Claiming Moon

Tales to tide you over

July, in Ireland. The Moon was at her fullest in the night sky on Saturday night, and peaked on Sunday morning here, amongst the grey. The Herb, Wyrt, Meadow, Hay and Claiming moon colloquially.

I should have posted the next in my Na Scéalta project, the tales, over the weekend however it is still on to brew. My mind is trying to unravel a seven-thousand-year-old knot, it’s almost there but not with this moon and so instead I offer you several tales from the archives befitting this moon. Tales of meadow herbs and wanders through the otherworld, lovers, and starry skies.

It has been grey upon grey here, muggy, and autumnal in turn, and we’re worn down with it, it is grating on everyone, low moods and tempers frayed. Already I’ve seen chimneys smoking and leaves on the turn. The roadsides are no longer edged in white, the blossoms of summer have given way to the gold of grasses and deep cream of meadowsweet, the fields beyond filled with barley and crows. We are in the threshold of Autumn, Lughnasadh fast approaching. And here with the passing of this full moon we cross into harvest. What are you reaping? And what is best let go of here? Set it down now before the hard work of Autumn and long nights of winter set in.

The Claiming Moon referrers to part of an ancient legal system where arbitration would occur during this moon and claimants would have a chance to make a claim for restitution before an independent party. If I could, under this moon, I would stand before the Gods and claim restitution for this land, stripped and poisoned, I would claim my ancestors, their bones in this earth, their blood in my veins. I am of the first generation in hundreds of years to live in relative peace, I am the first not to have fought the colonial powers with my own two hands, and so I lift my pen. I will use my voice until it is gone from me. If I could claim restitution, I would claim it in ever wider circles outward, I would claim freedom for every beleaguered people in every embattled land, I would claim for the entire Earth, our only home, borrowed from our children and I would patch it well to give to them.

The rest of the names for this moon are of the earth, the original folklore and fiction were published for last July’s Full Moon, July’s Writing Down the Weeds and for October’s Barley Moon. They are of Mugwort and Meadowsweet, and those fields of gold. I’ve pulled each from behind the paywall and posted them with the relevant lore below. This is a long post, but it is in three short parts, with four short stories.

Keep a weather eye on your in-box for the next post in the Na Scéalta project and be sure to subscribe so it comes your way when its fully brewed.

Grá agus Saoirse

Siobhán

Xx   

Mugwort

Irish: Mongach Meisce, Buachalán Bán, Liathlus (Mór) 

Latin: Artemisia vulgaris

Mugwort was once considered an integral herb in European healing practices. Known as the Mother of Herbs it was, with Foxglove, associated with the Midsummer solstice and the later St. Johns Eve. It was picked with the height of the sun and then ‘strengthened’ by smoking it over the bonfire lit to mark the feast day.

Mugwort was believed to have strong powers of protection, but its best use is in regulating the menstrual cycle. It stimulates the womb and so can bring on bleeding if delayed or help to ease the delivery of a baby. Therefore, the herb is not recommended during pregnancy, unless needed when the child is due and could have the effect of ending an early pregnancy if consumed in a high enough dose.   

Mugwort is also widely known as the dreamers’ herb and believed to have narcotic qualities, making it part of ancient divinatory practices all over Europe. The herb is a strong stimulant and so makes dreams more easily remembered and clearer although perhaps fragmented.

I keep Mugwort growing in a pot in the garden. You can find it wild usually on waste ground. In a garden it is essential to keep it contained or all will be Mugwort. Given the herbs contraindications I was a long time without it in the realm of motherhood, but I reclaimed it two summers ago and with it my writing practice.

Taken brewed as tea, sained* over the body, or simply placed under the pillow Mugwort can aid in ocular dreaming. In my experience it brings on dreams which are intense, vivid flashes of symbolic vision which do tend to provide insight relevant in waking life. As with all divination practices it is one’s own interpretation which matters. Should you wish to try it for yourself, throw out the dream dictionary and examine your own associations.

Today’s tale runs with this practice and fragmented dreamscape.

* Saining is the Celtic practice of using smoke to bless or purify, often conflated with the Indigenous American practice of Smudging.

Herb. Wyrt. Moon.         

It’s not long past the solstice. Midsummer. But long enough for the light to shift. For the weather to swing round from the north. For a blanket needed back on the bed. The shadows are lengthening, and thoughts are turning to the woodpile.

