Archaeologists in Co. Meath Pic: Irish Times

An archaeological site in Co Meath has been relying on the public for its dig outs, and has created a community-led heritage project in the process the Irish Times reports. Last August, archaeologists raised a goblet of mead in celebration when the skeleton of Richard III was unearthed under a carpark in Leicester. Now, an Irish team of archaeologists are hoping to find an ancestor of Richard III – in a patch of waste ground in Trim, Co Meath, just behind the local supermarket.

Beneath this four-acre rectangle of scrubby grass, bordered by a housing estate, lie the foundations of a 13th-century Dominican blackfriary, and a team of have been excavating the site, which contains many skeletons. They hope that one of these may be skeleton of sir Geoffrey de Geneville, a French nobleman who founded the friary.

Okay, he wasn’t a monarch, but he was well in with both king Henry III and his successor, king Edward I, and was appointed lord of Trim in 1252 and justiciar of Ireland in 1273. He and his wife, Maud de Lacy, the granddaughter of Walter de Lacy, lived at nearby Trim castle and were quite the power couple around medieval Meath. After Maud’s death in 1304, de Geneville retired to the friary, and is believed to have been buried there.

There’s a long way to go to identifying the exact skeleton – the team would need funding to do DNA testing, so let’s not break out the mead just yet. But for Steve Mandal, Lisanne O’Loughlin and Finola O’Carroll of CRDS, an archaeological and historical consultancy, there’s more to celebrate than the possible discovery of a medieval bigwig’s bones. The real excitement, says Mandal, comes from the project’s connection with the local community.

Mandal and his team set up the Blackfriary Community Archaeology Project in 2010, with support from Trim Town Council and Meath County Council, to excavate the site, determine the extent of the friary’s remains and the burials there, and to get the community and students involved via summer camps, educational programmes and information events. Recently, Mandal and O’Loughlin were invited to give a talk about the project at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Each summer, the site is a hive of activity as local and international students attend the field school in the hope of making a find – perhaps a utensil from the era, or a fragment of stained glass, or maybe even a medieval bishop’s skull. Most of the burials are just a few feet below mostly damp ground, and are in danger of completely decaying within another generation if they’re not properly excavated. It’s a delicate task, both physically and ethically. The human remains need to be treated with respect, and properly reinterred.

Impressive structure

The original Dominican friary was an impressive structure, built with Purbeck limestone, a beautiful, shell-flecked marble imported from Dorset. No expense was spared in choosing building materials, but it was reckoned to be worth it – from the time of Hugh de Lacy, who became lord of Meath during the Norman Invasion, up until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, Trim was a political, religious and economic power base, encompassing Meath, Westmeath and parts of Louth.

Read the full article on the Irish Times website.

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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The CMP Logo Pic: Celtic Myth Podshow

This is the second half of our super show celebrating the Spring Equinox and Ostara! We’ve got another 4 great pieces of music, a charming piece from a book by W.B. Yeats called Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (and published in 1888!) about the Fairies and a man called Frank Martin who has ‘The Sight’ and our amazing story by Ceri Norman from her superb book, Celtic Maidens. You’ll hear an amazing poem by Rick Allen, as well as music by SJ Tucker, Damh the Bard, the Connemara Stone Company and James Olin Oden! We also announce the winner of the Competition for the Celtic Twist CD, The Visit, that we set in CMP SP34, the Imbolc Show..

How to Listen

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.

You can now also hear our show on Stitcher Radio – whenever you want to!

We hope you enjoy it!

Gary & Ruthie x x x

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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.

The “Welsh Not” Pic: Tom Law

The British Empire used language to control their various colonies during the C19th writes Tom Law in the Sabotage Times. The power of the anti-Welsh Language feeling can be seen during the late C19th with the practice of ‘Welsh Not’. The ‘WN’ initials were carved onto a wooden plaque which school kids were made to wear around their neck if heard speaking Welsh in the classroom. The pupil wearing the plaque at the end of the day would be beaten. It was a practice endorsed by Welsh parents who wanted the best for their children.

