Trevelyan...

“So all day long the noise of battle rolled

Among the mountains by the winter sea;

Until King Arthur’s Table, man by man,

Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their lord,

King Arthur.  Then, because his wound was deep,

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,

A broken chancel with a broken cross,

That stood on a dark strait of barren land:

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.”

~ Albion's Lost Lands: Lyonesse

Lyonesse
The search for the site of Arthur's final battle where he fell mortally wounded at Camlann has defied identification; candidates have been proposed from the length and breadth of the country. Lord Tennyson seems to be in no doubt and in his Arthurian epic “Idylls of the King" places the final battle between Mordred and the King at Lyonesse.

 Alfred Tennyson. Photograph, carbon print.

The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon - Burnes

La Mort d'Arthur (The Death of King Arthur) by James Archer (1860)

Tennyson has Arthur roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse long before they crowned him King and refers to the 'sad sea-sounding wastes' and 'lonely coast' of Lyonnesse.

We cannot be certain of Tennyson's inspiration in identifying Lyonesse as the scene of Arthur's final battle against Modred but he was clearly aware of the legend of a land off the coast of Cornwall, connecting Penwith with the Scillies; The Land of Lyonesse, stretching some eighteen miles west of Land's End and eight miles north-east of the Isles of Scilly with a watchtower at the most westerly point to guide seafarers.

“A land of matchless grace was Lyonesse,

Glorious with rolling hills, rejoicing streams,

Hoar monuments upreared when Time was young,

Wide plains of forest, slopes of golden corn,

And stately castles crowning granite peaks”

Following Arthurian tradition Tennyson’s Lyonesse was the realm of Tristan, or Tristram as he became known by English writers, one of the main characters of the greatest legends of Cornwall, the story of Tristan and Iseult, a Cornish hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table. Thomas Malory has the Lady of Lionesse play a significant role in his tales of Arthur and mentions Surluse as part of the kingdom of Lyonesse where Sir Galahad was ruler under Arthur. 2

However, although the tales of Tristan are firmly placed in Cornish tradition there were two other places with variations of the name Lyonesse as Leonais: one in Brittany, and the other seemingly from the French name for Lothian in Scotland. Arthurian romancers may have confusingly called this land off the coast of Cornwall 'Lyonesse,' following the Breton tradition, but the Cornish name for this stretch of land between Land's End and the Scillies was 'Lethowstow'.

On the flats between the small Isles of Scilly are the remains of field walls, now under the sea, evidence of division of the land before it was submerged. Further evidence of man's presence before the inundation is found in an Early Iron Age hut found below the high-water mark on St Martins and pottery from the 3rd and 4th centuries and a Roman bronze brooch from a stone grave found below normal high tides on Old Man. Environmental evidence shows that as late as Roman times the area between the Isles of Scilly was dry land and just one island, a single large, wooded isle which could be walked to at low tide. A Roman writer records a heretic who was banished to Sylina Insula, the island of Scilly, in 387 AD.

The confusion of the location of Lyonesse/ Lethowstow, as the antiquarian, William Camden records, seems to exists because Cornish people during the 16th century referred to the Seven Stones reef off Land's End as the City of Lions, the reputed site of the capital of the legendary kingdom, confused with the Breton town Leonais, probably the region around the coastal town of Saint-Pol-de-Léon, and this form is the probable source of Malory’s Lionnesse. The Seven Stone rocks are held to be the remains of the city where local fishermen have dragged up domestic items in their nets, still calling the Seven Sisters the 'The Town.' 3 Today this reef remains a navigational hazard for shipping and has caused as many as 200 shipwrecks.

