An animated video explains how Irish people got their freckles – according to ancient Irish mythology.
The video is by feardia and also explains the legend of how the Irish got their language.
It is narrated in the Irish language but has English subtitles. It tells the story of the ancient gods who were watching the sons of Adam building the great Tower of Babylon.
The gods were worried that the sons of Adam were becoming like them so decided to destroy the tower and confuse the people by giving them many different languages. The gods hoped that this would make the sons of Adam forget who they were.
The Gaels were in Babylon at the time and were third in line as the gods were handing out the new languages. They were given a language known as Gaelige. This was the most beautiful language and was ‘perfect in syntax and tonality’.
The video goes on to tell how the gods decided to give the Gaels freckles.
The Gaels told the gods that they had come from: “The land of the Gael, a small island in the far west at the edge of the great ocean where once stood fair Atlantis.”
The gods knew that the island the Gaels spoke of was on the edge of the ocean and the night sky wasn’t clear enough to see the stars.
They thought that the Gaels would forget about stars and the heavens which were too difficult to see from their land because of the mist.
One of the gods told the Gaels: “Behold, I will draw on you a map of the Universe, so that you will remember us in the dark nights when you cannot see the stars because of the mist which covers your small island.”
The god then sprinkled a fine dust over the Gaels which covered them in freckles. The freckles were called ‘briciní’ which means ‘little stars’ in Irish.
When the last of the Gaels are gathered on the Hill at Uisneach (the last hill in Ireland at the time) they will make a complete map of the universe. At that moment they will remember everything.
So according to legend, the Irish got their language because the gods wanted to separate them from the other people in Babylon.
The freckles are a map of the universe to remind Irish people of the stars and the heavens.
Take a look at the video below.
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Check out the Ireland Calling YouTube Channel’s great videos.
