There are numerous accounts in tradition of wayfarers who suffer fits of confusion and disorientation while traversing the natural landscape. Such bouts were at times attributed to the influence of the fairies (who would set wanders astray for their own amusement) or the power of the stray sod (an enchanted sod of earth which set those who trod upon it astray). While the accounts vary, these occurrences involve situations in which individuals are forced to navigate a landscape characterised by its sudden shift into unfamiliarity and strangeness. Tilled fields that are worked by day become unnavigable and impassable by night. Well-worn and intimately known paths, crossroads and laneways are rendered odd, unknown and eerie all at once. The landscape at times becomes unrecognisable, indefinite and nameless. Landmarks are erased, inverted or otherwise replaced with new and unidentified features. Grand residences and strange houses appear on the side of hitherto barren hills. Impenetrable fogs, mists and coloured hazes descend and disorientate. Rivers, ditches, woods and walls appear to block all progress through the land. Lights rise and float in the distance and familiar reference points fall away, leaving the experiencer to navigate strange and foreign scenery which is at once indeterminate and unknown, with disenchantment coming at the dawn, leaving the exhausted wayfarer to suddenly realise their location, often only short distance from their homes.

For episode 30 of Blúiríní Béaloidis Jonny traverses fields, hedges, ditches and heights examining narratives concerning stray sod and 'seachrán sí' (fairy straying) traditions; from the graves of unbaptised children to illusions and phantasms appearing in the natural landscape, and from spirits of the dead refused entry to either heaven or hell, to workings of the fairy host, join us as we explore the liminal personae who inhabit those isolated and unknown portions of the landscape.

Blúiríní Béaloidis 30 - The Stray Sod

The present is inevitably haunted by the past. A cluttered past. Order and chaos spill over and onto each other. The past onto the present, and the present onto the past. Academically, this causes many potential problems: Will data saturation force us to reinvent the way we deal with the past? Will the fragility of modern tech create gaps in the knowledge our descendants will have about us? Is linear time a sham? How will we cope with pastness in the inevitable clutter of the Anthropocene? We're just rolling with the punches! But first of all, let us shed some of the historicist paradigms we've grown all too accustomed to. In this episode of high Scandifuturism, archaeologist Stein Farstadvoll (@wasteunearthed)comes on to question the one-track-mind of linearity and explore barbarian ontologies.

https://unrulyheritage.com/
Stein Farstadvoll on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stein-Farstadvoll

Some referenced works:
- Benjamin, Walter (1940). Theses on the Philosophy of History.

- Eliade, Mirchea (1949). The Myth of the Eternal Return.

- Lund, Thure Erik (2000). Om naturen.

- Lund, Thure Erik (2006). Om de nye norske byene.

- Mayhem (1994). De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.

- Nietzsche, Friedrich (1896). Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

- Storesund, Eirik (2017). The Trollish Theory of Art.

- Tusmørke: https://tusm-rke.bandcamp.com.

36: Cluttered Pasts and Unruly Heritage with Stein Farstadvoll

For this episode of Blúiríní I am joined by sculptor Aidan Harte, whose recent work 'The Púca of Ennistymon' was commissioned by Clare county Council for the town of Ennistymon in the west of Ireland. The piece caused widespread controversy and made headlines nationally and internationally over the summer, being denounced as a pagan idol and sinister statue irreflective of the character and heritage of the town. In the course of our discussion Aidan and I examine the controversy and differing opinions regarding the statue, before taking a closer look at the figure of the Púca himself.

The Púca is a solitary spirit in Irish folk tradition. A wanderer of the night, tradition tells us that he is often found in lonely portions of the rural landscape beyond the confines of the town; gambolling and sporting to himself amidst the hayfields in autumn, spoiling the fruit of the roadside with the coming of winter or haunting lonely glens, caves, chasms, cliffs, pools, forts, woods and castles across Ireland that bear his name. His shape is amorphous - many mushrooms are named after him, and he may appear to wayfarers on the road at night as a horse, a goat, a dog, a man or as a streak of light. Those who meet with him in lonely places at night relate how he hoists them up on his back before embarking on a breakneck cross-country ride; leaping over ditches and through hedges, or running along cliff edges frightening and tormenting his unhappy passenger. Other accounts relate the ways in which the Púca protects those whom he meets; safeguarding them against some worse fate at the hands of otherworld beings, or protecting castles and large estates as a sort of tutelary figure or house spirit. Join us as we explore this chaotic and shadowy figure of 'malignancy and mischief'.

