1.
Goddess
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A goddess is a female deity in polytheistic religions. Goddesses most often have characteristics that are apotheosize in their pure form. However, in some cases goddesses may embody neutral forms personifying both male and female characteristics, or they may even exhibit traits that are associated with the male gender. In some faiths, a female figure holds a central place in religious prayer. For example, Shaktism, the worship of the force that animates the world, is one of the three major sects of Hinduism. Polytheist religions, including Polytheistic reconstructionists, honour multiple goddesses and gods and these deities may be part of a pantheon, or different regions may have tutelary deities. The reconstructionists, like their ancient forebears, honour the deities particular to their country of origin, the noun goddess is a secondary formation, combining the Germanic god with the Latinate -ess suffix. It first appeared in Middle English, from about 1350, the English word follows the linguistic precedent of a number of languages—including Egyptian, Classical Greek, and several Semitic languages—that add a feminine ending to the languages word for god. Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers, links the image of the Earth or Mother Goddess to symbols of fertility and reproduction. For example, Campbell states that, There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, and in Egypt you have the Mother Heavens, the Goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere. Joseph Campbell, Well that was associated primarily with agriculture and the agricultural societies and it has to do with the earth. The human woman gives birth just as the earth gives birth to the plants. so woman magic, and the personification of the energy that gives birth to forms and nourishes forms is properly female. It is in the world of ancient Mesopotamia, the Egyptian Nile. Campbell also argues that the image of the Virgin Mary was derived from the image of Isis and her child Horus, other Mesopotamian goddesses include Ninhursag, Ninlil, Antu, Gaga Goddesses of the Canaanite religion, Baalat Gebal, Astarte, Anat. Cybele, Her Hittite name was Kubaba, but her name changed to Cybele in Phrygian and Roman culture and her effect can be also seen on Artemis as the Lady of Ephesus. Hebat, Mother Goddess of the Hittite pantheon and wife of the sky god. She was the origin of the Hurrian cult, arinniti, Hittite Goddess of the sun. She became patron of the Hittite Empire and monarchy, leto, A mother Goddess figure in Lykia
2.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
3.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
4.
Great Britain
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Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
5.
Fairy
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A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature in European folklore, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural. According to Thomas Keightley, the word derives from the Latin fata. Other forms are the Italian fata, and the Provençal fada, in old French romance, fee was a woman skilled in magic, and who knew the power and virtue of words, of stones, and of herbs. Faierie became fairy, but with that now almost exclusively referring to one of the legendary people. The word fairy was used to represent an illusion, or enchantment, to the word faie was added the suffix -erie, used to express either a place where something is found or a trade or typical activity engaged in. In later usage it applied to any kind of quality or activity associated with a particular type of person. In the sense land where fairies dwell, the distinctive and archaic spellings Faery, the latinate fay is not to be confused with the unrelated fey, meaning fated to die. Various folkloristic traditions refer to them euphemistically, by such as wee folk, good folk, people of peace, fair folk. Sometimes the term fairy is used to any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes, at other times. Fairies have their origin in the conflation of Celtic traditions in the Middle French medieval romances. Fairie was in origin used adjectivally, meaning enchanted, but was used as a name for enchanted creatures from as early as the Late Middle English period. In English literature of the Elizabethan era, elves became conflated with the fairies of Romance culture, the Victorian and Edwardian eras saw an increase in interest in fairies. The Celtic Revival viewed them as part of Irelands cultural heritage, carole Silvers and others suggest that the fascination of English antiquarians arose from a reaction to greater industrialization, and loss of folkways. Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers, even with these small fairies, however, their small size may be magically assumed rather than constant. Some fairies though normally quite small were able to dilate their figures to imitate humans, on Orkney they were described as short in stature, dressed in dark grey, and sometimes seen in armour. Wings, while common in Victorian and later artwork of fairies, are rare in the folklore, even very small fairies flew with magic. Nowadays, fairies are depicted with ordinary insect wings or butterfly wings. In some folklore, fairies have green eyes, some depictions of fairies either have them wearing some sort of footwear and other depictions of fairies are always barefoot
6.
