Irish Travellers are not related to gypsies

Here we go again, on Facebook people are madly conflating Roma “Gypsies” with Irish Travellers, two itinerant nomadic groups who are ethnically and linguistically unrelated, other than by superficial outward lifestyle. But people persist on keeping the clichés alive. 

During my great-grandfather’s time in Dumanaway, near Bandon, County Cork, the Travellers visited his farm each year to fix broken farm equipment, and to work as laborers on the family farm. My grandmother would tell me stories about how the Tinkers (an older name for Travellers), named for their trade, would make tin household items as well as fix old pails, pots and broken crockery. 

My grandmother had a favorite aluminum pot that had developed a hole in it, and since we were centuries away from Ireland in Northern California, she showed me how the Travellers would have fixed it. She took a nut and bolt and threaded them through the hole in the pot and then hammered it flat with a ball peen hammer. The pot worked fine after that.

The Travellers, an ethnic Irish minority group, named after their lifestyle, camped in my great-grandfather Michael Walsh’s lower fields. They were welcomed, not shunned, not like today. During the 1960s, the Irish government was atrocious when it came to the treatment of Travellers. Of course they were trying to force them to give up their itinerant ways.

The Travellers, who refer to themselves as Pavee, or Rilantu Mincéirí, speak the Cant, the Gammon, or Tarri. Linguists refer to it as Shelta, a term that dates back to the 1870s, which is also the name of the community (from siúltóir, walking people). Shelta, the language, is a crypto-linguistic mixed Hiberno-English and Gaelic-based language. Other names: Sheldru, Shelter, Shelteroch seem to be derivatives of Shelta/siúltóir. 

There may be two distinct dialects of Shelta. The language was also referred to as Bog Latin, a derogatory term meaning Latin as spoken by the Irish, coined before 1811, the Ould Thing, and Tinker's Cant.

The word Shelta appears in print for the first time in 1882 in the book The Gypsies by the "gypsiologist" Charles Leland, who claimed to have discovered it as the "fifth Celtic tongue". The word's etymology has long been a matter of debate. Modern Celticists believe that Irish siúl [ʃuːlʲ] "to walk" is at the root, either via a term such as siúltóir [ˈʃuːl̪ˠt̪ˠoːɾʲ] "a walker" or a form of the verbal noun siúladh (cf. an lucht siúlta [ənˠ ˌl̪ˠʊxt̪ˠ ˈʃuːl̪ˠt̪ˠə], "the walking people" (lit. "the people of walks"),[8] the traditional Irish term for Travellers).[5] The Dictionary of Hiberno-English cites it as possibly a corruption of the word "Celt".[7] Since Shelta is a mixture of English and Irish grammar, the etymology is not straightforward. The language is made up mostly of Irish lexicon, being classified as a grammar-lexicon language with the grammar being English-based..” —Wikipedia

Travellers are thought to be the indigenous people of Ireland, their distinctive DNA bottlenecked around the 16th c. (Due to the Cromwellian?) and they have been genetically isolated since at least the Great Famine, as they tended to keep to themselves and marry within their clans— because they often marry first and second cousins there is some genetic duplication. 

According to a comprehensive recent DNA study, there are four distinct DNA clusters that differ from that of settled Irish people. “One cluster is associated with the “Rathkeale group.” Two other clusters are linked to the Cant or Gammon dialects of the Traveller language Shelta.“ —Irish Times. The study also concluded there is no Roma DNA within the Traveller society. 

The [study] found that Travellers are of Irish ancestral origin but have significant differences in their genetic make-up compared with the settled community…because of hundreds of years of isolation combined with a decreasing Traveller population. “The findings confirm that the Irish Traveller population has an Irish ancestry and this comes at a time where the ethnicity of Travellers is being considered by the Irish State.”—Prof. Gianpiero Cavalleri, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.  Gene study reveals Irish Travellers' ancestry

According to one Traveller, Ellen Mac Donough, there are about 35,000-49,000 self-identified Travellers in Ireland today. Traveller diaspora estimates: 25,000 in England, and 49,000 in the southern US, and 7,000 in Europe. I shudder to think what would have happened to the Travellers if the genetics had not supported the Irish DNA theory.

The Travellers were once called Tinkers in my lifetime, but they do not prefer that title, and it is now considered to be an ethnic slur, along with Pikey, and knacker. If you look at ancient Irish customs, there were always itinerant Irish people who traveled from place to place. Especially the lawyers, doctors and storytellers. So traveling is a long-standing tradition that was disrupted by the British ascendency and occupation of Ireland.

Roma, or Romani people, aka “Gypsies,” originally came from India, by way of  Romania to Britain some 300 years ago. The term, gypsy is considered an ethnic slur, like saying the N-word for African-Americans.

I have musician friends who are Travellers. And I know linguists who have studied the Cant. It’s probably a lost cause to try to educate people on the Travellers’ horses, the Irish cobb, which were imported to America and renamed Gypsy Vanners. Another cultural rip off.

Few Shelta words traveled into English but the word "bloke" may be a 19th c. crossover. 

Little Christmas, a.k.a. Nollaig BheagLittle Christmas, a.k.a.

A card my cousin in Kerry sent me.

Today is Little Christmas, aka the Feast of the Epiphany, Orthodox Christmas, and Nollaig Bheag. AKA Women's Christmas (Nollaig na mBan), where Irish men traditionally take on all the household duties for the day. Women are instructed to stay abed late, hang out with friends and generally be pampered and waited on hand & foot by their menfolk in appreciation. A spa day might be in order. As my grandmother said, it is the last day of Christmas to get those cards and gifts delivered. Tomorrow you can take down the tree. Or not.

Shrove Tuesday on the fly

Laissez les bons temps rouler!  I just realized it’s Shrove Tuesday! I made minimalist buckwheat pancakes on the fly—sans crêpe pan. Stuffed with Laurel Cheney’s cranberry goat cheese and drizzled with maple syrupl, they were divine, but too fragile to flip as I didn’t get a chance to let the batter rest. I forgot to flip mine, does that mean I’ll not be shriven? So they didn’t roll up as nicely as they should have, but they went down the hatch just fine. Burp. 

Somehow this post got lost in the shuffle, or flat out disappeared, when I was compiling a list of food blogs. I found it again on Facebook. So all is restored. Sort of. I don’t have the final rendition.

I used buckwheat pancake flour, an egg, some oil, a little sour cream and milk to thin the batter. Butter for the pan.

The ingredients for pancakes can be seen to symbolise four points of significance at this time of year:
Eggs ~ Creation
Flour ~ The staff of life
Salt ~ Wholesomeness
Milk ~ Purity 

See Pancake Day

Boxing Day, or how the wren was killed

Ireland: its scenery, character etc.(Volume I, S.C. Hall. London:
Virtue & Co., 1843. D. Maclise, engraved by Landells.

Today is Boxing Day, or St. Stephen’s Day, as my grandmother called it. When I was a child, I wondered what pugilists, saints, and tiny wrens had in common. I may have gotten the boxer part wrong. There were no boxers in the arena, or cardboard boxes, for that matter—but there were bad boys involved. She said, the day after Christmas, you boxed up all your food and old clothing and gave it to the poor. A sort of second Christmas.

She then told me the story of how, when she was young, the boys of Bantry would dress in straw and tattered rags, put on masks and parade a dead wren about the town. The wren boys would put the poor bird on a tall pole adorned with ribbons, and evergreens, mistletoe and pine, holly and ivy. Then they’d parade the wee beastie about the village, beating their drums, waving their bullroarers, creating musical mayhem on everybody’s front steps. I was horrified. No, no, not the wren!

