother Nature so highly, can buy so much plastic junk, disposible party ware and other things that have no hope of being recycled, and say they are celebrating Paganism. And if that doesn't describe you, then I'm not talking about you, so don't get offended.  

What is mythology?
Because I have been around mythology all my life, I sometimes forget that the first thing people think of when they hear the word myth, is probably the phrase, “That’s just a myth.” In other words, they think of a myth as something like an old wives’ tale or fake news. On the other hand, I think of something like this: Stories people have believed for many generations, which cannot be fully confirmed, usually concerning their own origins, culture and gods. These stories have a fairly high degree of stability over time. That’s a pretty standard definition of mythology. There are some important nuances, like the difference between folklore and mythology (they’re not exactly the same thing, but can overlap), or that an “urban myths” should probably be called “urban folklore”, but we’ll save that for another time!

For the purposes of Celtic Pagans, our mythology would include things like the Welsh Mabinogi and the Irish Battles of Magh Tuireadh. These are stories about gods and goddesses, and the ancestors of the Irish and Britons. They are not historically accurate, and they don’t tell us exactly what Celts anywhere believed about their gods at any given time. So, what are they? Are they just very old short stories? Maybe this will help …

The Story Shawl
Once upon a time, when there were only a few people, and every person was therefore precious to those who knew them, your grandmother’s hundred-times-back-great-grandmother made a shawl. She spun it and wove it with wool from her own sheep, and she lovingly embroidered little pictures all over it, which reminded her of her relatives. A type of flower her mother liked, a black bull of the sort her grandfather raised, a trumpet like the one her brother blew in battle, and a little girl’s dress that her own baby daughter would have worn if she’d lived. Not just these four pictures, but many more.

When she handed this shawl down to another daughter, she explained the meaning of each picture. The shawl was passed on in this way for several generations of women, until one girl, who also loved to sew, decided to add some new pictures about her relatives. On and on the shawl went from mother to daughter. If a woman died before she got a chance to explain the meanings of the pictures, an aunt or grandmother did her best. As the generations fanned out, cousins also wanted to remember the shawl so someone made a song about it.

                                                                                                                                                        
Then a famine came, and because people were hungry there was a war. Everyone’s life was in turmoil. A grandmother had the sense to pack the shawl away carefully, but in the chaos, no one knew where she put it. Much later it was found, lovingly wrapped, but people had forgotten what it was, so it was put in a trunk. Still, a few families here and there had an old bedtime song about the story shawl. It began:

A long time passed, and then one day a woman happened to open the trunk, and there was the shawl. When she unwrapped it, it was moth-eaten and faded, and a bit smelly, so she put it on the back step for the cat to sleep on.

One day, Grandma was visiting, and she went out back to sit in the sun. She saw this old piece of needlework and began to really look at it. Wasn’t that an old battle trumpet? And a black bull? She began to sing scraps of the bedtime song over to herself, and she remembered a few old lines that seemed to fit with some of the other pictures she could still make out.

She folded the shawl up and took it around the village, showing it to the oldest women she knew. One said someone must have made it in their mother’s time, perhaps for a child who liked the bedtime song. Others spread it out on their kitchen tables, and wrinkled their brows, and tried to reach back into their memories for something they couldn’t quite touch.

A noblewoman who came to the house to buy butter got sight of the shawl, where the old women were looking it over. She said she thought it was ancient and VERY IMPORTANT. Granny handed it over in lieu of five years’ rent.

The lady took it back to her house, and she and her waiting women got to work making as exact a copy as they could. When they came to missing bits, or pictures they couldn’t make sense of, they just put in something that would look nice and enhance the overall piece. Then they put it in a glass case in the library. Once a year during the village festival, the local children were all paraded past it and told, “That’s your heritage. Now get back to your sums and your Latin verbs and stop acting like peasants.”

