I went looking for the Irish creation story — and found ringforts, hedge schools, hawthorn trees, and a bull whose fate could have ended two different ways.
Oh goodness, thank you and Backatcha lady! I’m doing another piece on the Sidhe — I was struggling on how much to put into a single piece. Fairies are next!
I find, as I get older, that the culture that we are presented with (as fiat, if you will) is often remarkably poor in structure and meaning, and that even today the forces of the Christian God seem to be fighting a losing battle against this search for older truths and hidden meanings. What is Superman but a modernised version of Fionn mac Cumhaill? Iron Man but Nuada of the Silver Hands? Catwoman is Bast, Black Widow is the Morrigan (Nemain perhaps)? The Flash is Hermes, redux. I don't think the old gods are so much gone as in hiding, expressing themselves in popular culture when the paucity of the dominant paradigm finally wears too thin.
I’ve been circling this subject for three years and I wasn’t doing justice to what I was thinking (trying to avoid a treatise). But what is canon is also homogeneous. Once I got past that i could enjoy the absurdity of these stories!
Yup. I don't think they were absurd so much as accretional. Bards were storytellers, and they usually had a circuit; there were favourites, but people still liked novelty that made the story a little different from the last time the bard came through, especially if you were trying to curry a little favour with the local lordling that would translate to coins in the purse and food in the belly, at least for the night. They also likely knew when they had overstayed their welcome - you didn't tend to reach old age as a storyteller if you couldn't read your audience. Admittedly, this was a later period; bards like Oissian, Taliesin, Myrrdon and others (all of whom might be apocryphal) were often attached to courts in the 1st-5th centuries throughout the Celtic lands, though they also likely perambulated through a circuit just to stay abreast of news.
Nah, just a long-time reader of fantasy fiction, from Mary Stewart to Mercedes Lackey (who has actually explored the concept of Bards at some length, and whom I occasionally kibitz with at conventions, though it's been a few years).
You definitely inherited the Irish storytelling gene!
Pagan belief was very strong in Ireland. Some attributed the potato fungus that caused the famine to fairies being angry!
Oh goodness, thank you and Backatcha lady! I’m doing another piece on the Sidhe — I was struggling on how much to put into a single piece. Fairies are next!
Hi, Diane,
There is more than a bit of bard in you :-)
I find, as I get older, that the culture that we are presented with (as fiat, if you will) is often remarkably poor in structure and meaning, and that even today the forces of the Christian God seem to be fighting a losing battle against this search for older truths and hidden meanings. What is Superman but a modernised version of Fionn mac Cumhaill? Iron Man but Nuada of the Silver Hands? Catwoman is Bast, Black Widow is the Morrigan (Nemain perhaps)? The Flash is Hermes, redux. I don't think the old gods are so much gone as in hiding, expressing themselves in popular culture when the paucity of the dominant paradigm finally wears too thin.
Oh my such generous words! Thank you.
I’ve been circling this subject for three years and I wasn’t doing justice to what I was thinking (trying to avoid a treatise). But what is canon is also homogeneous. Once I got past that i could enjoy the absurdity of these stories!
Yup. I don't think they were absurd so much as accretional. Bards were storytellers, and they usually had a circuit; there were favourites, but people still liked novelty that made the story a little different from the last time the bard came through, especially if you were trying to curry a little favour with the local lordling that would translate to coins in the purse and food in the belly, at least for the night. They also likely knew when they had overstayed their welcome - you didn't tend to reach old age as a storyteller if you couldn't read your audience. Admittedly, this was a later period; bards like Oissian, Taliesin, Myrrdon and others (all of whom might be apocryphal) were often attached to courts in the 1st-5th centuries throughout the Celtic lands, though they also likely perambulated through a circuit just to stay abreast of news.
I should have consulted you!!
Nah, just a long-time reader of fantasy fiction, from Mary Stewart to Mercedes Lackey (who has actually explored the concept of Bards at some length, and whom I occasionally kibitz with at conventions, though it's been a few years).