| The Puca, Puka or Pooka, is a type of fairy of Celtic folklore. They could bring good or bad fortune and were said to live around fairy mounds. In the Channel Islands, the pouque were said to be fairies who lived near ancient stones. In Old Norse term pook or puki refers to a “nature spirit.” The Puca, according to the wiki page, can be a shapeshifter, and although, often confusing or even terrifying people, they are considered to be benevolent. (30) Fairies were said to be disturbed when a stranger approached their ring and they were known to blind him with a glance or pull him into dance with them, dancing him to death. (31) Irish witches and fairies were known to wear red caps when they wanted to fly. An old Irish saying of fairies goes: “By yarrow and rue/ And my red cap too/ Hie over to England!” or wherever else they wanted to go.” (32) In one of the earliest Celtic fairy stories there is an Ulster King named Conchobor whose sister was named Deichtine. One day her and her fifty maiden companions disappeared from the countryside without a trace. The town was concerned since none of them left word or got permission to leave. One day a flock of birds came and ate all the grass and the Ulstermen chased them until they came upon the fairy dwelling of the Brugh on the Boyne. While they were there Deichtine gave birth to a boy they named Setanta, whose name was later changed to Cuchulainn. The next morning the house and birds had disappeared, and all was gone except the baby boy and two foals which were born at the same time. They all went back home but the child was weak and eventually succumbed to an illness and died. Deichtine was overcome with grief and asked for some water to drink and before she drank it a little creature slipped into the drink and she swallowed it. She had a dream later that night that she would meet a man, Lug mac Ethnenn and have a son with him who she would name Setanta. Deitchtine became ashamed that she was no longer a virgin and vomited up the fetus and “the living thing spilled away in the sickness, and so she was made virgin and whole and went with her husband.” (33) A telltale signature of mushroom fairy myth is the birthing of a “changeling,” in this case a boy birthed on a fairy mound who grew ill and died shortly after birth. In the previous myth, the vomiting and the restored virginity are also symbolic metaphors for the mushroom. In the Cattle Raid of Froech, an ancient Irish myth, “Froech,” who is half-fairy (Sidh) in origin, is the hero of the story, who is given twelve cows by his mother, out of the Sid (the fairy mound). His name is identical in form to the word meaning heather, and also to several kinds of berries found among the heather. His sister is the nymph of the river Boyne. He seeks to marry Findabair, daughter of Ailill and Medb, the warrior queen. Froech arrives at their kingdom with his retinue and impresses everyone with his beauty and his skill at music and chess. Findabair falls in love with him; they meet secretly, and she gives him her |
gold thumb ring. Ailill and Medb agree to the wedding, but secretly plot the hero’s destruction. Medb invites Froech to bathe in her magic spring (or river). Growing on its bank is a Rowan tree.” Now we go directly to the story itself: “…Ailill then opens his purse behind him, and the ring was in it. Ailill recognises it then. “Come here, O Medb,” says Ailill. Medb goes then. ‘Dost thou recognise that?’ says Ailill. ‘I do recognise,’ she says. Ailill flings it into the river down.” “Fraech perceived that matter. He sees something, the salmon leaped to meet it, and caught it in his mouth. He (Fraech) gives a bound to it, and he catches its jole, and he goes to land, and he brings it to a lonely spot on the brink of the river. He proceeds to come out of the water then. ‘Do not come,’ says Ailill, ‘until thou shalt bring me a branch of the rowan-tree yonder, which is on the brink of the river; beautiful I deem its berries.’ He then goes away and breaks a branch off the trees and brings it on his back over the water. The remark of Find-abair was: ‘Is it not beautiful he looks?’ Exceedingly beautiful she thought it to see Froech over a black pool; the body of great whiteness, and the hair of great loveliness, the face of great beauty, the eye of great greyness; and he a soft youth without fault, without blemish, with a below-narrow, above-broad face; and he straight, blemishless; the branch with the red berries between the throat and the white face…..” In the preceding myth, not only do we have a “salmon,” which lends itself to its own mysteries and revelations, but the rowan berries are red contrasted with a white face. The rowan berries even have their own serpent attached to them. Continuing: “… After that he throws the branches to them out of the water. “The berries are stately and beautiful, bring us an addition of them.” He goes off again until he was in the middle of the water. The serpent catches him out of the water….” Next, a feast is called for and the salmon is sought: “… Feasting commenced with them then at once. Froech calls a servant of his suite: ‘Go off,’ he says, ‘to the spot at which I went into the water. A salmon I left there--bring it to Find-abair, and let herself take charge over it; and let the salmon be well broiled by her, and the ring is in the Centre of the salmon’….” (34) Now we know about the role of the “magic ring.” Magic rings always have some kind of occult meaning. (30) ibid, p. 30; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%BAca (31) Language of the Goddess, p. 311; Djordjeviv 1953 :61 (32) Ploughing the Clouds, p. 16; St. John D. Seymore, Irish Witchcraft and Demonology, Dublin Hodges: Figgis and Co., 1913 (33) Serpent and the Goddess, p. 38-39; The Tain, p. 23). (Gantz, "The Birth of Cu Chulaind," p. 133 (34)http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/fraech.html |