The Magical World of Tylluan Penry

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Green Man and his female counterpart, the Green Maiden (or Green Woman, if you prefer) appear down the centuries in many parts of the world. Here are a few from England, which I thought you might be interested in seeing.....

This one is from Worcester Cathedral... a strange place to find such a curiously pagan figure, isn't it?

And this next one is from another ecclesiastical setting, Winchester Cathedral:

Finally, here is one from Woodchester Park Mansion....

Nowadays of course, you can buy all sorts of 'Green Man' plaques, but it's still rather wonderful to look at these old ones and wonder what was the thinking behind making them.

The Green man and the Green Maiden

The other day I mentioned the Green Maiden. She is a lesser known aspect of the Green Man, the spirit of growth. You will see Green Men and Women in many places, including medieval churches and even the occasional modern advertisement (have you ever wondered about the Jolly Green Giant?) Together the Green Man and Maiden make up the male and female aspects of the earth and life itself.

Where do they come from? Some claim they are ancient, others say they are nothing more than the product of a medieval mason’s imagination. They can certainly be found in just about every country, not just in Britain and northern Europe, but all over the world. Sometimes they’re green, sometimes parti-coloured, their faces wreathed in leaves.

To me they represent the Life Force, what the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas described as "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Sometimes the faces are clearly male, sometimes female, and sometimes it’s difficult to be certain. Often they laugh at us out of their shelter of leaves, and occasionally they snarl, but always they appear wild and untameable.

For me the Green Man and Maiden are my guides on my chosen path. They help me recognise the touch of green wherever anything is growing. They urge us to cherish the earth and treat it with respect, for it is not only our home in this lifetime but in all our lives to come. Now there’s a thought – not just for our children’s future but for our own, too!

As you can see, I have changed my avatar slightly. I am still green, but now not quite so worried looking! This new version is actually going to be on the cover of my book, so I thought you might like to see what it looks like. I painted it a few weeks ago.

I have been try to scan in my picture of the Green Maiden but it's not looking quite as I intended, so it's back to the drawing board with that for the moment. Hope to post it in a day or so.

Hope you like my new look!

Today I spent some time painting a watercolour of the Green Maiden (I'll try and photograph it when finished and post it here) I decided that when I speak at the Wales Witchfest I am going to bring a little present for one of the hardy souls who turn up to hear me.... hence I'm painting and framing the Green Maiden and will do a free raffle to determine who wins it.

What do you think of that idea?

Every year, down in Cardiff, there is something called 'Witchfest Wales.' (They have an English Witchfest too, but as you can imagine, the Welsh one is nearer for me!) Well, although it doesn't mention me on their website (yet), I'm actually going to be one of the speakers there this year! It's being held on the summer solstice, June 21st.

As you can imagine, I'm quite excited about this. My book, Seeking the Green, will be published by then, and my publishers Capall Bann will have a stand there too.

If any of you are in the area, do please drop in and say hello!

I read in the papers today that the National Union of Teachers (NUT) is recommending that schools allow priests, imams, rabbis etc., to come into schools and give religious instruction.

Interesting. Do you think they'd invite me to give instruction in paganism?

Hmm. Thought not.

I must say that I rarely get writer's block. Usually I have the opposite problem, that of finding enough hours in the day to write all the stuff I want.

However today, sitting at my desk, freezing cold (I am already wearing four layers) I felt rather sorry for myself. I needed to write an introduction to chapter 13 of my book on herbs and it wasn't going well.

Personally I'm not sure I can think very well in extreme cold - let alone type. Anyway, in the end I took Rudyard Kipling's advice from his poem the Camel's Hump. For anyone who is interested, here it is:

THE Camel's hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the Zoo;
But uglier yet is the hump we get
From having too little to do.

Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
If we haven't enough to do-oo-oo,
We get the hump-
Cameelious hump-
The hump that is black and blue!

We climb out of bed with a frouzly head,
And a snarly-yarly voice.
We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl
At our bath and our boots and our toys;

And there ought to be a corner for me
(And I know' there is one for you)
When we get the hump-
Cameelious hump-
The hump that is black and blue!

