The Celtic Spirit World
Filed by Aine MacDermot
In ancient Ireland a series of war-goddesses, somewhat resembling the Norse Valkyries, seem to have been the objects of particular fear and reverence. These warlike goddesses were five in number, and they were presided over by the Morrigan, or “Great Queen”, whose favourite disguise was that of a carrion crow. All of these were collectively described by the name of badb (pron. bive, or bibe). After battle these furies revelled among the bodies of the slain, and their memory still survives in the superstitious aversion of the Celtic peasant for their folk-lore descendant, the “hoodie” crow.
Everything points to the conclusion that the banshee was in one sense a modern expression of the badb or “royston” crow, which appears to have been associated with the goddess of battle in ancient Irish mythology, presiding over death and slaughter. J. G. Campbell gives it as his opinion that “baobh”, as used in Scotland, is a term which commonly expresses “an evil woman, hence is a common name applied to witches”, although in some cases it is employed as indicating that a woman “was not of mortal race”. (13)
“The name badb,” says Wood-Martin, “meaning ‘rage, fury or violence’, came to be applied to a witch, fairy or goddess, represented by the scare-, scald-, or royston-crow. Her sisters were Neman, Machan and Morrigan. ‘Badb’ would seem to have been the generic title of beings ruling over battle or carnage. Neman brought madness, Morrigan incited to deeds of valour, Machan revelled among the bodies of the slain. All three are described as the wives of Neit, the god of battle.” (14) A raven flapped against the windows of the Ross Lewins of Clare as a symbol of approaching death, and this seems to indicate that it was the family banshee in badb or raven form. (15)
Elsewhere we are told that crows or ravens were the birds announcing the presence of the Fomorians, the Irish gods of death and night. The wife of Tethra, chief of the Fomorians, was the female of the crow or raven, who flew over the battlefield in the hour of carnage. A late eleventh-century manuscript has preserved for us a quatrain written by a poet of the ninth century on this subject:
The wife of Tethra’s longing is for the fire of combat:
The warriors’ sides slashed open,
Blood, bodies heaped upon bodies:
Eyes without life, sundered heads, these are pleasing words to her.
An old Irish grammarian who flourished about the end of the eleventh century, glossing the obscurities of this quatrain, explains “wife of Tethra”, or Teathur, as “crow” or “raven”. (16) Indeed, all the warrior-goddesses of Ireland appear to have been generally known as badb, or “crow”.
Joy Sweeney wrote:
Dear Sir,
My grandmother, who was from Derry, Ireland saw the banshee just prior to her sister, Josephine’s, death many years ago. My grandmother lived in Florida and Josephine was living in Canada. My grandmother said she first heard the banshee wailing loudly and mournfully outside her door. Then she saw the old woman in white in a horse-driven carriage going by her house. She noted the date and time and later found out that her sister had died around the same time. My grandmother was a MacDonagh.
No one else in our family has seen the banshee.
Posted on 15-Jun-05 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
ed malvey wrote:
i was wondering where you got the name chapel of st. malvey i can trace my family name back to 1734 in ireland county cork
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 12:14 am | Permalink
Aine MacDermot wrote:
It’s not me that got that name, this article is The Celtic Spirit World
by Lewis Spence
from ‘The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain’
(chapter VII)
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 12:18 am | Permalink
ed malvey wrote:
i dont want to be a pest but do you have any idea about the origin of the chapel of st malvey?
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 1:26 am | Permalink
Aine MacDermot wrote:
You’re not being a pest. And, no, I don’t know the origin of the chapel of St. Malvey. Sounds like a good topic for you to research, though (considering your last name).
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 1:40 am | Permalink
Mirela Sevenich-Walter wrote:
Dear Sir,
my grandparents lived in Croatia. They have been born in a little village by the name Seona.
It´s an unusually name for a croatic village.
I can remember that ma granny teach me then I was a child a lot of fairys.
She believed in them and the other older pupil in the village , too.
I have heard stories about fairies in this village.
My granny says they always lived there with the people helped them or punished them.
She tells me, if I don´t lost the faith in them, one day I would see the fairies, too.
In the wood of this village is a spring and there was an old man living. The people called him brother John.
He lives like an eremit allone and he was praying for the ill people. He was healing the humans.
My grandmother shaws me the place there the fairies were dancing in the ring.
She gives me so lot my granny and I beginn to understand now.
Three months ago I became the idea to search about the name Seona in Slavonia (Croatia).
This is a name from scotish gaellic and comes from the name Seonaid (God is great).
I´m sure that in Seona the celts build one of them first villages, then they come to Croatia.
All this I tell a Dr. of archeollogy in Zagreb and he writes me back, that he has found some celtic graves and this story from me can be a way to find something more about our history.
Today,if you ask me if I believe in fairiey, yes do.
Why?
So I am catholic, but my grandmother tells me that god is great, he lives everythere and I can talk with him also in the nature.
I grove up with the belive in god and the fairies.
I loved them and talked to them, too. I see them as my sisters in soul.
Sometimes I can here them singing in the wood or crying on places there bads thing happening.
They are real the fairies. My granny says if the humans lost the faith they can´T never see the fairies again.
One day I was so tired, I hear voices from the door like children laughing. I think my children are coming home with my husband, but it was a litle green ghost.
He was small ,like a child from 6 years.
I can´t see a face only circle on his head with symbols like celtic art. He talks somthing to me, but I don´t understand. It was a language warm and deep. The louds sounds like drrhh, krch, shhr, chaarhh,,, somthing like this.
On the top of the wall from my room something litle flyes. They looked like small white princes and they laughed all time. The voice of them sounds like children laughing.
I have open my ices and I was thinking I´m dreaming, but in the next second I feel how thr little green ghost take my plaid from the bed and takes it over me. I was falling in a deep sleep.
Then I awaked I have feel so good. I never sleeped better.
It was a good feeling. This I will never forgett.
Bye, from Germany, yours Mirela
Posted on 20-Sep-06 at 6:33 am | Permalink
ed makvey wrote:
It’s been quite a while but I found out some info about St. Malvey the real name of the church is St Moluag’s church (locally known by its gaidhlig name of Teampull Mholuaidh) is a 13th Century temple in the village of Eoropie in Ness in the Isle of Lewis
Posted on 18-Jan-08 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
Tom Malvey wrote:
I have documentation on the church from a journal written by Charles Dickens in 1887. He calls it the church of St Malvey. I traced him back to 590 AD. He and St Columba et al were called the disciples of Ireland. I think you might be Molly’s son, brother Jimmy now Father Seamus, and my cousin.
Posted on 29-Jan-08 at 11:01 am | Permalink