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On Making Up Myths (Or, Will the Real Cana Cludhmor Please Approach the Harp?)
I’m all for the magical and the divine, but I think we do a disservice to the goddesses—as well as the culture, the history, and the mortal human condition—when we force women out of this world and into the otherworld to serve our desire for life on the other side of the veil.
There once was a poet of great skill and fame. Ireland, of course, was a country known for its poets. It’s filid.
And, Ireland was known for its banfhile, too. The story I shall tell you is of Cana Cludhmor. Cana Cludhmor was a banfhile.
Cana Cludhmor was a woman, a poet, and a person of great skill and great renown.
Her story was folded into a couple dozen lines. Her story has left much room for interpretation. And yes, misinterpretation, too. If your passions tend toward the mythic, the Celtic, and the obscure, you might have heard that Cana Cludhmor was an Irish goddess of poetry and inspiration. You might have heard she’s the inventor of the harp.
In the great modern quest for goddesses and a deep desire to resuscitate ancient magic, someone not so very long ago spun such a tale by editing the very last line of what we find in a medieval book called Imtheacht na Tromdháimhe, or The Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution. That modern twist on the story endures, making a woman a goddess and crediting her with the creation of Ireland’s most powerful symbol and most beautiful instrument.
(I’m grateful to Morgan Daimler for tracing the origins of this revised Cana Cludhmor tale, which recasts the poet as “Canola,” and refers to her as inventor of the harp and Irish goddess of poetry and inspiration. I was able to find what seems to be the first mention of “Canola” - a 1916 book called called Celtic Mythology, that offered no traceable citations - but the choice to credit Cana Cludhmor with harp making and divinity seems a totally new invention.)
This is all a lot of “inside baseball,” falling into the research rabbit hole and getting into the nit-picky details that can make scholarship (and scholars!) so tedious, bear with me.
Honoring the sources of the stories and mythology we love matters. If we all pass our inventions off as “fact” we end up destroying (and colonizing) the precious, fragile traditions we purport to love.
I believe the “real” tale of Cana Cludhmor is actually even richer and more full of possibility. Even more because it’s true. Well, true in the sense that it has endured for eight hundred years, and likely long before the monks recorded it in the Book of Lismore in the fourteenth century. It’s up to you if you want to believe what the lads inscribed on vellum or you feel more comfortable with what you find on Wikipedia.
In my story, I will rob this mythic woman of none of her power, even as I strip her divine status and place the harp-maker’s tools in the hands of another. I promise. We’ll land at a different place. A place that feels a bit more human and a bit more like what we need right now.
The Poet Asked Me to Tell (and Heal) Her Story
The paragraphs above serve as the beginning of my telling of Cana Cludhmor’s story, which you can hear in Episode 13 of the Knotwork Storytelling Podcast, “How to Heal a Poet’s Heart, or The Invention of the Irish Harp.”
I discovered this story because I wanted to tell a story about the Irish harp but knew a tale of the Dagda, the Good God, with his deadly war harp was not the story for Maureen Buscareno and me to explore together. It’s an art, matching a story with a guest, and not all harp stories hit the same notes. (Sorry… the pun was inevitable!)
This great female poet, or banfhile, Cana Cludhmor is mentioned only briefly in a long, sprawling satire about the annoying habits of the bards who hang about, taking advantage of the king’s hospitality. This is a lot left to the imagination.
Below is an excerpt from the manuscript, which includes the dialog that frames this tiny scrap of story:
"I question thee, Casmael,” said Marvan, " whence originated the science of playing the harp; who was the first that composed poetry, or whether the harp or the timpan was the first made?"
"I don't know that, prime prophet," said Casmael.
"I know it," says Marvan, “And I will tell it thee. In former times there lived a married couple whose names were Macuel, son of Miduel, and Cana Cludhmor (or, “of great fame”) his wife. His wife, having entertained a hatred for him, fled before him through woods and wildernesses, and he was in pursuit of her. One day that the wife had gone to the strand of the sea of Camas, and while walking along the strand she discovered the skeleton of a whale on the strand, and having heard the sound of the wind acting on the sinews of the whale, she fell asleep by that sound. Her husband came up to her, and having understood that it was by the sound she had fallen asleep, he proceeded into an adjacent forest, where he made the frame of a harp, and he put chords in it of the tendons of the whale, and that is the first harp that ever was made.”
