I can’t stand April Fool’s Day, but in the spirit of the holiday (no joke) I thought I’d do a fun short post on the different words for fool in Old Irish and their contexts. Much like my previous blog about the word ‘witch’, saying fool in Old Irish isn’t a straightforward matter because there are a variety of options each with different nuances.
First we have the words which are used for…
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
Irish – or Celtic?
Recently a news article hit both the Irish cultural community and the pagan community. Titled ‘Man’s discovery of bones under his pub could forever change what we know about the Irish’ the article discusses an archaeological find, the genetic analysis of the bones found, and one main academic response to it. The response focused on is that of Barry Cunliffe, professor of Archaeology at Oxford…
Transltion ~ Pangur Ban
Pangur Ban is one of the more well known Old Irish poems, a work from around the 9th century which details the exploits -academic and hunting – of a scholar and his cat. The following Old Irish is from Stokes Thesaurus Paleohibernicus, from 1903. The English translation is my own. Messe ocus Pangur bán,cechtar nathar fria saindán;bíth a menma-sam fri seilgg,mu menma céin im saincheirdd(Myself…
Goodreads Giveaway – Fairycraft
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Ostara versus Easter – or Lets All Just Color an Egg
Every year there’s a lot of commentary that floats around the pagan community claiming several things about the holiday of Ostara, most of them untrue. So lets take a look at the urban legends and the realities, shall we?
Firstly the idea that Easter is related to the Goddess Ishtar. Ishtar is not pronounced ‘easter’; it’s a pretty straightforward name actually and is pronounced ‘ishtar’ just…
Modern Omens
This is one of those blogs that’s going to seem completely obvious to some of you, but I have found that for many pagans and polytheists we get so caught up in our idea of our spirituality being a certain way – read: primitive – that we can be a bit blind to some things. Like the way that modern life and technology intersect with ancient Gods and spirits, for example. Recently a friend of mine…
Why I don't think Danu is Anu
So something that comes up fairly regularly is the question of whether Danu and Anu are the same goddess or two distinct individuals*.
I want to say up front that this is one of those fun things that scholars disagree about so what follows is not meant to be conclusive but merely reflect my opinion and the evidence I base that opinion on.
I tend to believe that Anu and Danu are different…
Bullets, the Morrigan, and My Perspective
So another Pantheacon has come and gone and the Morrigan community is currently abuzz with our very own controversy. People are blogging about it and there is quite a bit of hyperbole winging around on both sides. I’m not going to link to any of the other blogs, just google ‘bullets for the Morrigan’ and you can start wading through the results.
I really debated weighing in on this one or not…
Nuances of the words "Witchcraft" and "Witch" in Old Irish
How’s that for a boring blog title?
Seriously though, one of the reasons that I tend to be such strong advocate for an omniglot approach or at least attempting to have a basic understanding of terms in other languages that relate to our practices is that often there are nuances within those terms that are – quite literally – lost in translation. And we shape our understanding, our…
Expanded Ogham Guide
The Ogham that we are most familiar with in a modern context is the Tree Ogham which associates each letter of the Ogham alphabet with a specific tree. However there are actually many different types of Ogham associations including River Ogham, for example, and Pig Ogham. Each one is layered, both a mnemonic device which associates the letter with a word that begins with that letter and also a…