Pod Insights You're Dead to Me Medieval Irish Folklore (Radio Edit) About this episode In this special live episode, recorded at the 2023 Hay Festival, Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Gillian Kenny and comedian Seán Burke to learn about medieval Irish folklore.
Greg and his guests discuss the lore and stories from Gaelic Irish culture. Gaelic culture remained the dominant set of cultural and societal beliefs on the island of Ireland well into the 17th century until it was destroyed by a succession of English invasions.
But what were these beliefs and how did the Christianisation of Ireland from the 5th century onwards amalgamate pre-Christian stories into it?
From fairy darts to banshees, through some unusual ways of warding off the evil eye, this is a jovial jaunt across some ancient myths and legends.
This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.
Research by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow
Written by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner
Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner
Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow
Project Management: Isla Matthews
Audio Producer: Steve Hankey
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:19 Greg Jenner? Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And that hum of excitement you can hear in the air is because we're coming to you live from the Hay Literary Festival in Wales. Say hello, audience.
1:45 Greg Jenner? So today we are meandering back to medieval Ireland to learn all about Irish magic. And I did an Irish there, didn't I? I did a... Sorry. To learn all about Irish magic and folklore in the Middle Ages and to help me separate history from hocus pocus, I'm joined by two very special guests. In history corner, she's a historian of medieval and early modern Ireland, specialising in women, gender and folklore. She's returning to You're Dead to Me after her raucous run in our Gruené O'Malley episode. Absolute chaos it was. It's Dr Gillian Kenny. Welcome back, Jill.
2:22 Greg Jenner? And in comedy corner, he's a comedian, writer and actor. You might have caught him on the hilarious sketch show No Worries. If not, The Michael Fry Show or Hollywood Hijack. And it's very likely you've seen him on Tinternet because he's one of those young people who does viral sketch comedy and he does them very well. It's Sean Burke. Welcome, Sean.
2:42 Greg Jenner? Thrilled to have you on, Sean. First timer.
2:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, first timer.
2:46 Greg Jenner? So I have to ask the contractly obliged question. Did you do medieval Irish history at school?
2:51 Speaker 04 I think.
2:52 Greg Jenner? Good.
2:53 Speaker 04 It's a while ago now. Counterintuitively, we studied a lot of American history in school.
2:58 Greg Jenner? That's the Joe Biden curriculum.
2:59 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, we're still so proud of JFK to this day.
3:04 Greg Jenner? So what do you know?
3:10 Greg Jenner? We start as ever with the so what do you know? This is Wario Havigo, guessing what you, our lovely listener and audience, hello, know about today's subject. And I'm guessing most of you don't know a huge amount about medieval Ireland, let alone medieval Irish magic and folklore. Perhaps you're conjuring up vague images of banshees frolicking around forests. Pop culture is not exactly bursting with references to Irish magic. You can get glimpses in films like Hellboy Two. Not everyone's fave, I guess. It's got characters there that are based on the mythological race called the Tuad de Danann. You've got sinister fairies in Jonathan Strange's Mr Norral. Anyone seen Excalibur, Arthuriana? That's got a sort of Irishy vibe to it. And you've got countless cultural references in films and books and TV to fairies and elves and other worlds.
3:55 Greg Jenner? But what else do we need to know? Right, Dr Jill, let's start with the basics. What is Ireland? No, come on, we can do that and that.
4:03 Speaker 05 No pressure, what have you got?
4:05 Greg Jenner? How are we defining medieval Ireland? Because you, as a historian, go longer into the medieval period than I do as a historian of the medieval period.
4:11 Speaker 05 So presumably everyone knows where Ireland is. We just start with that one. It's just over to the left, the one that looks like a teddy bear. So it does go a little bit longer. It goes into the 16th and 17th centuries because Gaelic Ireland, which was the predominant culture on the island, spread into there. It was sadly destroyed in the 16th and 17th centuries, but we won't talk about that today.
4:35 Greg Jenner? It's a comedy show.
4:36 Speaker 05 It's a comedy show.
4:37 Greg Jenner? Who destroyed it?
4:38 Speaker 05 If I'm a Welsh, I don't understand it. Any Welsh in the audience, no. Anyway.
