[Cro Dreoilin] Reading Group, 10 July 2011, Recap.

[Chris Redmond]

Hey, all. Here is our usual summary of the event of the Reading Group, 
opening the discussion up to the list at large.

In attendance on Sunday were Sebastian, Clay, Mary, Chris and Kelley. We 
had good an wide-ranging discussion.

As is our wont, we opened first with asking if anyone had any questions 
or comments. Sebastian brought up something we had intended to bring up 
ourselves:  Sjoestedt kept saying things like " ... the inherent dualism 
of the Celts ...", which made us all go "Huh?!" We pointed out that she 
shows some definite biases of her era and that the book was written in 1940.

Then we briefly discussed what place such studies had for the religious 
pagan. Since we believe in the Gods, to what extent are the conclusions 
drawn in such studies true of the Gods themselves and to what extent are 
they a tool for our own understanding of the Gods? How does study of 
this type help our own religious practice and belief?

We pointed out a few errors and different perspectives on the material, 
for instance, Sjoestedt has it that the Tuatha de Dannan came from 
"Islands in the North of Greece" whereas the usual translation is 
"Islands in the North of the World".

We touched on the Story of Bres from Cath Maige Tuired, which led to a 
discussion of the role the King plays in Celtic society: he stands at 
the center of the people, not above them. The king stands as the ideals 
to which the people are traveling, as evidenced by the taking of the 
name of the king as the name of the people, as in Partholon and the 
Milesians. We also discussed Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and entertained the 
idea of going to his impenetrable castle and closing the doors behind 
us. :-)

Chris mentioned the wonderful quote from Cath Maige Tuired: "Ogma the 
champion found Orna the sword of Tethra, a king of the Fomorians. Ogma 
unsheathed the sword and cleansed it. Then the sword related whatsoever 
had been done by it, for it was the custom of swords at that time, when 
unsheathed, to set forth the deeds that had been done by them." Swords, 
you see, still have that capability, it's just out of fashion. :-)

The group wandered over into a discussion of metaphorical language and 
literal and the fact that certain things can be both at the same time.

Chris asked what we all thought of the details of the Ulster coronation 
ritual given and brought up his own thought that the ritual humiliation 
part of it was inconsistent with his understanding of that tribe. Kelley 
suggested that this part of the story was likely to be Christian bias 
emerging from the chroniclers of the day.

Chris also read from Amergin's poem on the occasion of the taking of 
Ireland and asked if anybody at the table had trouble, as the author 
seemed to, in understanding it.

The author had a good point when she said "General and complete 
efficiency is the character of all the Celtic Gods." It is especially 
true amongst the Celtic Gods that there seems to no complete 
specialization. Looking for a Father God? All of the Gods are Fathers. 
Looking for a warrior? All of the Gods are warriors.

Another thing that made us go "huh?" was her classification of the the 
Gods as temporal and civilized, and the Goddesses as wild and 
geographical. She seemed to have missed the obvious point of biased 
reporting on the part of the Christian Monks in Ireland, as well as 
differences arising from varying sources: the later monks as well as the 
earlier Pagan Gauls.

This goes as well with her claim that there were no triple Gods, only 
Goddesses, which she herself contradicts in an earlier portion of the 
book, pointing out Tricephalic Gods on the continent. Kelley pointed out 
some of the stories of triple Gods from the insular tradition, too.

One way in which we can frame the academic approach in our Paganism is 
by understanding that although we can see examples of different gods 
with a similar name or similar function is to see that our view of them 
may by due to our own needs at the time and place in question.

Then we all had a good shudder at the idea of "The Garden of the Badb".

Chris had a good theory that women as scary battle icons may descend 
form the fact that a society not in a grave situation won't generally 
use their women as warriors to any great degree, so when you are facing 
a line of women on the battlefield, you know they will be desperate and 
do _anything_ to win.

The discussion on battle Goddesses brought up another interesting thing: 
the various people named Macha and the idea of reincarnation of the Gods 
and the atemporal nature of reincarnation in general.

Another shared "Huh?!" moment: "the chastity of the Celt". <?!> We'll 
get right on that.

The author took a large portion of one chapter to contrast An Dagda and 
Lugh as "knowledge" Gods from a different era, taking the unflattering 
portrayal of the Daghda from Christian sources uncritically. Chris 
presented a different view; that the Daghda represented the wisdom of 
the gut while Lugh is more closely aligned with the knowledge and skill 
of the brain.

We spent a little time going over the differences amongst the Gods that 
she mentioned as all being "Chieftain Gods": Nuada, Dagda, Lugh and 
Ogma, contrasting their place in society and their fighting styles. We 
also contrasted the differences between what she called the "succession 
of Sea Gods": Manannan, Tethra, Nechtan and Lir.

About this point a really nice thunderstorm hit and we all watched it 
for a little while.

Chris recited the litany of Lugh's skills and Kelley pointed out the 
number of them mentioned in the book: 8. (The missing one was 'cup 
bearer', by the way.)

It was pointed out that the one-hand, one-foot, one-eye thing was a 
symbol of liminality between the worlds.

Then we all went to a liminal place: a bridge across the South Platte 
and gave an offering of silver hair combs to Sovereignty. There were 
swallows flying around and Clay spotted a raccoon in the reeds.

Please feel free to bring the discussion of the book or any of the 
issues to the list; we welcome it!

-- Chris and Kelley.