When the noblewoman died, and her grandchildren decided to downsize, the old shawl went out with the boxes of junk. The shawl in the glass case went to a museum where it began to generate a great deal of interest. Young women began to bring their children to see it. They would sing them snatches of the bedtime song, and as they looked at the shawl, they seemed to remember more verses than they thought they knew. Their children gazed not at the shawl, but at their singing mothers, with great, round, wondering eyes. Old women came and pressed their hands and faces against the glass and wept, but no one could tell whether it was for joy or sadness – not even the old women themselves. Such was the power of the picture shawl.

No one knows what became of the old shawl. Some say it never actually existed, and that people just get hysterical over the slightest thing these days. Other people say it was witchcraft, and that somehow the old shawl was made new again. Some people have started a new custom of singing the bedtime song (all fourteen verses) with their children, as they dance around their Midsummer fires. And on winter evenings, women in houses throughout the land can be seen embroidering shawls and humming, while their men wash the supper dishes.

Wait! What just happened?
This little story is intended to show how something may be handed down for a very long time, and although parts of it are lost, and other parts misunderstood, that which survives still has tremendous value and meaning. Like mythology, the shawl carried information and connection to the ancestors, but ultimately it awoke that connection within the people themselves. While the shawl in the story was only concerned with cultural and ancestral meaning, the myths have a third function for us as Pagans. They connect us to the gods. Their stories may have become a little fragmented here and confused there, yet the gods still underpin the myths. We can still listen for the old song that’s buried deep, and allow ourselves to sing the new song that arises,

 St John's Eve Bonfire on Skagen's Beach - Peder Severin Kroyer

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The knowledge and wisdom of so many generations. My mothers and grandmothers, and theirs before them. We were hefted* to Blackie Knowe and the glen where the Blackie Burn flows into the river. It was fine country. Rocks provided hiding places and markers when the snow came. We knew which side of the hill to graze on, depending on the wind and on whether the day was fine. Our mothers led us to the best things to eat in each separate and singular week of the year. We watched our mothers and aunts, and learned everything. The sorrel and the thistle, the joys of yarrow and wild thyme, the different grasses, and the tasty water mint. We learned not to fear the shepherd and his dogs too much, even though we didn't like them.

In my second year I was wild and fleet of foot and often caused trouble by breaking away from the flock when the men moved us about for one of their yearly rituals. I learned to be dipped and dosed and shorn. I learned the rollicking time of the tupping paddock, and the long, tiresome winter that followed.

In alarm I panted in the lambing pens, and endured the prodding of a human, while I longed to be out on the clean hill, hidden by a gorse bush, keeping my lambs safe, keeping them all to myself. I could see the patient acceptance of the others as they experienced these indignities. I could see that some ewes and lambs needed the help the shepherds gave them. I felt my milk run and followed the course of its stream back through my mother and grandmother, and outward and forward through myself, my daughters, and sisters, and I felt good.

Then suddenly every gate was opened and we were out! I was calling loudly to my lambs to stay close. Every other ewe was doing the same. Soon we were back under the sky and eating the grass. It tasted so sweet! It was hard at first, not to be anxious about my lambs. I stayed close to ewes I knew well, and for a few weeks we spent as much time calling our lambs as we did eating grass. Summer settled in and we ate our fill of every good thing. I was very proud of my two lambs, they were growing fat on my milk, and learned whatever I showed them with ease.

In late autumn, with new lambs just starting inside us, many of us were driven into a moving box and taken to a frightening place. We were herded into pens and could see and hear many strange sheep and people. We couldn't understand what was happening. My daughter was with me, and I followed my mother and the other friends I had always looked to for guidance, but they were also afraid and lost. Soon we were driven into another box that smelled very strange. In the evening we were put into an unfamiliar  paddock with long, rank grass. We have not seen Glen Blackie since then.

We are confused and fearful in the new place. There are many fences. Some that you can run through, and some you can't. We don't know where to go and where not to go. Nothing makes sense. When we see this new shepherd and his dogs, he is usually fast and angry with us. There doesn't seem to be a way to get back to Glen Blackie. Winter has been mild; my lambs will be born soon. Here, in this new place, my milk will run for them.

