One of the most difficult aspects of Celtic Reconstructionism, once you’ve figured out what it actually is, is finding a place to start practising it. Finding out how to practice it.

Looking about on the internet, you might find mention of what CR’s do - celebrating the four Cross Quarter Days and observing daily prayers, for example - but there’s not much in the way of specifics. Hopefully the following pages will help address this - primarily from a Scottish Reconstructionist point of view, but with some reference to Irish practices as well.

According to the Carmina Gadelica, daily life in the Scottish Highlands was surrounded by short rituals and prayers. There are prayers and runes for healing, justice, journeys, holy days, the sun and moon, spinning, carding and weaving, saining (protecting/cleansing), churning, baking and other laborious tasks, as well as prayers that could be said on rising and rest.

Superstitions were also an important part of these daily tasks to ensure protection and blessing upon the household. The spiritual and the mundane were considered to be one and the same in many respects, and this can be seen not only in the prayers and songs that have been recorded, but also in the superstitions and folk practices that have survived through to today. God - or the gods in those prayers that still seem to retain some pagan influence - was seen to be in all things, protecting, guarding and guiding those who said them from the ever-present dangers of the Good Folk.

Since the Highlands and Islands were often very remote, priests were not always readily available to perform the important rites that marked certain points in a person’s life such as baptism, marriage and funerals. This meant the folk themselves often performed certain traditions as an interim measure until the priest could come, and so we see midwives performing saining rituals to bless and protect mother and babe from the unwanted attention of the Good Folk until they could attend church and have it done properly, for example. It's conceivable that these traditions have evolved relatively unbroken from pre-Christian practices, though this is obviously impossible to prove. What can be seen is that they certainly retain evidence of an underlying Celtic cosmology.

The belief in such otherworldly dangers filtered into seasonal and daily practices as well, with prayers and charms to ensure the butter wasn’t stolen, or journey’s were blessed and so on. The Good Folk were both propitiated - with milk often being offered on a stone in a field to ensure a good supply in the future, for example¹ - as well as guarded against with charms and superstitions to unwanted attention from them in the home, particularly on the Cross Quarter days when such dangers were more apparent.

However, before we look at the Cross Quarter Days, it might be best to start with the simpler, everyday stuff.

Daily practices

The hearth, being at the centre of the household, forms the central focus of my daily practices, but many of the daily prayers and rituals outlined below can be performed by anyone, with the hearth as your focal point, or a shrine, altar or sacred place set aside especially if you prefer.

Typically, a housewife’s day would begin with the reviving of the hearth fire, which would have been smoored the night before. Throughout the day, household chores would be performed such as churning butter, weaving, spinning, baking bread and bannocks, preparing the dinner and making clothes for members of the family. The daughters of the house would help out in these activities, or be assigned their own responsibilities such as milking the cows, while the men of the house would generally carry out the more laborious tasks.²

The list below are examples of the prayers from the Carmina Gadelica that I’ve incorporated into my daily practices. I’ve found it helpful to start off with these as a means of finding my feet, and as I’ve become familiar with them I’ve started adapting them as the day, or my whims, dictate. At the bare minimum, I would suggest performing the prayer at rising and the rest blessing, which are appropriate for anyone, since performing any more on a daily basis might be a little overambitious to start with. Others can be done as it seems appropriate.

Smaladh - Smooring the Fire
The Rest Prayer
Prayer at Rising
Blessing of the Kindling
Prayer to the Sun
Prayer to the Moon

References