The cure for this ill is not to sit still,
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe and a shovel also,
And dig till you gently perspire;

And then you will find that the sun and the wind,
And the Djinn of the Garden too,
Have lifted the hump-
The horrible hump-
The hum that is black and blue!

I get it as well as you-oo-oo-
If I haven't enough to do-oo-oo!
We all get hump-
Cameelious hump-
Kiddies and grown-ups too!

I didn't actually go out and start digging, but I dig grab some secateurs and a couple of bin bags and start pruning and tidying up the garden. And by the time I came back indoors I was no longer cold, and I'd worked out exactly what I wanted to put in my introduction!

It's been a lovely day - busy, but happy. I was up early to cook a roast because we had visitors for lunch... made thirty six Yorkshire puddings too! And a mountain of roast potatoes not to mention about six pints of gravy.

So as you can imagine I'm sitting here full of food, reflecting on the weekend, the moon, life, the universe etc. Sometimes it's just good to relax with the people you love and let the path take you where it will.

Now the moon is on the wane again, and the year is finally gearing up towards the long hot days of summer. I just can't wait!

I've taken the day off today. The proofs are finished, I completed another chapter of my herb book (the first draft) and Mr Penry took me out for the day.

So apologies that I've not got around to your blogs today, I shall do my best to catch up tomorrow. I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend, whether it's Easter, Holi, Ostara or the Equinox. I raise a glass to you all!

Cheers!

The Equinox can vary by a couple of days each year, but to me this is all part of the fun. As far as I'm concerned celebrating starts around the 21st March and can continue for a few days.... the more the merrier.

But what exactly is Ostara - and how does it differ from Easter? Firstly I should come clean and say that not all pagans call the Equinox Ostara. Many wiccans and witches do, but there are other names too. What most pagans have in common however is that they recognise the importance of the Equinox (literally equal day and night.)

The Venerable Bede mentions the goddess Eostre, and it's thought that Ostara may derive from this. Another possibility is that the word derives from 'oster' an old word meaning to raise up. At one time there were festivals around the country that involved covering a chair with greenery and lifting up members of the opposite sex. So men lifted a woman in the chair, while groups of women lifted a man. It's quite possible therefore that the festival was originally an ancient pagan fertility rite. This would tie in with the Easter Bunny or Easter Hare -which have been symbols of fertility since very early times.

Also, remember that any child conceived around the time of the Spring Equinox would be born at the winter solstice. Many religions (including Christianity) celebrate the birth of a god-child around this time, and that infant would have been conceived in March.

There was a fantastic sunset in my part of the world this evening, and the moon hung very low over the valley for a long time. This meant that it looked especially large and bright. I've been outside while it's snowing and bowed to the moon nine times because that's what I, as a pagan, do when I see the moon. It's a way of honouring her, (to me the moon is feminine) and also a way of marking the thirteen lunar months.

Today I also polished the brass around the house, seeing it shining like gold was a reminder of the fact that the waxing sun is now growing stronger. The dark days of winter are truly on the run - hooray for that!

I've already remarked in this blog that the period between the winter solstice and the spring equinox is called the Cleansing Tide - hence the flurry of spring cleaning that goes on around the start of the year.

Now we are just about to move again into the Growing tide, which traditionally is a time when plants start to grow and the whole of nature gets moving again. But it's not only plants that respond to this tide, and I've always found it's a good time of year for taking on new projects.

This could - possibly - be one of the reasons that there's been a bit of blog burning going on here in Blogland recently. It's a response to the underlying tide of the year. In effect over the past few months we've been clearing out clutter in readiness to take on new challenges.

The important thing is not to fear the challenges but to relish them. Sometimes, I admit, it's easier said than done. But even so, we can't hide behind the sofa all the time. Life is there to be lived, and if, like me, you accept the idea of reincarnation, then what doesn't get done in this life will only pile up in the next!

Since chocolate isn't good for dogs (though Florence enjoys it) we usually get them some pigs' ears as a treat at this time of year. One problem however is that they pong to high heaven, and since both St Bernards and Bassetts have a highly developed sense of smell, they can find where I've hidden them easily.

