St. Patrick's Day, snakes, and Irish-American pride

  Next week is Saint Patrick's feast day in the Catholic church, which is probably an odd thing for me to blog about, but the past couple years there has been quite the controversy among some pagans about this day. This year there are anti-Saint Pat's day events and such on Facebook created by people, very sincere people, who believe Saint Patrick to be some sort of super powered anti-pagan figure that drove out the Druids of Ireland and broke the back of paganism there. The general consensus by the people who share that thought seems to be that March 17th every year should be a day of black-clad mourning for Irish paganism or a day of protest against...well, against something. Now I have absolutely no issue with the way anyone wants to spend their March 17th, I generally favor wearing black, and I certainly agree that by and large Saint Pat's day in America is a hideous neon green tourist event, however I am something of a stickler for history - as some of you may have noticed - and I don't like seeing false history becoming mainstream, nor do I like my own actions on March 17th being judged as wrong because of someone else's views, as I have been told previously that my celebrating the day is offensive and disrespectful. So the last few years I have tried, in comments here and there, to point out the history and the Truth to give people a better understanding of how things really happened so that they can move forward and decide what to do with some solid information instead of emotion. This year I am just going to cut to the chase and dedicate a whole blog to it. I am not trying to change anyone's opinion or start a fight - I am only offering the history of who Saint Patrick really was, what he really did, how he interacted with the Druids, and what the bit about the snakes was about. I'm also going to talk a little about why and how I celebrate March 17, and what it means to me.
   So let's begin with a little history. 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 named Maewyn Succat was born to a wealthy Roman official named Calpurius (Awesome Stories, 2012). Maewyn was born into a Christian family but 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 Maewyn 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 Maewyn 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 Pallidius 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 Christain population complete with churches, monasteries, priests and bishops (O hOgain, 1999). In any event Patrick returned to Ireland and traveled around trying to establish himself. He claims to have had some success and baptized "thousands" of people - of course he also had many difficulties including, apparently, being accused of accepting money for baptisms and other bribes as well as being beaten and robbed and repeatedly threatened with death (Saint Patrick, nd). Unlike the other Irish Christians of the time Patrick was an evangalist and did seek to convert people, but in his 30 years of ministry in Ireland he did not seem to have had any stunning sucess; 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.
     Ireland remained pagan for another 8 or 9 generations 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, so much so that modern scholars now differentiate between the two (Da Silva, 2009). Muirchu's Patrick was a bold, vindictive, confrontational wonder-worker who preformed mircales and was said to have destroyed the Druids in Ireland (O hOgain, 1999). This mythic Partick - 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 matryred 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).
  The point to all of this is that the Patrick we are familar with today is mostly a mythic figure, created by a great PR 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 am a Druid 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, the actual legend says that he drove out the snakes and toads (toads being very rare and snakes as we've established being non-existant) (Banruadh, 2006). 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 story was an allegory. Quite frankly the rest of Patrick's hagiography has him dueling Druids right and left, killing those who oppose him with callous righteoussnes, 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 - which is suspiciously exactly the same as a story from the life of a French saint - 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, just as the toads were toads and Saint George's dragon was a dragon.
    So why do I celebrate Saint Patrick's day? Thats' a good question, since I am certainly no Catholic. But the truth is that I have celebrated a secular version of St. Patrick's day for my entire life; in my family it was a celebration of our Irish heritage, a day when we told stories about the family, ate traditional Irish-American food and enjoyed each others company. I have been pagan since I was 11, but I never questioned the validity of celebrating my heritage with my family. Sure my heritage is what it is every day of the year, but that was one special day when the whole family celebrated together. My father and I would go out and enjoy a show together, the Wolfetones one year, the Irish Tenors several times, a wide array of different Irish step dancing groups. When I was young we would go out to dinner and after my grandmother moved up here we would go to her house and she would cook for everyone. I have so many wonderful, happy memories of all the Saint Patrick's days I've had with the people I love and that is why I celebrate it, and why I will continue to - because its a family tradition. One I hope to pass on to my own children. We're Irish-Americans every day of the year, but March 17th is the one day when we are most aware of it, of our roots, of our history. Of our traditions.
   This year my family, my husband and daughters and I, will be going to eat corned beef and cabbage at my grandmother's house. She is 94 now, but she still cooks on St. Patrick's day all the same. We'll tell stories about the family and about past celebrations, and when we get home my daughters and I will light candles on our ancestor altar in honor of the family that isn't with us physically any more. And on the 18th I will go with my oldest daughter to see Celtic Woman in concert (the first time since my dad died I've gone to a show for Saint Patrick's day, but that's a tradition that needs continuing). It may be a weird Irish-American thing to do, but it's something ingrained in the diaspora, outside of any religion.
  Now in a modern setting we have All Snakes Day as a pagan alternative to St. Pat's day; I don't generally celebrate it only because it tends to emphasize the snakes=Druids idea, although not everyone who celebrates it believes that, to be fair. Another alternative that is gaining popularity is to call it something like Irish Heritage Day becuase the emphasis of the day to Irish pagans is to celebrate that and that certainly captures the spirit of the holiday for most Americans. I rather like that one, and sometimes use it myself. Finally there has been a movement - and I'm sorry becuase I've had no luck finding any links from last year - to celebrate the 17th of March in honor of great Irish mythic heroes like Cu Chulainn. I find that idea intriguing and intend to look into it more.

