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FIVE DENIALS ON
MERLIN'S GRAVE
A Poem With Annotations
by

Robin Williamson
Illustrations by
Janet Williamson

Pig's Whisker Music

Los Angeles
1979

First Published in the U.S .A. 1979 by Pig's Whisker Music

Text set in Baskerville Medium
Printin g: Delta Lithography
Typesetting: Precision Composing
In side photos: Janet Williamson
John Gilston
Cover design: Jim Bishop

Th is book is so ld su bj ec t to th e co nditi o n that it sha ll not , by way of trade o r o th erwise, be lent, resutd , hired out or o therwise
circu la ted without the publi sher's prior written conse nt in a ny form of binding or cover o ther than th~t in which it is
publish ed and without a similar cond itio n including thi s condition being imposed o n the su bseque nt purchaser.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retr ieval system, or transmi tted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical , photocopying. recording or otherwise, without the pri or written perm iss ion of the Copyright owner.

ISBN #0-9602874-0-X
Library of Congress Catalogue Card #79-65468

1979 Robin Williamson

All Rights Reserved

http://www.pigswhiskermusic.co.uk/

\J\'ith thanks to my wife Janet for her love and support, and to Dinah LeHoven for all her help. and
to Robert Graves, Barry Fell, and many more, this book is dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard.

FIVE DENIALS ON MERLIN'S GRAVE

myself, a brat who vaguely gazed

on the knee high nineteen forties
and the waist high nineteen fifties
and couldn't figure numbers worth a damn
was always a chancer
and given three lines to add I'd put the middle row
down as the answer
but I would read all day if I could get away with it
and all night too with a flashlight under covers
of that Green Man my namesake, or of Merlin of the borders
and in seeking out the stories of Britain's ancient lineage
I delved
on days subtracted from the blackboard's paltry tyrannies
among dog eared authorities, back shelved in libraries
who barked at point blank dogmatically
lacking their bell and candle
into my eyes at daydream from a skull.
among the glamoured fields of fine July I lazed
to read and revel through these pleadings in dead language
yardages of verbiage in the ravelled case
of the comings and the goings in the high and far off times
stacked and dried.
wherein it is recounted with clerkish severity
fish spearing, wizened, louts without modesty
displaying a crude cunning that might pass as perspicacity
beehived and coracled among our western isles
while Noah was still flattening his thumbs, and bending nails.
these people we so g libly call the Picts
whatever thoughts they voiced in hamitic vocables
whatever shades they prized, what light or dapple
refract; maligned with daubs of woad in patronizing words.

for they were clean as clams, witty and thick as thieves

gossiping maskers worthy of serious love, sticklers for detail
furred with wolf pity, honeyed as the claws of bears
tree truthful looters along time's inches
shooting a barefaced line, secretive as heather ale,
with leagues of breeding
brewing or brooding or brave enough in a pinch
charting and outstaring the vagaries of heaven
from winter's prick to the crack of summer
kept watch upon the Pleiades
calendaring from months of feathered dawns
just seasons for the eagle and the wren
owning red breasted lazarus laughter
no better or worse than we
as babes swim back in time, gilled and goggle eyed
evolving as now, intelligent as the green sea
that bloods to Egypt, India, and China
fathoming forgotten simplicities.

it is written bland as boiled cabbage

such savages were heaving out their oyster shells
all up and down the miles of Britain
since first the ice receded to the northern wastes
scouring our hills as round as breasts
until the time of Noah's brother, Partholon
whose children
haggling like gulls
mysteriously arose from Sicily
some say
herdsmen pipers quenching away through thirsty south Italy
and wending westward on
at the drone of cattle talk, fly hummed and bitten
by finger quick and cream fat moons
breaking new sod for barley seed
with wooden plows
and rooting for wild garlic
with spades of antler bone.
but let us sing the skill of the master b uilders
long ago
for it was no peasantry clodding after scrawny cows
who raised the hollow hills and henge stones
but calm and cunning wizards worked these wonders
continuing the snail line, dod flat at ring stand
ruling scribing and pegging out in granite
the windings of the dragon track
that writhes unhewn
in sward and marsh and moss and meadowland
that twines in stellar gravity among the eaves of the cubic sky
serpent bird of H y Brassail
force of spring
wing sunk
bound free
as we perceive our dream at centrifugal spin
so green leaves grow
the rowan bears the crown
so they, upon the veins of Anu, blazed the eye of Bel
to print a spell of glory in our blinks of lives
rightness of the world self seen
the green
the garden
and poetry attests their artistry thus and otherwise
older yet and wiser far
and I will not forget.

it is recounted with an absence of drollery

next came copper workers with wheels and carpentry
from the land of the Greeks, drunken by starlight
north through the Daneland heroing and charioteering
and breaking bones like crockery
with their brown swords.
but let us sing these rovers homesick for sights unseen
and sounding for the sake of the silence between the stars
and garnering an elder lore within their druidry
for so bore Nuada of the Silver Hand,
master of the elements
into Alba
into Erin
the quest of the Seat Perilous
and of the White Bull's Spotted Hide
to make and unmake the demons of the mind to fly
honouring the unvisionable Dagda
and Mananan of the Letters in the Craneskin
and shining Lug of the Ways
of the world
the garden
and carrying always within, as is fitting
the shadowlit
whispering
mare faced
catfaced
owlfaced
ageless huntress and thrice queen
who musing in the blood whistles and whirls
her hounds and ravens, beyond all sacrifice
craven and unrhyming, nailed in a blackthorn tree
lest horned eyes be blinded by the tomb of the lightlessness
in the charm of the halcyon dark .
on this, our grave and Christian clerics in alarm
avert their pens
womenless men crooked in the cloister of their age
but poetry declares it differently
older yet and lovelier far, this mystery
and I will not forget.

the next wave brought the flaxen sons of Mil

as it is writ
by stuffy hermits with a bone to pick
blundering up the Danube and down the Rhine
the warrior forefathers of the Gael
who shipped and sailed deep waters
at wind beck
one arm
one hand
one finger
prowing west across to Spain
round France and through the Channel
plundering the coastlands as they came
till they too brought their reign into the glens
the horsemen of M uimnon of the Gold.
but let us chime in the heather blue of their two handed harpers
spiralling from red and silver wires
tones of the faces that speak from jurassic rock
with eyes like leaves
a winding music keening and exultant
through the green drum of the hills, the white briar rose
and the long dance of the horses cantering in threes
high and lonesome reel that galloped in the duple hoofbeat
sharp as the blade of January and soft as snow, their minstrelsy
that kissed
and parted
and found rest in journeying
they rode and billowed in the days of old
worshipping across the world a music
that nests in bird song, insinuates in river babble
sings in the soft south wind and burns in the burning flame
to lay a burden and a turn that catch still at the heart
and descant yet
to the echo of that oldest tune of all, that stirs the bold
and I will not forget.

and lastly it is told,

and quaveringly
by generals doddering in their second infancy
that in the days of Darius
before Christ's birth six hundred years
Labraid the Exile came pillaging and slaughtering
as if to prove Darwin right
with his darkbrowed Gauls
and their leaf shaped spears.
I hate the scribblers who only write of war
and leave the glory of the past unsung between the lines
but sadly and truly on the sinister left hand
the tale of Britain since the Flood is of crowing and croaking war
that gouged heart high
a fame that soaked away
that maimed all vision
spilt jewels both red and white
killed memory and might
turned amethyst to adamant
lamenting in the reed, the wound horn, the tolling bell
brother killers the salt sea it is salt with tears
a wave flooding without an ebb
toppling stone from story
before ever Caesar's lawful butchers came
or riddling Saxons setting flame to thatch
or rune wise Vikings whirling blood wet axes
or courtly Normans cutting off of hands
and the burning church jingling in pardoner's prate
of Hell, as pedants munched their roasted meat
dumped off a fear of Spirit on the heap
as if one life was all.
but long before we ever took the names
of English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish
and long before the tower of Babel fell and language cracked
there was interchange and colloquy and conversation upon this world
and standing stones remain to bear it testimony
from China to the Americas, and from India to Ireland, patterning.
still sings the salmon louder in the wild deer's lung
above and below all weir the Green Man makes his play
and in a schoolboy's hands that cupped that water
Merlin of the borders turned in his river grave
where Powsail Burn meets Tweed
the wild bees hummed
a brown bull grazing in the meads
a seeming peace, a soft summer's day
where I first read, and reading, saw the paper dissolve away.

and I say now years later, well mindful of the risk of mockery
that nothingness I am was then set a wandering
upon the windings of the ways
of the world
the garden
restless in life and seeking no end in death
for breath of the ages in the face of the air
still ghosts to the vitality
of our most early and unwritten forebears
whose wizardry still makes a lie of history
whose presence hints in every human word
who somehow reared and loosed an impossible beauty
enduring yet
among the green islands of the grey north sea
and I will not forget.
' JCJ;8 , / f.J/') l< obm 1\'dlwm.wn All H tghts H t'Sr'J't'f'd,

INTRODUCTION TO NOTES
I wrote this poem one evening in September 1978, spent several weeks reworking it and
extending its scope, while being whirled around the east coast of America on tour with the Merry
Band in October, and several further weeks back home again in early '79 digging arou nd in the old
books and writing up these notes.
The piece is based on five broad stages of ancient British history, a nd contrasts dusty historical
and archaeological viewpoints together with the dilute folklore a nd echoes of legend that remain,
against the emotion tha t the ancestral figures of the green isla nds have woken in me, since I first
learned of them as a boy.
The diversity of opinion regarding dates involved and who did what, is h ardly surprising in the
light of the dazzling complexity en countered in attempting lo describe the m achinations of the
present world, let alone that of a dozen or so thousands of years ago. Also, the whole subject of early
Britain and the ancient Celts is fraught with fringe mysticism, ra bid debunkers, patriot extrem ists,
extremely specialized academia and organic gardening by sylph power, etc. The subj ect bein g so
volatile, seductive and heady in that one is, in looking into these areas, met face to face with the
magic of life and thought, of course, but also with a host of other 'mysteries '.
This being said, in the following notes I endeavour to sketch in some of the background to the
poem, to outline some of the viewpoints h eld by a uthorities, to delineate, the applicable myth and
folklore involved, and to make apparent the pattern of the inner thread s around which the poem is
woven.

NOTES

THE GREEN MAN AND MERLIN

According to Sir james Frazer in his ' Golden Bough ', one of the most frequently found themes
in huma n m yth is th a t of a seasona l or solar hero-king divinity, killed (often at a tree) and reborn.
Such figures as Osiris. H ercules, T a mmuz, Adonis, Bacchus , Dion ysus , Mithras , Christ, Robin
Hood (th e Green Ma n) a nd Cuc hulain a s well as early cults of Merlin and Arthur parta ke of certain
of these fea tures
The earliest religious ideas, as it seems to me, were probably magical-scient1t1c, bemg suffused
by the worship of a mother Goddess (apparently originating in the Mediterranean area) at an
extremely early date (certainly rather global in scale by the Bronze Age) and later overlayed with
Indo-European divine solar hero elements; the Goddess was conceived as patroness of magic, art,
th e seasons, crops, animals and humanity, represented variously as the earth, sky, sun or moon;
variously personified and found single or in groups of threes, sevens and nines. At all events, this
divinity (according to Robert Graves in 'The White Goddess') was by the Saxons who inherited her
from the Celts in England as the May Bride, "paired off with Myrddin (Merlin) by this time
Christianized as Robin Hood, apparently a variant of Myrddin 's Saxon name of Rof Breocht Woden
(Bright Strength of Woden). " The name 'Robin ' was generally assumed by leaders of Mediaeval
witch covens. In early French, the name had associations with the ra m , for which animal
incidentally the Sanskrit is huda. There is also an Arabic word wudu, ' luminous' or 'sunlike' which
seems to fit appropriately a lso.
In short the tales of Robin Hood (an actua l historical cha racter) have been infused with much
older mythic elements common to the world. Robin Hood Plays held in Edinburgh , till stopped by
th e puritanical and severe church of john Knox's days, featured (as I learned from Mr. Bryden ,
antiquary of Edinburgh) week long uproarious celebration , founta ins of wine, pageantry and
parading of the various guilds, public fornication and the procession through the streets of a horned
oa k m ask with a beard carved like leaves, called Robin Hood or H esus.
In the borders of Scotland (which till about the 6th-7th cent. A.D. were still part of North Wales,
the inhabitants being Brythonic Celts, ca lled Welsh, i. e. ' foreigners' by the Saxons) persistent
legends of Merlin and Arthur are found. The earliest written reference to Arthur is in the poem
'Gododdin' by the bard Aneurin which was written in Edinburgh about 600 A.D . In one border
folktale St. Kentigern encounters an enfeebled and aged Merlin wandering in the high hills near
Stobo, endeavours to convert him to Christianity, and brings him to the low ground where the locals
obligingly stone him to d eath, burying him where he falls.
During the thirteenth century , the Scots poet and soothsayer Thomas of Ercildoune, known as
the Rhymer, prophesied thusly
" When Tweed and Powsa il meet at Merlin 's Gra ve
England a nd Scotland one King sha ll h a ve."
This prediction was oddly fulfilled when on the death of Eliza beth I, in 1603, james VI of Scotland
became James I of England, the small river Powsail overflowed its banks, changed course and
entered the Tweed by Merlin's Grave below the village of Drumelzior. An old woman in the Yarrow
va lley told m e the site of the grave was marked, when she was a girl, by an aged thorn tree, but when I
was last there it was plain that nothing marks it now.
The Green Man is a common inn-sign of British pubs at the present day. He is often depicted as
a man covered with leaves and is no longer particularly associated with Robin Hood or any of the
o ther earlier figures I mention. During the course of the notes I outline the various connotations h e
has come to have for me as a poetic symbol, and in general I use the term ' green man ' to cover loosely
the easonal hero-king figure in his multitude of forms. As a starting point then , both Robin Hood
and Merlin are connected with this seasonal hero-king divinity theme, and with the whole
pantheon of horned deities whether goat, stag, ram or bull.

PICTS

As far as I can gather, no one really knows who the very earliest inhabitams of Britain were. As I
recall, my history books in school preuy much commenced with Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain
in 55 B.C., mentioning the Picts as savages living in the North and proceeding hurriedly to the
Norman Conquest of 1066 and all that. Caesar, who by reason of his trade had a vested interest in
categorizing all peoples not yet Romanized as barbarians, lumped the inhabitants of northern
Britain under the name Picti (painted folk) from their habit of decorating their bodies with designs
(or tattoos) in blue woad, an herbal dye. The Pentland Hills sou th of Edinburgh are supposed to
preserve their name in an Anglicized form. The Picts were said (by Herodotus, the Greek historian
c. 484 B.C.- 425 B.C.) to "mate openly without embarassment like the dove, the dog, the cat, the
hare."
In order to gather some information on the earliest or aborigina l inhabitants of Britain it is
necessary to backtrack and examine various viewpoints . The British Isles were long ago part of the
land mass of Europe, with no dividing channel of sea. Standard archaeology reports traces of
hunting and fishing peoples in England 500,000 years ago before the Ice Age. By the time the ice
sheet had moved south to cover the whole of Scotland and the north of England. hunting parties are
said to have been still crossing from Europe in summer to search out reindeer, mammoth and
woolly rhino, returning to their continental homes before the onslaught of the biuer winter. These
early hunters are usually pigeon-holed as Cro-Magnon man, whose bones, dating to 30,000 B.C. at
least, have been found throughout Europe, and these people are generously described as flat-faced
and upright-walking by scholars who could generously be so described.
So many thousands of years of rough weather, including an ice age and a flood, to say nothing
of earthquakes, eruptions and changes of coastline would obvious ly have obliterated virtual ly all
traces of any civilization that might have existed in the extreme depths of time. But enough curious
anachronisms, and things which just do not fit the accepted picture have now been found, to cause
the curious to repaint the past yet again.
Euhemeros (a Greek philosopher of the 4 th cent. B.C.) taught that polytheistic mythology
arose in the main out of the deification of dead heroes. and hi ideas are now app lied to systems of
mythological interpretation \vhich regard myth as founded on real events (euhemerism) or which
seek to rationalize myth. Thus many regard the character of myth. the gods and goddesses, as human
beings who have been later deified and their deed tylised. orne in exam ining the mighty and
mysterious ruins of remote antiquity with which the world is endowed see traces of lo t civilizations
such as A tlantis or Lemuria. Some suppose the origin of civilization to have resulted from contact
with advan ced beings from outer space. Some see the content of world myth a oph isticated
astronomy, couched in symbolic language. The proponents of thi theory ( in ' Hamlet's Mill') also
find that the earliest known human writings are, rather than being the fir t gropings for expression
of a people new to the concept, more like h alf remembered lore of a lost age, finally being comm iued
to posterity. On the sinister side of all this, zany occult traditions concerning the pre-De luge era,
linked to the concept of a master race, motivated the 'philosophy of ~azism ; thus imbuing the word
'Aryan' with such dirty connotations that one finds it now replaced with the vague term IndoEuropean when referring in lingu istics to a postulated root language, the ancestor of various
tongues from Ireland to India.
The more one searches honestly among the web of what is writt n. the more one sees as the
bouom line a basic relationship of humanity. It's not so much that I frantically disbelieve in UFOs
or Atlantis, and I certain ly disbelieve in the idea that earlier man wa any le s intelligent than the
present, but, I also find myth perfectly sa tisfying as a magical basis of poetic requiring no other
explanation. A paving of the way the human mind concept ualizes and a park that goads the high
emotions to smoulder a nd flame. But the occurrence al l over the world of similar gigantic relics,
related legend and memories of a g lorious and magical antiquity have bred t\\o main theories to
account for them: the diffusionist theorv a nd the non-diffusionist theory. In the non-diffusionist
theory ideas sprang up by themselves automatically as cu lture reached a certain le\el and in the
diffusionist theory someone took the ideas around. A twentieth century city p erson could probably
walk from Scotland to China in a few years, but a Kalahari bushman of this century is in the habit of
hunting by running down the sw ift eland till it drops from exhaustion, covering as much as sixty
miles in a day. All I'm saying is that you don't need airp lanes to take an idea around anymore than
you need skyscrapers and cutlery to be civi lized and also I never heard of a cu lture making an idea,
which activity I regard as being the prerogative of an individual and the role of an artist.
Allowing the imagination to run riot a moment, a whole host of maybe-long-ago-they-could
type of thoughts spring readily to mind; i.e. these a n cients, in possession of knowledge now lost to
us, maybe were able to live in the world without injuring its systems or self-perpetuations, maybe
were able to activate and control by will these systems beyond the need for soil-depleting
agriculture, beyond the need for mining and the general rape of industry, beyond the need for
buildings, maybe they could control the weather around themselves and over large areas, maybe
they built lighted highways over the sea, maybe they could fly , maybe they didn't wear bodies at all

