CELTS- CELTIC - IRELAND - IRISH
Traditions and Stories, Fairy Folk, Fairy Tales, Folktales, Folklore, Legends,
Myths, Leprechauns, Blessings, Superstitions and General Information

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1) Query: Is anyone familiar with a Celtic myth involving pigs or pig-herding, fertility rites (involving sacrifice of chosen pig or sometimes even human) and a female (divine or otherwise) named Mokie or something similar?

Response: Animal Symbolism in Celtic Mythology
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lars/rel375.html

Response: Celtic Deities and Myths
Animal symbolism found in Celtic myths include boars, birds, serpents, fish, horse and cattle. Boars symbolise courage and strong warriors. Power and strength is attached to the bristles of the boar, which was held in high esteem by the Celts. There are many examples of supernatural boars and their adventures in the literary traditions of the Irish and the Welsh. The otherworld feast is supposed to be sustained by magical pigs which, no matter how many times they are cooked and eaten, are alive again the next day to be cooked again.
http://www.eliki.com/ancient/myth/celts/content.htm

Response: Isn't there something in Welsh mythology about herding pigs? I'm thinking of the Prydain books The Prydain Companion: A Reference Guide to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. And my handy pocket The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends by Stuart Gordon mentions that the Welsh Cerridwen ttranslates as the Old White Sow. Here's more: "In Welsh myth the hag Cerridwen (Old White Sow) who lived on an isle in Lake Tegid, set young Gwion Bach to stir a cauldron in which bubbled a Brew of Inspiration meant for her husband Tegid Foel, or maybe for her hideously ugly son, Afagddu, to compensate him for his looks. Gwion is warned never to taste the brew. Yet one dark night, with Cerridwen absent, the boiling pot spits out three drops, burning his thumb. Thrusting it into his mouth, he is thus inspired, he sees all things - including the fact that Cerridwen means to kill him. Pursued by her, he changes himself into a hare, she changes into a greyhound. Desperately he turns into a fish, but she turns into an otter: he becomes a bird, she becomes a hawk. At length he hides as a grain of corn on the threshing-floor, but as a hen she swallows him. Yet this is not the end. In seasonal myth, as in modern physics, there is no 'end': transformation is continual. Cerridwen is also fertility: having eaten him, nine months later she gives vbirth to him again. Unable to kill him, she puts him ina leather bag and throws him into Cardigan Bay. He drifts into a fish-weir to be found and renamed Taliesin, 'Radiant Brown', the wonder child who makes fools of all the poets at King Gwyddno's court."

Response: Pigs do feature in some Welsh stories, and also Irish. In the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, Math fab Mathonwy, the king of Dyfed in south-west Wales is said to have been given a herd of pigs by the King of Annwn (the Otherworld or Hell); he is tricked into selling them to the wizard Gwydion in return for leaves disguised as gold, and Gwydion escapes with them back to the north. A whole list of placenames including the element "moch" is then given, "mochyn", plural 'moch', being the Welsh for pig. I guess that your Mokie is derived from this (or Irish "mucc").

Response: There's also a story about a miraculous sow called Hen Wen (Old white) who comes from Cornwall and leaves gifts in the different regions, like wheat (gwenith) in Gwent. Her name was used by Lloyd Alexander. But she's more closely related to the wild boar Twrch Trwyth, and I think you're talking about domestic pigs.

The meaning of Ceridwen's name is disputed; a connection with "cariad," love, has been suggested.
Fertility rites sometimes/often need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Response: Pigs / boars are very important in Celtic mythology, and they crop up in various places. There's an important part of the The Mabinogion (Penguin Classics) which tells of a herd of pigs. I think it may be in the Fourth Branch, when Gwydion tells Math that Pryderi of Dyfed has pigs, which were gifts to his father Pwyll from Arawn, king of the underworld. Gwydion uses magic to get the herd of pigs, with major consequences. a female (divine or otherwise) named Mokie or something similar?

Moccus was the swine god of the continental Gauls. Moch and muc are the Welsh and Irish for pig. I don't know about a female - that could just be a fashionable feminising.

2) Query: Is Cap O'Rushes (and Other Folk Tales) Celtic?
What makes something a Celtic story? One told in, or translated from, a Celtic language certainly, i.e. Welsh, Irish, (Scottish) Gaelic, Manx, Breton.

Response: What about stories from Celtic countries which are told in English or French, but can be assumed to have been in Celtic originally? That's fair enough for most of them, including Cornwall , but what about Scotland? Should any Scottish story be called Celtic, or only those from the Highlands and Islands (and some from the Travellers, who travelled in both English and Gaelic areas, and even Ireland)? Scotland is nowadays usually labelled as "Celtic", but does that reflect its solidarity with the rest of the non-English nations more than its cultural inheritance? For instance, Thomas the Rhymer can be linked in with the historical Thomas of Ercildoune, who would have spoken Scots and lived in the C13th long after the Borders had ceased to be Celtic. It's certainly unreasonable to class the Scottish Border ballads as Celtic, but not the Northumbrian ones.

And similarly with stories from England, and that includes Cap O' Rushes, which comes from the very English county of Suffolk (the South Folk)? Are English stories to be called Celtic because England was
Celtic-speaking before the English invasions? Perhaps we should divide English stories into those which are of "Celtic" origins, and those which are Germanic? I can think of a German parallel with Cap O' Rushes, but nof offhand of any Celtic ones.

How do we decide? Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has an Irish relative with the Beheading Game, but is told in medieval English. There is an idea that the Fairy world is Celtic, which then claims Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin, but the Germanic peoples had their elves, and human-sized fairy women appear in many medieval countries - the French "fée" and "fay" ("faery" was originally the "glamour" cast by the fays) coming ultimately from the Latin "fata".

Response: Of course, there isn't a simple answer, or one that people will agree on. My own preference is not to say Celtic, unless I want to include more than one of the Celtic-speaking countries, but to be specific and say Welsh, Irish etc. Or if I want to include England, then British.

Response: James MacKillop, author of the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (1998), which was cited here recently for its pronunciation guide, has just published Myths and Legends of the Celts, Penguin, ISBN 0-140-51552-6. It's an expanded narrative version of the Dictionary that takes in the most recent historical and archaeological evidence and scholarly opinion. As with the Dictionary, Irish material predominates, but MacKillop is more knowledgeable than most Celtic scholars about the little-known Breton traditions, and so these are also given the attention they deserve. Unlike the Dictionary, there is a useful pronunciation guide for the leading names and terms in Celtic mythology, so you don't have to work out the pronunciation of each name letter by letter from the more general guide in the Dictionary.

Response: I can't give a critical review because I was involved in the editing of the book, and I contributed a section on Galicia and Asturias, the often neglected Celtic regions of northwest Spain.
Richard M. Irelnnd 5/31/05

3) The Parting Glass (traditional farewell)
http://www.contemplator.com/ireland/pglass.html

THE PARTING GLASS
Oh, all the money e'er I had,
I spent it in good company,
And all the harm I've ever done,
alas it was to none but me,
And all I've done for want of wit
to mem'ry now I can't recall;
So fill to me the parting glass,
goodnight and joy be with you all.

Oh, all the comrades e'er I had,
they're sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, t
hey'd wished me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot,
that I should go and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call,
goodnight and joy be with you all.

If I had money enough to spend,
And leisure time to sit awhile,
There is a fair maid in this town,
That sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,
I own she has my heart in thrall,
Then fill to me the parting glass,
Good night and joy be with you all.



(This web page updated 7/3/05; 10/16/06; 3//12/09)