Pic: Knockgrafton Facebook

For those who may not have gotten enough Celtic music during the fourth Maynooth Celtic Festival last week, you were in for a treat, with the final offering this season from Performing Arts Bancroft, Ottawa, reports the Bancroft This Week website. Jennifer White, a Celtic harpist and storyteller, hit the boards at the Village Playhouse on May 9. White discovered the Celtic harp at the University of Western Ontario, where she was studying literature, says her website.

Continue Reading »

This tale is the first part of three in the Saga of Manannan. We hear many of the short exploits of the Sea God and he decides to visits the Nobles of Erin in the guise of a rogueish tramp. Are they ready for the wiles of Manannan? The fascinating thing about this set of tales is that they seem to follow the magical Celtic formula of Three. There are three separate encounters and each seems to teach a separate lesson. It’s almost as if Manannan travels to the Nobles to teach them something important.   We also announce the very first Celtic Myth Podshow competition with two great prizes! Don’t miss it

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 Shownotes for this episode in the Shownotes section.

If you come to the site and listen or listen from one of our players – have you considered subscribing? It’s easy and you automatically get the episodes on your computer when they come out. If you’re unsure about the whole RSS/Subscribing thing take a look at our Help page.

Emily Carding is an artist with a unique style. Her inspiration is the realm of the fey, magic, gods, the sidhe and her work carries a rare vibrancy and power. You can see here work at her website, the Child of Avalon. Check out the Tarot decks she has created as well as her art in the Galleries. The Tarot of the Sidhe can be purchased here.The powerful image to the left used to show you her style represents the meeting between CuChulainn and the Morrigan, which is spot on really as our Episode 004, The Coming of Lugh, has a similar meeting between Lugh and the Morrigan.

As it is often claimed that CuChulainn is the child of Lugh, there is a strong parallel between these two meetings.

About herself, she says: Continue Reading »

Originally posted 2008-04-01 10:40:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Pic: Antiquity Journal

In August 2007, holidaymakers discovered two pairs of polished jadeitite axeheads that had been set vertically in gravelly silt on the beach of Porh Fetan, at a location called Petit Rohu reports the Antiquity Journal. The shape and material of these axeheads allowed them to be identified straightaway as being of Alpine origin, in common with a number of axeheads found in the region (Bailloud et al. 1995; Pétrequin et al. 1997). Archaeological fieldwork, both on the land in the vicinity of the findspot and underwater, was subsequently carried out by the Laboratory of Archaeological Research (CNRS – Nantes University), in order to examine the context of the findspot and to try to delimit the extent of the site.

Continue Reading »

You may remember from an earlier post that Michael from knowth.com has produced a stunning video  featuring Loughcrew in County Meath, Ireland. . He has now produced an extended version of the video with music, which captures the sanctity and ambiance of these ancient tombs.

Michael’s Videos allow us to touch the lives  of our ancestors and their world for just a few minutes however far away we maybe from the sacred sites of our forebears.

Loughcrew (Irish: Loch Craobh) is near Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland. (Sometimes written Lough Crew). Loughcrew is a site of considerable historical importance in Ireland. It is the site of megalithic burial grounds dating back to approximately 3500 and 3300 BC, situated near the summit of Sliabh na Caillí Lough Crew Passage Tomb Cemetery is one of the big four passage tomb sites in Ireland (the others are Bru na Boinne, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore). Continue Reading »

Pic: Adventure Gamers

Do you remember the computer game company Sierra making such great adventure games some years ago? Well, Adventure Gamers have a superb review of the game about this MIDI soundtrack game with EGA graphics. Andrea Morstabilini says: Although there is no voice acting in Camelot, each location features a unique MIDI theme that manages to create a strong particular mood, from the courtly main theme to the gloomy sounds of the forest to the middle eastern score in the desert

surrounding Gaza and later in Jerusalem. The soundtrack, orchestrated by Mark Seibert, always manages to be fitting. There is also one particular theme – bright and yet melancholic, in the fashion of goliardic music – that I found very addictive. Maybe that’s because I heard it a lot, as that’s the one which plays when King Arthur fails one of his perilous tasks and sheds his mortal coil. Continue Reading »