And still there is the steady hum of bees. Meadows gone to seed. Sticky, honeyed light. And the storms washing in. Squall and skiff. They swirl through the garden tugging at her laundry. They roll off the swallows back. Ink dark as their feathers when they circle the house, low on the wing.

Thunder rumbles through the stones and the wind shakes the hedgerows. She rides it nightly. In her dreams. The hedge, the herb, that wind. They carry her flight. She gathered them at midsummer, wort and herb. She set fire to last year’s leaves, dry and curling. She washed the smoke over her body and her hair. She sent the pungent smell into every corner of the house.

She had dreamt of murky water then, dark and deep. And the sound of a baby crying through the rooms. She’d wandered aimlessly after the noise on dreamers’ feet and found nothing but empty blankets at every turn. She had woken in a panic.

She brews it strong tonight, the dreamer’s tea. Mugwort and lavender, honey he brought, and camomile plucked fresh from the flower bed. A pot to herself beside the empty hearth. To bring on her monthly tide of blood. To dance with that moon. For her dreams to be true.

The rain drums on the roof in the darkness. An ancient rhythm. Back and back. But she remembers it well. And so, she dreams. On Mugwort and storm dried linen, she dreams.

She dreams she is high on a bright hillside. She dreams of him. His body taught even as he sleeps. Dreaming himself, on furs and skins. Fevered and restless. She dreams she pulls the sickness from him. Ribbons of it, black and slick. It is on her hands as she draws it from his chest. She dreams old women come to wash it from her. The ocean of pain she takes from him. She unbinds the stays around his heart. She pulls and pulls until it comes clear and then at last, she is alone with him.

She dreams he is holding her in his arms. She waits for him to speak but the words do not come, instead handfuls of shells and pearls tumble from his tongue. They fall from his lips until nothing but a flat black stone is left in his mouth. She dreams she pulls a red silken thread from herself, from the depths of her womb, tangled with his seed. She dreams she sews it into the seam of his shirt, with a needle so sharp it could pierce the sky. Intricate stitches, each one a knot and a tether. Each one as red as her moon-time blood.

She dreams she is somewhere deep in the woods. All is murky with mist. A pale grey midnight. She dreams she does not know the way. She stumbles over bracken and briar. She dreams he catches her fall. His face clouded with worry, for the loss of her. For his search. For the blackness he now draws from her on his hands. For all the pain he pulls from her aching heart. She dreams he told her he would find her. That he’d find her anywhere. And he knows it is a dream.

She dreams of a snake. Twining, coiling up her bare leg. She dreams of another wound through the curls of her hair. Their hiss a rolling thunder and their fangs lightning sharp. She dreams she dances with them there. Her bare feet shaking loose the soil. The trees keeping time. She dreams he moves with her. Within her and without. A rhythm and an ache.  

She dreams of the meadow. On the edge of the wood. Gone to seed in the moonlight. Pale and golden. She dreams he reaches into the sky and plucks the moon from its place. A seed in his hand. He holds it up for her to see. A golden coin between his fingers. A promise he made. A promise he’ll keep. She dreams of his fingers low and searching. Planting it deep as she shudders in his arms.

She dreams he is a deer. A stag. Crowned. And she is a doe. Her heartbeat is a drum in her ears. Metal on her tongue, as he tells her to run. She dreams of wire fences sharper than the stars and a panic in her legs.

She dreams she is a hare. Nut brown and sleek. She can dart under fence wire and run out her legs. He follows on hare feet. A sprint across the field. Even here he loves the chase. Hedgerow to hedgerow and a cool grass bed.

She dreams of a road. Tar black through the bog at woodlands edge. Ancient road paved new. She dreams she takes to the wing. A tumult of feathers as black as her hair. He reaches for her in the air. There he cannot follow, even in his dreams. She dreams she is woman, and he is man and the long grass beneath the willows is as good a bed as they ever had.

She dreams of her swollen belly. Eight moons gone and just as round. She dreams he’s on his knees before her, his boyish grin delighted with himself. His hands are blue with paint, his prints on her stomach and thigh. Large and encompassing. He draws circles on her arms and stars on her back. She dreams she is cloaked in the night, its map on her skin. So by her he’ll find his way.

She dreams of a woman with muddied yellow hair. Spilling poison from her tongue. It snakes out grey and heavy, tendrils reaching all around. She dreams he pulls himself to his full height. Taller than the sky. His anger a crack of sudden thunder. His hands still achingly blue. She dreams the woman is an insect. A round woodlouse on the forest floor. She dreams he stamps his foot.

