A Queen of the Fairies
Anu, Goddess of Munster Anu or Ana was a goddess, the personification of the rivers, the seas and the oceans, who embodied fertility, abundance, and regeneration. She was the principal goddess of pre-Christian Ireland, the mother goddess of Munster (Mumhan) in the south of Ireland. The bishop, who wrote Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary) in the 9th century, called her mater deorum hibernensium (the mother of Irish gods). The place name Dá…
Fairies: The Old Gods
In England, before the Norman Conquest of 1066, fairies were called elves. Fairy is a word borrowed from French. Walt Disney would have you believe that fairies are sweet little creatures with wings and wands, helpful entities like Tinkerbell and…
Grace O’Malley – Pirate Queen?
The O’Malleys Grace O’Malley is famous (infamous?) as a ‘pirate queen’ in English records of the 16th century. But was she a pirate or a queen? The O’Malleys, the Uí Máille, held the Umhall (the Owels), a region of great beauty in…
Class: Sources of Fantasy
Sponsor: Lawson Writers Academy Warlords, Druids & Dragons Where is the road to a New York Times bestseller? Let me point you in the right direction—write a fantasy! Different sources of fantasy have inspired a torrent of novels and films.…
The Celtic Feast
Celtic Society In the Iron Age, the greatest distinction in Celtic society was between the free and the unfree. Freemen owned the best farms and had access to good pastures; their children, primarily males, inherited it. At home was the…
