Category: Ancestors

Lost in time

9/11/2018

I struggle with homesickness on a monumental scale, as I know so many of my ancestors must have done. I've written before about how I feel about my own shadowy lineage. Family trees and DNA are all very well, but for me, "my ancestors" are so much more. Genealogies may be linear, but I am not so sure that time is.

Figures I have looked up to as old men when I was in my thirties and forties are gone now. Poets and tradition bearers, musicians... People close to me have gone, too, several before their time. This is the state of getting older. It's part of the preparation, I suppose.

Poet's Pub - Alexander Moffat 1980

The past has always had a grip on me. I'm sure it makes me difficult to be with at times . . . but, there! Do you never feel it? How time and place spiral together, holding . . . something, in a particular curve of the land, a particular street at sunset. There's many an Irish jig and reel named after the "humours" of a place. "The Humours of Tulla", "The Humours of Limerick" etc. I love this old word, which describes something like the mood of a place. The word comes, originally, from a Latin root describing dampness or fluids. (There is a whole medical system based on the humours, or fluids, of the body.) This in turn makes me think of the old saying for knowing something intuitively: "I feel it in my waters."

Time sits, I sometimes think, like a moving column of vapour, about any given place. The things that happened there, what was thought or felt, all spirals like some kind of blind spring. The past is immanent, if only imperfectly reachable. I have lived in places where I could sense what the land felt in its waters. Sometimes, it's almost an ecstatic practice. Occasionally, it is excruciating. But I digress.

This poem is echoes of times, places and people who have passed. Some well remembered, others only sensed. They now merge and don't merge, spiralling in those columns of vaporous memory above their places. Even the well-remembered past can only live partially in our memories. So much of it belongs to place.

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.

Lost in Time is from my collection of poems called Credne's Hand.

Credne's Hand

A collection of poetry in praise of Celtic deities. Mabon, Brigid, Manannán mac Lir and many more.

8.5" x 5.5"

15 pages

See product page for details.

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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.

The late Hamish Henderson

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Halloween is Pagan, Trick-or-Treat is Traditional. Yes/No/Maybe

11/10/2018

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"Among objections to Hallowe’en, as now constituted, are these: it is too commercialised; it is American; trick-or-treat encourages child gangsterism; trick-or-treat endangers children; the whole thing undermines Guy Fawkes day; it is Satanic. " - Christopher Howse, The Telegraph, 2010

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.

All this continued without complaint from the church until the Protestant reformation really took hold in Elizabethan times. After that, practices became more localised and focused more in the country than the towns. Catholic areas, were less affected by the reformation, so their customs changed less. The feasting and fires continued in some of these areas, while more generally, what remained was a sense of danger and fear, directed toward the supernatural realm -- a fear of ghosts, witches, and the evil eye, or whatever local folklore had to offer in the way of nighttime monsters.

Banshee by Jana Heidersdorf

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.

Master Jack

Not-quite-folk-horror is how I tend to describe this story spanning generations across two families - all linked by the skull of a horse. Make of this what you will, dear reader!

8.5" x 5.5"

29 pages

See product page for details.

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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.

Souling Players

Mari Lwyd

Hoodeners

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.

Please make it stop.

I am indebted to Pagan historian Ronald Hutton for providing a detailed and factual account of how Samhain traditions evolved over the centuries, and for separating fact from fiction, in his book The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. I relied heavily on pages 360-407 to fact-check this post.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Oss Oss!

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The Story Shawl

26/9/2018

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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 …

Update:
This post is an early version of a story I later published in a chapbook called Mythology. You can purchase it, and other chapbooks here on the website, or receive a new chapbook every three months by becoming a patron at the $7 per month level on Patreon.

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 flower, a bull, a trumpet
What was upon the shawl?
Our daughters shall remember
Their mothers and grannies all.

Portrait of a Devonian by Francis Henry Newbury. Royal Albert
Memorial Museum. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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.”

The Ladies Waldegrave - Joshua Reynolds

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

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Once upon a time, deep in the forest ...

Mythology

A chapbook collection containing the allegorical tale The Story Shawl, a poem about Macha entitled Approaching the House of Cruinniuc, and a long essay called The Beach.