Pic: Bronze-Depot.com

The Archaeozoology blog carries a report about the practice of Paleolithic Horse Hunting and they say: The site of Roche de Solutre is one of a series of ridges or cuestas in the southern part of the Maconnais region of Burgundy, France. The cuestas are oriented from east to west and are separated by broad valleys with minor streams. The archaeological site at Solutre is located at the base of the southern face of the Roche de Solutre.

The discoverer and first investigator of the site, Adrien Arcelin, tried to explain the mass of horse bones revealed during the 19th century excavations by describing Palaeolithic hunters driving herds of up to 600 animals at a time over the edge of the rock. This concept of Solutre as a ‘horse-jump’ site found favour in the late 1800s and was upheld even as late as the 1950s. However, in 1956 Jean Combier re-interpreted Solutre as a place to which hunters periodically returned to kill horses which were passing through the valley during their seasonal migrations. Continue Reading »

We really pleased to be able to announce that for lovers of the Cornish Celts, the book A Handbook of the Cornish Language is now available online, free of charge and available for download. Thanks to Project Gutenberg and ManyBooks.net, we are able to get this invaluable linguistic resource in numerous formats for studying on our desktop computers or mobile devices. This book is principally intended for those persons of Cornish nationality who wish to acquire some knowledge of their ancient tongue, and to read, write, and perhaps even to speak it. Its aim is to represent in an intelligible form the Cornish of the later period, and since it is addressed to the general Cornish public rather than to the skilled philologist, much has been left unsaid that might have been of interest to the latter, old-fashioned phonological and grammatical terms have been used, a uniform system of spelling has been adopted, little notice has been taken of casual variations, and the arguments upon which the choice of forms has been based have not often been given.

Excerpt

…man, and have far less in common with the Anglo-Saxon, the Celt, or any other white man than they have with the Hottentot, the Esquimaux, the Lapp, or the Australian “blackfellow.†This is particularly the case in what was once the forest-covered district of middle England. There, no doubt, when there was any fighting to be done, the aboriginal hid in the woods until it was all over, and only then came out to share in the spoil and the glory and the drinks; while the white man, whether Briton, Saxon, or Norman, went out to fight, and not infrequently to be killed. A survival, perhaps, of the unfittest was the result, which may account for some of the peculiar characteristics of the Midland lower classes. That the successive changes of masters were matters of little or no importance to the enslaved aboriginal, while a life of servitude was intolerable to the free white man, may account for the fact that the labouring classes of Devon, Cornwall…

Project Gutenberg

Many Books.net

Pic: Science Daily

The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England — according to a new study, reports Science Daily back in February 2008. Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in existence as far back as medieval times, has revealed that 50 per cent of their DNA is specifically linked to Scandinavian ancestry.

The collaborative study, by The University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, reveals that the population in parts of northwest England carries up to 50 per cent male Norse origins, about the same as modern Orkney. Continue Reading »

Pic: Shorewatch.co.uk

A Bronze Age structure thought to have been used as a sauna has been saved from destruction by the sea after a team of archaeologists moved the entire find to a safer location reports the Scotsman.com. The building, which dates from between 1500BC and 1200BC, was unearthed on the Shetland island of Bressay eight years ago. It was found in the heart of the Burnt Mound at Cruester, a Bronze Age site on the coast of Bressay facing Lerwick.

But earlier in the summer of 2008, because of the increased threat of coastal erosion, local historians joined archaeologists to launch a campaign to save the building and to move it somewhere safer. A third of the mound had already been lost to sea erosion.

The central structure was carefully dismantled and each stone numbered before being moved to a site a mile way next to Bressay Heritage Centre. Continue Reading »