irish mythology – Page 12 – Irish Imbas Books

Interview on Irish Mythology And Folklore

Posted on June 30, 2016 by admin - Blog, Folklore, Mise (Me)

It’s been something of a hectic June here in Wellington this year but I did manage to fit in an interview with Capital Irish Radio (based here in the city). Capital Irish Radio are a volunteer-run group who produce a weekly, 28 minute programme for Irish people (I occasionally present a show – about 2/3 times a year). Usually they provide a range of music, interviews and news from Ireland but recently I was asked to come in and explain what exactly Irish Imbas Books does.

During this interview with Finbarr Murray, I explain where Irish Imbas Books comes from and also discuss aspects of Irish mythology and Irish folklore.

Irish Folklore/ Mythology: The Danger of the Hungry Grass!

Posted on March 31, 2016 by admin - Blog, Folklore, Uncategorized

In ancient Ireland there were patches of grass called ‘Hungry Grass’ that leapt off the ground to swallow you whole, digest you down and spit you out like a …

Actually, er … No, wait .. Hang on.

Oh, yeah!

Hungry Grass was actually a patch of grass that was completely indistinguishable from other sections of grass but if you stood on it you were immediately overtaken by a great hunger or weariness.
And, there was A GENUINE RISK you might swoon to your death.

There you go. That’s much more credible.

As you can see, there’s a fair amount of fantasy spinning out there on the internet with respect to ‘Hungry Grass.’ Read through some of the blogs on the ‘Celternet’ and you’ll discover some fascinating hypotheses (for example, that “Hungry Grass” was caused by fairies [the Little People!] or leprechaun spirits [Dun-dun-dun!]. Or green Aliens).

The Wikipedia entries on ‘hungry grass’ and ‘féar gorta’ are pretty bad and use some very nefarious links as ‘references’. Another site I’ve come across, describes with great -if incorrect – cultural authority that Hungry Hill (a mountain in Beara, West Cork, get its name from the belief of local peasants that “many patches of Féar Gortha grew on it.” To anyone from Beara, this is, of course, not only remarkably annoying, but a bit insulting.
[Note: The Irish – and real – name of the mountain is Cnoc Daod and is more likely related to the changeable weather around the summit].

The problem of course, is that most of the Celternet bloggers usually copy verbatim from discredited sources such as books by 18th and 19th century authors like William Carleton (a writer in the vein of W.B. Yeats who wrote somewhat disparagingly about jolly Irish peasants and their foolish cultural beliefs). The internet, being what it is of course, means that these errors are continuously being reproduced.

Today, given the impressive amount of grass in Ireland, the whole concept of ‘hungry grass’ could be a bit alarming if people believed in it. One or two hundred years ago, when scientific reasoning wasn’t particularly widespread however, it was probably a fair attempt at rationalising the unexplained deaths or episodes of fainting that would occur from time to time. The psychological impact of An Gorta Mór (the Great Famine), would also have remained very strong in the minds of those people living after the 1850s. This is why, in most variations of the ‘hungry grass’ folklore, the effects are attributed to a person stepping on the grave or burial plot of a victim from An Gorta Mór. It’s also why (probably) the Irish term is ‘féar gorta’ which may be more accurately translated as ‘famine grass’ rather than ‘hungry grass’.

Although the superstition of ‘hungry grass’ is pretty much outdated nowadays, it’s still quite a curious concept that seems very specific to Ireland and has a lot of narrative appeal. I used the concept myself as a minor plot device in one of my books some years ago where the protagonist has the supernatural power of being able to detect where dead people are buried. In that book, the protagonist is an archaeologist/historian and his success at finding ancient historical sites and bodies is very much based on that ability.

In hindsight, I suppose I’d probably have been better off making the character a mortician or a police pathologist although, to be honest, that wasn’t really my area of interest.

It does beg the question however – how cool would it be to have a television series about an Irish pathologist?

Investigating the death of people killed by Hungry Grass!!

A Visual Representation of Irish Prehistory and Mythology

Posted on January 26, 2016 by admin - Blog, Folklore/Mythology, Uncategorized

When you mention the word ‘prehistoric’ to people, most of them immediately conjure up images of Neanderthals walking around, scratching their arses and dragging huge heavy clubs on the ground behind them. What ‘prehistoric’ actually refers to though, is that period of time before which historical records were maintained. In a sense, you can think of ‘prehistory’ as a distant undiscovered country or a kind of ‘dark web’ for history. It’s an unknown territory, full of immense, untapped potential, deception and people who have an interest in controlling it.

