In the play Riders to The Sea, Maurya had a vision of her sons riding on horses. There is an underlying or implied theme of the Norse god Odin in the play.

Odin had an eight-legged horse. A spider has eight legs and spins. The Norns, goddesses of fate, spun the fate of individuals on their spinning wheels. Since the Norns spun yarns, a person couldn't be sure if his fate was based on truth.

Sleipner was Odin's horse, and, of course, he was the greatest of all horses. He was sometimes linked with the color blue just as Garm might be. Perhaps this was because the Celts painted their bodies blue with woad before they went into battle and had blue tattoos on their bodies. The color blue was thought to have intrinsic magical properties.

Odin's horse, Sleipnir, was suggestive of funerary imagery, since Odin is the Lord of the Dead. Sleipnir's eight legs were thought to represent four men (two legs apiece) carrying a corpse.

In some legends, Odin leads the Wild Hunt, riding Sleipnir. Whether under the name of Grim or Wotan, Odin the Gallows God led a terrifying hunt in the sky, but who or what was his prey? It may be that the Wild Hunt was practiced by his devotees, not in the sky, but on the ground in the name of their god.

This myth served as a memorial of all the dead from the Wild Hunt and the physical routes they had taken to and from their graves.

The theme of resurrection occurs in this myth. If you look at the Viking burial customs described by Ibn Fadlan, you can see that when the corpse of the king was dug up after its first burial, he was still considered one of the living.

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Myths reflect our cultural and psychological souls. The fables of gods and goddesses, fairies and elves, gnomes, giants, and various otherworldly people and customs tell a lot of things about the people who keep them alive by thinking and writing about them.

The Forgotten Language by Erich Fromm, page 195, tells:

"If one fails to grasp the true meaning of the myth, one finds oneself confronted with this alternative: either the myth is a prescientific, naive picture of the world and of history and at best a product of poetically beautiful imagination, or- and this is the attitude of the orthodox believer- the manifest story of the myth is true, and one must believe it as a correct report of events which actually happened in 'reality'".

Generally, the myth is seen in symbolic terms by people in the 21st century.

Leach discusses the fairies in The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend:

"One of the oldest Irish sagas states that the barrows where the fairies dwelt were open about Samhain... According to Keating, in heathen times the druids on Ireland assembled to sacrifice to the gods and burn their victims on Samhain Eve. All other fires were extinguished to be rekindled only from that fire" (Leach, 968).

In this statement, we see the elements of the hill barrow or fairy mound where an underground world flourished. Samhain or Halloween (All Hallow's Eve) was the time when the gates between two worlds were open and where, through these gates, the living human and the Otherworld folk, including the dead, could pass freely.

In Ibn Fadlan's historical account of the Viking king burial, the dead chieftain was buried in the ground for a while, but he was exhumed at a later time. By the time of exhumation, the dead king's skin had turned black from being in the cold earth.

In olden times, preceding burial and during the Wake, the dead body was often treated as if the person were alive. Sometimes the corpse was set up to a table in a chair, spoken to, and danced with by the living before being buried.

All these funeral customs were expressions of cultures that showed a conviction about this present life as we know it. There was a strong belief that there was another existence or afterlife. It was felt that a life on earth preceded a new life in some other dimension or realm.

Many of the old pagan customs involved lighting fires and subsequently passing people and cattle through the fire. Passing people through fire was symbolic of moving people or spirits from one condition to another and maybe representing some kind of purification. These fires were often lit during the nights when spirits were said to enter into this world through spiritual portals with very narrow time opportunities.

These fires may have been lit because of fear and to appease the spirits. In ancient times, the passing of people through the fire was most often literal, burning them alive as sacrifices. Those ancient customs seem to be nearly identical to the heathen practice of sacrificing children to Molech, burning them alive. Eventually, the practice of Christianity caused people to modify their behavior and make symbolic burnings. As Christianity made progress in changing the heathen rites, the more acceptable custom of having people dash across and through a bonfire became acceptable.

The pagan fires of Beltain were lit on the eve of the festival and burned all night, leaving only ashes the next day. People rubbed the cold black ashes on their faces. The word Beltaine or Beltane was Gaelic and referred specifically to May or May Day. Today, this festival has both pagan and Christian significance.

