Old Ways, Old Secrets

Pagan Ireland: Myth * Landscape * Tradition

Jo Kerrigan

• Publisher: The O'Brien Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781847177544
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythology
• Index: Social Sciences

In a land like ours, the old beliefs bring pleasure and wisdom…

Exploring the legends, special places and treasured practices of old, Jo Kerrigan reveals a rich world beneath Ireland's modern layers.

So many of today's Irish traditions reach back to our ancient past, to the natural world: climbing to the summit of a mountain at harvest time; circling a revered site three, seven or nine times in a sun-wise direction; hanging offerings on a thorn tree; bringing the ailing and infirm to a sacred well.

Old Ways, Old Secrets shows us how to uncover the wisdom of the past, as fresh as it is ancient.

'Inviting, lyrical text and beautiful, atmospheric photographs... A fascinating read.' Evening Echo on West Cork: A Place Apart

The druids of ancient Ireland were all-powerful and treated with reverence.

Healers blending miraculous herbal cures, and advisers sending secret messages in code. Bards reciting the proud genealogies of high kings, and poets composing scathing satires. Shadowy figures murmuring incantations in the forest, and augurers prophesying the future. Brehons explaining the complexities of the ancient laws, and fearsome figures driving war chariots through the battlefield. The druids of ancient Ireland did all this and more; they were mysterious, powerful and treated with reverence – even by those who wore a crown.

WHO WERE THE DRUIDS?

Druids were not rulers or priests in the way we would understand such roles today. They did not dictate or enforce. They were, rather, the repository of knowledge, the guardians of laws, genealogies, history, herbal healing, tree lore, and the epic tales of heroic events. They carried this knowledge in their heads, and their communities relied on their prodigious memories.

They were guides and advisers, and were at the heart of any political intrigue. Above all, the druids were that vital link with the Otherworld; beings who could pass between both realities, who could seek answers from the gods, beg a boon, influence the Fates, or even shape-change at will. As such, they were regarded as the most important people in the land. Free of the obligation to pay taxes or do fighting service, they sat at the king’s high table and were deferred to. Those who were not attached to a royal household but maintained their own schools were sought after for cures and spells, and to answer questions in desperate times.

DRUIDS IN LEGEND

The central role of druids in Irish culture is evident from earliest sources, and they are woven into a thousand legends. Parthalon, one of our earliest settlers, brought three of these wise advisers with him, named as Fios, Eolus and Fochmarc; that is, Intelligence, Knowledge and Inquiry.

The Fir Bolg had their own druids too, Cesard being the chief of them. Dian Cecht was a great healer druid of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Cathbad was the most venerated adviser of King Conor Mac Nessa’s court in Ulster. Ciothruadh, the oldest and wisest of King Cormac Mac Airt’s druids, could raise powerful spells to aid the king in battle. Finegas was the ancient sage and druid living by the River Boyne to whom Fionn Mac Cumhaill went to study poetry and wisdom, while Fear Doirche was the evil druid who turned Fionn’s great love, Sadbh, into a deer. In The Voyage of Mael Duin, Nuca is the wise wizard who not only counsels the hero on the exact day to begin building his boat, but also the precise number of people he should take with him.

The druids’ status could backfire on them. In the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), when Maeve’s army was on the march, several druids came out from Ossory to welcome it but were attacked in the belief that they were spies:

And the soldiers set to hunting them until they fled with great speed in the form of deer, into the stones at Liac Mor in the north, for they were wizards of great cunning.

DRUIDS AND THE TUATHA DÉ DANANN

The Tuatha Dé Danann are said to have learned their occult skills from four great druids in the northern lands – Morfesa, Esras, Semias and Uiscias – and brought many more, both male and female, when they returned to Ireland. It was three of their druidesses who caused clouds of darkness and mist to envelop the Fir Bolg while they were holding a council of war, and thus defeated them. The Dé Danann, however, were themselves vanquished by druidic practices from the invading Celts, which is how they came to leave the visible landscape and create their own magical Otherworld underneath the hills and fairy forts, where they still live today.

This, so the old stories say, is how it happened. The Celts, travelling from Galicia in modern-day Spain, made landfall on the Kerry coast and marched immediately on Tara. The rulers argued that they had been unfairly taken by surprise and requested that the invaders withdraw in their boats ‘beyond the Ninth Wave’ from Ireland’s shores. If they should then succeed in landing once more, the sovereignty of the land would be surrendered to them. Of course as soon as the Celts were beyond the magical ‘Ninth Wave’ (where it is deemed you are outside the boundaries of Ireland), the druids of the Dé Danann caused a thick mist to rise, concealing the land completely. At the same time they raised a ferocious tempest, scattering the ships of their enemy far and wide.