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
 B. Da Silva (2009) Saint Patrick, the Irish Druids, and Ireland Conversion to Christianity http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090727/da_silva-a.shtml
D. O hOgain (1999) the Sacred Isle
M. MacNeill (1962) The Festival of Lughnasa
W. Y. evans Wentz (1911). the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ffcc/ffcc310.htm
http://branruadh.blogspot.com/2006/03/so-i-have-promised-so-i-have-done.html
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ReptilesAmphibians/NewsEvents/irelandsnakes.cfm

Hospitality in a modern world

 Hospitality is an important quality in both Celtic and Norse tradition. In both cultures, as in many other ancient cultures, hospitality to guests was seen as an important social expectation. In the Norse Havamal we see a selection of advice given in how to live honorably, including this part about hospitality:
  "134. I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
growl not at guests, nor drive them from the gate
but show thyself gentle to the poor.
135. Mighty is the bar to be moved away
for the entering in of all.
Shower thy wealth, or men shall wish thee
every ill in thy limbs."
(Bellows translation)

In the Cath Maige Tuired it is a lack of hospitality that is at the root of the second battle between the Fomorians and the Tuatha de Danann, as the lack of hospitality by the half-Fomorian King Bres eventually resulted in a rebellian by the Tuatha de Danann.
 "36. At that time, Bres held the sovereignty as it had been granted to him. There was great murmuring against him among his maternal kinsmen the Tuatha De Danann, for their knives were not greased by him. However frequently they might come, their breaths did not smell of ale; and they did not see their poets nor their bards nor their satirists nor their harpers nor their pipers nor their horn-blowers nor their jugglers nor their fools entertaining them in the household. They did not go to contests of those pre-eminent in the arts, nor did they see their warriors proving their skill at arms before the king, except for one man, Ogma the son of Lain.
39. On one occasion the poet came to the house of Bres seeking hospitality (that is, Coirpre son of Etain, the poet of the Tuatha De). he entered a narrow, black, dark little house; and there was neither fire nor furniture nor bedding in it. Three small cakes were brought to him on a little dish--and they were dry. The next day he arose, and he was not thankful. As he went across the yard he said,
"Without food quickly on a dish,
Without cow's milk on which a calf grows,
Without a man's habitation after darkness remains,
Without paying a company of storytellers--let that be Bres's condition." (Gray's transaltion)