If you consider the extinguished life fires in Maurya's household in Riders to The Sea, you can discern the need for a new fire to be lit on the hearth, as the Beltaine fires were each year.

The Old English word for cup is bune. If you really want to be confused, you can read that bune can also mean purchase and maiden. A long time ago there used to be a thing called bride price. It actually cost something to get a wife. These days people expect to get everything for free, and then they don't appreciate it. Instead, they complain that it wasn't worth what they got it for - nothing.

Toward the end of the play Riders to The Sea, there is a small container of holy water mentioned in connection with Bartley's death:

"MAURYA (raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around her). They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me. ...I'll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I'll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won't care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. (To Nora.) Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there's a small sup still on the dresser."

These days, "surf's up", surf sup, at the beach.

In Riders to The Sea, there is no living husband, but since there is a sub-theme of Odin the trickster in Riders to The Sea, and Colum is in the house making the coffin, you can't help but wonder what they are really talking about.

In Porgy and Bess, a collection is taken up to pay for a funeral. They "fill up de saucer 'till it overflow". My grandmother would pour her cup very full with coffee and then spill it into her saucer and drink from it first before drinking from the cup. The practical reason for this was to cool the coffee quickly in the saucer, but I'm wondering if there is an unremembered custom behind this.

My great-grandparents homesteaded their farm. Buan is an Old English word that means to dwell, settle, or cultivate. In times past, the husband of the household would lead in the work of homesteading.

One linguist gives this definition:

"Webster's gives the etymology of husband as:
Etymology: Middle English husbonde, from Old English husbonda master of a house, from Old Norse husbOndi, from hus house + bOndi householder; akin to Old Norse, bua to inhabit; akin to Old English buan to dwell."

An agrarian society marked the seasons of the year with festivals that celebrated not only the important planting and harvesting times but also threw religion into the festival mix.

Sir Walter Scott writes: "On Hallowmas Eve, ere ye boune to rest". Halloween was once the festival of Samhain with customs and ideas that were really scary at that time.

Easter is a springtime festival. In England, they make hot crossed buns. The origin of this custom is pre-Christian:

"At the feast to Eastre, an ox was sacrificed and the image of his horns carved into ritual bread - which evolved into the twice-scored Easter biscuits we call 'hot cross buns.' In fact, the word 'bun' derives from the Saxon for 'sacred ox,' 'boun.'" Sacred Origins of Profound Things. A cross bun kept from one Good Friday to the next was thought to bring luck, the buns were supposed to serve as a charm against shipwreck, and hanging a bun over the chimney-piece ensured that all bread baked there would be perfect. Another belief was that eating hot cross buns on Good Friday served to protect the home from fire."

Livestock was once a vital part of the old homestead, but don't mistake the Old English word horsc, which means wise, for horse, even though real horse sense was needed in those times and also in ours.

Bart's body is carried home in the play Riders to The Sea, and he is put on the table. His feet are bare, and "a great wind" is blowing on them.

Feet are often symbolic, and this symbol occurs in mythology.

A Scottish custom called first-footing is still remembered today. If a tall, dark, and handsome man is the first to enter your home on New Year's Eve, it is considered a lucky omen for the coming new year. First-footers crossed the threshold at the stroke of midnight during Hogmanay.

"In all countries Halloween seems to have been the great season of prying into the future; all kinds of divination were put into practice that night."

In Wales, Halloween was the weirdest of all the Teir Nos Ysbrydion, or Three Spirit Nights, "when the wind, blowing over the feet of corpses, bore sighs to the houses of those who were to die within the year."

The familiar tune My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean seems silly, but some versions of it have winds blowing and stinking feet, possibly forgotten references to pagan customs of prediction.

The Norse also had a legend about feet. Skadi did a favor for the gods, so they told her she could marry any man she wanted, but there was a catch. She could only look at their feet to make her choice. She looked long at all of the feet, and then chose the cleanest pair.

Njord's home was called Noatun, which means harbor, and his wife was the giantess Skadi who married him because he had "beautiful feet". She later left him because they couldn't decide in whose dwelling they should live.

