Category: Folklore

Bonnyclabber and Crab Apples

28/11/2019

I've been working fairly intensely with a body of stories about Manannán mac Lir which are sometimes called O'Donnell's Kern. More folklore than mythology, this kind of story about Manannán has always fascinated me. People call them "trickster tales", but that category has always felt a bit too offhand for my liking. I might call them teaching tales, because there is surely a lesson in them, and that lesson is an important one in Celtic culture: that of hospitality.

You can read the stories for yourself. They are in Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men under the heading "Manannán at Play", and in Standish O'Grady's Silva Gadelica as "O'Donnell's Kern". A wonderful, and quite different version from Islay turns up in J. F. Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands as "The Slim, Swarthy Champion." As if that isn't enough, I'm currently working on a retelling of them on my YouTube channel. [Update: Here's the video.]

As usual, I have fallen in love with my subject, and as sometimes happens, that led to a poem. It's full of obscure references to the tales, but I will leave you to hunt them down for yourself. You don't even need to leave the comfort of your seat. All those books I mentioned, above, are in the public domain and kicking around on the internet.

Bonnyclabber and Crab Apples

I who was hunting with fair Fionn
I who received tribute on Barrule
I who cast off my shimmering cloak
Going about the raths and duns
Paddling from Man to Kintyre
And from Kintyre to green Islay
Rathlin to the seat of Red Hugh

The bodach went seeking crowdie
Hospitality without pride
I never looked for prominence
My tongue was sweet and learned
The voice of my harp beguiling
The son of the earl knew the sweet
The Mac an Iarla knew the sour

From high Knock Áine I vanished
I was a rainstorm on a plain
A healer to the MacEochaid
A cattle raider in Sligo
Until I came to O’Kelly
Twenty marks I got for their taunts
And lulled them into their slumber

With the puddle water leaking
From my shoes I walked to Leinster
Tired I was seeking a mead cup
Their clanging strings offended me
The bloody day they had of me
Bonnyclabber and crab apples
The feast of Manannán mac Lir

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Here by the Sheiling, Here by the Loch

17/8/2019

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Imagery of water horses and kelpies is popular these days. Most of it features creatures with sharp teeth and evil glowing eyes, maybe with a skull head inspired by completely unrelated folk traditions. However, most folklore describes them as beautiful horses, capable of enticing people onto their backs because of their fine appearance.

The first time I read a story about a water horse was on a trip to Islay. I had checked an old volume of folktales out of the library in Edinburgh to take with me for holiday reading. I wish I could find that particular volume, or that specific story again, but I don't remember the author or title of the book.

There is something electrifying and shocking the first time you read or hear a water horse story, that never quite leaves you. There are many, many stories of the each uisge (water horse) in these old collections, and as best I remember it, the one I'm thinking of ran like this:

Some lasses had gone to the summer sheiling with the cattle. One evening they saw a magnificent black horse wearing a saddle and bridle richly decorated with silver. He was prancing up and down the shore of the loch. One girl, in particular, was fascinated, but her friends convinced her to stay away from it. However, the horse was persistent, appearing tame and friendly, and seeming to invite them to ride. Finally, the lass mounted up, and of course found that she was stuck fast to the beast. He took her into the loch and drowned her.

Water horse folklore is common all over the British Isles and Scandinavia, with each area having its own beliefs about the details of the creature, and its own style of story. I've written here previously about the Shetland njuggle, and there is more than a whiff of water horse about my story The Wild Mare, which features in the chapbook you can see toward the bottom of this page.

The poem below is inspired by another common variant of the story, also from the Scottish highlands, in which the horse shapeshifts into an attractive man who courts a girl. As they are sitting cuddled together, he dozes off and she notices some clue as to his real identity - hooves for feet, or sand in his hair. In some versions she manages to cut away the part of her apron where his head lies, and so make her escape. In others, she isn't so lucky. But what if she is just too lovesick to do that?

The form of the poem hints a little at the style of both Scottish ballads and Gaelic songs. My head is always full of those, like this one, whose title in English would be "Maids of the Sheiling". Don't let the Gaelic put you off, there's a translation below the video.

I published this poem on my Patreon page back in April. That's always a good place to check for new pieces of writing, including poems.

