Bri Leith, Co. Longford (and others), Land of Eire
Wild Pathway up to Bri Leith
Bri Leith is a paradoxical place of movement and stasis. Some place it in County Longford, some in Westmeath, and some in a variety of other locales upon the green isle. It appears that Bri Leith desires, for the most part, to locate itself near to the heart of Ireland, the enchanted and politically relevant Hill of Tara. In itself, Bri Leith is a sidhe (faerie) mound, resting hidden amid the upper slopes of a hilltop forest. Should you go in search of the place in County Longford, near the village of Ardagh, you will find few to no signs pointing the way. Instead, the mound is found by walking, climbing, breathing greenly (vibrantly), embodying a relationship to the shifting landscape itself. More, should you ask directions, you might receive a living, pointing finger and a wry grin. Does the grin give a nod to that very Celtic consciousness, or are you simply another soul searching for the way-marker to the Otherworld? Does it even matter? Do walk up and into the forest. While there are no guarantees the place will be found, it is almost certain you will be.
Midhir & Edain in Ardagh
It is named for Bri, daughter of Midhir, (pro. Mith-ir) king of the Tuatha de Danaan. Predominantly associated with the myth of Midhir and Edain — being the fortress where Edain was brought after having been abducted from her human husband — Bri Leith tells another, less-heard tale. Bri’s story is that of love and loss. Leith, while in some translations and spellings means the color grey, is Bri’s warrior lover, the sworn enemy of Midhir and the Tuatha de Danaan. (Interestingly, some renditions of the narrative give Bri as the warrior and Leith the faerie princess.) Midhir refused to have his daughter united with such a rival, thus in heated battle killed her would-be mate. In her responding grief, Bri took her own life, perhaps her own act of retaliation. For Midhir was indeed deeply saddened by his loss.
As is the shifting character of many sacred places in Ireland, Bri Leith has a simultaneity: a mournful yet vibrant aura. Covered in that unique shade of Irish green, as can only be found in a land of effusive mist, quickly-changing weather patterns, cool winds, the forest has a darkly green presence so eloquently evoked by Emerson as he observed, “Night hangs forever in the boughs of the fir tree.” We can, of course, muse on whether it is Bri’s echoing lamentations for her lost love that have seeped into the very soil of the forest, casting it in a shaded and darkly green veil; or perhaps it was her melancholic nature attracting her to a warrior whose very name suggests a certain ennui. In either case, though hard-won by the human visitor, arriving at the foot of the mound gives one a sense of a myth very much alive and thriving in the landscape, place, and vitality of its surrounds and human co-inhabitants. The myth lives in the story, yes, but also within the rich hummus of deep time and human response-ability.
