t h e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f

CELTIC MYTHOLOGYAND FOLKLORE

Patricia Monaghan

The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

Copyright © 2004 by Patricia Monaghan

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTIONiv

A TO Z ENTRIES1

BIBLIOGRAPHY479

INDEX486

6

Who Were the Celts?The terms Celt and Celtic seem familiar today—familiar enough that many people assume thatthey are ethnic descriptions, words that define apeople related by blood and culture. Such peo-ple are imagined as fair-skinned, possibly red-haired, often freckled. More important, it ispresumed they share an inborn mystical inclina-tion. They see in ways that others do not or can-not. They acknowledge a world beyond theworld of the senses. Some even have the secondsight, the ability to see fairies and other spiritsdancing through the soft evening. For eveningalways gathers around the Celts, a misty twilightwhere things are never quite solid and defined.

The image is a charming one; it has drawnmany to the study of Celtic culture. But it is alsoincorrect. The word Celt is not as exact as manypeople presume. It does not define a race or atribe; the alleged Celtic mysticism is not aninvariably inherited trait. Nor does “Celtic”describe a culture that was so centralized that allCelts everywhere felt the same way towardnature, worshiped the same gods, and per-formed rituals in the same fashion.

No ancient people called themselves “theCelts.” They called themselves Belgae, Cantii,Icini, Brigantes, Voconces, Arverni, or by anyone of scores of other tribal names. Where con-temporary imagination sees a single culture,these ancient people themselves knew dozens oflinguistically related groups, each bearing aname derived from an ancestor, a god or a god-dess, a totem animal, a sacred location. Theword Celt may originally have been one of these

tribal names, used by other Europeans as ageneric term for the whole people.

If the name itself is not exact, neither is whatit names. There is no one agreed-upon definitionof what constituted Celtic society and the Celticworldview. Indeed, some claim that Celtic peo-ples adapted themselves to and absorbed influ-ences from pre-Celtic cultures wherever theylived and that, therefore, the idea of a Celtic cul-ture is itself hopelessly flawed. Narrowly, a Celtcan be defined as someone who spoke or speaksa Celtic language. Beyond that, scholars andother experts disagree as much as they agree.

The Celts in Classical LiteratureLiteracy is not a value shared by all cultures.The Celts did not write down their myths andhistories, honoring instead the spoken word andthe human memory. As a result, we have nowritten documents from early Celtic times,when they were settling central Europe. Instead,the earliest writings we have about the Celts arein the languages of their enemies: the Greeksand, later, the Romans.

The Celts were already a mature culturewhen they began to appear in the writings oftheir southern neighbors. Until then, they livedtoo far away to be of interest, and besides, theywere no threat to the wealth and power ofGreece and Rome. In the last several centuriesbefore the common era, however, the Celtsbegan to seek new territories. Whether this wasbecause they were being pushed out of tradi-tional homelands by other invaders, or because apopulation explosion put pressure on resources,

INTRODUCTION6

iv

Introduction V

we do not know. But within a few hundred yearsof their first appearance in historical documentsthe Celts posed a real threat to the safety and sta-bility of the Mediterranean world. Simply put,the Greeks and Romans had land and resourcesthat the Celts needed. Conflict was inevitable.

The earliest written reference to the Celtictribes is found in the late sixth century B.C.E. inthe works of Hecataeus of Miletus, whodescribed Narbonne, in today’s France, as a cityof the Celts. A hundred years later, the Greekgeographer Herodotus described a people, theKeltoí, as the most westerly of the European peo-ple but also holding territories at the source ofthe Danube River. The fourth-century B.C.E.Greek writer Ephoros described the Celts as oneof the four great barbarian races, the equal of thepowerful Libyans, Persians, and Scythians to thesouth, east, and north of the Greeks respectively.These writers were reporting what they hadlearned from travelers; they had no firsthandexperience of Celtic ways.

For two centuries, central and westernEurope was essentially under Celtic control.Then the Celts began to expand, moving southand west. At the height of their expansion, Celtictribes occupied territory that stretched fromGalatia in Asia Minor—today’s Turkey—west toIreland, and from northern Germany to Italy.They were the first truly European civilization.

They were also aggressive in expanding theirterritories. Around 387 B.C.E. the Celts reachedthe steps of the Roman capital, where the cityleaders were hiding in terror. A siege ensued,broken when the sacred geese in the temple ofJuno called an alarm that roused the captivesagainst the last rush of the invasion. Had thegeese not squawked when they did, Europe maywell have been a Celtic continent. But the tidesof fortune turned against the Celts, and by thefirst century C.E. a Roman empire stretchedacross much of the ancient Celtic territory.

It is from this period that we learn the mostabout Celtic traditions, religion, and ritual. Butthe source is suspect: The writer was theirfiercest enemy, the Roman general who would

become emperor, Julius Caesar, who fought theCeltic people and recorded what he knew ofthem in his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Inthe Celts, whom he called Gauls, Caesar facedthe most significant impediment to his imperialplans. As aggressive as the Celts had been intheir period of expansion, the Romans underCaesar were just as aggressive.

This time, the Celts were fighting to main-tain their home territories, not to move into newones. Classical sources tell us of the fierceness ofGaulish and British warriors, but if the Celtswere a people to be feared, they also occupiedlands the Romans wished to conquer. Andbecause the Celtic warriors fought individually,for personal glory, while the trained Romanlegions were pawns in a larger economic game,the Celts were ultimately beaten back. Classicalliterature tells of the carnage of battle and thehorror of massacre that, even from the point ofview of the victors, was unendurable. Romanhistorian Tacitus tells us of the rebellion of theBritish queen Boudicca against the invadingRomans who had raped her daughters; Polybiustells of the powerful Celtic warriors who worelittle clothing apart from their great gold neck-pieces and who sliced off the heads of their van-quished enemies, only to die as miserablecaptives after being paraded naked through thestreets of Rome.

Because the Celtic people themselves left nowritten records, we only hear the voices of theirliterate enemies. Although Caesar, AmmianusMarcellinus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, and oth-ers recorded many interesting details aboutCeltic culture, we cannot rely solely upon them.They were writing, after all, for an audience thatcheered the extermination of this fierce foe. Thetemptation was strong to portray the Celts asmore savage and brutal than they were in reality.Such Roman material must be read with suspi-cion. When Marcellinus speaks of the “greatpride and insolence” of the Celtic warrior, forinstance, it is easy to dismiss the comment asintended to drive fear into the hearts of theRoman citizenry. But what of his claim that

VI The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

Celtic women helped their men in battle? Wasthis an observed fact, or a way of showing theCelts to be more barbaric than the Romans, wholeft their wives at home when they invadedCeltic lands? When Strabo says that the Celtsare “war-mad and uncouth,” we can recognizehis propagandizing tone, but what of his reportthat the Celts placed a premium on educationand eloquence?

Despite their defeat, the Celtic peoples werenot exterminated. Many remained in their oldterritories, intermarrying with Roman soldiersto become the ancestors of many of today’sEuropeans and, by further migration, Euro-pean-Americans. Others migrated into territo-ries traditionally occupied by the Germans,whom they fought or married or both. Celticlanguages and Celtic customs continued tomigrate and adapt.

Both on the Continent and in Britain, theCelts had constant contact with the German orTeutonic tribes, who spoke a different languageand had different customs, but who sharedenough of their characteristics philosophicallyand socially that at times the two groups are dif-ficult to distinguish. The Anglo-Saxons, a Ger-manic group that invaded England in earlyhistoric times, encountered Celtic people there;the resulting British culture combined features ofthe two parent cultures. There, and in otherCeltic lands as well, contact with Scandinaviansoccurred when Vikings raided, and sometimessettled in, the coastal areas; these visitors broughttheir own languages and religions, so that in theancient Celtic lands we often find words, myths,and folklore of Scandinavian origin.

Thus what we know today as “Celtic culture”is based in part upon biased literature written byenemies of the Celts, and in part upon oral tra-ditions written down in medieval or later timesin lands where the Celts mingled with othertribal people; both sources raise questions evenas they answer them. But scholars have otherways of finding information about the Celts thatare not reliant upon these potentially taintedsources. They are archaeological excavations of

Celtic sites (material culture) and analysis ofCeltic languages (nonmaterial culture).

Archaeological TracesWhere language cannot reach, the archaeologistreads instead the artifacts of ancient cultures.Unlike warrior generals who slander their oppo-nents, potsherds and earthen walls do not delib-erately lie nor distort the facts. But because timedestroys anything not made of stone, metal, orbone, even the richest site leaves many unan-swered questions about cultures of the past.Leather, cloth, and even ceramics can decay afterseveral hundred, much less several thousand,years. Thus archaeologists are forced to piecetogether a picture of Celtic life that relies solelyon non-decaying materials, sometimes compar-ing their finds with the written texts in a searchfor common themes. It is impossible to knowwith certainty how close the re-created Celticculture is to the original.

The search for the origins of the Celts beginsmore than three thousand years ago, in Bronze-Age central Europe. There, faint traces of anenergetic people have been found and categorizedby scholars, who seek to determine which of therelated and contiguous cultures were proto-Celticand which were not. The analysis of archaeologi-cal remains points to religious and social changesthat led, with unusual rapidity, to the creation of adynamic culture. At what point this culture can becalled Celtic is a subject of debate.

Approximately 1,400 years before the com-mon era, people buried their dead in a distinctiveway, by building mounds or “barrows” over thegraves. A few hundred years later, burial prac-tices changed: after cremation, ashes of the deadwere placed in urns and buried in designatedcemeteries. This, the Urnfield stage, was thefirst of many steps in the development of a dis-tinctive Celtic culture; the culture of this time isusually considered proto-Celtic, for while it isnot yet fully Celtic, it appears related.

The Celts remained in prehistory longerthan other Europeans did, for they did notdevelop writing, except for a rudimentary script

Introduction VII

called ogham that was used for short inscrip-tions. But illiterate does not mean unintelligentor lacking in genius. The Celts were both inven-tive and artistic, as the beautifully wroughtobjects from the second stage of Celtic culture—named for its primary archaeological site, Hall-statt in Austria—reveal. By this time, the Celtshad become metalworkers of some renown inthe ancient world. The mirrors, jewelry,weapons, and other splendid metal objects fromthe Hallstatt culture were created during theIron Age, from 800 to 450 B.C.E.; most werefound in barrow graves, for unlike the precedingUrnfield people, those of Hallstatt had resumederecting great mounds over their gravesites.Examples of their workmanship have been foundin non-Celtic areas of Europe, showing thatthere was significant trade in their metalwork.

The manufacture of ornate but useful objectscontinued in the late Iron Age culture called LaTène, from “the shallows” of Lake Neuchâtel inSwitzerland, where a hoard of metal objects wasdiscovered and dated to approximately 450 B.C.E.From then until the 1st century B.C.E., the fluidstyle developed at La Tène was the dominantone among the European Celts; its influenceaffected neighboring people as well, while theskillful artists and artisans of La Tène expandedtheir repertoire by using designs inspired by theEtruscans, the Scythians, and other distant cul-tures. Some scholars date the beginning ofCeltic culture to this period.

From these early sites in central Europe, theCeltic tribes moved out to settle throughoutwestern Europe. Celtic migrations began early,with people colonizing today’s Spain and Francein the Hallstatt period. Later, Celtic peoplemoved from their continental homelands to theislands off the west coast of Europe. First Britainand then Ireland were invaded by groups ofCelts who found earlier, non-Celtic people inresidence. Joining with or fighting these groups,the Celts created what is called insular Celticculture, in which elements of earlier culture sur-vived in vestigial form. Scholars disagree aboutwhen the Celts arrived, but agree that the migra-

tion took place in several, or many, waves—abelief that is found as well in ancient literatureand medieval scholarship.

After the arrival of the Roman legions, Celticart and artifacts changed. Whereas in earliertimes, the Celtic people did not portray theirdivinities in human form, later artists adoptedRoman styles, probably to please their patronsand clients. From this period (ca. 100–400 C.E.)we find statues and reliefs of gods and goddesses,many clad in Roman togas but wearing Celticjewelry or carrying Celtic cult objects. Some suchsculptures are inscribed with names of the divin-ity depicted. Because the Roman legions practicedwhat was called the “interpretatio Romana,” giv-ing the names of their gods to those of the peoplethey colonized, many Celtic gods were labeledwith Latin names. In some cases, the originalname was included, but often not even that sur-vived. Thus Celtic and Roman cultures were alsomelded and can be difficult to distinguish.

Celtic LanguagesAt base, the term Celtic refers not to a culture butto a language group. In addition to the similari-ties of archaeological finds like the Urnfieldburials and the swirling metal patterns of the LaTène artists, similar words are found across theold Celtic lands—today’s nations of Germany,Austria, France, England, Scotland, Wales, andIreland. While the names of gods and goddessesmay differ, some words found in place-namessuggest the spiritual values of the people whoused Celtic languages, like nemeton for “sacredgrove” and find for both “white” and “radiant.”What the word Celtic itself means is unknown; ifit was not, as many assume, the name of a smallgroup within the larger Celtic world, it mayderive from the Old Norse word for “war,” forthe Celts were known as a warrior people.

Celtic is a branch of the great Indo-Europeanlanguage family that includes Germanic lan-guages such as English and Dutch; Romancelanguages such as Italian, Spanish, and French;Slavic languages such as Russian; the Baltic lan-guages, Lithuanian and Latvian; Sanskrit, the

VIII The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

language of ancient India; and the odd outpost ofTocharian along the Silk Road near China. TheIndo-European-speaking people are not, as wasassumed in the 19th century, all racially related.But they share a linguistic family tree thatreaches back to central Europe in approximately2,500 B.C.E. The Celtic tongues were among thefirst to branch off from the trunk of that tree;thus some ancient verbal forms are maintainedin the Celtic tongues that were lost in laterbranches of the language tree.

Today, six Celtic tongues are known. Theyfall into two groups, divided by pronunciationand, to a lesser extent, by grammar. Irish andScottish, both called Gaelic, and Manx, thedying language of the tiny Isle of Man, are calledGoidelic Celtic or P-Celtic, while Welsh, Bre-ton, and Cornish are called Brythonic or Q-Celtic. The Goidelic languages are moregrammatically complicated, while the Brythonictongues are slightly more streamlined; in addi-tion, the letter pronounced as Q (or C) in theBrythonic languages became P in the Goidelic,hence their alternate names. For instance, thenumber “four” in Irish is ceathar; the same wordin Cornish becomes peswar. Similarly, “head”and “son” in Irish are cenn and mac, while in Cor-nish they are pen and map.

Although these languages have lasted morethan three thousand years, they are in dangertoday. Some 16.5 million people live in theancient Celtic lands, but only approximately 2million people speak Celtic tongues, and fewerstill speak them as first languages. Political andcultural pressure has meant that other lan-guages—notably French and English—are theofficial tongues of Celtic countries. Only in Ire-land is the indigenous language the language ofthe state, and even there English is used formost communication. Scots Gaelic is spoken onboth sides of the Atlantic, in the Cape BretonIsland and in the aptly named Nova Scotia aswell as in Scotland itself, but it is a minoritylanguage, as is the case in Wales, where theCeltic tongue, Welsh, was not officially recog-nized until 1969.

Breton boasts 1 million speakers, but becausethe peninsula of Brittany has been part of Francefor the last six hundred years, schoolchildrenthere are taught French, not Breton. The lastnative speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell, died in1974; in Cornwall the language lost its nativestatus more than a hundred years ago. Both languages are now the domain of scholars andcultural enthusiasts.

The economic value of speaking English, theworld’s major language for commerce, has beena primary reason for the decline in the use ofCeltic languages over the last several centuries.Because Celts are not racially distinct people butpeople who speak Celtic languages, if those lan-guages die, so do the Celts.

The Oral TraditionLiterate people often presume that somethingtranscribed into writing is permanent and unal-terable, while the spoken word disappearsquickly and can be readily changed. But writtenworks are more fragile, and memorized worksmore enduring, than is commonly believed. TheGreek poet Sappho was only known from a fewlines quoted by other writers and from her repu-tation as one of the great poets of antiquity, untila mummy was discovered whose embalmer hadused strips from an old manuscript of Sappho’spoems in his work. The burning of libraries, asat Alexandria in Egypt in the third century C.E.,has meant incalculable loss to human learning. Ifthe written word is not necessarily permanent,neither is it unalterable. Changes in dialect or inspelling can create misunderstandings at a dis-tance in time or place. Writing something downdoes not in itself insure that it will survive as theauthor intended.

Conversely, skilled storytellers have beenfound by researchers to be astonishingly accuratein their recall of details and compositional frame-works. It is now believed that the epics of Homer,despite their great length, began as orally trans-mitted works and were written down only later;the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed aloudand shared through public recitation rather than

Introduction IX

private reading. In addition, oral societies havesocial structures that support frequent recitationof stories, dispersing those stories through thecommunity in a way that the solitary experienceof reading cannot match.

So although they were not literate, the Celtsdid not lack learning or poetry or historicalknowledge. They believed that words gainedpower by being spoken rather than written. Tothe Irish Celts, the craft of poetry was a form ofmagic, related to incantation and enchantment.Especially powerful was the satire, a stingingverbal rebuke so strong and effective that itcould change the physical world. A satire couldraise boils on the skin of a stingy king or twistthe arm of a thief. While we do not knowwhether the continental Celts held the samebeliefs, evidence from classical writers empha-sizes the importance they placed on eloquence.

Even after literacy was introduced, it was notwidespread, and extemporaneous composition ofstories and poems continued. At the same time,works held in the oral tradition were writtendown, so that early Celtic literature was pre-served and passed along by a newly literate class:the monks, who in Christian times took theplace of the bards of antiquity. Ireland, whichwas spared the ravages of Roman invasion andtherefore never developed artistic styles that imi-tated those of the conquerors, is the source ofthe greatest number and variety of writtensources, with Wales and Britain trailing behind,while little remains to tell us the myths of thecontinental Celts.

Celtic Textual SourcesFor the earliest periods of Celtic culture and forthe continental Celts into historical times,archaeologists must listen to the mute testimonyof artifacts. Few texts exist from ancient Gaul.After Roman occupation, some Celts became lit-erate, no doubt for economic and social advance-ment. From several of these literate Celts, wehave inscriptions connected to religious prac-tices. Written on rugged lead tablets, the inscrip-tions were found in graves and at cult sites;

although short, they reveal some information(names of gods, social rank, family names) aboutthe people who inscribed and deposited them.

Among the insular Celts, the situation wasdramatically different. Celtic languages contin-ued to be spoken after the arrival of literacy,which in most cases was contemporaneous withChristianization. In Ireland many early poemsand epics—previously recited and memorized bythe bardic classes—were written down by monkswho belonged to the culture whose works theywere transcribing. In Wales the same thingoccurred, although somewhat later. While thetranscribers may not have felt any temptation topropagandize against their Celtic ancestors, theymay also have been uncomfortable with some ofthe values expressed in the stories they werewriting down. Especially when it comes towomen, the insular Celtic written sources mustbe read with care. But compared to the works oftheir Roman enemies, the words of the Celticstorytellers offer complex and nuanced informa-tion about the society from which they sprang.

In some cases, the works were transcribed inthe original languages; in a few cases, the lan-guage used was classical Latin, the language ofthe Church. Sources in Celtic languages carrywith them some of the values embedded andencoded in the words and structure, while Latinand other tongues may occasionally convey dif-ferent meanings than the original may haveintended. The greatest number of Celtic-language texts are in Irish, which boasts the dis-tinction of being Europe’s third-oldest literarylanguage, after Greek and Latin.

In addition to works of direct transcription ofmyths, we have some early writings by Celtic peo-ple themselves that reveal religious beliefs andpractices, such as the geographical and historicalworks of the historian Nennius and the authorGiraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales). Theseare not necessarily free from bias, whether delib-erate or not, for authors can only write from theirown perspective, which is necessarily limited.

Texts were typically written on fragile mate-rial like vellum made from sheepskin or on

X The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

parchment made from plant fibers. Unless suchmaterials are carefully preserved, they canquickly deteriorate. In addition, the vagaries ofhistory—including several centuries of Vikingraids—meant that some great works were lost tofire, water, and other destruction. What we havetoday often survived by an accident of history. Itis impossible to know if other surviving textsmay someday be unearthed and might changeour view of the Celtic past.

Nonetheless a number of significant manu-scripts have survived for more than a thousandyears. The most famous, the Book of Kells,records no mythic material but is completelydevoted to Christian scripture. More useful forthe scholar of mythology are the Book of the DunCow, written down in the 11th century (allegedlyon the hide of a cow whose milk-giving powersrecall a mythological image of abundance); theBook of Leinster, written in the late 12th century;the Book of Úi Maine, written in 1394 by Faelánmac Gabhann; the Book of Ballymote, transcribedca. 1400 C.E.; and the Yellow Book of Lecan, com-posed by three scribes in 1417. Each of thesecompilations includes a number of stories andpoems, some of which are called “books” (as inthe Book of Invasions); because this can be confus-ing to the nonspecialist, we will use the term bookto refer to any compilation and the term text torefer to a single story.