Some sources drawn on for this episode:
The Eldritch World, Nigel Pennick (Arcana Europea 2019)
Irish Names of Places, Patrick Weston Joyce (M. H. Gill and Son 1887)
Deasún Breathnach, 'The Púca: A Multifunctional Irish Supernatural Entity' in Folklore Volume 104 (1993 i & ii)
Erin Sebo, 'Does OE Puca Have an Irish Origin?' in Studia Neophilologica, Volume 89 (2017 Issue 2)
Claude Lecouteaux, 'Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, Mythology and Magic' (Inner Traditions, ed. Michael Moynihan, 2016)
Claude Lecouteaux, The Tradition of Household Spirits (Inner Traditions, trans. Jon E. Graham, 2013)
Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies (Penguin, 1976)
National Folklore Collection Main Manuscript Collection
National Folklore Collection Schools' Manuscript Collection
National Folklore Collection Audio Collection

For Frank Callery's singing see:
https://soundcloud.com/frankcallerysongs

For Enda Haran's Music see:
https://www.facebook.com/endaharan2017/
https://www.instagram.com/endaharanmusic/
https://endaharan.bandcamp.com/

Blúiríní Béaloidis 31 - The Púca (with Aidan Harte)

With the coming of the cool wet weather of autumn, life begins to turn inward again . The fields lie fallow and bare, flowers wither, leaves decay, and all life seems to return to the earth.  It's in this period of fading light, that strange and beautiful forms begin to arise from the undergrowth in the temperate regions all over Europe. In woodlands, fields, gardens and along roadsides, colourful fungi and mushrooms of all shapes and sizes quietly spring forth and flourish as if from nowhere, while all else appears in a state of decline.

A short entry in volume 1670 of the Main Manuscript Collection at the NFC contains information collected from around Ireland on the topic of mushrooms in folk tradition. The material contained in this volume, previously unpublished and explored in this podcast episode, explores traditional attitudes to mushrooms in Irish tradition and outlines their uses along with popular beliefs concerning them. Audio from the NFC sound archive also features, along with audio material from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive and the singing group Landless.

My thanks to archivist Danielle Castronovo at the Economic Botany Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Harvard University for her help in filling the gaps of some correspondence between R. Gordon Wasson and the Irish Folklore Commission. My thanks to archivist Maeve Gebreurs at the Irish Traditional Music Archive for forwarding Diane Hamilton's 1957 recording of Robert Cinnamond's rendition of the song 'Gathering Mushrooms'. Thanks likewise to Emmett Gill, archivist at Na Píobairí Uileann for pointing me in the direction of the collection of which this song is a part. Thanks too to Dónal Lunny, copyright holder, for permission to include this piece in the podcast.

A variety of sources are consulted and discussed throughout, some links below:

Prehistoric fungal representations in Tassili Algeria
https://www.britannica.com/place/Tassili-n-Ajjer

A Prehistoric Mural in Spain Depicting Neurotropic Psilocybe Mushrooms?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41242925

The Fungus Lore of the Greeks and Romans
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0007153614800077

Dioscorides: De Materia Medica
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/aconite/materiamedica.html

Mushroom Artwork of Otto Marseus van Shrieck
https://bit.ly/3nEwy3n

Plutarch: Essays and Miscellanies
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3052/3052-h/3052-h.htm#link2HCH0065

The Hypothesis on the Presence of Entheogens in the
Eleusinian Mysteries
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327838578_The_hypothesis_on_the_presence_of_entheogens_in_the_Eleusinian_Mysteries

Mircea Eliade - Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691210667/shamanism

Nora Chadwick: Imbas Forosnai
http://searchingforimbas.blogspot.com/p/imbas-forosnai-by-nora-k-chadwick.html

An Irish Materia Medica: Tadhg Ó Cuinn
https://celt.ucc.ie//published/G600005/index.html

William Camden: Brittania
https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Camden/32

Seeking the Magic Mushroom: Life Magazine May 1957 (via MAPS.org)
https://bibliography.maps.org/bibliography/default/resource/15048

Tina and R. Gordon Wasson - Russia, Mushrooms and History (vols. 1, & 2) [PDF]
https://doorofperception.com/2015/04/r-gordon-wasson-seeking-the-magic-mushroom/

Audio featured from the Irish Traditional Music Archive:
https://itma.ie

Landless:
https://landless.bandcamp.com/

National Folklore Collection online portal:
https://dúchas.ie

Blúiríní Béaloidis 32 - Mushrooms In Tradition

Moondog à Paris en 1982 avec l'ensemble Prospection.