  These are just a few examples of the way that the value of hospitality was expressed in common stories in both cultures. In the first example we see the idea that how we act as a host to our guests reflects on our reputation for good or ill. In the second we see the consequences of failing to offer hospitality when it is expected. In both cases we can see that hospitality involves generosity and openness to guests and that failing to be hospitible opens a person up to consequences of both reputation and (in the Irish) satire. It's clear from this and from other material relating to hospitality in these groups that hospitality was important and most modern pagans and reconstructionists seem to agree with the value of this. Yet how do we, as modern followers of these oder ways, create hospitality in our lives? How do we embrace a virtue of open handed giving and welcome to guests in a culture (talking about America in particular) that is often not reflective of that same value?
  This weekend my oldest daughter had a friend over for a play date. I spent a lot of the visit reminding my daughter that her guest was a guest, and was to be treated as such. When there was only one cookie left, it went to her friend. When they could not agree on a game to play I intervened and said that as the guest her friend should be allowed to choose what to do. This is how I was raised and I feel it is inline with the older values of hospitality, so it is what I want to pass on to my children; however I found out after the other child had left that this is not the usual way of things in modern society. My daughter, who is 8, informed me that when she went to other children's homes she had to do whatever they wanted to do, and was basically treated by the parents as imported entertainment for the other child. I was not happy to find this out, although it gave me an opportunity to discuss the value of being a good guest as well. Of course I also wasn't happy to find out that this child, much like another of my daughter's friends that had come over previously, attempted to steal something while she was here. The whole situation has me thinking about the subject of hospitality and how we, as modern pagans, can create a culture of hospitality - particularly for our children - in a world that is often at odds with those values.
  So far my best solution is to read the stories that I can to my children that emphasize these values and to try to show them by example what hospitality means to me. And what I would like it to mean to them. It's a complex subject, since hospitality is a balance between being a good host and a good guest, and to violate either has consequences, so conveying this to a child growing up in what amounts to a different culture with different values is challenging.
  How do you find that balance in your own life? How much value do you place on hospitality and being a good guest? And how can we, as modern pagans, re-establish this value within our own commuity? Just some food for thought....

References:
 Bellows translation of the Havamal can be found here http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/havamal.html
 Gray's translation of teh Cath Maige tuired can be foudn here http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cmt/cmteng.htm

Book Review - the Druid's Primer

   There are many books on the market that aim to introduce the seeker to the basics of Druidism, but The Druid's Primer by Luke Eastwood is perhaps the single best introduction book I have read. It's greatest strength is that it manages to present a great deal of modern Druidic material fairly and with clear references to the sources. The author has done a great deal of research into the historic material, which is also presented well and in an easily accessible manner.
   The book begins with a chapter that summerizes the historic material. This was very well done, with the material being covered thoroughly but concisely. This section touches on everything from the early Celtic period and what we have from seocndary sources such as Pliny and Caesar up to the modern era revival. Although not gone into as deeply as in other books the single chapter effectively summerizes the highlights and is more than enough to get a beginner started or serve as a basic refresher for a more experienced person.
   The next chapter tackles possibly the most complex subject in modern Druidism, defining what a Druid is. The book does an excellent job of presenting the different current theories fairly, including the possible etymologies of the word "druid" itself. The different historical sources are once again drawn upon including Irish mythology and the later Barddas, which the text acknowledges as a well known forgery but also influencial on the revivalist period. The author also discusses his own view of what a Druid does and who a Druid is, creating a fascinating and complex picture of the modern Druid.
   From here the next 7 chapters discuss: Gods & Goddesses, Myth & Legend, Elemental Forces, Cosmology, Inspiration, Imramma, and Animism & Animal Worship. Each chapter is a blend of well-researched history and modern application that manages to offer a balanced view of modern Druidism without favoring any one particular path or focus. In most cases multiple views are offered for the reader to consider with sources given so that the reader may further pursue anything of interest.
   This is followed by a section, Cycles of the Sun, Moon and Earth, that looks at the historic and modern way that Druids would honor the passing of time and holy days. The author discusses a system of lunar rituals based on Alexei Kondratiev's book the Apple Branch that could be used by modern Druids seeking to connect to the moon. This is followed by a discussion of the solar year and it's holidays, including all of the eight holidays of the modern pagan wheel of the year.
   Next is a section on tools, which looks at the tools historically attributed to the Druids. It begins by discussing clothing, rather in depth, including the colors likely worn and the Irish legal texts refering to dress and color. Sickles, wands, staffs, the Druid egg, cauldron/chalice, magical branch, musical instruments, the crane bag, and sword are discussed. The four treasures of the Tuatha de Danann are also mentioned in a modern context as tools that Druids today may choose to use, although they have no historic basis in that context.
   The final four chapters look at divination, the Ogham, medicine & healing, and justice & wisdom. Each of these was important in some way to the historic Druids and so each chapter looks at how the subject relates to historic Druidism and how these can relate to modern practice.
    Overall this book is more than worth the money and certainly the best book to begin with if one is interested in learning about the path of Druidism. It is full of the history of Druidism and also shows the wide array of modern possibilities that are open to new seekers. For more experienced Druids this book will serve as a great refresher or reference.

Book review - Witta

You would think that when a horribly inaccurate book goes out of print that eventually it would just fade into obscurity...yet in the last week I have heard several different groups as well as people talking about Edain McCoy and her book Witta, which may be the single worst book on Irish paganism ever written. Ever. So I have decided to write a blog book review of it - although I will only be able to touch on the highlights of the errors in the book, as to address every single issue would take almost another book's worth of writing to do.

