#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: After the Beltaine-Festival, the herds were booleyed to lush mountain pastures, to remain there until Samhain, when they were driven home. “Girls tended the cows through the sweet summer days, living in rough huts called shielings, milking each morning, making butter and cheese, packing the produce into churns to bury in chilly bogs for safekeeping. It was a simple life, full of music, because it was believed that cows gave more milke when serenaded.”
Source: Patricia Monaghan The Red-Haired Girl From The Bog
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: Lesure (La Lozère) and Gabalicum (Gévaudan) near Nemausus (modern Nimes) were villages famous in Gaul for their cheese production. This part of Gaul was inhabited by the Volcae Arecomici.
Source: Helmut Birkhan "#Kelten"
#FairyTaleTuesday: The Ceutrones were a #Celtic, possibly even a #Celtoligurian people in the Alps in the Roman province of Alpes Graiae, which is where the name Ceutronicae Alpes comes from. According to Pliny the Elder, the Ceutrones produced a good cheese, the so-called Vatusicus. According to Claudius Ptolemy in his Geographike Hyphegesis, the capital of the Ceutrones was Axima (today: Aime-en-Tarentaise).
Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceutronen
#FairyTaleTuesday: The #fairies were more active at Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine and Lugnásad. On this occasion, the laomachan mentioned in the ‘Carmina Gadelica’ was also produced, a magical cheese that protected against the fairies and was used for divination.
Source: Helmut Birkhan "#Kelten"
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: The sea way to Tír na nÓg was called the honey road, the path made by the sun through Moy Mell, the Plain of Honey. This was the third realm over which Manannán claimed dominion.
Source: https://emeraldisle.ie/manannan-mac-lir
#FairyTaleTuesday: „The abstract, symbolic carvings on many of the stones on Sliabh na Caillighe (The Hill of The Hag) and the orientation of some of the tombs to the sun or other heavenly bodies reinforces the ritual nature of the monuments.“
Source: Info board at Loughcrew
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: „In the metrical Dindshenchas one Bresal is credited with the building of the great tumulus of Dowth (Sidh mBresail) and once again the manipulation of time occurs. His sister casts a spell that fixes the sun in the sky so that a day might last indefinitely and allow the task to be completed. Bresal lustfully commits incest with her and the spell is broken and the sun departs. Since the construction work has been darkened (ro dubad), Dubad (darkening) is said to be the name of the mound thereafter.“
Source: Prof. John Waddell „The #Otherworld Hall on the Boyne“
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: `Prior to the Second Battle of Moytura, #Lugh, God of Lightning, was heartening the men of #Ireland by the magic crane dance curse. He is said that he swore by the sky, the land and the sea, among other things:
„Before the people of the Sídhe, Before Ogma I swear! Before the sky and the land and the sea, I swear! Before the Sun and the Moon and the stars, I swear! Oh warrior band, my host of battle, My troops here, the greatest of hosts like the sea, Mighty waves of golden, powerful, boiling fires, and battle lust Are created in each of you! May you seek out your foe upon the field, Embracing death in a frenzy of battle!“
Source: Ali Isaac | Substack
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: „The sun was considered to bring great healing energy. Walking three times ‘sun wise’, or cor deiseil, around a fire represented the circling of the sun, and was a potent ritual invocation of the sun’s healing power. We know from the number of monuments which align with sunrise on a festival morning that this part of the day was greatly revered; no doubt feeling the full force of the rays of the rising sun, as well as being spiritually uplifting, was considered beneficial to one’s healing process.“
Source: Ali Isaac | Substack
James Macgrigor encountered a Kelpie disguised as a stallion. Recognizing it, he stroke its nose with his claymore, severing its magical bridle bit. The Kelpie pleaded for its return, revealing its transformational powers and ability to reveal hidden beings: “If you look through the holes in the bit, you will see all manners of fairies and witches and devils.” Macgrigor lifted the bit to his eyes and peered through, and sure enough, the world he saw was bright with colour and full of beings invisible to the human eye. He was so enamoured by the contraption that he wanted to study it in more detail. He was also not deaf to the Kelpie’s claim that without the bit, he would die, and Macgrigor saw an opportunity to free the people of the surrounding area from the Kelpie’s reign of terror.