As if killing the wren wasn’t enough, gangs of boys demanded a ransom in exchange for a wren’s feather, and collected small coins from everybody in the village to bury the poor bugger. What they did with the money, she never said. Give us a penny to bury the wren. If you haven't a penny a halfpenny will do/ If you haven't a halfpenny/ Well then, God bless you. Apparently the coinage was collected to fund a Wren’s ball sometimes in January. Perhaps for the Epiphany. Boxing Day was the British renaming of the Feast of St. Stephen. Then there’s the Druidic winter feast. So, Wren Day is a triad compromise of faiths and liminal boundaries.

Perhaps to appease me, she said sometimes they caged the wren and then let him go after the festivities were done. I thought maybe she had gotten her stories crossed because what she described sounded suspiciously like Halloween trick-or-treat—with a Christian flair—except for the addition of  the effigy of the wily wren, a rat fink bird (who betrayed St. Stephen, the first martyr stoned to death for believing in Jesus. I had forgotten that part of the story, too grisly and too convoluted to follow.)

She then followed up with another story of how The birds argued who was the king of the birds. The wren and eagle dickered over who could fly the highest. The eagle flew up as high as he could, but the wren, hidden on his back, leapt off the back of the eagle to fly the highest, thus proclaiming himself to be the king of birds. I knew there was a moral imperative embedded in the story, I wasn’t sure exactly what. So I imagined the wren wearing a tiny crown of thorns, of course.

One dreary day, not too long ago, a small wren slipped into the house by the back door. I had a devil of a time catching it, and when I did, it had a lot to say, clearly I was being roundly cursed by a wren, I opened my palm, and let it go, it wasn’t letting bygones be bygones. It fiercely scolded me from the safety of the garden gate as if I were responsible for all that mayhem.

‘Dreoilín, Dreoilín, Rí na nÉan,
Dreoilín a fuaireas-sa thíos ar an inse,
Istigh fé charraig agus carbhat síoda air,
Thugas-sa chugaibhse é, lánúin an tí seo,
Agus má thugann sibh onóir na Féile dom’ Dhreoilín
Le bhur lámha do shíneadh,
Go mbeire an bhliain fé mhaise agus fé áthas arís oraibh.’

The wren the wren the king of all birds,
Saint Stephen's day he got caught in the furze,
Although he is little his family is great,
Cheer up landlady an give us a treat,
Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
Give us some money to bury the wren!

Dreoilín, dreoilín, where's your nest?
'Tis in the bush that I love best
In the tree, the holly tree
Where all the boys do follow me.

Fat Tueday, Pancake Night

Yes, it’s Fat Tuesday! Pancake night, that’s what’s for dinner. My granny always made crêpes and stuffed them with cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, and lemon with zest. Erwan Bouchina’s son, Antoine’s lonely crêpe pan was put to good use. No buckwheat flour though. They’re quite filling with the stuffing. I can handle about two, and I’m done. Laissez les bons temps rouler! 

• NOTE: THIS POST ALONG WITH 12 OTHER POSTS WAS ERRONEOUSLY REMOVED BY BLOGGER FOR VIOLATING COMMUNITY STANDARDS ON 5/14/21. It was reinstated as a draft the next day. I am still pissed off.

A note on Medieval spices

The early Medieval era, when the Irish epics were first recorded, wasn’t quite the gastronomic desert we imagine it today. Sorrel sauce, and sour verjuice was used to flavor meats, as were rose hips, sloe plums, bitter cherries, crabapples, pears, huckleberries, bilberries, bog berries (a type of cranberry), and juniper berries; coriander seeds were used, as well as caraway, fennel, and mustard seeds; lots of pot herbs were used, such as young tart pine needles, heather, woodruff, and many types of mint—also mushrooms, garlic and onions. Rose petals were a popular dessert flavoring too.

Caraway seeds and greens were used, both as a spice and a pot herb. Any Roman potherb or spice that was introduced and easily grown in Britain would also have been readily available. Main spices used during the British Middle Ages were introduced during the Crusades, but some were introduced to Britain by the Romans. Roman cooks traditionally used aromatic herbs (dill, coriander, cumin, chervil, laurel, carrot, parsnip, lovage, rue, anise, mint, mustard, oregano, savory, myrtle...). I would imagine rosemary was also used as well as geranium and carnation, or pinks. Spices included pepper, silphium or laser, saffron, turmeric, cardamom, ginger and nard. Cinnamon was considered a medicine. I imagine clove was also a medicine, as was sugar!

I once hosted a medieval Celtic feast for my final project at UC Berkeley, using traditional ingredients. Toasting the oats for shortbread produced a strong vanillan flavor, as would using fresh pine needles, etc. We discovered that leached ashes were also used as leavening agent, when eggs weren’t available. Kind of a primitive baking soda, or powder. (See pearl ash, or potash—there's a reason why it's called potash!)

The medieval Irish roasted their oatmeal, and then flattened the hard grains in a saddle quern (think rolled oats) before making their famous griddle cakes. Roasting the oatmeal imparted a strong vanillan flavor. Just because we think of vanilla as a modern flavor, it doesn’t mean the compound itself didn’t exist in other foodstuffs. Epic hero Cú Chullain roasted his oatmeal on an iron griddle for his oatcakes before going into battle. Medieval Britons primarily used rose water, etc., and later saffron, as a custard flavoring.

In Germany and Scandinavia, during the end of the Middle Ages, powdered deer antler was also used as a leavening agent (ammonium carbonate) for hard cookies such as Springerle, Liebkuchen, and Hartshorn. (Leavening could also be made by distilling hair or decomposed urine.) Apparently the ammonia odor as they were cooking was memorable. Cookies as strong medicine....

Contrary to popular belief, Essex was not the original place where saffron was cultivated. Greece, maybe. It comes from the Middle East, especially Iran. Saffron is a Persian word. Saffron was the costliest of all medieval spices, more costly than sugar. The English word "saffron" probably stems from the 12th-century Old French term safran, from the Latin—safranum, from the Arabic za'farān, from the Persian word zarparan meaning "flower with golden petals".

Saffron as a color is also mentioned in medieval Ireland as a dyestuff, but other plants were also used to achieve that color dye, including gorse and brassica. The color itself, regardless of its plant origin, was called saffron, which is a well-attested classical reference. It doesn’t refer to the edible crocus sativus, as the edible crocus is not native to Britain. And it sounds like crocus wasn’t introduced until ca. 1560, when the bulb first appeared in the Netherlands. It didn’t become a common garden plant in Northern Europe until ca. the 1620s.

Speaking of medicine, you can get a fair indication of spices used during the Middle Ages by looking at the medicinal cures from the Middle Ages...Rosa Goidelica. (now I can't find a reference to it....I know it exists as I once spent an afternoon reading it in the Rare Books basement of the Doe Library at UC Berkeley). One of my favorite recipes for a toothache, eat a cinnamon-infused chicken—but it must also be eaten at the crossroads. Apparently saffron rice was another medicinal favorite. Wherever  did they get the rice from? That sort of dates it, timewise, along with noodles—to the age of Marco Polo.

Any spice popular in Rome would’ve made its way into the cooking pots of Britain. The Greeks and Romans were aware of cardamon (a member of the ginger family) and used it as a perfume, and it was well known in Egypt and the Middle East. The Indian spice could’ve been reintroduced by way of the Vikings several centuries after the Romans pulled out of Britain.

Samhain, a cross-quarter festival

Oíche Shamhna Shona Daoibh! Happy New Year. May the Gates of the Otherworld stay open long enough for you to escape the coming darkness. And mind the Galoshins!