English became the “Official” Language

It was a benign method of dominating occupied nations with minimal bloodshed or confrontation – a very English form of tyranny.

Whether it was Ireland, Singapore, Nigeria or North Borneo – the method was the same. English would become the official language used for government, commerce and law. Natives chosen for positions of power would be sent off to English public schools to learn the language and the ‘British’ way of life.

It would seep down through society, exploiting people’s natural desire to better themselves, to have the best opportunities in life. In doing so, it created a vicious form of divide and rule – collaborators versus separatists, English speakers versus native speakers. It was a seed which, once planted, took on a malevolent life of its own – spreading and mutating over generations.

The Government reported the Welsh as Dangerous and Lawless

This is exactly what happened in Wales. The country in the C19th was viewed by the English as being a dangerous and lawless land – Wild Wales. It was a fear fueled by the growth of Welsh working class radicalism; the rise of the Chartist movement, outbreaks of rebellion such as the Merthyr Rising of 1831 and the Rebecca Riots of the 1840s.

These were Welsh people joining together to fight against corruption, inequality and injustice. But they were portrayed in the London media as being a kind of sub-human rabble; wild and barbaric people who babbled and plotted in their primitive language. It was a view endorsed by the Government; an 1847 report into the state of Welsh education and morality found the country’s population to be dirty, lazy, drunken and over-sexed.

Uprising Pic: Tom Law

The report concluded that the main problem with Wales was its language. And the cure was simple – the eradication of Welsh from the education system. It proposed that state funded English language schools should be set-up – and that’s what happened. It’s one of these schools where I, like most Welsh people, was taught.

So a deranged report by three English inspectors who couldn’t speak Welsh and who didn’t have any background in education became the blueprint for Welsh schooling; the reason that generations of Welsh people have been taught only English.

But the report’s other toxic legacy was to give many Welsh speakers a deep-rooted sense of inferiority and shame about their language. It was no longer something to be proud of, it was a problem that needed to be tackled. It was a sickness infecting the country, something the English had found the cure for.

Cultural Civil War?

This division of the population by language has been eating away at the country ever since. It has created two versions of Wales, two distinct cultures which view the other as a threat. What one side gains, the other side loses. What’s good for one, is bad for the other.

It has left non-Welsh speakers feeling like outsiders in their own country, forever left out in the cold and staring back in at a history and culture they can’t access; at jobs they’re not qualified to do. For Welsh speakers, they have been battered from all sides, endlessly under attack, having to justify the use of their own language – mostly to fellow Welsh people.

Eric Fraser’s Dragon Art Pic: Tom Law

It’s a cultural civil war which has brought out the worst aspects of both sides. A nation which once fought for its rights, which fought against inequality and injustice has been effectively turned in on itself. If the attack on the Welsh language was done to subdue and weaken the country, to create a servile and utterly compliant people who would accept their British medicine – then it can only be seen as a monumental success.

Wales has become a husk of a nation. The decline of the language, the stripping away of links to its history and culture, has induced a kind of dementia. It’s a country which no longer remembers who or what it is – so it simply exists. And accepts the guiding hand of its neighbour.

The removal of the Welsh personality has created a void which is being gleefully filled by the English media’s tub thumping brand of Britishness – the royal family, the Armed Forces, Team GB and all that. And there seems little hope of anything changing.

There’s no fight or energy left. No upsurge of anger. No dissent. No political will. No obvious solution. Just a blank stare, a rugby top and a grim Welsh cheeriness; a nihilistic acceptance of fate. While Scotland gains confidence and considers independence, Wales is left retreating into the arms of its abusive partner and going gently into that good night.

What can be done?

