I’ve never been wild about competitions, particularly Bardic competitions, because of a myriad of reasons.  We all do things differently; we have different styles and time-periods that interest us; we focus more or less on spoken or sung pieces; favor different vocal styles; and on and on and on.  I think I’ve participated in six as […]

“Fatten your animal for sacrifice, poet,  but keep your muse slender. —” Καλλίμαχος/Callimachus 310/305–240 BC Scholar at the Library of Alexandria

The Song of Wandering Aengus William Butler Yeats I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in […]

Wherever You Woke by Dermot Bolger There only ever was one street      One back garden, one bedroom: Wherever you woke you woke beneath      The ceiling where you were born, For the briefest unconscious second      An eyelid’s flutter from home. I found this in a compilation called Soho Square Six […]

It dawned on me I had never translated this most famous passage from Irish mythology, so I set to work.  From Lebor gabála Érenn: The book of the Invasions of Ireland. I worked from the text here.  Audio file Am gáeth i mmuir. ar domni. Am tond trethan i tír. Am fúaim mara. Am dam secht ndírend. […]

So, this happened:  Mine is the penultimate piece.   It was interesting to be recorded.  Like many people, I had a hard time getting used to the sound of myself, but I think I’ve now messed with recordings enough now that I do indeed recognize my own voice at a remove. Everyone involved with this […]

The Fyrdraca is a reproduction ship built in 1979 by the venerable Longship Company and sold to some intrepid kooks in 2003–it made its way to my friend Richard, and he still keeps her afloat after all this time.  I’m busy and happy and writing, and hoping some day soon to see her in person again after so […]

I’ve been writing and not mentioning it here, for whatever reason, and organizing thoughts and words into little collections.  Let’s rectify that. Naming Deirdre’s Mother grew out of my very strong, angry reaction to the treatment of Deirdre and her unnamed mother as I’ve been translating the Exile of the Sons of Usnech into English. […]

My favorite annual event is not happening this year, so we put our heads together and decided to re-allocate that vacation time to maximize fun and insanity and limit my opportunities to mope.  Coincidentally, some friends asked me to write something unusual for them, so I spent a great deal of time researching Sarmatian and […]

I posted right after Imbolc. Since then, I made a couple of dozen garments for Ben, a few for friends and a few things for me. We went to Gulf Wars, which was an interesting mixture of fun times with friends and some pretty horrible weather. We on the early work crew had such a […]