 The cover of the book itself should be the first clue that something is wrong, since dancing the Maypole is not an Irish tradition but rather an English one. Also the name itself, Witta, is not an Irish word and furthermore could not possibly be an Irish word because it defies Irish grammar rules on several fronts. And unlike McCoy's claims in the book this made up word has no connection to the Irish words for witch (cailleach or draiodoir mna) or wise (crionna). So just looking at the cover we see big red flags...
   Now moving on to the actual text, we encounter the first problem on the second page of the introduction where the author comments on the difficulty of reconstructing a faith that as she says "was forced underground and kept alive by small, secretive pockets of believers". This plays into the idea that paganism became the hidden faith that survived to modern times and is just waiting to be found by dedicated seekers - Margaret Murray would have loved this, but the reality is that this idea has been pretty well disproven. Traces of pagan belief and practice have survived as folk belief, and revivals began several hundred years ago with the upsurge in interest in the occult and paganism but there is no unbroken pagan line from the pre-Christian past until now.
  Next, also in the introduction, the author explains her passionate dislike of the Patriarchy - readers of the book may want to make a note of this, because you'll be seeing the word a lot as well as the author's opinion about how it ruined everything. Because apparently Irish Celts had a perfectly wonderful, peaceful, Great Mother Goddess worshipping matriarchy until the Druids and then the Roman Christians came along...but wait! you're saying, How could the Irish Celts have had a religion prior to the Druids, since we know that the Druids were the priestly class of the Celts and would have come to Ireland with Celtic culture? Good question. As McCoy explains it the Celts were the main ethnic group in Ireland up until the 2nd century BCE practicing Witta. Then in the 2nd century BCE the Druids came to power and ruled until the 4th century CE, except she then says that the Christians took over in the 2nd century CE.  Good luck working out how any of that makes sense. The reality is that the neolithic people of Ireland certainly did have a religion, but we have no real record of what it was or how it was practied, only the barest hints that can be gleaned from studying the dolmens and other stone structures left behind. When Celtic culture migrated to Ireland, likely starting in the 5th century BCE, it mingled with and influenced the existing culture; eventually the Celtic culture came to be dominant, but it is impossible to say what the neolithic culture was like or what role the Druids played in the blending of the cultures. Ireland remained effectively pagan until about the 5th century when dominance shifted to the Christian church, so instead of the 400 years of Druids that McCoy claims it was more likely close to a millenia, and possibly longer since we don't know with certainty when the Druids finally ceased existing totally.
  McCoy really doesn't like the Druids and the book discusses at several points how the Druids ruined the Matriarchy and paved the way for Christianity. She also blames the Druids for first starting to drive Witta underground as the Druids sought power by cutting the people off from the gods (more on the gods later) and trying to control all knowledge. Of course she also claims the Druids were a secret society and I still haven't worked out how she thinks they could have been a secret society and a powerful priestly class at the same time - it's kind of like saying Roman Catholic priests are a secret society, or Jewish Rabbis, or for that matter like saying that modern doctors or lawyers are part of a secret society. The reality is that the Druids were a powerful class in Celtic society and they did act as priests, doctors, lawyers, and teachers but anyone could seek training as a Druid (according to Caesar) so it was hardly a secret society. She also mistakenly refers to female Druids as "Dryads" and claims they were named so after the Irish tree spirits. In reality the Old Irish for a male druid is drui and a female is bandrui (modern draoi and bandraoi) while Dryad is strictly a Greek word for a type of tree spirit.  To further her evils-of-patriarchy theory she asserts that male Druids were supported and trained full time but the poor female Druids were forced to support themselves while training and take whatever instruction they could manage to fit in. She also claims that the Druids conjured the spirits of the dead in magical circles, used a form of divination based on their 13 month tree calendar, taught that to kill a snake was bad luck, and used the 4 classical elements, which is all non-sense. There is no evidence of the Druids using modern ceremonial magic style workings to talk to the dead and it's been pretty thoroughly proven that Robert Graves created the 13 month tree calendar and assigned each tree to it. There haven't been snakes in Ireland since before the last ice age, so it's impossible for Irish Druids to have kept them as totem animals or to prohibited killing them in Ireland. And while the Irish likely did have a system of elements it didn't involve the number 4.