When you listen to the story, you’ll hear my inventions, including the curse, the bloodied hands, and the moment of healing. You’ll note how I inject motivation and emotion into the tale, as is the storyteller’s way.
This is an old story of mysterious origin–how did the monks receive this particular bit of narrative? why did they decide it worth their scribal time? But still, this isn’t a particularly mystical story, at all.
I’m all for the magical and the divine, but I think we do a disservice to the goddesses, as well as the culture, the history, and the mortal human condition, when we force women out of this world and into the otherworld to serve our desire for life on the other side of the veil.
The Work of Remythologizing is Delicate, and Important
"In order to remythologize their heroines' stories, the authors must retain basic aspects of the tales and characters and infuse them with fresh energies that comment on the age in which they were written."
Oh, from the mouths of baby academics!
That line is from my 2003 essay, Dethroning the Goddess, Crowning the Woman: Eva Gore-Booth and Augusta Lady Gregory's Mythic Heroines, which was published in New Voices in Irish Criticism 4, published by Four Courts Press in Dublin.
While I wouldn't construct a sentence like that now (and would ask my writing coaching clients to dial back the scholarly rhetoric and speak to the heart), I am proud of my young grad student self.
And I would love her to know that I am actively doing the work of "remythologizing" those beloved stories almost half a lifetime later,
Cultural Appropriation, Toxic Masculinity, and a Story from the Scottish Highlands
There’s a tremendous risk of romanticizing the old world, locking a beloved place in nostalgia and forgetting it is full of the bustle and bruises of real, contemporary life. Real folks living real lives that have just about nothing to do with your imagination and projection.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines cultural appropriation as: “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the practices, customs, or aesthetics of one social or ethnic group by members of another (typically dominant) community or society.”
Often, the concept of cultural appropriation involves white people “borrowing” (though it’s likely more correct to say “outright stealing”) from) the culture of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. Everything from Halloween costumes to sacred ceremonies can become part of this disrespect and theft.
Cultural appropriation isn’t always a question of color and race, however.
As an American who studies Celtic mythology and Irish folklore and then reshapes these stories, I always need to be aware that, even when I’m working with material that’s in English, I am working at the level of translation. Though my ancestors were Breens, Donovans, Kellys, and Russells, centuries in North America have crafted my perspective and my inheritance.
And yet, of course, there’s the soul-deep knowing that reaches beyond contemporary boundaries and has little to do with the nation that issued your passport. It’s an energy that comes before the modern divisions and migrations.
This sense of being bound to what came before, even if it’s largely unknown, is what keeps the Irish diaspora connected to “the old sod.” This is also why you may be pulled to a particular culture or part of the planet, even if you can’t find evidence that your family tree was planted there.
There’s a tremendous risk of romanticizing the old world, locking a beloved place in nostalgia and forgetting it is full of the bustle and bruises of real, contemporary life. Real folks living real lives that have just about nothing to do with your imagination and projection.
History without modern context, reviving folk practice without awareness of who lives on the land now… The work of “reviving” old traditions is rendered meaningless if you’re not curious and cognizant of today’s native residents and practitioners.
So then, how do we avoid picking up cultures, rituals, and practices and turning the ancient truth of a place into fodder for a narcissistic collage of half-understood beliefs and hobbies?
Ultimately, the way to healthy cultural appreciation is in education and exchange. It’s in respectful listening and even more respectful speaking. It emerges when we open to wonder about all that’s known, all that’s been recorded, and all that’s been lost. It’s about establishing a nourishing reciprocity between those who are born and live each day upon the land and within culture, and those from “away.”
In this moment on the planet when multinational corporations shape tastes and trends and almost nowhere is further than a commercial airline can reach, we’re all coping with dislocation of one kind or another. We’re all called to weave the ancient wisdom with the modern. We all must merge the local with the global.
We’re all called to hold the infinite truth that’s embedded in the earth and the language beside the lightning-fast communication and bottomless well of information (that may not necessarily yield useful knowledge).
