Beltane Blessings )O( ~ May Day

Beltane honours life and represents the peak of Spring and the beginning of Summer.

Beltane is a Fire Festival. The word 'Beltane' originates from the Celtic God 'Bel', meaning 'the bright one' and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire. Together they make 'Bright Fire', or 'Goodly Fire' and traditionally bonfires were lit to honour the Sun and encourage the support of Bel and the Sun's light to nurture the emerging future harvest and protect the community.

Beltane Fire Dance by Loreena McKennitt

Traditionally all fires in the community were put out and a special fire was kindled for Beltane. "This was the Tein-eigen, the need fire. People jumped the fire to purify, cleanse and to bring fertility. Couples jumped the fire together to pledge themselves to each other. Cattle and other animals were driven through the smoke as a protection from disease and to bring fertility. At the end of the evening, the villagers would take some of the Teineigen to start their fires anew."
~ (From Sacred Celebrations by Glennie Kindred)

Beltane is the anglicised name for the Gaelic May Day festival. Most commonly it is held on 1 May, or about halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. May Day is a public holiday and is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival. In many cultures, dances, singing, and cakes are usually part of the celebrations.
The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, held on April 27 during the Roman Republic era, and with the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane, most commonly held on April 30.
Flora's altar at Rome was said to have been established by the Sabine king Titus Tatius during the semi-legendary Regal period. Flusalis (linguistically equivalent to Floralia) was a month on the Sabine calendar, and Varro counted Flora among the Sabine deities.

May Day (or the day after Walpurgis Night).

Walpurgis Night is the English translation of Walpurgisnacht, one of the Dutch and German names for the night of 30 April. In Germanic folklore, Walpurgisnacht, also called Hexennacht (Dutch: heksennacht), literally "Witches' Night", is believed to be the night of a witches' meeting on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, a range of wooded hills in central Germany between the rivers Weser and Elbe.

On May Eve there is abundant fertility, on all levels, and is the central theme. The Maiden goddess has reached her fullness. She is the manifestation of growth and renewal, Flora, the Goddess of Spring, the May Queen, the May Bride.

Stonemaiden Art - Etsy

In the Arthurian legends, the Flower Bride is Guinevere, though she is usually abducted on May 1 and must be rescued. However, in Celtic lore, there are many ladies or goddesses, such as Creiddyled and Bloudewedd, who fit this role.

http://jodeee.deviantart.com/art/Cernunnos-563034529

The Young Oak King, as Jack-In-The-Green, as the Green Man, falls in love with her and wins her hand.

The union is consummated and the May Queen becomes pregnant. 

Together the May Queen and the May King are symbols of the Sacred Marriage (or Heiros Gamos), the union of Earth and Sky, and this union has merrily been re-enacted by humans throughout the centuries. For this is the night of the Greenwood Marriage.

Sacred Union

"Sacred Marriage" between Dumuzi and Inanna on a bed. Old Babylonian Period.

Great Goddess - Queen of Heaven. Inanna

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,

If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break:

But I must gather knots of flower, and buds and garlands gay,

For I’m to be the Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be the Queen o’ the May.

– From “The May Queen” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The May Queen or Queen of May is a personification of the May Day holiday, and of Springtime and also Summer.Today the May Queen is a girl who must ride or walk at the front of a parade for May Day celebrations. She wears a white gown to symbolise purity and usually a tiara or crown. Her duty is to begin the May Day celebrations. She is generally crowned by flowers and makes a speech before the dancing begins. Certain age-groups dance round a Maypole celebrating youth and the spring time.

Sir James George Frazer found in the figure of the May Queen a relic of tree worship:
According to folklore, the tradition once had a sinister twist, in that the May Queen was put to death once the festivities were over. The veracity of this belief is difficult to establish; it may just be a folk memory of ancient pagan customs. Still, frequent associations between May Day rituals.