   The vast majority of the religion contained in the book is basic Wicca: a black handled ritual knife, a wand - although she suggests replacing it with a staff which she calls a shillelagh - a pentagram. All the 8 Wiccan sabbats, the 4 elements, circle casting, etc., sometimes with a twist to make it a little different, sometimes pretty basically Wiccan, but none of it reflecting any kind of genuine Celtic or Irish beliefs.
   Now when it comes to gods McCoy gets very odd throughout the book. She does, of course, claim that Wittans believed in the maiden-mother-crone goddess (another Graves invention from 1948) but she assigns the maiden spot, apparently, to Danu, mother to Brigid (although she also says Danu and Brigid are names of the same goddess) and crone to Badb, who she later calls both Macha and the Cailleach. The god of Witta is the horned god called Cernunnos, which McCoy claims is a Greek name, although in reality it is Romano-Gaulish. She also mentions Lugh as the archetypal Wiccan son-lover-consort god to her Wittan goddess. Now at least so far she has referenced actual deities, even if she gets creative with who they are to fit them into her system. Where it gets really fun is when she starts making up gods. For example she talks about the ancient Irish goddess Kele-De, a goddess worshipped by women in opposition to the Church. And she also talks about the god Beltene, a god of death who was worshipped at Beltane. I'm sure everyone reading this knows that neither of those deities exists outside of the pages of this book. It's possible that her goddess Kele-De may be a bizarre twist on the Celtic Ceili-De or Culdee tradition, but how she got from one to the other totally baffles me.The name Ceili De means spouse or companion of God and was a Celtic monastic order of  Christians, as I understand it, which doesn't translate well to an alleged pagan goddess. I did find an obscure reference by a Victorian anthropologist to the god Beltene, written in the late 18th century, which is obviously purely speculative and based on the antiquated idea that if Samhain was ruled by the -also fictitious - death god Samhain then the corresponding holiday of Beltane must also be ruled by a similarly named death god. I can't find the original but it is referenced here in the text under Beltane - the original was much more entertaining.
  As if this wasn't enough to make the books quality clear McCoy also suggests under her tools for Witta that a shillelagh be used in place of a wand (as I mentioned earlier) leaving me to assume she has never seen a shillelagh before. She also says that most Irish Wittans were too poor to own chalices or cauldrons but loved candle magic, telling me she has no idea how precious and expensive disposable wax candles were compared to re-usable metal cups and bowls. She claims that the Irish word sidhe comes from the Indian word siddhi which she says mean "spirit that controls the elements", mistranslating sidhe to mean fairy when it actually means fairy hill. She talks about the danger to ancient Wittans of owning a Ouija board in medieval Ireland (Ouija boards were invented in the middle of the 19th century). She says that the holiday of Lughnasa may be associated with the Roman goddess Luna...I could go on, but the point here is that it is hard to turn a single page of this book without tripping over something that is so inaccurate and so frighteningly wrong that it is hard to fight the urge to fling the book across the room. I may have actually flung the book several times, and it isn't even very aerodynamic...
  Seriously. This book could not be worse if someone were intentionally trying to parody Wicca with an Irish twist. If you are drawn to a modern style of Irish paganism or to Irish flavored Wicca read Jane Raeburn's book Celtic Wicca or Lora O'Brien's Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch because both are better researched and written than this and could be used in modern practice. If you see Witta available for sale, buy it to keep it away from anyone who may read it and believe any of it and need deprogramming later. The Great Wittan Irish Potato Goddess will thank you for it.