In later traditions, Lyonesse is said to have sunk beneath the waves some time after the Tristan stories take place. A persistent legend claims that the Isles of Scilly are all that remain of the fabled land of Lyonesse. However, we find no references in medieval Arthurian legend to the sinking of Lyonesse.

he story goes that a devastating storm swept in to the south-west driving the marauding sea over Lyonesse, drowning the luckless inhabitants and submerging the kingdom beneath the waves until all that remained in view were the higher ground to the west, known to us now as the Isles of Scilly. Legend claims that only one man, Trevilian survived, and he rode a white horse up to high ground at Perranuthnoe before the waves could engulf him. It is said that his ancestry lives on in the Cornish Trevelyan family, whose coat of arms bears a horse issuing out of the sea.

Elizabethan antiquaries collected reports current in the 16th  century stating that Lethowstow contained 'fair-sized towns and 140 churches' and was suddenly engulfed by the sea. They also claimed that one could hear the bells of the drowned city ringing out during rough seas. Today the remains of field boundaries show up at low tide along the sands of the Sampson Flats between the isles of Tresco and Sampson in the Scilly Isles.

Stanley Baron, a journalist from the News Chronicle who was residing in Cornwall during the 1930's, was awoken during the night by the muffled ringing of bells and was told by his hosts that he had heard the bells of Lyonesse.  Edith Oliver, the former mayor of Wilton, claimed she had twice seen towers, domes, spires and battlements beneath the waves whilst standing on the cliffs at Land's End.

What Lies Beneath
Perhaps much of this can be dismissed as fantasy?
Yet, there is evidence of a drowned forest on the Cornish coast with tree stumps sticking out into the sea at Mount's Bay suggesting the sea levels were once much lower. Furthermore, the old Cornish name for St Michaels Mount is 'Carrack Looz en Cooz' which translates as 'The grey rock in the wood'. Archaeological evidence indicates that Mount's Bay was the source of a prehistoric axe material. We have clear evidence of a submerged land in the south-west England within historical times.

Inundation legends are found in many other parts of north-western Europe, not least in Celtic lands.

Gerald of Wales claimed there was a drowned city beneath the waters of  Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons, Mid Wales. On the North coast of Wales near Llandudno was Llys Helig, the palace of Prince Helig ap Glanawg; it is said the ruins can still be seen at very low tides. Off the North-West coast of Wales in Caernafon Bay there is a cluster of rocks, a reef known as Caer Aranrhod, named after the mother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion. Charlotte Guest in her notes to the Mabinogion, states, "There is a tradition that an ancient British town, situated near this place, called Caer Arianrhod, was swallowed up by the sea, the ruins of which, it is said, are still visible during neap tides, and in fine weather."

Tree stumps can be seen leading out into the sea at low tide in Cardigan Bay, Wales, the mythical site of Cantre'r Gwaelod (The Bottom Cantred).

But the nearest legend to Lyonesse is the tale of the mythical Breton city of Kêr-Is which was built on the coast of Brittany in a then-dry location off the current coast of the Bay of Douarnenez. Over time the Breton coast had slowly given way to the sea and it now threatened Kêr-Is. To protect the city from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by King Gradlon.

But the gate was left open during a storm and at high tide a massive wave crashed down on Kêr-Is and the city was swallowed by the incoming waters. King Gradlon escaped on Morvarc'h, his magical horse.  Which is all remarkably similar to the tale of Lyonesse and Trevilian who escaped on his horse and perhaps the inspiration behind the Cornish story.

In addition to describing Lyonesse as the site of the final battle between Arthur and Mordred, Tennyson's Idylls of the King also claim the lost land is the final resting place of  King Arthur himself. Perhaps this is why the grave of the King cannot be found – it lies beneath the sea.
The Mullamast Stone, from 500-600 in Ireland. There are 4 blade marks on the left side of the stone and 2 deep ones on top, suggesting that the stone was used as part of a “sword in the stone” kingship ritual.