Here by the Sheiling, Here by the Loch

Oh, my darling
So handsome and dark
Here by the sheiling
Here by the loch

Oh, my darling
With sweet words you woo'd me
Late in the evening
Here at the sheiling

Oh, my darling
You met me at noonday
Your head in my lap
Here by the loch

Oh, my darling
You doze on my apron
How dark are you tresses
Here by the sheiling

Oh, my darling
My fingers meet sand
As they run through your black hair
Here by the loch

Oh, my darling
My heart weeps with sadness
My heart leaps with fear
Here by the sheiling

Oh, my darling
How could I leave you?
How can I lose you now?
Here by the loch

Oh, my darling
The sunlight is sweet to me
Warm on my shoulders
Here by the sheiling

Oh, my darling
My heart is betraying me
Hold me fast when you carry me
Into the loch

My ears are keen, my breath is warm

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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Day of the Cailleach

24/3/2019

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Cailleach by Ashley Bryner

As my regular readers know, I have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about Bride and The Cailleach in Scotland. Over the years I have learned just how rich and varied the material we have about cailleachs is, but the more I read, the more I come to the conclusion that no folklorist has really made sense of things, and it isn't something that you can do justice to in a blog post, no matter how many citations you might include.

The modern Pagan practice of talking about "The Cailleach" as if she is one entity is prone to reduce her to a sort of archetype. (Archetypes aren't my favourite approach to spirituality and I consider them something of an insult to deity.) When I started looking at what both early and modern folklorists have to say about her, not to mention modern Pagan writers, I decided that attempting an overview would be a tangled mess I don't have the patience for. One that enough writers have either struggled with or glossed over. However, I have provided a plethora of links, both in the text and at the end, in case you want to explore further.

If Celtic mythology is fragmented and confusing, folklore is even trickier. One reason it challenges us in these times is that by its nature folklore is more localised. People have always moved around, but the scale, frequency and distance are all increasing too fast for highly localised folklore to keep up. And cailleachs tend to belong to specific points in the landscape. Does that mean that cailleachs are an endangered species? I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't claim to understand their seeming resilience, and I am uncomfortable with the idea that human belief has the power to change the essence of the gods/not gods. All I can say is that perception of cailleachs/The Cailleach is certainly changing. Where a few centuries ago she was a character who was generally respected but dreaded, she seems to be moving inexorably toward something a little more benevolent. That's easy to believe, from the comfort of a 21st century lifestyle, where winter storms are no longer a threat to life or livelihood, but I think it's a long way from the truth.

The Paps for Jura from Islay - Brian Turner - Geograph

My first encounter with The Cailleach was in folklore concerning The Island of Jura collected by Iain Og Ile (The folklorist John Francis Campbell of Islay). These, and the stories of The Cailleach washing her plaid in the Corryvreckin whirlpool off the coast of Jura were of special interest to me because I used to frequently visit Islay, which is very close to Jura, and from which one constantly sees The Paps of Jura. Then of course there were stories of The Cailleach and Bride, so elaborately told by D. A. Mackenzie, but very likely not an original piece of folklore in the form he published. Over time I came to know more folklore connecting cailleachs to deer, the weather, creation of the landscape, and so on. I came later to know about the Irish folklore of cailleachs, and it's fascinating, too.

However, knowing folklore, even writing inspired poetry about The Cailleach and Bride has not really moved her far from the Isle of Jura for me. I am not suggesting that Jura is her one true locale, or anything like that, merely that she remains localised there for me, at least most of the time. Edinburgh, where I used to live, doesn't have much cailleach folklore that I know of. I thought I encountered her a few times in Colorado - in a mountain snowstorm, or once as I stood on the plains where I lived and watched a blizzard slowly rolling toward me. I think to know a cailleach within a landscape, you need to be intimate with that landscape first.

Right: Cailleach figure at Samhuinn celebrations in Edinburgh - JamesIlling Wikimedia CC 4.0

The treacherous Corryvrekin whirlpool off Jura

The Paps of Jura - a cailleach's eye view

Most people today first encounter cailleachs on the internet. A picture of a winter hag, a well or badly written blog post, and a general assumption that all cailleachs are just facets of The Cailleach. It is in the landscape that you will find her. Or Her. The one, the many. Perhaps that is cailleach nature - to be in many landscapes. To be there whether you recognise her or not.

