{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2734",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2734,
    "subject": "Master Malrubius",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-07-20T13:59:35+00:00",
    "last": "2001-07-20T13:59:35+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0563@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "akt at attglobal.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-07-20T13:59:35+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Master Malrubius",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Here's a tasty tidbit from a book called -Celtic Sacred Landscapes-, by\nNigel Pennick (p 161):\n\n\"In the region of Gairloch [in Scotland], the 'old rites' of the\ndivinity Mhor-Ri, 'The Great King' (also known as St. Maree, Mourie or\nMaelrubha), were observed until the nineteenth century. In 1656,\nofficers of the Dingwall presbytery attempted to suppress the\nobservances of Mhor-Ri, 'findeing, amongst uther abhominable and\nheathenishe practices, that the people in that place were accustomed to\nsacrifice bulls at a certain tyme uppon the 25 August, which day is\ndedicate, as they conceive, to St Mourie,as they call him...and withall\ntheir adoring of wells and uther superstious monuments and stones.' The\nrites included 'sacrificing at certain times at the Loch of\nMourie...quherein are monuments of Idoloatrie', and also the 'pouring of\nmilk upon hills as oblationes'. The cultus was important far beyond the\nGairloch region, for strangers and 'thease that comes from forren\ncountreyes' were reported as participants in the 'old rites'. But the\npresbytery was unable to supress this popular deity. Writing in 1860.\nSir Alexander Mitchell tells us that the 'people of the place often\nspeak of the god Mourie'. Another writer of the same period tells of the\ngod's holy hill, called Claodh Maree, which was the Scottish parallel of\nIcelan's Helgafell, whose benevolent power was active wherever it could\nbe seen. 'It is believed...that no-one can commit suicide or otherwise\ninjure himself within view of this spot'.\n\n\"On the island of Maelrubha in Loch Maree, the sacred oak tree of\nMhor-Ri was studded with nails to which ribbons were tied. Buttons and\nbuckles were also nailed to it. [...] Thomas Pennant visited Loch Maree\nin 1774 and witnessed the proceedings in which the derilans, the\nofficiating pagan priests on the island, had sufferers drink water from\nthe well before they were 'thrice dipped in the lake'. The well is now\ndry and the island is privately owned.\"\n\n-alga"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}