4:45 Speaker 05 Great. So today we'll talk mostly about Ireland after the conversion to Christianity in the 5th century, as that's where we start to get most of our literary sources. And this conversion brought with a huge economic, social and intellectual changes. But we do have some idea about what happened in pre-Christian Ireland. There's some historical sources, but we use archaeology as well. There's certainly an idea that there was a kind of a nature worship around forests and wells. Of course, there's the Druids, which people will, of course.
5:15 Greg Jenner? Love a Druid.
5:16 Speaker 05 Be aware of. But of course, when the Christians come along in the 5th century, they run those out and then they start to write down the oral tales. But of course, everything has a veneer of Christianity on it.
5:29 Greg Jenner? Okay, so 5th century is the Christianisation of Ireland. Is that sort of St Patrick's vibe?
5:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, that's St Patrick lands then and then runs around battling Druids and does the whole shebang, which I'm sure Sean knows about as a good Irishman.
5:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, the whole shebang. Drove the snakes out as well while he was at it. The whole thing with the shamrock, the logo launch.
5:50 Speaker 04 Resounding success.
5:51 Greg Jenner? How are you imagining life in medieval Ireland, Sean? What's your sort of go-to image in your head?
5:55 Speaker 04 Lots of fields, a few little huts, probably cheaper rent than I imagined than nowadays. So not too bad, to be honest, overall.
6:04 Greg Jenner? Jill, what do we mean by medieval Ireland in terms of life and identity, culture?
6:08 Speaker 05 Well, Sean pretty much had it. Now he didn't.
6:11 Speaker 04 Thank you.
6:13 Speaker 05 Anyway, the story is medieval Ireland is, of course, it is a tale of two cultures, basically, for most of the Middle Ages, particularly the later period. You have Gaelic Irish and the English Irish, or the Anglo-Irish they were known. What we're talking about today are really Gaelic Irish culture and beliefs and society. So within that, it's a very hierarchical, it's a very patriarchal system. There are what used to be kings, they became lords. There's loads of little kingdoms and lordships that gave allegiance to kind of overlords. And this is medieval Europe, so of course, it's rural, people are working the land.
6:48 Speaker 04 Fields?
6:49 Speaker 05 Yeah, see?
6:50 Speaker 04 Come on.
6:50 Speaker 05 There's widespread violence, of course there is, because it's a warrior society. But what's really interesting about medieval Gaelic Ireland to me is that there is an intellectual class which is right at the top, and these are the barons, the olives, the professors. And they have huge rights and absolute respect at the top. So these are historians, we're right at the top of the tree, so.
7:11 Speaker 04 Yes.
7:12 Speaker 05 My ancestors knew what was what.
7:14 Speaker 04 Comedians?
7:14 Speaker 05 So men were allowed to be this.
7:20 Speaker 04 Okay.
7:21 Speaker 05 And women.
7:22 Speaker 04 Sorry.
7:24 Speaker 05 Women were not. So there was types of comedian called a braggator, which was a professional varter.
7:32 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, that still exists.
7:33 Speaker 05 I'm saying, Shaun, do you know what I mean? It's an option. Do you know what I mean?
7:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
7:36 Speaker 05 If the whole thing doesn't work out.
7:36 Speaker 04 I do that for free all the time, if I could monetise that.
7:41 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's comedians in medieval Ireland, but they are always male.
7:44 Speaker 04 Okay.
7:45 Greg Jenner? All right.
7:46 Speaker 05 Listen, I wasn't perfect, do you know what I mean?
7:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:48 Greg Jenner? But there's another big influence coming down the tracks as well, the infamous V-word. Shaun, what is the V-word in the medieval period?
7:55 Speaker 04 Vegans?
7:57 Greg Jenner? I was gonna go Vikings, but vegans is fine.
7:59 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I was about to say.
8:01 Greg Jenner? No, Vikings.
8:01 Speaker 04 Well, Dublin's a Viking settlement, isn't it?
8:03 Greg Jenner? It is, yeah.
8:04 Speaker 04 So I'm from Dublin, so I'm technically Viking, is what you're saying.
8:07 Greg Jenner? You've got the moustache.
8:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, so. The listeners at home will just have to trust us on that one as well.
