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…
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
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:
Book Review – A Practical Guide to Irish Spirituality
I have to start by saying that I met Lora O’Brien at Pantheacon 2015 and was fortunate enough to be able to take several of her workshops. I found that she and I had a very similar perspective on most things relating to Irish paganism, the Morrigan, and the Fair Folk. I decided to review her book A Practical Guide to Irish Spirituality: Sli Aon Dhraoi because I read it when it was first released (long before meeting her) and liked it and wanted to offer a positive book review for the blog today. As always I will approach this book review in an honest manner and please trust that I like her book on it’s own merits, however I’m acknowledging a potential bias up-front.
Meiche, Three Hearts, Three Serpents
I’m still doing a lot of translation, and I’d like to keep sharing it but in ways that are interesting to you. So here is the story, as we have it, of the Morrigan’s son Meiche and how the river Barrow got it’s name:13. BERBA.
Book Review: Feast of the Morrigan
I’m doing this book review for Christopher Penzcak’s Feast of the Morrigan a little bit differently. This is a book that is often brought up and that people really like, and it has its good points for modern practice. The author is very clear that his own approach, and that of the rituals and meditations he provides, is based in Wicca and neopagan witchcraft and for people utilizing that style I’m sure what he offers is quite valid. However there are some important issues with the book, specifically…
The Morrigan’s Call Retreat 2015
Bealtaine or Beltane?
I recently, publicly, made the choice not to use Anglicized versions of certain words, specifically holiday and deity names. There’s several reasons for this decision but the core of it is that as an Irish Polytheist who is striving to speak the language it seems disingenuous to publicly use different forms of the words just because they are more familiar to most people.