"DRAGON": A Morass of Confusion (at least to me).

I rather like the idea of "Dragon". I've read Tolkien, CSLewis, McCaffrey. LeGuin, Rowling. All rollicking good "easy" romantic reading. In all of those modern popular dragon stories the dragons are big reptiles with wings and [I believe in all] four legs, fly about and spout fire from their mouths. Most of which is entirely preposterous vis-a-vis every biological and physical principle. So, I say to myself: if there are or ever were dragons, they were/are paranormal and in their "Magonian-Faerie Way" non-residents. But they are the furthest edge of Cryptozoology, so like most of that I once collected a file [now, as usual, back in Michigan where I can't get at it]. [By the way, Mother's care is weighing a bit again on me, and my "free time" in the evenings is minimal --- so who knows how long it will take me to get through this topic].

An attempt to study the Dragon has, for me, been nearly impossible. I believe that this is because there is no singular definition of what we're even talking about. When I do my feeble messing about in the literature, I run across firmly stated use of the term "dragon" applied to a huge number of tales, wherein the entities involved may have very little common characteristics and certainly are at least clearly not the same thing. For me to feel that I'm making any progress on a topic, I need to have a better idea of what I'm really researching. That means taking a big pile of what are to me different things, and separating them, and calling them different things. And I am aware that few will like this idea, but it's all I can do.

Look at the table above: all of those "categories" of beasts have had representatives called "dragons" by someone. I don't get it [scientifically anyway --- there are historical and linguistic reasons for lumping some unlike things together, but that doesn't mean we have to continue the confusion]. Pliny in his Natural History talked of the "draconids" of Africa and of India. Whether they were real or not [great snakes battling elephants are pretty hard to buy], he clearly describes them as great big snakes. Rather than call them Dragons then, I'd rather call them Great Big Snakes [brilliantly creative, eh?] and get them out of the Dragon discussion.

Same with Sea Serpents or Sea Monsters. If that's what they're described as, let's call them that. Big land-walking [part-of-the-time]  reptiles --- hmmmm, how about Big Land Reptiles? If we want "dinosaurs" to fit into cryptozoology discussions, let's call them Dinosaurs and not Dragons. Pterodactyls et al? Thunderbirds? Sound like perfectly good concepts to me. Now, large flying reptiles with wings and legs --- THAT's close enough for me. Add fire-breathing and we have two classes of Dragons that might sensibly be studied. I'll call them, "Minor Dragons" [without fire] and "Major Dragons" [with]. As I've said, I know no one else will think this useful, but at least it is the basis for this post.

When I look for support for a concept which seems on the surface ridiculous, I'm hoping for one of two things: 1). encounter stories which have some real credibility; or 2). a very rich folklore tradition beyond the mere fairy tale type literary invention. UFOs get away with just the first since the mountain of well-researched incidents is so large. Faerie encounters get away with both elements working pretty strongly in their favor. Sea serpents, similarly. What about Dragons?

Let's begin a shallow search [I apologize upfront folks for not being able to really get after this topic, but maybe you can fill in the blanks].


What did St. George Fight?


From the illustration above it's pretty clear that he fought a Dragon. But he didn't. St.George is walking along minding his saintly business in pre-seventh century Libya when he comes to the city of Silene. By the city is a lake, and inhabiting the lake is a "dragon" [not]. This evil beast bears plague and when it ventures out of the lake, carries sickness to the city. To get it to at least stay in the lake, the citizens have been feeding it sheep. The dragon-not has tired of a sheep-only diet and is rampaging again. The people decided, in one of those ultimate bonehead decisions that only humans could come up with, to feed it their children --- yep, not the adults, no sirree bob, not them. The king's daughter gets chosen in her turn, and is ready for sacrifice. "And then along came Jones [St.George]".

