August 1 Happy Lughnasadh (Better than observing the anniversary of proscription!)

[Ninehostages]

One of the "breaths of the Ancients" that gave me chills came to light just a few years back when they were able to pull DNA from a high status burial in the Newgrange Passage Tomb (Brú na Bóinne) in Ireland. His genome indicated that he was “the offspring of a first-order incestuous union” (born to parents who were either siblings, or parent and offspring) as in the manner of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. In the 11th century, an Irish Monk recorded that the folk name for a mound on the hill was "Fertae Chuile" which was translated as "Hill of Sin" or "Hill of Incest". The burial is 5,000 years old going back to the Neolithic and yet, four thousand plus years later, there was an oral folk tradition describing this exceedingly unusual site. That's before the Bronze Age before the "white" Bell Beaker people had settled there. He must have been right nasty. That gave me a chill.