Excerpt from Pagan Portals Odin

Today's blog is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Pagan Portals Odin, which will be released in March 2018

artwork by Ashley Bryner

Powers and Associations

Odin, like any deity, can and will influence whatever he chooses to but there are particular areas that he is especially associated with. I might not go so far as to say that he is the god of these things in the traditional sense², but they are certainly things that he seems to have an especially keen interest in or knowledge of.

Poetry – Odin is known as the god of poets and poetry, although he is not the only one. It is Odin who possesses the mead of poetry, Odreorir, which gives inspiration, and Odin himself is known to inspire those who he chooses to. His direct inspiration is the sort that is rooted in the meaning of his name ‘frenzy’ and perhaps should best be understood in that context. He inspires through passion, both the obviously good sort that motivates the creation of epic writing and songs as well as the kind that drives warriors to rush headlong into battle.

Madness and Ecstasy – Odin is a God whose very name is rooted in the Old Norse word óðr ‘furious’ and Adam of Bremen said of him, “Woden id est furor” [Woden, that is madness] (Simek, 1993; translation Daimler, 2017). As with his aspect as a God of poets Odin’s power as God of madness is rooted in his ability to inspire, in this case inspiring fury and frenzy. We see this in particular in the way he inspirers the Berserkers to battle-frenzy where they feel no pain and fight relentlessly. Simek suggest that ecstasy may have played a vital role in Odin’s cults during the Heathen period (Simek, 1993). Kershaw posits that this madness was directly related to divine possession and ecstasy, and connects it to a type of inspiration (Kershaw, 2000).

Battle – Odin is a god of battle who can influence every aspect of battle from inspiring or stirring up wars, to encouraging warriors to fight to their utmost, to choosing who gains victory and who dies. Ynglinga Saga relates that Odin brought war to the world, and we are told that at the beginning of a fight a spear would be cast over the opposing army to dedicate it as a sacrifice to Odin (Simek, 1993). In a story in the Eddas where Freya obtains a magical necklace named Brisgingamen, Odin has Loki steal the necklace and will only return it if Freya causes two kings to go to war with each other (Crossley-Holland, 1981). Odin was also the one who could give or withhold victory depending on who he favored, and those who lost or were killed in battle were seen as having lost Odin’s favor. In the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, after King Hrolf and his men refuse a gift offered them by Odin in disguise and figure out it was in fact Odin offering it, one of the men comments, “I suspect that we have not behaved very wisely in rejecting what we should have accepted. We may have denied ourselves victory.” (Byock, 1998, p69). During wars sacrifices were made to Odin for victory, both by pouring out drink and offering blood (Tourville-Petre, 1964).

The Dead – Odin’s connection to the dead is a complex one. There is some suggestion that the main colors associated with him, particularly dark blue and blár, were colors of death that were symbolic of corpses (Gundarsson, 2006). His hall in Asgard was home to some of the dead, especially the heroic battle dead called Einherjar, and several of his by-names relate to the dead. Besides being associated with the battle dead though he was also connected to those who died by hanging, and some of his other names refer to this, making him a god of the gallows. Additionally we see him seeking out the dead, as will be discussed in the section on prophecy, in order to obtain information on future events, showing that he had the power and knowledge to call the dead forth from their burial mounds and communicate with them in Helhiem.

Magic – Odin is associated with several types of magic, most notably runic magic and seidhr, both of which we’ll discuss in greater depth in a later chapter. In the Havamal Odin discusses the various magical uses for runes that he knows and in Baldrs Draumar Odin is called the father of magic chants (Simek, 1993). We may also see an echo of his magical powers in his ability to shapeshift, as Odin is known to take multiple human disguises as well as the form of an eagle.

Wisdom – Odin as a God of wisdom could also be described as a God of cunning, because he is associated with both knowledge for its own sake and with the clever use of it. It should be kept in mind that his pursuit of wisdom is ruthless, to the point that he hangs on the World Tree without sustenance for nine days to find the runes and gives an eye for a drink from Mimir’s Well. Odin does not just passively collect this knowledge either but rather uses what he gains, such as the knowledge of runes for magic, and the information in prophecies to affect the future. And no matter how much he knows he continues to seek more knowledge, trying to see whatever it might be in creation that he does not know (Bauschatz, 1982).

Prophecy – Odin has strong connections to prophecy, both as a deity who sees the future himself and as a God who is known in the stories to seek out those who can see the future to tell him what will come to pass. From his throne, Hlidskjalf, it is said that he can see all things, and we know that to obtain the prophecy about Ragnarok he traveled to the boundary of Helheim to speak to a dead Seeress. The practice of prophecy itself in a modern context is one that is strongly associated with him.

