Robins are a voice from beyond the grave: what to do when meeting a banshee on cairn
Ekaterina Moskovskova, an expert in Irish folklore who studied at Trinity College Dublin and has been living in a mountain village on the west coast of Ireland since 2023, talks about the unique perception of death inherent in the Irish. Critic Lidia Maslova presents the book of the week specifically for Izvestia.
Ekaterina Moskovskova
"The Irish culture of Death"
Moscow: MIF, 2025. 192 p.
The peculiarities of the Irish attitude towards the end of Moskovskov's life are explained by some objective historical factors. First of all, it is the Great Famine of 1845-1852, from which, according to the author of the book, Ireland cannot recover to this day. In the sixth chapter — "The most terrible pages of the history of Ireland. How they lived and died during the years of trials" — Moskovskova examines in detail the socio-psychological consequences of the disaster that struck the country, as well as the imprint it left on the Irish mentality and literature.: "After the Great Famine and mass emigration, a special attitude towards death has developed in Ireland, where mourning and humor are intertwined, and death itself is perceived as part of everyday life. This cultural trait can be traced in numerous literary works by Irish writers, especially in those where death, funerals and commemorations are the central themes of the narrative. Notable examples include James Joyce's "The Dead," Martin Owen's "Graveyard Dirt," and Flann O'Brien's "The Third Policeman." The writer also mentions Joyce's famous "Finnegan Wake" as an illustration of a typical Irish philosophy, "where death is not the end, but a transition to a new state inextricably linked with life."
Russians Russian rituals accompanying this transition may seem rather paradoxical, and sometimes almost unbridled, although in the conclusion of the book the author rather shrewdly points out their similarity to similar Russian practices: "... when I got my hands on Russian sources, I was surprised to find a lot in common: and in our tradition there were "merry commemorations.""with games, sometimes too explicit, dancing, treats, and revivals of the dead." But these similarities between Russian and Irish customs are still waiting for their researcher, and for now Moskovskova is focusing more on the interaction and mixing of the pagan way of life rooted in Ireland with Christianity — this is one of the cross-cutting cultural themes of the book: "In the 5th century, the Irish adopted Christianity, but adapted it to the rooted pagan way. The traditional "merry wake", which was accompanied by live music, dancing, games, drinking alcohol and "reviving" the dead, smoothly flowed into a funeral procession with prayers in the church.
Sometimes the conflict of ancient Celtic culture with the later Christian canon acquired the character of an open confrontation, since in folk memorial games rooted in pagan rituals, it was not difficult to see a parody and ridicule of church rituals and Christian values.: "The traditions of the "merry wake" did not fit into the Christian canon, because they reflected the cult of "feeling", which originated from pagan Celtic ideas about the world order. <...> ...From the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century, the Church condemned three characteristic features of rituals related to death: demonstration of status and financial status, ritual lamentation and general joyfulness, turning into indecency at some points, including debauchery."
Nevertheless, as Moskovskova notes, funeral traditions that were questionable and unacceptable from the point of view of the official church were too widespread and played too important a social role to be eradicated. Although, of course, the ways described in the book to collectively overcome the fear of death, cope with grief and send loved ones on their last journey with dignity look quite extravagant, for example, practical jokes with the body of the deceased: "It is known that sometimes the body was tied so that it stood vertically in the middle of the room, which caused horror among some guests, especially women, they they ran out of the house in fright. Sometimes the owners of the house remained extremely unhappy with what was happening and were close to starting a fight. In other cases, the family did not pay attention to this behavior, because if they had the chance to make fun of it, they would have done it themselves, and in general, such jokes were considered a way to emphasize the connection between the living and the dead." But even such eerie rituals, according to Moskovskova, in their own way helped maintain stability in a society shaken by the loss of one of its members: "after all, the deceased was escorted to another world, which was perceived both as the world of ancestors and faeries, and as a Christian afterlife."
The book tells in some detail about dangerous fairies, infernal banshee mourners, evil and treacherous leprechaun elves and other popular Irish supernatural entities, as well as about the entire complex of superstitions that have common features in many cultures, are formed according to approximately the same logic and are designed not so much to frighten a person as to mentally prepare him for transition to another world: "In Ireland, there are many signs that people consider harbingers of imminent death. For example, it may be an unexpected crowing of a rooster in the middle of the day or night, a strange nocturnal "ticking of death" in the wall or in the bed, a painting falling from the wall, a robin bird flying into the house..."
The current portals to another world are ancient tombs built before the Egyptian pyramids, cairns (burial mounds) and dolmens, abundantly scattered throughout the "emerald isle", as the researcher sometimes poetically calls her beloved Ireland. The first chapter of the book is devoted to prehistoric megalithic monuments such as the Kade Fields, Pulnabron and Newgrange (the portal between the mortal world and the kingdom of the gods, where the main character of Irish mythology, Cuchulainn, was born), which sets up an extremely philosophical mood and suggests that a person who feels himself to be just a modest part of nature with its eternal cycle alive and dead, there is nothing to panic about before death: "People of the Neolithic and Bronze Age had a deep understanding of nature that went beyond simple survival. They used their buildings not only as places to live or bury, but also as landmarks for astronomical events, as well as symbols of the connection between the past, present and future."
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