Of imaginary architectures.
Playing morning music & thinking thinking thinking….
~ S. G.
Tag: medieval
-
Hewn ipso facto from the mountain. 
“Madrigal prodigal pumpkinseeds” 
Cartomantic cartography or cartographic cartomancy? -
Every now and then – almost unsuspectingly – a poem will emerge swift and nearly full-fledged. When this happens it always reminds me of No Face from “Spirited Away”. I feel that as I emerge from a place of intensity, often a place that’s not so good for me, the poem spews forth like tarry gall – I get the thing out feeling cleansed and returned to self.
Or perhaps the poem emerges like some kind of ectoplasmic gauze with my words already jotted on it. My poetry is always filtered through and/or dedicated to the Morrígan as the medieval literature abounds with (Her) prophecy and sorcery in verse. (A rabbit hole I’ll explore on this blog as time goes on.)
In any case, yesterday I was playing the dulcimer and mulling over a few things and upon striking the last lines of a tune, the poem started coming out. In my distraction, I hit the strings of the last chord in such a manner that a resonant overtone or harmonic sounded loud and clear – like a bell.
Luckily I was already at my desk. Dulcimer placed carefully to one side, pen and paper already in hand.
Here is what I coughed up:
* The quotation at the beginning is taken from the opening line of Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
** It should also be noted that there is a version of “Hares on the Mountain” that makes an appearance in this poem. It’s Roud Folk Song Index No. 329 (here’s a link). I don’t know if anyone else finds that certain songs (be they old or new) have a way of following you around in life but this is one such song for me. Specifically, for this poem, you can find renditions of it by Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker or by Shirley Collins.
*** There is only one half-truth in this poem. 🎃
I’d love to hear any thoughts people have on how their gnosis occurs… and does it take time to understand certain parts of it? Is it instantaneous or cumulative? Or both?
Sincerely,
Sorsha.
-
As a rather belated follow up from this video:
I wanted to discuss some basic inspiration & information that went into this project as well as some aspects of what the reality of sewing historically inspired clothing looks like… and of course some of how this applies to (my) witchcraft.
First – on my channel I have addressed a few of the reasons I prefer corsetry but, at some point, I will write a blog post with a proper explanation of the practicalities of corsetry in my life. That day is not today.
Q: What are my design references and aesthetic aims? What am I hoping to achieve visually?
This tends to shift around a bit but stays loosely within the parameters of 1) my time periods of interest and what potential I think they have for overlaps in design and 2) silhouette and colour blocking. Additionally, I like to evoke a mood and set of associations: a medieval decadence (in terms of color and texture); the proportional strangeness & darker shades of Northern Renaissance painters (Petrus Christus, Roger van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck etc); and a tongue-in-cheek reference to Victorian societal dysfunction (I like inverting value judgments based in puritanical virtue, assumptions around sexual permissiveness and mental health differences, reliance on religious institutional hierarchy etc.)
… A witch, at any given time period, would have existed largely in the same clothing expected of most people around her (and may well have identified with them religiously too). I like to explore that dissonance… An almost severe black silhouette with cheeky splashes of colour, perhaps? Dress me like a puritan but invert my cross!!!
Q: What about construction details? Isn’t it squeezy!? Did you make any mistakes!??!??
In terms of construction, I wanted practical movement and a well placed waist-line. I wanted better bust accommodation and garter straps for my socks! (On shorter sock days, I use garters just below the knee, fastened to the outside.) The basis from which I built this custom corset pattern was an early 1910s corset style called a ‘long-line’ corset*. This is not to be confused with the early Edwardian ‘s-bend’ corset. I am already exceptionally curvy and I wanted something that was elongated and smoothing to accommodate my more medieval days. (Corset didn’t exist in the middle ages). Think, John William Waterhouse paintings as a visual starting point… or something by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale.
The added benefit to this type of corset is that it is structurally already quite difficult to lace down too far. It’s a very flexible fit. The waist line cinches where the tummy and spine is the squishiest and most flexible – which serves as an anchor point – and the rest of the corset provides gentle support radiating out from there, up and down.
Without romanticising the ‘rustic’ or glorifying deplorable 19th century working class conditions, a lot of what I am going for is based in working class clothing and practicality. Minimal waste, strategic reuse of mostly second hand fabrics, patching and mending as needed… and planning for movement and more active daily patterns. I make my own soap, I like to cook, I cut out fabrics laid on the floor, I paint, walk, run errands, and frequent pubs in what I sew and the corset is part of what *enables* that (especially as someone with bad spine, joint, and inner organ problems! It works much like a flexible, custom fit back brace with almost no singular pressure points such as a bra band or staps!)
