CHRISTMAS IN KILLARNEY - PART TWO

The first indication of humans in the area which now comprises Killarney dates from about 2,000 B.C., when Bronze Age "Beaker Folk" mined tin as so many others would do.  They were supplanted by Picts from the north a little later; legend has it they were descended from Queen Mebh's son Cair and that the name of the Ring of Kerry is derived from his name. In 400 B.C. the Picts were supplanted by the Fir Bolg, the "Bag Men" who shipped bags of Irish earth to Greece to keep away snakes!  Of course Ireland doesn't have snakes because it's an island, so I think this constituted the first known case of blarney.  Tales of the ancient heroes and figures such as Deirdre of the Sorrows, who figures in one of my books, come from this time.

But the beautiful area with its abundant lakes and natural resources would always attract settlers, and next  around 100 B.C. came the Gaels, or Milesians.  It took them 500 years to subdue the fierce Fir Bolg, but then in 400 A.D. St. Alban established a cell at Aghadoe and people were rather easily converted to Christianity.  Their festivals were incorporated into the Church calendar and a bloodless coup of sorts resulted.

The native O'Donoghue/MacCarthy family defeated the Gaels and in turn was attacked from 1,200 A.D. onwards by Anglo-Normans who coveted their lands.  In 1261, the O'Donoghue/MacCarthys defeated them, one of the few people to do so.  But then in 1583 came powerful English troops and Ireland was subdued for the first time in its history.  The territory in and around Killarney was given to Sir Vincent Browne, appointed Earl of Kenmare.  His influence was so far-reaching that even when English Protestant settlers arrived and began hanging Catholics, the Brownes remained Catholic and never totally lost power.

It was Viscount Browne, descendant of Sir Vincent, who first recognized Killarney's potential as a tourist attraction.  Eventually he transferred lands to the Herbert family, who became copper barons.  Both families built grand estate houses at Muckross and Knockreer.  Even today, Muckross House is arguably the main tourist attraction in Killarney--a lovely mansion now open to the public.

Both families were also among the few proactive landlords who supported their workers through the Famine of 1845, thus gaining the respect of the Irish who still speak well of them as representatives of what the English upper class should have been and so often was not.  Elsewhere in Ireland, when the potato crop failed, vitally needed foodstuffs were exported while the Irish died of starvation along roads and in poorhouses.  It was this event which spurred the first great influx of Irish immigrants to America. 

By 1861 things were settled enough for a group of prominent English ladies to visit with Queen Victoria.  They made famous the site of Ladies' View, named for them, where they took in one of the more panoramic vistas in Ireland.

In 1899 the lands of the Herbert family, concentrated around Muckross, were sold to a member of the Guinness family.  He, in turn, sold them in 1910 to William Bourn, an American who gave them to his daughter who married an Irishman but died tragically in 1929.  Her husband, not wishing to maintain his ties with her property, donated them to the government, thus creating the first Irish National Park--Killarney National Park--comprising 26,000 acres.  I have been there many times, riding its grounds on Thoroughbred/Draft Horse crosses, exploring Norman ruins and and feeding the swans.

Join me again later this week for a taste of Christmas in Killarney.

CHRISTMAS IN KILLARNEY - PART ONE

First, let me state clearly that I have never spent Christmas in Killarney.  Wished to?  Yes.  Planned to?  Ditto.  Done it?  No.  The call of the holidays always pulled me home to the States even during the three years when I spent as much time as possible in Ireland.  There's just something about family.  But I longed to see Killarney as Christmas approached, with Dunne's Department Store decked out in lights, horses hitched to jaunting carts, covered with blankets of red and green, and well-insulated swans still sailing peacefully on the increasingly frigid waters of Muckross Lake.

 
At least, that's how I pictured it.  Never saw it, though.  The closest I came was spending Halloween there.  That was a still-warmish time of muted fall colors when tinker children begged money from me and earned a good scolding for "bothering the Americans."  Funny, at the airport in Newark several travelers to Ireland  thought I was Irish (it's the face, you know), but as soon as I got to Ireland I was pegged as indisputably American.  Maybe it's because Irish women of a certain age don't wear jeans, but American women apparently don them until shortly before they shuffle off their mortal coil.  I rather expect to be buried in mine unless I can talk someone into tossing my ashes from the Cliffs of Moher, thus retracing my grandmother's journey to America.