2 By this I mean that people tend to understand Gods as ‘the God of X’ and then pigeonhole the deity into that role. However that approach doesn’t work especially well with the Norse pantheon (or several other pantheons for that matter) because they have a flexibility to them in what they can and will do. There is a great deal of cross-over between the different Gods, and overlap, in who is the God of what, so that we see Odin as a God who foresees the future but we see Frigga doing this as well. Odin is a God of warriors, especially berserkers, but Thor is also a God of warriors, although perhaps of a different sort. In this way there is no true specialization in the Norse pantheon, only those who favor certain perviews over others. 

References:

Bauschatz, P., (1982). The Well and the Tree

Byock, J., (1998) The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki

Gundarsson, K., (2006). Our Troth, volume 1 

Kershaw, K., (2000). The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Mannerbunde

Simek, R., (1993). Dictionary of Nothern Mythology

Tourville-Petre, G., (1964) Myth and Religion of the North

The Good Witch: Redefining Witches on TV and Defining the Witch I Want To Be

"The first step in a new direction doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a step."
- Cassie Nightingale, 'The Good Witch'

As you might imagine if you've read my blog for any length of time, I'm not generally a Hallmark Channel sort of person. More like SyFy Channel or Chiller. There is one big exception to that however in the form of The Good Witch. For those unfamiliar, The Good Witch started as a 2008 made-for-tv movie, followed by a sequel, then additional movies each consecutive year through 2014, and starting in 2015 a television series that is  now going into its third season. If you like it it's a rather addictive thing to watch. I've been known to marathon the movies with my children. They won't be to everyone's taste, they are after all Hallmark Channel fair, saccharine sweet at times and melodramatic. But they are also I think a type of modern myth, subtly interwoven with magic in ways that don't so much ask us to suspend our disbelief as get us to forget we ever didn't believe that this kind of every day magic was possible. They also offer us a new vision of television witches that retains the mystery and functional magic but loses the supernatural.

The movies are based around the life of Cassie Nightingale, a woman with some serious magic although she's never explicitly identified as either a pagan or a witch (despite the title of the movies). It's an endless open ended question whether Cassie really is a witch, but its heavily implied that she is: she owns a store named Bell, Book, and Candle* that sells exactly the sorts of things any self-respecting witchy store would sell, from crystals to tinctures made by Cassie, from sage to occult(ish) jewelry; when people come to her for magical spells she never disappoints although she never exactly responds as you'd expect either; and of course she owns a supposedly haunted house and talks to animals and plants. She also has an uncanny knowledge of things, an ability to mysteriously appear, and owns a black cat named Isis. So its not hard to picture her as a witch, whether she calls herself that or not (and the title of the movies and show doesn't hurt either). But the most enchanting thing about Cassie is that she not only believes in the goodness of people but she has a way of bringing it out in them if it can be brought out. When there's a bad guy that needs to be dealt with Cassie's brand of subtle magic is still effective and more she has a way of letting events play out so that the antagonist orchestrates their own downfall. But that's rarely the outcome and that's one of the reasons I really like this show - because it demonstrates to us that the 'bad guys' are just people too, maybe people making bad choices, or people with difficult situations of their own, but usually in the end we see them as human beings who had reasons for what they were doing. And Cassie somehow finds ways to help them too if she can.

The television series is a bit different. It divides its focus between Cassie and her teenage daughter Grace, and to a lesser degree Cassie's cousin Abigail. They provide three views on magic, using it, having it, living with it. Cassie is much like she is in the movies of course, although we see her doing less of her actual magic, subtle as it was, and more of her intuitive knowing and helping people with that. Grace shares her mother's intuitive gift but struggles with it and the desire to be normal and fit in at school. And Abigail is the magical loose cannon who has power and uses it to her own advantage, rather than for others. Seeing all three is a great way to see, in action, the way that the different approaches play out in their lives without the show being overly or overtly preachy about it. They aren't perfect, they make mistakes, but the things they deal with are the same things we all deal with and their magic seems both plausible and natural.

In a way Cassie, Grace, and Abigail show how far we as witches have come on television. These witches aren't caricatures or supernatural beings, not witches in the school of Bewitched or Charmed, or even of the classic Bell, Book ,and Candle, with the idea of separation from humans and impossible magic, doomed in a way to always suffer for their power and to never really have a place in our world unless they give some part of that power up. Here we see witches as normal members of society, a business owner, an employee, a high school student, dealing with the same life problems everyone else has, from being bullied to needing to find a plumber. But the magic remains. The enchantment is still there. Not as a twitch of the nose or flick of the hand but as a focusing of the mind and setting of intentions. And I love that.