St. George charged the thing and lanced it. Using the daughter's girdle as a leash [and the Sign of the Cross] she and he led the wounded monster into the city. He gave them an offer they couldn't refuse: if they'd all become Christians, he'd slay the dragon-not right there. They did and he did. [this is not the high point of my Catholic faith in terms of conversion mechanisms]. They buried the dragon-not and built a church on top. A healing spring flowed out and it was miracles galore.

George fought a Lake Monster, not a dragon. Despite the painting ... and later quite entertaining Hollywood take-offs.

What did Perseus Fight? 


Well, you folks are already ahead of me on this one. It's pretty obvious that the St. George story is the wonderful old Perseus and Andromeda legend from Greece isn't it? I always liked this tale as it gave me the chance to pretend that I was some kind of hero ready to defend the beautiful lady in distress [forgive me, ladies, it's an instinct, and not the worst one we guys have]. Anyway, under very similar circumstances to the St.George tale, the beast emerges from the ocean to devour Andromeda, and Perseus swoops in on Pegasus and dispatches it. He does such an admirable job that everyone gets to be immortalized in the Heavens because of it.

But Perseus fought a Sea Monster, not a Dragon.

What did Columcille [Columba] confront?


Everyone knows this one, too. St. Columcille is wending his way from Iona towards northern Scotland trying to wrest the people away from the colleges of the Druids [in a remarkably peaceful but philosophically combative journey] and he comes to the River Ness. There a huge Water Serpent has risen up and is threatening mayhem to the locals in a nearby boat. Columcille addresses the Serpent and in the Name of the Cross commands it to leave. This "Image of the Devil" [as the early Christians liked to view it] submerges under the waters and goes away. Everyone is of course impressed.

Columcille confronted a Lake or Sea Monster, not a dragon.

What did Marduk fight?

Well, Marduk didn't fight a Dragon either. The oft-labeled "dragon" Tiamat was a deity who represented something primordial in the forces of Nature. At the deepest level, Tiamat was one of the two great original realities [Chaos], the other being Abzu, I believe, representing Order. In that, the ancient Sumerians were absolutely brilliant intuitives, as this is in essence what philosopher-theologians now see as the Chaos from which the Order-Giver [God] brought forth the Universe. In the old Mesopotamian myth, forces of Order must fight Tiamat and the forces of Chaos, Order [led by Marduk] triumphing. Tiamat, when portrayed at all, is not at all dragonish. Sometimes, as above, she is more of a winged mixture of many animals --- but the etching is deceptive. Wings never appear on the early Tiamat.

Using the cylinder seal representations as a guide [and this is the reason for this post: I was reading the very first copy of Scribner's Magazine, January 1887, and therein was an article analyzing several hundred such seals], and there was the clear evidence that Tiamat and other Sumerian deities were Not pictured with wings until well over a thousand years later in the later Babylonian and Assyrian empires.

Tiamat was pictured rather more interestingly --- as a horned sea serpent with TWO front legs! This is the description of a primitive whale or Zeuglodont. How in the world would they have come up with this had they not seen one??

Well, whether the Sumerians had encountered Zeuglodonts or not [I, of course, like that idea], Marduk fought a sea serpent / sea monster, not a dragon.

I'm going to call it a "Part One" now. Old man is tired, both back and head. Whenever I get to Part Two, I'm going to try to find some real dragons or at least some wings somewhere, and if lucky some fire.

Till then, blessings.

An "Angel" in Indonesia?

A friend of mine who frequently reads this blog [Frank John Reid] sent me a video that's going around You-Tube currently about an alleged filming of an "angel" manifestation in Jakarta, Indonesia [c. last fall]. Although the film is not very evidential, and could rather easily be a hoax for no more information that's given [even on a brief foray into Google], the pictures are at least interesting enough not to bore you. But the reason that I'm writing about it at all is that, once again, we are demonstrating that our establishment commentators are in fact Homo Unsapiens, and the irresponsible media is happy to go along. In other words, I'm, as usual, angered by the stupidity of our species and am engaged in a bit of Rant-Therapy. But the pictures are at least diverting [and maybe even anomalous] so you might be able to put up with this.