Here at the CMP, we say:

Well might you ask “What can we do?” – this is a situation we have seen again and again in Celtic Countries – Wales, Ireland and Brittany! Whether it be a ‘new’ and ‘incoming’ Government or Religion, the pattern has always been the same, change the language, change the holidays, change the names and you begin to change the hearts of the people. Let’s go back to school and re-learn the languages of our Roots – let’s listen to the Learn Welsh or Say Something in Welsh Podcast (see our Resources section), steep ourselves in the history and archaeology of our lands and find our about the folklore and beliefs of our ancestors – for these things are the ground from which we sprang!

The full, well-written and emotive, article can be found on the sabotagetimes website.

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace  in the US.
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.

The Mound of Hostages Pic: Dunechaser

The Irish people have just undertaken a survey whose results were released to coincide with National Heritage week. The results are somewhat surprising. Chief among the Irish heritage locations and landmarks respondents were most embarrassed at not having yet visited was the Hill of Tara. Listeners to our stories know how central and important the Hill of Tara is to the Heritage of the Irish Celts. The three most important sites voted for were Newgrange, the Burren and Glendalough in Co. Wicklow.

The Irish Times

The Irish Times – Friday, August 26, 2011, reported:

The three most popular heritage sites are Newgrange Co Meath, the Burren in Co Clare and Glendalough in Co Wicklow.
That is according to a new survey released to coincide with National Heritage week.
However, while 450 of the 600 people interviewed claimed heritage was important for tourism, many respondents expressed some shame at not having visited popular sites.
Chief among the Irish heritage locations and landmarks respondents were most embarrassed at not having yet visited was the Hill of Tara. In second place was the Rock of Cashel and in third position came Newgrange.

When asked to choose the heritage property that most closely depicts Ireland’s history, participants chose round towers and monastic locations as the structure most in fitting with Ireland’s rich historical past. Ancient settlement sites ran a close second.
However, more than one-third of respondents (37 per cent) were unable to say whether sufficient efforts were being made to protect sites and properties.
Almost the same percentage of respondents believed more could be done (36.8 per cent) to preserve our properties. Meanwhile, the remainder, 26.2 per cent, believed that enough was being done to maintain heritage landmarks. In order of historical importance as deemed by respondents, the GPO was the only 20th century site mentioned, and came in in second place. Newgrange was top.
The survey was commissioned by Keane public relations, acting for the Ecclesiastical insurance company to mark heritage week. Ecclesiastical donates a significant proportion of its profits to charity.

The Irish Times 

The Irish Examiner

Fergus Black, in the Irish Examiner, repiorted that:

IT is 5,000 years old, famously sees the light once every year, and has now been voted Ireland’s top heritage site and most important historical landmark. The Neolithic passage tomb in Newgrange — lit up by the winter solstice sunrise in December — has been crowned the nation’s favourite, knocking the iconic GPO in Dublin and the Burren in Co Clare off the top spots for the most historically important and favourite heritage site in the country.

The Entrance at Newgrange Pic: Kevin Lawver

Yet despite its ‘top of the spots’ popularity, almost one in ten people say the Meath attraction is the one that they are most embarrassed to admit having not yet visited.
Kerry is also given the thumbs up, topping the public’s preference as the most scenic county with just one eastern county, Wicklow, featuring among the country’s top six county beauty spots.
The findings are revealed in a nationwide survey which shows that three out of four people believe our heritage is vital to Irish tourism. More than 600 adults were polled as part of a nationwide survey by the Ecclesiastical insurance company to assess the public’s views on Irish heritage. Up to last week, the most up- to-date figures show there were more than 157,000 visitors to Newgrange, its visitor centre and to the nearby megalithic site of Knowth.
The Office of Public Works which manages Newgrange and other heritage sites said that last year’s ash cloud disruption had adversely affected visitor numbers across many attractions but this year’s figures were well up and had been boosted by the “free first Wednesday” initiative at many of its sites.
According to the survey, Newgrange headed the top 10 list as Ireland’s favourite heritage site ahead of the Burren, Glendalough and the Cliffs of Moher. It was also voted number one favourite heritage structure over such landmarks as the Rock of Cashel, — visited by Queen Elizabeth during her recent trip — Dublin Castle, Trinity College and the GPO.
Embarrassed
And it came out on top again in the favourite historical site category, beating the GPO and Hill of Tara.
Despite its apparent popularity however, Newgrange is ranked third of the top ten Irish heritage sites and landmarks people are most embarrassed at having not yet visited.
The Hill of Tara tops the list with one in eight of those surveyed saying they were most embarrassed about not having visited it yet, followed by the Rock of Cashel (9.93pc) and Newgrange (9.30pc).
While almost three in every four people believe heritage is critically important to Irish tourism, the survey also revealed that more than a third were not satisfied with the level of work being done to preserve heritage sites and a similar number were unaware of the work being done to preserve them.
Irish Independent

Read more:

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/newgrange-tops-heritage-site-poll-165466.html#ixzz1W7TOn3qU

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/newgrange-tops-heritage-site-poll-165466.html

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Descripition Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Appbrain at http://www.appbrain.com/app/celtic-myth-show/tv.wizzard.android.celticmythpodshow841 or by using the QR code opposite.
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.

Originally posted 2011-10-22 08:46:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Pic: Celtic Myth Podshow

This is the first half of our MONSTER show celebrating the Spring Equinox and Ostara! Be prepared for 4 super pieces of music, a fascinating piece about the Loughcrew Passage Tomb that shows that the Iron Age Celts did regard the Spring Equinox as significant, a wonderful Ostara piece by our resident bard, Chris Joliffe and as a super, special surprise – a listener submitted story, with Audio that he’s recorded himself! And this is only the first part! The next part of the show will be following hot on its heels!

How to Listen

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.

We hope you enjoy it!

Gary & Ruthie x x x

———————————

You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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.

The Book of Kells for iPad Pic: Book of Kells.com

The Book of Kells is one of the world’s most famous illustrated manuscripts and the most elaborate manuscript of its kind to survive from the early Middle Ages. A copy of the four gospels, it was written by Irish monks in the 9th Century on calf-skin, with spectacularly intricate designs. Today, it is on display in the Library of Trinity College Dublin and seen by 500,000 visitors each year.

Now we can explore each of the pages in high-resolution detail on our iPads. The iPad app contains all 680 pages of the manuscript allowing the user to scroll through the manuscript page by page. High resolution images of the most highly decorated pages are included at up to six times their original size.

The Book of Kells for iPad was designed and developed by X Communications in partnership with Trinity College Library Dublin. This publication follows on from the award-winning CD-ROM which was published in 2000 and then later replaced by the DVD-ROM in 2006.

The images used for the iPad app were digitised by The Digital Resources & Imaging Services in Trinity College Library from transparencies provided by Faksimile-Verlag Luzern who published a facsimile of the manuscript in 1990.

X Communications is a campus company founded in 1994 by Marie Redmond from the School of Computer Science & Statistics. The company is an award-winning digital media agency and has produced interactive installations for The National Museum, The National Library, the Hugh Lane Gallery, and the National Gallery. The Book of Kells for iPad took six months to complete; the designer is Stephanie Francis and the programmer is Killian Walsh.

All images on the app are protected by Digimarc® for Images which allows invisible persistent digital watermarks to be embedded into images to show ownership and copyright and any use of the images on the Internet is monitored.

For details on the Technical Specs for the App and how to buy it, pop along to the App’s website at BookofKells.com.

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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.

Aine Pic: Caroline Evans

Gerald’s conception was magical. His father, Earl Maurice, saw the beautiful other-worldly woman Áine on the shores of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, which was family property. By seizing her cloak he gained power over her and then lay with her; in nine months Áine presented the son Gerald at the castle door. In maturity Gerald frequently showed his magical ability, but in many stories this power precipitates a mysterious departure. After astonishing his father by leaping in and out of a bottle, he took the form of a goose, waded into the nearby Camogue River, and swam away. More commonly, he grows to maturity and marries, but his wife is curious that he practises magic spells in a private room and asks to see them. In a twinkling he turns himself into a goldfinch who plays at his wife’s bosom, until he is pursued by a predatory hawk, which she dashes against a wall, killing it. But the lady cannot find the goldfinch, and Earl Gerald is never seen again. He is thought to live in his castle at the bottom of Lough Gur, it and the entire household having sunk there.