Astronomically speaking, Samhain should be celebrated November 11, which means that gates of the otherworld are open until November 16. Beware!

Modern calend dates are somewhat meaningless as the Julian calendar was off by ten days when the Gregorian calendar was introduced.

In the 8th c., Samhain was shoehorned into the Christian festival calendar of saints, and the original Roman festival of the dead that was celebrated in in May, and later, the Mexican El Día de los Muertos (originally celebrated in summer) was added to the mix. (See my rant, El Dia de los Muertos was moved atop our Day of the Dead/New Year.

Blame Pope Boniface IV for that mass conflagration of holidays to the dead now celebrated on Nov. 1 & 2.

The Celtic fire festivals are held on the cross-quarter days, midway point between the solstices and equinoxes. Samhain means summer’s end. It is part of a harvest-pastoral, or hunter’s festival calendar. Imbolc is the beginning of spring (first milk) and Beltane is the beginning of summer, followed by the games gathering festival of Lugnasa. And the church tacked on a whole slew of saints to each of these festivals in an attempt to desecularize them. Didn’t exactly work.

There is some thought that the festivals predate the coming of the Celts, which is plausible, as the Bell Beaker folk were sometimes called proto-Celts—at least by my anthropology professor. However, the megalithic standing stone monuments wouldn’t record any astronomical alignment to denote the timing of these fire festivals as they’re aligned to the solstices and equinoxes, not the cross-quarter days.

According to the early medieval Irish epics, that reflect an earlier oral tradition, Samhain was equally celebrated in Ireland, and much of the modern Halloween tradition was introduced to Scotland from Ireland.

Whose? I did a Google image search via Sean Folsom, no luck.

The Celtic wheel of the year with the cross-quarter days, nestled between the solstices and equinoxes. Samhain, the end of summer and the beginning of winter, is a harvest festival, (Halloween), followed by Imbolc, or spring (first milk), and Beltane, (May Day) or the beginning of summer, and Lugnasadh, the time for the great games and clan gathering—which lives on today as the Highland Games. Lughnassad (no double s, btw—) or Lunasa, is the festival of Lugh, is the beginning of August. It lives on in Ireland as the Puck Fair. Someone’s thrown in some other festivals. Oestara was not a Celtic festival, nor was Litha, or Yule, but Mabon was celebrated on the continent. It’s a bit of a mishmash, as someone was trying to shoehorn Roman, Germanic, and astrological signs into one thing. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not an antikythera...you can’t mix apples and oranges and a box of thumbtacks and expect it to make a fruit salad

Summer’s End

We’re fast approaching the end of the Celtic year, Samhain, or Summer’s End, which marks the half way mark, or cross-quarter day between the equinox and the solstice. The night when the boundary between this world and the otherworld are thinnest. The night of the great bonfires, where my great-grandfather ran his cattle between two fires to purify them (the other cross quarter day was Beltane)—the smoke was probably also a great pest deterrent. To be fair, the celebration of the cross-quarter days predates the arrival of the Celts, but they took to the custom like ducks to water, or sparks to flame.

In 609AD, Pope Boniface IV decreed November 1 as All Saints Day, or Allhallowmesse, thus placing a Christian spin on the Celtic celebration of Samhain. And since the festival lasted several days, we have Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day as well.

The Irish brought the vestiges of Samhain, rechristened Halloween by the church, to America, and to Scotland. In America, Halloween took off and became the secular extravaganza it is today, thanks to the candy industry, who saw a profit was to be made. During WWII, American GIs stationed in Germany, put on a Halloween festival in a castle, thus reintroducing elements of Samhain to its original Celtic homeland, and also back to Ireland as well.

We associate Halloween with zombies and characters like Frankenstein, but that story was penned during one dreary dreecht summer in Geneva by Irish lass, Mary Shelley, on a bet to produce a ghost story. Galvanizing the dead fits right into the premise of Samhain, or Halloween when the gates to the otherworld are open, the cauldron of plenty could raise the dead, and anything was possible.

GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES: Cultural appropriation?

GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES
by Parris Afton Bonds

Cultural appropriation? Irish Travellers are not Roma Gypsies
By MoHurley on May 12, 2018

I'm a little more than concerned that Irish Travellers, who are NOT, I repeat, NOT Roma, in any way, shape or form, are conflated into this story.

There are a handful of Roma people in Ireland, it's a recent migration, but we're talking less than 3000 people in all of Ireland, in 2004, the census was 1700 Roma people.

The real Irish Travellers, formerly called Tinkers, probably date back to Neolithic times. But they are ethnically Irish. Today there are about 10,000 to 40,000 Travellers in Ireland. There is one school of thought that the Travellers arose as a distinct class of people during the Cromwellian, and/or during the Famine. Some Irish Travellers immigrated to Scotland, as well as to America. Eddie Izzard portrays an American Irish Traveller grifter in "The Riches."

Irish Travellers are NOT Roma. Recent DNA analysis has proven this beyond a doubt. It's bad enough that Irish cobb horses are now called Gypsy vanners, and this latest conflation will only serve to further confuse people. Cultural appropriation at its worst. Just don't.

The author writes: "True gypsies, Romany folk and Irish Travellers, were adept at storytelling. For a thousand years, although most of the Gypsy clans could neither read no write, they had kept historical records of their odyssey by word of mouth." Bonds then conflates Roma with Travellers. She couldn't be more wrong. She makes no attempt to untangle the two distinctly genetically different peoples. Being itinerant does not make them upper case Gypsies.

"The [DNA] study clearly showed there was no significant genetic contribution made by Roma Gypsies to Traveller DNA. This disproves a view held by some that the two groups were genetically related." —Irish Times

• Irish Travellers are not related to gypsies
• DNA study

Defiant Fruitcakes

Filed under "Lost Desserts" Hundred-Year-Old Antarctic Fruitcake Found in 'Excellent Condition Conservators with Antarctic Heritage Trust have uncovered a perfectly preserved fruitcake that dates back to Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, which began in 1910.

A curious headline made me think of my Victorian grandmother who made fruitcake, or steamed pudding, every fall for Christmas gifts. It did seem like they would keep forever. I guess that Hundred-Year-Old Antarctic Fruitcake Found in 'Excellent Condition is proof enough. The proof is in the pudding, literally.

When the nights began to draw in, my grandmother would haul out the dried fruit she had stockpiled in the closet, usually three types of raisins, including tiny tart currants (real currants, not tiny raisins), and golden sultanas; prunes (sometimes she added dried figs, or Medjool dates— but that was rare); candied ginger, and the prerequisite jars of preserved glacéed fruit—a mixture of citrus, citron (candied melon peel) and candied cherries. (She used to make glacéed fruit from scratch—I remember helping her make candied orange rinds.) She'd gather kidney suet for the lard. And a bottle of port.

We'd crack pecans and walnuts from 25-pound bags, tossing the buggy ones in the fire along with the shells. They'd sizzle and hiss like snakes as we gazed into the fire while she told me stories.

In Ireland, Valencia oranges were a special Christmas gift. They arrived from Spain wrapped in foil, and were cherished right down to the rind. Dried raisins and nuts were hard to come by, and spices were a luxury few could afford, so women hoarded the ingredients, when they could get them, for that special steamed Christmas pudding or wedding cake. In Ireland, wedding cakes are traditionally fruitcakes: a symbol of wealth and abundance.

The key ingredients of the fruitcake were part of a curious family history. They were foot soldiers marching in an act of defiance against unjust American land laws. During the 1920s, Asians and Indians, ineligible for US citizenship, couldn't own farmland in California. This made my Irish grandfather angry, so he bought farmland in Fresno for his friend Jahn Singh, and held the land title to circumvent the unjust alien land laws. 