The Mullamast Stone, from 500-600 in Ireland. There are 4 blade marks on the left side of the stone and 2 deep ones on top, suggesting that the stone was used as part of a “sword in the stone” kingship ritual. Mullaghmast, decorated with a triskele, thought to belong to the very end of the prehistoric period, or perhaps to the early Christian period, is now in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.
Extra HERE and HERE
Mullaghmast was the royal residence of the Uí Muiredaig kings (later to become the O'Toole family), a sept of the Uí Dúnlainge dynasty of the Laigin.

Mullamast Rath

Fairy Rath by Mark Knight-Raths are always associated with fairies. They are round structures, a ring on the landscape, earthen fortifications dating back to ancient Celtic times. According to archeologists, raths were simply enclosures where family clans once lived in ancient times. But if you ask the average Irishman or Irishwoman today, they will give you a knowing wink and a smile and tell you that these are the homes of ‘the little people’. 

The Laigin are claimed as being descended from Labraid Loingsech. Modern historians suggest, on the basis of Irish traditions and related place names, that the Laigin were a group of invaders from Gaul or Britain, who arrived no later than the 6th century BC, and were later incorporated into the medieval genealogical scheme which made all the ruling groups of early Ireland descend from Míl Espáine. Placenames also suggest they once had a presence in north Munster and in Connacht.

Archaic poems found in medieval genealogical texts distinguish three groups making up the Laigin: the Laigin proper, the Gáilióin, and the Fir Domnann. The latter are suggested to be related to the British Dumnonii.
Amongst others, some of the dynasties that claimed to belong to the Laigin include: Uí Failge, Uí Biarrche, Uí Dúnlainge, Uí Ceinnselaig, Uí Garrchon, and the Uí Máil.
In the legendary tales of the Ulster Cycle, the king of the Connachta, Ailill mac Máta, is said to belong to the Laigin. This is thought by Byrne (2001) to be related to a possible early domination of the province of Connacht by peoples related to the Laigin, the Fir Domnann and the Gamanrad.
The Dumnonii or Dumnones were a British tribe who inhabited Dumnonia, the area now known as Devon and Cornwall (and some areas of present-day Dorset and Somerset) in the further parts of the South West peninsula of Britain, from at least the Iron Age up to the early Saxon period.
The Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, a Middle Irish collection of poetry purporting to explain the origins of Irish place names, claims that Mullaghmast is named for Maistiu, wife of Dáire Derg, who was killed by the sorcery of the malicious faery Gris, who was in turned killed by Dáire Derg.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

WB YEATS

Magical Strokes of a Pen

William Butler Yeats is one of Ireland’s greatest poets and was a giant of the literary world in the late 19th and early 20th century. 

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, which was the pinnacle of his career. 

WB YEATS was a magician as well a writer, a member of the secret society, The Golden Dawn. The stories in *The Secret Rose* revolve around men who must spend themselves in service to this rose, the symbol of mysticism, through love, battle, excess, patriotism or the search for transcendent wisdom. 

The linked stories stories provide a way to understand Yeats deepest personal beliefs, the strange things he did with his life, his relationship with Ireland and the occult. And the part allocated to his muse, Maud Gonne.

Maud Gonne

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 

A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore: 

Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry 

IN THE SEVEN WOODS

Being Poems Chiefly of the

Irish Heroic Age

by W. B. YEATS

The Celtic Twilight

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, The Golden Dawn) was an organization devoted to the study and practice of the occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Known as a magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was active in Great Britain and focused its practices on theurgy and spiritual development. Many present-day concepts of ritual and magic that are at the centre of contemporary traditions, such as Wicca and Thelema, were inspired by the Golden Dawn, which became one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism.

The Golden Dawn system was based on hierarchy and initiation like the Masonic Lodges; however women were admitted on an equal basis with men. The "Golden Dawn" was the first of three Orders, although all three are often collectively referred to as the "Golden Dawn". The First Order taught esoteric philosophy based on the Hermetic Qabalah and personal development through study and awareness of the four Classical Elements as well as the basics of astrology, tarot divination, and geomancy. The Second or "Inner" Order, the Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis (the Ruby Rose and Cross of Gold), taught proper magic, including scrying, astral travel, and alchemy. The Third Order was that of the "Secret Chiefs", who were said to be highly skilled; they supposedly directed the activities of the lower two orders by spirit communication with the Chiefs of the Second Order.