What I understand from the Blackface Sheep is the value of native knowledge of one's environment. If you are a city dweller, you know how useful it is to be a bit streetwise. If you are a country person, it's helpful to understand the rhythms of the agricultural year, and the tasks that are going on around you, even though you might not be a farmer yourself. We need points of reference: where to find the things we need, how things work in our world and who our friends are. Some of us know our environment well, but many of us are struggling with new environments or unfamiliar cultures. Sometimes we need to pause and recognise that such changes may be unsettling us more that we think, and to look for sources of knowledge both within ourselves and without, that can help us to re-orient.

This animal also speaks to me of the importance of recognising and honouring intelligence, in ourselves and others. Intelligence isn't just formal education. It isn't as simple as an IQ test. It is also being able to read situations, knowing what is appropriate in the moment, knowing how the world works. Sometimes intelligence is knowing when to patiently put up with things because tomorrow will be another day.

Maybe you're surprised that I see all this in a sheep, but give it a try. Pick something that you understand and see what it has to show you. I'd love to hear about your revelations in the comments!


*Hefted flocks of sheep know the boundaries of the grazing rights of their owners without being fenced in.


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In a recent piece on getting started with Celtic mythology, I touched briefly on how to approach reading myths. In that post there are a few suggestions about finding accessible, inexpensive translations of the Mabinogi and the Irish cycles. Let's now talk more about looking for meaning in the myths.

If you are the kind of person who puts a book down in mid-chapter and picks it up again when you have time, I suggest you take a different approach with myths. Try to read a whole story, or at least a clearly defined episode, in a single sitting. For example, we could divide the first branch of The Mabinogi into two stories. There is the story of Pwyll's adventures in the otherworld, and there is the story of Pwyll and Rhiannon. The second story could be divided further as: 1) Pwyll and Rhiannon's courtship; 2) the two wedding feasts; 3) the loss of Rhainnon's child and her punishment; and 4) Teyrnon's story.  These four episodes can't stand alone in the same way that the two overarching tales do, but they might provide you with reasonable landmarks. If you do get interrupted while reading, it is worth going back to a point that feels like the beginning of an episode, and starting there.

As you read mythology you will probably encounter events, statements or ideas that cause a strong response. Your response might be awe or aversion, an epiphany or downright puzzlement. A good storyteller knows these points in a tale, and will pause, perhaps even repeat a phrase, or explain something. When we read myth, we act as both teller and listener, so please show honour to both yourself and the story by sitting for a moment to feel or think, or even going back over something that stands out.

Over time, some myths will probably feel more important to you than others. Remember that in a storytelling culture, an individual will hear the same stories many times in their life. Allow the tales that are important to you to get under your skin. Allow yourself to live and eat with them, to dream them. As well as reading my favourites often, maybe in different translations, I sometimes try to repeat them in my mind, as if I was telling them to a group of friends. This allows me to see how well I know the story. Can I get all the events in the right order? Am I clear on any causes and effects? This is a great way to make the story part of your life, and maybe one day you will find yourself telling it.

I often hear people encouraging those new to the Celtic path to read various books about mythology "for starters". While they often suggest very good books, I feel that you should let the myths themselves have their say first. Keep an open mind. At some point you may want to read commentary on the myths that interest you. You may be questioning your own interpretation, or just want to learn more about them. There is much depth to be found this way, but the depth you find on your own is real, too. It can be both magical and fragile. Don't let a more scholarly interpretation crush the wisdom you've found. Maybe your wisdom will evolve, and maybe the scholars' wisdom is not the only wisdom.

I love learning. I love good sources of information, and I consider academic work to be invaluable. I just wanted to say that at the start, so as to leave no doubt. If only it were that simple, though.

As Pagans, many of us are trying to recreate, revive or reconstruct elements of ancient practices or ideas. We take an interest in history, mythology, folklore, archaeology and anthropology in ways the general public rarely does. These things inform and inspire each one of us a little differently, and I believe that's as it should be. I want my fellow Pagans to have access to the best quality information about whatever they need to know. I like to share things that will help them get there, including directing them toward the things that helped me.