So what of March 25th as Latha na Caillich (Day of the Cailleach)? This date has been important as The Feast of the Annunciation or Lady Day since at least medieval times, and was even used as the first day of the legal/taxation year for several centuries in England. It is an English "quarter day", but not a Scottish one. However, it is very close to the Vernal Equinox, no matter what religion or government you recognise, and this is generally a time of heavy spring storms in coastal Britain and Ireland. If the battle between winter and spring seems to begin in February, with a mixture of warmer days and harsh storms, the the final blow-out of the equinoctial gales of late March is the end. A few days after the actual date of the equinox usually sees more settled weather, and this is probably how Lady Day came to be Latha na Caillich.

You only have to read my poem Cailleach Rant to know that I feel great admiration and respect for her. And so I will honour her today, even though I'm not entirely sure that it is particularly traditional to do so. Like others, I have a tendency to conflate different cailleach stories and to honour a figure who was traditionally only feared. In Scotland, she has always been a personification of winter storms, and perhaps now that we have stupidly overheated our world we realise that we need her. I question, though, whether she has much interest in the desires of humanity. Before you paint her as a mother goddess, know this: She has always been a misanthrope. A guardian of deer and boar, of high, wild places, a fighter for wildness, a lover of stone and ice. We could use her on our side, indeed, but we would need to be on Hers, first.

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Links
Some of these are also linked in the text above, but it seemed better to repeat them here.

Latha na Caillich A discussion of this day as a holiday from Brian Walsh

La na Caillich An in-depth look at the day from the excellent Tairis site, with many citations

Fools, Cuckoos, The Lady and The Devil - another discussion of La na Caillich, this time from Scott Richardson-Read, including citations

Cailleach folklore in John Francis Campbell's Popular Tales from the West Highlands, including the story of MacPhie and the Cailleach, set on Jura

Beira, Queen of Winter - D A Mackenzie's possibly fanciful telling of the story of Bride, Angus and The Cailleach

Bride and the Cailleach - a good exploration of their possible relationship, with many citations, at Tairis

The Cailleach, or Hag of Winter - a very interesting collection of cailleach stories from folklorist Stuart McHardy

Cailleach Beinn na Bric - translation of a Gaelic poem concerning the Cailleach, interesting for the concepts it contains. You may need to scroll up one page for the introduction.

The Book of the Cailleach - this is a scholarly review of Gearóid Ó Crualaoich's book of the same name by folklorist John Shaw. Included because it provides an interesting discussion on Cailleach folklore in Ireland

The Witch of Jura - a brief telling of the MacPhie legend

Coming of the Cailleach in the British Isles - a mixed bag of information from Rachel Patterson

Poems for the Season of Imbolc

Imbolc always inspires me, and over the years I've written a number of poems about Brigid and the Cailleach at this time of year. This little volume features four of my favourites.

Size 8.5" x 5.5"

16 pages

Please see product page for more information.

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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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Oss Oss!

19/4/2018

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Padstow Old Oss - Wikimedia Commons

Padstow, May Day, and the spirit of the Oss

Over the past couple of months I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking about things like morris dancing and mumming, and particularly the traditions that involve some kind of horse disguise. I've written before about the Mari Lwyd, a winter custom from Wales, but I am equally fascinated with the May Day hobby horses at Padstow, in Cornwall.

Much verbiage has already been devoted to the origins of the Padstow horse tradition. Like all these customs, the trail of evidence leads us back a few centuries, then the undergrowth closes in and the trail is lost. As far as written records go, hobby horses are first recorded in England in the 15th century as part of court entertainments, and the Padstow custom is first mentioned in 1803, but the wording of this record indicates that the custom is older, just not how much older.

There is always a danger in assuming that written records can tell us everything, just as there is a danger in arranging the past to suit our fantasies. The Padstow May Day celebrations have been subjected to both these approaches, and pretty much everything in between. In the first half of the 20th century, folklorists concluded that the goings on at Padstow were the remnants of a "primitive" fertility rite. As the script of the fascinating, if somewhat cheesy, 1953 documentary "Oss Oss, Wee Oss" says at one point, "I can't say whether it's Druidic or Neolithic, but you gotta admit, this Padstow horse dance is pretty terrific!" (And so it is!)

We have Sir James Frazier and his proto-neo-Pagan blockbuster The Golden Bough to thank for these conclusions. Frazier's thesis was that all early religions were centered around fertility and the worship and sacrifice of kings, in one form or another. Like so many people who hit on a good theory, he began to see evidence of it in unlikely places, and by the time The Golden Bough was into its third edition, and he had calmed down a little, many less critical thinkers had applied his theory to anything and everything.

