Celtic Lore & Legend

by Bob Curran

  CELTIC LORE & LEGEND

  Meet the Gods, Heroes, Kings, Fairies, Monsters, and Ghosts of Yore

  Compiled and Edited By Dr. Bob Curran

  Dedication

  To Mary,

  for her long-suffering and

  unstinting support in the

  writing of this book;

  and to Michael and Jennifer,

  for their faith

  in their father.

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to thank Derek Bryce and Llanerch Press for their permission to use their translations of two Breton folktales—“The Ankou” and “The Night Dancers”—and the Stuart Booth Collection for the use of the classic prints in this book. I would also like to thank Michael Pye at New Page Books for his help and encouragement throughout the writing of this book.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Mythological Tales

  Introduction

  Cruachan: The Place of the Sidhe

  Magical Stones

  The Battle Against Gigmagog

  The Coming of Fionn and the War Against the Norsemen

  The Origins of Y Tylwyth Teg

  The Tale of Connal

  Fireside Tales

  Introduction

  A Selection of Cornish Healing Charms and Spells

  A Holy Well in Cornwall

  Mrs. Sheridan: Encounters with the Fairies

  About the Fairies

  How Joan Lost the Sight of Her Eye

  The Priest’s Supper

  The Night Dancers

  The Blood-Drawing Ghost

  The Second Sight or the Taish

  Welsh Changeling Legends

  The Ankou

  Canwyll Corph: Corpse Candle

  The Fairy Commonwealth

  Fictional Tales

  Introduction

  Not to Be Taken at Bedtime

  The Brownie of the Black Haggs

  Thrawn Janet

  The Botathen Ghost

  Index

  About the Author

  Introduction

  The Celts, claimed Julius Caesar, wrote very little down. There was a very good reason for this: If written material were to fall into the hands of their enemies, it would disclose their strengths and weaknesses, their problems and uncertainties, their way of looking at the world. It could leave them open for conquest. And so, although they did have a written language, the tradition of the Celts was primarily an oral one. Information, history, and cultural perceptions were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, building into a corpus of lore and legend that persisted even when the Celtic peoples became more settled.

  Amongst the Celts, too, were those who were the custodians of such tradition—the storytellers and poets who were known as Bards and fili. These were the men (and women) who remembered the great kings who had ruled, the mysterious and inexplicable events that had befallen their communities, together with the genealogies of the leading families of the region. These were the people who offered history, tradition, and interpretation all rolled into one through the medium of oral story and tale. They were treated with deference and respect because they were the repositories of the traditions and culture that shaped their societies. In some places where the Celts have settled, this oral tradition continues even today through the medium of the seanachie, or local storyteller.

  The stories that were passed down from one generation to the next—the lore of the community—were those of ancient gods and kings, of great heroes, of awful monsters, of passionate love in the face of adversity. As the centuries passed and one storyteller followed another, details were added or amended to give the tales more imminence, more terror, more splendor, or to fit them into the context in which they were told. Tales, therefore, shifted localities, characters changed, details were added—all crafted and molded by the storyteller’s art. Despite changes and modifications, such tales retained the perceptions, traditions, and hopes of the Celtic race.

  From time to time, great communal festivals such as the Irish Ard Feis or the Welsh Eisteddfod were held not only to celebrate the unity, skill, and strength of the Celtic people, but also their storytelling abilities. Here the Bards performed, displaying their imagination and talents to full effect. Although these events were national gatherings often used for the swearing of allegiance to a national ruler, they were not the sole venue at which Celtic stories were celebrated. In local areas, there were smaller gatherings, many of which persisted almost into modern times in rural Ireland as ceilidh-houses, or houses in which people from the local community met in order to sing songs, recite poetry, and tell stories. Sadly, with the advent of television and other forms of media, such places have now more or less died out.

  Many of the stories told in these venues had a strongly local flavor and concerned aspects that were familiar to the audiences who heard them. They dealt with everyday life: work, romance, relations with neighbors, and the landscape all around. As with the epic legends before them, these stories were passed orally from generation to generation. As new cultural trends began to take precedence amongst the Celtic peoples, many of these old stories appeared to lose their immediacy and significance and were gradually lost to memory. Part of the Celtic tradition had vanished. And the oral tradition continues to vanish today as the last of the old generations die off.

  Initially, no attempt was made to write any of these tales down. The Celts themselves were a predominantly oral people with little impetus to formally record any of their tradition. (Julius Caesar seems to suggest they were expressly forbidden to write by their druids, or holy men, for fear of such texts falling into the hands of others.) Ironically, it was the dying of the pagan way of life that spawned many of the stories and the coming of the new religion—Christianity—that actually preserved the traditions. It was the monks of the new order who first wrote down some of these ancient tales in order to pad out their holy commentaries and lives of saints and to make their teachings more acceptable to their formerly pagan audiences. The stories they recorded were the epic legends of the former tradition: tales of heroes and mighty fighting men, of sorcery and battles, of monsters and warriors. They were the oral traditions the Bards had proclaimed. These legends were gathered together into collections that formed the basis of the Great Myth Cycles, some of which have been passed down to us today. Although there may originally have been many more, only two of these Cycles survive today: the Irish and the Welsh. Other epics may have devolved into lesser collections, which were remembered by the seanachies—the direct successors of the Bards.