I really like Cassie's character in particular and I always have. If you asked me what it was that hooked me from the first movie and kept me hooked through the following 6 movies, tv special, and two seasons of the show, I would unequivocally answer that it was Cassie Nightingale. I think in a way Cassie is an expression of the ideal witch to me; she isn't afraid to use magic, often and powerfully, but she uses it wisely; she helps others; she is humble; she is kind and strong; and she sees the value in all the life around her, plants, animals, people, places. She brings out the best in everyone around her. She generally doesn't interfere in things that need to be left alone to play out on their own, but she always knows just when and where to step in. And somehow no matter what's going on she always sees the bigger pattern, like the World card in the tarot, and she always finds some silver lining to any situation she's dealing with. She's positive without being unrealistic, nurturing without being smothering, wise without being arrogant, enchanting without being fantastical. Cassie is a television witch for a modern age, but she is also the ideal of what we all could be.

I have no delusion that I am like Cassie. I think in practice I'm probably more like her cousin Abigail, and I'm honest enough to admit it. My witchcraft is fairy-ridden, gritty, muddy, moon-dark, smokey, and thorn-sharp; I'm probably more than a bit of those things myself on a good day. But I want to be more like Cassie, I really do. I deeply admire everything about her that I discussed before, from her boundless optimism and ability to see the good in any situation to her quiet wisdom and gentle way of transforming people into their best selves. And so I strive to be more Cassie-like, whether I succeed or fail at it. I hold her up as my ideal witch role model. And the beauty of The Good Witch and of Cassie herself is that she makes it feel possible to make that kind of magic and to be that kind of person. She makes it seem possible for us all to be like her in small ways and little steps.

I've always been a sucker for witchy themed movies and shows. I loved Practical Magic and The Craft. I have the entire series of Charmed on DVD. They are fiction, of course, and silly and sometimes wildly unrealistic, but I still love them. The Good Witch is different. Its different because its made to be something that could be real, rather than something where the supernatural is raising-the-dead, fighting demons fantasy. Cassie's magic always feels possible. Cassie's way with people feels natural. This is a story that seems like it could happen instead of something that belongs in the pages of a novel. I love it for that. And I love Cassie for inspiring me to want to be more like her, even if I'll always have a little Abigail and shenanigans going on.

Original pencil sketch M Daimler

*Bell, Book, and Candle is the name of a 1958 movie staring Kim Novak about witches in New York. One of the main plot points is that if a witch loves a mortal she loses her power forever.

Cáca Síofra - a Recipe from a Dream

Dreams - aislingí - are sometimes a way that I receive communication from spirits and the Good People, as are other more controlled means like journeywork. This would fall into the realm of what's usually called 'upg' or unverified personal gnosis in modern paganism. I have found a lot of value in the lessons and messages I get this way, but generally I find these things are too personal too share. Not always though. What follows is something I was explicitly told to share, for anyone else who might want to use it as well. 

I had a dream last night and in the dream I was shown how to make little offering cakes for the Daoine Eile. In the dream I was shown how to make them for the most part and the only thing I was told in words was the oat flour and the name of the cakes, so I'm guessing on the temperature and timing. If you try making them keep that in mind and adjust as necessary. Also I don't bake (or cook particularly well) so bare with my terrible attempt to convey how to do this from what I saw in the dream. They didn't look like modern cakes but were more dense and flat.

Cáca Síofra

3 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup oat flour

Stir up eggs until blended then add in honey, then slowly add flour. Pour into buttered or greased cake pan or divide into several smaller ramekins*. Cook at about 350 degrees F (176 C) for about 35 - 40 minutes for cake, 30 minutes for larger ramekin, 20 minutes for smaller. Take out of oven when the center seem done. Drizzle more honey on the top when cooled.

I'd mentioned this on my social media this morning and several people who actually can cook have suggested cooking them on a griddle like pancakes. I'm tried both ways, and am reporting the results below.

I tried them as griddle cakes and as little cakes in 2 sizes of ramekins. The batter is slightly thinner than a box cake mix (which is my usual go-to for baking) and seems runny but it cooks well. 
On the griddle they need to be cooked at a lower temp than normal pancakes would or they burn. I found that a medium low worked well after some experimenting.They cook very quickly.

In really small ramekins they only need 20 minutes in the oven at 350. In the slightly larger size (which was the size I saw in the dream) it was 30 minutes.

After cooking them I tried some to make sure they were fit to offer. Without honey they are ridiculously delicious. With honey on top they are too sweet for me, but that was how I saw them so that was how I made them to offer. Obviously my preference isn't the issue for offering cakes, but I did verify that they are edible, and in fact really good. They are also nice and simple to prepare, although they take a lot of honey. 

I'll be making these for offerings to the Daoine Eile on holy days from now on I think.


*I didn't know what these were, but I was looking for smaller cake pans and stumbled across them in the grocery store and they were the closest in size to what I had seen. I should also add here that I wouldn't recommend cooking these on or in anything made of iron. 

