II. The Five Parts of the Song

The Upanishads say “whatever exists is fivefold”. It can come as no surprise that the number five- and divisions of five- are sacred to the primordial tradition of the Indo-Europeans, especially the Celts. As lore and research has shown, Ireland, Wales and England contained five primordial divisions, embraced and applied in spiritual and political concept by the ancient peoples of those places.

The division of a land into “fifths” is a sign of manifestation being completed in the primal Gaelic and Brythonic traditions- and others, considering the Anglo-Saxons continued with a basic division of England into “directional” provinces along with a "middle"- Essex, Sussex, Wessex, Middlesex, and so forth. It is no accident that this Enchanter’s Song has five portions:

1. The Enchanter's Declaration
2. The Flux of Creation
3. The Charm of Naming
4. The Pattern of the Land
5. The Ordering of Men and Gods


Each of which is elucidated below.


The Enchanter’s Declaration

“The storied wanderer speaks to this land, as sea spoke to sky:
An enchanter's song to name mighty powers, creating himself anew.
So with himself, all things are made again as before…”

* * *

The “storied wanderer” is the spirit of the enchanter him or herself- a being who, through the timeless cycles of the spirit, has participated (and still participates) in every event in the history of the world, and has experienced countless different ‘ways of being’- moving through the invisible world of connections and spirits, through seen and unseen realms of phenomena and numina.

Thus, the spiritual wandering essence is “very storied”- having experienced the contents of many a tale, and now, in a human form it speaks, as “sea spoke to sky”, or as the primordial Salmon, Fintan, (whom we will discuss below) representing the waters, spoke with the Hawk who was born at the same time as he, representing the sky. This communication between the lowest and the highest implies a connection between them, a connection the enchanter takes advantage of as he speaks to all places.

The enchanter “names mighty powers” with his song- and thus “creates himself anew”- the act of naming the powers in the song literally summons them, to mind, to being and to presence, for all three are one thing. By so doing, the enchanter is created anew- for he himself is not only a mighty power, but a part of the same ongoing web of communication and life as all powers, and if one part of this system is summoned and renewed, so is he.

“So with himself, all things are made again as before…” The line offers no doubt as to the fact that the renewal of one is the recreation of the others. With this declaration, the enchanter is stating his intention to make a song of creation, a song of naming, and naming the effect the song will have.



The Flux of Creation

“Before eye or ear, mouth or word,
The soundless chasm, the great radiance,
The alternation of darkness and light,
Summer growing day, winter returning night,
All coming to be: a lay of greatest power.

The story of many women in the waters,
The first of five holy kindreds,
Of the Woman of earth and water,
Daughter of the world,
Of her husband, white and old,
Son of the ocean deep.

Of the division of women to the corners of the land,
Of their re-gathering as the waters rushed forth again.
Of the journeys of people from beyond the waves,
Of oars and cattle,
Swords and spears, darkly sung tales of might:
The survival of memory, ancients recounting stories,
An old salmon thrashing, a hawk flying.

Dark and light, fire and water, summer and winter ice:
World; Ocean; Land and Rivers; the Ancient White Entity;
Waters and lands made different;
Waters overcoming; waters receding,
Conquerors crossing water; contests fought; songs of naming.”

* * *

The magic of the song has already begun: the spiritual orator has made him or herself known, and made their intentions known, but now, a deeper power is summoned. The flux of creation, the spiral or pulsing of primordial powers which creates the mythical and finally the temporal history of the world come to be, is invoked with words- it is summoned to presence and created as freshly now as it always was and is- it is a lay or spell of “greatest power.”

This flux of creation, this creating power which allows things to be against the undifferentiated background of primordial chaos and unity, is “before eye or ear, mouth or word.” In other words, it existed before the differentiation into beings with senses, before perceptions of a “world” were possible. It was there before words- but when the power of the word became available to primordial beings, and later to humans, worlds were possible, and worlds were created. The primordial “stuff” of magic is always there; it was the beginning, and even now, into the order we have created with words and ideas, it persists, but is now disguised, shaped as so many things, ignored in so many ways.

That “flux of creation” contains two great and primal seeds: the alternation of darkness and light- a common theme in Celtic cosmologies, as well as cosmologies worldwide. Light and dark, the true primal pair forever necessarily together, the cosmic tendency towards expansion and contraction, or heat and cold, they are the two deepest and most powerful root-realities that underlie every other reality. Fire and light paired against water and ice are their manifestations; they are the primordial “elements”. The water itself represents the primordial chaos and unity from which the first titanic, generative beings will emerge.