One of the oldest of the texts is the Book ofInvasions (also called the Book of the Taking of Ire-land), which was written down in the 12th cen-tury in several versions. This text describes thehistory of Ireland from the beginning of time.While there are obvious biblical interpolations(Noah, for instance, appears as an ancestral fig-ure), there are also many mythical figures promi-nent in the works; thus the Book of Invasions is amajor source for information about Irish, andthrough it Celtic, mythology.

Another text written down at about the sametime, but based on much older material, is theDindshenchas or place-poetry. Each poem tellsthe history of a place-name, and as many suchnames derive from their connection to myth, the

poems of the Dindshenchas provide valuablemythic information. In addition, a series of Irishtexts variously categorized as adventures, visions,wooings, cattle raids, elopements, and voyagesprovide vivid images of Celtic life. Some of themost important are the Irish epic called the Táinbó Cuailnge; the legal texts called the SenchasMór; the short poems called the Triads; the col-lection of Welsh myths, the Mabinogion; and thepoems of the great and presumedly historicalWelsh bard Taliesin.

Unfortunately, less than one-quarter of theknown texts have been translated into English.Many of those are difficult for the average readerto obtain. In addition, even when translated, thetexts often present problems in interpretation.The valuable medieval texts that make up theDindshenchas, for instance, are filled with allusionsto stories and figures who are now unknown.

Because all of these texts were created afterChristianization, it is impossible to tell whetherthe stories were altered to fit the new worldviewor whether they truly reflect the viewpoint of theCelts. In general, where a story conveys a mean-ing different from the later (in this case Christ-ian) worldview, it can be assumed to be correctlytranscribed, while anything that agrees is suspect.If, for instance, a monk describes a world-destroying event as a flood, it would be impossi-ble to tell whether that was originally a Celticidea or whether it was imported from biblicalsources. Conversely, if the same monk describeda god who wheeled a huge mallet around on acart—a figure not found in the Bible—we canassume that the image was originally Celtic.

In addition to the 500 or so tales and poemsthat survive from ancient Ireland, some texts areknown from other insular Celtic societies. AfterIreland, the greatest wealth of mythologicalmaterial was transcribed in Wales: the WhiteBook of Rhydderech, composed in the early 14thcentury, and the Red Book of Hergst, composedsome fifty years later. Together, the tales com-piled in the two books comprise the Mabinogion,a great cycle of myths as complex and rich as anyknown to the literate world.

Introduction XI

Although in early times the literary languageof Scotland was “common Gaelic” or Irish, bythe late Middle Ages some works were beingtranscribed in the local language, Scots Gaelic.An important source from that time is the Book ofthe Dean of Lismore, written in 1516, whichincludes stories known from Irish sources as wellas some original to the document. On the Isle ofMan a ballad written down in 1770 reveals theextent of the island’s oral tradition, while inCornwall only fragments of mythic materialremain, leaving us to guess at the great tales thathave been lost. In Brittany written texts aremostly late, from the 15th century and beyond,but 12th-century French poets Marie de Franceand Chrétien de Troyes appear to have basedtheir romances on oral Celtic sources.

The Folklore MovementLiteracy and the oral tradition came together inthe late 19th century, when across Europe literatepeople began to be aware of the depth and rich-ness of their indigenous cultures. Rural life, whichhad gone on relatively unchanged for many gen-erations, was suddenly threatened by increasingindustrialization. In places where for generationsthe same festivals had been held, the same storiestold, railroads now cut through quaint villages,luring young people to factory work in theincreasingly crowded cities. The old tales, basedas they were in ancient religious and culturalvisions, were in danger of being lost, as story-tellers died with no one to carry on after them.

The great era of folklore collection beganthen. In Germany the Grimm brothers, Jacob andWilhelm, gathered scores of stories from countryresidents. Some of these, like “Cinderella” and“Snow White,” are now part of the collective her-itage of the world’s children, for although origi-nally myths describing the actions of gods andgoddesses, the subjugation of these ancient reli-gious ways meant the diminishment of deities intomere human heroes and heroines, their grandadventures becoming merely amusing tales.

In Finland Elias Lönrott trekked through thewinter weather to collect stories that are clearly

mythical. He wrote them in a curious chantingrhythm into a collection called the Kalevala, stillone of the primary texts for those who desire tolearn about ancient Finnish religion. In Lithua-nia collectors transcribed thousands of daina orfolk songs, most of them addressing the land’sancient goddesses; the songs permit scholars totentatively reconstruct the ancient mythology ofthe Baltic region.

In the Celtic lands, too, the folklore move-ment made its mark. But rather than beingmerely a cultural effort, in Scotland and Walesand, especially, in Ireland, folklore and literaturejoined forces. It began with the curious case ofJames Macpherson, a Scottish poet who createda sensation with the release of his collections of“ancient” poetry from the Highlands. A jadedpublic was inspired by the Celtic passion ofMacpherson’s work, then scandalized to learnthat it was not word-by-word translation but animaginative reconstruction—what today wouldbe called ethnopoetic transcription.

But if Macpherson himself fell from favor, arenaissance of Celtic learning had begun. Sud-denly collectors in Wales, Brittany, and Irelandwere transcribing the stories and songs that had,only a decade previously, been scorned as theinconsequential yarn-spinning of illiterates.William Carleton and T. Crofton Croker setdown Irish legends, the great J. F. Campbellpublished huge collections of Scottish tales, andLady Charlotte Guest published the first En-glish translations of the Mabinogion. The move-ment continued and deepened in Ireland withthe “Celtic Revival” movement spearheaded bythe great poet William Butler Yeats, and it con-tinues to some extent today as rock bands namethemselves after ancient Celtic goddesses andmovie directors mine the tales of the past fornew entertainments.

Celtic Life and SocietyThat Celts did not develop writing did notmean that they had no way to record their his-tory and beliefs. As we have seen, Celtic peoplesplaced great emphasis on the spoken word as a

XII The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

means of conveying both historical and religiousinformation, leaving us ancient documentsdescribing Celtic life and beliefs. Examinationof contemporaneous texts by Roman and otherMediterranean writers offers information natu-rally biased by their enmity toward the Celts.Archaeology supplements the written word withartifacts found in Celtic sites, both on the Con-tinent and on the islands. Finally, vestiges ofCeltic beliefs can be traced through oral recita-tion and storytelling.

Scholars and writers rely on these three majorpoints of access for information about the Celts,but every statement made is necessarily conjec-tural. There is much we do not know about theCelts. Over the last two hundred years, theoriesabout how they lived and what they believed havebeen espoused and then discarded. Many aspectsof Celtic life remain subject to intense, often acri-monious, debate. With no definitive text to illu-minate questions, such debate is likely tocontinue. Nonetheless, some features of Celticlife are accepted by most scholars.

Celtic society was based upon a balance ofpowers among the leaders, who included bothkings and druid-poets. Kings could not continueruling if the land ceased to be productive for thefarmers and herders, in which case the druid-poets had to use their magic to end the king’sreign. This balance of powers was symbolizedby the “marriage” of the king, at his inaugura-tion, to the goddess of the land. As her consortand spouse, the king’s job was to keep herhappy; the goddess revealed her contentednessby permitting the land to produce food in abun-dance. Should the king, however, lose the favorof the goddess, pestilence and famine would fol-low. Thus the king did not expect his people toserve him; rather, he served them as the god-dess’s husband.

The role of the druid-poet was complex. Inboth Continental and insular Celtic society,great importance was placed upon eloquence.Since Celtic culture was nonliterate, recitationplayed a very important role in conveying his-torical, genealogical, and mythological informa-

tion from generation to generation. As a result,members of the druidic orders were highlytrained in memorization and extemporaneouscomposition. In addition, they practiced what wemight call psychic skills: casting oracles, inter-preting dreams, reading omens.

The druids were the priests of the Celts; theywere also the poets, historians, judges, trouba-dours, and professors. Not all druids practicedall of these arts. Some specialized in one or theother, but all fell within the social role of thedruid. Nor did the druids form a separate class inthe way priests today typically do. They were,rather, spread through society, where they satis-fied their various roles.

These social roles remained, to some extent,in Celtic lands even after Roman conquest,Christianization, and occupation by Germanicand Norse overlords. The Romans, who hadalready cut down the sacred groves on the Con-tinent, destroyed the last druid sanctuary, onAnglesey island off Britain, in ca. 64 C.E. Romanhistorian Tacitus described the massacre, asrobed priestesses and monks fought desperatelyto preserve their sacred land. As they were cutdown, one by one, the knowledge they carriedwas killed, just as surely as if a great library hadbeen burned to rubble and ash.

The position of Celtic women is hotly con-tested among scholars. Evidence can be foundthat Celtic women fought alongside male warriorswhen their lands were threatened, that queensruled and led armies into battle, that women werepoets and druids. But some scholars dismiss suchevidence as indicating only occasional extraordi-nary women, arguing that the average Celticwoman had few legal rights and served her hus-band in all matters. This area is one of the mostcontentious in contemporary scholarship, withsome scholars arguing that evidence of matrilinealsuccession (passage of property and social stand-ing through the mother’s family) suggests a non-patriarchal social organization, while others assertthat the Celts were a fervently patriarchal warriorculture and any counterevidences were vestiges ofpre-Celtic cultures.

Introduction XIII

Celtic ReligionMost religious systems begin with a creationmyth that explains how the world we know cameinto being. There is, however, no extant Celticcreation myth. One may have existed that hasbeen lost, but we find no references or allusionsthat suggest as much. This has led some scholarsto describe the Celts as positing a world that iscontinually creating itself, or one that has beenalways in existence as it is today.

That world, however, does not only includewhat is tangible to our senses, for according toCeltic belief an Otherworld exists beyond ourimmediate reality. This Otherworld resemblesthe Dreamtime of the Australian peoples, for it isa place contiguous with our world, where deitiesand other powerful beings dwell and from whichthey can affect our world. These beings cannotenter and leave at will, but only at points in timeand space where access is possible.

The Celts also believed that human beingscould enter the Otherworld. Some did so acci-dentally, by mistaking it for this world. Otherswere kidnapped into it—for example, by a fairylover who desired the human as a companion, orby a fairy hostess looking for a fine musician fora dance. The Otherworld looked like this world,only more beautiful and changeless. Trees boreblossom and fruit at the same time there; no oneever aged or grew infirm; death had no domin-ion in the Otherworld.

This world was not mundane as opposed tosacred; the Celts appear to have had no such dual-istic conceptions. Although different from themagical Otherworld, this world had its sacredpoints as well. The four directions were orientedaround a sacred center, not necessarily physicalnor located in the center. The sacred center was aconcept rather than a specific place; it could move,it could multiply, it could even leave this worldentirely and become part of the Otherworld.

In the Otherworld lived the great gods. Thereis no specific pantheon of gods found among allCeltic peoples. Rather, there were many gods,most of which were specific to a region or envi-ronment. So polytheistic were the Celts that the

standard oath was, “I swear by the gods my peo-ple swear by.” But however decentralized was thepantheon, some divinities appear in many places,usually under various names. These include thetriple mothers, a horned god, and divinities ofrivers and other landscape features.

The Celts typically did not depict their divini-ties in human form. Because divinities had thepower of shape-shifting—assuming multipleforms, including those of humans and animals—there was no native tradition of sculpting or paint-ing them in physical form. It was only after theRoman conquest that we find examples of theMediterranean tradition of showing gods and god-desses in the forms of Roman men and women.

Similarly, the Celts did not bandy about thenames of their deities. If all words had power,how powerful were the names of the gods, whichwere not to be casually invoked. We are not evencertain if the words recorded, often by non-Celtic authors, represented divine names ortitles. Christians refer to the same deity as Jesus,Christ, Our Lord, the Savior, and the Son ofGod; a non-Christian reader, finding thosenames in various texts, might make the under-standable mistake of imagining five differentgods. It is impossible now to be completely cer-tain whether the names recorded in Romantimes and later refer to one or many gods.

Nonetheless, scholars generally agree thatthe Celts did not have an organized, hierarchicalpantheon. Rather than a court arranged indescending order under a king of gods, they sawdivinities as arranged in families, as for examplethe descendants of Danu or Dôn, both mothergoddesses. These gods did not live in the sky butin mountains and the sea, in trees and in runningstreams. This form of religious vision, seeing thedivine within the physical world, is known aspantheism and is distinct from those religionsthat see divinity as separate from or transcendentover nature.

Although all Celts did not share the samegods and goddesses, each group having its owndivinities associated with features of their land,there are some commonalities among the tribes.

XIV The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

The Celts all believed in a goddess whose gen-erosity and fecundity made life possible. Oftenthis mother goddess was the ancestor of theentire people, while at other times she wasviewed as the ancestor of the gods themselves.Her name in myth is Danu or Anu or Dôn,which has been connected with a hypothesizedcentral European goddess Dan, whose name sur-vives in such rivers as the Danube and the Don.Although she was a goddess of the land, themother goddess also ruled the rivers thatwatered the soil; thus most rivers in Celtic landsare, even today, named for goddesses.

The goddesses are often depicted as triple.During Roman times, they were the DeaeMatres, the “mother goddesses,” shown as threewomen with similar features, two apparentlyyounger than the third. As contemporary genet-ics has shown that a woman with at least twodaughters is most likely to pass her inheritancethrough the ages, the ancient portraits of threegoddesses may represent a mother-ancestor andher descendants rather than, as was commonlyassumed, the same woman passing through dif-ferent phases of life.

The powers of the god matched and comple-mented those of the goddess. Although notinvariably matched into pairs and rarely intomonogamous units, Celtic gods and goddessesare often associated. The male force was imag-ined as representing skill, as compared to thegoddess’s powers of fecundity. Many gods werecalled “many-skilled” or “many-gifted” becausethey offered their gifts of magic, craft, andpoetry to humanity. Gods appeared both asmature men and as young, even vulnerable, sons.The latter could be stolen or lost, and thenregained, as several myth-cycles attest.

Celtic RitualsArchaeology tells us that the Celts did not buildmany temples. Rather, they celebrated their reli-gion in the open air, a setting appropriate to apeople who envisioned divinity as resident in thenatural world. Their ritual sites were on hilltops,where great blazes marked the turning seasons;

at wells of fresh water, which were honored fortheir connection to the goddess of sovereigntywho empowered kings; and in groves of trees,especially oaks, where ceremonies were held.

Because of the lack of written documents, wehave little idea what these rituals entailed. Classi-cal writers liked to claim they had witnessedbutchery: animals and even humans killed as sacri-fices to the gods. Such commentary, long believedto be merely propaganda by enemies of the Celts,has more recently been examined in light of bod-ies found in bogs. Because the sterile waters andtannic acid of boggy lands preserve organic mate-rial for centuries, even millennia, it is possible toautopsy such corpses to determine the manner ofdeath. Several bog-bodies found in Celtic landsshow that the victims were people of leisure, well-fed and well-groomed, who were killed by beingstrangled, stabbed, and then drowned. This“threefold death” corresponds to some textual evi-dence, suggesting that in times of crisis humansacrifice may indeed have been practiced.

It is not, however, believed to have been astandard component of Celtic ritual. Most Celticceremonies were, rather, centered on the turningof the seasons. Although some scholars arguethat the four recognized Celtic holidays were infact only Irish, most agree that the Celts markedtwo seasons, each of which had a beginning andan ending half, thus making four seasonal festi-vals. The two most important were at the turn-ing points of the year: from summer to winter atSamhain on November 1, and from winter backto summer on Beltane on May 1. The secondaryfestivals marked the midpoints between thosegreat events: Imbolc, on February 1, when win-ter moved towards spring; and Lughnasa, onAugust 1, when summer died into fall.

These festivals are distinctively Celtic, forother people marked their year off by noting thesolar shifts of solstices (June 21 and December 21)and equinoxes (March 21 and September 21).That the Celts marked the season’s midpointrather than the point of change may relate to theinsistence upon the sacredness of the center, whichis both a geographical and a spiritual concept.

Introduction XV

Tales of ArthurSome of the most famous tales of westernEurope are those of the Matter of Britain, alsoknown as the Arthurian Cycle. From the histo-rian Nennius, who rarely let himself be inhibitedby fact, we learn of a Celtic king of the islandnamed Arthur, who rallied his fellows and foughtagainst the Germanic Saxon invaders sometimein the early Christian era, approximately thesixth century C.E. References to the same or asimilar figure appear in the Welsh annals, so itappears that there is some historical reality tothe regal figure of Arthur, who finally was killedin an internecine battle with his fellow Celts.

Whatever the facts, the story that grewaround the figure of Arthur is more mythicalthan historical. A single Celtic theme repeatsitself in the tales, which were developed by writ-ers and artists over many centuries, so that theoriginating pattern became embedded in com-plication and elaboration. That theme is thepower of the goddess of sovereignty, withoutwhose approving presence the king’s right to ruleis in danger. The love triangle between thequeen and her two lovers (which appears in theTristan-Iseult-Mark story as well as that ofLancelot-Guinevere-Arthur) is a human reflec-tion of the myth of a goddess who marries oneking after another. Similarly, when the FisherKing is wounded in his generative organ andtherefore unmanned, the land becomes barren,for in the Celtic framework, a blemished kingfinds no favor with the land’s goddess. Thusalthough not part of Celtic religion, the tales ofCamelot and the knights of the Round Tableform an important cultural expression of Celticideas and ideals.

The Fairy FaithMuch of oral tradition in Celtic lands involvestales of fairies, beings of the Otherworld whointeract with humanity. In Ireland such figuresare diminished gods, the race of the Tuatha DéDanann (tribe of the goddess Danu) who wentinto hiding within the hills and bogs of Irelandafter being defeated by the human invaders, the

Milesians. Similarly, in Brittany the old godsbecame korrigans, while in other areas of theancient Celtic world, we find magical beingswhose behavior suggests that they were origi-nally divine.

The early scholar W. Y. Evans-Wentz namedthese tales and traditions the “fairy faith,” claim-ing that it was a functional religion. In otherwords, there was both myth (or in this case, leg-end) and ritual to be found among believers inthe fairy people. Stories about the likelihood ofbeing kidnapped by fairies on certain days wereconnected to rituals of protection, such as wear-ing clothing backward or carrying iron imple-ments. Although the claim that the fairy faith isa true religion is controversial, there appear tobe religious elements to the belief system.

Whether that belief system is connected toearlier Celtic beliefs is similarly controversial.Legend claims that the fairies were originallygods, and some, like the familiar leprechaun,bear the names of divinities known from mytho-logical texts (in this case, Lugh). While somescholars dismiss or question the connectionbetween folkloric figures and the great gods andgoddesses of mythology, most see resonancesbetween what has been recorded from oral folk-loric sources and the written evidence found inmanuscripts that record early myths. The heroicfigure of Fionn mac Cumhaill, for instance,appears in folklore as the somewhat less-than-heroic giant Finn McCool, and many similartales are told of them.

Pronunciation and SpellingCeltic mythology did not begin in text; it beganin story. When transcribers (whether monks orfolklorists) wrote down these stories, theyspelled in various ways, caring less about theorthography and more about plot and character.For years, indeed for centuries, there was littlestandardization among Celtic names. As a result,various texts will offer various spellings—some-times several spellings in a single text.

To popularize their work, 19th- and early20th-century writers often anglicized Celtic

XVI The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

words, creating a hybrid language that was easyon the eyes of the English-speaking reader butthat had no scholarly support. Because Celticlanguages and the people who speak them haveso often been politically disadvantaged in com-parison to their English conquerors, the angli-cization of Celtic words can be offensive to some.Yet the variations of ancient, early modern, andlate modern spellings, with and without diacriti-cal marks, can be confusing and off-putting,especially when accompanied by a pedantic insis-tence on one formulation over another. Becausethis book is aimed not at the specialist but at thegeneral reader, the entries include as many alter-native spellings as were available. For words in

Celtic languages, the spelling that most scholarsaccept is used as the primary entry name. Whenthat represents a challenge to English-speakingreaders, the anglicized spelling appears as thefirst alternative as a guide to acceptable pronun-ciation. In the rare case where an anglicizedspelling is so common as to render the Celticspelling not readily recognizable—as with themagician Merlin, correctly spelled Myrddin—the procedure is reversed, with the most accept-able Celtic spelling appearing in bracketsimmediately after the entry. Latinized names ofcontinental Celtic divinities, which are readilypronounced by English speakers, are not givenanglicized forms.

Abarta (Ábartach, Ábhartach) Irish god. Thisminor figure in Irish mythology—one of theFOMORIANS, an ancient and monstrous race—appears in texts devoted to the band of heroescalled the FIANNA. Ambitious to join the warriorelite, Abarta came to them pretending to be alazy man in search of a job. FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, leader of the Fianna, inexplicablyagreed to take him into service, calling himGialla Deacair, or “lazy servant.” Abarta trickedFianna into mounting his apparently frail oldhorse and carried them away to the OTHER-WORLD. There he held them hostage until Fionn,after many magical adventures and battles,located and freed them. After this crime, Fionndid not offer Abarta membership in his band.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 223 ff.