Saint Patrick, Druids, and Snakes

This is a revised, updated edition of a blog I wrote 5 years ago now with added Jocelin of Furness.

One thing that modern paganism struggles with is history, both its context and accuracy. Many things that are taken as fact in paganism today are not actually supported by historic material, and many things that are believed to be ancient are really modern. This isn't always a judgment on these things, but it points to the ease with which inaccurate information can be proliferated and believed, especially when it has emotional appeal. One prime example of this within the Celtic pagan community is the idea that saint Patrick was some sort of genocidal maniac who slaughtered Druids and that the snakes he drove out in his stories were a metaphor for Druids. So let's take a look at the actual history. 

The historic saint Patrick was not actually Irish by birth. Back somewhere around the end of the 4th century in Britain - no one knows exactly where, except that it was likely on the coast - a boy was born to a wealthy Roman official named Calpurius (Awesome Stories, 2012). He was born into a Christian family but according to his later writings he didn't consider himself especially devout. When he was 16 he was kidnapped, along with many other people from his father's household, and taken into slavery in Ireland where he was made a shepherd (Saint Patrick, nd). Among the hills and sheep he found solace in his father's religion, before eventually escaping after 6 years and making his way, eventually, back to Britain where he joined the church (Awesome Stories, 2012). At some point he took the name Particius, later anglicized to Patrick, and decided that he had a calling from his God to return to Ireland to preach to the people there (Awesome Stories, 2012). 

Unlike the common belief though, Patrick wasn't the first Bishop in Ireland - there were several previous bishops including Palladius who was sent by the Pope in 429 (O hOgain, 1999). At this point in the early 5th century Ireland already had a small but settled Christian population complete with churches, monasteries, priests and bishops (O hOgain, 1999). What distinguished Patrick was that unlike the other Irish priests and bishops he did feel that evangelizing was important. Patrick returned to Ireland and traveled around trying to establish himself. He claims to have had some success and baptized "thousands" of people, although it is impossible to confirm or deny these claims. He also had many difficulties including, apparently, being accused of accepting money for baptisms as well taking other bribes and being beaten and robbed and repeatedly threatened with death (Saint Patrick, nd). Unlike the other Irish Christians of the time Patrick was an evangelist and did seek to convert people, but in his 30 years of ministry in Ireland he did not seem to have had any stunning success; probably because the Irish did not seem overly concerned with or threatened by Christianity and may have initially just incorporated it along with their pagan beliefs (Da Silva, 2009). After Patrick's death, most likely on March 17th 461, very little was written about him for several hundred years. The reality is, despite the later hype, he fell into relative obscurity. 

     Ireland remained pagan for at least another 200 years before the population became mostly Christian, and that was when the tale of Patrick really took off. In the 7th century, about 200 years after Patrick died, his hagiography was written, the Life of Saint Patrick by Muirchu maccu Mactheni, and the Patrick of Muirchu's story was very different than the historical Patrick. The historic Patrick and the Patrick of Miurchu's writing were so different in fact that modern scholars now differentiate between the two (Da Silva, 2009). Muirchu's Patrick was a bold, vindictive, confrontational, wonder-worker who preformed miracles and was said to have destroyed the Druids in Ireland (O hOgain, 1999). This mythic Patrick - unlike the humble historical Patrick who authored the Confessio - lost no opportunity to curse those who defied him or kill those who opposed him. In one of the stories in the Life of Saint Patrick, for example, the saint uses his God's "power" to crush a Druid's skull and calls an earthquake to kill many others (Da Silva, 2009). In another tale Patrick was said to have turned himself and his entire retinue into deer to escape pursuit. It should be pretty obvious that this is pure invention, something to appeal to a 7th century audience looking to hear about wonders and drama on par with the other Irish myths but not anything relating to actual events. In fact some scholars have pointed out that had Patrick actually gone in and tried to convert by the sword he would have ended up martyred for his trouble. To quote the excellent article by  Da Silva "It is clear that the pagan Irish would not have tolerated the behavior of the mythical Saint Patrick. There was no way Patrick could use coercion or the threat of force as part of his strategy to convert the pagans. E. A. Thompson writes that "the pagans were far too powerful and menacing . . . . And he was doubtlessly aware that if he gave any sign of trying to impose his views on the Irish pagans against their will, his mission would come to an abrupt and bloody end" (90)." (Da Silva, 2009). 
  
