The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum
September 10, 2010, 09:40:31 am *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: If you have trouble activating your account, see this message: Having Account Activation Problems? in the Cauldron Announcements board.
 
  Portal   Forum   Help Rules Search Mux Articles Login Register   *

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
September 10, 2010, 09:40:31 am

Login with username, password and session length
Donate!
The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.
2010 Donation Drive
2010 Donation Drive -- Please Donate Now.

It's time for our annual Server Donation Drive! We need to raise over $800 to keep The Cauldron's server online for another year. Please help! Either hit that Paypal button and make a one-time donation in any amount or set up a monthly Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor subscription.  You can find more info in this message!

Donations as of 8 September: $622 and 2 new Bronze, 2 new Silver, 1 new Gold Subscription.

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Add bookmark  |  Print  
Author Topic: Connection between the Morrigan and Danu?  (Read 349 times)
Collinsky
Master Member
****
*
*
Last Login:September 09, 2010, 05:59:52 pm
United States United States

Religion: Celtic/Heathen, beginning a Druid path through ADF
TCN ID: Collinsky
Posts: 518


I was made from the ninefold elements...

Blog entries (0)

Colleen Collins Rivera CollinskyCo


Ignore
« Topic Start: January 29, 2010, 10:11:28 pm »

Can someone share any sources for this, or UPG? I'm very intrigued by this... I know that no one can say anything definitively - but I'd appreciate whatever you've read about this, your experience with Danu or tM (whether that makes it a something you could believe or makes it an absurd idea), or simply your thinking on it.

Thanks!
Logged

~*~Colleen~*~
"A Spam Caster bring back my ex to me within 3 days, but it also made him dead."

Welcome, Guest!
You will need to register and/or login to participate in our discussions.

Read our Rules and Policies and the Quoting Guidelines.

Help Fund Our Server? Donate to Lyricfox's Cancer Fund?

Matrinka
Adept Member
*****
Last Login:August 26, 2010, 06:57:16 pm
United States United States

Religion: Irish-Celtic witch
Posts: 1030


Níl aon tíntéan, mar do thíntéín féín.

Blog entries (0)

WWW

Ignore
« Reply #1: January 29, 2010, 10:31:22 pm »

Can someone share any sources for this, or UPG? I'm very intrigued by this... I know that no one can say anything definitively - but I'd appreciate whatever you've read about this, your experience with Danu or tM (whether that makes it a something you could believe or makes it an absurd idea), or simply your thinking on it.

Thanks!

UPG all the way, but my experience of them is that they are a Gaelic Parvati/Kali pairing.  In the case of Parvati and Kali, they are the Light and Dark Mothers.  Danu is a traditional "good mother", like Parvati, kind, loving and gentle with her children without being soft or lenient, while Kali is a Dark Mother, as is tM.  The easiest way to explain their motherhood is to picture your own mother, PISSED OFF or in full on Momma Bear mode.  They're still loving mothers, sure, but they're the loving mother who is going to destroy anyone who dares hurt their child OR beat said child's arse until sitting is not an option for misbehaving outrageously.

They are opposite sides of the coin of motherhood.

In India, Parvati and Kali are, in the lore, seen as being just that, two parts of the whole.  That connection in the Gaelic pair isn't as well presented, but I believe that to be a simple loss in the translation from oral to written transmission of the lore. 

*insert all appropriate UPG disclaimers here*
Logged

Juni
Adept Member
*****
*
*
*
Last Login:Today at 09:37:57 am
United States United States

Religion: Path of Mist (multi-cultural polytheism)
TCN ID: Juni
Posts: 1868


Strive to be happy.

Blog entries (2)

katrina.nash
WWW

Ignore
« Reply #2: January 30, 2010, 09:23:03 am »

Can someone share any sources for this, or UPG? I'm very intrigued by this... I know that no one can say anything definitively - but I'd appreciate whatever you've read about this, your experience with Danu or tM (whether that makes it a something you could believe or makes it an absurd idea), or simply your thinking on it.

Thanks!

Well, as far as the lore goes, tM has been associated with/conflated with pretty much everyone, including Danu. So there's precedent for the idea, but it may or may not mean very much.

My UPG: tM is one of the goddesses I honor and work with; I had a casual relationship with Danu that I let fall to the wayside, that I intend to re-establish. I personally find them to be very different entities. tM is present, forceful- she will not be ignored, and is very persistent. Danu I find somewhat distant. I only feel her presence strongly when I'm at a major body of water, which is generally the sea in my case (I did feel her when I went canoeing in NC, but otherwise I spend little time at lakes or rivers.) I don't really see either of them as mother goddesses, either- tM is about sovereignty and battle and making trouble when it suits her; Danu is, to me, more of a distant creatrix. When I imagine Danu in my mind's eye, I invariably think of deep, calm water (with rushing, moving water far overhead) and kind of a sleeping/resting female presence.

I will say, though, that every time I read the myth where tM and the Dagda have sex over the river, I have always (and strongly) imagined it to be Danu's. That may imply an association; I can see Danu, as a creatrix of the world (or at least their part of it) also being involved in the creation of civilization (as I find the Irish myth cycle to be).
Logged


Free Books, click to see the list!
Join me in Chat on Tuesdays, 4pm Eastern!
gorm_sionnach
Journeyman
***
Last Login:Today at 08:09:23 am
Canada Canada

Religion: Fálachus, Gaelic Reconstructionist Polytheist
Posts: 172

Gravatar

Blog entries (0)

WWW

Ignore
« Reply #3: January 30, 2010, 12:16:19 pm »

Can someone share any sources for this, or UPG? I'm very intrigued by this... I know that no one can say anything definitively - but I'd appreciate whatever you've read about this, your experience with Danu or tM (whether that makes it a something you could believe or makes it an absurd idea), or simply your thinking on it.

