Sacrifice of the Goddess

Demeter Mourning for Persephone by Evelyn de Morgan

In Ireland, it is the Goddess Tailtiu, foster-mother of the shining sun God Lugh who is said to have first cleared the plains to prepare the land for tilling. With her supernatural might, Tailtiu felled great forests to make way for our transition to agriculture.

When her feat was complete, she lay down and died of exhaustion.

Lugh, grief-stricken honoured Tailtiu’s dying wish by creating Óenach Tailten. These were Olympic-style games on the land which she had cleared to celebrate her grand endeavours and the harvest season that became known as Lughnasa.

Óenach means 'reunion' or 'popular assembly' symbolising the games, races and tournaments that were part of these Tailteann festivities. Lugh himself led the inaugural contests of horse racing and warrior combat.

The Tailteann games were celebrating during Lughnasa until the 1770s and then experienced a short revival in the 1920s following the War of Independence.

Photo from the Tailteann Games in 1924

An excerpt from the Dinshenchas, the ancient Lore of Places about Tailtiu:

"Her heart burst in her body from the strain beneath her royal vest; not wholesome, truly, is a face like the coal, for the sake of woods or pride of timber.

Long was the sorrow, long the weariness of Tailtiu, in sickness after heavy toil; the men of the island of Ériu [Éire, Ireland] to whom she was in bondage came to receive her last behest.”

The Lady and the Green Man Mask by Robert Gould

Here, we can see an allusion to the death of a Great Mother, the Goddess of Vegetation and the Harvest presented in a way that was necessary for human evolution as the rising masculine consciousness symbolised by Lugh, was now the way forward.

It’s interesting to draw parallels here in the Irish mythical context with the idea that the evolution of agriculture and control of nature's resources led to the emergence of private property and gave rise to the overthrow of any lingering matricentric structures. 

A beautiful friend of mine recently brought me back some sheaves of wheat from Teltown in honour of Tailtiu. She collected these early one morning as two hares, symbols of our mythical ancestors, lept through the fields.

While participating in a live storytelling session where we were encouraged to make as we listened, with a sheaf, I wove these rough and wild, ‘Tailtiu Prayer Beads’ using the kernels, some stalk and a peacock feather. In the rhythm of my threads, I felt all that is woven into Tailtiu’s sacrifice.  

This is an invitation to weave your own ‘Goddess Beads’ this Lughnasa season to acknowledge the Great Mother and the endless sacrifices she has made on our behalf. And as we can see in her climate revolt, she is not passive but raging in sacrifice. She has had enough. As have many of us.

Women have forever been weavers of human fate and so with each bead you thread for the goddess, be present to the possibility of a new destiny we can weave together, perhaps one on the loom of the Great Mother.

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