When I imagine pre-historic Ireland therefore, it looks a little bit like this.

The problem with history, of course, is that it’s something we all think we understand whereas if you actually stand back and kick the conceptual tyres in the same way you’d kick those of a new car, you’ll quickly work out how much of it is based on dangerous assumptions and potential falsehoods. The ‘recording’ of history has always been the privilege of societies’ winners and most powerful. The problem, unfortunately, is that those in power often have an agenda of their own when writing or recording history, mostly linked to retaining that power. What actually happened in the past comes in a distant second.

Napoleon Bonaparte is often quoted as saying ‘history is a bunch of lies agreed upon’. If he did actually say that, then he was an exceptionally insightful individual because he recognised how the reporting of the truth (not the truth itself) can be manipulated.

Essentially, history in most countries only comes into existence with the establishment of written records and therefore, the arrival of literacy. In Ireland, written records were first introduced with the arrival of Christian missionaries in the early fifth century. For that reason, for Ireland, anything that happened before that period is generally referred to as a ‘prehistoric’ event. Naturally, the first people holding the pen in Ireland looked at the world through a Christian religious lens and many of the early historical accounts are often very biased in that regard. With the spread of the church-dominated written account we can see the first steps in the ongoing erosion of native (non-Christian) belief systems. This is what we now refer to as ‘mythology’.

Winners of the Celtic Mythology Short Story Competition (2015-2016)

Posted on January 21, 2016 by admin - Blog, Folklore/Mythology

Irish Imbas Books are pleased to announce the winners of the 2015-2016 Celtic Mythology Short Story Competition. These are:

First prize ($500): Sighle Meehan for ‘Hawthorne Close‘
Second Prize ($250): Sheelagh Russell Brown for ‘A Mainland Mansie Meur‘
Third Prize ($100): Marc McEntegart for ‘In a Small Pond‘

All three stories will appear in the forthcoming Irish Imbas Celtic Mythology Collection 2016 due for release in March this year with two additional stories:
• ‘Transit Hours’ by Marie Gethins
• ‘Lir’ by Coral Atkinson

As well as the short stories, the Irish Imbas Celtic Mythology Collection 2016 will contain explanatory context/notes on the various elements of Celtic Mythology associated with each story. A key purpose of this competition is to provide a source of authentic context and information on aspects of Celtic mythology for the general public.

Comments from the judges:

In total, 37 submissions received (initially there were 40 but 3 were withdrawn). The vast majority of stories covered aspects of Irish mythology. Stories related to elements of Welsh mythology were the next most popular (in terms of numbers).

The three criteria used by the judges were:

Celtic mythology or folklore forms a fundamental element of the story
Any Celtic folklore or mythological reference should be as authentic as possible
A compelling story/theme, engaging characters.

Submissions were received from all over the world, including countries such as Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, Norway, Denmark, France etc. The majority of submissions came from Ireland.

In terms of the mythological content used within the stories, the most common were:

Elements from the Fenian Cycle (Fionn mac Cumhaill and related stories)
Seilchidh (Selkie)-related stories
Beansaí (Banshee)-related stories

The quality of submissions varied extensively both in terms of writing quality and authenticity of mythological content. A number of the submitted stories were excellently written but used elements of mythology in the wrong context. It was a difficult decision not to accept these submissions

We’d like to thank all entrants for taking the time to make submissions.

An announcement on the 2016-2017 Celtic Mythology Short Story Competition will be made later this year.

Secrets of Celtic Mythology

Posted on November 19, 2015 by admin - Blog

For those of you based in Wellington, you may be interested in a seminar we’re holding on Friday 11 December at the Mezzanine in the Wellington Central Library. The seminar is called ‘The Secrets of Irish Mythology’ but will actually focus predominantly on Irish mythology, which is what we know best.

I’m still working through the structure of the seminar but it will probably involve some initial explanation of mythology (what is it, exactly?) followed by some living examples of it in Ireland today. I’m also keen on running through the practical ramifications of this for society as this is an area I’m quite keen on and hope to do some more of in the future.

