Poetry, Religion, History and Art
Around the year 627, when King Edwin of Northumbria and his advisors were discussing the possibility of converting to Christianity, one of them replied this way: Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight […]
One of the many preludes to the great Irish epic, The Táin: What caused the two pig-keepers to quarrel? It is soon told. There was bad blood between Ochall Ochne, the king of the síd in Connacht, and Bodb, king of the Munster síd. (Bodb’s síd is the “Síd ar Femen,” the síd on Femen […]
When Kloskurbeh, the All-maker, lived on earth, there were no people yet. But one day when the sun was high, a youth appeared and called him “Uncle, brother of my mother.” This young man was born from the foam of the waves, foam quickened by the wind and warmed by the sun. It was the […]
In the clear light Of the fire, [Perceval] could see, behind him, The page in charge of his weapons And armor, and handed him The sword, to hold with the rest. And then he rejoined his host, Who’d done him so great an honor. They sat in a hall lit As brightly as candles can […]
In ancient Thebes, the king, Pentheus, has refused to worship the god Dionysus; the god in turn has driven the women of Thebes into an ecstatic religious frenzy, as a messenger describes to the king: Messenger: […]
This whole world is to be dwelt in by the Lord, whatever living being there is in the world. So you should eat what has been abandoned; and do not covet anyone’s wealth. Just performing works in this world, you should desire to live your hundred years. Thus, and not otherwise, in fact, does work […]
God has a tree of flowering souls in Paradise. The angel who sits beneath it is the Guardian of Paradise, and the tree is surrounded by the four winds of the world. From this tree blossom forth all souls, as it is said, “I am like a cypress tree in bloom; your fruit issues forth […]
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