This Week on KnotWork Storytelling: Michael Newton tells a Scottish Gaelic Story, “The Man Without a Story”
Michael Newton himself has countless stories, and he also has his PhD from University of Edinburgh and many books and scholarly articles to his name. He brings tremendous depth of knowledge and sensitivity to this story, and to all of his work.
Like me, Michael is an American who was called back to the land, stories, language, and culture of his ancestors. He has founded the Hidden Glen Folk School of Scottish Highland Heritage, which is dedicated to reclaiming and revitalizing the authentic native culture, history, and traditions of the Scottish Highlands and its diaspora.
Part of his mission, as a scholar, teacher, and community leader, is to explore “social (in)justice and decolonization from Gaelic perspectives.” These ideas came to the fore in our conversation as we followed Michael’s story into a conversation about toxic masculinity and the way Celtic symbols and Highland culture have been co-opted by white supremacist groups.
These ideas lurk at the dark corners, existing at the opposite end of the spectrum from beliefs that Celtic culture is all about Aran sweaters and Highland games. It might be tempting to ignore “those people” and the way they’ve twisted their perception of a “rebellious warrior culture” to suit an ideology of hate, but we need to reckon with all aspects of the tradition: the hidden, the beautiful, the ugly, and the emergent.
Oh, and our conversation did take us to that other cultural phenomenon, begun by an American: The Outlander books and tv series. (Spoiler alert: Jamie Fraser is an example of the full humanity of Scottish Highlander, rather than the one-dimensional warrior stereotype that equates the wielding of broadswords with what it means to be “real men.”)
The Irish Words for Weaving that Help Us Weave the World Together
There’s a phrase in the Irish language that I have come to love. In fact, it’s a concept that I’ve always loved and lived, but couldn’t fully describe until recently: fite fuaite.
There’s a phrase in the Irish language that I have come to love. In fact, it’s a concept that I’ve always loved and lived, but couldn’t fully describe until recently: fite fuaite.
(Fite fuaite, I say? Pronounce it something like “fi-CHA foo-i-CHA.” Better yet, listen to my guest Kate Chadbourne say and describe the phrase in episode one of KnotWork Storytelling, Conspiring With Brigit.)
As author and Irish language broadcaster Manchán Magan describes it, in a piece about weaving wool and weaving words, fite fuaite means firmly interwoven, inextricably mixed up.
As human beings, we are inherently creative creatures who are here to weave ideas and visions together. As creatives who share our work with others, we are part of a great weaving that perpetually draws the world together. The point of this life is to create and connect, to weave new energies with the eternal cycles of nature.
Oh the boldness of such a statement in times like these, but it’s still something I believe. Regardless of the great unraveling that we see–environmentally, socially, and psychologically–there IS hope that art and love and conscious recreation can sew us together.
Woven together. Again. For the first time.
The Why of the Weaving. The Why of Stories, Mythology, and Folklore.
This week, we released episode 10 of KnotWork Storytelling.
Two months into sharing these stories and guests, weaving these themes on the public stage, and watching my creation wrap its way around a small sliver of the world, I am freshly aware of why I am investing myself in stories from centuries past. And why I will keep inviting guests and listeners to continue on this journey with me.
Whenever we turn our gaze to folklore and mythology, I think it’s essential to ask “are we just looking backwards to avoid the pain of the present and future?”
If this KnotWork Storytelling project becomes focused on stories “merely” for the sake of escapism or romanticism, I’ll be tearing the vital roots from the mythology.
If I stick too closely to the original texts in order to stay true to my academic roots, the life force will drain out of these tales.
If I twist these tales to suit modern (and American) sensibilities, I will have wandered into cultural appropriation and the perpetuation of colonialism.
The goal is to balance all these elements – the original material, the personal passions, the spiritual resonance, the cultural tides, and more. The goal is to weave all these together and stay in integrity.
It’s no easy feat in this age, when misinformation and misattribution are rife and attention spans are limited. It’s doubly hard as an American born person who can only rely on memory, images, and others’ stories and poems to stay connected to the land that sourced these tales.
