Life has had me very busy lately! Finally catching up on all of the gardening and weeding the heat wave kept us from. It's still hot...92 today, but it beats 99!
The pwca is the black-furred Welsh version of the pooka - a forest goblin trickster. Sometimes the pwca uses a magic candle to lead travelers off the path, and other times it turns into a black animal, such a horse, and entices travelers to try to catch it.
🎨 Tony DiTerlizzi #FolkloreThursday#folklore#mythology#fairy#Wales#Celtic
In Welsh folklore, the border between worlds is often vague. Arthurian knights don't realize they've ridden into the Otherworld until they encounter progressively stranger things, such as one-legged giants or sheep that change colour when leaping across a river. #FaustianFriday#FairyFriday#folklore#mythology#Celtic#Wales
I love working with sacred symbolism. The Tree Of Life is important in many mythological, religious and philosophical traditions. This one has mandalas arranged in a Chakra configuration.
Glass bracelets and beads found in the oppidum (#Celtic settlement) at Manching. Manching was a centre of Celtic glass industry. It was specialized on the production of seamless colourful glass bracelets from ca. 260 - 40 BC. The raw glass was imported from the eastern Mediterranean region, the colourants were added by the local craftsmen. To produce the seamless bracelets a glass bead was made and gradually enlarged with a metal rod and a cone.
Hello to here! A quick little introduction as this is an alt account for now. My name is Hannah, I go by Jaedia online.
I'm a pagan witch - mostly working within Celtic Paganism (English and Welsh, primarily), Druidry, a little Norse Paganism (I grok Heathenry a lot but I lean much more Celtic/Druid), and Anglo-Saxon. And then intuitive witchcraft, British traditional folk, Hedge witchery, and fairly Wiccan inspired (though I do not practice Wicca, I have to give credit where it is due). Sooo... I usually just say "pagan witch" and perhaps "eclectic" because I follow where the path leads. 😅
I also work with tarot and other card-based divinations, incense and candles, tea, dreams, energy... many things.
I'd love to learn more about the runes and nature divining and so many things but have learned not to bite off things before I'm ready.
"Outside of magickal things" (because are they really?) I cross stitch, I GM for a lovely TTRPG group, I play video games, I read books and watch movies, series, and anime - particularly love horror, fantasy, history, folklore and scifi.
Oh and I'm from Britain. Born and raised in the East Midlands, currently living in South Wales along the coast. I adore old parks, castles, Cornwall and Glastonbury, finding magickal things where the mundane believes they have a hold. :chickwizard: It's lovely to be here!
☘️ Save the date, the Celtic Knot Wikimedia Languages Conference is back in September 2024 in Ireland!
More info: https://bit.ly/3GKobNG
If you are involved in underrepresented languages on the Wikimedia Projects, please help us design the program by filling the community survey until January 21st: https://bit.ly/3GKo3Oc
#MythologyMonday: The template for Elaine of Astolat (the Lady of Shalott) may have been the siren Elaine of #Scotland’s Clyde River. There she lived on a rock-built castle on the rock of #Dumbarton, staring into a magic mirror in which she could see all that went on in the world—a mirror that has been interpreted to mean the waters itself, whose mirroring surface could be “cracked” by storms.
Source: P. Monaghan horse’s head Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and Folklore
#HillFortsWednesday! Mount Ipf near Bopfingen, South West Germany: a fortified settlement of the late Hallstatt and early La Tène period, one of the so-called princely seats of the early #Celtic time.