In any case, the details are below:

“Irish Imbas Books presents Secrets of Celtic Mythology at the mezzanine of Wellington Central Library from 6:00 to 7:30 on Friday 11 December 2015. This one hour presentation will explore the background to the development of mythology, examine some practical examples of Irish mythology in Irish folklore and explain why this is relevant to us all. The event is free to enter. Irish Imbas Books will have a selection of books available for sale for those who are interested.”

Location/venue:
The Mezzanine, Wellington Central Library 65 Victoria Street Wellington
Date:
11 Dec 2015

The Warrior Woman

Posted on November 9, 2015 by admin - Blog, My Writing

Writing Liath Luachra – The Grey One turned out to be a lot harder than I’d anticipated. Most of it was written over a miserable New Zealand winter (in Wellington, at least), we had a number of other strenuous work contracts on and constant repair work on the house meant it was difficult to focus at times. This slowed down the writing immensely but, to be honest, in some ways I think this was a good thing. When you push yourself to write a pre-determined plot you can end up writing an almost perfect outline that lacks genuine emotional resonance. When the plot’s clear in your head but you take additional time to work through the different scenes in terms of characterisation, motivation, additional twists and so on, the story usually ends up much more powerful and dramatic for that.

Although ‘The Grey One’ is essentially a ‘stand-alone’ prequel to the Fionn series, for me it was an interesting opportunity to explore the dynamics of war-parties and inter-tribal relationships in Iron Age Ireland. There’s a surprising amount of material available on early war-parties – particular on fian – although, as always, you have to take what’s written with a grain of salt. The Church in Ireland hated them with a passion and, hence, wrote very negatively about them but other sources describe them as a pragmatic part of society at the time. Interestingly, the word ‘fian’, eventually disappeared out of common usage and instead, the plural noun ‘Fianna’ was used. This is, of course, what most people mistakenly believe to be the name of the war band led by Fionn mac Cumhaill (as well as the origin of the more modern term ‘Fenian’).

Having a single female protagonist in a male-dominated world (particularly one involving violence) has proven a particularly interesting challenge in that it creates powerful tensions between characters that I normally don’t delve into in great detail. Obviously, the main one is that of sexual harassment/coercion – particularly with more vulnerable younger women – and that’s dealt with pretty bluntly throughout the novel. Most of my previous books have strong female characters but it’ll be interesting to see what people think of the approach I use in this particular one.

When it comes to female warriors in the ancient world, there are of course, occasional snippets available in the historical sources but, again, you really have to take care with these as well. Most of the writers tended to be male and that almost certainly influenced their descriptions and interpretation. It’s also probable that at least some of them sensationalised the topic just as much as in contemporary times. The truth is that, for some very obvious practical reasons, women didn’t tend to engage in physically dangerous and violent combat unless there was a particularly compelling reason to do so. Given that ‘The Grey One’ is a work of fiction with elements of fact, this is something I’ve had to dance around somewhat carefully.

To give people a sense/taste for what the book’s about, I prepared a three-chapter pre-launch teaser in ebook form under the title ‘The Warrior Woman’ which went up on Amazon last week. Being Amazon of course, they insist on charging a minimum of 99 cents however if you want a free copy in mobi. (Kindle) or ePub (Apple, Kobo etc.) you can find one at Smashwords or at Noisetrade. If you read/print off your computer you can get a good, old-fashioned PDF document here under ‘Download sample chapters’.

This book itself becomes available through Amazon on 4 December 2015. Hardcopy versions will also be available in hardcopy through Amazon (sometime in December) and by ordering through other bookshops (from February). If you really, really, absolutely have to get an ePub version just email me though the website and I’ll see what I can do.

Sample Chapters for ‘Liath Luachra – The Grey One’ now available

Posted on October 5, 2015 by admin - Blog, My Writing, Uncategorized

After numerous interruptions, distractions and rewrites, the final draft of “Liath Luachra – The Grey One” is nearing completion and a two chapter ‘sampler’ ‘is now available here on the Irish Imbas Books website.

