BeAltaine Prayers

Michael McGuinness

The Carmina Gaedelica is a collection of Scottish Gaelic prayers and charms collected by civil servant Alexander Carmichael during the 19^th century (a new translation is available from Amazon, and there is a bilingual edition at The Internet Sacred Text Archive). While overtly Christian, many of the prayers retain an ancient poetic structure that might also indicate that a newer ideology had been pasted over an older pagan oral tradition. Many of them also reflect the intrinsic Gaelic reverence for nature, evident throughout both the pagan and the Christian eras. In keeping with Neo-Pagan belief regarding the God and the Goddess (and all of Nature) lovingly frolicking at Bealtaine, these poetic prayers seemed most appropriate for the season. In many traditions, including the Gaelic, the Sun was a male deity and the Moon represented the divine feminine principle, as these short charms seem to suggest.

I recite these prayers often by day or night, and they help remind me that I am always surrounded by Divinities. May the Sun and the Moon pour blessings on us all, as the poem says, at all times and seasons, gently and generously.

THE SUN

The eye of the great God
The eye of the God of glory
The eye of the King of power
The eye of the King of the living

Pouring upon us
At each time and season
Pouring upon us
Gently and generously

Glory to thee
Thou Glorious Sun

Glory to the, thou Sun
Face of the God of Life.

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

Hail unto thee
Jewel of the night!

Beauty of the heavens
Jewel of the night!

Mother of the stars
Jewel of the night!

Fosterling of the sun,
Jewel of the night!

Majesty of the stars
Jewel of the night!

©2007 Michael McGuinness