Here is a lovely tertiary resource – a youtube video by Cat’s Costumery – on working women’s corsetry:
In terms of the reality of sewing and making mistakes, I discuss various changes and design elements in my corset video but here is some added detail:
You will see in the photos that I made the corset too big and had to fold down the last panel on either side! At some point I’ll unstitch those panels and adjust them more thoroughly…You will also see, in the photo below, that it seems I made the bust too high originally. My body has also changed slightly in recent weeks so I have re-cut the top and sloppily rebound the edge. It looks messy but it’s strong thread and fits like a glove!
I think this is SUCH a fascinating process… homecraft & creative techniques to fashion a look and way of moving embued with dark mystique!!! I’ll be happy to answer any questions in the comments or even just say hi! And there will be more posts about sewing coming soon. I’ve been up to some pretty crafty shenanigans of late!
* Some basic starting points for this kind of corsetry:
- This woman’s making process is documented on her blog – I found her info and visuals helpful as *an* example of the over-bust option for these later corsets. (Please note, I no longer support the Truly Victorian pattern company.) https://historicalsewing.com/1913-blue-floral-corset
- Festive Atyre has some decent info for those interested in construction but wishing to avoid supporting racist and/or predatory companies and persons in the costuming world: http://www.festiveattyre.com/p/reconstructing-1910s-era-corset.html ; http://www.festiveattyre.com/2011/12/1910s-corset-pattern-and-instructions.html
I have put together a playlist creators’ resources to do with costuming/sewing techniques on my youtube channel. It’s called “Clothing is Magic” and covers techniques, diversity, inclusivity, and various different time periods I find interesting as well as some old footage of clothes in motion!
Further resources & citations on working clothes and photographic anthropological/social/immigration documentation:
- Photo of Slovakian women on Ellis Island from the Public Domain Review article: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/portraits-of-ellis-island-immigrants/
- Photos of Icelanders come from a brilliant free resource – the Online Collections of the Danish National Museum (including satelite tools to hone in on where photographs were taken etc.!): https://samlinger.natmus.dk/
- For some basic info on Daniel Bruun’s photography (and some GREAT images!) check out this article: https://monovisions.com/vintage-portraits-of-icelandic-people-by-daniel-bruun-late-19th-century/
- The photo of two girls from Norangsdalen came from another amazing online resource, the image collections of the Norwegian Folk Museum: https://digitaltmuseum.no/folkemuseet
- I also recommend having a look at the work of Francis Meadow Sutcliffe – especially of women knitting by the docks!
NOTE: While there is a prevalence Nordic or Northern European imagery in this blog post, this is mainly due to a different (personal) research project on which I am working (very slowly). What I mean to illustrate is that there are practicalities of silhouette and construction that interest me in folk costume and working clothes. This post has also been limited by what is available in the public domain etc.
-
You can find Part One on “How We Might Live” by Suzanne Fagence Cooper here.
I have waited longer than initially intended to craft my thoughts on “How We Might Live” into something cohesive. As with all things, I hope to evolve these ideas over time but for now I think the impression that prevails is one of disappointment, then surprise, and then surprise at my own surprise.
Firstly, the book itself and the quality of work that went into it is not the object of my disappointment. It made for an easy, empathetic, and affable read and enabled the process to move along quite quickly, despite the thickness of the volume. I particularly enjoyed the dynamic relationship Cooper sustained between personal histories and extant source material – correspondence, financial records, references to ink vs. graphite notes, collections of friendship or travel books, ephemera etc. Discussion of what records have not survived also abounded. As a former archivist I am quite familiar with how this forms a crucial part of the complete-est picture we can hope to present ourselves of any portion of the past…
Perhaps this is a good segue into my issue, however. I know all too well that no artistic persona or lionisation of historical figures will bear the scrutiny of a grounded perusal of their personal notes, correspondence, and journal entries. Sometimes I even think artists must be the most petty and manipulative individuals amidst an already deeply dysfunctional humanity at large. (I mean, I do qualify my worldview as rather misanthropic.) The book ended up being more about the artists themselves (and their wives): their miscommunications, their struggles to prioritise friendship amidst demanding financial realities or social mores, and their many affairs and jealousies.
Taken during the first lockdown… a joking reference to Pre-Raphaelite models & social confinement. #laudanumisnottheanswer #muchromantic #soart I was perfectly unsurprised to find that my distaste for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as a person, continued and even ripened into full bloom. I was also unsurprised to find that what social power or currency the Pre-Raphaelites (& co.) gave women as artists was diminished and de-prioritised but I hadn’t expected to learn in detail quite how early this diminuendo began. They never disappear entirely (I imagine one could hear them almost as a constant tremolo beneath the arching ‘romantic’ narrative symphony of the male artists’ lives and careers… harmonically relevant but tense). I wish we could have heard even more from Jane or Georgie or first hand from more of their friends. I was dismayed to conclude (mainly for myself) that in spite of being ‘immortalised’ and made ‘divine’ in so many paintings, Jane Morris was likely never truly loved in a romantic sense by anyone.