As his family, the Geraldines, Fitzgeralds, or Mac Gearailts, were both highly Gaelicized and powerful, Earl Gerald’s interactions with the Otherworld are rife with political implications and have numerous parallels in English, French, and German traditions. Gerald’s persona unquestionably grew more prominent in Irish tradition with the Geraldine (Kildare branch) rebellion of 1534 and the failed military career of the 2nd Earl Gerald of Desmond (d. 1583). The story of Gerald’s conception has parallels in the affair between Ailill Aulomm and Áine, and Cnoc Áine [Knockainy], seat of Áine, is near Lough Gur. Gerald’s story should be distinguished from that of Gearóid [anglicized Garret] Óg, the 11th Earl of Kildare, who lies under the rath at Mullaghmast, rising up every seven years to ride round the Curragh of Kildare on a horse shod with silver.

Historical (1338–98) Hiberno-Norman nobleman, composer of love poetry, who became 3rd Earl of Desmond (i.e. south Munster) in 1358, and around whom fabulous legends have accrued.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/earl-of-desmond-gerald#ixzz2Koj5TSlQ

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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.

The Heaven-World of the ancient Celts, unlike that of the Christians, was not situated in some distant, unknown region of planetary space, but here on our own earth. As it was necessarily a subjective world, poets could only describe it in terms more or less vague; and its exact geographical location, accordingly, differed widely in the minds of scribes from century to century. Sometimes, as is usual today in fairy-lore,

Pic :Mark Grealish

it was a subterranean world entered through caverns, or hills, or mountains, and inhabited by many races and orders of invisible beings, such as demons, shades, fairies, or even gods…

And the underground world of the Sidhe-folk, which cannot be separated from it, was divided into districts or kingdoms under different fairy kings and queens, just as the upper world of mortals. We already know how the Tuatha De Danann or Sidhe-folk, after their defeat by the Sons of Mil at the Battle of Tailte, retired to this underground world and took possession of its palaces beneath the green hills and vales of Ireland; and how from there, as gods of the harvest, they still continued to exercise authority over their conquerors, or marshaled their own invisible spirit-hosts in fairy warfare, and sometimes interfered in the wars of men…

“Many go to the Tir-na-nog in sleep, and some are said to have remained there,
and only a vacant form is left behind without the light in the eyes
which marks the presence of a soul.”
~~ A. E. ~~

More frequently, in the old Irish manuscripts, the Celtic Otherworld was located in the midst of the Western Ocean, as though it were the ‘double’ of the lost Atlantis; and Manannan Mac Lir, the Son of the Sea–perhaps himself the ‘double’ of an ancient Atlantean king–was one of the divine rulers of its fairy inhabitants, and his palace, for he was one of the Tuatha De Danann, was there rather than in Ireland; and when he traveled between the two countries it was in a magic chariot drawn by horses who moved over the sea-waves as on land. And fairy women came from that mid-Atlantic world in magic boats like spirit boats, to charm away such mortal men as in their love they chose, or else to take great Arthur wounded unto death. And in that island world there was neither death nor pain nor scandal, naught save immortal and unfading youth, and endless joy and feasting… Continue Reading »

Originally posted 2008-06-11 14:02:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Dale Jarvis – “Brothers Grimm: 200 Years” Pic: Dale Jarvis

