Celtic Women's Spirituality: Accessing the Cauldron of Life - Edain McCoy 1998

Glossary

Adbertos.This old Gaulish word literally means “a sacrifice.” As a spiritual concept, adbertos was a positive part of the Celtic religious and community world view, in spite of its negative English translation. It referred to giving to others as well as to the deities.

Alignment/Attunement.The art and practice of placing our spiritual and mental selves in sync with the energies of an astronomical event (i.e., a full moon) or another being (i.e., a God or Goddess). This can be done through visualization, evocation, invocation, or ritual.

Anti-Sunwise. A term used in many Celtic traditions to refer to a counterclockwise action.

Archetype. Universally understood symbols defined by Funk and Wagnalls as “standard pattem[s]” or “prototype[s].” They speak to us in the ecumenical language of the subconscious. Sometimes the Pagan deities are referred to as archetypes because they are indwelling, or immanent, as well as possessing separate forms.

Astral Plane. A place generally conceptualized as an invisible parallel world that remains unseen from our own solid world of form.

Athame. A ritual knife and/or magickal tool often associated with air and the east, though sometimes relegated to the realm of the south and fire. It is usually, though not always, double-headed, and set in a handle of natural wood which is sometimes painted black.

Balefire. The traditional communal bonfire of the solar festivals. The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word boon meaning “a gift” or “something extra.” The modern word “bonfire” is virtually synonymous with balefire, but carries no religious connotations.

Bards. The Druids known as bards (bardoi) were the poets, singers, and historians who kept alive valuable oral traditions. Their verse, called cetel in Ireland and lay in Brittany, might also be magickal spells that could curse or bless.

Besom. The traditional Witch’s broomstick.

Bless. To bless something or someone is to make it holy or to set it apart as sacred. The word is sometimes used synonymously with “consecrate.”

Bodhran. The traditional goatskin drum used in Celtic music.

Book of Shadows. A spellbook, diary, and ritual guide used by an individual witch or coven.

Brehon Laws, The. The law code that governed old Ireland. The Irish name for the laws is Senchus Mar, meaning “the great wisdom.” The extant version we have dates from around the seventh century C.E., and reflects many centuries of changes from the original. Even with these alterations, which embrace the world view of Christianity, the Brehon Laws were very thorough at addressing and protecting the rights of women. They helped prevent the establishment of the English feudal system after England came to dominate Irish political life.

Brythonic Languages. The Celtic languages of Brittany, Cornwall, England, and Wales. Also known as the “P” Celtic languages due to the softening of the hard “k” sound of the Giodelic Celtic languages to a “p/b” sound.

Burgh. The grassy hillocks or stone cairns of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, under which the faeries are said to dwell.

Cairn. The stone burial mounds built by the Celts.

Cath. The word cath refers to a type of epic story or myth concerning war which was told as an act of sympathetic magick on the eve of battle. In keeping with the high placement of the art of storytelling in Celtic society, such sessions were referred to until well into the early twentieth century as “the blessing of the story.”

Celtic Renaissance, The. In the late nineteenth century, a renewed interest in reviving Celtic culture sparked in Celtic lands, particularly Ireland and Wales. In Ireland, this movement was fueled by the arts, and writers such as William Butler Yeats (who was, by the way, a ceremonial magickian) kept this movement flourishing until well into the twentieth century.

Charge. To empower an object or idea with one’s own energy and set it aside for a specific magickal purpose.

Chthonic. Pertaining to the realm of the dead or the underworld.

Circle. The sacred space wherein magick and ritual is enacted. The circle both contains raised energy until it is needed, and provides protection for those inside.

Clan. The extended family system of the Celts. Originally, clans were united by being descended from a single female ancestor, but by the first century C.E. they had become male-oriented. In Welsh, the word for clan is plant. Both words mean “offspring of” or “children of.”

Coibche. An Irish word for dowry or marriage portion.

Coming of Age. A ritual that recognizes a young person as a spiritual adult. For women, this usually occurs at the onset of menstruation.