“Gold Dust Woman”, a portrait of Jane Morris. Graphite and acrylic on watercolour paper. Certainly she has/had been viewed and assessed – valued for her glamour. I recognise the agency in making your own clothes, going against established dress-standards of the day, in navigating socially foreign dynamics etc. I recognise learning things later too… picking up new instruments, acquiring new languages, new poets. But again and again she is seen by others as the woman in all the portraits… her chronic pain mocked or demeaned…mentally examined, ogled, and undressed by would-be artists or would-be lovers: “[a] dark silent medieval woman with her medieval toothache.”*
This book has spoken loud and clear to my long-standing problem with the trope of “artist’s muse”. More on this in a second…
I should say that “How We Might Live” was absolutely not without interesting and valuable ideas and sources of inspiration. I was very interested to read about William Morris’ mannerisms, passion, and methods of work. I have seen elsewhere that there is an overall impression that he may have been neurodivergent…possibly autistic. He certainly makes a compelling case. Hyperfocus, seemingly rather time-blind, intense sensory experience of colour/tonality/repeating patterns, visual metaphor, the insistence on learning deep and well… a tendency to fly in to ‘rages’ and hit his head in distress, intense clumsiness… difficulty in understanding dishonesty or in perceiving when his listeners lost interest (or even WHY they might NOT be interested to begin with), etc. It seems epilepsy also ran in the family.
All of this has been very personally nutritious… It wasn’t 100% what I was aiming for in reading the book but it has left me with some greater clarity on an issue that has dogged me my entire life: muse or artist?
Old grainy photo of 16 year old Sorsha. I have been nudged since I was quite young in the direction of artist’s muse – my earliest compliments were that I looked like a painting. Those socialised as female/feminine in American suburbia will likely recognise what it is to be pushed into purely aesthetic means of gaining social value. There may have been some small added grace given to those showing early savant-like promise – but it couldn’t grant immunity and I was ‘just’ an artsy weirdo. Teachers wrote me poetry but I had unkind friends and simply decent grades. There are too many reasons and personal experiences to enumerate here regarding why this issue plagues me so badly… that’s a topic for future posts (maybe). But I think what I am realising is that to balance being a muse with being an artist is to be your own muse. In a self-curious way. In an organic way, situated in a human as well as non-human landscape. In life experience, in narrative, in music, in sensory detail, in love, grief, kindness, empathy, social justice…and as some kind of value add. It’s a form of integration where selfhood or ‘persona’ takes its place as a small part of a much larger world. And thank GODDESS none of us are actually immortal!
(Neither, by the by, are paintings.)
Self-portrait with Skulls. Sincerely,
Sorsha.
PS. I have more to say about this book… about the book itself but also including a dream I had and so on. For another time.
* Henry James to Alice James, p. 199
** Banner image from unused footage, Lá Bealtaine/May Day 2023
-
“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” ~ William Morris
Anyone who has followed my ‘output’ thus far will likely perceive that I spend a lot of my time immersed in the idea of ‘crafting self’, in the creative act of (re)making identity. Sometimes I call this ‘shape-shifting’ and it takes on quite literal ritual significance. Sometimes it finds expression through changeling motifs and the development of a personal mythology of sorts around my neurodivergence. It is, of course, present in all of my magickal workings, many of which manifest into clothing or art work. These are literal acts of creation that have a reflexive nature (in how they shape me) in addition to an outward one (in how I shape them, the effect their expression has on that which is external.) My most recent video focuses on taking attentive delight on beginner applications of paper marbling:
I even made an entire video about manifesting the astral or the realm of the imagination – weaving together ‘Secret Garden’ motifs with Edwardian, Victorian, and Medieval aesthetics… culminating in the commission of a real pair of shoes – in William Morris fabric and loaded with personal significance, magickal potency, and serious gratitude.
Late diagnosis autistics in particular face the challenge of unmasking, self-advocating and self-representing to the world even as they themselves strive to learn the basics of their own needs. There is a lot of discussion in that process of needing to *create a sense of self*… since everything you have been (or were permitted to be) has been focused on fitting in and survival. Personally, in the year or so before I sought my diagnosis, a social worker was talking me through some very serious and destructive circumstances I had left behind and she said “now is your chance to reinvent yourself”.
… One thing I have been working on is rebuilding my reading skills, knowing what I know now about neurodivergence. Non-fiction seems to be working better for me and I want to document some of the ideas I receive through that in occasional installments on this blog. Currently, I have begun reading “How We Might Live: At Home with Jane and William Morris”.