In the 12th century Patrick's story was written down again, this time by an English monk named Jocelin of Furness who specialized in writing hagiographies. He was known for taking existing material already written about saints and re-working it for the Anglo-Norman elite (Koch, 2005). His 'Life of Patrick' was written for several important Irish figures including the archbishop of Armagh and bishop of Down, and was typical of all of his works. It is in this book that we see for the first time the story of Patrick driving out the snakes, an idea which is strikingly similar to stories from the lives of other previous European saints particularly saint Hilare of France. As Jocelin claimed: "and by the power of his prayers he freed all these likewise from the plague of venomous reptiles. But other islands, the which had not believed at his preaching, still are cursed with the procreation of those poisonous creatures." (O'Leary, 1880). In other words Ireland doesn't have snakes because Patrick drove them out with his piety and his conversion of Ireland but since the rest of the world didn't listen to Patrick we all still have snakes. The reader should also note that according to Jocelin saint Patrick also found the staff of Jesus (yes that Jesus) while he was in Rome, and had a personal tete a tete with God himself in Jocelin's words "even as Moses" had and was assured that God would hear and answer all his prayers (O'Leary, 1880). I'll spare you the rest but let's just say it involves a lot of raising the dead - like a lot - a lot of Druids dying by Patrick's awesome prayers to God and tens of thousands of people converting. Which is my nice way of saying this is neither a trustworthy historical source nor one that shied away from Patrick slaying Druids with his mighty God-prayers, making metaphor really unnecessary. 

The point to all of this is that the Patrick we are familiar with today is mostly a mythic figure, created by a great public relations department. The historical Patrick didn't actually do very much and it wasn't until hundreds of years later, when politics in some of the churches he founded meant the need for a powerful figure, and the Church was looking to complete the conversion of the remaining pagans, that he was reinvented as the super-saint we know today. Many aspects of saint Patrick's story seem as well to involve the saint being inserted into older mythology, such as in some of the stories surrounding Lughnasa where saint Patrick takes over the role of Lugh in fighting off the forces of darkness and chaos to secure the harvest (MacNeill, 1962). This would have been a logical substitution over time as the new religion replaced the old. Beyond that I have my own idea about how a British born Roman ended up as the patron saint of Ireland, but that probably falls into the realm of a conspiracy theory so I'll leave it off this blog. 

    Why does all this matter to me? Well, for one I have always felt strongly that bad history does paganism no favors. For another thing I can't see any purpose to feeling outraged today over something that didn't even actually happen 1560 years ago, or for that matter demonizing someone who didn't actually do very much. I just don't see any point in buying into another faith's mythology in a way that creates feelings of anger and negativity in my own. I am an Irish-focused pagan and I know from studying history that both Irish paganism and Druidism went on well after Patrick, that his life as we know it today is just a fancy story made up to replace older myths, and that in the end Patrick has no more meaning to me than what I give him. Why should I give him power over my life by believing he was greater than he was? I admire his devotion to his own faith and his courage in going back to a country where he had been taken by force as a slave, but beyond that he's just another historical figure in a sea of historical figures. 

   Now on to the snakes. Another big aspect of Saint Patrick's day for pagans is the idea that the story of Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland was actually an allegory for his driving out of the Druids. This idea is pretty well integrated into media and common belief; many people repeat it and there are even modern celebrations of "All Snakes Day" in honor of the triumphant return of the modern Druids. Now,  I am all in favor of the snake as a modern symbol of Druids - plenty of wonderful symbolism there since snakes are energized by the sun and "reborn" each spring out of the earth after hibernating, eat little fluffy things, often are passed by unseen, not to mention the more obvious associations with wisdom and the historic Gaulish Druid's eggs -  and I think the idea of a modern All Snakes Day is pretty cool. The history though just isn't there for any connection either of Saint Patrick with snakes or of the story being about Druids. 

Firstly, Ireland hasn't had snakes since before the last ice age, so there never were any snakes to be driven out by anyone (National Zoo, n.d.). Second of all, and more importantly, common versions of the legend today say that he drove out the snakes and toads (toads being very rare and snakes as we've established being non-existent) (Banruadh, 2006). Jocelin's version has him driving out all the venomous reptiles (O'Leary, 1880). For people living in Ireland after Patrick this story would have been a great explanation of why those animals weren't in Ireland, because there is no reason to think the 7th century or 12th century stories were allegory. Quite frankly the rest of both of Patrick's hagiographies have him dueling Druids right and left, killing those who oppose him with callous righteousness, so why would the story suddenly get cryptic about him driving the Druids out? Every other page was proclaiming it proudly! No, this particular tidbit was always meant to be literal. The earliest reference I have found to anyone thinking the snakes meant Druids (and thanks to the friend who helped me find it) is in the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries from 1911 where someone states that he believes based on a story that because a certain place was where the Druids last stronghold was and also the place Saint Patrick drove the snakes that the snakes must represent the Druids, but it's just faulty logic (Evans Wentz, 1911). The snakes in the story were just meant to be snakes, a way to explain why Ireland has none and also to give a solid real world example of Patrick's power. 

