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Lughnasadh E1: A Heart in Exchange for a Harvest · Wild Kin: A Celtic Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hi friend, welcome to Wild Kin, where we reconnect to Celtic myths one story at a time.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jess,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: and I'd love for you to pull up a chair by my fire as we meet a queen and a mother
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: who gave her life for her people.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: She has been mourned every year since at the festival we now know as Lunasa.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So let's step back in time To the moment when Kalja was simply a queen with a child
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: at her side, facing an impossible choice.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: She stood before the wall of trees, axe in hand.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Her husband was dead, her kingdom defeated.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: She was a queen without a crown, but a ruler nonetheless.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: The child of her enemies slept in the shade beside her,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: the winding branches rustling in the breeze with his soft hair.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: She couldn't help but love the boy, her little Lou.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: She'd raised him in the art of battle, music, poetry,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: and smithwork, and he'd picked up each skill as if he'd mastered them years ago.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as he dozed beside her,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: she knew she must be excellent for him,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: for her last act as his foster mother would be clearing this forest for planting.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: She stepped forward,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: breathing in the rich soil culled at her feet, loamy, dark earth, rich and ripe.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: This task would be great,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: to create a plane worthy of harvesting,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: but these thousands of acres would feed her people for centuries.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: She had the skills and the divine power to accomplish this,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: but it wouldn't be without great effort.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: She exhaled slowly as she leaned the axe against a trunk before waking Lou.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Taking the boy's hand in hers, the pair stepped into the shady grove.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: The quiet of the canopy enveloped them in cool green air.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Meandering among the fallen branches,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: she traced her way to a clearing,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: to the mother tree,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: a great oak stretching high and wide with branches reaching toward the sun.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lou glanced up at the dappled sunlight brushing his face,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: stretching his arm out to catch the beams.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: They stepped together toward the oak's trunk,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: and Lou watched her closely as she closed her eyes and pressed her palm against
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: the bark.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Soft skin to rough, yet mother to mother.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Her nails dug into the crevices as she asked the tree for permission
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: to clear this forest for the good of her people.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: She tried to convey her hope for their future long after she was gone,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: a legacy she hoped would be as old and as proud as this oak.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But she knew in her bones the cost of killing these trees, and she was willing to give it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: As she felt Lou's hand tighten in hers,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: she knew she needed to do this to help all of the children yet to come.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: In return,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: The forest would live on in every part of their lives,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: warming their hearths,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: shaping their homes,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: becoming their tools,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: and the soil each tree tenderly rooted in would be infused in
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: the food her people would eat for generations.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: She pressed her forehead against the trunk, pleading silently to let her help them.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: A great wind rose up, Twirling leaves from the forest floor into a spiral.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: The clarion came alive as the breeze swept through, rocking their trunks like a dance.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: An oak leaf fell from above, softly floating down toward them.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lou caught it in his palm.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: All fell calm again as she stood there with her foster son holding the offering.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was as if the mother tree had nodded her head in a solemn, assured, yes.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Talcha is a mythical Irish queen known for single-handedly clearing a forest
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: so her people could grow food.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The labor was so immense it cost her life.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: She had already endured the death of her husband,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: the fall of her kingdom,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: and the responsibility of raising another queen's child as her own.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in giving her life,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Talcha transformed the lands of Ireland and laid a foundation of prosperity
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: for This queen's earliest myth appears in the Book of Invasions,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: a collection of stories compiled by Christian monks between the 11th
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: and 12th centuries.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: In the tale,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Talch's people battle mythic beings often interpreted as the deities or ancestors
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: of Ireland's fairy folk.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Talch's people were defeated and her husband, the king, was killed in battle.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So now alone as the sole sovereign, it was up to her to decide their next chapter.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: With the fall of her people, part of Talch's duty was a diplomatic agreement.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: She would foster the son of the king and queen who had defeated her, now the rulers of Ireland.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Though it might seem strange to us today,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: foster motherhood in early Irish society was a sacred bond of both kinship
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: and alliance.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And their son, Lou, wasn't just a boy.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was also a god.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: He would grow up to become known as the master of all crafts, skill, and the sun itself.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Though she is described as a queen in medieval texts,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: many scholars believe Talca was originally a pre-Christian land goddess,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: later humanized to fit the times.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: In some versions of the story,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: her father is translated as the Great Plain,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: which is likely not a literal person,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: but that Talca is the child of the land itself.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the relationship between Telcha and Lu could be seen as symbolizing
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: the earth nourishing this young solar god,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: a bond of land and light,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: a connection that would one day carry her name throughout time.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Telcha's death is recorded in multiple ancient texts,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: the most popular being from the Book of Invasions,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: where she clears the land into a clover-flowering plain within a year,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then she simply dies at the place that now holds her namesake.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's another ancient text known as the Lore of Places with two poems that hold
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: a bit more texture.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: In one, her heart bursts from the effort of clearing the trees.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then she lingers in sorrow and weariness for the effort of her task.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then on her deathbed,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: she asks for funeral games to lament her at the time of her death in August.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: She passes with a final prophecy.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: As long as every prince accepts her, Ireland will never be without a noble song.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Another nod to her symbolizing the land,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: that the princes of Ireland must accept her in order to rule.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But in all versions of the story,
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Talcha dies from the effort of clearing the forest,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: and in turn her foster son Lou creates these funeral games in her honor,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: held every year to mourn her.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What is apparent from these sources is that Lu loved Talca as a true mother
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: and deeply mourned her death.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now grown, he honored her sacrifice by holding an annual gathering called Talca's Assembly.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: According to medieval texts,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: real kings of Ireland would gather to celebrate the harvest until the coming
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: of Christianity.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And even then, it continued on for centuries in some form.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: This tradition became known across the Celtic world as Lunasa.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: The
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: forest Talcha
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: cleared is a real place, named after, as is her town in County Meath.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: There is even a ring fort there that archaeologists have identified as a site
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: where kings would gather.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the plain she carved out from the trees is believed to be some of
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: the most fertile farmland in Ireland and is still cultivated today.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Above all,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lunasa is one of the most historically documented festivals in the Celtic world,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: honored for over a millennium at the beginning of August.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: In the 1920s, they were revived in Ireland as a national cultural project.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And though Talch's story has faded, her sacrifice continues to give her people nourishment.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: She deserves our remembrance,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: not just as a queen,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: but as the epitome of a sovereign who does what is best for her people.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Talcha highlights how leadership comes not from who is the greatest conqueror,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: but instead who is the greatest provider.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: She gave her people the ability to work, to fill their bellies, and to gather peacefully.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: To take time to celebrate the efforts of their labor while honoring those they had lost.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: For what greater gift can be given than the ability to live well?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like more Celtic inspired stories and resources,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: subscribe to Wild Kin Studio on Substack.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Link is in the show notes.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So glad you could join me by the fire and we'll meet again soon.