And still, I hope to manage the trifecta: entertain, inform, and (the element that excites me most) inspire.
How the Stories from the Past Inspire Us Today and Tomorrow
“Inspire” is probably the toughest element of that entertain/educate/inspire formula that I learned in my content marketing days. It is too easy to make “inspiration” into something too flimsy, too lofty, or too ill-defined.
Ultimately, however, I think inspiration is the most compelling, necessary work a creative person can do.
I turn to the Irish language again, this time to Old Irish, and the word imbas, inspiration. (Modern Irish’s word for “inspiration” is inspioráid, which, as Manchán Magan describes in his book, is functional rather than poetical, and works on the page rather than everyday life.)
There’s another Irish phrase I want to offer you: imbas forosnai, It speaks of “inspiration that illuminates.”
I think we need to be inspired to face the great challenge and source of heartache that is woven through our modern lives: a sense of alienation from self, spirit, land, the ancestors, and cultural memory. I think that (re)discovering stories from centuries ago can give us access to those missing pieces and can illuminate the way forward.
So many of the troubles of today can be traced back to a sense of disconnection. To continue this weaving metaphor and the concept of fite fuaite, we might say that our individual and collective suffering can be traced back to tears in the fabric of self and society.
We all suffer when we cannot see that we’re inextricably woven with one another, with the ancestors and indigenous people who came before us, and with the ecosystem of the planet.
Weaving Us Back Together, Story by Story and Stitch by Stitch
The latest episode of the KnotWork Storytelling Podcast is called The Girl Who Defied Expectations.
This story, written by me, Marisa Goudy, is inspired by a piece simply named “A Story,” found in the Irish Schools’ Folklore Collection from the 1930s. It was collected by a student named Annie McLaughlin, as told by her father John Joe McLaughlin for St. Mary’s National School in Buncrana in County Donegal.
The original tale, found at Duchas.ie, offers a retelling of a traditional story of three women who have been disfigured by endless work, carding, spinning, and weaving wool. It’s the story of a “useless girl who lived happily ever after.”
In this version, I imagine the scene in which the father, John Joe, tells the story to his daughter Annie. (There really was a woollen mill in Donegal in the 1930s where they wove carpets for Buckingham Palace!) In this retelling, details have been added to the original fairytale, which is an adaptation of a Brothers Grimm story.
My guest for this episode is Nicole Burgess, a coach, psychotherapist, and podcaster who also happens to be a phenomenal weaver and fiber artist. In our conversation that follows the story, we talk about the weight of expectations, the pressure to be “useful,” and the enduring power of handcrafting.
A Saint Patrick Story You Probably Haven’t Heard
When you have a storytelling podcast about Celtic mythology and Irish folklore and March comes around, it’s inevitable: the Saint Patrick’s Day episode.
When you have a storytelling podcast about Celtic mythology and Irish folklore and March comes around, it’s inevitable: the Saint Patrick’s Day episode.
Seeing as Patrick is as much a folk hero as he is a patron saint of Ireland, let’s establish the basics first:
Patrick’s birth name was Maewyn Succat and he was born in Wales circa 386 CE.
Patrick was abducted and brought to Ireland as a teenager and was enslaved for six years before he escaped home across the Irish Sea.
Against his family’s wishes, Patrick eventually returned to Ireland on an evangelical mission, but he was not the first person to bring Christianity to the Irish. That credit goes to a fellow named Palladius (and “Happy St. Palladius’s Day!” just doesn’t work on a Guinness ad).
Rather than remembering him for driving out snakes and using shamrocks as teaching tools (both associated with the “made up” kind of myths), you might think of him as antislavery crusader or at least as the author of an early Christian slave narrative
Per America Magazine (a Catholic publication), “Saint” Patrick was never canonized and isn’t actually a saint (see reference to “folk hero” above!)
Knowing all this, I admit I have never had an easy relationship with the man. The legend of the man looms taller than the truths, and I always resented the stories that equated Patrick and his proselytizing as inherently “good” and the ways of the pre-Christian Irish to be inherently primitive and bad.