I found out about this book through a podcast ~
At Home With Jane and William Morris: Suzanne Fagence Cooper (1862) …from “Travels Through Time”
I had been looking online for any resources that might give me more information about Jane Morris specifically. Thus far I am not disappointed. The focus in this worldview, time period, and set of people is not only on making aesthetics a tangible element of daily life but on making that matter. I am excited at the prospect of getting a more holistic picture of the Morris’ family’s works and philosophies – and of those around them – but I am also interested to see flaws, to see where idealism potentially remains unwieldy or takes a less constructive real form. There is a quotation at the end of the first introductory segment that makes me feel so seen I almost cried (one of the reasons I struggle to read, I cry a lot!):
“When I first knew Morris nothing would content him but being a monk, and then he must be an architect, but when I came to London and began to paint, he threw it all up and must paint too, and then he must give it up and make poems, and then he must give it up and make window hangings and pretty things, and when he had achieved that he must be poet again, and then he must learn dyeing and live in a vat and learned weaving and knew all about looms, and then made more books and learned tapestry, and then wanted to smash everything up and begin the world anew, and now it is printing he cares for and to make wonderful rich-looking books: and all things he does splendidly: and if he lives the printing will have an end, and he will do, I don’t know what, but every minute will be alive.” ~ (Edward Burne-Jones after 40 years of friendship with Morris, p.6)
…In the past I have performed on the violin in master classes with the likes of Andrew Manze or in orchestral ensembles at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre. I have spent years throwing clay on the wheel or oil painting. I have immersed myself in learning trad music in the Rockies… or in studying Medieval art and social political history in Ireland. I offered hand painted wearable fairy wings for sale in a shop in Dublin. I have been an archivist in three different countries and a rare books librarian in art historical institutions…
A reading from the Noble Art Tarot by Lennan Smith – a deck that made immediate practical sense to me. These days my art focuses on textiles or coloured pencil, acrylics, and gouache. I make my own inks. I sew my own clothes utilising historical techniques and all my sewing is done without electricity. I make my own soap to wash my hair and my body. I use homemade hair oils and brush my hair with a boar-bristle brush from 1916 (to reduce purchase of new materials.) The list goes on… But what do I do with this cumulative hodge podge of intensity?! I am aware that such passions may lead to personal dysregulation and can replicate different kinds of personal and professional burn out over time. ‘How might I live’… if what I also want represented in my surroundings is both stable and flexible? (Especially in relation to the numinous world around me?) What does that look like? In my view, answering this question is the business of a witch.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! How do you process your goals and dreams? What do they look like? Maybe you don’t even use visuals to do that! All perspectives are valid and welcome here.
With (potentially stubborn) sincerity,
Sorsha.
*Header image features “How We Might Live: At Home With Jane and William Morris” along with The Noble Art Tarot by Lennan Smith.
*This blog post has not been comissioned or sponsored in any way. Any products shown in my images are in the process of being used and no suggestions (implicit or explicit, direct or indirect) are conclusive or objective. I do not do reviews.
-
Why art and altar? Why medieval and magic?
My aim with my online presence in a holistic sense is to do the work of further developing a unique and authentic artistic style and to build that as an inseparable part – maybe even just an outward expression of – my witchcraft and personal paganism. (In some ways, my goal is also to work myself up to a place where I can open my etsy shop and trust myself to handle things like paper work and post offices with reliability.)
There are many topics that get poured into this massive cauldron of bubbling inspiration and what I want to do is explore that process in a conscientious, intentional manner so that whatever comes out (at any given time) does so as fully considered, balanced, and informed as it can be at that time. Some recent ingredients (or topics) of focus have centred around revamping my altar and strengthening the practical aspects of my devotion to the Morrígan.
I wanted the art on my altar to function more directly on the Morrígan in her many aspects. I have felt for a long time that I was placing too much emphasis on her bird forms (Badb), her horse forms (assuming we take Macha to be a facet of the same goddess or even her sister), and to some extent her association with war and death. Thus, the altar has the bird, the horse, and the more cosmic otherworldly aspect accounted for but no wolf, cow, or eel… and also no succinct representation of triplicates either! (It used to but hasn’t had for a while – long story.)
The next question I had was how could I represent so many new animal forms without entirely dismantling my altar for a new layout? I generally take a medieval inspired approach to Irish myth so the first place I looked was medieval manuscripts for representations of the animals in question (or near enough). Below are some examples (including source information) of wolves, cows, and…anything like a snake or fish to give a stylistic basis for drawing an eel. (Oddly, eels were fairly commonplace food items in the middle ages but I’ve had a hard time sourcing properly cited examples. Thanks Pinterest 🙄)
Psalter of Robert De Lisle, c.1310 
Rochester Bestiary, c. 1230 
Der Naturen Bloeme of Jacob van Maerlant, c. 1350 
Harley MS 4751 (ft. additions of Gerald of Wales’ Topographia Hibernica, late 12th-early 13th c. I am also always itching to paint on my furniture (and my walls…as with my altar space) and this seemed like a very good, risk free chance to work on developing my own technique inspired by medieval aesthetics and mimicking various folk styles such as Scandinavian (esp. Norwegian) rosemaling. I also grew up and worked in an area of the US with a lot of old houses that featured strange old paintings in their attics from the folk arts movement – an artistic tradition that included painting folk motifs on furniture as well. Below are some examples that I used as a basic reference as well as a page of my Book of Illuminations where I had some fun practising brush strokes!
