When Patrick Goes Marching In...

On Easter Sunday in 433 AD, the blessed Saint Patrick led a humble band of missionaries against the amassed strength of Ireland's druidic magicians in order to announce the arrival of the Gospel at the High King (Ard-Righ) Leoghaire's feast at Tara. A stern decree had been issued that no fires might be lit before the lighting of King Leoghaire's hearth to announce the feast, but Patrick lit a fire on the tallest of the hills around Tara in open defiance of the King's silly proclamation. The resulting battle between the enraged druids and St. Patrick reads like a wizard battle scene out of Lord of the Rings. I will let the inimitable Catholic Encyclopedia take it from here.

"On Easter Day the missionary band having at their head the youth Benignus bearing aloft a copy of the Gospels, and followed by St. Patrick who with mitre and crozier was arrayed in full episcopal attire, proceeded in processional order to Tara. The druids and magicians put forth all their strength and employed all their incantations to maintain their sway over the Irish race, but the prayer and faith of Patrick achieved a glorious triumph. The druids by their incantations overspread the hill and surrounding plain with a cloud of worse than Egyptian darkness. Patrick defied them to remove that cloud, and when all their efforts were made in vain, at his prayer the sun sent forth its rays and the brightest sunshine lit up the scene. Again by demoniac power the Arch-Druid Lochru, like Simon Magus of old, was lifted up high in the air, but when Patrick knelt in prayer the druid from his flight was dashed to pieces upon a rock."

Man, is that ever awesome!
St. Patrick kicks ass for the Lord!

"I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass!"

One Shamrockin' Saint

Erin go Bragh, blogprechauns! As you know, we are but one brief week away from that greatest of all hagiolidays, St. Patrick's Day 2008! In honor of the coolest of the "secular saints"--as Valentine, Nicholas, and Patrick are often called by the heathen hoards--I have embarked on a little educational endeavor to make your St. Patrick's Day more meaningful this year. Every day this week, I will post one new factoid about the Irish missionary, so maybe this year will register as a reverential tribute to a truly great (though possibly at least partially fictional) man of God instead of just another reason to get plastered on green beer.

And so, without further shenanigans, here's today's fascinating Patrick fact:

One of St. Patrick's first miracles occured near Slemish, where a pagan chieftain accosted him as he made his way up from the river Boyne. The chieftain, Dichu, intended to brutally maul the unarmed saint, but when he raised his sword to strike, his arm froze in place and would not budge until he pledged his fealty to Christ and St. Patrick. Afterwards, Dichu offered his own barn to the saint as a rustic church, where Patrick oversaw his first administration of the eucharist in Ireland. Today, the place is still called Sabhall (pronounced 'Saul'), meaning barn, and a small replica stone barn has been erected there to commemorate the site.

Sidhe's a Lady

I'm not sure why I decided to post this, but I just finished a major essay assignment on this old faery hag here, and I suppose I just feel like penning an elegiac funeral ode.
So anyway, here goes:

The Death of Queen Maeve
by Bibb Leo File

Her royal robes do drag on the stony palace floor;
O! Great Queen! To think you shall be pale forevermore!
Her mighty golden locks now have fallen into gray;
O! Strong Queen! To think they shall soon fade and rot away!

Go tend the dying Queen, she who totters on her feet,
Now, Old Queen, your revels share no more in wine or meat,
Go help the dying Queen, her gold crown has dropped to earth;
Now, Frail Queen, the young of Tír-na-nÓg will give you berth!

Sail west from green Connacht 'til you reach that happy shore,
There, Brave Queen, you'll find the key to Knocknarea's stone door;
And rise to join the dance as it spins across the sea,
Then, Bright Queen, you'll know what it is to rule the Sidhe!

Pronunciation Guide:
Maeve = Mayv
Tír-na-nÓg = Teer-nah-nohg (with a long 'o', as in 'No')
Connacht = Cuh-naut
Knocknarea = Knock-nuh-ray
Sidhe = Shee

Cuniculus Terribilis

In the tradition of our good friend Forky Fourchette over on the 42nd floor, I have collected a series of unsettling photos involving horrible bunnies in honor of Pagan Fertility Day...I mean Easter. If your church decides to participate in an egg hunt or a festive dance round the maypole this weekend, think back on these images and cringe inside your new, brightly colored Easter clothes. For you know....

