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Lughnasadh E4: The God of the Festival · Wild Kin: A Celtic Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, friend.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Wild Kin, where we reconnect to Celtic myths, one story at a time.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jess,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: and I'd love for you to pull up a chair by my fire as we end the season with
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: the origins of this festival's namesake, the god Lu.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Through his power and skill, we can see how his influence has stretched for thousands of years.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So let's step back in time as a crowd begins to gather at sunset and
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: a little boy excitedly awaits his first Lunasa ritual.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The little boy hurried behind his father as they navigated the crowd.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sunset hues painted the horizon, softening the chatter into murmuring.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eyes followed the sun as it began to brush the tops of homes.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was buzzing,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: as this was the first time his father allowed him to join the opening of the games.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: The two navigated their way toward the central square,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: where great pyre had been built throughout the day.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Their king stood at the center, eyeing those gatherings.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: The day had been a blur.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Their otherwise quiet village grew with all kinds of people throughout the week
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: in anticipation of this moment.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: A wrestling ring had been built, packed with fresh earth to soften the impending blows.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Stalls had been erected for craftsmen,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: the smell of hot iron ever present as weapons and adornments were shaped
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: and hammered in preparation for visitors.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Horses thundered close enough that the boy felt the ground shudder beneath his feet constantly.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: People filled the streets in strange,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: colorful clothing,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: calling to one another in accents he'd never heard before,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: yet carrying the same excited tone he felt in his own chest.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Near dusk, regardless of where they came from, everyone knew it was time.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: The crowd flowed toward the center of the village.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The boy pulled along as he kept his eyes locked on his father's shoulders ahead
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: of him, small enough that a wrong turn might have swallowed him whole.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Beneath the darkening sky,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: the king raised his arms and any remaining murmurs fell away,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: the whole square settling into a stillness.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Their leader spoke of his honor to the god of this coming day,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: of a presence that filled their lives with purpose.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: The god that guided their hands in battle as easily as he guided the poets
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: in crafting verses,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: a smith and a warrior and a healer all at once,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And no single village and no single craft could claim to hold the whole of him.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was their patron,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: their guide, and this sunset marked the threshold to honor him with the games.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Someone near the front lifted a torch toward the pyre.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: It began to blaze, replacing the light of the setting sun with its own fiery brightness.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: As the King's speech ended, a cheer rose up from the crowd as they gathered around the bonfire.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The boy watched as beer was passed hand to hand,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: laughter breaking out in pockets across the square,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: the crowd loosening into a night of celebration they had anticipated all year.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to stay up all night as a vigil,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: and the boy tried his best not to miss anything.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in the early hours of the morning,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: he drifted in and out against his father's side,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: waking each time to some new burst of laughter or a fresh log thrown in the pyre.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: At some point in the deep dark,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: the noise around him changed shape,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: softening at the edges as the fire gave way to steady burning coals.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: His father nudged him gently upright and pointed past the edge of the square.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The boy sat up,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: rubbing his eyes as he found the king still at the center,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: his face lifted toward the eastern sky.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: A very low hum began,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: moving outward as it spread through the crowd,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: person to person, until the sound filled the air like the strumming of a harp.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The boy felt it vibrate in his chest as his heart seemed to beat in rhythm with the rest.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The king joined them,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: hands outstretched as they all found communion with the black sky shifting
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: to deep blue-gray.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: The humming grew as light filled the sky until a shard of light appeared.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It stretched down the street until it alighted on the central square,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: onto the crowd and their king.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The boy squinted as he felt the warmth on his face.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: He
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: looked up to see his father's eyes closed toward the light.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: The man who hammered iron at the smithing stalls
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: that morning had thrown two men twice his size in the wrestling ring and held
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: a steady calm that brought men to his home seeking his counsel.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The boy didn't know yet what his skill would be,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: but he decided in that moment There,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: with the warmth glowing from his skin,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: that he wanted to grow into a man like his father, one their god would be proud of.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: As the sun rose higher, their king, ablaze in the same light, gracefully nodded his head.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now the games could truly begin.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is Lunasa,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: a day celebrated across the Celtic world,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: and at the center of the celebration is a deity most people outside
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: of Ireland have never heard of,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: but the festival is named after him, known as the god Lu.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: One of the great heroes of the mythical race of the Tuath de Danann,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lu's origins come from their rise to power.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: In a battle,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lou kills his own grandfather with a single slingshot straight through