Since people will inevitably compare some ideas in Riders to The Sea to the story of Christ, it might be noted that nails were driven through His feet, and women cried at the foot of the cross. Christ also washed the feet of his disciples.

Various customs come together to make whole cloth of our beliefs and celebrations.

During one point in the play Riders to The Sea, Maurya appears to be having a vision and sees two of her sons on horseback. One of them has been dead for some time and the other is Patch, presumed dead.

The two brothers seem to be racing in some sort of otherworldly Triple Crown race or, to make a pun, the Irish race.

A literal reading of the ghostly ride isn't likely. Perhaps they were riding as if the demons were chasing them.

Celtic Myths by Miranda Jane Green has this to say about the goddess Epona, "Her imagery is distinctive: she is always depicted in company with horses, either riding side-saddle on a mare or between two or more horses or ponies" (60).

Since Epona is described as riding between two ponies, could it be interpreted that she was riding between the two sons? Synge may have alluded to this goddess as if she were between the sons’ horses in a figurative sense. Then again, those two horses may have appeared to be an eight-legged horse like Odin's Sleipnir from a distance, especially if one had been having a pint, as they say, and viewed from ground level, which would explain why two heads were not reported.

Elements of the Wild Hunt, the Green Man, and Herne the Hunter are suggested by these riders.

The horse as an element and symbol appears in both a literal and symbolic sense and is linked to various other cult symbols and practices. Always valued by man for its proverbial horse-sense and for its usefulness, the horse was also worshiped as a deity at times and used to play out mystical dramas. The Gaulish Celts worshiped the Mare Goddess, appearing in other cultures as Epona and associated with The Three Epona and the Triple Goddesses.

The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft describes one cult practice in twelfth-century Ireland involving a local king acting out a re-birth ritual in a "white mare ceremony". Afterward, the mare was slaughtered and eaten. We read of the culmination of the ceremony by the king. "He stood on an inauguration stone and received a straight white wand, which he held while turning three times left and three times right in honor of the trinity" (165).

There are other horse symbols in mythology.

The Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, edited by Maria Leach, adds further to our understanding, "The beginning of winter (Samhain) was the occasion for the lighting of bonfires and for processions from house to house to solicit contributions of coin and food. In County Cork, the procession was led by a man called the White Mare (Lair Bhan) wearing a white robe. The fairies and the spirits of the dead were supposed to be abroad" (202).

Standard Dictionary goes on to relate, "One of the oldest Irish sagas states that the barrows where the fairies dwelt were open about Samhain. According to Keating, in heathen times the druids on Ireland assembled to sacrifice to the gods and burn their victims on Samhain Eve. All other fires were extinguished to be rekindled only from that fire" (Leach, 968).

Another custom exemplifying the use of a symbolic figure of the horse to ensure fertility for the upcoming harvest was called the "horse dance".

Leech describes it in the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, "Ritual riding on a live horse or a hobby horse...at the grave of the goddess Talltiu in Taillten, Ireland, they race to give chthonic spirits an access of vigor for crop production" (504).

The question arises about the origin of the stick horses that children pretend to ride on. Sticks and horses are both elements in the play Riders to The Sea.

In all of these examples, we find a connection to festivals, the fairies, and horses.

Since times long ago, man has believed in rebirth and regeneration of life after death, and many pagan rituals were developed upon this theme, accompanied by stories of gods and heroes to whom this resurrection applied, gods and myths intertwined.

Confusion over names can occur, since the fertility figures, connected to themes of resurrection, act out basically the same role no matter which culture they appear in or by what name the god is called. There are myriads of stories on this theme.

From long ago times, man has believed in rebirth or regeneration. Pagan rituals were developed, accompanied by stories of gods and heroes to whom this resurrection applied.

