Scathach

NAME: Scathach (pronounced Skaw - Thach) The Shadowy One, The Fierce Woman, She Who Strikes Fear, Scota, Scatha

SYMBOLS: Sword. Cauldron in some accounts.

USUAL IMAGE: An attractive athletic woman, with (according to some) red hair. Who, when in a battle rage would go red (very red) in the face and even have her arms swell in size.

HOLY BOOKS:Táin Bó Cualgne, the "Cattle Raid of Cooley" also known as The Tain, and "Death of Aoife's Only Son."

HOLY DAYS: None known.

PLACE OF WORSHIP: At the death of a relative or friend.

RELATIVES: Kerridwen ( Mother), Kyre & Ginevra (sisters), Gwyn ap Nudd (Husband), Uathach 'Spectre' (Daughter), Cuar & Cett (Sons 'names in question, but she did have at least two')

SYNODEITIES: All warrior woman goddesses.




There will be some who disagree with my calling Scathach a Goddess, saying that she was 'merely' a remarkable warrior woman among a group of people noted for remarkable warriors.
However I think even people from that group will have to admit that she was more than just above average.
There are also accounts that say she was one of the Sidhe, or as some would call them the Fairies.
So while some might not call her a Goddess, I think if you will let me mix my metaphors a bit and take a Japanese approach and call such such beings, be they fairy, spirit, demon, angel
or god, Kami (higher beings) Then whether warrior woman of legend, Sidhe Queen, or guiding spirit, Scathach is goddess enough to count!
Scathach is from the Celtic era where a form of heterognostic learning (and yes I am making up a new word right before your eyes) was practiced.
This custom said that only women could teach men and only men could teach women. This tradition held with woodcraft, blacksmithing, healing, hunting and the magical & martial arts.
It insured a more egalitarian and free status for women in a time when this was rare to say the least.
It came to an official end in 697 c.e. at a gathering of Christian clergy, lesser royals and the High King at Tara when he declared the Cain Adamnan which prohibited woman & priests from taking part in war, though priests were left with the power to influence matters.
Before this a woman had greater freedom (though it had been deterioration for a few hundred years) so that a woman might divorce her husband if he failed to support her, treat her with respect or just gossiped about their sex life!
In Scathach's era however women not only participated in battle but were some of the most fierce and able proponents of the craft.
The Shadowy One was not just a fighter and teacher of fighters. She was also versed in healing & blacksmithing as well as a prophetess who used a method known as Imbas Forasnai, the Light of Foresight to obtain visions of the future.
Scathach, along with her family and students lived on a the Isle of Skye in a castle, which seems earthy enough until you consider the trials that those who sought training from her had to go though.
These trials were such things as climbing the Western Mountains, getting past a dragon's lair, walking down a road was covered with razor sharp rocks, while the road somehow made the travelers feet stick to it & the Bridge of Leaps, which spanned a gorge filled with monsters from nightmare, and was so constructed that anyone who stepped on it made it start to tilt into the gorge so that the only way across was to first leap to the center of the bridge and slide down to the other side.
Taking into account those perils I think we have to disregard the notion that The Fierce One was an ordinary mortal.
I think it could also explain why some say that it is Scathach that one much call upon to lead the recently dead past the dangers that are found on the path to The Land of Eternal Youth.
So be it as teacher of Cu Chuliann, patroness of blacksmithing, healing & Celtic martial arts, prophetess, or guide of the dead to Tir Nan Og. I would say that Scathach is a worthy Goddess indeed.

Bermuda Triangle and It's Myth

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels are alleged to have mysteriously disappeared and cannot be explained as human error, piracy, equipment failure, or natural disasters. Popular culture has attributed some of these disappearances to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings.[1]

A substantial body of documentation reveals, however, that a significant portion of the allegedly mysterious incidents have been inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have stated that the number and nature of disappearances in the region is similar to any other area of ocean
The Triangle area
The area of the Triangle varies by author

The boundaries of the triangle cover the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas and the entire Caribbean island area and the Atlantic east to the Azores; other
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add to it the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar triangular boundary in most written works has as its points somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Miami, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the accidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.

