word magic

[CuAnnan]

The words that I post in this thread may or may not be mine.
In each instance, I will state what the source, author and price of the book was if it is not my word magic.  

[CuAnnan]

It's 5.03am
This weekend I have gone to see The Dark Knight and spent a day doing magic that is heavy labor and emotionally demanding.
As a result, I came into possession of a book of what, in English, I can only refer to as "poetry".
Allow me, if you will, to presume a couple of things.
1) You're used to talking to me as a person, not me on ED M&R wherein fact and objective reality is important.
2) You don't know anything else about me as a person.
If you do not say yes to both 1 and 2, there, you can skip this post and go straight on to appreciating the next post.

Here, in the PFRG, where the tone of the forum is supposed to be "teach and learn" not "fact and objective reality", there is very little I can actually give due to

• Culture Clash. A phenomenon that occurs as a result of cognitive dissonance on a cultural level by one or all parties in an intercourse. See what I did there? Unless you studied English from England in the time of Jane Austen, you may well have thought I was referring to sex. I need to prevent all communications here or I've made a mistake and it's my fault if you don't come away from the next post going "Wow, those are ******** awesome pieces of word magic*"
  
• Linguistic Barrier. If a friend of mine does not understand the Irish word for something, I can't teach them anything. Not possible. Too much potential for communication breakdown.
  
• Oath. Most, if not all, of what I practice in a practical way is bound by an oath. Don't know what the oath is? Tough, can't talk about it.
  

Being on the Hill of Tara today, I was given legal permission to copy as much of a book of filíocht onto whatever medium I want.

Filíocht is an example of word magic. If you look it up in a dictionary, all you're going to get by way of translation is "poetry". If you want to say the word "poetry" in Irish, the word is "dáinte" and a poem is a "dán".

Filíocht is actually a surviving Irish tradition of secular word magic. You don't have to be of any religion, you just have to be a Gael. I'm fairly certain that other cultures have the concept of poetry and magic coming together but in Filíocht there is no distinction. Culture clash causes explaining this to be really hard so I thought I'd give some demos.  

[CuAnnan]

The following piece of filíocht comes from a book called "Vigil".
All filíochta in that book was written by the author Kyrie Murphy.
I have been given permission to post this, by the author, as a caveat for buying the book.
You, the reader of this post, have no right to post this on the internet without

• posting the following link http://www.tarapixie.net
  
• understanding the issue of the petition
  
• agreeing to append this list of caveats to the filíochta
  

I have no legal power to enforce this, the author has. He has given me permission with the caveat that it could do some good for the cause, a cause I firmly agree with as a Gael.

Quote:

Protesters
Archaeologists working skillfully
Find another great elk bone
And the tree fellers now work safely
In their new 'exclusion zone'

Hugh speaks fluent Irish
And greets folk with 'a Chara'
And camps alone at Rath Lugh
The last outpost of Tara

Dan comes all the way from Wales
On his flag's a giant red dragon
And JP hands out leaflets
From his old 'wanderly wagon'

Now on his brand new mandolin
Senan plays a real good tune
And Debbie tells all visitors
We're camped her since last June

Tara works extremely hard
And so also does Heather
And their Tipi stands up sturdily
To every kind of weather

Well Heather, she's a teacher
So all heed her advice
Do exactly what she tells you
And then you'll not be 'tolled' twice

This is a ******** awesome piece of filíocht satire.

This poem comes from the same book, the same caveats apply

Quote:

Cromwell and Bertie
Cromwell spoke to Bertie,
saying 'Well done, that's my lad,
How you destroyed those old sites
It makes my old heart glad

'I too bullied the Irish
And I made them shake with fear
But compared to my destruction
You've done a lot more in one year

'How you've violated those old graves
From Ardsallagh to Clonee
And desecrated the Tara Valley
That fills me full of glee.

'In the far and distant future
When driving through Rath Lugh
My name will be forgotten
But they'll remember you.'

If you don't understand how or why this is magic, either contact me off boards or post a question in here.
I'd prefer not to discuss that on this thread. I'll gladly answer it in PM, IM or if there's sufficient demand, I'll devote my segment of the YAPP to it.
What I want to see posted here is word magic from the public domain, from an author who's permission you have to reproduce the work or from you.
I'm going to try and dig out something that I don't need to ask permission for. Most of my filíochta goes to people. I do some in English and hope to, on Tuesday, do a piece for today that maintains Oath (no promises) but, even on that one, I have to ask another person if they approve of it before I get to post it.

If you can't understand what word magic is from this example, I will have another tomorrow.

For now, good night and good posting.  

[CuAnnan]

*edit*  

[TheDisreputableDog]

I think I understand the second one. The first one though I don't think I quite grasp.

My Kemetic path (I don't know about others) recognizes "heka," which is...difficult for me to explain, but "word magic" is adequate. Heka (capital H) is also a god, actually. Heka (little h) is the power of written or spoken words.

One story that expresses this is that of Aset tricking Ra into telling Her His true name. She shaped a snake with her magic that bit Ra, and He could not heal Himself because the snake was not of His creation (unlike everything else in the world). Aset told Him She needed His true name in order to heal Him, and He gave it to Her, whereupon She cured His sickness.

Not only are the events of the story an example of heka, but reciting the tale over someone who had been venomously bitten was supposed to heal them. You can see an amusing illustrated version of the story here.

In several of the creation stories the world was created with a spoken word. Aset, is called "effective of speech" and "excellent of words," an acknowledgement of her great magic.

One of my favorite pieces of heka is from the Coffin Texts, and the translation I use is by Tamara L. Siuda:

Quote:

Hail to you my heart,
Seat of my personality,
Do not forsake me.

The 42 Purifications (Utterance 125) from The Book of Coming Forth by Day are heka that make a deceased person's heart ready to be judged on the scales before entering the Duat.