Dale Jarvis is a well-known Story-teller friend of ours known for telling ghost stories, legends and traditional tales from Newfoundland and beyond.  Founder of the St. John’s Storytelling Circle, he was Storytellers of Canada’s representative at the inaugural meeting of the Federation for European Storytelling (FEST) in Norway, 2008. Since 1997, Dale has been the host of the St. John’s Haunted Hike, named “Event of the Year” by the City of St. John’s.Author of four books on Newfoundland folklore and ghost stories, Dale has taught workshops across North America on historical storytelling. He has taught hundreds of children to tell their stories, and is committed to spreading the art of storytelling. In the Telegram he reports:

The idea there are certain rocks associated with the fairies is an ancient one, and it is not surprising to find stories in circulation in the province about rocks that are fairy-haunted. I have heard stories about a special rock on the Southside Hills where the fairies were supposed to dance, and which was said to best be avoided by human folk.

In the summer of 2006, I took part in a CBC Radio Noon phone-in show with former host Anne Budgell and Newfoundland playwright Robert Chafe, whose fairy-themed play “Butlers Marsh” was then running. One gentleman caller from Seal Cove shared a story of a fairy rock which had once stood close to Empire Avenue near the north side of the Belvedere Cemetery in St. John’s. When the man was young, there was a gate at the corner of Bonaventure Avenue and Empire Avenue. Near that, just outside the graveyard, close to the gate, was a rock outcrop. In the rock were five or six little steps about half-an-inch to an inch high. The caller said:

No one could convince us that it wasn’t the fairies that owned those steps. Of course, we only saw that in daylight, because no one was going down there to check that after dark, it being so close to the graveyard. Every time we passed there, myself and my friends, we’d have to stop and sit down and look at the fairy steps.

Belvedere Cemetery Pic: Google

The association with fairies and specific rocks is a very old tradition, and one that has its roots in the old world. There are many stories from the Celtic world of fairy-haunted rocks, and the idea is particularly common in Scandinavian countries as well.

Icelandic Trolls

In Iceland, there are many rock outcrops that are said to be the homes of elves and trolls, and in some instances, particular rock formations are said to be the remains of trolls themselves.

An area in Iceland known as Dimmuborgir (Icelandic for “Dark Citadels”) is home to a series of strange rock formations which folklore maintains were once trolls. A group of trolls had been out walking one night, forgot about the time, and when the sun came up, they all turned into stone. Another Iceland formation, called the “Reynisdrangar Needles,” was formed when a pair of trolls were dragging a ship to land. When daylight broke they, too, were turned to stone. In recent years, an Icelandic road project threatened a rock formation said to be home to trolls. With great care, the road plan was adjusted, and one rock was moved. I think this says more about a local belief in the importance of their heritage and folklore than it does about whether or not the road planners really believed in the fairy folk. In contrast, when I went looking for the fairy steps on Empire Avenue, they were nowhere to be found.

Find out more about Dale Jarvis on his own Blogspot website.

Read the full article on the Telegram website.

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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Celtic Cauldron Pic: Sylvantech

The Cauldron is a symbol that occurs throughout Celtic Mythology – from the Cauldrons of the Dagda and Ceridwen to the Holy Grail of King Arthur. In one part of the Mabinogion, which is the cycle of myths found in Welsh legend, Cerridwen brews up a potion in her magical cauldron to give to her son Afagddu (Morfran). She puts young Gwion in charge of guarding the cauldron, but three drops of the brew fall upon his finger, blessing him with the knowledge held within. Cerridwen pursues Gwion through a cycle of seasons until, in the form of a hen, she swallows Gwion, disguised as an ear of corn. Nine months later, she gives birth to Taliesen, the greatest of all the Welsh poets.

The Cauldron of Knowledge

As a goddess of the Underworld, Cerridwen is often symbolized by a white sow, which represents both her fecundity and fertility and her strength as a mother. She is both the Mother and the Crone; many modern Pagans honor Cerridwen for her close association to the full moon.

