Macha is a nifty indie rock band from Athens, Georgia, the land of all indie rock. They've drawn comparisons to Indonesian gamelan, and they enjoy the comparison. They make atmospheric, droney, gongy dream-rock rock to soothe the mind. They use lots of Indonesian instruments, too, like the ever-popular nipplegong.

Macha is horse goddess from Irish Celtic Mythology. She is very closely related to Epona in Britain and Gaul and Rhiannon in Wales. Horse goddesses were highly worshipped in Celtic lands because of the importance of horses to their tribal society. She was also a goddess of fertility and skill, particularly skill at armed contest. Worship of Macha is believed to have centered around the Ulster area of Northern Ireland

One of the legends of Macha that I have read concerns her race against the king's chariot and horses. Her husband, Crunniuc, had drunkenly boasted that his wife was faster then the king's horses and the challenge was accepted by the king. Macha was nine months pregnant and felt labor pains overcome her as she was brought before the king at the gathering. She pleaded with the warriors to spare her until her children were born, but they refused, stating that unless she ran, Crunniuc would be killed. So she ran, giving birth to a son and daughter at the end of the race. But, she cursed the men that watched the race and for five days and nights the men bore labor pains.

After a battle, Macha, the goddess of war and one of the forms of the Morrigan, cloaked in the feathers of a carrion bird, looked on as the bodies of the slain were heaped up before her. Those of her chosen side were interred, with all due obsequies, under the great stones of their clans. But the foemen who had fallen were dismembered. Their freshly severed - some with battle cries still frozen on their lips, others with mouths fixed in the rictus of a fearful grin - were impaled on stakes and raised up in a ring to do her honor.

No tribute pleased her better. A warning to all her enemies, these henges, which were known as the wastes of Macha, stood in the open countryside for all to see, while the birds and the elements worked their own transformations on them.

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