8:12 Greg Jenner? You've also got the English showing up, sorry. But we also get a special guest appearance from the Welsh.
8:19 Speaker 04 Wow.
8:22 Speaker 05 Don't shout too soon. Because it's basically the Welsh you invaded.
8:28 Speaker 04 Oh, well, well.
8:30 Greg Jenner? You've lost the room.
8:32 Speaker 05 But all I'm saying is, you are owed one, because in the early medieval period, the Irish used to raid along your coasts and catch slaves. So, fair enough, okay.
8:42 Speaker 04 Tit for tat.
8:43 Speaker 05 We'll give that one to the Welsh, do you know what I mean?
8:44 Speaker 04 Wasn't it?
8:47 Speaker 04 They're rising up again.
8:49 Speaker 05 There we go.
8:50 Speaker 04 Okay, okay.
8:51 Greg Jenner? Close the gates.
8:52 Speaker 04 We're outnumbered here.
8:53 Speaker 05 Let's take the festival, Sean. Let's do it. But anyway, what happened was in 1166, the King of Leinster, Dermot McMurra, had been exiled and he approached Henry II, asking for help to get back his kingdom of Leinster. And Henry said, yes, of course, because he quite fancied getting a foothold in Ireland. What I think we might nicely term a whole load of back and forth over the medieval period and the law and afterwards. But after the English arrived, there's a whole shifting pattern of territory controlled by the English king. It becomes a real mishmash of different kind of cultures. By the early 16th century, about 60% of the island is controlled or influenced by Gaelic lords, so it's very heavily Gaelic.
9:35 Speaker 05 What's interesting is that this consistent Gaelic identity spread across the island. It was very consistent, they used the same language, same system of laws, and that even spread up into Scotland, into what's widely called the Gaelic. So it was a whole outward-looking Irish-speaking world, which was kind of very active and very vibrant by that stage.
9:54 Greg Jenner? Time now to talk about magic, the realm of magic. Sean, what is magic?
9:59 Speaker 04 That's a very conceptual question, Greg. Harry Potter springs to mind, but famously English. Things that cannot be explained by, you know, logic and science, mystical stuff.
10:10 Greg Jenner? The supernatural.
10:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
10:12 Greg Jenner? All right, are we happy with that definition?
10:13 Speaker 05 Yeah, it does involve some of that, but mostly Irish magic is about influencing material reality through words. So words quite literally transform reality in the Irish system, whether because of its inherent power in the words themselves, or thanks to the intervention of a supernatural being, you make a supplication. So words of power have three uses in the Irish system: it's healing, harming, and protection. We also see the importance of words in things like place names, which were often associated with mystical and mythical beings. The land itself is suffused with magic. In Rathcrawen, in County Roscommon, there's a cave called Uthmigat, the Cave of the Cats,
10:56 Speaker 05 which since medieval times has been thought of as the entrance to the other world, and that's very much associated with the goddess Maoragan. She's a very fearsome battle goddess who is said to emerge out of there once a year with her host to lay waste.
11:12 Greg Jenner? Where's the entrance to the underworld?
11:13 Speaker 05 The Cave of the Cats.
11:15 Greg Jenner? Wow.
11:15 Speaker 05 Yeah, Rathcrawen in County Roscommon. And that's also a place associated with Queen Maeve, who was also a very badly behaved woman.
11:25 Greg Jenner? So, many of the magical beliefs we're discussing today, Jill, they come from oral traditions of stories, magical tales and myths that are recorded, they're written down during the Christian era. They're sorted into what historians call cycles, which has nothing to do with bicycles, it's to do with collections of stories.
11:42 Speaker 05 They are grouped into collections. They feature different beings which appear in magical tales. And as I said, they were written down by Christian monks. They're grouped into these cycles. There's a mythological cycle, and that features the Tuatha Dé Danann, who were mangled in Hellboy II, as Greg was saying in the beginning. So they're usually translated as tribes or people of the goddess Danu. They're a supernatural race who live in the other world. And the other world is where you go via certain elements in the Irish countryside, like the great passage tombs, the brew. And their enemy are a race called the Formorians, which are depicted as evil and monstrous. The Ulster cycle, which is set in the mythical parts of eastern Ulster and northern Leinster. The Finian cycle,
12:27 Speaker 05 about a mythical hero called Finn McCool and his band of warriors, the Fianna. And the King's cycle, which are legends about historical and semi-historical Irish kings. And the Tuatha Dé Danann were said to have acquired magic in the Northern Islands before coming to Ireland. So they are what you might know as the fairies. And a lot of this activity is listed in an actual book we have called The Book of Invasions, because we don't forget.
