#dair na coille

[blairstales]

Dàir na Coille – The imbuement of the woods – New Years Day

“Dàir na Coille celebrates the arrival of blessings, life-forces, and spirits, brought on the West Wind and nestled in the trees until each new blessing and new life, and new spirit emerges in due course in the months ahead. On New Year’s Day, the head of the household would go out and get a small twig from a fruit-bearing tree and bring it into the house saying “Fas is gnaths is toradh”, meaning ‘Growth, tradition, and abundance’, so that his family could share in the blessing of the new emerging life. As far as I know, this is all that remains of this custom. We are not told where the blessings and spirits come from exactly, or who sends them, however, we can interpret the symbolism that is still present in this simple custom.

The new spirits are brought in on the West Wind, which, apart from being wonderfully animistic, says something important. The wind is a vehicle for vitality; we affirm this fact with every breath we take, but the West, the direction of sunset, death, and the ancestors, is a direction of endings. So these newly arriving spirits come from the place unto which departing spirits go. The spirits are not just coming, the spirits are returning! Renewed!

Michael Newton suggests in his handbook of the Scottish Gaelic World that the individual trees imbued in Dair na Coille are a source of life, much as the Tree of Life is the ultimate source of life.”

#dair na coille #new year #scottish customs #scottish new year #scottish folkore #scottishfolklore #mythology #Scottish animism #animism #scottishpaganism #paganism