“As I walk along this path, therefore, the steps of ghosts hover alongside my own, tracing out other paths beside me. They are ghost paths; the lines of dead legends haunting the landscape, their dim lineaments only faintly visible at the edge of possibility.” I volunteered to review this book, having met the author online quite by chance. It quickly became evident that we have many common interests, so when he mentioned that he’d just published a book, I was intrigued. Once my review copy was more-or-less in the post, Bill mentioned to me that the book is over 600 pages long. I wondered wha ..read more

I’ve been wanting to write something like this for ages but have put it off. (Maybe I feel like I lack sufficiently authentic “credentials” as a Scot these days.) A chance remark about my recent Irish Deities/Welsh Deities video loosened my tongue, so here it is, complete with autobiographical disclaimers. “Why do we never hear about Scottish deities?” The Stone of Mannan, Clackmannan, Clackmannanshire. The centre of former Manaw Gododdin. When I fetched up in Scotland in about 1982, I never felt so welcomed in my life. It was a feeling which was to continue for the entire 25 ye ..read more

Morgan le Fay by Frederick Sandys I recently read a couple of statements saying that Morgan la Fay, a character from Arthurian stories, has no connection to The Mórrigan – and I agree. (Or I mostly agree, we’ll come to that.) However, what I think people are missing is the goddess who did inspire Morgan la Fay: the goddess Modron. And Modron is, at least tenuously, connected to The Mórrigan, as I see it. Modron is widely considered to be cognate with Dea Matrona of Gaul, the tutelary goddess of the River Marne. (Both names essentially mean “divine mother”.) She is also related ..read more

Many lovers of Irish mythology know that the Dindsenchas offer a rich seam of lore, but rarely feel that they have the time or the knowledge to work that seam effectively. I believe that I have a remedy in this document, which lists the different sets of dindsenchas translated by Gwynn and Stokes, in a master index, with every entry hyperlinked to the journals where they reside on archive.org. It’s now easy to locate all the entries for Druim Suamaig or Mag Murisce (should you wish to) from this single index. I’ve also included some of the more popular personal names, with a list of the entrie ..read more

I’ve seen a few questions this week about what “Celtic Paganism’s stance” is on abortion. Happily, none of the internet spaces I inhabit saw this turn into a fight. Most people gave answers similar to my own, and here’s mine: First, Celtic Paganism is just an umbrella term. It’s not an organised religion, there is no official stance on anything. We have a collection of mythology and other early texts which are meaningful to many of us, but just like the Christian Bible, they are open to a variety interpretations. There is nothing like Leviticus or the Ten Commandments in that ..read more

Ex-votos from Chamalières in the Musee Bargoin. ©Thierry Nicolas, La Montagne  I have been working on material for the class I’ll be teaching about Maponos and Mabon soon. I’ve been reading papers that are either new, or that I hadn’t had time to read before, and thinking about the site of the spring at Chamalières where the famous tablet inscribed to Maponos was found. Of course, I’m looking for images that will help the students to visualise what must have been happening at Chamalières as the last decades BCE moved into the first century CE. Images like the one of the archaeo ..read more

Sometimes, it feels like the sciences and the humanities, or “liberal arts” as some people call them, are at war in our wider society. I don’t think they should be, and I suspect that to some extent the conversation is being manipulated by the same kinds of forces that like to tell us that the economy is in trouble because poor people are lazy scroungers. Is this tension bleeding over into our paths as Celtic Polytheists? I think it might be. I’ve often written about the importance of mythology and the problem of people not understanding that “myth” isn’t synonymous with lies ..read more

photo: simonwakefield CC Wikimedia commons CC 2.0 Someone just shared the meme on the left on social media. I am blatantly ignoring possible copyright infringement by adding it to this post. (For educational purposes, of course.) Click to enlarge Now, as iffy memes about Celtic things go, I’ve seen a lot worse. They’ve managed to spell the Irish words correctly, even if they don’t quite understand the meanings, and there’s a nod to Welsh language which also isn’t terrible, but again, a bit off. People are often wrong on the internet, but this post isn’t really about t ..read more

This post was published on Patheos.com in 2018.  Photo: Duncan Broomhead. Used with permission.  ​If you can't believe these words I say, Step in, Wild Horse, and clear the way. In comes Dick and all his men, He's come to see you once again. He was once alive but now he's dead, He's nothing but a poor old horse's head. This horse has travelled high, he's travelled low, He's travelled both through frost and snow, This horse has an eye like an hawk A neck like a swan, He's a tongue like a ladies' pocket book, Going down yon hill last night, Poor old Dick fell do ..read more

This was originally posted on Patheos a few years ago. The title is a response to something John Beckett had said, to the effect that complaining about people using "Maybon" as a word for the autumn equinox was "hate".  It’s that time of year again when I hear the name of a deity I revere on the lips of many people. His name is on my social media feed on a daily basis, too. That would feel great if more people actually knew that the were speaking His name, so this year I’m on a bit of a campaign to get His story out there, since his name is, anyway. ​ The name of this deity is Mabon.&nbs ..read more