Here at the Celtic Myth Podshow, we celebrate the art of story-telling in the realm of Celtic Mythology and as our chosen medium is podcasting, we like to support all those other podcasters who do such a wonderful job of bringing entertainment to us all. It is no surprise then that we are really proud to announce the release of the book versions of two of our favourite podcasts: The Fox and The Mark of a Druid.

Valentine’s Day Sweetness

These wonderful ladies have gotten together and are asking us to consider buying their books on Valentine’s Day as a gift for our loved ones. More than that, they are asking us to buy their books on February 1st.  Why? Well, if we can maximise their sales on that day then the ratings on the Amazon listings for their books go up. That means there is a greater call for stories based on the Ancient Celts and that is good for us all! Go for it ladies!

Arlene and Rhonda say:

Join us on Feb 1st, 2009 for the formal release of our Celtic novels, The Mark of a Druid and The Fox. Two books for your Valentine. Better than candy, longer lasting than flowers, and hours of entertainment for your sweetheart. Some choices are hard but on Feb. 1st, we think your choice is easy. You simply choose them both, a sweetheart of an idea.

On Feb. 1st, 2009 go to www.Amazon.com and purchase The Fox by Arlene Radasky AND The Mark of a Druid by Rhonda R Carpenter. If you have listened to or already read these life-expanding stories then please go to www.Amazon.com, www.Podiobooks.com
or iTunes and leave a comment. Help us rise in the Amazon ranks so others will find these two wonderful books.

The Fox

The Fox, written by Arlene Radasky, contains adventure, ancient Celtic beliefs, sacrifice, love of family, ancient and modern culture, and divorce.

Jahna and Lovern’s clan lay in the Romans’ path of destruction. The death of their people is a certainty, unless a bargain is made with the Gods, even if it means a human sacrifice.

Will the trade the Druid Lovern and his visionary wife, Jahna make with the Gods, save their family?

Will there be future generations to sing the songs of their dead?

Two centuries later, Aine MacRae is on their trail. She’s a struggling archaeologist, on the verge of uncovering the village were Jahna and Lovern lived. She’s found the farm where her site is located is for sale! But for a ghostly, visit greed almost triumphs leaving the truth and ancient stories buried forever.

Listen to The Fox and discover if Jahna and Lovern’s bloodline continues and if Aine wins her independence, finds answers to haunting questions and allows a lost love to be rekindled.

You can find The Fox on Podiobooks and Arlene’s website at www.radasky.com.

The Mark of a Druid

When twenty-six-year-old Eve McCormick awakes, the images from her nightmare are indelible. The dream feels so real she must force herself to get a grip. This experience is just the beginning for Eve, a Los Angeles clinical hypnotherapist and researcher investigating whether reincarnation is fact or fiction.

Unstoppable visions of an ancient lifetime steal days from her. The danger escalates when she wakes up physically injured and marked with a strange symbol. While Eve battles the past to maintain her sanity and safety, her project is jeopardized as another researcher’s attempts to take over. One partner dies and another is accused of inappropriate conduct. Eve and her friend, Dr. Andrea McMurray, don’t believe in coincidence and probe their shared visions for answers.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Welshman Ryerson Sanders is haunted by his dreams and believes Eve’s research project can help him. For both of them, an ancient Celtic prophecy and long-sought revenge entangles the past with the present. A druidess and a shape-shifter must join to save the druid way of life, while a queen conspires to kill Erin’s only high king. Will the oaths and agendas of the past reach across the centuries to strengthen or to destroy?

You can find The Mark of a Druid on Rhonda’s website The Mark of a Druid and on Podiobooks.

An Excerpt from Book Of Folk-lore. by Sabine Baring-Gould [1913] We cannot expect to find reminiscences of the gods and goddesses of the primitive Silurian or Ivernian race that peopled Great Britain and Ireland, or even of the Celtic and Roman divinities, save in a most attenuated form. Even the saints of the Catholic Church who filled the religious horizon in England and Scotland for a thousand years have faded from it.

But we will endeavor to discover some traces, and some do remainThe prehistoric rude-stone building race certainly did have a goddess of Death, and probably one of Generation. In the subterranean excavations made in Le Petit Mona, by the Baron de Baye, the necropolises were guarded by rude figures representing a female cut in the chalk, and also by a representation of a stone hammer. The female figure has also been found cut on limestone in the department of Gard, on dolmens. In Brittany, in the covered alleys, there are numerous figures of stone axes or hammers, and also a curious shield-like representation that may possibly take the place of the female figure found in the chalk tombs, but which it was difficult to execute in granite. On one of the slabs of a dolmen, near Loudun, that I examined, was cut a celt, and a cdt is also cut on the huge upper stone or table of the famous dolmen of Confolens. In Brittany, where the incoming Celts from Wales and Cornwall overflowed the land and submerged the earlier peoples, these former have been largely influenced by the people they treated as belonging to a lower stratum of civilisation. Continue Reading »

Wassail fire Pic: Gary

Jason from the Wild Hunt reports on the tradition of Wassailing in his blog. He says: While most American Pagans are already looking towards Imbolc,  Lupercalia (or Valentines Day) and the Spring holidays, England is still finishing up their Winter observances, specifically the wassailing of trees. Timed around the old Epiphany feasts, this Anglo-Saxon tradition is undergoing a revival of sorts, with participants aware and comfortable with the pagan history of this event.

Continue Reading »

Pic: BBC

The BBC reports that a collection of rare Bronze Age axe heads discovered in Cornwall has gone on display in Truro after a campaign to keep the relics in the county. The 3,000-year-old artifacts were found in perfect condition, buried in a clay pot at Mylor near Falmouth during a search using metal detectors.