So why do I think there is trouble? Perhaps a list is the easiest way to cover this.

The trouble with terrible information: There is no doubt that many Pagan and "esoteric" books have been published which are full of bad information. This also goes for blogs, documentaries, and things being taught in workshops. To call the bad stuff scholarship, though, is probably stretching a point, and there are also great documentaries, blogs and workshops. Bad information is nothing new. The Greeks, Romans and medieval Europeans have plenty of BS to offer us. Old isn't always better. Well informed Pagans see the bad stuff for what it is, and like to warn newcomers, which is fine, but it often leads to ...

The trouble with posturing: This is popular on the internet. People with a little knowledge like to lord it over people with a little less, and people with even more knowledge sometimes behave very badly, indeed. A lot of name-calling ensues, but even when it doesn't come to that, we find people speaking in absolute terms about things which any true academic would agree have not been proven. A little knowledge probably isn't that dangerous, but an overabundance can sometimes be the worst weapon, as in...

However, removing the bad manners and bad information only fixes part of the problem ...

The trouble with academia, itself: Academic jobs that provide a decent living are getting harder and harder to come by, especially in the US. This can make career academics wary of questioning the established consensus, or pursuing novel lines of research. It's safer to gently push the edges of whatever is currently accepted, or just keep digging in the middle. This means that little progress gets made in some of the most interesting areas.

There are also issues with "tainted" areas of inquiry. Some of the most brilliant theories and discoveries are made by individuals whose work is patchy. Innovators and lateral thinkers often go down a few wrong roads before they find their answers. They may get overenthusiastic and publish their findings before they have checked all their conclusions, or simply carry their theories too far. They may even fudge things a little, because they are so sure of something that they might as well create an extra margin of proof so people will listen.

Sadly, the posturers of this world rarely consider this. They may have an impressive level of amateur scholarship, but because they love to position themselves as having superior knowledge, they are easily drawn into discrediting things that are academically unfashionable. Granted, there are plenty of dodgy ideas around, and if someone tells me "Oh, nobody listens to her theories, anymore" or "Current research suggests that never happened" I try to follow that up with a bit of research. For example, are various people all quoting one writer's attack on something? Does that attack seem warranted?

One final problem is fame. Academics who get contracts to make documentaries, or who write popular books that actually sell, sometimes come in for a special kind of backstabbing. It's occasionally deserved, and there's no doubt that personal image is as strong a selling point as brains, especially for television, but sometimes, people are just jealous.

The trouble with over-emphasis: Neo-Paganism is a set of spiritual or religious ideas. We may seek the best information about the past as a way of finding our way forward, but it can only take us so far. We all have different ideas about the woo-woo part. "Whatever I feel like" works for some, while others will insist on shared or "verified" gnosis. It's a personal choice. There is an awful lot about deity and spirituality that we can never be sure about, and everyone has a right to choose their own level of filtration. Ultimately, keeping religion/spirituality on a purely academic level cuts its heart out, especially when it comes to ...

The trouble with proof: This one is especially problematic in Celtic studies, because the Celts didn't write about their own culture until comparatively recently. There is a well-known maxim: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In other words, if you can't prove that something happened, then maybe it didn't, but without evidence, you also can't be sure that it didn't happen. We have to accept that we can't look into the distant past with accuracy. As much as we'd like to know all about our ancestors' beliefs and customs, we never will. So sometimes we have to trust our hearts, or go with our best guess, or try to channel it, because the only alternative is ...

The trouble with overthinking: I consider myself to be intuitive. Plenty of people are. Most definitions of intuition focus on the ability to reach conclusions without consciously thinking about the knowledge you are drawing on. That's not the same thing as clairvoyance or seeing a holy vision or any of the woo-woo stuff. It's just the mind's ability to connect up ideas without us telling it how. I don't believe that intuition should always be trusted, but I do know that it is only as good as what you feed it. I've never studied calculus, so I'm unlikely to ever have an intuitive breakthrough there. I'm going to have my best intuitive thoughts where my knowledge already runs deepest, and if that knowledge is faulty, my intuition might be, too. That's why I like my little scholarly pursuits, because they feed me. They feed me best if choose my intake wisely, and consume in moderation.