I’m in the process of tidying up the last chapters prior to final editing but the finished book should be available at the end of November (about 6-7 weeks). For those who are interested, the back cover summary reads as follows:

Ireland 188 A.D. A land of tribal affiliations, secret alliances and treacherous rivalries.
Youthful woman warrior Liath Luachra has survived two brutal years with mercenary war party “The Friendly Ones” but now the winds are shifting.
Dispatched on a murderous errand where nothing is as it seems, she must survive a group of treacherous comrades, the unwanted advances of her battle leader and a personal history that might be her own undoing.
Clanless and friendless, she can count on nothing but her wits, her fighting skills and her natural ferocity to see her through.
Woman warrior, survivor, killer and future guardian to Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhaill – this is her story.

*********************

I have to admit, the story’s been an interesting one to develop in that it’s darker, grittier and much more character driven than some of my other work – particularly interesting when writing from the perspective of a woman with violent tendancies (a big thanks to my ‘advisors’). Although it’s a stand-alone work, it’s also a prequel of sorts to the Fionn Mac Cumhaill series in that it deals with the backstory to one of the main characters from that series.

Unfortunately, the sample’s available in PDF form only as we’re holding off on ebook conversion until the final draft has completed the editing process.

Numerous people have expressed interest in getting their hands on this so I will keep posting as things develop.

There’s something about Brighid (Irish Folklore and Mythology)

Posted on September 21, 2015 by admin - Blog

Growing up in Ireland, it’s practically impossible to escape Brighid. A huge proportion of my family or friends are called Brigit, Brigette, Bríd, Bride, Bridie, etc. etc. When I was in university, I also had a friend called Brída who formed part of a group of girls (Brída, Nuala, Gráinne, Aoife and two others) known as ‘The A-Team’ (Irish people will get this). With almost half the Irish population named after one particular individual, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether that figure was someone of particular importance.

Because you’d be right!

The first major figure associated with this name is the Celtic (and possibly pre-Celtic) land goddess, Brigit, who was worshipped by a number of Celtic tribes including the Brigantes (and that tribal name is certainly no coincidence). Interestingly, parts of this tribe are also believed to have moved from central England and settled in the south-east of Ireland during the first century A.D. It’s therefore quite possible (although not certain by any means) that it was these original settlers who brought the belief – and the name – to Ireland.

The second major figure associated with the name is the Leinster saint – Saint Brighid – a figure said to be from the Fortharta sept and who’s probably most famous for founding the convent at Cill Dara (Kildare), the huge number of miracles associated with her and, of course, the festival on St Brighid’s Day (1 February).

In some respects, Saint Brighid has always struck me as a kind of Celtic version of the Virgin Mary. She’s always been a bit of a poster girl for the Church (at least in Ireland) and if you look through all the old religious material about her, she reads very much like:
(a) a kind of ‘perfect’ role model that all woman should aspire to; or
(b) a kind of ‘sop’ to the female members of the congregation along the lines of: Yes, ladies. God likes women too – they just can’t hold positions of authority in his male-dominated church.

Given the odd similarity in names between the saint and the original land goddess (and the Church’s long established habit of ‘borrowing’ elements of local belief systems) you’d also be forgiven for wondering if – just possibly – the two might be linked. To work that out of course, you’d first have to go back to the key sources of information available on Saint Brighid.

The earliest surviving record of St Brigid is an origin story for the Fotharta, dating back to about 600 AD and linking the saint to them. I haven’t seen the original but it reportedly describes her as ‘another Mary’ (i.e. the Virgin Mary), a reference that indicates the record was made with a Christian hand (hardly surprising given that it was said to have been written by Saint Broccán).
A few decades later (in 633 A.D.) an Uí Dhúnlainge leader by the name of Faolán mac Colmáin became king of Leinster. Connected to the Fotharta by marriage and to the Church through a brother who was Bishop of Kildare, Faolán mac Colmáin clearly had a vested interest in encouraging the belief and worship of Brighid in order to cement the authority of his own rule. It comes as no surprise therefore to discover that, around this time, the church of Kildare actually engaged a cleric (by the name of Cogitosus) to prepare a biography of the saint to support this claim.