The Green Man, god of vegetation, appears in English myth. Also called Jack-in-the-Green or Green Knight, the Green Man was closely linked to the Savage Man, also called the Wild Man, and Herne the Hunter. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guilley says that Herne is the leader of the Wild Hunt, a nocturnal procession of the dead and is linked to the old god Cernunnos. Odin is also pictured in legend as leading a wild howling ghostly host across a stormy night sky. Since a storm often manifested itself with thunder and lightning, Odin's host might have included Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

These characters are closely tied to the agrarian year with its seasonal festivals and to forests, since they are the habitat of the Green Man motifs in their various forms. Some of these characters such as Herne, associated with Windsor Forest, are alleged to have once lived as actual historical people, and some are merely re-makes of archetypes that reach back to the cradle of civilization. Even as late as 1990, this kind of festival is recorded taking place in Hastings, England.

One such festival is described in The Green Man, The Archetype of Our Oneness With the Earth by William Anderson:

"The Jack in the Green has erupted from beside the sea. He is escorted by several Green Men. They are accompanied by a girl carrying a high spray of flowers. She is completely black and very comely. The crowd follows the procession along the sea front and turns up to the castle on the cliff above the town for the purpose of the ceremony: the release of the spirit of summer. This happens in the last dance, for which the Jack descends from his mound and bobs up and down on the edge of a side of Morris dancers performing a stick dance. They crack their wooden swords together. Jack in the Green falls dead "(9).

Continuing in the book The Green Man, it says:

"Having made the point that the evidence for linking the Green Man as he appears with the leaf-covered figure of folk ritual is often patchy, the archetypal force behind both the Green Man of art and the leafy figures of custom is the same. They are different manifestations of the same primal urge."

Long ago, the sacrifice of the Green Man archetype was believed to ensure a fruitful harvest. The Green Man was dead and reborn, again and again, spring after spring. The harvest festival was celebrated later in the year, and then the dark period of the declining year, Samhain with its deep gloom, appears near the time of winter's longest days. In the spring, the people were once again happy to renew their pact with the pagan cult of fecundity and reenact the story yet again: life, death, and rebirth.

Lots of people might think history and myth are boring subjects, but a little reading shows that these are some of the wildest and scariest stories ever told, and they resonate with a certain truth because this is the history of people from whom many of us have descended.

The pronunciation of a word plays an important part of the understanding of it. However it might be spelled, the sound of a word calls certain images to mind. Samhain, pronounced aloud, has the sound of sow in it. In the play Riders to The Sea, there were festivals that Maurya would likely have had knowledge of that involved the idea of the word sow, and that festival was known as hogmanay.

Death is the preeminent theme in Riders to The Sea, with an underlying theme of resurrection. In this way, the elements are balanced.

Including a discussion of Samhain is appropriate to the themes in Riders to The Sea. In fact, the ramifications of the celebrations are so many and so varied that the word is loaded with associations, much of it so deeply rooted in history that many of the readers or members of the play's audience would not actually know the original source of the customs and ideas, although Synge's audience was probably a little sharper about some things than today's audience might be.

The pre-Christians had their own ideas about death and afterlife, and conversion to Christianity did not erase those ideas completely. The mystical shadow of the Druids in Europe and Ireland still fell upon the Irish people. Druids were the keepers of the sacred fire for which a fee was levied to restart all the quenched hearth fires at Samhain.

The folk aspects of the holiday appear in the play as everyday items or events. Irish legend alludes to this most precarious of times, when mischief might be done as well as magic. In Holiday Symbols it says:

"An old legend associated with Samhain tells the story of the annual destruction of Tara...Every year at Samhain a goblin called Aillen played the harp so skillfully that everyone was charmed into sleep, allowing him to set fire to the palace" (Thompson, 430).

Still another death and resurrection legend included in the same book is this:

"According to Irish folklore, a god named Cenghus fell in love with a young girl Caer (also known as Rhiannon), who was capable of taking the form of a swan at the festival of Samhain...the only way he could be with her was to wait for the festival and then transform himself into a swan. United at last, the pair flew three times around the lake putting everyone else into a dream-sleep that lasted three days and three nights...The festival of Samhain may have celebrated, through the legend of people and gods shape-shifting into swans, the transformation of life from one state to another" (Thompson, 431).

About Cuchulainn's mother Dechtire, Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends tells that "Legend recounts how on swallowing a fly which flew into her cup at her wedding feast, Dechtire fell into a deep sleep." A deep sleep sets the scene for many an act of mischief in legend. Where did the children's song that begins with, "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” originate?

