Tinker Bell’s Lover: The Hidden Desires of Celtic Fairies

“The ocean is not so strong as the waves of thy longing,” the fairy whispered to the man she desired as a human lover. Was she casting a spell on him?

‘Gather far, gather near, gather all the milk and butter here!’ Some May Day Traditions from Ireland

Two children standing in front of a decorated May Bush, Kildare (May 1980). Photographer: Bróna Nic Amhlaoibh.

In Cork, on May morning before sunrise, a person went out and brought back a branch of hazel, holly and mountain ash and returned to the house singing the above verse to ‘bring in the summer’. In Ireland, as in many parts of Western Europe, May marked the beginning of summer…

Off the Grid: The Epic Tale of The Dun Cow, or… How Now Brown Cow?

Drawing of the giant Ymir with Auðumbla the cow.

There was once a bright-white cow which travelled round the world, giving milk enough for all comers. Whoever drank of her milk immediately became wise.

Collectable Mermaids and the Myth of the Merrow

Feejee Mermaid, shown in P.T. Barnum's American Museum, 1842, as leased from Moses Kimball of the Boston Museum, papier-mache - Peabody Museum, Harvard University. By Daderot, Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69554826

The early sirens, the ones Odysseus encountered, were not fish at all but bird-women, but they had those great siren qualities – bewitching songs and the will to lure the unwitting to a bad end.

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