12:57 Greg Jenner? And you mentioned fairies. How are you picturing a fairy, Sean? Are we sort of Tinker Bell with Tato?
13:02 Speaker 04 Yeah, that feels like the Hollywood version of fairies. But as always with these things, I feel like they're probably more fearsome than that in the actual tellings.
13:09 Greg Jenner? How big? You thinking this big, small?
13:12 Speaker 04 I think in waist height. Let's say waist height. But fierce, small but aggressive.
13:17 Speaker 04 You hear a lot about fairy fort.
13:18 Speaker 05 Like most Irish people.
13:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, sorry, are we not describing Irish people? Yeah, yeah.
13:24 Greg Jenner? The idea of a fairy, I mean Hollywood has taken it and made it adorable and cute and small and it's sort of very princessy, but we're not talking that here in medieval Ireland, are we? Fairies are scary, you don't want to mess.
13:36 Speaker 05 They are beings who are immune to our charm, they can be very malevolent, they can love us, they live alongside us in the invisible realm. So, the fairy though, doesn't even begin to describe them, fairy is a later English name for them. Their original name is the Ais She and that means people of the Hollow Hills. In Irish tradition, you never call them by their name because you don't want to get their attention. They provide a very handy mechanism within Gaelic medieval Ireland for explaining bad stuff. So, if someone died, unfortunately, if you had problems with livestock, if you had crop failures, that's the fairies, you've annoyed the fairies.
14:18 Speaker 05 Of course, you've got like famous fairies, like the Banshee, for example, who predicted people's deaths by crying out and screeching at them or their loved ones. So, the thing about the Banshee is, if you hear it, you're not going to die, but someone you know is, just putting that out there.
14:36 Greg Jenner? That's very intense.
14:37 Speaker 04 Yeah, when I first moved to London, I heard foxes in the night and I just thought, it's the Banshee.
14:43 Speaker 05 But they're not the only ones who will turn up for people because fairies would do you a bad turn if you did one for them. There's a belief in Ireland, for example, in things called fairy darts, elf darts is another name for them. So, it's like bits of stone or they're fashioned into like arrowheads, they were probably like Stone Age arrowheads that people found and they would fire them at cattle and cause them some kind of harm. And fairy women are often described trying to steal away princes or heroes in the myths. So, there's also a belief in changelings, for example, as well, this is where the fairies would swap your baby and put a fairy baby in its place, a changeling.
15:23 Speaker 05 And the way you'd know it was a changeling was, okay, so your baby would start to smoke a pipe.
15:31 Speaker 05 Or... Or play the fiddle.
15:36 Speaker 05 Or start talking in an old man's voice. So then you might go, "I think my baby's a fairy."
15:42 Speaker 04 Subtle giveaway there.
15:43 Speaker 05 Well, you know, yeah.
15:45 Speaker 04 Look, did the baby always smoke with a pipe?
15:47 Greg Jenner? What we thought we'd do now, actually, Shaun, is, because you're a sketch comedian, and you've got a, you know, a range of voices and impressions, we thought maybe we'd give you some role-playing to do.
15:55 Speaker 04 Oh, I love a bit of role-playing.
15:56 Greg Jenner? We've got some props, we've got some costumes.
15:58 Speaker 04 Okay.
15:58 Greg Jenner? And then we're gonna have our medieval agony aunt, Dr Jill. She's gonna help you and your various characters out with their medieval magical problems.
16:05 Speaker 04 Sounds great.
16:06 Greg Jenner? So, we're gonna have problem number one. So Shaun, do you wanna pop on your appropriate costume?
16:12 Speaker 04 Bag of some fairly stereotypical possessions.
16:14 Speaker 05 Oh my god, is that a flat cap?
