Moon Rituals
The moon by the calendar: phases, names, and seasonal observance
The astronomy of the phases on a 29.5-day cycle, where the full-moon names really come from (largely 1930s US almanacs), and marking…
Section
Author: <span>Sidhe Wolf Editorial</span>
The Sidhe Wolf editorial desk. Folklore is sourced and attributed; named contributors are credited on their own pieces.
Spirituality & Magic
A short history of tarot: from Marseille to Rider–Waite–Smith to Thoth
The documented history: a 15th-century Italian card game reinterpreted as occult wisdom in 1781, then remade as the Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth decks.…
Spirituality & Magic
The Minor Arcana as symbolism: the four suits and the pips
The 56 Minor Arcana cards as iconography: the four suits, their elements, and how Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 scenic pips remade tarot.…
Moon Rituals
The Wheel of the Year, honestly dated
The eight festivals, honestly dated: the four fire-festival names are medieval, but the eightfold wheel and Ostara, Litha and Mabon are 20th-century…
Celtic Legends
Oisín and Tír na nÓg: the Land of Youth
Niamh, the white horse over the sea, and the three hundred years: the great Irish Otherworld tale. The version everyone knows is…
Celtic Legends
Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool): the hero of the Fenian Cycle
Leader of the Fianna and hero of the Irish Fenian Cycle: the boy who tasted the Salmon of Knowledge. The Giant's Causeway…
Celtic Legends
Manannán mac Lir: the sea-god of Ireland and the Isle of Man
The sea-god of the Irish and the Manx: the rider who sees a flowering plain where we see waves, husband of Fand,…
Celtic Legends
The Tuatha Dé Danann
The old gods of Ireland — the pantheon of Lebor Gabála Érenn and Cath Maige Tuired — who won Ireland in two…
Celtic Legends
Fairy forts (ráth and lios): the taboo that re-routed a road
Irish fairy forts (ráth, lios) are early-medieval ringforts held to be homes of the good people — and the taboo against disturbing…
Myth & Folklore
Changelings: the belief, its social history, and its real human harm
The changeling — a fairy left in place of a stolen human — was a folk explanation for illness and disability whose…