She dreams there is a net. Tangled and ruined. Cut and twisted. Rotting where it lay. She dreams he is mending it. Confused and aching. It smells of the sea. And the dead. His brow is furrowed, and his hands busy with needle and twine. But he is talking. He is making a plan. She dreams he is speaking a deep green promise only for her.

She dreams there is a fawn. Golden and agile even on ill-practiced hooves. Ducking on and off the forest path in low dappled light. She dreams it is already autumn, the leaves crunch underfoot as they follow the deer-child. Up and up through the trees.

She dreams there is a cottage. High on the hill. Smoke from the chimney as grey as the dawn. She dreams it smells of turf and wool. The women are there. The old ones who took the ocean away. Grandmothers of the deepest soil. She dreams they welcome her in, but he must wait outside. He stands as he does in waking, arms folded easily around himself, leaning against the sill.

She dreams of their spinning wheel and their shorn fleece. She dreams of the mugwort they press into her hands and the crown of stars they straighten on her head. She dreams of stern words and stiff shawls and a sharp tap on the head. Right between her eyes.  

She dreams of a child with his dark hair. Ravens wing and wild woodbine curls. She dreams of his heat in her arms. His little heartbeat against hers. A golden smile on his face. She dreams she must leave him there. Amongst the chicken scratch and fleece. She dreams she must walk back down the hillside. Golden and honeyed. Her hand in his. And they each carry a seed.

When she wakes the moon is down and the rain is already drying, a glittering splash left in the morning light.

Meadowsweet

Irish: Airgead luachra (Silver rush)
Latin: Filipendula ulmaria

Folk names: Queen-of-the-Meadow, Bridewort, Silver rush, Crois Conchulainn - Cú Chulainn’s Belt, Courtship and Matrimony, Summers’ Farewell. 

Meadowsweet, which smells like spicy vanilla, is currently a pretty sight and heady scent along our hedgerows and across our wild meadows. 

Considered one of the three most sacred herbs to the Druids, possibility due to its healing properties, Meadowsweet was also a favourite strewing flower, mixed with rushes on the floor to keep rooms smelling fresh. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth I of England would have nothing else on her chamber floors and it was often strewn or carried at weddings, despite the English belief that the scent of the flowers would cause one to fall into a deathly sleep and so was unlucky to bring indoors. Here in Ireland, we had no such belief and so Meadowsweet was placed under the bed to cure those wasting from “fairy sickness”. It was also used to scour milk vessels and mixed with copperas (ferrous sulphate) to create a black dye.

For centuries Meadowsweet was used to flavour mead, hence its name; Mead- Sweet.
A stem of the plant placed on water on St. John’s Day, was also believed to reveal the sex of a thief; if it floated the thief was female but male if it sank.

The English name Summer’s Farewell speaks to where we are in the wheel of the year, if the meadowsweet is in bloom, you can be sure Autumn is soon upon us. The English also call the plant Courtship and Matrimony apparently because whilst the flowers are sweet the leaves are bitter, it is a rather jaded observation on the state of marriage.

But it is the local gaeilge name for Meadowsweet Crois Conchulainn (Cú Chulainn’s Belt) that is perhaps my favourite, and one I have woven heavily into today’s short stories. It stems from its use in a tale of our much-famed warrior, as a cure for his fevered rages, dunking him in a Meadowsweet bath.

Meadowsweet is also associated with two Celtic land goddesses. The first is the Munster goddess Áine who was believed to have given the flower its scent. And the second is the welsh maiden of flowers Blodeuedd who was created from magic, oak, broom, and meadowsweet. 

Meadowsweet was widely used as a cure-all for aches, pains, fevers, colds, sore throats and upset stomachs. The plant contains Salicylate which has a similar effect to aspirin (synthetic salicylate), without the side effects. Indeed, the compound was derived from Meadowsweet before it was from the more famous Willow. It’s antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and diuretic properties make Meadowsweet an effective all-rounder in herbal medicine.
Harvest and dry the leaves in Summer whilst the plant is in flower, a tincture can then be used as a compress on arthritic or rheumatic pains or a tea brewed as a gentle remedy for fevers, colds, digestive problems and cystitis.
The flowers can also be substituted in Elderflower recipes, although they give a distinctly marzipan taste, whilst the fresh leaves which taste like aniseed, can be added to soups and salads.

