Author Archives: Lairbhan

Translation – Compert Mongan

Below is a new translation I’ve done of a section of the Conception of Mongan. It’s a very interesting story and I quite like this version which focuses more on Fiachna’s wife perspective than the other common story. 

COMPERT MONGAN… Asbertsa dagní didiu ar atá do chéle i ngúais már. Tucad fer húathmar ara chend nad forsabatár & atbéla leis. Dia ndernam mád tú caratrad berae mac de. Bid amre…

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Odin and the Wild Hunt – Excerpt from ‘Pagan Portals Odin’

The following is an excerpt from my recently released book ‘Pagan Portals Odin’

Cover art by Ashley Bryner

“The Wild HuntThe Wild Hunt is a group of spectral horsemen who ride the air at night, accompanied by hounds and horses, and led by a fearsome Huntsman (or in some cases Huntswoman). The Hunt is found in several areas of Western Europe as well as America and who exactly they are as well…

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Possession by Fairies or Elves

I’ll note as I begin that I will in this article be using the terms elf and fairy synonymously, as general terms for Otherworldly beings. This reflects the generalized use of the terms in the source material I’m referencing in writing this. For those who prefer to see the terms as applying to specific beings, understand that what follows would then apply equally to both.

That fairies or elves…

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Translation: Tond Clidna/Cliodna’s Wave

Today I wanted to do a piece from the Metrical Dindshenchas and I thought I’d take on a new look at poem 38 ‘Tond Clidna I’ since I will be heading off to southwestern Ireland in a few weeks.

Tond Clidna I

Clidna chend-fhind, búan a bét,
‘con tuind-se tánic a héc;
 damna d’a máthair beith marb
inní dia tarla in sen-ainm.
5] Dia ndernad in t-óenach the
ac lucht tíre tairngire,
is é thuc in…

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Meeting New Liminal Gods – Thallea and Thessilae

A lot has changed for me in my spirituality in the last few years, as anyone who follows my blog knows. But I do still follow the path I – for lack of a better term – call Fairy Witchcraft. And while I now focus my worship more on a specific Fairy Queen, who I feel fits the role of a liminal Goddess, I haven’t stopped exploring who and what the liminal Gods are. And just like I had written about…

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Seven Years in Fairy

We sometimes see people referencing or discussing the idea of a person being in service to Fairy or going into Fairy for a set amount of time and then coming back to mortal earth, at least for a while. Often in folklore when this occurs it is for a very precise amount of time and what we most often see is 7 years. This pattern repeats in both folklore and ballads. 
It’s said that the bean feasa…

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Fairy Taboos – #4 Food

Fairy taboos around food are complicated and layered, and each aspect tends to have its own rules and repercussions. For this blog we will break the prohibitions around food down into three categories and try to summarize each one as concisely as possible.

1 – Eating Food from Fairy.
     The most well known prohibition around food and fairies is certainly the rule not to eat fairy food. The…

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Fairy Rings

  One particular bit of folklore that is still especially relevant today is that of fairy rings, also called fairy circles, elf rings, or elf circles. In Welsh they may be known as cylch y Tylwyth Teg [literally ‘circle of the Fair Family’]. The concept of these rings can be found throughout the different Celtic language speaking countries as well as the various diaspora and some Anglo-Saxon and…

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When Dedication Ends

There’s a good amount of discussion out there about honoring deities (or spirits) and about dedication to a deity. What I want to talk about today is something I don’t see being discussed much – when dedication ends.

An image of the German Woden

When I began my pagan path I really wasn’t aware of the idea of dedicating oneself to a deity, or several even, but over time I not only started to…

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Exorcism for a Leannán Sí

Recently in my wanderings through source material I ran across  particularly interesting folk charm in the 1854 ‘Transactions of the Ossianic Society’. The entry was first in Irish and then translated into English, with some notable variances from the Irish, and dealt with a spoken charm used by a Catholic priest to expel a Leannan Si from a woman named Shighile Tabaois [Sheela Tavish].

This is…

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