As early 20th century enthusiasts began to collect and classify the many "eccentric" local customs that existed, they became fascinated by them in their own right, but also began to see evidence of Frazier's theories in them. It is important to say that Frazier's ideas had some basis in fact and reasonable conjecture, and that these early folk enthusiasts were probably right in their perceptions of some customs. What they lacked, was proof, because proof is hard to come by. Customs of the common people were little remarked on during most of history, except when they had a brush with either the church or the legal system. However, early folklorists didn't have to worry too much about written evidence. Their theories weren't really of much interest to the general public, or most of academia, because folklore is a tiny minority interest in the grand scheme of things. For the "folk" having their customs studied, however, the folklorists and their ideas were significant.

Padstow's May Day customs are particularly robust and unusual. The hobby horses, or more correctly obby osses, to give them their Padstonian name, are so stylized as to be hardly recognizable as horses, until you relate them to the hoop type shown in a couple of old pictures, and still used by the Abbott's Bromley Horn Dancers. The celebrations have both their "reverent" side - in the singing of the night song, and their "wild" side, in the dancing, drinking and horsing around through the streets on Padstow during the day. There are mysterious death and rebirth elements in the dance, too.

Liam Barrett Illustration

Abbott's Bromley Horn Dancers - photobucket

Padstow Oss and teaser

Yet it seems that the people of Padstow weren't thinking about any of this until the folklorists turned up. It's hard to understand, now, exactly what they were thinking. It was just part of life in Padstow. They didn't ask "why?". Their big day was a point of local pride, with a bit of superstition thrown in. It was very much the people's day to have fun and carry on a tradition. Over the recent centuries there were a few complaints about drunkenness and damage to property, but the tradition continued. Even during the Great War, when life was so hard and manpower so limited, the oss came out and danced. So it must have come as a bit of a surprise when it was explained to the folk of Padstow that what they were doing was the survival of a very ancient fertility ritual.

There's nothing like a bit of notoriety, though, to get the juices flowing. It's hard to get a clear sense of all the effects that being studied might have on a folk custom, but it's bound to introduce a new element of self-consciousness. The fact that it was deemed "ancient" was definitely a point of pride, and easy to believe since no one could remember a May Day without it. The fertility part was hard to argue with, since it was widely held that any woman caught under the skirts of the horse would soon fall pregnant, or "be married within the year" as people coyly put it back then. As for the Pagan part, well, it probably caused a bit of consternation in some quarters, but mostly just added to the mystique of the thing.

Then, of course, there was the tourism. Oft filmed by the BBC and Pathe news reels, the attention of the folklorists brought more and more curious onlookers to Padstow as the 20th century rolled on, all come to experience the "Pagan rite". In the 21st, this has reached such a pitch that there is barely space for the osses to dance in Padstow's narrow streets. This will probably reach a tipping point before too long, and the tradition will either change shape or they will decide to keep the crowds away somehow.

Padstow's May Day tradition, however old it is, has always been changing. I have been reading some of the main commentators, and I find it amusing to see them so puzzled by the differing reports of observers from different years. They seem so terribly surprised that things are different from one year to the next. The teaser (the person who partners the horse in the dance) is a man dressed as a woman! Wait, the teaser is a man! Now the teaser is a woman! These early folklorists have difficulty with the people of Padstow casually changing things from year to year to suit themselves, and sometimes even tell them they're doing it wrong. If anything, I suspect that the interest of folklorists may have slowed the rate of change in the actual singing and dancing, even though it is partly responsible for the level of outside interest. When you make people aware that they are upholding an ancient tradition, and they know that the world is watching, it is bound to have an effect on that tradition, and one likely effect is a desire to preserve it.

By the 1970s, a new, more serious kind of folklorist had arrived on the scene. One who didn't want to get laughed out of their university department for asserting anything they couldn't prove. They made it known that there was no evidence for ancent origins in the obby oss dance, and that without evidence there is nothing except wishful thinking. Word of this did get 'round the Padstow locals, and not wishing to appear ignorant they accepted it on most levels, but have never completely let go of the Pagan fertility rite theory. A cynic might point out the immense revenue from tourism that comes their way, and that probably plays a part, but I think there is also both an element of pride, and an element of doubt that the folklorists' second opinion is any more correct than the first.

