Articles

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Aliens and Irishmen!
• Attack of the Plastic Patty's
• Beyond Green Beer and Leprechauns
• Celebrating the Saint of Ireland - St. Patrick
• Celtic Cats - Magical Mystery Purr!
• Celtic Love, nothing short of Epic!
• An Interview with a Faerie in the 21st Century
• Five Miracles of Storytelling
• Halloween, the Celtic American Holiday!
• Irish Standard Time
• Kerns + Galloglass. Scariest Team on Earth!
• One old Biddy you don't mess with
• The Problem with Fairies.... NEW!
• Saint Preserve Us
• Shaggy Dog Stories - a Celts best friend!
• St. Patrick's Day: A story of celebration and survival
• Storytelling for Kids
• A Tough Act To Follow - Mystic, Legend, Saint,… Patrick.
• Tying the Knot, Celtic Style

Celtic Love, nothing short of Epic!

Legends and Lore by True Thomas the Storyteller

We have a new movie out, Tristan and Isolde. And as a storyteller who sometimes portrays “True Thomas the Rhymer” one of the first writers of the Tristan and Iseult story, it gladdens my heart. The story is pretty basic- a love triangle between a hero (Tristan, of Cornwall) and a heroine (the Irish princess, Iseult) and the sad but noble King Mark of Cornwall. The story itself in the original forms is very long, and has lots of twists and hand-wringing moments that would do a Harlequin romance proud. Betrayal, angst, poisoning, mortal combat, dragons, clandestine meetings, and of course, near death due to miscommunication. There are many versions of it, including a Wagnerian opera. But in it’s earliest forms, a pretty darn good read.

I think it’s important to note that Thomas De Erceldoune (Thomas the Rhymer), was attributed to having wrote his version 13 years before Chaucer started publishing his works, making Tristan and Iseult the first romance novel ever published in the (western) common tongue. The 12th Century “True Thomas” himself reportedly goes on to have a long standing love affair with the Queen of the Fay, and for all we know, it’s still going on today!

One of the things you notice when you read about “Love done Celtic” is that it is….Epic. No small thing, when two people choose to get “deranged” with each other. Early writers and storytellers write love stories as if love is beautiful, terrible, unstoppable. Love seems almost a curse. When Naoise meets Deirdre, in the Tain, she commands or be-spells him to be her lover, and he let’s out a wail that is heard miles away. Mind you, they are both gorgeous beautiful people, and star crossed from the beginning. Time and time again, you hear about Fionn Mac Cumhal loosing his wife, Cuchullain falling in love with 3 different women and needing magical spells woven to forget the first two. Diarmuid and Grainne (ends badly). And of course we have King Arthur and Guinevere… and we all know how that ended up. In the early days, getting smitten with love was a force of nature, akin to being hit freight train, and usually it ended badly.

Of course, we need to understand that love stories where they meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after, would not make the most dramatic of recitings. But Celtic love affairs seem to have three hallmarks. First, the woman are usually not just trophies. In most cases they have very strong agendas, and strong wills to boot. To quote one of my favorite celtic legendary women, Queen Medb, “I never had a man, but I had a man standing in his shadow.”

Second, both parties are usually very beautiful, and remarkable. Deirdre was “the most beautiful woman in all of Ireland” Naoise her lover, has hair black as a ravens wing, skin as white as snow, and lips of scarlet. Third, they almost always end badly. Strangely, to this day, this has not seemed to slow many folks down.

Even the Fairie folk get in on the act. The problem is, their version of love is usually deadly, and if not deadly, definitely weird. On the deadly side, we have for example, the “Love Talker” and the Leannen Sidhe. The Love Talker (also called a Gancomer) is usually a handsome lad, hanging out by a bridge with a pipe. He meets a girl, she immediately swoons, and she falls in love. And then pines to death for the love of him. On the female side, we have the Lhiannan Sidhe. She is sort of a deadly muse or psychic vampire. The fairies have long loved creative energy. In her case, she feeds on the creative process. Usually, some poet, painter, or musician, will meet some incredibly beautiful, mysterious lady, that their friends never get to meet. For the next two or three weeks, they go into creative overload, producing work after brilliant work, neglecting food, and pretty much everything else. At the end of the time, they pass away, and the Leannen Sidhe moves on to find another worthy person to inspire, and feed on.

Even if the Fairie lover has no hostile intentions, there’s always the chance that the mortal will end up stuck in the fairie realm, or return to the mortal realm hundreds of years later. And they would sometimes give strange gifts, like that of Diarmud of the love spot, who had a magical spot on his forehead that made all women fall in love with him instantly. Going outside and forgetting his hat meant that it was going to be a looong day.

In modern folk tradition, the love songs tend to be lighter than the old myths, with songs of courting, beauty, and humor, and this is probably due to the fact that with the potato famines, and forced immigrations, the U.S. Celts, probably needed a break from the “traditional viewpoint” of love.

Modern culture gives us a lot of good romantic leads in the Celtic mold, from Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, to Sean Connery and John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.

Fortunately, while we Celts may get smitten by the “big pink hammer of love” and be willing to risk everything in it’s all consuming passion… chances are also good that we have through the centuries, learned some moderation. With our natural gifts of passion, humor, conversation and music, we’ve become champions of another romantic art. Flirting! And I think there are few that would deny that if flirting were an Olympic event, we Celts would own the gold. For those of you smitten with Epic loves, may you be legendary, in the fact that you live through it. For those of us who are between Epics, flirt madly, have fun, and enjoy life as only a true Celt can.

Blessings!