Below are two pieces of flash fiction inspired by Meadowsweet folklore, they are fevered and floral, milky, and full of stars. They are infused with Cú Chulainn, his bath and belt of meadowsweet, his fevered sickness, and the map of stars I’ve linked in the asterisms of my mind to his lore. Cú Chulainn’s Belt immediately connected to Orion’s Belt in my brain. Orion is a winter constellation, he disappears fully from our night sky by June but by now, Mid-July when the meadowsweet is in bloom he reappears on his side. He rises in the East, low on the horizon just before dawn. Orion, the ghost of Summer, was a hunter from Greek myth, we do not know what the ancient Irish named this constellation, but it is now linked indefinitely to Cú Chulainn in my mind. The Milky Way in Irish lore is known as Bealach na Bó Finne, Way of the White Cow, and was believed to be the cosmic reflection of the sacred Boyne River, one of the three sacred Goddess rivers of Ireland (two are well known but one is largely forgotten although it still bears the title barely hidden in its name, more on that another time). Brú na Bóinne, on the banks of the Boyne is where Cú Chulainn was born. The first story traces these stars whilst rooting down, amongst the flowers. The second story is of a fevered warrior tended to in a healing bath, he is not Cú Chulainn, but the remedy is the same.  

Milk of the Stars, Milk of the Meadow

She walks at night. Those few blessed hours of darkness when the stars, her sisters, wheel overhead. Great River in the sky. Way of the White Cow. Way of milk and stars. She walks the edges of the meadow where the white froth of flowers scent the air. The rest of the field cut now. It puts her in mind of a beardless youth, all promise and little use.

The wild lingers there in the margins, the veil thin. Hedgerows and gloaming are her ways through. But on a moonless midnight there is no better way to fall through the worlds than to lay in the sweet meadow under those stars. She drinks it deep. Gulps it down. So, few are the cloudless nights. So grey are her days.

Already her mind has turned toward Autumn and the Winter beyond. Already it nips at their heels. But tonight, it is warm and clear, and that breeze is blowing gently from the south. A spiced lullaby on the Swallows wing. Tonight, she can dream amongst the blackbirds and the hares on the mossy earth.

She gathers the flowers before dawn, fresh with dew. Milk white and fragrant. A mist is rising from the fields, from the river beyond. Great Goddess River forgotten and murky. She aches for her loss. In the East an ancient warrior rises on his side. His belt shining in the growing light. He’s known by another name now. One gathered far from here. Not so far as the swallow’s flight. She aches for that too.

They test out their newly fledged wings in the morning air. They swoop and glide low across the fields and so she knows the rain will come before long. She stands arms outstretched, nonetheless. They flit around her, inky as a storm. She laughs with the joy of them. How far they’ll travel and how they always come back. She wonders if they use the stars as their guide. This place a compass point fixed in their body. It is for her too. Wedged somewhere behind her heart. Sharp and aching if she’s gone too long.

That old star gods belt shines in her hands as he fades from the sky. She thinks of her own wild boy. As prone to rages as any his age. He pretends he’s a dog sometimes too. He’ll want milk for his breakfast and to play in the rain. She’ll dry the flowers for his winter fevers. She’ll let him thread some through her hair. She’ll teach him of the river but not the warrior. She’ll teach him the way of the stars, of milk and honey and teach him to stay his hand.

She’ll ache to take to the wing. She’ll ache for a man, dark green and deep to share her nights but instead she’ll bide her time and nightly dance with those stars.   

Queen of the Meadow, Meadow Wife.

She has him step into the water. Not too hot, but not so cold it will shock his fevered body. He is brazen in his nakedness with her now. Even in the state he’s in. His grin is almost drunken, but it is just the sickness moving through him. The scars on his body are a map of his battles. Constellations of his bravery. It hurts her to see them. She feels each blow as her own now. Fresh and red raw. They have shared enough of their nights.

She has to help him lower into the bath. The fever taking the power from his muscles. He paws at her to join him, he manages a laugh when she swats him away. She has filled it with the flowers from the meadow. Armfuls of them. As many as she could carry. They cover him as he sinks his body below the water. He sighs in his way that brings a blush to her cheeks. The intimacy between them new enough.

