Dream Aengus

Mounted pin-brooch, 2007 aterials: 20ct gold, carved harlequin opal, silver, 18ct white gold pin

One of the most striking aspects of any study of myth is the uncanny way in which the same figures – gods, heroes and rascals – will appear in the beliefs of different people separated by race, culture and time; and there is surely hope to be found in this communality of imagination – a coming together in an inner space.

‘Dream Aengus’ is just such an example. He is a product of the Celtic mind and occurs in both Irish and Scottish mythology, a kind of amalgam, in Greek terms, of Hypnos and Eros, with elements of Orpheus and Hermes, the crucial difference being that the mischievous counter-aspects borne out of the situation of love are not present – Aengus is only benign in his gifts. He wanders, like the wayfarer figure of European culture, with his bag of dreams, often surrounded by enchanted birds or followed by docile animals.

height (without pin): 50mm width: 34mm ount: mixed media Signed and dated artist’s no: 420.MP-B.07 hidden alche y: 216-7

His gifts, wrapped in the sub-conscious language of our dreams, are therefore offerings of release and self-realisation, which I suppose, in its circumvention of any moral attachment of Nemesis, makes Aengus a very modern psychic operator. In literature, there is a characteristically lyrical verse from Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus, and, more recently, a very special linked collection of tales, Dream Angus, by Alexander McCall Smith. I have granted my own Dream Aengus the dappled musings to be found within a bag of Harlequin opal, and with it wish him sweet dreams.