Every time I read this passage I mourn.

However, let's finish the tale:
Naturally, at this point in the story Matholwch is offended and angry, but Bran manages to patch things up with gifts and apologies. However, as the story unfolds we find that the repercussions from Efnisien's actions have barely begun.

Back in Ireland, Branwen bears a son, called Gwern, but resentment against the Welsh over the mutilation of the horses resurfaces, and in retaliation Matholwch forces Branwen to live as a mistreated kitchen slave. When she manages to send to Wales for help, Bran raises a huge army and invades Ireland.

Seeing himself greatly outnumbered, Matholwch swears to give Gwern sovereignty over Ireland in order to make peace. Bran says this isn't enough, so the Irish offer to build a giant feasting hall, large enough to accommodate him. This is accepted, but turns out to be a trap. The Irish warriors are lying in wait, hiding in supposed flour sacks. Efnisien systematically crushes their skulls with his bare hands, unknown to Matholwch.

At the feast, Efnisien throws Branwen's child, Gwern, into the fire, killing him. More fighting ensues, with great losses on both sides. Efnisien dies by breaking a magical cauldron, Branwen dies of a broken heart, and Bran is mortally wounded by a poisoned spear. In the end, only seven of Bran's army return alive, including Manawydan, Taliesin, and Pryderi - the son of Rhiannon.

This is a very brief synopsis, but I have tried to mention everything, and add nothing. Whether one looks at my short re-telling, or the story as it stands in the second branch, every event, every nuance is open to many interpretations. That is the nature of myth, and I can only tell you what I am thinking at the moment.

Horses, the land. queens and sovereignty are closely bound together in the Mabinogi, and to some extent in Irish texts, too. Exactly how this thinking evolved through time is impossible to say. I suspect that it runs all the way back to a time when humans developed some kind of spiritual or magical relationship with horses as prey. This evolved as horses were gradually domesticated first for meat, and then were both ennobled and enslaved for warfare and heavy work.

Humans are adaptable and innovate, but paradoxically their societies are remarkably resistant to change. If the wild, swift and free horses who were hunted for food were venerated in some meaningful way, how did people feel about taking that freedom away? What stories did they create to make this acceptable, and who within these societies was driving these changes? Was the mare already a kind of earth mother deity? Did the changing status of the domesticated mare mirror, or alter the balance of power between male and female in human society?

I can't help feeling that Celtic stories carry some coded message for us. A distant echo, if you like, of how humans came to terms with or even excused, their changing relationship to nature. Did we change an association between the horse and the earth mother into an association between the horse and our new ideas about owning them, and holding territory for them to graze on?

These gradual adaptations must have brought spiritual or religious adjustments with them. Perhaps during times of change there was a sense that humans might be transgressing natural/sacred laws, or at least that they must be careful to continue to show respect for what had been sacred under the old system. The need to conflate the sacred earth and the sacred feminine (equine and human) and with the holding of territory would have been a philosophical balancing act. One which introduced the need for a more concrete idea of sovereignty.

So how is this echoed in the Mabinogi? In the first branch we have the well-known story of Rhiannon, who is more insulted than abused. Pwyll, although rather inept, makes some attempt to show respect for her, and things are resolved to bring about a happy ending to the story.  

When we come to the second branch things shift. While there is a similar tale of the mistreatment of a woman who should be an honoured bringer of sovereignty, she is no longer directly associated with horses. The suffering of these divine queens following their marriages is bad enough, but pales in comparison to Efnisien's mutilation of the horses and the catastrophic events that follow. In the first branch, the insults to the sovereignty bringer, Rhiannon,  are the result of Pwyll's foolishness, and while painful for her, impact only her. Efnisien's actions, however, are cruel and show a deep disregard for the sovereign earth mother in the form of Matholwch's horses. It is no wonder that the destruction which follows is also on a different scale.

