Last year I came across a traditional Irish hymn to Brigid, Gabhaim Molta Bríde. Struck by its haunting tune, taut metaphors, and the precision and restraint of its lyrics, I sat down with a prose translation and an Irish dictionary to work up an English version that would fit the tune while remaining as true as possible to the original text.
The song was first collected in the 19th century. How old it may be is impossible to say. But reading M. L. West's magisterial Indo-European Poetry and Myth, I cannot fail to be impressed by just how faithfully this hymn preserves the characteristics of ancient Indo-European hymnody. In style and content, Song of Brigid compares with the hymns of the Rig-Veda.
It delights me that the song applies as well to goddess as to saint. One can hardly help but admire a hymn that can be sung by pagan and Christian alike.
Until I moved to this magical place first settled by the mythic Tuatha dé Danaan I, too, was a fairy agnostic. But when the land energy is so potent and palpable my disbelief was easily suspended. So yeah, I believe and have also come to know. Unlike the Doubting Disciple of the Christian gospel I don't need to have seen to believe. It's enough to feel. But once you do get the vibe the communication in my personal experience gets more direct.
Ireland has recently conducted national DNA research that asks the question of what actually makes the Irish...well, Irish? As a country conditioned by emigration the Celtic tiger of the 1990's and early Noughties brought an influx of new blood into the population. Cue some national soul searching.
If you read the earliest Irish texts, such as the Book of Invasions, Ireland has always been rather 'multi-cultural' although that was probably not the fashionable interpretation in earlier times. This DNA survey has noted that along with the Irish being well connected with the Scots and other British populations, there is a strong marker for Spanish, specifically, Basque, lineage.
Welcome to my world one that is quite literally magical. In this blog I’ll share how a relict goddess, the legends of her devotees and the earth that is their homeplace have nurtured my spiritual path.
In 2001 after a protracted leave taking from England, my Irish born partner and I were led to Ireland guided by Yeats’ synchronicities, goddess guidance and the ridiculous spinning of a pendulum over a map in County Cavan, a place neither of us remotely entertained as our new Irish residence.
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