Consecrate. To consecrate something is to dedicate it to a higher or sacred purpose. The word is often used synonymously with the term “bless.”

Cosmology. A particular (usually culturally based) philosophy about the nature and origin of creation and nature of the universe.

Coven. A group of Pagans/Witches/Wiccans who worship and work together. In Celtic circles a coven may also be known as a grove, a touta, or a sept.

Cup and Ring Markings. Ancient chalk-on-stone or carved-in-stone rendering consisting of meandering lines and circles intersected by lines.

Cyfarwydd. The Welsh word for “storyteller.”

Deosil. The act of moving, working, or dancing in a sunwise or clockwise motion. This is the traditional direction one works with for creative magick.

Divination. The act of predicting the future by reading potentials currently in motion.

Dolmen. The standing stones of the Celtic countries, shaped like altars with one large capstone being upheld by two endstones. Another Gaelic word for dolmen is cromlech.

Druids. The priestly class of Celtic society; the magicians, singers, poets, judges, priests, and royal advisors. Their power peaked from the second century B.C.E. to the second century C.E. The word Druid is sometimes thought to come from the Greek drus, which means “oak,” but most likely comes from the old Indo-European root word dru, which means “steadfast” or “forthright.”

Earth Plane. A metaphor for your normal waking consciousness, or for the everyday world in which we live.

Eclectic. In Pagan terms, this is a person or tradition who draws from multi-cultural sources for their practices.

Elements, The. The four alchemical elements once thought to make up the entire universe. These are earth, air, fire and water. The fifth element, pure spirit, is separate from, yet a part of, them all.

Elementals. Archetypal spirit beings associated with one of the four elements.

Eremetic. Pertaining to spiritual traditions or religious sects that emphasize a solitary, hermit-like existence in order to achieve true spiritual enlightenment.

Eric. An honor debt that must be paid to the family of a person who has been wronged or killed.

Evocation. The act of summoning the presence of deities, friendly spirits, or elementals to your circle.

Fith Fath. This type of magick has been widely misunderstood, although the Celtic Druids did purport to have spells called fith fath which rendered them invisible. This is probably a metaphor for astral projection.

Folklore.The traditional sayings, cures, fairy tales, and folk wisdom of a particular locale which are separate from their mythology.

Geis. An obligation that bound someone to do or not to do something. The word is often equated with the more familiar Polynesian “taboo,” but geis also implied a sacred bond with magickal, divine ties. To break it brought horrible misfortunes and even death, usually inflicted by the deity in whose name the vow was made. A geis is often the conflict point in Celtic mythic stories.

Giodelic Languages. The Celtic languages of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Mann. The Giodelic languages preceded the Brythonic ones in Celtic lands, with the latter being an offshoot of the former.

The Golden Statute. The first known law declaring universal freedom of religion, enacted in Ireland sometime around 200 B.C.E.

Great Rite, The. The symbolic sexual union, or sacred marriage, of the Goddess and God. It symbolizes the primal act of creation from which all life comes.

Hera. A feminine form of the Greek hero, synonymous with heroine, and preferred by some over the latter word.

Imminent Deity. A God or Goddess who is seen as living within humanity rather than outside of it.

lmmrama. The name for epic Otherworld adventures, somewhat akin to the afterdeath adventures in the mythology of other cultures. Two very good examples of an immram (the singular) are the stories of the Otherworld voyages of Maelduin and Bran.

Invocation. The act of drawing the aspect of a particular deity into one’s physical self. Keltoi.The Greek name for the ancient Celts.

Lia Fail. “The Stone of Destiny” used in the crowning of the High Kings of Ireland. Many regard it as the Irish equivalent of Excalibur in the Arthurian myths.

Libation. A portion of food or drink ritually given to a deity, nature spirit, or ghost. Lorica. A warrior’s breastplate, or a blessing or prayer of protection.

Lunar Calendar. A system of keeping time by the phases of the moon. Lunation. A single cycle of a lunar month, from the new to dark moon.

Matronymic. A designation in a surname that denotes bloodlines through the mother. In Ireland it was once popular for women to preface their last names with the designation ni, meaning “daughter of.” By the early medieval period, the surname had switched from the mother’s name to the father’s. Female children adopted the more universally recognized patronymics: Mac, Me, 0’, Ab, and Ap, all meaning “son of.”

Matriarchy/Matricentric. A matriarchy implies rulership by a woman or a group of women who have hegemony over men and younger women within their tribe. Few, if any, early societies can be proven to have lived under such a system. Matricentric refers to societies in which the central focus of the tribe was a female. These societies usually had a Goddess as a supreme being, and counted as clan members those people linked though blood ties to a female ancestor.

Menhirs. The standing stones from Celtic countries, made of single stones or a circular series of stones. Menhir literally means “long stone.” Brittany is famed for its many menhir circles: some of the stones are as much as 64 feet high.

Monadic. That which becomes a single, indivisible unit, and which functions at its peak when in this state. The term can be applied to well-run clans or covens, and the concept was used by the Celts to describe their spiritual unity during battle.

Mysteries. In spiritual terms, this refers to symbols and mythic images whose deeper meanings are not completely comprehensible to the uninitiated, but that are readily apparent to those who have studied and worked within a particular spiritual path. Paganism also recognizes separate male mysteries and women’s mysteries, secret teachings that can often only be fully experienced in this incarnation by one gender.

Nementon. A Gaulish word meaning “sacred space.”

New Religion, The. A Pagan term used in reference to Christianity; however, it can also be applied to all other non-Pagan religions. These New Religions are sometimes referred to as the “patriarchal religions” because of their exclusive, or nearly exclusive, focus on a male deity.

Niam-Linn. A headband with a jewel or symbol sitting over the center of the forehead, often worn by a priestess.

Ogham. The ancient alphabet of the Celtic people, which consists of series of marks in relationship to a center line. It is used today for both sacred writings and for divination.

Old Religion, The. Another name for European-based Paganism/Wicca, denoting that it was a European faith before the advent of the New Religion, Christianity.

Otherworld. A generic term for the Celtic Land of the Dead, which is also the home of many Celtic deities. Each Celtic culture had its own labels and euphemisms for the various realms of this place which contains an upperworld, middleworld, and underworld. Tir Na mBan, or the Land of Women, is one of these labels.

Pagan. Generic term for anyone who practices an earth- or nature-based religion.

Pantheon. The major deities in any religious system that make up the “whole” deity, or the complete power source.

Passing Over. A term used in modern Paganism to refer either to death itself or to

Pagan funeral rites.

Patronymic. A designation in a surname that denotes bloodlines through the father. In Celtic countries, Mac, Me, 0’, Ab, and Ap serve this function; all mean “son of.”

Patriarchy. A term used to designate a society or political unit dominated by males. Also a label for the mindset of the modern world.

Pentagram. The five-pointed star, which has come to symbolize western Paganism. As a symbol it is almost always seen with its apex up, though certain rituals require that it be inverted.

Power Hand. For purposes of magick, this is the hand that is dominant, usually the one with which you write.

Pre-Celtic. Generally regarded, in the Celtic lands, as the time before 800 B.C.E., though some scholars date the first wave of the Celtic “invasion” to as early as 1500 B.C.E.

Rath. A circular earthen fortress sometimes outlined with rocks. These ancient sites, found all over the Celtic lands, are sacred to the faeries and, even today, most natives of the region will not disturb them.

Receptive Hand. For purposes of magick, this is the hand which is non-dominant, usually the one you do not use for writing.

Ritual. A symbolic, systematic, formal or informal, prescribed set of rites whose purpose is to imprint a lasting change on the life and psyche of the participant.

Sabbat. Any of the eight solar festivals or observances of the Wiccan/Pagan year. The word is derived from the Greek word sabatu, meaning “to rest.”

Seanachai. A Gaelic word meaning “storyteller.” The coming of the church to Celtic lands brought a decline of Druidic Bardic influence. These itinerant seanachai made storytelling an art form as they took over as the primary keepers of oral lore.

Sept. A term that can loosely describe either one’s clan or the clan’s holdings.

Shaman. The word comes from an extinct Ural-Altaic language called Tungus, and refers to the priest/esses and medicine people of the world’s old tribal societies.

Sidhe. Also sith. Literally means “of peace,” and refers to the faery folk of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Mann. The sidhe go by many euphemisms, including “the people of peace.”

Skyclad. Ritual nudity.

Solar Calendar. A system of keeping time based on the movements of the earth in relation to the sun. Our twelve month common era calendar is a solar calendar.

Torque. A gold or silver neckpiece worn by Celtic warriors and others of high rank.

Touta. A clan that was, in fact, a small chiefdom. This word is sometimes used in Celtic and Druidic circles in place of the term “coven.” Technically, a touta differs from a clan because those in it do not have to be related by blood, marriage, or adoption as they would be within a clan.

“So Mote It Be.” Traditional words for sealing spells. Mote is an antiquated English word for “must,” which affirms our belief that the results of our magick are here and now.

Solitary. A Pagan who works and worships alone without the aid of a larger coven, either by choice or chance. In recent years, the term “solitaire” has also been used. Solitaries can be divided roughly into groups: 1) Solitary by chance, where the practitioner just happens to work alone, either because she has not yet found suitable working partners or because she is in between group situations; and 2) Solitary by choice, where the practitioner chooses to work and worship alone either permanently or temporarily.

Soulfriend. Or anamchara in Old Irish. A special friend who shares your spiritual path and is at about the same level of experience and knowledge as you are. Soul-friends function as mutual mentors and students, sharing their wisdom.

Spell. A specific magickal ritual designed for the purpose of obtaining, banishing, or changing one particular thing or condition.

Sunwise. A term used in many Celtic traditions to refer to any clockwise action. Tara. The County Meath stronghold of Ireland’s High Kings from about 300 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E. Only the barest ruins of Tara still remain, and most of what we know of the site today comes from ancient literature.

Theurgy. A word meaning the magickal union of a human being with a divine force.

The Threefold Law. A basic teaching of Paganism, it states that any energy we release, either positive or negative, will return to us three times over.

Transmigration. A belief that the life essence of a living thing would pass immediately from its old vessel into a new lifeform after physical death.

The Celtic Tree Calendar. A system of reckoning the thirteen lunar months of the year by assigning each a sacred tree, which represents the character of the month.

Triple Goddess. The one Goddess in all of her three aspects: virgin, mother, and crone.

Triskele. A symbol that represents the sacred number three. It consists of a circle with three equal-spaced divisions, separated by swirling lines radiating out from the center point.

Tuathail. This Irish word has been adopted in some Celtic circles to replace the more commonly used German word “widdershins” when referring to a counterclockwise motion. However, the root word, tuath, means “of the people” or “of the country;” therefore, when used to refer to something that is “backward” it is the equivalent of Americans referring to country people as “bumpkin-like.” Also, remember that just because a movement is counterclockwise does not make it negative. Both good and evil magick can be made no matter what direction one moves. The movement is pure power, and only the intent of the spellspinner can determine its character. Author Caitlin Matthews suggests it derives from an old word meaning “to move left.”

Wheel of the Year. A conceptualization of the eternal cycle of time.

Wicca. A Pagan tradition based on Anglo-Welsh and other Celtic forms of spirituality. Correctly or incorrectly, it has come to be used as a catch-all term for Pagan traditions from western Europe.

Wiccan/Pagan Rede. “As it harms none, do what you will.” A basic tenet of Paganism which prohibits us from harming any other living thing, or from violating anyone’s free will. Exactly when this tenet became a conscious part of Pagan spirituality is unknown.

Wiccaning/Paganing. The ritual dedication of a newborn child to the deities.

Widdershins. A German word for counterclockwise or against the sun, popular in many Pagan traditions, Celtic ones included.

Witch. Usually, but not always, a label reserved for Pagans of the Anglo-Celtic, Celtic, and Southern Teutonic traditions.