Looking for evidence of survivals brings us back, time and time again, to matters of protection. The lighting of the tein’-éiginn, as it’s called in Gaelic (a friction fire or ‘need-fire’), at Beltaine, or during times of plague, is just one example here (as we’ve already touched on in the previous section on Comparative Studies), and it brings us back to the matter of saining and its three-pronged definition, encompassing matters of protection, blessing, and purification. In particular, although there is certainly a protective (or preventative) element to the performance of the tein’-éiginn, it can also be described as a form of ritual cleansing, or a rite of purification: The bonfire is lit using friction alone, creating a brand new flame, untainted by anything. With all of the hearths in each home within the area already extinguished, torches are then lit from the bonfire and taken home by everyone, so their hearths can be rekindled. At Beltaine, this sort of right is a rite of purification as much as it’s a preventative, protective measure to ensure disease or disaster doesn’t happen. When it’s performed in times of plague or famine (for example), the tein’-éiginn is meant to draw a line between the terrible events that have already happened, ensuring the future is freed from their grip. It is a cleansing of the disease, or whatever else may be afflicting a home or community, and it’s also meant to protect against any sort of recurrence.
The fact that fire, in general, plays such a central role in relation to the over all integrity and well-being of a household (being the focus of rites of blessing and protection) also seems to have ancient roots, and we can see from the collections of traditional prayers that were published by folklorists in both Ireland and Scotland towards the end of the nineteenth century, into the early twentieth century, that activity around the hearth was heavily ritualised in everyday life. The hearth was kept alight at all times – being subdued or ‘smoored’ each night (reduced to a slow smoulder by covering the fuel with ashes to limit the amount of oxygen, so it could be left alone while everyone slept), and then ‘lifted’ again each morning (the ashes being swept away and fresh fuel added).
These actions, each morning and night, were both heavily ritualised. During the smooring, the ashes were meant to be arranged in a certain way, and the entire process was meant to be accompanied by prayers of blessing and protection. The number of smooring prayers that have been recorded outnumbers the ‘lifting’ prayers for the morning to quite some degree, so there certainly seems to have been more of an emphasis – more of a sense of significance – on the act of smooring in the evening. This might suggest that smooring is the older practice of the two, and the evidence certainly does favour that interpretation. The examples of these kinds of prayers that have been recorded are all relatively recent – mostly dating to the nineteenth century or so14 – but the practice of smooring itself, in general, is mentioned (for example) as early as a ninth century tale known as Echtra Nerai (‘The Adventures of Nera’), which makes it clear that the fire should be subdued each night to make sure that otherworldly visitors can’t enter the home, seeing as they may be dangerous. The story also references other observances that were meant to be done alongside smooring, like ensuring the ‘foot-water’ had been thrown out before retiring to bed – again to make sure that disruptive or even malevolent beings wouldn’t be able to enter the house while everyone was sleeping.15 This is the exact same principle that underpins the evening preparations that were traditionally observed each night, until they fell out of widespread use sometime in the twentieth century. Modern technology like gas fires and (most especially) central heating, have seen to it that it’s no longer necessary to maintain a perpetually burning hearth, which is why the practice is largely no longer observed. To some degree, however, the smooring prayers associated with the practice have survived as a lullaby of sorts, as this beautiful example shows:
The song embedded above is a hauntingly beautiful arrangement, but how traditional it is – how far it reflects a smooring prayer as it was actually performed, as opposed to its being an adaptation of a tradition (or several, squished together) to fit the musical vision of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (who is known to have taken some liberties with the songs and folklore she recorded) is questionable. It’s worthy of a healthy bit of skepticism, that is, as much as we might enjoy it.
While the story of Echtra Nerai allows us to trace the practice of smooring as far back as the ninth century, we can also point to a much earlier likely origin for it from our comparative sources, which suggest smooring in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man may ultimately be a part of a broader Indo-European tradition. The practice, and in some cases similar sorts of prayers, can be found in Norway, and we can also point to Greek and Roman examples of these ‘perpetual flames’ being maintained as well – in the home as well as in temples, and municipal buildings.16
The Greeks and Romans centred much of their daily religious activity within the home around the hearth – which served as a sort of altar as well – and the evidence from excavations of Gaulish domestic sites suggests something similar. In particular, the Gaulish hearth is often the focus of the finest and most elaborately decorated ‘symbolic content’ within the home as a whole, and this takes the form of ornately decorated firedogs (brackets that allow the logs on the hearth to sit slightly raised off the floor, which increases airflow and therefore the efficiency of the fire, while also reducing the amount of smoke). The decoration on these firedogs often features stylised depictions of rams, which (Jean Louis Brunaux notes) was the ‘preferred sacrificial victim for divinities of the hearth in most Indo-European lands.’17 Like the ancient Greeks, Romans, and the Irish themselves, the hearth in Gaulish homes was centrally located, which only serves to reinforce its symbolic and domestic significance. On the whole, the evidence here led Brunaux to conclude that:
The family was the theatre of a domestic cult, at once most ancient and secret, as it was at Rome or Greece. This cult was attached to the house, itself regarded as a temple, whose hearth was in some sense the holy of holies. In this the Celts were no different from other Indo-European peoples.18
As E. Estyn Evans noted, for example, everything around the hearth of a traditional Irish home was arranged to encourage sunwise movement,19 a point that only serves to further reinforce the ancient feel of this focus. The hearth itself was traditionally located right in the centre of the home, which may have once had a cosmological significance attached to it; in Indo-European religions the ‘centre’ is often a place where communion or communication may take place – like the omphalos we talked about in the Archaeology section, earlier. The centre of the home may be a reflection of the sacred centre on a broader scale – the centre of the túath, the centre of the province, the centre of Ireland, the centre of the world itself (traditionally located at Uisneach in Ireland): a microcosmic representation of the macrocosm.
