Category: Storytelling

The Work of Bards - The Mabinogi Lives Again

28/11/2018

A review of The Assembly of the Severed Head by Hugh Lupton

I've been interested in Hugh Lupton's work ever since I first discovered his poem about the Mari Lwyd. Hugh is an ambitious storyteller (not many will take on re-telling the Iliad or Beowulf), as well as a poet and author, so I was intrigued when I heard that he was writing a book based on the Welsh cycle of stories known as The Four Branches of The Mabinogi. I mostly prefer to read Celtic myths in direct translations, these days, because literary re-tellings leave me confused as to which parts belong to the original text and which to the author. Still, I knew that if anyone had potential to do this well, it would be this man.

One of the best things about The Assembly of the Severed Head is the way it places the first transcription of these tales in a meaningful context. Lupton has obviously taken quite a bit of care with this aspect of the work, and set his story up to show that while Christian influence on this event must have been considerable, it is unlikely that the project of collecting these stories in writing was merely an attempt by Christians to suppress pre-Christian ideas. Modern readers agonise a great deal about this question, and I suspect that the picture Lupton paints of a "middle ground" scenario is as close as we will ever get to the reality of what happened. Because of this, I think this book might help readers who are struggling to understand the context in which early Celtic texts came into being. Yes, it's a work of fiction, but it paints a picture which could easily be close to the truth.

The premise of the book is that Cian Brydydd Mawr, the last great bard of Gwynedd, is dying, and that the stories he knows must be recorded in writing or lost. Arrangements are made for a monastic scribe to write the tales down, but the old bard insists that he must have a suitable audience, and so a lay brother, a widow with a struggling farm, and a young lad also attend each storytelling session, over a period of many months, until the work is accomplished.

The scribe leaned across the table and whispered into Llywelyn's ear.
      "Lord, it concerns Cian Brydydd Mawr."
      "What of him?"
He feels the hand of death closing around his heart. His apprentices are dead. Everything he passed on to them, in the old way, with the breath of his mouth, is lost."
      "You do not have to tell me. It wounds me every time I think about it."
      "Lord, he has made a request. He has drawn me aside and asked that certain matters be set down on the page, matters the will otherwise die with him and be forgotten."

      But the Sub-Prior was already standing.
      "Lord, if I may speak?"
      Llywelyn opened his hand in a gesture of approval.
      "Lord, this Matter to be set on the page - it is hardly the province of the Holy Church."

      Llywelyn leapt over the high table. The Sub-Prior found himself seized and shaken for the second time.
      "How many lands have I gifted to your Cistercian Brotherhood?"
      "Many hundreds of acres, Lord."
      "And golden vessels, silver plate?"
      "You have been most kind."
      "And you wish to keep my favour?"
      "We do, my Lord."
      Llywelyn drew him so close that their noses were touching.
      "Then write me my book."

Thus, Hugh Lupton cleverly sets the scene for a background discussion of 13th century events and attitudes, as well as introducing a set of fictional characters and their stories, which are interspersed with Cian's telling of the tales from the Mabinogi. The author does a good job of balancing his sub-plots with the mythological material, while firmly placing the myths centre stage. It is during the telling of the stories that Lupton's ability as a poet and storyteller shines. Here he is especially confident and fluent, as in these passages from the opening of the tale of Branwen.

If I could sing I would sing of Bran the Blessed, High King over the Island of the Mighty.
      I would sing of Bran whose name means Raven.
      I would sing of mighty Bran, son of Llyr, watching the blue sea from the high cliffs of Harlech.
      Look.
      A golden crown is glittering on his broad brow.
          He sits on the soft grass at the cliff's margin.
      His legs hang over the edge. His heels are kicking the rock face.
      His body, from the root of his spine to the back of his head, is the height of the twisted mountain oaks that stand behind him.
      His hands rest on this thighs, each as broad as the spread hide of an ox.
      His eyes are fixed on the open sea.
      Beside him sit three companions.

