Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations

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Carrín, Cristobo De Milio. “The Widower and the Goddess.” The Widower and the Goddess (n.d.): 1-20. Print. Carmichael, Alexander. "Grazing and agrestic customs of the Outer Hebrides", Report of Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Inquiry into the Conditions of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1884), pp. 451–82. Alexander Carmichael (1832–1912) was, like Robert Burns, an exciseman; like Burns, he was fascinated by the traditional music and stories of his native Scotland. However, while Burns’s creative work is still (mostly) celebrated as a milestone contribution to the curation of Scottish song traditions, Carmichael’s fieldwork had a much less positive critical legacy through much of the twentieth century. Recent work by Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands, suggests that it is time for a twenty-first century reappraisal of both the man and his work. There’s a lot of water-related Midsummer lore from human sacrifices in Germanic regions and later folklore from the German Saale and Spree(specific rivers) to the Norweigan Nokk(a spirit), both are different names for the same water spirit that claims a life once a year on either Walpurgisnacht or Midsummer(Gundarsson, 63). The Poet and the Spae-wife says “Many a fisherman of the Elbe knows better than to launch his boat and trust himself to the treacherous river on Midsummer Day.” (Allen, 1960, 107). On Galician Midsummer, the water spirit called the Xane would display her wares at the mouth of the nearest cave to her fountain displaying mythical farming tools(like shears) behind a booth(Carrín, 2011, 14). From these traditional observations, it will be seen that Bride and her services are near to the hearts and lives of the people. In some phases of her character she is much more to them than Mary is.

Ritual lament or ‘keening’ at Highland funerals. The soundscape of death is a fascinating anthropological topic. Women could make themselves and their concerns heard at key moments while commemorating and bewailing the dead—although later Presbyterian practice restricted graveyard attendance to men. In onóir do Dagda agus do na nDéithe, agus chun toraidh agus chun tairvhe ar ár gcur agus ar ár saothar, in ainm an Tine agus an Tobar agus an Cránn Naofa, Bíodh sé amhlaidh. Attention to Carmichael’s field notebooks suggests that while Gaelic culture was already under pressure in the nineteenth century, this may have meant that belief and practice in charms and other folk magic even have increased during the period. The private fire was lit at dusk and a brief home ritual was performed in the fields and the fire was allowed to burn out while its attendants went off to join the communal fires.

The Carmina Gadelica is fully available online, too. Each contributor is listed with their occupation and location here, which is entrancing. The Kupalo effigy is made of straw and dressed in women’s clothing, complete with jewelry and ribbons(Dixon-Kennedy, 1999). At Uppsala they’d plunge a man into the river and if he disappeared they’d draw a fortuitous omen(Allen, 1960, 230).

Greetings, Sun of the seasons! As you walk in the high heavens, with your strong steps through the endless void, you are the joyous mother of the stars! You sink down in the perilous ocean without suffering harm or scathe; you rise up o’er the peaceful mountains like a young queen in flower. Manser, Martin H. (January 2001). The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations. ISBN 9780664222581 . Retrieved 20 February 2017. These processions were outfitted with musicians and other forms of merriment along with the apropos dressings of the season. Other customs include patterns(religious rites) at St. John’s Well and whatever local well was near where you lived. Religious rites and folk magic happened at these wells that local observers considered pagan in nature, and the drinking of the water of these wells allowed people to claim they had gone mad allowing for an excuse from the bonfire debauchery(Evans, 1988, 264).Marriage Divination seems to be part of every Celtic holiday that became a Saint’s Feast. But Midsummer has a stronger connection with marriage in the wider Indo-European lorebase. I modified this charm for the times and with my intersectional sensibilities of today. Deities of Midsummer The Midsummer fire would be maintained from sunset when it was lit until after midnight. Accompanying this bonfire were prayers to the divine to secure good crop blessings. The oldest person around kindled the fire with this or similar charm:

Selected books from the Ossian Collection of 327 volumes, originally assembled by J. Norman Methven of Perth. Different editions and translations of James MacPherson's epic poem 'Ossian', some with a map of the 'Kingdom of Connor'. Also secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy. A similar practice prevails in Ireland. There the churn staff, not the corn sheaf, is fashioned into the form of a woman, and called 'Brideog,' little Bride. The girls come clad in their best, and the girl who has the prettiest dress gives it to Brideog. An ornament something like a Maltese cross is affixed to the breast of the figure. The ornament is composed of straw, beautifully and artistically interlaced by the deft fingers of the maidens of Bride. It is called 'rionnag Brideog,' the star of little Bride. Pins, needles, bits of stone, bits of straw, and other things are given to Bride as gifts, and food by the mothers. Herbs and roots, while harvesting them, are treated with great praise; they’re called ‘great renown’ and ‘splendid’. The intent of the charm was often told to the plant when it was harvested. The following yarrow charm is one such example.

Ancient Prayers - The Carmina Gadelica

Reconstructionists and folklorists who say that Dagda isn’t the All-Father because he not the father of all the gods miss that Zeupater(sky-father), Jupiter(sky-father), Varuna Ptr(covering/surrounding father), and the All-Father Odin are also not direct fathers of the gods. They quintessentialize godhood itself. That’s why God is a title of Odin which was given to the germanic priest as Godar/Godi and Dyeus/Dyaus is actually sourced for many of the names of the other gods including his daughter Usas by way of *Aeusos and is the source for the word deity. It’s been suggested that Midsummer’s debauchery was originally orgiastic. Gundarsson suggests that Turgeis’ grave orgy took place at Midsummer. Swedish St. John’s Eve customs involve courtship. When Irish people took their cows up to the mountains for their summer/winter alternation at Bealtaine, the elders returned to their winter homes and the young people that remained would court each other for the summer. In ancient times, the practice would still be alive but might involve orgies. Hutsuls played fast and loose with infidelity and their midsummer was originally orgiastic. The same practice of casting lots for their fishing-banks prevails among the fisher-folks of the Lofodin Islands, Norway. Rees, Alwyn, and Brinley Rees. Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales . New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994. Print.

Stiùbhart, Domhnall Uilleam (2019). "The Theology of Carmina Gadelica". In Fergusson, David; Elliott, Mark (eds.). The History of Scottish Theology, Volume III: The Long Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198759355.003.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-875935-5.Robertson, Hamish. "Studies in Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica", Scottish Gaelic Studies, xii(2) (1976), p. 231.