Animal Lore

The dog or hound has ever been a faithful servant of humanity and this is reflected in British myth and folklore where the dog is frequently one of the helping animals of the hero’s search. Arthur’s Cabal is one such dog, and Fionn’s Bran and Sceolan...

Birds serve throughout the entire Celtic tradition as symbols of divinity and as messengers and servants of the gods. There was a Celtic belief in malevolent otherworld flocks of birds, which came to bring harm and destruction to villagers in closely regulated season,...

The blackbird has ever been one of Britain’s most melodious songsters and this is doubtless why the Birds of Rhiannon are said to be three blackbirds: they sing on the branch of the everlasting otherworldly tree which grows in the centre of the earthly paradise....

Brahan Seer. The wild boar, once commonly hunted throughout the British Isles is now only to be found in remote areas of Europe. The ferocity and cunning of the animal made him a dangerous quarry, yet the art and literature of Celtic peoples attest to his importance...

Originally the lunar symbol of the Great Mother with the horns representing the Crescent Moon, the bull later came to represent the Sun Gods. However, it was often still connected with a Moon Goddess such as Cybele or Attis.

Unlike dogs and horses they were said to be fond of ghosts and purr whenever they encounter them. They may also have the ability to forecast the weather: they predict the wind (or according to some accounts raise it) by clawing at the carpets and curtains; rain is...

As recently as the 19th century, a Midland builder buried a cock in the church foundations to protect it from evil. Within living memory similar rituals were carried out in the Scottish Highlands, where cocks were buried at the junction of three streams to avert evil...

So central to the economy of Britain and Ireland was the cow in early times that it was considered a unit of currency. In Ireland, for instance, a slave-woman was worth three cows. Lords were called ‘bo-aire’ or cow-lord. Until the last two hundred years,...