but created images by will and occupied th em as required. It doesn't so much matter to me whether
a ll this is true, it may well be worthwhile to believe a couple of dozen such things before breakfast,
but it certainly feels better and righter to regard one's ancestors as oth er than simpletons. They were
closer than we to a world cycle before our history begins, however it may have been, it remains an age
worthy of dream, and its last inheritors remain worthy of respect.
Smohalla, a medicine man of the Nez Perce Amerindians of the Great Plains had this to say to
Christian missionaries a mere century or so ago ..... you ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a
knife and tear my mother's breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask
me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die I cannot enter i).er body to
be born again ." (From 'The Winged Serpent, American Indian Prose and Poetry' ed ited by Margot
Astrov .)
But to get back to the Picts, the painted peoples of North Britain, as the Romans found them
many thousand years later, and built Hadrian's Wall to keep them off their imperial backs, th ey
were probably by then mostly half-breeds of this very ancient stock liberally infused with the blood
of later invaders. (For more see note on copper workers.) Margaret Murray in her 'God of the
Witches' suggests that possibly some pure descendants of these ancients persisted till the late Middle
Ages living in their own ways untainted by change in the wildest areas of the country, as today in
America certain non treaty Indians cont inue to live in the wilderness while the twentieth century
roars along the freeways . Murray suggests that such pure stock aborigina ls may have been the source
of diverse faery legends, tales and lore found in Britain. That's as m ay be, I consider the subject of
faery to be something else again. But the sidhe (faery peoples) do figure in early poetry as ' real
people' as often as they figure as 'supernatural beings'. Their features as a real race could be boiled
down from lege nd to render the following characteristics; a highly cultured nation of poets and
warriors living in round forts or hollow hills, with a power to cast illusion; pale blue-eyed, long
featured, long fair -h aired people. They are said to have been ruled by a queen or by a pair of kings,
both magically born of sacred virg ins. They are said to have been sexually promiscuous with no
concept of blam e or shame.

FURRED WITH WOLF PITY, HONEYED AS THE CLAWS OF BEARS

This refers to the so-called totemistic type of social organization these people might be
supposed, anthropologically, to have had. This would be similar to various Amerindian groups,
particularly the Nez Perce or Southern Californian tribes, I imagine, also similar to the Ainu of
North Japan, th e Aborigines of Australia , and the Maori of New Zealand. The phrase as I express it
here is-intended to convey the sharp and dangerous loveliness which I hear snowing and flowering
from the lips of their dead eyes.

TREE TRUTHFUL
This refers to a custom in very early British poetics of associating the letters of the alphabet each
to a particular tree . This was called tree ogham and the idea is continued or echoed in modern usa ge
by the phrases 'a branch of learning', ' the leaf of a book'. As well as these tree correspondences, there
were also animal, seasonal, colour and castle correspondences, to name but a few. An interesting bit
of lore along this line was the so-called finger ogham whereby various gestures of the hands
represented the letters of the alphabet. This could be used as a secret code amongst initiates or in
statuary whereby the gestures would give a clue to the meaning of the figure. (For more on finger
ogham see 'A merica B.C. ' by Barry Fell, page 76. For more on tree ogham see 'The White Goddess'
pages 189-204 .)
This whole practice of alphabetical and numericql codes and ciphers was similarly practiced by
early Biblical sages and preserved by the ] ewish Kabalists of Moorish Spain. The intricacies of
alphabetic ciphers were a guarded secret among theancients, as was the Holy and Unspeakable
Name of God among the Hebrews, as to name something by its ' true' name was to command it.
Throughout this section I am taking the (scholastically untenable) view that these aboriginal
people were the source of the best that survived as Druidry, more learned than the Egyptians, more
beautiful than the Minoans, a nd inheritors of and participants in the last stages of an anc ient global
culture of great sensitivity.

SECRETIVE AS HEATHER 'ALE

There is a Scots folktale about the Picts and their secret recipe for brewing ale from heather.
This was sometimes said to be 'Hundred Year Ale', i.e. one drink made you drunk for a hundred
yea rs . The story goes that when the Scots invaded Scotland from Ireland, they massacred all the

Picts, till only two were left, an old man and his son. The Scots were going to torture them to make
them reveal their secret recipe but the old man said, whispering in an aside to their leader, that he
would tell them all upon the condition that they would first kill his son so that he might not see his
father's shame. So they killed the son whereupon the father refused to tell them, though they
tortured him to death. Thus the secret is lost.

PLEIADES
To early peoples one of the several important seasonal cycles enacted in the heavens was the
rising and setting of the Pleiades. This constellation is mythically linked with the presaging of
cataclysms including the Flood; as is mentioned in the Jewish folktale (quoted by Frazer) in which
God caused the Deluge by removing two stars from the Pleiades, thus allowing the waters above the
sky to pour down on the earth.
The setting of the Pleiades in November can be considered to have marked the end of the Green
Man 's rule. The rising of the Pleiades in May can similarly be regarded as marking the rebirth of the
Lord Hero at May Morn.
The constellation Orion (The Hunter) follows the constellation Pleiades (The Seven Sisters)
across the sky (see a classical dictionary for the Greek myth involved), being another form of the
Green Man following here at the beck of a seven-fold Goddess, his sword slung low and central. The
blinding of Robin Hood by the treacherous Prioress who bleeds him too long in his weakness is
(according to the authors of ' Hamlet's Mill ' ) "a degraded Teutonic survival of the Hercules type
myth of Orion via" (a character called) "Orwandel in the Edda", (a summary of Norse mythology
found in Iceland and attributed to the poet Snorri Sturluson and others around the early 13th
century). These ancient ceremonies of death and rebirth of summer fruitfulness can be found still
lingering today in Morris style dances through Europe and parts of Asia, and the hero himself can be
seen complete with club and phallus but without his horns, outlined massively on the hillside above
Cerne Abbas in Dorset, as the Cerne Abbas 'giant' .

SEASONS OF THE EAGLE AND THE WREN

I refer here to correspondences in early British poetics between birds and the seasons . The wren
is the bird of mid-winter as the eagle or hawk is of summer. The hunting of the wren on the day after
Christmas would thus be symbolically to kill the old year and let in the new, which was represented
by the robin with his fiery breast like the light of the climbing sun.

PARTHOLON'S CHILDREN

In Irish legend the name 'Partholon' crops up as a relative of Noah who led a race of people to
Ireland just after the Flood. (In some such tales this people is said to have been the first race ever to
inhabit Ireland, to have been entirely without minds, and to have died of a pestilence, only one
surviving, Tuan MacCairill, who, enduring through various animal incarnations of a symbolic
nature, survived successive waves of 'ogre', ' faery' and finally human invasion of the land over the
centuries, till at last he was laid to rest by St. Finn ian; this is beside the point here .) 'The Children of
Partholon' is a name I use for the various groups described archaeologically as New Stone Age
peoples, First Farmers, builders of long barrows, passage graves and mounds, believed to be the
original megalith builders. It seems that a Sicilian origin for these people is a very limited
viewpoint. Some authorities say they came from Libya via Spain. Some find traces of their passing
from central Africa spreading north, east and west, stating that traces of them are found in the valley
of the Nile and that offshoots went to Syria and Asia Minor. The later (Hellene) settlers in Greece
found them established there and called them the Pelasgoi (Sea Peoples). The later (Italic) settlers of
Italy found them already there and called them Etruscans. The Hebrews similarly called them
Hittites. Curiously enough, the earliest known representation of a bagpipe is found carved on a
relief at the Hittite palace of Eyuk (according to Francis Collinson in 'The Bagpipe').
These dark-skinned, black-curly-haired peoples were arriving in Britain at very early dates (a
laugh on the racists of today) and are variously labelled by ethnologists Iberian, Mediterranean,
Berber, Basque, Silurian or Euskarion people.
Michael Harrison in his 'Roots of Witchcraft', outlines the presence of a Basque syntax
surviving in the Brythonic Celtic (ancestor of Welsh) language and further finds that various
garbled rituals in folk witchcraft can readily be translated as early Basque. Modern linguists find
evidence that the language spoken by these pre-Celtic peoples in Britain was of the Hamitic group
(the word deriving in Christian thought from Ham, second son of Noah and referring to tongues of
ancient Egypt, religious Coptic, ancient Libyan and modern Berber, as well as the Cushiticdialects

[from Cush, Ham 's son] of Ethiopia and East Africa). The early inhabitants of Iberia (Spain)
through which later waves of Celts passed on their way west apparently spoke a Libyan-Berber
Hamitic dialect.
According to standard archaeology, or as standard as I can make it out, by 10,000 B.C. the land
bridge between Europe and Britain broke and sank, by 5000 B.C. the ice was receding into the north,
hunting and fishing peoples had immigrated to Britain by boat, had settled comfortably into what
is called the Mesolithic era, and were hard at work making stone axes and rough pottery, when these
Neolithic First Farmers arrived around 3000 B.C. These dark skinned farmers are believed to have
had oxen, known dairy farming, practiced flint mining and to have used antler bone picks and
shoulder blade shovels in the construction of mounds such as Silbury Hill in southern England,
which is so massive that it would have taken at least 500 men at least 15 years to build. (See 'The
Megalith Builders', Euan MacKie.) The organization and feeding of such a group, given the
prevailing concept of population and food supply for these times, makes the construction of the hill
a mystery and a wonder of the world.
The first pan of Stonehenge was built around this time as a massive lunar observatory, later
adapted as a solar observatory by the Druids of the Celts. (For more on ancient astronomy see
Megalithic Sites in Britain' by A. Thorn.)
I have heard that a stone circle has recently been found intact below the waters of Loch Ness
(from Nessa, a Goddess name, in this case with her water dragon still in evidence). One would
suppose if true that this would date its construction to before the formation of the great glen which
divides. Scotland side to side, i.e. back in the extremely distant past. Who knows when the first
megaliths were built? The rocks of northern Scotland together with the Himalayas are the oldest
exposed rocks in the world .
Apparently the purest strain of this North African race survived till Roman times in South
Wales as the Silures. The kingdom of South Wales (Dyfed) was still called during the Middle Ages
'Realm of Glamour' or 'Kingdom of Illusion' from the prevalence and enduring force of its magic
feel. Curiously enough, in Gaelic the words black' and 'wise' are virtually interchangeable, as is the
case in various Near Eastern languages.
Peoples mentioned in early Celtic myth whom I envision fitting into this broad wave of the
poem here include: firstly the Nemedians, sons of the Sun, with magic powers to control storms,
said to speak a language similar to Greek, said to be very tall with eyes that glowed in the dark, with
mighty silver ships decorated with eyes and serpents; secondly the Fomorians, giants from the sea
first arriving in Ireland led by their queen Banbha (or Kesair) accompanied by fifty maidens and
only three men called Bith, Ladhra and Fintain, all three of whom are said to have been mighty
wizards with Ladhra the foremost; interestingly, these giants (according to the Irish book 'Annals of
Clonmacnois') are said to be descended from Ham, son of Noah. Their name, anciently written as
Fomoraig Afraic, also maintains a connection with Africa . The Fomorians are said to have lived by
piracy and to have troubled the whole world; and lastly, Partholon's people, said in the ' Book of
Invasions ' to have come from Spain.

DOD, DRAGON TRACK, SERPENT BIRD

Such ancient British monuments and holy places as Silbury Hill , Avebury, Stonehenge, and all
the hundreds of others, are sited on straight lines which form an immense invisible grid work. In
China there was, until the early years of this century, an exact living science of geomancy, this being
the art of magically placing buildings in spiritually favourable locations. Or, more specifically , in
harmony with lung mei (paths of the dragon). The lore also dealt with the manner in which a
' dragon force' could be steered or guided across the landscape a long preordained paths, and detailed
how to alter the configuration of natural features such as hills, rivers, e tc. to encourage the flow of
this magical force. The dragon force was assumed to be the force of spring itself. the force of growth,
and significant intersec tions of such paths were reserved for royal burials, the paths being marked by
stones and constructions . (For more on thi s, see 'View Over Atlantis', by John Michell.) The
Chinese said that lung mei stretched over the whole globe and it is certainly true that enormous man
made mounds, standing stones, dolmens, and other markers , comparable to the various types found
in Britain are found all across Europe, parts of the Near East and Asia, and a lso in America. It 's quite
likely that ancient British wizards located their structures in order to receive and channel a 'dragon
force' and ce rtainly every British structure aligns with at least th ree others, often across many miles
of country. Christian churches erected on these alignments or ley lines on the si te of ancient holy
places are frequently dedicated to Sr. Michael, the dragon killer, as also to St. George, and other
dragon killing saints.
Hills which are significant in terms of Icy lines often contain th e word 'clod' as in Dod Hill. A
'dod man' is an old country name for a snail which, like a surveyor, leaves paths marked behind it.
Place names on these ley lines often contain the words 'cole' or 'cold ', 'merry' or 'ley'. also 'red ',
'white', or ' black'. These last are colours associated with the Goddess in her aspects of white sower,
reel reaper and dark winnower of gra in.
Graves points out a recurrent icon in mythology whi ch appears to run deeper than Frazer's
seasonal hero theory .. Envisage a single, triple or seven-fold Goddess standing by th e World Tree
which bea rs its apples or hazels, e tc., portrayed with h er at tributes of mirror, sheaf of grain, hounds,
etc. At her right hand might stand a horn ed son, shining a nd full of light, connected with the first
half of the year. At her left h a nd might stand a serpent son connected with the Underworld with
shadow, oracular utterances etc. , and h aving to do with the second half of the year . The id ea of the
dragon, a serpent winged or horned , is in one sense, thus, a fusion of these two sons, flying like the
sun and swimming like a snake below th e waters of night.
The sign of the winged serpent is found laid out in vast ea rthworks in Britain , was common to
ancient Egypt, well known in South America (Quetzalcoat l) a nd among North American Indians.
The dragon is a state myth in both China and japan and features in the mythology of co untries as
far apart as Russia and Australia.
The stand ing stones in Britain appear' to be th e work partly of the Celts and, yet more, of earlier
inhabitants. Not only do they mark out ley lines on the ground but a lso are apparently located as
markers of underground electro-magne tic lines and so-called blind springs which form spirals, arcs
and twining patterns similar in some ways to Celtic knotwork as in 'The Book of Kells' (some
examples of which are sometimes thought to have possible musical signif icance). These electro magnetic lin es are observable by water divining or dowsing techniques. (For more on this , see 'The
Pattern of the Past', by Guy Underwood .)
Standing sto nes a lso mark angles, zeniths, solstices and other as tronomical phenomena
connected with the sun, the moon and various constellations and planets. But over all this and most
importantly, they are extremely beautiful, extraordinarily harmonious to the la ndsca pe, exerting
the feel of a grea t cathedral such as Chartres (which is itself constructed to a magical formula and
geomantica lly sited upon a much earlier holy place).
Regarding the old straight tracks, the dragon-paths, until quite recently the Romans were
credited with surveying and marking out their roadways which were run straight as an arrow over
hill and dale wherever their armies went. These Roman roads served as pret ty much the only real
roads in Britain till well into Renaissance times, and were still in use in the eighteemh century. But
it has been found, by excavation, ca rbon dating, etc., that the Romans came upon existing,
beautifully surveyed straight ways in every country they invaded in Europe and North Africa as in
Crete and the lands of Babylon and Nineveh. These tracks they merely surfaced and used . John
Michell, commenting on this, points out that the Rom ans had a deliberate policy of converting the
sacred paths of the natives into imperial routes for the flow of militarism a nd commerce. These
paths were not originally intended merely as routes to travel by, so some were unsuitable for Roman
use. john Michell also indicates that in using these paths, the Romans were able to penetrate very
directly to the spiritual and actual hearts of whatever count ry they were desecrating. In marching
these roads, they were travelling paths n ever before put to profane use, an d violating a sanctuary.

