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Post by megli on Oct 11, 2010 7:41:28 GMT -1
I can't be arsed, I'm afraid!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2010 17:46:53 GMT -1
I liked this story too, it provoked a lot of thought and imagining. What is the classical source that mentions the druids believing that the yoking of syllables created the world? Thinking of the deities with 3 heads made me think of the three-faced Irish stone heads - like the Corleck head in the National Museum which conveys such strong personality in very few lines and the one in the Colmcille Heritage Centre in Donegal. The latter is on a plinth in the centre of the room so you can walk around it and it is quite an eerie experience as each face morphs into another... it would be quite powerful in a ritual sense I've always thought. I remember going to a series of classes with Ann Ross many years ago. Her vision of Celtic religion was dark - based on the three gods Esus, Taranis and Teutatis ("Teutatis, the God of the People" she used to ring out his full title) and with sacrifice figuring heavily - which she seemed to relish (it was at the time of her book on the Druid Prince, Lindow Man). But then many religions practised (as some still do of course) blood sacrifice - including human sacrifice - but gradually abandoned it and so the druids, had they survived, might well have done so too. I don't think that because we might not like some of their practices it means that we can't draw any inspiration at all from them, or what we think we know of them, which admittedly isn't much
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2010 15:25:04 GMT -1
The idea of yoking the syllables is also Vedic, but the idea that the druids believed they created the world is attested in a classical source. I realise now that I misread what you said here and that the 'they' referred to the druids themselves creating the world, not to the yoking of syllables creating the world. (I'd just been intrigued by reading about a paper in which the author puts forward the idea that the darkening of speech - fordorchadh - was a quality that signified well-being in the land e.g. obscure 'magical' poetry that upheld fir flathemon, the justice of the ruler - so the idea that the yoking of the syllables helped to recreate the world was a kind of allied idea). Anyway, I'm still interested in the idea that the druids thought they created the world. I only know of the Strabo reference that says the druids and others thought the universe, and men's souls, were indestructible although fire and water could prevail at times. If they thought they created the world (and that it was indestructible) then they were the ultimate shapers and makers and since some words for poets - OI creth and Welsh prydydd - come from words for shaping it gives one something to muse upon (in a non-academic way of course). Which classical source was it? Was it around the time of Strabo? Was it Greek or Roman? I'd like to have a look.
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Post by megli on Dec 17, 2010 16:18:58 GMT -1
...and can I remember? Can I buggery.
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Post by megli on Dec 17, 2010 16:23:06 GMT -1
re fordorchadh, do you know Robin chapman stacey's book on Irish legal idiom, 'dark speech'?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2010 13:26:54 GMT -1
Oh yes, spent many happy hours in the garden in the summer reading Dark Speech - though haven't read it all and indeed would need several readings to really grasp a lot of it. I came to it through having got intrigued by the caldron of poesy text - early Irish law is not something I know very much about.
But what an amazing book - packed with info and ideas - and the notes and bibliography alone are a really useful resource. I had to buy my own (second-hand) copy.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2012 10:36:55 GMT -1
The idea of yoking the syllables is also Vedic, but the idea that the druids believed they created the world is attested in a classical source. Just to tie up loose ends, (in case anyone else is interested) I think I've come across the source for this on the excellent Tairis website (the page on Creation) www.tairis.co.uk: The Senchus Mór comments that the druids “claim that they themselves created heaven and earth and sea, etc. the sun and the moon, etc. Ref: Hancock, Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland Volume I: Introduction to Senchus Mor and Athgabail or Law of Distress, 1865, p37. Bruce Lincoln interprets this to mean that it was the druidic rituals they performed that repeated this act of creation, “in order to sustain the latter against decay and ultimate collapse.” Lincoln, Death, War and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice, 1991, p170; p182. Hilaire
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Post by Chad on May 8, 2013 6:41:41 GMT -1
What a moving story. Albeit I am much late on making a comment to that effect. I, myself am working on a story inspired by the ancient Brythons. You have a wonderful story here. Great job! A story worthy of being told to our decendants.
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