The incident allegedly takes place at night [seemingly after closing hours] at a modern storefront of some kind in Jakarta. The footage is stated to be from an [assumed] outdoor security camera, which would be a vital piece of information to determine. In the shot above, a pedestrian has just strolled by the scene looking completely normal [now out of the scene].

The manifestation of the lightform then begins. It is a lightening of the area in front of the store window on the sidewalk. It could be true that this moment is only some slight increase in the camera sensing light, but given the location of the coming lightform, it is possible that a slight light increase is real.

Then, boom, there the "thing" is --- someone with better film copy and equipment can probably see more of this "coming-to-be" --- and you DO get the feeling of a fast-but-gradual emergence --- but this is the best that I can do. Note that the store window is now more illuminated.

The roughly butterfly shape is slightly more defined in this next iteration, but asymmetrical. As I have a prejudice for symmetry, I instinctively don't like this, but realize that I am being stupid if I let that bother me.

The thing takes a more refined form with a clear nucleus and a gap in one "wing". MAYBE the so-called "tail" is real; maybe it's just more light on the sidewalk.

The thing fattens up a bit [or in hoax terms, the translucent lamp cover is tilted more towards the reflective surface], and becomes symmetrical. The "tail" pulls up towards the "body".

Now the thing begins to compress or "squat". It's like it is going to flex and "bounce" out of there. This whole business takes place in two seconds or less.

Though more refined, this shot is "thinner" and the "tail" is back.

Thinner yet as the image again slightly compresses.

Now the thing begins to pulse larger, with pretty nice form.

Getting ready to make its move.

Lift-off. Looking quite like the first manifestation.

Moving. Notice the small gap between "wing-to-right" and that reflective bit of sidewalk that has been messing with our eyes earlier.

Condensing and going.

Mere lightfuzz moving out, up and right. Note decrease in ground illumination.

End of game. Our friend is just about out of the frame to the upper right. Sidewalk has returned to shadow. Shortly, a handful of men run across the street to the scene... one has a flashlight. A claim was that one or more were security people from the other side of the street.

So... well, first let me discharge my scream therapy.

1). The Huffington Post entitled this something like video of angel called hoax. Their "authority" for this was UPI, who apparently said that they believed it was a hoax based on You-Tube comments!! I mean --- Lord help us! What absolute anti-scientific or even intellectual crap.

2). But Homo Unsapiens was on the way to the rescue. The comments which sunk the "angel's boat" were that "we have ONE STATIC PICTURE". On the ONE STATIC PICTURE "a picture of the alleged light being was mounted". Damm. Wouldn't you like to forget your gospel spirituality just for a moment and find these people and rearrange their faces?  --- sorry --- one, two, three .... and that was it; end of story.

3). Probably the worst thing about all of that was that UPI and Huffington Post printed that crap, with the HP featuring it in their title.

4). Another commenter whom they are happy to quote says: a). "nothing in that lobby moves except it". DUH --- the store is apparently closed and the event took TWO SECONDS! [you dork ... whoops, sorry]. and b). "then suddenly after it disappears, we see a man who is walking by apparently unbaffled "... you know the stupidity which occurs through denial is unlimited. That idiot [whoops, sorry] either is a braindead fool [SORRRRY, just can't help it on stuff like this], or he watched the video backwards.  His "analysis" has the sequence of the video completely wrong!! HOW is that possible?

5). And once again HP printed the debunking garbage.

So, did an angel or anything mysterious appear in that Jakarta "mall" area? We really have no idea. Certainly UPI and HP don't. At an absolute minimum, whether the camera footage was from an outdoor security camera would have to be known. If it was not, then the rigging of such a light manifestation on a personal camera [with some cleverness] could probably be done easily, and then all one would need would be a few friends to run across the street immediately to the area with a flashlight.