The Cauldron of Bran the Blessed

In the Celtic legend of Bran the Blessed, the cauldron appears as a vessel of wisdom and rebirth. Bran, mighty warrior-god, obtains a magical cauldron from Cerridwen (in disguise as a giantess) who had been expelled from a lake in Ireland, which represents the Otherworld of Celtic lore. The cauldron can resurrect the corpse of dead warriors placed inside it (this scene is believed to be depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron). Bran gives his sister Branwen and her new husband Math — the King of Ireland — the cauldron as a wedding gift, but when war breaks out Bran sets out to take the valuable gift back. He is accompanied by a band of a loyal knights with him, but only seven return home.

The famous silver Gundestrup Cauldron Pic: Wiki

Bran himself is wounded in the foot by a poisoned spear, another theme that recurs in the Arthur legend — found in the guardian of the Holy Grail, the Fisher King. In fact, in some Welsh stories, Bran marries Anna, the daughter of Joseph of Arimathea. Also like Arthur, only seven of Bran’s men return home. Bran travels after his death to the otherworld, and Arthur makes his way to Avalon. There are theories among some scholars that Cerridwen’s cauldron — the cauldron of knowledge and rebirth — in in fact the Holy Grail for which Arthur spent his life searching. [source]

The Cauldron of the Dagda

In the Mythological Cycle of early Irish literature, the four treasures (or jewels) of the Tuatha Dé Danann are four magical items which the mythological Tuatha Dé Danann are supposed to have brought with them from the four island cities Murias, Falias, Gorias and Findias, when they arrived in Ireland. They were accompanied by the Dagda – Danu’s son by Bile, The Dagdha, or Good God, who is also known as the All Father, Eochaid Ollathair (Father of All), and Ruadh Rofessa (The Red One). One of the fabulous, magical treasures that they brought with them was the Cauldron of the Dagda from which no company ever went away unsatisfied. The cauldron was known as the Undry and was said to be bottomless. Another link between the legends of the Dagda and a Cauldron occurs on the eve of the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh, The Dagda visited the camp of the Fomorii, where he was forced to eat a huge cauldron stuffed with enough porridge of milk, flour, fat, pigs and goats for fifty men. This test temporarily turned him into a fat old man, but it did not prevent him from making love to a Formorii girl, who promised to use her magic against her people. (See CMP 005 – Girding the Loins for Battle for the story).

The Cauldron of Dyrnwch the Giant

The Black Cauldron Pic: Dragon’s Breath Blessings

Listed as one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, The cauldron (pair) of Dyrnwch the Giant is said to discriminate between cowards and brave men: whereas it would not boil meat for a coward, it would boil quickly if that meat belonged to a brave man. The description probably goes back to a story similar to that found in the Middle Welsh tale Culhwch ac Olwen, in which the cauldron of Diwrnach the Irishman, steward (maer) to Odgar son of Aedd, King of Ireland, is among the anoetheu which Culhwch is required to obtain for the wedding banquet.

King Arthur requests the cauldron from King Odgar, but Diwrnach refuses to give up his prized possession. Arthur goes to visit Diwrnach in Ireland, accompanied by a small party, and is received at his house, but when Diwrnach refuses to answer Arthur’s request a second time, Bedwyr (Arthur’s champion) seizes the cauldron and entrusts it to one of Arthur’s servants, who is to carry the load on his back. In a single sweep with the sword called Caledfwlch, Llenlleawg the Irishman kills off Diwrnach and all his men. A confrontation with Irish forces ensues, but Arthur and his men fight them off. They board their ship Prydwen and, taking with them the cauldron loaded with the spoils of war, return to Britain. In Culhwch, Diwrnach’s cauldron is not attributed with any special power. However, the earlier poem Preiddeu Annwfn (The Spoils of Annwfn), refers to an adventure by Arthur and his men to obtain a cauldron with magical properties equivalent to the one in the lists of the thirteen treasures. In this poem the owner of the cauldron is not an Irish lord but the king of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld, suggesting that the version of the story in Culhwch is a later attempt to euhemerize an older tale. Diwrnach’s name, which derives from Irish Diugurach and exhibits no literary provenance, may have been selected by the author of Culhwch ac Olwen to emphasize the Irish setting of his story. Although Dyrnwch is not himself described as an Irishman, it is probable that his name goes back to Diwrnach. The extant manuscripts of Tri Thlws ar Ddeg also present such variant spellings as Dyrnog and Tyrnog, without the Irish-sounding ending, but on balance, these are best explained as Welsh approximations of a foreign name.