They saw thirteen ships.
      Their sails were swollen with the wind. Their prows were slicing through the waves. They were approaching Harlech from the western horizon at a smooth and swift speed.
      Bran lifted one of his huge hands to shelter his eyes from the glare of the sun.

A mythic map of Wales by Margaret Jones

I found myself distracted, while reading this book, by my own need to keep tabs on how closely the suthor was following the original myths. If you are deeply familiar with the four branches of the Mabinogi, I suspect that you will find yourself doing the same, and like me, you will find that Lupton is very faithful to the original. I am pleased about that, and the re-telling here is deft and the language beautiful. I would very much enjoy hearing Hugh Lupton tell these stories live.

Mabinogi enthusiasts will enjoy this book, but it would be a perfect gift for someone who enjoys good historical or fantasy fiction, especially if you are trying to spark their interest in The Mabinogi. If you are approaching the four branches for the first time, for study or devotional reasons, I would recommend one of the many excellent translations of these tales instead. However, I think for the general reader who simply likes mythology, or who likes books set in early Britain this book is ideal.

Final analysis. If you are looking for a good read and an easy introduction to The Mabinogi, this is the perfect choice.

The Assembly of the Severed Head is available to order from the publisher, Propolis Books, and from the usual booksellers.

If you enjoyed this post, you might like Of Oracles, Wonder and Inspiration which also features some masterly re-telling of myth.

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The Wild Mare

28/10/2018

2 Comments

A couple of things I read recently came together in my mind and inspired me to write this story. I hope you enjoy its mysteries as much as I enjoyed writing it. It seems to fit the season.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My dreams started to be haunted by horses. Nothing made sense. There were horses who talked and others that flew with wings or turned into beautiful fairy women. The hills themselves were giant horses or had shadows of giant horses walking across them.

Over and over I dreamt of a mare who birthed twin foals. The next time I'd see her she'd be distraught and looking for them. Or maybe she'd have one foal but be searching frantically for the other. I'd try to help her, but nothing was ever resolved in those dreams.

Media Nocte - Donna Quinn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photo Alan James

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

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

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

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

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

I was lost in a storm
And ran over the tops into this valley
I saw the herd and joined them

I never want to be caught again

I have always resisted the stallion
But this year the urge was too strong
And I am in foal

I look at her.
She does not look like she is in foal.
The smell of flowers clings to the mist.

The other mares will be rounded up soon
I will have to foal alone
I cannot protect the foal by myself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kelpie Weather by Skye-Fyre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can now buy a slightly updated version of this story, along with some of my poems about horses, in this chapbook.

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.

8.00

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Lessons from selkies and horse whisperers

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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.

8.00

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Seeking Meaning in Celtic Mythology

1/9/2018

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

I'm assuming that most people will be reading myths from a book. However, we must learn to listen to them, to give them our deep attention. There are definite advantages to hearing someone tell stories from Celtic mythology in person, especially if the speaker is pronouncing the names in their native language. (Wrong pronunciations can be hard to unlearn so it's great to hear correct ones early on.) There is an immediacy and a shared experience with live storytelling that no other method has. Listening to recordings can also be good, but it can be harder to keep your full attention on a recording. However, an advantage that both books and recordings have, is that you can go back over things whenever you want to. The "listening" I'm talking about, though, is not about reading vs hearing, but about how we receive and respond to the story once we encounter it.

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

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

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

Some people will tell you to read various books about mythology "for starters". While they often suggest very good books, I feel that you should let the myths themselves have their say first. Keep an open mind. The depth you find on your own is real, too. It can be both magical and fragile. Don't let a more scholarly interpretation crush the wisdom you've found. Maybe your wisdom will evolve, and maybe the scholars' wisdom is not the only wisdom. Later, you may want to read commentary on the myths that interest you.

Celtic mythology is hard to pin down. It's messy, fragmented and mysterious. You have to work for what you get out of it. Talking about mythology is not the same thing as listening to it. If you do listen, you'll find that somehow the gods have woven themselves into the strands of it in such a way that if you look for them there, or you look for wisdom or 'medicine' there, they will meet you halfway. They will meet you with things that are relevant to you right now.