By naming the darkness and light- and their manifestations of summer and day and winter and night, the deepest forces are summoned into the song, and become the song.

The song then turns from root-realities of deepest abstraction, to the emergence of primordial mythological events and beings. “The many women in the waters”, described as the “first of five holy kindreds” is a reference to the women of Cessair, an Ancestress-figure of great might and importance to primal Irish mythology- and the “five holy kindreds” are the five races of beings that invaded Ireland and worked, over vast gulfs of mythical and historical time to divide the Island up and struggle over it, bringing form to the various landscape features, creating bodies of water, and giving names to various parts of the land. These characters are central to the entire edifice of Gaelic creation mythology. Five races of this type are also a feature of Vedic mythology- and this is by no means accidental.

The stories of invasions and divisions are the stories of “creation” in the Celtic world. And these stories- mythical, semi-mythical, and historical- are all one sublime theme, the unbroken cosmic-evolutionary theme of the gradual emergence out of formlessness of the land itself, into a finished form- and a form containing, in some way, all of the powers that came before, still present there in the Land. The ebb and flow of waves around Ireland is joined by the ebb and flow of invaders, coming and struggling, changing and making their mark, integrating into the land, and yielding to new ages, to new invaders.

Cessair’s story is the core of the mythical theme named and invoked by the Song of Creation. It is vitally important to understand this cycle of myth, and the powerful beings whose presence it contains. The next six lines of the Song say:

“…Of the Woman of earth and water,
Daughter of the world,
Of her husband, white and old,
Son of the ocean deep.

Of the division of women to the corners of the land,
Of their re-gathering as the waters rushed forth again.”


Cessair is “the Woman of earth and water”, a daughter of “World”, and her husband is Fintan, the son of Bochra or Ocean. The Rees give a superb summation of this element of the creation mythology of Ireland: Cessair and her fifty women and three men (Fintan being one of those men) represent the first invasion of Ireland, the true primordial race.

“Lebor Gabala Erenn speaks of five peoples, as does the Rig Veda of a totality of “Five Kindreds”. In Hindu writings, these enigmatic Five Kindreds are variously explained as five orders of divine beings, created beings in general, the ancestors of humanity, the four castes, and the barbarian Nishadas. Similarly, with the Irish invasions, the one that remains to be considered is the primordial Cessair. Her company consisted of fifty women and three men, namely Fintan son of Bochra, Bith son of Noah and father of Cessair, and the pilot Ladra. The main action of their story in Ireland turns on the division of the women.

Fintan took Cessair and sixteen others; Bith took her companion Bairrfhind and another sixteen, whereas Ladra was left with a mere sixteen and was dissatisfied with his lot. Nevertheless it is said of him that he died of an excess of women… After Ladra’s death, Fintan and Bith shared the remaining women between them so that they had twenty-five each. Bith went north and he was the next to die. When the women returned to Fintan and Cessair, Fintan escaped “afleeing before all the women” until he came to the Hill of the Wave (Tul Tuinde). Bereft of her father and her husband, Cessair broke her heart, and all her maidens died, and then forty days after they had arrived on Ireland, came the Flood. Fintan spent a year under the waters in a cave called “Fintan’s Grave” above Tul Tuinde, and so survived.

In its overwhelmingly female character, this company bears a resemblance to the Fomoire in the time of Partholon, among whom women outnumbered men in a proportion of three to one. Cessair was the first to bring sheep into Ireland and it is noteworthy that the Fomoire in Nemed’s time turned Ireland into a sheep land. As we have seen, the Fomoire are associated with the sea and its islands, and their name suggests “under-sea”. Cessair is connected with the flood waters and in this story, women and water seem to belong together. The division of women, like the other divisions we have mentioned, was an act of creation, a separating out. Their re-union symbolizes a return to an undifferentiated chaos. All this took place at “The Meeting of the Three Waters”. Ladra’s death was caused by the women or by the oar with which he plied the waves; Fintan fled from the re-untied women and was overwhelmed by the flood. His flight before the women is reminiscent of inundation tales in which a person is pursued by the irrupting waters.