...he's watching, and he's worse than Santa.

Vote for your fave!

Oops...how'd that one get in there?

OK, so this last one isn't terrifying. But you have to admit that the idea of bunnies high on candy and behind the wheel (with nothing left to lose) is pretty scary.

Yule Never Believe This...

We've all come across the word, sometimes on Christmas cards, sometimes as part of the title of a lame children's Christmas music CD (i.e. "Cool Yule"), sometimes in the lyrics of those most sacred Christmas carols themselves:

"Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, and folks dressed up like Eskimos..."

"Don we now our gay apparel (Fa-La-La-La-La-La-La-La-La); Troll the ancient Yuletide carol..."

"Bring us out a table and spread it with a cloth; bring us out a cheese and of your Yuletide loaf..."

"Rudolph the Wiccan Reindeer had a very Yuletide nose..."

OK, so I may have slightly altered that last one, but the first three are real enough. Have you ever stopped to wonder what that funny little four-letter word that so conveniently rhymes with "cool" actually means? Where does it come from? Why do we still say it? Maybe we should ask this nice lady...

Madam, pray tell us what "Yule" or "Yuletide" is all about.

"Oh my, it's simply the most beautiful and magical of all the pagan celebrations; it's the festival of the Holy Winter Solstice!"

I'm sorry? Don't you mean the celebration of the birth of the Messiah? You know, the King of Israel?

"I don't know much Middle Eastern history, but Yuletide is the sacred time after the woolgathering and spinning where everyone must be given an item of clothing or risk being taken by the Yule Cat. Also, we slaughter a pig and dance around his burning carcass long into the night. Now if yule excuse me, I must attend to my brew...um, I mean...wassail."

What?! 'Yuletide' is some sort of crazy witches' party?! You dance around a burning pig and give each other woolen presents to ward off some evil cat? What about the "Yule Log"? Doesn't that have some sort of Christian symbolism behind it?

"Good Priestess, no! The Yule Log is an offering to the fertility gods and the only way to ensure that our houses are safe from lightning, hailstorms, and unfriendly magic. Now I really must ask you to go; you're going to wake my daemon...I mean...pet iguana."

Oh well, there you have it, folks. I guess everyone's a little bit pagan these days. Have a Happy Yule! May your cattle be fertile and your hearths be free of dark wizardry! But be productive and never lazy, lest you incur the wrath of...

THE YULE CAT!

And I Just Can't Wait Until Next Halloween...

Are you all as excited as I am? I don't know if it's because I will be experiencing my first Hallow's Eve as a homeowner or if it's simply because the weather is cooler up here next to Everycity and Ft. Valuecity, but whatever the reason, I'm frothing at the mouth for October 31st this year. I love Halloween. I hope that doesn't make anyone out there in blogland think I'm a pagan. I'm not. I just absolutely love this supernatural nod to the old beliefs in magic and mysterious creatures that has somehow survived the Enlightenment and its systematic demythologization of everything that can't be proved in a laboratory to exist in the modern era.

I love the fact that thousands of people still dress up as ghouls, monsters, zombies, vampires, werewolves, hobbits, and Power Rangers to ward off and confuse the evil spirits that are said to congregate on the last day of October (even if they don't know that this is why costumes were originally worn on Hallow's Eve). I love taking an evening walk around my neighborhood and seeing the orange glimmer of jack o'lanterns on people's front porches, their eerie grins adding just a touch of the unknown to my boring run-of-the-mill life in suburbia.

Who else loves Halloween out there? Is it still cool to like this holiday? I was raised a Methodist during a time when "Fall Festivals" were unheard of as a safe and wholesome alternative to that most evil practice known as "trick-or-treating." Far from discouraging Halloween frivolity, my father would dress up as Jason (complete with an actual meat clever or machete, mind you; none of that plastic Wal-Mart crap at our house) and hide in various closets around the house until he could leap out and add several more months to my tenure in therapy. My mother would wear a witch wig and long fingernails so she could sit on the front porch and cackle at everyone who loitered in our front lawn. These are the people who let me watch An American Werewolf in London when I was three. I come from odd stock...

Anyway, at the risk of sounding too much like a bumper sticker, blog if you love Halloween. And let me know what I should be this year; right now, it's a toss-up between George Harrison and Victor Frankenstein.