  The name seanachie is an Irish word that traditionally means “man of lore” (although there were women amongst them, too). This is an excellent name, as it encapsulates what the traditional storyteller was all about. He (or she) was the repository of all the communal wisdom and experience that had percolated down across the years and the one who revealed such wisdom and interpretation through the entertaining medium of stories and remembrances. The “man of lore” offered up interpretations of the landscape round about—sometimes tinged with local history, sometimes with local imagination.

  At one time in rural Ireland, nearly every district had its particular seanachie. And areas in other parts of the Celtic world had the same. As mentioned earlier, these storytellers were an integral part of the communities in which they lived. Because of them, the tales had taken on a more homely, localized quality. These were not primarily stories of great gods, kings, and heroes, but rather they were tales of locally known characters, of fairies, of ghosts, and of the supernatural. They were the tales told by the fireside on a dark evening to friends and neighbors who had gathered round. They were stories that bound a community together and also gave it its ident
ity. In effect, they were the means that shaped the society all around, as well as explained and interpreted it to itself.

  Despite all of this traditional cohesion, societies began to fragment and split as the years went by and other forms of social interaction took over. Local traditions and tales began to be viewed as being too parochial and as having no relevance to the developing modern world. Television, with its imported culture, began to invade the kitchens where once the local storyteller had reigned supreme. Cinema offered wonders that were said to rival the greatest efforts of the tale-spinners. Gradually, the seanachies and people of lore began to slip away into the shadows as other forms of entertainment came to the forefront. Though there were still some gatherings in the ceilidh-houses of Ireland and other parts of the Celtic world during the 1950s and early 1960s, they had all but died out completely by the 1980s. And with them went the stories and legends.

  The tales themselves, however, did not completely die out. Realizing what was happening, some folklorists did make an attempt to record for posterity at least some of the old tales and perceptions. Stories were transcribed into both written text and audio format, and so some archives were built up. And, of course, there are written accounts of the great Myth Cycles that were preserved across the ages. But it has to be said that the majority of the old tales were lost as the human repositories of this lore died off.

  And yet, the stories themselves did not quite die. Because they were so intricately interwoven with the perceptions and experiences of the Celtic peoples, their influence continued to bubble under the surface of Celtic society. They began to drift into the more mainstream art forms. Writers, artists, playwrights, musicians, and poets who had personal roots in the Celtic world were aware of these legends and used them and the themes they suggested in their work. Although these may not have been the tales of great gods and heroes or stories told by the fireside, the modern works owe much to the lore and language of such tales—tales that the Celts had crafted over the centuries and have now found their way into a more modern idiom. The influence, the perception, and the vision were still there. The lore and legend that had underpinned the earlier tales are present in the more modern works and continue to be so to this day.

  This book is a celebration of that lore and legend. Its main purposes are to explore the old tales that have come down to us across the years and to see how they have shaped and honed our perceptions about Celtic life. In order to do this, I have followed a chronological structure that has already been laid out. The Mythological Tales section looks at some of the tales that have appeared in the Great Myth Cycles—those tales of heroes and gods. Because, as has already been noted, the Irish and Welsh Cycles are really the only ones that are in existence, many of the stories from them have been overly published in other volumes. This collection seeks out some of the lesser-known tales and presents them for the reader’s interest and delight.

  The second section, Fireside Tales, contains stories from a later chronological period, although the two sections are not necessarily mutually exclusive. These are the stories that reflect the hopes, ideals, fears, and opinions of the later Celtic people, which were passed on by the seanachies who gathered around the fires in communal kitchens throughout the Celtic world. They are tales of witches, ghosts, fairies, and the like—things that had a distinct imminence to our Celtic forebears.

  The final section of the book, Fictional Tales, serves to demonstrate how the ancient stories have influenced more modern writers. Themes that are common in many of these old tales, together with some of their more supernatural aspects, have influenced authors—especially ghost and horror authors—who have in turn placed some of them at the center of their works. Even in some of today’s more visual works (graphic novels and films) such as Slaine and Hellboy, the influence of some of the old Celtic tales is evident. Indeed, Hellboy’s creator, Mike Mignola, often seems to borrow directly from Celtic folktale and myth for some of his work. It would therefore be an omission not to include such material in this volume.

