Discovering The Sidhe - Within Flowing Waters

One set of folklore stories I have heard tell of the Sidhe being descendants of Atlantis.

Dreams Of Atlantis by Flavio Bolla

While living a short time in Pembrokeshire, I heard a similar story of the Sidhe originating from the lost underworld city of Ys, off of the Brittany coast.

This is far away from what I personally believe the Sidhe is, or are. For a start there is no direct Irish connection. But I do believe this area of folklore is worth attention. 

To talk of sidhe, fairy race, and fairy world it would be very easy to re-enter the shaggy dog discussions of who were, or are, the Celts. Shaggy dog meaning there is no end to such discussions.

Celtic Village by National Museum of Wales

I tend to think that the Celt branding word gives us a nice grouping name for a bunch of tribes and cultures, just like Negro has long been used as a word for grouping people living on the African continent, but there are many different tribes and cultures there and along with general physical differences.

Someone I was talking to recently shared something that I thought was inspiring. He believed it was very tough to sustain the old languages without holding the Celtic identity together. If we talk about Celtic identity through sustaining languages then this is no longer about connection of ancestral DNA, though there is a lot of pride in that too. 

To me, it does seem that tribal and cultural formations and break-ups were not mainly through battles, but through major changes in water flow.

I could write a whole article or two on that, but I think some of the key legends and folklore are the sinking of Atlantis, the buried city under the sea off of the Breton coast, a lost city under Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland

Also a mass of tribes from lands where the North Seas in now and Doggerland of the English Channel.

I find this all fascinating because it shows that water is beyond being the emergence of life, but also the emergence of civilisations and their cultures. This rise of civilisations being influenced by the flows and availability of water.

The flow of water has also seeded causes of war through the ages as each tribe challenged their access to water rights. As civilisations and cultures grew water occupied quite a position in religious concepts, contemplation and practices. 

I think most of us, through our personal wisdom, understand water as being the source of life, and that trees and plants cannot grow without it. We cannot survive without water, nor can trees and plants that water helps to create.

I believe we also understand the regenerative ability of water, its power to energise fertility, fill wombs, and bring about new birth.

All together we may view this as the cycle of life itself, and respect water as being the nourishing healer through all of our life cycles. 

We understand that the ebb and flow cycles of tides are governed by the moon, as it imitates the cycles of the Earth. We still use these Moon cycles more than the modern Gregorian calendar to plan our sowing and harvesting.

We also understand that water is never created. It does not matter how water is contained, it always eventually releases itself back to the earth, bogland, pond, stream, river, weather, clouds, and water wells.

The Water Sidhe by Arwens Grace

When we die, the water contained in our bodies, which is most of our bodies, leaves our bodies to meet up again where water flows. And that water is always part of rain, snow, storms, and floods.

All of those water wisdoms, that we may take for granted through daily living, gives water significance within all religions around the world.

Tully Well, Kildare

Rivers, loughs, lochs, lakes, and Holy Wells seem to take priority of this. There is a growing trend in some countries to bring about legislation to give rivers and lakes similar protection and care rights as a human is supposed to have.

Water has been an enduring importance within what we may call, Celtic Pagan practice.

Water is also very well honoured through the Christian church movement.

Cullionmore Well, nr Mullingar, Co. Westmeath

Rivers and their spring sources, often named holy well, are intimately associated with Celtic traditions and folklore.

Water sources are especially revered when we speak of divine mothers, goddesses, and especially the Sidhe. At last I have brought the Sidhe in by name.

Gwragadd Annwn, Welsh Water Fairy, source unknown

When we think of water sources within Celtic, especially Gaeilge, concepts of the ‘Otherworld’ this is revered as our main source of wisdom as well as being the intimate womb of all life born.

The Celtic, Gaeilge spoken, Otherworld in folklore has always been mainly focused on a body of water.

The mythological Otherworld is spoken of as being within lakes that are within mountains, or being worlds below surface lakes and below seas.

From these Otherworld water realms are stories of animals manifested from gods and goddesses. The flow of these stories is usually a goddess or god assuming an animal shape such as a wolf, horse, dragon, bull, or even great birds like Eagles.

Perhaps the best known goddess to wildlife manifestation, or identification, is the salmon with it’s infinite wisdom.

My own favourite Nature Folklore stories are about descriptions of the hazel nuts of Knowledge, though I believe ‘Wisdom’ is a more appropriate word than ‘Knowledge’. 

These stories tell of hazel nuts being eaten by salmon, so that they become ‘Salmon Of Wisdom’. After they have eaten the salmon their bodies release bubbles that I do not think are fish farts. 

These are ‘Bubbles Of Mystic Inspiration’, and if they pop in our face will enchant us. 

The story of Sinann fishing for the salmon at ‘Connla’s Well’ is a popular storytelling of the Salmon Of Wisdom/Knowledge … though the location of ‘Connla’s Well’ is quite disputed. Connla’s Well is also featured in Boann of the Boyne doing the same, though that well is also told of as being Well Of Seagas too.

These days, the Shannon Pot in Co. Cavan is the starting point of this story, and recently that has been disputed again. Never mind, it’s the story I am focusing on here. 

Around the Shannon Pot, that maybe is Connla’s Well, though that is very vague, the story tells of ‘Nine Hazel Trees Of Crimall The Sage’ that dropped their ripe nuts into the water pool. 

The story tells of these fallen nuts absorbing ‘magic spells’ from the wizardry within the dark mist of the water. Then a lurking salmon eats these nuts, becoming a ‘Salmon Of Knowledge’. The salmon’s body then released bubbles that flowed along the surface of the stream from the spring of the well. 

Most stories told today seem to tell of Sinann catching the Salmon Of Knowledge, and eating it, even though she had been forbidden to do so by an elder or elders of different names, depending on the story you hear.

When I first heard the Sinann story she bobbed her head into the water spring to catch the mystic bubbles, from the Salmon in her mouth, rather than eat the fish. Then her physical body became drowned by the bubbles as her own spirit water was released from her body to rejoin the Sidhe again. 

A more common interpretation is that Sinann became the Goddess of The River Shannon, named after her.

Blessing the water at Shannon Pot, the disputed source of the River Shannon

Going back to the beginning of this article where I mentioned I have heard the telling of the Sidhe as being descendants of Atlantis. I feel that that story may be similar to the Sinann/Shannon story. I can imagine a story of Atlanteans, Minoan people, drowning in the sea and their spirits rejoining the Sidhe, and as the Sidhe is a timeless realm, their spirits are with us today. Not here as ancestral individuals, through my own belief, but as part of a whole energy of life that is perhaps capable of serving us memories of ancestral individuals.

It often surprises me how Minoan folklore mythology does seem to repeat itself through Irish folklore mythology.

Through the next and final chapter article of this ‘Discovering The Sidhe’ series, I will look closer into the folklore of the origins of lakes and rivers, more about the Sidhe and holy wells. I will also chat more about fairy trees and wishing trees as that article will be a transition into my next series, ‘Us And Trees’.

It is my pleasure to continue to send you free Nature Folklore articles almost every Sunday.

If you would like to join my 'Journaling Nature Folklore' course?
20 optional modules a year, join in from any module any time as this is a cycle course.
4 seasonal online workshops to exchange how each other is purposing the course 
and one on one sessions by email.
Please consider upgrading to monthly or very discounted annual subscription and get instant access to my 'Journaling Nature Folklore' course modules.