So today, when I'm trying to get to the oven to cook the tea, Homer made a break for it, straight out into the hall and into the bag of pigs' ears. And he wasn't moving until I'd given him one (and of course I couldn't give him one without giving the others a pig's ear as well.

Tomorrow I'm moving the bag of ears - but where can I hide them so Homer doesn't find them?

I first blogged this (true) story last September, but really it belongs to Easter, so I am taking the liberty of blogging it again. Apologies to those of you who have read it before, but truly, this is a tale that nobody could ever have invented. Something so surreal that you have to pinch yourself to make sure it’s true. And being Wales, these things happen more often than you’d expect…

A few years back (about 2000, I think) a Christian charity decided to bring the ‘real meaning of Easter’ to the nearby town of Porth. They hired an actor to play the part of Jesus, covered him with fake blood and took him to a derelict bit of land where the shiny new Jobcentre now stands. Then they nailed him up. (I’m assuming they used fake nails but I wouldn’t bet on it.) They then placed a plaque beside him saying ‘Look what Jesus had for Easter.’

So far so good. The press described it as ‘shocking’, and apparently some shoppers were ‘in tears.’ The Christian charity was unrepentant. It was meant to be shocking, they said. Their spokesman (somewhat smugly, I thought) added, "We've had hurls of abuse, swearing, we've had people looking disgusted, there have been children crying," as though that in itself was praiseworthy.

I still wonder to this day what ‘hurls of abuse’ are, exactly. Bad English, certainly. But I digress. As for the spectacle, maybe they were trying to get their point across, but I don’t think going out of your way to disgust people is really all that praiseworthy.

Although I’m a pagan, I don’t have any problems with most religious displays or processions. And if I want to celebrate the Green Man, Hecate or whatever, I should be able to expect the same in return. However, the Christian group had reckoned without the clearly godless lot in the little town. For somebody phoned an ambulance.

Yes folks, on Good Friday of the year 2000, someone dialled 999. Try and imagine the phone call….(and if you can imagine the accents, so much the better!)

‘Emergency service. Which service do you require?’
‘Ambulance please.’
‘And what seems to be the problem?’
‘There’s a man being attacked in the main shopping street. Oh my God, but it’s terrible. He’s covered in blood! Blood everywhere!’
‘There’s a man bleeding in the street?’
‘Yes, it’s terrible. He’s been attacked. It’s shocking, terrible to see…' then at a whisper, ‘they’ve even put nails in his hands!’
‘I see. He’s got a nail in his hands. Fingernail? Iron nail?’
‘Some sort of metal, I think. Probably from B & Q.’
‘I see. Any idea how that happened?’
‘Well they got this bit of wood, see, and took a bloody big hammer…. It’s terrible I tell you, barbaric! And not one nail, either. Two! Hundreds!’

[At this stage I should draw your attention, gentle reader, to the theatricality of the Welsh Valleys accent which has been known to turn a grocery list into high drama.]

‘I see. They’ve nailed someone to a piece of wood.’ You’d really think the penny would have dropped by now, wouldn’t you? ‘Is he conscious? Are the perpetrators still there?’
‘Purple traitors? Oh, I dunno about that… But he’s in a helluva state, poor fella. It’s horrible, horrible I tell you! I don’t know how much more he can take! Get a move on, dammit, or the poor man’s going to bleed to death!’
‘All right, we’ll get someone round there as soon as we can.’

And still nobody twigged what was happening. On Good Friday. And the paramedics duly turned up (and according to onlookers, so did the police.)

If you want to read the whole sorry story, go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/721847.stm

But it’s the final line of the report that really has me in hysterics: ‘While some were "disgusted" others agreed that it showed what the Bank Holiday was all about.’

Hmm… Allegations of Grievous Bodily harm, weeping shoppers and crying children, ‘hurls of abuse’, dialling 999 and calling the paramedics… Sometimes I think I must be on a different planet!

Regular readers of this blog have probably realised by now that I love dogs and share my home with four of them. Nobody could describe them as working dogs, they're more like sleeping dogs.... the sound of them snoring in harmony is quite something.

