Speal Drualus - Mandy Flood collab
Photo courtesy Tautai Art Gallery
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Speal Drualus (Mistletoe Scythe)
Mandy Flood & Troy Egan
Stressed copper, found branches and leather strap.
Myths & Legends in My Veins, Tautai Art Gallery, Papakura, New Zealand
Oct 24 – Dec 5 2015
Initial sketches
This artwork is positioned within the context of ancient lost or hidden objects, being artifacts that have become historically or contextually displaced from their original meaning or function. Our approach is to explore stories of personal historical significance, to draw on common themes, and then to recreate ancient objects as symbols for lost rites and rituals, as prompts for discussion.
The speal drualus is inspired by ancient and lost druidic rites, and the stories of Gael Glas and the Iodh Morainn. Primarily, this piece reimagines a tool for performing the sacred druid ritual of mistletoe gathering, as recorded in Pliny’s Natural History (1AD). Incorporating oak branches, a tree revered by the druids, with bronze and copper casting; the scythe would be used by a priest dressed in white, to cut mistletoe on the sixth day of the moon - a time of healing. The mistletoe would be used to impart fertility to barren animals, and as an antidote to poisons. A sacrifice of two white bulls and a feast would be held beneath the oak tree.
Assembly
I was contacted by my friend Reina Sutton while living in Sydney. Reina was curating an exhibition titled Myths & Legends in My Veins at Tautai Art Gallery in Papakura, New Zealand. Her vision was to introduce sets of collaborators to produce artworks indicative of shared cultural identity. She introduced me to the fascinating work of New Zealand jeweler Mandy Flood, whom I collaborated with online, and have also not met in person. After some discussion, Mandy and I found we had some shared Gaelic ancestry that became the emphasis of our work. Our collaboration explored the intersection between the ancient histories and symbolic objects particular to us both, through genealogical research of our distant Anglo-celtic heritage, as expressed through object making as a prompt for discussion and enablement of oral traditions.
We discovered that the Flood name derived from Clan MacTuile of Connacht & Leinster, Ireland & Scotland, and the Egan ​name from Clan Mac Aodhagain of Tipperary & Galway in Ireland. Common ground discovered that both clans were specialists in ancient lore, the Mac Aodhagain’s as brehons (lawyers, judges and historians) and MacTuile’s as physicians. At one point, both families provided services for chiefs in Galway and Connacht, particularly the O’Conors. Also common to both family crests are symbols of protection, and values of hope, joy and loyalty in love.
Other holders of ancient lore were the druids (spiritual custodians) and bards (artists, musicians).
Experiments
In researching An Leabhar Breac (the Speckled Book, c1408-11), a medieval Irish manuscript of ecclesiastical writings possessed by Clann Mac Aodhagain in Duniry, another story describes objects attached to healing. While Moses and his people journeyed through the wilderness, a nobleman from Scythia did a good deed in guiding them to food. One night, a snake bit his son while he was sleeping. The Scythian took his son to Moses, who healed the boy using his wooden staff. He promised the boy, if he followed the setting sun, he would find an island without snakes. He gifted him a golden torque, or locket, in the form of a snake, to always be worn in remembrance of the miracle. The land was Ireland, and the boy would become an ancestor of Clann Mac Aodhagain. The gaelic word Glas means lock.
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A similar mythology is found in Leabhar Bhaile an Mhota (The Book of Ballymote, 1390-91) of Morann the Just, a legendary brehon of early Ireland, who was gifted a miraculous collar by the Apostle Paul. Morann’s Judgement Collar, or Iodh Morainn, would tighten around his neck whenever a false or unfair judgement was given, and loosen when true. The name Brehon comes from the Irish word Breitheamh, or judge, the highest order of which is Ollavh, or doctor.