by Aine MacDermot

These are good times for some perceptual changes in human systems of belief and thought, and the general human frame of mind. We can start by recognizing the beautiful open-minded holistic feminine goddesses whose existence in pre-Indo-European cultures precedes that of the patriarchal “old men” – the old white bearded masculine gods.

It is wrong to say that this is just a woman’s culture, that there was just a Goddess and there were no Gods. There is a balance between the sexes throughout, in religion and in life. In all mythologies, for instance in Europe, Germanic or Celtic or Baltic, you will find the Earth Mother or Earth Goddess and her male companion or counterpart next to her.

However, more than ninety percent of the Neolithic figurines found in Bulgaria are female. Of the two hundred fifty figurines from Marija Gimbutas’ excavation at Sitagroi, northern Greece, “not one can be clearly identified as male.” Interestingly, before cemeteries came into use, c. 5000 BC, adult male burials are conspicuously rare in settlements in southeast Europe during the Early Neolithic period (7th-6th millennia BC), though women and girls have been found buried in the floors of their homes. Houses, therefore, functioned as abodes for the living as well as for the ancestors.

This is not feminist bias seeping into non-scientific neopagan goddess-centered archaelogy; this is the evidence we have at hand.
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by Erynn Rowan Laurie
Copyright © 1997 Erynn Rowan Laurie
All Rights Reserved

May be reposted as long as the above attribution and copyright notice are retained.
 
 
 
One of the primary functions of sacrifice is the renewal of the cosmos. In Norse myth, we have, if I recall correctly, the giant Ymir who is killed and whose body creates the cosmos. This is paralleled in Hindu cosmology, where the sacrifice by the Brahmans reenacts the death of a divine, cosmic being whose body creates the cosmos. Although we do not have a Celtic creation myth preserved in the corpus of written and oral materials, I think it would be reasonable to think that their myth might follow this pattern as well.

If creation requires death and dismemberment to occur, then it would follow that only the sacrifice of something living will do to fulfill a cosmological sacrifice. This is not to say that monetary and other sacrifices cannot be made under other circumstances. They obviously were, and from what other folks here have said, this method is still being used, although it is in the context of a gift to the Gods rather than of cosmic renewal. Mauss would say that this sort of sacrificial gift creates a mutual relationship between the Gods and the human community that requires a reciprocal gift from the Gods of continued food, shelter, and other necessary survival substances. But as I’ve said, these gift exchanges do not renew the cosmos in a theological sense. They serve instead to renew community bonds. An important task to be sure, but not the point of cosmological sacrifice.

Some anthropologists and historians have speculated that the sacrifice of animals followed a period of the sacrifice of humans as the vehicle of cosmic renewal. We do know that the Celts sacrificed prisoners of war and occasionally other humans in some rituals, so they had not left that phase of sacrifice behind them entirely. I think that in this case, what we may be looking at are gifts to the Gods, or an exchange of life for life on the battlefield in the case of prisoners of war. Hypothetically speaking, the warriors of “our tribe” were successful and few were killed, but war is an arena of death and certain loss of life is expected or perhaps vowed as a part of the victory celebration, so prisoners from “their tribe” are sacrificed as a substitute for “our” warriors or as gifts to the deity of warriors. Other human sacrifices may serve as messengers to the Gods, carrying requests and information that cannot be trusted to lesser gifts. A human sacrifice, particularly as a foundation sacrifice, may serve as a spiritual guardian for the structure being built. But at some point, animal sacrifice was apparently substituted for human sacrifice in cosmic renewal ceremonies, as well as in other kinds of sacrifice, and so there would seem to be precedent for considered changes in this kind of ritual. We are not, then, looking for “an excuse to stop performing the sacrifice” but rather a theologically valid way to transform the sacrifice while maintaining its focus and impact, as was done in the alleged transition from human to animal sacrifice. I believe that we can argue for a theologically valid substitute for the body and soul of an animal.

We know from the story of Miach and Airmid, and from Alexei’s account of Breton herbalism, that herbs are associated with different parts of the body — an herb for every joint and sinew, as it were. We might say that the body could be created, built of herbs. Blodwedd is an example of a living human being magically created from nine kinds of herbs. We also know from a Welsh medieval medical text, and from Irish tradition, that the body is related to the cosmos in Celtic thought. The eyes may be the stars, sun be the face, breath be the wind, stone as bones, water as blood, soil as flesh, etc. I would argue that through these associations, a living “human” body could be created of certain ritually appropriate plants to serve as the vehicle of cosmic renewal. In this way, the death and dismemberment of the “herbal body” would serve as the living force that is the source of cosmic creation.
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by Seán Ó Tuathail
Copyright © 1993 John Kellnhauser
May be reposted as long as the above attribution and copyright notice are retained
 
 
 
Introduction

While the ancient Irish tales abound with warriors and kings (not to forget Queen Medbh!), another figure at almost every turn emerges to out- rank them. Usually referred to as the “druid”, this person upon closer inspection is seen to be not any stereotypical wizard with his potions and paraphernalia, but a poet who, instead of having to memorize rote “secret spells”, produced spontaneous verse often in a deliberately archaic diction. A lengthy essay on the philosophy and practise of Irish druids is beyond the scope of this book, but given the misrepresentation of druids in the popular media, a few summary remarks are in order.

In the ancient Irish tales Irish druids are frequently depicted in detail. They bare no resemblance at all to the white-robed oak- worshippers of Julius Caesar. Irish druids wore, not white hooded robes, but rainbow capes, often feathered tunics and head-dresses (note, in the kast roscin this collection, how the druids mock the monks’ hooded robes!). The important trees were rowan, yew, and hazel, and mistletoe was not found in ancient Ireland. While they occasionally carried magic wands and stones, in the far great majority of cases druids’ only magic “tool” was their voices. They were, emphatically, not “pagan priests” and most of what we think of as priestly functions fell to the local king or tribal chief. They were sages, advisors, “wizards” – their closest modern equivalents would be scholars sometimes called upon to be government advisors, although in many cases they were unaffiliated with the rulers and conducted what we nowadays would call “private practice”.

But over all else, they were “poets”. The word is placed in quotes because above all other cultures and societies in the history of the world, ancient Ireland accorded poets what can only be termed nearly divine rank. Poets paid no taxes and were exempt from military service. They had a freedom of movement to cross political borders denied even kings, and wherever they traveled they were entitled to the best of available lodging. And woe to anyone who harmed, or even offended a poet! One can do no better than simply cite the story of Cairbre whose satire is included in the present collection: a wandering poet visits Tara in the days when the gods themselves ruled there, and is denied what he considers suitable food and a fine enough bed. The next morning he enters the throne room at Tara (which was, by the way, named not after the king but called “Réalta na bhFile”, “Star of the Poets”!), and recites five spare lines of verse, whereby the King of the Gods himself is toppled from his throne. In a second example, also included here, Ireland herself is conjured up, out of the magic mists, by a “poem”. (The word “rosc”, plural “roscanna”, is a rhetorical, usually magical, chant, and this word will be used throughout this book to distinguish a “poem” that can topple gods or conjure whole nations from the modern less potent variety.)
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Copyright © 1985, 1986, 1988, 1994 Cainteanna na Luise
May be reposted as long as the above attribution and copyright notice are retained The following presents a reworking and combining of articles which previously appeared in Cainteanna na Luise, with the addition of new material in the “examples” section.
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION

In Irish druidism “power” in the landscape is conceived by rather different ontological parameters than in Hermetic Magic or in systems using “leys”.

There are, first, two types of “power” (there are, in fact, three, but the first is simply that by which a thing exists at all – X has it, and exists, or X does not have it (is functionally self-contradictory, etc.) and doesn’t exist. There is no “amount” to this and so it cannot be “patterned”). The two types (which can be patterned) are:

Brí – intrinsic, inherent power. This may be “developed” or “atrophied” but can not, substantially, be changed in potential amount.

Bua – power that is gained or lost, depending upon actions.

Landscape has, as does everything else, both types. Skipping, for the moment, that these may be “keyed” to certain affinities, in summary a place’s brí is linked to it’s basic nature. Isolated hills, sea cliffs, etc., have higher intrinsic brí. A place’s bua is determined (and changed) by what occurs there (a major battle, etc.). In fact, it is more complicated because humans deliberately pick high-brí places for their religious and, less often, political centers, thus layering bua over the already existing brí. While usually this occurs so that the bua develops the brí, the opposite can occur. The Mallacht Dhealúis, great curse of bareness, laid upon Teamhair by a coven of 13 Irish saints is an example. In this case, the saints’ own brí-empowered bua was used to drain and ward-restrict the bua of “Tara” and hinder its bua. The site once had a great deal of both, but it now has fairly low bua, while retaining brí in a form difficult, but not impossible, to access.

Brí may be “keyed” by its basic nature, but bua is far more likely to be keyed because it is gained or lost by specific actions. Personally keying may involve not only one’s own bua being compatible but season, time of day, and so forth, since such bua is highly contextual.

Brí, and far more often bua, may become “keyed”, that is it may gain affinity or malevolence toward other types of brí/bua (some people may, for example feel “at home” in a place that others will feel uncomfortable in). In a few cases, a place will have general malevolence (the term frithbhuachán is used for either a place or thing that drains bua and assaults brí. (see also the note on Drombeg below.)

Taking brí and bua together, no man-made-like grid patterns these powers. The “map” of a country’s power does not resemble a geometric human network, but a naturally occurring one, resembling maps showing rainfall or physical elevation. That is, there may be sharp demarcations, or gradual ones. Entire areas may be low in both bua and brí (except in small limited areas, a high bua level is unlikely to occur without at least moderately high brí, although the reverse is not true: indeed the feeling of “awe” experienced at some natural “wilderness” sites results from them having quite high brí, although they may have only minimal bua.
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