In saint Patrick's Confessio the man himself is pretty clear that he is uncertain if he had any real effect on Ireland, although he hopes that he did. It reads as a rather humble work written by a very normal person. The later hagiographies written 200 and 700 years after he died are utterly fanciful stories that re-cast the man into the role of a superhero for the Christian faith. They have Patrick murdering Druids with prayer, raising the dead, turning himself and his people into deer, and all manner of fantastic things, including the well known driving out of the snakes and the less well known casting out of demons. Later folklore would expand on this and eventually in the 19th century draw a direct link between the literal snakes and the literal historic Druids to create a modern metaphor that has gained enormous popularity. Its important to understand though that this metaphor is an entirely modern construction and that the history is layered and tells a very different story. As modern pagans I think we do ourselves a disservice to give too much attention to the myths of another religion, created as propaganda to both put down pagan beliefs long after the conversion and for complex political reasons within the Church itself. 

References:
http://www.awesomestories.com/religion/st-patrick-of-st-patricks-day/maewyn-succat--kidnapping-victim
Saint Patrick (n.d.) Saint Patrick's Confessio http://www.cin.org/patrick.html
O'Leary, J., (1880) The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick Including the Life by Jocelin
 B. Da Silva (2009) Saint Patrick, the Irish Druids, and Ireland Conversion to Christianity https://web.archive.org/web/20160304072255/http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090727/da_silva-a.shtml
D. O hOgain (1999) the Sacred Isle
Koch, J., (2005). Celtic Culture vol 1
M. MacNeill (1962) The Festival of Lughnasa
W. Y. Evans Wentz (1911). The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries
http://branruadh.blogspot.com/2006/03/so-i-have-promised-so-i-have-done.html
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/NewsEvents/irelandsnakes.cfm

Pantheacon 2017

  If I had to guess I'd say the biggest pagan conference in America is probably Pantheacon, an event that happens each February in San Jose California. I had attended my first Pantheacon in 2015 and honestly didn't think I'd go to another since traveling to California is a bit of a challenge for me, logistically and financially, but somehow I found myself back there again this year. It will be my one big travel thing for 2017, and the only other event on my schedule is the Morrigan's Call Retreat.

Unlike my first time at this event, this time around there were some notable difference. Firstly although I once again taught a workshop in the ADF hospitality suite I was also on the main schedule with 3 presentations, and I had a book signing. Also unlike the first time I was staying in the Doubletree itself, not in one of the overflow hotels. Both of these things were rather significant changes. I was really happy (and honestly quite surprised) to have had my workshops chosen for the main schedule but teaching a total of 4 classes and having the book signing made for a busy conference. I was also staying in a hospitality suite - East Coast Pagans Hospitality Suite to be exact - and so most of the time when I wasn't teaching something I was there. In practical terms this meant that I didn't have very much time to visit other hospitality suites or get to many workshops.

I did attend one RDNA style ritual in the ADF suite which I really enjoyed. I'd never done anything in that style before and it was very interesting to see the similarities and differences in how it was structured. I've been a member of ADF since 2001 and I always like spending time with other ADF members, especially people I know online but don't see often in real life. It was fun teaching a class on the Irish Gods in their suite, and I liked the questions and discussions that followed. As I could say for many things at the conference, I wish I'd had more time to spend there.

altar for the aos sidhe

My main spiritual contribution in the East Coast Pagans suite was to maintain an altar there for the Otherworldly spirits. Usually when I travel I have some small place set aside for the deities and spirits I honor but I think because this was a space open to the public for 8 hours of the day it required something more elaborate. People were able to leave things on this one, and regular offerings of butter, fruit, and water were being made as well. I quickly made friends with the local crows disposing of the old offerings each morning.

I didn't have much time to socialize but I did find a few moments to get out to some of the other rooms nearby. I was able to visit the Heathen Hospitality suite, which I am so glad I did. I met several Troth members in person who I have only previously known online (having been a Troth member since 2006). They also had some of the best ribbons, in my opinion. Again I wish I'd had more time to spend there, particularly since I have a trip to Iceland coming up in 2018 that several people from that suite are also going on with Land Sea Sky Travel. I was also able to briefly stop into the Sisters of Avalon suite and visit with some familiar faces as well as picking up a very cool new oracle deck.