Next week:  a history of Killarney.

DEIRDRE AND THE SONS OF USNA - PART TWO

My retelling of this classic tale, sometimes known as "Deirdre of the Sorrows" will appear in an anthology by Victory Tales Press in early 2011.  In the meantime, I hoped you might enjoy this excerpt from my story, "Deirdre."  Part One can be located under Older Posts.

And Fergus descended into deep bitterness and grief for the loss of his lands, saying that he must have sight of them again before he died.

                In time, Conor heard of his distress.  Ness had died, some said of a broken heart, and Fergus asked that he might return to Ulster to mourn her.  Conor’s own heart had been softened by time and the loss of his mother, and Fergus once had been kind to him, before he took the throne.  And so Fergus was welcomed once again to the court at Ulster and given high honors, but it soon became apparent that certain of the older chiefs would have been glad enough to see him back on the throne.  Privately, Conor began to seethe with anger towards Fergus and to regret that he had ever permitted him back.  And Conor bore a cold black anger that caused people to turn away from him. 

                While Fergus sought refuge at Queen Medb’s court, the old Ulster custom had sprung up once again whereby each chief presented a great banquet for the king and his retinue.  At length it became the turn of Felim, Conor’s chief story-teller, to hold this feast.

                No effort or expense was spared; indeed preparations took the fullness of a year.  A great hall of oak was built next to Felim’s castle, with shining inlays of precious stone, and every care was taken for the comfort of the guests the better to host and impress them.  For Felim was determined that never would his vast entertainment be forgotten.

                 

MYTHOLOGY of Scotland & Ireland

Myths are often considered an aspect of folklore. Even so, mythology might include the belief in the supernatural, where as folklore and folk tales derived when people had the need to explain mysterious events. Pre-Christianity might have had a hand in old world myths and folklore. A people’s yearning to believe in the hereafter, or in some type of entity, lived on through stories passed generation to generation. Once Christianity became widespread, faeries, brownies, and even the belief in the Loch Ness monster faded away.

With a rich Celtic History going back over 2,000 years, it is not surprising that Scotland has an extensive heritage of myths and folklore. Many objects have accumulated their share of myths and legends; circles of stones, cairns, and even castles.

Some believe that religion was an adaption from stories and memoires or evolutionary biology. In other words, religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons. These mechanisms might have told early people how to watch for things that could cause them harm (omens). This morphed into an ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events (folk tales) while other people had minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions (mythology and the precursors of organized religion).


Some scholars concluded that unexplained observations like thunder or lightning were the basis of stories. These word-of-mouth explanations changed with the frequency of their telling which is why one myth could have many different descriptions or endings. Even the distinctive features of Scotland’s varied scenery fuels these beliefs. Deep mountain lochs, creeks, mountain peaks, and the moor, reflect in their folk tales and myths.

Scotland and Ireland share some basic land similarities. In Scotland, mythical Selkies are shy marine creatures in the shape of a seal, usually found near the islands of Orkney and Shetland. A female can shed her skin and come ashore as a beautiful woman. If found, a man could force her to be his wife. Of course, as the legend goes, if she recovered the skin, off she’d go. Male Selkies are said to be responsible for storms. What better explanation for the sinking of a ship?
Selkies of Irish lore are said to come from Co. Donegal in Ireland, which happens to be where many people made their living from the sea. Living by the sea might cause people to craft stories as a way to explain its mysteries. The Irish considered the Selkies to have the same characteristics as those of Scotland, even though they considered other sea creatures more malevolent. Most scholars believe the seals and sea lions from which these myths evolved had sweet, non-threatening dispositions. This might have allowed them to easily be transformed by myth into non-threatening Selkies. At least, the females!

Religion changed everything. Popular Christian beliefs were the norm. Myths and folklore slipped to the back burner, but never disappeared. Many tales are quite popular today. Think of the legend surrounding the Blarney Stone in Ireland or the Loch Ness Monster. Even Girl Scout troops around the world call their youngest recruits ‘Brownies’ after helpful creatures that do good deeds.