Arguably, the most fascinating thing about Cogitosus’ biography of Brighid (entitled Vita Brigitae) is the fact that it doesn’t actually contain any biographical material – it’s essentially a compilation of the various miracles attributed to the saint (a kind of “Best Of” collection ). This substantive absence of biographical information suggests:
(a) there wasn’t any biographical material to be included in the first place; and
(b) the biography was written predominantly to cement the Kildare church’s position and authority against competing religious centres who had saints of their own.

The case supporting the actual existence of a ‘Saint Brighid’ therefore starts to look a little shaky when you look at it in detail and this is probably why (over the last few years) there have been so many reports that she was de-canonized” following the establishment of the second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Generally, when it’s worked out that a particular saint has a dubious historicity or no credible basis for existence (and yes, this happens) the Church doesn’t formally de-canonize them. They are sometimes however, removed from the liturgical calendars (the religious equivalent of locking your insane and socially embarrassing Uncle Seán away in the back room).

In this respect, the Catholic Church is in something of an unenviable ‘lose-lose’ situation. They can’t officially “get rid of” a saint that they’ve previously used to convert the masses as this would undermine their spiritual credibility. At the same time, neither can they completely ignore the issue as that too would undermine their credibility. This is probably why Saint Brighid hasn’t been removed from the liturgical calendar (if that happened there’d probably be uproar – in Ireland, at least). For now, the Church seems to be doing the only thing it can do – keeping quiet and hoping no-one will notice.

Irish Imbas – Celtic Mythology Short Story Competition

Posted on September 9, 2015 by admin - Blog, Folklore

Tomorrow (or today, depending on what part of the planet you currently occupy) we’re launching our first Celtic Mythology Short Story Competition. Over the next few week therefore, you might see the above image turning up on various website/Facebook pages etc. It also has it’s own page (with all the rules and what-not) located here (if you’re feeling particularly ‘devil-may-care’ you can throw caution to the wind and look upwards to the top of the screen to find the tab!)

At this stage, the plan is to publish a compilation that includes the best of the submitted stories but also some commentary (in terms of the mythology/folklore aspects) in 2016. If we can cover the production costs, the digital version of the book will be available for free. A hard copy version will also be available.

Please feel free to forward to anyone you think might be interested.

What Irish Mythology Is Not

Posted on September 8, 2015 by admin - Blog, Folklore

[I had a fascinating, if somewhat surreal, conversation about two weeks ago with someone (not Irish) asking me about elements of Irish mythology for a book he was writing. This is a summarised version of that discussion.]

HIM: ‘So there’s no vampires in Irish mythology, then?’
ME: ‘No.’
HIM: ‘But what about Bram Stoker?’
ME: ‘Well, I suppose it’s true he came from Ireland but he was one of the more privileged Anglo-Irish types so it’s probably unlikely he had much time for native folklore. He certainly knew his Transylvanian legends though because that’s what Dracula was based on.’
HIM: ‘How about werewolves then?’
ME: ‘Nah. No werewolves in Irish mythology.
HIM: ‘Dragons?’
ME: ‘Dragons? They’re feckin Welsh or Chinese!’
HIM: ‘Huh! OK. That’s pretty boring, then. Did you, like, have monsters and stuff. Or wild animals? Lions and sharks and shit.’
ME: ‘We have basking sharks.’
HIM: ‘Are they dangerous?’
ME: ‘Well, if one sat on you you’d know about it.’
HIM: ‘I was being serious.’
ME: ‘Me too. Basking sharks are fucking huge.’
HIM: ‘Do they kill many people?’
ME: ‘No. They’re harmless. I hit one by accident years ago when I was out sailing in Kinsale but he didn’t seem to care too much. We did actually have monsters though.’
HIM: ‘Really? What kind?’
ME: ‘Monster worms.’

Momentary silence.

HIM: ‘Monster worms. You have got to be shitting me!’
ME: ‘No, no.’ [Laughing.] ’There were quite a few.’
HIM: ‘And what did they do? Mug a bunch of midget sparrows?’
ME: ‘Actually, they were said to have carved the earth to make rivers and lakes. I suppose you could say they were our creation stories.’
HIM: ‘Creation stories?’
ME: ‘Stories developed by a local population to explain how their world and local environment were made. I suspect the Loch Ness monster was probably based on one of those.’
HIM: ‘But the Loch Ness Monsters in Scotland.’
ME: ‘Same thing. It was the same cultural and societal grouping as in Ireland. The defined territories of Scotland and Ireland came in much later but, to be honest, borders don’t really mean anything from a mythological perspective.’