The scientific approach to folk customs has its merits. It's rarely helpful to believe things that aren't true. On the other hand, the romantic, or we might call it intuitive, approach has its merits, too. Especially on the ground, where the folk customs actually happen. In the early 20th century, when most Padstonians would have been regular church goers, they, for some reason, chose to embrace the news that their tradition was "Pagan" and just get on with the business of continuing it. I can't help wondering what chord that news might have struck with them at the time. What did they sense about their own, familiar tradition that they didn't necessarily say? More conjecture. I won't go there.

I know what I feel, as a romantic, intuitive, but fairly level-headed Pagan, when I see the Padstow osses. I see a little piece of the cult of The Great Mare come to life. I don't need to believe that the tradition is unbroken, or that the people of Padstow are secretly all Pagans, to feel that. I believe that a tradition like this carries an energy of its own. One that is far more than the sum of its parts, or even the intention of its participants. For whatever reason, and in whatever way, the people of Padstow help create that energy, and at their best, they channel an energy that wells up from their Cornish souls, and from the ground under their feet, on May Day.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like It's Wakes Monday!

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

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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

8.00

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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Rooks - it's a tribal thing

14/4/2013

7 Comments

Rooks - Intelligence, communication and problem solving come naturally. The society of the tribe is important, and the individual flourishes within it. Loss of these qualities brings ill. Change and death may be frightening, but can also be foreseen, and guidance found to pass through.

Photo by foxypar4

Rooks are monogamous birds who live in a close knit but rather casually organised society, in colonies known as rookeries. The males are great fathers and mates. The picture above shows an adult male and a youngster spending time together. Rooks look very similar to crows, and there is an old adage "A rook on his own be a crow, and a group of crows be rooks" which drives home their tendency to be in groups with their own kind. The Rook card says to me that you can find your domestic bliss, and that it will be within a wider supportive "tribe". The intelligence of the crow family is well known, as is its relationship to death (or change) both as a harbinger and a guide.

Ravens and other covids are often associated with death in literature and popular culture. Because of this, some people find them "creepy" or "evil". Nothing could be further from the truth, and it's also worth remembering that (just like the "Death" card in Tarot) death is most often a symbol of change and letting go of the past. Rooks, seems very positive to me. Intelligence and the support of a wider group are good keys to success. Problem solving abilities, and the resources to deal with change or loss are also to the fore. Learn to recognise and appreciate this big supportive family when it presents itself in your life. Going it alone doesn't seem to be the way to go here. Intelligence - either your own or that of others - will play an important part in this, and should be valued. There is a wider "family" that you belong to. Stay a part of this and you will be nurtured and encouraged to find yourself

The Rook way of living as a society is very beneficial to the individual. It allows for self expression and change to happen with friendly guidance. "Loss of these qualities brings ill." Is this significant for you?

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like One for sorrow, two for joy - a post about magpies.

Go Deeper Reading

In depth reading by email.

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Rain Woman

31/3/2013

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The two short items here were a bit of synchronicity from my life yesterday. In the evening, I wrote the poem below. Then a little later, I happened upon this very interesting article about Dodola and Peperuda, a Slavic rain dancing tradition I'd never heard of. If you are fascinated by folk traditions, as I am, you might enjoy it. Here's a quote:

During a period of spring or summer drought, it was the custom in many Balkan villages for a group of local girls to undress and then put on various combinations of leaves, sprigs, blossoms, flowers and herbs to perform the rainmaking ceremony. Early reports, made mostly if not entirely by male observers, describe these girls as ‘naked’ under their clothing of greenery: although what precise degree of undress this ‘nakedness’ really constituted is a moot point, since none of the commentators is likely to have witnessed the actual disrobing, let alone the training, preparation or rehearsal of the girls for the ceremony – roles which seem to have been reserved exclusively for mature and sometimes elderly women. At any rate, led by an older girl or young woman who had also been dressed or decorated in this way, the girls then went in procession through their village, and stopped in front of houses to perform dances and sing songs, which included formulaic refrains, all the while calling upon the heavens to send down rain. The housewives poured water over the leader of the troupe, and sometimes the girls themselves sprinkled water over the courtyards, using bundles of sprigs and leaves. They were then rewarded by the householders with flour or food and sometimes money.