Abbey Lubber British folkloric figure. TheAbbey Lubber haunted the wine cellar of anyBritish abbey where lazy monks were overfondof drink. The best known was a spectral horsewho dressed in a monkish robe and lived in amonastery under the name of Friar Rush. Thewealthy and dissolute prior attempted to chastisethe alleged friar for behavior more alcoholicthan was welcome in that liberal establishment,but the Abbey Lubber assumed his real form and

vanished, leaving the monks both frightened andchastened. Tales about this creature may derivenot from actual mythology but from satirists ofthe Middle Ages, when corruption in monaster-ies caused public dismay.

Abbots Bromley British folkloric site. A ves-tige of the worship of the horned god CERNUN-NOS may survive in the small English town ofAbbots Bromley, which is located in the areawhere the Celtic tribe called the Curnovii or“horned ones” once lived. There, early eachSeptember, men wearing ANTLERS are “hunted”through the town streets, after which the HornDance is performed, a luck-bringing perform-ance said to lose efficacy if performed outsidethe town limits. As Celtic beliefs often continueunder folkloric disguises, the community festivalmay have ancient antecedents.

Abcán Irish god. The TUATHA DÉ DANANN,the early Celtic divinities of Ireland, had a dwarfpoet by this name who figures in the story ofRUAD, a maiden goddess after whom the famouswaterfall of ASSAROE may have been named. Itwas in Abcán’s boat, with its bronze hull and tinsail, that Ruad traveled to this world from theOTHERWORLD. But she did not live long inIreland, for she died at the waterfall, lured by the

6A

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singing of MERMAIDS from Abcán’s boat into theswirling waters. In another text, Abcán was cap-tured by the great hero of ULSTER, CÚCHU-LAINN, but freed himself by playing lullabies soirresistible that the warrior fell sound asleep.The figure of Abcán had much in common with,and may be related to, the dwarf musician FER Í.

Abnoba Celtic goddess. Known in bothBritain and on the Continent, Abnoba gave hername to the many rivers named Avon, includingthe famous one in England that flows throughthe town where playwright William Shakespearewas born; she also ruled the source of theDanube River in central Europe and was associ-ated with the Black Forest, perhaps because of itsnumerous rivers. Sometimes this goddess wascalled Dea Abnoba, which means simply “thegoddess Abnoba.” Inscriptions to Abnoba fromthe Black Forest suggest that the Romans identi-fied her with their woodland goddess DIANA. Sheis sometimes depicted as a huntress accompaniedby a hunting DOG and a STAG.

Accalon Arthurian hero. The lover of MOR-GAN, Accalon was said to hail from Gaul and tohave been one of king ARTHUR’s last opponentsin battle. After Morgan stole the scabbard fromEXCALIBUR, thus removing Arthur’s magical pro-tection against any fatal wound, Accalon hopedto be victorious over the king. But the magicianMERLIN strengthened Arthur’s hand, andAccalon fell beneath his blows.

Achall Irish heroine. A hill just east of TARA,Ireland’s ancient center of royal power, bears thename of this ULSTER princess who died of sor-row when CONALL CERNACH killed her brother,ERC. She was considered one of the six noblestwomen in Ireland because of her sisterly love.

Achtan (Étain) Irish heroine. Mother of theIrish hero CORMAC MAC AIRT, she conceived andbore him under unusual circumstances. The

king of TARA, ART MAC CUINN, was traveling to abattle in which he expected to die, for a visionhad warned him of his fate. He stoppedovernight in Achtan’s home, where her father,the SMITH Olc Acha, revealed to Art a prophecythat sleeping with Achtan would ensure everlast-ing fame to her lover. Art went eagerly toAchtan’s bed. In order to assure fosterage for anyoffspring resulting from the tryst, Art toldAchtan that his friend Lugna would be responsi-ble should she conceive. And conceive she did,though Achtan never saw her child’s fatheragain, for Art died in battle soon after.

Near her term, Achtan started for Lugna’shome in CONNACHT, making it to the border ofthe province before going into labor under athundering sky. A mother WOLF protected andsuckled the child when Achtan stumbled awaylooking for aid, and the new mother was unableto find her child when she returned. Some yearslater a hunter found the robust young man whohad been raised by that wolf-mother. Reunited,human mother and son went to Tara to claim thethrone, and there he reigned as Cormac macAirt. Achtan married the hunter and lived there-after near her son.

Ádammair Irish god. The husband of the Irishwoodland goddess FLIDAIS is obscure in compari-son to his consort and has few known myths.

adder See SERPENT.

adder stone See SERPENT STONE.

Ade Arthurian heroine. This obscure figure isnamed in some texts as the second wife of theknight of the ROUND TABLE, LANCELOT, after anunnamed first wife. In such texts, Lancelot doesnot become the lover of queen GUINEVERE.

ad-hene Manx spirits. As in other Celticlands, the residents of the Isle of Man called

2 Abnoba

their neighbors in the ghostly OTHERWORLD byeuphemisms such as this one, which means sim-ply “Themselves.” See NAMES FOR THE FAIRIES.

Adhnúall (Adnual) Irish mythological ani-mal. One of the hunting DOGS of the Irish heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, Adhnúall accompaniedhis master less frequently than Fionn’s primarycompanion hounds, BRAN and SCEOLAN.

Adra Irish hero. In the BOOK OF INVASIONS, themythic history of Ireland, Adra “the ancient”was the husband of CESAIR, the land’s first settler.Theirs was an incestuous marriage, for BITH wasthe father of both. The multiple and sometimescontradictory texts make it difficult to determineif Adra is the same character as LADRA, otherwisesaid to be Cesair’s mate.

Adsagsona Continental Celtic goddess.Adsagsona was invoked as “weaver of spells,” forshe was a divinity of magic and the OTHER-WORLD, and as “she who seeks out,” for shecould find the object of any curse or blessing.

adventure Irish literary form. One class ofancient Irish texts that often includes mythologi-cal material is the Adventure (echtra); often, anAdventure includes a journey to the OTHER-WORLD, although the class of stories called VOY-AGES (imram) also describe Otherworldly visita-tions. The most famous texts of this genre are: theAdventure of ART Son of Conn, which tells of thedesire of the fairy woman BÉ CHUMA for the kingof TARA’s son Art; the Adventure of the Sons ofEOCHAID (Mugmedón), which relates the birth ofNIALL, another king of Tara; the Adventure ofNERA, in which a warrior enters the Otherworldthrough the cave of CRUACHAN; the Adventure ofCONNLA, in which a FAIRY woman lures Connla tothe Otherworld; the Adventure of CORMAC, inwhich that king is lured by FAIRY MUSIC to seek anOtherworld lover; and the Adventure of LAOGHAIRE

(Mac Crimthann), in which the titular king helps

an Otherworldly peer gain the release of his wifefrom captivity in the surface world.

Áeb (Aebh, Aobh) Irish heroine. In the famousIrish story of the CHILDREN OF LIR, this unfor-tunate woman was the birth mother of the fatedchildren of the title. The daughter of BODB

DERG, a great magician, Áeb died giving birth toher second set of twins; Áeb’s only daughter, theloyal FIONNUALA, is the heroine of the tale, forshe replaced her mother after the children werebereaved. Áeb’s death brought her evil foster-sister, childless AÍFE, into Lir’s household andled to the curse that turned Áeb’s children intosinging swans.

Áed (Aedh, Aodh) Irish hero and divinity.Anglicized as Hugh, this common ancient Irishname gives rise to contemporary surnamesincluding Hay, Hayes, Hughes, McHugh, andMacKay. Among the many legendary figuresbearing this name are:

• Áed Abrat, a FAIRY king and father of therenowned fairy queens FAND and LÍ BAN; littlelegend remains to define him.

• Áed, son of Eochaid Lethderg of Leinster,who was held captive by two fairy women forthree years; unlike most such captives (seeFAIRY KIDNAPPING), he sought to escape thebeautiful if sterile land in which he was held.After successfully doing so, Áed traveled tosee ST. PATRICK, who freed him from the ves-tigial bonds of FAIRYLAND. While the formerpart of the tale is consistent with Irish mythol-ogy (see FAIRY LOVER), the latter seems to havebeen added after Christianization of the land.

• Áed, son of LIR, one of the enchanted princesof the tale of the CHILDREN OF LIR, turned intoa swan for 900 years by his jealous stepmother.

• Áed, king of TARA. A sixth-century king whoowned a magical COW that he thought wouldkeep him safe in battle; this assumption mayhave been correct, but Áed left the cow athome when he went to war and was killed.

Áed 3

• Áed Minbhrec, son of the DAGDA, seducedthe wife of the hero COINCHEANN who killedÁed Minbhrec in retaliation. The Dagda con-demned Coincheann to carry Áed’s corpseuntil he found a boulder big enough to coverit. This story is connected with GRIANÁN

AILEACH, where Coincheann died of exhaus-tion from bearing boulder and body. But somevariations have Áed alive still and ruling fromhis FAIRY MOUND at Mullaghnasee, nearBallyshannon in Co. Donegal.

• Áed, husband of Aíbell, a queen of CON-NACHT; the powerful and lusty king MONGÁN

shape-shifted into Áed’s form to sleep withAíbell, putting a transfigured crone into Áed’sbed to cover the deception.

• Áed Alain, husband of the birth goddessBÉBINN, sister of BÓAND.

• Áed Ruad (Rua, Ruadh), father of the goddessand queen MACHA Mong Rua, who ruled jointlywith two other ULSTER kings, CIMBÁETH andDÍTHORBA, in periods of seven years each.When Áed Ruad drowned in the famous water-fall ASSAROE in Co. Donegal, Macha went towar for the right to succeed him. This Áed hasbeen considered an Otherworldly figure, some-times identified with GOLL MAC MORNA, ratherthan a mere human king.

• Áed, son of Miodhchaoin, killer of (andkilled by) the SONS OF TUIREANN, the mosttragic of Irish heroes.

• Áed Eangach, long-awaited king of Irelandwho was to be born miraculously from theside of a pillar on TARA. This “red-handed”king was never born, but the expectation ofhis imminent arrival was a staple of Irishpoetic lore for centuries.

• Áed Slaine, see SLANE.• Áed Srónmár. Human lover of the goddess

or FAIRY RUAD, he plays little part in mythexcept to inspire his beloved’s fatal trip fromthe OTHERWORLD to join him on earth; Ruaddied before reaching him.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part IV. Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture

Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 3–9, 95, 103, 298, 375–376;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the Ancient Celts.London: Constable, 1911, p. 65; MacNeill,Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa, Parts I and II.Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1982, p.84; O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 319; Squire, Charles.Mythology of the Celtic People. London: BrackenBooks, 1996, pp. 143, 105.

Aeí (Plain of Aeí) Irish mythological site. Inthe greatest Irish epic, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE,which tells the story of the CATTLE RAID of CON-NACHT against ULSTER, the two great bulls of theopposing peoples fight a final battle on the plainof Aeí. Actually reborn human enemies destinedto fight in every lifetime, the bulls fought forthree days and three nights, tearing each otherapart so that at the end of the battle, both laydead. The plain of Aeí has been variously locatedin the actual Irish landscape.

Aeracura (Aericura, Heracura) Celtic god-dess. Known in Switzerland and Germany aspartner to DIS PATER, Aeracura is believed tohave been similar to Greek Hecate, whose nameresembles hers, for she was depicted holding aCORNUCOPIA or basket of fruit, commonemblems of goddesses of fecundity and the OTH-ERWORLD. See also DEAE MATRES.

áes dána (aos dana, aes dana) Irish hero,heroine. This phrase, which today in Irelanddesignates a group of nationally acclaimedartists, derives from the Old Irish term for poets;the term was also sometimes applied to DRUIDS,BREHONS, or lawyers. To gain the gift of inspira-tion, one had to drink from the WELL of wisdom,eat the HAZEL nuts floating there, or taste theflesh of the SALMON who swam in it.

áes sídhe (aos shee, aos sidhe) See FAIRIES.

4 Aeí

Aeval (Eevell, Aoibheall, Aibell, Aebill, Aoibhell,Aoibhil, Aibhinn) Irish spirit. Ireland has manyancient goddesses who come into literature andfolklore as FAIRY QUEENS. Among the mostfamous is Aeval, connected with the southwest-ern region of MUNSTER and specifically with aFAIRY MOUND at Killaloe in east Co. Clare, nearwhich a well called Tobereevul (“well of Aeval”)gushes from beneath the crag Craganeevul(“rock of Aeval”); she is also associated with themountain Slieve Bernaugh, where she was saidto have lived.

Her name means “beautiful” or “the lovelyone,” but her behavior was more threateningthan loving. Queen of the two-dozen BANSHEES

of the region whose appearance predicted death,she appeared as a WASHER AT THE FORD beforedisasters like the defeat of the historical heroBrian Boru; she was especially connected withthe O’Brien family. Aeval judged the famousMidnight Court of the poet Brian Merriman, inwhich prudish Irishmen were found guilty of notbeing satisfactory lovers. Her rival was the seafairy CLÍDNA, who turned Aeval into a white CAT.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, p. 236; Gregory,Lady Augusta. Gods and Fighting Men: The Storyof the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna ofIreland. New York: Oxford University Press,1970, p. 87; Merriman, Brian. The MidnightCourt. Trans. Frank O’Connor. Dublin: TheO’Brien Press, 1989.

Afagddu (Avagddu, Morfran) Welsh god.Afagddu (“utter darkness”) was a boy so uglythat his mother, the HAG-goddess CERIDWEN,feared he would never attract a mate. Thinkingthat poetry might draw maidens even to anuncomely man, Ceridwen mixed herbs of inspi-ration for her son in her magical CAULDRON—but the young servant boy GWION sipped thebrew prematurely, thus draining its magic andbecoming the great poet TALIESIN as a result. (InIrish myth, inspiration is gained from drinking

from a sacred water-source, apparently a corol-lary of Ceridwen’s cauldron.) After this theft, wehear nothing more in myth of Afagddu. It isunclear whether MORFRAN was an equally uglybrother or another name for Afagddu.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 116;Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic andPagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 43.

afanc (avanc) Welsh monster. The afanchaunted a whirlpool in the River Conwy innorth Wales in the form of a massive beaver—orsometimes a crocodile, though that tropical rep-tile is otherwise rare in the vicinity. The mon-strous size of the afanc clashes with its name,which means “dwarf” or “water-dwarf.” Theafanc could be tamed, but only if lured (like aunicorn) to the lap of a maiden, where it couldbe harnessed by chains. One maiden, however,who tried to do so lost her life as the monsterfled back to the safety of its lake home.

Source: Rhys, John. Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941, pp. 130 ff.

Agallamh na Seanóarch See COLLOQUY OF

THE ELDERS.

Aglovale Arthurian hero. This minor figurein Arthurian legend was killed by LANCELOT asthat great knight was rescuing his beloved GUIN-EVERE from death at the stake.

Agnoman Irish hero. He never reachedIreland, but this mythological figure nonethelessfigures in the Irish mythic history, the BOOK OF

INVASIONS. Agnoman’s son was NEMED, founderof the vaguely described race called theNemedians who followed him from the familyhome in SCYTHIA to migrate to Ireland. Somescholars believe that such myths are vestiges ofotherwise lost history; Elizabethan English poet

Agnoman 5

and political apologist Edmund Spenser took thestory literally and argued vehemently that theIrish were originally Scythian savages.

Agravaine Arthurian hero. This minor figurein the legends of king ARTHUR and his knights ofthe ROUND TABLE was a member of thatrenowned assembly, as were his brothersGAWAIN, GAHERIS, and GARETH. He was killed byLANCELOT for plotting with the evil MORDRED.

agricultural rituals Although the Celts enterhistory as migratory herding tribes, they soondeveloped agriculture, perhaps as a result of con-tact with settled people; new religious ritesdeveloped to reflect and support the newlifestyle. Whether the rites were Celtic inven-tions or adaptations from rituals of pre-Celticcultures is a matter of debate. In Ireland, we findrituals connected both with herding (as in thedriving of animals between the BELTANE fires)and with agriculture (as in the offering of fruitsto the god CROM DUBH on SAMHAIN), suggestinga mixed economy and the need to sustain bothherds and fields through ritual. More clearlyagricultural are the Irish myths and rituals thatreflect the belief that the king was married to thegoddess of the region, its FERTILITY being reliantupon the rectitude of his actions (see SOVER-EIGNTY, INAUGURATION). In Wales the godAMAETHON, who appears in the epic poem KUL-HWCH AND OLWEN, was a human farmer able tomake even the most unlikely wastelands bloom;although he was a god of agricultural fertility,the rituals offered to him were not recorded.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 57, 80.

Agretes Arthurian hero. Long before kingARTHUR took the throne of CAMELOT, Agretesreigned there. Because he refused to assist a pil-grim from the Holy Land who bore a greatchalice called the GRAIL, he was stricken madand died.

Agrona British goddess. An obscure goddessof war found in Britain and perhaps in Wales,she has been described as cognate with the MÓR-RÍGAN, the Irish death queen.

Aguigrenons Arthurian hero. A minor figurein legends of the great ROUND TABLE knights, hewas their enemy who was finally vanquished bythe pure PERCIVAL.

Aí (Aoi, Aoi mac Ollamain) Irish god. Thisminor Irish divinity was a poet of the magicalrace of Ireland, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN; at hisbirth a prophet predicted that he would wieldgreat power. This prompted a king to try tomurder the babe, but his father saved Aí so thathis destiny could be fulfilled; however, thespecifics of that destined greatness are lost.

aiats See DIRECTIONS.

Aíbgréne (Abgrenia) Irish heroine. In sometexts, this otherwise-unknown heroine is thedaughter of the doomed lovers, DEIRDRE andNOÍSIU.

Aibheaeg Irish divinity or fairy. This FAIRY

QUEEN or goddess of Donegal was worshiped ata “well of fire” whose waters were held to be aneffective treatment for toothache; the petitionerwas to leave a white stone as a substitute for theafflicted tooth. Connection of WELLS withtoothache was less common than with HEALING

of eye diseases; see BRIGIT.

Sources: Logan, Patrick. The Holy Wells of Ireland.Gerrards Cross: Colin Smyth, 1980, p. 67;Monaghan, Patricia. O Mother Sun: A New Viewof the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom, Calif.: TheCrossing Press, 1994, p. 70.

Aidín (Aideen) Irish heroine. A minor figurein Irish lore, Aidín was the wife of OSCAR, a war-

6 Agravaine

rior of the elite FIANNA, and she died of grief ather husband’s death. The BARD, OISÍN, buriedher with high honors under a CAIRN on the hillcalled BENN ÉTAIR.

Aífe (Eefa, Eva, Aoife, Aife, Aeife) Irish hero-ine. Several legendary Irish figures bear thisname, which means “radiant” or “beautiful.”These include:

• Aífe of Scotland, a great warrior who trainedIrish heroes. She was the daughter, sister,and/or double of the fearsome, SCÁTHACH,one of the great WARRIOR WOMEN. After theULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN showed his virilestrength by besting her in battle, Aífe bore hischild, CONNLA. The hero later unwittinglykilled the young man, finding—too late—thering he had given Aífe as a memento for theirchild. This tragedy has been the inspirationfor several literary works, notably W. B.Yeats’s play On Baile’s Strand. In some myths,Aífe was Scáthach’s rival rather than her sister.

• Aífe, stepmother of the CHILDREN OF LIR, ajealous woman who took the place of herunfortunate foster sister ÁEB as wife of Lirafter Áeb died giving birth to her second set oftwins. But the children did not fare well inAífe’s care: she turned FIONNUALA and herbrothers into swans for 900 years.

• Aífe of the crane bag, a woman magicallytransformed into a CRANE (sometimes, HERON)by a jealous rival, Iuchra; after spending a life-time on the sea, she was again transformed bythe sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR, who createdthe mythological CRANE BAG from her skin tocarry all his mythic treasures, including the let-ters of the alphabet. Sometimes described as amuse figure, she is occasionally conflated withthe stepmother of Fionnuala.

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and the Goddess:Women, Religion and Power in Ancient Ireland. SanFrancisco: Harper & Row, 1989, pp. 122–123;Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 133; Hull, Eleanor. The CuchullinSaga in Irish Literature. London: David Nutt,1898, p. xxxi; Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 1–32.

Aifi Irish heroine. This obscure figure isnamed in the BOOK OF INVASIONS as one of theFIVE wives of the hero PARTHOLÓN, along withElgnad or DEALGNAID, Cerbnat, Cichban, andNerbgen. She is otherwise unknown.

Aige Irish heroine. A malicious FAIRY, urgedon by neighbors envious of Aige’s grace andcharm, turned this woman into a wild doe. Inthat form she wandered the island, fleeing fromhunters, until the warrior Meilge killed herwhile he was hunting. Aige’s brother FAIFNE, asatirist, tried to avenge her death but lost hisown life instead.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 67.