In the High Middle Ages in England, the May Queen was also known as the "Summer Queen". George C. Homans points out: "The time from Hocktide, after Easter Week, to Lammas (August 1) was summer (estas)." - On the 30th day of May was a jolly May-game in Fenchurch Street (London) with drums and guns and pikes, The Nine Worthies did ride; and they all had speeches, and the morris dance and sultan and an elephant with a castle and the sultan and young moors with shields and arrows, and the lord and lady of the May".

 A May Day festival is held on the village green at Aldborough, North Yorkshire on a site that dates back to Roman times and the settlement of Isurium Brigantum. A May queen is selected from a group of 13 upward girls by the young dancers. She returns the next year to crown the new May Queen and stays in the procession. The largest event in this tradition in modern Britain is the Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Michael A. Michail - Flora.

The Faery Queen also represents the May Queen, although in practice the honour is usually carried out by young women who are soon to be married.

Mists of Avalon

Morgan le Fay is a powerful enchantress in the Arthurian legend. Early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a fay or sorceress. She became both more prominent and morally ambivalent in later texts.

A "May Crowning" is a traditional Roman Catholic ritual that occurs in the month of May, honoring the Virgin Mary as "the Queen of May". 

Our Lady of the Sea, Isle of Barra, Outer Hebrides, Scotland ~ The May Crown

The feminine connection in many forms ~
Queen of Heaven is a title given to the Virgin Mary by Christians mainly of the Roman Catholic Church, and also, to some extent, in Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglicanism. The title is a consequence of the First Council of Ephesus in the fifth century, in which the Virgin Mary was proclaimed "theotokos", a title rendered in Latin as Mater Dei, in English "Mother of God". The Eastern Orthodox Churches do not share the Catholic dogma, but themselves have a rich liturgical history in honor of Mary. In the Hebrew Bible, under some Davidic kings, the gebirah, the "Great Lady", usually the Mother of the King, held great power as advocate with the king.In the fourth century St. Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen.” Later Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title. A text probably coming from Origen (died c. 254) gives her the title domina, the feminine form of Latin dominus, Lord. That same title also appears in many other early writers, e.g., Jerome, and Peter Chrysologus. The first Mariological definition and basis for the title of Mary Queen of Heaven developed at the Council of Ephesus, where Mary was defined to be the Mother of God.

Our Lady, star of the Sea statue, overlooking Castlebay, Isle of Barra. - Karen Matheson.
Our Lady, Star of the Sea is an ancient title for the Virgin Mary. The words Star of the Sea are a translation of the Latin title Stella Maris.The title has been in use since the at least the early medieval period. Originally arising from a scribal error in a supposed etymology of the name Mary, it came to be seen as allegorical of Mary's role as "guiding star",  as a guide and protector of seafarers, in particular, the Apostleship of the Sea, and many coastal churches are named Stella Maris or Star of the Sea.

Mists of Avalon

Faery Tree

Source

 Hawthorn tree is the true symbol of Beltane, the original May tree, and the tree of the fairy folk. Also known as the May-tree, due to its flowering period, it is the only British plant named after the month in which it blooms.

In Britain, it was believed that bringing hawthorn blossom into the house would be followed by illness and death, and in Medieval times it was said that hawthorn blossom smelled like the Great Plague. Botanists later learned that the chemical trimethylamine in hawthorn blossom is also one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue, so it is not surprising that hawthorn flowers are associated with death. 

Lore:

A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn

Until the tree was root and branches of my thought,

Until white petals blossomed in my crown.

~ From The Traveller by Kathleen Raine

When we read of medieval knights and ladies riding out ‘a-maying’ on the first morning of May, this refers to the flowering hawthorn boughs they gathered to decorate the halls rather than the month itself. For on this day, according to the Old Style calendar that was in use until the 18th century, the woods and hedges were alight with its glistening white blossoms.

In some villages, mayers would leave a hawthorn branch at every house, singing traditional songs as they went. 

The young girls rose at dawn to bathe in dew gathered from hawthorn flowers to ensure their beauty in the coming year. For May was the month of courtship and love-making after the winter's cold; and so the hawthorn is often found linked with love-making. In ancient Greece, the wood was used for the marriage torch, and girls wore hawthorn crowns at weddings. 

