I can imagine the rhythmic similarities of ocean waves, rowing, scrubbing the decks of ships, pulling in the nets, flensing the fat and flesh of whales and seals; throwing and passing along the cloth in the fulling process, clockwise, repetitively; weaving, throwing the [thing that holds the horizontal thread of the loom -- shuttle?], shifting up and down, back and forth of the planes of the loom; and other tasks equally tedious in repetition. I can imagine the communal aspect of the work shared by many hands. I can imagine these tunes in rhythm with the hands and the sounds of the materials and machines.

So little exists of a "factual" nature in the historic record of Celtic peoples. Into such vacuums, mythology does tend to grow and fill in the gaps of [the newcomer to human evolution: empiricism and the triumph of reason] "truth." These functions (weaving, shearing, shepherding, felting, and waulking) are so ubiquitous as to be called "universal": in meeting the human survival of weather, gorse and heather, tending to animals, and survival of cultural signifiers such as styles and kinds of weaving and layering of clothing, oral history preserved in song and story, and the like (speak to me, O Muse ... ). In a poetic sense -- no less "valid" than in the inky pages recording history and myths -- the urge to tie together thematically all of the simultaneous occurrences of materials, images, tools, songs, whether sacred or mundane, mundane in sacredness, sacred in mundanity, is very pleasing to my mind. Modern science of the mind has a technical term: pattern recognition. Also pleasing are the gaps, mystery, strangeness, contradiction. To deny the mystery, to live the illusions of hubris, myths tell us will only lead to danger and destruction.

I liked Eric's descriptions of juxtapositions of world myths, creatures, work, and narratives. If only persons and nations were willing to de-center their mythic narratives -- some want to see a unifying genius, other want to let narratives reside on the same plane together, not privileging one over another -- perhaps less blood would soak the clothing of those who cannot and will not permit the coexistence of ones who only seek to live and let live.

My $0.02,
Anne