Elemental magic and the nameless god of druids

 

If you want to understand why the Celts placed such high value on "goodly speech", study the incantations delivered by the druid Mogh Roith in the anonymous epic The Siege of Knocklong. Even in English translation, you feel water streaming and fire crackling and wind blowing and earth heaving as the words arouse elemental magic.

     When Moghh Roith, in defense of Munster, is kindling magical fire against the army of the High King Cormac and his five fairy druids, he includes these lines

God of druids
My god above every god
He is god of the ancient druids

There is mystery here. In their new book A History of Irish Magic, Sally North and James North comment that "the god is invoked without naming him. In no surviving Irish text is the god of the druids ever named. If, as supposed, the gods of the ancient Irish were the Tuatha De Danàan, whose names are known and frequently cited, it is noteworthy that the druids scrupulously avoid naming their own god, even when calling on him directly." [1]  
      Assuming this is correct, why is it so? It must be noted that Mogh Roith, in his metal bird mask and bull's hide cloak and flying chariot, with his power to raise a great wind with his breath, often seems to have godlike powers himself.
     A sampling of his elemental magic through incantation:

Magic breath

Against Mogh Roith sent a magic breath northwards against the fairy druid Colpa, so that “the stones and sand of the earth became furious devastating balls of fire all the way to the ford;” [2]

Calling the power of water

Munster was thirsty and its nobles and fighting men were listless, deprived of vital energy. The druid called on the power of water

I invoke a special stream,
drops seep through rocks;
a stream of pleasant taste
to the north-east.
I invoke a cool waterfall [3]

When he had completed this the solidity of the earth was fractured by the onrush of water. The druid said to the nobles, “Drink to get back your strength and energy, your warlike vigor and your power and dignity."

The water was distributed to all, men, horses and cattle, until all were satisfied. The magic exhaustion which had oppressed them was lifted.

 

Magical fire

I knead a fire, powerful, strong;
it will level the wood, it will dry up grass;
an angry flame, great its speed
it will rush up, to the heavens above;
it will destroy forests, the forests of the earth,
it will subdue in battle the people of Conn.

sharp smoke of the rowan-tree,
gentle smoke of the rowan-tree,
I practise druidic arts [4]

With elemental magic he can raise the dragon - or a gianyt eel - subdue his enemies and turn them into stones.

References

1.Sally North and James North, A History of Irish Magic. Loughcrew, Co. Meath: Holythorn Press, 2024 pp.23-24

2.Ibid p.86

3.Ibid p.69

4. Ibid p.71. Alas, the Norths' otherwise excellent book has few source notes and no bibliography.

The full text of the English translation of The Siege of Knocklong by Seán Ó Duinn is accessible online at https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301044.html. 

Illustration: "Elemental Magic" RM + NightCafe

Sing in me, Muse

When embarking on a creative project, I often think of the Greeks, who thought it was always a good idea to invoke the muse, or creative spirit.
    Homer's Odyssey is a famous example. At the very beginning, the author invokes the muse of poetry, "daughter of Zeus".  In Robert Fitzgerald's version, he prays, “Through me tell the story." In the more recent Robert Fagles translation, he says,

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

the hallowed heights of Troy. 

The Odyssey is the tale of a wanderer, a “man of many ways” (polytropos) who was “harried for years on end” after he plundered the sacred places of Troy. His homecoming was delayed, within sight of Ithaca, when his men killed and feasted on the sacred cattle of the sun. We read in this that we must do the work for a higher purpose than filling our bellies. The key thing is to call in the larger power. In the Fitzgerald version:

Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus,

Tell us in our time, lift the great song again.

Perhaps the Homeric invocation, borrowing the Fitzgerald version, could be simplified as follows:

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story.