If it WAS the outside security camera, then the hoax gets tougher, especially if you didn't have an inside guy capable of getting the official cassette to work on. The fake probably would have to include a rather large lightsource to blast on the opposite side of the street and somehow giving the impression of something suspended in the air. It seems to me to be a little more of an "explanatory difficulty" if the camera were a formal security system one. And then we'd need a few "witness testimonies" wouldn't we?

But we seem to have none of that --- so off to the gigantic gray-basket this goes. Some people are claiming to see a humanoid inside the lightform. Someone even claimed to see it turn its head. I don't see anywhere near enough detail for anything at all, let alone that. COULD it have been some sort of "intrusion" from elsewhere? Until we have a lot better information, why not? There are certainly bunches of incidents in UFO files which smack of such a possibility.

Of one thing I'm fairly sure: this screwed up species of ours is never going to discover answers to any of these "forbidden categories" things until we stop printing the nonsense which spews forth from certain "Analysts'" heads. There may be a hidden reason why "analysis" and "anal" are of the same spelling.

Sorry.... well, maybe not TOO sorry.

Going Bump in the Day: another "Happy Poltergeist" incident.

We tend to think of Ghosts, Hauntings, Poltergeists et al as sinister, but sometimes, some locations, they manifest in almost purely benign ways. Some of these repetitive phenomena may go on and on without even a "trickster" element in them the majority of the time. In a way, it's as if "they" [whatever "they" are] are merely going about their "lives" in some poltergeisty way, rather indifferent to our own. Such a poltergeist manifests in my brother and sister-in-law's house, and another incident worth mentioning occurred recently, so I'll tell you about it. It was a pretty neat one as you'll read.

Although I am quite ready to subscribe to the hypothesis stated above, and although two cats prowl this particular house, this event wasn't their doing. [Sometimes, admittedly, one begins to wonder if certain cats aren't deliberately doing mischief themselves however ... but that is another "mystery" that I will never solve.]

So, no. The cats weren't up to this one. Here's the background for the event:

The house is a historical Victorian rowhouse built in the 1880s. It is the best preserved in Wheeling and is on the national historical registry, and is quite attractive and "interesting". I can see why a ghost might want to hang around in it, if it had nothing better to do. There have been a string of incidents ever since my brother and sister-in-law bought it and fixed it up --- hmmmm... eight or so? years ago. Most of these things are apparently-human-induced sound patterns, equipment shutting on or off at "inappropriate" times with no one in the vicinity, the occasional spectacular object movement, and a variety of less bulk-categorizable incidents, but also including several apparitions. Occasionally more than one person is present to experience whatever this is.

On this day, the house was occupied by my sister-in-law, two grandchildren, two grandchildren-in-law, and of course two cats. To set something aside right off, all these people like each other [and the cats], and none of the kids is experiencing any "bad times" or unusual stresses. They are good and happy kids. The kids are also very "conservative" straight-shooter types, who really like their grandma. William Roll's "stressed pre-puberty teen-ager" hypothesis is right out the window.

My sister-in-law was on the ground floor when she heard and felt vibrations directly through the ceiling above [the main bedroom], as if someone was jumping on the bed. And that's what she thought [even though that's not kosher in the house, and the kids don't do it]. At that time, the three girls were on the second floor and so could be the culprits. The older boy had escaped the girls to the third floor and was losing himself in video games.

The girls wandered downstairs, and were asked one by one if they'd been jumping on the bed. All said no. Well, OK, but they're still the leading hypothesis, correct? They said that they weren't in the bedroom, and while in another room didn't even hear the "jumping" sound.

Then the jumping started again with all four of them in the first floor room. And again it was directly overhead. The girls said: " Kenny's here", and in unison agreed that that this is "who" it was.

A short back-step: veteran readers of this blog [with good memories] will remember that "Kenny" is/was an old family member from the early twentieth century era, who died young. "He" has for several years manifested apparitionally to one of my sister-in-law's grandchildren, who visits her grandma frequently. These manifestations have particularly large evidentiary "punch", because "he" identified himself by name to the grandchild at a time when no such "kenny" was known to the family --- this young boy NOT being formally named "Kenny", but the fact that he had been called that as a nickname only was discovered later. Very peculiar and interesting element of this situation.