But while hawthorn was a propitious tree at Maytime, in other circumstances it was considered unlucky. Witches were supposed to make their brooms from it, and in some parts, it was equated with the abhorred elder, as in the rhyme:

Hawthorn bloom and elder-flowers

Will fill a house with evil powers.

Even today many people will not allow the branches inside the house, for, as one might expect from its association with Beltane, a time when the two worlds meet, it is considered a tree sacred to the faeries, and thus to be regarded with fear at the least, respect at most. As such, it often stands at the threshold of the Otherworld.
In the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, the Scots poet is taken away by the Queen of Elfland as he sits beneath an ancient thorn known as the Eildon tree. In another old rhyme, the Ballad of Sir Cawline, a lady dares the hero to go to Eldridge Hill where a hawthorn grows, to await there the faery king.
There are noteworthy parallels between this tale and the romance, The History of Sir Eger, Sir Graham, and Sir Gray-steel.

The Flower Moon of May 2017

The full moon of May, also known as the Flower Moon, Milk Moon, or Hare Moon, will occur  Wednesday (May 10) at 5:42 p.m. EDT (2142 GMT). It will appear full to the casual observer for about a day before and after. 

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the Native American name for the May full moon was the Full Flower Moon, though some Algonquin-speaking nations named it the Corn Planting Moon or Milk Moon (milk, referring to nurture - milkweed or cows, though not native to the Americas).

More HERE

Flower Moon ~ May ~ by Ithilyen on Deviantart

Haiku ~ Flower Moon

light of the moon

moves west, flowers' shadows

creep eastward

- Yosa Buson

Just a thought:

Perhaps, keeping in mind the feminine moon cycle (and matrilineal aspects), Beltane would be best celebrated by the moon cycle and not the modern dating of the Gregorian calender. 

Did you know:

1. The original Roman calendar is believed to have been an observational lunar calendar whose months began from the first signs of a new crescent moon. Because a lunar cycle is about 29½ days long, such months would have varied between 29 and 30 days.

2. A lunar calendar is a calendar based upon cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months), in contrast to solar calendars based solely upon the solar year. The details of when months begin varies from calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons and others employing detailed calculations. Traditional lunar and lunisolar calendars continue to be used throughout the Old World to determine religious festivals and national holidays. Such holidays include Ramadan (Islamic calendar); the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian New Year (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian calendars); the Nepali New Year (Nepali calendar); the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chuseok (Chinese and Korean calendars); Loi Krathong (Thai calendar); and Diwali (Hindu calendars).

Maypole History HERE

My apologies, for the rather long post. I get excited about this theme in folklore. 😉

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Lost Ancient Forests

Diver Dawn Watson found incredible ancient forest under the North Sea

10,000-year-old trees appear to have been hidden underwater since Ice Age

The 45-year-old discovered oak trees with eight-metre branches off Norfolk.

A shocked diver has found an incredible 10,000-year-old pre-historic forest under the North Sea and experts believe it could have once stretched as far as Europe.
Diver Dawn Watson, 45, discovered the remarkable 'lost forest' when she was diving just 300 metres off the coast of Cley next the Sea, Norfolk.
Ms Watson, who runs the Marine Conservation Society's survey project, Seasearch in East Anglia with partner Rob Spray, said she was 'absolutely thrilled' with the find.
She said: 'I couldn't believe what I was seeing at first.
'The sea was quite rough by the shore so I decided to dive slightly further out and after swimming over 300 metres of sand I found a long blackened ridge.
'When I looked more closely I realised it was wood, and when I swam further along, I started finding whole tree trunks with branches on top, which looked like they had been felled.'

'It was amazing to find and to think the trees had been lying there completely undiscovered for thousands of years. You certainly don't expect to go out for a quick dive and find a forest.'
It is believed the forest was drowned when the ice caps melted and the sea level rose 120 metres.
The fallen trees are now lying on the ground where they have formed a natural reef, which is teaming with colourful fish, plants and wildlife.