Influences on Golden Dawn concepts and work include: Christian mysticism, Qabalah, Hermeticism, Ancient Egyptian religion, Theurgy, Freemasonry, Alchemy, Theosophy, Astrology, Eliphas Levi, Papus, John Dee & Edward Kelly, Enochian magic, and Renaissance grimoires, as well as Anna Kingsford & Frederick Hockley.

The foundational documents of the original Order of the Golden Dawn, known as the Cipher Manuscripts, are written in English using Trithemius cipher.

According to the records of the Order, the manuscripts passed from Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, a Masonic scholar, to the Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, whom British occult writer Francis King describes as the fourth founder (although Woodford died shortly after the Order was founded).

The order claimed its pedigree from coded documents in Dr Wynn Westcott's possession; these claimed the group was a branch of a German Rosicrucian Order. They outlined five Masonic rituals, which were expanded upon by Mathers. It is highly likely that these papers were forged by Westcott, and it was this accusation that later led to the break up of the order.

(Goddess and Septagram)

In 1901, W. B. Yeats privately published a pamphlet titled Is the Order of R. R. & A. C. to Remain a Magical Order? After the Isis-Urania temple claimed its independence, there were even more disputes, leading to Yeats resigning.

The encyclopedic text The Golden Dawn, by Israel Regardie, has been the most intensively used source for modern western occult and magical practice.

The Golden Dawn had some very influential people within its ranks. W. B. Yeats, Aleister Crowley, Constance Wilde, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, A. E. Waite, Annie Horniman, Florence Farr, Gerald Kelly and Maude Gonne were all members. There was also a rumour that Wallace Budge, who was in charge of Egyptology at the British Museum, was also involved, although this has never been verified.

Her Secret Rose (2015) - Orna Ross

I've spent years writing a trilogy about the true-life love triangle that was Yeats's relationship with the Gonne women: Maud and Iseult, mother and daughter. Her Secret Rose (2015) is the first book of the three.

Yeats made a myth (and a poetic career) out of his unrequited love for Maud but this novel goes behind the poetic myth. As its opening page says, "When looked at from the woman’s side of the bedsheet, most tales take a turning. This one more than most." 

"A delicate balance of fact and fiction which kept me riveted from beginning to end." TheBookBag.co.uk

Packed with emotional twists and surprises, Her Secret Rose is closely based on the letters, journals and notebooks of these two fascinating people. It's a novel of secrets and intrigue, passion and politics, mystery and magic and surprise -- and tells the story of what was going on it Yeats's life in the turbulent years leading up to the publication of his mystical stories.

"...Ross has ransacked (her word) the best scholarly sources for her facts and ingeniously knitted a complex tale of betrayal, revenge, suspense, murder mystery — and surprise."

The Irish Independent.

love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Tír-na-n-Og

T'YEER-NA-N-OGE

There is a country called Tír-na-n-Og, which means the Country of the Young, for age and death have not found it; neither tears nor loud laughter have gone near it. The shadiest boskage covers it perpetually. One man has gone there and returned. The bard, Oisin, who wandered away on a white horse, moving on the surface of the foam with his fairy Niamh, lived there three hundred years, and then returned looking for his comrades. The moment his foot touched the earth his three hundred years fell on him, and he was bowed double, and his beard swept the ground. He described his sojourn in the Land of Youth to Patrick before he died. Since then many have seen it in many places; some in the depths of lakes, and have heard rising therefrom a vague sound of bells; more have seen it far off on the horizon, as they peered out from the western cliffs. Not three years ago a fisherman imagined that he saw it. It never appears unless to announce some national trouble.