Tell us in our time, lift the great song again. [Odyssey I, lines 1 & 18]

Note that the Muse here (mousa) is not yet job-specific; the early Greeks did not divide up musing functions between the nine nymphs familiar to the Renaissance. At the oldest level of the Muse cult, there appear to have been three, not nine, Muses.
    Pausanias, greatest of ancient travel guides, preserves a tradition of two generations of Muses; the first were daughters of Uranus and Gaia, the second of Zeus and Mnemosyine. He named the three primal Muses as Melete (Practise), Aiode (Song), and Mneme (Memory). In both versions, as mother goddess (Mnemosyne) or as muse (Mneme), Memory is a primary force in creation.
    This inspires me to remember to call on a greater power - call it muse or creative spirit or daimon - to favor and help in creative work. To do this well, we can't just borrow old words, however grand, from a dead poet, even if he stands above almost all the others in the ranks of the Dead Poets Society. We must come up with fresh words to entertain and engage those greater powers.
    Before writing my most recent book, The Boy Who Died and Came Back, I wrote an invocation, clearly influenced by the way Homer addressed his Muse, but fresh and original and true to the new material. Indeed, this poetic "Offering" became a plan for the whole book:

Offering

Sing in me, creative spirit
of the boy who died and came back
and the man who flew through the black sun
and returned to walk the roads of this world
as the envoy of a deeper world;
and of how (being human)
he falls down and gets up, over and over,
forgets and remembers,
remembers and forgets.

Let me explain through his story
how the world is a playground, not a prison
when we awaken to the game behind the games.
Let this story help those who read it
to find their bigger and braver stories
and live them, and tell them well enough
to entertain the spirits,
win the indulgence of the gods
and bring through effortless healing.

   On the way to writing my current book, I wrote a poem as an initial offering to my creative spirit. For now, that is between me and the Muse. If you have a creative venture in mind, you might want to consider finding your own words to invite the participation of your own creative spirits.

 Image: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's vision of Mnemosyne.

The Muse and the Flame

Before I went up on a magic mountain in the Adirondacks  last Friday to lead a gathering of frequent flyers over the weekend, I dreamed that I was handling the completed typescript of a book, and very happy with it. Associated with the book was a single sheet of paper on which I had written words as an offering. I knew, waking, that my ability to bring through the very best in this book would require me to make an offering.

      I thought of the opening of the Odyssey, where the poet begins by invoking the Muse in lovely speech: "Sing in me, O Muse". Not "sing through me" but "sing in me". I borrowed this locution as the opening for a poem I wrote on Saturday. I decorated the text with my drawings, and offered it to the fire when we did "wishcraft" on Saturday night in front of the great hearth in our lodge on the mountain. 

    The original poem has gone upward on the smoke of the fire. But I have written a version that resembles it.

Offering

Sing in me, creative spirit
of the boy who died and came back
and the man who flew through the black sun
and returned to walk the roads of this world
as the envoy of a deeper world;
and of how (being human)
he falls down and gets up, over and over,
forgets and remembers,
remembers and forgets.

Let me explain through his story
how the world is a playground, not a prison
when we awaken to the game behind the games.
Let this story help those who read it
to find their bigger and braver stories
and live them, and tell them well enough
to entertain the spirits,
win the indulgence of the gods
and bring through effortless healing.

To the Deer of the Mountain

Gore Mountain, New York

-

Over the past weekend, I shared extraordinary experiences of healing and transformation with a group of frequent flyers on a mountain in the Adirondacks where I have been leading very special gatherings in the spring and fall over fourteen years. This is a place where the Deer energy is very strong. In our very first gathering, as described in my book Dreamgates, the Deer spirit became available for healing for a woman who had been told she had an incurable disease. What unfolded last weekend was even more remarkable and I hope to write about it at the right time.
-

At the beginning and at the end of our retreat, in a circle of joined hands and streaming energy, I found myself impelled to recite a poem that I wrote many years ago to celebrate the Deer of this mountain. I want to share this now:
-

To the Deer of the Mountain

-
Deepheart, mountain guardian
who harries the hunter
and knows what belongs to us
and what does not,
give us your speed,
your ability to read the land,
to see what is behind us and around us.
-

May we grow with the seasons
into your branching wisdom
putting up antlers as taproots into the sky

to draw down the power of heaven,
reaching into the wounded places
to heal and make whole,
walking as living candelabra,
crowned with light,
crowning each other with light.