"In this tradition a story is 'holy,' and it is used as medicine ... The story is not told to lift you up, to make you feel better, or to entertain you, although all those things can be true. The story is meant to take the spirit into a descent to find something that is lost or missing and to bring it back to consciousness again."
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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That Mabon Thing Again!

18/9/2013

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Sometimes, it's wise to question whether swimming against the tide is worth it. I'm beginning to think that "the Mabon thing" may be one of those instances. The Autumnal Equinox is nearly here, and my social media world has been filled with references to the day as "Mabon" for several weeks. Many people new to Paganism, and some who are not so new, simply accept that name without thinking. If I were to enter a new culture, I probably wouldn't question the names of the holidays, either. I'd assume that these names had been in use for centuries. However, the fact is that "the Mabon thing" has no venerable history - the practice was begun by Wiccan author Aiden A. Kelly in the 1970s. Anyway, why should we care? Wiccans and Neo-Pagans are forging new territory, right? Surely we can call our holidays by new names.

autumn equinox, ric kemp, mabon, avebury

Autumn Equinox by Ric Kemp

Mabon is certainly not a word that Kelly simply coined. It is the name of a Welsh deity/mythological character Mabon ap Modron, which literally means "Son, son of Mother". However, there is nothing in the story of Mabon which has links to autumn or the balance between dark and light, etc. which really justifies relating him to this event. One occasionally sees tortuous attempts by modern writers to draw correspondences, but they always seem to me to be reaching very hard and not really succeeding. However, there is no doubt that the name has caught on in a big way, and I'm not interested in trying to stamp out its use. I would just like to raise awareness, that Mabon is the name of a deity, and hope that if people are going to throw that name around, then perhaps they could at least take a little time to learn who Mabon was and hear his story.

Modron is a shadowy figure, and all we are told is that she gave birth to her son Mabon, but when he was three days old he was taken from "between her and the wall", in other words abducted by some supernatural means. He had been a beautiful and precocious child - obviously one connected with the otherworld. The on ending of the two names also provides a clue that these are not mere mortals. Eventually, Mabon was found and rescued by Arthur (yes, that Arthur) as part of the fulfillment of a quest. You can read this tale, which is part of the longer story of Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion. If you find it rather heavy going, you might prefer this gentle re-telling by Alison Lilly: The Tale of Mabon.

Mabon by Jen Delyth

The main story of Mabon doesn't give us a great deal to go on in understanding who or what he really is as a deity or personality. A couple of other Welsh tales have similar stories of the abduction of divine babes, most notably the story of Rhiannon and Pryderi. An interesting discussion of these tales and what they might mean can be found in the excellent Mabon ap Modron The story of the Divine Son. Another worthwhile link, discussing various early literary mentions of Mabon is Mabon ap Modron "Divine Son son of Divine Mother".

Finally, my thanks to Brian Walsh for his excellent article Mabon - A God of Spring Misplaced.

Have a good one! Whatever you call it!

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A Song, a Story, the Sea

3/7/2013

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Growing up, as I did, in landlocked Colorado, the sea was not so much a mystery to me, as an object of no meaning whatsoever. I never even saw it until I was in my twenties and moved to California. However, when I was about twelve years old a musician called Donovan Leitch came across my radar and his music moved me intensely, and still does so today. In 1968 I bought his double album A Gift From a Flower to a Garden. One LP was acoustic and one electric. The acoustic one spoke deeply to me, and most of the songs on it were about the sea - or more precisely the seaside. Starfish, crabs, gulls and assorted wandering humans inhabited the lyrics in a way that made this environment real and interesting to me for the first time.

Donovan Leitch

I awoke this morning with a song from that LP in my head. What struck me was how like Manannán, as he appears in his trickster guise, the tinker character is. Manannán who can be recognised by the water sloshing from his shoes as he walks on dry land. I knew he was familiar from somewhere. Maybe I first met him in this song!