16:16 Speaker 04 That is a flat cap. I presume this is for this one. Okay. Here we go. Dear Dr Jill, help! My cattle have keeled over, and I fear they've fallen foul of fairy darts. How can I protect the rest of my livestock from disgruntled fairy folk?
16:33 Speaker 05 Hi Shaun. There are a variety of protections against fairy attacks on your cattle. The first is an amulet of mistletoe and mountain ash, which you will have to use. You may also want to enlist the help of your local friendly cunning folk, people who practise healing and defensive magic. So these are the cunning men and wise women, banfasa, of the Irish tradition. They can do incantations, prayers, and so on. You must also make sure to avoid disturbing any reported fairy dwellings. There are loads of stories about people being cursed with bad luck if they dig it up in any way or interfered with fairy forts.
17:14 Speaker 05 Fairy forts are early medieval homesteads called rafts, ringforts. So avoid.
17:20 Speaker 04 The only time I hear about fairy forts is when somebody's trying to build a road in Ireland. They're like, "No, I'm not touching that."
17:27 Speaker 05 They stopped it. They stopped it. Yeah.
17:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, it happens.
17:30 Greg Jenner? Fairies can be mischief makers, but we don't wanna unfairly scapegoat them. Because, you know, they're not always to blame, because there's something else to worry about, Shaun. The evil eye. Have you heard of the evil eye?
17:40 Speaker 04 You mean like Sauron?
17:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that man, yeah.
17:44 Greg Jenner? Yeah.
17:44 Speaker 04 No, outside of that, no. I mean, it sounds familiar, but I actually don't specifically know.
17:48 Greg Jenner? Dr Jill, uh, why, why is the evil eye? Because I've heard of it, Sean's heard of it, but what is it?
17:54 Speaker 05 People were genuinely worried about the evil eye, about the effect on people and animals. There's a source from the 16th century, a Jesuit priest, Father Good, and he talks about the fact that cunning folk were regularly employed to cure what he called "eye-bitten livestock". There's a few options if you get stuck by the evil eye. In 17th century Kildare, parents used to protect their children from the evil eye by spitting in their faces.
18:21 Speaker 04 Yes. Bring it back, bring it back.
18:26 Speaker 05 I, it's not, I don't, don't try that one at home. And even better is the next thing, which is even more effective against the evil eye. So all around Ireland, there are mysterious stone carvings called shealina gigs, and they are of old women, or hags, kailak in the Irish tradition, display, I've no other way of saying this, displaying their vulva. I have to get it out. So they are grotesque and they are doing, uh, just please Google it, not in your work one. And, uh, the idea is that these vulvas of old ladies are so powerful that they can avert the evil eye.
19:09 Speaker 05 And the older I get, the more I begin to agree with it, I've got to tell you. I, yeah. All the hags, all the hags in the audience.
19:23 Greg Jenner? Shall we have another problem?
19:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's a handy segue.
19:26 Greg Jenner? Yeah, can we have problem number two then, Sean? Uh, this is, uh, I think this is a butter problem.
19:30 Speaker 04 Right, classic butter problem. Dear Jill, help! The girls are coming over for brunch this weekend and my butter won't churn. How can I make my dairy delicious again?
19:47 Speaker 05 99 butter churnin' problems. Okay, that was a big problem in medieval Ireland because people liked their dairy. So, Sean, it sounds like you've got a butter witch on your hands.
20:00 Speaker 05 That's a true thing. These were beings who, in the Irish tradition, transformed into hares to steal milk from cows and to prevent your butter from being churned. To drive away a butter witch, Sean, what you have to do is burn the thatch from a suspected butter witch's house.
20:22 Speaker 05 You needed to be sure, or not, if you didn't like her, don't care. You could also drive the cattle through the ashes or smoke of bonfires on May Eve, or you could try shooting some hares and waiting to see the inevitable, horribly hurt old woman staggering around after it.
20:41 Speaker 04 Okay. Dan?
20:43 Speaker 05 Because she turned back into an old woman, not because he was shooting old women. He's shooting hares.
20:48 Speaker 04 Oh, I'm glad you clarified that.
20:49 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, so they are Irish witches. That is an Irish witch. They steal your butter, which is probably the least threatening witch you've ever heard.
20:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:58 Greg Jenner? So let's talk about magical words and cursing as well. And I think you mentioned very early on the idea of cursing and the magical transformative power of words to affect, real change in the material world, which is very exciting. But like, how do you curse someone?
21:11 Speaker 05 There's a couple of ways you can do it. You can go to a blacksmith, they will help you curse. The blacksmith's curse was really powerful. You can go to places where there are cursing stones. There are actual places in the Irish landscape where they set up cursing altars and you could go and touch them in an anti-clockwise direction while uttering the curse. So it's a huge ritual. Gerald of Wales described Irish saints as having a particularly vindictive cast of mind. And they were very, very good at cursing and they used props. So they used their bells, their handbells, and what were called their baccals or croshers. And they used to use them in these spectacular displays of cursing. And there's all these crazy stories where they took their baccal and struck it and killed druids and fell dragons. And so there's a total tradition of that.
21:55 Speaker 05 They're basically a magic wand. They could use those.
21:58 Greg Jenner? Nice. Wow. Anti-clockwise on the stone.
22:00 Speaker 05 Anti-clockwise to curse, clockwise to send good thoughts. But who is going to travel out to one of these places and go, "Yeah, I love my neighbour"?
22:11 Speaker 05 Yeah, sure. No, it's and it's proper, like, it's a proper effort.
22:16 Speaker 04 Sending good vibes.
22:17 Speaker 05 Yeah, you've got to really hate your neighbour, you're going to get in a boat, you're going to get out there, you're going to trudge up and then three times, you've got certain words to say, and then you turn them anti-clockwise and bang.
22:29 Speaker 04 It's a lot to remember. Did you say there was a bell in there as well?
22:31 Speaker 05 So, eh, the bishops used to use bells, very, very famous for it, they little handbells which they would curse people with.
22:37 Speaker 04 Right, it really adds an extra oomph if you could just ring a bell every time you say.
22:41 Speaker 05 Ding-a-ding-a-ding.
22:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:42 Speaker 05 They've no special effects, do you know what I mean? Big deal back then.
22:45 Speaker 04 It was theatre.
22:46 Speaker 05 It was the type of theatre, it was good.
22:48 Greg Jenner? But there is still sin in doing some of this cursing magic, right? I mean, I'm trying to get my head around where the rules lie because we know of penitential handbooks, guidebooks for priests on what happens if a parishioner comes in and they've done a magical sin. So there is still a sense that this is not always okay.
23:07 Speaker 05 It's about power with the early Christian church. They didn't like women doing magic because women often did love magic and magic to try and attempt reproduction. And, and they didn't like that at all. Now, there's a penitential of Phineon, as it's called, which dates from 591, and that does use the term maleficium, which is sorcery, to refer to magic. It's a really early use of the phrase. Interestingly, when the church appeared in Ireland, the words for magic exploded. So that's what they were talking about. They were fixated on magic after they arrived and on controlling it. So in the penitential of Phineon, if you do sorcery, you do half a year's penance on bread and water if you use sorcery to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy
23:49 Speaker 05 and you get an abstention from wine and meat for two years.
23:53 Speaker 04 Ooh.
23:53 Speaker 05 Now, that sounds a lot, but it's actually not. That's actually quite a small one. So, eh, they, they kind of, they were very cognizant that women were doing this kind of magic and they needed to prepare for it.
24:12 Greg Jenner? Time now for the nuance window. This is where Sean and I churn our butter for two whole minutes, while Dr Gill brings her magic touch to today's story. So pray silence for the nuance window and take it away, Dr Gill.
