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The Children of Lir (2022)

More books

Witchcraft resources galore

Everything below are things I’ve read, enjoyed, and have influenced my practice in some way. Enjoy! :D I’ve also include some comments about most of them

BOOKS

Mastering Witchcraft by Paul Huson: written in the 1970s, Paul Hudson is a huge influence to many traditional witches

Authentic Witchcraft by Grayson Magnus: great, non religious, traditional witchcraft book. Definitely not not neowiccan. The author has many opinions about neowicca. They don’t pop up much, but heads up

The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies by The Reverend Robert Kirk: fab fab fab- I would suggest getting a modern translation of the book. It doe suffer from the misogyny of the time, then again it was written in the 17th century

Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles Godfrey Leland: should be taken as a fictional source, but really nice read

The Witch-Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Alice Murray: Controversial book for a good reason. Margaret’s theories have long been discredited, but her information and sources are lovely and worth the read

Ancient legends mystic charms and superstitions of Ireland by Lady Wilde: My favorite book! Great look into Irish witchcraft and the practice of the fairy doctors. Heads up, certain spells and charms use poisonous ingredients without stating as such. Do research before trying any of the charms and spells 

Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall by William Bottrell: Cornwall is known for their witchcraft for a reason, enough said

Irish Witchcraft and Demonology by St. John D. Seymour: great read has some really interesting stories 

The Book of English Magic by Philip Carr-Gomm & Richard Heygate: lots of different information 

Crone’s book of Magical words; Crone’s Book of Charms and Spells  by Valerie Worth: Some of my favorite books :D 

Traditional Witchcraft series by Melusine Draco: Good, short, cheap books that have a lot of nice content

Judika Illes’ books: Great great great~ Lots of info, various stuff, awesome spell books

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America by Margot Adler: Not necessarily witchcraft, but it talks about witchcraft and its relation with wicca, and why the two differ 

Pagan Portals - Fairy Witchcraft: A Neopagan’s Guide to the Celtic Fairy Faith  by Morgan Daimler: a bit general and more neopaganism (hence the title), but worth the read, especially if fairies are part of your practice

Pennsylvania German witchcraft by Ann Frizz: Some nice, non-european focused witchcraft

Grimoire of Arts Bryan Lovering: HUGE, lots of things, though some of them a bit questionable? Worth the read

Master book of candle burning Henry Gamache: Great non-wiccan influenced candle magic, though the author is anti-pagan

The Devil’s Dozen Thirteen Craft Rites of The Old One by Gemma Gary: A fantastic book full of Cornish inspired rituals. A+ book of rituals

Apocalyptic Witchcraft by Peter Grey: Fantastic. It talks about the nature and reasons behind witchcraft, and does not show any fear in this.

Serpent Songs: A book with various different articles written by different authors 

Wisht WatersAqueous Magica and the Cult of Holy Wells by Gemma Gary: Good stuff. All about the Sacred well cult, and has some amazing things about witches and sacred water 

Call of the Horned Piper by  Nigel Jackson: Lots of information and lore in traditional witchcraft. Great information on the Fairy Queen and the Witch Father

The Book of Grimoires: The Secret Grammar of Magic by Claude Lecouteux: Lots of magical talk. Not all witchcraft, but a great book

Hedge-Rider: Witches and the Underworld by Eric De Vries: Talks about witches, flying, and the otherworld

Treading the Mill: Practical Craft Working in Modern Traditional Witchcraft by Nigel G. Pearson: Another book talking about hedge riding and otherworld stuff

A Deed without a Name by Lee Morgan: A book that covers a large amount of topics in traditional witchcraft. A rather good for both those starting traditional witchcraft and those that have been practicing for a while. 

The Sisters Grimmoire: Spells and Charms for your Happily Ever After by  Bree NicGarran  and Anna Beylenn: This has a variety of spells and charms. 

Hands of Apostasy- Essays on Traditional Witchcraft: It has a large variety of different essays written by different authors. Has some really neat information, especially about American witchcraft. 

The Key of Solomon The King and  The Lesser Key of Solomon

Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways by Gemma Gary: Has a large focus on witchcraft practices from the British Isles. Some nice info

 Flame in the Cauldron by Orion Foxwood: Some good stuff! Covers a lot of topics and even talks about the witchfire. 

Old Tradition Crafte - (translated by) Robin Artisan: Lots of really neat stuff from old grimoires and witch journals 

The Sorceress by Jules Michelet: It talks a LOT about the witches’ sabbat. Lots of neat info and a pretty read

The Rebirth of Witchcraft by Doreen Valiente: Very lovely. It talks about the history of traditional witchcraft in regards to the modern movement. 

The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer. Lotssssssss of lore. It is considered a “classic” by many. A bit old, so expect a few weird things. Free to read online

WEBSITES, LINKS, VARIOUS ONLINE ARTICLES AND BLOGS

Sacred-texts: A HUGE library of books and resources on a wide amount of different subjects.