Pantheacon in general offered a chance to meet some new people, reconnect with friends, and meet people in person I'd previously only known online, which was a wonderful experience. I did find some time, eventually, to have some fun and to hang out with friends, to share stories and to create some new phrases including 'when in doubt cattle raid' and 'no fadas given', although my favorites may have come from my friend Jon of An Scealai Beag who was the source of  such quotes as 'Dagda approves'. One of the best things about the conference, I think, is that so many people attend from so many places and from so many different pagan/polytheist approaches that it allows for a lot of diversity and experiencing new viewpoints, as well as connecting to people from all sorts of different traditions and areas. And of course competitive ribbon collecting.

the beginning of the ribbon collecting

I attended one class which was taught by Lora O'Brien about Medb of Connacht which I highly recommend; Lora also offers the class online here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find it, but its there). Lora had a meet and greet/book signing afterwards and we had some time to talk so there was a bit of crossover between the class and that. I found the ideas brought up really intriguing, including the idea that Medb may have been both a name as well as a title for a priestess at Rathcroghan, and that Medb could have been active in warrior initiation rites. There's speculation in that last of course, but there is certainly a tenuous pattern of male warriors being trained in myth by female warriors* that could indicate a wider socioreligious pattern. Naturally being me I ended up getting a bit speculative about the meanings of Medb's sisters' names and why they may or may not have been fit rulers compared to her based on name etymology. That aside though it was a great class and I'm glad if I only was able to attend one in its entirety it was that one.

My own classes went well, as far as I can judge. The first was meant to be on land spirits and house spirits but ended up being a bit more on land spirits. I did one in the ADF suite, as I mentioned, on the Irish Gods. The second official Pantheacon workshop was on Macha, horses, and sovereignty in Irish culture. And finally I had one on the darker side of Fairy, which was looking at the Unseelie court , who and what they are, and how we interact with them. Turnout seemed good, the audiences were engaged and quick to ask questions, and for the most part we covered all the material I wanted to touch on.

Pantheacon is always an adventure, both the travel to get there and then the experience of being there itself. There are great workshops and diverse hospitality suites, vendors and adventures to be found. As with the first year I attended I think my favorite thing was the experience of community, of being able to spend time with friends I don't see often, or ever, and to relax and discuss everything from theology to linguistics with people who share those interests.


*examples could include Fionn and Cu Chulainn who were both trained by female experts in warfare; more widely in the Ulster cycle we see not only Cu Chulainn but also Ferdiad and Connla similarly trained by women, albeit the same one.

Looking forward at 2017

"Ata la i ndegaid aloile" [A day follows another]
- Etain, Tochmarc Etaine
2016 was in many ways a pivotal year for me, and I think at least some of that was reflected in the content of my blog. I can honestly say that nothing went exactly as I expected it to, and some things happened that I very much didn't expect, but overall I am glad for the place I am in now both with my writing and my spirituality.

 I put my blog on hiatus for the last month in order to finish a manuscript I was working on for a new book. The last blog I posted in 2016 was an excerpt from it and I decided as we moved into 2017 that I needed to focus all my attention on finishing it. I had three books contracted with my publisher, two new Pagan Portals which are by nature shorter texts (25K words each) and the full length Fairies book which I was anticipating would run between 80K and 90K. At the end of last year I was halfway done with the longer book and one of the shorter ones, and I was confident that I could get the longer one finished in a month if I focused exclusively on it.

I'm pleased to say that the Fairies book is done and currently going through copy editing with my publisher. I put everything I knew into it and I learned a lot researching it as well; I think it may be the best thing I've ever written. I still have the two Pagan Portals to write however so I'm not quite ready to hang up my keyboard just yet. I'm hoping that one of those, which I was already about halfway done with, will be completed this month. Additionally I have plans for a sixth novel in my series, although I'm not sure exactly when I'll get to that project.

Now that the longer book is done I should be returning to my regular blogging. I've been working on several translation pieces that should be ready soon so expect to see those coming up this month. I'd like to get back to doing a couple translations or more a month, ideally, and am planning to work through all the Echtrai. I've also had a lot going on in my own spiritual life that I want to share and I'd like to write about topics of interest to people who read this blog. The Fairies book took a lot out of me, more than I expected and more than any other book has before, so right now I'm just looking at what to do to re-set and begin again.

I'm also in the process of making some crucial decisions about exactly where to focus my energy and what venues to use to get my writing out to people. I have this blog of course, and have had it now since July of 2011, but I may look at restructuring or adjusting what I offer here somewhat. I have the books I write, both fiction and non-fiction. I write for Air n-Aithesc twice a year as well as occasionally having articles in other publications - for example I have something in an upcoming issue of Watkins Mind Body Spirit. I'll be speaking at Pantheacon in a few weeks and I'll be back at the Morrigan's Call Retreat again this year in June. Next year I have two sacred sites tours, one in Ireland and one in Iceland. So that's quite a lot going on really. I want to make sure I'm giving my full effort to everything I do.

Fairies and the Dead - An Excerpt from my W.I.P

The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book 'Fairies: A Guidebook to the Good People'


Fairies and the Dead

The relationship and connection between the fairies and the dead is a complex one, and likely always has been. The human dead aren't fairies, except when they are. Fairies aren't the human dead, except when they might be. The places of the dead belong to the dead, except when those places are fairy mounds, like the neolithic tumuli. Even the Slua Si, whose name means 'fairy host', are sometimes said to consists of the spirits of human dead, as in some cases does the Wild Hunt, making it hard to draw any clear lines between the groups. In a very general sense we can say that human ghosts are not the same as fairies, but fairies can include people who were once human. The key difference may be, as we shall see, how exactly the human came to join the Fey.

