Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations

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Allen, William E. D. The Poet and the Spae-wife: An Attempt to Reconstruct Al-Ghazali’s Embassy to the Vikings . Dublin: Figgis, 1960. Print. By the 1800s and early 1900s, these practices would have mostly died out and were told about as tales around home turf fires. But when they were carried out, they would be carried out by young people where most of the elders had lost interest in them (Danaher, 1972, 135). Dixon-Kennedy, Mike. Encyclopedia of Russian & Slavic Myth and Legend . Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1999. Print. Although Carmina Gadelica remains a controversial text, its volumes have to be read in the context of Carmichael's own times, a period of widespread political strife in the Highlands, when habitual contempt of Gaels, their language and their culture was widespread and publicly expressed. In the words of Gaelic scholar Dr John MacInnes, ' Carmina Gadelica is not a monumental exercise in literary fabrication nor, on the other hand, is it a transcript of ancient poems and spells reproduced exactly in the form in which they survived in oral tradition.' [12] Despite its flaws, Carmina Gadelica remains an indispensable source for the popular culture, customs, beliefs, and way of life of Scottish Gaels in the nineteenth century.

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. The distinctive nature of Catholic folk religion in the Scottish Highlands. Research into Carmina Gadelica suggests that Carmichael’s vision for his multi-volume compendium reflects contemporary Celtic nationalist perspectives on the Protestant Reformation as being a culturally disruptive outside imposition threatening older, more indigenous Catholic oral traditions, customs, and beliefs.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. Jungmann, Josef Andreas, Irvine, Christopher and Coyne, John. "Lorica", Christian Prayer Through the Centuries, Paulist Press, 2007 ISBN 9780809144648 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.

Image: from University of St Andrews Special Collection, first edition of “Carmina Gadelica” vol.1 (Edinburgh, T & A Constable, 1900), Christmas song with Alexander Carmichael’s English translation There are many legends and customs connected with Bride. Some of these seem inconsistent with one another, and with the character of the Saint of Kildare. These seeming inconsistencies arise from the fact that there were several Brides, Christian and pre-Christian, whose personalities have become confused in the course of centuries--the attributes of all being now popularly ascribed to one. Bride is said to preside over fire, over art, over all beauty, 'fo cheabhar agus fo chuan,' beneath the sky and beneath the sea. And man being the highest type of ideal beauty, Bride presides at his birth and dedicates him to the Trinity. She is the Mary and the Juno of the Gael. She is much spoken of in connection with Mary,--generally in relation to the birth of Christ. She was the aid-woman of the Mother of Nazareth in the lowly stable, and she is the aid-woman of the mothers of Uist in their humble homes. The kindling of two fires, one of them friction and kindled by the other is usually a May 1st custom as is running cows and people through those fires for blessing and purification. Rich Herbal LoreI modified this charm for the times and with my intersectional sensibilities of today. Deities of Midsummer Edited and introduced the collection Alexander Carmichael: Life and Legacy (Islands Book Trust, 2008)