You can read about some of Manannán's fun and games in Lady Gregory's "God's and Fighting Men" Part I Book IV: Manannan at Play or listen to an adaptation of it by the folks at The Celtic Myth Podshow in The Raggedy Man

If you enjoyed this post, you might like The Beach

Mythology

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The Beach, part 2 - Art's Quest

22/4/2013

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The beach card in my oracle deck has always been connected in my mind to the story of Delvcaem, from the Book of Fermoy. I love the re-telling of this story by James Stephens, entitled Becuma of the White Skin. This is part 2 of my synopsis of this story. Unless you are familiar with the story, you may want to read part 1, because we are joining the action in the middle ...

Things dragged on in a bad state in Ireland, and a great enmity grew up between Becuma and Art. One day Becuma challenged Art to a game of chess, and having won the game she gave him the following forfeit:

"I bind you," said Becuma, "to eat no food in Ireland until you have found Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan."

"Where do I look for her?" said Art in despair.

"She is in one of the islands of the sea," Becuma replied, "that is all I will tell you."

Art, as his father had done before him, set out for the Many-Coloured Land, but it was from Inver Colpa he embarked and not from Ben Edair.

At a certain time he passed from the rough green ridges of the sea to enchanted waters, and he roamed from island to island asking all people how he might come to Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan. But he got no news from any one, until he reached an island that was fragrant with wild apples, gay with flowers, and joyous with the song of birds and the deep mellow drumming of the bees. In this island he was met by a lady, Crede', the Truly Beautiful, and when they had exchanged kisses, he told her who he was and on what errand he was bent.

"We have been expecting you," said Crede', "but alas, poor soul, it is a hard, and a long, bad way that you must go; for there is sea and land, danger and difficulty between you and the daughter of Morgan."

Crede described to Art in horrifying detail the journey he must undertake. It was going to be fraught with dangers of every kind and terrible monsters that would likely be impossible to overcome. In fact she advised him, in no uncertain terms, to give up his plan and stay with her. She promised him that he would forget Ireland and be happy there, but Art refused to stay and refused to forget Ireland, and so Crede gave him what advice she could and Art set out once again. He stepped into his coracle, even as Crede continued to describe the dangers and horrors that lay ahead.

"There is yet a danger," she called. "Beware of Delvcaem's mother, Dog Head, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads. Beware of her."

"Indeed," said Art to himself, "there is so much to beware of that I will beware of nothing. I will go about my business," he said to the waves, "and I will let those beings and monsters and the people of the Dog Heads go about their business."

In the way of adventuring heroes, Art won his way through monster filled seas, hag infested woods, over slippery mountains of ice filled with venomnous toads -- there were giants, there were lions... and all these things were, in fact, illusions brewed up by Dog Head, mother of Delvcaem. Finally, he arrived at the beautiful fortress of Dog Head and Morgan, where the lovely Delvcaem was kept imprisoned atop a high pillar. Then, Art had to fight Dog Head. It was a hard fight, but he won it and freed the lady. They were about to leave when Morgan showed up, so Art had to fight him, too. That fight was equally hard. Finally, Art and Delvcaem (now affianced) were able to leave this place. And so, James Stephens ends the story this way:

He did not tarry in the Many-Coloured Land, for he had nothing further to seek there. He gathered the things which pleased him best from among the treasures of its grisly king, and with Delvcaem by his side they stepped into the coracle.

Then, setting their minds on Ireland, they went there as it were in a flash.

The waves of all the world seemed to whirl past them in one huge, green cataract. The sound of all these oceans boomed in their ears for one eternal instant. Nothing was for that moment but a vast roar and pour of waters. Thence they swung into a silence equally vast, and so sudden that it was as thunderous in the comparison as was the elemental rage they quitted. For a time they sat panting, staring at each other, holding each other, lest not only their lives but their very souls should be swirled away in the gusty passage of world within world; and then, looking abroad, they saw the small bright waves creaming by the rocks of Ben Edair, and they blessed the power that had guided and protected them, and they blessed the comely land of Ir.

arthur rackham, becuma or the white skin

On reaching Tara, Delvcaem, who was more powerful in art and magic than Becuma, ordered the latter to go away, and she did so.

She left the king's side. She came from the midst of the counsellors and magicians. She did not bid farewell to any one. She did not say good-bye to the king as she set out for Ben Edair.

Where she could go to no man knew, for she had been banished from the Many-Coloured Land and could not return there. She was forbidden entry to the Shi' by Angus Og, and she could not remain in Ireland. She went to Sasana and she became a queen in that country, and it was she who fostered the rage against the Holy Land which has not ceased to this day.

But hang on a minute. Let's back up. Delvcaem? Wasn't that the name Becuma used as her own? What really happened here?

In the final installment, we'll be looking at one possible interpretation of this story, and what we might learn from it. Why not take the time to think about your own interpretation in the meantime?

Continue to part 3 - Liminal Space

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The Beach, part 1 - Looking for Answers

21/4/2013

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The beach card in my oracle deck has always been connected in my mind to the story of Delvcaem, from the Book of Fermoy. I love the re-telling of this story by James Stephens, entitled Becuma of the White Skin. Some may be sceptical of re-tellings as opposed to direct translations from old manuscripts, but I believe that Bardic inspiration runs through many authors of many periods and is one valid way of finding deep meaning in mythology.

Due to the lengthy quotes, this article turned out to be too long for a single blog post, so I will present it in three parts over the next few days.

There are more worlds than one, and in many ways they are unlike each other. But joy and sorrow, or, in other words, good and evil, are not absent in their degree from any of the worlds, for wherever there is life there is action, and action is but the expression of one or other of these qualities.

After this Earth there is the world of the Shi'. Beyond it again lies the Many-Coloured Land. Next comes the Land of Wonder, and after that the Land of Promise awaits us. You will cross clay to get into the Shi'; you will cross water to attain the Many-Coloured Land; fire must be passed ere the Land of Wonder is attained, but we do not know what will be crossed for the fourth world.

This adventure of Conn the Hundred Fighter and his son Art was by the way of water...

A council has been called in the Many coloured Land to decide the fate of Becuma, who has been unfaithful to her husband, and it was decided that she should be banished to the world of men.

She stepped into a coracle, it was pushed on the enchanted waters, and it went forward, world within world, until land appeared, and her boat swung in low tide against a rock at the foot of Ben Edair.

Meanwhile, Conn of the Hundred Battles, high king of Ireland, was mourning the loss of his beloved wife, Eithne. He was a great king, and Ireland had prospered mightily during his reign, however his grief was now putting a damper on all that.

He grew more and more despondent, and less and less fitted to cope with affairs of state, and one day he instructed his son Art to take the rule during his absence, and he set out for Ben Edair.

For a great wish had come upon him to walk beside the sea; to listen to the roll and boom of long, grey breakers; to gaze on an unfruitful, desolate wilderness of waters; and to forget in those sights all that he could forget, and if he could not forget then to remember all that he should remember.

He was thus gazing and brooding when one day he observed a coracle drawing to the shore. A young girl stepped from it and walked to him among black boulders and patches of yellow sand.

So they talked and Conn was easily bewitched by her beauty. She spun him a yarn about being in love with his son Art (based on his reputation alone) and told him that her name was Delvcaem. Conn was jealous, wanting her for himself. The upshot of all this was that she consented to marry Conn, but made him agree to banish Art from the kingdom for one year, to give her time to get over her infatuation. This was done, but during the year Ireland suffered from poor harvests and starvation, where once there had been plenty. The bards and druids told Conn that the only solution to this problem (caused by Becuma's presence) was the blood sacrifice of "the son of a sinless couple". So when the year was up and Art returned, Conn left the kingdom in his hands and set out on a quest to look for such a person.

He went to Ben Edair. He stepped into a coracle and pushed out to the deep, and he permitted the coracle to go as the winds and the waves directed it.