Well, back to this recent moment: as the jumping continued, the grand-daughter who had the long term "relationship" with Kenny, looked up at the ceiling and shouted: "Kenny!! Quit jumping on the bed!!".

.... and "he" did. That particular manifestation stopped and did not resume.

Kenny seems a happy ghost, indeed. The best kind really if you have to have one around the house.

And who/what is Kenny?? You're on your own on that one. I satisfy myself with the [to me] FACT, that he/it is real, and is not any common physically-reducible phenomenon, but rather some element of the spirit or psychic aspect of our world.

Something Small (and Confusing) This Way Comes.

We met Ron Quinn a little while ago on the blog due to this terrific collection of Little People encounters that he received from persons living mainly in the Catskill area of New York state. John Timmerman, however, met him in 1991 in Tucson, AZ, when John was exhibiting the CUFOS photo exhibit there. Ron Quinn was a writer and an artist/cartoonist as well as other creative sorts of interests, who was fascinated by both the UFO phenomenon and the Little People phenomenon ever since having his own experiences with each in the 1940s [in Washington state and New York state, respectively]. He had settled for some while in the Tucson area, living mainly by writing for newspapers and weeklies, and making films. He came up to John to tell him of what he felt to be the most peculiar anomalistic claim that he'd been involved with, though it was an experience which had not happened directly to him.

Here's how the story goes: Ron had an old friend of about twenty years living in Tucson. His friend had been a high school math teacher, was a solidly conservative person in his beliefs and interests, and Ron was the type of close friend between which there would be no "funny business", even if the friend's personality had been different. The friend was retired at the time [1988] and liked to drive about southern Arizona pursuing his favorite hobby, photography. One day in 1988, Ron got an excited phonecall asking him to meet him at the Denny's restaurant on Oracle road [that's it above; thought it was just fun to put the real one in there]. Ron hurried on over and got an earful of a story.

Ron's friend, who he wanted to keep anonymous, so he called him "Sam", liked photographing Arizona's old Ghost Towns, and one of them was nearly to the US-Mexico border, the old mining town of Ruby.

Rubies weren't mined there, but Lead, Zinc, and Silver were. The mine was particularly profitable for Lead and Zinc in its hay-day. Sam had visited Ruby many times and doubtlessly photographed everything in the town area worth shooting, so he had taken to wandering around the rough mountainous surroundings, camera in hand.

A prominent feature which you can't miss from the town is Montana Peak. This is, in fact, a somewhat popular destination for casual hiker-climbers in southern Arizona, though hardly any tourist Mecca. Most days there are no people anywhere about the peak. It was one such day when Sam encountered the "alien".

You have to get well beyond Ruby to the back side of Montana Peak to find yourself at "the scene of the crime". Sam had been exploring the backside canyons and what is called California Gulch, when he heard an odd whishing sound in the air. Whether this had anything at all to do with his later encounter, who knows? About twenty-to-thirty minutes later, Sam is walking down one of the small washed out "canyons", when he spots a small "something". The being turned to face Sam, and, though startled, Sam, camera in hand, shot a picture. At that, the being turned away and rapidly scrambled up about 100 feet of fairly steep angled cliff-face. Sam tried to follow, but age and athleticism failed him. By the time he finally got to the top, the being was gone from sight. Other than scuff marks, it also left no prints.

Now shaken by the full realization of the oddity of the experience, Sam got down the mountain, into his car, drove to Tucson, nervously glancing around a good bit of the way, convinced that he should have, somehow, not been there and certainly not shot a picture. [You and I may not have felt this way, but Sam, as said was a very conservative-thinking and socially-nervous person]. He had the roll of film developed at the local Walgreens [again showing that this guy was a naive sort of fellow], got his prints back with the picture of the being there, and called Ron. At Denny's, he showed Ron the photo as he told him the story.

