I am not feeling exactly on my game this morning. Either I have really bad hayfever, or I have a cold. This past week I guided local school children on a walk on the Cavan Burren. We are fortunate to walk on land that has been continuously, but gently, occupied for as long as humans have lived in Ireland. Most of these school children come from families with centuries long roots in this place that is very much on the map in the myths told about the first peoples of ancient Ireland. 

I was pointing out how rocks and trees were the big story of this place.  It is thought that high chieftains were inaugurated under a tree sacred to their clan. But we also have the inaugural stone for Clan Maguire not far from us.  The Tuatha dé Danaan are said to have landed first on Slieve Anieran, which is twenty miles or less from them, just over the boundary in Leitrim. The goddess Danu  is said to have married Bile,  the old Irish word for tree.  The school group in Glangevlin lives close to the Belavalley Gap, where the Tuatha’s smith forged their magical weapons. And then, because I have atrocious Irish pronunciation there was a brief discussion between the teacher and children about the word tuatha. Most often it is translated as the people, or tribe, or the children of Danu. But it also has a further nuance, which carries with it  the sense of it being the place, or land, of Danu. 

Which hit me like a big chunk of sedementary rock off of one of those glacial erratics in Cavan Burren Forest. Which also has its fair share of rock art cup and ring marks.

Layers

Once

land was the same word

for people.

It meant

belonging.

As a marriage

can be happy,

fruitful

as a tree –

bud

blossom, fruit

berry.

Just another

layer

of being,

many

and one,

but not

the same.

The land

is layer

upon layer-

sand,

granite,

lime and iron

in rock.

The first people

are the mother cup.

The rings

carve out

the generations

widening out.

Copyright 2019 Bee Smith