According to the lost early manuscript, “The Book of Druim Snechta”, the name of the woman who settled in Ireland before the Flood was not Cessair but Banba- and she, as eponym of Ireland, is identified, not with water, but with the land that would emerge from the waters “The island of Banba of the women.” She survived the Deluge on the mountain peak of Tul Tuinde- “To this present mound the waves of the Flood attained”- and she lived to proclaim to the Sons of Mil that she was older than Noah. The peak recalls the “primeval hill” of Near Eastern cosmogonies, the first land to rise out of the waters of chaos. In other words, the first woman symbolized both water and land, and the two basic elements seem to be further personified by Banba/Cessair’s husband, Fintan son of “Ocean” and her father whose name means “World.” (p. 113-115).


Cessair’s true identity as Banba absolutely alters the character of this story- the Christian glosses added by monk scribes falls away dramatically: Banba, one of the Three Goddesses who embody Ireland (or the Land) itself, is a reflex of the deepest and most powerful being in ancient Celtic religion- Sovereignty herself. She is so ancient that she existed “before the flood”- before the cycle of chaotic undifferentiated state that preceded this world cycle, and indeed, her “women” represent the fomorian-like goddess-spirits of the water and land- the primordial spirits or powers whose dividing out brings an order, and whose gathering together represents a return to chaos- the “waters overcoming.”

Banba is the “Earth Mother”, the earth-body that rises out of the waters of chaos AND the entity of those waters- the “Woman of earth and rivers” of the Enchanter’s Song. She is the primordial Goddess-creatrix, the sovereign feminine being that acts as Ancestress to all. She is the Don of the Welsh and the Danu of the Irish, or the Eire/Fodla/Banba three-in-one trinity, all of them reflexes of the primordial sovereign Goddess.

Her husband, Fintan, is also a figure of supreme primal power and importance. His name derives from VINDOS SENOS- the Ancient White One. He survived the flood in the form of a Salmon, the white salmon of knowledge- his great knowledge derives from his memories of the world, memories which extend back to the beginning of time, and before. The name VINDOS, however, emerges in other places around the Celtic mythological world, giving us a clue to what power we are dealing with- the same root word is found in Britain behind the names Vindonos and Gwyn- and in Ireland with Fintan and Fionn.

Gwyn, or Gwynn Ap Nudd is a Brythonic hunting God, a leader of a “wild hunt” and a decidedly chthonic figure of the Underworld of Annwn. In common with all these “wild hunters”, we are faced with the “white stag” God, the ubiquitous and earthy “Antlered God” or Primordial Father God who is paired, from the oldest times, with the primordial earth mother and the Underworld, the source of waters and life. His connection with “Whiteness” is a sign of his connection with the “great white world” or void of ur-beginnings; the whiteness of spirit or timeless wholeness. It is also a sign of his ancient standing- he is the oldest being, alongside the Sovereign Goddess. He is parallel to the Bile of the Irish and the Beli of the Welsh.

Fintan survives the deluge and lives, as a shape-shifter into the many ages of Ireland- becoming an advisor to kings, and then lived into the time of Fionn Mac Cumhail. He had become the repository of all memory and wisdom of the many ages of Ireland, he and the magical Hawk that was born at the same he was. He and this mystical hawk meet again, at the end of their time on earth, to discuss their stories and lore, and both decide to leave the mortal world in the 5th century, after Ireland was converted to Christianity. He remains in the unseen world, potent as ever, and a source of great wisdom and memory.

Now, the central portion of the Enchanter’s Song begins to yield up a portion of its meaning:

“The story of many women in the waters,
The first of five holy kindreds,
Of the Woman of earth and water,
Daughter of the world,
Of her husband, white and old,
Son of the ocean deep.

Of the division of women to the corners of the land,
Of their re-gathering as the waters rushed forth again.
Of the journeys of people from beyond the waves,
Of oars and cattle,
Swords and spears, darkly sung tales of might:
The survival of memory, ancients recounting stories,
An old salmon thrashing, a hawk flying.”


The first eight of these lines refer to the antediluvian exploits of Banba and her women, and to Banba and Fintan themselves, and of the primordial divisions and destructions. These deep lines of mythical power begin to summon up the churning of the flux of creation- the rushing of waters in and out. The first parents are named, ancestors to all. Their powers are brought to bear.

Next, comes the lines naming the “journeys of people from beyond the waves, of oars and cattle…” and these lines refer to the spear and sword-armed next waves of invaders, up to the coming of the Gaelic Milesians- all finishing with “The survival of memory, ancients recounting stories”- a reference to Fintan’s survival through the ages, and he and his friend the hawk sharing stories- “an old salmon thrashing, a hawk flying.”