Ron wanted him to submit the photo for analysis, but Sam was scared and wanted to seek his brother in San Diego for advice. He kept the photo, but Ron was able to stare at it for nearly an hour. That was plenty for him, an artist, to get back home, sit down and sketch the being from fresh memory. That is, of course, the sketch you see above. The photo appeared to show a creature, very humanoid, standing about 7 to 8 feet away from the photographer. The creature's height was four to four-and-a-half foot tall, and it was clad in a tight-fitting dull silverish coverall. You can see the shape of the head and sense perceptors for yourself on the sketch. Quinn had time to study the photo even with a magnifying glass, so he felt that he had this almost exactly correct.

The story ends mysteriously but not happily for research. Sam went to visit his brother's home for the Christmas holidays.Before he left [he had apparently contacted his brother by phone], he told Ron that he was not going to give the photo up for analysis, but rather would try to make some money off it [what his brother wanted to do] or just try to forget about the whole thing [which is what he, given his personality, seemed to want to do]. Ron never saw him again [nor did the photo surface]. Sam's home grew eerily abandoned, then one day it had been emptied.

In the meanwhile, Ron had published the story in the weekly Southern Arizona Trails journal, and was later interviewed by a Tucson TV station about the mystery. The TV piece was 1990. In 1991 here he was again telling John the same story that he wrote about and was interviewed about earlier. Quinn was out-spokenly convinced that this friend was FAR away from any sort of hoaxer, and that the photo that he studied so closely was a real photo. But WHAT really was it a photo of?

Quinn and Sam apparently immediately thought that the creature photographed was an "Alien", by which Quinn means either extraterrestrial or a terrestrial time-traveler [this latter is a bankrupt concept in my mind but some see it as possible]. Unfortunately there was no UFO anywhere in the experience. Quinn "likes" the ETH/TT hypotheses I believe because he thinks that the creature looks right for that. With the possible exception of the dull silver suit, I feel no urge to go there with any conviction. Quinn also seems to prefer a sort of bald-headed clean-cut alien vs scruffy-faced mediaeval-clothed Little Person dichotomy. Well, I get the urge to follow old imprintings, but the Faerie trickster is well up to manifesting in a clean-shaven bald-headed look. My mind is open on what we are treated to here.

Once again, our debunkers won't give this the time of day. They could be evidentially right in the end, but are certainly attitudinally wrong at this time. Ron Quinn says that this came from a very old trusted friend. He reported on his friend's sighting immediately to the local community [some of whom probably had pretty shrewd guesses about whom he was talking]. He stuck with the story for years. This counts for something. It at least counts for a vote for some open-mindedness.

But still, what was this thing from the backside of Montana Peak?? Strange things are said to exist in places like California Gulch. Will you be the stalwart intrepid explorer who ventures down into the Earth to find them??

If you ever return, let the rest of us know.

The Wise Woman of Lisclogher

Hello again folks. I'm going to try to get back into some pattern again for producing entries for our adventures into the mysterious, now that I'm a week back to Wheeling and maybe see a pattern to my own life [mainly as it relates to visiting Mom]. I don't think that this will increase to some flurry of activity, but I hope for one-a-week, if lucky.

This tale today comes from my reading into those old journals that I bought from the local Paradox book seller [a good name for an anachronistic shop which we should retain more of]. The journal was Littell's Living Age, January 1904 version. As a general remark, just the few of these journals that I've flipped through so far indicate, to my preferences anyway, that there are a lot of experiences written about in these things, which we are on the verge of forgetting, and shouldn't be. Maybe re-telling some of them here will do a "Fortean" service.