Size 8.5" x 5.5"

14 pages

Please see product page for more information.

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The Evil That Efnisien Did

7/8/2018

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In this story we meet some noble Welsh characters. There is the giant King Bran, who is also called Bendigeidfran or "Bran the Blessed", the High King of The Island of the Mighty (Britain). Bran, Branwen and Manawydan, are the children of Llyr, and their mother is Penarddun, the daughter of Beli. Penarddun also has twin sons, whose father is Euroswydd. Nisien is introduced as being a peacemaker within the family, while Efnisien is the opposite - a troublemaker.

Matholwch, King of Ireland arrives on the coast of Wales, bringing 13 ships full of men and horses. He asks Bran for Branwen's hand in marriage. This is agreed, and the marriage feast takes place. This short excerpt from the Jones and Jones translation takes up the action, which I prefer not to have to paraphrase...

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 innovative, 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.

A Tale of Manawydan

A chapbook containing my original re-telling of The Third Branch of the Mabinogi from the point of view of Manawydan himself. This is a work I never imagined I would produce but the urge to tell Manawydan's story became too strong to resist, so here it is!

8.5" x 5.5"

25 pages

See product page for more.

8.00

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Getting started with Celtic Myth

15/7/2018

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Celtic myths can be fun and exciting to read, or they 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 myth, 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.

The earliest sources we have for Celtic myths are manuscripts created from the 11th to 16th centuries. Most scholars are of the opinion, based on language and other clues, that the material in these old books is older than the books themselves. Some of it has the kind of errors which show that it was copied from another written source (now lost) and some of it shows the hallmarks of having been passed down orally for a long time, before it was finally written down.

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 might appreciate a translation. 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. 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) 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.

And so , to the tales themselves:

The primary body of Welsh myth is The Mabinogi (or Mabinogion). It is divided into four "branches" or sections, which each stand on their own, but loosely relate to one another. Another seven stories are associated with the Mabinogi, because they were found in some of the same early manuscripts. Some of these will probably be included when you buy a translation of the Mabinogi in book form. The Welsh myths were written down later than the Irish material, the manuscripts are generally in better condition and the tales are much less like a jigsaw with its pieces scattered through many books. Some scholars fell that there is material missing from the Mabinogi, but what, and how much is missing is open to opinion.

Irish mythology is messier. There are more manuscripts, and the material is fragmented and scattered between them. Modern scholars usually group the Irish stories into 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, chronological 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 a good 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.

Another handy book of the Irish cycles is Ancient Irish Tales, edited by Cross and Slover. This contains much of the same material as Complete Irish Mythology, although some tales have been edited for length. The translations are also good, and the language a little more approachable.

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.

You might like to read the follow-up to this post - Seeking Meaning in Celtic Mythology.

You can also find short reviews of books on Celtic topics on my YouTube channel. Look for the Books from the Coffee Table series

Mythology

A chapbook collection containing the allegorical tale The Story Shawl, a poem about Macha entitled Approaching the House of Cruinniuc, and a long essay called The Beach.

Size 8.5" x 5.5"

14 pages

Please see product page for more information.

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A Fruitful Collaboration

13/10/2013

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Barley is vitally important in the history of mankind, especially in Britain and Ireland, right up to the present. The familiar seasonal cycle of ploughing, planting and harvesting is deeply imbedded in our culture. It is truly a collaboration between gods (or God, or nature) and men. Humans first began to cultivate grain, and then to become dependent on it, at a time when they had little back-up. Tribes or villages were so scattered that the hope of rescue or charity in the case of a failed crop was unlikely, so it's no wonder that an elaborate folklore grew up around the rituals of cultivating grain.

When farm work was done largely by hand and at a slower pace, and harvesting grain involved whole communities, there were many traditions associated with things like ploughing the first furrow, cutting the last sheaf of grain, harvest celebrations, etc. Sun Gods, harvest queens, corn dollies and many others have all figured in man's relationship with Barley cultivation. These customs originated at a time when a poor harvest could result in hardship, or even starvation, for a community.

Barley
A fruitful collaboration between gods and men. The rewards of sacrifice.
A gift may be used for good or ill,
but the gift itself is good.