To go sunwise is to follow the path of the sun, of course, and this means movements will naturally involve turning to the right – from east, to south, to the west (in the northern hemisphere, at least). To do so, we could think of it as a symbolic acknowledgement of our place within nature, and the natural order as a whole. It may therefore help to reflect and reinforce the fact that what we’re doing, as we go in this direction, is ‘right’ and ‘proper,’ and this is again something that can be traced back to Indo-European origins.
In Indo-European languages, for example, we often see this idea that the ‘right’ side – the right hand, or turning or travelling in that direction – is associated with all thing good and positive, while the left is associated with very much the opposite, for example. This sort of connection is expressed in English by the word ‘sinister,’ which comes from the Latin for the ‘left,’ while in the Goidelic languages, the words for the ‘left’ are again associated with all things bad: in Old Irish, the compound túath- means ‘northern; left, on the left; perverse, wicked, evil,’ for example, and so túaithbel, which means ‘a turning lefthandwise, against the sun, withershins,’ is fundamentally founded in the concept that go in this direction reflects a ‘perverse, wicked, evil’ intent. The same can be said for its modern Gaelic counterpart tuathal, which can mean ‘anti-clockwise, counterclockwise 2 unlucky, ill-omened.’20
A Gaelic proverb tells us, deiseil air gach ni – ‘sunwise for everything’21 – and it’s certainly true that Gaelic tradition (in all three modern cultures, and their diaspora) places a heavy emphasis on this practice under pretty much any circumstance that might warrant it. Where any sort of movement is called for – taking a flaming torch around the bounds of the property at certain festivals, walking around a person as part of a blessing, ‘paying the rounds’ at a holy well or other sacred site (or even approaching the site), or taking a ‘fir candle’ around a mother and and her newborn for protection – it’s always done sunwise.22
The only real exceptions to the rule is when our actions are explicitly negative. Where rites of blessing and protection may both involve sunwise movement, rites of cursing often involves counter-sunwise (tuathal) movement. A perfect example here are the cursing stones, which can often be found in churchyards across Ireland (most especially) – usually ones that have an ancient history, and may well have been built over a pre-Christian sacred site. The stones in question typically involve a large stone with some sort of depression in it, with a smaller stone sitting in the depression so it can be turned, or there may be several depressions each with its own stone. The stone(s) should be turned counter-sunwise as the curse is made, but as E. Estyn Evans reports, ‘you would think twice before turning the stones, because the curse would come back on you unless the curse was just.’23
References
14 See: Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica, volumes 1 and 3.
15 J. Carey, ‘Sequence and Causation in Echtra Nerai,’ in Ériu 39 (1988).
16 Séamas Ó Catháin, ‘Hearth Prayers and Other Traditions of Brigit: Celtic Goddess and Holy Woman,’ in JRSAI 122 (1992), 31; E. Çayr, The Study of the Concept of the Sacred Hearth and Greek Goddess of the Hearth and their Association with the Prytaneoin, its Origins, and its Development (2006), 11.
17 J. L. Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries (trans. Daphne Nash; 1988), 79.
18 J. L. Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries (trans. Daphne Nash; 1988), 78-79.
19 E. Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways (1957), 66.
20 Carole M. Cusack, The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (2011), 18-19’ eDIL s.v. 2 túath- or dil.ie/42242; for tuathal, see Dwelly.
21 Ronald Black, The Gaelic Otherworld (2005), 125.
22 Walter Gregor, Notes on The Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland (1881), 4; Constance F. Gordon Cumming, In The Hebrides (1883), 101; Seán Ó Duinn, The Rites of Brigid: Goddess and Saint (2005), 100-101.
23 E. Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways (1957), 300.
Eòlas 