Now comes a summation of all that has been named so far:

“Dark and light, fire and water, summer and winter ice:
World; Ocean; Land and Rivers; the Ancient White Entity;
Waters and lands made different;
Waters overcoming; waters receding,
Conquerors crossing water; contests fought; songs of naming.”


The flux of creation is sped up by the rapid summation- the names, in sequence, of the primordial powers. This portion of the song ends with a special phrase- “songs of naming”- here referring to the naming-songs of Amargin and those like him. It leads to the next portion of the song, which is also called (not by accident) “The charm of naming.”



The Charm of Naming

“The naming of sky and earth,
Sun, moon and lake;
Rivers, many fruits,
Soaking rain,
Much wealth of sea,
Mouths, ears,
Eyes, treasures,
Feet, hands,
Warriors and storytellers,
Horses, swords,
Bright chariots,
Barbed spears,
Embossed shields,
Men's faces, women's faces,
Children running,
Dew, mist on rivers,
Stones on plains, sheen on leaves,
Day and night,
Ebb and flow…”

* * *

The charm of naming may be the most important part of the song- for in it, the Enchanter names the various substances, elements, or mysterious components of the world that make it whole and ordered. It is the equivalent of Amargin’s Invocation of Ireland, or any of Taliesin’s songs, in which he “names” a new condition into being through poetry. Just by listing these elements- there are 33 of them- the very order of the world is constructed.

The flux of creation is now channeled into tangible forms and order, by this charm. The Enchanter today who uses this charm, while singing this song, is not the first to do so, but at the time of his chanting, he is doing it at the same “time” that Amargin did it, or Vishnu, or any of the mythical beings who have used it.

As we shall see, the charm of naming has many practical uses, which will be elucidated in the “praxis” section of this work. For now I have said enough- when the charm of naming is done, the world’s constituent parts are named, and it is whole and new. This leads directly into the fourth portion of the song, called “The pattern of the land”- for while the cosmos has been manifested and renewed in order, the enchanter must now turn to the land under his feet and name it as well, and its qualities and beings, establishing a link between the land below and the elements above, below, and all around.



The Pattern of the Land

“One land and one Sovereign at its center, a hill of kings,
Five divisions fair, fivefold and two, upper and lower,
Lands and women of stories and eloquence,
Lands and women of contentions and strifes,
Lands and women of beehives and hospitality,
Lands and women of music and subtlety.
And the beings of under-stone and under-sea
Darkly holding the life of plenty in yielding soil
Rendered up in due season, from the hill woman's body.”

* * *

Anyone familiar with Irish Celtic mythology and history will understand this portion of the song easily. Ireland was, mythically and historically, divided into five provinces or portions, all under the High King (Ard-Ri) at Tara hill, (The hill of kings) the High King’s seat in “Meath” or the center province.

This prefigures the primal arrangement of the Brandubh game-board, a game from ancient Ireland in which the board is divided into five parts, a middle surrounded by four, and one player has a “high king” piece and four “lesser king” pieces, and must struggle with attacking powers from the four corners, moving into the four provinces. The game symbolizes the manifest, ordered structure of Ireland (and by extension the land itself, anywhere) and the chaotic powers in it, that must be defeated cyclically by the ruling, sovereign powers, be they Kings or Gods.

The “five divisions” of Ireland are Ulster in the north, Leinster in the east, Munster in the south, Connacht in the west, and Meath in the center. Connacht is called, in the enchanter’s song, the “Lands and women of stories and eloquence”- Connacht is not just a land, but also the spirits of that land- the “women” of Banba. Connacht is traditionally associated with learning, and thus with stories and eloquence.

Ulster, the province of battle, is called “Lands and women of contentions and strifes”- a prophetic name from tradition, considering the unrest Ulster has always known throughout history. Leinster, the province of prosperity, is called “Lands and women of beehives and hospitality”, and Munster, the province of music, is called “Lands and women of music and subtlety.”

These associations for the five provinces- learning, battle, prosperity, music, and kingship in the center, come straight from the mouth of Fintan, when he is asked by Trefuilngid “how Ireland was partitioned, and where things had been therein.” Ireland’s final partitioned form is symbolic of the qualities of the cosmos and the form of the land made completely manifest and ordered. Moreover, the Enchanter’s Song makes it so again.