Manipulating the elements was a crucial druidic skill.

However, Amergin, poet and druid of the invading host, knew a few spells of his own and, standing on the prow of his wildly tossing boat, he pronounced a powerful declamation that lifted the mist, calmed the storm, turned the tide, and enabled the Celts to gain the land once more. That declamation survives, a very early poem indeed, with possibly some genuine druidical chanting within its lines:

I pray that we reach the land of Erinn, we who are riding upon the great, productive, vast sea.

That we be distributed upon her plains, her mountains, and her valleys; upon her forests that shed showers of nuts and all other fruits; upon her rivers and her cataracts; upon her lakes and her great waters; upon her abounding springs.

That we may hold our fairs and equestrian sports upon her territories.

That there may be a king from us in Tara; and that Tara be the territory of our many kings.

That the sons of Milesius be manifestly seen upon her territories.

That noble Erinn be the home of the ships and boats of the sons of Milesius.

Erinn which is now in darkness, it is for her that this oration is pronounced.

The druids of the Dé Danann would conjure a mist to confuse their enemies.

Manipulating the weather was a druidical skill, especially the calling down of dense fogs or magical mists for various purposes: so that their own people could pass safely through enemy territory, or so that an advancing army would become confused and unable to fight. In the Táin, a battle mist hid the advancing Ulster army from the men of Connacht, while in the Fenian Cycle, the druid Tadgh used fog to prevent Cumhall, father of Fionn, from finding his magic weapons. Even today you will find country folk saying of the grey rain clouds drifting over the hills that ‘the druids are passing’.

FORETELLING THE FUTURE

In times of peace, having enough rain to moisten the soil or enough sun to ripen the crops was a constant worry, and druids were much in demand. Whether they could guarantee the right conditions is arguable, but they knew how to read the weather signs and foretell extreme conditions. It is a talent most of us could develop to some degree if we took the time to observe wind direction, cloud formation and, of course, animal behaviour.

In times of war, it did not do to embark on any great enterprise without first consulting the druids. In the Táin, when the armies of Connacht are assembling for the great raid on Ulster, they are held back until the most auspicious moment:

Then the four provinces of Ireland were assembled until they were in Cruachan Ai. And their poets and their druids would not let them go thence till the end of a fortnight, waiting for a good omen.

Druids were conscious of the earth itself as a living being. They were also well versed in the knowledge of the skies, the stars and the moon, and could advise on the best time to undertake a particular task, or to put seeds into the ground as the moon waxed or waned. Today, many wise old country folk retain and use this commonsense knowledge for planting crops or pruning fruit trees.

Druids answered the questions of kings – Will my sons hold the crown after me? Should we ally with this neighbouring chieftain or make war on him? – but ordinary, everyday people in ancient times had their concerns too. What does life hold for me? What path should I follow? How do I make this person love me? Can I trust this friend’s advice? It is part of human nature to seek answers, to pierce the mysterious unknown that lies ahead.

THE LORE OF TREES

It is in keeping with a nature-based religion that Irish druids should use trees for the purpose of divination. With their great roots reaching deep into the earth, their arms opening to the heavens and their heads near the sky, these natural symbols of life itself were sacred, and reverenced as such by all druids, who recognised their importance in the general good health of the world.

Even the unique ogham alphabet used by the druids was linked to individual trees, each letter representing a specific species. Spirits of the Otherworld were held to inhabit trees; to damage one knowingly was to invite ill fortune. Every settlement had its own bile or sacred tree under which all ceremonials were conducted.

Old legends speak of the Five Great Trees of Ireland, which held the safety of the land in their keeping. Tortu, an ash, and Mugna, an oak, grew in Meath; Uisneach and the Tree of Dathe, both ash, in Westmeath; and the Tree of Ross, a yew, grew in Co. Carlow. The last-named, however, may well have originated in an ancient forest far to the southwest that still survives today. In an account of the creation of Tara, the seer Fintan, said to have lived in Ireland since the Deluge, recalls:

Rocks bearing traces of ogham, a unique early writing system, are found in prehistoric sites all over Ireland, such as Rathcroghan in Co. Roscommon.

One day I passed through a wood of West Munster in the west. I took away with me a red yew berry and I planted it in the garden of my court and it grew up there until it was as big as a man. Then I removed it from the garde...