Priestess of the Fire Temple (22 page)

And all who dwell in it

Health, happiness, and prosperity

Be upon this house and family!
17

And then everyone was invited to enter and admire Artrach's handiwork.

“I used rowan wood wherever I could, to protect us from harm,” he said proudly, pointing to the wooden spokes of the ceiling that held up the bundles of golden thatch. Everyone agreed that this was a sensible precaution. Nessa's oil lamp glowed with three oil-soaked wicks, bathing the one-room house in honey-colored light.

Bards sang and played their harps and drums for us outside on the lawn. The younger Druid danced on the grass and leapt the fires for luck, and everyone had their fill of mid, roasted meats, honey-sweetened breads and pies, and other delicacies.

Crithid, who had been moping about, looked visibly brightened at the feast. He had found a pretty flaxen-haired girl who was obviously delighted to return his attentions. I was very glad to see that.

The celebration went on for three days and nights, with guests coming and going from every corner of the tuath. Each celebrant brought us some useful tool or household item that we might need. There was a beautifully carved chest for our grain stores and another for our clothing, and piles of woven plaids and cloths were heaped on top. The Bríg Brigu gave me a quern that was handed down from her own family; I could feel the ancestral spirits that still clung to it. Before long I was appealing to them for guidance when grinding wheat or spelt. One guest even brought me a loom, which I later used outside on sunny days.

By the third day I swear I had enough baskets, pots, dishes, spoons, bowls, blankets, linens, furs, and baby clothes for three families. There was a massive pile of dry peat to one side of the house, just outside the door, and what looked like a small mountain of cut firewood neatly stacked on the other side. Everything was well covered with thick straw to keep it from the damp.

In my heart I had forgiven the Bríg Brigu for her plan to keep me and Artrach apart. I understood that everything she did was for the good of the Druid of the present and of the future.

“I am very pleased that you are bringing the next generation into this world,” said the Bríg Brigu to me and Artrach when we had a moment alone, “even if it means that Aislinn won't be the next Bríg Brigu, at least for a while.

“For we are now entering the time of the dark sun, when our task is to hide and preserve our knowledge, traditions, and rituals. But one day an awakening sun will dawn, and then it will be our mission to bring our beliefs and ways back out once more, for the entire world to see.
18

“There will come a day when all the gods will be honored. The
people
will finally understand that this is the way to true peace, because wherever only one god is honored and all the others dishonored, that is ever the quickest path to war.”

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Epilogue

Spring came at last. Now the days were so warm that the Druid came to take down the sheepskin coverings from my windows so that I could see the budding trees against the clear blue sky. A yellow pool of sunlight fell across my bed, and I basked in its warm glow.

I turned to the neophyte priestess who was so important to me. “Your grandfather, Artrach, and I never found the time to tell you these tales in full, busy as we were with our students and our other obligations.”

There were tears in her eyes as she met my gaze.

“Will you promise me something, my child?” I asked.

“Of course,” she answered.

“Promise never to forget these things that I have told you.”

“I promise,” she said.

She was Druid-trained, and I knew that her word was true.

Bail, a Brighde, ar an obair.
Bless, O Brighid, the work.

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Historical Note

According to tradition, there were once five major ritual fires in Éire. One was in County Cork, one in Sligo, one in County Offaly, and one at Cill Daire (Kildare). These fires were circular and surrounded by hedge enclosures. Women tended them, and the flames were always started by friction and fanned by bellows (never the breath). The fifth sacred fire was at Uisneach, County Meath, in the exact geographic center of the island, under the supervision of the Ard-Drui.

The most famous of these Fire Altars in modern times is the one once maintained by Saint Brighid and her nuns at Cill Daire, built on the foundations of an earlier Pagan Fire Temple. Modern nuns have symbolically re-lit the sacred flames by keeping a candle burning in Brighid's honor.