The subject of tonight's little tale (which is apparently quite true) is a blind social worker who lived in Cardiff and relied on her guide dog to get about. One day while she and her dog were out together, she had to ask a stranger for directions.

After a moment's hesitation, the stranger bent down and whispered in the dog's ear, 'You take the first on the right and the second on the left...'

Today I have been going through the proofs, and making a checklist of things left for me to do. I am really very pleased with the way my book is being presented - even the fonts are ones I would have chosen. PLUS I've been allowed to do the cover!!!

However, it's now just gone 9.30om and I am virtually cross eyed so I shall be calling it a day and turning in. Tomorrow I hope to finish up all the loose ends and post the proofs back to Capall Bann.

Then I'll get back to my book on herbs and plants..... hopefully!

I have been busy checking through the proofs today. Hope to catch up with everyone later.

Ellie Gant recently described how she has spring cleaned her home and found the spare bed again. I know the feeling. I am not well organised, nor am I tidy, unlike most of my children who luckily take after Mr Penry. It's not much fun hearing your bedroom described as The Land that Time forgot....

However, for Pagans there's a deep underlying reason why we suddenly get the urge to clean at this time of year. Apart from the four seasons, each year contains four tides, and the tide between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox (due very soon) is the Cleansing Tide. So some deep underlying rhythym in the earth is actually egging us on to clean and purify our personal space, whether it be our bedrooms, homes, cars or workspace.

It can be very interesting to follow the tides and see where they take you. Certain times of the year are better for certain jobs and tasks than others.

Now, where did I put the Brasso?

When my children were small, Mr Penry and I often took them on long walks. It was something we'd both done as children with our own parents, and our own parents had done the same in their childhood. My childhood walks were usually beside the river, or sometimes in the woods and fields, Mr Penry usually walked up into the mountains.

What did we do on these walks? Often we talked, or we learned to make switches and hit the tops off nettles, and sometimes peeled bramble tips to eat when we were thirsty. Sometimes I went fishing for tiddlers and tadpoles, or picked flowers and berries for my father's hobby of home brewing.

Looking back, I realise that it probably wasn't easy for our parents to find the time to take us for walks. Both our fathers worked long hours, our mothers ran their homes without the benefit of any modern gadgets (which includes fridges and washing machines) and yet they would make time to spend hours with us.

There is something almost spiritual about a good walk. The rhythm makes us breathe in a certain way, and breathing is, after all, the basis of most types of meditation. We learned to be at one with the landscape too, because walking forces us to take our time, taking in the muddy paths with the firmer ones, and giving us chance to really 'see' what's around us.

And on a lighter note, I learned one of the great games of childhood. Sheep Sh*t Golf. All you need is a stick with a slight curve at the end, a pile of sheep's poo, and somebody (preferably unsuspecting) to aim at.....

Happy days........

Today my publisher (Capall Bann) told me that they are sending out the first proofs for me to check.

This is a very important (not to mention exciting) event. It means I get to see how the book will be laid out when it's finished, and this is essentially a chance to check for typos and howling errors (but let's hope there aren't too many of the latter)

So now I shall be waiting in until the courier firm turn up with my parcel, and then I'll be working on the manuscript and going over it with a fine tooth comb!

Hopefully the book will be published soon, but I'll keep everyone informed of its progress here on the blog!

Well, one rainbow, actually. On the weekend I was coming back over the Brecon Beacons and we actually found ourselves driving through a rainbow which ended on the wet tarmac in a sort of golden puddle.... maybe that's where the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow story comes from.

Anyway, it was an amazing experience - the light around us was quite something. I always thought that the closer you got to a rainbow, it just moved away from you, but this one stayed put.

It's never happened to me before and it was quite magical!

I woke up this morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. 'Well' I announced, ' that storm they promised didn't come to anything, did it?'

There was a horrible, stunned silence.....

'You mean you didn't hear it?'
'I thought my window was going to break'
'The wind was howling for hours'

etc etc

And I'd slept right through it.

I always said I could sleep through a siege. Once, when I was a very young guest at a wedding I even managed to fall asleep between the bride and groom.