As she assembled the fruitcakes, she told stories of my grandfather and Jahn Singh. Every autumn Jahn Singh remembered our family with bushels of fruits and nuts. My grandmother would receive crates of oranges, raisins, pecans and walnuts as payment for the Fresno farmland that my grandfather had bought for Jahn. 

When the anti-Japanese California Alien Land Laws of 1913, and of 1920, also known as the Webb-Haney Act, were repealed in the 1950s, my grandfather turned the land title over to Jahn Singh. 

The law prohibited "aliens ineligible for citizenship " from owning agricultural land or possessing long-term leases over it. It affected the Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Korean immigrant farmers in California....The California Alien Land Law of 1920 continued the 1913 law filling many of its loopholes... the leasing of land for a period of three years or less was no longer allowed; owning of stock in companies that acquired agricultural land was forbidden; and guardians or agents of ineligible aliens were required to submit an annual report on their activities. —Wiki

Something ancient was evoked as my grandmother assembled the ingredients. Assembling fruitcake was a multiple-day affair, from making the candied fruit, to shelling the nuts, and soaking the dried fruit overnight in alcohol.

My grandmother soaked the dried fruit overnight in port, or rum. Next morning, she sifted the flour with baking soda, and a litany of spices (equal parts cinnamon, ginger, and a scant measurement of nutmeg, allspice, clove and mace) to coat the dried fruit and nutmeats. Then she doused the dry mixture with a mixture of creamed butter, eggs, brown sugar and dark molasses. During Prohibition, bootleg whiskey was used to soak the dried fruit if a bottle of port couldn't be finagled from the church stores.

My grandmother mixed the ingredients up with her large knotted hands in vast ceramic vats, standing over them like a field marshall. The round, and half-round cake pans were already well greased and the bottoms lined with oiled brown paper bags.

She filled the cake pans to the brim (fruitcake doesn't leaven, or rise—though the dried fruit soaking in alcohol, may have contributed some wild yeast), tamping them down on the table with soft thuds to dislodge any air bubbles. Then she placed the cakes in three tiers on tall racks inside the vast aluminum canning pot half-filled with water. The canning pot was a modern day version of the cauldron—double-trouble, boiled and bubbled. 

The fruitcakes were steamed atop the stove for several hours, they were never baked in the oven. That would’ve been sacrilege. The steam vent atop the canning pot lid, with its three roller latches, chattered a little song and tapdance into the evening hours as I drew pictures with my finger on the steamy kitchen windows dripping with condensation. By the way, fruitcake, a steamed pudding, is a medieval dish, pretty much unchanged across the centuries. Her recipe was practically straight from The Forme of Cury. 

Once the fruitcakes (or steamed pudding) had cooled overnight, there was a three-fold bathing ritual (in port or whiskey) a swaddling ritual (wrapped in thin muslin or in cheesecloth), and a cloaking ritual (in tinfoil), before they were placed in their air-tight Christmas tins. They needed to be carefully tended during the first few months, dressed and bathed every few days until they ripened. She kept a few extra fruitcakes on hand to ripen, as fruitcake was deemed best when it was left to ripen (or ferment) at least 3 months, to a year, or longer. A union of space and time.

Fruitcake (aka figgy pudding) was never eaten fresh from the steamer. The flavors needed time to mellow and meld into a rich marriage of spiced goodness. Months, years, even. She had a few fruitcake that were ancient. Not 100 years old, but old enough. The time-defying secret was in the ritual bathing in booze. Fruitcakes were unwrapped to receive an annual anniversary bath of booze to preserve them, then rewrapped, placed in tins, and stored in dark cupboards. And later, they were delegated to the back of the refrigerator. And forgotten.

Whenever unexpected guests came over, she'd bring out thin slices of the dense, boozy, nut-studded fruitcake, along with the pot of Irish tea and a sidecar of whiskey. The thin fruitcake slices were like a rich mosaic of stained glass panes on the shining plates, Sadly, the guests wouldn't touch the fruitcake, perhaps thinking it was the commercial American version, a baked sawdust hockey-puck affair, studded with plastic candied citron and day-glo cherries, so she eventually quit making it. And I never thought to ask her for the recipe.

How did the fruitcake, something once so opulent, and made with love, become such a hated symbol of the holidays? The substitution of facsimile ingredients: rancid nuts, inferior dried fruit, and the prerequisite jars of commercial glacéed fluorescent plastic fruit that swept the market during the 60s and 70s, directly led to the fruitcake's fall from grace. The honeymoon was over. Americans said, Let's call the whole thing off. Another tradition bit the dust. And the very word was beggared and denigrated to an insult of insanity: She's a real fruitcake.

It must've made my grandmother sad to let go of such a venerable tradition, to let die a family labor of love that was passed down the generations from her mother, and her mother's mother, in Ireland. A family heirloom. I still collect the fruitcake tins, though I haven't made a fruitcake, ever. None of my cousins would dream of making fruitcake today, My mother was not domestic, and all my aunts are gone now... no one left to carry on the tradition.

One of many fruitcake recipes in my grandmother’s extensive recipe collection, I found this one from Helen Civelli Brown:

Now about that case of 100-year-old Antarctic whisky on ice they found....

Laissez les bons temps rouler! Photo

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Nothing like Shrove, or Fat Tuesday pancakes for dinner, My grannie always made pancakes for dinner. We were so excited. It was Sunday morning verging on Tuesday night. No funny papers. But even still, it was exciting.

My grannie made everything from scratch. Not even Bisquick snoozed in our pantry. But you can use any quick-bread, or pancake mix and adulterate it. Make some pancakes using buttermilk, oil and pancake mix, then add way too many eggs. 

If the recipe asks for one egg, I add three or more eggs. You can also add a little seltzer water, or ginger ale or anything bubbly to add a delicate airiness to the pancakes. Batter should be runny, let it sit a half hour, or longer, to thicken up.

Grease a big pan with butter, spread the pancake batter thin, like crepes. I use a soup ladle. Stack 'em up on a warm plate. You'll need to add butter to the pan for each pancake. Half a pat. Salted butter is too much. Ruins the delicate flavor.

Filling: mix cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, or sour cream, vanilla sugar, zest and juice of one lemon, OK, so spike it with maple syrup too. Spread on pancake and roll it up like a cigar and smoke it.

One year I went wild with flavored Wensleydale cheeses, studded with dried apricots, and lemon rind. They were delicious, but way too heavy and boggily filling. Stick with cottage cheese and tart it up.

Filling no. 2: spread pancake with Mexican extra fat sour cream (it has a much better flavor than American sour cream) on a pancake, then smear it with good raspberry preserves. I like seedless preserves vs raspberry jam. (I hate blueberries, but that could be a hit. Or huckleberry jam if you can find it). Roll it up. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Olé! 

Filling no. 3: spread pancake with butter, really good marmalade or jam. Eat. 

Deluxe edition. Drink one glass champagne, or spumante between each step, and don't forget to take a sip or two as you liberate each pancake from the pan, of course. By they time you have enough for a meal, you won't care what day of the week it is. 

Shrove it Jack!

Halloween Traditions (notes for the UICC Samhain series)

Oíche Shamhna! Happy Samhain. Hallowe'en, aka All Hallows Evening, has its roots in an Irish Catholic tradition that supplanted ancient pagan Celtic Samhain customs. It was introduced to Scotland ca. the 16th century, and came to America in the 19th century via the Irish refugees.