There are many kindred beliefs. A Dutch pilot, settled in Dublin, told M. De La Boullage Le Cong, who travelled in Ireland in 1614, that round the poles were many islands; some hard to be approached because of the witches who inhabit them and destroy by storms those who seek to land. He had once, off the coast of Greenland, in sixty-one degrees of latitude, seen and approached such an island only to see it vanish. Sailing in an opposite direction, they met with the same island, and sailing near, were almost destroyed by a furious tempest.

According to many stories, Tír-na-n-Og: is the favourite dwelling of the fairies. Some say it is triple-the island of the living, the island of victories, and an underwater land.

HY-BRASAIL--THE ISLE OF THE BLEST

Gerald Griffin

On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,

A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;

Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,

And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest.

From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim,

The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;

The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,

And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!

A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,

In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;

From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,

For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.

He heard not the voices that called from the shore--

He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar;

Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,

And he sped to Hy-Brasail, away, far away!

Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,

O'er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;

Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore

Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;

Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,

And to Ara again he looked timidly back;

Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay,

Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!

Rash dreamer, return! O, ye winds of the main,

Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.

Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss,

To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.

The warning of reason was spoken in vain;

He never revisited Ara again!

Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,

And he died on the waters, away, far away!

Source

love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Fairy Folklore

Have you ever been enchanted by the magic of mystical fairy rings?

My home is my castle by Catrin Welz Stein.

A great deal of folklore surrounds fairy rings. Their names in European languages often allude to supernatural origins; they are known as ronds de sorciers ("sorcerers' rings") in France, and Hexenringe ("witches' rings") in German. In German tradition, fairy rings were thought to mark the site of witches' dancing on Walpurgis Night.

 The Almost Moon by Francesca Dottavi.

In Tyrol (western Austria), folklore attributed fairy rings to the fiery tails of flying dragons; once a dragon had created such a circle, nothing but toadstools could grow there for seven years. European superstitions routinely warned against entering a fairy ring.  Fairy rings are associated with diminutive spirits in the Philippines.

 LINK

Western European, including English, Scandinavian and Celtic, traditions claimed that fairy rings are the result of elves or fairies dancing. Such ideas dated to at least the mediæval period; The Middle English term elferingewort ("elf-ring"), meaning "a ring of daisies caused by elves' dancing" dates to the 12th century.

 William Sullivan - Fairy Dance.

 In his History of the Goths (1628), Olaus Magnus makes this connection, saying that fairy rings are burned into the ground by the dancing of elves. British folklorist Thomas Keightley noted that in Scandinavia in the early 20th century, beliefs persisted that fairy rings (elfdans) arose from the dancing of elves. Keightley warned that while entering an elfdans might allow the interloper to see the elves—although this was not guaranteed—it would also put the intruder in thrall to their illusions.

C.S.Lewis

The folklores of the British Isles contain a wealth of fairy lore, including the idea from which fairy rings take their name: the phenomena result from the dancing of fairies. In 19th-century Wales, where the rings are known as cylch y Tylwyth Teg, fairies were almost invariably described as dancing in a group when encountered, and in Scotland and Wales in the late 20th century, stories about fairy rings were still common;some Welsh even claimed to have joined a fairy dance. Victorian folklorists regarded fairies and witches as related, based in part on the idea that both were believed to dance in circles. These revels are particularly associated with moonlit nights, the rings only becoming visible to mortals the following morning.

THE HUMAN BODY IS PART OF NATURE. Portrait 07 by Catrin Welz-Stein.

An early 20th-century Irish tradition says that fairies enjoy dancing around the hawthorn tree so that fairy rings often centre on one. A Welsh and Manx variant current in the 1960s removes dancing from the picture and claims that fairy rings spring up over an underground fairy village.

Claire Pettibone.