Laughter.

ME: ‘What’s so funny?’
HIM: ‘Giant worms. It’s hardly … scary.’
ME: ‘Fair enough. But we also had some badass pigs. They did pretty much the same as the worms although usually on a slightly smaller scale.’
HIM: ‘I’m hanging up now.

This is going to be a bestseller!!!

I received a personal message from the Rain Gods

Posted on August 28, 2015 by admin - Blog, Folklore, Mise (Me)

Thank God it’s spring!

After a long and particularly arduous winter we were rewarded last weekend with this stunning double rainbow over the Miramar peninsula. Set at the very end of the peninsula, it really was an amazing sight from the other side of the harbour. In some respects it felt like a personal message from the Gods along the lines of “All right, lads! Enough’s enough. You can have some sun now.”

When my kids were growing up here in Wellington, I taught them a little poem to help them remember the names of the colours in Irish. It went:

Dearg agus glas – red and green
Gorm agus buí – blue and yellow
Feach sa spéir – look up at the sky
An bogha báistí – the rainbow!

Because of their sheer scale and striking visual impact, it’s hard not to be impressed by a rainbow, particularly the big ones that span large swatches of space. Its’ hardly surprising so, that every culture has some associated mythology or folklore. In Hindu mythology, their Thunder God uses a rainbow as a form of bow to shoot arrows made of lightning. Maori have a legend about Hina (the mother of Maui), the moon, who causes a rainbow to span the heavens for her husband to return to earth. In Ireland of course, the most famous legend is the story of the leprechaun’s pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Although most Irish people hate the plastic paddy shite associated with leprechauns, I have to admit the central concept of this particular story is quite clever. Rainbows don’t have an end so you can never get the gold. In fact, to see a rainbow you have to have the sun behind you. Hence it’s only got one side as well – truly a no-win situation!!

Ironically then, I once saw the end of the rainbow. This happened when we were kids and my Dad was driving the family home from a weekend in Beara. Naturally, this being West Cork, it was raining but as we drove through the Cousane Pass the clouds cleared and this beautiful rainbow opened up, one end filling the field with the standing stone at the top of the Cousane.

Needless to say, the event caused some consternation amongst the four kids stuffed in the back of the car. My poor Dad nearly crashed when we started screaming at him to stop so we that could run in and get the gold. We were smart. We all knew that you could only reach the gold for as long as the rainbow remained.

For some reason, my father ignored the screeching from behind and kept on driving but I’ll never forget how galling it was to see the rainbow’s end just alongside, marking untold wealth and riches. And us driving placidly (not) by.

I’ve never really forgiven my father for that excruciating lapse of judgement. If he’d only stopped the car for twenty seconds, we’d all be multi-millionaires today.

Liath Luachra – The Grey One (Initial Draft of Cover)

Posted on June 4, 2015 by admin - Blog, My Writing

2015 has been a bit of a tough year on the work front so far but I’m pleased to say that we’re actually making good progress on the book and website fronts (amongst others).

At this stage, I’m approximately two thirds of the way through Liath Luachra – The Grey One (which is something of a prequel to the Fionn Mac Cumhal Series). I usually find that by the fifth chapter, the plot lines are cohesive but that I need to go back and rewrite/amend some of the earlier sections to ensure the linear flow of the narrative. This tends to delay the completion but it really is the most important part for me in terms of ‘plot quality’ so getting over that ‘hump’ is important. Everything after this feels like “walking downhill” (as one of the Ents in LOTR says).

I know other writers are much more focussed in terms of outlining their plot but I find that when I do that, the emotional resonance of the story tends to falter. Everyone has their own way of doing things, I guess.

Word count with Liath Luachra at this point is 54000 words or thereabout. I realise some people are waiting for Fionn 3: The Adversary but I needed to get this story done first as part of it is relevant to the plotting in the latter. Fionn 3 is sitting at about 48000 words. Both will definitely be complete in the last quarter of 2015.

The above is an early draft of the cover image for Liath Luachra but the finished version is quite different. I’ll be putting out the back cover blurb (the summary of the plot) next week with an updated version.

Thank you for being patient with the – ahem – creative process!