My open blog for people who want to read my books,articles, and any other things that I might produce, keep track of storytelling engagements, listen to my less demented rantings, and generally play nice (or naughty, I'm easy... as is widely known).
Lost and Found
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As many readers will already know, a short while ago the 6ft statue of the sea god Manannan mac Lir was stolen by religious extremists from its site on Binevenagh mountain where it was part of a tourist trail. The gang of clearly very organised thieves left a cross citing the Biblical Commandment to "have no other god before me" (whilst judiciously ignoring the one about not stealing).
Thankfully the statue has just been spotted by ramblers and retrieved by local soldiers. It has been damaged - perhaps in the process of being thrown way - though hopefully it is not beyond repair and can soon be returned to the plinth.
To celebrate the rediscovery, I've recorded the myth of how Manannan was instrumental in introducing horses to Ireland.
Not having recorded anything for a while (too busy marking, second marking, report writing, lecture prepping, and all the other end-of-term/beginning-of-new-term stuff that educators have to do), I decided to save what little creativity I have by reading someone else's far greater creative works ~ Christina Rossetti's long old poem "Goblin Market". It's a beautifully sensuous, allegorical work which probably set Freudians into a spin.
The book it is in is a wonderfully illustrated 1920s collection of children's poetry, all of which is about fairies, elves, goblins and the like - a Yule/birthday gift from a friend. I shall probably record some shorter poem from it at some point in the future. The picture inset is from the book. It is by an artist I've not previously heard of called Warwick Goble - who may well be famous, but I'm not familiar with many children's illustrators. I looked him up and he seems to have been really quite prolific.
This is a waffle around why some pagans make offerings, considering both theological and practical aspects, made whilst making fudge (though, to be honest, the consistency is closer to toffee - which is what comes of not being able to find my sugar thermometer).
Some time ago I posted about the early Catholic thinking on the sin of invidia (these days called envy) and its background in earlier Roman philosophy. To briefly recap, the sin of invidia from a Catholic stance is to place our resentment that others have something which we do not above and beyond a somewhat Panglossian faith in God to make the absence of the desired-for thing worth enduring. The earlier view emphasised that this was not simply a matter of brooding self-pityingly on what the lucky swine next door has, but the active wish to deprive them of it ~ the caustic view that if I cannot have a thing then nobody else should have it either.
Nietzsche's take on envy was sightly different, in that he saw it as a more noble form of honesty although one with numerous pitfalls. Nobody has everything they want and we should aspire to be honest when we see someone with a possession, a relationship, a skill or personal quality that we would dearly like but cannot (yet) have. For hi…
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