the Ethics of Information

  Sometimes the universe can be funny in how one subject will suddenly seem to come up everywhere. Within the past week several incidents have occurred that have had me reflecting on the nature of owning information; what should belong to everyone, for free, to be shared freely, and what should cost? How important are clear sources in a world of muddy uncertainty?
   Twice in the past week I have seen people post online direct quotes they did not write. One was a prayer and the other an excerpt from a book, but in both cases no source was given, nor was it even mentioned in the original post that the person posting the information wasn't the author of it. In the first case when asked if it was okay to share the prayer the person said they had not written it and could not remember the source so, in a move that totally baffled me, the second person replied that they would simply credit the original poster as the source, even though that person admitted they had not written it. A quick Google search turned up the name of the author but even when that was known people continued to credit the poster, I assume because they ignored the discussion under the post. In the second case the person posted a paragraph long excerpt from a book under similar circumstances, but in that case I actually was familiar enough with the book that I immediately recognized it and mentioned the source. The response by the poster was that they liked the subject and just wanted to share. Along those same lines a friend had her entire blog re-posted without attribution by someone who seemed equally baffled as to why that mattered. Sometimes the person may genuinely not realize that it does, and sometimes the person may want other people to think that they did write those words, so they can enjoy the praise and compliments generated from it. And this morning I woke to read a link to a blog talking about yet another site making the rounds that offers free pdfs of many popular pagan books, something that should clearly be against the majority of neopagan morals yet rarely fails to appeal. (yes I admit it mystifies me that the same person who argues to the death that any magic for personal gain is wrong will turn around and cheerfully download over 100 still-in-print pagan books without seeing any issue with it).
   Maybe this is a sensitive issue for me because I have experienced it in the past, opening an email to see my own words - my reading list, my spell - under someone else's name and fought back only to get the same reply - who cares? As if I was the one who was wrong, because they say, information should be free for everyone. I have been told that anything spiritual should be free, should be shared, that sources don't matter, or in one case that knowing the true source was the responsibility of the reader not the poster, like some sort of test. Well I will never agree that it doesn't matter or that we shouldn't care. Plagiarism is a big issue in paganism, sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose, but it will never get any better as long as we as a community put up with it. Now I don't mean things like chants and songs which can be more difficult to track back and spread like ink in water, although it's still worth trying to find sources on those as well, but most other material can be found, and in our online age can be found fairly easily. I would like to hope that it was obvious that any book under copyright - anything under copyright at all actually - should be respected.
   On the other hand there are some things that I do agree belong to everyone. Ritual structure, general meditations, things that truly cannot be traced back to any one person. Mythology. The old beliefs themselves. No one person can claim these things and they do belong to all of us.
   I think it presents an interesting challenge to the community at large to decide how we are going to deal with the ethics of information. There seems to be a pretty wide spread belief that sources, and citing sources, doesn't matter, and that can only change if we as a community change it. The idea that everything should be free - including books - will only change when the people thinking that way stop and realize how much work and effort goes into that book, or article, or what-have-you and decide that supporting the author (or in the case of deceased authors the family) is better than the quick fix of a free file. What value do we place on something that is free, compared to something that we had to work and save to get? What value do we place on our community itself and it's integrity if nothing matters but instant gratification?

The Lebor Feasa Runda Should Go Through a Woodchipper: a book review

   Too often we simply avoid bad books without ever knowing why they are bad and to be avoided, but relying on friend's opinions or word of mouth reviews. I have read other reviews of this book, Akins' Lebor Feasa Runda, which took a highly scholastic approach and were very valuable, but I think that by arguing semantics of language and nuances of source material many readers may get lost in the details. So here I offer my simplified book review, an Idiot's Guide to Why This Book is Awful, if you will.
    To begin with Akin's appeals to people's curiosity and desire for genuine material to lure an audience in and draw interest for his book by claiming it is a translation of a previously unknown ancient book of Druidic teaching, which he has exclusively gained access to but cannot produce for others to view. In reality his book is nothing but a badly written version of commonly known Irish mythology followed by his own personal ideas and a generous amount of uncredited plagiarized material from known traditional sources.
    The psuedo-archaic writing style is painful to read, rather reminiscent of the King James Bible, and I can see no point to it beyond making the work look somehow either older or more prestigious. There is no reason for a text he claims to have translated himself to be written in this way except for effect.  Beyond that there is a lot of non-Celtic material mixed in which clashes with extant Celtic sources, and the clear threads of Celtic material are not credited. He invents a system of aligning the days of the week with different planets and gods which is exactly like any Ceremonial Magic compendium with Sunday ruled by the sun and Monday by the moon, etc.,. He also uses the Greco-Roman ideas about four elements, instead of a more authentic Celtic view, to give a few samples of the foreign ideas in the book that are passed off as Irish.
   Particularly troublesome to me is the use of charms and prayers from the first two volumes of the Carmina Gadelica slightly re-written to be pagan without any acknowledgement of the true source of the material which could not possibly be a "secret" manuscript that would predate the Gadelica by almost three thousand years. It is beyond belief that nearly three millenia later the charms and prayers would have translated the same from Scottish to English as they allegedly did from Irish to German to English in this book. Akin's alleged personal translation from German is word for word identical to Carmichael's from 1900. To give a sample of this on page 148 of the Lebor Feasa Runda "The wicked who would do me harm / May his throat be diseased / Globularly, spirally, circularly / Fluxy, pellety, horny-grim" now compare that to the opening lines of charm 193 from volume 2 of the Carmina Gadelica printed in 1900, page 155, "The wicked who would do me harm / May he take the throat disease / Globularly, spirally, circularly / Fluxy, pellety, horny-grim.". This clear, obvious, plagierism cannot be defended, and this is only a small sample of the many such occurances throughout this book. I might not care about the poor writing or random nature of the work if Akins had simply published this as his own personal inspiration with credit to his sources, but I think plaigerism is simply wrong and cannot be justified away with appeals to spiritual inspiration. A core Druidic principle is Truth.
   I also find it disturbing that in his recipe for "oil of enlightenment" he repeats a medieval witches flying ointement that includes toxic ingredients like Hemlock, Aconite and Belladonna. Were anyone to follow his recipe for this oil and use it they could easily poison themselves, yet at no point does Akins mention that any of these plants are poisonous or require special handling.
    In short the book is clearly a mish-mash of plagierized sources Frankenstiened together. A beginner who reads this first will find information that is both wrong, misleading, and in at least the one case potentially dangerous.
 Other reviews:
https://wildhunt.org/2008/11/lost-racist-book-of-ancient-celtic.html
http://cr-r.livejournal.com/318578.html