Aigle Irish hero. This CONNACHT prince wasslain by his uncle, Cromderg, in retaliation forAigle’s own murder of a woman named Cliarawho was under Cromderg’s care. For a timeAigle’s name was given to one of Connacht’smost important mountains. First calledCruachan Garbrois, the pyramidal peak thenbecame Cruachan Aigle; now the mountain,called CROAGH PATRICK for the last 1,600 years,is honored as the site of the final conflictbetween the Christian missionary and Ireland’sancient pagan powers.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 281.

Aigle 7

Ailbe (Ailba) Irish mythological beast. Afamous hunting DOG owned by the warrior MAC

DATHÓ, Ailbe was desired by two powerfulprovincial kings, each of whom his owner wishedto satisfy. Promising the dog to both CONCOBAR

MAC NESSA and AILILL MAC MATA, kings of ULSTER

and CONNACHT respectively, Mac Dathó set inmotion an argument in which the dog was killed.

Aileach See GRIANÁN AILEACH.

Ailill (Aleel, Aileel, Allil) Irish hero. AncientIrish literature boasts many heroes and kings bythis name, which means “elf” or “sprite” and issimilar to the goddess name ÉLE; it is oftenanglicized into Oliver. Mythic figures of thisname include:

• Ailill mac Máta (mac Matach), the mostfamous bearer of the name, was consort ofqueen MEDB of CONNACHT. In the Irish epic,TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, an argument between Aililland Medb (the famous “pillow-talk”) set off amurderous CATTLE RAID on ULSTER. Medbannounced that she had married Ailill for hisgenerosity, bravery, and lack of jealousy; Ailillshowed the latter by ignoring Medb’s flagrantaffair with the well-endowed FERGUS. Ailillclaimed the right to rule Connacht becausehis mother Máta—after whom he is calledmac (“son of”) Máta—was the province’squeen, although in some stories he was a mereman-at-arms raised to consort status byMedb’s desire; in either case, his claim topower comes through relationship to awoman. In addition to the Táin bó Cuailnge,Ailill also appears in the Táin bó Fraéch, theCattle Raid of Fraéch, in which he set obstaclesin the way of the hero FRAÉCH who wished towed FINNABAIR, Ailill and Medb’s daughter.

Ailill also makes a significant appearance inEchtra Nerai, the Adventure of NERA, for it was atAilill’s instigation that the hero NERA

descended into the OTHERWORLD on SAMHAIN,the day when the veils between worlds were

thinnest. Despite his forbearance about hermany lovers, Medb did not return the favor;Ailill met his death when she found himunfaithful and convinced the hero CONALL

CERNACH to kill him. That Ailill was not with-out fault is emphasized by the derogatory ref-erence in the SENCHAS MÓR, a compilation ofancient legal texts, which censures him for“sudden judgements,” apparently meaninghasty and ill-conceived opinions.

• Ailill, a MILESIAN king of LEINSTER and fatherof the romantic heroine ÉTAIN. When the godof beauty, AONGHUS Óg, asked for Étain’shand for his foster-father, the FAIRY kingMIDIR, Ailill exploited the situation bydemanding the clearing of 12 vast agriculturalplains—a task that the sturdy DAGDA,Aonghus’s father, performed. Not yet satis-fied, Ailill demanded that 12 rivers be createdto irrigate the new fields; again the Dagdacomplied. Then Ailill asked for his daughter’sweight in silver and again in gold, and onceagain the Dagda did as asked. And so finallyAilill agreed to grant Midir permission tocourt his daughter, setting in motion eventsthat affected Étain for several lifetimes. Thename Ailill also appears later in Étain’s story,the result either of poetic doubling or of thederivation of both figures from a lost original.

• Ailill Anglonnach (Anguba), who seducedÉtain, queen of TARA, wife of his brotherEOCHAID Airem. Ailill feigned illness to attractÉtain. Not wishing to betray her marriage bedbut convinced that only making love to himwould save Ailill’s life, Étain agreed to meethim on a nearby hill. A man looking exactlylike Ailill approached, and she made love withhim—but the man was, in fact, her FAIRY hus-band from a former lifetime, MIDIR, who thusspared her honor.

• Ailill Olom (Ailill Aulomm, Ailill Ólom),mythological king of ancient MUNSTER andancestor of that province’s historical Eóganachtdynasty. He was said to have lived for nearly acentury as the mate of the land goddess ÁINE,but alternative stories say that he raped her on

8 Ailbe

the feast of SAMHAIN and that, in defendingherself, she ripped off his ear—hence his nick-name, “bare-eared Ailill.” Ailill was fosterfather of the hero LUGAIDH mac Conn, whodespite that relationship turned against Aililland his ally ART MAC CUINN. After defeatingthem at the battle of MAG MUCRAMHAN,Lugaidh gave Tara’s kingship to Art’s son, COR-MAC MAC AIRT, and traveled south to makeamends to Ailill. But the Munster king, unwill-ing to accept Lugaidh’s apology, poisoned hisson with his breath.

• Ailill of Aran, father of two wives of king LIR:ÁEB, who gave birth to his children, includingthe heroic FIONNAULA; and the envious AÍFE,who bewitched the children into swans,according to the story of the CHILDREN OF

LIR, one of the THREE SORROWS OF IRELAND.• Ailill Áine, mythological ancestral father of the

historical Lagin people of ancient LEINSTER.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in CelticCountries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 288–289; Gantz,Jeffrey, ed. and trans. Early Irish Myths and Sagas.New York: Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 37 ff, 113 ff;Green, Miranda. Celtic Goddesses: Warriors,Virgins and Mothers. London: British MuseumPress, 1995, p. 122; Green, Miranda. The Gods ofthe Celts. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1986, p. 15;Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 111 ff;Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances. London:Parkgate Books, 1997, p. 3; Kiernan, Thomas J.The White Hound on the Mountain and Other IrishFolk Tales. New York: Devin-Adair, 1962, pp.129–152; Markale, Jean. Women of the Celts.Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1986; Squire,Charles. Mythology of the Celtic People. London:Bracken Books, 1996, pp. 147 ff; Kinsella,Thomas, trans. The Tain. Dublin: The DolmenPress, 1969, pp. 52 ff.

Ailinn (Aillinn, Aillin) Irish heroine. One ofIreland’s greatest romances revolves around this

princess of the southeastern PROVINCE of LEIN-STER and her lover Baile Binnbhéarlach (“sweet-spoken Baile”), prince of ULSTER in the north-east. As each traveled separately to a trystingplace midway between their realms, a maleficentFAIRY told the prince—falsely—that his lover wasdead, whereupon he died of grief at Baile’sStrand, a seashore near today’s Dundalk; thespiteful sprite then carried the same story (sadlytrue this time) to Ailinn, who also fell down deadof grief. From their adjacent graves grew twoentwined trees: a yew from his, an apple fromhers. Seven years later, poets cut down the treesand carved them into magical tablets, engravingall of Ulster’s tragic love songs on the yew, whilethose of Leinster were recorded on the apple-wood; thus their provinces were joined as closelyas the lovers had once been. When the king ofTARA, CORMAC MAC AIRT, held the two tabletsnear each other, they clapped together and couldnever again be separated. A variant holds thatAilinn was abducted and raped, dying of shameover her treatment; an apple tree grew from hergrave, while nearby a yew ascended from thegrave of her beloved pet DOG Baile.

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p.66; Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, p. xxx.

Aillén (Ellen, Aillene) Irish hero, heroine, orspirit. A number of legendary Irish figures bearthis name, which is related to words for “sprite”and “monster.” Several are sufficiently similarthat they may be the same or derivatives of thesame original.

• Aillén mac Midgna (Midna, Midhna) Themost famous Aillén, he was called “theburner.” This destructive musician of themagical tribe called the TUATHA DÉ DANANN

burned down the great halls of TARA for 23consecutive years, each time lulling its

Aillén 9

defenders to sleep with FAIRY MUSIC so raptur-ously soporific that no one could resist. Aftereach year’s success, Aillén crept back to hisFAIRY MOUND at Finnachaid (the tragic kingLIR was sometimes said to live there as well);each year after his departure, Tara was rebuilt.Finally the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL killedAillén, using a poisoned spear whose fumeswere so noxious that no one could sleep afterbreathing them, not even those lulled byAillén’s magical music.

• Aillén Trechenn (Trechend) “Triple-headedAillen” regularly attacked Ireland’s great capi-tal TARA, as well as the regional capital ofEMAIN MACHA in ULSTER; described as some-times male, sometimes female, this fiend livedin the cave called OWEYNAGAT at the CON-NACHT capital of CRUACHAN. The poet AMAIR-GIN finally dispatched the monster and freedTara from its stranglehold. As Oweynagat’susual resident is the MÓRRÍGAN, this figuremay be associated with her. The distinctionbetween this murderous monster and Aillénmac Midgna is difficult to discern.

• Aillén, brother of ÁINE, goddess of FAIRY

QUEEN of MUNSTER, he fell in love with thewife of the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Source: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, p. 3.

Aill na Mireann See STONE OF DIVISIONS.

Ailna Irish heroine. When the bold warriorsof the FIANNA killed her husband Mergah, thiswoman set out to gain vengeance. Transformingherself into a deer (see SHAPE-SHIFTING), she ledthe Fianna leader FIONN MAC CUMHAILL and hismusician pal DÁIRE on a desperate chase untilthey were exhausted. Then she surrounded themwith a DRUID’S FOG so that they could not findtheir way home. When the Fianna heard Dáire’smusic and attempted a rescue, they too got lost

in the thick fog. Wandering, Fionn and Dáiremet another lost traveler, Glanlua, who askedthem for aid. Then FAIRY MUSIC arose fromwithin the fog, and all fell asleep.

When the fog cleared, Fionn found himself onthe shores of a lake, from which there arose aGIANT and a beautiful woman: Ailna and herbrother, DRYANTORE, demanding recompense forthe murder of Mergah in battle and for the deathsof his nephews, Dryantore’s sons, as well. Thepair imprisoned the heroes in a dungeon, butGlanlua became Ailna’s companion and from herlearned of a magical drinking horn that wouldrestore health and strength. When the Fiannawere finally able to locate Fionn, the wily Conanslipped the vessel to Fionn so that, strengthened,he was able to break his bonds and escape.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 362 ff.

Aimend Irish goddess. This obscure goddessappears to have been an early solar divinity.

Áine (Enya) Irish goddess, heroine or spirit.Irish legend offers several figures of this name,which means “brightness” or “splendor.”Historical figures of this name tend to be maleand are connected with the Limerick/northKerry area of the southwestern province ofMUNSTER; mythological figures are female andare typically connected to the same area,although the name is found as far away asULSTER. The most prominent Áines of mythmay be ultimately the same or may derive fromthe same original.

• Áine of KNOCKAINY [Cnoc Áine], usuallydescribed as a FAIRY QUEEN although she isprobably a diminished goddess, who inhabitsa hill near storied LOUGH GUR in east Co.Limerick. Several scholars connect her withANU (DANU), the great goddess of MUNSTER

who gave her name to the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, the tribe of the goddess Danu.

10 Aill na Mireann

There are indications that she was a SUN god-dess, for she was connected with solar wellslike Tobar Áine near Lissan in Ulster as wellas being linked with the sun goddess GRIAN,her sister; but at other times she is describedas related to FINNEN, “white,” an obscure god-dess of the Lough Gur region. As sun god-dess, Áine could assume the form of anunbeatable HORSE, Lair Derg (“red mare”).

Áine’s special feast was held on either MID-SUMMER night, the summer solstice on June 21,or on LUGHNASA, the Celtic feast on August 1.At that time, straw torches were waved overanimals that were then driven up the slopes ofKnockainy to solicit Áine’s protection. She issometimes called Áine Chlair, either from theconnection with the “cliars” or torches used insuch ceremonies, or from Cliu/Cliach, theancient name for the territory. “The best-hearted woman that ever lived,” as she waslocally called, was reported to have been seenon the slopes of her mountain even into recenttimes, offering help to those in need.

The long list of Áine’s lovers includes bothgods and mortals. Among the former was thesea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR. Áine’s brotherAILLÉN fell in love with Manannán’s wife, andManannán with Áine, so Manannán gave hiswife to Aillén in exchange for the charms ofÁine. (A variant has Áine as daughter ratherthan lover to Manannán.) Although a lustfulgoddess, she also has a matronly aspect, forher “birth chair” (see SUIDEACHAN) can beseen on the mountain Knockadoon.

Áine was the lover of Maurice (Muiris), thehuman Earl of Desmond, who stole her cloakin order to capture her (see SWAN MAIDEN);once captured, she bore him a son, GERÓID

IARLA or Gerald the waterbird. Warnedagainst showing any surprise at their magicalson’s behavior, Maurice remained composedat all times—until Geróid was fully grown andshowed himself able to shrink almost intoinvisibility at will. When his father called outin astonishment, Geróid disappeared; he issaid to live still in Lough Gur and to ride

around it every seven years on a white horse.The descendants of Áine’s son—theGeraldines or Fitzgeralds—long claimed sov-ereignty in western Munster through thisdescent from the goddess of the land.

Áine did not always go willingly toprospective lovers; she was responsible for thedeath of the hero ÉTAR, who expired of a bro-ken heart when she rejected him. She was alsosaid to have resisted AILILL Olom, who tookher against her will and whose ear she rippedoff in her unsuccessful fight against him; thechild of the rape was Eógan, a story that somescholars describe as an invention of his descen-dants, the Eóganacht rulers, to affirm controlof the lands under Áine’s SOVEREIGNTY.

Some legends connect Áine with madness,for those who sat on her stone chair wentmad, and if they sat there three times, theywould never recover their wits. Those whowere already mad, however, could regain theirsanity through the same process.

• Áine of Donegal, from the parish of Teelin inthe townland of Cruachlann, near anothermountain called Cnoc Áine; there Áine wassaid to have been a human woman who disap-peared into the mountain to escape a savagefather. She now spends her time spinning sun-beams, this story says, suggesting that thefolkloric figure disguises an ancient SUN god-dess. A folk verse from the area has Áinetelling discontented wives how to weakentheir husbands with “corn warm from the kilnand sheep’s milk on the boil.”

• Áine of the FENIAN CYCLE, daughter of eitherthe fairy king CUILENN or a Scottish king, wasthe lover of FIONN MAC CUMHAIL, by whomshe had two sons. Áine and her sister MILUCRA

fought for Fionn’s affections; Milucra turnedhim into a graybearded ancient who would beuncompelled by lust, but Áine restored him toyouth with a magical drink. Fionn, however,married neither of the sisters.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 62–67; Gregory,

Áine 11

Lady Augusta. Gods and Fighting Men: The Storyof the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna ofIreland. New York: Oxford University Press,1970, p. 86; Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 351 ff; OhEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends of Donegal.Translated by Máire MacNeill. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, p. 39;O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, pp. 286 ff; Straffon,Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacyof the Landscape. London: Blandford, 1997, p. 36.

Ainge Irish goddess. This daughter of theDAGDA magically defended against the theft ofthe logs she was gathering by transforming theminto living trees. She owned a tub or CAULDRON

in which water would ebb and flow as though itwere the tide.

Airech Irish hero. The foster son of the greatBARD of the MILESIANS, AMAIRGIN, Airech playslittle part in Irish mythology except as the manwho steered the ship of the mysterious DONN. AsDonn is sometimes interpreted as ruler of death,Airech may be the steersman of the death barge.

Airmid (Airmed, Airmedh) Irish goddess. Amember of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the tribe ofthe goddess DANU, Airmid was an herbalist,daughter of the divine physician DIAN CÉCHT.With her beloved brother MIACH, Airmid healedthe wounded hand of king NUADA so that hecould continue to reign, for a BLEMISHED KING

could not lead the people. Her father had alreadytried, but Dian Cécht was only able to craft ahand of silver, while his children made a far supe-rior replacement: They made flesh grow aroundtheir father’s prosthesis, creating a lifelike limb.Furious with envy, Dian Cécht killed Miach. AsAirmid tended the flowers on her brother’s grave,she observed hundreds of healing plants amongthem, and she sat down to classify the herbs, fail-

ing to notice her father creeping up on her. Heallowed Airmid to finish her task, then scatteredall the herbs. Airmid’s order has never beenrestored, and the ancient Irish said that the lossof her medical knowledge greatly increased thepain that humans must endure.

aisling (ashling, aislinge) Irish literary form.A traditional form of Irish poetry, this wordmeans “vision” or “dream.” The most famoussuch poem is the Aislinge Óenguso, or The Visionof AONGHUS, which tells of the love of that godfor a SWAN MAIDEN named CÁER; anotherrenowned poem in the genre is the Aislinge MeicCon Glinne or The Vision of MAC CONGLINNE, asatirical poem about a wise scholar who travelsaround an Ireland burdened by the corruption ofits clergy and poets. Many later (17th–19th cen-tury) aislings were patriotic poems thatdescribed the poet encountering the goddess ofSOVEREIGNTY, now betrayed and alone, walkingthe roads of Ireland searching for a hero.

See DREAMS, SPÉIR-BHEAN.

Aithirne (Aitherne, Athairne) Irish hero. Apoet who appears in a number of medieval texts,Airthirne “the Importunate” represents adegraded form of the magical BARD of ancienttimes. He lived by taking advantage of the Irishcustom that it was wrong to refuse the request ofa poet. He was so greedy that even before birthhis in utero noises caused ale barrels to burst;later he used his poetic gift to satirize anyone—or anything, for he even satirized a river—thatdid not give him food. It was because of Aithirnethat a bridge of bundled saplings was built overthe River Liffey where the city of Dublin nowlies (in Irish, the city is Baile Átha Cliath, thetown on the wicker ford); when he wanted todrive some stolen sheep across the river, the menof the region, frightened of his merciless reputa-tion, built the bridge for him. He then repaidthem—by stealing their wives.

Aithirne traveled to the FAIRY MOUND of BRÍ

LÉITH to steal the HERONS of inhospitality,

12 Ainge

which he intended to install in his own house, indirect defiance of the requirement that house-holders be generous and hospitable. His greedextended to the sexual realm; he demanded tosleep with one queen immediately after she gavebirth. Finally he went too far, demanding accessto the bed of Luaine, the bride of ULSTER’s kingCONCOBAR MAC NESSA. When she refused,Aithirne composed a satire that caused her tobreak out in blisters so virulent that they killedher. In retaliation, the Ulster warriors set fire toAithirne’s house, and the greedy poet wasdevoured by greedy flames.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, p. 138; Hull,Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature.London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 87 ff; Kennedy,Patrick. Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. NewYork: Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 311.

Alain See FISHER KING.

Alator British warrior or healing god. Hisname, which appears to mean “he who rears andnourishes his people,” is found in several Britishsites, and versions of it appear in Ireland as well.Alator was associated by the Romans with MARS,which suggests that he ruled war or healing.

Alauna Continental Celtic goddess. Alaunawas a river divinity found in Brittany (in the riverAlaunus) and in Wales (in the river Alun inPembrokeshire), and possibly in England’s Alun,a tributary of the Dee, from which fish reputedlycame ashore to stare at human men and to winksuggestively at women.

Albinal (Albu, Alba) British goddess.According to the Roman author Pliny, this wasthe name of the chief goddess of the island ofBritain, sometimes called Albion after her;some authors refer to her as Alba, although thatname is also used to refer to Scotland. The

early medieval British historian Holinshedmentioned a figure of this name, a princess wholanded on the British shore in ships with 50fugitive women who had killed their husbands;a parallel figure in Irish mythology, CESAIR,similarly landed with boatloads of women,although in that case several men were permit-ted aboard. Albina’s name may mean “white,”suggesting a connection to the chalky soil ofsoutheast Britain, although others have derivedthe word from an ancient term for “height” (asin “Alps”).

Albion British hero. According to themedieval writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, therewas once a giant of this name whose father was asea god. The name has been seen as cognatewith that of the continental Celtic god ALBIORIX.

Albiorix Continental Celtic god. This namemay mean “king of the world” and is found inseveral inscriptions from Gaul; the Romans iden-tified this deity with their own god of war, MARS.

alder Celtic sacred tree. On slender, gracefulbranches, the alder (genus Alnus) carries tinycones and dangling catkins at the same time;perhaps it was this evidence of the simultaneityof seasons past with those to come that led theCelts to connect alder with DIVINATION andprognostication, a connection that lasted intothe early modern period in Scotland. When cut,the wood turns from white to red as thoughbleeding, which may have suggested that thetrees sustain a humanlike spirit; in ancient times,the felling of alder trees was forbidden as a kindof murder. The sacredness of alders is empha-sized in tales that the FAIRY folk used it to covertheir theft of cattle from humans, leavingenchanted boughs of alder in place of the cattlethey spirited away. In Wales the alder was asso-ciated with the hero BRÂN, THE BLESSED for thepoet GWYDION was able to ascertain Brân’s iden-tity because of the alder branch he carried.

alder 13

ale (dergfhlaith) Ritual object. This heartydrink of hops and malt—a favorite of the ancientIrish, who also fermented honey into mead—had a ritual significance as the symbol of thegoddess of SOVEREIGNTY, who offered a cup ofdergfhlaith (“red ale”) to the new king at his inau-guration. The legendary but little-knownPARTHOLONIANS were said to have brought thebeverage to Ireland, but it was a later mytholog-ical race, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, who refinedthe art of brewing until the ale of their SMITH

and brewer GOIBNIU was strong enough toendow the drinker with immortality. Irish epicssuch as The Drunkenness of the Ulstermen and theAdventure of Nera connect ale with the festival ofSAMHAIN, when the boundaries between thisworld and the OTHERWORLD were blurred.Archaeology has revealed ancient brewing caul-drons but no indication of storage vessels; thusdrinking may have been a seasonal event inancient Ireland.

