How to Seduce Your Land

It was in the 1st or 2nd Century BC when the bard, Amergin, made the Irish land fall in love with him. He sang to the land from his approaching boat and the beautiful green island became his. This was the beginning of the Celts’ relationship with what has become their dearest homeland. What can we learn from this poet and how can we create such a romance with the land we inhabit?

All those years ago, before the approach of the people we have come to know as the Celts, Ireland was inhabited by another race, the Tuatha De Danann. The people of Amergin, the Celts, were prepared to fight for this island with the Tuatha De Danann and terms of engagement were set. As agreed, the Celts retreated from the island beyond the magical “ninth wave” so the Tuatha De Danann could prepare for battle, but instead they raised an impenetrable fog to thwart the Celts. At this point, Amergin stood on the prow of the boat and instead of beseeching the people to keep to their agreement, he sang to the land. This invocation has come to be known as The Song of Amergin. It has many versions, and here is one:


I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

The land of Ireland fell in love with the song and the bard and parted the mist to let the sailors approach. The Celts took the island with little force. The Tuatha De Danann retreated into the land, becoming part of her, and living underground from that time to the present. The Celts came ashore, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Using the wisdom of Amergin, what invocation could you make to your land…your backyard…where you hike…to make the land fall in love with you and open to you in deep relationship? Would you speak of all the ways you feel at one with your land already? Would you make promises? Would you make invitations? Would you cast a vision of great intimacy? Would you, as Amergin did, speak about all the versions of yourself that could bless the land? Work magic with your plot of earth and see what dedication and love you can create together.

Oh, and the Tuatha De Dannan? They live on, still making aggravating magic to annoy humans as the Wee Folk, the Leprechauns of Ireland.