24:25 Speaker 05 Right, well, after all of that, I hope I've convinced some of you that magic matters. To my mind, how can we ever really lay claim to uncovering a culture's secrets if we pay no heed to their inner secret lives? In Ireland's case, those were millennia-long conversations with gods, goddesses and the realm invisible. The land itself was marked by magic. For thousands of years, human sacrifices lay buried in the ancient quiet of Ireland's dank, velvety soil, those bog bodies ritually killed at the borders of ancient kingdoms so that they could continue to protect them even in the afterlife. And embedded above them, in Ireland's physical landscape, is a magical geography which everyone knew: the homes of their invisible neighbours, the shee,
25:07 Speaker 05 the forts, bushes, trees and the great brew which they guarded ferociously because the land was shared. These places teemed with invisible life and the faery folks were just as capricious and unpredictable as the land and weather itself. Life, both seen and unseen, was always on a knife-edge in medieval Ireland. And so, over centuries, people developed the means to manage those relationships, to engage with the land as a goddess, to try and mollify her. Experts emerged whose skills allowed them to intercede with the shee to keep the peace and opportunities were found to magically redirect the stress and fear that was a constant companion to many. For example, if you hated your neighbour and wished to harm them but couldn't,
25:48 Speaker 05 what better way to relieve the stress than to take yourself to the place of the cursing stones and do that? So magic matters. From understanding the types of charms women chanted over sick children to figuring out just how a great saint used magic to enchant a woman into loving a man and on to absorbing how magic was such a standard part of life that the lawyers put safeguards and punishments in place. From looking at all of this, we can tell lots about how and why the society used magic, which in turn tells us loads about the nature and balance of power and belief in Ireland, how social change, gender roles, and about how human beings understood and charted their responses in times of both crisis and plenty. Magic lasted a long time in Ireland.
26:33 Speaker 05 Until the 20th century, anthropological students were still visiting and writing theses on Banshee belief. In 1999, famously, a campaign was run not to disturb a fairy bush in Clare while a road bypass was being built. Have those beliefs now gone? A lot of them, sure, but perhaps not all of them, and maybe that's not a bad thing. Irish farmers won't interfere with a fairy fort even today. Does that speak to a backwardness? No, of course not. Ireland's a modern, educated country, but in a western world which has lost its connection with nature and its spirits, we might ponder the value of lingering, powerful guardians of the land who we dare not interfere with. It seems to me that that's not at all a bad, magical belief to hold on to. Thanks very much.
27:18 Greg Jenner? Lovely, thanks very much. Fab. Thoughts on that, Sean?
27:21 Speaker 04 Irish people have an excuse for everything. Oh, I'm late, it was the fairies. Yeah, yeah.
27:24 Speaker 05 You just want to watch yourself tonight, you know what I'm saying? You think you hear a fox, man, you just be careful.
27:31 Greg Jenner? Right, okay, I think we're done with our episode, so an enormous thank you to Sean, thank you to Jill. And listener, if you want more medieval myths and stories, check out our episode on Old Norse sagas, because actually, maybe they're slightly interacting with the...
27:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, you get Irish characters in Norse sagas.
27:47 Greg Jenner? Yeah, there we go then. So it's a revision homework, it's the same story from a different perspective. And remember, if you enjoy the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. Just time for me to say a huge thank you to our guests. In history corner, our very own medieval wizard, Dr Gillian Kelly. Thank you, Jill. Thank you. And in comedy corner, the sensational Sean Burke. Thank you, Sean.
28:20 Greg Jenner? But for now, I'm off to go and spit in a child's face. Bye.
28:46 Speaker 00 Hi, we're the Van Tullikens, the identical twin Dr. Van Tullikens, Chris and Zand. In What's Up Docs, we're diving into the messy, complicated world of health and wellbeing. We are living in the middle of what I would call a therapeutic revolution, but it can sometimes be hard to know what's really best for us. Do I need to take a testosterone supplement? How can I fix my creaky knees? Why do I get hangry? Is organic food actually better for me? We're going to be your guides through the confusion. We'll talk to experts in the field. And argue about what we've learned. And share what we've learned. And maybe disagree a fair bit, too. No, we won't. What's Up Docs from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.
29:28 Speaker 06 It often starts with a question. What were lines doing in York in the third century? Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? Then we search for answers. It's one of the first times, really, that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers.
29:43 Speaker 00 If I'm going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.
29:47 Speaker 06 As I was doing the research for the programme, my jaw just dropped further and further down. In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Watch the discussions unfold and explore over a thousand conversations in our archive. I'm Misha Glennie, and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world. In Our Time. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
30:17 Speaker 06 Coffee?
30:18 Speaker 00 Love a cup of tea. I'll have tea, too.
30:20 Speaker 06 Tea for me, please.
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