(Though clearly the practice of slavery was inherently bad, and, in light of that part of the story, I do regret being quite so flip about “Saint P.” The role of slavery in Irish history and society is something I’m still working with and explore in greater depth in Mongfind’s stoy in episode 2 of KnotWork Storytelling, The Forgotten Story of Ireland’s Forgotten Goddess-Queen-Witch.)
Saint Patrick Always Seemed Like a Difficult Person to Have Round to Tea
Here’s how I described Saint Peter in my book, The Sovereignty Knot, in a chapter called “On Running Over a Snake”:
You know the one about Saint Patrick driving the serpents out of Ireland, of course. Nice yarn, that one. Thing is, there hadn’t been any snakes on the island since at least the last ice age. Herpetology and geology aside, in the metaphorical realm where this stuff really matters, St. P. was credited with striking the first blow against paganism, bringing the new Christian faith that would all but eliminate the old beliefs that were native to that land. He was there to raise his crozier against Mother Ireland and her people’s serpentine faith that looped round and round with the endless cycles of the seasons. He was there to change history and create the Ireland we know today. He was also there to lay the foundations of a particular kind of patriarchal dominance that would hold the country in thrall for well over 1,500 years.
Saint Patrick and his missionary friends came to Ireland and changed the story that people had been living for millennia. They weren’t the first guys, nor were they the last, to destroy a sacred feminine image and use it for their own purposes.
That book came out in 2020, and while I hold just as tight to my feisty feminism, I seem to have a softened a bit when it comes to Saint Patrick. In fact, I wrote a story for KnotWork Storytelling that more than gives him the benefit of the doubt:
Bishop Patrick of Armagh wasn’t quite called a saint yet, but he surely acted as if he’d already won the title. Though no one would ever call him the life of the party, he was a kind enough man who tended the soul of his people according to the new codes that came down from Rome.
Listen to The Christians and the Pagans: The Unlikely Friendship of Oisín and St Patrick
In episode 8 of KnotWork Storytelling, you’ll hear the tale of a pagan hero named Oisín who left his companions, the warriors of Fianna, and followed a fairy woman named Niamh to her home in Tír Na nÓg, the land of eternal youth.
After three hundred years, Oisín returned to Ireland and found that a man named Saint Patrick had arrived and brought along a faith called Christianity that changed everything.
The story of the relationship between Oisín and Patrick is inspired by Lady Augusta Gregory’s story from her 1904 book, Gods and Fighting Men. Lady Gregory, the famous folklorist of the Celtic Revival drew her inspiration from the tales found in Acallam na Senórach/Tales of the Elders of Ireland, which is a compilation of four different medieval Irish texts.
This story is written by me, Marisa Goudy, and performed by my guest Kevin Michael Murphy. In this retelling, I dare to soften the ending offered by Lady Gregory, focusing instead on the friendship that might have existed despite Oisín and Patrick’s religious differences. Rather than the usual bitter lament about the end of the magical Celtic world, which was part of the yearning inherent in the late 19th/early 20th century movement often called the Celtic Twilight, I invite listeners to consider all the ways that ancient Ireland is still very much alive.
Image: St. Patrick and King Laoghaire from Boston College’s Great Irish Hall, Gasson 100
The Goddess Macha and the Men Who Suffer the Pains of Childbirth
There once was a Celtic goddess, a fairy woman, a woman of the Sidhe named Macha. Her story sets the stage for the greatest epic in Irish mythology, the Táin Bó Cúailnge. This story is often remembered for its curse, but really, it's the story of a birth.
There once was a Celtic goddess, a fairy woman, a woman of the Sidhe named Macha.
Her story sets the stage for the greatest epic in Irish mythology, the Táin Bó Cúailnge. This story is often remembered for its curse, but really, it's the story of a birth.
Here’s the most basic version of the story (you can hear it in depth over on the KnotWork Storytelling podcast):
Macha left her place in the Otherworld and decided to take a human lover for a year. She became the woman of the house and made only one request: “tell no one about me.” Unfortunately, Cruinn couldn’t keep his good fortune a secret and when he went to the harvest festival at Samhain, he bragged that his new wife could outrace the king’s fastest horses.
Spoiler alert: Macha won. She won even though she was nine months pregnant and gave birth the moment she crossed the finish line.