CUBIC SKY
This refers to P ythagorean significances of the number four, number o f reason, resp ect a nd
order. Also the c ube conveniently sums up the five directions, east, wes t, north , south and vertical.
This is a symbol of the space-time continuum we inhabit, a nd in which we crea te a ppropriate
vibratory energies to a pproxima te the en ergies emitted by so-ca lled o bj ects, this being the ha bit we
ca II seeing' .
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras is sa id, in tales quoted by severa l cl assica l a utho rs, to have
received part of his learn in g from a certain Aba ris the H yp erborean (i.e. inha bi ta nt of Brita in, the
land beyond the North Wind). It is certainly true tha t the construction of the stone monuments in
Britain involved the use of advanced geometry some millennia before P ythagoras. Some stories say
he studied with a Druid in Gaul. Clem ent of Alexa ndria says P ythagora s was a disciple of the
G a la tae (Celts) a nd the Brahmins.

HY- BRASSAIL
H y- Brassail wa s the name given in Celtic legend to a la nd fa r, far to the west. When Spa nia rds
arrived in South America they named Brazil for this reason . First writte n references to the n a me (a lso
spelled Hi Brazil), which means ' the red la nd ', or ' la nd of iron ', occur a round th e tenth century A.D.
in Welsh texts (see 'Madoc, A P ersi stent L egend ', by T rista n Jones) . Prince Madoc is said to h ave
sailed to America arou nd this p eriod w ith a band of follo wers. H e founded a colo ny there a n d la ter
re turned to Wa les himself to tell the story. It is possible tha t the descendants of this colony survive in
Ameri ca today as the Manda n India n s, who in 1804 were still noted to h a ve a hig h p reponderance o f
blue eyes and bl o nd or reddish h a ir.

ROWAN
T h e rowa n , or mountain ash tree. is call ed luis in Gaelic a nd rela tes to L ', the second le u er in
the old a lphabe t. A most m agica l tree, its scarl et berries were gua rded by a dragon in the roma n ce o f
Fraoch a nd were said to h a ve the susten a nce of nine m ea ls, to have healed the wounded a nd to have
added a year to life. Its other name of ' quickbeam' adds to its connotation as the tree of life (beca use
' quic k' means ' livi n g '). Its p resence can be n o ted in the area of a n cient stone circles, a s the tree a nd its
berries were used in magical and orac ula r practices by the Druids. Mo rain MacMain 's O g ha m in
'Th e Boo k of Ba ll ym o te' gives the poe tic n a m e fo r rowa n as " delight of the eye, luisiu, fla m e. " The
tree is thu s connected with Candlem as, Fe brua ry 2, the first of the fou r cross quarter da ys in o ne o f
the ea rl y ca lendar system s of Brita in. (Th e other three days being M ay E ve, L a mmas, and All
Hallo w's Eve, or Halloween, when the yea r di ed. ) In the Highlands of Sco tla nd, Februa ry 2nd was
the day of St. Bri g it a ll through C a tholic times, this sa int being in Scotla nd a Christianiza tion of the
earlier Goddess Bride, wh ose attribute was the swa n .

ANU
Anu is one of the innumera ble early n a m es of the great Goddess, and this n a me in itself h as
m a n y va riants. Earl y Indian texts of the Rig-Veda me ntion a goddess Da nu as a m a in e n em y of
Indra (a thunder god w ho became kind of the gods) . Dan u in Sa nskri t sig ni fies 's treams of water' .
The race of divine heroes, the T ua tha De Da nann, wh o in Irish legend were th e conquerors of the
ea rlier Fo moria n s, a re na m ed a fter thi s goddess, ca ll ing the mselves the Childre n of Anu , Da nu, or
Ana. Two beast sha p ed hills near Killarney a re still ca lled Da Chich A nann, 'The Paps of Anu '. A
name that was once applied to 'men of art', Druids, poe ts and soothsa yers was A es Dana . In Scots
G aelic dan means 'destiny ' and danachd is ' poetry' or ' boldness'. Another fo rm of her n a m e a mo n s
C eltic p eopl es was Don, a nd sh e wa s associa ted with wisdom, astronomy, ri vers, la kes a nd the sea,
agric ulture, and high places. The broad a rea of Irela nd a ro und the Paps o f Anu is called Munster,
a n d the royal house of Munster was a ncientl y called th e House of Do nn. O vid m entions a goddess
na m ed Anna who was a d eity of the P elasgians (i.e. P a rtho lo n 's Childre n in terms of the poem ).
O vid equa tes h er with Minerva (a R o man form o f the Greek Athen e, g oddess of skills. wisdo m a nd
warfa re). Tha t she was a deity of the P elasgia n s mig ht indica te tha t she was in Irela nd before th e
Da n a nns a lso. The name ' Anna ' is thoug ht to m ean ' queen ' .
In survi ving Irish m yth thi s goddess has two contradictory cha racter . As mother of the
Da na nns' prime forefa th ers, Bria n. luchurba, a nd Luch a r, Anu or Ana is be nefi cent, is full of
aeml eness and is an inducer of fruitfulness a nd an. U nder a nother name worn by this p a rticula r
a p eeL o f h erself she is ca lled Aine, which survives in the I rish town of Knocka ine. As Aine she is
connected with the moon, crops and cattle.

The maleficent Ana turn s up as the first of three Irish fate goddesses associated with war a nd
doom called Ana, Badb, and Macha . These three are known collectively as Morriga n (Great Queen).
Badb means 'boiling', a reference to h er magic cauldron. Nla cha mea ns (in 'The Book of L ein ster',
12 cent.) 'a rave n '. Ana also survives in Scots folklore as the hag spirit of sn o w a nd storm ca ll ed
G entl e Annie. As Black Anni s she rem a ins in the folklore of the hills of L eices tershire. And she is
comparable with the Cailleach Bh eur (Blue Hag) of the Hig hlands of Scotland, who is also known
as Beira a nd is the p ersonifica tion of winter. She h erds the wild d eer. She fights Bride (goddess of
spring) by striking at the ground with her staff. which freezes whatever it touches. Wh en she is at
length defea ted she throws the staff, till next year. under a holly tree - which is why grass n ever
grows under a holly tree.
In referring to the '' Veins of Anu" in the poem. I m ean the drago n-tracks, the sacred roadways,
as the veins of the body of the Earth.

BEL AND THE EYE OF BEL

The god Bel, a bright son of the Goddess p a r excelle nce, was apparentl y first h eard of as a
lightning or thunder god of a n cient Mesopotamia (th e 'fertile crescent' between the T igris a nd the
Euphrates). In ancient Syria a nd Palestine he was called Baa l and was considered compa ra ble to the
Sumerian storm god Enlil , who was considered in Sumeria as the son of a god called Anu (i t would
seem highly likely that ea rlier yet Anu had been a goddess there a lso). Bel seem s to have taken his
name from a very early Sumerian goddess Bellili, a goddess of trees as well as of the moon, of love
and of the Otherworld. In early Celtic the word bile means 'a sacred tree a nd survives as modern
English in the phrase 'a billet of wood '. The Cells later had a 'dea th god' ca lled Bile. Bel. by his
ass umption of the Goddess' powers, as god dominated pantheons spread East to West, h ad become,
by the time h e reached Europe from Phoenicia , an arch etypal solar d eity and Lord of the U ni verse .
Inha bitants of a ncient Britain called their sun god by this and other n ames and con sidered him
represented in their ruler, in his season of g lory. The yearly feast of Bel's coming to power was ca lled
Bel tane; it would now be ca lled May Day.
One of the symbols associa ted with Bel was a styli zed, eye- like or sun-like shape. sim ilar to that
found in Egypt as the Eye of Horus. This beneficent eye had a m a leficent counterpart which is
found in folklore a ll over the pla ne t as the concept of the ev il eye. Presumably a pair o f eyes would be
originally a symbol of the Goddess, whose eyes \\ere the su n a nd m oon , a n d which were painted o n
the bows of Egyptian boa ts a nd ca lled udjatti. Then , as her two son . the star son a nd the serpent
son, g radua lly usurped her power, p resu ma bl y they would have a n eye each. Later still. a single eye
beca m e the property of degenerated three-fold fa te goddesses such as the Graiae amon g th e ancient
Greeks, who were grey ha ired from birth, a nd were sisters of the Gorgons whose gaze turned men to
stone. The Graiae had one eye a nd one tooth which they passed be tween them a nd their n ames were
Enyo (Horror), Deino (Dread) a nd Pe mphredo (Fright or Alarm) . The Greeks called the evil eye
baskanos and this word is said (via the Latin fa scinatio) to be the origin of the word 'fascinate'.
One possessor, in Celtic myth , of this evil eye. was the cyclops- like ogre-king of the Fomorians,
Ba lor o f the Evil Eye. In his na m e one can trace his relationship as a forgo tten si bling of Bel. It
would be he a nd his ilk who wo uld h ave what is now ca lled a ' ba leful ' look. Envy a nd jealousy are
sa id in fo lklore to be the source of the evi l in the evil eye.
Ceremonial fires were formerly lit o n hilltops at Beltane. T he bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day in
England (November 5th) were originally fires of bones and perhaps con nected with Bel 's decline
a nd Balor's rise. The Celtic festival involved was ca lled Sa mhai n, of which H a lloween is also a
m odern remna nt.

COPPERWORKERS WITH WHEELS AND CARPENTRY

Around 2000 B.C. Bronze Age invaders began arriving in th e British Isles. They had
wheelwrights (hence chariots), bronze ca uldron makers, sword a nd spear sm iths, doctors,
philosophers a nd carpenters with a full kit of tools. Ethnically, these p eople cou ld be described as
Mycenaean Greeks, otherwise ca lled Boeti a n Da n a nns (bronze bell and beaker people to
arch aeolog ists) together with Caucasians from T hrace (the eas tern Ba lkans) who came to Britain via
Gothia (the Baltic a rea ) a nd Denmark (which still bears a trace of their n ame). T hey apparently firs t
arrived in Scotla nd , pressing south throu gh Britain a nd eventua ll y invading Irela nd .
In Iri sh legend these people would be ca lled the T ua tha De Danann and this wave mi ght be
con sidered, for the sake of simplicity, to include their immediate predecessors the Fir Bolg. In a great
battle the T uatha De Da na nn foug ht agai nst the Fir Bo lg it is recounted in 'The Book o f Invasions'
tha t they spoke the sa m e lan g uage . In som e ta les the Dananns a re said to have come, originally,
from a sunken isl a nd or ci ty o n a no ther plane ca lled Murias, carrying wi th them three treasures: a
magical chalice or ca uld ron , a spear of Lug that destroyed with fire , and L ia Fail, a sacred stone

(which some say may be the same as the Stone of Destiny in Scotland which was finally taken a~
plunder to England lor use in the coronation of rul<:TS).
Their buildings and sacred constructions in Britain included further elaboration of standing
stone techniques, sidhe mounds and round barrows. They were tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed and
blond or red haired. These people are said to have been displaced from Greece by the invasion of a
general called Cadmus, who conquered also in Egypt and Crete.
The Caucasians from Thrace who came with the Mycenae;tn Greeks at this time, seem to haH'
settled more permanently in Scotland and to have intermingled with the people they found there,
supplying many of the features now associated with the Picts. For these Thracians would be
comparable to peoples encountered along the Black Sea by Xenophon, who describes them as living
in wooden forts, bearing ivy-leaf-shaped shields made of white bull skin and as sporting blue tattoos
around their eyes.

DRUIDS AND DRUIDRY

It has lately become fashionable again in the academic world to poopoo Druids and relegate
them to the status of blood-thirsty shamans of primitive belief. M utterings of noble savage' ideas or
'Golden Age Never Never Land' on the academic front, oppose the jittery mystir ideas of rather too
bizarre occultists on the other. But an unscornf ul examination of the facts which remain concerning
this highly developed ancient religion (which involved confidential aspects told only to initiates
and certainly not to the 'journalists' of the period) produces in me great respect for these learned
men of long ago.
Suggestions that Druidry involved human sacrifice seem to be based largely in the works of
Roman authors such as Julius Caesar, who was engaged in wiping them out at the time, and gave
the above habit as the reason why- as if a man from the city which produced the Circus Maxim us
would evince such squeamishness! Similar statements, i.e. "tht>y t'at babies" were madeoftheJews
during the Middle Ages. However, it has been repeatedly reported that human sacrifice, and
cannibalism of a ritual type, were practiced in the ancient world, and the point is insistently made in
the Christian church that Christ the King died on a tree, as the cross is sometimes called. The
gallows were still called 'the fatal tree' in eighteenth century England, when the number of
hangings reached an uprecedented peak. But whether ancient accounts of human sacrifice or ritual
deaths of sacred kings refer to actual death, or to a symbolic death, or to some astronomical
movement symbolized thus and misinterpreted later, or to some poetic truth, or to some tangle of
human culture, is a matter for personal opinion as far as I can gather. Also there appears to be some
controversy now regarding cannibalism . In 'The Man Eating Myth', by W. Arens, the author finds
that "despite the massive literature alluding to cannibalism, there is no satisfactory first-hand
account of this act, as a socially approved custom, in any part of the world."
In any e\'ent, regarding Druidry only in the light of severed-head cults ', or ritual sacrifice, is
li~e seeing Christianity only in the light of cannibalistic god-eating ceremonies.
The name Druid is generally regarded as deriving from the Greek drus, 'an oak tree ', and
second syllable as being from the Indo-European root wid, 'to know', that is to say, 'knowledge of
the oak', which by inference through tree ogham can be taken to mean 'guardians of the door' (see
'White Goddess' pages 176- 179). The Druids are supposed to have had various degrees of initiation,
and Strabo (wri ti~g between 63 B.C. and 21 A.D.) mentions three classes of men held in reverence by
the Celts: bards, masters of legend and song; vates, who divine omens and study natural phenomena;
and Druids, concerned with magic and philosophy. There are also said to have been female Druids. I
feel that in regarding Druidry as a whole one is actually regarding a multiplicity of religious sects of
different philosophic persuasion, some lofty, some not; and containing very early elements to
greater or lesser extent. Some religious aspects tagged under the name of Druidry include: grove
temples in deep woodland, solar, lunar and stellar observatories, seasonal hero gods and their
associated animals, horned gods, goddess worship (at wells, springs, and hills particularly) dragon
lore and fertility magic, omens, calendar observations, legal matters, healing lore, alphabetic
ciphers, taboos, animals sacred to goddesses such as the hare and the horse, control of the weather,
casting of spells, and the quest of self-knowledge and understanding.
Caesar says that Druidry as a training was at its height in Britain and that students went there
from Gaul to study . Ancient Irish sources mei-Hion students going from Ireland to England to study .
Schools of oral tradition persisted in Scotl<\nd till the eighteenth century and in Ireland till the
seventeenth.
No mention of human sacrifice is made by the so-called Alexandrian school of writers, these
being Greek authors from Alexandria dating mostly from the first century A.D . onwards. These
regarded the Druids as sages of the type found in Persia as Magi and in India as Brahmins.
The Druids did apparently, unlike the Romans, believe in personal immortality and
reincarnation . Diodorus Siculus (1st cent. B.C.) states that Celts" ... believe that souls of men are
immortal and come to life again entering other bodies ... " Valerius Maxim us (early in tlw 1st cent.

