I’ve been pagan for a couple decades now and I’ve observed a couple trends over that time. One of the most perplexing to me is the way that popular fiction – by which I mean novels, television, and movies – shapes and influences paganism. The reason it perplexes me is because the things that get picked up and absorbed into the pagan paradigm are often based in plot points and rarely fit
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
Modern Prayers in Old Irish
This is something I’ve been working on to submit for a anthology* which is looking for modern Celtic Reconstructionist prayers. I thought it would be interesting to offer basic prayers in Old Irish to different Gods.
It is still a work in progress, but this is what I have so far:
Guide Nuada
Nuada Argetlam
Nuada fo dí Ríg
Nuada narsheng
Guidim do a bhennach
Guidim do a eolas
Guidim do
Samhain isn’t pronounced Sam-hane and other truths
I should probably have titled this post "Grumpy Old Polytheist Ramblings". But there’s a lot of so-called educational memes floating around the community right now that are a lot more opinion than fact and I finally decided that it was time to address some specific points. With facts.
Samhain is pronounced "Sow-win" or "Sow-wen" in Irish and Samhuinn is pronounced "Sah-vihn" in Scottish
Crom Cruach
One of the more interesting non-Tuatha De Danann deities that some people choose to honor today is Crom Cruach, synonymous according to scholars with Cenn Cruiach, and likely also the same as Crom Dubh (Smyth, 1988; O hOgain, 2006; MacNeill, 1962). Crom means bent, stooped or crooked; cruach has a wider array of meanings including stack of corn; rick; heap, conical pile, gory, bloody;
The St. Gall Incantations
The St. Gall’s Incantations are some of the best Irish examples of mixed pagan and Christian folk magic charms. Like much of this material the existing translations are generally pretty old, so I thought it would be fun to offer some new versions today:
Honoring Spirits of the Home
It’s an interesting thing that I write mostly about the very intellectual aspects of my practices – re-translating the myths and discussing the philosophical aspects of what I believe – but in person I teach mostly about the practical end of things especially when it comes to the Good Folk. These are the things that makes up the bulk of my day-to-day practices which is rooted in my honoring…
Fulacht na Morrigna
One of the mysterious things that the Morrigan is associated with is called the "fulacht na Morrigna" literally the Morrigan’s cooking hearth. A fulacht is a type of outdoor cooking hearth or pit; the smaller ones were named for the Fíanna but the larger ones for the Morrigan (RIA, 1870). These fulachta were associated both with large outdoor stone cooking hearths and with cooking spits, so…
Reflecting Darkness
So Friday is my birthday. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and about something that was posted in a group today about the variety of witches out there:
internet meme; anonymous
There are many, many approaches to witchcraft and some are completely different from others, but it is true that the vast majority of witches in the Western world seem to follow what is generally termed a …
Tochmarc Étaine
Tochmarc Étaine[starting after gap] a thaigi ocus a gríanan co senistrib solsib fri techt ass ocus tobreth tlacht corcra impe ocus imchuirthe in gríanán sin lasin Mac Óc cach leth no théged ocus ba and contuiled cach n-aidchi occa chomaitecht do airec menman conda tanic a sult ocus a feth. ocus no línta in gríanán sin do lubib boladmaraib ingantaib combo de forberedsi di bolod ocus blath na
Morgan’s Ogham Cheat Sheet
Although there’s no solid historical basis for using ogham as a divination tool its certainly popular to do so today and there is more than enough material to make it a viable system. Much like tarot, actually, there is so much that it takes a while to learn to really read ogham well. I highly recommend checking out the original source material, the Auraicept na n-Eces as well as …