Thanks!

I'm a bit of an odd duck, I have rarely felt any kind of ressonance towards either Danu or An Morrigan, and with the exception of Brigid and a local river goddess, I've never been drawn to goddesses.

Having said that, I would not hold Danu and An Morrigan to be the same goddess, just going from textual and etymologic sources. So very little is known of Danu, and that we do know of her stems mostlyfrom linguistic reconstruction and cultural comparison (i.e. with Don in Welsh).

As for An Morrigan, the sources are much clearer and while she clearly has aspects of being related to soverginty, her connections to a river seem a little less conclusive. True I do understand that much of her mytnic activity takes place in or near rivers (someone mentioned her coupling with An Dagda) and of course her altercations with Cuchulain (though most of the important events occur at fords or in rivers anway).

Just a few observations.
Logged

Due civility never broke a mans head, and great is the pity to be at any time without it.

Have a gander at my blog: Three Shouts on a Hilltop
DeCarabas
Apprentice
**
Last Login:June 18, 2010, 11:07:28 am
United States United States

Religion: Kemetic/Heathen
Posts: 29


Blog entries (0)

WWW

Ignore
« Reply #4: January 30, 2010, 01:40:28 pm »

Can someone share any sources for this, or UPG? I'm very intrigued by this... I know that no one can say anything definitively - but I'd appreciate whatever you've read about this, your experience with Danu or tM (whether that makes it a something you could believe or makes it an absurd idea), or simply your thinking on it.

Thanks!

I don't have any UPG to offer here, but Epstein's dissertation on the Morrígan's various forms was a major influence on me seeing Anu and Danu as at least connected to her, if not the same goddess.  Throughout the Lebor Gabála especially, all three names are used fairly interchangeably, so there's certainly some basis for that connection in the lore.
Logged
UlsterYank
Journeyman
***
Last Login:September 09, 2010, 01:10:15 am
Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Republic of

Religion: Traidisiúnachais Gaelach, Witchcraft, Thelema
TCN ID: UlsterYank
Posts: 156


Déan mar is Toil leat, a bheas mar iomlán an Dlí

Blog entries (0)

anmericeanach
WWW

Ignore
« Reply #5: February 01, 2010, 12:41:50 am »

Can someone share any sources for this, or UPG? I'm very intrigued by this... I know that no one can say anything definitively - but I'd appreciate whatever you've read about this, your experience with Danu or tM (whether that makes it a something you could believe or makes it an absurd idea), or simply your thinking on it.

Thanks!
That's the thing, it all depends on what source you look at, as many list them as alternative names for each other in the literacy myths. Danu and An Mhór-Ríoghain seem to have the same roles as far as cosmology, and they've both been associated with the land in folklore. I recomend Dáithí Ó hÓgáin's The Lore of Ireland, and look under Anu, Cosmology, Danu, and Mór-Ríoghain if you're looking for a good source elaborating on that.
Logged

"Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains" AL II:9
Collinsky
Master Member
****
*
*
Last Login:September 09, 2010, 05:59:52 pm
United States United States

Religion: Celtic/Heathen, beginning a Druid path through ADF
TCN ID: Collinsky
Posts: 518


I was made from the ninefold elements...

Blog entries (0)

Colleen Collins Rivera CollinskyCo


Ignore
« Reply #6: February 01, 2010, 03:30:13 pm »



Thanks for all the responses! I'm planning to reply more specifically, but I am kind of sitting with this for a while and will be checking into the resources suggested... didn't want to seem like I hadn't read and appreciated the replies though, because I certainly do!  Smiley
Logged

~*~Colleen~*~
"A Spam Caster bring back my ex to me within 3 days, but it also made him dead."

Donor Ad: Become a Silver or Gold Donor to get your ad here.

Tags:
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Add bookmark  |  Print  
 
Jump to:  
  Portal   Forum   Help Rules Search Mux Articles Login Register   *

* Share this topic...
In a forum
(BBCode)
In a site/blog
(HTML)


Related Topics
Subject Started by Replies Views Last post
Lacking a connection
Magic and the Occult for Beginners
elaoin 3 392 Last post November 01, 2007, 09:43:06 am
by rose
Looking for a God-connection
Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology
skybyrd 6 617 Last post June 29, 2008, 06:32:55 pm
by SatAset
Maintaining the Connection
Cauldron Cill
Matrinka 3 567 Last post February 08, 2009, 09:12:11 pm
by Moon Ivy
Danu/Anu/Anann
Hazel and Oak: A Celtic Polytheism SIG
Collinsky 8 913 Last post April 23, 2009, 11:35:21 pm
by Sandi
"The Coven" Connection
Pagan Religion Book Discussions
RandallS 0 67 Last post March 19, 2010, 01:21:53 pm
by RandallS


Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.11 | SMF © 2006-2008, Simple Machines LLC
TinyPortal v0.9.8 © Bloc
Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Page created in 0.07 seconds with 49 queries.