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: the old king's weak spot of his eye.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: The underdog who takes down the tyrant and clears the way for something new.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: But what really made Lou stand out wasn't just that one victory.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a well-known scene where Lou arrives at the gates of Terra,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: the great royal seat of Ireland, and asks to be let in.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: The gatekeeper isn't impressed.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: No one gets into Terra, he says, unless they have a skill the court doesn't already have.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Lou starts listing what he can do.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's a builder, a smith, a warrior, a poet, a harpist, a physician, a sorcerer.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Each time the gatekeeper turns him away because Terra already has someone for that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then Lou asks a final question.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Has anyone mastered all of these skills at once?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The gates to Terra are then opened to him.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is where Lou gets his defining title of the equally skilled in many arts.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: War, craft, poetry, healing, and magic, all in a single figure.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: In later Irish legends,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: he's remembered as the divine father of Ireland's greatest hero,
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Cahullan,
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: appearing at points throughout the hero's saga,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: including one moment where he steps in to heal his son's wound after a day
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: of brutal combat.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: In another tale,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: He appears in a vision to a legendary king,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: presiding over the ritual that confirms a new dynasty's right to rule.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's this versatility that made him beloved across so much of the ancient Celtic world.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is also supported by his festival, Lunasa.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: The fair is translated as, quote,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Assembly of Lu,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: with the Irish version of the story centered
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: on honoring his foster mother's sacrifice to clear the fields of Ireland.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: As we explored this season's first episode,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: his mother Talcha was the queen who cleared the plains of Ireland for agriculture
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: and died from the effort of it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was Lou who responded to her death by founding the funeral games in her honor
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: at Talcha's burial place.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which may have echoed further than Ireland itself.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Julius Caesar might have been writing about Lou when he was recording
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: the Gaulish religion centuries before these Irish sagas were ever written down.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: He describes a god Gauls held above all others, a patron of trade, travel, and craft.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Caesar, working with the Roman habit of matching foreign gods to his own,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: called him Mercury, who had parallel attributes.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Most scholars believe he was referring to Lu,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: a god important enough that entire cities were named in his honor.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: From these sources, we can surmise versions of Lu existed all across the Celtic world.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Coins and inscriptions associated with him have been found across Europe,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: and he's been connected as a patron of villages with various versions of his name
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: in France and Spain.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: This highlights his universal appeal,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: as so often deities were localized to specific regions that didn't carry outside
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: of their communities.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lu seems to be an exception.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Archaeologists have recently uncovered evidence suggesting that Lyon, France,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: known in the ancient world as Ludunum,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: or the Fortress of Lugus,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: which is another version of the name Lu,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: may have been oriented to align with the sun on the day of Lunasa.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lu as a god was important enough to have a city's infrastructure built around
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: the day of the year associated with him,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: an impressive architectural feat created in his honor.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the worship of Lu faded into obscurity with the rise of the Romans
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: and eventually Christianity, his folk traditions and stories have endured.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: By the late 19th century during the Celtic Revival,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: He started to come alive again through retellings of these ancient legends.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important came from Lady Augusta Gregory,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: whose 1904 collection of The Gods and Fighting Men devoted an entire section to Lou
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: of the Longhand,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: with retellings of his myths for a modern English reading audience for
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: the very first time.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Gregory was part of a broader movement working to pull Irish myth out of
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: the crumbling manuscripts and back into popular imagination.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Often as an explicit act of cultural reclamation against centuries of British rule,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: rather than remaining locked in medieval Irish texts and only read by a handful
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: of scholars.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's largely thanks to this generation of translators and revivalists
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: that Lou's story exists at all.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: But as with any translation, stories can get misconstrued too.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Lou has often been described as a solar deity,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: as his name is traced to an old root word meaning flashing light.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: A reading that made him easy to compare to gods like Apollo and that shaped a lot
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: of popular writing about him ever since.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: But most modern linguists have moved away from this theory.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: The more widely accepted version traces his name instead to a root meaning to bind
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: by oath, connecting him to sworn contracts and truth-telling.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good reminder that even a detail as basic as what
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: a god's name means can shift under new scholarship.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that the sun god version of Lu you'll often see online may say more about
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: the 19th century version of him than how he was actually understood by
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: the ancient Celts.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: His worship might have still carried a solar element, though,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: as his festival landed on a specific date that would have been tracked by
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: the sun's alignment.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's something almost radical about a god who refuses to be just one thing in
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: a world that so often asks us to specialize.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever your skill was,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: there was a version of Lu you could proudly claim as a sign of self-mastery.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like Lu at the Gates of Terra,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: we have all stood at our own thresholds, carrying the skills we've honed in silence.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're ready to take the next step on our journey,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lu can stand beside us, lighting our way.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like more Celtic inspired stories and resources,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: subscribe to Wild Kin Studio on Substack.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Link is in the show notes.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So glad you could join me by the fire, and we'll meet again soon.