Oíche Shamhna ( night of Samhain) Hallowe’en is the evening before the Feast of All Saints (The Hallowed Ones). But it wasn't always so. In 608 AD, Pope Boniface IV decided to commemorate all the martyrs, so the 13th of May was

designated as the Feast of All Holy Martyrs. In 837 Pope Gregory IV extended the festival to remember all the known and unknown saints. The festival was renamed the Feast of All Saints and the 1st of November was chosen for the festival. The Martyrology of Oengus written circa 800 records the Irish keeping All Saints on the 1st of November but additional feasts of All Saints of Europe on the 20th of April and All Saints of Africa on the 20th of December. Later the 1st of November became the sole commemoration date for All Saints in Ireland. The 2nd of November is the feast of All Souls a day which commemorates the faithful departed. The feast began in the 11th century and was connected with Christian concerns with death and purgatory. Later a popular belief developed that the souls in purgatory could on this day appear back on earth to haunt those who had wronged them. The souls would take the form of ghost, witches or toads. (Farmer 2011, 14). It was also believed one could help the dead on this day by giving alms in the form of coins or food (ibid). In Britain a small round cake called soul cake was made and the cakes were given out to soulers (mainly consisting of children and the poor) who would go from door to door on Halloween, singing and saying prayers for the dead. (BBC)

All-hallows or All-hallowmas (Middle English Alholowmesse: All Saints' Day) the night before was called All-hallows Eve, shortened to Halloween. Pope Gregory IV in 83 AD, moved All Hallowmas to November first. Another harvest holiday was co-opted, one celebrating a Roman Harvest Goddess (of apples) Pomona. Later, the New World Aztec holiday, which shares a remarkable amount of customs with Samhain, El Dia de los Muertos, was moved from August, and added to the melange.

The first historical reference of Hallowe'en in America dates back to 1919, The Book of Hallowe'en. A Massachusetts librarian, Ruth Edna Kelley, credited the Famine Irish with bringing Hallowe'en customs to the new world.

Shrove Tuesday Pancakes (photo)

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Nothing like Shrove, or Fat Tuesday pancakes for dinner, My grannie always made pancakes for dinner. We were so excited. It was Sunday morning verging on Tuesday night. No funny papers. But even still, it was exciting.

My grannie made everything from scratch. Not even Bisquick snoozed in our pantry. But you can use any quick-bread, or pancake mix and adulterate it. I like buckwheat pancake mix, if I can find it. Make some pancakes using buttermilk, oil and pancake mix, and then add way too many eggs.

If the recipe asks for one egg, add three or more eggs. You can also add a little seltzer water, or ginger ale, or anything bubbly to add a delicate airiness to the pancakes. If you're short on flour, a little added cornstarch will make crispy pancakes. 

Batter should be runny, let it sit a half-hour, or longer, to thicken up. If you’re organized, make your batter the night before. Never happens in my house. I inexplicably get the urge for pancakes at 6 pm, nearly too late. Sometimes I don’t even realize it’s Shrove Tuesday, but I have the instincts of a homing pigeon when it comes to eating authorized pancakes for dinner.

Grease a big pan with unsalted butter, let it get nutty brown for maximum favor impact, spread the pancake batter thin, like crêpes. I use a soup ladle. First one is for the kitchen god. Stack 'em up on a warm plate. You'll need to add butter to the pan for each pancake. Half a pat. Salted butter is too much. Ruins the delicate flavor.

Filling: mix cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, or sour cream, vanilla sugar, zest and juice of one lemon, OK, so spike it with maple syrup too. Spread on pancake and roll it up like a cigar and smoke it.

One year I went wild with flavored Wensleydale cheeses, studded with dried apricots, and lemon rind. They were divinely delicious, but way too heavy and boggily filling. Stick with cottage cheese and tart it up. Your waistline will thank you.

Filling no. 2: spread pancake with creme fraich or Mexican extra fat sour cream (it has a much better flavor than American sour cream) on a pancake, then smear it with good raspberry preserves. I like seedless preserves vs raspberry jam. (I abhor blueberries, but that could be a hit. Or huckleberry jam if you can find it). Roll it up. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Oui. Olé!

Filling no. 3: spread pancake with butter, really good marmalade or jam. Eat.

Deluxe edition. Drink one glass champagne, or spumante between each step, and don't forget to take a sip or two as you liberate each pancake from the pan, of course. By the time you have enough for a meal, you won't care what day of the week it is. It’s a good luck tradition to flip the pancakes sans spatula. Good luck.

Shrove it Jack!

Corned beef & cabbage came out of Hell's Kitchen

Corned beef & cabbage came out of Hell's Kitchen—the cheapest cut of meat was brisket from the Jewish butchershops, and cabbage with potatoes is an Irish staple. A NYC mixed-marriage made in heaven, or rather, in Hell's Kitchen.

The ancient Irish didn't eat much beef (unless a cow died)—cattle were the equivalent of thousand-dollar bills. The ancient Irish ate pigs. A ham hock or saltpork and cabbage would have been traditional fare. A traditional Irish saying, You're on the pig's back now, preserves the idea of luck being associated with pigs and plenitude.

The ancient Irish figured out how to salt-cure beef during the first millennium A.D., but it was a luxury item. Never kill the cash-cow! Salt-cured beef was first mentioned "in print" in the 12th century gluttony poem called the Vision of MacConglinne in the Land of Cockagne—with 77 mentions of milk products, from buttermilk to ropy milk. So the concept of corned beef wasn't entirely alien to the ancient Irish.

Salted beef was considered a luxury as it required so much salt to prepare it—kernels, or corns of salt—a very expensive luxury in the ancient world. Salt sal salary salad...same root word. Salzberg/Hallstat—Celtic salt mines. In the days of no refrigeration, the salting/brinebath was the only way to preserve large chunks of meat. 

Pork takes well to smoking, beef doesn't.  Ancient Irish didn't eat much beef as it was their cash cow. Believe it or not, pastrami is the same cut as corned beef—brisket, an otherwise inedible form of beef. Salting makes it edible. 

Pork is LEAN! (Fat is on the outside of the muscle). Beef is marbled with fat throughout the muscle—thus needing another form of curing—or it would turn rancid. Mutton needs to be stewed outdoors or the house will reek of tallow for a season or longer.

Potatoes are a New World food, so parsnips, aka Celtic carrots—would've been the starchy vegetable. And any form of brassica as well. But it didn't all come together as as traditional dish until they all met up in Hell's Kitchen.

St. Patrick's Day is an American invention. The Day itself, a holy day of obligation, is not an invention the parade and drinkfest is an American invention.

Ireland: Why We Have No Corned Beef & Cabbage Recipes

Fat Tuesday pancakes

My grandmother always made thin crepe-style pancakes for dinner on Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday, right before Lent. Sometimes the pancakeswere stuffed with a crumbled cheese mix, usually cottage cheese, then sprinkled with sugar and lemon. Not your usual Sunday morning pancakes. But very tasty. I loved the novelty of having pancakes for dinner.

Every year, without being aware that it's close to Shrove Tuesday, I find myself making pancakes for dinner. Old habits die hard. One year I decided to kick it up a notch and so I used a variety of Wensleydale cheeses, one was flavored with dried apricot filling, and another with lemon rind. Divine, but way too filling. Like lead in the stomach. But we couldn’t let all that real maple syrup go to waste, now could we? More info here.

Not sure why there's vinegar in this Welsh recipe...if the buttermilk's any good, you don't need it. Besides, lemon juice would be more flavorful—unless it's basalmic vinegar. Then, by all means, carry on.