Kildare, Ireland

There is some old Celtic belief, recorded by the Greeks and Romans, which hints at the idea of rebirth or reincarnation, that a person born in our world was dying in the Other World and a person who died in this world was born in the Other World. This idea, perhaps, explains the reason that fairies who wed mortal men were known to cry at births and laugh at funerals. It may also explain in some way why the Irish name for the Other World, an Saol Eile, literally means 'the Other Life'. It is not just another world in the sense of being a place, but it is also another life, another type of existence.

There is some suggestion that the initial depiction around the 16th century of fairies as small beings was actually related to the connection between fairies and the dead and the belief that human souls were small in appearance when separated from the physical body (Briggs, 1976). In turn this idea may reflects a related idea, that the soul was separate from the body and could leave it at times, either temporarily or permanently. We see this in the folktales were a person is taken by the fairies but their dead body is left behind and in anecdotes where a person goes into a trancelike state while their spirit is off with the fairies. The idea that the soul can be separated from the body and once separate has a reality and substance that can even be injured is an old one seen in multiple sources (Walsh, 2002). It may be difficult for us to grasp the idea of a soul as a tangible, physical thing when our modern culture tends to prefer the idea of souls as insubstantial and ephemeral but it’s clear that the older belief gave the soul substance.

Fairy tree with rags in a cemetery, Boa Island, Ireland

Another level of entanglement is more straightforward, that is sometimes the Fairies are known to take people to join them and often these people were thought to have died. In a wide array of folklore from Ireland and Wales we see stories where a young woman is thought to die and is buried, only to be seen later among the fairies in one context or another. In at least one story it was a young man who died and was buried, only to have a fairy doctor tell his family that he was among the Other Crowd; when they attempted to retrieve him he appeared and begged to be allowed to stay with the people of the sidhe (Briggs, 1976). The Scottish witch Alison Pearson claimed a dead relative was among the fairies and that it was he who acted as her familiar spirit with them (Wilby, 2005). Getting back to the earlier point about the soul as a tangible presence we must understand that these are people with presence and physicality who were interacted with and who are clearly counted among the ranks of the fairy people.

In the book ‘Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries’ several anecdotes are related that connect the Good People directly to the dead, in both the sense of describing some fairies as being humans who have died as well as saying some of them are people who were taken and thought to have died. One person related a story about a woman who died and shortly after, before the body had been buried, her husband was visited by one of the Good People who told him she wasn’t dead but taken by the fairies; the husband then waited by the body with the door open and his wife came in to see her infant at which time he grabbed her (Evans-Wentz, 1911). After being restrained and struck with a charm he had prepared the wife returned to her body, as the story was related, which revived and she went on to live a long mortal life (Evans-Wentz, 1911). In another tale with a less pleasant ending a bride died at her wedding, only to appear to her new husband later and tell him that she was actually among the fairies and that if he went to a certain place he would see her passing by and could save her (Evans-Wentz, 1911). The husband went as she’d told him to but when he saw his bride among the fairies passing by he found himself paralyzed and unable to move to grab her; he never saw her again after that, but refused to re-marry (Evans-Wentz, 1911). The people interviewed in that section of the book, who were relating the beliefs of different areas of Ireland around the turn of the 20th century, also made it clear that there were fairies who were never human and had never been human, assigning them origins among the Fir Bolg and Tuatha De Danann, as well as saying they were fallen angels. There were also those among the human dead who could and did return as ghosts or other types of undead spirits that were not considered fairies.

The entrance to Newgrange, sometimes called Bru na Si, known as a fairy mound, home of the Gods, and a neolithic burial place

The subject of the fairies and the dead is not a simple one, but it is clear that the two groups are intertwined. There are those beings who were never human spirits and those human spirits who are not and will not be fairies. But there are also those who were once human and are now fairies because the fairies themselves added the human to their ranks. The different layers of belief make it apparent that while there was crossover between fairies and the dead there was also distinction and separation of the two groups in other ways. If one could imagine it as a Venn diagram we would see fairies as one circle, the human dead as another, and the area where the two circles overlapped – how small or large that is no one can say for certain – would represent those who fall into both groups.



References:
Briggs, K., (1976) A Dictionary of Fairies
Evans-Wentz, W., (1911). The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries
Wilby, E., (2005) Cunningfolk and Familiar Spirits
Walsh, B., (2002) The Secret Commonwealth and the Fairy Belief Complex


All text and images copyright Morgan Daimler