Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 47

Perhaps no single element is more important to the spirit of Celtic wisdom than myth. I don’t mean myth in the sense of “something that people falsely believe to be true” like the many urban legends that circulate around the Internet. No, the streets of America are not filled with kidney thieves, nor did Nostradamus predict the 9/11 disaster. Rather, the myth that is so essential to the Celtic world is the matter of mythology—the stories, legends, poems, ballads, and folklore that speak to a world beyond space and time, where gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, warriors and bards dwell—and where in their magical and dramatic lives, we can find insight into the mystery and majesty of our own.

Some aspects of Celtic myth and lore are commonplace: just about anyone who’s heard of Ireland has heard of banshees or leprechauns. Most everyone knows that Patrick evicted the snakes from Ireland, and that King Arthur’s knights spent the better part of their careers searching for the Holy Grail. But the layers of myth go far, far deeper. And what is often ignored when mythic stories are told or retold is what they mean—why they’re so important. Of course, sometimes such meaning is best left unsaid, so that each person may discover anew how the myths speak to him or her.