This particular recounting took place in the area of Ireland marked above. The Wise Woman lived in Lisclogher, marked as the large white circle, and another rural healer lived at Kilpatrick, marked with the pink teardrop. So the lady who wrote of this had her manor house somewhere roughly in that area. This lady, who "rejoiced" in the name of Ermengarda Greville-Nugent, had a servant who was suffering from chronic pains. Fortunately he knew of a "wise woman" who had the gift to cure such an ailment. Ermengarda granted his wish to make the half day roundtrip to affect the cure. His problem was described as "Sciatica". He reported:

"Bedad then, me lady, she has me nearly cured already. I was with her again 'ere yesterday, and me legs feel rale limber to what they were before ... she's a wonderful woman entirely, so she is".


The lady of the manor was a woman of intelligence and curiosity and so decided to go herself to see this fragment of the ancient past, as so it seemed to be.

Making her way, with a friend, through this area of rural farming country, they came not upon some witch's hut in the forest but a simple but nice Irish cottage. Nothing wealthy about it, but nothing mean nor run-down either.

The wise woman was waiting for them, probably not through paranormal means but merely by the simple rural methods of everyone talking about every new thing which is heading ones way. The fact that it was the lady's servant man who had recently been cured, made the introductions easy, without any problem of trust in strangers.

There was nothing at all weird about the wise woman. She did not have raggedy hair, teeth, nor clothes. She did not look to be descended from Elves nor Leprechauns. She was, in fact, a nice-looking older, well-kempt female, thoroughly "normal" and of good sense. The ladies felt at ease immediately.

After the politeness of the getting-to-know-one-another preliminaries, and after the wise woman came to understand that the ladies had come to inquire about what she did and how, she showed remarkable willingness to talk to them about it, while the lady-of-the-manor made notes. At some level these two people must have "hit it off" and the wise woman realized that the lady was genuinely interested in the cures and in preserving at least the knowledge of the value of the Old Ways.

The wise woman told the lady that the secret of being able to cure these sorts of nerve pains had been handed down in her family from generations far back in time. The cure involved two sorts of things: the semi-silent [muttering] of a "charm", and the "bathing" of the affected area with stream water AND pebbles from that stream. She did not have the ability to cure just any indisposition, but there seemed to be a loose network of healers scattered about, each knowing of the others and respecting what each could do. The wise woman had been, in fact, on a later visit from the lady, boarding a young girl who was suffering a different sort of leg inflammation, which the wise woman could not cure by her charm, but a healer in Kilpatrick, John Murray, could. The girl had been brought halfway to Murray and the wise woman would arrange for her multiple trips to Murray from there. The wise woman's name was "Mrs. O'Brien" by the way, but I do not think her first name is mentioned. She had a daughter, Katey Alanna, who seemed clearly to be there learning how to keep the healing tradition going.

They ultimately went inside the house, while the wise woman continued to speak about the facts concerning healings.

"The most of the cures does be with prayers, me lady; but I cure the St.Agnes' Fire and the Wild Fire with errebs [herbs]". 

Despite that last hint of herbal remedies, there were no cauldrons nor ominous pots, nor hanging strange plants inside. As the lady wrote: if this was a witch, she was the "whitest magical" witch one could picture. Nevertheless, as the conversation piled up, it was clear that the wise woman had a great many cures that she could [in her mind at least] cure, even if she was not empowered to handle just anything. In her mind, the main key was the secret charm, which could not be revealed to an outsider or it lost its potency. It also lost its ability if used for something deemed trivial, like using it on an animal. The lady gathered that the charm was some combination of words from basic Catholic prayers, but did not pry further.

The lady of the manor had rheumatism in one of her arms, not terribly but sufficient for a test. Her curiosity was on fire by now, and she asked the wise woman if she would effect a cure. The wise woman inspected the arm, pronounced it not so bad, warned the lady that she'd probably have to come back for three treatments, and asked Katey Alanna to fetch the water tin.

To affect a cure for such rheumatic pain, it was necessary to fetch water from a moving stream [a pond or a puddle will not do]. Also, the water must be "riz" [gathered into the container] before noon, and the charm itself worked only on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, though applied then, it did not fail.