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A tonic for Spring

27/3/2013

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It used to be a common folk belief that in winter, as things slowed down, our blood got thicker. Then in the spring, it was a good idea to take a spring tonic to get the blood flowing freely again. While the belief about the blood is quite a comfortable one, it doesn't seem to have any basis in reality. However, the taking of a spring tonic is still not a bad idea. Early bitter herbs are a good choice, nettles and dandelions taste great, and of course, there's hawthorn. After all, in common with our ancestors, we tend to move less and eat more comfort foods in the winter, so when these things become available it's a good idea to get our digestion going properly, pep up our liver and improve our circulation.

Hawthorn as defined in my oracle

When hawthorn leaves are green and tender in the spring, people will sometimes munch on a few, or gather some to add to a salad. Animals are also attracted to them at this time. Equine herbalist Hilary Page Self recommends hawthorn for horses with both laminitis and navicular syndrome, because of its good effect on the circulation of blood to the feet. When I lived in Scotland it was common to see native ponies stuffing themselves on hawthorn leaves in spring. That was a good choice to follow, as it is in the spring that the lush grass is most likely to cause the metabolic upset that leads to laminitis - which is an extremely painful and potentially lethal condition.

As spring moves into May the hawthorn (also called May, or May tree) blooms. These blossoms were a traditional part of May Day celebrations, being used to deck the May queen and May king, Maypoles, and the entrances to houses. However, there is a well-known taboo against bringing hawthorn into the house, as it is believed that it brings death. In fact in some areas it is known by the name "dead man's froth". I always found this strange. Why would a flower associated with spring, fertility and health also be associated with death? Then I came across an essay by Paul Kendall on the wonderful Trees for Life website. The following passage offers a good explanation:

Mediaeval country folk also asserted that the smell of hawthorn blossom was just like the smell of the Great Plague in London. Botanists later discovered that the chemical trimethylamine present in hawthorn blossom is also one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue. In the past, when corpses would have been kept in the house for several days prior to burial, people would have been very familiar with the smell of death, so it is hardly surprising that hawthorn blossom was so unwelcome in the house. It has also been suggested that some of the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) folklore may have originated for the related woodland hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata) which may well have been commoner during the early Middle Ages, when a lot of plant folklore was evolving. Woodland hawthorn blossom gives off much more of an unpleasant scent of death soon after it is cut, and it also blooms slightly earlier than hawthorn, so that its blossoms would have been more reliably available for May Day celebrations.

Hawthorn has a strong association with fairies, particularly in the sense that the areas around some hawthorns were places prone to offer openings into the fairy otherworld. They are also the most common species among clootie trees, which although they are now mostly Christianised sometimes have fairy lore connected to them.

The Roman goddess Cardea had hawthorn as her sacred plant. How interesting that she was a goddess of doorways! I tend to think of the gods and goddesses of Rome in relation to the elite citizens of urban Rome, but Cardea must have been popular with the country folk, as remnants of belief in her seem to have survived at least into the 19th century in some parts of Italy and perhaps beyond. Usually this was in tales of ill or bewitched children being cured with charms of hawthorn hung outside their windows. It makes me wonder whether Europeans further west and in Britain also once had a goddess of hawthorn and/or thresholds. It was said that Cardea was able to "open that which was closed, and close that which was open."

The Door Into Summer
artist: Tina Marie Ferguson

Hawthorn in the form of agricultural hedges is, of course, used to enclose pastures and fields. A well laid and maintained hawthorn hedge is as stockproof as any barbed wire fence, but has many advantages beyond looking prettier. It provides a windbreak for the animals it contains, a source of medicine, and the haws (berries) are somewhat useful as a food, if not very tasty. The real benefit is to nature, though, in the form of food and shelter for many small animals, plants, birds and insects. It's no wonder that hawthorn is such a strong symbol of spring, fertility and the summer to come.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Thoughts on Hawthorn for May Day.

Land Songs

A collection of eleven poems each touching on the spirit of the land. Enjoyable and challenging by turns. Love letters, eulogies, rants . . .

8.5" x 5.5"

17 pages

See product page for more information.

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First there is a mountain . . .

21/3/2013

2 Comments

Thoughts about mountains and the Cailleach

This card came up as my personal daily draw recently, and I thought I would give this essay an airing on the blog - although I wrote it some time ago. It seems appropriate to the season, as many celebrate Latha na Caillich (Day of the Cailleach) on March 25th.

