I will totally be taking photos and documenting in the community garden! :D
Yes, my ancestry is German, Scottish, English, Irish, and Mi'kmaq - so around or above the 45th parallel, on both sides of the Atlantic, lol. And in many ways, that fits - dairy is a staple now, and milk products are very much a Celtic thing. I can do some fruit and veg that is "northern," like apples and turnips and squash and such. But in others, it doesn't fit - all nuts and seeds are out due to nickel content; leafy greens and broccoli family and other veg for the same reason. I have a headcannon that nickel allergy is where "the fae can't do iron" comes from (because iron has a lot of nickel in it), and I'm really just descended from faeries. :D I mean, Nuada of the SILVER arm (silver is OK if you have a nickel allergy), and Dannan weapons made of mysterious metals that the people of the iron age couldn't identify ...possibly titanium? Because titanium is also safe for nickel allergy. 😁
I like your head canon, makes perfect sense to me!
If you're part Mi'kmaq, then I'm guessing that some of your ancestors cam to the Americas by way of Canada, eh? I'm guessing that might give you possible Metis ancestry.
Some of my ancestors immigrated from the British isles to Canada through Newfoundland.
Yup! My maternal grandparents are from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. My paternal grandparents, one was from Germany, and the other, her parents were from Germany, so I'm only second generation USAian except for the one grandmother I never met.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, Metis is a separate group that has its own culture, in which case, not that I know of. I know my family tree as far back as who got off the boat/was the last full blooded anything and the earliest white people on this side of the pond for us was 1880s or so, maybe 1870s, and they stayed in the maritimes. Grandma was Irish-Scottish-Mi'kmaq. :)
The metal allergy would certainly explain the leafy greens being a no but the root of the turnip being okay. In can't say I like turnip myself, at least not cooked. Not big on brassicas cooked in general, but broccoli is okay. Not sure on my ancestry, but definitely some Norse there filtered via France. Then likely Mediterranean in my mum's distant past.
Real food for thought on the Fae connections. What we call mythologies now usually have their roots in truths, they just had different ways of explaining it. My guess is that each tribe would have developed differently, depending on their evolution and that would have brought about different traits. Then add their culture to that and you really do almost have different races. They'd have been more isolated, too.
Have you ever had colcannon? My grandma always made it as turnips-potatoes-onions, and it wasn't until adulthood that I ever heard of people putting cabbage in it, lol, but it's really good grandma's way.
Hard yes. It always makes me make a face when people flat out ignore the historical-mythological record when trying to figure out the ancient past. Like, no, Mr. Bible Literalist, I don't expect you to take it all literally, but consider what it might mean.
So in the Invasion Cycle of Ireland, the Milesian Celts, aka the Gael, are from Iberia. They're the ones who encountered the Tuatha De Dannan, the faeries. Modern DNA tests say that Irish people have some DNA in common with people from Spain and the explanation I always hear is "wow, those Spanish sailors from that ONE armada ship that crashed in Ireland in the 16th century sure got around" and not THE MILESIAN CELTS ARE FROM MOTHERFUCKING NORTHERN SPAIN, YOU NITWITS. It makes me batty!
Another little headcanon of mine is that another of the people talked about in the Invasion Cycle are the Fir Bolg, who are supposed to originally be from somewhere around the Mediterranean. One of the translations of the term "Fir Bolg" is "Dirt Movers" and the supposed explanation for that is that they carried dirt form their homeland with them in bags on their backs to Ireland to plant their crops in. I find it wildly improbable that ancient people thousands of years ago were sailing off to a new land and thought, you know what we need to carry all the way from the Mediterranean to wherever the fuck we're going? Loads of dirt. I mean, maybe a symbolic bag of dirt for spiritual reasons, sure. Take a piece of our home with us. But enough to farm on? Considering the timeline, I feel like the far more probable explanation is that they were the first agriculturalists to arrive in Ireland. Archaeologists know that up to a certain point the island was inhabited by hunter-gatherers, and then farmers showed up. "Dirt Movers" sounds to me like "Tch, look at these fools plowing up the dirt to put seeds in when the forest provides for free." But that's just my theory. :)
Oh no, I could spend hours conversing about history! I don't know where to start here!! 🤣
Before I lose myself I'll just say I'm leaning towards your theory on the dirt movers. The symbolic soil part seemed probable, then you said farming and that just makes so much more sense.
I mean, maybe I'm wrong. The ancients hauled the bluestones all the way from Wales to Stonehenge. But hauling enough dirt to farm in on ships from the Mediterranean to Ireland is kinda a different beast. And given what we know about different waves of people from archaeology ...I just kind think it's more likely it was about the people who brought western-style agriculture. Also, "when they first showed up they had bags of dirt" seems less likely to be the reason for the whole name of a people than "they're constantly working in the dirt as like, their lifestyle," imo. LOL
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