I have just returned from the second annual Morrigan’s Call Retreat and once again find myself sitting here trying to put into words an experience that is really impossible to describe. Last year the Retreat was new and smaller, fewer people, a wild and otherworldly location, and the energy of the entire weekend was a challenge to step up and answer Her call. This year was very different: more people, a new location that had more of civilization to it, and an energy that was not about hearing Her call as much as about reclaiming ourselves and our own power in this world.
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
Preconceived Notions and Being a Goth Pagan
I’ve been thinking lately about stereotypes and the way that preconceived notions and expectations shape our larger pagan community. Pervasive buggers, you know, stereotypes creep in where we least expect them. Just when we think we’re in a safe place, a place free of preconceived judgments, bam! we run headfirst into one. We all experience this, I think, some of us to greater degrees than others, depending on who we are and what we identify as.
Another look at Fedelm in Different Recensions
For fun and to show the difference that can occur between translations I wanted to expand on yesterday’s blog and offer the description of Fedelm from two recensions of the the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the first from the Book of the Dun Cow and the second from the Book of Leinster. You’ll see some similarities and also some significant differences between the two:
Describing Fedelm in the Tain Bo Cuiligne
A bit of descriptive translation for today from the Táin Bó Cuiligne of Medb’s first view of the seeress Fedelm:
Impáis in t-ara in carpat ocus dothaét Medb for cúlu, co n-accai ní rap ingnad lé, .i. in n-aenmnái for fertais in charpait na farrad ina dochum. Is amlaid bói ind ingen: ic figi corrthairi ocus claideb findruini ina láim deiss cona secht n-aslib do dergór ina dessaib; bratt ballabrecc uani impi; bretnas torrach trencend sin brutt osa brunni; gnúis chorcra chrumainech lé; rosc glass gairectach le; beóil derga thanaide; dét niamda nemanda, andar let batar frossa findnémand erctais ina cend; cosmail do nuapartaing a beóil; binnidir téta mendchrot aca seinm allámaib sirshúad bindfogur a gotha ocus a cáinurlabra; gilidir snechta sniged fri oenaidchi taidlech a cniss ocus a colla sech a timthach sechtair; traigthi seta sithgela, ingni corcra córi cruindgéra lé; folt findbudi fata forórda furri; teora trillsi da fult imma cend, trilis aile co m-benad foscad fri colptha.
Irische Texte Mit Ubersetzungen, Windisch (1905.)
What Makes A God?
I’m going to start out by saying clearly, I don’t have any answers to this question and I don’t think there is an answer. It’s a question that inevitably leads to more questions. And I think that’s a good thing – we should question this, we should ask ourselves the hard things like this. Without the hard questions there will never be any real growth or deep theology.
On Being *That* Guy
Everyone knows that guy*, the person who is always one of the first ones to speak up about paganism or polytheism, even though they don’t really know that much about it. … No one gets less sympathy than that guy.
The thing is – we were all that guy…
Macha, Mesrad, and Heads
It’s become an increasingly common thing for me to see people confidently stating that severed heads are the Morrigan’s acorns or her acorn crop. Sometimes people do correctly identify the “crop” in question as belonging to Macha, but nonetheless keep on with the acorn part of it. In some cases, including some popular books, people get quite elaborate with this, adding in some poetic details or layering on deep spiritual significance.
Alright, well, let’s take a look at the actual material from the mythology, or to be precise the glossaries, because there is no mythic story of head taking or reference to such. So what do we actually have?
Nemain, Goddess of War
If you ask most Celtic pagans to name the three Morrigans a good number of them, in my experience, will say Badb, Macha, and Nemain despite the fact that Nemain is never explicitly called the Morrigan or included with the other two anywhere in Irish mythology. I personally blame this one on the multitude of modern pagan books which blithely say that the above named trio are the three Morrigan, however it can likely be traced back to Hennessey’s 1870 book “The Ancient Irish Goddess of War”. Hennessey put a lot of emphasis on Nemain and included her with Badb and Macha in his discussion of the Morrigan in a way that I feel led to the later conflation of Nemain with the three daughters of Ernmas elsewhere called the three Morrigans.
Articles, Manuscripts, and Essays, oh my!
I have really not done well keeping up with the blog this month and I apologize. I’m gearing up for the second annual Morrigan’s Call retreat next month and have also been in the middle of several larger writing projects.
I recently finished up my 13th manuscript, a book for the Pagan Portals series. This one, like my Fairy Witchcraft and Morrigan books, is meant to be a basic introduction to a topic in this case the topic is Irish Reconstructionist Polytheism. The final draft is with my publisher and I’m hoping the book will be released in …
Describing the Morrigan
A common question that I hear people asking is what does the Morrigan look like. There really isn’t a simple answer. Generally when she appears in mythology she is not described in much detail. Instead we get passages like this one from the Cath Maig Tuired: