Bob the Snail..

 

 

This video is to accompany the story called:

Garden Snails, euros crawling round your garden.

Hope you enjoy it. Why not sing along to the chorus.

The Storyteller.

                                      Welcome to my blog.

If you have any comments or requests for stories please leave them on here and I'll see what I can do.
I really appreciate any feedback and will try to respond as quickly as possible.

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Join me on Sunday at 3-00pm until 4-00pm, pull up a chair and sit awhile.  You are never too old for a story.

The Storyteller.

                                                         The Storyteller
.

There’s turf on the fire

There’s tea in the pot

Sunday’s here again

It’s been a good week

And now is the time

To hear the tale’s again

So pull up a chair and sit awhile

The clock is striking three

Tune in to WRFM

And join the Seanachái.

Music Play List 4th August 2013.

The Storyteller 4^th August 2013.

 

Music play list.

Fields of Gold. By Sting.

Witchy Woman. By The Eagles.

Bob The snail. By Bryant Oden.

I Will Find You. By Clannad.

Scarborough Fair. By  Simon and Garfunkle.

The Old Spinning Wheel. By Foster and Allen.

Song of Sand. By Suzanne Vega.

Lughnasadh.

Lughnasadh.

Lughnasadh is the beginning of the harvest season, also known as The Harvest of the First Fruits’ (Anglo-Saxon), and the time of the funeral games of the Celtic goddess Tailtiu. Tailtiu died clearing a forest so that the land could be cultivated.  As she lay on her death bed she spoke to those that had gathered around her. She asked that funeral games be instituted in her honour and that her foster son Lugh should lead the games.

Tailtiu prophesied that as long as the games were held Ireland would be known for its song. Tailtiu gave her name to Teltown, County Meath, and it was there that the festival of Lughnasadh was traditionally held, eventually evolving into a huge tribal gathering. It was here that the High King presided over legal agreements, disputes and political problems of the day. It was also here that athletes competed against each other, artists and entertainers showed off their talents and traders gathered to sell their wares. Another important ritual that was to take place was that of ‘Handfastings’ where couples would be joined together for a year and a day, if all went well then it would become a permanent arrangement and if not they would return the following year to separate.

Throughout the centuries we have celebrated the harvest and we still continue to do so. Lughnasadh has been given additional names over the years, here in our corner of County Mayo it is also known as Reek Sunday or Garland Sunday and people climb our local mountain Croagh Patrick (known locally as the ‘Reek’). In some areas it is known as ‘Bilberry Sunday’ again celebrations include climbing a local hill or mountain.  Some will call it Lammas (Anglo-Saxon).

In some parts of Ireland the nearest Sunday to Lughnasadh was known as Cally Sunday. It was the traditional day to lift the first new potatoes. The man of the house would dig the first stalk while the woman of the house would wear a new white apron and cook them, covering the kitchen floor with green rushes in their honour. The family would give thanks that the 'Hungry Month' of July was over and the harvest had begun. Though initially the custom of first fruits usually applied to grain, in later days, when grain crops were the province of large landowners, common people had no grain of their own to offer. The first fruits custom was then transferred to potatoes, an offering available to everyone with a patch of ground, and widely grown as a subsistence crop. Cally is a mixture of potato mashed together with butter, milk and sliced onion.

Lughnasadh was also a time when people would visit sacred/holy wells and leave offerings and by visiting the hilltops and the wells you were celebrating both the summit and the depths of the earth. Another name that is used for Lughnasadh gatherings is ‘Wake Fairs’.  In Ireland a wake is the time spent keeping the body of someone that has died company until it has been buried. It is a time to celebrate the person’s life and we have food, drink and tobacco. We tell stories of their life and some may be very funny. One way we celebrate Lughnasadh is by having a wake for the corn god and we place a symbol of the corn god in the field after harvest. The offering/symbol is usually in the shape of a corn dolly.

Before Christianity took hold in Ireland (and even afterwards) within the traditional pagan agricultural culture it was believed that the spirit of the corn lived amongst the crop. The people believed that as they cut the harvest the spirit retreated before them eventually taking refuge in the last bunch of corn. When this was cut it was kept and given to the oldest man to plait and keep it on the fireplace wall until the following year's crop was sewn when the spirit would be returned to the field by being shaken from last year’s corn bunch. This would ensure the success of the next harvest. Ivy was a symbol of rebirth, and so it wasn't uncommon to dress the corn doll with a headdress of ivy.  Traces of corn dolly shapes have been found dating back to 2000 B.C. and it has always been the tradition to plough the previous year’s dolly back into the field the following year.

Florence Newton. The Witch of Youghal (1661).

Florence Newton.  The Witch of Youghal (1661)

In areas of Ireland that had been widely settled by the English, English law prevailed.  So it was not unusual to find an English-type witchcraft accusation in such an area as Youghal, County Cork, which had been extensively settled by English puritans.

 Since the mid to late 1500s the town had been considered ‘English’.  Sir Walter Raleigh had been one of its early mayors and the first potatoes from the New World were grown in Youghal, and ‘English ways’ were said to prevail there.  So it is not surprising that English beliefs in witchcraft should also manifest themselves there in the trial of Florence Newton in 1661.

It all began because of a disagreement between an old woman and a young girl.  Florence Newton was committed to Youghal prison by the mayor of the town on 24^th March 1661 to stand trial for witchcraft at Cork assizes on 11^th September.  She was accused of bewitching a servant girl, Mary Longdon, who was called to give evidence against her at her trial. 

Newton was a beggar woman who seldom worked and who went from door to door scrounging what she could, she had a nasty reputation and used this to intimidate people to get what she wanted.

Mary Longdon was a servant to a well to do local bailiff who went on to become mayor and because of her position she believed this gave her the right to airs and graces and she was thought by those who knew her to be a little bit snobbish.

Longdon accused Newton of threatening her because she refused to give her food from her masters table, later she was confronted by Newton who she said kissed her violently.  Shocked by this Longdon returned home.  Shortly afterwards she fell ill and became subject to ‘fits and trances’ which became extremely severe. She would also start to vomit up all manner of odd things-needles, pins, horseshoe nails, wool and straw and it would take three or four strong men to hold her down.

During these trances, she saw visions of Florence Newton who would approach her and stick pins into various parts of her body. Longdon stated that the fits and trances only began when Newton had kissed her and that by that kiss, she ‘had bewitched her’ It is here that Newton sealed her own fate for as Longdon finished giving her evidence, Newton pointed at her and said “Now she is down”.  Upon which Longdon fell to the ground and had a violent fit, biting at her own arms, shrieking and foaming at the mouth, much to the distress of all in the courthouse.

Newton was ordered to recite the Lord’s Prayer but after several attempts failed to do so.  The trial now began to take on some of the characteristics of English witch finding with specific examinations of the accused taking place under the supervision of supposed ‘experts’.  Valentine Greatrakes (or Greatrix as he is called in some records) seems to have operated in this case much in the same way as Matthew Hopkins, the Witch Finder General in Essex.  Why he involved himself in the case is unclear but it seems he was contacted by some of the Youghal citizens as he had professed himself to have knowledge of witchcraft and the methods used to interrogate suspected sorcerers.

The evidence against Newton was further strengthened when her jailer dropped dead, he was ill and now it is thought he had a stroke but his dying words were “she’s done for me” The trial concluded, she having been indicted on two counts, first the bewitching of Mary Longdon and, secondly, causing the death of her jailer, David Jones.  The trial had been almost wholly conducted in an English manner and according to English law.  It caused great interest in Youghal and further afield and was considered to be so important that the Irish Attorney General went down to prosecute.  Sadly there is no record of the verdict and Florence Newton disappears from all records of the time.  It is likely, however, that she was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged in accordance with the punishment prescribed by English law in such matters.

It is easy, with the benefit of hindsight to dismiss these events as fanciful but to do so would be to dismiss the thinking of seventeenth century Ireland.  The lawmakers and rulers of this society were the educated people of the time.  Witchcraft was a label they attached to anything they considered to be inexplicable and it also enabled them to cope with the changing ethos of the time. 

The Trial of Florence Newton offers an insight into the link between Irish and English society at the time.  It showed the tension, fear and anxiety that underpinned life in a seventeenth century Irish plantation town.

Garden Snails. Euros crawling around your garden.

Garden Snails. Euros crawling around your garden.

We all have them in the garden, they are a pain in the neck eating your lettuce and making holes in the cabbage. However, now there appears to be a new use for the humble garden snail.  In Japan they are being used in a new beauty craze called The Celebrity Escargot Course. It last 60 minutes and people are willing to pay huge money for the privilege.

Apparently, live snails are being hailed as the new fountain of youth, giving you young beautiful smooth skin as they crawl across your face as part of a snail facial massage that was launched in Tokyo but is taking off across Europe.

You have to lie down and then snails are placed on your face, as they crawl happily along their way they leave behind a trail of mucus slime and this is the key. The slime is said to be full of beauty boosting proteins and goodies which help skin retain moisture, remove inflammation and removes dead skin.  It has even been suggested that the snail facial may help to heal damaged skin.

Snails are numerous in our gardens, are cheap to feed, in fact you can use the organic nature of both snail and food as a selling point.  You can also play up the fact that because they are fed organically they are clean and healthy so there’s no worries about having them crawl all over your face. You don’t need slatted houses or massive vet bills so its win, win all the way.

Part of the treatment includes, massage and facial masks containing creams made with an infusion of snail mucus so it has the added bonus of selling your clients the cream to use at home.  I can see it now, snail cream, snail serum, snail ointment, snail moisturiser, anti-aging cream.  The list goes on.

If it can heal damaged skin as claimed then you could even sell snail sun cream that will help to heal the effects of sun burn.

It might sound like the stuff of nightmares but don’t forget the Japanese have already sold people the idea of fish pedicures and beauty facials using nightingale faeces so maybe this is just the next logical step.  Of course the American movie stars are going mad for it and you know how they like their Irish roots. So come on boys and girls how about using some home grown Mayo snails to make your fortune.  There are loads of celebrities only too willing to pay big bucks and they’re not all in America, what about those eejits up in Dublin 4.

I wonder if slugs work as well, we could make a fortune.

Don’t forget, you heard it on WRFM first

Sacred or Holy Wells

Sacred or Holy Wells.

Since time immemorial, Irish people have firmly believed in the healing powers of sacred well waters. Special days were set aside to visit wells and leave gifts in appreciation. The wells were cleaned, generally cared for and the water channels kept clear to ensure the flow of water in and out of the well's basin. Carrying healing powers and blessings, the water flowed into the nearest streams and on to rivers and lakes so that all life forms dependent upon water could benefit.

The existence of holy wells in Ireland today offers an opportunity to witness sacred sites and rituals that have continued since prehistoric times. Where once a sacrifice may have taken place, today a bride might look into the waters for inspiration or good luck; a person with a disability might bathe in the waters in search of a cure. A ritual practice dating from prehistoric times and continuing today is that of circumambulation, or making structured rounds of the well, always in a clockwise direction.

People visited the wells for their traditional virtues of healing and divination. If a physical cure was sought, the believer would drink or sometimes bathe in the water. In fact the water of some holy wells has indeed been found to contain curative properties, mostly due to the presence of certain minerals. However, the healing influence of the wells was due to more than their medicinal qualities. The well itself was viewed as a shrine dedicated to the miraculous emergence of living water, in all cultures a symbol of generation, purification, and the source of life itself.

People still make pilgrimages to the holy wells to seek relief for a variety of ills from rheumatism to scurvy, broken bones to leprosy. The link between water and fertility led to a number of wells gaining a reputation for curing childlessness. At the well, the petitioner would leave a token piece of clothing, usually hung on a bush or a tree so that the healing power of the well could act upon it.

Dreaming at holy wells was also used as a method of foretelling the future, possibly an echo of pagan times when, it seems, a female oracle presided over the well. This ancient practice was preserved down the years, albeit in a humbler manner, by the custom of country girls who would seek to know their future husband at the well. Hence it is the healing and wisdom of the Otherworld that has been sought by petitioners of the holy wells throughout the centuries.

In Ireland, pilgrimages to holy wells are still an important part of the year; and a high number of these fall upon the Celtic festivals of Imbolc on February 1st. Beltaine on May 1^st, Lughnasadh on August 1^st and Samhain on November 1^st.  These are all special turning points of the year when the gates of the Otherworld are opened. Numerous holy wells are in fact dedicated to the Celtic goddess, Brigid and you will find many contain variants of her name.

There is still a strong instinct even today when stood near a well or on a bridge overlooking water to toss a coin into the depts., the “wishing well” if you like, or the tying of a rag to a tree in order to ask for a favour from the goddess. Rag Trees are another indication of the Druidic origin of Ireland’s sacred wells. Frequently a tree with magical properties – oak, holly, rowan or hazel – was planted beside the well to serve as its guardian. Hundreds of years later, the trees now tower over the water and supplicants still tie bits of cloth to the branches, trusting that as the fabric disintegrates so will their ailments diminish.

Christianity did not alter the people’s belief that the wells had healing powers. The great 19th-century Irish playwright J.M. Synge, while living in the Aran Islands, wrote Well of the Saints, a comedy based on accounts of miracles that occurred at Tobar an Ceathrar Alainn (Well of the Beautiful Saints), which is found on Innishmor just a few meters from a church dedicated to Saints Fursey, Brendan, Conal and Bearchan. In the play, Martin and Mary Doul, a blind beggar couple, believe themselves to be beautiful until a friar restores their sight with water from a holy well. No longer disabled, they discover they are not only common looking but now have to work for a living. When they become blind again and the friar attempts to restore their sight a second time, Martin knocks the holy well water to the ground, choosing blindness and a beggar’s life, having ‘seen’ enough human cruelty.