It's all the usual stuff really - plus a humdinger of a cold that makes my throat feel as though I've swallowed a golf ball.

So bear with me and I'll catch up soon!

Atishoooooo!

I am viewing the accelerating push towards ID cards with some alarm. For a start, almost every despot in history has insisted upon them which suggests that the real benefits are not for the card carrying public but for those who wish to control them.

But is there much real opposition? Of course not. Instead we are treated to photo's of Posh's new 'look' (as alien as ever) while the Daily Mail reserves its energy for banning plastic bags from supermarkets. Talking about confusing one's priorities!

We should be a lot more concerned about ID cards. For a start, how does proving your identity have anything at all to do with keeping us safe from terrorism? It doesn't. It can't. We know who Osama bin Laden is, but we still can't catch him.

Also whereas nowadays you need several items of data to 'prove' who you are (utility bills, passport, driving licence etc.) soon you will need only one. Much easier to forge or to steal. So that means it will be easier for the criminally minded to prove they are someone else entirely.

Governments have an alarming ability to grasp the idea of unintended consequences. Just as they couldn't get their heads around the fact that having alcohol available all day and night would not reduce drunkeness, so they can't seem to grasp that ID cards are going to make it easier for criminals, terrorists etc to 'disappear' into the woodwork.

We should all be very afraid...........

At one time people believed nightmares were dangerous. Maybe some of them still are....I've had a few horrors in my time (but that's another story ) The 'mare' was a real creature, which could be conjured up by magicians to harm others.

The Anglo Saxons believed that nightmares were caused 'by the influence of elves' - no, not the sweet Cate Blanchett ones from Lord of the Rings, but the unpleasant variety that populated the Saxon World.

In fact, the Anglo Saxons blamed elves for a lot more than just nightmares. Sudden unexplained illnesses were caused by Elves firing arrows at people and animals, the resultant sickness was called being 'elf shot.'

Finds of the tiny flint arrow heads from the Stone Age were believed to have once belonged to elves....

maybe they were right!

One of the things about writing it that it's so easy to allow oneself to be distracted. And when, like me, you have the attention span of a goldfish you have to keep a really tight control when you sit down at the computer. Sometimes I have to disconnect the internet.....

A good example of this happened earlier today. At the moment I have finished with the poisonous plants and am now dealing with the ones that protect. All the research notes are typed up, I just have to get them into a reasonable shape. But then I started off researching the Evil Eye which is a fascinating subject in its own right.

This is partly because the Evil Eye (or its equivalent) has been recognised in virtually every culture down the centuries. And of course it's partly because I've known people who had the Evil Eye and weren't afraid to use it.

Well, I have included a short paragraph or two on the subject now, but rather than getting closer to the end of this particular chapter all I seem to have done is make it longer!

I haven't posted a picture of myself on my blog (unless you really believe that I am male, green, with a leafy beard, that is.....)

So here's a little clue:

This year Mother's Day and St David's Day have fallen on the same weekend. So yesterday I was wandering around with a large daffodil on my lapel, and today I am opening presents and cards. What a great weekend!

Several of the family have streaming colds which is not so great, but none of them are as bad as Mr Penry will be when he catches it (or so he has informed me.) He is probably right. He does get bloody awful colds.

So I am making the most of things here to get on with some writing - the book is coming along well, but since I am working on several things at once, it's been a case of playing catch up. This explains why I've been a bit quiet on the blog over the past few days but will hopefully catch up again soon. Please bear with me.

Oh, and for those of you not living in the Principality, St David is the Patron Saint of Wales, generally honoured by wearing daffodils or leeks on March 1st.

As you can see, some people do get carried away with the daffodils. This man covered his house in them!

Banks sometimes give out free Welsh cakes, choirs and brass bands sometimes get together and sing or play, children dress up in Welsh costumes and enter the school's Eisteddfod. This is a wide ranging series of competitions, from music to art, writing.... you name it basically.

And sometimes, as in Cardiff yesterday, the Royal Welch Regiment goes marching with Shenkin the regimental mascot: