my ‘sacred’ boots, which have crawled through souterrains, walked up sacred hills, cleaned a holy well, and delved deep into the Morrigan’s cave
I left for Ireland on October 25th, to help co-facilitate a Morrigan sacred sites tour. I was very excited, and had high expectations of connecting more deeply with the Morrigan, Badb, and Macha on their own sacred ground at places where their…
Suidigud Tellaich Temra
23. ‘A Findtain,’ arse, ‘& Éri cía gabad ca rabad inde?’
‘Ní ansa,’ ar Fintan, ‘Íaruss fis. tuadus cath. airthis bláth.
teissus séis. fortius flaith.’
‘Is fír ém, a Findtain,’ ar Tréfhuilngid, ‘’ at senchaid saineamail.
Is amlaid robái & bias co bráth béos, .i.
24. A fis, a forus, a foirceatol, a bág, a breithemnus, a
comgne, a cómairle, a scéla, a seanchasa, a…
"[A]n pucadh da ngairir an spioraid phriobhaideach" – Lucerna Fidelium
(the púca he was called the secret spirit)
The Púca – also called by a wide array of variant names including Phooka, Pooka, Pwca [Welsh], Bucca [Cornish] and Puck [English] – is a type of being found in folklore across hundreds of years. Some even connect Shakespeare’s character Puck to the folkloric Púca, although…
The familiar spirit, often simply called the familiar, is one of the most well known companions of the classical witch. When most people think of the traditional witch’s familiar they automatically imagine a demonic one, however there is a long history of fairies taking the role of the familiar spirit with some witches in Europe, just as some witches met not with the Devil but with the Queen of…
In November of 2015 I wrote a blog titled ‘The Influence of Fiction and Hollywood on Paganism’. It was mostly me discussing my own opinions on the way that I have seen media change, or at least influence, pagan beliefs over the decades. Lately different discussions on social media have gotten me thinking that I might want to do a similar blog about the effects of popculture and fiction on fairy…
There are several colors which have come to be strongly associated with the Good Neighbors over time and today I want to discuss them. Generally they are related to us through descriptions of clothing and of animals, although by far the most detail can be gleaned by looking at clothing descriptions. The clothing itself when described in stories is usually similar to that of the people living in…
Slánugud na Mórrigna
And-sin tánic in Mórrígu ingen Ernmais a Sídib irricht sentainne, corrabi ic blegun bó trí sine na fiadnaisse. Is immi tanic-si (mar) sin, ar bith a forithen do Choinchulaind. Dáig ni gonad Cuchulaind nech ar a térnád, co m-beth cuit dó féin na legis
Conattech Cuchulaind blegon furri, iarna dechrad d’íttaid. Dobretha-si blegon sini dó. Rop slán aneim dam-sa so. Ba slán a…
"It appears even that to these black elves in particular, i.e., mountain spirits, who in various ways came into contact with man, a distinct reverence was paid, a species of worship, traces of which lasted down to recent times. The clearest evidence of this is found in the Kormakssaga p. 216-8. The hill of the elves, like the altar of a god, is to be reddened with the blood of a slaughtered bull,…
Rounding out our modern re-tellings of the Morrigan’s interactions with Cu Chulainn we have what may be called the final chapter of the Ulster Cycle, the Death of Cu Chulainn. I will say this, there is some disagreement about some of the details here, specifically in some places who was doing what, and there are also more than one version of this story. I am giving a re-telling which I feel is…
Part 2 – the Tain Bo Cuiligne
So the big cattle raid that the Morrigan predicted in the Tain Bo Regamna, which we re-told in part 1, has now come to pass. In this part we are going to look only at the actions of the Morrigan in dealing with Cu Chulainn – keep in mind though this is not her only appearances in this story, nor even her most important ones in my opinion.
We begin with the story of…