Published Works – Molly Gowen

The Celtic Tree Year

The purpose of this book is to introduce, or reintroduce, to the world the major deities of the Celtic tradition.

These are presented within the framework of Beth-Luis-Nion Celtic tree calendar, a calendar that consisted of thirteen lunar months and one day – the ‘year and a day’ referred to in folk and fairy tales.

Each month had its own tree – Beth was the month of the birch, Luis the month of the rowan, Nion the month of the ash, and so forth. The individual months also had their own deities, colours and birds. The calendar of tree magic was part of the religious system of the Celts and has been passed down in an oral tradition that spans three thousand years.

The book cover depicts the month of Fearn (18 March – 14 April) . Fearn is the month of the alder, tree of fire. Its bird is the gull. Its colour is crimson, for ‘crimson is the colour of the glain or magical egg which is found in this month and of the alder dye and of the young son struggling through the haze’ (Book of Ballymote).

The Celtic Animal Year

This work is an introduction to the wealth of beauty, magic and spirituality contained in the folklore and mythology of the Celtic tradition, a tradition that is as rich and diverse as that of Greece, Rome and Egypt.

Long before the development of the Roman calendar that we use today, the Celts used animals and trees to describe their year. Each month of the year was associated with particular animals, trees, deities, colours and so forth, and this was all part of the Celts’ religious system that has been passed down in an oral tradition spanning three thousand years.

This book brings together many of the myths and legends that surround the sacred animals of the Celtic Year, which have been arranged within an astrological framework. Readers will find here a novel approach to studying their birth sign, which will be revealed through illustrations, Celtic deities, animals and personal attributes. There is a Glossary to assist the reader with unfamiliar terms.

The book cover depicts the Deer(Capricorn), the symbol of nobility and kingship. Worship of the stag was a very ancient and widespread practice. He appears as the Celtic Cernunnos(the horned one) or Pan, the Green Man of the Forest, a deity of both death and regeneration.

Fairies In The Irish Tradition

A comprehensive study of the fairy nature and its manifestations in the Irish tradition, illustrated with stories and legends and illuminated with superb artwork. Contents include: Fairy Nature – fallen angels, elementals and ghosts; Fairies in the Landscape; The Banshee; History of the Sidhe; The Fairy Doctor; Tir na nOg; magical animals, the Pooka; The King of Cats and Demon Dogs.

In this, Molly’s third book, she hopes to inspire readers to a further interest in folklore and mythology, a vast and rich treasury of which this work will be a mere tip of the iceberg.

Most of the research material comes from ‘Ancient Legends of Ireland‘ by Lady Wilde, (mother of Oscar Wilde) 1899, and W B Yeats ‘Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasantry‘ 1888 and ‘Celtic Twilight‘ 1893.

“I love it, I quote from it”

Senator David Norris
Seanad Eireann (Irish Senate)

After Lorca

Concerned variously with illustrations and incisive comment, poetry has a habit of periodically freezing into convention. Lorca was one of the poets who did just that, with his startling mixed metaphors and the fiercely sad melody of his voice. Molly Gowen is another. She does it with a determination and verve, which is compelling. The thrill of her work is that it is at once concrete and metaphysical. Her vision can focus minutely, then travel on extended journeys of the imagination before focusing again and demanding involvement from the reader.

Her technique is expansive and challenging. She provides the strong images and the action, lit by an oblique lantern, and thereby invites – even compels – the reader into a relam in which aesthetic explanations must be sought for ordinary things.

Despair flourishes in her work, yet there is the reassurance and stability of a spirit, which is defiant and does not succumb. To get one’s ‘soul at the right angle’ can have conradictory meanings – if one shackles, the other can liberate. Stars go on forever, ‘the sea’s childhood’and the ‘singing mysteries’never lose their promise, and it is for humans to develop these by the certain power of words. Readers of poetry, and poets themselves, have much to learn from her.

Dr. Daithi O’hOgain
Associate Professor of Folklore
University College Dublin

“Although she is brave and modern with a strong surrealist tinge, she does not disdain strong traditional metres as evidenced by the Tennysonian ring of poems such as ‘Riddles’. I particularly enjoyed the surrealist imagery of ‘Quetzalcotyl'”

Senator David Norris
Seanad Eireann (Irish Senate)

“Here is a life lived – suffered and sweated, abstracted, alchemised to poetry, and on the page laid bare for our delectation. Through art, life. And, because Molly Gowen is a poet, with a poet’s wounds, through her life, art.”

Jamie O’Neill
Author of At Swim Two Boys

Published by Ainnir Publishing
Postscript
Main Street
Kinvara
Co. Galway
Ireland

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After Lorca can be obtained by contacting the publisher

The Dragons of Jelly Mountain

This whacky, colourful, and witty tale follows Dandelion the dragon down into the depths of the volcano on Jelly Mountain, a place where her father, Oxymoron, had told her she must never go.

Packed with adventure, memorable poems and comic tomfoolery this book is sure to leave children wide-eyed and wonderstruck

This book is designed to be readto, or with, children of all ages.

ISBN: 9781-460994474

The Rose and the Snow

Selected poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, translated and illustrated by Molly Gowen.

This work was publised in a limited edition of 30 copies.