Alban Arthan: A Reflection on Yule and the Winter Solstice
In our circle, we gather round,and with songs, our voices ring.We settle down to enjoy the tale of the Oak and the Holly King. Then we sit and share the feast,as we pass bread and…
Tag: Nick O'Connor
A Winter’s Tale
~ by Nick O’Connor Long ago, at the dawn of time itself, when everything was new, all of the animals were trying out different types of food – the deer found that they liked tree…
Here Be Dragons: From History to Heraldry
Having seen a recent text about the death of Glaurung (the Father of Dragons from The Silmarillion), I thought it might be interesting to take an overview of the way dragons feature in some of…
Tolkien and Pagan Myth
What is the Druidic tradition of spirituality conveyed through storytelling, and what were some of Tolkien’s inspirations taken from Pagan Myth? OK, big subject this, and it’s not possible to provide more than a quick…
Black Dogs and the Wild Hunt
Wisht Hounds and Black Shuck In Greek myth, the goddess Hecate roams the earth on moonless nights with a pack of ghostly, howling dogs. Similarly, the Old French term for the Wilde Jagd is…
Roots: Commonality of Folk Tales
“What big teeth you have, Grandma!” I guess you know which tale that quotation comes from, but did you know that many folk and fairy tales are much more ancient than most people think? There’ll…
The Wild Hunt: An Exploration of Its Origins in European Folklore
The following article looks at the origins of the Wild Hunt in folklore and some of the variations around Europe. A separate piece considers the idea of the black dogs that are linked to the…