'At one time it would have been a full-blown Tolkien-style forest, stretching for hundreds of miles,' added Mr Spray, who has begun surveying the forest with his partner.
'It would have grown and grown and in those days there would have been no one to fell it so the forest would have been massive.

How it could have looked

'It would have looked like a scene from the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, which is something we don't get in this country anymore. Geologists are very excited about it, it was a really miraculous find.'

Ancient forest lost beneath the North Sea is uncovered: Shifting sands reveal 7,000-year-old woodland and human footprints.

Evidence of the forest, which has been preserved in peat, can be seen on a 200-metre stretch of the Northumberland coastline - Denmark, due to shifting sand - It shows 7,000 year old human footprints in Doggerland, which then connected the UK to Europe - The area had been preserved in a layer of peat all these years.

The ebb and flow of the North Sea revealed a waterlogged archaeological secret of Britain's past - traces of hunter-gatherers stalking animals through a long-lost woodland.
An ancient forest, which dates back more than 7,000 years and has lain buried beneath the sand for millennia, is slowly being uncovered by the ocean.
Tree stumps and felled logs, which have been preserved by peat and sand, are now clearly visible along a 650 feet (200 metres) stretch of coastline at Low Hauxley near Amble, Northumberland.

Studies of the ancient forest, which existed at a time when the sea level was much lower and Britain had only recently separated from what is now mainland Denmark, have revealed it would have consisted of oak, hazel and alder trees.
The forest first began to form around 5,300 BC but by 5,000 BC the encroaching ocean had covered it up and buried it under sand. Now the sea levels are rising again, the remnants of the forest are becoming visible and being studied by archaeologists.

Rather than a continuous solid landmass, archaeologists believe Doggerland was a region of low-lying bogs and marshes which would have been home to a range of animals, as well as the hunter-gatherers which stalked them.
But the relatively rapid change in the surrounding environment would have gradually confined animals and humans in the region to Europe and the UK as the bogs and marshes became flooded, making them impassable.
Doctor Clive Waddington, of Archaeology Research Services, said: 'In 5,000 BC the sea level rose quickly and it drowned the land.
'The sand dunes were blown back further into the land, burying the forest, and then the sea receded a little.

'The sea level is now rising again, cutting back the sand dunes, and uncovering the forest.'
The forest existed in the late Mesolithic period, which was a time of hunting and gathering for humans.
In addition to tree stumps, archaeologists say they have uncovered animal footprints, highlighting the diverse wildlife which would have roamed the ancient Doggerland forest.
Dr Waddington, who says evidence has been discovered of humans living nearby in 5,000 BC, added: 'On the surface of the peat we have found footprints of adults and children.
'We can tell by the shapes of the footprints that they would have been wearing leather shoes.
'We have also found animal footprints of red deer, wild boar and brown bears.'

A similar stretch of ancient forest was uncovered in 2014 near the village of Borth, Ceredigion, in Mid Wales after a spate of winter storms washed away the peat preserving the area. The ancient forests were exposed along the Welsh coastline after the storms washed away peat and exposed gnarled tree trunks on the shore near the village of Borth, Ceredigion, Mid Wales.

Seahenge, an early Bronze age structure on the coast of Norfolk, 

overlooks the ancient world of Doggerland

Rather than a continuous solid landmass, archaeologists believe Doggerland was a region of low-lying bogs and marshes connecting the British Isles to Europe and stretching all the way to the Norwegian trench. The area, which would have been home to a range of animals, as well as the hunter-gatherers which stalked them, became flooded due to glacial melt, with some high-lying regions such as 'Dogger Island' (pictured right, highlighted red) serving as clues to the region's ancient past.

Peat is able to preserve trees and even the bodies of animals so well because it is so low in oxygen, effectively choking the microbes which break down organic matter, so preserving their organic contents for thousands of years. But in coastal regions, where ancient forests have been long preserved in peat, such as in Wales and Northumberland, the rising seas are washing away this layer and exposing remnants from Britain's past.
Source HERE and HERE

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

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