The Song of Amergin

For there are many sacred songs, but one above all, the first one to be sing on the Emerald Island.

Years after the Tuatha Dé Danann establish their kingdom in Éire, a new invasion takes place. The elders talk about the Milesians, the first Gaelic people who put a foot in that island.

Amergin was his leader; he was the dreamer, the wisdom one, a Bard, a Druid, a man of the forest and knowledge.

When this new invasion take place, The Dagda invokes his powers to repel the strangers, he sunk the ships, he pray to the winds to don’t let this people in.

So, within the waves, within the ocean and the mists, Amergin sail, sail to the new lands, he departures from the coast of Hispania, where the time for his people had passed. Amergin invokes the elements and the words mark the start of the battle over sovereignty of the Land.

The magic of the Druids take its most powerful form when came in the form of a song, a song who invokes the forest, the sea, the sky. The words of wisdom, the words of power, the cutting word, the cold word.

Am gaeth i m-muir
Am tond trethan
Am fuaim mara
Am dam secht ndirend
Am séig i n-aill
Am dér gréne
Am cain lubai
Am torc ar gail
Am he i l-lind
Am loch i m-maig
Am brí a ndai
Am bri i fodb fras feochtu
Am dé delbas do chind codnu
Coiche nod gleith clochur slébe
Cia on co tagair aesa éscai
Cia du i l-laig fuiniud gréne
Cia beir buar o thig tethrach
Cia buar tethrach tibi
Cia dám, cia dé delbas faebru a ndind ailsiu
Cáinte im gai, cainte gaithe


I am the wind on the sea
I am the stormy wave
I am the sound of the ocean
I am the bull with seven horns
I am the hawk on the cliff face
I am the sun's tear
I am the beautiful flower
I am the boar on the rampage
I am the salmon in the pool
I am the lake on the plain
I am the defiant word
I am the spear charging into battle
I am the god who put fire in your head
Who made the trails through stone mountains
Who knows the age of the moon
Who knows where the setting sun rests
Who took the cattle from the house of the warcrow
Who pleases the warcrow's cattle
What bull, what god created the mountain skyline
The cutting word, the cold word

So he sung, so he prayed, so he believed, so he dreamt.

And his strength came with his knowledge, with the truth, with the heart of his people, and the Tuatha were defeated.

With truth in their hearts, with strength in their arms, and fulfillment in their tongues, they arrive, and the new era begun, the era of the man.

And from that day on, the men, the wise men will sing in that form, ‘cause all invocations has to be made starting with I am, since every man is the sacred connection with the spirits, the ancestors, and the One.

After the war was finished, the Tuatha and the Gaelic people made an agreement. Most of the Tuatha will be retreat to the Tir na nOg, the land of the eternal youth, the happy otherworld, and only the wiser, the purest, the bravest of man could access to that kingdom, from where the Thuatha will take care of their former land, Manannán Mc Lir rules. Every time that the men need their help they will be back, if they are invoked for truth. They will be worship as the first true rulers of the land, the ancestors, the spirits of the three realms.

Listen now to the song of Amergin in the voice of Lisa Gerrard