Plough Moon, Seed Moon
And a worm of an idea
Mid-March, here in Ireland. Or thereabouts. Tonight, the Moon is full in the sky, I can see her high above our budding oak from my desk, breaking through dense cloud at intervals. We had dinner on the beach, my boy and I, “a full moon picnic”. The clouds closed in before our walk, sunset was a muted grey at high tide, and bitterly cold. But on the walk back two swallows swooped low beside us at the water’s edge and as I turned, stunned at their early arrival, to follow their flight, the full moon was high and clear in the East. Moments later she was back behind cloud as the first stars appeared above the town. She will come to her peak at 7am tomorrow here in Ireland and so by tomorrow night she will already be on the wane. Worm Moon, Wind Moon, Plough Moon, Seed Moon. Moon of mid-spring.
We’ve had unexpected visitors and unscheduled early school closures here and so I am still working on the Willow lore, shaping a deep dive of research and seventeen pages of notes into a coherent piece. It will be with you soon, but in the meantime, I’ve linked some pieces from March gone by below, Dandelion and Comfrey, Moon ditties and March Moon lore alongside a local tale. Saint Paddy’s musings, a ploughman with an unexpected unearthing, conversations with crows, spilt milk and much more from two years of archives.
As it is March, I have spent a year with Na Scéalta, the tales, retelling folktales from the local area and I’m now feeling pulled towards a fresh project, a centre of gravity shifting in my creative mind. Something more fluid, like the sea that sounds through the house, washing into my dreams. A freer writing practice for these full moons, the prompts pulled from our day-to-day here on this fabled coast. A ghost story inspired by the lighting fixtures I keep finding on the beach. The gothic island horror called to mind by the sea worn sheep’s jaw my boy proudly pulled from his pocket. The love story in the melted butter on the kitchen counter. The character study inspired by folklore coupled with a Yeats poem. The tale I dreamt in entirety after drinking a pot of mugwort tea. On and on my mind sparks. All folklore infused because that’s simply how my creativity is wired, but more randomly inspired than Moon names or local tales.
I would however, also love to do a type of Folklore Friday once a month where I can continue to briefly share some local lore without the additional fiction. The ongoing Writing Down the Weeds project will continue.
I truly appreciate your presence here and do not take your readership for granted so I would value your thoughts on what you would like to read here, with that in mind I’ll put it to a vote below and please feel free to message me, I might be slow to get to them, but I will.
Thank you for being with me in this space, keep a weather eye on your inbox for a hefty post on Willow in the coming days.
Plough. (Crow.) Wind. Seed. Worm.
The Moon moves to fullness, her peak, around lunchtime today (here in Ireland). You may have seen her high and pale and full last night. By tonight she’ll be on the wane. And so this morning I’m sending you a few Moon Ditties. Flash fiction inspired, sparked, by names for that moon. Four are colloquial, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon, and one is Native American, (listed in brackets below) but just too beautiful and resonant to leave out.
Dandelion
Tonight, during dusk the moon moves to new, waxing into a slender crescent later this week. And so, it is time, again, to bring you a piece from my Writing Down the Weeds project. Short pieces of fiction inspired by the botanical lore of the season. This months ‘
Writing Down the Weeds, March.
March in Ireland. The days have been calm and still, a washed out grey. The days have been high winds and climbing sunshine. Mid-week the wind blew through the harbour with such force the rigging screamed like a Hollywood Banshee in broad daylight. By night the aroura dances across the sky, mostly behind cloud cover. Today as I write all is grey again, but the birds are nesting, one sings even by night in the budding willows. The blackthorn is blooming along the hedgerows, pale and delicate white on the leafless branches and there is frogspawn in the still waters of the woods. Spring is on the breeze. And yet everywhere,
Na Scéalta
Late March, in Ireland. As I write on Saturday a storm is washing in. All week the rain has drummed heavy on the roof in the night, the ground is sodden with it. My dreams are flight-ridden with the sound. By day the rooks, my mother’s birds, pick through the garden for the worms and rainbows appear near solid in the southern field. Last Sunday morning the house smelt of soot and a scratching, fluttering sound came from the wood burner, another Starling. Stunning after having written of that incident so recently. I removed the backplate to get it out, my hands black with it and caught the panicked creature, returning it to the pale, Paddy’s Day sky. So close its wings looked like the aurora across a starry night, the druid’s bird, in my hearth, again. I pay attention. It flits through worlds like my dreams. I make an offering of poitín at the hearth. The next night I listened to a descendent of our last Bard talk of Ireland, of the remembering so newly awakened here, and I move a little closer to the heart of the labyrinth I’ve been tracing my whole life long.
We rise with the light
Late March, in Ireland. The Spring Equinox has come and gone, mid-week. The tipping point, and now the days are longer than the nights, thirteen and a half hours of light already, we rise with the sap towards that summer sun. Tonight, the sky poured lilac past sunset and there have been rainbows all week, a mild heat in the sun and the breeze blows less…
Siobhán, I enjoy and look forward to all your posts, but especially the fiction -- whether prompted by folklore, plant-lore, history, local geography, or autobiography. I think your voice is unique, and whatever continues to inspire it is good with me. (I am fascinated by those witch stones, and think there must be a story in them.)