Irish Soma
Peter Lamborn Wilson
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any scholars believe that the Indo-Europeans used an entheogenic or psychedelic drug in their rituals -- called soma amongst the Vedic people of India, and haoma in Iran. The ancient Greeks also used an ergot-based preparation in wine as the entheogenic trigger of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Soma has been identified as amanita muscaria or the fly agaric mushroom; haoma may have been the same, or it might be "wild rue," a harmaline-containing shrub (see Bibliography under Flattery and Schwartz). If there's any truth to these theories, we would expect to find that other Indo-European peoples also used such drugs shamanically or ritually. Terrence McKenna believes that psilocybe was once even more widely distributed than it is now, and therefore must also be considered in the soma context. Certainly entheogenic religions are far more thoroughly attested today than when Wasson launched ethnomycology with his "wild" speculations, which now seem rather conservative. Even if we cannot accept the "psychedelic experience" as the origin of religion, I believe that we must certainly see it as one of a complex of "origins", a complexity which might best be expressed in a palimpsest of theories about those origins; in short, I would maintain that the failure to consider entheogenesis ("birth of the god within" by ingestion of psychotropic substances) must be considered a serious flaw in any integral History of Religion.
I consider it strange that in all the writing I've read about psychedelics, and about Ireland, not one text has connected the two subjects. My reading is of course far from complete, and my first query concerns this point. I can scarcely believe that I'm the first to consider the question of a soma cult amongst the Celts, those old-fashioned Indo-Europeans so loyal to ancient ways -- and so fond of intoxication. An immediate presumption would be that the Celts lost soma, if they ever had it, when they migrated West from the Indo-European heartland; at best, they may have developed mead as a substitute. I know of no reference to intoxicants other than alcohol in use among the Celts, who in fact quickly became major importers of Mediterranean wines. We know, however, that a vast amount of orally-transmitted Druid lore is lost beyond recall, and we als/o know how entheogenic cults can thrive under the very nose of "civilization" and not be noticed (as in Latin America). Wasson and his school have demonstrated how mushroom language tends to be euphemized, masked, coded, buried in etymologies and even "false" etymologies. If we are to speculate about the possible existence of a Celtic -- specifically Irish -- soma, we must exercise a bit of detective work. Using some of their findings as possible structures for our exegesis, we can go back and read our texts over again and hope for a few glimmerings or clues.

Irish myths and legends were not written down till the Christian era, and then only by monks who might well have misunderstood or even censored any references to a soma-type substance or cult. By that time, any entheogenic knowledge or ritual once possessed by druids might well have already vanished (or retreated into folklore), and the memory of soma distorted beyond recognition. Any mushroom lore that survived till the ninth to twelfth centuries A.D. would be the province of illiterate peasant wise-women and wizards -- not of literate monks. For this reason we can expect that the myths and legends of the monkish manuscripts will be hard to read from our special perspective. But Irish folklore, as distinct from myths and legends, may prove a much clearer source. For reasons known to folklorists, Ireland is a special case of the survival of Indo-European lore, comparable perhaps only to India. In fact, Indian material should be used to throw light on Irish material where areas of darkness exist. From this point of view I think we can take for granted that whatever we may find in Ireland that looks like soma, and smells like soma, so to speak, might very well be soma, although we may never be able to prove the identity. But the well-known affinity between Celtic and Vedic cultures should pre-dispose us to at least a certain open-mindedness.

The Irish material abounds in references to magical substances which bestow knowledge and/or pleasure when ingested. Perhaps the best-known are the hazelnuts of wisdom, eaten by the Salmon, fished up by the Druid, and cooked by young Finn--who, as "sorcerer's apprentice", burns his thumb on the Salmon's skin, sticks thumb in mouth, and attains all the wisdom in his master's stead. The "shamanic" overtones of this story are quite obvious. Turning to the older manuscripts, we have the enigmatic "Geste of Fraoch" [1], concerning the hero Fraoch who is half-fairy (Sidh) in origin. His sister is the nymph of the River Boyne. He seeks to marry Find-abair, daughter of Aillil and Maeve, the witch-queen. He arrives at their kingdom with his retinue and impresses everyone with his beauty, and his skill at music and chess. Find-abair falls in love with him. They meet secretly and she gives him her gold thumb-ring. Aillil and Maeve agree to the wedding, but secretly plot the hero's destruction. Maeve invites Fraoch to bathe in her magic spring. Growing on its bank is the rowan tree.


Every fourth and every month
Ripe fruit the rowan bore:
Fruit more sweet than honey-comb;
Its clusters' virtues strong,
Its berries red could one but taste
Hunger they staved off long.