Whether we see "sacrifice" as describing a direct gift offered to these powers, or as the sacrifice of our efforts and good intentions, there is an innate human belief in cause and effect on a plane beyond the concrete and tangible. Hence, Barley is steeped in the most elemental folklore and mythology - representing birth/death, male/female, fertility and sacrifice. The Saxons even had a god called Beowa, who seems to have personified Barley. The old folksong called John Barleycorn describes the process of planting, harvesting and threshing grain as if the Barley were human. Most versions contain a reference to man's dependence on Barley either economically, or his dependence on drink. However, a further interpretation of the lyrics is that it describes ritual sacrifice, or the killing and resurrection of Christ/Osiris/Odin/Lugh.

With its many uses - food for man and beast, straw for bedding and thatch, brewing and distilling. Barley is a great gift to mankind. However, alcohol can be a mixed blessing, depending on whether it is simply enjoyed or misused or becomes addictive. Like almost everything that can have a dark side in addiction, the problem isn't the gift (or substance) but whether we continue to relate to it in a balanced way.

Sowing and harvesting can also be a metaphor for any kind of creative activity, particularly collaborative work. Even with today's farm machinery, it is unusual for one man to produce a Barley crop alone from start to finish. It requires teamwork. Possibly the many archetypes and superstitions surrounding growing grain, and luck and fertility in general are all based on a fear of failure - at a time in history when this could mean starvation and even death. However, the news has always been mostly good! Remember - the gift is good, the collaboration is a fruitful one. Just like life itself.

In a reading, this card often relates to a project of some kind, or to our work and creative endeavours. It points to the need for sharing the effort of this creation with others and with the gods or universal powers that can assist us. It calls on us to consider the concept of sacrifice, too. What can we offer in return for assistance with a successful outcome? It also reminds us to use the fruits of our labours wisely, and to avoid superficial and dualistic value judgements.

Get in touch here, if you'd like a reading.

If you found this subject fascinating and would like to read more, you might find the following two books to be of interest:

The Corn King and The Spring Queen is a novel by Naomi Mitchison. (Quite a big read.)
Amazon UK Amazon US

The Ballad and the Plough is a non-fiction work by David Kerr Cameron, which looks at mostly 19th century Scottish farming customs through the filter of songs sung and created by the farm workers of the day.
Amazon UK Amazon US

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Manitou

25/9/2013

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In honour of the Autumn Equinox, my partner, Mark, and I took a trip to Manitou Springs. We have been there a few times, but typical of people who are (sort of) local, we hadn't given the place much thought. It's a small mountain resort with nice boutiques and a good vibe, a fun change from our daily lives. It was only toward the end of our last trip that I noticed the Cheyenne Spring font on the main street, tasted the water, and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place in my head. "Oh, Manitou Springs!" So we decided to dedicate our next visit to finding and investigating the springs -- and bringing jars.

Although I remembered to take the jars, I forgot my camera, so the gallery of photos below are not mine. They are from other people's blogs and articles, or from the website of the local Mineral Springs Foundation, who produce a free brochure, including photos, a map, and an analysis of the mineral content or each spring. They have done good work in renovating and decorating many of the springs around the town, inviting a number of artists and sculptors to design fonts. The result is a great deal of variation in the ambiance of the different springs.

Back home in Scotland the "places of interest" seem to be so thick on the ground that you are tripping over them. Lots of wells and springs, ancient monuments and places of natural beauty. To me, it feels very easy to find places that help me to feel close to the gods, to the spirits of nature or people of the past. Yes, the trees and rocks and soil are sacred everywhere, but I feel less resonance here. I hoped that these springs might be a good place to feel something like that, but I'm not sure.

The town of Manitou happened to be rather busy when we visited, with some sort of festival going on. There was a very friendly and slightly crowded atmosphere, which I enjoyed, but it wasn't conducive to quiet moments of spirituality. At each spring we visited we ended up chatting to people. A few were locals, getting water from their favourite spring, and happy to tell us about its benefits. Most were other people "doing the tour", but hardly anyone liked the taste of the water. Except me. I thought some of it was excellent. Each spring varies quite a bit in its mineral make up, but most of them are naturally carbonated, and have a high mineral content, which I enjoyed. One or two would take some getting used to. Iron Spring, for example is rather salty tasting and with its high iron content, reminded me of the taste of blood. I particularly liked the taste of the water from Wheeler Spring, which was fizzy and refreshing, and has a more traditional style of font, too.

