• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Finding out more about my pagan heritage

Oregon Alley Cat

happy humanist
I am an American who's heritage is mainly Irish and Swiss. I am curious to learn more about the respective pagan beliefs, folklore, and mythology of each people groups. This has been hard to do, and internet searches have been hit and miss (mainly miss). Any ideas where I can get some more info on this? Thanks in advance. :bow:
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Irish and Swiss?

General tip: the public library is your best friend, and if you have a university library, that's even better! (sorry guys, but real research is not "I searched the internet"). Browse the shelves yourself, talk to a librarian there for research help, and don't be afraid to interlibrary loan. In particular, you'll want to pop up keywords like "Celtic," "Gaelic," also "Nordic/Norse," "Anglo-Saxon," and "Germanic." You're basically going to be looking into Celtic and Nordic mythology, so you could scout some of those references ala the proper dewey or library of congress codes, and I know there are also plenty of works out there on both Irish and Germanic folklore. Histories of the region can be insightful as well.

Fore Ireland in particular, there's a great scholar I know of in particular that specializes in the British Isles. His name is Ronald Hutton, and this book "Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles" (amazon link) should definitely be on your reading list. He also has another book out on druidry specifically, if you are particularly curious about that sort of thing.

Switzerland is a bit more challenging, because from what little I know, it's geographic position made it quite multicultural. Some of their Pagan history is Germanic, but they also had some Roman influences in later eras. Honestly, I've little doubt someone has a collection of the folklore of that region, but I'm not personally familiar with it.
 
Last edited:

Infinitum

Possessed Bookworm
I second Quintessence. There are many collections of folk mythology and fairytales in all well-equipped libraries. Ireland has a very rich cultural history in both storytelling and song. Just ask a librarian to help you find something to start with.
 
Top