An Irish Fairy Tale.

The Horned Women.

A rich woman sat up late one night carding and preparing wool, whiles all the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly a knock was given at the door, and a voice called, "Open! Open!"

"Who is there?" said the woman of the house.

"I am the Witch of one Horn," was answered.

The mistress, who was a little hard of hearing and supposing that one of her neighbours had called and required assistance, opened the door, a woman entered, having in her hand a pair of wool-carders, and bearing a horn on her forehead, as if growing there. She sat down by the fire in silence, and began to card the wool with violent haste. Suddenly she paused, and said aloud: "Where are the women? They delay too long."

Then a second knock came to the door, and a voice called as before, "Open! Open!"

The mistress felt herself obliged to rise and open to the call, and immediately a second witch entered, having two horns on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel for spinning wool.

"Give me place," she said; "I am the Witch of the two horns," and she began to spin as quick as lightning.

And so the knocks went on, and the call was heard, and the witches entered, until at last twelve women sat round the fire—the first with one horn, the last with twelve horns.

And they carded the thread, and turned their spinning wheels, and wound and wove, all singing together an ancient rhyme, but no word did they speak to the mistress of the house. Strange to hear, and frightful to look upon, were these twelve women, with their horns and their wheels and the mistress felt near to death, and she tried to rise that she might call for help, but she could not move, nor could she utter a word or a cry, for the spell of the witches was upon her.

Then one of them called to her in Irish, and said, Méadú, bhean, agus cuirfidh muid cáca ("Rise, woman, and make us a cake.")

Then the mistress searched for a vessel to bring water from the well that she might mix the meal and make the cake, but she could find none.

And they said to her, "Take a sieve and bring water in it."

And she took the sieve and went to the well; but the water poured from it, and she could fetch none for the cake, and she sat down by the well and wept.

Then a voice came by her and said, "Take yellow clay and moss, and bind them together, and plaster the sieve so that it will hold."

This she did, and the sieve held the water for the cake and the voice said again:

"Return, and when thou comest to the north angle of the house, cry aloud three times and say, 'The mountain of the Fenian women and the sky over it is all on fire.' "

And she did so.

When the witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry broke from their lips, and they rushed forth with wild lamentations and shrieks, and fled away to Slievenamon, where their chief abode was. But the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress of the house to enter and prepare her home against the enchantments of the witches if they returned again.

And first, to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which she had washed her child's feet, the feet-water, outside the door on the threshold; secondly, she took the cake which in her absence the witches had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn from the sleeping family, and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a bit in the mouth of each sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the cloth they had woven, and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock; and lastly, she secured the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the jambs, so that the witches could not enter, and having done these things she waited.

Not long were the witches in coming back, and they raged and called for vengeance.

"Open! Open!" they screamed; "open, feet-water!"

"I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my path is down to the Lough."

"Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.

"I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I have no power to move."

"Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they cried again.

"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children."

Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back to Slievenamon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who had wished their ruin; but the woman and the house were left in peace, and a mantle (a cloak) dropped by one of the witches in her flight was kept hung up by the mistress in memory of that night; and this mantle was kept by the same family from generation to generation for five hundred years after.

The Wood Carver

WIllie the Wood Spirit loved to play,
He'd dance and sing and run all day.
He'd teach the newborn birds to sing,
And mend a robin's broken wing.

'Till one day, while running thru woods,
An evil spirit, before him stood.
He cast a spell to make Willie sleep,
And placed him inside a tree to keep.

There he stayed for many a year,
Until one day, what did he hear?
A chopping sound, some scrapes, some cuts,
Poor little Willie thought he'd gone nuts.

But the sound grew louder, it was getting close,
And before he knew it, he could wiggle his nose.
And soon he felt the wind on his cheek,
Dare he open his eyes and take a peek?

He summoned his courage and opened one eye,
Looked all around and up to the sky.
When what did he see when he gazed up above?
A man with a chisel, a hat and a glove.

A man with a wonderful look in his eyes,
A man who listened and heard Willie's cries.
And set Willie free from his prison of timber,
That carver of wood, he will always remember.


Image is a tree carving by Clyde Daugherty his work can be seen at: www.clydedaugherty.com

Corn Dollies.

History of the Corn Dolly

Before Christianity took hold in Ireland (and even afterwards) within the traditional pagan agricultural culture it was believed that the spirit of the corn lived amongst the crop, and that when the crop was harvested it was made effectively homeless.

The people believed a spirit lived in the field and as they cut the harvest the spirit retreated before them. The last bunch of corn was kept and given to the oldest man to plait and keep it on the wall until the following year's crop was sewn when the spirit would be returned to the field by being shaken from last year’s corn bunch.

In Ireland, the final sheaf was gathered with great ceremony, celebrating the living things that might be living within it. If you think about it, that makes sense, a cornfield is a perfect nesting place for small animals, such as rabbits, mice, birds, or frogs. As the reaper’s harvested the crop, the animals within fled, until there was only one sheaf left. Since the animal was more often than not a small, very frightened hare, the phrase "putting the hare out of the corn" came to mean the end of the reaping.