Myths and folk tales live on because people need to believe in them. There are hundreds of wonderful stories out there about kelpies, fairies, banshees, and the like. I recommend the following websites if you would like a taste. You might even recognize one or two stories!

www.compassrose.org/folklore/scottish/Scottish-Folktales.html

http://www.sacred-texts.com/

Interested in reading my take on dead witches, a heroine with the secret gift of premonitions and a hero cursed to turn into a dragon at inopportune times?
Check out my book DRAGON'S CURSE by Whispers Publishing & Amazon for Kindle. Learn more by visiting my website: www.nancyleebadger.com and my blog: www.RescuingRomance.nancyleebadger.com

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR KEENA KINCAID

I first "met" Keena Kincaid through reading her novel "Anam Cara," a haunting tale of two souls caught on the karmic wheel.  I knew at once I had found an author I wanted to follow, so you can imagine how pleased I was when Keena agreed to be interviewed for The Celtic Rose.  Especially considering that she had just made a major, cross-country move with all that entails, I'm very grateful for her interest in the blog.  So without further ado, here is her interview:

Where are you from?  Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m from a small Ohio town just to the left of nowhere. I grew up on a farm that had all the accoutrements needed for a fun childhood, dogs, ponies, brothers and a small wooded area that served as Sherwood Forest for a few years.

What inspires you to write?

I’m a natural born storyteller (although my mother called it something else for a few years).  After college, I worked as a newspaper reporter and had a gift for personality profiles and features stories. To me, noveling is a natural extension of that. I’m still telling people’s stories, just a fictional person’s. The germ of a story can come from anywhere these days. A great, a shell on the beach, sometimes even from that single shoe hanging from street wires.

Do you find that your muse takes over when you write?

My characters take over. How much I get accomplished that day is solely determined by how talkative they are and how willing they are to spill secrets. It gets really interesting when my characters start to lie to me because they don’t want to face the truth about themselves anymore than the rest of us do.

Do you have any works in progress that you want to share?

I’m working on a medieval ghost story right now. The ghost is not the hero, by the way, but the catalyst that moves my hero and heroine to act. He betrayed his friends, and now he’s trying to set things to right. Initially, his motivation is to get out of purgatory quicker, but eventually he comes to desire his friend’s safety and his sister’s happiness before his own destiny.

What would be your advice to aspiring writers out there?

Write the book you want to read. I know it’s quite the cliché and the market doesn’t always love what we do, but writing is a long and sometimes lonely process. We spent months, sometimes years with these characters and often come to know them better than we know our spouses or children. If we don’t love and enjoy our characters, who else will?

What are your favorite books at the moment?

I just found a reprinted edition of a 19^th century South Carolina cookbook. I love old cookbooks because they assume you already know how to cook, so the recipes all about proportions and ideas for customizing the recipe. They turn my kitchen into a playground.

What is your favorite word?  Least favorite?

One of my favorite words is gobsmacked, as in “he fell out of the plane and lived. I was gobsmacked when I heard about it.” I write historicals, so it’s not one I can use very often. My least favorite fat-fingered, as in “the article has a lot of typos because I fat-fingered the keyboard.” The word just makes me cringe.

It's been a pleasure to get to know you a little better, Keena!   Let me just share some of your book covers here.  Both are stories of the Sidhe and sure to appeal to readers of The Celtic Rose:

 For more information and buy links for these or any of Keena's books, just go to her website:  www.keenakincaid.com.

Thanks, Keena.

P.S.--Did you find your coffee pot yet?

Enya the Bride

(An Old Tale Retold by Pat McDermott)

As everyone knows, the beauty of mortal women attracts the fairies. Finvarra, the King of the Connacht Fairies, enlisted his minions to find and abduct the prettiest ladies in Ireland. The fairies bewitched the loveliest women and brought them to Finvarra’s crystal palace beneath Knock Ma in Galway. The women heard only fairy music, which lulled them into a trance. They remained enchanted, forgetting about mortal life and living as if in a dream.

Long ago, in that part of the country, a great lord had a comely wife called Enya. He held feasts in her honor and filled his castle from dawn till dusk with music. Lords and ladies danced with great pleasure in Enya’s honor.