  Within Western culture, the influence of Celtic lore and legend spans a wide and diverse spectrum, ranging from the early Bardic storytellers to modern-day graphic illustrators and filmmakers. The Celtic contribution to the way we think, read, and imagine is incalculable; therefore, it is timely that this book should celebrate that contribution. The selections have been made so that they reflect the breadth and scope of the Celtic vision and perception. They come from a number of differing sources from the countries that made up the western Celtic world: from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany, and the Isle of Man. By doing so, hopefully this book reflects both the unity and diversity of the Celtic experience. So turn the pages and read on. Behold a world that lies just beyond the edge of your mortal perception—an unseen world that may now be drawing steadily further away from us as the years roll by and new interpretations take hold, but that was once very imminent to our ancient Celtic ancestors: the world of Celtic lore and legend.

  Mythological

  Tales

  Introduction

  The first stories amongst the Celtic peoples were oral ones. They were most probably told around the campfires by warriors and old men. As with most stories, they reflected the world these people knew. These were tales of great battles, of the deeds of heroes and kings, and of places with which they were familiar. Some of these stories may have been personal memories, but others had certainly been passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another.

  Storytelling was highly valued amongst the Celtic peoples: the stories that came down across the ages gave them their identity and distinctiveness. Professional storytellers and recounters of tales soon began to emerge amongst them. These were the Bards, a specific group within Celtic society charged with recording the deeds of kings and men of valor, as well as the remarkable events within their respective communities. These men (and women) enjoyed great status in their society, but with this came the daunting task of remembering and being able to recite the great tales that characterized their communities. Every three years or so, great festivals were held at which reciters recounted their tales and competed with each other in the complexity and vividness of their stories, many of which were in verse in order to aid memory. In Ireland, for instance, such a gathering was known as an Ard Feis. This festival also held political significance in that it combined recitations, feats of strength, and so on, with the swearing of loyalty by all sub-rulers and chieftains to the High King. Today, this tradition is carried on in Wales through the Eisteddfod, or the Gathering of the Bards. In order to outdo each other and to help their own memory, the Bards embellished their tales, adding to the basic structure with elements out of their own imaginations. So, centered around the basic incident of the story itself, the Bards wove a wonderful fantasy that enthralled and excited their listeners.

  Such tales were recounted directly from memory—a great feat by any means, considering the length and complexity of the stories and that none of them were written down. This did not occur until much later, as Christianity began to spread across the Celtic world. Monks, the scholars of their day, slowly and systematically began to record some of these old stories in written form. They had probably heard these stories from local storytellers. At first, some of the legends were simply added to pad out more religious texts, such as an addition at the end of the life of a saint. Gradually, however, the monastic scribes began to write down collections of tales. Roughly around the 10th and 11th centuries, some of these anthologies began to circulate throughout the Celtic world, forming, in effect, some of the earliest corpus of legendary lore that we have in the West. These were the Great Myth Cycles: stories of legendary heroes and rulers who made war on each other and who transacted with supernatural entities and races, such as the Sidhe, and of strange places far beyond mortal knowledge.

  Only part of this literature survives, and it only remains in fragmentary form. The main remnants of the Myth Cycles are to be found in Ireland and Wales, wh
ere such works as the Tain Bo Cuailnge (“The Cattle Raid of Cooley”) and the Mabinogion are still extant. However, much of the remaining literature is now lost. For instance, it is thought that Scotland once boasted a rich and vibrant mythological cycle, but that it was largely destroyed during the history of that turbulent country and during the Scottish Reformation. Other isolated fragments of the Myth Cycles appear in places such as Cornwall and the Isle of Man, but these are only small remnants of a once great storytelling tradition.

  As we read some of the ancient tales, we must also remember that the monkish clerics who wrote and copied them down were not altogether unbiased. As with the pagan storytellers of old, they shaped the tales to their own perspective, introducing elements of morality and justice that perhaps some of the original stories lacked. And yet the pagan tradition shines through, giving a depth and undoubted antiquity to the tales. These are the earliest fantasies of the Celtic peoples, born in the dawn of their civilization and just as vivid and vibrant as when they were first told around the warrior campfires eons ago.

  Cruachan: The Place of the Sidhe

  For the early Celts, the land assumed an almost magical significance. They believed they had emerged from the land and that the land was a part of them. It gave them their sustenance and shaped their identity. And it was filled with spirits and forces that continually watched human beings—spirits that might aid or attack them if they so chose. Such forces inhabited rocks, trees, wells, and hills and had existed alongside mankind ever since the foundation of the world. These were the Sidhe, the “People of the Mounds,” and their dwellings were sometimes characterized by the ancient tumuli and earthworks of former peoples who had lived on the land that the Celts now inhabited.

  The Celtic peoples often sought to appease these forces so that they could count upon their goodwill, and so many ancient kings built their forts and strongholds close to the places where the Sidhe might be dwelling. This combined well with their strong sense of place and associated certain chieftains with areas that were magical or had some sort of supernatural connotation. It was hoped that the ancient powers of the site would somehow influence the powers of the chieftain and his clan. Places, therefore, held a special significance in the Celtic mind. These were the places of the fairies, the physical manifestations of those early and dangerous forces.