10

SEAT PERILOUS, WHITE BULL'S SPOTTED HIDE

In Anhurian romance the Seat Perilous is the empty chair at th e Round Table, in which to sit is
to undertake a perilous quest. In a Norman French tale, Merlin refers to the Seat. Perilous as "the

mundan e station of the sun," and compares the Round Table of Arthur to the world. To sit in the
seat was the highest honour to which a knight could aspire and only the destined finder of the Grail
(Cauldron of Knowledge and Rebirth) might sit there with impunity. In the poem I mean the Seat
Perilous to refer broadly to the quest for poetic vision, and to a supposed practice in Druidic
initiation of a bard, the feat of passing a night upon a rock precariously balanced on some peak.
Perched on thi s rocking stone, the would-be bard was left to commune with the demons of the mind
and could be expected in the morning, so folklore says, to be dea d, mad, or a poet.
The bull was the symbol of the warrior caste in India and Rome as well as in Celtic Britain. In
Ireland the legendary conflict between Connacht and Ulster is sa id (in the 'Tain ') to have been
caused by the coveting of Medh (Queen of Connacht) for Uls ter's great bull. In ancient Greece the
bull ceremonies of Dionysus, which scho lars believe were at first mainly sexually orgiastic,
eventually became the basis from which Greek theatre evo lved. Mounds often in or near places of
burial were used in Celtic areas till Mediaeval tim es as seats for spectators at games or plays, as in the
Plen an Gwary of Cornwall.
In Celt ic Druidry, slef'ping upon a white bull skin (as I envision it, surrounded by red rowan
berries, hence spotted) was a method of inducing prophetic dream. Also, a bull skin stretched on
rowan wood wattles was a magi cal or poetic image for th e ceremonial acquisition of wisdom, from
which derives an Irish express ion 'to go to the wattles of knowledge' i.e. to search out all that can be
known of something.

DAGDA
This Danann father of the gods, whose name means ' the Good God', was probably first thought
of (according to Robert Graves) as a son of th e triple Goddess Brigit (High One), but was later said to
have married her, and later still to have married one wife with three names; Breg (Lie), Meng
(Guile), Meabel (D isgrace), who bore him three daughters, all called Brigit. His temple at New
Grange on the banks of the Boyne in!\' onhern Ireland was later rededicated to his Apollo or Bel-like
son Angus Og, whose kisses changed into birds; and it is one of the largest sidhe mounds. It is a flat
topped barrow a quarter of a mile in circumference and fifty feet high. It is older than the pyramids.
The Dagda had a living harp which, as he played upon it, called forth the seasons in order. He
possessed a magic cauldron "from which no company ever wenL unsatisfied," a nd carried a huge
club of which one end killed the living and the other revived the dead. As years rolled by he became a
comic character in the Gaelic s tories of Finn MacCool; gods lose face on the face of the world when
their children are conquered by others with other gods. But also it seems that in genera l most gods of
ancienL times were not considered infallible necessarily, or eve n entirely unsubject to change.

MAN AN AN
Another Celtic divinity, Mananan , was a sea god with a magic boat called Wave-Sweeper which
moved at his will. His father Lyr, or Ler, was a primary sea god of Celtic legend, similar to the Greek
Poseidon, but his son, Mananan, was seemingly much more widely loved. The Island of Arran in
the Firth of Clyde was said to have been his spiritual home and h e is sa id to have had a palace there
called 'Emain of the Appletrees' . The Isle of Man is named after him and it became an important
Druid island where in Welsh myth Arawn (Eloquence), lord of Annwm (the Otherworld) had a
castle. This Arawn is said to have possessed three magic cows, a magic cauldron and also to have
owned the Three Cranes of Denial and Churlishness who stood before his gate croaking " Do not
approach," "Go back," " Pass by."
In one story of Mananan, the sea god is said to have carried the treasures of the sea in a craneskin bag. In Greece the crane was sacred to Artemis a nd Athene, and long necked wading birds were
widely associa ted with lunar and goddess symbolism. Mercury is sa id to have invented the alphabet
after watching a flight of cranes. The reference in the poem to the letters in the crane-skin thus
implies that he carries the secret alphabet of the Sea P eoples (Partholon 's Children).
In the Scottish Highlands during the early years of this century people were still reponing
visions of Mana nan, mentioning the bright cold flame that burned beneath his feet and his flesh like
water and the seaweed floating a mongst the bones of the Son of the Sea.

12

LUG
Lug or Llew, like Bel, is yet another type of solar h ero divinity ; his name may be found in the
towns of Lyons and Carlisle (Cacr Lugubalion). His name may possibly be connected with the
Latin words lux (light) and Iucus (a grove). He is called Lug of the Long Hand beca use of his
aLtribute, a shining spear that lusted for blood or spat fire. The title, "LugofThe Ways", that I give
him in the poe m is a borrowing from his Greek near-counterpart Hermes as god of travellers. The
Roman moon goddess Diana the Humress was sometimes ca lled Diana of the Ways. Also the grid
pattern of squares usually found carved at sites dedicated to Bel (which seem to m e to be a
representation of the veins of Anu, the Earth Mother, in other words, the dragon tracks, but which
are more conservatively described by some a uthorities as being a pictorial representation of fields) I
here poetically ascribe to Lug. Indian, Classical and other mythologies also have the convention of
dividing the sky into sectors called 'the ways' of certain dei ties as constellations or planets.
A festival of Lug on the first Sunday in August was celebrated under the name of Lughnasadh
(some say 'Commemoration of Lug' but more likely a ceremony of his marriage to some priestess as
representative of the Goddess, as nassadh has the connotation of tying together), later Christianized
to Lughmas or Lammas. Lug's title ' Ildanach' (the All-Craftsman or Many-Skilled ) is simila r to
titles given by Greeks to Apollo.
Lug figures in Irish legend as the son of Kian and the father of Cuch ulain . (Some tales say the
hero Cuchulain, the Hound of Ulster, was an incarnation of Lug.) Lug was brought up by his
uncle, Goban the Smith, and by Duach, King of Faery. It was prophesied that h e would eventually
kill his own grandfather Balor, who had been his father's en emy. So when he captured three men
who had killed his father, instead of killing them (as was his lega l right in the situation) he sent
them on a quest for various wonders. These included th e magical spear of the King of Persia and the
magical pig-skin of the King of Greece, which cured all sickness and healed all wounds. Thus
equipped Lug entered the great baltic of Moytura on the side of the Dananns against the Fomorians,
where he succeeded in killing the giant Ba lor with a stone cast through Balor's single eye (somewhat
in the manner of David and Goliath).

13

MAREF ACED, CATF ACED, OWLF ACED, AGELESS HUNTRESS

AND THRICE QUEEN
PART I - MAREFACED
Mythology in general is not a logically cohesive subject, divinities do not perfectly compare
from one culture to another, the subject is one of dazzling diversity and profusion. The Celts
perhaps more than any other race were extremely liberal in their mythology, cheerfully swapping
attributes, genealogies, functions and names amongst their deities and creating local deities or
symbolic names for places to be revered wherever they went. This was so much the case that the safest
bet among them in taking oaths of honour was to swear by the deity of their immediate clan or tribe.
And in any case, the real names of the deities were closely guarded secrets and the names used were
titles rather than names.
The Goddess was given a bewildering variety of titles by her devotees throughout the world,
which in their way serve also as an indication of her universality. She could be regarded as
personified by priestesses, queens or by a diversity of kinds of sacred animals.
The mare was decidedly sacred to the Celts and also to later Teutonic peoples who would take
omens on whether or not to go to war from the movements of a sacred mare when led from her
temple. The Romanized inhabitants of Britain retained the mare aspect of the Goddess under her
continental Celtic name of Epona (whence pony?). Ep means 'horse' in Brythonic Celtic and ech the
same in Gaelic. The worship of Epona spread back to the metropolis of Rome itself where she was
merely conceived of as a protectress of horses and was said to have been born of the union between a
man and a mare. In early Mediaeval Welsh tales found in the Mabinogion, a lady called Rhiannon
retains mare associations and is obviously of divine nature, lightly veiled in humanity; as, in the
same tales, Ceridwen retains a sow aspect. It is curiotts how many of the animal aspects of the
Goddess, formerly sacred, are now derogatory, such as bitch, vixen, cat, goose, sow, etc. Even the
word 'cunt', which is now considered a term of abuse was at first a most sacred symbol and remained
a most polite word among the Saxons.
The nightmare (from Old English mara, 'a spectre'- interestingly enough the lord of demons
is called Mara in Hindu myth, and Old German has the word mair, meaning 'an old woman') was
called in the folklore of rural France Dian us and was believed to afflict horses as well as humans. In
the folklore of Germany, Walpurgis Nacht, the night of April 30th, was the time when witches were
said to revel on a peak in the Harz Mountains, wearing out the people's horses, so that they were
found exhausted in their stalls the next day. The term 'hag-ridden' was applied in England to one
afflicted with nightmare and relates to the word 'haggard'. In Germany the nightmare was called
Die Drude, the Druid Women. In Scotland the 'Faery Rade' was a mounted cavalcade of
supernatural beings, who passed through the land on Halloween. Celtic stories mention the soul as
leaving the body after death mounted on a spirit horse. The Greek writer Pausanius (2nd cent. A.D.)
in speaking of the river Styx, over which the souls of the dead must pass, says that its water will
destroy any substance, save a horse's hoof.
The Celts are thought to have had a taboo on eating or injuring horses, except perhaps under
certain religious conditions and the British of today continue to manifest a repugnance for eating
horse not found in modern France (compare the idea of eating dog or cat, which is acceptable in
orne parts of the world, as among the 19th century Chinese, puppy was considered a delicacy).
Attempts to make the idea of eating horse attractive to the British during World War II were
markedly unsuccessful.
In Denmark during the Middle Ages there survived a three day horse feast held among the semipa gan serfs, who regarded the horse as sacred because it was the son of a mare goddess. The battleflag of the ancient Danes featured a white horse.
In ancient Rome races were held in October on the ' Field of Mars', and the right hand horse of
the winning team, called the October Horse, was sacrificed to Mars. The blood of the sacrifice was
tored in the temple of the goddess Vesta (where virgin priestesses maintained a sacred fire) to be
u eel the following spring in the first feast of the year, Parilia, when straw fires were lit and were
pa ed through for purification. In classical myth Diana, the huntress and moon goddess, travelled
the night sky by horse drawn chariot, and as Lady Luck her crescent horseshoe is still ritualized.
Po eidon (or Neptune) the classical sea god is said to have created the horse and invented racing( the
.dea urvives in the wind broken waves called ' white horses'). In this he is presumably credited with
- e characteristics of the earlier marine goddess of love, Aphrodite (or Venus), the foam-born. So one
ould be quite correct in British poetics, in referring to waves as 'the horses of Rhiannon.'
Cuchu la in 's mighty horse was called the Grey of Macha (after Macha, the third aspect of the triple
de :Vlorrigan). Great horse races were associated in ancient Britain with appropriate religious
_ . :.s al . :VIany huge hill figures must once have crowned the hills of Britain and several ancient
_ un ive, including the white horse of Uffington in Berkshire. The coronation of kings in Ulster
.,ed a ceremonial copulation with a white mare. This custom was recorded by an outraged
monk, Giraldus Cambrensis, who visited Ireland in 1185 and saw the ritual take place in

14

Tirconnell.
Rhiannon is the Mediaeval Welsh form of the ear li er Ri ga ntona (Great Queen Goddess).
Epona was a lso called Queen as th e Virgin Mary was called Quee n of Heaven and Venus the Qu een
o f Love. The name 'Queen ' seems to crop up behind many of the great variety of goddess names.
Epona was sometimes depicted as acco mpanied by birds, which are particularly associated with
Rhia nnon in the Mabinogion, the great catch-all of early Welsh tale. (For several mare goddess
surviva ls in Celtic folklore, see the intra to 'The Mabinogi', by Patrick K. Ford. )

PART II -

OWLF ACED

A ca rving dating to around 4000 B.C. on a rock face in southern France depicts a p a ir of owls
with chicks. A Sumerian tablet dating a round 2000 B.C. de picts a n a ked goddess flanked on eith er
side by owls. Biblical references morosely connect the owl with misery, desol a tion and mourning,
but also with dragons and wild beas ts. In Rome th e appearance of an owl in th e Capitol Building
ca used such a larm as to cause the whole place to be cleansed with sulphur and water. The Roma ns
used re presentations of the owl to combat th e evil eye (so m et hing fright ening lO fright en the
frightening) as was common a ll over northern Asia.
In ancient China ornaments called owl-corners were placed on buildings as a magical
protection against fire. In India owl feathers placed under a child 's pillow were used as a ch arm to
induce sleep. The Ainu of North Japan na iled woode n images of owls to th eir houses in time of
p estil ence or famine. In Africa souls of wizards were referred to as owls. In Athens of th e ancient
Greeks the owl was associated with the goddess Athe ne (a Greek form of th e Roman goddess of
skills, wisdom and warfare, Minerva) and to see an ow l was a n indication of fortunate outcome.
Among American Indians, P aw nees regarded the ow l as beneficent, the Ojibway as maleficent a nd
th e California Indians wore owl feath ers as a counter ch ar m to the owl's danger a nd bea uty . The owl
is associated in early Welsh tale with Blodeuwedd , a magica l maiden made of nine kind s of flowers.
These night birds of eerie cry a re thus ear ly associated with goddesses and la ter associated with
protection against ill omen or finally seen as ill omen itself. In the folklore of nin e tee nth century
Wales the cry of an owl within a vi ll age presaged the com ing of snow or signified a virgin abo ut to
lose h er virginity. The skin of a n owl nailed to a barn door was said to protect aga inst bad luck. Owl
eggs were sa id to res tore sobri ety to drunkards, to prevent ep ilepsy, to restore bad sight , and to
restore colour to grey hair.

PART III- CATFACED

15

The cat, like the ow l, is a frequent aspect of th e Goddess widely associated with luck and ill-luck .
a nd has suffered a fall in popular th o ught from divine representative, to become the witch's most
well-known familiar. In a nci ent Egypt the Goddess in her ca t form was ca ll ed Bast, a nd was th e
sp iritual guardian of the ci ty of Bubastis (now ca ll ed Te l Basta , situ a ted on th e eas t of the Nile
delta). Ancient Egyptia n cats were slender. long-legged , small -headed, a nd usua lly black. Long
before St. P atrick came to Irela nd " a slender black ca t, recl inin g upon a chair of o ld silver " had a
te mpl e, probably an oracular shrine, in a ca ve in Connacht, ca ll ed C log h magh rz g h cat (Cave of the
m ost ro ya l ca t), now called Clough . And a t Knowth , in County Mea th , a buria l place (dating from
aro und 3000 B.C.) was said to be the domain of a lord of th e ca ts called Irusan, who was as large as a
plow ox, and bore a way Seanchan Torpest (a chi ef poe t in hi s da y) in revenge for a satire th e poet
had made on the cat. In classical myth Dia na is said to ha ve ass um ed the form of a cat to fle e from
Typhon. Diana also had a wolf form as sh e mu st have had in Brita in, it seems to me.
While looking around a lo n g these lines I came across a n interest ing asid e on fox-hunting ,
which has always struck m e as an odd pursuit. The fox has no food value and its obvious solar
colouring points to a ritual significance in the hunting of these very beautiful animals. Wondering
whether there was any reference to the Goddess in fox form (as is common in Japan), I discovered
tha t the word 'fox' derives - via Germanic tongues- from a supposed Indo-Europea n rootpuk, a
bas is of the Sanskrit word pucc has (a tail). Hence 'fox' might m ea n basically ' the ta il ed one'. But
wha t of the Irish country devil, th e Pooka? H e, lik e his English counterpart Pu ck, apparently
d erives from the Welsh Pwca . We are talking h ere about the charac ter found in Shakesp earea n times
as Robin Goodfellow , the Will o' the Wisp, the sprite who seeks out mischief and leads trave llers
astray. Could he be yet a n other form of the Green Man, but dwindled in significance?
If h e were, and if this fox connotation did ex ist, the hunting of th e fox in winter would p erhaps
originally have been the ritua l hunting of a sacred ta boo a nimal, the representative of th e hero- king,
and a form of the Goddess , and this hunting would probably h ave occurred onl y on on e or two days
in the year. (As for insta n ce the wren is hunted on St. Stephen's Day.) The solar colour of th e fox
would make him very a ppropria te to catch in winter, th e hounds are associated with the Goddess as
a lways, a nd at the present time, fox hunters still wear scarlet, a colour sacred to the Goddess .