Enraged at being treated so cruelly, Macha lays an infamous curse upon all the men of Ulster: In the moments of greatest need, the fighting men of Ulster shall be struck down with the pangs of childbirth for nine days and nights.
Macha exits the story immediately afterwards and her fate is unclear. She left her imprint upon the land, however. The place where the race was run and the babes were born was called Emain Macha, meaning the Twins of Macha. This is the place of modern Armagh in Northern Ireland’s County Down.
Yes, Men Can Suffer the Pains of Childbirth, Too
As I said, in Episode 6 of the KnotWork Podcast, The Birth of a Heroine, I tell you my own extended version of Macha’s tale. And then I discuss the story with my friend Barb Buckner Suarez, a brilliant childbirth educator and the host of the Birth Happens podcast.
Barb is way more impressed by the power of the birthing person than she is by the astounding athlete who could outrun a herd of swiftest horses. Call it an occupational hazard or call it the simple, miraculous truth: the fact that birth happens is always the most awesome thing of all.
It’s no wonder that, through our modern feminist lens, we see Macha’s greatest triumph in the delivery of healthy twins. Over the centuries, however, Macha was remembered for a very different reason: that curse.
Depending on whether you were of the nine generations of Ulstermen who were incapacitated by the curse or whether you were a member of the opposing army, you would like have seen Macha in a different light. But, even the warriors from Munster or Connacht who might have benefitted from the Ulstermen’s weakness and won some battles as their opponents lay writhing in pain, probably weren’t cheering Macha’s legacy.
Think about the nature of the curse and millennia of human nature… The warriors were not paralyzed or struck blind. They didn’t get the shits or bleed from their ears. No, the men were cursed with pains that would only have belonged to women. Surely that double hit of emasculation and unimaginable pain would have made those guys wish Macha had just threatened to take all their fingernails.
How a Two Thousand Year Old Myth Supports the LGBTQ Community Today
It only seems fitting, that a story with a unique, gender bending twist would give space for Barb and me to talk about gender, inclusivity, and the recognition that birthing is not strictly women’s work.
I love the way Barb describes her journey toward more inclusive language and why “pregnant person” is a good choice. We talk about how we can continue to embrace the fullness that is held in “mother” and “father,” even as we affirm the experiences of trans folk and other members of the LGBTQ who are giving birth and need to be held by language, too.
The story of Macha and the Curse of the Ulstermen was written down in the Metrical Dindshenchas (“The Lore of Place Names”) sometime between the 11th and 15th centuries and probably recounts stories first told in the first century BCE. Though we didn’t have a chance to really get into this during the episode, it’s remarkable that this particular tale, which is about a woman giving birth, would give us an opportunity to look at birth as an experience shared by all people, regardless of gender.
Yes, there are deep elements of misogyny in this story (the fact that a pregnant woman is forced to race, the fact that suffering women’s pains are the worst curse at all) but it’s these very terrible and strange elements that allowed it to endure. And now, in our hands, the story can become something new and powerful. What once seemed preposterous - men, suffering the pains of birth?!? - is now part of lived experience as our understanding of gender expands and trans folk are able to explore the fullest expression of being.
Once again, this is why we come back to mythology and folklore. We’re not seeking some “simpler time” or an imaginary realm. We’re looking for all the tools we can to understand this current moment and do better as we step into the future.
Wait, But the Episode (“Birth of a Heroine”) Has a Totally Gendered Title, Doesn’t It?
Guess what, heroines aren’t necessarily women and heroes aren’t necessarily male.
In The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture, Gail Carriger dives deep into what distinguishes the journeys of the heroine and the hero in a way that’s based on the construction of narrative, not just biology and acculturation. She makes great points about how heroines and heroes are determined by their actions and situations, not by their gender.
Carriger outlines the Heroine’s Journey in a way that will be familiar to those who have spent time with Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler. Her list of “Heroine’s Journey Basic Beats” begins with “The Descent”:
Familial network is broken
Pleas are ignored, resulting in an abdication of power
Withdrawal is involuntary
Keep an ear out for these elements in Macha’s story and you’ll notice what a remarkable example of the heroine’s journey this story is!