Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 59

A colorful assortment of seers dance through the world of Celtic myth. Merlin the Magician and Taliesin the Bard were both renowned for their prophetic gifts, while the Mórrígan—one of the most frightening of Celtic goddesses—speaks about a grim future in one of the most chilling passages of Irish myth. A seer named Finnéces spent years trying to catch and eat the salmon of wisdom thanks to a prophecy that a person named Finn would gain the world’s wisdom from eating the fish; unwittingly, he sets the stage for the prophecy to come true—only it would be his servant boy, Fionn mac Cumhaill, who would eat the salmon and gain the wisdom. Later stories recount one of Fionn’s comrades in the Fianna, Diorruing, as a seer gifted not only with prophecy but also clairvoyance that he accessed merely by closing his eyes. This gift was not always a blessing, however: once when Diorruing commented to Fionn about the one woman who would be a worthy mate for him, great tragedy ensued when she chose to give her love to another member of the Fianna.

Such prophecies could be in the myths only as literary devices—to help move the stories forward. But it’s just as easy to see in them how they indicate the importance of prophecy—and therefore, of the seer—in the world of Celtic wisdom.