The collection would have gone to the British Museum but the Royal Cornwall Museum raised about £10,000 to keep it.

The find is believed to be the biggest of its type in Cornwall. Continue Reading »

Pic: Save Penwith Moors

Stone Pages reports that the moors of the Land’s End district of Cornwall (England) are incredibly rich in archaeology. The ritual landscapes of Merry Maidens, Tregeseal and Nine Maidens are superb reminders of a rich and diverse distant past. Whilst the numerous and unique entrance graves, chambered tombs, and fogous add mystery and enchantment to this wild landscape.

This past year has seen some bitter debate on cattle grazing around ancient sites between government agencies, local people and the archaeological and earth mysteries communities. Unfortunately there has been no public consultation, no single plan to deal with the problems that grazing may cause, and Natural England and Save Penwith Moors – two local groups – both bitterly opposed each other’s ideas with, it seems, no room for compromise.
Save Penwith Moors along with Natural England recently gave a presentation at a meeting in Penzance. The outcome of this meeting eventually decided to support two resolutions: that the fencing should stop immediately; and that all sides should get together and continue to discuss the situation. The only trouble is, the meeting had no power to implement the first proposal, and while the second proposal is a suitable outcome, it is likely that nothing will change.
This presents the potential problems of grazing cattle around ancient sites of huge archaeological importance, and whilst cattle grazing away from these areas presents no major problems, at Carnyorth Common there are the two major megalithic monuments of Tregeseal stone circle and the nearby holed stone row, plus numerous other less-visited sites. These monuments are very fragile, and many of the stones are only just embedded below the surface. Any cattle grazing this area could potentially make the sites unstable by using the stones as rubbing posts, and by churning up the soil around the stones.
The Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) have up to now remained quiet, but they have recently released a statement saying:

We do recognise that there are virtues in grazing the Moors, which could be of benefit to the sites, which have become completely overgrown and inaccessible, but equally we feel that any extension of existing fencing on the Moors is unacceptable and counter-productive. We strongly felt that it would have been far better if a Management Plan had been drawn up for the whole Moors, with public consultation and discussion, rather than the piecemeal schemes that are now going on.

The Save Penwith Moors group continues to oppose the scheme, and Natural England is pressing ahead with the grazing plans. We need to look after the ancient ritual landscapes of the Penwith Moors in a responsible manner and with an attitude of respect. Dialogue should be flowing freely between all interested parties and groups. Lets work together to protect the fragile ancient sites of the Land’s End Peninsular for all to enjoy. Please see the following web sites for further information: Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (www.cornishancientsites.com); Save Penwith Moors Group (www.savepenwithmoors.co.uk); Natural England’s Heath Project (www.theheathproject.org.uk).

[Source]

Pic: North River, Baccalieu

We are proud and pleased to welcome a guest blogger. Dale Gilbert Jarvis, who tells us a tale of fey activity in Newfoundland. Dale is a mild-mannered researcher working as the preservation officer for the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. By night however, he walks the streets as host and proprietor of The St. John’s Haunted Hike, an ambulatory paranormal exploration of the secrets that lie in Newfoundland’s darker corners. Most of you will probably be more familiar with his wonderful podcasting work. He tells wonderful stories in the Dale Jarvis Storyteller podcast. This story originally appeared in The Telegram under the title, Fairy Tale with a Sinister Twist.

Continue Reading »

Pic: Wiki

Wales Online reports that famed Irish actor, Patrick McGoohan, the creator and star of cult classic The Prisoner, has died aged 80, it was confirmed today. He died yesterday after a short illness, his son-in-law film producer Cleve Landsberg told the Associated Press in Los Angeles. McGoohan played the title character Six in the surreal 1960s show filmed in Portmeirion in Wales.

He also won two Emmy Awards for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama Columbo.

In more recent years he appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart.

We wish all condolences to his family.

Pic: Moray

The Scottish Press & Journal reports that Transport Scotland denied claims yesterday that the discovery of a Neolithic settlement would delay a long-awaited bypass on the A96. The Scottish Government body said the Fochabers bypass, estimated to cost £19-25million and take two years to complete, “remains on schedule to meet the timescale recently announced”.

Campaigners have waited decades for work to begin on the Fochabers scheme, which will divert traffic from the village’s narrow High Street and Mosstodloch, and speed up the flow on the main Inverness-Aberdeen road. Continue Reading »

The Fenland Citizen reports that March’s (near Cambridge) most earliest settlers possibly performed gruesome funeral rituals, according to exciting and rare evidence found by archaeologists excavating the town’s new highway site. The finds, which date between 2000 BC and 700 BC, suggest various burial rituals took place on the site in Hundred Road.

Evidence of these rituals have been found including burial platforms possibly used for excarnation – this is where the flesh from bodies was taken from the bones either by nature or hand. Continue Reading »

In this our second music special, the New Year Music Special, we bring you some more great music as well as another poem from the Book of Taliesin. You’ll hear moving folk music from Danny Quinn, Skully, Tiffany Apan, Anne Roos, Triflemore and Claymore, some wonderful Faery music from Tinkerscuss and Faeries Wear Boots. There’s also some more rocking music from Orient Xpress.

This episode we are proud to announce that Orient Xpress have allowed us to offer you their marvellous rocker, Ancient Hero, as a free download. Click the following link to download Ancient Hero now. The Episode is available for subscribers on the feed, or you can download it or listen to it from our Episodes page. You can find the for this episode in the Shownotes section.

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