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…
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
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…
A Prayer of Personal Power
Experimenting with a little translation of a different sort. There’s an excerpt from one of the Carmina Gadelica prayers making the rounds (without credit to the source of course*) and when I took another look at the original Gaidhlig I realized that Carmichael’s translation was more poetic than literal. I don’t have any Gaidhlig myself but it’s close enough to Sengoidelc that I can actually read…
Dirt Beneath Your Fingernails
Recently a friend of mine wrote two very insightful blogs ‘The Line in the Dirt’ and ‘Deepening the Line’. Both deal with looking at the way the pagan community, in general, approaches magical and ritual practice, the laziness that’s rampant among practitioners, and the idea of what happens beyond basics.
I’ve been thinking a lot since I read them, both because she raises some good questions…