The Book of Invasions lists many groups who came to Irish shores, the first three left only bones. A grand-daughter of Noah, the Parthalonians (sp?), and then the Nemedians.

Now the Nemedians are another matter perhaps, it is claimed that the Nemedians returned as both the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha de Danan and were sons of Nemed from Greece. Also an argument might be made that the Fomorians, seafarers from the north or Africa, or who knows (? (Phonecia?)) may have lived at times on Irish shores, it can also be said that their bones remained as they are reputed to have been involved in several notable battles with various Irish dwelling peoples. I wonder if the Fomor had more to do with things than just popping in to oppress from time to time and also who they might be.

Since Nemedians were the progenators of both the Fir Bolg and the De Danans one might class them as survivors if one accepted that the Milesians only drove them underground into the FaeRig mounds.

Legend and lore often focuses on the kings and their linege. If it is at all possible one might think about who the people were, the ones who carried the water and rounded up cattle and made the food that the champions feasted upon. In particular, without having read the Book of Invasions, the title suggests that someone was there to bear the successive waves of invasion, perhaps someones other than Tuan.

Well that’s a start and I really aught to fill more in, but there is little enough time except to say that Niall of the Nine Hostages (yes yes, I’m back to that) is an excellent illustration of what I’m going on about. Niall, was Irish, well, half so. Niall’s father was Eochaid Mugmedon, but his mother was a Saxon princess. That makes his blood half Saxon. But I would submit that what really made Niall Irish was not his father, but the druid who saved his life and raised him.

Much later Normans would come to conquer Ireland, again the rulers changed, but it is funny. I’ve heard it said that the Norman lords became more Irish than the Irish themselves. Is it because, irrespective of the ruler, the people stay pretty much the same?

I am sorry that I haven’t posted in awhile. I was spending much time poking around the theories about the origins of the Celts. Theories are stories about what has happened in the past. Some are very entertaining; some are fairly believable.
That I am researching theories of Celtic origin might seem somewhat ironic after my previous post about many academics being uncomfortable with the idea of Celts at all. But certainly there were a people who lived a certain way that was similar to the way of life of folk on the mainland who remained even after Romanization in northern Britain and Ireland. Some of the academics who allow for Celts call these people the Insular Celts.
What is very interesting about these people is that unlike their possible predicessors or anticedents (or whatever) some of the legend and lore of the insular celts was preserved by Christian monks.
Now the neo-pagan greatly resents the fact that we would know almost nothing at all about the Celts save only their material leavings if it were not for these sons of Hibernia who happened to be able to write and did. Would it be better if we just had Julius Caesar’s words to define a people? I think not, though I am not a neo-pagan, or a member of an anti-Celtic academic elite, nor even a transgendered Wicken accolyte and am not likely to be one at anytime in the future.
Anyway, I’m a long way into this and still not much about stories. The monks wrote down oral traditions that on the main land had died with the druids who carefully preserved them in their well trained brains where it did not survive the erasure of those druids. (or the removal from the rest of their bodies of the aforementioned brains still encased in the otherwise disarticulated carania.)

I’m not going to let that happen. I’m telling them. I’m writing stories down. I’m going to put them on the internet. There is a good reason why I’ve come to that decision. My brains are not well trained and they do seem to experience unintentional erasure from time to time.

Therefore, and in that vein, I shall attempt with my postings to record some of the wonderful stories that come my way.

Warmest regards,

LSO

I am sorry that I haven’t posted in awhile, I’m still imagining what you might like to hear.  I was spending much time poking around the theories about the origins of the Celts.  There is much to say about what little there is of the Celtic world existent in written word.

This might seem somewhat ironic after my previous post about many academics being uncomfortable with the idea of Celts at all.  But certainly there were a people who lived in ways similar to folk on the mainland, these people remained, even after Romanization, in northern Britain and Ireland.  Some of the academics who allow for Celts call these people the Insular Celts.

It is very interesting that these people, unlike their possible predecessors, or antecedents, or whatever, some of the legend and lore of the insular celts was preserved by Christian monks.

Now the neo-pagan greatly resents the fact that we would know almost nothing at all about the Celts, save only their material leavings, if it were not for these sons of Hibernia who happened to be able to write, and did.  Would it be better if we just had Julius Caeser’s words to define a people?

Anyway, I’m a long way into this and still not much about stories.  The monks wrote down oral traditions that on the main land had died with the druids who carefully preserved them in their well trained brains where it did not survive the erasure of those druids.

Tolkien wanted to supply an Anglo-Saxon mythology that he felt the English lacked.  I seek only to popularize and perhaps expand what is available of the stories of an interesting folk who left very little behind.  I for one am willing to believe that some or even most of what we have of Celtic legend and lore is true, at least in the sense of an echo, dimmed and somewhat clouded, of a people and a way of life.

Anyhow, I hope to bring what I find to light. Let the light judge to its truth, to expose fraud or fabrication (would you say that Frodo is Fraud? is Middle Earth not a wonderous fabrication?), to be enjoyed as entertainment, to be considered as insight into days gone, or to be a springboard to more and better discovery.