Ever since my first trip to the Isle of Man I have felt a strong connection to Manann as Manannan Mac Lir is know on Ellan Vannin.
As soon as my feet touched it’s shore some seven or eight years ago I knew a bond had formed between he and me. Over the ensuing years I worked with Manann regularly and it was in August of 2016 that I visited the island again. The reconnection was intense and immediate and hasn’t left me since even though I have left the shores of that beautiful land.
It was upon my return to the mainland that I started to sense his very obvious presence up on the moors, in the damp and crowed thickets of the woods and often in the rhythmic falling of the rain as well as on the shores.
As such, in the manner of a God charge as used frequently in Wicca, I have written the below.
Feel free to use it yourself if it speaks to you, just credit me if you do.
Hear it spoken at Cemlyn Bay here
Manann’s Charge
I am never fully what I seem. I am the son of the sea adorned by a cloak of mist.
My touch is in the dew upon every blade of grass and every bell of heather on every mountain and moor.
My footprints are all but seen on the salted marsh and sandy shore; in all places that trick the eye,
Always I am where I am not,
I am in the writhing ocean,
I am in the endless thicket.
I breathe in the depths of the pine forest as the rain falls
And I will lead you in the losing of yourself, until you discover the shores of your being.
Trust in me and the use of Fragarach, the sword of answers, shall be yours.
Trust me with your deepest secrets and wholest truths and the deception of the Feth Fiada, my clouded cloak, shall be yours.
Cresting the waves aboard my wakeless ship scuabtuinne, I move across the wavetips and through the hidden places with equal ease.
For a caring trickster am I, dressed in the robes of a sage, for without the pain of awakening we are nought but a hare who dreams of sleep
Manann, Manannan, Manandan, Manawydan am I.
Walk in my ways.
Join me on the shore or the rocky scree topped hills and I shall answer the unspoken question and with graceful mirth and sharp tongue guide you through life’s mysteries and tribulations.
Then when you are utterly spent, I will lay you to rest in an earthen barrow or a cairn of fine stones
And I shall guide your spirit in to the land of the dead to be cradled in to the cauldron of renewal .
Manann am I.
Druid of Manannan 