In the Highlands of Scotland, tales of elfin cats are found, these being of a wild disposition, as
large as dogs and black in colour sav.e for a white spot on their breast. In Teuwnic Scandinavia the
goddess Freya (a type of Venus) was drawn in her chariot by a team of cats. In Wa les the goddess
Ceridwen, viewed variously as huntress or hag-witch and who kept the Cauldron of Knowledge and
Rebirth , had apparemly a cat association as well as a sow associa tion. This is found under one of her
names, Hen Wen (Old White One) who was said lO have introduced barley, bees and swine into
Wales; another of her gifts became one of the Three Plagues of Anglesey, a supernatural feline called
the Palug Cat. (For references to the cat as a corn spirit in Europe, see Frazer's 'Golden Bough' .) A a
guardian of granaries agains t rats and mice, the ca t would obviously be associated with corn
goddesses such as the classical Ceres and Demeter. Rodents are widely found in European and
British folklore and superstition as a soul symbol, i.e. the sou l could creep out of the mouth in the
form of a mouse or rat while the body slept, hence it was con sidered unwise to sleep with a cat in the
room . In the ancient Near East cats also caught serpents, like the mongoose of India. Thus one
could imagi ne a title of the Goddess, perhaps, as Mistress of the Serpent, which has (as well as
Venusian , erotic overtones) a touch of the lore of the dragon force, dragons and serpents being
closely related symbols .
It is impossible within the scope of these notes lO more than hint at the amount of anima l
symbo lism attached to the Celtic Goddess, but I'd like lO mention just one more of her aspects. The
ancient Chinese and the Ainu of North Japan had a goddf'ss with a bear aspect, so did the ancient
Greeks (a form of Artemis). Britain in Roman times was a major source for brown bears needed in
the cruel travesties of the Circus Maxim us. King Arthur himself has some association with the bear
via his name, as arktos means 'bear' in Greek, and the Welsh for'bear ' isarth. Some sch olars feel his
name derives from the Gaelic arrdhu, meaning 'very dark' , which in the Modern Welsh Bible
signifies 'Devil'. (Sanskrit Devila signifies wisdom and virtue). It is certa in that he was said to take
the form of a raven in the old tales. All ancient heroes such as Arthur had affiliations with magical
animals with whom their fa tes were intertwined. Cuchulain had the hound , Finn the salmon .
Arthur's father was U ther Pendragon (Pendragon means Lord of the Serpents' or Dragon 's H ead').
His sister went by the name of Anu. His wife, Gwynivere, has a name derived from the Welsh for
'White Lady'. His fateful mistress (and/ or sister) was Morgan La Fay ( the triple fate goddess,
Morrigan). Callisto, another goddess of ancient Greece associated w ith the bear, was cha n ged by
Zeus into the constellation called 'The Great Bear', and her son (by Zeus) Areas, was changed at the
same time into 'The Little Bear' (Arcwrus). The Great Bear was called ' Arthur's Wain' by the
country people of Cornwall. Areas gave hi s name to the land of Arcadia and became a patron deity of
agricu lture. Barley was the main cereal crop in Britain in earl y days, and the king was responsible
for the prosperity of his coun try, favourable weather, and yield of crop. It seem s lO me to be no
accident (in speak ing of horn-crowned Sons of the Goddess) that the words for 'horn' and 'corn' (any
grain) are related poetically a nd lin_g uistical ly, as are the words 'beer', 'barley' , and 'bear'.

HER HOUNDS AND RAVENS

The raven was one aspect of the G aelic triple goddess Morrigan, and the bird is later associated
in V\ elsh myth with the divine hero Bra n, whose singing head was laid to rest upon the hill where
the Tqwer of London now stands. The old story sta ted that while the head remained buried, the
country would remain safe from invasion. In one tale Arthur digs up the head as he requires no help
in guarding the country. R avens are still found a t the Tower of London and popular superstition
now attributes the protection of Britain against invasion lO the continued presence of these birds.
Bran was the inheritor in eleventh century Welsh fabl e of the magic Cauldron which resLOred the
dead to life, which had earlier belonged to Ceridwen . Odin, chief of the Norse gods, was often
depicted with two ravens, perched on his shoulder. He would send them out into the world to bring
hi m news. Their names were Hugin (Thought) a nd Munin (Memory).
One of the most persistent legends in Britain is that of the W ild Hunt, in which a g ian t
h u n man, often stag horned, is seen galloping across the sky on stormy nights, with baying hounds
before him. T he huntsman was associa ted by the Saxons with Odin (or Woden), lord of the heroic
'ead. In Fran ce during the Middle Ages a nd onwards he was thought of as King Herod or
Charlemagne. On the borders of Wales during the nineteenth century he was still seen and called
-~ :d Edric (who married a faery wife and defied the Norman conqueror William.) King Herla, he
- - called in Mediaeval England, and thought of as riding with a host of the dead.
-ei:. ea rly on the Wild Huntsman was associa ted with Bel and Anhur, and both of these were
aocia red with the wind. An old Welsh poem, 'Cyvoesi Merddin' , compares Bel and his
~o - to a ga le of w ind. Also in Scots folklore a remnant is to be found, which I learned as a child,
c . a ocia tes Arthur with the wind in this r.iddle about the wind.
"Arthur o'Bower has broken his bands
And he goes roaring o'er the lands
The King o' Scots with a ll his power
Cannot hold Arthur o' the Bower."

16

More recently still in the States the Wild Huntsman has taken the form of the ghost riders in the
sky of cowboy cliche' , and today in Britain the concept seems to have been transferred to ghost trucks
or lorries.
Among the Celts the Huntsman was best known by the name of Herne or Cerne, from one of his
names in Romanized Gaul, 'Cernunnos' . This personage figures also in Arthurian tale as Mabson
of Mapon, a half-faery huntsman of a magical boar. Barry Fell mentions devotional carvings to one
Mabo-Mabona, (whose name means 'Hero-of-Heroes') on the ruined stones of a temple of th e Celts
at South Woodstock in Vermont. There is no doubt that this is the same Mab of Welsh tal e. Also at
Celtic sites in America mentioned by Fell (in his book 'America B.C.') inscriptions are found to Bel
and other divinities of the Celts, North Africans and ea rly Mediterranean peoples who began
settling America c. 2000 B.C.
Among the Celts the hound was associated with guardianship of the mysteries a nd the gates of
the Otherworld, as Cerberus was among the Greeks and Anubis was among the Egyptians. The
Welsh name for the Otherworld, 'Annwm' or 'Annwfn' might perhaps be a Celti cization of the
name 'Anubis'. Fa ery Hounds in British and Gaelic tales ~tre usually depicted as pure whit e with
crimson ears, and it has been suggested that these may have some resemblance to a ncient Egyptian
hunting dogs.
Pythagoras called the planets "the dogs of Persephone". (Persephone, from a Greek word
meaning' maiden ', wife of Pluto, lord of the land of th e dead , Hades, and daughter of Demeter, the
corn goddess.) The Romans sacrificed red puppies in spring, supposedly to avert a scorching'
influence of Sirius (the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky) from their grain . Pindar (a Greek lyric
poet of around 500 B.C.) calls Pan "the shape shifting clog of th e Great Goddess. " Pinclar also
associates Pan with Sirius. The brightest star was thus the goat-horned Pan, called Lucifer (Light
Bearer) in the Bible and called Devil (as a deity of supplanted religions) by orthodox Judaism and
Christianity.
In nineteenth century Britain the hounds of the Wild Hunt were thought of as the souls of
unbaptized children, and the Huntsman was thought of as the Devil.
Before the Minotaur cult in Crete, there was a stag headed Minos (Minelaphos) a nd a goat
headed Minos (Minotragos). The old Gaelic word ass (meaning 'stag', deriving from Sanskrit,
ukshan, meaning 'oxen', 'bull' or 'cattle') might p erhaps have originally been a generic term for all
horned animals, or perhaps in the earliest times , aboriginal inhabitants of Britain herded wild elk as
the Lapps herd reindeer A bull-horned mask used in Dorset folk rituals was called the ' Ooser', and
one wonders whether the ' Pads tow ' Oss ' (a horse mummer of West Country folk ceremonial) might
originally have been horned.
In Naples today, the word cornuto (horned one), implying cuckoldry, is virtually the supreme
insult to apply to a man , particularly if accompanied by a gesture, consisting of the outstretched
fore-finger and little finger, with other fingers clenched . This gesture is called (in the Frisi a n
Islands) the Devil's Blessing. The association of horns with love's betrayal is, I feel , a rather JohnnyCome-Lately misinterpretation of ancient symbol. The horns suggest to me a resemblance to the left
and right branches of the Tree of Life or Knowledge. Via the stag, the bull, the goat, the ram, they
have a dazzlingly wide variety of symbolic meanings in th e world . The main threads of th ese relate.to
the soul and the hero-king and the sky broken by storm. When worn by a huntsman , they indicate to
me the symbol of the soul who hunts his own royal nature, seeks self-knowledge, the hunter and the
hunted, the singer and the song, the aTtist.
The huntress goddess was specifically called 'Garbh Ogh ' in ancient Ireland, a sort of Celtic
Artemis, or Diana. The earliest reference I ca n find to the Goddess as wearing the horns (of the
moon) herself, rather than pass ing them to some deputy, is found on a Sumerian baked clay tablet
(c. 2000 B.C.) . S!le is_represented as carrying a measuring instrumenl. She is winged and owl-footed.

BLACKTHORN TREE
The blackthorn's Gaelic name is straif, from which the modern word 'strife' may derive . In
Celtic lore, it is a tree of cursing and blasting as well as discord. Its other name , the 's loe', is related to
the word 's lay'. Its letter is 'S' in tree ogham, the serpent letter.

HALCYON

17

In modern English this word means 'calm ' and 'happy '. In Greek Halcyon is found as a
name for the kingfisher (one possible meaning in Greek being 'conceiving-on-the-sea'). In fact
Mediterranean kingfishers nest in burrows by the waterside, but it was considered that they laid
their eggs at sea in floating nests of fish bone. In Gree k myth Halcyone is found as a daughter of the
god of the winds, who married Ceyx, son of the days tar. Ceyx is drowned at sea and the gods, taking
pity on his sorrowing wife, restored him to life but turned both Ceyx and Halcyone into kingfishers.

For fourteen days of each year, when Halcyone is o n her n est, her father holds back the winds. This is
the origin of the phrase halcyon days '. In English folk superstition the association of the kingfisher
with the wind remains in the belief that a dead kingfisher will make a good weathervane, as its body
is sa id to turn in the direction of the wind.
The kingfisher in Greek myth is associated with the winter solstice as is the wren, king of the
birds in British myth . The halcyon days (according to Plutarch) were seven days bef.ore the
midwinter solstice and seven days after. The female kingfisher was said in Greek folklore to have the
habit of carrying her dead mate across the sea on her back and mourning with a plaintive cry, as the
sorrowing maidens carried Arthur to Avalon. Pliny reports that the bird was rarely seen except at
summer and winter solstices. That the kingfisher was an aspect of the Goddess then becomes
increasingly apparent, the same Goddess who summoned the hero-king of summer away from his
rule when the Pleiades set in November. Pliny also notes that the rise of the Pleiades in May marked
the beginning of the ria utica! year as their setting marked its end, at which time, he says, a very cold
north wind blows. In another Greek myth a goddess called Alcyone, whose name may mean
'princess who averts ev il' is found as daughter to Pleione, a patroness of sailing and sea-faring, sired
by the oak tree hero figure , Atlas. Alcyone grows up to be the leader of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades.

THE SONS OF MIL

These people would be the first invaders of Britain to be described technically as 'Celtic' by
scholars, and this wave is referred to as the Goidelic or Gaelic invasion. The word 'Gael ' is now
generally used to cover the inhabitants of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, more specifically
referring to the Highland Scots. Ethnically, these Celts or Gael can be traced as mercenary
Caucasians hired out to Egypt, later invading Crete, Gothia, Spain and Portugal on their way west.
One gathers they left a remnant of their name in Galatia (Anatolia), Galicia (a province of this name
is found in both Spain and Poland), Portugal, Gaul (old name for France prior to its being overrun
with northern Teutonic tribes of Franks) and Pays De Galles (French for 'Wales') . It is tempting also
to include Galilee (the outlying province of old Palestine), but I don't know. It's quite likely that
ea rly megalith builders may have passed this way a nd it is known that before Jehovah, the pantheon
of the area and its associated ideas included many so-called Celtic features, including sacred groves,
standing stones, horned gods , various forms of the Goddess and the deity Bel or Baal. The foregoing
are mentioned in the Bible as abominations and their destruction and obliteration are recorded
mugly. (For more on this see' King Jesus ' and ' The Song of Songs' by Robert Graves .) Stone circles
have, however, recently been found in remote parts of Saudi Arabia.
In Celtic legend Miletus was an ancient city in Asia Minor from whence the sons of W, il invaded
pain, eventually arriving in Britain and Ireland about 1800 -1300 B.C. It is also said that the name
of the Spa nish king, who invaded the British Isles at this time by ship, bringing riding horses with
him a nd fortifying his position with royal forts upon arrival, was Milesius. The fourth king oftheir
li ne in Ireland is credited with first smelting gold into brooches, and M uimnon (The
:\eck-Decorated), his successor, introduced the crescent-shaped neck ornaments called lunulae,
ucceed ing kings set trends for bracelets and armbands . Roman authors mention the Celts as going
into battle stark naked and un-armoured but bedecked with jewel ry .
Regarding Celtic ships, Julius Caesar's invasion force sailing to Britain in 55 B.C. in Roman
!!alley manned by slave rowers, encountered a fleet of 220 Celtic sailing ships off the coast of
Briuany. By the Roman admiral Brutus' own account these were far superior in size and
seaKorthi ness to the Roman ships. It was only by the chance of a sudden calm that the Roman
galley were able to get in close and prevail by sheer force of numbers. These Celtic ships had large
ther a ils a nd a steering oar and they carried about 200 men (i .e. they were several times larger
n late :Vlediaeval or even Elizabethan ships) . So in this battle we 're talking about 44,000 sailors on
Celtic ide alone, so if the Romans overcame them by weight of numbers one assumes we are
na about something rather more than a police action.
-::- _e Celt were highly skilled charioteers, and had developed a variety of these vehicles for use
- :leace a nd war. The Romans, who borrowed their ideas, also incorporated the Celtic names for
rio into their military terminology. These included the henna (two wheeled cart with
----or bod ), the carpentum (two wheeled covered wagon), the carrus (a four wheeled
e cisium (ligh t, two wheeled vehicle), the covin nus (scythed chariot), the essedum (war
- e reda ( travelling coach), etc.

18

A brief romp through some poetically related words in the 'Oxford Dictionary of English
Etymology ' reads almost like a description of these Gael as they were viewed by friends or foes. To
wit:
Gala

Galligaskins
Galloshes
Galaxy

Gallant
Galliard
Gallon
Galerne
Galleon
Galli ass
Gallop

festive attire , via French and Italian from the Arabic khil'a, 'a presentation
garment ' . (One can envisage these people as having a fondness for finery ,
cockleshell red dye and the warm hues of lichen and moss .)
wide breeches (as might well be worn by horsemen).
originally Gaulish sandals.
a brilliant assemblage, especially of women. (The Gael or Celts are said to
have long retained aspects of the matriarchal social organization of the
Dananns. Also, the root of the word here relates to !actus 'milk', and the
word bo aire 'cow-owner' was equivalent in Celtic thought to a free man
rather than a slave.)
fine, stately, or attentive to women. Formed on Old French word meaning
merry -making.
though latterly describing an Elizabethan dance, the word derives from Irish
Celtic gal and Welsh gallu, 'to be able', or 'valourous'.
the measure of liquid, probably of Celtic origin.
a westerly wind. Old French.
(good word for the large sailing ships.)
a heavier and larger sea vessel.
(the proper pace for a chariot in war, one would think.)

Poetically related words in Gaelic could be:

Gea l
bright, or dear.
Gealach
the moon (of course).

From the other point of view, one finds words like these:
Gale
a storm wind. Of unknown origin, related to the Old Norse galenn, 'mad' or
' frantic '.
Gale
obsolete, Anglo-Irish meaning ' payment of rent' (possibly originally
payment of tribute?)
Gall
various meanings include ' bile' or ' bitterness', ' an excrescence on an oak
tree ', 'a chafed wound or swelling', or even ' outrageous chutzpah '.
Gaily
obsolete. Meaning 'to frighten' .
Galimatias
of unknown origin, possibly containing the Greek mathia (learning). The
word means 'meaningless language '.
Gallows
(I hear mutterings "hanging's too good for them!")

HARPERS AND THE LONG DANCE OF THE HORSES

19

The oldest Irish word for harp is cruit, signifying 'the sharp breastbone of a bird (according to
Eugene O'Curry, 'Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish'), such as is found in a crane or stork (a
Goddess symbol into which the Druids were said to be able to change themselves). But in Brythonic
Celtic (Welsh) the 'C' becomes a p or B', so crwt becomes pryth. Thus, it is interesting to speculate
whether the Prythani (the ancient Brythons) did not consider themselves' the People of the Harp'.
Also Irish Gaelic names the people known as the Picts, cruithnich. Certainly harping remained
highly developed in Scotland during the twelfth century, when Giraldus Cambrensis observed that
harpers of Ireland and Wales went there to study, regarding it as the main source of their art at that
time.
Hecateus (6th cent. B.C.), quoted by Diodorus Siculus, has this to say about Britain in his day.
"This island is of a happy temperature, rich in soil and fruitful in everything, yielding its produce
twice in one year. Tradition says Latona was born there." (Latona, the Goddess again under yet
another name, is, in classical myth, cited as the mother of Apollo, i.e. Bel, Lug, Merlin, the Green
Man or whatever you might want to call him.)" And for that reason the inhabitants venerate Apollo
more than any other god. They are, in a manner, his priests, for they daily celebrate him with
continual songs of praise, and pay him abundant honour.
In this island there is a magnificent grove of Apollo, and a remarkable temple of round form"
(Stonehenge?) "adorned with many consecrated gifts. There is also a city, sacred to the same god"

(here he probably means Nuada as Ludd son of Beli, whose city was Luddon, or London) "whose
inhabitants are mostly harpers and who continually play upon their harps in their temples and sing
hymns to the God ... "
" ... It is also said that in this island the moon appears so near to the earth that certain of its
terrestrial features are plainly seen on it, that Apollo visits the island once in nineteen years, in
which period the stars complete their revolutions, and for this reason, the Greeks distinguish a cycle
of nineteen years by the name of 'The Great Year'. During the season of his appearance the God
plays upon the harp and dances every night from the vernal equinox to the rising of the Pleiades,
pleased with his own successes."
A nineteen year cycle is actually a lunar cycle called the Metonic Cycle (after Meton, c. 430 B.C.,
its supposed discoverer). That this lunar cycle was probably known at least a couple of thousand
years earlier is shown by the fact that the earliest part of Stonehenge is aligned to mark and predict
lunar cycles (see 'The Astronomical Significance of Stonehenge' by C.A. Newham); this being
mythologically a further indication that Bel and his kind were more recent divinitiesthan the Great
Goddess.
A thirteen month lunar calendar was equally the property of the early British and the ancient
Hebrews. One can ' t help wondering what correspondences must have existed between the calendar
and music in its various scales, modes, rhythms, etc. An ancient Chinese text says " ... the calendar
and the pitch pipes have such a close fit that you could not fit a hair between them." In Vedic India,
stories, drama and poetry were associated with specific performance times in the day and in the year.
In the old stories of Wales indications remain that stories of certain types were to be recited at certain
times of the year, and the recitation of the great stories in Wales and Ireland conferred merit and
immunity to harm on the audience as well as the teller (if the audience did not interrupt and the
teller did not alter the stories), as was the case with the series of epic stories known in India as the
Mababarata.
Scarcely any existing Irish melodies have a range greater than thirteen notes. In Indian raga, the
notes of the scale have the following animal correspondences. I - the call of the peacock. 2- the
call of the fever bird in the rainy season. 3- the call of the goal. --1- the call of the crane. 5- the call
of the woodpecker. 6- the call of the frog mating. 7- the call of a goaded elephant. In Vedic times
raga was linked with specific seasonal feasts, ceremonies and solstices. The prevailing mood of a
raga is known as rasa and is said to be created by the effect of a limited note series against a drone .
The vibratory rates set up as intervals between the played note and the drone begin to approximate
the various vibratory rates set up between the being and the body which are known as emotion.
In early Celtic texts Lug, the Many-Skilled, and the Orpheus of Celtic harpers, is said to have
been the inventor of the three modes, or types, of ancient music, geantrai, goltrai and suantrai, the
first being an excitement to love and laughter, the second an arousal to valour or tears and the last a
disposition to slumber and repose. In some tales, the names of these modes are derived from the
music played on a harp of three sorts of strings. Gearztrai was the merry music of brass strings,
goltrai the lament of silver strings, and suantrai th'e drowsy music of iron strings. In a tale of the
Tuatba De Danann, it is related bow the Dagda brings about the release of his harper Uaitbne, who
has been carried off by the Fomorians. He pursues the dark ones back to their stronghold, sees his
harp hanging from a wall and calls it to him, killing in its passing nine of the Fomorians. The
Dagda then plays the three strains of music, the goltrai, till tears burst forth, the geantrai, till
laughter gurgles, and suantrai, till the whole horde falls asleep. Another legend states bow the three
ons of Uaithne were named from the music played on the magical harp, while Boand or Bofind(tbe
River Boyne, another Goddess form and Uaithne's wife) was in labor, relating how the harp was
crying and mourning at her first pain, laughing and making welcome after the birth of two sons.
a nd soothing and restful after the birth of the third.
Basically, we are talking here about specific groups of usable notes or three categories of groups
of u able notes, which when played in some combination or other produce the magical effects above
mentioned. Modern Indian music has preserved a wide body of lore concerning specific
combinations of notes and intervals, in the subject of raga. Whereas the West has formalized two of
the earlier modes (found for instance in plain-song) into the major and minor scales, India has
re ta ined a wide variety of possible scales, or note series, and has concentrated on melody and rhythm
rathe r than harmony. In India, from early times, ragas were personified, pictorially represented (the
ict ure containing the symbols for the notes of the raga), or deified. The correct performance of a
ra!!<l wa said to produce direct effects on the environment as well as on the hearer. The famous
; aer. :\'aik Gopal, at the (16th cent.) court of Akbar the Great, was ordered by the king to sing Raga
!l'pak. the Fire Raga. He begged Akbar to change his request, but the king remained insistent. At
: the de pairing singer waded into the River Jumna till the water reached his chin, and there he
_ n 10 ing. The vvater became hotter and hotter until finally flames burst from the singer's head,
-ch b rought about his demise. Other ragas were said to create rain, melt stone, induce passion,
m he raging, heal the sick, etc. (For more on this see 'The Ragas of North India' by Walter
ma n t. That music could affect environments is found in the Biblical tale of Joshua and his
a t J ericho, as well as in Celtic lore.

20

21

The Celtic b;ud, like his counterpart in Vedic India , was apparently the official histOrian and
royal genealogist. His praises confirmed the ruler in his power as his satire could blast him from it.
Some say the bards h eld, anciently, some of the duties of judges, and in Ireland they are stated to have
been the equals of kings by lega l decree. Divir.ation and prophecy were under their auspices as also
was the sphere of divinely inspired song or poetics, whether they played the harp themselves or were
accompanied in their declamations by a harper. They wore cloaks of birdfeathers (as did shamans
till recently in Siberia and elsewhere) when, by ritual recitation and formal gesture and posture as in
dancing, they conducted their a udience on a visit to the Otherworld.
In the poem I talk of two-handed harpers, as all too often one will fi nd it stated by the orthodox
that contrapuntal music (music of more than one part at once, like Bach ) only developed after the
Middle Ages. Giraldus Cambrensis visited Ireland in 1185 a nd commented o n the music h e heard
there like this "The sounds are rapid and articulate yet at the sa me time sweet and pleasing. It is
wonderful how in such speed of the fingers. the musical proportions are preserved. The vibrations
of the short treble strings sport with such brilliancy along with the deep notes of the bass." This at
least hints at what must be obvious to anyone who has ever played a ha rp, tha t the instrument is by
nature contrapuntal. And it is a very a n cient instrument.
Other instrumen ts in use among Celtic peoples are mentioned in an ea rl y Irish poem ca lled
'The Fair of Carnan ', which is included in the (12th cent. ) ' Book of Leinster . These instruments
include the timpan (said variously to have been a tam bourine, a bowed instru ment or a sort of
hammered dulcimer!), the jid le (a predecessor of the violin ). the bwnne (a horn shaped trumpet),
the corn (a longer, curved trumpet- both of these horns were probably used more in war or hunting
than in music), the cuiseach (a reed or corn-stalk pipe), cwsle ceoil (a cane or bored wood pipe
sounded by means of a single tongue reed simi Jar to the drone reed of a modern bagpipe). the feadan
(whistle), and the piopai (bagpipes). (For more on this see Breandan Breath nach 'Folkmusic a nd
Dances of Irela nd ' .)
Pipers at this time were considered inferior to harpers in a caste sen se. A reason for this . I
imagine, might be tha t the pipes, or reed instruments in genera l. might ha\'e been associated by the
Dananns a nd the Gael with the ea rlier clark race I call Part hoi on's Children, the herdsmen pipers.
To get some indica tion of how this ancient music may haw sounded. you cou ld do worse than listen
to some good Indian sh ahnai records or clarino players of Greece or bagpipes of Bulga ria .
Another a ncient name for the harp \\'as the clana ch, which name still applies to the metal
strung harp of Scotland. Some musicologists consider that the m os t developed music of the
Highland bagpipe, pibroch. is founded on the remnants of the lost harp music of Scotla nd , a nd
pibroch consists of a theme with a series of \a ria tions and specifi c a \o idance of certain notes, similar
to raga.
Early Welsh harps are sa id to have had strings of horsehair stretched from a soun dboard o f
tighten ed skin. This would be comparable to instruments found in Africa today. The harps are said
to ha ve made a soft and buzzing sound. One o ld Welsh bard, on first hearing the louder and clearer
Irish instrume nt, (which was metal strung) bitchil y ca lled it a fooli sh sq uea ling Irish witch!
Rega rding the phrase in the poem ' the lo n g dance of the horses." th e ri nee fada or lo ng dance is
said (by Gratton Flood, the Iri sh musicologist) to h ave originally been performed across open
grou nd or throug h the streets. I leap to the conclusio n here tha t we are ta lking abo ut the m agica l
dance performed in Scotland by th e hosts of Faerylancl, the Faery Rade . a nd by the Sidhe in Ireland
in their procession across the country at Halloween. Gratton Flood sa ys that the da nce was origin ally in the measures of threes a nd he regards it as be ing the origin of th e modern waltz.
The dance ca lled the h o rnpipe was, before it became a dance in ..J I, p layed in measures of
three. The hornpipe was, before it came to mean a dance, an a ncient instrument known as the
'pibcorn' in Wales a nd the stock a nd horn ' in Scotland. It con sisted of a pair of reeds inserted into
para llel pipes of the same pitch . To the lower end of the instrument was added a horn which has so
little acoustic significance that its presence suggests the instrument's association with the religious
ceremonies of some horned dei ty. In papers on the hornpipe (delivered to the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland in 1949 a nd kindl y supplied to me by their author Lyndesay L a n gw ill ) the viewpoint of
a musicologist called A.H . Frere is cited, who states "th e horn suggests cult use, the serrations"
(found in Welsh examples ) " because of the h a lo-of-light effect, suggest the sun or eye motif. " (The
Eye of Bel) ' 'T h e Basque hornpipe ( the alboka) has an additional possible cult app endage in the
form of a wheel of wood attach ed to the underside." The w heel has long been a symbol of solar or
thunder gods as well as being the Wheel of Ex istence, Fortune, etc. In stru m ents striking ly similar to
those found in Wa les are found in the Greek arch ipelago a nd further east through Arabia, P ersia,
India and China and west through the Spanish Basque provinces into Britain. A.H. Frere finds
evidence of a significant link in the distribution of the h ornpipe and the presence of megalithic
structures. Baines, in his book 'Woodwind Instrume nts a nd Their History' suggests also tha t the
hornpipe had some religious significa nce and places its arriva l in Brita in arou nd 2000 B.C.
Personally, I imagine it to h ave arrived a t least 1000 years earlier , with the wild moon-struck
musicians, P artholon's Children, braying music bright as the eye of Bel. And it seems poetically true
to me that the dance associated with its use would have been a magical a nd procession a l long da nce

p erformed across country a long the sac red roads, the veins of Anu, by h orsem en a nd women so
skilled that they a ppea red o n e with their horses a nd fi g ure in m yth a s centaurs. T h e da nce would be
in hono ur o f the serpent fo r m of the Green Ma n or Bel by wha tever name he was kno wn , a s a son o f
the Goddess of L a ughter a nd Ni ght. T he m agic of this dance mig ht explain wh y H ecateus says tha t
Brita in h ad a h a ppv tempera ture a nd yielded its produce twice in one year. The dark wizards
p erforming incanta tiousaround their garla nded stone temples, the lost a n ciem s roosting in the eaves
o f the mountain s, as translucent as a ir a nd stro n ger tha n the wind, the suvery Da na nns with their
golde n sickles, and the blue-eyed G ael swa rming in their tho usa nds a nd their ten s of thousands in
ships with blood red sa ils, milling around the green a nd sceptered isles under th e m etallic sheen of a
dragon's wing as long as th e western sky, these a re the first lip -cl ic k of the first syllable of the first
word of the fi rst verse o f the song whic h is Britain, la nd of the h a rpers and of the Minstrel Bel.
R ega rding Bel, o r Baa l, who wa s ea rl y on a thunder g od, and hi s connection with the bull
w hose horns made the hornpipe, a nd with ba ll gam es , I wa s told the folkta le as a child that thunder
was" the o ld me n of the moumain playin g bowl s." Given that Bel, via Merlin a nd Arthur (who is
ca lled in British poe tics the bull of conflic t, the swiftly moving lig ht" ) becomes Robin H ood, a
connection exists be tween Bel and ba ll ga m es in a fo lk cere mony from H a xey in Lincolnshire,
called the H a xey Hood G a m e. This cere m o n y was a ba ll ga m e in which the ba ll was ca lled a ' h ood '.
T he game was played by a n inde terminate number over an unspecified a rea of ground . It was started
o ff by thirteen 'm erry m en ' led by ' the L o rd of the Hood' who wore a red coat a nd a hat wrea thed
with fl owers a nd who carried in his hand a wa nd of willow twigs bound thirteen times with willow
ba nds. ( For the folkta le invol ved, see Folklore, Myth a nd L egend of Brita in ', publish ed by R eader's
Diges t. For the symbolism involved in the willow and in the number th irteen , see 'The White
G oddess' .)
In a n cient Cre te the b ull , a s ea rth-sh a ker, source of earthqua kes, was propitia ted in various
cere monies , a nd among the Greeks, la ter, Dio n ysus (whose cerem onies were the origin of theatre)
was definitely represem ed a s bull h eaded , when full y g ro wn . In a n cient Crete where Theseus
va nquished the bull h eaded Minotaur in hi s labyrinth or maze, earthqua kes were a common
h aza rd , a nd very early bull ceremonies there fea tured the highly da n gerous gymnastic fea t of
va ulting be tween the h o rns of a n enraged wild bull. The word ' la byrinth' is thoug ht to m ea n 'the
h o u se o f the two-headed a xe', symbo l of the rulers of Cre te (a nd a lso found carved on one of the
uprights of Stoneh enge). As far as I'm awa re, the Creta n la byrin th as such ha s never been discovered ;
p erha p s the whole island was a labyrinth o f standing stones a nd their a lignments? P erha ps the m ain
city itself was a m aze wi th the pa lace a t the center, as is the case with Fez in Morocco? At Glastonbury
Tor the rem a ins o f a m aze h a ve been found , a nd curiously en ou g h the tower which stands on that
hill was ruined in the early Middle Ages by a n earthqua ke, which tend to be som ewha t rare in
En g la nd . Mazes are found widely across Europe. including Finla nd, Swed en , La ppla nd a nd
Icela nd . Ma n y a rc fo rmed of huge stones. Ma n y a re thoug ht to da te c. 2000 B.C. Ma n y mazes in
Brita in are ca lled 'T roytO\vn ' or 'Th e Wa lls of T roy , in Wa les, ' Caerdroia' . Two notable British
ma zes are in existence a t Saffron Wa lden , in Essex, a nd a t Wing, in Ru tland.
In the borders of Scotla nd there wa s o n ce a spectacula r breed of wild bull which roa m ed the
virg in forest o f Ca ledon, which co vered the la nd from shore to shore. These wild bulls were ca lled
a uroch s' . T h e wood of Ca ledon, the setting for m a ny of Arthur's ad ventures, is the root of the poetic
n a me for Scotla n d , ' Ca ledo nia'. T he word ' Ca ledo n ' might derive, in m y o pinion , from the G aelic
word caile (a girl) plus Don , the Goddess na me. T h e Place of the Young G oddess. T h e horns of the
a uroch some times were as much as fi ve feet across; it resembled the buffa lo of the America n pla ins
a nd the wild bull of the Cre ta n games. Its horns m ade the music of the huntsman in calling of the
h ounds, a nd held the blood of John Barleycorn , the beer of the feasts.
An obsole te na m e fo r a drinking bowl is ' mazer', a n d I find it te mpting ly easy to see a
connection between the m aze a nd the patterns of the da n ces of May Da y, Belta ne, the Fea st of Bel, the
H o rned Thunderer, but a lso, you see, the Divine H a rper.
In summing up these ramblings then, one finds the Green Ma n , as a composite of la te
.\Ied iaeva l folklore, comprises a spectsof the Horned Huntsm a n o f the Wild Hunt, th e high wind in
the night sky, the seasonal sta r a nd serpe nt fi g ures a nd/ or their a nima l rep resentatives, the sola r (or
o ul-figure) deities such as Bel, Lug, Orpheu s or Apollo, wi th th eir strength a nd their p a tronage of
the mu sic of the h a rp a nd poe try. The G reen Man becom es to m e increasingly symbolic of the
a rchety pa l a rtist for whom the an swer is a lways blowing in th e wind, who quests for his own n a ture,
hou n di n g throug h the da rkness, a nd p a ints in his da n cing life from the colours of black (which
contai n s a ll colours) the visible lig ht of a rea l a nd future dawn invisible to the hounds, a nd who is
e,-er hounded himself by the Mo ther of the Gods, his own imagina tion .

22

THE HIGH AND LONESOME REEL

Regarding this phrase in the poem, it has long been apparent to me that the best Scots and Irish
reels have this quality of floating sadness behind their driving intricacy and boundaried structure.
The skill in playing the m is traditionally said to lie behind the tricks and finesse of technique, in the
a bility to dra w this out. The reel is a modern survivor of a type of dance found all over the world
called a ring dance, which apparently originally featured the chanting of a leade r in the center, and
the responses of the other dancers. A Celtic carving (c. 800 B.C. ) on rocks near Cogul, in Catalonia,
northeastern Spain, depi cts eight women dancing around a central, male figure.
Christ performed a ring dance with his disciples, prior to his delivery to the authorities for
Crucifixion. The text of this chanted dance is quoted by Augustine (died, 430 A.D. ) in his' Epistle to
Ceretius'. The disciples respond "amen " to each of Christ's phrases. Here's an excerpt." ... Grace
danceth, I would pipe, dance ye all. Amen. I would mourn, lament ye all. Amen. The number 8
singeth praise with us. Amen. " (In J ewish Kabalistic lore found hodge-podged in the Tarot, the
number 8 is associated with the concept of strength and the image of a female divinity who
effortl essly holds open the jaws of a blood red lion, or who effortlessly closes them. ) " The number 12
danceth on high. Ame n ." (In Kabalistic Tarot again, I I would be the Sword of] ustice to which he is
being delivered. In Hebrew lamed( ' the bull goad ' ) is the letter associated with the Sword of] ustice.
The bull in question is aleph, ('the ox of the breath of life') the first le tter of the Hebrew alphabet
with the numerical value of 0. The image associated in Tarot with aleph is The Fool, the static
state of ineffa ble lightness beyond wisdom, the native state of spirit. The number 12 (to which th e
bull is goaded) is in Tarot, the Hanged Man, the H e brew le tter m em , whic h ha s the connotation of
the Water of Life, the matrix of all things. The number 8 also has the association by its shape with
the serpent or coiled dragon of infinity, and has this meaning in its Hebrew name teth.
The cross has a huge variety of symbolism attached to it. The horizonta l line symbolizes m a tter,
the vertical line symbolizes spirit the whole symbol being a representation of the interplay of spirit
and matter which is life. The serpem coiled a round a 'T' shaped cross is basically the symbol now
known as the official symbol of m edicine, which is ca lled the caduce us , and which, in Greek myth,
wa s given to H erm es (Mercury) by Apollo in return for the lyre, or h a rp (which H ermes h ad brought
from the Otherworld, presuma bl y, or from the Dark Waters, whence also ca me the sword
Excalibur). The cross is basically the Tree of Knowl edge, a nd in H ebrew lore a cross in a circle
symbolizes the power of the letters of the alphabet, and a lso, the Unspeakable Name of God.
Behind this tang le of significa nces then, the ring dance ca n be thought of as a representation of
the move m ent of the universe, and the dancers a re about Arthur's Round Tabl e, the world, and the
leade r of the dance speaks from the center where a ll things share, and Christ's blood streams in the
firma ment as truth itself comes to any tongue or a nimates a ny heart, a nd the ring dance is the dance
of lig ht and the future, the dance of the star son, as the long dance is the dance of the serpent son , the
dance of knowledge and memory. The two da nces, long dance and ring dance are themselves
symbols of the nature of beingness, the one becoming the oth er as the serpent becomes the ring or the
ring stra ightens into the lines of the bra nches of the Tree. I think of a person as a spiritual being who
creates himself, or h erself, moment by moment , who could be said to be self crea ted, and who
certainly crea tes a future and maintains a past, but a p erson nevertheless has an origin. A Creator
who created Creators who have becom e the creatures of h a bit. This unimagina ble Source I prefer to
imagine as the One a nd Many, the Goddess. Arthur, in ass uming into himself the duality of the full
role of the hero became -the Once and Future King. And a n yone, in ta king over control of their
desti n y, seeks to call the tune of the High and Lonesome Reel.

THE DAYS OF DARIUS

Da riu s was a Persian mara uder who, in the sixth century B.C., led invasions into Egypt a nd
Mediterranean lands, incidenta lly spreading the doc trine of Zoroaster, a nd Ahuramazda, the Sacred
F ire, and of survival after dea th in a hea venlike afterworld.

LABRAID THE EXILE AND HIS DARK BROWED GAULS

23

T hi s wave of the poem loosely covers the so-called Atlantic Iron Age, the La Tene c ulture, from
the second Celtic, or Brythonic invasion onwards.
In France of Caesa r's time there were three main peoples (as all those who did Latin at school
will possibly remember, from the first line of Caesar's 'Gallic Wa rs' ). These groups were called
'Aquitani ', 'Belgae' a nd ' Celtae' (called 'Ga lli ' by the Roma ns). These Celtae or Galli would be
continental branch es of the Gael I m entioned in the preceding wave. The Aquitani would p erha ps
be descendants of Iberia n -Libyan , Hamitic spea king earl y types. And the Belgae would be
Brythonic, or second wave Celts.

Brythonic Celtic differs from Gaelic Celtic as is mentioned in the note on harpers, and these
Brythons had, roughly between the eighth and fourth centuries B.C., been invading England and
driving the Gael west before them, as they themselves would be driven west in their turn, to become
ancestors of the Welsh. Caesar says the Belgae were the bravest and strongest of the Gauls and thus it
would seem likely that they had done their share in driving the earlier Gael west and east from the
central European Celtic heartlands in the first place. By the time the Romans began invading
Britain, Brythonic Celts held the whole co untry south of the Tweed, except for the extreme west and
Ireland. Successive waves of Brythonic invaders continued arriving in Britain till around 45 A.D.
Labraid was a warlord of one of th ese numerous invasions and is mentioned in legend as
having regained the territory of what is now Leinster with troops of continental Celts described as
Black Gauls, who had broad -bladed, iron spears. I like to consider the name of Gaulish invaders
such as these surviving in place names such as County Galway, the Galtee Mountains (between
Cork and Tipperary), Galloway (in South Scotland), and a lso Galashiels.

AMETHYST TO ADAMANT
In occult lore of the Renaissance period, amethyst was said to be a stone of intelligence, pure
thought, precognition by dream and an expellant of poison. It was said to make the barren fruitful
and was frequently, in classical times, engraved with a head of Bacchus (the vine spirit aspect of the
Green Man). In the poem here I use it as a symbol of the gentleness and spontaneity of Man's natural
state, unstrictured by the vicissitudes of life in the Wasteland.
Adamant, or diamond, has the characteristic in occult lore of depriving the lodestone of its
power (the lodestone being magnetite, a magnetic mineral, which in the old days served as a
compass needle by being floated on a piece of cork in a bowl of water). Christian Fathers of the
Mediaeval church sometimes used it as a symbol of the power of the cross to soften the heart of Man.
In the poem I use it as a symbol of hardness, blind transparency and loss of direction .

2-1

CAESAR'S LAWFUL BUTCHERS

The Celtic attitude towards Romans is neatly summed up by a Highland Scots warlord called
Galgacus (the Romanized form of his name, one imagines). Prior to a battle with the Roman Eagles
he made a speech to 30,000 Highland warriors, of which I quote a small extract in translation (from
'Butcher's Broom' by Neil Gunn). "These plunderers of the world, stimulated by greed a nd
ambition to ravage and slaughter, to usurp under false titles that they ca ll Empire, and where they
make a desert, they call it peace."
H ere follows a brief outline of Roman activities in Britain (from the 'Intra to the Ordnance
Survey Map of Roman Britain'):
55
44
43
47

B.C.
B.C.
A.D .
A.D.

67 A.D.
77-8 A.D.
78-9 A.D .
80-1 A.D.
83-4 A.D.
84-5 A.D.
c. 115 A.D.
122 A.D .
126-7 A.D.
143 A.D.
c. 155 A.D.

First invasion of Julius Caesar

Second invasion of Julius Caesar
The conquest of Southern England by the Emperor Claudius
Governor Ostorius Scapulus conq uers the Silures (the dark peoples of South
Wales)
Unsuccessful rebellion of Queen Boudica or Boadicea in Southern England
Agricola appointed Governor, conquest of Wales completed
Agricola conquers Brythonic tribes of Northern England, builds forts at
Corbridge and Carlisle
Agricola reaches the Forth of Clyde, fighting his way up the coasts
Battle of Mons Graupius, north of Perth
Agricola recalled to Ro me
Successful rebellion in Alba and Northern England
Emperor H adrian begins to fortify the area between the Solway and the Tyne
H adrian 's Wall finished
Continued warfare. A Roman wall built through the Pictish territory of Alba
by Lollius Urbicus, Governor under the Emperor Antoninus Pius
Successful rebellion by the Picts in Alba and the northern Brythons in
Northern England. Antoninus' \'\Tall in Alba captured

(Just to mention it, the period from Julius Caesar to this point covers about the
sa m e amount of time as does the history of the nited States. The story continues ... )
c. 158 A. D.
c. 180-4 A. D.

c. 19.1l A.D.
208 A.D.

211 A.D .
211 -275 A.D.
275-287 A.D.
288 A.D.
294 A. D.
296 A.D.
350-60 A.D.
367 A.D.
369 A.D.
383 A.D.
388 A.D.
395 A.D.
407 A.D.

25

The northernmost wall is retaken by the Romans, rebuilding of northern forts

is undertaken by the Governor Julius Verus
Many forts in the north destroyed by the Picts. Both walls are captured and
retaken by the Picts and north Brythons. T he most northerly wall totally
overrun by the Picts. It was never retaken by the Romans
Forts around Yorkshire were rebuilt
The Emperor Severus begins campaigns in the north landing at Cramond, near
Edinburgh
Severus dies at York, not having effected any final conquest
A period of peace. (A peaceful lifetime for somebody)
First Saxon raids along the southeast coast
Carausius, Admiral of the Romano-British fleet operating against the Saxons,
usurps the title of Emperor in Britain
Cara.usius assassina ted by Allectus
Allectus killed by Cons tan tius, who reconquers Britain for the 'legitimate'
Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. He sets up headqua rters at York
Scots of northern Irela nd invade southwes t Alba and northwest England. Picts
invade Romanized Britai n
Large sca le invasion of Roman Britain by Picts and Scots together with bands
of Saxon pirates. Their armies penetrate as far south as London and Kent
Roman Brita in recovered by Coun t Theodosius
Maxim us (a Span iard in command of the army of Roman Brita in) usu rps the
T itle of Emperor and withdraws the troops from Britain
Maximus defeated and killed by Emperor Theodosius
T he army in Britain reorganized by Stilicho
Constantine, a soldier of the rank and file, usurps the title of Emperor and
strips Britai n o f troops to seek his fortune abroad. Britain n ever regarrisoned

RIDDLING SAXONS
The Angles a nd Saxons are the two best known of the various Teu tonic tribes who invaded
Britain after the Romans. Anglo-Saxon as a title for the inhabitants of Britain today, is sort of a
misnomer, as the population is really rather Abo-Afro-Greco-Cel to- Roma no-Saxo-N orso-N or man,
with the process continuing apace!
At all events, the Saxons were very fond of riddles, som e of w hich survive. including this one.
swings by his thigh a thing most magical
below the belt it hangs, beneath the folds
a hole in its front end, stiff-set and stout
it swivels about
levelling the h ead of thi s hanging instrument
its wielder ho ists his hem above the knee
it is his will to fill a wel l-known hole
he has often fill ed it before
now he fills it aga in. "
(Answer: k~">[ e)
From 'The Earliest English Poems', translated by Michael Alexander, Penguin Classics.

RUNE WISE VIKINGS

Various groups of peoples pushing into northwest Europe during the last millennium B.C.,
and intermingling with earlier Celtic type communi ties, a re lumped togeth er under the name of
Teutons. Thus Saxons, Franks, Norse a nd German peoples in general fall under the name of
T eutons. Vikings were those Norsemen who had gone 'viking' , i.e. marauding by ship in the
summer season for the plunder a nd the glory of it. Runes were the Teutonic written a lphabe t. The
word derives from the Old Low German raunen, ' to cut or ca rve', since these le tters were always cut
into wood or stone. The ability to write or deciph er runes was wielded as a magic power, often (or
even usually) by women. Runes te nded to be of magica l ra ther than practica l significance, the word
'spell' having, a mong the Saxons, the sense of a thin chip or shaving of wood. In modern English
the word 'spell' is still ambiguous between a magical intention and the lettering of a word. The
Norse came a-viking to Britain during the eighth century a nd were getting well settled in by the
te nth .

COURTLY NORMANS
The mixture of legend and religious m yth, hodge-podged into the ta les of Arthur and Merlin,
travelled in the end from Wales back through Saxo-Norse England and across the sea to Britta n y.
There, among the Brythonic Celtic inhabitants, it was reinfused with elements that they had
retained, a nd passed on to the troubadours, who carried the sto ries through Proven ce. The old
stories and epic verses were further elaborated upon by the meistersingers of Germa ny a nd finally
came, via the Norman invasion, back into Britain. It was via the Normans, also, that the ancient
respect for Woman as the worldly representative of the Goddess came back into a semi-Christianized
Britain in the form of courtly or romantic love. The Virgin Mary was appealed to as the muse of
poets, one of the main troubadour themes was that of love unatta ina ble (often re-symbolized as love
for a married woman) and the great heresy of amour courtois was that onl y through Woman could
understa nding of God be achieved.
The joke is that by the fourteenth century, the Normanized bards of Wales tended to engage to
a n excessive degree in highly sta ndardized poetry praising their aristocratic patrons. They
developed a penchant for complicated metrics and word play, while ragged street entertainers were
still declaiming the classic lines of Taliesin, Aneurin a nd other bards of centuries past, whose poetry
is nowadays considered unparallelled in its development and sophistication.
The Norma ns had a most brutal lega l system in which the cutting off of the hand was one of the
more minor punishments. For instance. the penalty for 'disturbing royal deer' was to be blinded
with red hot irons.

THE BURNING CHURCH

Christ himself, a n initiate (of a school ca lled the Essenes), an d acquainted with near Eastern
and north European myth as is expressed in his symbolic birth and death, left a philosophy which

26

had much in common with other Mediterranean religions (like say, the Orphic mysteries),
gradually altered by the organized body of the Pauline church. In the end this posthumous church
bega n attacking other local religions, thus in one sense turning against its own origins, a nd
assumed a role which must, one feels, have been more than somewhat off the line o f Christ's
intentions. In 597 A.D., the early British Celtic church of Christ, which had retained much original
Christian thought together with a Celtic love of nature, a nd the doctrine of reinca rnation, came
under attack. Legend states that the church of Christ in Britain was started shortly after the
Crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea , who planted his staff at Glastonbury where it grew to be a
sacred thorn tree. The stories sometimes say the church was given land by the Druids. There are a lso
tales that Christ visited Britain as a young man , receiving instruction from the philosophers there,
or impressing them with his divinity, dep ending on the story. Suffice it to say, that by Papal decree
in the aforementioned year a group of mercenaries was sent to bring the Celtic church into line w ith
the reorganized Christianity of Rome. This was a welter of bloodshed a nd d estruction in the midst
of which the huge and precious library of the Abbey of Bangor was destroyed. (Incidentally, St.
Patrick himself had burned a library of 128 illuminated ba rdic books in his day.)
In 1245 the Inquisition burned more than 200 Cathars at Montsegur in one day.
In 1298 Jews of Rottingen in Franconia were charged with the desecra tio n of h oly " a ter a nd the
entire J ewish community burned alive.
In 1572 occurred the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in which 30,000 French Protestants
(Huguenots, followers of Ca lvin) were killed in one da y.
Etc. , etc., etc. This sampling should be enough to give a n idea of what was goi n g down.
According to Thomas Szasz. author of 'The Ma nufacture of Madness. A Comparative Study of the
Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement', the story goes on in this way.
In 1840, the sixth U .S. census found tha t free northern Negroes h ad a much high er incidence of
insanity than the white population of the orth , or the slave popula tion of the South. Critics of the
census stated tha t the number of Negroes listed as insane in some towns exceeded the total number of
Negroes living in those towns. Also on the same lines, in 1858 the superintendent of the Asylum of
the State of Louisia na at J ackson declared " ... it is exceedingly seldom that our slaves ever becom e
insane ... it cannot be got around that (the slaves') great exemption from in san ity is due to their
situation, the protection the law guarantees to them, the restraint of a mild state of servitude, the
freedom from all anxiety respecting their present and future wants. the withholding, in a grea t
degree, of all spiritous and drugged liquors, and a ll other forms of excess into which the free negroes
plunge."
In 1910, Charles Binet-Sa ngle' published 'La Folie de J esu s' (Th e i\Iadn ess of Jesus): " In short,
the nature of the hallucinations of J esu s, as they are d escribed in the orthodox Gospels. permits u s to
conclude that the founder of the Christia n religion \\ as affl icted with religious paranoia."
In 1961, Adolf Eichmann, on trial in J erusalem, was examined by h alf a dozen psychiatrists and
declared norma l.
The o rig inal meaning of 'sin was ' missing the mark' (from the Greek ).
I think it 's interesting to include here a quote from a n Apocryphal gospel (not included in the
Bible) stored in the British Museum. " These are the words of the living J es u s. If those who draw you
say to you, the Kingdom is in the sky, then the birds of the air are there before you. And if that the
Kingdom is under the earth, then the fish of the sea are there before you. But the Kingdom is both
o utside a nd within yo u. and whosoever kno ws himself shall find it. Know that which is before your
face and tha t which is hidden sha ll be revealed to you. "

PARDONERS
T hese were officials of the Mediaeva l church , the cha racter of one of whom is vividly ill u strated
in Chaucer's ' Pardoner's T a le'. They were vendors of papal indulgen ces which purportedly would
clean the slate of sin 's record, thus saving years in purgatory, etc. Presumably there was much need
for such a thing in a still rather pagan Britain where, though it was standard to a llegorize J esus as
Lord-Hero, Son of Man, as a Fish or Fisher (hunter a nd hunted), Good Shepherd or L am b of God,
and as the Bread of Life, whose Blood is Wine, yet it was heresy to suggest a n y identification between
Him and a n y of the di vinities whose symbol s were thus reassigned.

FEAR OF SPIRIT

?~
_;

T h e con cept of Hell as a place of punishment for the dead, ap pears to have gained popular
credence comparatively recently (in the time scale of the poem) among peoples of the Near East. It
seems broadly to h ave entered Brita in via the mythology of the Teutonic Saxons, whose dea th
goddess, Hela, had a ha ll ca lled Elvidner. Of her it was sa id "Hunger is h er table, Starvation her
knife, Delay her serving man, Slowness h er maid, Precipice h er th reshold, Care h er bed, a nd

Burning Anguish forms the covering of her chamber walls." It was only those who died 'weak,
apathetic' deaths, as of sickness or old age, who fell into her clutches, hence Saxons who, by some
mischance failed to die in battle, were in the habit of wading into the sea till they drowned, which
they called 'going to Woden'.
The Celts appear to have had no notion of dread in death, and their Otherworld, though
thought of latterly as a place of the dead (by Christian scribes who wrote down the old legends),
seems to me to have been originally a magical domain outside of time of the faeryland type,
spiritually visitable during life and possibly traversed between lives; or not. The Mediaeval
Christian concept of Hell which gradually developed increasing hosts, legions and serried ranks of
demons ever lurking to tempt the living, and sadistically forking the damned into eternal fires,
tended obviously to make the whole concept of spirit less and less merry. Much earlier Tibetan
thought, as found in 'The Book of the Dead', regards both gods and demons as products of the
individual soul. Some Celtic tales of voyages through enchanted seas have certain points in
common with the Tibetan lore and the Grail of Arthurian romance derives from the Cauldron of
Ceridwen from which the dead were reborn . As Joseph Campbell pointed out, in a lecture entitled
'Indian Reflections in the Castle of the Grail', Celtic hero tests tend to parallel tests undergone by
Buddha when provoked by the Lord of Illusion: a test of lust, a test of fear, a test of compassion.
Interestingly enough, the Gaelic word bodach ('old man') relates to the Indian buddha. One
imagines that in Gaelic it had originally the meaning of 'a sage', but this word had, by the
seventeenth century, degenerated in the usage of the Scottish Highlands, to apply to a sort of
hobgoblin sprite, or when applied to a man, was derogatory. As with a word, so with a wisdom, it
decays unless made to live.
This fear of spirit during the twentieth century is seen, for instance, among those psychologists
and psychiatrists, who do not apparently dare to credit the existence of a 'psyche' or immortal soul at
all.
An fear glas (Gaelic for ' the Green Man') means also 'the Grey Man' (as glas means 'green ' or
'grey' in Gaelic). As the green of summer becomes the grey of winter and again the green of spring.
But the 'Grey Man' of the world's back alley has a bad eye and a lame foot. He is halting in the High
and Lonesome Reel. He sees the lie of death as true, and with the sword unwieldy in his hand, he
seeks to divide Reason from Love, as if to pretend that life was cut and dried, and the laughter among
the leaves, nothing but the wind, and winter all. And so till grey be green and here is there ...

28

THE TOWER OF BABEL FELL AND LANGUAGE CRACKED

T h e Bible relates how men desired to build a tower that would reach to Heaven and
commenced the building of a mighty edifice. God, looking down upon these impious persons,
decided to punish them for their efforts to gate-crash, as it were, or poach on his preserves; he
destroyed the tower, and cast a spell or curse on the builders so that none could understand what the
other was saying. This, so says the story, is the origin of the diversity of la n guages.
A very similar story is found among the Greeks as relating to a certain Nimrod, who organized
the building of a tower for the giant Titans, in order to en a ble them to carry their war with the gods
to the gates of Olympus. Nimrod is mentioned in Genesis as a mighty huntsman and son of Cush;
his fame has persisted to such an extent that a modern devotee of fox hunting might be ca ll ed a
Nimrod. Cush was the son of Ham (son of Noah). As I explained earlier in the note on Partholon 's
Children , these North African invaders of Britain spoke a Hamitic dialect and were thought of in
legend as being related to H am, a nd to h ave been gia nts . Hence we perhaps are talking here about
the so-called Wild Huntsman of the Africa n wizards as the Dananns and the Gael found them when
they reached Britain. But what was this tower that N imrod was building that gia nts might reach the
realm of the gods?
In an Irish text ('The Hearings of the Scholars') the idea is set out that the tower of Babel is a
symbo l for a study on the basics of language, as the root of poetry and power, conducted by a certain
Fenius Farsa. Fenius built the tower with the help of 72 assistants, the names of whose principals
refer to the letters of the Celtic or Ogham alphabet. The text says
"Clay, water, wool and blood
Wood, lime a nd flaxen thread a full twist
Acacia" (gum a rabic, as for making oil paint)
" Bitumen with virtue" (pitch tar, natura l asphalt)
"The nine m aterial s of Nimrod's tower"
The text relates that these nine substances of which the tower was made relate to the parts of speecn,
noun, pronoun, adjec tive, verb, adverb, participle, preposition, conjunction and interjection.
Another version of this story relating to the invention of the Ogham alphabet is recorded in
Keating's 'History of Ireland ' . Feniusa Farsa (a g ra ndson of Magog a nd a king of Scythia) is said to
have sent 72 men to learn the languages of the world. He established a school n ear Athens at which
he and two others ca ll ed Gadel and Caoith were the m ain professors. Together they formulated the
Greek, Latin and Hebrew a lphabets, and Gadel segmented the la nguage of the Gael (the sons of Mil.
of whom Feniusa Farsa is some times said to be a forefather ) into fi\e dialects: one for warriors, on e
for bards, one for story tellers, one for h ea lers, and a usual form for the common man.
Fenius's name, a corruption of the earlier Foeneus ho Farsas ('the vine-man who joins
together') indicates his relationship to the generalized poetic personage I call the Green Man. One of
my favourite green men, Taliesin, sta tes flatly in his poem 'Hanes Taliesin' "I was the chief
overseer a t the building of Nimrod's Tower." In this, he is claiming a state of 'Master of Language'.
Literacy is undoubtedly in decay. (For the reason why current educa tion is in such a state see
The L eipzig Connection by Lance]. Klass a nd Paolo Lionni.) The study of languages a nd classics
is currently in steep decline, and teachers, in failing to teach these subjects successfully, produce in
their pupils the effect of being cut off from the symbolism of ancien t Greece and hence from the
symbolism of the ancient world.
One looks at a tree, a woman , a stag, a man, a nd sees only a tree, a woman , a stag, a man, and not
what they mean. For want of an agreed upon symboli sm or system of m eanings, w hich rela te life in
its variety, to time in its rhythm, an tends to the aesthetic of camp or the pursuit of technique, poetry
to a meaningless jumble, theatre to the absurd, a nd music to an exercise in marketing. For want of a
comprehension of the inner senses and strains of which the bards were carolling, a poet is unable to
defend his forerunners from ch a rges of obscurity or primitive irreleva nce.
In the old Welsh 'Red Book of Hergest' there is found this saying.
''Three things that enrich a poet
Myths, poetic power, a store of ancient verse.''
.
And what is this poetic power? It seems to me that it is related to the comprehension of words, a nd to
the understanding of huma n symbol, and to the language in which the sea talks to itself, together
with a n impassioned purpose of comm unication. But to begin the poet must k now himself. Why a
store of a n cient verse? To know what has been said is to know what was worth saying once, and to
obtain an understanding of what must be said n ext. Also, ancient verse in those days would tend to
mea n history. Why myth? It is a language that dreams are made on.

SALMON
29

The salmon is connected in tree ogh a rn with the letter 'C', co il (the hazel) and thus in Gaelic
legend the salmon, king of riverfish, becomes the Salmon of Knowledge who swims in the deep pool

below the Hazel Tree of Wisdom. He eats the nuts as they fail into the pool and the red spots on the
fish's flanks are said to equal the number of nuts he has eaten. Anyone who ever tried to take a
salmon from a deep pool (rather than shaJlows) using a fish-spear or gaff will realize how difficult
or near impossible this is, due to the refraction of the water and the salmon's manoeverability. This
makes the salmon in the pool a very good symbol for the slipperiness and intangibility of real
understanding.
Blodeuwedd (in one story of this Welsh Delilah) is said to have wormed the secret, from her
husband King Curoi (only man ever to best Cuchulain in a contest), that his soul was hidden in an
apple, in the beJiy of a salmon, which appears once every seven years, in a spring on the slopes of
Slieve Mis. Loki (the Norse god of cunning and guile) took refuge from the wrath of his fellow gods
as a salmon in a deep pool, from which he was only taken by means of a net of his own design. Finn
MacCool (perhaps a pun here on MacColl, 'son of the hazel'?) is well known to have eaten of the
Salmon of Knowledge. This enabled him to know anything at wiJI by chewing on his thumb (which
he had burned by touching the salmon as it cooked and which he had cooled in his mouth) . In some
tales Finn is said to have been killed at last with a salmon gaff. The snippets of these three stories are
given as examples of how philosophical ideas are handled in legend.

ABOVE AND BELOW ALL WEIR, THE GREEN MAN MAKES HIS PLAY
Wezr, in Scots dialect, means ' war', but also, means 'doubt' and ' fear' . I make a pun on this with
the weir of a river, which means either a fish-trap (to catch the Salmon of Knowledge) or a dam (to
run a mill, to grind the Grain of Truth, the Blood of the Barleycorn, Arthur, the spirit of poetry as
Son of the Muse).

MERLIN OF THE BORDERS TURNED IN HIS RIVER GRAVE

Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, had as a virgin queen, willy-niJiy inherited during
her reign the aspect of many facets of the ancient Celtic Goddess of life and love and danger. In her
subject's eyes she endeavoured to emphasize her Gloriana persona like a bright artistic Queen of
Heaven, but in the minds of the growing body of Puritans in her realm, by reason of her moderate
(by Puritan standards) religious attitudes, she was envisioned rather more as Lilith, the dark side of
the moon. When James Stuart ascended the throne at her death it was the signal for a throwing of
weight against all remnants of merry ' idolatry' and James became somewhat the earthly
representative of a sort of new Jehovah, a jealous god. The resultant turmoil of conflicting emotions
and world views was an important nub in Shakespeare's plays. (See Ted Hughes's 'Choice of
Shakespeare's Verse'.)
Let us hark back a moment to that old prophecy that Thomas the Rhymer made at his tower of
Ercildoune in the Borders of Scotland, before he returned to Faeryland.
'' When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's Grave
England and Scotland one King shall have."
So, Elizabeth I died, and James of Scotland became King of England, and the two rivers met at
Merlin 's Grave. These themes of the Green Man and Merlin twine through the poem in a way that
was not apparent to me when I first wrote it. And in this current Elizabethan era since I stood, some
months after writing the poem, by Merlin's Grave in the land of my childhood again, yet another
thread of this lost story of Merlin has faJien into place. Not the Merlin of Mediaeval Anhurian myth
but the much earlier Merlin, a poet of the Borders.
E. Davies in his 'Mythology and Rites of the British Druids' cites an ancient Welsh poem
attributed to Myrddin (Merlin), relating how the bard took up abode in the Wood of Caledon, armed
with a sword, to guard a tree belonging to a Goddess called Bun (pronounced 'boon' or 'bean'). It is
stated that he was wild and distraught at this time. Firstly, let me state my conviction tha t this is not
a remnant of tree worship! The word bun means 'maiden' in Welsh, and in Gaelic the same word
means 'root' (as of a tree) or 'basis' (as of a mountain or an idea). This bard, then, went to the Wood
of Caledon ('Place of the Young Goddess') to found, or maintain against destruction, a school (or
tree ) of bardic learning. By a poetic pun, I reach for the Gaelic word buinne (meaning 'the
confluence of waters ', as where two rivers meet), and find here a correspondence between the
Goddess, Bun, and the location of Merlin's so-called Grave.
Barry Fell has translated devotional inscriptions all over the place in America of the very early
Celtic goddess names Byanu, Booanu, Beanu, or Beenu. Even a statue of her has been found in the
maple woods of Vermont. Her name reveals traces of the goddess I mentioned earlier as Anu (or
Don). She is the young aspect of Don found in the Wood of Caledon.
Merlin then, as a poet of the Muse, was aware perhaps that this root of learning which existed
perhaps among the inhabitants of the North was under attack, perhaps by the Danes, or more likely
the Angles, who began invading the area of the Wood of Caledon around the fifth or sixth centuries

30

A.D.(Myrddin's supposed date) . (Modern English derives [via Chaucer's Middle English] from the
Anglish spoken in 10th-12th cent. South Scotland by the Brythonic Northern Welsh who had been
conquered by the Angles. A form of that Anglish survives in the modern Border dialect, La lands.)
The Wood of Caledan is said to have been dense and wild, covering the country from shore to
shore, and consisting of oak trees, beech trees, and wild apple, where the mistletoe grew . But also,
via bardic-style symbolism, I find it easy to envisage a Wood as a place of many Trees of Know ledge,
i.e. a university. And bardic colleges were, apparently, often located in deep woods. The Romans
never actually conquered th is area of southern, central Scotla nd. They came up the coasts, mainly .
Robin Hood (the direct successor to Arthur and Merlin in British myth as artistic, spiritual and
political focal points in troubled times) also lived in a deep wood, didn ' t he, that archer? That he
also in a sense guarded some sort of Tree is apparent in the amount and variety of folklore associated
with him in Britain.
Cymru is a name by which the Welsh of today name their land of Wales. But the Cymry were
originally an aristocracy driven from South Scotland, in the fifth century, who formed the backbone
of Welsh bard ism till well into the Middle Ages. Merlin's vision degenerated among them into court
poetry and it was not till the fifteenth century that the genius Davydd ap Gwilym created a poetry
which fused the ancient traditions kept alive by beggar minstrels (which inc! uded pre-Cymric, even
pre-Gaelic tangles of poetry) with the polish and aplomb of the court bard.
Celtic writing, Ogham, was only deciphered late in the nineteenth century and in this last
decade a whole new view of the Celts has been emerging. As I stood at Merlin's Grave I began to
understand a 'how' of poetry, beyond the complexities of sacrificial sociology and the self
destructive idiocies of twentieth century advertisement art.
If this 'how' is a 'way' I know now where it may lead, I recognize it from of old. And to a stranger
in a world of strangers it feels like home and to a friend in a world of friends it is the winding of the
serpent of dangerous beauty, it is the hunter's road, or no road at all, over the high hills where stags
bell, from the great sea to the great ocean by way of Avalon and Californ ia too.

31

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