More info on Shrove Tuesday here. And here.

Added 2/20

Imbolc : Lá Fhéile Bríde

"Brigid saw the beauty and goodness of God in all His creation: cows made her love God more."

I had a mooving experience with the heifer girls in Nicasio. One young heifer couldn't get enough of me, and bathed my left arm until it was raw; she thoroughly rasped my shirtsleeve for good measure. Was she commenting on my hygiene habits? Nothing like cow slobber. Worse than Newfie and St. Bernard goo. Appropriately it's St. Brigid's Day. Lá Fhéile Bríde. Patroness of springs, wells, calves and lambs, beer and poetry. Happy Imbolc, Celtic Spring.

Oh bright one, Brid óg,
welcome into our home today,
bring with you the gentleness
and grace you share,
protect the walls, the floor
and anyone who comes through our door.

Spread your cloak of peace and healing
to all that know Bright Brigid,
your face as the hag has gone,
reborn again we welcome you young Brid.
Brighten our way.

(I got this from Frances Black's Facebook wall, a post from Joseph Keane. Don't know if it's his poem, or a translation, as I also found it on the Celtic Revival page). I later became friends with Joe on Facebook, and he said it was his.

And from the wall of  Shay Black

Sing and honor Brigid
Erin’s dearest daughter
Beloved throughout her native land
Let us sing her praises

Bright shining light of Leinster
As through the land, her radiance
Inspires and soothes our children and
Gives solace to all women

Through the harsh of Winter
Come cutting winds of darkness
But on our Brigid's Feasting Day
Bright Spring returns to Erin.

    — Shay Black translation.

Áine Minogue - Gabhaim Molta Bríde (We Praise Brigid) A short version of the Gaelic song "Gabhaim Molta Bríde" (We Praise Brigid), often sung on February 1st, the day set aside in her honor. She is often depicted using the triple spiral, representing the three aspects of womanhood, maiden, mother and crone.

Nóirín Ní Riain - Ode To Bridget

SAINT BRIGID'S PRAYER
(10th century Poem attributed to Brigid herself)

I'd like to give a lake of beer to God.
I'd love the heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity.

I'd love the men of Heaven to live with me,
To dance and sing.
If they wanted, I'd put at their disposal
Vats of suffering.

White cups of love I'd give them
With a heart and a half;
Sweet pitchers of mercy I'd offer
To every man.

I'd make Heaven a cheerful spot
Because the happy heart is true.
I'd make the men contented for their own sake.
I'd like Jesus to love me too.

I'd like the people of heaven to gather
From all the parishes around.
I'd give a special welcome to the women,
The three Marys of great renown.

I'd sit with the men, the women and God
There by the lake of beer.
We'd be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.

More poems and incantations here:

Brighid, Bright Goddess of the Gael

Smúraidh mi an tula
Mar a smúradh Brighde Muime.
Ainm naomh na Muime
Bhith mu'n tula, bhith mu'n tán,
Bhith mu'n ardraich uile.

I will smoor the hearth
As Brighid the Fostermother would smoor
The Fostermother's holy name
Be on the hearth, be on the herd
Be on the household all.

—Carmina Gadelica, Alexander Carmichael, vol.3

So, I guess "smoor" is an Irish word. My grandmother's last household act of the day, was to smoor the fire. She always smoored the fire before we turned in for the night. And if we were lucky, then there would still be coals by which to light the morning fire. We only had wood heat. None of this central heating stuff.

Crosóg Bhríde. —Wiki

My grannie tried to show me how to make St. Brigid's crosses, I wasn't a very good student. 

How to Make a St. Brigid's Cross
For reference to "Brigid saw the beauty and goodness of God in all His creation: cows made her love God more."

"Brigid is the patron saint of Ireland, poets, dairymaids, blacksmiths, healers (White), cattle, fugitives, Irish nuns, midwives, and new-born babies (Roeder). She is still venerated highly in Alsace, Flanders, and Portugal (Montague), as well as Ireland and Chester, England (Farmer)."

Happy Imbolc.

Bolc, bolg (pronounced bolag), from which the Spanish/Portuguese word bolsa comes, is bag. As in Firbolgs, bagmen. Imboc, in the bag, in the belly. Just like a haggis, a meat pudding  made in a sheep's belly.

"Up Helly Aa," reconstructed Fire Festival, or Imbolc in Viking drag?

Guizers with torches at Up Helly Aa celebration in Uyeasound,Shetland.  Before the 19th c., tar barrels, not torches, were used. They look a bit KKKish.

The “Viking” Up Helly Aa fire festival celebrated on the last Tuesday of January (originally held on old Christmas Eve) in the Shetland Isles in Northern Scotland, is not a Norse festival, but a "reconstructed" Victorian Solstice fire festival. I'm not convinced the festival has any Viking roots, though modern-day Shetlanders, proud of their Norse heritage, would probably avow it does. 

The setting of the beacons, or the wards along the coasts and the lit tar barrels rolled downhill are well-attested Celtic motifs. The lit barrels, (my great grandfather also lit on Beltaine in Bantry County Cork, Ireland), evolved into setting a fire a long ship. 

The origin is a bit more obscure, as the Vikings invaded the Shetland Islands during the 9th century, and the fire festival was founded in 1880s—1905, more than 500 years after Norse rule was vanquished. Besides, there were other cultures living in the Shetland Isles since the Neolithic era. They didn’t just disappear with the arrival of the Vikings.

The Vikings, as we know, were not big on sharing the wealth, and 19th century Viking scholars were also not keen on sharing either. When something is claimed as being authentically Viking in Celtic lands, there is often a convenient blurring of anthropological lines, with the idea of Vikings still plundering other cultures a millennia after assimilation.

What cultures in situ before the Viking invasion, are often overlooked, because it doesn't fit current romantic thought. So, rather than observing the overlay with a cultural substrate, we often get skewed cultural theories based solely on later invading cultures—especially in Scotland where the Viking love affair is still in full swing some six centuries later. There is only "I" in Viking. Not even poetic license can alter that.

Shetland (sometimes referred to as Thule in Classical tracts), was no terra nullius before the Vikings invaded. The archipelagos of Shetland, the Orkneys and the Hebrides, also were not considered part of Scotland, which did not become a kingdom until the ninth century. The Latin term Scoti/Scotti referred to the Irish Gaels, whether in Ireland (Scotia Major) or Scotland (Scotia Minor). 

Long before the Shetland archipelago (Scots Gaelic: Sealtainn) was under Icelandic-Norse control, it was a Mesolithic, Neolithic, then a Celtic stronghold—for millennia. The Shetland Islands were originally settled by Neolithic Bell-Beaker peoples, then the Celts and the Picts, and the Scotti, or the Irish Celts—who also celebrated a fire festival on this date as well. Thule was supposedly settled by blue painted people (Picts), it could be a corruption of the word for fire, Iceland was also referred to as Innis Tile.

The first written mention of the Shetland Islands, comprised of some 300 islands and skerries, is from the Icelandic 13th c. epic, Njal’s saga. And of course, redheaded Njal with his fierce temper was probably an Irish-Norse Dubliner. At least one Irish Scotti place-name survived the Viking invasions, Dunrossness, and the islands of Papa Stour (Papey Stóra) and Papa Little (P. Litla) refers to Irish Culdee monks. Brother Island may also refer to those Irish monks. Three island place-names may be of Pictish or even pre-Celtic origin: Fetlar, Unst and Yell—once heavily settled by Culdee monks (Pappay/Papil Ness, Loch of Papil and Papil Bay.) St. Ninian’s Isle too was a papar stronghold.

