What is a geas?

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valder
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What is a geas?

#1 Post by valder » Thu Aug 11, 2005 2:36 pm

WHAT IS A GEAS?

A Geas (pronounced "GESCH") is a kind of magical obligation, prohibition, or taboo that a person may possess. Some modern Druids use the Geas as a kind of curse, a magical "binding" or "blockage of energy" (to prevent someone from doing something). But the Geas that the characters of Celtic mythology possess is much different from that. It is usually imposed on magical people such as sacred kings, Druids, and great heroes. As it is the sacred king's duty to maintain the peace and prosperity of society, and as he is married to the local land Goddess, his life is surrounded and infused with magic. The geas upon him are there to help him avoid unbalancing that magic. Great heroes could also be bound by geasa, and so long as the hero observes his geasa he will be successful and victorious.

There are several ways to receive a Geas. A parent can grant one to her children at birth, a king or Druid can impose one upon a criminal as a punishment, or a Druid can determine by oracular means what Geasa a person already has. In heroic mythology there is a trend in which male heroes receive their Geas from women, as in the cases of Cu Chullain and Diarmaid ua Duibhne. A hero may lose a gamble of cards or a chess game to a hag, and she imposes a geas upon him as her reward for winning. Typically a geas of that kind is a requirement to go on a quest or to perform some impossible task.

The risk of breaking Geas is great. For some, to break a Geas would result in the loss of one¹s honour and social esteem. (Thus it is impossible to use a Geas to "curse" or "bind" someone who already has no honour.) For others, especially magical people like Druids or kings, to break a geas is to act contrary to the forces of nature, and the result is the death of the person, or some other great social catastrophe. Knowing this, many heroes met their end when their enemies discovered the heroes' geas and plotted a situation in which it was impossible to avoid breaking them. For example, Cu Chullain was under a geas not to eat the meat of dogs, and also to always sample food being prepared at a roadside. On the day he was killed in battle, he stopped to sample some food according to his geas but it was dog meat, and so he could not avoid breaking one or the other geasa.

Each geasa is unique and appropriate to its possessor. Cu Chullain's prohibition against eating dog meat is related to his name, "the Hound of Cullain", so it would seem that for him to eat dog meat would be a kind of cannibalism. This personal and intimate aspect is why the geas is so serious to those who possess them, and why they are usually kept secret.

{from Druidism Guide Website} :?:
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#2 Post by chara » Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:59 pm

Hey, nifty info!

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#3 Post by Abharsair » Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:03 pm

We blame Turian for the name. He came up with it, and he actually knew what it means. OK, admittedly he told us, but we had some beer at that point.
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#4 Post by valder » Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:56 pm

I like the name. Let's face it, mudding is both a horrible curse and an unavoidable fate.
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#5 Post by Abharsair » Thu Aug 11, 2005 6:45 pm

valder wrote:I like the name. Let's face it, mudding is both a horrible curse and an unavoidable fate.
Yeah, but we still blame him. Blaming him is fun.
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#6 Post by Naga » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:01 pm

You Germans sure like scapegoats.

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#7 Post by tessa » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:16 pm

The hardest part for me will be to pronounce it right. I used to sound it out. :P

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#8 Post by valder » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:49 pm

Sounding it out is half the problem. Is it:

Jeese
Geese
Jee-us
Gee-us
Gay-ass (a personal favorite)

Given 100 tries, I would have been unlikely to land on GESCH. Yay, Gaelic! (Pronounced gay-lick. Yay, sounding it out!)
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#9 Post by tessa » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:36 am

I think I said jee-ass. :P

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#10 Post by chara » Fri Aug 12, 2005 3:54 am

I always say "gee-us" with a hard "g". I was wondering how many people pronounce it "geese!" :lol:

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#11 Post by Abharsair » Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:17 am

Naga wrote:You Germans sure like scapegoats.
Only if it's Turian, and yes, we like him. But usually we are at the receiving end of scapegoatism.
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#12 Post by iza » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:45 am

We should be grateful they weren't so drunk they named the game something stupid like <stupid unrealted name>Mud...i don't know why people named their games like that sometimes :evil:

I like the name geas, short and sweet, didn't even know it actually had a meaning...with makes it even nicer.
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#13 Post by jezz » Sat Aug 13, 2005 9:07 am

And then I wonder why do you make your life so hard... when spanish people simply pronounce it.... "Geas" :)

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#14 Post by Abharsair » Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:33 am

jezz wrote:And then I wonder why do you make your life so hard... when spanish people simply pronounce it.... "Geas" :)

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Bah. You pronounce the vowels the same way we do in German. It's just English where it's so weird. ;)
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#15 Post by jezz » Sun Aug 14, 2005 7:51 am

*shakes hands with Abharsair*

People united against native english speakers :D

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#16 Post by Naga » Sun Aug 14, 2005 4:34 pm

To make it worse, there is significant regional variation and ongoing change in English regarding the pronunciation of vowels, including in America (despite the popular belief of national media threatening local dialects). For instance, in the Great Lakes region of the United States, a revolutionary chain shift in the sounds of short vowels is presently occurring, significant because short vowels have historically remained stable since the 8th century. So, being raised in Michigan, not only is my speech rushed, nasally, slurred together, and clipped with glottal stops for hard consonants like "t" (apartment = aparh'meh), but my vowels are deviant as well. ("Laughs at" sounds more like "lafes ate," "on" sounds more like "Ann," "fun" sounds like "fawn," "seventeen" becomes "suventeen.")

English vowels weren't always so strange, you damn continentals :wink: . The Great Vowel Shift, occurring primarily in the 15th century, represented a change in long vowels from Middle English "continental" values like those in liturgical Latin to the new values of Modern English. To confuse things more, English spelling was becoming standardized during the shift, so many spellings that made sense according to Middle English (but not Modern) pronunciation were retained and preserved. The result: the notorious divorce of spelling and pronunciation that haunts English to this day.

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#17 Post by Abharsair » Sun Aug 14, 2005 6:12 pm

Naga wrote:English vowels weren't always so strange, you damn continentals.
I have to say it feels weird to be called a continental by someone from Michigan. :wink:
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#18 Post by Naga » Sun Aug 14, 2005 7:11 pm

I have to say it feels weird to be called a continental by someone from Michigan.
Seeing as the playful remark I threw into only-slightly-relevant rant was insufficient, I have cooked up another:

English vowels weren't always so strange, you hell-born, sheep-biting, craven, piss-soaked, goatish European continental sons of beggars who perpetually stink of cheap gin and even cheaper whores.

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#19 Post by Abharsair » Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:58 am

Naga wrote:...who perpetually stink of cheap gin...
OK, now I'm insulted. As if anyone on this side of the Channel would drink that stuff! :D
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#20 Post by hsparks » Mon Aug 15, 2005 10:52 am

For some reason I get the idea that Naga is not actually from Michigan... Something tells me he's actually a super-intelligent ferret bent on taking over the internet as we know it, but unfortunately he has a seething hatred for everything that is not ferret, and we all know that Germans and Spanish are as far from ferrets as one can possibly ever be.

Due to this undeniable fact we must figure out what he likes to eat, and then trap him in his ignorance to our intentions... And then dissect him to figure out what makes him so smart.


By the way Naga don't read those two paragraphs above. :)
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