Folklore and Fiction in Modern Paganism

Irish/English Glossary of Common Terms

This post is meant to offer a selection of the common terms I use in Irish with their English translations, to help readers of my blog who may not have any Irish or who may find the use of Irish placenames, euphemisms for the Good Neighbours, and other miscellaneous words confusing. Hopefully this will offer a bit of clarity.


Aitainmneacha / Place Names

An Cheathru Chaol - Carrowkeel
Brú na Bóinne - Brugh na Boyne
Cnóbha - Knowth
Cnoc - hill
Connachta - Connacht
Cúigí na hÉireann - Provinces of Ireland
Dumha na nGiall - Mound of the Hostages
Laighin - Leinster
Lios - Ring fort, fairy mound
Mide - Meath
Mumhain - Munster
Ráth - Fort, ring fort
Sidhe - fairy mound
Sid in Broga - Newgrange
Sliabh na Caillighe - Loughcrew, literally 'mountain of the Cailleach'
Teamhair - Tara
Uaimh na gCat - Cave of Cats
Ulaidh - Ulster


Sofhroital na Sióga/ Euphemisms for Fairies

Aos Sidhe - People of the fairy hills
Bean Sidhe - fairy woman
Daoine Eile - Other People/ Other Crowd
Daoine Maithe - Good People
Daoine Sidhe - People of the fairy hills
Daoine Uaisle - Noble People
Fear sidhe - fairy man
Leannan Sidhe - fairy lover
na hUaisle - the Gentry
Tuathghinte - literally 'northwards people'


Go hilghneitheach/ Miscellaneous

Badb - name of a goddess also a term for a supernatural woman, witch, and crow
Bainne - milk
Banríon - Queen
Bantuaithech - old Irish term for a specific type of 'leftward' working witch
Bean feasa - wise woman
Cailleach - name of a goddess, also means crone, hag, witch
Caite - elf-struck
Conriocht - werewolf
Déithe - Gods
Draíodóir - wizard, enchanter
Draoi - magic user, druid
Gaeilge - Irish language
Iarlais - changeling
Im - butter
Piseog - charm, spell, also supersition
Rí - King
Sidhe gaoithe - fairy wind
Slua sidhe - Fairy host
Taibhse - ghost, spectre, phantom
Tromluí - incubus, nightmare

Pronunciations for all of these can be found below, thanks to Lora O'Brien who was kind enough to collaborate with me on this, after the idea of glossary was suggested on facebook

Discerning Good Source Material

One thing that's important for anyone who relies, to any degree, on sources outside themselves for spirituality - or anything else - is being able to judge a good source from a bad one. So today I want to just run down a quick list of ways to vett sources of any type to decide how much weight you should give to something. Even if a source isn't perfect it may have value - or it may be immediately tossed out. It depends on how it measures up.

1. What sources does this source use? - One of the first things I do with any new source, be it written, video, in person, or what-have-you, is to try to look at what sources that source is using. Are they talking purely from personal gnosis? Are they using academic texts? Are they using other authors based in personal gnosis? Are they using well known and respected sources? Are they referencing conspiracy theorists or known white supremacists? Do they have no sources at all that they admit to? All of these things need to be taken into account. Something that's entirely personal gnoses isn't necessarily bad but needs to be understood in that context, while something from a deeply flawed or problematic source will be eliminated. 
2. Never once the Wikipedia - Okay this is  bit ranty right here, but as soon as I see wikipedia listed as a source for anything I'm done with that source. There's a very good reason that wikipedia can't be used in college, university, or even high school classes: its notoriously unreliable and oddly biased. Anyone can and does edit wikipedia and while its true that wikipedia cites sources and includes references pretty much any print or online source can be used and there is no quality control. Let me repeat; there is no quality control. The entry on Baobhan Sithe was sourced mainly from modern vampire guides, themselves largely repeating modern urban legends, and from RPG guidebooks. No really. The entry on Finnbheara contained an assertion straight from a fiction novel (I removed it, because remember anyone can edit wikipedia). Please don't trust anything on wikipedia or any article using wiki as a source. Just don't. 
3. What is the author's bias? - Every author or teacher has biases, that's just human nature. Figuring out what to think of a source means understanding what that source's biases are and how that's affecting the material. A bias doesn't mean you can't use a source but that you have to be aware of the way the author's opinions influence their work. To use myself as an example - I am unashamedly nativist in my views of Irish mythology and folklore. Nativism is a bias that means I will always tend to see material as having some native Irish influence or value in it; anti-Nativist in contrast means that the author tends to always see foreign influences in any historic Irish material or mythology. Neither is necessarily provably correct or incorrect but both strongly influence a person's views. Authors can have all kinds of different biases and its helpful to just be aware of them or at least that bias is a possibility. Even a book that is aimed at sharing facts will still be influenced by the author's personal opinions and views. Be aware that bias is a thing and that it matters. 
4. Date - Another thing to consider is how old the source is, particularly for books and articles. Scholarship is always changing and evolving and when I was in school we were strongly encouraged to use material that had been written within the last 10 years and preferably within 5. That was in the field of psychology of course and in more casual study you don't need to be as strict with this but the core idea is the same, that older books tend to have ideas and theories that are more outdated. This doesn't mean the whole work is useless, just that it needs to be kept in context. For example I love the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries and find it valuable for the anecdotal material - yet the material written by the author themself which waxes eloquent about fairies as Bronze age pygmy survivals in iron age Britain is clearly not only out dated but thoroughly disproven by actual archaeology and anthropology.  
5. Perspective - what perspective is this source speaking from? Is it being written by a member of the community? A believer? A non-believer? An outsider? A scholar? A laymen? Like bias the source's perspective on the material also needs to be understood in the context of its value, because someone who is part of a community writing about that community has a very different perspective than an outsider, and a scholar has a very different perspective than a laymen. Each voice can have value in a discussion, but we shouldn't forget where each one is speaking from. 
6. Non-fiction or fiction? - this may seem like an odd one, but I see a lot of blurred lines between these two in some cases, possibly because older folklore is often treated as fiction and so modern fiction is given the same weight as folklore. It's worth keeping in mind though that folklore represents stories that people believed to be true (as opposed to fairy tales, which are something else) while modern fiction is the work of imagination. How fine or thick a line there is between those two will be a matter of opinion, but it should at least be considered when weighing the value of a source, whether it was written as fiction or not. 

