Monthly Archives: January 2013

A Terrible Revenge

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By the close of the 19th century in Ireland encounters with Earth and Otherworld spirits were still common occurrences, especially in western rural areas. Many writers and antiquarians were about the business of collecting these stories, W.B. Yeats and Lady Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s mother, among the more famous. Lady Wilde published some of her findings in her 1887 book Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, & Superstitions of Ireland, which clearly reflects the nature of these encounters having shifted from a relationship with to a fear of these spirit entities. One of her stories, A Terrible Revenge, is among many that give strong warning of faery revenge and begs a question Yeats might ask – which holds the greater peril, letting them in or barring the door?

cottage doorThe fairies often take a terrible revenge if they are ever slighted or offended. A whole family once came under their ban because a fairy woman had been refused admittance into the house. The eldest boy lost his sight for some time, and through he recovered the use of his eyes yet they always had a strange expression, as if he saw some terrible object in the distance that scared him. And at last the neighbours grew afraid of the family, for they had brought ill-luck wherever they went, and nothing prospered that they touched. 

Devil or Wood Spirit?

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As W.B. Yeats continued to write the stories of faery, he also continued to question the true nature of the entities and spirits of these encounters. The evolution of wood spirit or green man into the devil is a well documented development and narrative of the church. Clearly, in this story from his book Celtic Twilight, Yeats was not entirely convinced.

My old Mayo woman told me one day that something very bad had come down the road and gone into the house opposite, and though she would not say what it was, I knew quite well. Another day she told me of two friends of hers who had been made love to by one country roadwhom they believed to be the devil. One of them was standing by the road-side when he came by on horseback, and asked her to mount up behind him, and go riding. When she would not he vanished. The other was out on the road late at night waiting for her young man, when something came flapping and rolling along the road up to her feet. It had the likeness of a newspaper, and presently it flapped up into her face, and she knew by the size of it that it was the Irish Times. All of a sudden it changed into a young man, who asked her to go walking with him. She would not, and he vanished.

I know of an old man too, on the slopes of Ben Bulben, who found the devil ringing a bell under his bed, and he went off and stole the chapel bell and rang him out. It may be that this, like the others, was not the devil at all, but some poor wood spirit whose cloven feet had got him into trouble.

Faery Stories. A Power Shift.

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The nature of our relationships shapes our stories about those relationships – our stories in turn shape the nature of our relationships. When the power balance in a relationship changes the stories change and we see this played out in the shifting relationship of the Irish with faery and Otherworld realms.

Where once there was relationship with Earth and Otherworld energies and entities, the church launched a shift of dominion/power over the Earth and a shift of Otherworld powers over people. Changing the power balance changed everything, especially the stories of faery and Otherworld encounters. That people came to fear these relationships and encounters is reflected in faery stories like this one from W.B. Yeats, written in 1902.  Continue reading →

Faeries, They Stand To Reason

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Returning to Benbulben to explore the faery lore that abounds there through the words of W.B. Yeats. By the time he was gathering and writing stories of mystical encounters the evolution of Earth and Otherworld spirits to faery was well established. This is from his book Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore written in 1902, just one of many writings where we find reference to fallen angels, the church’s explanation for the Tuatha Dé Dannan, Ireland’s indigenous spiritual ancestors, who were so embedded in the Irish psyche they could not be neatly or completely demonized.

There are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go “trapsin about the earth” at their own free will; “but there are faeries,” she added, “and little leprechauns, and waterhorses, and fallen angels.” I have met also a man with a mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the mohawk Indian on his arm said to me, “they stand to reason.” 

Realms of Relevance

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A deep relationship with all things as sacred survives for the Irish in many forms. There is the realm of knowing passed down through generations, as in the stories from Inishmurray islanders. There is the realm of farey folklore, present throughout Ireland and especially potent in the Benbulben landscape. Before we wander through more stories I want to consider why any of this is important. Of what relevance for us today?

These, and other, realms are legacies of ancient wisdom. The wisdom of being in right relationship with the Earth. And we are not. Squandering and cannibalizing the Earth’s treasures we now face devastating impacts including climate change and species extinction. For the Irish global warming is not hypothetical, it’s happening to their island now and is of huge concern as the shifts in weather patterns take their toll on farming.

In her book Walking the Maze Loren Cruden wrote, what is powerful and good is still present in the land and our potentials of relationship with it, and in the capacity of consciousness to retrieve or to know what needs to be known. This, then, is the relevance. To retrieve what needs to be known through our legacy and heritage of ancestral wisdom –  understanding, embracing and manifesting the power of right relationship with the Earth.

Enduring Presence

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The everyday life of the Celts included the supernatural equally with the natural, the divine with the mundane; for them the Otherworld was as real as the tangible physical world and as everpresent.

In this quote from her book, Walking The Maze: The Enduring Presence of the Celtic Spirit, Loren Cruden beautifully articulates the lens through which our Irish ancestors viewed their world. Every day and all day they were connected to the energies of the Earth, ancestors and Otherworld spirits. As John O’Donohue wrote, The Celts had an intuitive spirituality informed by mindful and reverent attention to landscape. It was an outdoor spirituality impassioned by the erotic charge of the earth.

Although the Catholic Church made what could be argued as equally impassioned attempts to dislodge this sacred connection, they were only partially successful in their efforts to demonize and trivialize these energies and spirits through the evolution of faery folklore. The charge of the Earth is just too strong.

In O’Donohue’s words, The Celtic mind did not separate what belongs together. The dualism that separates the visible from the invisible, time from eternity, the human from the divine, was totally alien to them. The charge continued, indeed continues, to live in the Irish people through many shamanic and healer traditions.

One More Island Reflection

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A short post today. But I want to share one more story from Joe McGowan’s book, Island Voices. This one from Dan Brady about his experiences with the holy well water. Enjoy!

We had two boats, one was the St. Mary, we did a lot of herring fishing in her, and the other was the St. Anne. My father always had a bottle of holy water in the bow, the water came from Tobar na Corach. Every one on the island believed in the well. Everyone! It calmed the sea. Although the water mightn’t calm the seas right away they would be calm later, or the next day. There’s one thing the islanders would never do is make fun of anything of a religious nature. Never, ever! They were very sincere when it came to those things.

Calming Waters

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Wells have always been sacred places to the Irish and Catholic attempts to change that didn’t work, as evidenced by the numerous wells still visited for health and healing. They just became holy wells, associated with St. Brigit rather than the Goddess Brigit. Here’s an Inishmurray Island story about the Well of Assistance, also from Joe McGowan’s book.

When the islanders were in distress, a doctor or priest urgently required or food supplies exhausted, the waters of the well (Tobar na Cabhrach, the Well of Assistance) calmed the sea. The procedure was to teem the well dry and throw three cupfuls of the water against the wind … Continue reading →

Reading The Landscape

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Islanders knew how to read the landscape and work with the elements and Earth energies. Some of the best documentation for this comes from Joe McGowan’s book Inishmurray: Island Voices, based on interviews with those who had once lived on tiny Inishmurray island off the coast just north of Sligo. The old ways were alive on this and other islands in western Ireland until just over sixty years ago when it was the time of the great leaving. With populations dwindling, the young people called to war or attracted to a romanticized urban existence, it was no longer possible to sustain island life and whole communities left their heritage and homes in one communal exodus.

McGowan’s interviews and stories breathe life into those old ways as you will see in the next few posts. Let’s begin here… Continue reading →

Earth Wisdom

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The whole landscape a
manuscript
we had lost the skill to read
A part of our past disinherited…

John Montague

I considered Earth Magic as the title for this post, but for our Irish ancestors it wasn’t about magic at all. Knowing and working with the Earth elements and energies was neither magical or extraordinary, it was the way of it. It was intrinsic. The Irish people knew how to read this mystical manuscript, indeed many still do.

I watched The Last Airbender again last night. Clunky dialogue and poorly developed characters have caused the movie to be panned by critics. But I think they miss the point. The story is brilliant. Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Each a nation of people with the power of elemental relationship. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. This is the story of the return of the Avatar who alone holds the power to align the elements and the nations…and bring peace to the world.

Interesting that these elements are also fundamental to the cosmology of the African Dagara tribe which ascribes these energies to the nations in our world, the United States holding and expressing the aggressive fire energy. But I digress.

In the movie those with elemental relationship are called benders. While the Irish were more likely to use labels of Wise Woman, Shaman, or Druid, the power is the same. And the stories are amazing.