Dear all:
Here is Alexei Kondratiev's commentary.
Ellen Evert Hopman
http://www.neopagan.net/WillowsGrove/Index.html
"May I be a hill on the shore, may I be a staff to the weak, may I be a star
in the waning of the moon".
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<<>Most Michael churches are placed on top of hills once sacred
>to Lugh.
>>
Not necessarily in Britain (with the notable exception of St Michael's Mount
in Cornwall). The correlation is with _Mercurii montes_, that in many parts
of western Europe (especially western and central France) were made into
Michael chapels -- though Michael isn't always the correspondence chosen for
a _Mercurii mons_. . The varying degree of correspondence between Lugh and
Michael follows the path by which the Michael cult penetrated the Western
world: beginning in Asia Minor ca. 4th century, spreading to Italy in 4th-6th
centuries, to the Celtic world in the 8th-9th centuries, "officialised" in
Britain around the 11th century -- with notable changes in Michael's
appearance and role as he puts down roots in the West . Also, not all of the
Michael/Lugh correspondences are expressed as worship on high places: Michael
(especially in Britain) also took over Lugh's patronage of the cemetery, and
(as readers of the _Carmina Gadelica_ know) he inherited Lugh's "harvest
protector" role.
I don't know of a good source in English, but one of the classic references
on the spread and nature of the Michael cult is Rojdestvenski's _Le culte de
saint Michel et le moyen âge latin_ (1922).
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