My Gaelic Heathen Yule

  So Yule is fast approaching, and this Yule will represent my first attempt at incorporating some Celtic elements and traditions into what has so far been a Germanic and Norse festival period for me. Prior to becoming heathen in 2006 I didn't celebrate the winter solstice in any special way, beyond the secular; after becoming heathen I began celebrating the "traditional" 12 days of Yule, beginning on Mother Night and ending usually either on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. I followed the CR approach of celebrating the four Irish fire festivals as holidays and not acknowledging any Celtic aspects of the solstices or equinoxes. However this year I am looking at what the more modern Celtic traditions of this time of year are and how they may relate to older Heathen ones in order to create a more synchretic personal approach (celebrating with my kindred is still Norse oriented).

  In Germanic and Norse traditions Yule is a 13 night, 12 day festival that is considered one of the most sacred times of the year. Yule begins on Mother Night, the night before the solstice which is often celebrated in honor of Frigga and the disir; in my family we celebrate Mother Night two days before the calendar date of the solstice because the eve of Yule has developed its own family traditions.  Many modern heathens that I know choose to stay up on the night before the solstice in order to greet the dawn on the solstice morning. The day of the solstice itself is considered both the most powerful of Yule and also the most dangerous as both trolls and ghosts are roaming free on the night of Yule. On this day the Yule log is burnt and the most sacred oaths are sworn. Celebrations continue until New Year's, a day that itself is important since it sets the tone for the year to come; actions taken on the last day of Yule/New year's eve (or day) influence the year to come.
Swearing oaths and making sacred toasts were sacred activities, as well as leaving out food offerings for the gods and spirits. Odin was especially associated with Yule time, as are the goddesses Perchte, Berchte or Holda. Yule bucks were made (the mask of a goat head, or a straw goat) and used for guising but was also believed to have its own separate spirit that had to be propitiated - often with ale or porridge - in order not to harm anyone in the family. Porridge is also left out as an offering to the house wight or spirit that lives in the home. A Yule tree was used for decoration and a yule log was burnt or in some modern cases a log is set with candles which are burnt.
    Now working with that as a base we can look at what we have for Yule traditions in Scotland. In Scotland McNeill states that while Odin may be known as the Yule Father it is Thor to whom this holiday actually belongs, as does all of the month of December. A Yule log of oak was traditionally burnt and Thor was asked to bring a prosperous new year. She relates a story of Norsemen in Scotland celebrating Yule with a great feast and then a bonfire, around which they danced and then chanted "Thor with us, Thor and Odin! Haile Yule, haile!" (McNeill, 1961, p. 52). In Scotland the "Christmas" season ran from Christmas eve until 12th Night, reflecting the older heathen practice of a 12 day celebration of Yule. Prior to the start of Yule the home was cleaned from top to bottom and stocked with food. During the period of Yule all household work like spinning and weaving was strictly prohibited as it was believed that to do such work, even drawing water, during the 12 days of Yule would risk the girls of the house being taken by a Kelpie. The hearth was cleaned and decorated to please the gods and garlanded with rowan to keep out mischievous spirits. On the eve of Yule the family would go out and collect the Yule log which would be brought in with great ceremony, an offering of ale is poured over it, and it is placed in the fire to burn through the night. In some parts of the Highlands the Yule log is associated with the Cailleach, the spirit of winter, and in those places the Yule log chosen would be the stump of an old tree. Special breads and cakes were baked on Yule eve, and ale and sowans were made with omens taken from how they cooked. First thing on Yule morning weather omens were taken to predict the year to come; green Yule meant snow in spring, warm Yule a cold spring, and a light Yule a good harvest. The rest of the day was spent in social gatherings and feasting. Another Yule tradition is guisers and mummers who travel from house to house in costume singing and offering entertainment and blessings in exchange for welcome into the home and some food. 