Photo: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg (O. Braasch)
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: „In ancient times, the art of the smith was held in great esteem. It was considered a powerful magic indeed to wield and master the element of fire, which was representative of the great Sun-God himself; to take the bones of the earth (said to be the very bones of the mother Goddess Eriu, remember) and transform them through the application of fire, strength, skill, secret knowledge and magic.“
Source: https://aliisaac.substack.com/
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: In #Irish#mythology, the term ‘Trí de Dána’ refers to the Three Gods of Art; Goibniu the smith, Luchtaine the carpenter, and Credne the goldsmith. Could the stone head from Corleck Hill with its three faces represent this trio of skilled craftsmen/deities, after which the hill of its resting place was named?`
Source: https://aliisaac.substack.com/
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: #Hy-Brasil is an island in the #Otherworld west of #Ireland. Hy-Brasil shows up in a seven year cycle and is the seat of #Bresal, High King of the World, his name lives on in #Brazil. #Bresil was a magic realm, neither sea nor land, yet both.
Sources: Helmut Birkhan #Kelten and Michael Dames Ireland: A Sacred Journey
Unknown author, Argentine Ptolemy, Ireland and Brazil, 1513, public domain
In Welsh legends, pigs originally came from the Otherworld, a gift of the fairy king Arawn. The Welsh point to all the many different kinds of marvelous food one can turn pigs into (bacon, sausages, pork chops, etc.) as proof that pigs are magic, fairy creatures.
🎨 Kallerna #MythologyMonday#mythology#folklore#Celtic#Wales#Mabinogion#fairy
In Welsh folklore, the line between fairy, deity, ghost, and demon is vague. Arawn and Gwyn ap Nudd are at various times called fairy kings, lords of the dead, or lords of demons. Sometimes the Wild Hunt is led by them, sometimes by King Arthur's ghost, and sometimes by Satan.
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: What is called in other lands the will-o’-the-wisp, a light seen over bogs at night, was said in #Ireland to be a lantern carried by a dead gambler called Tine Ghealáin. Jack-o-Lantern was doomed to wander forever because, although his soul was too stained to enter heaven, he had won his way out of hell by beating the devil at cards. His name was applied to the hollowed-out turnips (in the New World, pumpkins) used at #Samhain, when the veils between the worlds were thin. Source: P. Monaghan Encyclopedia of Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`
#Celtic#MythologyMonday for #EarthDay2024: Uisneach hill was the site of the greatest ancient Bealtaine gathering. The double fires of #spring at the spiritual center of Ireland symbolized the eyes of the earth goddess Ériu opening to the new season.
Source: Patricia Monaghan The Red-Haired Girl From The Bog
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: #Brigid is according to Patricia Monaghan ("The Red-Haired Girl From The Bog") more a title than a name. The "Sublime" is a tribute to the great mother goddess, who was also worshipped elsewhere as #Eithne, #Dana & ev. #Sul. She was the central figure of the gods in the period of matriarchy, which ended in the #IronAge. And she is still today the bridge (English bridge is derived from Brigid) between the ancient faith & Christianity: here as a goddess, there as a saint.
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: #Brigid was later adopted by the Christians and absorbed into their doctrines when the local people refused to give the goddess up even though they accepted the new religion. As Saint Brigid of Kildare, she was honoured by nineteen nuns lighting and maintaining a perpetual, sacred flame, which continued until the suppression of the monasteries in the sixteenth century. Although it is believed the origins of this custom lie much further back in forgotten ancient pagan ritual.
Source: https://aliisaac.substack.com/
#MythologyMonday: The #duck was the #animal of #Sequana, goddess of the source of France’s river Seine, who was often depicted sailing in a boat whose prow was shaped into a duck’s head. Birds are often symbols of Celtic divinity, especially of goddesses. Source: P. Monaghan Encyclopedia of #Celtic#Mythology and #Folklore`
#Celtic#MythologyMonday: Bird chariots are rare cult objects whose exact funtion is unknown. Possibly these small, bird-shaped receptacles on wheels were part of rituals and meant to transport a precious content to the afterlife. Judging by their beaks, the birds on the chariot are ducks. Water birds had been a popular motif since the Bronze Age and may have been a symbol of divinity. Maybe it was the observation that the birds could move on water, on land and in the air which fascinated the people of the time.
Source: Natural History Museum Vienna, photocredit 1. Neu-Kelte
61 Celtic gold coins of the 1st century A.D