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Category: Druidry

Mostly Druidry as found in the British Druid Order, i.e. Pagan, animistic, mystical and ‘shamanic,’ but also thoughts on some of the many other varieties of Druidry taught and practiced outside of the BDO.

Published on Leave a comment on Artificial vs Real Intelligence: a 21st Century Conflict

There are many reasons why I strongly dislike Artificial Intelligence (AI). Here are a few of them:

AI lacks some of the fundamental components that comprise intelligence, so much so that even calling it ‘intelligence’ is deeply misleading. Intelligence is more than the ability to perform computations at speed or to scrape opinions and information from the internet and regurgitate them. Real Intelligence (RI) includes the ability to apply criteria such as morality to information and its use. Artificial Intelligence has no morality. It does not differentiate between good and bad, truth and lies. It has no concern for how the information it gathers is used. It doesn’t care if it's working for an altruistic surgeon or an amoral crook. When asked a question, it doesn’t care if the answer it gives is true or false. This is because caring is not amenable to being computer-coded. It is a part of being human that has developed over millions of years of evolution. Computers don’t care because they can’t care.

AI can, however, be programmed to sound as though it cares. This makes it even more dangerous. I heard a news report the other day about a 13-year-old girl who developed what she thought was a close, trusting, supportive relationship with an AI chat-bot. As an adolescent, she was prone to emotional ups and downs. During one of the downs, her chat-bot ‘friend’ magnified her depression until she became suicidal, then supported her desire to kill herself, then helped her find the means to do so. It did these things because, as said, AI has no morality. It doesn’t care. It lacks the ability to care. Why should we expect a collection of electronic data to care about a human being? And yet the people who program chat-bots and release them into the world expend a great deal of time and energy to give their products a semblance of caring, of humanity. Certainly enough to fool a vulnerable child, teenager or adult. If that person dies as a result of their interaction with the AI chat-bot, the chat-bot doesn’t care because it can’t. However much it’s creators strive to persuade us it’s human, it’s still just a piece of emotionless software.

As well as assisting suicides, AI chat-bots are linked to several murders, including mass shootings, the perpetrators of which are advised by chat-bots on the best tactics to employ and weapons to use to inflict maximum casualties. A lawyer in a case involving a mass shooting at Florida State University on April 17, 2025 says that if ChatGPT were a person, it would be charged with murder for aiding and abetting the killing of two people and the wounding of seven others. ChatGPT was involved in another mass shooting on February 10, 2026 in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. There, an 18-year-old killed two family members at home and five children and an educator at a secondary school, gravely wounded another child and left dozens of people injured and traumatised before taking his own life. In this case, ChatGPT’s own internal systems had flagged serious concerns about the young man’s obsession with guns and extreme violence but the company chose not to alert the authorities to those concerns. The ChatGPT-bot itself having no morality, these systems are in place to monitor its interactions but are of no use whatsoever if the operating company then chooses to ignore their own monitoring staff’s warnings.

As well as having no ability to tell, or interest in, whether the information it provides is helpful or harmful, AI has no criteria by which to judge whether it is true or false. On the two occasions I accidentally clicked the AI button in a search engine the answers it provided were patently, obviously and ridiculously wrong. This may seem trivial compared to suicide and murder but, in a world where we are continually fed lies by politicians, advertisers and online ‘influencers,’ the last thing we need is a ubiquitous piece of software taking control of our internet searches, multiplying and spreading this false information.

Despite AI’s obvious flaws, it is now being inserted into search engines as a matter of course whether we want it or not. In many cases, it is now necessary to opt out of AI use every time you use some search engines. This is annoying.

AI is being inserted into more and more software, again whether we want it or not. Again, it is often necessary to actively opt out from it if you don’t want it and there is no option to download a version that is free from AI.

How long will it even be possible to opt out of AI use? How long before it simply operates in the background of our lives without our even being aware of its presence? AI is being foisted on us by tech giants, software developers and governments who have never bothered to ask those of us who use their products and services whether we want it or not, and many of us don't. Despite which, not having it is simply not an option. They shove it down our throats anyway.

This might be less of an issue if there were some way to remove AI from our systems, but there isn’t. Surely it’s possible for someone to come up with an open-source AI killer that can remove this junk from our software if we don’t want it. But no such software exists. Why not?

Meanwhile, people are using to AI to cobble together books on every subject under the sun to sell on outlets like amazon. You can often spot AI-generated books because of the hideous graphics on their covers, the terrible fonts used and the fact that, whatever the subject, they all seem to be written by supposed ‘doctors’ who frequently share the same name. As AI becomes more efficient, it will no doubt be harder to spot its products. However, given the way AI is programmed to function, it is highly likely that the entire contents will still be plagiarised from genuine authors’ legitimate work. I hope no one is ever fooled into buying this garbage, but I fear some already are.

In music too, AI makes it possible for people with no discernible talent to appear to have some musical ability by stealing the work of others who have genuine talent. It’s hard enough to make a living as a musician these days without some talentless, AI-using hack stealing your ideas and passing them off as their own.

Criminals have been quick to make use of AI. I have received several phone calls from a ‘woman’ who is obviously an AI-bot. ‘She’ claims to represent a company offering home improvement grants. When ‘she’ asks for details about me, I refuse to give them – you should never, ever give out personal details to cold callers – and ask if there is a website where I can find information about these ‘grants.’ ‘She’ then hangs up. Back-tracing the calls, they all come from different mobiles. The mobile numbers turn out to belong to real people in various parts of the country. The AI-bot clones their numbers and uses them for fraudulent purposes without their knowledge. Again, this happens because, and I can’t stress this enough, AI has no morality. It doesn’t care whether it's used by criminals or philanthropists. It has no way to differentiate between the two nor any interest in doing so. This is not intelligence. This is stupidity in the extreme.

AI’s ability to clone phone numbers and generate sort-of-realistic-sounding voices will certainly be employed to influence elections. The Putin administration in Russia is strongly interested in destabilising the west. This is why it used social media to support both the right-wing Brexit campaign in Britain and Donald Trump’s election as president in the USA.

AI is also being used to plan and execute major cyber attacks against companies, institutions and government departments, including denial-of-service and ransomware attacks.  Such attacks often originate in Russia, although it is hard to judge the extent to which the criminal gangs involved are either supported or tolerated by the Putin administration. That said, similar criminal gangs exist in most countries. AI has made their work so much easier.

Then there’s the use of AI in warfare. Now it is not only possible for wars to be fought almost entirely by drones so that no soldier ever directly confronts an enemy, those drones can now be controlled by AI so that no human need be involved in an attack at all, except as a victim of it. That way, no individual can be held to account for killing and maiming innocent civilians. Hooray! No more Bloody Sunday enquiries. More Bloody Sundays of course, just no enquiries after the event.

AI is also being weaponised by governments against their citizens. AI is a wonderful tool for government surveillance. From monitoring video cameras in public and private places to tapping phone calls and intercepting and reading emails, AI’s ability to spy on us is virtually unlimited. This might be OK if you’re more frightened of terrorists than of your own government, not so good if you are, say, a trades union member or official, a human or other animal rights campaigner, an eco-activist, a journalist, active in any kind of politics, libertarian cause, LGBTQ+ community support or ‘fringe’ religion, a musician, artist or writer. The list of groups and individuals that governments are so afraid of as to want to surveil them can be extended almost indefinitely. Governments are, by their nature, paranoid, often because they are doing things of which those they seek to rule would not approve if they found out about them.

Last but not least, there is the fact that AI requires vast data centres that consume energy like there’s no tomorrow, which there may not be if we continue to allow ourselves to be railroaded down the AI route. In 2024, AI data centres accounted for 1.5% of the world’s total energy use, or around 415 terawatt hours (TWh). That’s roughly equivalent to the energy usage of 150 million human households in industrialised countries. By 2030, AI energy consumption is expected to rise to at least 3% of global energy use and probably more. At a time when we are supposed to be cutting back our energy use in order to allay the worst effects of global warming, it shows a staggering lack of Human Intelligence (HI) to be building homes for AI that use as much energy in a year as 150 million homes for human beings. This too is stupidity in the extreme.

Those of us who care about these things need to fight back against the companies and governments who are forcing AI upon us before it’s too late. OK, it may already be too late, but let’s hope not. How can we do this? Well, here are some sites that suggest potentially useful things we can do:

https://togetheragainstai.com/

https://www.geekwire.com/2025/ai-con-hold-back-hype/

https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/future-signals-2024/artists-fight-back-against-ai/

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/gpe/4/2/article-p185.xml

There is another page link below that I am ambivalent about but is still worth a look. It advocates for activists to use AI for good and cites cases where this is already being done. It does, however, admit that there’s a massive imbalance between the good actors using AI and the bad. I’m still for opposing the damn thing altogether, but that’s just me. We all need to make up our own minds on this issue that has the power to impact all our futures, whether for good or ill.

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/how-autocrats-weaponize-ai-and-how-to-fight-back/

Good luck, humanity, but hopefully not goodnight,

Greywolf /|\

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Published on 1 Comment on The New Year of the Diamond Dogs?

“And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare,
the shutters lifted an inch on Temperance Building high on Poacher’s Hill
and red mutant eyes gazed down on Hunger City.
No more big wheels. Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats,
and ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes,
coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers,
like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of LoveMe Avenue,
ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now leg-warmers,
family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald.
Any day now.
The year of the Diamond Dogs.
‘This ain’t rock ‘n’ roll
This is genocide!’”

One of the things that has always appealed to me about the Druid path is its focus on the vital importance of the bardic arts. I was born with a soul-deep love of music, drawing, painting and storytelling, so those arts have always been hugely important to me. The 10th anniversary of the death of David Bowie on January 10th 2016 got me thinking about his art and its role in my Druidry.

I first saw Bowie live at Glastonbury Fair in 1971. As the bright Sun rose over Worthy Farm on the morning of Wednesday 23rd June, Midsummer’s Eve, I roamed the festival field singing The Incredible String Band song, ‘Sleepers Awake,’ from their 1969 LP, ‘Changing Horses.’ It was a beautiful sunny morning and I didn’t want my fellow festival-goers to miss it.

Bowie started his set at 5am as the rays of the newly risen Sun illuminated the first pyramid stage. It took me a while to realise who he was. I remember saying to someone, “Isn’t that the guy who did Space Oddity?” Among other songs, he performed ‘Changes’ and ‘Oh! You Pretty Things.’

That first Glastonbury was a remarkable event, not least because it was free. Yes, you heard me. Free. Last year, tickets cost just shy of £400 each. Changes indeed. As Bowie's set progressed, more people woke up and some stumbled down to the stage. By the time he closed the set with ‘Bombers,’ a song about the explosion of a nuclear bomb, there were enough people awake to give him a decent round of applause. He had gone onstage thinking it might be his last ever gig. Our applause convinced him to carry on. Near the end of the set, he told us, “I just want to say that you’ve given me more pleasure than I’ve had in a good few months of working, and I don’t do gigs any more because I got so pissed off with working, and dying a death every time... It’s really nice to have somebody appreciate me for a change.” I like to think I helped a bit by waking people up just before he came on.

The next time I saw him was on The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2 on the night of February 7th 1972. The change that had taken place in the intervening 8 months was extraordinary. The long-haired, hippy Bowie of Glastonbury was now the legendary androgynous sci-fi pop god, Ziggy Stardust. Backed by the band we came to know as the Spiders From Mars, he performed ‘Queen Bitch’ and ‘Five Years.’ I was transfixed, entranced. Having grown up as a weird kid, an outsider, a freak, I knew what a lonely, difficult existence it could be, exacerbated by being one of a handful of hippies in an area predominantly inhabited by skinheads. As Ziggy, Bowie demonstrated that it was possible to actively, openly and magnificently celebrate one’s weirdness. From that night, Bowie’s career took off and I was a devoted fan. Throughout the rest of his career, he showed himself to be a shape-shifter, constantly re-inventing himself. I've long regarded shape-shifting as one of the core abilities of a Druid, one frequently represented in legends recorded in the medieval manuscripts of Wales and Ireland.

June ‘72 saw the release of ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’ LP, which I immediately bought and listened to over and over again.

‘Diamond Dogs,’ the opening monologue from which is reproduced at the head of this piece, came out in May 1974. It too was played repeatedly. The monologue, titled 'Future Legend,' is a prime example of seership mediated through art, like the awenyddion of medieval Wales who spoke prophecies in spontaneous verse. Such seership is central to the ovate path in Druidry. In 1974, I would sometimes roam the streets of my home town proclaiming 'Future Legend' loudly, on one occasion joined by friend and co-conspirator, John Wilde, who later became lead singer with the band, Expandis. The apocalyptic tone of the whole album seemed to perfectly capture the sense of a world spiralling uncontrollably into decadence and decay following the death of ‘60’s optimism. 1974 was also the year I discovered the Druid path.

The ‘Let’s Dance’ album, released in 1983, was Bowie’s most commercially successful despite being one of his least artistically satisfying. Even so, in between the Nile Rogers-produced pop songs was one gem, a remix of ‘Cat People (Putting Out Fire with Gasoline),’ the original of which graced the soundtrack of the 1982 film, ‘Cat People.’

This was adopted as the unofficial anthem of the British Druid Order on the day I asked Emma Restall Orr, craft name Bobcat, to become joint chief of the Order. Bobcat had been trying to persuade me to work with her since September 1993. In February of 1995, as we sat on a bench on Eastbourne seafront looking out across a grey, overcast, rough sea, I put the idea to her becoming joint chief. She said she would on one condition; that I allowed her to, as she put it, “Light a fire under the BDO.” I readily agreed, because that was exactly what I wanted. Her phrase brought to mind ‘Putting Out Fire with Gasoline.’ Bobcat turned out to be as big a Bowie fan as I am, having also found inspiration in him during a youth of ostracisation and rebellion. The fact that she is herself a Cat person made the track even more appropriate.

From the start of our working relationship, Bowie’s music was an important part of the bond between us. On our trips to America together, whilst being driven around US towns and cities we would sing the chorus to ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’ from the 1997 album, ‘Earthling:’

“I’m afraid of Americans
I’m afraid of the world
I’m afraid I can’t help it…”

We sang it in the same sardonic way that Bowie originally intended it. After all, some of our best friends are American. It has, however, taken on a whole new layer of meaning since the giant orange man-baby returned to the White House. With the change of an initial letter:

“Donny wants a brain
Donny wants to suck on a Coke
Donny wants a woman
Donny wants to think of a joke
Donny’s in America…
Donny looks up at the stars
Donny combs his hair,
and Donny wants pussy and cars
Donny’s in America…
and I’m afraid of Americans.”

Donny himself, of course, revels in the fact that the world is becoming increasingly terrified that his narcissistic petulance will plunge us into World War III, a war few of us are likely to survive.

But I digress. Or do I? After all, Druidry encourages us to honour and celebrate life and diversity, to work for harmony and with the spirits of Nature. Druidry should, therefore, encourage us to call out those who stand against peace and whose actions ravage our planet and threaten its inhabitants. The 18th century Druid revivalist, Iolo Morganwg, gave his Gorsedd of Bards of the Isle of Britain the motto, “The Truth Against the World,” meaning that we have a moral and spiritual duty to speak out against those in power who would spread lies and disharmony among us, against their petty greed and personal aggrandisement at the expense of others, against their warmongering and unwarranted arrogance.

The last time I saw Bowie perform live was at the NetAid concert in Wembley Stadium on October 9th 1999. Sadly, Bobcat couldn't make it. She was running a workshop in Ireland. The acoustics were terrible but his stage presence and the excellence of his backing band overcame them to turn in a wonderful set, starting with a pared-down version of ‘Life on Mars’ featuring just Bowie’s vocals and Mike Garson’s piano and ending with a rousing, foot-stomping rendition of ‘Rebel Rebel,’ a song which, perhaps more than any other, encapsulates all the reasons why people like myself and Bobcat love Bowie so much.

“You’ve got your mother in a whirl
She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl
Hey, babe, your hair’s alright
Hey, babe, let’s go out tonight
You like me and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they’re playing hard
You want more and you want it fast.
They put you down, they say I'm wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on.
Rebel Rebel, you’ve torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!”

Over the 52 years I’ve been calling myself a Druid, it’s become apparent that many of those attracted to the path are, like Bobcat and myself, what used to be called ‘weird’ but is now fashionably referred to as ‘neuro-divergent.’ For those of us who are so strangely blessed and cursed, Bowie embodied a beacon of hope and empowerment in an often hostile and determinedly disempowering world. We followed his many Ch-ch-ch-changes and thought, if he can do it, so can we. As he sang on the Whistle Test that transformative night in 1972, we looked at her, “so swishy in her satin and tat, in her frock coat and bippety-boppety hat,” and thought, “Oh, God, I could do better than that.” So we embraced the Ch-ch-ch-changes and found ourselves ‘Loving the Alien,’ and our lives and the world were hugely enriched for it.

At the heart of Druidry as we practice it in the British Druid Order is the concept of awen, a Welsh word variously translated as ‘inspiration,’ ‘poetic frenzy’ and ‘flowing, feminine spirit.’ We see it as primarily a gift of the goddess Ceridwen, whose name means ‘Close sexual partner.’ It is the divine source that inspires all art. The art it inspires goes on the inspire creativity in others, who inspire others in turn. Thus the spirit flows between people and across time. Bowie was one of the purest embodiments of awen to have emerged during my lifetime. We were blessed to have him.

And if 2026 does turn out to be the year the orange man-baby in the White House and the bald man-baby in the Kremlin bring us World War III, I can only hope that enough of us survive to roam the radioactive streets repeating loudly to anyone left alive to listen or, if not, to ourselves:

“And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare….”

So, erm, Happy New Year, and let’s do everything we can to ensure it isn’t our last, and personally, while I'm still alive, “I want eagles in my daydreams, diamonds in my eyes…”

Thank you, David, thank you,

Greywolf /|\

Published on Leave a comment on FREE STUFF 2: Music & the Open Source Revolution!

The Midwinter season of gift-giving fast approaches, so here’s a second selection of gifts for you that keep on giving throughout the year thanks to the generosity of groups and individuals around the world who devote their time to creating entirely free, open source software simply because they love doing it. Last time, we recommended LibreOffice, PDF24 and the Linux operating system. This time, we’re looking at the best open source music software. As ever, the programs listed can hold their own against, and even exceed in usability and functionality, paid software that sells for hundreds of dollars.
Personally, I love music and would feel bereft without it. I find it life-enhancing, enriching and inspiring. I listen to music all the time while I’m working, usually on random play so I never know what’s coming next. My hard drive holds more than 80,000 tracks across a wide range of genres from Renaissance Choral through Folk and World to Indie, Pop and Punk. Over the years, as my collection has grown, I’ve tried a lot of different players including VLC, Media Monkey, Winamp, Windows Media Player, the awful iTunes and others. The one that best enables me to access, build, curate and control my collection is MusicBee.
One thing I love about MusicBee is that it works straight away. No fuss, no complicated set-up and its user-friendly, intuitive interface means there’s no steep learning curve. You just point it at where you store your music and it does the rest for you. Ripping from CDs is easy and efficient via a drop-down menu or you can set MusicBee to automatically rip any music CD you put in your drive. If you prefer to find your sounds through streaming, MusicBee will help you there too. It’ll find album artwork for you, and if it can’t, it’s easy enough to find online, copy and paste into MusicBee. Unless, like me, your tastes run to the wilfully obscure, when you might occasionally have to resort to scanning the art from the CD, but again, copying and pasting it into MusicBee is easy.
By default, MusicBee displays lyrics when they’re available so you can sing along to your favourite tracks without fluffing the words. It has a built-in equalizer, but the pre-installed EQ settings work fine on my set-up, regardless of genre. MusicBee is configurable in a variety of ways but personally I find its original look and layout attractive and easy to navigate so just leave it as it is. One click toggles you to the neat mini-player mode that displays just cover art, artist name, track title, volume control and basic navigation. MusicBee isn’t a huge drain on resources either so it won’t freeze or crash your system.
All in all, whatever the size of your music collection and whatever genre you’re into, MusicBee is a great, immensely capable and easy-to-use music player. My only gripe is that it’s only available for Windows. There’s no Linux or Apple version. Which brings me to my next pick:

Having used free Linux operating systems since the 1990s, I've have tried quite a few Linux music players. The default is Rhythmbox, which comes ready installed on a lot of Linux OSes. It’s a perfectly good music player for most purposes, albeit not very exciting to look at or use. Then there’s Clementine, Audacious, VLC, Amarok and a whole bunch of others. They all have things to recommend them, but my current favourite is Strawberry I like it for many of the same reasons I like MusicBee. It’s configurable if you feel the need to tweak its settings, but works perfectly fine for me without any modification. It’s similarly easy to use; just point it at your music folder and let it do its thing. Like MusicBee, it’ll rip CDs or stream, retrieve lyrics and artwork and do all the other things you’d expect from a music player. Like MusicBee, it has no trouble handling my extensive library or sounding good across multiple genres without tweaking EQ. And unlike MusicBee, Strawberry is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OSes.
OK, that’s my top two picks for playing music. How about making music? The genius creators who make fully free, open source software have us well covered there too.
Among the best, and certainly the simplest, open source music creation software is Audacity. In fact, it’s so good, it’s hard to know where to start singing its praises. Maybe the interface, which is just so incredibly easy to understand, navigate and use. Audacity is one of the best software packages ever for user-friendliness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to waste time browsing online manuals or helplines just to find out how to perform basic operations. I want something I can load up and use straight away. Audacity is all that and more. You can start recording music within minutes of installing it. You can record as many tracks as you want. You can add a wide range of professional-level tweakable effects to individual tracks or to multiple tracks at once. You can cut and paste to create your own loops. You can reverse drum loops for that great psychedelic effect the Beatles pioneered back in the 60s. You can pitch-shift to blend instruments in different keys.
You can record via a mic or instrument input or through an external mixer. The only problem I’ve encountered with Audacity is that it’s sometimes hard to initially configure it to record from a particular input. But once you’ve got that sorted, everything else is a doddle. And if you don’t play an instrument, you can still create great music using copyright-free clips and loops from free online sources like Pixabay. You can save your tracks in a variety of formats, the most common being mp3 and WAV.
I’ve used a lot of recording software, from high-end paid professional suites like Steinberg Cubase Pro to other freebies like Waveform or Cakewalk. While they may be able to do things that Audacity can’t, they’re not things I ever need to do and, for me at least, including them just makes the software overly complex, requiring a steep learning curve before you can actually use it. Audacity has a simple, clean interface that just makes all the basics so very easy. This allows you to concentrate on making music rather than learning how to use the software. For years now, Audacity has been the only music creation software I use. Plus it has the added bonus of working on Linux, Windows or Apple OSes, so you can record on whatever’s available and transfer the saved files to another platform with no problem. I love Audacity!
As ever, the wonderful folk who make this software available to us at absolutely no cost and without even any annoying adverts deserve our support. So, if you can, give ‘em a few bucks and help keep the open source revolution rolling.
Thanks, folks!
Greywolf /|\

PS. For the odd doubter who may be wondering what this has to do with Druidry; the foundation of Druidry is the bardic tradition, and music is fundamental to the bardic tradition, both as a source of awen (inspiration) and as a means to express our awen and transmit it to others. That's why there are triads devoted to music and why most of the old verses we now call poems are actually referred to in the text as songs. Taliesin sang.
And in case anyone thinks I'm getting paid to endorse the software recommended in these posts, I'm not. I'm recommending them because they are good and I think more people should know about how good they are and use them in their own creative endeavours as I use them in mine. I'm not even doing it for the free software, because all the software is free anyway :-)

Published on Leave a comment on Nos Galan Gaeaf – Night of Winter Calends

“Hey-how for Hallowe’en!
A’ the witches tae be seen,
Some are black, an’ some green,
Hey-how for Hallowe’en.”
Traditional Scottish rhyme.

The Wheel of the Year rolls on, bringing us to the north-west of our circle and to October 31st, the festival known in Wales as Nos Galan Gaeaf, ‘the Night of Winter Calends,’ in Ireland as Samhain, ‘Summer’s End,’ and as Hallowe’en elsewhere. This is the third of the Teir Nos Ysbrydion, ‘Three Spirit Nights’ on which the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. It represents the conjunction of the elements of Water and Earth.
As at May Day, its opposite on the Wheel of the Year, Hallowe’en fires are lit on hilltops and cattle driven between them for protection and blessing. The Hallowe’en fires flare out in defiance of the coming winter dark, representing the Sun’s fire held in the wood that will blaze on our hearth fires, warming us through the cold months ahead. In some places, hearth fires are extinguished on this day and relit from the Hallowe’en fire. As at other fire festivals, people jump over the fires and blazing torches are carried around fields to ensure prosperity and protection. A variation on fire-jumping is to run sunwise (clockwise) around the Hallowe’en fires in a closing spiral. In a Health & Safety nightmare, it is said that the closer you can bear to get to the heat, the better the fortune you’ll enjoy during the year that follows.
In parts of Wales, there used to be fierce competition to see whose fire could be built highest and last longest, the whole day being devoted to carting as much flammable material as possible onto the chosen hilltop. The fire was lit to the blowing of horns and apples and potatoes were roasted in it while folk danced, leapt and whooped noisily around it. The cooked apples and potatoes were eaten while others darted through the fire and smoke, casting stones into the fire. When the fires had died down, everyone ran home pell-mell to avoid being caught by Hwch Ddu Gwta (pron. hooch thee GOOta), ‘the Tailless Black Sow.’ In Denbighshire, they cried:

Adref, adref am y cynta’,
Hwch Ddu Gwta a gipio’r ola!
Home, home, let each try to be first,
and may the Tailless Black Sow take the hindmost!

The sacred Druid Isle of Anglesey retained a fuller version:

Hwch Ddu Gwta a Ladi Wen heb ddim pen
Hwch Ddu Gwta a gipio’r ola’
Hwch Ddu Gwta nos G’langaea
Lladron yn dwad tan weu sana!

Tailless Black Sow and White Lady without any head,
May the Tailless Black Sow snatch the hindmost!
Tailless Black Sow of Winter’s Eve,
Thieves coming along knitting stockings!

It’s tempting to see “the Tailless Black Sow” as embodying the Hag of Winter, perhaps she who, in the form of a Sow, leads the enchanter Gwydion on his search for the wounded lord of light, Lleu Llaw Gyffes, in the Fourth Branch of Y Mabinogi. Perhaps the “White Lady without any head” is the winter Hag in human form. In Scotland, the Cailleach Bheur, the Hag of Winter, awakens on this night to begin her long, cold reign that lasts until the next May Day rolls around. As for the “Thieves coming along knitting stockings,” your guess is as good as mine.
In Wales, the bonfire was often followed by a communal feast indoors, after which songs were sung, stories told, games of skill played and divinations made. The veil between the worlds being so thin, this was a prime night for divination. A common practice was to mark stones and place them in a circle in the hot ashes of the fire. Finding your stone whole and undisturbed the following morning assured you of a good year ahead. A curious practice in Tenby was to drill nine holes in the shoulder-blade of a Sheep and sleep with it beneath the pillow. This is supposed to result in prophetic dreams and may be a variation on scapulomancy, the practice of divining from marks found on the shoulder blades of sacrificial animals which is attested in classical Greece and apparently still found in rural parts of Greece and Serbia.
Of all the nights of the year, Nos Galan Gaeaf is that on which ghoulies, geesties and long leggity beasties are out and about in greatest force. Witches take to the skies on broomsticks, making their way to the greatest Sabbat of the year. Gwyn ap Nudd with his white Hounds or his Saxon counterpart, Woden, with his ravenous Wolves ride the night at the head of the Wild Hunt, leading the souls of the dead towards their long rest in the worlds beyond. Meanwhile, warm indoors, we light candles in our windows to guide and welcome home the wandering spirits of deceased family members, inviting them to join our feasts, putting out food and setting places at table for them. As Druids, we often broaden this remembrance to all our ancestors, those of blood and spirit, and make offerings of food and drink, prayer and ceremony to all who have passed to the Otherworlds of the dead.

The above is extracted from BDO bardic course booklet 17, The Wheel of the Year.

In south-east England, where I was born and brought up, a lot of the excitement associated with Hallowe'en in the countries of the 'Celtic fringe' has been transferred to November 5th, Bonfire Night, following Guy Fawkes and his companions' unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. This is still enthusiastically celebrated by several Bonfire Societies in Sussex, one of the largest being in Battle, where giant effigies of present-day political figures are set fire to and exploded amidst much merriment.
'Trick or treating' remains popular amongst children at Hallowe'en. Often dismissed as an American import, its roots actually go back to Early Modern Scotland. The 'guising,' i.e. dressing up that goes with it has ancient roots and was originally designed to prevent revellers being identified either by their neighbours or by the nocturnal spirits who roamed the night. So frock up in your best fright wig. You'll be continuing an ancient tradition, and as my old friend, Robin Williamson, says, "If it's traditional that means it must be good!"
Blessings of Winter Calends,
Greywolf /|\

Nos Galan Gaeaf ceremony in our roundhouse. Photo by Morten Ris, 2017.

Published on Leave a comment on Celebrating May Eve/May Day/Calan Mai/Beltaine in Style!

“With the merry ring, adieu the merry spring,
For summer is a-come unto day,
How happy is the little bird that merrily doth sing,
In the merry morning of May.”

Verse from the ‘Day Song’ sung on May 1st at Padstow in Cornwall.

Green Man maskAt this time of year in the UK, we’re peculiarly blessed with opportunities to publicly celebrate our Druid spirituality. May Day is one of our ancient festivals that has maintained a rich tradition of celebrations throughout the four nations, though often now celebrated on the first Monday in May, which was designated a bank holiday in 1978, rather than on May 1st. It survived a 1993 attempt by John Major’s Conservative government to remove it as a bank holiday and replace it with Trafalgar Day in October. David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition revived the idea in 2011, again without success. The reason for these attempts to suppress May Day is that it had become linked with International Workers Day, which grew out of a resolution passed by the 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International which called on “all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace.” This was enthusiastically taken up by the Trade Union movement in the UK who organised colourful and well-attended marches across the UK on the day.

May blossomMay Day’s origins are, however, far older, stemming from a pagan celebration of the arrival of the year’s summer half, just as Hallowe’en marks the arrival of its winter half. May Day marks winter’s last gasp, the onset of warmer weather, the return of green growth to the vegetable realm, the birth of wild and domestic animals and birds and thus fertility in general. It has always been one of the most widely and enthusiastically celebrated of traditional festivals throughout Europe.

May Day Morris dancer at Ham HillMay Day traditions include bathing one’s face in May morning dew to restore or retain a youthful appearance; young people cutting twigs from flowering May (i.e. Hawthorn) trees and using them as ‘May gads’ to lightly whip other young persons, particularly those they are attracted to; lighting pairs of fires between which domestic animals are driven to purify and protect them through the coming year; dancing, especially Morris dancing; dressing as animals or other non-human beings, a practice known in the UK as ‘guising’; electing a young woman to act as ‘May Queen,’ and often a young man as her consort; staging mock battles between the forces of summer, led by the May Queen and her consort, and the forces of winter, often led by an old woman who is often a man in drag; and decorating the home with seasonal flowers.

Many parts of the British Isles continue to hold May festivities in which members of the public may take part. Beltaine fires are still kindled in some parts of Ireland. Peebles in the Scottish Borders holds an annual celebration and a massive, and gloriously Pagan, Beltane Fire Festival takes place on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. In Wales, celebrations traditionally began with the lighting of a May Eve bonfire on Nos Galan Haf, the ‘Night of the Calends of Summer,’ followed the next day by dancing and the singing of May carols. If you fancy making a joyful noise, Cornwall has the May Horns celebration in Penzance, featuring a giant Crow and high-pitched whistles made from Sycamore; the Padstow ‘Obby ‘Oss festival; and assorted giants; Shropshire has the Clun Green Man Festival and other events at Shifnal and elsewhere; Sussex has its Jack-in-the-Green Festival centred around Hastings Castle but taking over the whole town; Morris dancers greet the May morning sunrise on the ridge above the Long Man of Wilmington.

Edinburgh: Beltane Fire FestivalMythago Morris dance maskMost of these events are happy to have Druids simply turn up and take part as spectators. If you’d like to be more actively involved, you could contact the organisers and see if they’re amenable to having some Druidic input. Personally, I’ve been happy just to join in with the other drummers who attend the Jack-in-the-Green Festival in Hastings. In the 1990s, Tim Sebastion, late founder of the Secular Order of Druids, researched a local celebration in Frome that had died out and revived it with support from the town council, mayor and local traders. It’s still running as an annual event. Or you could join a Morris team. There are now a number of Pagan Morris sides in the UK. Many of them dress and dance in the ‘Border Morris’ style. Some weave dances into folk dramas depicting historical and/or legendary events. All are hugely entertaining and fun to hang out with. All eagerly welcome new recruits, whether dancers, musicians, or both.

The plethora of public May Day events throughout the British Isles mean that it’s not necessary to seek out a dedicated Druid grove in order to ceremonially celebrate the end of winter and beginning of summer.

Long Man of Wilmington, SussexIf you want something with a more specifically Druidic focus, there are groups who hold open rites at various sacred sites including the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex, the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, the Stanton Drew stone circles south of Bristol and the Avebury henge in Wiltshire. Many of these were inspired by the open Gorsedd founded by the British Druid Order at Avebury in 1993. Some use the original rite I composed for Avebury as a template. You can find a copy HERE.

An online search or a visit to your local library or museum may, as Tim Sebastion found, reveal specific local celebrations you might like to revive in whole or in part. The same may also reveal little-known local sacred sites that might provide a magical venue for your celebrations. If you’re lucky enough to have a decent-sized garden, a May Eve bonfire makes a great focus for celebrating the joy of summer’s return.

However you choose to celebrate, may your celebrations be truly blessed.
So may it be!

Greywolf /|\

And now, for your delectation and delight, here's Steeleye Span performing their excellent rendition of the Padstow May Day Song....

Published on Leave a comment on The Taliesin Sourcebook

by Frank Olding
Green Magic, 2024
224 pages, Paperback, £12.99
Index

Buy it HERE!

I love this book! Had it existed 50 years ago, it would have saved me decades of rooting around in second-hand book shops and having friends search university libraries. It is the first book to bring together clear English translations of all the existing early material by or about Taliesin, the semi-mythical 6th century poet known as the primary chief bard of Britain. The 54 poems attributed to him are all here, including such well-known, mysterious and much-debated gems as Kat Godeu, ‘The Battle of the Trees,’ and Preideu Annwfyn, ‘The Spoils of Annwn.’

As well as the author’s superb new translations of these poems, verses by other hands referring to the bard are included. Plus there are four by the late 12th-early 13th century poet, Lywarch ap Llewellyn, also known (for reasons unknown) as ‘The Poet of the Pigs,’ who is the prime candidate to be the author of several of the ‘legendary’ poems attributed to Taliesin. Not only that but we also have translations of the earliest literary reference to Taliesin, from the 9th century ‘History of the Britons’; relevant sections from two medieval prose tales, ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ and ‘Branwen, daughter of Llyr’; and four different 16th and 17th century versions of the Story of Taliesin that detail his involvement with the witch-like, shape-shifting ‘ruler of bards,’ Ceridwen, brewer of the magical cauldron of inspiration, imbibing three drops from which gives Taliesin the gifts of poetry, seership and shape-shifting.

On top of all this, the author’s introduction is among the best concise introductions to medieval Welsh verse in general, and the history and legend of Taliesin in particular, that I’ve come across, conveying in 15 pages more than most writers manage in 50 or more. His introductions to the individual poems and prose pieces are equally informative, setting out briefly and clearly what is known of their authorship, historical background, characters and geographical locations referenced in them, and their overall significance. Particularly for some of the lesser-known historical poems, these introductions are invaluable. For those wishing to pursue further, the author provides footnotes linked to a very thorough, 7-page bibliography.

Frank Olding is a scholar by training, an archaeologist by profession and a poet by inclination. The last of these shines through in his wonderfully clear translations. Translating poetry is always difficult, doubly so when the originals were composed centuries ago in verse forms that rely heavily on alliteration, repetition, internal rhyme, strict syllable length and multiple meanings. Given these problems, the author’s achievement here is all the more remarkable. Here’s a small sample, from Buarth Beird, ‘The Meeting-place of Bards’:

I’m a craftsman; I’m a singer fine and clear;
I am steel, I am a Druid, seer, craftsman;
I’m a viper, I am lust, I gorge myself on learning;
I am no dumbfounded poet, I do not stammer:
when the singers sing their songs by rote,
they weave no wonder greater than myself.

Beautiful, fluent, and with no sacrifice of accuracy.

Whether your interests are in poetry, the development of verse forms, Welsh literature, British history, mythology and folklore, the bardic tradition or contemporary Druidry, you’ll find a world of wonder in these pages. As the great bard himself says:

I am Taliesin, the ardent one,
I endow the world with song:
praise-songs to the abundant wonders of the world.

Published on Leave a comment on UK Interfaith Network to close due to removal of government funding

Rishi Sunak, the UK's first Hindu Prime Minister, has warned of the dangers of polarisation and hatred in politics. This follows MP and former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, Lee Anderson's claim that “Islamists” have “got control of London” and of its Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, despite the fact that Khan has frequently spoken out against anti-Semitism and in support of Jewish communities in the UK and been praised by Jewish groups for doing so. Former Conservative Home Secretary and Buddhist, Suella Braverman, ramped up the divisive, anti-Islamic rhetoric still further when she wrote that "Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now" in the UK. It seems that the Conservative Party may have a problem with Islamophobia.
All this comes at a time when Sunak's Minister for Communities, the "proud Christian", Michael Gove, has chosen to withdraw funding from the Interfaith Network, a group that has spent the last 37 years working against polarisation and hatred by bringing together representatives of different faith groups across the UK. His reason is that one of the 18 appointed trustees of the Network is a representative of the Muslim Council of Britain, a body that represents tens of thousands of British Muslims and supports hundreds of charities, including numerous schools and community groups.
Michael Gove's problem with the Muslim Council of Britain seemingly stems from an incident in 2009 when the then Labour government suspended links with the MCB after a former leading member of it is said to have signed a statement in support of the Palestinian group, Hamas, and opposing the actions of the Israeli State. The leadership of the MCB has changed several times since and no longer includes that individual and the Labour party has subsequently renewed its links with the MCB. Is a problematic statement made 15 years ago by an individual member of one organisation sufficient reason to now withdraw funding from an entirely different organisation of which that individual has never been a member and which works to promote peace and understanding between faith communities? Clearly it is not.
Since the UK Government had been the main source of funding for the Interfaith Network, the Network now has no option but to close. Well, OK, it did have the option to remove the representative of the MCB from its board of trustees. Since he has been a valued member of that board for some years and has done absolutely nothing whatsoever to warrant dismissal from it, the Network took the principled decision not to do so. To do otherwise would be to betray the fundamental principles on which the Network is founded.
Given recent events, bringing people of different faiths together has seldom been more important. Attacks on Jews and Muslims in the UK have rocketed since the terrible Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th and the subsequent Israeli Defence Force invasion of the Gaza Strip.  This despite the fact that Jews and Muslims in the UK are clearly not responsible for either event. Is this really an appropriate time for the UK government to force the closure of the main group who have successfully worked for peace and understanding between faith groups for the last 37 years? The answer must surely be a resounding NO!
I should declare an interest, having organised and taken part in interfaith gatherings and ceremonies since the early 1990s and seen first-hand the good relationships that are forged through them.
As founder of the British Druid Order, I therefore call upon the UK government to immediately restore funding to the Interfaith Network and invite you to do the same through your local MP whose contact details can easily be found online. Write to them today and help get Michael Gove's absurd, unwarranted and divisive decision reversed. Thank you.
Yours in peace,
Philip Shallcrass (Greywolf) /|\

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Published on 1 Comment on The Roundhouse Tune, 1828-2023

If this tune sounds familiar, it could be that you’re a fan of The Incredible String Band. The band's co-founder, Robin Williamson, used it for the closing track, ‘The Circle Is Unbroken,’ on their 1968 double LP, ‘Wee Tam & the Big Huge.’ I’ve loved this song since first hearing it back in the day. It's the first tune I learned to play on the penny whistle and I’ve often played and sung it during ceremonies. Some years ago Robin told me he got the tune from an Irish lament by the blind bard, Antoine Ó Raifteiri (1779-1835), who wrote it for twenty people from Annaghdown (Eanach Dhúin) who were drowned on September 4th 1828 when their boat went down while carrying them to a fair in Galway. Ó Raifteiri probably repurposed a traditional tune to make his poem into a song. Robin did the same 140 years later and these are the words Robin put to it, turning a lament of loss to an inspiring song of hope:

Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you’re travelling
Brothers from all time gathering here
Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars

Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free
Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again

Why do I call it ‘The Roundhouse Tune?’ Thereby hangs a tale...

I wanted to build an Iron Age roundhouse for decades. I mentioned this whilst walking through the woods at Wild Ways with Elaine, who co-runs a retreat and crafts centre there with partner, Garth. She said, “Well why don’t you then?” Next thing I know, we’ve found a good spot, cleared away the undergrowth, felled some Ash trees for timber and started to build. We also planted and harvested an acre of long-straw wheat for thatching material.

The build took about a year and a half, working during school holidays. Many folk came to help, from visiting individuals to entire Druid camps. John Letts, who pointed me to the one remaining source for long-straw wheat seed in the UK, turned out to be an expert in medieval thatching techniques. With wonderful generosity, he taught us how to thatch.

During the build I kept playing and singing ‘The Circle is Unbroken.’ The lyrics seem so appropriate for what we were doing, which felt so much like building a “ship of the future in an ancient pattern,” using “the sacred binding of the yellow grain” for our thatch with the intention of bringing “scattered” folk together for ceremonies, celebrations and music sessions, and to “converse again.” The other-than-human population of the area seemed to appreciate the tune as well. A Wren built her nest on top of the wattle wall and raised three chicks while we rattled around, daubing the walls and thatching the roof. During breaks I would sit near the nest and play ‘The Roundhouse Tune.’ The chicks would invariably join in, twittering an uplifting chorus.

For those who like the technical stuff, the basic recording was made at Wild Ways on December 1st, 2023 using a Zoom H4n Pro Handy Recorder. I’m playing a B flat ‘Generation’ penny whistle. I added reverb and, on the second and third rounds, echo, using the Audacity audio editing suite, one of the finest examples of free, open source software on the planet. The idea for the echo came from another track I’ve loved for decades; ‘Prisms,' from the self-titled 1970 LP by the band, Quintessence, a soaringly beautiful, echo-enhanced flute solo by founder member, Raja Ram. The video was put together using another great piece of open source software, the excellent OpenShot video editor.

The still photos featured in the video date from 2008, when we started building the roundhouse, through to the present. A couple of folk who appear in them have since departed for the Otherworld. May their onward journeys be blessed. I play the tune three times. On the first round, the photos are mainly of the structure as it was being built. The second round has shots of the roof being thatched and re-thatched. The third has stills from a few of the ceremonies we've held in the roundhouse. These are from the preparatory ceremonies we make to ready the roundhouse and the lead ritualists before the later arrival of larger groups for the main ceremony. If you're intrigued by these small ceremonial snippets, check out the British Druid Order website for more on our unique, 'shamanistic' take on Druidry, Britain's oldest native religion whose name we know.

Over the years, the roundhouse has been the scene of many amazing, powerful, transformative ceremonies. One of my favourite memories is of the day we invited Robin Williamson to play there for us. Of course, he played ‘The Circle Is Unbroken’ (right). I hope my rendition of the tune does it justice and that the tune and accompanying film give a little flavour of what the roundhouse is like. Who knows, maybe we’ll meet there one day?

Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\

Published on Leave a comment on Druidry: A Practical & Inspirational Guide – Updated & In Print!

I love books. It's been a dream of mine since I was a kid to see my name on the spine of a really nicely produced hardback book. Well, it took a while, but I finally made it! The first edition of Druidry: A Practical & Inspirational Guide was a modest little paperback that came out in 2000 (above left). Despite being written as an introductory book, I was delighted to hear that even old hands in the Pagan and Druid worlds had found inspiration in it. It's also been a joy to run into those for whom it was their first introduction to Druidry and who were inspired to follow it as a path ever since.

A completely unexpected consequence of its publication came in 2011 when I was contacted by the organisers of the London 2012 Paralympics with a request to use parts of a ceremony included in the book in their closing ceremony. This put BDO Druidry on the same bill as Coldplay and Rhianna, broadcast to a worldwide audience of millions. See the Druid bits on https://youtu.be/eNE8PTgsjWk

23 years on, the new edition is more than twice the length of the first and is a rather beautiful 6 x 9 inch hardback, bound in dark blue cloth with gold lettering on the spine, enclosed in a tough wraparound jacket bearing a gorgeous photo of yours truly on the front, courtesy of ace Druid photographer, Elaine Gregory. It's illustrated, which the first edition wasn't, including photos of modern Druids, sketches and etchings of earlier ones, a Romano-Celtic bronze of an even earlier one and some of my own artwork and that of Druid friends. It's beautifully laid out, printed in a lovely clear typeface and has an index. All made possible by the decision to self-publish.

The contents follow the same pattern as the first edition, beginning with a general introduction to Druidry and how the modern tradition came to exist in its current form. Subsequent sections cover the bardic, ovate and Druid paths in more detail, covering (among other things) myths, legends and poetry, seership and divination, seasonal celebrations, ritual and shape-shifting.

While retaining much from the earlier edition, this new one benefits greatly from 23 years more experience of living Druidry and 17 years of research and writing done for the British Druid Order's distance learning courses. Among other things, it features new and more accurate translations of the names of the letters of the Ogham alphabet, insights into the origins of various pieces of Druidic liturgy and the modern Pagan Wheel of the Year, new translations from Taliesin poems by Welsh poet, Frank Olding, and my own new translations of some key Irish texts, including the Song of Amergin.

Published on Alban Eilir, March 20th, it's doing pretty well even though, for reasons unknown, Amazon seem to be either listing it as unavailable or selling it with a huge mark-up for postage. Fortunately, other online booksellers are doing better. It's also available from the British Druid Order webshop at the published price of £25.99 and at a reduced postage rate, which seems like a good idea given how ridiculously expensive postage is these days.

Publishing a book is a strange business, like nailing your soul to a wooden door in a busy market place and inviting strangers to hurl dung at it, particularly since the proliferation of social media platforms that thrive on abuse. I can't pretend it's not worrying but went ahead and published anyway largely because of the positive effect the first edition had on so many people's lives and the belief that the new edition improves on it in so many ways and might therefore also have a positive impact on at least some readers. I commend it to your tender mercies.

Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\

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Published on 2 Comments on Telyn Rawn – The Horse-Hair Harp

Writing on music for the British Druid Order's bardic course rekindled a long-standing love of medieval instruments and the enchanting sounds they create. I’ve written previously about my recreation of a ‘lost’ stringed instrument played in medieval Ireland and Wales called the timpan, or tiompan. Encouraged by that reconstruction turning out reasonably playable, thoughts turned to the type of harp that might have accompanied bardic performances of the tales that make up the Mabinogi, or recitals of the songs of Taliesin, in 12th century Wales.

Here we’re on more certain ground than with the timpan, which is variously suggested to have been a hand-drum, a bowed lyre, a strummed lyre, a hammered dulcimer, a banjo and (by me) a long-necked lute. Everyone agrees that the 12th century Welsh harp was a triangular instrument of a type recognisably the ancestor of the modern harp. Its most common form was the telyn rawn, ‘horse-hair harp.’ The word telyn may actually be Irish in origin, from Gaelic teilinn, ‘the buzzing of bees.’ The story goes that the ruler of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Cynan (circa 1055-1137), brought Irish harpers over to North Wales who disparagingly referred to Welsh harps as teilinn, ‘buzzing.’ Irish harps were commonly strung with brass not horse-hair. This in itself could account for the difference in sound noted by Gruffudd’s Irish harpers, but I wonder if Welsh makers might have fitted bray pins to their instruments. Bray pins are little flag-shaped pegs inserted into the soundboard next to strings in such a way that they can be moved to almost touch the strings, producing a distinct buzzing sound. As you’ll hear from this video, the sound of the bray harp is quite unlike the dulcet tones of modern harps:

Discussing telyn rawn with Ian Pittaway on his excellent early music blog led me to wonder if, rather than bray pins fitted to the soundboard, medieval Welsh harp-makers might have inserted or attached something to the instrument’s neck that produced a similar buzzing effect.

On the bray sound, Ian cites the very early example of the ‘bull-headed lyres’ of Ur, Sumerian instruments dating from around 2500 BCE, of which complete examples have been found. Their bray-like effect is produced by the strings vibrating against the upper part of the bridge, as in this video where a reconstructed instrument is played:

For those sufficiently interested, here’s a longer video in which historical musicologist, Richard Dumbrill, talks about the discovery, reconstruction, tuning and spiritual and cosmological significance of the lyres of Ur:

Also mentioned by Ian is an instrument that looks and sounds as though it’s ancestors were modelled on the lyres of Ur; the Ethiopian begena or bèguèna, whose extraordinary sound can be heard in this video:

This next video shows a begena being made as well as played:

The lack of a bridge is one of the key things that differentiates a harp from a lyre. On harps, the strings go directly into the soundbox without passing over a bridge. There is no evidence that the telyn rawn was anything other than a harp, in which case we can rule out a bridge. Which doesn’t mean there wasn’t something else on it that produced a sound similar to the lyres of Ur or the begena. Once I’ve completed my telyn rawn, I’ll try a few options to see what works best. One possibility, since the soundboard was traditionally made from horse hide, is that strips of rawhide could have been attached to the neck, perhaps to the tuning pegs, so as to vibrate against the strings.

It’ll take a while to get that far though. This is where I’ve got to to date:

Following medieval harp-makers, I’m using a single block of wood. In this case, it’s from a 600-year-old oak who fell a while ago in woodland owned by my friend, Elaine. Elaine’s partner, Garth, has been a cabinet-maker for about 70 years, has a generous nature and a well-stocked workshop. It’s largely down to his expertise that we managed to render a very rough-hewn lump of oak into what is now starting to look quite like a harp. If we were following ancient techniques, we’d have burnt out the hollow for the soundbox then finished it with hand tools. Lacking the time and unwilling to risk our sole piece of oak to fire, we used a circular saw supplemented by hand sawing and electric drills. We took a slice off the back and another off the base to be glued back on later. Not quite a single block technique then, but close-ish.

Yesterday, I finished drilling out the soundholes. On medieval harps, these were invariably down the sides of the instrument, not on the back as in modern harps. Noting that the sides of the soundbox are warping and cracking in places, I clamped everything together apart from the base to try and prevent any further warping that might damage the chances of gluing everything back together again.

There’s still a lot to do. The upper insides of the soundbox need reducing in thickness, the shoulders where the soundbox joins the neck need shaping, a forepillar needs making and jointing into place, as does a pin strip. I need to decide what kind of tuning pegs to use and drill and shape holes through the neck to hold them. The front of the soundbox will then be covered with a rawhide soundboard made from a Red Deer hide. I’ll then make the strings by twisting horse hairs together. Only after fitting them will I finally hear what it sounds like and be able start experimenting to produce the desired buzzing sound.

Meanwhile, here’s a video of Rhodri Davies playing a reconstructed telyn rawn without brays or other buzz-producing fittings.

Sounds great, and beautifully played, but lacks the buzzing quality of the Sumerian or Ethiopian instruments, or of later medieval bray harps. That this was a feature of Welsh harps in which bards took particular pride is suggested by Andrew Borde (c. 1490-1549), who wrote in The First Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge,

“If I have my harp I care for no more.
It is my treasure, I keep it in store;
For my harp is made of a good mare’s skin;
The strings be of horsehair, it maketh a good din.
My song, and my voice, and my harp doth agree,
Much like the buzzing of a humble bee.”

Now that’s what I’m after!

Many blessings,

Greywolf /|\