Celtic Medicine Stories

Tatterhood

This is one of my favorite tales. It calls to the wild part of me, the one that longs to sleep on the earth and find moss in my hair. The story follows the thread of the balance between the wild and the domesticated It warns us of the lack of fertility that seeps into life when we live too far from the earth. It strikes me that this is not a modern problem. This story was first written down in Norway in the mid 1800s and shares many themes with Celtic tales. I’m curious what medicine it might carry for you. To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Merlin: Prophesy from the Forest

This one again. This story won’t leave me alone. This is a re-telling of Merlin’s story as it comes through me often. We have little on record of this battle, the battle of Arfderydd recorded in the year 573. It’s location is thought to have been in what is now an old field just north of the Scottish- English border. And it is recorded as one of the three futile battles of Britain. It is also recorded that this is the battle in which merlin went mad and spend 3 days and 3 nights without food, drink or sleep in the wildwood. In this telling the story of the battle and what happened after is my imagining - having spend time up there on that land and time fasting out in the woods. the prophesy at the end of this telling has been recorded in multiple ways in multiple texts. I recommend you give yourself some space to listen to this one. It’s not good driving material. It might require you to dig into your own loss, and what we’ve lost collectively. And from that the seeds of knowing push through the dark soil bringing new life. I invite you to reflect on what it might mean to turn yourself into soil. To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Old Women Who Gather (16)

This story captured my heart when I first heard it. It comes from the Irish Travelers tradition and is recorded in a beautiful book called "Why the Moon Travels" by Oein BeBhairduin. These tales stand out to me as distinct from most other Celtic tales that I have come across, they explain the origins of things in a way I am used to coming across in Native American stories but not Celtic ones. This story carries a world wide theme of women who work to spin and weave in addition to plant lore and magical instruction. All in a short little folktale! I offer this as an honoring to all those who work for benefit of others and the ancestors who got us here. I highly recommend Oein's book, there's a link here [https://skeinpress.com/product/why-the-moon-travels-by-oein-debhairduin-copy/] to purchase a copy. Enjoy.To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Song of the Selkie

Stories of the seal people are prevalent all along the west coast of Ireland and Scotland and up into the Faroe Islands. if you’ve spend any time wandering the shorelines of those places you’ll know why - the seals are very present, you can hear them breathing and see their big, brown eyes watching you as they hover on that threshold between sky and water. And if you’r lucky you might see them on that other threshold between water and land. There’s a whole genre of folktales about the seal folk that were carried for countless generations by tellers in clans that claimed to be descended from them. This is one take that has found it’s way around many storytelling circles and I read the bones of it in Sharon Blackie’s book, If Women Rose Rooted. It’s full of mythic themes of transformation and the power of experiencing loss, and what happens when we refuse to experience loss, which I won’t attempt to explain but instead let the story do it’s work with you. To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Fairy Midwife

There are variations of the Fairy Midwife story from up and down the British Isles, it seems to be ubiquitous and wound deep into the fabric of Celtic lore. This is my own telling of this old story that highlights the complex role midwives have played in our cultures. These women who stand at the portal between the worlds assist in births, and deaths, and the opening to The Otherworld in more ways than we tend to recognize. The midwife reminds us that the Otherworld is always there, always available, if we just have the eyes to see and the ears to listen. Learn more about me here: https://www.ancestralconnection.earth [https://www.ancestralconnection.earth] To delve deeper into the images and archetypes that stand out for you in this story I invite you to subscribe to the free email course: Working with Archetypes here https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes [https://soul.kathoughton.com/working-with-archetypes] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com [https://adventuresintheotherworld.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]