#WyrdWednesday #LegendaryWednesday: `The circle „Holme I“, consisting of an upturned tree-stump surrounded by 55 closely fitted #oak posts, was originally built on the saltmarsh away from the sea and specialists estimate it to have been built of timbers dating from the spring of 2049 BC.
Dr David Nance explains: “Dating of the Seahenge timbers showed they were felled in the spring, and it was considered most probable that these timbers were aligned with sunrise on the summer solstice.
He suggests that its function was to mimic the ‘pen’ described in folklore for an unfledged cuckoo with the intention to keep the bird singing and thereby extend the summer.
“Summer solstice was the date when according to folklore the cuckoo, symbolising fertility, traditionally stopped singing, returned to the Otherworld and the summer went with it,’ Dr Nance added.
“The monument’s form appears to imitate two supposed winter dwellings of the cuckoo remembered in folklore: a hollow tree or ‘the bowers of the #Otherworld’ represented by the upturned oak-stump at its centre.
“This ritual is remembered in the ‘myth of the pent cuckoo’ where an unfledged cuckoo was placed into a thorn bush and the bird was ‘walled-in’ to extend the summer but it always flew away.”
Source: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/23205

Otherworld 1x03 "Paradise Lost" ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ https://trakt.tv/comments/936445 #Otherworld #trakt

I'm about to watch Otherworld 1x03 "Paradise Lost" https://trakt.tv/shows/otherworld/seasons/1/episodes/3 #Otherworld #trakt

#MythologyMonday #Celtic: `In #Irish #mythology, the Ail na Míreann or "stone of divisions" on the #HillOfUisneach is described as the navel of #Ireland. It is seen as a kind of omphalos or axis mundi of Ireland, a meeting place between the Earth and the #Otherworld and the source of creation.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Uisneach

#FolkloreThursday: `A late (16th–18th century) version of the goddess of sovereignty through whose right a king could rule in #Ireland, the spéir-bhean (sky woman; https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobindrums/774172081/) was depicted by bards of the time as a beautiful young woman, possibly from the #Otherworld, who wandered the roads searching for the land’s true leader. Her name was sometimes given as Cathleen ni Houlihan, sometimes is Roisin Dubh or Dark Rosaleen. Sometimes she appeared as the Shan Van Vocht (Sean-bhean Bhocht), the “poor old woman,” who recalls the hag who turned young again when kissed by the rightful ruler. The most famous version of the spéir-bhean is found in William Butler Yeats’s play Cathleen ni Houlihan written for the revolutionary leader Maude Gonne.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`

#FolkloreSunday #Celtic: `#Fairies were not evil. However, they were amoral, not tied to the moral and ethical demands of humanity. They were merely playful troublemakers rather than devilish opponents. They commonly tried to lead travelers astray. This was a minor inconvenience and could be quite frightening, but even without protection, the #fairy eventually grew bored with the trick and released the ensnared human.
More seriously, the fairies attempted to lure useful or attractive people into the #Otherworld, to do their bidding until released.`
Source: P. Monaghan `Encyclopedia of #Celtic #Mythology and #Folklore`

#NationalStoryTellingWeek #BookologyThursday: `#Celtic myths are symbolic, so we need to interpret them to draw out their wisdom. As a result, it's probably worth asking if interpretation was ever a part of the Celtic storytelling tradition?
Cormac is led into the land of paradise, the land of wonder, the #Otherworld, and there he witnesses strange things. He finds himself in the midst of a great plain, having passed through mists into this other realm, where visions unfold before him.
„Then Cormac found himself in the midst of a great plain. There was a great stronghold in the midst of the plain, and a silver rampart around it, and a house half of gold in the midst of the stronghold half-thatched with the wings of birds, and a troop of horsemen of the sid gathering the wings of many-coloured birds for the house. And they put those wings upon the house without a splinter [to fasten them), and they were falling off that troop of horsemen did from the beginning of the world until its end …
After Cormac had gone on he saw a warrior kindling a fire. He would fetch a great tree-trunk, root, and crown, and would put the trunk on the fire and go to fetch another; and nothing of the first tree-trunk would be left when he returned. And this was the business and labour of that man from the beginning of the world until ist end.“
As Cormac journeys further through the Otherworld, he meets Manannán Mac Lir and his wife, with whom he shares food. A central theme of this meeting is truth-telling, which becomes linked to the interpretation of the visions. Manannán explains`:
"The world from which you have come is the present world. The horsemen you saw thatching the house are the skilled professionals of the world ... : and everything which they bring home after going on a circuit melts away and decomposes into nothing while they are on the next circuit, without profit or prosperity (remaining). As for the man kindling a fire, he is the victuallers and young noblemen of the world: it is they themselves who consume everything which they labour to produce. ... , and whatever they consume this year, often they pay for it the next year."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RFz5ygHIw8