The Irish Goddess of War by WM Hennessey

This is a 47 page book made available to everyone through the Google Book Project.  Therefore, I do not think you need to be a subscriber to read this and take part in the discussion.  Although it is available for free, the book cannot be downloaded.

This book does assume that we have some background in Celtic mythology, so if anyone gets bogged down, let me know.  For Monday, let's try to read to the end of the first paragraph on page 11. I think you will find that the reading will go by quickly, and before you know it, we'll be on our next book

Good morning everyone!

This being a fundamentally a linguistics treaty, we are dealing a lot with what ancient Irish words may mean.  I've always considered some knowledge of linguistics essential to magic, as "words of power" are fundamental to the the Craft.  However, I know it will be a bit tiresome as we read when the author makes a point using Latin without translation, but when this was written, Latin was more widely regarded in the education establishments as necessary.

I have always been fascinated the concept of war and death goddesses, as our patriarchical culture mainly associates such concept with men.  Not that there is any lack of such goddesses in the ancient world, but I think the the association of war and violence with a divine feminine holds a different meaning than the connection of war to the divine masculine.

In the first section of our readings, the first thing that caught my attention was this:

"... with its corresponding forms of bodb or badb originally signifying rage, fury, or violence and ultimately implying a witch, fairy, or goddess, represented by the bird known as the scare-crow, scald-crow, or Royston-crow..."

The above statement tells us a lot about the view of what characterizes witches among the ancient Celts, namely violent fury and passion.  I suspect that this perspective of feminine power was meant to contrast the idea of the intellectual and calculate male magi of the the time, but that is really just my conjecture.

What is apparent about this first section is that the Goddess Morrigan is dynamic.  She is believed to be an incarnation of the triple goddess and is associated with the Furies.  But, what is really special about Morrigan is that she is an "active" goddess.  In Western traditions, anything feminine is associated with stability and passivity, but it is clear that this goddess is anything but passive and stoic.  

The different names of the goddess are associated with different aspects of her character.  Neman represents the mental aspects of battle.  Morrigu deals with emotion in battle.  Macha is associated with the physical aspects of battle.  While the author emphasizes the sinister aspects of the goddess, we can also apply positive attributes of cunning, physical fitness, and courage to her.

The section continues by talking about the association with the goddess and the fairy.  I should mention that Fairies in Celtic traditions represent a variety of supernatural creatures.  They are not necessarily the beautiful winged fairies that grant wishes we think of today, but powerful dangerous forces that are usually associated with some natural element.

If you would like to read a bit more, we have an article in our book of shadows about her: http://www.paganliving.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3284

I have to admit that I do not use much of the way of fae or Celtic magic in practice, and I am eager to hear from those of you who do use it.

For those who want help with the Latin, I use www.quicklatin.com for quick translations.

http://archives.nd.edu/latgramm.htm  is actuallly the one I was thinking of  

I apologize for neglecting this--I've been exhausted.  Is anyone reading this, or should we switch to something else?

If you still wan to read, let's try for the next ten pages by Friday.

Hi Stacey

I have to admit that I have not read any of this yet...I really like what you had to say above.  Life is very chaotic for me right now but I am really gonna try and get caught up by Friday.  20 pages isn't so bad.....

Ditto here.  Been putting up lots of tomatoes before the frost gets them when I haven't been working.  I'll try to read also by Friday.

Starting our readings on page ten, the author once again reaffirms that this goddess, well... kicks ass.  Basically, the triple goddess Morrigan is who the gods send out to deal not only to handle out of hand humans, but to teach a lesson to errant gods.  Among the powers the texts attribute this triple goddess as possessing are:

--the ability to fly
--the ability to drive people insane
--the ability to physically and magically tear apart their opposition
--the ability to control moisture associated with weather (rain, fog, etc)
--the ability to cause it to rain fire
--the ability to cause it to rain blood

Among this goddess' powers are the abilities to invoke Biblical plagues (rain fire and blood).  

However, Morrigan is also the goddess who brings bravery and magical abilities to heroes of Irish myth as seen in the story of Cuchullain.  The story of Cuchullain is really the story of human folly against the gods.  The Morrigan in the form of a crow assists Cuchullain in achieving victory and his hero status.  Morrigan approaches him in woman form, and offers his further victory and cattle.  Cuchullain doesn't recognize her, and basically says to the goddess that in his military conquest, he has an easy enough time finding women to please him, and he doesn't need her.  The Morrigan tells Cuchullain that she was not approaching him for sex, only that she favored him, but in Cuchullain's masculine folly, he cannot conceive that a woman might be useful other than sex and rejects her, saying, "Not by woman's favor have I come here."

Needless to say from the above description of powers, if there is one goddess a man doesn't want to piss off, it's this one.  The Morrigan responds to Cuchullain by describing how she will cause him slow physical and mental anguish until he dies.  From this description, we find out additional animals that symbolize her other that the crow:

--eel
--gray hound
--red bull    

Stopping our reading at the end of the description, I immediately see a symmetry between this scene and the one between the goddess Ishtar (Innana) and Gilgamesh in the Epic of Gligamesh.  Ishtar/Innana was the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of sex, war, and agriculture.  Gilgamesh was a part god/ hero/king who caught her attention.  Ishtar, who was the patron goddess of the city of which Gilgamesh was king, approaches him for sex and to bear his child (she's a sex goddess, so that was her way of showing favor).  Gilgamesh bluntly calls her a whore and tells her to go to hell.  Keep in mind, Gilgamesh originally caught the attention of the gods by being a total man-slut and forcing himself on new brides on their wedding night.  Ishtar gets pissed, and sends down the Bull of Heaven, which Gilgamesh slays. Because the gods judge Gilgamesh as being disrespectful of Ishtar, they kill his best friend and possible lover.

Between these two stories we have war goddesses favoring heroes, both men make the mistake of treating the goddesses as whores, and they pay for it.  The totem animal of the bull or cow is present in both stories.  I thought the correspondences were interesting.

So, how do you all interpret this goddess?  Do you see any similarities between her and other deities or myths?