Cornish Witchcraft: I want to own all the books on this site. A great resource about Cornwall and its witchcraft practices.

Traditional Cornish Witchcraft: The site is a bit ugly, but it has some really neat pages

Heritage Witchcraft: This website is owned and managed by Grayson Magnus. He has a lot of interesting stuff there including audio posts.

Archive.org: Similar to Sacred-Texts, but has a bit more, and includes audio and videos

Saralawless: A blog by a traditional witch.

Scarlet Imprints: fantastic source for traditional witchcraft books and articles

Traditional witchcraft by Sarah Lawless

Traditional witchcraft definitions by Sarah Lawless

Rewilding Witchcraft on Scarlet Imprints

Witch’s Bottles by Apotropaios

New World Witchery: awesome podcast for some more American based witchcraft

Tumblr blogs (some of my fav, though these focus more on traditional witchcraft)

spiritscraft

ioqayin

iopanosiris

the-darkest-of-lights

oldmotherredcap

thedruidsteaparty

thistletongue

recreationalwitchcraft

starlitcrow

through-the-hagstone

phoenix-fire-witchcraft

lavenderspells

dianaandpansson

charlottesarahscrivener

herbalriot

“Scratch a bit at the thin topsoil of Irish Catholicism,” the saying goes, “and you soon come to the solid bedrock of Irish paganism.”... paganism and Catholicism in Ireland are joined twins that can not be separated. They are not opposites, as archaeologist Proinsias MacCana has pointed out, for in Ireland pagan ways and beliefs formed an “extraordinary symbiosis.” ...paganism and Christianity in Ireland need each other to live.

Patricia Monaghan, The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog: The Landscape of Celtic Myth and Spirit

You’re extremely welcome - happy to help anyone with their Irish/Celtic Mythology needs to the best of my abilities/knowledge!

Teaching myself celtic mythology (pt. 3)

An amazing person has just helped me.

Thank you so much @ravenslynch

You are awesome.

CDTH SPOILERS will tag also but just so you’re warned

The use of the word Fenian in CDTH is so jarring to me. Like I’m sure she’s trying to invoke Fenian in the sense of a member of the Irish mythological Fianna ? But like... it’s unavoidably political as a word ?

I could delve into a better explanation of this but I’m currently in a doctor’s waiting room so have this Wikipedia explanation of the term.

Being associated with Boudicca as an organisation makes it weirder that it’s being used and isn’t political to me. (There are probably a host of reasons why Boudicca as a figure could also complicate this further, but I just mean in the barest sense of it being a shady dangerous group, not that they appear to be even remotely paramilitary in nature, which also adds to the weirdness)

I mean lbr here is a man who must have memories of being from Belfast during the Troubles as evidenced by his shared past with Niall discussed in Chapter 64:

And calls himself the New Fenian apolitically ? As a henchman of this group ?? So odd.

I mean the term even has specific American history too.

I just don’t think any of the reasoning behind this will touch upon any of the connotations/history of this in itself - I mean that’s absolutely not the point of CDTH, nor do I particularly think it should be. So just... why ? Is it just that it sounds like a cool rebel name ? If so that surely would be shrouded in the actual historical rebellion it’s linked to ? Being from Belfast when Niall would have been there, there is no way he’d be ignorant of the word or immune to its connotations, he wouldn’t use it without those being considerations, and I don’t know why he’d particularly want to in this context regardless of political leaning. Therefore: very strange.

Like generally when people are talking about the Fianna even you wouldn’t say “Fionn mac Cumhaill was a Fenian” you’d say he was a leader of the Fianna? Diarmuid Ua Duibhne - solider or member of the Fianna. Calling them Fenian would be weird. It’s still an extremely recognisable term today.

Anyway this is my off the cuff rambling as a confused Irish reader.

not to shill on main but

for all your good cow needs

Also big rec to check out Manchán Magan’s Instagram which has a tonne of definitions on it as well as his book Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape which this has just prompted me to take back off the shelf.

You can find a bunch more on his website here.

Sitting amid the bric-a-brac of generations of seafarers before him, fisherman and museum curator John Bhaba Jeaic Ó Confhaola of Galway, Ireland, tried to describe a word to interviewer Manchán Magan. The word, in the Irish language, was for a three-bladed knife on a long pole, used by generations of Galway fishermen to harvest kelp. Ó Confhaola dredged it from his memory: a scian coirlí. “I don’t think I’ve said that word out loud for 50 years,” he told Magan. It was a sentiment that Magan would hear again and again along Ireland’s west coast. This is a place shaped by proximity to the ocean: nothing stands between the sea and the country’s craggy, cliff-lined shores for roughly 3,000 kilometers, leaving it open to the raw breath of the North Atlantic. […] Early last year [2020], Magan […] began collecting coastal words from towns along the west coast, in an effort to preserve them. […] The recordings make up the Foclóir Farraige, or Sea Dictionary: an online database of recordings and definitions sorted by their regional origin. Magan also recently published a selection of words in an illustrated book. […]

Yet the words are often much more than utilitarian. They carry a sense of poetry, and a perspective on nature. There is the town of Donegal’s mada doininne, a particular type of dark cloud lining the horizon that foretells bad weather. The word, literally translated, means “hounds of the storm.”

