In this poetry book, The Celtic Fisherman’s Wife is a Druid wife, who lives her husband and others in an imaginary village loosely set in ancient western Ireland.   The poetry is divided into four seasons, the first being Winter.  The poems are  narratives, songs, dreams, plays – they are of animals, trees, customs, heroes, god and goddesses.  Read it for pleasure, to act, or sing.  Add it to a course you teach!

A glossary and other information at the end of the book are helpful for historical reference.

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Selected parts of poems:

Harvest for Love

This morning as she yearned, she’d followed
outgoing tide to gather carrageen,
the seaweed pillow on the rocks.
She lined its red branches along the base
of her basket, the threads
to nest eggs her hens were wont to hide.
She cradled the eggs as she would a child. 

She’d boiled the carrageen in milk,
strained away the threads.  With added sugar,
a little mead, set it as her mother
had taught, and would wait till their supper
of eggs and bread were fully eaten…

The Fisherman’s Father

Good men, it is near the season of lambs –
it is the time to mend our traps,

those at edges of the crannogs
and the sites on our river banks.

We are tired of being so idle
about our houses too many moons.

Have your families seek and bring
branch and long twig of hazel, alder…