An important religious theme underlies all of this: the hope of rebirth or resurrection. Whether Christian or pagan, people of the Aran Islands during Synge's stay there needed to bolster their belief that there was some kind of hope in their hard lives. The mere mention of Samhain was enough to call to mind all of the associations of the Otherworld or afterlife, thus offering a spiritual tone, albeit barbaric.

Celtic Myths, written by Miranda Jane Green offers this insight to the delicate balance in the world:

"The somber aspect of the Otherworld is equally represented in myth. Samhain at the beginning of November is a dangerous time, a kind of limbo where the barriers between the real and supernatural worlds are temporarily dissolved and where humans and spirits can penetrate each other's space, thus upsetting the normal balance" (74).

The idea of symmetry and balance, like the symbolic Scale of Justice, is also included in this context, making the two dimensions or worlds delicately balanced, aligned with one another and separated, as it were, by a veil that was dangerously permeable during the Eve of Samhain. During this time, according to legend, the spirits of the dead were free to roam, often thought of as returning to their former homes.

The home hearth was often the center of family life during ancient times. It was the place where food was given as well as warmth from the fire and family fellowship. In The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer, this theme is discussed:

"The festival of Samhain and Hogmany had similar themes, one of which was the lighting of the hearth fire."

The fire of many of the lives of Maurya’s household has been extinguished. Their hope for the future may have been doused, but the question of the bundle arises. Although its first meaning is a literal bundle of clothes, the phrase "bundle of joy" comes to mind. If one of Maurya's two daughters, like the Biblical Mara with her two daughters-in-law in the book of Ruth, should find that one of them marries and provides a new husband and heir, the fire would then be rekindled. This is not a likely option for Maurya, and she doesn't sound optimistic about her daughters' luck turning for the better.

There is the underlying idea of sacrifice in these festivals. The thought is that, as seen by the loss of men in the family and from historical reference, the ocean may give a sparse living, but it wreaks the most terrible havoc on the peasants of Aran.

In Celtic Myths this thought ties the cult of Odin to Samhain. "One Irish tradition involved the triple killing of a king, by burning, wounding and drowning, at the feast of Samhain" (Green, 69). Not only are the natural elements vicious, but their so-called celebrations are equally horrible.

If Odin appeared in the play, it would be in disguise. He might be playing the part of the old man who makes the coffin in Riders to The Sea, a paradox that portrays Odin as the long dead mythical hero, and yet, alive enough to build a coffin.

"Watch your back." "Turn your back on them." Those are idiomatic expressions. It's an uncomfortable thing to always be looking over your shoulder. You hope someone has "got your back".

In the play Riders to The Sea, there are a couple of instances when there is talk about "keeping your back to the door" (or audience) just as the twig-bearers do in historical Norse funeral rites.

Talking together like magpies, Cathleen tells Nora to conceal the bundle from Maurya, saying, "Keep your back to the door the way the light'll not be on you." She means it is a dark secret, a covert matter, or maybe she means that what they are about to discuss "won't stand the light of day". Christianity was known as "The Way", so perhaps the light of the faith would not reach whatever it was they were concealing, indicating the transitional time when supposedly Christianized people still clung to their forbidden pagan practices in secret.

We also read this stage direction, (Nora sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door). What significance is there in Norah sitting with her back to the door? Does the modern reader know where the door is on the set in relation to the play's audience?

After Maurya sees her vision of her sons on horseback, she behaves in this way according to stage directions: "Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round." Keening is an old custom of loud crying and mourning. Is she keeping her back to the door still?

At the conclusion of the play, the stage directions describe the physical action of the mourners, the women who enter the cottage:

"The old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold and kneeling down in front of the stage with their backs to the people, and the white waist bands of the red petticoats they wear on their heads just seen from behind".

There is something unsettling, even sinister, about this scene, something lurking beneath the surface. Red petticoats were distinctive dress were worn by the women of the Aran Islands, but in other contexts this may indicate another meaning.

Like the daughter-waves of Lir, these women mourners convey the idea that there is more here than simply meets the eye. The play ends in the same manner as the previously described funeral rites, with backs to the people.

Is there something going on behind their backs? Of course.