Although the narration of the Mabinogi concentrates on the insult to Matholwch, and the rendering useless of his horses, this emphasis probably has its roots in  legal preoccupations and  Christian theology. However, the visceral and highly specific description of Efnisien's crime carries a deep sense of wrongdoing against nature and beauty. Perhaps this hearkens back to an atavistic taboo from our earliest beliefs. The pain and terror inflicted on these horses is an immediate shock to anyone who hears the story. Perhaps we should look into this wound, rather than turning away to focus on the romantic tragedy of Branwen.

It's as if the second branch is saying to us, "Listen. I don't think you fully comprehend the importance of the lesson of the first branch. Let me show you again, more vividly. Let me remind you that there are limits." Efnisien has overstepped the limits of both intention and severity. In the first branch, Rhiannon upbraids Pwyll for unfairly spurring his horse, a crime that shrinks in comparison to Efnisien's bloody rampage.

It is no wonder that none of the characters in this story are able to fix things. Neither sweet Branwen with her tame starling, nor two kings alternating between war and placation, nor Efnision's last minute attempts at heroism can alter the outcome. Men, horses, kings, heirs and kingdoms, the precious cauldron of rebirth and the divine queen herself are lost. At this time in history when those in power seem to have lost all sense of the sacredness of nature, but are leading us to destruction while they squabble over riches and insults, this is a story we need to revisit.

As most Pagans know, both Lammas and Lughnasadh are associated with grain. Lammas comes from the Anglo-Saxon "loaf mass" - a time when the first loaves made from the new wheat crop were taken to the church and blessed. The season of Lammastide had, and still has, all sorts of grain harvest customs associated with it. I remember when I moved to Scotland in the 1980s being amazed to see "Lammas (Scottish quarter day)" printed on the appropriate date, in the appointment diary I bought. The Lammas fairs of Scotland were once major points in the agricultural calendar. With the grain harvest in, it was a good time for agricultural workers who didn't like their current positions to look to "fee" with a different farmer, and Lammas fairs became important hiring fairs. It's not unusual, even now, to hear older people say "It's like a Lammas fair!" when a place is unusually crowded or busy.

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Celtic mythology can be fun and exciting to read, or it can be daunting and difficult. Newcomers to Celtic studies or Celtic Paganism often don't know where to start. I hope this post will help you to get started well and show you how to deepen your engagement. I'll stick to the main bodies of Irish and Welsh myths for this post, just to keep things simple.

Here's a working definition of mythology, to get us started: Stories people have believed for many generations, which cannot be fully confirmed, usually concerning their own origins, culture and gods. These stories have a fairly high degree of stability over time.

There are many medieval books, usually created by monastic scribes, that contain bits of Irish and Welsh myth. Sometimes these are fragmentary because a book got damaged, or because whoever created the book only had access to bits and pieces of a longer tale. Sometimes we find the same thing word-for-word in several manuscripts, sometimes we find quite different versions of the same story in two different books. Fortunately, there are scholars who dedicate themselves to sorting this all out for the rest of us. They don't always get it right, but as time passes they are getting better at it.

Not many of us are ever going to be able to read these things in their original. Even if you speak fluent Irish or Welsh, it wouldn't be easy, because the language has changed so much. I speak English fluently, but I can't read Old English at all, nor Middle English very well. So unless you are a scholar of early forms of Irish and Welsh, you're going to need a translation or something. So let's talk about that.

Translations vary. Extremely literal word-by-word translations can be harder to understand than you'd think. They don't explain things like idioms, except maybe in footnotes, and don't always deal well with poetry, or the many grammatical differences between languages. On the other hand, they may give insights that other translations don't. Good examples of this are R. A. S. MacAlister's Lebor Gabála Érenn or Morgan Daimler's The Treasure of the Tuatha De Danann.