Conn's sea journey was long and dangerous. However, eventually he came to an island

fragrant with apple trees, sweet with wells of wine; and, hearkening towards the shore, his ears, dulled yet with the unending rhythms of the sea, distinguished and were filled with song; for the isle was, as it were, a nest of birds, and they sang joyously, sweetly, triumphantly.

He landed on that lovely island, and went forward under the darting birds, under the apple boughs, skirting fragrant lakes about which were woods of the sacred hazel and into which the nuts of knowledge fell and swam; and he blessed the gods of his people because of the ground that did not shiver and because of the deeply rooted trees that could not gad or budge.

Here he found the lad he sought, called Segda. Conn asked Segda's parents for "a loan of their son" to which they reluctantly agreed, with many provisions for his protection. So they sailed back to Ireland, Conn being aware that he'd put himself in an awkward position.

When they got back, Segda understood why he was there, and at first refused to be killed, then seeing the plight of the starving people, agreed. However, he was rescued by his mother, who tricked Conn's druids and prophesied that the real cause of the problem was Becuma. She took her son, and left, leaving them to think things over.

Things dragged on in a bad state in Ireland, and a great enmity grew up between Becuma and Art. One day Becuma challenged Art to a game of chess, and having won the game she gave him the following forfeit:

"I bind you," said Becuma, "to eat no food in Ireland until you have found Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan."

"Where do I look for her?" said Art in despair.

"She is in one of the islands of the sea," Becuma replied, "that is all I will tell you."

And so we will leave them there, for today. In my next post, I will share the rest of the story and then we can begin looking at what I think it means, and how we can use the information.

Continue to part 2 - Art's Quest

You can now buy this three part series of posts (The Beach) in a newly edited version, along with my allegorical short story The Story Shawl, and a new poem about the goddess Macha. All in this beautifully illustrated chapbook entitled Mythology.

See product page for more information.

Mythology

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The Heron

11/3/2013

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Here's a look at Herons, and how their story ties in with the Heron card in my oracle deck.

Herons are skilled and patient fishermen. It's not unusual to see them standing motionless in shallow water for long periods, as they wait for the fleeting moment of opportunity when they will strike a fish with great accuracy. However, they are also more widely skilled and able to hunt on land when the opportunity presents itself, or dive for fish in deeper water. As a result, neither they nor their young will go hungry for long.

Heron - Patience and skill brings a reward. Family ties are lasting. Guilt by association.

European Grey Herons (Ardea cineria) have elaborate courtship rituals, and strong pair bonds. The couples live in high trees, in nest colonies called heronries. Some other species of Heron, like the North American Great Blue Heron, have similar lifestyles. Although they mostly hunt alone, both parents care for their young, and all share in the mutual benefits of the extended family of the heronry at breeding time. In a reading, I'd say that "family ties" can refer to long, close relationships, particularly marriage, as well as blood ties, and that it doesn't mean that we have no autonomy within the relationships.

One saying associated with Herons is

"With evil people neither stay nor go;
The Heron died for being with the crow"

There is something about crows and herons. In nature, they rarely get along, with crows tending to mob herons - possibly because herons will eat other birds' nestlings. Perhaps that's why the two birds are so often associated in mythology, as their battles have drawn the attention of humans who then needed to explain them with stories. In most stories, the Heron is the good guy, but not always. The Chinese even suggest that the two birds can represent the yin yang concept.

Here is one folktale which, with only minor variations, is known from India to western England. It goes like this -

A crow and a heron were both perched in a large tree one day, when along came a traveller (or hunter, depending on the version of the story). The day was hot, so the man decided to have a nap in the shade of the tree. He fell into a very deep sleep, and after some time, as the sun moved across the sky, the shadow of the tree no longer protected him. The kindly Heron spread his wings out to shade the man's face for awhile longer as he slept on. So deep was his sleep that his mouth began to gape open as he snored. Soon the crow could stand this no longer, so he took aim and dropped something into the poor man's mouth! (It might have been an acorn, it might have been something else that birds sometimes drop - depends on who is telling the story.) Naturally the man awoke and he was angry. He looked up, saw the Heron, took out his gun (or bow) and shot him dead.