Another Celtic influenced place-name Muckle meaning “big” in 17th c. Scots dialect, and Rua, meaning red (Old Irish ruiadh), a red granite islet, though Muckle Rua is erroneously identified as a Norse place-name, as is Dunrossness. But Dun is fort and ross is a promontory. And ness is a common Scots-Norse accretion also meaning headland in case one didn’t know what a ross was—a clear indication that the promontory was already aptly named before the Vikings arrived. Nothing to do with a noisy tidal race. 

The early medieval Pictish Bressay Stone,  (It’s in the basement of the National Museum in Edinburgh) with Celtic knotwork and beasties, has an Ogam inscription: “The cross of Natdad's daughter, child of Maqqddrroann,” (OId Irish Mac (son of) Droann. More here.) One of five Ogham stones in Shetland, the inscription is an admixture of Old Irish, and Norn, as the word for daughter is in Norse. Certainly, most of the village names would be of Old Norse derivation as the Irish Scotti didn’t go in big for the idea of towns.

Since the Neolithic era, (4000 BC), people have raised cattle and sheep, and farmed the Shetland Isles. What survives are prehistoric field systems, Bronze Age burnt mounds, Iron Age brochs, and Pictish wheelhouses. The oldest archaeological find, ca. 4000 BC, is a midden at West Voe, Sumburgh. Hard to imagine now, but much of the North Sea was once dry land, Shetland was lightly wooded and the climate was warmer. Neolithic burials include stone cists, and heel-chambered cairns on the island of Vementry, Punds Water and Islesburgh. Skara Brae, Maes Howe, and Ring of Brogar, in nearby Orkney, are extraordinary Neolithic monuments.

During the Bronze Age (2000 to 600 BC), the climate deteriorated, peat bogs spread, and sea level rose. Some 300 crescent-shaped burnt mounds (possible hearths) date back to the Bronze Age. "Ireland was the chief center for the manufacture of bronze and Scotland's early settlers were energetic seamen." Even way then there was a lot of travel between the islands. For millennia, there was Irish contact in the Shetlands, whether by trade, or by theft: a bronze-gilt harness mounting was made in Ireland during the 8th or 9th c. AD, was excavated from an archaeological dig.

Possibly due to a population explosion, or increased warfare, the Iron Age in Shetland saw the rise of massive fortifications: double-walled circular towers, and dry stone brochs—sometimes called "Pictish Towers", but their construction predates the Picts. Ancestors of the Picts, maybe.

Of the 120 Iron Age broch sites, Old Scatness, and the Broch of Mousa (ca. 100 BC), are among the finest preserved examples of Iron Age fort towers. In the case of Old Scatness, the Celts, the late Iron Age Picts, then the Vikings each built atop the old fortifications. Excavations at Jarlshof, confirm archaeological evidence in Mainland, Shetland, since the Bronze Age.

By the sixth century AD, Shetland had become integrated into the mainstream of Pictish politics and life. Artefacts such as painted pebbles and carved symbol stones demonstrate a strong Pictish presence in the islands. Good examples include the ogham script of the Lunnasting Stone, and Christian cross-slabs which include fine examples such as the cross slab and the Monk’s Stone, both from Papil.... From the late 8th century, Shetland was subject to the turbulent impact of the expanding Viking world.—Visit Shetland

The Viking invasions began ca. 800 AD. The earliest archaeological evidence of Norse occupation is in the nearby Orkneys (Viking Shetland was administered as part of the Orkneys, and they were both called the Northern Isles). In 800 AD, a Pictish, or Irish Culdee hoard of silver bowls, brooches, torcs, thimbles, chapes, and a porpoise jaw, was found beneath St. Ninian's church floor on Shetland's St. Ninian's Isle. (See St Ninian's Isle Treasure. St. Ninian AKA Apostle to the Southern Picts).

Human settlement of the island dates from circa 3000 BC and there are remains of several Neolithic burial chambers known as 'heel-shaped cairns'. Little is known of the pre-Celtic and Celtic eras, but when the Norse arrived it is likely they found a religious settlement as the name of the island derives from Papey Stóra meaning "Big island of the Papar" (Celtic monks), in distinction to Papa Little. —Wiki  (see Culdees or papar.)

In 1299 AD, the oldest Old Norse manuscript from Shetland (the Norse called it Hjaltland), was over a duel, where the isle of Papa Stour is referenced. Thorvald Thoresson, accused of corruption, was called "dominus de Papay." In early Irish literature, Shetland was referred to as Inse Catt—"the Isles of Cats." And the name Shetland, like Caithiness, may derive from the Pictish name for the cat islands. Ferocious European wildcats were not your modern moggies.

During the outbreak of Celtic Christianity, when "green" martyrs were seeking hermitages to commune with God, the Irish monks settled on most of the Hebrides, Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, as well as the Faroe Islands, and Iceland, the first stepping stone from Shetland to Iceland. Iceland was settled by the Norse, and Celts from the British Isles—including from Hebrides and Shetland.

During the Dark Ages, groups of outlaws and farmers took to the sea from the northernmost reaches of Europe. These seafaring marauders became known as the Vikings. Some of these outcasts among the Vikings were to achieve historical distinction indirectly through dubious means. —from The Struggle against Colonialism and Imperialism in Kalaallit Nunaat

What's interesting about the Up Helly Aa festival is that it completely obliterates any connection with the peoples of the past, other than a nod to 19th century Viking revival nostalgia. It's a wayward case of settler colonialism displacing the preexisting subculture, as a means strengthening an invader's power base to shore up national identity. This was certainly true in Iceland even though Iceland was settled by as many Irish as Vikings. So, what is Up Helly Aa?

According to John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1818), up is used in the sense of something being at an end, and derives from the Old Norse word uppi which is still used in Faroese and Icelandic, while helly refers to a holy day or festival. The Scottish National Dictionary defines helly, probably derived from the Old Norse helgr (helgi in the dative and accusative case, meaning a holiday or festival), as "[a] series of festive days, esp. the period in which Christmas festivities are held from 25th Dec. to 5th Jan." while aa may represent a', meaning "all".  —Wiki Up Helly Aa

But the Northern Isles were once described as "Pictish in culture and speech."  Not Viking. Few Irish pr Pictish place-names survive, except for the northern islands Fetlar with its stone Funzie Girt (Finn's Dyke) a Bronze Age Berlin Wall, Unst and Yell, the second largest island, with 12 brochs, and 15 early chapels—a Culdee stronghold, probably not as enticing to the Norse. The dearth of Celtic "place-names suggest that the Picts may have been forced onto poorer land."There is another school of thought that they are pre-Celtic place names.

Despite many archaeological remains, we have only a patchy understanding of those who lived in Shetland before the Viking invasions of around 800 AD. Immediately before the Vikings arrived, though, it’s clear that Shetland – like much of Scotland - was part of the Pictish culture. By the time of the Viking invasion, possibly two or three hundred years earlier, Christianity had reached the islands. —History of Shetland

The "Northern Isles were the first to be conquered by Vikings and the last to be relinquished by the Norwegian crown." The historical record is weak but Woolf (2007) suggests the Icelandic sagas proclaiming dominion over the Shetland Isles are stories concocted "to legitimise Norwegian claims to sovereignty in the region." Perhaps that is also why a Celtic fire festival, possibly Imbolc, underwent a transformation into Up Helly aa.

An interesting aside: according to the Icelandic sagas, Egil's saga, and the Orkneyinga saga, the Broch of Mousa was used as a refuge for runaway lovers.