The perpetual fire of the Archdruid at Uisneach, County Meath, was the place where, according to tradition, Mide lit the first sacred fire. Flames from the central fire at Uisneach were transported by runners to every province at Beltaine (May 1) after all household fires had been put out, an act of spiritual unification in a land fractured into many small, competing kingdoms.

A bag of grain and a pig were sent to Uisneach from every chief in Éire each year in payment for the sacred flames.

Uisneach was a public park for all Irish citizens to enjoy until the government of Ireland recently sold it to a cow farmer. Now the ancient Fire Temple of the Ard-Drui rests peacefully under the cows, grass, and the hawthorns on the hill, waiting for the day when it will be brought to light and honored properly once more.

For more details on these sacred fires, please see Ó Duinn, 63–69.

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Notes

1. From
Audacht Morainn
, edited by Fergus Kelly, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, 1976. Old Irish law text of advice to kings.

2. Traditional invocation attributed to Saint Patrick from the prayer known as Patrick's Breastplate.

3. For more details on the uses of heather, rowan, and reeds for healing, please see my book
A Druid's Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine
(Destiny Books, 2008).

4. Based on the ancient Sanskrit “Salutation to All Creation”: “
Bhumi-Mangalam,Udaka-Mangalam, Agni-Mangalam, Vayu- Mangalam, Gagana-Mangalam, Surya-Mangalam, Chandra-Mangalam
(salutation to the earth, salutation to the water, salutation to the fire, salutation to the wind, salutation to the sky, salutation to the moon, salutation to the universe)…”

5. Story adapted from The Cattle-Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúalnge).

6. For more on the Law of Bees, please see T. Charles-Edwards and F. Kelly, “BechBretha: An Old Irish Law Tract on Bee Keeping, Early Irish Series, Vol. 1,” Dublin, 1983.

7. Invocation of the Goddess Brighid by Ellen Evert Hopman. Old Irish translation by Alexei Kondratiev.

8. For a further explanation of the eclipse cycle, please see NASA's eclipse website and the Saros Cycle at eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEperiodicity.html.

9. While visiting Cornwall and other once Celtic areas, I was struck by how the stone circles often had nineteen stones. I used my poetic imbas to come up with a plausible explanation. See these examples: Merry Maidens, Cornwall (www.stonepages.com/england/merrymaidens.html); Callanish, Lewis, Scotland (www.stonesofwonder.com/callanis.htm); Casterton stone circle, Cumbria, England (www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/stones/stones.shtml); Boscawen Un Circle (Nine Maidens), Cornwall (www.pznow.co.uk/historic1/stonecircles.html); Torhouse Stone Circle, Wigtown, Scotland (www.ancient-stones.co.uk/dumfries/011/017/details.htm); White Moor Down, Devon, England (www.megalithics.com/england/whitmoor/whitmain.htm).

10. Loosely inspired by Carmina Gadelica 533.

11. This ritual is based on a Vedic rite performed in the holy city of Gaya, where a person passes through the natural tunnel called the Brahma-Yoni to make offerings that absolve him or her of all debts due to their ancestors and also liberates their ancestors from the horrors of the netherworld.

12. Loosely based on Carmina Gadelica 84.

13. Inspired by Carmina Gadelica 132, “Charm for a Broken Bone,” and similar Anglo-Saxon and Celtic healing charms.

14. Loosely based on the ancient Irish poem called “Fer Fio's Cry.”

15. Based on a
Rennes Dindsenechas
poem on the Yew of Ross, one of the five magical trees of Ireland.

16. Inspired by rituals found in the Rig Veda such as “the sacrifice of the horse” (fn p. 92), where thirty-four of the horse's ribs (he has thirty-six) are distributed, one to the sun, one to the moon, five to the planets, and twenty-seven to the constellations.

17. Loosely inspired by hymns in the Carmina Gadelica such as 339, Blessing of the House.

18. This is actually a prophecy from the indigenous elders of Mexico, who said seven hundred years ago that the world was about to enter the time of the “Dark Sun” and that the knowledge kept by traditional religions had to be held and protected. The prophecy states that we who are alive today are about to enter the time of the “Awakening Sun,” and we must send out messages of healing to the world and seek true oneness with all people, not just tolerance. The prophecy seems fitting for all indigenous paths and religions, and so I have included it here.