The lady walked with the wise woman to the nearby stream; it flowed slowly, but that was fine for as little an ailment as she had. Had this been a bigger task, the wise woman would have had to go farther afield to find mightier running water. She harvested the water against its flow [capturing the power of its motion?]. And she blessed the action with the sign of the cross and its words. At the same time, she selected three pebbles from that area of the stream.

Back at the house, she began bathing the affected area of the arm with stream water, while having the lady bless herself and the two saying an Our Father and a Hail Mary. Then as she laved on the water she muttered the secret charm. These "passings" were first with the pebbles and then with water alone. When it was done [all in threes], they walked back to the stream, where the wise woman returned the water and the pebbles, this time in the direction of the flow. She told the lady that she would have to return three times for the treatment; and had the ailment been severe, nine times.

And she said: that the lady's arm would soon go numb. After a while feeling would return but she would continue to feel occasional twinges running up and down all the way to her fingertips. The lady gladly paid the woman a fee, happy for the adventure, and traveled back home.

So what was happening here? There was nothing about the wise woman which suggested a powerfully magickal witch hag, as we have been warned by our churches to shun. But SOMETHING WAS happening. The cure WORKED. The lady's arm grew numb just as promised. When the numbness wore off, the twinges down to the fingertips manifested before they too subsided. With two more trips to the wise woman, the lady's rheumatic pain was gone.

During these later two visits they sat and talked about all manner of healing lore and many other olden things as well. One day she and Katey were telling of the need to carefully rake the coals of the evening fire before bedtime. Simple you say, of course. But there was more to it. The coals needed to be raked a certain way with saying a charm prayer AND NEVER WITH IRON. Why? Some of you have guessed it. The Little People. If "anything" [the way she spoke of the Little People without naming them all the time] is in the house, they cannot approach the embers for warmth if they have been raked with iron. This of course will anger them, and you don't want that.

She went on to explain how the Little People got here at all, and it was the typical Olde Irish explanation of the Middle Angels. In her version, the Lord had it up to his Mighty Beard with Satan's arrogance and had Michael begin kicking all the non-obedient angels out of Heaven. Some were whacked down to Hell [the really bad ones], while some of the not as bad ones had their fall limited by landing on Earth. Michael was about to wreak havoc on those who had only fallen halfway, when Mary [I don't know how she was around yet in this Cosmo-theology, but...] cried to Jesus for mercy as heaven was becoming vacant, and God relented, told Michael to pack it in, and let these not-as-bad guys live here as leprechauns and pookhas. Well, with a little re-organizing of the key Actors, that's a fine tale by me.

So what can we say? The wise woman's cures worked. Did they work because the charm and the ritual had "power" in itself? Did they work because the water had some healing "energy"? Did they work because everybody believed that they would? And that because God did it? Or was it Mind/Body medicine? Maybe the answers to those questions are "YES".

I loved the story, and felt "comfortable" in the wise woman's world. Plus, she seemed to me to be the 19th century result of a very old synthesis of Catholicism and Druidism. The Catholic faith here was gradually overlaying the druidical nature wisdom, whether the ultimate overlay was making sense or not. Notice all the threes. THAT is the druidical number. Yes, Catholicism has the Trinity, but everything in Druidism comes in threes. The lady of the manor reflected upon how in her studies she had found a striking similarity of folk beliefs about these matters all the way to the Outer Hebrides islands, speaking, she thought of some intimate contact between all these areas. That contact, in my mind, goes back to the druidical scheme of colleges and subtle governance which was webbed through the British Isles ... until we stupidly began smashing it apart.

There are many holes in my knowledge of these things, but one that I would particularly like to fill one day: how did "wise women" of the past relate to druids? Were they always "in" and we just don't know it, because most outsiders only saw the "King's counsellor" males? Their counterpart mystery religions often had priestesses or seers... where were the ladies?

Well, we just found one in our story.

Till next time, when I can.....