When he settles, she stokes the fire, to keep the water warm. And then she drags a stool beside the tub. His head rests heavily on the edge. His hair is damp with sweat. She’s drained the wound. She’s cleaned it. And still his skin burns. He makes little sense when he speaks but she’s glad of it still. And so, she sits with him. She washes his hair as gently as a newborn and weaves a halo of sweet flowers into his clean curls. A crown for his fevered head.

He calls her his fairy Queen. He calls her all manner of things that only spill from a lover’s lips. He tells her he can see the stars around her head. He says it as if it is a secret only for him. He tells her he’s cold even though his body is still scorching to touch. He tells her he knows what she hasn’t told him. And her breath catches in her chest. Snagged on something sharp and aching. Words she cannot speak.

He tells her of warriors more ancient than his blood. Gods who walked the land. Gods who are the land. He says her name as if it is honey in his mouth. Slow and sticky now. She feeds the fire and makes him promise to stay. A promise she knows he can never keep. One way or another he is sure to leave her bed.

He talks on as the night deepens. His words slowing as he searches further for them in the fevered fog of his mind. Soon her name is all that is left in his mouth. She rests her head close to his, her hand on his chest beneath the flowers.

When she wakes it is dawn, there are stars bright on the horizon and the water has gone cold.

Fields of Gold

In both Celtic and Greek mythology there was the concept of an afterlife in a place of perpetual harvest for those who died an honourable death. The Isle of Plenty, the Elysian Fields, Mag Mell in the west, even Avalon all feature beautiful plains in perpetual ripe and ready harvest. Sometimes they are portrayed as a beautiful meadow but more often it is golden fields of wheat or barley, or lands where apple orchards are always in fruit. The bounty of harvest was deemed so important by our ancestors that they envisaged it as an otherworldly paradise available only to a select few. And so, with autumn and particularly Samhain beyond we are reminded that it is but a yearly taste of that otherworld whilst we still drew earthy breath.

Our rebels have been long associated with Barley. They kept some in their pockets for sustenance and when they were killed, buried in pits, the barley grew, marking their graves. Barley, when cut only grows back stronger and so it became a symbol of Irish resistance.

The tale below is an Irish warrior on his way.    

Harvest

The moon is setting as he makes his way along the lane. In darkness now. Dawn comes late and the nights draw in earlier with each passing week. Everything is gold and mist, and mingling breath. Cool enough now to see in front of his face. The trees, the dawn, that moon still thrown high. All of it slowly washed soft and golden. The stubble of the fields is golden too. The crows already there, their black a sooted smudge against the rest.

He walks between the lines. Briar and bramble. Hip and haw. Thorn upon thorn, dense and hidden. For a few weeks still. The leaves not yet shaken loose. The mist lingers low, and the hedges seem to glow in the light. Red and amber, orange and gold. A fire against the dark to come. The crows shout in protest at his intrusion. A warning. He’s in their territory. The sharp bite of winter on their wings. Mourning black on the wind.

He digs his hands into his pockets, and carries on, each footstep sounded out in the fallen leaves. Something stirs in the hedgerow. Moving low under the brambles. A fast-moving flash of fur. Birch brown and lithe as the willow. Hare. She darts into the tangle of thorns a little further ahead. Where the mist thickens.

Everything is golden. The fields beyond the hedgerow seem to sway in the early dawn light. The dew on the berried branches glows with it. And he cannot see the end of the lane for the mist. Growing deeper with every breath.  

He cut the last sheaf. Put the hare from the corn. He rubs the grain in his pocket, come lose from the ear. He doesn’t know why it should be there. For luck. For comfort. For some seed of home. But he has no memory of placing it. He rubs it all the same. He has no other coin to give.

He stops where the hare left the path. He piles the grain from his pocket. Ochre against the damp green. He pulls a few low hanging blackberries from their brambles and adds them to his offering. Glistening and dark. Then the deep red haws, plumper than any he’s seen, though their thorns do not draw his blood. Rosehips and sloe, elderberry and apple. He does not stop until he has brought her all the gifts his hands can reach.

She watches wary from a hollow. Bramble bound and still. Dark eye to his blue. He waits. Time is all he has. Palms open, breath slow, he waits. The crows have quietened now. He can hear the breeze move through the branches. And the near silent rustle of grass as the hare accepts his toll.   

 When he looks up the way is clear, the mist burnt off with the rising sun. The day is golden and bright. The sky an endless blue. Harebell and forget-me-not. The fields are once more full of barley and his steps make no sound as he carries on his way.