Imbas forosnai

Imbas forosna [' imbas forosna ], also imbass forosna ( " the comprehensive knowledge, which brightens " ) is called a certain kind of divination or fortune-telling, which in ancient times by the Celtic filid ( poets ) was practiced. A similar practice was the awenydd in Wales.

Method

In the glossary of the bishop Cormac ( Sana Cormaic ) describes how the imbas forosna going on:

The fili chewing the raw meat of a pig, a dog or a cat, putting it on a stone slab at the door, says a blessing over it and take it with a prayer to the gods dar. If he then no vision ( aisling [e ] ) has he sings the mantra in his palms and lies down to sleep, where he expresses his palms on the cheeks. The dream is to then show him in a vision all that he desires to know. During sleep, it must be guarded, so he is not disturbed, because this would make his soul to return to the body impossible, what would be his death. After an indeterminate time - from a few minutes to nine days - he wakes up and announces the result. The length of sleep will also depend on how long he has sacrificed.

Cormac explains the word imbas so that the " palms " ( bas ) are placed "on " ( in ) the cheeks. Birkhan Maier and direct it, however, from " comprehensive " ( IMB ) and "knowledge" ( fess ).

The Holy Patrick of Ireland (4th / 5th century AD) is said to have the imbas forosna already banned, a more accurate description of the process at the time of Cormac - 900 AD - is therefore at least doubtful.

Other practices

The fili also had the teinm Laida, also teinm laeda (" Opening with a song " ) and the díchetal do chennaib ( " invocation of the bone ends here," [? ], Or " improvised invocation" [? ]) And the Tarb - feis ( "Bull sleep", for the new king detection ) to dominate. When teinm Laida he puts an object on the person who wants to know something, singing a rhythmic song, at the end the result is declared in a trance. This practice was the Holy Patrick after Sana's Cormaic because of the things sacrificed to idols so often associated forbidden .. The díchetal do chennaib should be similar expired. This Weissagungsform were held by Patrick harmless because no sacrifices were offered, he has also not prohibited. All four practices of divination mentioned here were indispensable requirements for the ollam, the poet of the highest degree under the old laws.