The Cranebag

Legacy of the Crane Woman. Imbas Dispatch #12

A Chairde, Friends,

December, mí na Nollag, is upon us and the land is glistening silver, asleep under a blanket of frost. Today, I have a new Celtic symbol and journal prompt to support your week ahead, and I also share details at the end of this post about my new Imbas Ignite creative mentoring sessions. So onto the dispatch...

As a continuation of the symbolism of the four treasures that the Tuatha Dé Danann brought to Ireland, it feels fitting in this Imbas Dispatch to stitch into our awareness a magical bag that held the treasures of the Otherworld—the corrbolg or cranebag. Corr means ‘crane’ or ‘heron’ and bolg in Old Irish means ‘bag’ or ‘belly’. There are wondrous tales about what this cranebag contained. Though it may not have actually held the four treasures of the Tuatha Dé, it contained other wonders of the Celtic Otherworld. It was full of splendours, some known, some unknown, some that perhaps we ourselves have not yet imagined. Why a cranebag you might ask?

Crane Woman

The story goes that there was a woman of soft beauty and noble soul, called Aífe. She, a daughter of the land, upon seeing Illbreac, the heir of the sea, was caught by a wave of passion for the first time in her young maiden life. She found herself sinking, almost drowning, in her desire for this son of Manannán Mac Lir, God of the Sea. And his love was returned, Illbreac's face shone like a sundance on water as he gazed upon his beloved waiting for him at the shore.

But there was another who had eyes for Illbreac, her name was Luchra meaning ‘brightness’. She was so bright she was almost blinding. The fire in her would stop at nothing until Luchra had want she wanted, and she wanted Illbreac. When she learned of his love for Aífe, jealously burned her from the inside out and she stalked her rival, eventually using her magic to transform Aífe into a crane. Illbreac of course was brokenhearted and disappeared from this tale but his father, Manannán Mac Lir, took pity on Aífe and invited her to live out her days with him in the mystical islands of the Otherworld.

Aífe did just that, living for 200 years under his guardianship and becoming his most trusted confidante, muse and intellectual partner. When Aífe died, Manannán entered an abyss of grief from which he formed—out of her skin—a bag made of craneskin to hold all of his magical treasures, treasures that Aífe helped him curate. Like the ebb and flow of grief, it was said that the contents of the cranebag were only visible when the bag was flooded at high tide, and it would appear empty once waters receded.

Sacred Vessel

Bags hold much symbolism for us; they are not simply functional tools to transport or store goods and personal belongings, but can become vessels that hold our most intimate objects. Among the treasures Aífe’s skin is said to have held, there was the smithing hook and belt of the smithgod, Goibniu, the shears of the King of Scotland, the helmet of the King of Lochlann (an Old Irish word for the north or Scandinavia), a belt made of fishskin, and the bones of the pigs of Assal—seven magical swine that could be feasted upon and yet would regenerate themselves with the coming of each dawn.

‘What the crane-bag contained were alphabetical secrets known only to the oracular priests and poets. Cranes were supposed to make letters as they flew. These letters were then translated into written characters. That the crane-bag filled when the sea was in flood, but emptied when it ebbed, means that this alphabet made sense to the poets, but made none to uninitiated outsiders.’

The above quote is from an Irish publication called The Crane Bag, founded in 1977 and sponsored by the Arts Council of Ireland, named after the cranebag as a symbol of a creative life. It was inspired by the idea that one of the treasures in Manannán’s cranebag was ogham ciphers. Ogham, like the Nordic runes, is an ancient writing system used for inscriptions and magical purposes. Ogham held the alphabetical secrets of the Áes Dána, the ‘People of the Arts’, the creatives of ancient Ireland. They encoded occult messages in ogham on stick-like ciphers believed to mimic the legs of a crane.

Even when our ancestors had developed an alphabet, they chose to activate it orally through invocation and the potency of the word, to give it life and not simply capture it in written form. It’s curious to draw cross-cultural connections here too, as Manannán can find an archetypal brother in the Greek god Hermes; both are magicians and tricksters, and Hermes is said to have created the Greek alphabet by observing crane formations in the sky.

Journal Prompt

As 2024 draws to a close, I invite you to imagine yourself curating your own cranebag. What treasures do you need and desire to put in your cranebag to support a flourishing life in 2025? These could be symbols, metaphors, ways of being, affirmations, material or natural keepsakes—whatever is meaningful for you, it’s your cranebag. You might like to draw this in your journal or bring it to life in some other way (e.g., put it on a vision board).

Imbas Ignite

For the first time in years (inspired by my own night dreams), I’m opening my books for Imbas Ignite sessions—intimate one-to-one creative mentoring experiences that bridge ancient Irish wisdom with modern creative practice. Each session is three-fold in nature, with a preparation journey you undertake in advance, our live session, and session notes to support your integration. The session is uniquely tailored to your needs, weaving together feminine embodiment coaching, image work, dreamwork and Celtic mythology to illuminate your creative path at this time.

You can book now for January or February 2025.

Voices of Celtic Wisdom

A final reminder, if anyone feels an inner calling to this programme: Voices of Celtic Wisdom begins this week and there’s still time to join. You will journey deep into the enchanted forests, mystical islands and otherworldly realms of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, guided by a impressive Celtic faculty including Manchán Magan, Aoife Lowden & Tara Brading, Manda Scott, Angharad Wynne, Eileen Budd and Eimear Burke, to name but a few. It begins on Thursday and runs until the end of March 2025. I will be teaching next week so hopefully I’ll see some of your gorgeous faces there.

Wishing you many blessings for your cranebag curation!

Croí isteach,

Jen x