This traditional tale is a pretty extreme example of guilt by association, and when considering this aspect of the card in a reading, I would look for subtle variations on this theme as well as the more dramatic form of outright false accusation. For example, in one reading I did, it seemed that the client's spouse could not get past expecting her to hurt him in the same way that his ex had! He didn't actually suspect her of any bad behaviour, but he couldn't help expecting that it would happen eventually. (And those strong family ties made it difficult for her to give up on the relationship.) This card can also refer to things like prejudice and discrimination, as well as the dangers of "running with a bad crowd". In other cases, we might be looking at a situation where someone feels torn between loving loyalty to their family and some negative perception that society has about their family or social group.

Perhaps these considerations relate back to the heron's tendency to work (hunt) alone, yet also returning to their own kind for the safety of numbers. In a way, this is how the Heron balances the tendency to be misjudged, and avoids the risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He just gets on with his hunting, and goes home to those who understand him - if he's wise.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Rooks (It's a tribal thing)

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On John Moriarty's "Invoking Ireland"

4/3/2013

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I've had a growing admiration for John Moriarty's ideas over the past year or so. My first introduction to him was via a short video interview with him, during which I constantly found myself nodding in excited agreement with most everything he said. One moment I would either think "Wow! I thought I was the only one who had felt this or noticed that - but he gets it, too." Then, he would say something else and I would be floored by its originality and complete aptness, and it would be an angle on something I had never thought of.

I found some of the ideas in Invoking Ireland much easier to express with these quotes and pictures. You can click them to see larger versions.

So began my occasional reading of an interview here, an obituary there (John Moriarty died in 2007), some small pieces of his writing available on line and so on. His books were a little hard to locate at first. They are more readily available from sellers like Amazon, now, or you can go direct to his fabulous publishers Lilliput Press. So, let's talk about my favourite of his books, which is also the most accessible - Invoking Ireland.

The book has been a joy, and not such heavy going as I had feared. You would find some basic knowledge of Irish mythology useful, it's true, and maybe a smattering of Irish history, as well. However, the book also has a glossary. The first couple of chapters drew me in. The theme of our existence in various realms of reality, how they mesh or exist in parallel - what this means for our shapeshifting nature between human soul and animal soul, is introduced with gentle enticement.

As the author leads us into the experiences of Amhairghin Glúngheal, Fintan mac Bochra, Cormac mac Airt, Conaire Mór and a host of others, he writes mostly in the first person. Knowing John Moriarty's personal story somewhat, the openings of many chapters had me thinking "Ah! Now he is telling his own story." Yes and no. I think that all Moriarty's works are autobiographical in a sense, as all gnostic writing must ultimately be, yet this book is also every Irishman's story, and every human being's story. It's not all easy going. Questions are asked as the book progresses, and the answers are not always satisfactory, it seems to me, but there is great honesty and humanity in the attempt.

The fact is, I did find it a heavy climb uphill through the first half of this book, once the romance of the first chapters had passed. Then, suddenly, we seemed to reach the brow of a hill, and find ourselves descending into the ease of a Kerry Puck Fair, and the story of a man forever changed by his own traditions - or perhaps I should say forever restored. This is followed by another very easily read chapter, entitled "Shaman". Again, I asked myself in the reading of it, whether the first person telling was just a convenience or more of a confession. This chapter is one of my favourites, and reads almost as a guided visualisation. A mere four pages, it is one I know I will return to again and again. It tells of a dream or vision, or perhaps a journey into another realm. The writing here is so much of one solid piece, that I struggle to find a simple quote.

