Di Chetharslicht Athgabála
Fo chosmailius dorigne Finn húa Baiscne. In tan búi in fian oc Badamair for brú Siúire dodechaidh Cúldub mac húi Birgge a síd ar Femun ut Scotti dicunt co mbert a fulacht núadaib. Co teóra aidchi amin degéni friu. Isin tres fecht iarum norat Finn co luid riam i síd ar Femun. Fortngaib Finn la techt isa síd co torchair allda anall. A ndosreng fris a láim fritninnle in…
Every book that’s written has a story about the motivation behind it’s writing, and this is the story behind Pagan Portals Fairy Witchcraft.
In 2013 I was on social media one day and I stumbled across a link on a page which purported to discuss ‘Faerie Witchcraft’. Clicking on it showed a convoluted and confusing hodge-podge of paragraphs that wandered between nonsensical and silly – calling…
The following is an excerpt from my new book ‘Following the Fairy Path’ which should be released in 2018. It will be the third book in my Fairycraft series. This excerpt is discussing one particular type of spirit being or fairy that comes at night and torments sleepers.
The Nightmare, John Fuseli, 1781, public domain
Måran
They
are a type of being who come at night while you are…
Generally speaking we have more named Fairy Queens than Kings but we do have a few examples of named Kings as well. Finnbheara is one of the Kings of the fairies in Ireland who is known variously as Finvara, Finveara, Fionbheara, Fin Bheara, Fionnbharr or Findbharr. His name may mean ‘Fair Haired’ in Old Irish; O hOgain however suggests the name is an oblique reference to the summit of Cnoc…
I was asked the other day to share the story of how I became an author, so today that’s what I’m going to talk about.
I’ll be the first person to admit I never thought this is what I’d be doing at this point in my life, although I can’t say its entirely a shock either. When I was in high school I co-wrote an unfinished book with a friend and I was always writing poetry. But it’s also true that…
Following up on last week’s post about fairies of the battle field this week I want to look at the Bean Sí. The name itself simply means ‘fairy woman’ and is found in a variety of spellings including the anglicized Banshee. As we shall see though the Bean Sí may or may not actually be a fairy, although she is often considered one in both historic and modern folklore.
When we look at…
Title: Celtic Cosmology: Perspectives from Ireland and Scotland
Editors: Jacqueline Borsje (Editor), Ann Dooley (Editor), Séamus Mac Mathúna (Editor), Gregory Toner (Editor)
Publisher: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies
Published: April 1st 2014
ISBN: 0888448260 (ISBN13: 9780888448262)
Pages: 324 including Bibliography.
Synopsis: From the deep sea to the waters above the sky, from the world beneath our feet to the promised land across the ocean – this volume represents a search for traces of cosmologies in Celtic sources, especially those of Ireland and Scotland. These cosmological traces are investigated for their Indo-European and Semitic parallels and influences. The broad world orderings – Celtic tripartition (earth, water and sky) and Christian bipartition (this world and the next) – are explored, and the cosmological meaning of specific demarcations in the landscape is analyzed. The world was mapped with words, as signposts for contemporary and future generations. These written “maps” are not only geographical, they also constitute ethical and mythological guidelines. Through storytelling, landscape and social space are processed in a framework of cosmic good and evil. In a Celtic mental world roads, rivers, mountains and hills are vital markers. Hills and caves were used in rituals and were seen as entrances to a subterranean otherworld where supernatural beings dwell and knowledge of the cosmos was believed to reside with these supernatural or subterranean beings. This knowledge is connected with protection and violation of the landscape and waters, and is often associated with the king, truth and justice. In the socialized landscape features of periphery and centre are closely related to kingship: thus, looming tragedy can be deduced from the route that a mythical king takes; royal capitals are outlined in landscape and architecture as ritual centres. The naming of significant places is a human act of creating order. In the Celtic literary tradition of explanatory and etymologizing stories, place-names serve as signifiers and warning signs (taboos) and some Celtic narratives on naming places appear to function also as performances of atonement for disruptions of the cosmic order.
Review: I honestly thought long and hard before writing this review. I don’t feel like I have absorbed enough from the essays to actually talk about them confidently. It is not because the essays were not well written but because there was just too much to take in at once. This book needs to be read REALLY slowly with the stories that the essays are referring to at hand to see context. I was also not really all that familiar with the Scottish material and felt like I needed more time to absorb those parts.
So let me tell you what I thought in general. FINALLY, a book about Celtic cosmology that pulls in examples from mythology and folklore then throws in some Info-European material for some comparative analysis. The introduction itself was a beautiful treasure of definitions and thoughts that needed to be said. The essays themselves were written by people who know their stuff and edited by people who are experts in said stuff. The book is not a read it once kind of book. It is one that you must dip into time and time again to tease out all the information you need to understand Celtic Cosmology. It should be a staple in any Celtic scholar’s bookcase!
In Irish mythology, particularly the Ulster cycle we see references to certain groupings of fairies that appear on the battlefield, although they are obscure figures. For example in this passage from the Táin Bó Cuiligne: “Crothais a scíath & cressaigis a slega & bertnaigis a chlaidem, & dobert rém curad asa bragit, co ro recratar bánanaig & boccanaig & geniti glinni & demna aeoír re úathgráin na…
One figure form Irish mythology that doesn’t tend to get as much attention in modern paganism is the Fenian hero Oisín, son of Fionn Mac Cumhail. Oisín falls into the grey area that many of the characters in the non-Mythic cycles may fall into, where he is not obviously a God but he is clearly not exactly a mortal man either. His mother was a woman of the sí and his father the larger-than-life…
Discussing the Álfar is complicated because they appear in mythology as both one cohesive grouping and subdivided into more specific groupings. Often in Norse myth we simply see references to the Álfar, often paired with but distinct from the Aesir, giving us phrases like in the Voluspo “How fare the Aesir? How fare the Álfar?” and this one from the Lokasenna “From the Gods and elves who are…