It must be the Druid in me, but I found people's jokes and face pulling about the taste of the water a bit frustrating. I find the stuff that comes out of many a household tap completely disgusting. I don't like many mainstream commercial beverages, either. What the earth was offering, via these springs, tasted so much better to me, but people seem to me to have lost their discernment. Too much soda-pop and Miller Lite, I guess. Visiting the springs was just a box to tick, and a funny story about how bad it tasted to be told later.

I haven't delved too deeply into the history of Manitou Springs. Manitou means "spirit" in the Algonquin languages. Spirit both in the sense of what we might call gods and of the spirits that inhabit all things in the animistic sense. Several local plains tribes, such as the Cheyenne and Arapahoe peoples, held the area as particularly sacred and knew that the waters had healing powers. Because of the high mineral content of the water, some of the springs had formed natural mineral basins which were ideal for bathing. When European explorers found the area they quickly began to develop it as a spa, with great emphasis put on its healing potential and romantic associations with the local tribes. These settlers, too, valued the water, and the beauty of the area, but had rather different ideas about what was sacred.

Over the course of the 20th century the "spa" concept gradually gave way to a more general type of commercial tourism. The area has many tourist attractions, including Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods, and the springs at Manitou became a minor sideline which I don't even remember hearing mentioned. Manitou Springs became known for its enormous amusement arcade, cog railway and vast selection of motels.

Looking at the photos of Soda Spring, below, in 1870 and the present, I know which I prefer. However, I'm glad that perhaps something of the dignity and original reverence for the springs has been revived by the Mineral Springs Foundation. Water in Colorado is rarely a source of peace. It is generally seen as a scarce commodity, bought and sold for unsustainable agriculture, use by growing cities and for sporting and recreation. The saying "Whisky's for drinking, water's for fighting" refers to the legal wrangling that is almost always ongoing over water, somewhere in the state. Yet holy wells and holy water have gone unnoticed...

Because the town was built around the springs, most of them are along the main street or along major traffic arteries. The atmosphere when we visited this time, while pleasant, wasn't great for, say, a few moments of meditation. I would like to go back on a weekday in the off season, and see how it is then.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like The Divine Connection of Water and Mother Nepesta.

These photos can all be clicked to enlarge, and the captions link to their original sources, which are often quite interesting in themselves.

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Wild Child?

21/8/2013

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Shetland ponies, water horses and oracle cards.

Preface
As some of my readers know, I have been experimenting with readings on relationships with animals. In one of the first readings I did, the Beach card came up. The Beach is one of several cards which describes a "thin place" or a liminal space where two entities converge. In Celtic spirituality, such places are particularly magical or prone to "supernatural" happenings. As I considered this reading I realised that there are points in human-animal relations that have this powerful, liminal quality, and that both animals and humans may experience this. I am talking about something different than simply sharing love or affection, companionship and mutual support. I think these experiences draw their power from the essential differences between the human and the animal involved. While the opportunity for such moments may always be there, many of us don't experience them, or only rarely, although part of our attraction to animals may be that we recognise the potential for them at a deep level.

I once did a reading for someone who was constantly plagued by feelings of both anger and anxiety. This card was central to her reading. It turned out that her husband was somewhat verbally abusive, but what she found most hurtful was that he never took her seriously. No matter what she did or said, he'd consider it childish or silly. The Shetland Pony is a card of the misunderstood, of the one not taken seriously. Frequently the response is to avoid eye contact and just put up with things, or to find an outlet in rebellion.