Or bláth bán ar gharraí an iascaire, a description of choppy sea from the county of Galway that means “white flowers on the fisherman’s garden.” […]

A coastal Irish speaker, walking the beach at night, might have equally expected to hear stranach (the murmuring of water rushing from shore), or the whisper of caibleadh (distant spirit voices drifting in over the waves).

They knew the ceist an taibhse (the question for the ghost) – a riddle used to determine if someone they met along the way was human or supernatural.

Many words describe ways of predicting the weather, or fishing fortunes, by paying attention to birds or wind direction; to the sea’s sounds; or to the colors in a fire. […]

Ó Baoill and Magan both point out that preserving Ireland’s traditional coastal vocabulary is especially important in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss. Take a word like borráite, from Carraroe village, which describes a rocky offshore reef found in the area. Kelp once grew on these reefs in abundance, tangling with other seaweed species and providing refuge for fish. Due to climate change and overfishing, however, Magan says that a borráite today would host neither kelp nor many fish.

“Contained within that word is the entire ecosystem that was in that area,” Magan says. Words like this, he hopes, can both remind us of what we have lost and reconnect us to what we might still preserve.

——-

Headline, captions, and text published by: Claudia Geib. “To Speak of the Sea in Irish.” Hakai Magazine. 17 March 2021. Published alongside illustrations and animations by Aurelie Beatley.

CDTH SPOILERS will tag also but just so you’re warned

The use of the word Fenian in CDTH is so jarring to me. Like I’m sure she’s trying to invoke Fenian in the sense of a member of the Irish mythological Fianna ? But like... it’s unavoidably political as a word ?

I could delve into a better explanation of this but I’m currently in a doctor’s waiting room so have this Wikipedia explanation of the term.

Being associated with Boudicca as an organisation makes it weirder that it’s being used and isn’t political to me. (There are probably a host of reasons why Boudicca as a figure could also complicate this further, but I just mean in the barest sense of it being a shady dangerous group, not that they appear to be even remotely paramilitary in nature, which also adds to the weirdness)

I mean lbr here is a man who must have memories of being from Belfast during the Troubles as evidenced by his shared past with Niall discussed in Chapter 64:

And calls himself the New Fenian apolitically ? As a henchman of this group ?? So odd.

I mean the term even has specific American history too.

I just don’t think any of the reasoning behind this will touch upon any of the connotations/history of this in itself - I mean that’s absolutely not the point of CDTH, nor do I particularly think it should be. So just... why ? Is it just that it sounds like a cool rebel name ? If so that surely would be shrouded in the actual historical rebellion it’s linked to ? Being from Belfast when Niall would have been there, there is no way he’d be ignorant of the word or immune to its connotations, he wouldn’t use it without those being considerations, and I don’t know why he’d particularly want to in this context regardless of political leaning. Therefore: very strange.

Like generally when people are talking about the Fianna even you wouldn’t say “Fionn mac Cumhaill was a Fenian” you’d say he was a leader of the Fianna? Diarmuid Ua Duibhne - solider or member of the Fianna. Calling them Fenian would be weird. It’s still an extremely recognisable term today.

Anyway this is my off the cuff rambling as a confused Irish reader.

I love your Irish culture. That makes me wonder, do elves exist? :000

IDK??? I'm not big into mythology since I more of a history gal but we do have lots of folklore about fairies!!!!

Idk much about folklore LMAO but u can ask anything about history 🫶🫶💗💗

reblog and put in the tags a mermaid-esque creature from your country and/or heritage!

from the wikipedia page for James Stephens (1880-1950), also: it me

UnderTale AU

So I've been getting into folklore, irish folklore and I thought about undertale and made the connection in my head

The dogs/dog like enemies are wolfwalkers

And I was thinking of torial and Astrale and the king (I can't spell his name) being the Tuatha de danann or fairies

Maybe undyne being a selkie

Pucà somewhere, I'll think about it some more

I'll think more about it

Finally got around to painting this concept I’ve had floating around for a few months. This is Enya’s mom, Briony. (Above the water is her human form, below the water is her true form) Honestly really happy with how it turned out, especially since I haven’t properly water colored in about a million years, but yeah. Here she is.

Also, here’s where you can find her playlist and moodboard (just really like her playlist and everything I’ve scrounged up for it)

I had to do this

She simply owns this song in my mind

(Sorry for the video quality whiplash, I get my clips for videos from third parties)

Song by Brazen Grimm