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I love stories-- I love reading them,hearing them,and telling them myself.

One of the great good things about being a Druid and learning about my personal roots is the plentitude of Irish stories and the acceptable emphasis that our religion places on knowing them and making them a part of our world-view. !

As we read lore, however, I think that an important part of our understanding should stem from that very personal and individual process of integrating the stories into our own mental context. Not just what the tale 'means to me' or what lesson it can teach me that needs to be brought into my own life and beliefs but also what it meant and taught in the story-telling past; how it 'worked' then. On the one hand, this process should include our own knowledge of the culture of the day (the day of the lore-tellers and the participants, not our day). On the other hand, we should be aware of the historical context of the story told and its place in the entire body of lore. On the gripping hand, there is the unfortunate but unavoidable acknowledgement that much lore, both entire tales and series of tales as well as chunks and lines from what is preserved, has been lost, Christianized, or assigned to make-believe or hagiography. It must be re-imagined-- speculated about in a directed way-- in order to a recreate any sense of what the lore could have been when intact and part of the living dominant culture. !

I enjoy this process very much; it is like holding up a beautiful piece of sculpture or craftwork and turning it over in your hands, like imagining what is around the bend in the landscape picture, wondering what I would contribute if I was present at the re when the listeners and the story-teller talked it over after the story was told. I do not think that I can know the one and only answer to the question of how to interpret lore but I can (and do) create or imagine an answer that is logically consistent, rationally defensible, and artistically satisfying. Sometimes the process is small-- 'what if the story of the Three Little Pigs is about clan structure rather than forethought?' and sometimes it is enormous-- 'what might the Gods have told our ancestors that has since been lost?'.!

! !

At the end of the second battle of Mag Tuired one of the Morrgna (most likely either The Mrrigan or Badb) makes a prophecy, for which I use this translation:! Peace up to heaven.! Heaven down to earth.! Earth beneath heaven,! Strength in each,! A cup very full,! Full of honey;! Mead in abundance.! Summer in winter. . . .! Peace up to heaven . . ."!

! !

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cmt/cmteng.htm! ----------------------------------!

! ! !

Ancient Irish poetic rules dictate that the last word of one line should be either the same as or allusive to or metaphorically connected to the rst word of the next line. As well, the last line and the rst line should have circularity, that is should be exactly the same. So it is obvious that a number of lines are missing; I have lled in those lines with appropriate poetics:! Peace up to heaven.! Heaven down to earth.! Earth beneath heaven,! Strength in each,!

! Each in each piled,! ! Piled like a cup.! !


A cup very full,! Full of honey;!

Mead in abundance.! Abundance owers,!

! "Flowers like Summer.! ! Summer's inside winter. . . .! ! Winters a blanket,! ! Blanketing the green.! ! Green under the wet,! ! Wet is Summers peace.! !
Peace up to heaven . . ."

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