As I see the Shetland Pony card - someone is not treated with dignity. (Enough, in itself, to create some anger....) There are some things that certain people will probably never understand or be able to take seriously. If you are the pony you will probably find a way around this, enough to get by in the situation, without giving up everything! However, you may find that you are constantly nagged or teased by friends or family because of your interests or tastes. Writing this, I have a little twinge of guilt, as I know I've been on the "dishing out" end of this, as well as the receiving. Sometimes these things are about scoring points, other times just a failure to take others seriously. Patronising is a word that comes to mind!

photo by Stanley Howe

This failure to understand, and to think we know best, carries over into impatience when we find that the other person has dug their heels in over "something silly". But we're all afraid of something silly! I know people who would rather jump out of a plane than give a speech in public and others who would prefer to have a tooth pulled than learn to use a computer. Just as we might see someone's refusal to do something as stubborn, when they are really afraid, so we may make the same misjudgement about ourselves. Then we come up with phrases like "It's just the way I am, " or "No way am I doing that, it's stupid!" because these positions feel less threatening than simply saying, "I'm scared. You'd have to be really patient with me for me to even try that."

This is the obvious and "top layer" meaning of the card. It's the one I would probably focus on when it comes up in someone's reading. However, I knew there was more to this card, and for days, I have caught glimpses of it and wrestled with it, but there were missing pieces. I hope that I have found, if not all the missing pieces, at least enough of them to show us the way...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Water horse, liminal horse.

Nøkken by Jonny Andvik

In the Shetland Islands, there is a creature called the njuggle (or njogle - there are lots of variations. This creature is part of folklore, and until recently part of folk belief. The njuggle (pronounces nyuggle) is essentially a supernatural Shetland pony, who is associated with bodies of water such as lochs and streams. It seems that many bodies of water in Shetland have one. One habit of njuggles is to prance and parade up and down the banks of their home water, often beautifully saddled and bridled, enticing some hapless human to mount them. As soon as this occurs, they plunge into the water with their rider and give them a good dooking, or in some sinister versions they drown and even devour their victim. Most Shetland njuggles are more the playful type, though.

Some readers will recognise the Scottish/Irish Kelpie, or "water horse", in this description. (Forget the whole 2007 movie of the same title - just forget it. We're talking about someone's traditional beliefs here, not about Hollywood.) There are certainly parallels all over Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, where such creatures are sometimes called the nøk, or nyk, etc. Etymologists tell us that this may well be the origin of referring to the devil as "Auld Nick" as well as possibly relating to sea gods like the Celtic god Nechtan, and even Neptune (who created the horse, in some myths). Horses and water are frequently linked in both myth and folklore. I've also noticed that if you remove the letter N from the names Nechtan and Neptune, it is possible to see the relationship of both words to early word roots denoting the horse including the Latin equos/equus, the Greek hippos, and the Gaulish epos. These roots gave us words like Epona, pony, and the Gaelic word for horse: each.

Back in Shetland, another common prank of the njuggle was to inhabit the space under mill wheels and stop the wheel when it took their fancy. Maybe they were jealous, as the tails of some njuggles were said to be like wheels, which they used to propel themselves through the water. Or maybe they simply wanted to halt the wheels of "progress" which would eventually drive them into a kind of extinction. In these cases, they could be scared away with fire, like so many of the things we once feared.

At the liminal point between land and water there is a field of energy which at once repels and attracts - where we fear and yet desire to enter the wildness of the water, to give up control of the wildness in us to a greater wildness. The Irish mystic writer,John Moriarty, talked in an interview, about this need for wildness ~

"We shape the earth to suit ourselves. We plough it and we knock it and we shape it and we re-shape it. Dolphins were land animals once, and they went down into the sea. They said to the ocean, "Well, shape me to suit you." And now -- the Lord save us, I was in a house in Connemara sometime recently, and I saw a dolphin bone. The curve of it was as beautiful as any couple of bars of Mozart's music. It was so beautiful! I've no bone in my body that is shaped to the earth like that.

"So they said, "Shape us to suit you". We went the opposite way, We shape the earth to suit us - and that's going to fail. Unless there's wildness around you, something terrible happens to the wildness inside of you. And if the wildness inside of you dies. I think you're finished."

For some reason horses offer us a way to make this connection, but not by harnessing and forcing them into our control. Not by "knocking and shaping and re-shaping" them. It is only when we find a way to merge our wildness with theirs, or have the merger thrust upon us, that it actually does us any good. Still, this involves some danger. Swimming or putting a small boat out into wild water, riding a horse galloping out of control, both must be similar on the scale of dangerous things to do. There is always vulnerability in liminal experiences. The danger of getting stuck "in limbo", of not finding our way back...of somehow falling through the cracks of our own experience.