ROWAN BERRY juice could preserve life and cure dread disease. Maeve, sitting on the shore, begs Fraoch to swim over and pluck some berries for her. As she well knows, the rowan-berries are guarded by a dragon (or water-serpent), who attacks Fraoch. In one version, the beast kills him. In another version, as Maeve, her daughter, and the court ladies enjoy the sight of Fraoch sporting naked in the pool, Aillil steals the gold thumb-ring from Fraoch's purse, shows it to Maeve, and throws it into the water. Fraoch notices this, and also notices that a salmon gulps down the ring. Without anyone seeing him, he catches the fish barehanded, and hides it "a hidden spot by the brink" of the water. Thereupon Maeve demands the rowan-berries; Fraoch complies; the monster appears. Find-abair strips to the buff and leaps into the water with a sword, which she tosses to her lover. He slays the beast. Aillil and Maeve now plot the death of their own daughter. A ritual bath is prepared for Fraoch, "of fresh-bacon broth and heifer-flesh minced in it," a sign that he will be raised to royal status. Afterwards a feast is organized. During the feast Aillil orders that all his treasures be brought out and displayed. In order to complete this vulgar show, he demands that Find-abair produce her gold thumb-ring; when she fails to do so he threatens her with death. But Fraoch has meanwhile retrieved the salmon from its hiding-place and given it to Find-abair's maid to cook. The girl brings in the fish, "broiled..., well prepared with honey dressing." The ring is of course discovered. Aillil and Maeve are foiled.

In this version the tale ends happily. Ignoring the temptation to unpack too many clues from this story, we should confine ourselves to asking whether or not it can be read for possible ritual content. The sacred pool, the sacred tree, the combat (which can be seen as a sacrifice, either of Fraoch or of a substitute, the salmon, or of the monster), the beef-and-bacon bath -- during which a chorus of fairy women (Fraoch's sister Boyne and her maidens) appear and sing. All these motifs suggest that our legend is (at least in part) a masked ritual. In that case, the berries may also have a ritual significance. The salmon (with honey) and the thumb ring remind us of the shamanic complex again. The old manuscripts also preserve a number of imrama, or sea-going voyage-tales: the voyages of St. Brendan, of Bran, of Maeldun, and of the O'Corra brothers. The sailors in these romances find many marvelous islands, and on some of these islands they find marvelous fruits -- some poisonous, some euphoriant, and some which stave off hunger. In "the voyage of the sons of O'Corra," for example, they visit an island whose trees are "laden with fruit, and the leaves dropped honey to the ground. In the midst of the island was a pretty lake, whose waters tasted like sweet wine. But after a week of rest by its shores, a "monstrous reptile rose up from the lake, and looked at them." The monster, however, disappears without harming them. [2]

Anois, aistrímis é sin go Gaeilge. Or perhaps not.

Interesting contribution. It is a pity so many access Irish legend and folklore now through English. We need modern-Irish retelling of the old tales.

A tale we are all familiar with is "Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne".... The old warlord Fionn Mac Cumhaill having found himself without a wife gets his younger followers to fix him up with Gráinne daughter of the king. A feast is arranged at Teamhair na Rí to celebrate and Gráinne having taken one look at the old sean-duine dóite that wants her instructs her maids to give a strong dose of "soma" (deoch suain) to all and sundry except the young guy with the nice teeth, Diarmaid déadgheal Ó Duibhne. Once everyone else is drugged and asleep she approaches Diarmaid who is horrified at her proposal knowing that Fionn will cut strips off him alive when he finds out. Gráinne has no mercy on him, casts a spell on him "á chur faoi gheasa dul léi" and so the tóraíocht begins.

Go and read the story in the original Irish. There are good descriptions of games and heroic feats some with hilarious consequences and no consideration given to the squeamish in the descriptions. Enjoy.

(Máirtín Ó Cadhain has words for cutting strips of skin off a live victim (íospartach not íobarthach) which sound like torraíoll tarraíoll but I can't find dictionary reference to them anywhere. I suspect the words "tarr" and "stiall" may be involved but for the moment I don't know.)

Great story. Poignant ending. Aonghus an Bhrogha plays a nice role at the end consoling Gráinne and her children. Or was it only her children? I wonder how many of us are descended from them? Or did they really exist? There are so many placenames commemorating them that they must have.

Dála an scéil, tá sé in am ag scríbhneoir óg éigin Éire a chosaint arís ar na hAllúraigh agus fios a chur arís ar na Fianna. Seans go bhfuil Fionn san arm faoi seo, ina ghinearál faoi éide agus lásaí óir, Oisín ar an ollscoil, Caoilte Mac Rónáin ag ullmhú do na cluichí Oilimpeacha, agus Diarmaid déadgheal Ó Duibhne ina réalt scannán. Cé a ghlaofaidh orthu tiomsú arís ar Almhain leathan-mhór Laighean le dul i mbun feachtais arís sa lá atá inniu ann?

