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  • About
    • Contact
    • Policies
  • FAQs
  • Links
  • Books
    • A Celtic Studies Starter Kit
    • Celtic Studies Ebooks: Kindle, Apple Books, and Kobo
    • Book Recommendations
    • Book Reviews
  • Scéla: A Celtic Blog
  • Store
    • A Celtic Studies Starter Kit
    • Celtic Studies Ebooks: Kindle, Apple Books, and Kobo
    • Celtic Cultural Histories
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  • Calendar,  Celtic Myth,  Games Fairies Play,  Music

    Tam Lin: Love, Sacrifice, and Halloween

    October 31, 2017 /

    I can’t really think about Halloween, or Samain, if you prefer, without thinking of the ballad of “Tam Lin,” especially this part:   And ance it fell upon a day A cauld day and a snell, When we were frae the hunting come, That frae my horse I fell, The Queen o’ Fairies she caught me, In yon green hill to dwell. And pleasant is the fairy land, But, an eerie tale to tell, Ay at the end of seven years We pay a teind to hell; I am sae fair and fu o flesh, I’m feard it be mysel. But the night is Halloween, lady, The morn is Hallowday;…

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    Lisa Spangenberg Comments Off on Tam Lin: Love, Sacrifice, and Halloween

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    cropped section of the opening of Matthew, BL Cotton Nero f27r The Book of Lindisfarne

    Sóþlíce we gesáwon hys steorran on east-daéle

    December 24, 2004

    Calens Mai or May Day

    May 12, 2002

    Gaudete, Gaudete

    December 24, 2009
  • Calendar,  Medieval manuscripts

    The May Calendar Image from The Golf Book

    May 1, 2004 /

    Before discussing the May from the Golf Book, I’m going to be lazy, and link to a post from two years ago about May day and May calendar images from books of hours. This calendar image from a book of hours is an image of a Maying boat expedition. This page showing May from the Golf book is an image from the British Library’s manuscript Additional 24098 folio 22v. This May calendar image is from a sixteenth century  book of hours from the Netherlands workshop of Simon Bening and better known as The Golf Book. The image shows a characteristic aristocratic Maying scene in its depiction of a spring landscape (Bening is known for his…

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    Lisa Spangenberg Comments Off on The May Calendar Image from The Golf Book

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    Gaudete, Gaudete

    December 24, 2009
    Medieval Book of Hours image from Spinola Hours showing boaters making music for the May calendar image

    Getty Releases Images

    September 16, 2013

    Calens Mai or May Day

    May 12, 2002
  • Calendar

    It’s May!

    May 1, 2003 /

    I know, I’ve said it all before.

    read more
    Lisa Spangenberg Comments Off on It’s May!

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    cropped section of the opening of Matthew, BL Cotton Nero f27r The Book of Lindisfarne

    Sóþlíce we gesáwon hys steorran on east-daéle

    December 24, 2004

    Calens Mai or May Day

    May 12, 2002
    Medieval Book of Hours image from Spinola Hours showing boaters making music for the May calendar image

    Getty Releases Images

    September 16, 2013
  • Calendar

    Calens Mai or May Day

    May 12, 2002 /

    Long before May 1 became associated with workers, it was associated with the joys of spring and the restoration of fertility to the land. The Celtic festival of Beltaine (Modern English Beltane)  is the ancestor of the calens Mai, or May Day associated with May 1.  I suspect the Roman floralia may have contributed or shared an common IE ancestor. Beltaine is one of the four main Celtic seasonal festivals, and as a liminal time, between the death of winter and the birth of the warm half of the year, it is one of the occasions when the barriers between the mortal world and the otherworld are easily passed (Rees…

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    Lisa Spangenberg Comments Off on Calens Mai or May Day

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    cropped section of the opening of Matthew, BL Cotton Nero f27r The Book of Lindisfarne

    Sóþlíce we gesáwon hys steorran on east-daéle

    December 24, 2004
    Medieval Book of Hours image from Spinola Hours showing boaters making music for the May calendar image

    Getty Releases Images

    September 16, 2013

    Gaudete, Gaudete

    December 24, 2009

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