“Up to the mid-nineteenth century the bible provided the chronology for the scientific interpretation of the past in the Christian world. The timescale of humanity was estimated to be about 6000 years, and earlier propositions from the Classical world that there had been an age of stone before metal were disregarded because it was considered that the bible clearly stated otherwise.”
If you are reading this and grew-up in the US, chances are you were influenced by this way of thinking. If you attended an evangelical church, chances are even higher. If you were not exposed to the social sciences at university, you may not have been challenged to evaluate the ways your worldview has been shaped.
Myth: another powerful concept shaped by the Christian view.
Death: thoughts, feelings, and beliefs regarding what it is, and its implications, have been profoundly shaped by Christian views.
Truth: is there one?
The flavour of Protestantism practiced in the US has removed the complexities and paradox associated with religious myth and story. Those of us shaped by western centric worldview often read mythologies and folklore in a literal sense, because we have been taught to understand religious stories in this manner. We also inherently believe that preserved mythologies impart some grain of divine revelation.
Living, as I do, on an island steeped in social complexity – I can tell you…… There ain’t a grain of Truth in it! Let me toss out a few ideas, and if you are versed in Irish lore I would love to hear your thoughts!
Fairy lover? = necromancy
Going to live in the Sí? = death
Taken for “x” years and then returning?= reincarnation
the sun room = megalithic mound
The Irish were ancestor worshipers. The Sí were the homes of “many kings of valour”, and the great sovereignty queen of the area (the earth herself). What else do persons (both human and non) do, but what they always do….. If a human seems to have vanished (died – checked out from behind the eyes), they must be journeying to the land of the winds and light (beings I can not ‘see’ but feel) doing great exploits and feasting.
More to come….
Confessions of a Hedge Witch 
I can’t wait for more of your thoughts on this. I love the connections you are making and will have to go back and reread some of the myths with this in mind.
Take a look at Traditional Witchcraft’s ideas of “dual observance” – very syncretic and somehow less contradictory. My family comes from a Scandinavian free-church (Lutheran offshoot), and yet there was always the awareness that we also had roots in the Swedish folk magic tradition. Three Hands Press, Society for Esoteric Endeavor/Cadeuseus Books, etc. all have titles in English dealing with traditional witchcraft (not wicca).
Thank you for those references, Niklas. I will certainly take a look. The topic of pagan worldview keeps coming up for me, and a need to go back in order to come forward. I seem to be grappling with untangling my own biases, attempting to come to some understanding of a perspective untainted by traditional western/christian thought, so that I can approach my own work in THIS time and culture with a different lens.
I completely get that! Little story: When I came out of the “broom-closet” to my mom and dad, they were visiting me in Berkeley. I decided rather than try to use English (“witch” would have put them on edge), I would use Swedish to explain my spiritual pursuits (They were Swedes, me first generation). When I said I was a “wise-one” (Swedish: en av de kloka), my mom said in Swedish: “Well, that’s fine, you know your mormors mormor was one too. But why don’t you go to church?” I rolled my eyes, and decided that I had gone as far as I could with them. My spirituality is basically formed around Faery, so that’s my “religion”, but when it comes to my sorcery, I still look back at my forebears in the Swedish cunning tradition.