| The preceding paragraph quote, when understood in the context of the story of the “drug,” fits in perfectly and explains the role of the seer and how it was understood to function. This is how inspiration, oracular practices, soothsaying and paranormal forms of perception are practiced, with entheogens, which usually require some form of “purification” (extraction), “boiling” or “burning” and even possibly “mixing,” all of which take place in the “magical cauldron.” We also have a Cauldron of Incubation, Motion and Wisdom. From the Cauldron of Poesy Myth: (Partial extracts) “My true Cauldron of Incubation. It has been taken by the Gods from the mysteries of the elemental abyss. A fitting decision that ennobles one from one's center that pours forth a terrifying stream of speech from the mouth. What then is the root of poetry and every other wisdom? Not hard; three cauldrons are born in every person, i.e., the Cauldron of Incubation, the Cauldron of Motion and the Cauldron of Wisdom. In human joy there are four divisions among the wise. Sexual intimacy; the joy of health untroubled by the abundance of goading when a person takes up the prosperity of bardcraft; the joy of the binding principle of wisdom after good (poetic) construction; and, joy of fitting poetic frenzy from the grinding away at the fair nuts of the nine hazels on the Well of Segais in the Sìdhe realm. They cast themselves in great quantities like a ram's fleece upon the ridges of the Boyne, moving against the stream swifter than racehorses driven in the middle-month on the magnificent day every seven years.” (47) Our next myth involves one of the most famous bards of County Cork, from the 14th century, Cearbhall Fionn, the “fair-haired” or “brilliant.” The narrative is provided by O hOgain, from his book, Ploughing the Clouds, The Search for Irish Soma: “According to the Munster versions Cearbhall O’Dalaigh was a little boy who was the servant of a farmer and whose work was to herd the cattle. Each evening, when he returned to the farmhouse, he was asked by his master had he seen anything strange during the day. He always replied truthfully that he had not, until one day he saw a cloud descend unto a clump of rashes and a brindle cow went and ate the rushes. When he told this in the evening, he was instructed to bring the first milk of that cow to his master. Cearball did diligently as he was told, but a drop of the milk spilled onto his finger, and thus he got the first taste of it. Immediately a great change came over him. His face became lustrous, and every word he spoke was in verse. Realizing that the boy had got the drink intended for himself, the farmer ordered him to leave that place, and henceforth Cearball was a roving poet. Because of his first tasting the milk, he had not only genius at poetry, but also many kinds of magical powers. Connacht versions of the story claim that a black bull was in the cloud, and that he fertilized the cow, thereby giving the power to her beatings, but this is a later embellishment of the narrative.” [O hOgain, 335) (48) |
This last description is very similar to Moses coming down from the mountain all red flush faced. In another similar fairy tale, handed down to us from Celtic Ireland, we see the recurring theme of the cloud and the cow, which we just read about. Let’s pray this one doesn’t get taken by the mushroom deities. The following narrative is from Irish Fairy Tales by Jeremiah Curtain: “There was a man at Dun Lean named Maurice Griffin. He was in service as a herder minding cows, and one morning while out with the cattle he saw something come down through the air in the form of a white cloud and drop on a hillock. It settled to be a lump of white foam and a great heat rose out of it then. One of the cows went to the hillock and licked the foam till she swallowed every bit of it. “When he went into breakfast Maurice told the man of the house about the cloud, and that it was a wonder to see the cow licking up what had settled on the hillock. ‘And it was white as any linen’, said he. “When the man of the house sent the servant girl to milk the cow that evening, he told her not to spill any drop of the milk till she had brought it to himself. “Maurice Griffon went with the girl, caught the cow, and held her. The vessel the girl was milking in did not hold half the milk. She did not like to leave the cow party milked. ‘Drink some of this’, she said, ‘and let me finish, for it would spoil the cow to leave part of the milk with her.’ “Maurice Griffon emptied the vessel three times, drank all there was in it. The girl filled it a fourth time and went home with the milk. The master asked, ‘Was any of the milk spilled or used?’ She told him truly, ‘This is the same vessel that I use always in milking, and that cow never filled it before till tonight. I didn’t like to leave any milk with her, so I gave some to Maurice.’ “It was his luck give him all; ‘twas promised to him, not to me,’ said the master. He was fond of Maurice Griffon than ever, and Maurice began to foretell right away and cure people.” (49) In both these preceding stories, a cloud descends, and also the cow went over to it. It appears nothing spectacular happened to the cow, but the cow provided “magical milk” afterwards. The idea being conveyed here, of course, is that the cow’s milk was inspirational due to its influence from the mushroom. The interesting theme to watch for also, is the descending cloud and the cow. (47)http://www.obsidianmagazine.com/cauldronpoesy.html (48) Ploughing the Clouds. P. 55 (49) ibid, p. 55; From Irish Fairy Tales, Jeremiah Curtain, 1992 |