I suppose if one is inventive enough, the Norse origin of other island place-names could be challenged: Vementry (Old Norse: "Vemunðarey) could also be derived from a form of Finn, as in Finn's beach: as in Ventry, (Irish: Ceann Trá—which means head beach), which is an anglicization of Fionntrá, in Dingle, Co. Kerry. St. Ninian was also known as Fionnian. M, B and F, in the genitive, take on a v sound. But I'm being linguistically silly.

Maybe it would be more fruitful to look at DNA. Shetland's genetic heritage is 60% Norwegian Y-chromosome DNA (R1a Sigurd), and 40% is ancient Briton (Celts) DNA. The most common male Y chromosomes reflect the most recent migration. Apparently the Norse married lots of local women; as Norse (matrilineal) mtDNA was 30%. However:

[in] Orkney and Shetland, Roberts reported (1985, 1990) that both island populations diverged considerably in allele frequencies from neighboring populations. Roberts concluded that the islanders of Orkney and Shetland most likely represented remnants of an aboriginal gene pool that had changed on the British mainland because of later population movements.... Of the Scottish populations, Orkney [not Shetland] evidently has the closest matrilineal links with Scandinavia. The inhabitants of the Scottish islands share two to seven times more of their lineages exclusively with Gaels than they do with Scandinavians.... mtDNA lineages can be used to identify recent migration. Viking men settled and intermarried with existing populations in Shetland... —mtDNA and the Islands of the North Atlantic

So, with all that intact ancient matrilineal Celtic Briton gene pool intact, do you think their fire customs, celebrated since time immemorial, would suddenly be forgotten and just disappear with the occupation of the Vikings—only to return as a new and improved Viking festival? Methinks this particular fire festival smacks of the neo-Romantic Viking revivalist movement: think truncated Wagner as performed by Viking mummers. (Note that Up Helly Aa is not celebrated in Scandinavia.) 

According to the Smithsonian article, "Up Helly Aa was first celebrated in the 1880s. Before then, rowdy residents would take to the streets to mark the end of the Yule season by burning tar barrels." 

Up Helly Aa is a procession of 1000 guizers celebrating their Norse heritage. Guizers (dis-guisers and galoshins) are a long-standing tradition in the Celtic ream; our modern Halloween trick or treaters are guisers. 

The festival is stapled onto the end of Yule season (see: Burning of the clavie), but even using the old calendar, "Old Twelfth" would have fallen on Jan. 17, not the end of January, which would be Imbolc, the Fire Festival of Brigid.

A parallel story of confusion: an Irish Medieval History Facebook post notes that people erroneously assume the pagan Celtic Goddess Brigid, who represented the light half of the year, was transported into Christianity as Saint Brigid. Ancient customs and religious beliefs were not swept away with the arrival of Christianity and traditions associated with St. Brigid’s day are thought to date from the pre-Christian period. Candlemas is the Christian overlay of Imbolc.

So taking that model for cultural continuance, despite new landlords, I suspect this Shetland fire festival is an offshoot of the festival of Imbolc, and of the pan-Celtic Goddess Brigid, which was a time for a massive spring clean-up, burning old possessions and replacing them with new ones. 

Since Neolithic times, cross-quarter days, that midway point between solstice and equinox, were celebrated with fire festivals. Cross-quarter days were marked via astronomical alignments on ancient monuments: Mound of the Hostages: Hill of Tara, Howth, Newgrange, Stonehenge. The four fire festivals, Samhain (the end of the Celtic harvest year), Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh also mark the beginning of each season. Spring was the beginning of the Roman New Year.

Imbolc might derive from Old Irish í mBolc, meaning in the belly (as in pregnant—bolg — Spanish /Galician bolsa means bag); it might mean purification or, First Milk.

...which arises from the word “oimelc/oí melg” used in the 10th century Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary) which some people have taken to mean “sheep’s milk”. The word “melg” meaning ‘milk’ comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE—the ancestor language of most European languages) word “melg” which means "to wipe, to rub off". Purification/ cleansing was an important aspect of many ancient festivals and “oí melg” is not milking but rubbing, as in the act of cleansing. Further evidence of cleansing comes from the Roman festival of Februalia. The Old Irish word for February is ‘febra’, ‘febrae’ from Latin ‘Februarius’ which in turn comes from ‘februa’ meaning purifications. —Irish Medieval History: February 1st or Imbolc 

Imbolc was the second of the four great fire festivals, with significance placed upon the Light of fire. The Irish word for spring, "errach” thought to be related to the word “airreach” which means hauling and dragging. In Ireland, Imbolc is referred to as the big Spring Clean. "Right up to the twentieth century, on Brigid’s eve, the house was be scrubbed from top to bottom by the women who worked into the night." 

All debris was burned (including floor rushes, beds and bedding). Bonfires galore. Oh, and Brigid is a daughter of the Dagda, and a poet. She is the patron of the hearth, healing, metal smithcraft; and inventor of poetry, keening, and beer making. Ya don't want to piss her off. Burn, baby, burn. Sláinte!

A Bhríd, a Bhríd, thig a sligh as gabh do leabaidh
Bríd Bríd, come in; thy bed is ready

Brede, Brede, come to my house tonight.
Open the door for Brede and let Brede come in.

Imbolc festival in Marsden, Yorkshire. —Wiki

Brigid's the goddess of weather, for an early spring, forget the groundhog, chant this instead:

Thig an nathair as an toll
Là donn Brìde,
Ged robh trì troighean dhen t-sneachd
Air leac an làir. 

The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bríde,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground.

Lá Fhéile Bríde shona dóibh go léir (Happy St. Brigid’s festival day to you all)!

Lá Fhéile Bealtaine shona daoibh

Notch-peaf, or heliotrope phacelia, Mojave Desert, near Ivanpah

When I was a child, my grandmother always bade me wash my face in the May morning dew. Something to do with the fairies and the Otherworld. In this way culture was transmitted. Mayday was the one day we were allowed to bring a branch of the sacred hawthorn into the house. We had two trees she planted below the house. They didn't thrive in the California heat. But each spring, they blossomed, one red, and and one white. In Bantry, her father drove cattle between bonfires, and sent Catherine wheels down the hill. They weren't wheels, but whiskey barrels filled with tar. He lit and rolled them down the hill from the farm at Coom anÓr. This evening commemorates when the dark half of the year dies and the bright half of the year begins. My grannie was always quick to point out that Beltaine began on the eve of May 4. Not May 1. Somehow, the West Corkonians kept track of the old ways, counting the Cross Quarter days, despite the shift in the Gregorian calendar. She also said Bel/Beal was the god of light, he was not related to Balor, who was a solar god, like Lugh. She said May had to do with the arrival of summer, hence Bel's fires. Bal-ti-mor, who knew the American city was named after the fire god of May? Once I was chosen to crown the statue of the Virgin Mary with a pink rosebud wreath—we sang to the fairest Queen of the May. How did the Virgin Mary become associated with May? In school we wove May baskets of colored paper, and filled them with flowers then left them on neighbors' doorsteps. We also sang A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket... It was a day of hair ribbons and frilly dresses with long sashes. At school, we danced around the Maypole. Such magic was afoot, we were giddy with delight. Then the Lagunitas school board declared it pagan. They feared it was tainted with paganism and the the ever-present threat of Communism was a sub-text. We were devastated, of course. Something in us died that day. Something of wonder, something of beauty. They couldn't hear our distress call. mayday, mayday.  ... ---...  A small sliver of culture went down with the ship that day.



from a Facebook memory
added & rev. 4/1/2016 

Bealtaine (be-all-tin-a) from the Irish, meaning ‘Bright Fire’ 

My story on Mayday