Aleine Arthurian heroine. A minor figure inlegends of king ARTHUR, Aleine was the niece ofGAWAIN and lover of PERCIVAL.

Alend Irish goddess. The great ancient capitalof the eastern Irish province of LEINSTER, Almu,was named for this otherwise obscure goddess orheroine, who was described as royal and heroic,but with little narrative to reveal why. The hillwhere the capital once stood is now known asthe Hill of Allen, in Co. Kildare; this goddessalso gave her name to the BOG OF ALLEN.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, pp. 81 ff.

Alfasem Arthurian hero. One of the BLEM-ISHED KINGS of Arthurian legend, he attemptedto gaze at the GRAIL before his soul was pureenough for him to do so. As a result he was

stricken in his reproductive organs and remainedwounded until the Grail quest was completed.

Alice la Beale Pilgrim Arthurian heroine. Aminor character of Arthurian legend, Alice kepther face always veiled; she was a cousin of thefair knight LANCELOT and the lover ofALISANDER LE ORPHELIN.

Alisander le Orphelin (Alixandre l’Orphelin)Arthurian hero. This minor figure in Arthurianlegend was held prisoner by MORGAN, whoappears in this story as a FAIRY QUEEN whounsuccessfully attempted to seduce the pureknight. The same story is told of LANCELOT,leading some to believe they are the same or par-allel figures.

Alisanos (Alisanus) Continental Celtic god.An obscure Gaulish god whose name may havebeen given to the important settlement of Alesia,variously believed to mean stone, alder, or rowan.

All Saints’ Day See SAMHAIN.

Almu Irish goddess. Almu was honored in theeastern PROVINCE of Ireland, LEINSTER, on theHill of Allen—once the sacred capital of theprovince from which the regional kings reigned.Surrounded by the immense BOG OF ALLEN, thehill was personified as Almu, “all-white,” a termalso used to describe the royal citadel on the hill’screst. An invisible entrance to the OTHERWORLD

was reputed to exist on the hill, and theOtherworldly king NUADA was described as itsoriginal possessor, until the hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL won it from him by strength of arms.The hill was often named as the birthplace ofFionn, whose “chair”—a small mound—was atopits summit. Almu has been frequently confusedwith Dún Ailinne or KNOCKAULIN, near Kilcullen,the former residence of the kings of Leinster.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, Todd

14 ale

Lecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, andCo., Ltd., 1906–1924, pp. 78 ff; O’Rahilly,Thomas. Early Irish History and Mythology.Dublin: The Dublin Institute for AdvancedStudies, 1946, p. 280.

alp-luachra Irish folkloric figure. A watersprite who could be accidentally swallowed, thealp-luachra was no end of trouble, causing stom-ach ailments until it was lured back out of themouth. Some contended that the problems arosewhen a person accidentally swallowed a newt, asmall amphibian that turned into an alp-luachrawithin the body. To get rid of one, the suffererhad to eat salty food without washing it downwith liquids, then sleep next to a stream; dying ofthirst, the alp-luachra leapt from the afflictedone’s mouth and into the water.

Source: Hyde, Douglas. Beside the Fire: A Collectionof Irish Gaelic Folk Stories. London: David Nutt,1890, p. 47.

altar Celtic ritual object. Although a numberof stone altars engraved with dedications toCeltic divinities have been found in Britain andon the Continent, such altars represented Romanrather than Celtic custom. Several authors,including the Roman Cicero and the IrishCormac, speak of Celtic altars used for sacrifice,but these seem to have been rather different thanthe stone imitations of dining tables that arrivedin Celtic lands with the Roman legions. In keep-ing with Celtic custom of worshiping out ofdoors rather than inside a building, the originalaltars of the Celts were probably unshaped boul-ders or piles of large rock. See SACRIFICE.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 283.

Amadán (Amadáin, Amadáin Mhóir) Irishhero or spirit. Just as every FAIRY MOUND had itsqueen, so also did it have a fool, the Amadán,

who served the queen loyally, even blindly,unaware of the difficulties he caused. It was theAmadán who could cause a stroke by the meretouch of his hand over human flesh (see FAIRY

STROKE). While some describe the Amadán asmalicious—and certainly his behavior causeddifficulties for his victims—he is more oftendepicted as too dim-witted to understand the(sometimes dire) consequences he wrought.

The fool also appears in oral folklore and inwritten texts as a hapless human simpleton, as inthe story of “Shawn an Omadawn,” recorded byseveral early collectors, wherein a somewhat stu-pid boy winds up outwitting his more intelligentsiblings or companions. In a tale from the FEN-IAN CYCLE called the Adventure of the GreatAmadán (Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir), the foolwas really the son of a king, dispossessed of hislands by invasion. Hiding in the wildwood, hegrew into a hairy giant who, despite his unat-tractive features, married into the usurping fam-ily, only to kill his in-laws in retribution for theircrimes. After many adventures and battles, theAmadán was restored to his own family and wentforth to battle other giants.

Sources: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, p. 140; Hyde,Douglas. Beside the Fire: A Collection of IrishGaelic Folk Stories. London: David Nutt, 1890,p. xi.

Amaethon (Amatheon) Welsh god. Amaethon’sname means “ploughman,” suggesting that hewas a spirit of earthly FERTILITY. Despite hisname, he was associated with wild animals suchas the DEER, and thus seems connected notstrictly with agriculture but with fruitfulness ofall kinds. In the Welsh TRIADS, Amaethon owneda DOG, a deer, and a lapwing that he stole fromthe king of ANNWN, the OTHERWORLD, suggest-ing that the source of this world’s abundancerests in the mysterious realm beyond. This rela-tively obscure god was one of the children of themother goddess DÔN.

Amaethon 15

Amairgin (Amargen, Amhairghin, Amairgin,Amairgein, Amorgin) Irish hero. This name,which means “wondrously born” or “song-con-ception” is borne by two legendary poets:

• Amairgin, son of Míl and the first great poetof Ireland, was reputed to have lived in thesixth century C.E. When the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, who then had control of Ireland,blew up a magical storm to keep the invadingMILESIANS from landing, Amairgin’s magicalwords calmed the storm and allowed his peo-ple to land, with Amairgin himself becomingthe first of his race to set foot on Irish soil. Ashe did so, he recited his most famous poem,the “Song of Amairgin,” in which he describeshimself SHAPE-SHIFTING into a SALMON, asunbeam, a flower, a spear; similar poemsascribed to the Irish poet TUAN MAC CAIRILL

and to the Welsh bard TALIESIN show the con-nection in the Celtic mind between magicaltransformation and poetry. As the Milesianstraveled through Ireland, they encounteredthree goddesses of the land, each of whomdemanded that they name the island after her(see FÓDLA and BANBA); it was Amairgin’s deci-sion to call it after ÉRIU. As chief poet of theMilesians, Amairgin was simultaneously judgeand seer, so his decision was unchangeable.

• Amairgin of Ulster, whose wife Findchóemwas the sister of king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA;this Amairgin saved TARA by killing the mon-ster AILLÉN TRECHENN who raided the capitalat destructive intervals. He fostered the heroCÚCHULAINN, who thus became foster-brother to Amairgin’s own son, CONALL CER-NACH. Amairgin was once visited by the bitterpoet AITHIRNE, but Amairgin’s words were tooslippery to provide Aithirne a foothold for sat-irizing him. Amairgin was a warrior as well asa poet; in the epic TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE,Amairgin was so powerful that the dead piledup around him.

Sources: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 111 ff;

Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend and Romance:An Encyclopedia of the Irish Folk Tradition. NewYork: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991, pp. 25–26.

Amangons Arthurian hero. This evil king setthe quest for the GRAIL in motion when he andhis warriors raped the maidens who protectedthe sacred WELLS deep in Britain’s forests.

Amr (Anir) Arthurian hero. This obscure fig-ure was said to have been the son of kingARTHUR and slain accidentally by him. His gravein Wales cannot be measured (see COUNTLESS

STONES), since it continually gives a new meas-urement to those who try.

amulet Ritual object. Some people distin-guish a TALISMAN, an object worn or carried tobring good luck, from an amulet, typically anobject of warding power, used for protectionagainst some force or entity. The distinction isnot always observed, however, so that we read ofamulets dedicated to certain gods but intendedto attract rather than to keep their powers at bay.Celtic peoples wore amulets of various sorts.Some were made of precious metal such as goldand embossed with the symbol of a divinity: Awheel for the solar deity, for instance, was com-mon. Other amulets included coral, which wasworn as both a decorative jewel and, as Plinyattests, an amulet of protection. Amber andquartz were graven into balls, and tiny animalfigures (boars, horses, bulls) were shaped fromstone or bone, both to be worn on thongsaround the neck. In Scotland nuts were hungaround the necks of children as amulets againstthe evil EYE. For the most famous Celtic amulet,see SERPENT STONE.

Ana Life (Ana Liffey) Irish heroine. JamesJoyce called her “Anna Livia Plurabelle” in hisgreat modernist novel Finnegans Wake; she isinvoked in the invented word that begins the

16 Amairgin

book, “riverrun,” and is implied in its ending,which circles back to the beginning like waterfrom the River Liffey running to the sea and thenreturning to the source through rain. AlthoughAnna Livia Plurabelle is Joyce’s invention, thereis precedent for personifying the river in this way,for Ana Life is the name given to the only femalevisage among the sculpted river divinities onDublin’s bridges, apparently joining the earlyIrish land-goddess name ANU with the Irish nameof the river, Lífe. Despite being a sculpturalinvention, Ana Life is the most mythically accu-rate of the bridge sculptures, for Irish rivers arealmost invariably goddesses rather than gods; thecorrect name of the goddess of the Liffey is LÍFE.In his flowing and abundant archetypal femininefigure, Joyce similarly reflected ancient Celticbeliefs. The Liffey is an especially archetypalriver, rising from the BOG OF ALLEN (not in theDevil’s Glen in Wicklow, as Joyce says) and flow-ing south, west, north, and finally east, forming agreat “c” shape before disgorging itself in the sea.

Ancamna Continental Celtic goddess.Consort of MARS (a Roman name given to Celticwar gods; not her mate’s original name),Ancamna appears to have been a maternal god-dess of prosperity and HEALING.

ancestors To the Celts, ancestral spiritsalways remained close to their families, oftenstill cohabiting their dwelling places by remain-ing around the hearth. Generally these spiritswere seen to be neutral or even protective,though in need of regular attention to keep theirenergies positive. Ancestor-honoring may havebeen ancestor-worship in early Celtic society,where goddesses and gods were addressed as“mother” and “father” of the tribe; in Christiantimes, veneration for a family’s special saint maybe a vestigial form of such devotion.

In Brittany and other parts of France, it wascommon to water graves with milk, as thoughthe dead needed its nourishment. In Ireland thedead were said to come back and visit—have a

drink, smoke a pipe, sit by the fire in their usualchair—on SAMHAIN, the day when the veilsbetween this world and the OTHERWORLD grewthinnest. Food and tobacco were often left outfor them. Implicit in such rituals is the idea that,if unattended to, the dead may grow angry andcause disruptions in the earthly world.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 170;Ross, Anne, and Michael Cyprien. A Traveller’sGuide to Celtic Britain. Harrisburg, Pa.:Historical Times, 1985, p. 67.

Andarta Continental Celtic goddess. Goddessof a continental Celtic tribe, the Voconces,Andarta’s name is similar to that of the war goddess ANDRASTE, which has given rise to anidentification of the two; she has also been interpreted as a goddess of wildlife because thesecond syllable of her name, art, is found in the names of many Celtic BEAR divinities.

Andraste British goddess. Andraste, whosename means “invincibility,” was invoked in asacred grove by the warrior queen BOUDICCA ofthe British tribe, the Iceni, before she led hertroops into battle against the Roman invaders. Inher ritual to Andraste, Boudicca released a HARE,found in Ireland as an occasional symbol of thewarrior queen MEDB; although at first the hareseems a timid beast for a war divinity, it can growfierce when threatened and is thus an appropri-ate image of defense. Boudicca came near to suc-ceeding in her quest to drive the Romans fromher land, but when the tides of war turnedagainst her, she committed suicide rather thansubmit to the ignominies the Romans heapedupon their conquered enemies.

Andred Arthurian hero. This cousin of theromantic hero TRISTAN served as a spy for kingMARK, husband of Tristan’s lover ISEULT. Sometexts claim that he murdered Tristan to curryfavor with the king.

Andred 17

Anfortas See FISHER KING.

Angharad (Angharad Law Eurawc, Angharadof the Golden Hand) Arthurian heroine. Theknight PEREDUR courted this otherwise obscuremaiden, who may have originated as a goddess ofthe land’s SOVEREIGNTY.

Anglesey (Mona) British and Welsh sacredsite. Location of Druidic college. According tothe Roman historian Tacitus, this island offWales was the site of a DRUID sanctuarydestroyed in a fierce attack by Roman soldiers inca. 59–64 C.E. Celtic women or priestesses,robed in black, screamed like the RAVEN-goddessMÓRRÍGAN as their fellow priests fought fiercelyagainst the invaders. As the Romans had ruth-lessly cut down the NEMETONS or sacred grovesof other Celtic peoples and massacred the clergy,the druids of Anglesey knew what fate held instore for them and their honored trees. Andindeed, the druids were killed in battle or exe-cuted, and the great forests burned. But evidenceof the wealth and glory of Anglesey survived.The BOGS and lakes of Anglesey have yielded upgreat troves of goods in Celtic design, suggest-ing that the Druids hid them during or beforethe invasion.

The island may have been sacred to pre-Celtic people, as attested by an ancient CAIRN

atop the hill of Bryn-Celli-Dhu. Celts typicallyabsorbed the holy sites of their predecessors, soAnglesey would be typical. The destruction ofAnglesey has been depicted in several works ofcontemporary fantasy, most notably DianaPaxon’s Arthurian trilogy.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, pp. 16, 169.

Angwish (Anwisance) Arthurian hero. A kingof Ireland and father of the fair ISEULT aroundwhom one of the greatest Arthurian romancescenters, Angwish was the enemy of king ARTHUR

but later became his ally. His brother, the fierceMORHOLT, caused the battle that brought thefated lover TRISTAN to Angwish’s court, where hefirst laid infatuated eyes on Iseult.

animal divination See BULL-SLEEP.

animals In both Continental and insularCeltic mythology, divinities are pictured ordescribed as accompanied by animals and birds:NEHALENNIA and CÚCHULAINN with the DOG,SEQUANA with the DUCK, CERNUNNOS with theSTAG, MOCCUS with the PIG, and EPONA withthe HORSE. Such animals are often interpreted asthe servants of the divinity, but it is more appro-priate to describe them as the god or goddess inshape-shifted form. In some cases, as with theCAILLEACH, who is said to appear in the form ofa HARE, or OISÍN, whose mother gave birth tohim while in the shape of a deer, such SHAPE-SHIFTING is part of the figure’s mythology; moreoften, as in Gaul, where Romanization leftnames and figures but no myths, we lack narra-tive descriptions of the relationship between ani-mal and divinity.

It was not only gods who could shape-shiftinto animals; poets were thought to have theability, as were WITCHES. Several legendarypoets, including AMAIRGIN and TUAN MAC CAIR-ILL, describe themselves as having lived manytimes in different forms, including those of ani-mals; this can be viewed as evidence either ofshape-shifting or of transmigration of souls.This connection of magical transformation withthe art of poetry is typical of insular Celtic soci-ety and may have extended as well to theContinent.

The folkloric belief in witches’ ability to takeon animal form, however, is not clearly Celticand may as well derive from pre- or post-Celticbeliefs. Like the haggish Cailleach, humanwitches were thought to disguise themselves ashares in order to be about their nefarious deeds;if a suspected witch were found with a bad woundin her thigh the morning after a night-roving

18 Anfortas

hare was shot in its back leg, it was clear to allthat the hare had been the shape-shifted witch.

According to classical writers, animals wereoffered as SACRIFICE in early Celtic rituals. Themost famous description of such sacrifice comesfrom Julius Caesar, who claimed that annually theCelts of Gaul burned animals caged with humancaptives alive; there is, however, substantial doubtthat Caesar—who was in the business of conquer-ing the Celts abroad and may have yielded to thetemptation to paint them as savages at home—was correct in this description. However, there isevidence of the sacrifice of the BULL, a sacred ani-mal; such sacrificed animals were doubtless eaten,so the distinction between a sacrifice and a feast issometimes difficult to discern.

The eating of some animals was generallyforbidden. Caesar said that the Britons wouldnot kill nor eat hare, hen, or GOOSE. Yet suchtaboo beasts could, upon certain occasions, besacrificed; there is evidence that the Britonqueen BOUDICCA sacrificed a hare to divine herpeople’s future. Often taboos were linked toimagined descent from divine beasts, as is madeclear in the story of the Irish king CONAIRE who,because his mother was a BIRD, was forbidden tohunt or eat them. Irish folk belief that such fam-ilies as the O’Flahertys and the Coneelys weredescended from SEALS points to such an ancienttradition, as was the idea that such familieswould be drowned or otherwise killed shouldthey attempt to hunt their erstwhile kin. AncientCeltic tribal names often incorporate an animalreference, as the Bribroci (beavers) of Britain,who may have pictured themselves as descendedfrom an ancestral beaver goddess. Scots clannames, too, incorporate references to animals, asin the Cinel Gabran, “clan of the little GOAT,” orCinel Loarn, “clan of the FOX.” Some Irishnames are similarly suggestive of ancestral con-nection to animals, the McMurrows fromOTTERS and the McMahons from BEARS, forinstance. Such divine ancestors tended to be wildrather than domesticated animals.

See also BADGER, BOAR, CAT, CATTLE, COCK,COW, CRANE, CROW, DEER, DOVE, EAGLE, EGRET,

EEL, FISH, FROG, HERON, OX, RAT, RAVEN, SALMON,SERPENT, SWALLOW, SWAN, WOLF, WREN.

animism Religious concept. The Celts, likemany other ancient peoples, seem to haveimbued the world in which they lived with ani-mating spirit. This did not take, as in some cul-tures, the form of a single abstracted divinity ofnature but rather was radically place-based andpolytheistic. A startling outcropping of rocks,for instance, might be animated by a goddess, ora huge ancient tree by a god. Often these divini-ties were known only in the immediate locality;the spirits of various WELLS, for instance, did notmove freely about the landscape making theacquaintance of distant tribes but remainedwithin their own sacred waters. Many writershave argued that this animism, which may haveoriginated with pre-Celtic peoples, in turnbecame part of the Celtic Christian tradition.

See also GENIUS LOCI.

Anind Irish hero. One of the sons of the earlyinvader NEMED, Anind is connected with animportant feature of the Irish landscape, LoughEnnell in Co. Westmeath. That part of Irelandhad no surface water until Anind’s grave wasdug, whereupon the lake suddenly floodedforth. Such tales of landscape formation oftenindicate the presence of an ancient divinity withcreative powers.

Anna Arthurian heroine. This obscure figure isnamed as the sister of king ARTHUR in some texts.

Annals of Ireland (Annals of the Four Masters)Irish text. One of the textual sources for themythological history of Ireland, this book (inIrish, Annála Ríoghachta Éireann) was compiledbetween 1632 and 1636 C.E. by Micheál ÓCléirigh of Donegal and three other unnamed“masters,” probably Franciscan friars or laybrothers. While the later entries in the Annalsare roughly historical, early entries date to “forty

Annals of Ireland 19

days after the Flood” and include much mythand legend. Irish monks are credited with thepreservation of most of Ireland’s most importantCeltic legends, for despite their differing theol-ogy, the monks recognized the narrative treas-ures of the ancient tales. Such texts must be readwith suspicion, however, and with alertness forthe insertion of Christian beliefs and motifs.

Annaugh (Anna) Irish goddess. This obscureIrish goddess was known in only one place,Collins Wood in Connemara, where she was theGENIUS LOCI.

Annowre Arthurian heroine. This WITCH orsorceress (possibly the double of MORGAN) con-ceived a lust for the great king ARTHUR and luredhim to her forest, but she was not to have herway with him. When he rejected her, she heldhim captive and sent knights to challenge him insingle combat, hoping he would be killed.Arthur was able to hold them off, so she sent thechallengers after him in pairs, and they over-powered him. But with the assistance of NIMUE,the knight TRISTAN was able to free the king,after which Arthur killed Annowre.