Shaman tells a story of the smoke of a turf fire, of turf itself, and of an inner prehistoric landscape experienced. Speaking of the sods he'd bring from the shed each night for his fire -- "They were older, I'd remind myself, than Ireland's oldest folktale," Moriarty tells us. "What that folktale was I didn't know, but how strange it was, crossing a yard at nightfall with a prehistoric landscape in a bag on my back." He goes on to tell how one night he sat by his smoking fire, and the reek of it worked a mystical intoxication on him, and he was transported to that ancient landscape. He found an ancient pair of boots there, and putting them on, he began a strange journey. There was a lake which "didn't mirror some things it should mirror. It didn't mirror a red horse on a ridge. It didn't mirror its own islands." He continued on, experiencing a wood stinking of death, and experiencing life as a tree being felled, until finally, "The two sides of the path came together. I entered thick darkness and I didn't see the house until, seeing an old man by the fire, I realized I'd already walked into it." Here, after a riddling conversation with the old man, the adventurer undergoes a sort of agony and death, until, "it death-rattled the life I'd been living, modern life, out of me."

Another theme in the book is that of Manannán and the silver branch, which in Irish mythology was a token of a fair and pleasant otherworld. The branch played beautiful music which lulled its hearers into slumber, but at the same time often served as a sort of passport to this other realm. The author refers repeatedly to Ireland as Manannán's "lost cause" and of the audibility of the music of the silver branch across Ireland and across the world. At the same time, he is quick to remind us that "the music of what happens" is also a manifestation of the sacred, and an ever-present token of the otherworld in our own.

John Moriarty

Part 2 of Invoking Ireland contains chapters on Lugh, on Manannan, and on Cú Roí. The chapter on Macha, worked as a beautifully crafted piece of storytelling, is another favourite of mine. There is quite a long chapter on Danu, as well, which is very moving, containing some startling moments of descriptive clarity -- both of nature and of the author's love for Danu. An understanding of a woman's love, bound up with the unfathomable love of a goddess, somehow comes to crystalise in the a description of a rowan tree growing there between the hills known as the paps of Danu. Storytelling and imagery rule here, as they always seem to, with Moriarty.

Much of this book is a commentary on what Ireland has been, what it has become, but also the hope of what it could be again. Written at a time before the current economic woes, when Ireland was still very much the "Celtic Tiger", the author is keenly aware of what is being lost amid the success, and of what was lost in previous centuries. Moriarty used to say that he felt like he should show a passport when leaving his little rural corner of Ireland and entering the modern country. This book is mostly an otherworldly one, and yet the clues are there, encouraging not just the Irish, but all of us to look for some depth in things again, to learn to go with the grain of the land and its gods again. When this kind of commentary does arise in Invoking Ireland, it is blankly honest and incisive, but it never harangues. The point is made and we are back to the story.

John Moriarty self-identified as a Christian and a Catholic, but as a Pagan reader I found that this book had everything to offer and I found little to discard and nothing to offend. It is interesting that the chapter in this book entitled Christ was made up almost entirely of quotes from other writers. As to why that should be, my only guess is that the author simply engaged with the material of the story of Jesus differently than he did with that of his indigenous gods. However, I was left in no doubt that he engaged with these gods at a deep level, and the best part for me has to be that in Invoking Ireland he did us the honour of reporting his findings in so beautiful and personal a way.

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The Work of Bards - The Mabinogi Lives Again

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The Wild Mare

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The Story Shawl

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Seeking Meaning in Celtic Mythology

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That Mabon Thing Again!

A Song, a Story, the Sea

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The Beach, part 2 - Art's Quest

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The Beach, part 1 - Looking for Answers

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The Heron

Here's a look at Herons, and how their story ties in with the Heron card in my oracle deck.

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On John Moriarty's "Invoking Ireland"

I found some of the ideas in Invoking Ireland much easier to express with these quotes and pictures. You can click them to see larger versions.

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!

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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!

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to hear about upcoming classes and events, and for 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!Subscribers also get access to special offers in the shop.

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

Here's a look at Herons, and how their story ties in with the Heron card in my oracle deck.

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!

I found some of the ideas in Invoking Ireland much easier to express with these quotes and pictures. You can click them to see larger versions.

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!

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.