Excerpt from 'Travelling the Fairy Path'

I have a new book coming out in September of this year, called 'Travelling the Fairy Path' so today I'd like to offer an excerpt from it. Its going to focus on the more experiential side of my own spirituality but it also includes some discussion of things I've learned from the folklore, with a chapter on the ballad material. This excerpt is from that chapter. 

The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice [the Queen of Elfland’s Nurse]

The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice is the story of a human woman taken by the Queen of Fairy to be a nursemaid. It gives us a unique look at one of the common reasons that the Fey folk were known to take new mothers, from the mother’s point of view. [I'm including the complete ballad below with the language updated to modern English].

I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,

And a cow low down in yonder glen;

Long, long will my young son weep

For his mother to bid him come in.

I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,

And a cow low down in yonder fold;

Long, long will my young son weep

For his mother to take him from the cold.

       * * * * *

'Waken, Queen of Elfland,

And hear your nurse moan.’

‘O moan you for your meat,

Or moan you for your money,

Or moan you for the other bounties

That ladies are want to give?’

‘I moan not for my meat,

Nor moan I for my money,

Nor moan I for the other bounties

That ladies are want to give.

         ****

But I moan for my young son

I left at four nights old.

‘I moan not for my meat,

Nor yet for my money,

But I mourn for Christian land,

It’s there I gladly would be.’

‘O nurse my child, nurse,’ she says,

‘Till he stands at your knee,

And you’ll win home to Christian land,

Where glad it’s you would be.

‘O keep my child, nurse,

Till he goes by the hand,

And you’ll win home to your young son

You left at four nights old.’

       * * * *

‘O nurse lay your head

Upon my knee:

See you not that narrow road

Up by yon tree?

       . . . . .

That’s the road the righteous goes,

And that’s the road to heaven.

‘And see not you that broad road,

Down by yonder sunny hill?

That’s the road the wicked go,

And that’s the road to hell.’

(modified from Child, 1898)

The ballad opens seemingly from the human woman’s point of view, as she talks about how long her son will cry over her loss. The next verse picks up with the Queen of Elfland being awoken by someone telling her that her nurse is weeping; the Queen then asks if the nurse is hungry, wanting to be paid or wanting some other small gift. The nurse replies that she wants none of those things but is crying for her baby son who she left as a newborn and for mortal earth. The Queen replies that if she nurses the Fairy Queen’s son until he ‘stands at [her] knee’ and ‘goes by the hand’ – one may assume is walking on his own – then she will be returned to her own son. Then, as we saw previously in the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, we see the Queen comforting the nurse by telling her to lay her head on the Queen’s knee and showing her a vision of two roads, one to heaven and one to hell. Obviously since they are already in Fairy she doesn’t show her a third road, perhaps not wanting to show her the way to escape back to mortal earth.

It is interesting that we see here again the idea of the different roads or paths and that again they are being shown to a mortal by the Fairy Queen herself. In Thomas the Rhymer this vision was called a ‘wonder’ and it was also used to soothe a person who was upset. To me this indicates that the idea of the roads has some significance worth considering. In both poems the road to heaven is described as the less attractive and more difficult and the road to Hell is more pleasant looking and ‘broad’.

The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice is a more obscure poem but it is valuable because it shows us another side of dealing with the Fairy Queen and fairies more generally. The new mother has been taken by the Fey folk but her unhappiness does seem to matter to them and the Queen makes some attempt to comfort her, although at no point is her freedom immediately offered. She is however promised that when certain conditions are met, in this case nursing the Queen’s child for a specific period of time, she will be returned to mortal earth and her own child. There is also the implication in the Queen’s words, asking the nurse whether she is moaning about money, food, or gifts, that imply she was willing to pay for the services in other ways as well. Only when the nurse explains that she doesn’t want those things but is upset about her baby son and her home is she offered her eventual freedom. This however suggests that negotiation is an option even with the Fairy Queen. 

                          *******************************************************

Travelling the Fairy Path will represent the third, and I anticipate final, book in my Fairy Witchcraft series.