Annwn (Annwyn, Annwfn) Welsh mytholog-ical site. Like the Irish who proposed multiplesites for the OTHERWORLD, the Welsh sawAnnwn (“abyss”) in various ways: as a seagirt cas-tle (Caer Siddi); as a court of intoxication (CaerFeddwid); as a palace of glass (Caer Wydyr).Like TIR NA NÓG, the Irish island of the blessed,Annwn was a place of sweetness and charm,whose residents did not age nor suffer, eatingtheir fill from a magic CAULDRON and quenchingtheir thirst at an ever-flowing WELL. Two kingsruled in Annwn, ARAWN and HAFGAN, who wereperpetually at war; Arawn figures more promi-nently in legend.

Antenociticus British god. A temple dedi-cated to Antenociticus was excavated at Benwell

in Condercum; like many other Celtic gods, heis known only in a single site and may have beenthe GENIUS LOCI or spirit of the place.

antlers Symbolic image. Celtic divinities oftenappeared in animal form, suggesting a connectionto shamanic transformation (see CELTIC SHAMAN-ISM). At other times, deities would be seen inhuman form but with animal characteristics; mostcommonly, this meant either HORNS or antlers,the latter representing prosperity and worn byboth gods and goddesses. See CERNUNNOS.

Anu (Ana, Danu) Irish goddess. In south-western Ireland, two identical rounded hills arecapped with prehistoric CAIRNS, stone nipples onthe great breasts of the mother goddess. Thehills are called Dá Chich Danann, convention-ally and rather prudishly translated PAPS OF

DANU. Alternatively, the hills are called after thepresumed goddess Anu, of which little is known.

No narratives describe this supposed goddessof abundance, who is listed by the early glossaristCormac as “mother of the gods of Ireland.” Sheis considered by many identical to DANU, pur-ported ancestor of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN.Others argue that she is a separate goddess ofIreland’s abundance; still others connect her withÁINE of Limerick or with BLACK ANNIS of Britain.In Christian times, she became conflated with St.Anne, grandmother of Jesus, to whom many holy WELLS are dedicated, most impressively thatof Llanmihangel in Glamorgan, South Wales,where St. Anne is depicted in a fountain, withwater gushing from her nipples. Welsh mythol-ogy has a shadow figure named Ána or Anu, connected by Rhys and others with the Irishmother goddess Anu.

Sources: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, p. 9; MacCulloch, J. A. TheReligion of the Ancient Celts. London: Constable,1911, pp. 67 ff; Rhys, John. The Welsh People.

20 Annaugh

London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906, p. 42;Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic andPagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, pp. 36, 71.

Aonbárr Irish mythological beast. Theenchanted steed of the Irish sea god MANAN-NÁN MAC LIR, whose name (“froth”) suggeststhe seafoam.

Aoncos Irish mythological site. One of themany magical islands of the Irish OTHERWORLD,Aoncos was distinguished by the silver pillar thatheld it aloft above the ocean waves.

Aonghus (Angus, Aengus, Oengus) Irish andScottish hero or god. Several mythological andheroic figures of Ireland and Scotland bear thisname, which means “strength” or “vigor.”

• Aonghus Óg, who also goes by the nameAonghus mac Óg or “Angus son of youth”: hewas god of beauty and poetry among theTUATHA DÉ DANANN and corresponds to theWelsh god MABON. His conception was mirac-ulous, even for a god: His father the DAGDA

“borrowed” his mother Eithne from her hus-band ELCMAR, then caused the sun to remainoverhead for nine months so that the goddesscould gestate the child without Elcmar’s real-izing that more than a day had passed; uponhis birth Aonghus Óg was immediately givento the god MIDIR to foster. In another version,the cuckolded husband was NECHTAN, themother was BÓAND, and the foster fatherElcmar. In either case, the young son tookafter his father, gaining by trickery the greatcarved-stone palace called the BRÚ NA

BÓINNE, where trees held out tempting fruitand two pigs took turns being cooked andeaten, only to spring to life again. Severalcommentators connect these legends withother traditions in which a son defeats orreplaces his father, as in the Greek myth of

Saturn and Uranus, or Zeus and Saturn. Theplace-poems called the DINDSHENCHAS callhim “Aonghus of the many exploits” and“mighty Mac in Oc.”

Four white SWANS flew about AonghusÓg’s head when he traveled. When he fell inlove, it was with a woman he had seen only ina dream, as recorded in the Aislinge Óenguso,the Dream of Aonghus. His lover visited him indreams for a year, until he sickened withdesire to be with her in the flesh. With thehelp of the magician BODB DERG, Aonghusfound his beloved, CÁER, and flew away withher in the shape of white swans whose songwas so lovely that it enchanted people to sleepfor three days and three nights. It was this leg-end that inspired William Butler Yeats’s poem,“The Song of Wandering Aengus,” while anearthier version of the god appears in JamesStephens’s comic novel, The Crock of Gold.

• Aonghus, brother of FAND and LÍ BAN, a fairywho lured the hero CÚCHULAINN to the OTH-ERWORLD to meet his lustful sisters.

• Aonghus of the FIR BOLG, after whom thegreat stone fort on the Aran Islands, DÚN

Aonghusa, was named.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 65–67; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth,Legend and Romance: An Encyclopedia of the IrishFolk Tradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press,1991, pp. 39–40.

Apollo Romano-Celtic god. The Romanlegions were under orders to bring conqueredlands into the Roman empire. One way to dothat was through the INTERPRETATIO ROMANA, inwhich local divinities were given Latin names.But when the Romans began to conquer the ter-ritories of their longtime rivals, the Celts, theirhierarchical pantheon met a polytheism soextreme that the generic Celtic oath was “I swearby the gods my people swear by.” Nonetheless

Apollo 21

they set about renaming divinities, in some caseskeeping the original Celtic name as anappendage, while in other cases tossing it intothe dustbin of history.

Oversimplifying Celtic religion grandly, thelegions affixed to dozens of gods the nameApollo—ironically enough, not originally aRoman god’s name but one adopted from con-quered Greeks, for whom Apollo was a sundeity; these Celtic Apollos may have had little ornothing to do with the Roman, much less theGreek, original. In turn, the Celts adoptedApollo into their ever-flexible pantheon, provid-ing him with a consort that the classical Apollolacked but who was necessary in the Celticworldview. As the Roman Apollo was both a godof HEALING and of light, divinities of hotSPRINGS, used by the Celts (as they are today) ashealing spas, were often retitled with his name.Some Celtic Apollos are:

• Apollo Amarcolitanus, “of the distant gaze,”found on the Continent.

• Apollo Anextiomarus (Anextlomarus), Con-tinental god of healing or protection.

• Apollo Atepomarus, god of horses and theSUN, often linked to CERNUNNOS, but also toBELENUS.

• Apollo Canumagus (Cunomaglus), a Britishgod connected with DOGS.

• Apollo Grannus (Grannos), god of healingsprings across Europe and Scotland, consortof SIRONA; his name seems to derive from thesame source as the Irish sun goddess GRIAN;around Auvergne, in France, he was honoredin a ritual in which sheafs of grain were set onfire and people sang, “Granno, my friend;Granno, my father; Granno, my mother,”which suggests that the god may have beenseen as of dual or ambiguous gender.

• Apollo Moritasgus, healing god of France,consort of DAMONA.

• Apollo Vindonnus, healer of EYE diseases.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,

pp. 89, 61; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 42ff, 135.

apple Symbolic fruit. The most magical offruits to the Celts, the apple appears in manymyths and legends. It hides in the word for theArthurian OTHERWORLD, AVALON; it is the fruiton which the hero CONNLA of the Golden Hairwas fed by his FAIRY LOVER; the soul of king CÚ

ROÍ rested in an apple within the stomach of aSALMON; it was one of the goals of the fated SONS

OF TUIREANN. Its significance continues intofolkloric uses such as that in the BritishCotswolds, where an apple tree blooming out ofseason meant coming death. Symbolizing har-mony and immortality, abundance and love, theapple was considered a talisman of good fortuneand prosperity. Some have connected the wordto APOLLO, whose name may have originallybeen Apellon, a word derived from the samesource as our word “apple.”

Aquae Sulis British goddess. Roman namefor the shrine and hot SPRINGS at BATH inEngland, dedicated to the SUN goddess SUL.

Arawn Welsh god. The lord of ANNWN, theWelsh OTHERWORLD, Arawn owned a magicalCAULDRON, which suggests a parallel with theIrish father god, the DAGDA. Arawn had magicalPIGS (another motif associated with the Dagda)that he presented as a gift to the mortal kingPRYDERI; when the bard GWYDION stole them, hewas apprehended and imprisoned in Annwn.Three magical animals belonging to Arawn werestolen by the obscure divinity AMAETHON; themotif seems to point to a belief that domesti-cated animals originally belonged to the godsand had to be brought by force or trickery to thisworld. In one tale, Arawn was said to haveexchanged identities for a year with the mortalking PWYLL, who during his stay in theOtherworld killed Arawn’s enemy and rival forpower in Annwn, HAFGAN. Arawn’s world is a

22 apple

typical Celtic Otherworld, beautiful andunchanging, not entirely unlike our world butwithout any pain, death, disfigurement, or dis-ease; its residents spend their time in merrymak-ing and games.

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp. 47–51,100; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 368–387.

Arberth Welsh mythological site. This nameis given in Welsh mythological texts to a magicalFAIRY MOUND in the kingdom of PWYLL, wherepeople see visions. It is sometimes associatedwith the town of Narberth in the region ofsouthwestern Wales called Dyfed.

Ard Éireann Irish mythological site. Themountains in central Ireland called Slieve Bloominclude a peak called by this name, which means“height of Ireland,” although it is not the highestgeographical point in the land; the summit wasmythically the birthplace of the island of Ireland.

Ard-Greimne Irish hero. This otherwiseobscure figure was the father of the great WAR-RIOR WOMEN of the Isle of SKYE, SCÁTHACH andher sister/rival AÍFE.

Ard Macha See EMAIN MACHA.

ard rí (ard ri, ard righe) See HIGH KING.

Arduinna (Ardwinna, Arduenna, Arduanna)Continental Celtic goddess. Sometimes con-flated with the Roman DIANA or the GreekARTEMIS, Arduinna rode, mounted on a wildBOAR, through the Gaulish forest that bore hername, the Ardennes. Hunters were welcome inher forests only if they left money as payment forthe animals they killed. Her name may incorpo-rate ard, the syllable for “height” or “highland.”

Argante British heroine or goddess. Queen ofthe OTHERWORLD island of AVALON, she has beenvariously described as a form of ARIANRHOD andof MORGAN Le Fay. It was to Argante that kingARTHUR was taken to be cured of his mortalwounds; from her realm he has not yet returned.

Arianrhod (Arianrod, Aranrhod) Welsh hero-ine or goddess. In the fourth branch of theWelsh MABINOGION we find the tale of this hero-ine, who may be a diminished form of an earliergoddess. The story begins with the rape ofGOEWIN, who served a strange office for kingMATH: As his life depended upon his feet restingin the lap of a virgin, Goewin sat endlessly onthe floor beneath his throne serving asfootholder. GWYDION and GILFAETHWY, Math’snephews, were responsible for the violation, inrecompense for which Math married Goewinand cast a spell on the rapists.

To preserve the king’s life, Gwydion nomi-nated his sister Arianrhod, daughter of themother goddess DÔN, to serve as footholder.Asked if she were a virgin, the beautifulArianrhod said that, as far as she knew, she was.Math asked her to step over his wand to proveher purity, but when she did so, she gave birth totwo children she had conceived unawares: DYLAN

and LLEU LLAW GYFFES. The first, child of thesea, immediately escaped into that watery realm;the second was rejected by Arianrhod butclaimed by Gwydion, whose son he may havebeen, and raised in a magical chest. But whenLleu was grown, Arianrhod refused to give himeither a name or weapons—two prerogatives of aWelsh mother—and once again Gwydion trickedher so that Lleu could attain his manhood.

The story is a confusing one, especially in itslack of clarity about whether Arianrhod’s chil-dren were conceived parthenogenetically (aswould befit a goddess) or without her knowledge(as befits deceitful Gwydion); she seems as sur-prised as anyone at the children issuing from herwomb, so it does not seem likely that she waslying. Her name means “silver wheel,” and many

Arianrhod 23

have seen in Arianrhod the remnants or reflec-tion of an ancient moon goddess; conversely, shemay be a mother goddess of the land, since suchgoddesses were often described as virgin moth-ers; yet again, she has been called a dawn god-dess because she is mother of both light (Lleu)and darkness (Dylan). She was said to live sur-rounded by her maidens in her castle on thecoastal island of CAER ARIANRHOD, which is alsoan idiomatic Welsh name for the constellationcalled Corona Borealis. In that seagirt (or starry)realm, she lived wantonly, which suggests a par-allel to the Breton figure of DAHUT. She has alsobeen compared to the ancestral goddess BRAN-WEN, for the Welsh TRIADS name her as one ofthe “three fair maidens” or “white ladies” of theisle of Britain.

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion.New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp. 97ff; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 104–109;Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions of BritishMythology. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc.,1972, p. 27; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess:Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, p. 41.

Armorica See BRITTANY.

Arnemetia British goddess. This name of thisBritish goddess is related to the word NEMETON

and means “in front of the sacred grove.” TheRomans called her shrine—today’s Buxton Spa inDerbyshire—Aquae Arnementiae, “waters ofArnemetia,” for two mineral SPRINGS that rose inclose proximity. After Christianization, Arnemetiabecame St. Anne.

Art mac Cuinn (Art Son of Conn) Irish hero.He was the best known of the Irish heroes andchampions given the name Art, which meansBEAR. His father, CONN of the Hundred Battles,ruled at TARA with a woman named BÉ CHUMA,

who both lusted after Art and sent him into exile.When he returned, she sent him on a quest togain the affections of a woman of the OTHER-WORLD, DELBCHÁEM. After many feats of arms,he won Delbchém and brought her back to Tara,where she forced the sly Bé Chuma to depart. Inother texts, Art is the consort of MEDB Lethderg,a form of the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY. Art waswas mythically important as father to the greathero CORMAC MAC AIRT, who was conceived bythe magical heroine ACHTAN immediately beforeArt’s death at the battle of Mag Mucrama.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York: HenryHolt and Co., 1936, p. 491; Curtin, Jeremiah.Hero-Tales of Ireland. New York: Benjamin Blom,1894, p. 312.

Artaios See MERCURY.

Artemis Greek goddess. The paradoxicalGreek goddess of FERTILITY and chastity foundseveral parallels in Celtic lands; the name islinked with figures as diverse as the HAG namedthe CAILLEACH of Scotland and Ireland and theunnamed DOG goddess of Galatia to whom coinswere offered annually as payment for every ani-mal killed in the hunt. This tendency to associ-ate Celtic divinities with those of the classicalMediterranean began early, with the assimilationof Celtic deities to Roman ones in areas subduedby the legions, who called Artemis-like god-desses by the Roman name of DIANA. These god-desses were associated with wild lands, whichthey were imagined as occupying with a com-pany of untamed maidens.

Arthur British hero. The tale of the greatking of CAMELOT was first recorded in sixth-century Wales and was popularized by the 12th-century British writer Geoffrey of Monmouth,whose History of the Kings of Britain (ca. 1136)mingled romance, history, and mythology and

24 Armorica

inspired poets and storytellers in both Englandand France. The verse romances of the 12th-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes wereanother important contribution to the Arthuriancycle, introducing the GRAIL theme intoArthurian legend. From Sir Thomas Malory’s LeMorte d’Arthur (1485) and through AlfredTennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859–85) and T. H.White’s The Once and Future King (1958), theArthurian cycle has inspired both literary andpopular treatments in English and French;related tales of PERCIVAL and TRISTAN, includingthe related FISHER KING and Grail cycles, expandthe corpus of Arthurian renderings into thousandsof works. The story of king Arthur continues toinspire poets and authors today; the popularmusical Camelot, the movie Excalibur, and thebestselling novel The Mists of Avalon are amongthe most recent of hundreds of works of artinspired by the theme of the noble but flawed(and betrayed) king.

The cycle of Arthurian tales, often called theMATTER OF BRITAIN, has roots in Celtic myth buthas been altered and amplified through literarytransmission. While it is possible to glimpseCeltic and even pre-Celtic mythological motifsbehind the characters and plot twists of the storyas we know it, especially given the parallel Celticlove-triangles of MARK-Tristan-ISEULT fromBrittany and FIONN-DIARMAIT-GRÁINNE fromIreland, such interpretation is necessarily specu-lative. For much of the past thousand years,Arthur has been viewed in the popular imagina-tion as an historical king of sixth-century C.E.Britain, his court at Camelot offering a true pic-ture of the possibility of nobleness as well as atragic depiction of betrayal. The reality of anearly Celtic king named Arthur now seemsassured, but the power of his story is mythicalrather than merely historical.

Although there are many variants of Arthur’slegend—which began to be recorded even asCeltic influence in Britain and France, the landsmost connected with the legends, began towane—the story usually follows roughly similaroutlines. Arthur was born of royal blood after his

father, UTHER PENDRAGON, slept with his motherIGRAINE through deceit, using the great MERLIN’smagic to appear in the form of her husband, theduke of Cornwall, GORLOIS. Arthur was snatchedaway at birth by the omnipresent Merlin and fos-tered away from the royal seat. Despite his royalblood, Arthur was only accepted as ruler when heperformed a feat no one else had managed: toextract a magical sword (often confused with, butactually distinct from, EXCALIBUR, the magicalsword later given to Arthur by the LADY OF THE

LAKE) from a stone that it pierced. Assuming hisrightful place as king, Arthur established an ide-alistic and idealized court of noble knights(among whom were PERCIVAL, LANCELOT, KAY,and others) who met around a great ROUND

TABLE at Camelot. He married the rapturouslybeautiful GUINEVERE, and all of Britain was atpeace under their reign.

Arthur in these legends appears as the epit-ome of manhood and KINGSHIP. He is strong, anexcellent warrior and strategist who drivesopposing forces from his land; he is also aninspiring leader who draws to himself thenoblest knights and wins their affection and loy-alty. He is a trickster figure in some legends, aswhen he steals the CAULDRON of plenty from theOTHERWORLD. He is even a BARD, fluent inpoetry and song.

Despite the king’s gifts and good nature, all wasnot to be well in Camelot. The beautiful Lancelotand queen Guinevere fell in love, and Lancelotexiled himself rather than betray his king. Finallytheir love grew too strong to resist. Although theykept it secret, the land knew the truth; the cropsfailed for seven years while Arthur attempted todiscover the cause. At the same time, his estrangedson MORDRED—born of a secret liaison with hisown sister MORGAUSE—began to war againstArthur. In the chaos of battle, Arthur was mortallywounded. He did not die, however; castingExcalibur into a lake, he was borne across itswaters to AVALON by mysterious women, thusbecoming the “once and future king.”

Among the mythological motifs that point toa Celtic origin for the tale is the emphasis on the

Arthur 25

rectitude of the king, upon which the land itselfdepends. Yet Camelot falls not through the king’sungenerosity—the usual downfall of Celtickings—but because of his unwillingness to doubthis wife and apparently loyal knight. This diver-gence from the Celtic norm has suggested tosome a pre-Celtic basis for the tales, withGuinevere standing in for an early goddess whochose and discarded kings, a motif employed byMarion Zimmer Bradley in her popular novel,The Mists of Avalon. Whether Arthur was origi-nally a British or Welsh god, as suggested by hisname’s connection to the divine BEAR (in Welsh,arth), is arguable; some scholars find in the figureevidence of a Celtic (probably Brythonic) divin-ity, while others consider him a culture hero, per-haps based on an historical king.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 308 ff; Geoffrey ofMonmouth. Histories of the Kings of Britain.London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1912, pp. 164 ff.;Herm, Gerhard. The Celts: The People WhoCame out of the Darkness. New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1975, pp. 274–286; MacCulloch, J. A.The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London:Constable, 1911, pp. 119 ff.

Artio (Dea Artio, Andarta) British and conti-nental Celtic goddess. In Britain and Gaul, thegoddess of wilderness and wildlife was wor-shiped in the form of a BEAR (the meaning ofArtio’s name), while the name ANDARTA is foundin inscriptions in Switzerland (especially inBerne, “bear city”) and France for a similar god-dess, the second syllable of her name suggestinga bear connection. Not only in name but infunction, Artio is similar to the Greek goddessARTEMIS, also envisioned as a bear. A bear god,Artaios or Artaius, is also found in some regions.

Arvalus Continental Celtic god. This obscureCeltic god of HEALING was equated with APOLLO

by the invading Romans. As that name was often

applied to divinities of thermal SPRINGS, Arvalusmay have once ruled such a shrine.

Arvernorix (Arvernus) Continental Celticgod. This obscure god, known from only a fewinscriptions, may have been the tribal divinity ofthe Arverni. It is also unclear whether the twospellings represent different gods or the sameone.

Asenora (Senara, Senora) Cornish heroine. Alegend in Cornwall tells of a princess of Brittany,Asenora, who was thrown into the sea in a barrelwhile pregnant. Despite its origin in a historicallyCeltic land, the motif may derive from non-Celtic sources, for it is found in the Greek storyof Danae, mother of the hero Perseus. Asenora’sbarrel drifted to Ireland, where she was rescued.She tried to return to Brittany but only made itas far as Zenor, where she founded a church andwhere she is honored as St. Senara. In thatchurch is found a famous 600-year-old carving ofa MERMAID, believed to be originally a sea god-dess of the region. Interestingly, unlike the Greekversion, Asenora herself is the focus of theCornish tale; legend tells nothing of the offspringwith whom she was pregnant when cast adrift.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 85.

ash Symbolic tree. Despite being a commonTREE in many climates, the ash (genus Fraxinus)plays a significant role in Scandinavian andGermanic as well as Celtic mythologies. It is alarge but graceful tree whose sweeping,upturned branches make a dramatic patternagainst the winter sky and whose feathery com-pound leaves create a dappled shade in summer.Together with the OAK and the THORN, the ash isone of the magical trees of Celtic tradition.Because it is connected with the FAIRIES, it wasalso believed to ward them off; for this reason

26 Artio

Scots Highland mothers burned a green ashbranch until it oozed sap, which was fed to anewborn as its first food. In the Cotswolds theash was believed to be protective against WITCH-CRAFT if crafted into a whip handle. It curedearthly as well as Otherworldly diseases: as aprotection against rickets, children were passedthrough young ash branches slashed in two, afterwhich the branches were sutured up and left toheal; should such healing not occur, which in thehardy ash was uncommon, the child was thoughtdoomed to be as twisted as the tree. Ashwoodwas believed to be a general charm against evil.

The ash tree is especially associated withBELTANE, the spring festival celebrated on May1. In Ireland the most important site for that fes-tival was the hill of UISNEACH, so ash trees onthat site were considered especially potent. Onegreat ash on Uisneach’s summit was said to havefallen in prehistory, its tip reaching across thecountry to near the town of Longford; such animpossibly tall tree (over 30 miles high) suggestsa world-axis that may originally have been envi-sioned to ascend from Uisneach. Anotherfamous Irish ash was the holy tree of Clenore,where the spirit or saint Creeva was thought tolive. So important was the ash in Ireland thatthree of the five most significant mythologicaltrees were ash.

The ash family has many branches, includingthe square-twigged blue ash and the commongreen ash; it is distinct from the ROWAN ormountain ash, which is a different genus. Ashtrees love water, which is why many are found atholy WELLS; such a combination of ash andwater source was held to be especially powerful.Miracles were said to be possible when ash trees“bled” or leaked sap into the well, and peoplewould gather the liquid to use as an elixir.

See TREE ALPHABET.

Sources: Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974, p.123; Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customsand Savage Myths: Selections from the BritishFolklorists. Vol II. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1968, pp. 58, 329; Spence,Lewis. The Minor Traditions of British Mythology.New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 108.

ashes Symbolic material. Remnant ash frompeat fires was part of many Irish folk traditions.Some derived from Christian tradition regard-ing Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the peni-tential season of Lent; ashes were thrown atunmarried people then, which gave rise to thesaying “You’ll have the ash-bag thrown at you,”meaning that a person was unmarriageable.Older, probably pre-Christian traditions useashes as a MIDSUMMER fertility symbol (fromwhich the Lenten rite may have evolved); ashesfrom the LUGHNASA bonfires were used to blesscattle, fields, and people.

Source: Danaher, Kevin. The Year in Ireland. Cork:Mercier Press, 1922, pp. 50, 135.

Assa See NESSA.

Assaroe Irish mythological site. The waterfallAssaroe on the River ERNE in Co. Sligo, famousin legend, was flooded when a hydroelectric damwas erected nearby in the mid-20th century. Itwas there, according to some stories, that FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL accidentally ate the SALMON ofwisdom (named GOLL Essa Ruaid), which thedruid FINNÉCES had been awaiting for sevenyears. It was there that the father of the warriorwoman MACHA Mong Rua, ÁED RUAD (Áed thered), died, giving his name to the falls, which inIrish are Eas Ruadh, “the red waterfall.” A vari-ant holds that the falls are named for a goddess,RUAD, who drowned there after being lured toher death by the singing of MERMAIDS. Sailing inthe ship of the poet ABCÁN, she traveled from theOTHERWORLD in order to pursue a human lover(see FAIRY LOVER) but drowned before reachinghim. The drowning of a goddess in a river iscommon in Irish mythology and typically repre-sents the dissolving of her divine power into thewater, which then gives life to the land.

Assaroe 27

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part IV. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 3–9.

Assembly See ÓENACH.

Assembly of the Wondrous Head SeeBRÂN THE BLESSED.

Assipattle Scottish hero. This Scottish Cin-derfella is found in many folktales and resemblesthe Irish AMADÁN. Unlike Cinderella, typically agirl of good birth cast down to servitude,Assipattle was born poor and looked to stay thatway, being lazy and unambitious. Finally stirredto action by some crisis (a threatening dragondoes nicely), Assipattle performs heroically.

astrology The Celts, like other tribal peopleswhose way of life required them to be outdoorsmuch of the time, knew the stars well. They mayhave elaborated this knowledge into an arcanescience in which the changing patterns of theplanets had impact on earthly life; Julius Caesarclaimed that the DRUIDS were master astrologers.There is evidence that in Ireland the starting dateof the Christian St. Columba’s education wasdetermined by starry aspects, and legend holdsthat the druid CATHBAD cast a horoscope to seethe future of the child who would grow up tobecome DEIRDRE of the Sorrows.

A Celtic astrology would not be surprising, asthe druids were skilled at divination of varioussorts, but only the faintest hints remain of thissupposed system, including the Irish wordnéladóir, used of someone who divines from thesky (although it has also been translated “cloud-diviner”). The Celts conveyed such sensitive andpowerful material orally, and thus it is unlikelythat any Celtic astrological text will ever be found.

Atesmerta, Atesmerius Continental Celticgoddess and god. Divinities of these names are

attested from several inscriptions from Gaul, butnothing more than their names is known of them.

athach Scottish monster. A monstrous crea-ture that haunted the Scottish Highlands, killingpassersby and throwing them into gorges ordown rocky hills. Athachs included the femaleluideag of Skye and the male díreach of GlenEtive, who had one hand growing out of hischest and one eye in his forehead.

See also FACHAN.

autumn equinox Astronomical feast. TheEQUINOXES and SOLSTICES were not celebratedby the Celts, who instead celebrated the solaryear’s fixed points (IMBOLC, BELTANE, LUGHNASA,SAMHAIN). But in Ireland, after the coming of theNormans and of Christianity, an equinoctialfeast was celebrated on or about September 29.This feast of St. Michael the Archangel orMichaelmas was, in many regions, defined as thedate on which rents and loans were repaid andcontracts settled. Elected officials took and leftoffice on Michaelmas, which was often cele-brated with harvest fairs. Michaelmas markedthe Fomhar na nGéan, the goose harvest, whenbutchering began; farmers were expected to begenerous at that season and to give meat to thepoor. In England the fall equinox period wasdevoted to harvest fairs marked by mummers’parades in which mythological characters likeROBIN HOOD and Maid Marion danced with ani-mal archetypes like the HOBBYHORSE.

Avalon (Afallon) British mythological site.When ARTHUR, ruler of CAMELOT, was ready topass from this world, mysterious women carriedhim in a boat to Avalon, the Island of Apples, atypical Celtic OTHERWORLD. Avalon was a beau-tiful place of mild weather and eternal spring,where flowers and fruit were found simultane-ously on the trees and where no storms everraged. A queen ruled there, sometimes named asARGANTE; she and her maiden attendants were

28 Assembly

great healers. There may have also been a kingof Avalon, for a shadowy figure named Avallocappears in some legends. Although todayGlastonbury in southwest England is oftenlinked with Avalon, this seems to be a post-Celtic association, perhaps deriving from thetown’s ancient name Ynys-witrin, “glass island.”To the Celts, Avalon was clearly one of thosewestern isles of the Otherworld where the deadand the divine mingle.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp.120, 369; Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faithin Celtic Countries. Gerrards Cross: ColinSmythe Humanities Press, 1911, pp. 314–315.

Avebury British mythological site. The greatSTONE CIRCLES at Avebury have been associ-ated with the DRUIDS for centuries, althoughthey in fact date from thousands of yearsbefore the Celts arrived in Britain. When theCelts arrived in what is now north Wiltshire,they found a huge ditch-encircled site withfour openings, one at each of the cardinaldirections, with great stones standing uprightwithin that circle, as well as a double parade ofstones standing like sentinels along a pathwaytoward a nearby hill. Although there is someevidence that the Celts may have adapted thesite to their own ritual purposes, as appears tohave been the case with the similar monumentof STONEHENGE, Avebury was not built by theCelts but by the mysterious pre-Celtic peopleof the MEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION. The site is solarge that an entire village has sprung upwithin its boundaries.

Source: Malone, Caroline. English Heritage Book ofAvebury. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd./EnglishHeritage, 1989.

Avenable Arthurian heroine. This ambitiousand vital young British woman, dissatisfied withher options at home, dressed herself up as a

young man, renamed herself Grisandole, andheaded for adventure. She soon found a job inRome, as seneschal or steward to the emperorhimself. As one of his nearest confidants,Avenable heard him complain about a hauntingdream in which a PIG was crowned with jewels.The dream told him that only a wild man couldinterpret it. Avenable found the wild man—noneother than the great magician MERLIN, living inthe woods during his period of madness—whoindeed interpreted the dream. Rome’s empresswas in fact a pig who had engaged in SHAPE-SHIFTING, and her offspring were not reallyknights but piglets. In horror, the emperor hadher killed and, once she had revealed her truegender, married Avenable.

Aveta Continental Celtic goddess. The god-dess of the healing SPRING of Trier in Germanywas depicted as a nursing mother, suggestingthat she may have been a tribal ancestor; she isalso shown with baskets of fruit, suggestive ofa control over FERTILITY, as well as with DOGS,linked by the Celts to OTHERWORLD or after-life powers.

away FAIRIES were said to lust or yearn forhumans—babies, lovely maidens, hearty youngmen, fiddlers, and midwives were at particularrisk—whom they stole away from ordinary lifeinto the beauteous but sterile FAIRYLAND. Suchpeople were said to be “away” or to have been“taken.” When stolen people returned, theywere usually unaware of how much time hadpassed, for a night in fairyland might be hun-dreds of years in our world. Sometimes a stolenperson was replaced by a replica; sometimes theyjust disappeared. Children were especially at riskof being “taken,” for fairy children were oftenweak or wizened while human babies are plumpand happy; putting a piece of iron in the cradlewas said to protect the child from being replacedby a CHANGELING. In Ireland the stolen personwas thought to be able to escape by removingthe vision of fairyland by wiping the EYES with

away 29

an ointment made of four-leafed clovers orSHAMROCKS. The belief in changelings occa-sioned several murders, most notably the deathby burning of the seamstress Bridget Cleary in1895. On the Isle of Man, belief in FAIRY KID-NAPPING survived into recent times as well.

See also FAIRY LOVER.

Sources: Bourke, Angela. The Burning of BridgetCleary. London: Pimlico, 1999; Killip,Margaret. The Folklore of the Isle of Man.London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1975, p. 28; OhEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends of Donegal.Trans. Máire MacNeill, Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, p. 231.

30 away

Ba’al (Baal) Non-Celtic divinity. This title,meaning “the lord,” was given to various gods ofthe Phoenicians, the sea-trading ancient peopleof the eastern Mediterranean; Ba’al was parallelto, and perhaps consort of, the goddess namedBa’alat, “the lady.” Ba’al is sometimes mistakenlydescribed as the Celtic corollary to a hypothe-sized seasonal god named Bel, after whom thespring feast of BELTANE, celebrated on May 1,was presumably named. There is no evidence ofsuch a divinity; no inscriptions to or sculpturesof Bel have been found, although we do find agod named BELENUS whose name may have beenincorporated into the springtime festival. UnlikeBa’al, who was typically a god of the atmosphere(and especially of stormy weather), Belenus wasassociated with healing spring and, at times, withthe sun.

Bacorbladhra Irish hero. A member of theobscure mythological race, the PARTHOLONIANS,Bacorbladhra is distinguished as the first teacherto have lived in Ireland.

Badb (Bave, Badhbh, Baobh, Badb Catha) Irishgoddess. One of ancient Ireland’s war furies,Badb joins with the MÓRRÍGAN and MACHA underthe title “the three Mórrígna”; she and theMórrígan also appear with MEDB, FEA (“the hate-

ful”), and NEMAIN (“the venomous”) to formanother fearful group of war goddesses.Sometimes Badb’s name is used for the entiregroup, while at other times she seems a separateentity. As a result, it is difficult to tease outBadb’s distinct identity from those of other Irishwar furies.

Her name means “hoodie CROW” or “scaldcrow,” and she was often envisioned as a carrionbird screaming over the battlefield, inciting war-riors to provide more meat for her hungry beak.At other times she was conflated with themournful BANSHEE, weeping over battlefieldsand sometimes predicting death by wailingbefore a battle or washing the clothes of thoseabout to die (see WASHER AT THE FORD). Badb’sfunction as a prophet—usually of doom—ispointed up by her appearance after the finalmythical battle for control of Ireland, on theplain of MAG TUIRED; at that significant momentshe described not a peaceful future but evils yetto come. Until recently in Ireland, because itscall betokened doom, farmers would abandonprojects if they heard a crow scream.

Badb may be related to the Gaulish war god-dess named CATHUBODUA, sometimes depictedas a RAVEN riding a HORSE. Inscriptions toCathubodua are found in the Haute-Savoie, aswell as in tribal names like Boduogenos, “peopleof Bodua,” in Gaul. It may have been Badb whowas imitated in battle by black-robed women

6B

31

DRUIDS who stood by the sidelines and screamedto incite the warriors to greater deeds, as waswitnessed in the massacre and destruction of thedruidic college at ANGLESEY.

Whether Badb and the other war goddesseswere originally Celtic or pre-Celtic is debated.Scholars have argued that her bird form con-nects her to the unnamed Neolithic or NewStone Age goddess who was frequently depictedin that form.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, pp. 89–90; Green, Miranda. Symboland Image in Celtic Religious Art. London:Routledge, 1989, p. 26.

Bademagu (Maelwas) Arthurian hero. Inone of the many lesser-known tales of the cycleof ARTHUR, he was the father of MELEAGANT,the king or god of the OTHERWORLD who car-ried away queen GUINEVERE, intending toforce her to become his consort. The knightKAY followed after the kidnapped queen but,unable to win her escape, was himself heldhostage. Thus LANCELOT, the queen’s beloved,had to find and free the pair; the pure knightGAWAIN accompanied him. The site of theircaptivity, in the city of Gorre, was difficult tofind; once there, the heroes were faced with aterrifyingly turbulent river, which they couldcross either over a sword-sharp bridge orthrough a safer underwater route; Gawainchose the latter, but Lancelot, eager forGuinevere, raced across the upper bridge andthus was deeply wounded. In that state,Lancelot had to fight Meleagant—whosefather, the kindly king Bademagu, forced hisson to return the kidnapped queen.

badger Symbolic animal. Like the SEAL, thebadger was sometimes seen as a SHAPE-SHIFTING

person; the Irish hero TADG found their meatrevolting, unconsciously aware that they werereally his cousins.

Baile See AILINN.

Bairrind Irish heroine. This otherwiseobscure figure appears as the wife of the earlyinvader BITH; her activities parallel the moreimportant CESAIR.

Balan See BALIN.

Balin (Balin le Sauvage) Arthurian hero. Aminor role in Arthurian legend is played by thisknight, brother of Pelles, the FISHER KING; hestruck the DOLOROUS BLOW and thus was respon-sible for the Fisher King’s crippling wound.

ball seirc Irish mythological motif. This “lovespot” miraculously drew the heroine GRÁINNE tothe handsome hero DIARMAIT. The ball seirc wasa kind of dimple or other mark on his forehead(sometimes, on his shoulder) that madeDiarmait irresistible to women, for which reasonhe usually wore bangs or a cap. But Diarmait’sfate was sealed when, struggling with someactive dogs, he accidentally revealed the ball seirc;Gráinne fell in love at that moment, and shetricked Diarmait into escaping with her.

Balor (Balar, Bolar, Balor of the Evil Eye) Irishgod. Before the Celts came to Ireland, other peo-ples whose names are lost to history lived there.The mythological history of Ireland, the BOOK OF

INVASIONS, describes various waves of arrivals onIreland’s shores, each of whom had to do battlewith the monstrous FOMORIANS who owned theisland before the first invaders arrived.

Balor was king of the Fomorians; his daugh-ter was the fair EITHNE, who a prophecy warnedwould give birth to a son destined to kill hisgrandfather. Balor attempted to outwit theprophecy by imprisoning his daughter in atower, on the understandable assumption that ifEithne never laid eyes on a man, she could neverbecome pregnant, thus sparing Balor’s life.

32 Bademagu

But Balor’s own greed led to his downfall, forhe stole a magical COW, the GLAS GHAIBH-LEANN, who belonged to a SMITH and wastended by a man named CIAN. Threatened withdeath by the Glas’s owner unless he reclaimedthe cow, Cian found his way to Balor’s domainand, discovering the tower in which Eithne wasimprisoned, disguised himself as a woman togain access to her. Eithne bore Cian three sons,all of whom were thrown into the sea by theirfurious, frightened grandfather when he discov-ered their existence. Cian was able to save one,who became the god and hero LUGH. (Becausemyth is rarely consistent, Eithne’s husband issometimes named MacInelly.)

It was Lugh who fulfilled the fearedprophecy at the second battle of MAG TUIRED,when the Fomorians were finally defeated andthe island wrested from their control. Lugh,despite being half-Fomorian, fought on the sideof the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the tribe of the god-dess DANU, and it was his sharp aim that broughtvictory when he blinded Balor with a slingshotor a magical spear crafted by the smith godGOIBNIU. Lugh then used the spear to cut offBalor’s head, after which his one remaining bale-ful EYE continued to have such power that itcould split boulders.

Balor’s evil eye was sometimes described as athird eye in the middle of his forehead, spittingflames and destruction. Alternatively, it may havebeen a conventionally placed eye that leaked poi-son from fumes cooked up by his father’s DRUIDS.That maleficent eye never opened unless fourmen lifted its heavy lid, and then it caused any-one looking into it to fall to the ground helplessas a babe. Because of his ocular peculiarity, thegod is called Balor of the Evil Eye (Birug-derc) orthe Strong-Smiting one (Bailcbhémneach). Hisconsort CETHLION also had poisonous powersthat killed the good god DAGDA.

Balor was associated with Mizen Head (CarnUí Néit, “the Burial-Place of Neit’s Grandson”)in Co. Cork and Land’s End in Wales. For thisreason he is sometimes interpreted as a sun god,imaged as the single eye of the setting sun off

such southwesterly promontories. Other inter-pretations connect him with the winter season,which smites growing plants with frost and chill,and as such he is sometimes said to be the Irishversion of the continental OTHERWORLD god theRomans called DIS PATER. Balor lasted long inIrish folklore, where he appears as a pirate livingon Tory Island, off the northwest coast, andstruggling against those who would steal hismagical cow.

Sources: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland. NewYork: Benjamin Blom, 1894, pp. 296, 304;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the Ancient Celts.London: Constable, 1911, pp. 31–35, 89–90; ÓhÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend and Romance: AnEncyclopedia of the Irish Folk Tradition. New York:Prentice-Hall Press, 1991, p. 43.

banais ríghe See INAUGURATION, HORSE

SACRIFICE.

Banba (Banbha) Irish goddess. When theMILESIANS—the mythological invaders ofteninterpreted as the first Irish Celts—arrived, theywere met by three goddesses or queens of theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, each of whom announcedherself as ruler of the land. First was Banba, whoaccording to the BOOK OF INVASIONS met theMilesians at Slieve Mis in Co. Kerry, althoughsome sources say that she was found on the plainfrom which the royal hill of TARA rises; shepromised the Milesians happiness and wealth solong as the land bore her name. Next was FÓDLA,on her mountain Slieve Felim in Co. Limerick,who made the same promise in exchange for thesame honor. Finally, the Milesians met the mostimpressive goddess, ÉRIU, on the central hill ofUISNEACH; she promised them they would for-ever live happily in her land if it bore her name,and to her they gave precedence.