County Limerick
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County Limerick is a county in Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster, and is part of the Mid-West Region. It is named after the city of Limerick, Limerick City and County Council is the local council for the county. The countys population at the 2016 census is 195,175 of which 58,319 live in Limerick City, Limerick borders four other counties, Kerry to the west, Clare to the north, Tipperary to the east and Cork to the south. It is the fifth largest of Munsters six counties in size, the River Shannon flows through the city of Limerick into the Atlantic Ocean at the north of the county. Below the city, the waterway is known as the Shannon Estuary, because the estuary is shallow, the countys most important port is several kilometres west of the city, at Foynes. Limerick City is the county town and is also Irelands third largest city and it also serves as a regional centre for the greater Mid-West Region. Newcastle West, Killmallock & Abbeyfeale are other important towns in the county, there are fourteen historic baronies in the county. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, the highest point in the county is located in its south-east corner at Galtymore, which separates Limerick from County Tipperary. The county is not a simply a plain, its topography consists of hills, the eastern part of the county is part of the Golden Vale, which is well known for dairy produce and consists of rolling low hills. This gives way to flat land around the centre of the county. Towards the west, the Mullaghareirk Mountains push across the county offering extensive views east over the county, tributaries of the Shannon drainage basin located in the county include the rivers Mulkear, Loobagh, Maigue, Camogue, Morning Star, Deel, and the Feale. It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, the arrival of the Celts around 400 BC brought about the division of the county into petty kingdoms or túatha. The OBriens retained their power until late in the 1100s. The ancestors of both Michael Collins and the famous OConnells of Derrynane were also among the septs of the Uí Fidgenti. As the Ui Fidgenti were the clan in the Limerick after 400 a. d. the Uí Fidgenti still made a substantial contribution to the population of the central. Their capital was Dún Eochair, the earthworks of which still remain and can be found close to the modern town of Bruree
7.
Peat
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Peat, also called turf, is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter that is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet because peatland plants capture the CO2 which is released from the peat. Sphagnum moss is one of the most common components in peat, soils that contain mostly peat are known as histosols. Peat forms in wetland conditions, where flooding obstructs flows of oxygen from the atmosphere, Peatlands, particularly bogs, are the most important source of peat. That said, other less common types, including fens, pocosins. Landscapes covered in peat are home to specific kinds of plants including Sphagnum moss, ericaceous shrubs, because organic matter accumulates over thousands of years, peat deposits also provide records of past vegetation and climates stored in plant remains like pollen. This allows humans to reconstruct past environments and study changes in land use. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world, by volume, there are about 4 trillion cubic metres of peat in the world, covering a total of around 2% of the global land area, containing about 8 billion terajoules of energy. Over time, the formation of peat is often the first step in the formation of other fossil fuels such as coal. This is also the commonly used in the peat industry. At 106 g CO2/MJ, the carbon dioxide emission intensity of peat is higher than that of coal and natural gas, lastly, peat fires have been responsible for large public health disasters including the 1997 Southeast Asian haze. Peat forms when plant material does not fully decay in acidic and anaerobic conditions and it is composed mainly of wetland vegetation, principally bog plants including mosses, sedges, and shrubs. As it accumulates, the peat holds water and this slowly creates wetter conditions that allow the area of wetland to expand. Peatland features can include ponds, ridges, and raised bogs, most modern peat bogs formed 12,000 years ago in high latitudes after the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age. Peat usually accumulates slowly at the rate of about a millimetre per year, using Carbon-dating, scientists found that Peat in peatlands started forming 360 million years ago based on it currently containing 550 Gt of carbon. Peat material is either fibric, hemic, or sapric, fibric peats are the least decomposed and consist of intact fiber. Hemic peats are partially decomposed and sapric are the most decomposed, Phragmites peat is one composed of reed grass, Phragmites australis, and other grasses. It is denser than other types of peat
8.
Picts
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The Picts were a tribal confederation of peoples who lived in what is today eastern and northern Scotland during the Late Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. They are thought to have been ethnolinguistically Celtic, where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from the geographical distribution of brochs, Brittonic place name elements, and Pictish stones. Picts are attested to in records from before the Roman conquest of Britain to the 10th century. Picts are assumed to have been the descendants of the Caledonii, Pictland, also called Pictavia by some sources, gradually merged with the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata to form the Kingdom of Alba. Alba then expanded, absorbing the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde and Northumbrian Lothian, Pictish society was typical of many Iron Age societies in northern Europe, having wide connections and parallels with neighbouring groups. Archaeology gives some impression of the society of the Picts, what the Picts called themselves is unknown. The Latin word Picti first occurs in a written by Eumenius in AD297 and is taken to mean painted or tattooed people. Their Old English name gave the modern Scots form Pechts and the Welsh word Fichti and it is generally accepted that this is derived from *Qritani, which is the Goidelic/Q-Celtic version of the Britonnic/P-Celtic *Pritani. From this came Britanni, the Roman name for those now called the Britons and it has been suggested that Cruthin referred to all Britons not conquered by the Romans—those who lived outside Roman Britannia, north of Hadrians Wall. A Pictish confederation was formed in Late Antiquity from a number of tribes—how, some scholars have speculated that it was partly in response to the growth of the Roman Empire. Pictland had previously described by Roman writers and geographers as the home of the Caledonii. These Romans also used names to refer to tribes living in that area, including Verturiones, Taexali. But they may have heard these other names only second- or third-hand, from speakers of Brittonic or Gaulish languages, Pictish recorded history begins in the Dark Ages. It appears that Picts were not the dominant power in Northern Britain for that entire period, the Gaels of Dál Riata controlled what is present day Argyll for a time, although they suffered a series of defeats in the first third of the 7th century. The Angles of Bernicia overwhelmed the adjacent British kingdoms, one of which, the Picts were probably tributary to Northumbria until the reign of Bridei mac Beli, when, in 685, the Anglians suffered a defeat at the Battle of Dun Nechtain that halted their northward expansion. The Northumbrians continued to dominate southern Scotland for the remainder of the Pictish period, a later Pictish king, Caustantín mac Fergusa, placed his son Domnall on the throne of Dál Riata. Pictish attempts to achieve a dominance over the Britons of Alt Clut were not successful. The Viking Age brought great changes in Britain and Ireland, no less in Scotland than elsewhere, in a major battle in 839, the Vikings killed the king of Fortriu, Eógan mac Óengusa, the king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta, and many others
9.
Irish mythology
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The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity. However, much of it was preserved in medieval Irish literature and this literature represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. There are also a number of extant mythological texts that do not fit any of the cycles. Additionally, there are a number of recorded folk tales that, while not strictly mythological. Despite the dates of these sources, most of the material they contain predates their composition, the earliest of the prose can be dated on linguistic grounds to the 8th century, and some of the verse may be as old as the 6th century. The first of these part of the earliest known version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge and is housed in Trinity College. The other three are in the Royal Academy, when using these sources, it is, as always, important to question the impact of the circumstances in which they were produced. There was also a tendency to rework Irish genealogies to fit into the known schema of Greek or Biblical genealogy and it was once unquestioned that medieval Irish literature preserved truly ancient traditions in a form virtually unchanged through centuries of oral tradition back to the ancient Celts of Europe. A consensus has emerged which encourages the critical reading of the material, the Mythological Cycle, comprising stories of the former gods and origins of the Irish, is the least well preserved of the four cycles. The most important sources are the Metrical Dindshenchas or Lore of Places, Other manuscripts preserve such mythological tales as The Dream of Aengus, The Wooing Of Étain and Cath Maige Tuireadh, The Battle of Magh Tuireadh. One of the best known of all Irish stories, Oidheadh Clainne Lir, Lebor Gabála Érenn is a pseudo-history of Ireland, tracing the ancestry of the Irish back to before Noah. They faced opposition from their enemies, the Fomorians, led by Balor of the Evil Eye, Balor was eventually slain by Lug Lámfada at the second battle of Magh Tuireadh. With the arrival of the Gaels, the Tuatha Dé Danann retired underground to become the people of later myth. The Metrical Dindshenchas is the great work of early Ireland. It includes a lot of important information on Mythological Cycle figures and stories, including the Battle of Tailtiu, in which the Tuatha Dé Danann were defeated by the Milesians. It is important to note that by the Middle Ages the Tuatha Dé Danann were not viewed so much as gods as the shape-shifting magician population of an earlier Golden Age Ireland. Texts such as Lebor Gabála Érenn and Cath Maige Tuireadh present them as kings and heroes of the distant past, however, there is considerable evidence, both in the texts and from the wider Celtic world, that they were once considered deities. Even after they are displaced as the rulers of Ireland, characters such as Lug, a poem in the Book of Leinster lists many of the Tuatha Dé, but ends Although enumerates them, he does not worship them
10.