James Frazer devotes chapters in The Golden Bough to "Corn-Mother and Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe" (chs. 45-48). Among the customs attached to the last sheaf of the harvest were hollow shapes fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crops. The corn spirit would then spend the winter in this home until the "corn dolly" was ploughed into the first furrow of the new season. "Dolly" may be a corruption of "idol" or may have come directly from the Greek word eidolon, which means ghost/spirit or image.

An odd tradition in some areas was the use of the final sheaf to find the corpse of a drowning victim. The sheaf was placed in the water with a lit candle upon it, near where the person was believed to have fallen in. The sheaf drifted, and it was believed that it would come to rest where the body was submerged. It was thought that only the final sheaf had the magical ability to find these lost souls.

Regardless of how it was used, the cutting of the final sheaf meant that the grain harvest was over. Now bread baking could begin, and food stored away for the coming winter months.

Corn Dolly making is an ancient craft going back thousands of years, when as previously stated, it was thought that a spirit lived in the cornfields. To preserve this spirit at harvest time, and ensure the success of next year's harvest, a corn dolly was made for it to rest in. Ivy was a symbol of rebirth, and so it wasn't uncommon to dress the corn doll with a headdress of ivy.

The Corn Dolly was originally made to appease the corn spirit with the hope of a good harvest the following year. Traces of corn dolly shapes have been found dating back to 2000 B.C. and it has always been the tradition to plough the previous year’s dolly back into the field the following year.

A little known fact is that amongst the other skills that the Dagda has been associated with is carpentry. Very little lore remains about this skill from the old days. However, among the things that do survive is the custom of the carpenter placing corn dollies in the eves of a new building. Nowadays, the Corn Dolly is a decorative symbol of peace and prosperity and can be found in rural homes throughout the year.

A Vision of Love.

A Vision of Love.

Once I visited a magical wood
With a deep sense of peacefulness there I stood
I felt natures touch in that spiritual grove
And I knew in that touch there was love.

The spirit of love gently entered my soul
And flowed to my heart and made me feel whole
As I stood in the glow of that spiritual grove
And I knew in that glow there was love.

A vision appeared as I stood there alone
A group of people, a circle of stone
I knew then the truth of that spiritual grove
And I knew in that grove there was love.


© Antoine O'Lochlainn. (Ciúnas) 2010

Lughnasadh August 7th 2010.

Location = Lungna's Well

A group of us from The Family of Rowan celebrated Lughnasadh this year at Lugna's well in County Offaly. A monastery was founded here by St. Lugna in the sixth century, situated at the junction between two ancient roads, the Slighe Mór and the Slighe Dála which were two of the great roads in medieval Ireland.

The placename Leitir Lugna means the ‘ wet hillside of Lugna’ which aptly describes the setting for this monastery. The feast day of St Lugna was on April 27th.

All that survives today are the remains of a medieval parish church, the recently restored St. Lugna’s holy well and the outline of the monastic enclosure in the fields to the north and east of the church.

An Early Christian cross-inscribed slab, a medieval human head and an ox head all of which came from Letter church can now be seen in the west gable of the Catholic church in Cadamstown village.

The remains of a barrel vaulted priests chamber are all that survives of Letter church. This was the residence of Conchobhar Ó hÓgáin who in 1473 was accused of both neglecting and selling ‘the precious moveable goods’ of the church and was also accused of keeping a concubine in the ‘priests house’ with whom he later fathered a son. Nice to think there is a bit if consistency within the church to this very day.

T|he Well is still used by people who consider it to hold the cure for warts and other ailments. There is a lovely feeling of peace here. We opened a circle and performed our ritual which included an element of fun as this is the time of 'The Games of Lugh'.

We finished by thanking the spirits of the place and closing the circle. The celebrations carried on with our traditional feast and a good time was had by all in attendance.

Although some members were absent for a variety of reasons we remembered all in our thoughts and look forward to the Autumn Equinox.

The Clann

The Clann.

FAMILY - the extended family ('fine' or 'clann') was the basic social unit, consisting of several generations of descendants from one ancestor. When several families settled in a particular territory they formed a 'tuath', ruled over by a chieftain or a petty king. There were some 150 tuatha, or kingdoms, in ancient Ireland.

The family group, or Clann, formed the very foundation of Brehon law. Each Clann group was responsible for the actions of each of its members. Yet it went beyond this, because responsibility aside, one never turned their back on family or another member of the family. Family stuck beside one another regardless of differences. The only exception to this was when the family name had been dishonoured. For a family to turn its back on one of its own required much more than the petty disagreements which bust families apart in the modern era.

Kinship and lineage provided a real tangible link to the area where one lived. Kinship insured rights to build a home on and use in other ways the land of the Clann. Belonging to a family also insured inheritance, legal protection, the right to follow a particular craft as well as many other benefits.

