Morgan Daimler's Blog, page 37

Winter Crow

She flies with the snowBlack against whiteBadb Catha, battle crowseeking, always,those ready to gowhose time is donewhose life has now flownIn blood and battleIn pain and in woeShe seeks them outFlying to and froAnd brings them homeAnd brings them home

- M. Daimler, 2015

The Value of Darkness

So I write a lot about the value of darkness and recently I've been making memes about it as well, such as this one:

and this one:


   When I posted the first example on facebook yesterday someone asked me, privately, what exactly I meant by 'darkness' which got me thinking about the larger issue of what I was trying to say and why. First a bit of backstory. This all began a bit tongue in

The Noínden Ulaid

Ailiter: Machae dano ben Chruind meic Agnoman doriacht and do comrith fri heacha Concobair, ar atbert an fer ba luaithiu a bean. Amlaid dano bói in ben, is hi inbadhach, cor chuinnigh cairde coro thoed a brú, ocus ni tucad di, ocus dognith in comrith iarum, ocus ba luaithem si, ocus o ro siacht (cenn) in céiti beridh mac ocus ingen - Fir ocus Fial a n-anmand - ocus atbert co mbedis Ulaid fo ceis

Translation Tidbits 2

I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel but I thought you all might enjoy some miscellaneous translation tidbits. These are some of my favorite short pieces from a variety of sources.


Sonus lomma is
lenna lir,

buáid comairle
in cech caingin,

búaid comperta,
clú co mbail,

búaid creiche
adiu, buáid slúagaid.

Trí lán ma
chluic d'usci úar

do chur esti a
n-agaid slúag,

innreth t'innse

Crossing Lines

  As my regular readers know I almost never get political on this blog. I try to avoid that sort of thing because, quite frankly, that's not what this blog is for.
   However, there's been a recent issue coming up in the wider pagan community*, which is itself just another verse of an older song, relating to elders in paganism making comments that are exclusionary and prejudiced. And that

The Influence of Fiction and Hollywood on Paganism

       I've been pagan for a couple decades now and I've observed a couple trends over that time. One of the most perplexing to me is the way that popular fiction - by which I mean novels, television, and movies - shapes and influences paganism. The reason it perplexes me is because the things that get picked up and absorbed into the pagan paradigm are often based in plot points and rarely fit

Modern Prayers in Old Irish

This is something I've been working on to submit for a anthology* which is looking for modern Celtic Reconstructionist prayers. I thought it would be interesting to offer basic prayers in Old Irish to different Gods.
It is still a work in progress, but this is what I have so far:




Guide Nuada 

Nuada Argetlam

Nuada fo dí Ríg

Nuada narsheng

Guidim do a bhennach

Guidim do a eolas

Guidim do

Samhain isn't pronounced Sam-hane and other truths

    I should probably have titled this post "Grumpy Old Polytheist Ramblings". But there's a lot of so-called educational memes floating around the community right now that are a lot more opinion than fact and I finally decided that it was time to address some specific points. With facts.
    Samhain is pronounced "Sow-win" or "Sow-wen" in Irish and Samhuinn is pronounced "Sah-vihn" in Scottish

Crom Cruach

   One of the more interesting non-Tuatha De Danann deities that some people choose to honor today is Crom Cruach, synonymous according to scholars with Cenn Cruiach, and likely also the same as Crom Dubh (Smyth, 1988; O hOgain, 2006; MacNeill, 1962). Crom means bent, stooped or crooked; cruach has a wider array of meanings including stack of corn; rick; heap, conical pile, gory, bloody;

The St. Gall Incantations

The St. Gall's Incantations are some of the best Irish examples of mixed pagan and Christian folk magic charms. Like much of this material the existing translations are generally pretty old, so I thought it would be fun to offer some new versions today:The St. Gall IncantationsCod. S. Galli No. 1395Against a ThornNi artu ní nim ni domnu ní muir arnóib bríathraib rolabrastar crist assa croich