Madam Neoteric

Excerpt from The Religion of the Ancient Celts, By J. A. MacCulloch [1911]

[. . .] Aine, one of the great fairy-queens of Ireland, has her seat at Knockainy in Limerick, where rites connected with her former cult are still performed for fertility on Midsummer eve. If they were neglected she and her troops performed them, according to local legend.3 She is thus an old goddess of fertility, whose cult, even at a festival in which gods were latterly more prominent, is still remembered. She is also associated with the waters as a water-nymph captured for a time as a fairy-bride by the Earl of Desmond.4 But older legends connect her with the síd. She was daughter of Eogabal, king of the síd of Knockainy, the grass on which was annually destroyed at Samhain by his people, because it had been taken from them, its rightful owners. Oilill Olomm and Ferchus resolved to watch the síd on Samhain-eve. They saw Eogabal and Aine emerge from it. Ferchus killed Eogabal, and Oilill tried to outrage Aine, who bit the flesh from his ear. Hence his name of “Bare Ear.”5 In this legend we see how earlier gods of fertility come to be regarded as hostile to growth. Another story tells of the love of Aillén, Eogabal’s son, for Manannan’s wife and that of Aine for Manannan. Aine offered her favours to the god if he would give his wife to her brother, and “the complicated bit of romance,” as S. Patrick calls it, was thus arranged.1
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Cnoc Aine
Taken from Sacred Ireland by Cary Meehan

“According to Celtic tradition, this is the sacred hill of the goddess Aine and her place of power. To some people the hill itself is shaped something like a female form with three rings or barrows in her belly. The barrows represent the dwellings of the ancestors of the munster tribe, the Eoghanachta: Fer I, Eoghabhal and Eogan. In this particular context Aine is their daughter. To the Celts the cairn on the summit was her palace and the entrance to the Otherworld.

However, the cairn is Neolithic and the barrows probably Bronze Age, so this would have been a ceremonial site long before Celtic times. Aine’s presence here is most likely a continuation of a much earlier sun deity tradition. By making her their daughter, and the barrows the dwelling places of their ancestors, the Eoghanachta tribe were creating a divine lineage for themselves. At certain times in the Celtic year, usually the night before the major festivals, the entrance to this Otherworld would open and human lives could be touched for good or ill by spirits or Faerie beings. This could, of course, happen at any time but the eve of a festival such as midsummer was a particularly potent time.

As the inauguration site of the Eoghanacht kings, it was here that they came to be united with the spirit of their kingdom, Aine. While the king lived in harmony with the Otherworld, the kingdom was blessed, but when customs or taboos were broken, everyone suffered.

The following story explains how the king Ailill came to be called ‘Ailill O-lom’ or Ailill One Ear’. It has echoes of the inauguration rite described in the story from Lough Gur. Once again the rules are broken by human failing and not without repercussions.

The king was having a problem as, every night when he went to sleep, the grass would disappear. His Druidess, Ferchess, advised him to visit Knockainy the next Samhain Eve. He did as she suggested but fell asleep, lulled by the drowsy sound of the cows grazing on the hillside. Walking disoriented in the middle of the night, he saw a beautiful maiden coming from the cairn with her father, Eoghabhal. Forgetting all about why he had come, and overcome with lust, he raped her. She, in her outraged anger, bit off his ear and in doing so, maimed him. This meant that he could no longer, by Celtic tradition, be King (The Festival of Lughnasa).

While the king had an obligation to maintain harmony with the Otherworld, the people had responsibilities as well. Until 1879 men used to bring flaming bunches of hay or straw on poles to the summit of Knockainy on Midsummer’s Eve. They would carry them clockwise round the three barrows which they called ‘the Hills of the Three Ancestors’. Then they would take the brands and run around the cultivated fields and pastures in the area to bring good luck to the animals and crops. It was believed that they were emulating the fairies who also performed this rite under the direction of Aine as she impregnated the land with her solar energy once the humans had gone.

Sometimes people reported seeing her leading the human procession. She was seen on the hill as the ‘cailleach’ or wise woman and there are many stories of her taking human form. Those who treated her with kindness prospered.”