Most translations are more "faithful" than literal. The translator tries their best to convey the exact meaning of each phrase, in a way that allows the reader to easily digest it. (Like Patrick Ford's translation of the Mabinogi.) You may also find it helpful to choose a fairly recent translation. Translations from the 19th and early 20th centuries are often available to read free online. Some of them are good, but if you don't enjoy reading Victorian prose, you may give up. (For example Whitley Stokes' The Voyage of Mael Duin's Boat or Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion.)

Next in line for reading choice might be a "faithful re-telling". This is where the author has read the material, either in translation or through their own scholarship, but put it into their own words more than a translator would. A faithful re-telling might simplify the language for children, or condense the action a little for a story collection or encyclopedia, or the author might simply prefer to put it in their own words. However, it shouldn't remove or add anything important. The question here is always "How faithful?", and if you haven't read the myth from a good translation beforehand, how will you know? The fact that I don't recommend any here doesn't mean that none exist. Although I can't think of a major work of this sort, I have seen authors make a good job of individual stories.

Finally there are looser renderings of myths. You may see these in collections in discounted book bins, read them on websites, or find them in literary forms like novels. Some of them are good from a literary standpoint but a long way from the original. Others may have been passed around the internet without anyone bothering to check their accuracy. I generally find the ones written by authors who are members of the relevant culture (James Stephens' Irish Fairy Tales, or Ella Young's Celtic Wonder Tales) preferable to those writing from an alien culture who are just mining mythology for a good story with supernatural elements. (Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion Tetralogy for example.) Authors may also appropriate deities and other characters from myths and put them into their own stories, but don't expect to learn much about mythology by reading them.

For anyone wishing to really absorb and engage with Celtic mythology, I would suggest that they read translations first, rather than think they will work their way up via a fantasy novel or a bad synopsis. It's human nature that the first version of a story we hear sticks in our mind as the most true version, in spite of us trying to override that with logic later.

Irish mythology is messier. There are more manuscripts, and the material is fragmented and scattered between many manuscripts. This makes it harder to piece together a narrative structure, but it is generally agreed that there are four "cycles": The Mythological Cycle concerns Ireland's origins and the doings of the Tuatha De Danann; The Ulster Cycle is about Conchobar, Cu Chulainn and the cattle raiding culture of the north; The Fenian Cycle concerns the doings of Fionn MacCumhaill and the Fenian warriors; and The Historical Cycle is a pseudo-history of Irish kings from the 5th-11th centuries.

One author/translator deserves very special attention for her treatment of the Irish material: Lady Augusta Gregory, who made a bold attempt to put the jigsaw of fragments together into a cohesive, chrolological narrative for the first three cycles. Certainly scholarship and attitudes have moved on considerably since Lady Gregory published her translations, and a hundred years later the language is becoming dated. However, I still recommend the collection of her work, called Complete Irish Mythology, as the best way to read the Irish myths for the first time. After you've done that, you will probably want to find newer and better translations of various stories, or delve into early Irish texts that aren't included by Lady Gregory, but you will have a much better grasp of the big picture. No contemporary translator has attempted to tackle all three cycles, as far as I know.

The Mabinogion is not that long. Even with some notes and all the extra tales it makes a manageable sized book. Complete Irish Mythology is heftier (around 550 pages), but not enormous if you think of it as a trilogy in one volume. It's helpful to read the four branches of the Mabinogi or Complete Irish Mythology in order the first time, but don't devour them too quickly. There is a great deal of action within just a few pages in these stories, and not much exposition. Give yourself time to let each little story sink in. Give yourself time to ask questions, even though you may have no answers. Live with these stories and savour them. There are many scholarly interpretations of these tales, but what is your interpretation? What are your instincts telling you? Take the time to go back over things that don't make sense, or that haunt you. Remember that people once grew up hearing these stories regularly, and continued to hear them throughout their lives. It is only by living with them, that you will find their true depth.

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read some of my posts on individual myths, such as The Beach and Of Oracles, Wonder and Inspiration.