     New Year's Eve, called Hogmany, has many traditions of it's own, including special cleaning of the home, settling any debts, returning borrowed items, and generally setting everything in the household right in preparation for the new year. At the exact stroke of midnight on New Year's eve the head of the household opens the front door and lets the old year out while welcoming the new year in with the words "Welcome in New Year! When ye come, bring good cheer!" (McNeill, 1961, p. 104). Another important tradition of New Year's is first footing, or the belief that the first non-family member who enters the home after midnight on new years while indicate the family's luck in the coming year, with a cheerful dark haired man being the best first-footer, with a pretty woman being second best. Anyone born with a deformity, of bad character, who is stingy, whose eyebrows meet in the middle, or who may have the Evil Eye are bad luck. To avert the ill luck of a bad first footing throw salt in the fire, burn a wisp of straw, or put a burning coal in water.
    In Scotland New Years is also a time of blessing the home and of omens. Holly, Hazel, and Rowan are hung up around the home and the entire home was fumigated with burning juniper. Burning the juniper was considered very important to cleanse the home and was done immediately upon waking before anyone ate breakfast. On New Year's eve a silver coin was left out on the doorstep and if it was still there in the morning it was seen as a sign of prosperity for the year to come, but if it was gone it was an ill omen. Wearing new clothes on New Year's day is good luck so is carrying a silver coin in your pocket. To see a red dawn on New Year's day means bad luck and strife to come and the direction of the wind is an omen of the year to come as well: "Wind from the west, fish and bread, wind from the north, cold and flaying, wind from the east, snow on the hills, wind from the south, fruit on trees." (McNeill, 1961, p. 115).
   In Ireland Yule was also started with a complete cleaning of the home which was  followed by decorating with Holly, Ivy, Bay and other evergreens, and as in Scotland food was stocked up on. Preparations were made that included placing lit candles in the windows of the home; these are now associated with Christmas but may well be older as some believe the candles' light serves to guide and welcome the visiting dead who wander at this time of year. Some choose to light a special candle for any family members who have passed in the last year. As in Scotland the weather is seen as being an omen of the year to come with cold weather foretelling a warm spring; additionally a new moon was seen as especially lucky. Mumming and guising is also seen and New Years eve and day were strongly associated with divination and omens. While first footing isn't seen in Ireland the way it is in Scotland there is a belief that if the first person or animal to enter the home after midnight on New Year's eve is male and black or dark haired the house will have good luck. A special bread was baked and then hit three times against the door while the head of the house or house wife chanted either "We warn famine to retire, To the country of the Turks, from this night to this night twelvemonth, and even this very night." or "Happiness in and misfortune out from this night, Until a year from to-night" (Danaher, 1972, p. 261). After this the loaf was tossed out the door.
   So this actually gives us a lot to work with for celebrating both Germanic/Norse Yule traditions and Celtic ones over the course of  a 12 day celebration. I like the idea of including Thor more in the Yule celebrations, especially as they relate to the Yule log, and of lighting candles for my ancestors, which I may do each night of Yule. Including the Cailleach makes sense as well. I also can easily see how to incorporate the specific New Year's eve and day traditions, such as welcoming the new year in and also the Irish custom of banging the bread on the door. And the multitude of divinations and omens can easily be used on the day of Yule and on New Year's day, as can the cleaning of the home before the start of Yule and the cleansing and blessing rituals of New Year's day.

  I'm excited to see how Yule this year is going to go as I work on finding the synergy of this path, which clearly has so much potential.

References:
 Our Troth volume 2, the Troth, 2007
 The Year in Ireland, Danaher, 1972
 the Silver Bough volume 3, McNeill, 1961