Lough Gur
Taken from Sacred Ireland by Cary Meehan

“It is said that Lough Gur was formed by the goddess Áine who appears here in different forms as mermaid, young woman and hag. As mermaid she rises from her traditional home beneath the sacred waters of the lake, as maiden she empowers the land’s human custodians, and as hag she defends her realm.

There was a stone bridge called Cloghaunainey on the Camoge river north of the lake, said to have been demolished in 1930. A story is told of her meeting by this bridge with the 1st Earl of Desmond, the local landowner. Traditionally, it was required of the tribal chief at his inauguration that he seek acceptance of the goddess of the landscape. This was ritualised in a ceremony in Celtic society called a ‘feis’ which literally means ‘to spend the night’. A ‘geasa’ is a magical prohibition or taboo. When someone is put under a geasa, the penalty for breaking it is usually death.

The story goes like this: the Earl found Áine by the water combing her hair. He crept up on her and took her cloak which immediately put her in his power. She agreed to bear him a son who was be called Géaroid, but warned him that he must never be surprised by anything the son did. (‘Iarla’ means ‘Earl’ but ‘iarlais’ means ‘changeling’.)

The child was born and given to the Earl and grew up excelling in everything. One evening there was a big gathering at the Earl’s castle in Knockainy village. A very accomplished young woman appeared out of nowhere and engaged his son in a contest. She leapt right over the guests and the tables and called him to do the same. He hesitated, but his father, wanting him to be bested by a woman, persuaded him to show what he could do. However, he went even further than his father had expected and astonished everyone by jumping into a bottle and out again. His father was so surprised that he broke the geasa put on him before his son’s birth. “Now you have forced me to leave you,” said the son. And with that he disappeared into the fairy realm.

It is said that he lies sleeping beneath Knockadoon with his knights waiting for a time when they will ride forth and gain freedom for all Ireland. But for the moment he must content himself with riding across the surface of the lake on a milk white horse with silver shoes. According to legend, he must do this once every seven years till the silver shoes are worn away.

Another legend holds that once every seven years the enchanted lake dries up and then the sacred tree at the bottom of the lake can be seen covered with a green cloth. An old woman of the lake can be seen covered with a green cloth. An old woman (Áine as hag) keeps watch from beneath the cloth. She is knitting, recreating the fabric of life. One time a man came riding by just as the lake had disappeared. He snatched the cloth from the tree and rode away. The woman called out and the waters rose, pulling back the cloth and half the horse with it. So Áine continues to protect her realm helped by the waters of the lake.”

Mark Weiss
THREE IRISH POEMS

1
From the seams of the rock the earth
overflowing with juices,
and who should step forth
red hair     bare feet depressing the watercress.

2
And on
her face
who is a child
that the goddess too inhabits
courses for tears.

3
In every river an intelligence
as if the reflection
were
another.
so I look for a question
to ask you and you tell me
the question you answer is never
the one that you ask.
or thought you asked, I add.
talking to water–
and the image
fragmented, never to be found again.

And when my hair was long,
I lived underwater, and became
my own reflection.

Phyllis Gotlieb
First Person Demonstrative

I’d rather
heave half a brick than say
I love you, though I do
I’d rather
crawl in a hole than call you
darling, though you are
I’d rather
wrench off an arm than hug you though
it’s what I long to do
I’d rather
gather a posy of poison ivy than
ask if you love me

so if my
hair doesn’t stand on end it’s because
I never tease it
and if my
heart isn’t in my mouth it’s because
it knows its place
and if I
don’t take a bite of your ear it’s because
gristle gripes my guts
and if you
miss the message better get new
glasses and read it twice

William Butler Yeats: “The Second Coming” (1921)

Yeats was attracted to the spiritual and occult world and fashioned for himself an elaborate mythology to explain human experience. “The Second Coming,” written after the catastrophe of World War I and with communism and fascism rising, is a compelling glimpse of an inhuman world about to be born. Yeats believed that history in part moved in two thousand-year cycles. The Christian era, which followed that of the ancient world, was about to give way to an ominous period represented by the rough, pitiless beast in the poem.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre (1)
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming (2) is at hand;
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi (3)
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries (4)
of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Notes:

(1) Spiral, making the figure of a cone.