The final naming of the land must include the beings who exist outside of the ordered land, but still near it- under it, within it, on the boundaries around it, for these chaotic beings- the Fomorians and enemies of the Gods who forced them into hiding and marginalization- are still important to the order. In their power is the fertility of the land, so the Gods wisely did not destroy them, but simply placed them under rule and guard and partial control. Those lines go:

“And the beings of under-stone and under-sea
Darkly holding the life of plenty in yielding soil
Rendered up in due season, from the hill woman's body.”

In their own season, the Fomorian powers or giants render up plenty- they give the life of the land for the use of those on it. They give it from “The hill woman’s body”- Banba’s body. But this is also an oblique reference to Brigid, the Exalted One, the Goddess of hearth and flame whose sacred incantations on Imbolc, her Gaelic festival, mention a “serpent coming from below the hill…”



The Ordering of Men and Gods

“Great honor to the people of the land, every one,
To every hill on which a fire blazes;
The shining courts, the halls and tables,
The heroes of boastful fame and sturdy arm,
The people of farms, of valley and dripping wood.

Great honor to the Sacred Knowledge,
And the people of sacred arts-
Of poetry and remembrance, of sacrifices and law;
Honor to the people of strength and force,
Of peace preserved, of bloody fights;
Honor to the people of the fertile plain,
Of the fruits of peace, of plentiful herds.

Honor and fame to the Victorious Ones, the Long-Arm's host,
To their triumph over darkness, to their gallantry,
To the bonds they made with mortal women and men;
To their siring of heroes, their coming among villages,
The ever-young, ever-living Lords of the heavenly plains
Of royal dwellings under the hollow hills.
By their leave every art and every needful craft
And every good favor comes to man:
A generous flame to every hearth and peace in every breast.”

* * *

The final portion of the Song of Creation establishes the order of the human world and the order of the Godly society that parallels the human world. The entire world has been ordered- the primal duality of light and dark, the flux of creation from the waters, the elements and parts of the world, the order of the land- and now, the primary inhabitants of the land and the other words- men and Gods- must be dealt with.

No one is excluded from the honor given by the song- every human in any of the three estates- the estate of sacred functionaries, scholars and rulers, the estate of warriors and protectors, or the estate of producers and craftsmen. All are necessary to the world, and all are hailed, named into being. Their functions are listed; their tasks; their gifts. The human social world is created, emerged from disorder, a reflection of sacred powers. The function of the sacred is symbolized by a fire and a torc. The fire represents the primordial light, the creative force, but also the energy that drives the flux of creation, and inspiration-force of the bright knowledge. It is the sign of Druids and wise people. The torc represents rulership and political authority.

The function of strength and force, or warriors, is symbolized by sword and a spear; the function of fertility, represented by farmers, mostly, is symbolized by a plow and a cow or bull.

The Gods are likewise hailed and called into being, created, regenerated- called “Victorious”, for by their victory over the dark forces that would thwart life and plunge things into chaos, they are preservers of man and the world. The Godly bravery and gallantry is named- the bonds they made (and still make) with mortals through sacrifice and religious rites or supernatural visitations, their spiritual and physical inter-relation with the mortal world (Lugus is Cu Chulain’s father, for instance) and their other communications and relationships with mortals- their visits in disguise, which are prominent features in Celtic lore.

They are “Lords of the heavenly plains”- thus named, those plains become regenerated; they are those who dwell under the “Hollow Hills”- some of them- since the coming of the Milesians. Gods above and below are named and honored.

The final line of the song is crucial- it is said that the Gods give a generous flame to every heart and peace in every breast. This is a direct reference and “naming invocation” of the “Exalted One”, the Hearth-Goddess who burns in every home and in every village. She- and the simple, powerful peace of a human being who dwells amid the powers created by this song, and in the order for humans and Gods created by this song- are the two final outcomes of the song. She receives all the force of totality, all the powers that have gone before, and they live in her fire. A person blessed to be near that sacred fire knows peace.

They know the peace of the order of the world; the peace of the victory of the Gods that makes for safety and crafts and arts, and the peace of joy among human family, kin, and Gods. The world is complete.

It will remain complete, with various powers harmoniously struggling internally, of course, until the Flux of Creation leads to the “re-gathering of the women”- the return of the flood-waters; when water prevails, the ordered world cycle ends. Another will begin when the Flux of Creation pulses so, and primordial beings emerge again, and the power of the word also emerges, eventually, to sing a new order into being through the mouths and deeds of many beings, primal and historical.


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