Macgrigor, captivated by the bit’s power, decided to study it further, leaving the Kelpie in a vulnerable state. Despite the Kelpie’s pleas and threats, Macgrigor cleverly kept the bit, learning about the #Otherworld. #Celtic
„Rarely is a Kelpie the victim of a trick, but after that day, no one went missing on the banks of Loch Ness ever again, all thanks to the cunning of James Macgrigor.“
Source: The Kelpie of Loch Ness - Folklore Scotland https://twitter.com/gonzalokenny/status/1790707801330688016?s=19
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: Three soldiers deserted their army and each took a different path. The sergeant and corporal were tricked and imprisoned by a lady at her palace. The private, however, won her heart and they planed to marry. Repeatedly put to sleep by a tailor’s tricks, the soldier received gifts from his fiancée: a golden ring, a penknife and a golden pin. Despite the tailor’s efforts, the soldier set out to find his beloved in the Kingdom of the Green Mountains. An eagle from the kingdom agreed to carry him, but grew weak from hunger. The „eagle agreed to continue on her journey; but only if the soldier would let her have a bite from his thigh.
After eating from both of his thighs, soldier and eagle finally arrived at the kingdom of the Green Mountains.“ After his wounds had healed, the private reunited with his beloved after showing her the tokens of their past. They married, and he freed his old friends imprisoned in the lady’s castle. Each found their own happily ever after.
Source: The Kingdom of the Green Mountains - Folklore Scotland
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: "The Swans Swim Sae Bonnie" tells of two sisters, one dark and one fair, who were inseparable in their childhood. Over time, however, the dark sister developed jealousy of her fair sister, who was favoured by others. This jealousy grew into hatred as both sisters competed for the love of the same man. In an act of desperation, the dark sister drowned her fair sister in the river. Later, three fiddlers used parts of the fair sister's body to improve their musical instruments, leading to a ghostly revelation that exposed the dark sister:
“It’s yonder he sits ma aul-man the king,
It’s yonder she sits ma mither the queen.
It’s yonder she sits ma fause sester Jean
An sae lightly she pushed me inta the stream.”
The dark sister was burnt as punishment. John fell into madness. The king, however, now had no children at all.
Source: https://folklorescotland.com/the-swans-swim-sae-bonnie/
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: One night, a group of merfolk shed their seal skins to play on the shore. A Shetlander found a skin and a beautiful mermaid lamenting its loss. He refused to return it, offering marriage instead. They lived together for years and had children. One day, a child found the hidden skin. The mermaid bid her children goodbye, returned to the sea, and left the human world forever. She confessed to her second husband, who stood miserably on the shore: “I always loved my first husband best.”
Source: The Mermaid Wife - Folklore Scotland
#FairyTaleTuesday: The sons of Conall, son of Eochaid, were turned into badgers by the goddess Grian after they attacked her fort on the mountain of Knockgraney.
Source: P. Monaghan Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore
#FairyTaleTuesday: Like the seal, the badger was sometimes seen as a shape-shifting person; the #Irish hero #Tadg found their meat revolting, unconsciously aware that they were really his cousins.
Source: P. Monaghan Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore
Japanese folklore speaks of the senbiki ōkami,a pack of wolves that travelers climb trees to avoid: except these are no ordinary wolves. They climb onto each other's backs, almost reaching the top, always missing by just one wolf. #FairyTaleTuesday
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: #Tara was once reigned by a Wolf King. According to legend, #Cormac mac Art was the High King of Ireland at the same time as #Fionn mac Cumhaill was the leader of the #Fianna, c. the third century AD. He ruled from Tara for forty years, and during his reign, all of #Ireland flourished.
Source: Ali Isaac https://twitter.com/lethemain/status/593090313603915776
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: When the amorous advances of the Morrigan were spurned by #Cuchulainn, she shifted into a red-eared heifer and tried to knock him over whilst he was engaged in combat with another warrior; then she turned into an eel, wrapping herself around his legs, before finally becoming a grey wolf which lunged for his sword arm. Unperturbed, Cuchulainn managed to keep his enemy at bay whilst, of course, he defeated her every attack; he broke the cow’s leg, trampled the eel underfoot, and poked out the wolf’s eye, and went on to kill his opponent shortly after.
Source: Ali Isaac
#Celtic#FairyTaleTuesday: The Goddess of Winter, Beira (also known as The Cailleach), could be seen riding through the sky on the back of a great wolf in the winter (corresponding to the old Gaelic name for the month of January leading into February, meaning ‘wolf month’).
Source: Angus and Bride - Folklore Scotland