So be careful what you wish for.  Sometimes it’s not all that it may seem.

Real Love.

Real love.

She lay in her room in the maternity ward, tired but happy as she had shortly before given birth to her first child, a baby boy.

 She asked the nurse “Can I see my baby?”

When her baby was handed to her he was wrapped in a little blanket, she nestled him into her arms and folded back the blanket so she could look upon his little features.

She gave a sudden gasp; the nurse quickly turned and looked out of the hospital window.  The baby had been born without any ears.

As time passed the baby grew and his hearing proved to be perfect. However, his appearance caused people to stare.  One day he ran into the house and flung himself into his mother’s arms, he was very upset and began to cry. He told her that he was being bullied at school, the other children called him a freak and laughed at him, no one wanted to be his friend and some of the bigger boys hit him.  The mother could only hold him tightly and tell him how much she loved him and it was the other children who were just being cruel for she knew that his life would be a succession of heartbreaking episodes like this one.

Time continued to pass and the young boy grew up to be a handsome young man although he still stood apart from his classmates.  He was looked upon as a great favourite by his fellow students and it was said that had it not been for his unfortunate appearance he could have been student president.  He discovered that he had a great gift for literature and music; however, he didn’t pursue it for fear of having to mix with other people and risk ridicule.

His father went to see the family doctor and asked him if anything could be done to help his son.  The doctor said,

“I believe that it is possible to graft on a pair of outer ears, but we would need to find a donor that would be a match”.

The search began but who would consider such a sacrifice for a young man.  The years passed, and then one day his father spoke to him,

“You’re never going to believe this son, but your mother and I have found someone who has agreed to donate the ears you need. However, they have one condition. You cannot know who this person is as it must remain a secret”

The operation was a brilliant success and the young man emerged as a new person.  His talents blossomed into genius, and his time at college became a series of triumphs.  Later on he married and became an extremely successful business man. 

One day, he sat down with his father and asked him a question “Who gave so much for me, who was my donor?  Please tell me as I feel that I must do something to thank them. Even though I don’t believe I could ever do enough”

“Son, I’m sorry but the agreement we made was that you were not to know, not yet.  However, you are right in one thing, that act of kindness done could never be repaid”

Time passed and eventually the day came that the secret could at last be revealed, that dark day that all of us must face in one way or another.  On the day that the young man stood with his father by the side of his mother’s coffin in church.  Slowly, tenderly, his father stretched forth a hand and raised the thick, red hair to reveal that the mother had no outer ears.

“Your mother said she was glad that she never let anyone cut her hair” he whispered gently, “and nobody ever thought she was any less beautiful, did they?”

Real beauty lies not in your physical appearance, but in the heart.  It is not what can be seen, but what can’t be seen. Real love lies not in what is done and known but in what is done and not known.

Spinning Wheels and The Horned Women.

Spinning wheels.

The art of spinning has always been a big part of domestic life. Until about 1550 all thread was spun with a distaff and spindle. The distaff is a cleft stick, which holds the carded wool or plant fibres. The spindle is a straight stick weighted with a detachable whorl at the bottom. The spinner (or spinster?) pulls the fibres out with one hand, twisting them between finger and thumb and winding the thread onto the spindle.

 Archaeologists find spindle whorls buried in graves. Genealogists refer to the ‘distaff’ side of the family, meaning the female side and the term spinster is still the legal term for an unmarried woman. The tools of the spinner are deeply imbedded in our language and folklore.

Spinning is the art of transforming loose fibres such as wool and flax into thread. This is done by pulling out the fibres to the required width and introducing twist to fix and strengthen them. The ancient tools of the spinner were the distaff and the spindle. The distaff was a long staff to which the fibres were tied to keep them untangled. The spindle was a short shaft weighted with a stone whorl which was used like a suspended spinning top to provide momentum and the downward pull of gravity for the work. These same implements were the spinner's only tools until the late fourteenth century when early spinning wheels were developed. The first Spinning wheels were large, inefficient, expensive and unpopular so the spindle remained in common use until the eighteenth century.

The spinning wheel, which was operated by a foot treadle, leaving both hands free to work the thread, appeared around 1550 in wealthy households. Of course, there was a crossover period as more and more people got spinning wheels, instead of spindles.

The spindle comes across strongly as a symbol of womanhood (of a straight laced, hearth tied, skirt bundled variety, from an age when both sexes worked themselves to exhaustion in the daily round). But even in her subservience a woman held power and the distaff was her weapon against the world of men. In the domestic battle the mediaeval woman reached for her distaff, a far more versatile weapon than today's rolling pins due to its length.