Modern people, I think, lack the liminal experiences which were once achieved through ritual, through feeling themselves a part of nature, through rites of passage and though belief in the supernatural. Yet these are things we long for. How and whether modern people manage to recover this part of life may just be the defining questions of our survival, and whether, if we survive, we thrive or we languish. Yet simply having a liminal experience may not be enough if we don't have points of reference for it. In "traditional" cultures, points of reference were marked by the rituals and prescriptions surrounding various life events, both the pivotal and the routine. They gave an assurance of success to the experience, if not a guarantee. Many folk beliefs, and their associated tales, offer advice as to how to avoid unwanted outcomes within liminal experiences or how to deal with them if they overtake us, and many heroic myths have grown up around dealing with such things.

Much has been written in the past twenty years about our spiritual connections with horses. Throughout human history they have been repeatedly raised as icons of something wild, free, powerful and supernatural. Perhaps only the sea, itself, shares a similar place in our deepest ideas of power and mystery. In northwest Europe, early peoples tended to gravitate to the coastline. Much of the land was boggy, steep or heavily wooded, making travel by sea much easier than by land, and the sea shore provided a bounty. The little primitive horses were probably only interesting as an occasional source of red meat. The sea was everything.

As populations grew and moved slowly inland, and farming and land travel became more important, so did the horse and its many uses. Yet most horses remained essentially wild animals, with many more being "owned" than were ever tamed, and this is still the case today with most of the mountain and moorland breeds of the British Isles, where many are still allowed to breed in semi-wild conditions and only some are tamed. As this shift was made, and men turned more toward the land and less toward the sea, perhaps the horse both replaced, and became mixed with the sea as the ultimate symbol of unknowable power and wildness. Spiritually, the horse led us back toward the water, and toward our wildness.

The small ponies of Shetland, a land hovering in its own liminal position between Scotland and Scandinavia, are the closest horses we have to the first horses to walk the earth. They are shaped to the earth, and not so much by the hand of man, as most animals we call domestic. As such, I think they are truly an ideal symbol of our longing toward our own inner wildness and a guide into the waters of liminal experience.

Today, the njuggle is often thought of as a story for children. Which may be to say "Something thought to be childish is entirely misunderstood..."

More on the ideas in this post -
Liminality - This article contains more than you ever wanted to know about the concept of liminaltiy, which I didn't explain very thoroughly.

The John Moriarty interview link

Radio Essay on Britain's wild ponies
_________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like The Beach, a series of posts exploring liminal space through myth, or Rambles with the Mari Lwyd, about horse traditions in British culture.

My ears are keen, my breath is warm

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A chapbook collection containing the short story The Wild Mare, plus four poems which share the theme of horses.

Size 8.5" x 5.5"

21 pages

Please see product page for more information.

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This morning, on Lughnasadh

1/8/2013

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I went to bed last night not really knowing how I would celebrate Lughnasadh, but I awoke this morning before sunrise with a feeling of urgency and a sense of what I would do. Looking at the clock I could see that I only had a few minutes until sun up, so I hopped out of bed and pulled on my work clothes, since they were handy. Instead of lighting my candle and filling my quaich as usual, I put them in my bag along with matches, and spring water. On my way through the house I picked up the notebook which contains the "What I Could Do" exercise I had written a few days ago, which tells of some of my skills, where I got them and who I've passed them on to. I cut a slice of the bread I baked yesterday evening, and stepped into the garden to pick a lovely red tomato. (And I forgot the incense, darn!)

I walked across the pastures toward my grove of cottonwood trees. We've recently had quite a bit of rain (after a very long drought) so I was noting the progress of different stands of grass, calculating how many months of grazing I think we'll get, relieved and thankful that things are finally green and growing! I had snatches of the traditional song "The Keeper" in my mind as I walked. "Sing ye well? Very well! Hey down, ho down derry-derry down! Among the leaves so green-o!" Except I sang "Among the grass so green-o". Meanwhile a small bank of clouds in the northeast delayed the visible sunrise a little.

My grove of old cottonwoods, seen in autumn.

At the trees I unpacked my things. These cottonwoods are huge and old and twisted, with bark covered roots above the level of the soil. There is ample evidence that cattle spend a month or two here each year, and an irrigation ditch runs along behind the trees. There's no water in it most of the time - certainly not this year. I unpacked my things and struggled a bit to get the candle lit (it was firmly encased in glass, I'm careful with fire outdoors). I took my boots off and enjoyed the feeling of the cool, damp, sandy soil. Not having really prepared anything I went ahead and said my usual morning devotional prayer, with just a few additions, then blethered on for a bit, thanking the gods, ancestors and spirits of nature for various things. I opened my notebook and read out my "skills list" and gave thanks for them and those who taught me.

I offered a bit of the bread to the four directions, and then went around the grove offering a bit to each tree. I noted that across the ditch there is a little sapling in the neighbour's field. It looked like he had ploughed and planted around it. Nice! I finished by offering my tomato, and singing a few verses of John Barleycorn that I could remember. Then it was boots on, pack up my things and walk back to the house.

Sometimes, rituals like this feel very good. I would enjoy more community ritual, but keeping it personal and making it up as you go along also has its charms.

Blessed Lughnasadh!

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What I Could Do

25/7/2013

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Remembering our skills at Lughnasadh

One of my favourite books is a slim thing called "I Could Read the Sky" by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pyke. O'Grady wrote the text, which is accompanied by Pyke's black and white photography. It is an odd, poetic novel - disjointed death bed recollections of an Irish labourer at the end of a life passed mostly in England.

In 2005 I was lucky enough to attend one of Tim and Steve's performance/readings of the book, which involved projections of the photos, Tim reading, and great musical performances by Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill, Mairtin O’Connor, Iarla O’Leonard and Karen Casey. Perhaps this has something to do with the deep impression the book has made on me, but the quality and content of the writing, and Pike's stark images are enough in themselves.

One of the most memorable and popular parts of the book is a short chapter which begins with the phrase "What I could do". It is the central character's recollection, by way of a simple list, of his abilities and accomplishments as a young man still in Ireland.

What I could do.
I could mend nets. Thatch a roof. Build stairs. Make a basket from reeds. Splint the leg of a cow. Cut turf. Build a wall. Go three rounds with Joe in the ring Da put up in the barn. I could dance sets. Read the sky. Make a barrel for mackerel. Mend roads. Make a boat. Stuff a saddle. Put a wheel on a cart. Strike a deal. Make a field. Work the swarth turner, the float and the thresher. I could read the sea. Shoot straight. Make a shoe. Shear sheep. Remember poems. Set potatoes. Plough and harrow. Read the wind. Tend hens. Bind wyndes. Make a coffin. Take a drink. I could frighten you with stories. I knew the song to sing to a cow when milking. I could play twenty-seven tunes on my accordion.

Steve Pyke, I Could Read the Sky, hands, what I could do

this and following photos by Steve Pyke

A list of skills valuable in a particular time and place, and a list to be proud of. Skills of the sort handed down through generations, and so often undervalued. Skills of the ildanach. Ildanach, is an Irish word which means many-skilled, or perhaps skilled-in-all-things. In the story of The Coming of Lugh, there is a famous scene where the young hero-god arrives, unknown, at the gates of the castle of Nuada, a king beset by the Fomorians. Lugh is there to offer his help, but first he has to gain entry and acceptance. The gatekeeper questions him as to what skills he offers. Lady Gregory's "Gods and Fighting Men" tells it this way:

"Who are you yourself?" said the door-keeper. I am Lugh, son of Cian of the Tuatha de Danaan, and of Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, King of the Fomor," he said; "and I am foster-son of Taillte, daughter of the King of the Great Plain, and of Echaid the Rough, son of Duach." "What are you skilled in?" said the door-keeper; "for no one without an art comes into Teamhair." "Question me," said Lugh; "I am a carpenter." "We do not want you; we have a carpenter ourselves, Luchtar, son of Luachaid." "Then I am a smith" "We have a smith ourselves, Colum Cuaillemech of the Three New Ways." "Then I am a champion." "That is no use to us; we have a champion before, Ogma, brother to the king." "Question me again," he said; "I am a harper." "That is no use to us; we have a harper ourselves, Abhean, son of Bicelmos, that the Men of the Three Gods brought from the bills." "I am a poet," he said then, "and a teller of tales." "That is no use to us; we have a teller of tales ourselves, Erc, son of Ethaman." "And I am a magician." "That is no use to us; we have plenty of magicians and people of power." "I am a physician," he said. "That is no use; we have Diancecht for our physician." "Let me be a cup-bearer," he said. "We do not want you; we have nine cup-bearers ourselves." "I am a good worker in brass". "We have a worker in brass ourselves, that is Credne Cerd." Then Lugh said: "Go and ask the king if he has anyone man that can do all these things, and if he has, I will not ask to come into Teamhair." The door-keeper went into the king's house then and told him all that. "There is a young man at the door," he said, "and his name should be the Ildánach, the Master of all Arts, for all the things the people of your house can do, he himself is able to do every one of them." "Try him with the chess-boards," said Nuada. So the chess-boards were brought out, and every game that was played, Lugh won it. And when Nuada was told that, he said: "Let him in, for the like of him never came into Teamhair before."

Then the door-keeper let him pass, and he came into the king's house and sat down in the seat of knowledge. And there was a great flag-stone there that could hardly be moved by four times twenty yoke of oxen, and Ogma took it up and hurled it out through the house so that it lay on the outside of Teamhair, as a challenge to Lugh. But Lugh hurled it back again that it lay in the middle of the king's house. He played the harp for them then, and he had them laughing and crying, till he put them asleep at the end with a sleepy tune. And when Nuada saw all these things Lugh could do, he began to think that by his help the country might get free of the taxes and the tyranny put on it by the Fomor. And it is what he did, he came down from his throne, and he put Lugh on it in his place, for the length of thirteen days, the way they might all listen to the advice he would give.

What a fine thing it is to be many skilled! Most of us long to be able to do things we don't know how to do. We've all had the experience of people seeing some skill we have and saying "I wish I could draw/make a souffle/play the guitar!" Yet when we tell them it's simple enough once you know how, they often reply, "Oh, no, I'd never be able to." Perhaps we've had the same feelings ourselves: we don't have time to take up gardening, we were told at school that we weren't musical, or we're afraid to attempt tennis because we'll look silly.

Steve Pyke, woman knitting, Irish kitchen

In honour of the season of Lughnasadh, I'd like to offer you an idea. You might like to use it as a journaling exercise, turn it into a meditation, or use it as part of a Lughnasadh ritual. Sit down and make a list of "What you could/can do". You can make the list long, and divide it into categories, if you like, or you can limit it to a set number of the things you're proudest of.

When you've made your list, think about who taught you those skills. I think maybe one reason that Lugh was so skilled was that he had so many mentors. Not only was he fostered by Taillte and Echaid, as mentioned above, but he was also fostered by the god Manannan mac Lir, who gave him several magical gifts. Take time to note who you learned skills from. In some cases this may not be a person who taught you directly - you can also say "I taught myself" or mention the name of an influential role model or author, etc. Now, think about what skills you would like to pass on, or have passed on, to others. Make a note of these, and of who you taught (or will teach) them to. There may also be things that you would like to learn to do, and that you have an intention to learn to do. Write those down, too.

Here's part of my list:
- I could knit a jumper without seams. I could tame a horse. I could understand cats. I could teach people how to play music. I could play for a ceilidh dance all night and call the dances while I was playing. I could build a straight fence. I could drive a tractor. I could make a poem. I knew lots of ways to meditate.

I might then go on to remember the ladies at the knitting shop in Santa Cruz who patiently taught me to knit. How hard I studied horses, and some of the people I passed a bit of that knowledge on to. I remember my father pointing out to me what cats feel in different situations, and how they show it, I've continued to study them. I remember the many wonderful music teachers, mentors, and "inspirors" who made me the musician I am, and the many wonderful students I had the privilege of teaching - some even went on to play for dancing. I taught myself fencing and poetry writing. Mark taught me a lot about the ways of old tractors.

I hope that you will have a wonderful time thinking about your skills!

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