The area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north.
History
Origins

The earliest allegation of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area appeared in a September 16, 1950 Associated Press article by E.V.W. Jones
wo years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery At Our Back Door",a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand's article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered in the April 1962 issue of American Legion MagazineIt was claimed that the flight leader had been heard saying "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." It was also claimed that officials at the Navy board of inquiry stated that the planes "flew off to Mars." Sand's article was the first to suggest a supernatural element to the Flight 19 incident. In the February 1964 issue of Argosy, Vincent Gaddis's article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" argued that Flight 19 and other disappearances were part of a pattern of strange events in the region.[8] The next year, Gaddis explanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons
Larry Kusche

Lawrence David Kusche, a research librarian from Arizona State University and author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975)

argued that many claims of Gaddis and subsequent writers were often exaggerated, dubious or unverifiable. Kusche's research revealed a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies between Berlitz's accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. Kusche noted cases where pertinent information went unreported, such as the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, which Berlitz had presented as a mystery, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Another example was the ore-carrier recounted by Berlitz as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port when it had been lost three days out of a port with the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche also argued that a large percentage of the incidents which have sparked the Triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it. Often his research was simple: he would go over period newspapers of the dates of reported incidents and find reports on possibly relevant events like unusual weather, that were never mentioned in the disappearance stories.

Kusche concluded that:

    * The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.
    * In an area frequented by tropical storms, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious; furthermore, Berlitz and other writers would often fail to mention such storms.
    * The numbers themselves had been exaggerated by sloppy research. A boat listed as missing would be reported, but its eventual (if belated) return to port may not have been reported.
    * Some disappearances had in fact, never happened. One plane crash was said to have taken place in 1937 off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of witnesses; a check of the local papers revealed nothing.
    * The Legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery, perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism.

Flight 19
US Navy TBF Grumman Avenger flight, similar to Flight 19. This photo had been used by various Triangle authors to illustrate Flight 19 itself. (US Navy)

Flight 19 was a training flight of TBM Avenger bombers that went missing on December 5, 1945 while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight path was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base, but they never returned. The impression is given that the flight encountered unusual phenomena and anomalous compass readings, and that the flight took place on a calm day under the supervision of an experienced pilot, Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor. Adding to the intrigue is that the Navy's report of the accident was ascribed to "causes or reasons unknown." It is believed that Taylor's mother wanted to save her son's reputation, so she made them write "reasons unknown" when actually Taylor was 50 km NW from where he thought he was

Adding to the mystery, a search and rescue Mariner aircraft with a 13-man crew was dispatched to aid the missing squadron, but the Mariner itself was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion at about the time the Mariner would have been on patrol.

While the basic facts of this version of the story are essentially accurate, some important details are missing. The weather was becoming stormy by the end of the incident, and naval reports and written recordings of the conversations between Taylor and the other pilots of Flight 19 do not indicate magnetic problems
Mary Celeste

The mysterious abandonment in 1872 of the 282-ton brigantine Mary Celeste is often but inaccurately connected to the Triangle, the ship having been abandoned off the coast of Portugal. The event is possibly confused with the loss of a ship with a similar name, the Mari Celeste, a 207-ton paddle steamer which hit a reef and quickly sank off the coast of Bermuda on September 13, 1864

Kusche noted that many of the "facts" about this incident were actually about the Marie Celeste, the fictional ship from Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (based on the real Mary Celeste incident, but fictionalised).
Ellen Austin
The Ellen Austin supposedly came across an abandoned derelict, placed on board a prize crew, and attempted to sail with it to New York in 1881. According to the stories, the derelict disappeared; others elaborating further that the derelict reappeared minus the prize crew, then disappeared again with a second prize crew on board. A check of Lloyd's of London records proved the existence of the Meta, built in 1854; in 1880 the Meta was renamed Ellen Austin. There are no casualty listings for this vessel, or any vessel at that time, that would suggest a large number of missing men placed on board a derelict which later disappeared.
USS Cyclops

The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy not related to combat occurred when USS Cyclops, under the command of Lt Cdr G. W. Worley, went missing without a trace with a crew of 309 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any single theory, many independent theories exist, some blaming storms, some capsizing, and some suggesting that wartime enemy activity was to blame for the loss
Theodosia Burr Alston

Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle

he was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard from again. The planned route is well outside all but the most extended versions of the Bermuda Triangle. Both piracy and the War of 1812 have been posited as explanations, as well as a theory placing her in Texas, well outside the Triangle.
Spray

S.V. Spray was a derelict fishing boat refitted as an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used by him to complete the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the world, between 1895 and 1898.

In 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven bound for Venezuela. Neither he nor Spray were ever seen again.

There is no evidence they were in the Bermuda Triangle when they disappeared, nor is there any evidence of paranormal activity. The boat was considered in poor condition and a hard boat to handle that Slocum's skill usually overcame