Examples of rosemaling style painting – largely uncredited on Pinterest. So I went to the vintage/antique shopping. Among other treasures such as a white rosary specked with what I assume is years of incense resin and a really beautiful old green glass bottle…I found a black wooden statue base. Bought it, took it home, cleaned it up and worked on designing how to paint it! Yorick was being fussy about the box he had been on anyway. 😉
Out of all of this I designed three panels for the statue platform. I incorporated a few William Morris/Arts & Crafts movement/stained glass inspired elements as well (most notably in the birch trees and the leaves behind them.) Note! The cow faces forward and is also somewhat based on modern highland cows… The part of the Táin where the Morrígan takes this form describes Her as a ‘hornless red heifer’. I decided to lighten the colours on her head and keep her ears red as a slight nod to otherworldly cows or cows from the sidhe which are often described as white with red ears. The final product also shows three drops of blood, one for each animal, which are placed spatially in such a way as vaguely indicates where Cúchulainn’s sling shot injured Her in each case. Below are my notes and sketches!
Astral egg symbols abound! Paint experiments. Sketches based on medieval examples – focusing on directionality of brush strokes. Eel modeled loosely on a fresh water species. The final result up close and in situ! This shrine feels so much more complete now. Best believe the gold of Her eyes lights up in reflected candle light.
A video showing some of this process will follow in a day or so, so stay tuned for that! I will endeavour to update this blog post with the embedded video when it is ready.
~ Sorsha.
-
As promised, this is Part II of my initial foray into the topic of medieval magic. As a springboard, I will be using a chapter by Mark Williams from the Routledge History of Medieval Magic, titled “Magic in Celtic Lands”. The chapter features examples from Ireland and Wales but, for my purposes, I will focus on Ireland today.
Firstly, what is the impetus for this line of enquiry? The most immediate reason is that I’m obsessed with the middle ages and I function, personally, within ‘the’ Irish mythological framework. Our textual evidence of Irish myth originates or begins in the middle ages in spite of its narrative setting in the Iron Age. Personally, I tend to take the academic view that Irish myth – such as we have it – is medieval literature. More specifically, I’m interested in topics such as the ways in which the format of rosc poetry carries ‘magical’ potency; in Irish mythological tropes around prophecy; the literal singing or chanting component of ‘enchantment’ such as it appears in certain stories; and a certain recurring visual motif involving ‘bird heads’ or bird headed…ness? I’ll get into my thoughts on what this currently means for my magico-spiritual artistic practice toward the end of this post.
Some BRIEF background information… The word “Celtic”, as Mark Williams states, “is a difficult term, precise only when deployed in a linguistic context: it is used in a parallel manner to “Roman” and “Germanic” to denote a major branch of the Indo-European language family.” (123) Scholarship on the topic applies to regions linguistically Celtic whereas popular culture and imagination thinks of places like Ireland and Scotland and so on as ‘celtic lands’ (as Williams words it) or in terms of ‘celtic heritage’. Williams also notes that relating similar motifs between Ireland and Wales and calling them “Celtic” might no longer be done with confidence:
“it is increasingly acknowledged that similarities between the two countries’ literary traditions – formerly taken as evidence for a shared cultural inheritance – may in fact be medieval borrowings or independent innovations. […] The question of what medieval Irish literature in particular owed to the Bible and to the wider European world was a controversial area of critical debate for much of the second half of the last century, and the examination of magic is likely to constellate the issue once again in significant ways.
The field of Irish and Welsh magic is therefore excitingly wide open, and a reconsideration of all the surviving records and representations of magical practices is badly needed.” (123)THAT is exciting!
Dreams of diving headlong into the world of Celtic Magic Academia and never resurfacing aside (for now), I want to discuss some particulars of this chapter that jumped off the page and screamed ‘remember and explore me!’ Firstly, Williams emphasizes the potential for differences between literary magic and historical magical practice. In so doing, he introduces characteristics on the Irish ‘literary druid’ (127) and provides two examples: Cathbad (who we might perceive as ‘good’ or praiseworthy in the the stories, though he tends to get on my nerves) and Mog Ruith, with whom I am less familiar.
“Mog Ruith, in contrast, is a more morally ambiguous figure. In Forbuis Dromma Damghaire, he is Fiachu’s major secret weapon against the forces of Cormac (though Cormac has his own team of druids too), being a miracle-worker possessed of a spectacular repertoire. He can alter his size at will, set things on fire with his breath, cause rains of blood, send people to sleep for long periods and create magical animals which go after enemy champions […] At one point, he puts on a cloak and “bird-headdress” and ascends into the air.” (130)
My eyes nearly fell out when I read that last sentence. Those of you familiar with my youtube channel, you may remember the ritual costume I made for Samhain in which I crafted a bird mask and black linen veil (rather in the style of modern folkloric/pagan pageantry) for the purpose of shapeshifting and affecting change in my personal life and spiritual practice.