(2) Second Coming refers to the promised return of Christ on Doomsday, the end of the world; but in Revelation 13 Doomsday is also marked by the appearance of a monstrous beast.

(3) Spirit of the World.

(4) 2,000 years; the creature has been held back since the birth of Christ. Yeats imagines that the great heritage of Western European civilization is collapsing, and that the world will be swept by a tide of savagery from the “uncivilized” portions of the globe.

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Guardian Unlimited – Wednesday May 8, 2002

Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
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Excerpt from “Remembrance of Things Past”
by Marcel Proust

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life.

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.
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Collected from various and sundry places, some annotated with links, some not attributed at all…

And as to Áine, that some said was a daughter of Manannán, but some said was the Morrigu herself, there was a stone belonging to her that was called Cathair Áine. And if any one would sit on that stone he would be in danger of losing his wits, and any one that would sit on it three times would lose them for ever. And people whose wits were astray would make their way to it, and mad dogs would come from all parts of the country, and would flock around it, and then they would go into the sea to Áine’s place there. But those that did cures by herbs said she had power over the whole body; and she used to give gifts of poetry and of music, and she often gave her love to men, and they called her the Leanan Sídhe, the Sweetheart of the Sídhe.

And it was no safe thing to offend Áine, for she was very revengeful. Oilioll Oluim, a king of Ireland, killed her brother one time, and it is what she did, she made a great yew-tree by enchantment beside the river Maigh in Luimnech, and she put a little man in it, playing sweet music on a harp. And Oilioli’s son was passing the river with his step-brother, and they saw the tree and heard the sweet music from it. And first they quarrelled as to which of them would have the little harper, and then they quarrelled about the tree, and they asked a judgment from Ollioll, and he gave it for his own son. And it was the bad feeling about that judgment that led to the battle of Magh Mucruimhe, and Oilioll and his seven sons were killed there, and so Áine got her revenge.
– Lady Augusta Gregory, Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, Part I Book IV: ‘Áine’, 1904

Áine: Some said she was the daughter of Manannán, but some said she was the Morrigu, she owned the Cathair Áine. But she often gave her love to men, and she was called Leanan Sídhe, the Sweetheart of the Sídhe. Wisps of straw are burned in her honor on St. John’s Eve. She is associated with meadow-sweet, and invoked against sickness. According to legend, she was raped by the king of Munster.
– Mike Nichols, An Irish Myth Concordance, MicroMuse Press, 1985

[Áine] was daughter of Eogabal, king of the síd of Knockainy, the grass on which was annually destroyed at Samhain by his people, because it had been taken from them, its rightful owners. Oilill Olomm and Ferchus resolved to watch the síd on Samhain-eve. They saw Eogabal and Áine emerge from it. Ferchus killed Eogabal, and Oilill tried to outrage Áine, who bit the flesh from his ear. Hence his name of “Bare Ear.”
– J.A. MacCulloch, The Religion of the Ancient Celts, Ch. V, ‘The Tuatha Dé Danaan’, 1911

Áine’s name comes from the word an, meaning ‘bright’. She is one of the sídhe (pronounced shee), or the ‘Good People’, patroness of Munster and Queen of the South Munster fairies, and seems to have been a moon goddess, like Diana. The peasantry knew her as ‘the besthearted woman that ever lived’. She is also called Áine Cli, Áine Cliach, Áine of the light, Áine N’Chliar, and Áine Cliar, the Bright.

Áine’s sister was Finnen or Fenne or Fennel, named the same as the sacred herb which wards off evil spirits, bestows strength, courage, and prolongs life. (At least as far back as the Middle Ages in Europe, fennel was hung on doorways, and stuffed into keyholes, on Midsummer Eve to guard against evil spirits.)

On St John’s Eve the local peasants would gather to view the moon, and then light cliars (torches) and process from the hill, afterwards running through their fields and among the cattle, to exorcise the land of evil spirits and thus ensure good harvests and prosperous herds and flocks. This being the night where the sun’s influence starts to dim (following Litha, the Summer Solstice), tonight was sometimes called Áine’s funeral, and she could appear as an old woman tonight.
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