Great word "allúraigh" foreigners - all + muir + aigh = "in from the ocean people"

quote:

Dála an scéil, tá sé in am ag scríbhneoir óg éigin Éire a chosaint arís ar na hAllúraigh agus fios a chur arís ar na Fianna. Seans go bhfuil Fionn san arm faoi seo, ina ghinearál faoi éide agus lásaí óir, Oisín ar an ollscoil, Caoilte Mac Rónáin ag ullmhú do na cluichí Oilimpeacha, agus Diarmaid déadgheal Ó Duibhne ina réalt scannán. Cé a ghlaofaidh orthu tiomsú arís ar Almhain leathan-mhór Laighean le dul i mbun feachtais arís sa lá atá inniu ann?

Céard faoi Fionn mar fhiontraí, chun sin a chostaint ar na bainc, na maorlathaigh agus na hollchomhluchtaí!

Go díreach, a Aonghuis. An náisiún Gaelach a tharrtháil ó lucht na sainte, na creachadóirí bréagacha bradacha! Cé a chuir Bodach an Chóta Lachna thar loch amach? A leithéid seisean atá ag teastáil arís.

Manannán Mac Lir, i riocht Bhodach an Chóta Lachna a sheol an Ghréagach Caoil an Iarrainn amach.

Umhlaím romhat, a Aonghuis. Ní raibh a fhios-san agam. Tá na Gréagaigh beagán trioblóideach go fóill. Dá dhonacht muide i mbun airgid is measa iadsan.

Publishers Weekly on his book "Ploughing the Clouds: The Search for Irish Soma"

quote:

Ancient India's collection of sacred hymns, the Rig Veda (circa 1500 B.C.), describes the ritual use of a plant called soma; whoever drinks it "becomes a kind of god, exalted to a visionary state." Combing Celtic folktales, myths and epics, and drawing parallels between Irish gods, heroes, seers, dragon-slayers and shape-shifters, and those of the Rig Veda, Wilson (Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam) attempts to show that ancient Ireland, like Vedic India, had a psychedelic soma cult. Irish soma, Wilson believes, could have been a Psilocybe mushroom or Amanita muscaria, the mushroom identified as India's soma in Gordon Wasson's controversial Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968). Wilson uses his considerable research to explain and interpret the Indian soma ritual, and to imagine the Irish one, maintaining, for example, that Beltane (May Day) and the summer solstice were important in the Celtic soma ritual. All this is not so far-fetched as it might sound, many prehistorians believe that an Indo-European people branched out from central or northeast Eurasia to become Indians, Greeks, Iranians, Celts, Norse, Russians. Yet the parallels that Wilson delineates between Irish lore and the Vedic hymns often seem strained and tenuous. His convoluted analyses, freighted with academic prose, will appeal chiefly to serious students of comparative religion, folklore and myth, ancient history or drug use. For all his anthropological armature, Wilson makes his agenda clear: soma in Ireland, India and elsewhere "was repressed [by] religion and society based on rigid hierarchy... nothing is more democratic than" soma, "the entheogen, the god within" and Wilson therefore hopes for a "revival of ceremonial entheogenism [psychedelic plant use] in the modern world."

A good question is why Soma was not redacted from Indian literature, a very hierarchical society, but was from Irish literature, a less hierarchical society, according to his theory?

Chan a bhfuil a fhios aghaim fá dtaobh de sin. Níl a fhios agam a dhath faoi sin. Níl eolas dá laghad agam ina thaobh.

Tá sé suimiúil is dócha ach an bhfuil sé oiriúnach don chlár plé seo? Is cuma liomsa. Nílim ach ag cur na ceiste.


Cheapas nár chóir sleachta fada as scríbhinní (daoine eile) a chóipeáil agus a ghreamú anseo.

Rud eile, an mbaineann an t-ábhar le cuspóirí an chlár plé?

Más féidir an t-ábhar seo a phlé beag beann ar an teanga nárbh féidir an clár a oscailt do na hábhair mhóra eile atá á bplé ar chláir eile? Tá's agaibh go léir na hábhair chonspóideacha atá i gceist agam.

quote:

Umhlaím romhat, a Aonghuis.

Ní gá, níl sé tuilte agamsa.

Is maith an rud leabharlann fairsing! Is breá liom an Rúraíocht agus an Fhiannaíocht; is mór an trua nach bhfuil níos mó ar fáil i nGaeilge an lae inniu. Cuid de na scéalta is fearr liom ón tsean litríocht, is i nGearmáinis a léigh mé iad.

Maidir le drúgaíocht, aontaím leat. Ach nár spreag sé comhrá spéisiúil eadrainn!

B’fhéidir go mbeifeá ábalta labhairt i nGaeilge nuair a bhí tú ar meisce, cosúil le bua teangacha ... sin an bhaint!

cinealta aos si i gcuideachta (in the kind company of good people)

in the kind company of good people

I gcuideachta chaoin deá dhaoine

(unless you really mean the fairies, also known as the good people, because they are not. In which case, aos sí is correct)