Pic: deadeyebart a.k.a Brett’s

The Sunday Herald reports that a 4000-year-old “vampire” grave, believed to be the world’s first burial place for one of the presumed “undead”, has been discovered in eastern Europe. It bares spookily similar hallmarks to Celtic tombs in the British Isles designed to prevent bloodsucking “revenants”. These were recently buried people who were believed to rise from the grave, walk the earth and prey on the living. The discovery of the grave during a routine archaeological dig of an early Bronze Age burial site in Mikulovice, eastern Bohemia, in the Czech Republic means that Dracula and the rest of his vampiric brood can now trace their bloodline back at least 4000 years.

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Pic: Avalonia

A new book will be published by Avalonia Books that provides a huge collection of essays on the importance of horns as a symbol to our ancestors. It covers many subjects in its fascinating essays from Cernunnos to Herne the Hunter. Boy, would I love to read this one! Avalonia tells us that: The raw, ancient and primordial force symbolised by horns has long had associations with mystery, magick and power. Our ancestors often envisaged their gods as anthropomorphic beings who encapsulated this wild essence. Today the gods of the bull, the ram, goat and stag still hold tremendous power and are invoked at rituals by a new priesthood who continue to seek the wildness of nature and the inspiration that it holds. These deities transcend the safe and known boundaries of human structure, sometimes even luring us across the threshold of the known into the unknown worlds. This unique anthology brings together the work of more than twenty dedicated scholarswith that of modern day mystics. Through their written and artistic contributions they illustrate just some of the many manifestations of the Horned God.

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Pic: keith1999

I wonder what has happened in the story about the slaying of St George that appeared in the MailOnline in 2006? They report: His dragon-slaying heroics have kept his legend alive through the centuries. But the Church of England is considering rejecting England’s patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims. Clergy have started a campaign to replace George with St Alban, a Christian martyr in Roman Britain. The scheme, to be considered by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod, has met a cautious but sympathetic response from senior bishops. The proposal has been put forward by the Rev Philip Chester, vicar of St Matthew’s, Westminster, who has called the use of St George as patron saint ‘dotty’. His call for a change is based on the lack of firm historical evidence that George - said to be a Roman general from the 4th century AD who was put to death by Emperor Diocletian for professing Christianity - ever existed.

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COPIES of a book which combines ancient Manx folklore and the modern world are being given to school children across the Island.

Students at King William’s College, Castletown, were the first to be given copies of Fynoderee, a book written by former pupil Alexander Caine and inspired by the school’s history.

The book is an adventure and modern myth, where the old worlds of ancient Manx folklore collide with today’s modern world with life threatening consequences.

Fynoderee tells the story of Juan Kerruish, a boy only ever noticed by the school bullies, whose world is about to turn upside down.

When he meets Bea the Fynoderee, a creature thought to exist only in myth, he discovers that he carries a message from the past that could change the course of the future.

The story has been compared to the books in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy

‘Fynoderee is not like Harry Potter or His Dark Materials, and it’s not set in Hogwarts or Middle Earth. It’s actually set in their home with landscapes they will recognise, and stories and characters that are part of their heritage,’ Alexander said.

‘Folklore can give people, and children especially, solid roots to a place that I hope they will never forget. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the Isle of Man with many of these wonderful stories around me.

‘The Island’s folklore is one of the richest in Europe, with a wonderful combination of Nordic, Celtic and Manx characters coming out of our landscape.

‘Now living away from the Island in the hustle and bustle of London, Fynoderee is in many ways my own love letter to the island, and a celebration of its magnificent scenery and rich array of characters and tales.’

Fynoderee is being distributed by Isle of Man publishing house Lily Publications, based in Ramsey. Copies are being given to every Island school, funded by businessman Roy Tilleard.

www.fynoderee.com

source

A Celtic goddess of love, harmony and fertility, Aine of Knockaine is an Irish fairy queen and is associated with the great Celtic mother goddess, Dana,

She was once the wife of the Earl of Desmond, and promised to stay with him as long as he kept his word to never show surprise at any of their son’s antics. Unfortunately, the Earl of Desmond couldn’t help but to be startled when he witnessed his son jumping in and out of a bottle, so Aine promptly left him and returned to the land of the fairy, Cnoc Aine (Aine’s Hill) in County Limerick. The Earl of Desmond didn’t fair quite so well, and was turned into a wild goose.

Aine was also known to have been married to the great sea god, Manannan Mac Lir. But it seems she found mortal men quite irresistible, and had many mortal lovers, which resulted in many children that were half fairy and half mortal. Some say it is for this reason that she was bestowed with the title of “Fairy Queen.” Continue Reading »

Pic: Eire Sarah

TARA, Temor, Temhuir, or Temoria, is intimately connected with the early religion of Ireland, and has been associated with singular theories. As Tea-mur, it was the mount or home of Queen Tea, wife of the Milesian King Heremon. The centre of Druidical song and power, the seat of ancient royalty, Tara was a favourite subject of glorification by ancient annalists, and has been immortalized in the poem of Moore. But, while bards record a great assembly being held there 921 B.C., Dr. Petrie, the eminent antiquary, is disposed to regard the place as existing only between 200 and 300 years after Christ.

The high civilization at Tara has been a favourite subject for Bards. The old lady guide at Tara told us that only gold and silver vessels were used at the banquets. Dr. Ledwich laughs at the yarns about its twenty-seven kitchens, and its amazing bill of daily fare. He assures us that the story of Tara rests only upon the fragment of a fragment in the Seabright collection, that had neither the name of its author nor a date. The earliest Romish ecclesiastics, and mediæval writers, knew nothing of early Irish culture or wealth. Continue Reading »

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 »

“All three drove furiously towards Cruachan”, photo W H Margetson

The Wonderful Project Gutenberg have added two very interesting titles to their collection. Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race Written by M I Ebbutt and with 51 illustrations, like the one to the left, this book tells stories from the 8th Century onwards. The book also includes a prose version of “The Countess Cathleen”, a play by W B Yeats. The preface says: In refashioning, for the pleasure of readers of the twentieth century, these versions of ancient tales which have given pleasure to story-lovers of all centuries from the eighth onward, I feel that some explanation of my choice is necessary. Men’s conceptions of the heroic change with changing years, and vary with each individual mind; hence it often happens that one person sees in a legend only the central heroism, while another sees only the inartistic details of mediæval life which tend to disguise and warp the heroic quality.

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An update to our post about the new theory about the origins of the Celts, which can be found here, the ABP Welsh Communique gives us a little more detail. The full text of the article can be found here. In his O’Donnell Lecture at the University College, Bangor, Professor John Koch said that on the basis of an extensive continent-wide overview of linguistic and archaeological evidence, he has come to the conclusion that a Celtic civilisation and culture had originated on the Atlantic West of Europe in the Bronze Age.

Recent DNA researches has shown that contemporary British people – Celts and Anglo-Saxons alike – have more in common with the Basques than any other race group. This finding has attracted confusion and amusement in the popular English press. Continue Reading »