The family unit played an important role in the education of the young. It provided a stable setting for the transmission of cultural knowledge. In the Gaelic oral tradition, grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents and foster parents passed on their knowledge, whether it was a story a song or a skill. The family also once functioned as an integrated economic unit in which all its members engaged in various work tasks according to age, experience and aptitude.

Within the Gaelic home, not all children remained with their parents. It was quite common to find that children had been sent to be educated in a trade and also reared in the home of another family. In Ireland fosterage was still an active custom as late as the eighteenth century. The special circumstances of the fosterage relationship allowed for very tight bonds to be established between families. In the modern Gaelic tribe we still foster, but the norm is only for some period within the summer holiday’s from school.

Unfortunately in modern Ireland the strength of a close family and the role of the individual within the family are losing its importance. The support structure that was offered by the clann is now no longer the norm. The older members are now placed in homes because people are too busy holding down one or two jobs each in order to finance their consumer lifestyle. Less able members of the clann are now looked upon as non- productive units and academic achievement is sacrosanct.

If I was to draw a graph of the rise in depression and suicide, of homelessness and despair and overlay it onto a graph showing the rise in disposable income and the increase in a materialistic society would there be a close parallel? In the days of the close knit tribe/clann every member had a job to do, whether it was tending the fire, looking after the children or hunting. When a person did not do that job it was noticed and commented on. You looked after each other because each person had an importance within the group.

We could all learn something from that today. Society is made up of a collection of family groups, clans and individuals and is only as strong as its weakest link. When we start considering a person as either a productive or non-productive unit we lose what it means to be civilised.

Paganism.

Paganism.

Pagans honour the Divine in all its aspects, whether male or female, as parts of the sacred whole. To a Pagan every man and woman is a beautiful and unique being. Children are loved and honoured and there is a strong sense of community. The woods and open spaces of the land, home to wild animals and birds, are cherished. Paganism stresses personal spiritual experience, and Pagans often find that experience through their relationship with the natural world that they love. We seek spiritual union with Divinity by attuning with the tides of Nature and by exploring our inner selves, seeing each reflected in the other.

We believe that we should meet the Divine face to face, within our own experience, rather than through an intermediary. Although some paths do have leaders and teachers, these people act as facilitators, using their own wisdom and experience to help guide those in their care towards discovering their own sense and interpretation of the Divine. Our rites help us harmonise with the natural cycles, and so they are often held at the turning points of the seasons, at the phases of the moon and sun, and at times of transition in our lives.

From other faiths and from society generally, we ask only tolerance. A Pagan is a person who believes that everything has a soul or spirit. This is called Animism, and all Pagan religions share this belief. Rivers, animals, rocks, trees, land are all filled with their own unique spirits for people who are Pagans. Christians believe that only humans have souls or spirits, Pagans see the divine spirit in all life. Pagans try to live in harmony with the Earth and raise their children to honour the ways of Nature.

Pagans strive to strengthen their understanding of this miracle called Life. Pagans go to school, go to work, pay taxes, clean house, garden, raise kids, make art, watch TV, do not watch TV, eat at McDonalds, do not eat at McDonalds and love or hate computers, just like everyone else. Pagans are just people who have a different religion, a Nature Religion that teaches them to honour all life. Pagans honour their Goddesses and Gods with the same faith that non-pagans have their own religions.

Pagans do not worship the Devil or Satan. Pagans do not believe in the Devil, he is part of the Judeo-Christian Religions and mythology. Most Devil worshipping groups are not Pagan, because they are centred on a Judeo-Christian supernatural being, namely Satan. These Devil Worshippers are a sect of Christianity, even though Christianity does not want to claim them.

The recognition of the divine in nature is at the heart of Pagan belief. Pagans are deeply aware of the natural world and see the power of the divine in the ongoing cycle of life and death. Most Pagans are eco-friendly, seeking to live in a way that minimises harm to the natural environment.

Pagans worship the divine in many different forms, through feminine as well as masculine imagery and also as without gender. The most important and widely recognised of these are the God and Goddess (or pantheons of God and Goddesses) whose annual cycle of procreation, giving birth and dying defines the Pagan year. Paganism strongly emphasises equality of the sexes. Women play a prominent role in the modern Pagan movement, and Goddess worship features in most Pagan ceremonies.

Paganism is not based on doctrine or liturgy. Many pagans believe 'if it harms none, do what you will'. Following this code, Pagan theology is based primarily on experience, with the aim of Pagan ritual being to make contact with the divine in the world that surrounds them.

Lastly you may be asking yourself “How do I become a Pagan”. My answer would be:

Don't be so desperate for a label. Educate yourself about the things that interest you and follow your heart, it will take you where you need to be. Education will serve you better than putting yourself in a "pagan" box. Sit outside in woodland or on a riverbank, somewhere you can listen to nature. Close your eyes and relax, listen, feel, smell.

Listen to your inner spirit, the answer will come. When you feel ready find someone who can act as a guide. There are many paths to choose from. Your path will become visible to you when the time is right.