Brigid, Imbolg & Irish Cosmology w/ Sharon Paice MacLeod
Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore
Multitude
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2020
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re joined this week by Celticist, teacher, and musician Sharon Paice MacLeod who provides a beautiful, nuanced primer for Irish Cosmology. We discuss the Maiden-Mother-Crone, music in Celtic lore, keening, and Brigid’s cross.
This week, Julia recommends Dooku: Jedi Lost.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about religious persecution, child death, monarchy and political power structure.
Guest
Sharon Paice MacLeod is a Harvard-trained Celticist, grant funded researcher, teacher and author. She is also a professional vocalist and musician, specializing in Celtic, medieval, early and ancient music. Her areas of specialization are Celtic religion and belief, mythology and folklore, and poetic and visionary traditions. She is the author of numerous books and journal articles, including ‘Celtic Myth and Religion,’ ‘Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld,’ ‘The Divine Feminine in Ancient Europe,’ and the forthcoming ‘Early Celtic Poetry and Wisdom Texts.’
She is currently researching the earliest known Celtic instrumental music and vocal art forms, in socio-religious context. The award-winning self-titled CD ‘The Moors’ - Celtic, medieval, world and dark wave music - is available on Apple Music.
Sponsors
- GC2B is a trans-owned company providing accessible, comfortable, and safe options for gender-affirming chest binding. Use code SPIRITS at checkout for 10% off!
- Honeybook, a purpose-built business management platform for creative small businesses. Get 50% off your first year on TryHoneyBook.com/SPIRITS.
- Stitch Fix is an online personal styling service that finds and delivers clothes, shoes, and accessories to fit your body, budget, and lifestyle. Get started at stitchfix.com/spirits for 25% off when you keep your whole box!
Find Us Online
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more.
Transcripts are available at spiritspodcast.com/episodes. To buy merch, hear us on other podcasts, contact us, find our mailing address, or download our press kit, head on over to SpiritsPodcast.com.
About Us
Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, a production collective of indie audio professionals. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boosy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. |
| 0:03.6 | Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. |
| 0:06.7 | I'm Amanda. |
| 0:07.3 | And I'm Julia. |
| 0:08.3 | This is episode 165, Bridget, Inbulk and Irish Cosmology with Sharon Pace McLeod. |
| 0:13.9 | Amanda has been so excited to cover this with an actual expert for such a long time that I was so pleased. |
| 0:19.6 | And I just kind of sat there very happy. |
| 0:21.4 | Yeah, I was so stoked. It was lovely. Sharon, uh, bared with us as we, uh, overcame bad internet |
| 0:26.7 | connections and made this episode happen. And I am so glad we did. Yeah, I think it worked out great. |
| 0:30.8 | And I think, uh, our listeners are going to be very happy with the results. Amazing. And this is well-timed because in bulk, the holiday, is on Saturday, February 1st. Yeah. So our listeners are going to catch it like a few days before and then they can decide whether or not they'd like to celebrate. Do you know who I decide to celebrate every week, Julia? Is that our new patrons? Our new patrons, Nerissa, Roz, Kavan, and Gerald. Welcome. You join the distinguished ranks of such patrons as our |
| 0:57.3 | supporting producer level supporters, Philip, Megan, Deborah, Molly, Skyla, Samantha, Sammy, Neil, Jessica, and Phil Fresh, and our legend-level patrons. |
| 1:06.3 | Brittany, Josie, Kylie, Charlotte, Kylo the Husky, Morgan, Bia me up, Scotty, Audra, Chris, Mark, Mr. Folk, Sarah, and Jack Marie. |
| 1:13.0 | They are always leading the celebration. |
| 1:15.7 | Absolutely. |
| 1:16.4 | And Juliet, remind us what we were drinking this episode. |
| 1:18.6 | Well, at Sharon's suggestion, we cracked open a couple of bottles of Freak, which is a Heather |
| 1:24.8 | ale made by the Williams Brothers Brewing Company in Scotland. |
| 1:30.1 | Uh, and so Heather ales actually date back to at least 2000 BCE and are probably the |
| 1:36.8 | oldest style of ale still produced in the world. |
| 1:39.8 | So this particular batch is brewed with malted barley, sweet gale, and feathering heather. |
| 1:45.4 | And then the hot ale is also poured into a vat of fresh heather flowers or it infuses for about an hour or so before it's fermented. |
| 1:52.9 | It's so cool. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Multitude, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Multitude and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.