Imagine standing, looking at a mountain, knowing you are going to have to climb it. Okay, for some people, mountain climbing is an enjoyable sport, but if you fall into that category, chances are you have still felt daunted by the prospect at times. Perhaps you thought "I'm afraid the weather is against me today," or "It looks scarier than it did in the guidebook," or "I wish I'd brought more rope." However, the seasoned mountain climber knows that you can only climb one step at a time, so all you can do is begin, and see whether you can do it. Very often, it's those of us who stand at the bottom making up stories to frighten ourselves, or who simply feel like we can't be bothered, who suffer the most. We are afraid of failing, afraid of falling, prefer not to leave our comfort zone, and yet, somehow we know that until we make the attempt, we are going to be a little bit miserable, knowing that it's still ahead of us.

The Paps of Jura- J Samara
Mountain - Resistance and perceived difficulty. The results of bad temper or anger.

In the 1960s, Donovan wrote the song There Is a Mountain, about illusion and perceived reality. The refrain went

First there is a mountain
Then there is no mountain
Then there is.
First there is a mountain
Then there is no mountain
Then there is.

The thing is - this card is about perceived difficulty. It's about our fears and our excuses, and our million and one avoidance techniques. After all - what is "difficulty" but a transient experience, a brief challenge or unpleasant period. While we can spend months, years, even an entire lifetime, sitting at the bottom of the mountain eaten up by our emotions, losing respect for ourselves, dreading it. It's enough to make us very angry.

Anger, of course, is the other aspect of this card. In Scotland in particular, and also in Ireland, many mountains have associations with a character known as the Cailleach. There is no simple tale that I can tell you, to explain the Cailleach. The stories are quite varied and often very local, and in areas where Gaelic was not the common language she is sometimes known as the "Carlin" (old woman or witch). She is also usually a giant.

As well as her associations with many high mountains, such as Ben Nevis and the Paps of Jura, the Cailleach is associated with deer, with winter and bad weather, with holding prisoners (including the goddess Bride) and other general mayhem. The very dangerous, and very real, Corryvreckan whirlpool is also hers. She may have existed in some form before the coming of the Celtic tribes, as a weather goddess, perhaps, whose story was later interwoven with the Celtic pantheon at a local level. A common theme in her stories is her anger at being old and ugly, and her desire to make others suffer, too - by keeping them in the grip of winter, by holding them prisoner, by raising storms and so on. At the same time - there are many stories telling how she created aspects of local landscapes. I guess she was able to put that anger to good use!

I believe the Cailleach, with her anger and frustration exists in all of us. The prisoners we hold are often ourselves. The anger is really aimed inward, although we may make life unpleasant for others by expressing it. The more negative aspects of the Cailleach are a great example to us of how not to live our lives - in anger and, bitterness, trying to control others and cause them trouble. We do not make things easier for ourselves with this behaviour, we just trap ourselves in a discouraging and repetitive cycle. Every time we do this, we make the mountain a little higher - or at least we think we do.

Even if we have what looks like a mountain to climb, even if we feel we didn't create it, even if it was created by someone else's anger or controlling behaviour, or forces of nature, none of that really matters. The Mountain is no big deal. Things probably look better, even from 100 metres up. The big deal is our perception.

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If you enjoyed this, you might also like We Need to Talk About the Cailleach.

Land Songs

A collection of eleven poems each touching on the spirit of the land. Enjoyable and challenging by turns. Love letters, eulogies, rants . . .

8.5" x 5.5"

17 pages

See product page for more information.

8.00

2 Comments

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Bonnyclabber and Crab Apples

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Here by the Sheiling, Here by the Loch

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Day of the Cailleach

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

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Oss Oss!

Padstow, May Day, and the spirit of the Oss

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Wild Child?

Shetland ponies, water horses and oracle cards.

Water horse, liminal horse.

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Rooks - it's a tribal thing

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Rain Woman

A tonic for Spring

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First there is a mountain . . .

Thoughts about mountains and the Cailleach

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Subscribe to my monthly newsletter for upcoming classes and events, and links to my latest writing and videos.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!

Padstow, May Day, and the spirit of the Oss

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!

Shetland ponies, water horses and oracle cards.

Water horse, liminal horse.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise never to share your details!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Subscribe to my newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to limit newsletters to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!

Thoughts about mountains and the Cailleach

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details! Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

About me

Archives

Categories

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and never miss a blog post. In return, I promise to keep newsletters short and limit them to one per month, and of course, never to share your details!
Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.