My video last Samhain, vlogging the #artwitch process… I got this idea mainly from associations with the crow and the Morrígan*, my personal obsession with shapeshifting motifs, as well as a specific mention in the foretales of the Táin Bó Cuailgne, as translated by Thomas Kinsella. From Cúchulainn’s training in arms:
“[While on raid for Scáthach, his warrioress mentor] he came back the way he had gone, and met a one-eyed hag in his path. She told him to get out of her way. He said that would leave him no room to pass except the sea-cliff below them. But she begged him to get out of her way. So he let her have the path, except where he clung by his toes. She struck at his big toe as she passed him by, to knock him off the path down the cliff. But he saw her in time and gave his hero’s salmon-leap upward. Then he struck off the hag’s head. She was Eis Enchenn, the bird-headed, mother of the three last warriors to die at his hands. It was to avenge their ruin that she lay in wait for him.” (Kinsella, 33)
These stories are hardly a feminist utopia (just read a few paragraphs in either direction from this point) but – in addition to the one-eyed hag which is a descriptor that exists in other stories, including for the Morrígan, Herself – I was particularly interested in this ‘birdheaded’ detail…is it a kenning? An epithet? Was it literal or metaphorical? It seems important, especially as it occurs in a section of Cúchulainn’s stories that involves so many magically potent martial prophetesses. I don’t yet know how it is phrased in the Old Irish or any specifics about Kinsella’s translation choices here.
Thus, as regards Mog Ruith, I had never encountered an explicit mention of donning a bird headdress for the purpose of shifting shape or flying before. Yet, from an UPG** perspective, you might say this is what I did for Samhain. I like that but I don’t need it to be objectively ‘true’. I DO need to learn Old Irish and research the heck out of this for the rest of my living days. It has also only further cemented my tendency to merge bird-symbolism and artistic practice. The alchemy of art (including costumery and stitchcraft) is that when we have extant primary evidence from our favoured time periods, we can exist in direct artistic dialogue with them. In my opinion, it makes very fertile ground for personal gnosis.
I have more to say on Mark Williams’ chapter – including another juicy tidbit about the Túatha Dé (god-peoples) and their ‘theological knowledge’ allowing them to occupy a similar ontological category to medieval demons… and how that’s born out in other medieval Irish literature… but this blog post is long enough, I think.
Until next time!
Nerdily yours,
Sorsha.* I don’t use the phrase ‘matron deity’ but I guess you could consider me a ‘devotee’ in so far as I live my life & devotional practice ‘under the auspices of Her wing’ (as I often put it.) In this post, I have used her most well known name… but I’m not necessarily only referring to one Morrígan here.
** Unverified Personal GnosisCitations:
- Kinsella, Thomas. The Táin: From the Irish Epic Táin Bó Cuailgne. Oxford University Press, 2002. A 2002 reissue of the Oxford Universtiy Press 1970 edition, with illustrations by Louis Le Brocquy.
- Page, Sophie, et al. “Magic in Celtic Lands.” The Routledge History of Medieval Magic, Routledge, Taylor Et Francis Group, London ; New York, New York, 2021, pp. 123–135.
-
Hm. This does not feel like one of those moments where I may triumphantly declare:
“I made an Oracle Deck!”
As it happens, I did make one …only I didn’t. It’s called “The Dreams of Pantagruel Oracle” and it is part magical tool, part divination method, and part the extended overtures of a rare old book nerd. The ‘book’ in question is “The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel” (original French: Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel) – a public domain reproduction from 1869 of an original volume from 1565. (See introduction/companion booklet below for more!)
Pantagruel is a giant – a character invented by Francois Rabelais in Renaissance France – whose escapades (and those of his father, Gargantua) form a collection of scholastic, social, and religious commentary as well as baudy, irreverent, often inebriated stories…aimed, it seems, at delighting and enraging the social order of 16th century France.
I did not draw these images… Neither did the 19th century publisher (Tross) of the volume from which they were taken… Neither did the 16th century publisher (Breton) of the volume from which that publisher reproduced them… Neither did Rabelais himself, to whom Breton attributed the artistry of these images… Learned discourse suspects it was illustrator/engraver Louis Desprez who produced other work for Breton in a similar style.
Dreams of Pantagruel with the Joie de Vivre Tarot The deck has 123 cards in total, measuring 2.75” x 4.75” (70mm x 120mm) in linen card stock and they are now available on MPC.
In the shoplisting I promised a PDF booklet introducing the deck – it includes some basic historical information, some indications of why I made it (other than just wanting it to exist), asks some questions, and leaves the door very wide open for any manner of uses at the total discretion of those who choose to acquire it. It also includes citations!!!