Moondog - Hymn To Peace (Paris, 1982)

Dyr og rare kjerringer

Katta satt oppme omna sjuk

We speak to radical environmentalist researcher and writer John Jacobi about the largely under-reported new violent wave of eco-extremism. He tells us how eco-terrorism is very much on the rise and how it's turning into something more dangerous: militant nihilism. 

- www.patreon.com/popularfront

- www.popularfront.co

- www.twitter.com/jake_hanrahan

- www.instagram.com/popular.front

36. The New Wave of Eco-Terrorism and Nihilist Militancy

While rooted in the earth, trees ascend towards the firmament of the Heavens. They likewise renew themselves through the eternal rhythms that govern all living things (those cycles of growth, maturation, decay and rebirth) as they blossom, flower, give fruit and eventually shed their leaves before being reborn anew each spring. Certain of these proud intermediaries between heaven and earth were treated with great veneration by our forebears, and echoes of the worship of sacred trees survives in folk tradition to this day.

For this 19th edition of Blúiríní Béaloidis, hosts Jonny Dillon and Claire Doohan consider their culture born of nature. From sacred trees under which kings of Ireland were inaugurated in times long ago, to the holy woods inhabited by both madmen and saints, and from votive offerings left hanging on the branches of trees growing beside holy wells, to those trees treated with fear and trepidation, understood as they were, as dwellings of the otherworld spirits which live alongside us in the natural landscape. Stay with us for an hour then, as we shelter beneath the branches of tradition, which gift to us the fruits of memory and meaning.

Jonny and Claire would like to send their thanks to Landless for permission to include the song 'The Trees Grow Tall' from their 2018 LP Bleaching Bones (played at 38 minutes, 12 seconds into the podcast). For more information about the group, and to support their work go to:

https://landless.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/landlessmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/landless_music_dublin/

We likewise send thanks to Richard Moult, for allowing us permission to include a beautiful piece of his piano music titled 'Star Filled Tree, Blacksburg' to close the podcast (the piece is played at 58 minutes, 48 seconds). If you would like to learn more about Richard's art, and to support his work, please go to:

https://starred-desert.com

Blúiríní Béaloidis 19 - Sacred Trees In Folk Tradition

Tracklist:

Boards of Canada - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country
Forest - Graveyard (2007 Remastered Version)
Dave Evans - Grey Lady Morning
Paul Ferris - Peaceful Interlude
Current 93 - The Bloodbells Chime
Tony Caro & John - All On The First Day
Bo Hansson - Leaving Shire
Bas Jan - Walton On The Maze
Death in June - But, What Ends When The Symbols Shatter?
Ian Humberstone - The Summons Of Death
Ice Dragon - Mary Wants a Sunset
Richard Dawson - Ogre

HERESY W/ Derrick Gee - NTS Radio

The festival of Samhain has since ancient times been considered as a major turning point in the ritual year. In marking the threshold of darkness and the end of the season of light, the eve of Samhain (observed all over Ireland at sundown on the 31st of October) is characterised by heightened supernatural activity, a return of the ancestral dead, divination magic, mischief, ritual disguise and the suspension of normal modes and rules of behaviour.

For this edition of Blúiríní, Jonny is joined by a special guest, Dr. Billy Mag Fhloinn. Billy is a folklorist, archaeologist, author and lecturer, whose book ‘Blood Rite: The Feast of St. Martin in Ireland’ was published in 2016, and who has contributed to international television productions by the BBC, PBS and the National Geographic Channel. For more information about Billy and his work, and to contact him directly please visit his site https://tradition.ie/

This edition of Blúiríní also features contributions from Aghast and Halo Manash

Aghast were an all-female group from Norway, whose haunting and atmospheric album 'Hexerei Im Zwielicht Der Finsternis' was released in 1995. For more information, see http://www.metaladies.com/bands/aghast/

Halo Manash hail from Finland, and aim to 'seek, explore, experience, study and decipher reflections of the ever-shifting shapes and spaces of different worlds', in order to 'revitalise one of the oldest subconscious forms of communication, to open the gates and widen the horizon of perception concerning states of otherness lying in-between the cardinal directions.' Our special thanks for their generosity in permitting us to include their music in this edition of the podcast. For more information, and to support them directly, please visit http://www.helixes.org/halomanash/about/

Blúiríní Béaloidis 21 - Samhain / Halloween (With Dr. Billy Mag Fhloinn)

A Scandifuturist podcast about Nordic apocrypha, wyrd Scandinaviana, and ancient eldritchness by Old Norse philologist Eirik Storesund

36: Cluttered Pasts and Unruly Heritage with Stein Farstadvoll

Brute Norse Podcast

Recent comments

Khan Kurra

Brute Norse Podcast

Related tracks