The Cauldron of Manannan

Manannán mac Lir is a sea deity in Irish mythology. He is the son of the obscure Lir (in Irish the name is “Lear”, meaning “Sea”; “Lir” is the genitive form of the word). He is often seen as a psychopomp, and has strong affiliations with the Otherworld, the weather and the mists between the worlds. He is usually associated with the Tuatha Dé Danann, although most scholars consider him to be of an older race of deities. Manannán figures widely in Irish literature, and appears also in Scottish and Manx legend. He is cognate with the Welsh figure Manawydan fab Llŷr. Manannán was associated with a “cauldron of regeneration”. This is seen in the tale of Cormac mac Airt, among other tales.  Here, he appeared at Cormac’s ramparts in the guise of a warrior who told him he came from a land where old age, sickness, death, decay, and falsehood were unknown (the Otherworld was also known as the “Land of Youth” or the “Land of the Living”).  [wiki]

The Holy Grail – Cauldron of Sovereignty

The Holy Grail is a dish, plate, stone, or cup that is part of an important theme of Arthurian literature. A grail, wondrous but not explicitly “holy,” first appears in Perceval le Gallois, an unfinished romance by Chrétien de Troyes: it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast. Chretien’s story attracted many continuators, translators and interpreters in the later 12th and early 13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who makes the grail a great precious stone that fell from the sky. The Grail legend became interwoven with legends of the Holy Chalice. The connection with Joseph of Arimathea and with vessels associated with the Last Supper and crucifixion of Jesus, dates from Robert de Boron’s Joseph d’Arimathie (late 12th century) in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain. Building upon this theme, later writers recounted how Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ’s blood while interring him and how he founded a line of guardians to keep it safe in Britain. The legend may combine Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers.

Sangreal (Arthur Rackham) Pic: Wiki

The Holy Grail in the Mabinogion

The Welsh romance Peredur, generally included in the Mabinogion, likely at least indirectly founded on Chrétien’s poem but including very striking differences from it, preserving as it does elements of pre-Christian traditions such as the Celtic cult of the head. Peredur son of Efrawg is one of the three Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion. It tells a story roughly analogous to Chrétien de Troyes’ unfinished romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it contains many striking differences from that work, most notably the absence of the French poem’s central object, the grail. The central character of the tale is Peredur, son of Efrawg. As in Percival, the hero’s father dies when he is young, and his mother takes him into the woods and raises him in isolation. Eventually he meets a group of knights and determines to become like them, so he travels to King Arthur’s court. There he is ridiculed by Cei and sets out on further adventures, promising to avenge Cei’s insults to himself and those who defended him. While travelling he meets two of his uncles, the first plays the role of Percival’s Gornemant and educates him in arms and warns him not to ask the significance of what he sees. The second replaces Chrétien’s Fisher King, but instead of showing Peredur a ‘grail’, he reveals a salver containing a man’s severed head. The young knight does not ask about this and proceeds to further adventure, including a stay with the Nine Witches of Gloucester (Caer Loyw) and the encounter with the woman who was to be his true love, Angharad Golden-Hand. Peredur returns to Arthur’s court, but soon embarks on another series of adventures that do not correspond to material in Percival (Gawain’s exploits take up this section of the French work.) Eventually the hero learns the severed head at his uncle’s court belonged to his cousin, who had been killed by the Nine Witches of Gloucester. Peredur avenges his family, and is celebrated as a hero. [wiki]

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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.