Crumby Ovate on The Adventures of Etain

The job of ovates is to memorize stuff. Once enough stuff is memorized the next job for ovates is too discern patterns. That's what ovates do, memorize and discern patterns. Even the stupidest ovates can do these jobs with the help of the WG because if the ovate is a good boy or girl, She will hep out with comforting dreams, revelations and epiphanies. That bit of Druid reiteration out of the way, here's some more. It's all about patterns.

If you were a big shot, say King Ailill of the Ulaid, and you had something that all the boys wanted; the most enchanting, beautiful, graceful, lovely, wonderful, variable, diversely intriguing daughter that anyone had ever seen, ever, what would it take for you to part, with her? For after she is gone, you will have no recourse and you will be stuck with what you traded her for.

Time has a way of slippin' by, over the ruts of our lives it will fly, and if you don't love me now, set me free, for old memories mean nothing to me.

Maybe Ailill had a thought like that a time or two after he traded Etain.

What dowry did Ailill obtain, for the Ulaid? Easy that,

Twelve lands that are nothing but "desert" and forest are to be cleared so that cattle may graze on them and men dwell there at all times, so that they may be suitable for games and assemblies and meetings and fortifications. Twelve great rivers also shall be diverted from the land to the sea that are in springs and bogs and moors.

And what dowry did Ailill obtain for Ailill? Easy that,

Etain's weight in gold and silver.

Reckon how much gold and silver we are talkin' about here? Not easy to assay that.

In 1647 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland recommended that the old religion (Druidry), which was allegedly believed by spokesmen of the General Assembly to have survived "Pope Worship" or "Popery" or "Papism", should be finally rooted out from the Scots hinterlands. In 1649, the church program for eradicating the last vestiges of paganism was launched. The method of attack was tripartite.

1) expansion of the parochial schools into the backwoods, a Bible in every household and the "inmates" taught to read

2) banning of the holiday fire festivals at Samuin, Beltane, etc.

3)cultivation of all the old places which had continued for thousands of years, untilled and which were thought to provide habitat for faeries and suchlike

It is 3) that interests the Druidry in these parts, these days. Because apparently, the same land speculators that were running the Church of Scotland in those days have now turned up here in Texas.
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Yikes!

The Adventures of Etain

to be continued