What follows are some of my own personal initial thoughts about the deck at this time. My journey in using these cards has only just begun but here goes…
Firstly, I am very interested in the weird ‘Bosch’-like world to be found on the margins of society. I like to ask myself questions about how society asks questions. Having worked in different kinds of archives over time, fulfilling queries for different kinds of researchers on different topics, it’s astounding just how much the assumptions in approach inform (or limit) retrieval and results. Of course, the way information is catalogued can also skew things… as do ‘hidden collections’ – collections that exist but are horribly back-logged, invisible until allocation of resources and social priority allow ‘us’ to ‘see’ them.
Secondly, I’m interested in the shapeshifting nature of personal characteristics but I want to be very clear that, in my opinion, equating moral or social value with physical appearance is unacceptable. There is enough work on our hands to undo tropes around ‘disfigurement = sign of evil’ in fairy tales and fantasy without adding to it through the misuse of our creativity going forward. The characters in this deck are not automatically marginalised or considered unfavourable. The worldview that created them was flawed (for one thing Rabelais, author of the Gargantua/Pantagruel stories was definitely sexist!) and the worldview of ‘curious persons’ who view and respond to these images will create what they bring to the deck… to put it bluntly.
Dreams of Pantagruel with Le Tarot Noir Thirdly, assessment is on-going…but this deck is one step in the much larger personal aim of seeing the world in terms of the imaginative qualities of its inhabitants. I guess you could say I wanted a deck of ‘friends’ to support me in that work. “Familiars”? “Servitors”? Demon-cohorts whose names are Legion?
Fourthly, I’m SLOWLY going to be learning as much as I can about the historical details in these images. I already recognise certain clothing elements that leave clues as to what some of the jokes or references might be. (Such as pin cushion codpieces…) It’s not immediately clear to me how much of these images are already understood from an (art) historian’s point of view, but I’m eager to see the extent to which whatever details I uncover influence my own self-styled way of being, visually and otherwise.
Fifthly, it’s no fluke that Renaissance imagery should make sense in terms of tarot visuals. I’m enjoying the way this pairs with various decks in my own Oracular Library!
Dreams of Pantagruel with the Magicae Daemonibus Tarot… this morning’s shadow work! Lastly, within the framework of Irish myth, medieval literature, and various iterations of ‘fairy-faith’ or dealings with the Other Crowd… there is a lot I want to explore about how I perceive denizens of Otherworlds and how that fits into my own mythological/cosmological framework. I’m in the process of exploring and expanding my own astral realm (a place I have been referring to lately as “the little cosmos”) but none of that is solidified and it’s well beyond the scope of this blog post…
I hope my ideas are not too superimposed onto the deck for having shared them a bit here! And I hope very much that whoever decides to buy the deck enjoys it and derives benefit from it in some way. I’m going to explore other ways/platforms of making it accessible in time but, for now, do remember that the images from the 1869 volume are in the public domain! Go check them out too!
Yours in sincere drollery,
Saoirse.
-
I mentioned in last week’s video (“Who Painted the Lion?” or “Medieval Shadows & Cards of the Year”) that I have begun exploring academic perspectives on medieval magic. The first thing of note is a fairly baseline agreement on the historical distinction between ‘magic’ and ‘witchcraft’ (something we see holds true in the early modern period as well through secondary works by the likes of Ronald Hutton etc.) The second thing to highlight is that, as with most things, this is an entire academic discipline and a developing one. My intention is to pursue the points that interest me and then see how it feels to relate some of that back to my own work as a modern practitioner of ‘medieval-infused’ witchcraft and art magic.
The aim of this post and any others like it (e.g. capering treacherously on the border, with historical research or context on one side and personal gnosis or numinous magic on the Other) is simply to show ‘process’:
- How do I gather ideas or inspiration?
- When, how, and why does that inform my magick and art?
- Why might that lead to further UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis)?
For now, I’ve started with “The Routledge History of Medieval Magic”, edited by Sophie Page* and Catherine Rider and published in 2019. The main goal of the book is to show the current standing of the field but also to illustrate various directions in which it needs expansion. It’s less an overview of what has come before and more an academic call to action with each chapter serving as useful examples, or signposts, for further research. Yes please!!!
Part I, Chapter I: “Rethinking how to define magic” by Richard Kieckhefer presents some interesting ideas surrounding why magic is difficult to define (even for academics! We’ll steer clear of the choppy waters around definitions of magic and witchcraft in modern practice on this blog!)
Concepts that caught my eye came up as he was establishing his main system of “aggregating terms” vs. “constituitive terms” (pp. 15-16) – i.e. the vague umbrella terms like ‘magic’ vs. better defined component parts. He draws a comparison to the term “mysticism”. Like the word magic, ‘mysticism’ resists attempts at explanation and evokes many different ideas or impressions of what it is.