Someone who violates a fairy perimeter becomes invisible to mortals outside and may find it impossible to leave the circle. Often, the fairies force the mortal to dance to the point of exhaustion, death, or madness. In Welsh tales, fairies actively try to lure mortals into their circles to dance with them. A tale from the Cambrian Mountains of Wales, current in the 19th century, describes a mortal's encounter with a fairy ring:

    ... he saw the Tylwyth Teg, in appearance like tiny soldiers, dancing in a ring. He set out for the scene of revelry, and soon drew near the ring where, in a gay company of males and females, they were footing it to the music of the harp. Never had he seen such handsome people, nor any so enchantingly cheerful. They beckoned him with laughing faces to join them as they leaned backward almost falling, whirling round and round with joined hands. Those who were dancing never swerved from the perfect circle; but some were clambering over the old cromlech, and others chasing each other with surprising swiftness and the greatest glee. Still others rode about on small white horses of the most beautiful form ... All this was in silence, for the shepherd could not hear the harps, though he saw them. But now he drew nearer to the circle, and finally ventured to put his foot in the magic ring. The instant he did this, his ears were charmed with strains of the most melodious music he had ever heard.

Juliano Lopes.

Mortals who have danced with the fairies are rarely safe after being saved from their enthrallment. Often, they find that what seemed to be but a brief foray into fairyland was indeed much longer in the mortal realm, possibly weeks or years.

Electroplate book cover 1896.

Some legends assert that the only safe way to investigate a fairy ring is to run around it nine times. This affords the ability to hear the fairies dancing and frolicking underground.

Fairy rings have featured in the works of European authors, playwrights, and artists since the 13th century. In his Arthurian romance Meraugis de Portlesguez, Raoul de Houdenc describes a scene clearly derived from Celtic fairy-ring lore: The title character visits the Château des Caroles and sees a circle of women and a knight dancing around a pine in the castle courtyard. Meraugis is unable to fight the intense desire to join in, thus freeing the previous knight from the spell. Meraugis is helpless to leave the dance until, ten weeks later, another knight joins it and frees him.

Densely Foggy by Miyakokomura.

 Fairy circles feature in works by several Elizabethan poets and playwrights. William Shakespeare alludes to them in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I ("And I serve the fairy queen, / To dew her orbs upon the green" and "To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind"), and The Tempest, Act V, Scene.

Shakespeare's contemporary Thomas Randolph speaks of fairy rings in his Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry (1638), and Michael Drayton describes one in Nymphidia: The Court of Fairy:

    And in their courses make that round
    In meadows and in marshes found,
    Of them so called the Fairy Ground,
        Of which they have the keeping.

Fairy imagery became especially popular in the Victorian era. Thomas Hardy uses a fairy ring as a symbol of lost love in The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886).

Letter to my friend by Magda Wasiczek.

Victorian poets who have referred to fairy rings in their works include Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Eliza Cook, Robert Stephen Hawker, Felicia Hemans, Gerald Massey, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. W. H. Cummings composed the cantata The Fairy Ring, and William Butler Yeats wrote of them in The Land of Heart's Desire (1894).

Meganne Forbes Visionary Artist.

Fairy circles have appeared in European artwork since at least the 18th century. For example, William Blake painted Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, depicting a scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, around 1785, and Daniel Maclise painted Faun and the Fairies around 1834. Images of fairies dancing in circles became a favourite trope of painters in the Victorian period. On the one hand, artists were genuinely interested in the culture such imagery represented, and on the other, fairies could be depicted as titillating nudes and semi-nudes without offending Victorian mores, which made them a popular subject of art collectors. Examples of Victorian fairy-ring paintings include Come unto these Yellow Sands (1842) by Richard Dadd and Reconciliation of Titania and Oberon (1847) by Joseph Noel Paton.

MORE HERE

Love and light

Trace

xoxo

Lifting the spirit with visuals

Visuals to lift the spirit

Source HERE

love and light

Trace

xoxo