• For more information on filidecht, the grades of poets, and laws pertaining to poets, see Liam Breatnach, editor, “Uraicecht na Ríar—The Poetic Grades in Early Irish Law” (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, 1987).

• For more information on Celtic uses of plants, please see my books
A Druid's Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year
,
A Druid's Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine
, and
Scottish Herbs and Fairy Lore.

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Bibliography
and Sources

Bamford, Christopher, and William Parker Marsh, editors.
Celtic Christianity: Ecology and Holiness
. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press, 1987.

Bitel, Lisa M., and Felice Lifshitz, editors.
Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe: New Perspectives
. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

Campbell, John Gregorson.
The Fians; or, Stories, Poems & Traditions of Fionn
and His Warrior Band: Collected Entirely from Oral Sources
. Elibron Classics (a facsimile of the 1891 edition published by David Nutt, London), 2005.

Dames, Michael.
Mythic Ireland
. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1992.

Elder, Isabel Hill.
Celt, Druid and Culdee
. Thousand Oaks, CA: Artisan, 1990.

Green, Miranda.
Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers.
New York: George Braziller, 1996.

Henderson, George.
Survivals in Belief Among the Celts
. London: MacMillan and Co. Ltd., 1911.

Hopman, Ellen Evert.
A Druid's Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year.
Rochester,
VT: Destiny Books, 1994.

———.
A Druid's Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine.
Rochester,
VT: Destiny Books, 2008.

———.
Scottish Herbs and Fairy Lore.
Sunland, CA: Pendraig Publishing, 2011.

Hutton, Ronald.
The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.

Mackillop, James.
Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Ó Duinn, Seán.
The Rites of Brigid: Goddess and Saint
. Blackrock,Ireland: Columba Press, 2005.

O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, translator.
The Rig Veda
. London: Penguin, 1981.

O'Kelly, Claire.
Illustrated Guide to Newgrange and the Other Boyne Monuments.
Blackrock, Ireland: Ardnalee, 1978.

Web Resources

www.libraryireland.com/Social-History.php

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Appendix

The Evidence for Female Druids

Gaine daughter of pure Gumor,
Nurse of mead-loving Mide,
Surpassed all women though she was silent;
She was learned and a seer and a Druid.

—from “The Metrical Dinsenchas,” a history of the places of Ireland, compiled by medieval monks

Most modern Pagans are Wiccans or Witches, according to the few surveys that have been done; we Druids are still a tiny minority. Women of Celtic heritage have told me that they did not pursue the Druid path because “the Druids were all men”—but as more and more women study Celtic history, get degrees, do research, write books, and teach in the colleges, the word is finally getting out that this is not so. But for millennia it has been a well-kept secret.

Some of the blame for this misconception can be placed on the Roman historians who reported on Celtic culture, even as they decimated the Druids, who were the intelligentsia of the tribes. The Romans tended to ignore, downplay, or overlook the true status of Celtic women.

The next groups to document Celtic society were male Christian monks, who also tended to ignore and downplay the status of Celtic women while capturing the tales and oral histories in their scriptoria. Finally, as modern archaeology and scholarship focused on Celtic artifacts and history, scholars until very recently were almost all men, who downplayed or ignored the role of powerful women in ancient Celtic times. But the evidence was always there for those who cared to find it.

The word
Druid
derives from the Indo-European
deru
, which carries meanings such as “truth,” “true,” “hard,” “enduring,” “resistant,” and “tree.”
Deru
evolved into the Greek word
drus
(“oak”) and referred over time to all trees as well as the words
truth
and
true
.
Id
comes from
wid
, “to know”, related to both
wisdom
and
vision
. A
Dru-id
is a truth-knower and a true-knower, one with solid and enduring wisdom, a tree-knower, and an expert.