“A comparison may help. It has long seemed to me useful to think of mysticism […] not as a single phenomenon but rather as a cluster of phenomena that may at times be distinct but tend to become intertwined. There is mystical prayer, mystical relationship and mystical consciousness.” (p. 15)
In the medieval Christian context,
- mystical prayer – involves “fervent and intense, highly concentrated, focused prayer, cultivated within the setting of the contemplative or monastic life.”
- mystical relationship – Kieckhefer represents through Bernard of Clairvaux or “the German sister books that are deeply steeped in “theoerotic” relationship […] with Christ.”** This is the view in which one might ‘burn with love’ for deity.
- mystical consciousness – Kieckhefer says can be found in the vernacular sermons of Meister Eckhart “who wants his hearers or readers to gain a lively awareness of God’s presence within herself […] and her own true and eternal presence within God.”
Kieckhefer clarifies that these may all be combined in different ways by a single medieval writer. His example is the writing of Teresa of Ávila. (p.15)
I’m already interested in the murky waters of mystical thinking… not to mention words like “theoerotic” (which, incidentally, might be more readily available to the imaginations of non-Christian devotees of deity or deities).
**Some books on my ‘TBR’ taken from my atheist partner’s bookshelf (who’s shelf SHOULD these belong to? Squabbles abound.) However, coming back to the aggregating term of ‘medieval magic’, Kieckhefer offers at least three options for its constitutive terms: conjuration, symbolic manipulation, and directly efficacious volition. (p. 17-18)
Honing in on symbolic manipulation (hello, art witch here!) Kieckhefer says some really juicy words:
“If a plant shaped like a liver is useful for healing the liver, it is in that sense a sign of what is thought to affect, and the intelligible resemblance is what effects the healing. […] If conjuration is a reprobate branch of religion, symbolic manipulation claims an efficacy like that of science and will be seen by its practitioners as a type of science. The magician who manipulates symbolic links in the natural order might be thought of as tugging on invisible cords that link one level of that order with another. The symbolic links may be articulated in terms of cosmic correspondences and sympathies, at least in sources that provide theoretical grounding for magical practice. If the invisible cords are not thought of as efficacious symbolically, then the process is not magical; the user may not be told explicitly that symbolic links are entailed, and may simply be assured that the results are tried and proven, but in magical operations, the symbolic causality is at least implied by the types of word, ritual and object used.” (p. 17)
Taking this historical analysis and running wild with it in the modern day, I think the analogy of tugging on unseen cords of meaning is just…poetry. This may also provide a very useful visual for what some modern practitioners mean in their discussions of magical correspondences or energetic work. In my view, this perspective posits a model for developing personalised magical symbolism in art as and when it feels creatively powerful to do so. Whether the ‘invisible cords are thought of as efficaciously symbolic’ might be the keystone for agency in that approach. If I were to use the language we have explored here in Kieckhefer’s chapter, then to be an art witch is just as much the work of developing artistic style, an individual (and recognisable) ‘voice’, and recurring visual motifs that – when aggregated – convey an added layer of meaning in the whole that is the finished piece. In other words, they constitute magic.
Art must also speak for itself… but in theory, part of the magick that heightens its efficacy might lie in some of the following: symbolic connections forged by the individual artist; the time spent exploring the meaning of what they want to do or say; practicing techniques for how that might be rendered; and strengthening those motifs (‘correspondences’) over time. Perhaps this is contained in colour choices? Or recurrences in textural play? In different media? Or in more literally repeated visuals like egg symbolism?
I’m reminded of the medieval Irish approach to manuscript illumination and prayer…where the word and all its colours and symbols IS the prayer, IS the presence of the divine in an even more literal sense. (A famous example being the Chi Rho page in the Book of Kells.)
I would very much love to hear your thoughts in the comment sections! How do you feel about the way your creativity or your magick comes together or what that process entails? What do you think about sources of inspiration and how that becomes magickal for you (whether you make art or not!)?
Incidentally, medieval Ireland, medieval Celtic magic, and how that might impact art witchery will be the topic of Part 2 of this post. I’ll leave you with that cliff-hanger – mainly due to space and time constraints – and hope very much to see you there.
Awkwardly yours,
Sorsha.
Sources:
Harrington, Elaine. “The Book of Kells: Image and Text / the Chi Rho Page – the River.” The Book of Kells: Image and Text – The Chi Rho Page, The River-Side, UCC, 20 Dec. 2022, https://theriverside.ucc.ie/2017/06/01/the-book-of-kells-student-exhibition-ma-in-medieval-history-the-chi-rho-page/.
Page, Sophie, et al. “Part 1, Chapter 1: Rethinking How to Define Magic.” The Routledge History of Medieval Magic, Routledge, Taylor Et Francis Group, New York, NY, 2019, pp. 15–18.
*some people have the coolest names…Sophie Page!?
