Most people are aware that shamrocks, espcially those with more than three leaves, are considered good luck. In the Carmina Gadelica volume 2 we find two charms that can be recited if a person happens to find such a shamrock in order to ensure good luck and(…)
Author Archives: Lairbhan
St. Patrick’s Day, snakes, and Irish-American pride
Next week is Saint Patrick’s feast day in the Catholic church, which is probably an odd thing for me to blog about, but the past couple years there has been quite the controversy among some pagans about this day. This year there are anti-Saint Pat’s day events and such(…)
Hospitality in a modern world
Hospitality is an important quality in both Celtic and Norse tradition. In both cultures, as in many other ancient cultures, hospitality to guests was seen as an important social expectation. In the Norse Havamal we see a selection of advice given in how(…)
Lorica Prayers
So back in July of 2011 I had talked about the Deer’s Cry, an Irish prayer that is part of St. Patrick’s Lorica.(…)
March Happiness Blog Challenge – day 3
My(…)
March Happiness Blog Challenge – day 2
A quote that makes me smile:(…)
Book Review – the Druid’s Primer
There are many books on the market that aim to introduce the seeker to the basics of Druidism, but The Druid’s Primer by Luke Eastwood is perhaps the(…)
Celtic Ways of Seeing
So now that we’ve covered some different aspects of seidhr historically and how I am trying to reconstruct and practice them let’s look at the Irish side of things. Now we know that there were some very specific methods used by the File during the transition period between paganism(…)
the Havamal
Since my planned blog for today is being pre-empted due to illness in the family, I offer you the public domain version of the Havamal, Bellows translation, from 1936. It’s found in the Poetic Edda by Snorri and is a great text.
1. Within the gates | ere a man shall(…)
Gettin’ Seidhr-y With It
Since my last blog touched on some of the historic tidbits that contribute to the reconstruction aspects of seidhr and Irish magical practices, a couple of quick points before we get into what I actually do on the Norse end. Firstly to clarify terms: seidhr is a Norse word(…)