At the merriest part of the feast one evening, Enya entered the dance. She wore silver gossamer bound with jewels that outshone the stars in heaven. Suddenly, she released the hand of her partner and fell to the floor in a swoon.

The servants carried her to her chamber, where she lay insensible all night. At dawn, she awoke and told them she’d spent the night in a beautiful palace. "Oh, how I long to go back to sleep and return there in my dreams!"

The servants watched her all day, and she fared well enough, but when evening fell, they heard music at her window. She fell again into a trance from which no one could rouse her.

The young lord set Enya’s old nurse to sit with her, but the silence enticed the woman to sleep until dawn. When she looked at the bed, she saw to her horror that Enya had vanished.

The household searched the castle and gardens but found no trace of Enya. The young lord sent riders into the wind, but no one had seen her. He saddled his chestnut steed and galloped away to Knock Ma to speak to Finvarra, the King of the Fairies, for he and Finvarra were friends. Many a keg of good wine did the young lord leave outside his castle to quench the thirst of the fairies. Finvarra would surely have tidings of Enya.
But little did the young lord know that Finvarra himself was the traitor.

When the young lord stopped by the fairy rath, he heard voices in the air: "Finvarra is happy now, for in his palace he has the bride who will never more see her husband’s face."

"Aye," spoke another. "Finvarra is more powerful than any mortal man, though if the husband dug down through the hill, he would find his bride."

The young lord swore that devil nor fairy nor even Finvarra himself would stand between him and his bride. He sent word to every able-bodied man in the county to come with their spades and pickaxes, and they dug to find the fairy palace.

They made a deep trench, and at sunset they quit for the night. But the very next morning they found that the clay was back in the trench, as if the hill had never been dug.

The brave young lord asked the men to continue their digging, and they dug the trench again. For three days they dug with the same result: the clay was put back each night, and they were no nearer to Finvarra’s palace.

The young lord prepared to die of grief, then he heard a whisper in the air: "Sprinkle the soil you have dug with salt, and the salt will preserve your work."

He scoured the countryside for salt. That night, his men salted the soil they had dug that day. At dawn, they awakened to find the trench safe and the earth untouched around it.
The young lord knew he had beaten Finvarra. He bade the men dig, and by the next day, they’d cut a glen right through the hill. When they put their ears to the ground, they heard fairy music, and voices floated on the air.

"Now," said one, "Finvarra is sad, for if those men strike a blow on his palace, it will crumble and fade away."

"Then let him surrender the bride," said another, "and we shall all be safe."

Then Finvarra himself spoke clear as a silver bugle: "Stop!" he said. "Lay down your spades, mortal men, and at sunset the bride shall return to her husband. I, Finvarra, have spoken."

The young lord commanded his men to stop digging. At sunset he mounted his chestnut steed and rode to the top of the glen, and just as the sun turned the sky blood-red, Enya appeared on the path. He lifted her to the saddle, and they rode to the castle like storm wind.

But Enya spoke not a word. Days passed, then months, and she lay on her bed in a trance.

Sorrow fell over the castle. The young lord and his people feared the enchantment could not be broken. But late one night, when he rode in the dark, he heard voices in the air.

"It is now a year and a day since the young lord reclaimed his bride, but she is no use to him. Though her form is beside him, her spirit is still with the fairies."

Another said, "She will be so until he breaks the spell. He must loosen the pin from the girdle she wears at her waist, and then he must burn the girdle. He must throw the ashes before the door and bury the pin in the earth. Only then will she speak and know true life."

The young lord spurred his horse and hastened to Enya’s chamber, where she lay like a lovely wax figure. He loosened her girdle and found the pin in its folds. He burned the girdle and scattered the ashes before the door, and he buried the pin in the earth, beneath a fairy thorn, that no hand would disturb it.

When he returned to his young wife, she looked up at him smiling and held out her hand.

Joyfully he raised her to him and kissed her, and she stood as if no time had passed between them, as if the year she had spent with the fairies was only a dream.

The cut in the hill remains to this day and is called "The Fairy’s Glen."

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to wish all of my Celtic Rose friends a very Happy Thanksgiving! May you have a feast at your table and loved ones to share it with. I hope for safe travels for you and your family. Take care!

Love,

Sarah