A common theme of spinning tales is the breaking of magical boundaries. Spinning women attract all kinds of supernatural creatures and spirits, hostile spirits include the mischievous fairies from the Scottish tale ‘The Good Housewife and her Night Helpers’. The housewife worked late at her spinning while her family slept. Eager to complete her weaving she made a wish that someone would come from land or sea, far or near to help her finish the work. This unwise request summoned a large number of fairies who took up the woman’s carding, spinning and weaving. The fairies kept crying out to the housewife for food until the larder was empty and the poor woman was half demented. She tried to wake her family but they were all deep in an enchanted sleep. Terrified she ran from the house and consulted the village elder who helped her extract the fairies by trickery.

A very similar story is told in here in Ireland in which a spinning housewife, working late, was visited by twelve witch women. Each of them had horns growing out of their foreheads and carried wool combs, a reel or a spinning wheel. They all sat down in the house and began to work at the wool with lightning speed. Again the housewife was driven to distraction by their demands for food and ran from the house to fetch water for baking. She was helped by a kindly spirit living in the well and the witches were expelled, again by trickery.

The story is called:

The Horned Women.

A housewife sat up late one night carding and preparing wool, whiles all the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and a voice called, "Open! Open!"

"Who is it?" said the woman of the house.

"I am the Witch of one Horn," the voice answered.

The housewife, who was a little hard of hearing and supposing that one of her neighbours had called and required assistance, opened the door, a woman entered, having in her hand a pair of wool-carders, and bearing a horn growing out of her forehead. She sat down by the fire in silence, and began to card the wool with violent haste. Suddenly she paused, and said aloud:

 "Where are the women? They are taking too long to arrive."

Suddenly there was another knock on the door, and a voice called as before, "Open! Open!"

The housewife once again stood up and opened the door.  Immediately a second witch entered, having two horns on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel for spinning wool.

"Give me somewhere to sit," she said; "I am the Witch of the two horns," and she began to spin as quick as lightning.

Throughout the night the knocks went on, and the housewife continued opening the door, and more and more witches entered, until at last twelve women sat round the fire—the first with one horn, the last with twelve horns.

 They carded the thread, and turned their spinning wheels, and wound and wove, all singing together an ancient rhyme, but no word did they speak to the woman of the house.

 Strange to hear, and frightful to look upon, were these twelve women, with their horns and their wheels and the housewife felt near to death, she tried to stand so that she might run from the house and get help, but she couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak or cry out, The witches had cast a spell upon her.

Then one of them called out to her and said,

"Get up woman and make us a cake."

The woman of the house began to search for a pot to bring water from the well so that she could mix the meal and make the cake, but she couldn’t find one.

So the witches said to her, "Take a sieve and bring water in it."

The woman took the sieve and went to the well; but the water poured though the holes, she couldn’t carry the water for the cake, and she sat down by the well and wept.

All of a sudden she heard a voice,

 "Take yellow clay and moss, and bind them together, and plaster the sieve so that it will hold." The voice said

She did as the voice said and the sieve held the water for the cake and the voice said again:

"Go back to the house, and when you get to the north side of the house, cry aloud three times and say, 'The Mountain of the Fenian women and the sky over it is on fire.' "

She did as the voice said. When the witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry broke from their lips, and they rushed out roaring and shrieking, they fled to Slievenamon, where their chief abode was.

The voice that had spoken to the woman was that of the the Spirit of the Well and now it spoke to her again telling her to go back into her home and prepare it against the enchantments of the witches if they returned again.

The spirit told her that in order to break their spells, she must sprinkle the water in which she had washed her child's feet, the feet-water, outside the door on the threshold; secondly, she must take the cake which in her absence the witches had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn from the woman’s family. They had been put under a magical spell and were in a deep sleep.  She had to break the cake into bits, and place a bit in the mouth of each sleeper, they would be restored and the spell they were under would be broken. The voice told her that she must take the cloth the witches had woven, and place it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock; and lastly, she was to  secure the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the jambs, so that the witches could not enter, and having done all these things she waited.

It wasn’t long before the witches came back, and they were raging and calling out for vengeance.

"Open! Open!" they screamed; "open, feet-water!"

"I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my path is down to the Lough."

"Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.

"I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I have no power to move."

"Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they cried again.

"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children."

Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back to Slievenamon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who had wished their ruin; but the woman and the house were left in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the witches in her flight was kept hung up by the mistress in memory of that night; and this mantle was kept by the same family from generation to generation for five hundred years after. The witches were never to return.