Albion
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Albion is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is sometimes used poetically to refer to the island. The name for Scotland in the Celtic languages is related to Albion, Alba in Scottish Gaelic, Albain in Irish, Nalbin in Manx and Alban in Welsh, Cornish and these names were later Latinised as Albania and Anglicised as Albany, which were once alternative names for Scotland. New Albion and Albionoria were briefly suggested as names of Canada during the period of the Canadian Confederation, arthur Phillip, first leader of the colonization of Australia, originally named Sydney Cove New Albion, but for uncertain reasons the colony acquired the name Sydney. The Common Brittonic name for the island, Hellenised as Albíōn and Latinised as Albiōn, derives from the Proto-Celtic nasal stem *Albi̯iū, the name originally referred to Britain as a whole, but was later restricted to Caledonia. The root *albiio- is also found in Gaulish and Galatian albio- and it may be related to other European and Mediterranean toponyms such as Alpes, Albania and Liban. It has two possible etymologies, either *albho-, a Proto-Indo-European root meaning white, or *alb-, Proto-Indo-European for hill, likewise, Pytheas, as directly or indirectly quoted in the surviving excerpts of his works in later writers, speaks of Albiōn and Iernē. Pytheass grasp of the νῆσος Πρεττανική is somewhat blurry, and appears to include anything he considers a western island, the name Albion was used by Isidore of Charax and subsequently by many classical writers. By the 1st century AD, the name refers unequivocally to Great Britain, but this enigmatic name for Britain, revived much later by Romantic poets like William Blake, did not remain popular among Greek writers. It was soon replaced by Πρεττανία and Βρεττανία, Βρεττανός, from these words the Romans derived the Latin forms Britannia, Britannus, and Britannicus respectively. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History likewise has, It was itself named Albion, in his 2nd century Geography, Ptolemy uses the name Ἀλουΐων instead of the Roman name Britannia, possibly following the commentaries of Marinus of Tyre. He calls both Albion and Ierne νῆσοι Βρεττανικαὶ, in 930, the English king Æthelstan used the title Rex et primicerius totius Albionis regni. His nephew, Edgar the Peaceful, styled himself Totius Albionis imperator augustus Augustus Emperor of all Albion in 970, a legend exists in various forms that giants were either the original inhabitants, or the founders of the land named Albion. The island was then called Albion, and inhabited by none, Geoffrey goes on to recount how the last of the giants are defeated, the largest one called Goëmagot is flung over a cliff by Corineus. Later, in the 14th century, an elaborate tale was developed, claiming that Albina and her sisters founded Albion. The Albina story survives in several forms, including the octosyllabic Anglo-Norman poem Des grantz geanz dating to 1300—1334 A prose English translation is given in Richard Barbers anthology, the eldest daughter Albina was the first to set shore and lay claim to the land, naming it after herself. At first, the women gathered acorns and fruits, but once they learned to hunt and obtain meat, as no other humans inhabited the land, they mated with evil spirits called incubi, and subsequently with the sons they begot, engendering a race of giants. These giants are evidenced by huge bones which are unearthed, brutus arrived 260 years after Albina,1136 before the birth of Christ, but by then there were only 24 giants left, due to inner strife
