The Landscape of the Gaelic Imagination

Abstract

This paper is an attempt at constructing a model of the landscape of the Gaelic imagination, including the otherworld, as evinced by place‐names, poetry, songs and tales. A major division is noted between those parts where nature is domesticated, and the wilderness where nature is the ascendant force, in constant need of propitiation. The model has its roots in pagan Gaelic mythology, when the invading Gaels banished the spirits of the land underground or across the sea, while still requiring union with them and co‐operation. Time in the otherworld is circular, and chaos, regeneration and creativity both threaten and attract people. The model is partly subsumed into Christianity, making exile attractive to a people who revered the wilderness. Though this model is culturally specific, it is argued that it expresses a fundamental need for negotiation between man and nature, which remains a major concern to our survival on the planet.

Keywords:

• Landscape
• Gaelic
• Otherworld
• Supernatural
• Fairies
• Earth‐Goddess

Notes

[1] Newton, Handbook, 199.

[2] Clancy and Márkus, Iona, 49.

[3] Carey, King of Mysteries, 99.

[4] Newton, Dùthchas nan Gàidheal, 492.

[5] Sjoestedt, Gods and Heroes of the Celts, introduction.

[6] a loose collection of poetry and prose form the Books of Leinster and Fermoy in Middle Gaelic relating to the mythological history of Ireland, published by the Irish Texts Society.

[7] Ross, The Pagan Celts, 95.

[8] Nicolaisen, Scottish Place‐Names, 177.

[9] It is hard not to see a connection between this tenet of primal religion and the twentieth century Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock.

[10] Perhaps it should be added here that the euhemerisation of gods as fairies is not the only explanation of the fairies. Different belief systems converge to produce fairies: some may be a folk memory of indigenous peoples such as the Fir Bolg in Ireland or the Picts in Scotland; others a Christian accommodation of the neutral angels, cast out of heaven when Lucifer was expelled, not into hell as were the fallen angels, but into the sea and hills of the earth; a third interpretation explains the fairies as the living dead who live on in the megalithic monuments of our ancestors.

[11] See, for example, MacDougall and Calder, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 230, 214.

[12] In modern particle physics, Brane theory also refutes a simultaneous beginning to time and matter at the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

[13] Quoted in Carey, King of Mysteries, 132.

[14] Ó Baoill and Bateman, Gàir nan Clàrsach, 69.

[15] Bruford, Scottish Traditional Tales, tales 18 and 19, pp. 153 and 171–6.

[16] Black, An lasair, 126.

[17] Newton, Dùthchas nan Gàidheal, 454.

[18] McLeod and Bateman, Duanaire na Sracaire, no. 21. ‘Lámh Aoinfhir Fhóirfeas i nÉirinn’, Giolla Críost Brúilingeach, vv. 9–10.

[19] McLeod and Bateman, Duanaire na Sracaire, no. 24. ‘Maith an Chairt Ceannas na nGaoidheal’, anonymous.

[20] McLeod and Bateman, Duanaire na Sracaire, no. 31. ‘Alba Gan Díon a nDiaidh Ailín’, Mac Muireadhaigh.

[21] McLeod and Ní Annracháin, Cruth na Tíre, 108–9.

[22] Newton, Handbook, 186.

[23] Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics, no. 44.

[24] MacInnes, ‘Samhla na Craoibhe’.

[25] McLeod and Bateman, Duanaire na Sracaire, no. 80.

[26] MacLeod and Bateman, Duanaire na Sracaire; no. 82.

[27] Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics, no. 41.

[28] McLeod and Bateman, Duanaire na Sracaire, no. 5.

[29] Wooding, The Otherworld Voyage, 195.

[30] Newton, Dùthchas nan Gàidheal, 460.

[31] MacLean, O Choille gu Bearradh.