The three earth goddesses have been con-nected with that continental Celtic triple god-dess of FERTILITY called by the Latin name ofDEAE MATRES, “the mother goddesses.” Or they

Banba 33

may have been not a trinity but three unrelatedgoddesses, rulers of their specific regions, whowere brought together in a shared narrative bythe newcomers. Banba may once have had herown mythological cycle; if so, it has been lost,her specific powers being discernable onlythrough hints and vestiges. That she was anancient divinity is shown by her statement to theMilesians that she had been in Ireland beforethe biblical Noah, whose descendant CESAIR wasthe first human to reach the land. Similarly,some versions of the Book of Invasions say that theMilesians banished her by singing SPELLS againsther, suggesting the removal of an early divinityby invaders. What Banba’s original meaning was,however, is conjectural.

Three gods or heroes are named as the hus-bands of Ireland’s three goddesses, with Banba’sbeing MAC CUILL, “son of HAZEL,” suggesting aconnection with poetic inspiration, for hazelnuts were said to feed the SALMON of wisdom.The PIG is sometimes cited as an emblem ofBanba, whose name resembles the word forpiglet, banb; pigs were images of the goddess ofthe underworld in many European cultures asfar back as 6000 B.C.E. and were in Ireland espe-cially connected with prosperity.

The name Banba remains today as a poeticterm for Ireland. Despite that connection withthe entire island, and despite her associations inmyth with the southwestern province of MUN-STER and the eastern province of LEINSTER,Banba is most especially connected with themost northerly point in ULSTER, Malin Head,locally called Banba’s Crown. Occasionally,Banba is given as an alternative name for Cesair,the earliest human arrival in Ireland.

Source: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Part 5.Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1956, pp. 35 ff.

bandrui Woman druid; see DRUID.

bangaisgedaig See WARRIOR WOMEN.

Ban Naemha (Ban Naema) Irish mythologicalbeing. Throughout Ireland we find the story of amagical FISH that swims in a holy WELL. In Cork,the sun-well called Kil-na-Greina was the resi-dence of Ban Naemha, the fish of wisdom thatonly those gifted with SECOND SIGHT could see.The well’s ritual involved taking three sips of thewell’s water, crawling around the well three timesbetween each drink, and offering a stone the sizeof a dove’s egg with each circuit. Whether thisseries of actions was intended to lure the fish orsimply to honor the place is unclear.

banshee (bean sídhe, ben síd, bean sí, ben sídein Scotland, ban-sìth, bean-shìth, bean sìth; onthe Isle of Man, ben shee) Celtic mythologicalbeing. The Irish word bean-sídhe—woman of theSÍDHE or FAIRY people—originally referred to anywoman of the OTHERWORLD. Such beings wereoften early goddesses of the land or of SOVER-EIGNTY, diminished into regional FAIRY QUEENS

when their worshipers were conquered by thosewho honored other divinities. Over time, how-ever, the banshee’s domain narrowed, until shebecame a spirit who announced forthcomingdeath, a transformation that has been linked tothe seizure of Irish lands by the English in the16th and 17th centuries.

The banshee is similar to the WASHER AT THE

FORD, who washes the clothes of those about to diein battle, save that she specializes in deaths fromcauses other than war. She is a folkloric rather thana literary character, not appearing in written docu-ments until the 17th century, after which her pres-ence is commonplace. She appears either as a HAG

or as a lovely woman; the transformation of oneinto the other is frequent in folklore (see CAIL-LEACH), so there may be no difference betweenthese forms. The banshee often has RED hair (acommon signifier of fairy blood), or wears white orgreen clothing, or sports bright red shoes.Sometimes she combs her hair with a golden COMB

as she wails in anticipatory grief, usually at noon.Some Irish families have banshees who signal

the deaths of their members; most of these fam-

34 bandrui

ilies have names beginning with Ó or Mac andthus represent the ancient families of a region.This association perhaps reflects a lingering loy-alty to ancient Celtic beliefs, for the banshee hasbeen linked to Celtic goddesses such as ÁINE.These families’ banshees are occasionally foundin the New World, having followed their emi-grating charges, as was the case with the bansheeof the O’Gradys, who traveled to Canada to pro-vide her lamentation services.

Sources: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends andTraditions of the South of Ireland. London:William Tegg, 1862, p. 110; Delaney, MaryMurray. Of Irish Ways. New York: Harper &Row, 1973, p. 170; MacDougall, James. FolkTales and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English.Edinburgh: John Grant, 1910, pp. 175–179;Westropp, T. J. Folklore of Clare: A FolkloreSurvey of County Clare and County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths. Ennis, Co. Clare: Clasp Press,2000, pp. 6–10; Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends,Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland.London: Chatto and Windus, 1902, p. 136.

baptism Celtic ritual. There is some textualindication that the Celts had a ritual of name-giving that required children to be splashed withwater from a sacred water-source, for the heroAILILL Mac Máta was said to have been “baptizedin druidic streams” while the Welsh GWRI was“baptized with the baptism which was usual.” InIreland the power of the local goddess was imag-ined as resident in holy WELLS; baptism with herwaters might have symbolized acceptance intoher people. Until recently, children in theHebrides were protected at birth from FAIRY

KIDNAPPING by the placing of three drops ofwater on their brows; this rite may descend froman ancient baptismal ritual.

bard Celtic social role. Throughout the Celticworld, the poet was held in high esteem becauseof an assumed power to curse and to bless. ThusPOETRY was connected to MAGIC, perhaps because

both employed the power of transformation: inpoetry, metaphor; in magic, SHAPE-SHIFTING. Inaddition, because of the emphasis that the Celtsput upon honor (see ÉRIC) and reputation, thewords of a satirist were greatly feared.

Although the term bard is often used today todescribe Celtic poets, the usage is inexact;according to Roman writers, the bard was thelowest among the various types of poets found inGaul. According to this system, a bard was asinger and reciter—no inconsequential thing ina world that relied upon recitation rather thanwriting. These bards were historians, understrict demand not to change any of the basicfacts of a story or genealogy.

As memory was important to the bard, visionwas significant to the higher orders; the VATES,who interpreted omens, and the DRUIDS orpriests. In Ireland the bard was a low-rankedpoet, a student still working to learn the nearlyfour hundred required myths and legends; asone ascended the scale, one became a FILI, amember of a more distinguished caste of poets,of which the OLLAM was the highest rank. BothGaul and Ireland thus seem to reflect the samehierarchy: bards or reciters; diviners or prophets(vates and fili); and druids or magician-priests.

Open to both men and women, these socialroles were not generally hereditary but werecontingent upon the gifts of the potential bard.Intensive training, including the memorizationof hundreds of narratives, was required beforeprogressing to extemporaneous composition inhighly structured forms; such compositiondemanded familiarity with altered states and wasconnected to PROPHECY and spell-casting. InIreland such poet-seers could be called upon todiscern the next king in the bloody rite called theBULL-SLEEP or tarbhfleis. Finally, the most ele-vated poet was the satirist whose stinging wordscould punish any king who proved ungenerousor unfit to rule. Thus the dividing lines betweenpoet, judge, historian, and prophet were notcrisply drawn among the ancient Irish.

Several bards appear in myth and legend,some holding heroic or semidivine status. One is

bard 35

the Irish TUAN MAC CAIRILL, who described him-self as having lived in various bodies since thebeginning of time; another is AMAIRGIN, theMILESIAN poet who spoke the first words uponthe arrival of his people in Ireland. In Wales thegreatest poet was TALIESIN, who had gained allknowledge by accidentally drinking the brew ofthe goddess CERIDWEN; pursued and persecutedby her, he took on the shapes of animals andbirds but was unable to escape her. She finallyate him as a grain of wheat, when she was a hen;but she then bore him as a child that she threwinto the sea. This shape-shifting motif showsthat the poet was believed able to assume thebodies of animals and birds while maintaininghuman consciousness.

In Ireland poets originally moved freelyabout the countryside, accompanied by theirstudents and retainers, demanding hospitalityfrom every king. But later poets attached them-selves to specific noble families. Even later, whentheir traditional patrons were driven out byEnglish settlement, the bardic orders degradedinto wandering poets like Anthony Raftery, anhistorical figure of Co. Galway in the 1700s; likeRaftery many of these poetic practitioners wereblind. In Wales a continuous line of poets can betraced to the sixth century C.E.; the Bardic Order(Bardd Teulu) served the Welsh kings for morethan a millennium, with assemblies of bardscalled EISTEDDFOD known as early as 1176.

Sources: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911, pp. 11–14; Hull, Eleanor. TheCuchullin Saga in Irish Literature. London:David Nutt, 1898, p. xviii; Kelly, Fergus. AGuide to Early Irish Law. Dublin: School ofCeltic Studies, Dublin Institute for AdvancedStudies. Early Irish Law Series, Vol. III, 1988,pp. 43–51; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 117.

Barenton (Belenton) Breton mythologicalsite. The magical Fountain That Makes Rain

was hidden in the center of Brittany’s legendaryforest, BROCÉLIANDE. Visitors who drew waterfrom the fountain and sprinkled it aroundunleashed fierce storms. The fountain may bethe same as that ruled over by Laudine, the LADY

OF THE FOUNTAIN, lover of the Arthurian heroOWEIN. This legendary site may also reflect afolk memory of a NEMETON or Celtic sacredwood.

barguest British and Scottish mythologicalbeing. Hard to distinguish from BOGIES andboggarts (see BROWNIE), the barguest found inScotland and England could appear as a headlessman, a ghostly rabbit, or a white CAT. The bar-guest could also take the form of a BLACK DOG,especially when locally prominent people died;at such times the fire-eyed barguest would set allthe dogs in the region to howling infernally. Thebarguest was dangerous to encounter, for its biterefused to heal. The name has been interpretedto mean both “bear-ghost,” and “BARROW-ghost,” the latter referring to ancient stonegraves it was reputed to haunt.

Barinthus (Saint Barrind) Arthurian hero.The ferryman of the OTHERWORLD, Barinthuscarried the wounded king ARTHUR away fromthe surface world to the Otherworld after hisfinal battle.

barnacle goose Symbolic animal. In Irelanduntil recently, this waterbird was considered afish, so it could be eaten during the Lenten fast.Although this curious belief may not havemythological roots but may derive from laterfolklore, it has a basis in the ancient Celtic beliefthat BIRDS are beings of several elements andtherefore magical. It is even possible that thefolkloric prominence given to the bird reflectspre-Celtic belief, for a barnacle goose was exca-vated from a Neolithic house, where it appearsto have been part of a foundation sacrifice, sug-gesting that it was viewed as a protective being.

36 Barenton

The barnacle goose is a migratory wildfowl,which annually arrived in Ireland from partsunknown, and it may have had special signifi-cance because of that cyclic disappearance andreappearance.

See also GOOSE.

Barrax (Barrecis, Barrex) British god. Knownfrom one dedication only, this obscure Britishgod was likened by the occupying Roman armiesto their warrior god MARS; the Celtic nameseems to mean “supreme” or “lordly.”

barrow Sacred site. A pre-Celtic grave madefrom stones set in a line ending in a grave, inwhich more than one burial is sometimes found.The Wiltshire Downs, whereon rises STONE-HENGE, has the greatest collection of barrowgraves in England; such graves are also foundthroughout Ireland. Barrows were revered bythose who dwelt around them, who told storiesof hauntings by fairy creatures (BLACK DOGS, forinstance) or ghosts at the site.

See FAIRY MOUND.

Bath British mythological site. The great hotSPRINGS that bubble forth from the earth atBath, a town in the southwest of England, havebeen renowned for HEALING for at least twothousand years. While some suggest that thesprings were used in pre-Celtic times, what weknow of AQUAE SULIS (the Roman name forBath) dates to Celtic times. SUL, the Celtic god-dess of the site, was conflated with the healingMINERVA by the Romans who built the colon-naded temples and interior bathing rooms stillvisible today. The Celtic custom of throwingcoins into water-sources was practiced at Bath,as was the custom of writing curses on lead;16,000 coins have been excavated from Bath andmore than 50 cursing tables.

Source: Ross, Anne, and Michael Cyprien. ATraveller’s Guide to Celtic Britain. Harrisburg,Pa.: Historical Times, 1985, p. 19.

Battle of Mag Tuired (Moyturra) See MAG

TUIRED.

Baudwin (Baudwin of Brittany) Arthurianhero. One of the few knights to survive the bru-tal battle of CAMLAN at the end of the reign ofking ARTHUR, he became a hermit thereafter.

bean nighe See WASHER AT THE FORD.

bean tighe See FAIRY HOUSEKEEPER.

bear Symbolic animal. A dim-sighted but sharp-eared creature of impressive speed and climbingability, the bear was feared and respected for itsstrength by all early people who encountered it.Perhaps because a skinned bear looks very muchlike the carcass of a person, and because the liveanimal can walk upright like a man, the bear wasoften imagined as nearly human.

The region where the Celts emerged, inmountainous central Europe, was supreme bearterrain. Prior to the Celts’ appearance in thearchaeological record, we find evidence of a bearcult centered in Alpine caves; this ancient reli-gious vision may have influenced the Celticsense of the bear’s divinity. Swiss sites especiallyattest to the bear’s early importance, as at thecity of Berne (whose name means “bear”), wherethe sculpture of the Celtic bear goddess ARTIO

was found; there is some evidence of a parallelbear god named Artaios, whom the Romanscalled by the name of MERCURY. The name ofANDARTA, an obscure Gaulish goddess, maymean “great bear.” Other mythological figureswith ursine names include ARTHUR and CORMAC

MAC AIRT.

Beare (Bera, Béirre, Moméa) Irish goddess. Inthe far southwest of Ireland, in the province ofMUNSTER, a thin peninsula stretches out to sea:the Beare (Bheara) peninsula, rich in both antiq-uities and legend. The area gets its name from

Beare 37

this woman, said to have been a Spanishprincess; little legend remains of her. Moremythically significant was the CAILLEACH

Bhéirre, the Hag of Beare, an ancient land god-dess of the pre-Celtic people; she is associatedwith the area even today, and she can be seen, inthe shape of a boulder, looking out to sea on thenorth side of the peninsula. Occasionally theconsonants mutate, making her name Moméa.

beating the bounds British ritual. In someareas of rural England, the tradition of walkingthe boundaries of parishes on certain holidayswas maintained until recent times. Although apriest or minister led the procession, the ritualitself probably harkens back to pre-Christiandays. When the procession passed ancientSTANDING STONES, children were pushed againstthe boulders; similarly, children were ducked insacred springs or ponds along the route.

Beaumains See GARETH.

Bébinn (Bebind, Bé Find, Be Bind, Be Find,Bebhionn, Befind, Befionn) Irish goddess orheroine. This name is common in early Irish lit-erature and legend. One Bébinn, the goddess ofbirth, was sister of BÓAND and mother of Ireland’smost handsome hero, FRÁECH; another Bébinn,beautiful GIANT from Maiden’s Land off the westcoast, was always surrounded by magical BIRDS

and may have originally been a goddess of pleas-ure. Of the latter, legend has it that she left theOTHERWORLD to live with the king of the Isle ofMan but ran away from him after he began tobeat her. In a sad but realistic ending, the kingpursued his escaping wife and killed her.

Bebo Irish heroine. The small wife of anequally tiny FAIRY king, IUBDAN, Bebo traveledwith her husband to the land of ULSTER, whichseemed to them to be populated by GIANTS. Thelovely diminutive queen caught the eye ofUlster’s king, FERGUS. Despite physical chal-

lenges (his phallus was bigger than her entirebody), Bebo became Fergus’s mistress for a year,until Iubdan offered a pair of magical shoes toFergus in order to gain her back.

Bec Irish hero. This name, which means“small,” is borne by several characters in Irishlegend. One, Bec mac Buain, was the father ofthe maiden guardians of a magical WELL, wherethe hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL gained wisdomwhen one of the girls accidentally spilled someof the well water into his mouth. Another, Becmac Dé, was a diviner who could answer ninequestions simultaneously with one answer.

Becfhola (Becfola, Beagfhola) Irish goddessor heroine. A mortal queen of TARA, she is pro-tagonist of the Tochmarc Becfhola (The Wooing ofBecfhola), which tells of her affair with a FAIRY

LOVER, FLANN ua Fedach. As Tara’s queen repre-sented SOVEREIGNTY, her unhappiness with kingDIARMAIT and her preference for the heroCRIMTHANN might have caused Diarmait to losehis right to rule. But when Becfhola attemptedan assignation with Crimthann, she met Flanninstead and spent an enchanted night with himon an island in Lough ERNE. When she returnedto Tara, it was as though no time had passed, forshe had lived in fairy time with Flann, who sooncame to take her away.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 533.

Bé Chuille (Becuille) Irish goddess. Magicaldaughter of the woodland goddess FLIDAIS, shewas the only member of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN

able to combat the wicked sorceress CARMAN.

Bé Chuma (Bechuma, Bé Cuma, Bé cuma)Irish goddess or heroine. A woman of Irish leg-end, one of the magical people called the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, Bé Chuma was known for her car-

38 beating the bounds

nal appetites. She originally came from the OTH-ERWORLD, where she left her powerful husbandfor another man, after which she was banished tothis world. There she continued her fickle ways,lusting after her stepson ART MAC CUINN whilemarried to the king of TARA, CONN of theHundred Battles. Since Tara’s queen representedSOVEREIGNTY over the land, Bé Chuma couldhave replaced one king with another. Instead, shewas forced to leave Tara when Art returned witha wife who demanded Bé Chuma’s ostracism.

Bedwyr (Bedivere, Bedwyr fab Bedrawg) Welshhero. In the Welsh mythological text of KULHWCH

AND OLWEN, this warrior was highly regarded; hewas so brave that he never shied away from afight. He was also beautiful (though not as hand-some as ARTHUR, much less LANCELOT). In laterArthurian literature Bedwyr’s importance dimin-ished until he was only called Arthur’s butler,though a remnant of his earlier significanceremained in the story in that he was instructed tothrow the great sword EXCALIBUR into the waterso that it could be reclaimed by the magical LADY

OF THE LAKE, after which Bedwyr placed thedying king in the boat headed to AVALON.

bee Symbolic insect. Bees do not often appearin Celtic legend; when they do, it is typically asa symbol of WISDOM. bees were believed to dropdown to earth from heaven; on the Isle of Man,they were caught early in the spring by fisher-men, who used them as AMULETS of safety whenat sea. In Ireland bees have no pre-Christiansymbolic importance, although some saints (theWelsh Domnóc and the MUNSTER nun GOBNAT)were associated with beekeeping.

Source: Killip, Margaret. The Folklore of the Isle ofMan. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1975, p. 76.

beech Symbolic tree. One of the Celtic sacredtrees, this large relative (genus Fagus) of the OAK,with its muscular gray trunk and low full

branches, was especially honored by Celts in thePyrenees mountains.

See TREE ALPHABET.

Belatucadros Continental Celtic god. Thisobscure Gaulish god, whose name means “beau-tiful in slaughter” or “fair slayer,” was equated bythe Romans with their war god MARS. Evidenceof his worship found in numerous (though notelaborate) dedications in northwestern Englandsuggests that his cult was strongest among lowlysoldiers. He never appears with a consort.

Belenus (Bel, Belinus) Continental Celticgod. The spring festival of BELTANE was namedfor him, some have suggested. Not much isknown of this continental Celtic god, whom theRomans compared to APOLLO and who was wor-shiped at HEALING waters including AquaeBorvonis (Bourbon-les-Bains) in France; thehealing plant Belinuntia was reputedly namedfor him, strengthening the likelihood that hisdomain was health.

Belenus’s worship appears to have been wide-spread, for many inscriptions to him are foundthroughout Gaul, and several classical writersrefer to his cult. His name appears to mean“bright” or “shining one,” so he may have beena solar divinity; such deities were often associ-ated with healing SPRINGS on the theory that theSUN, leaving our sight at night, traveled underthe world, heating the waters of thermal springsas it went. The ancient author Apollonius relatesa Celtic story of a stream formed by the tears ofApollo Belenus when he was forced from heavenby his father; as Apollo was the Greek sun divin-ity, this textual evidence strengthens the argu-ment that Belenus had solar connections.

In Britain a hero Belinus was mentioned bythe early historian Geoffrey of Monmouth astwin to Brennius; the two went to war over thethrone but ultimately agreed to share power.The continental Belinus is not described as war-like, so despite the similarity in names, it is notclear that the same figure is intended.

Belenus 39

Source: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Histories of theKings of Britain. London: J. M. Dent and Sons,1912, pp. 38 ff.

Beli (Beli Mawr, Beli Mawr fab Mynogan)Celtic ancestral figure, possibly a god. ThisWelsh ancestral father may have been derivedfrom the Celtic god BELENUS, although givenhow little is known about the latter, that is con-jectural. In the MABINOGION, Beli appears as con-sort of the mother goddess DÔN and as father ofthe goddess ARIANRHOD and the warriorCASWALLAWN; in the story of MAXEN, Beli wassaid to have ruled Britain until the titular heroarrived with his legions, driving Beli into the sea.He has been described as a god of death as wellas of the sea, the latter giving rise to the poeticdescription of the ocean as “Beli’s liquor”; theLondon site of Billingsgate (Beli’s gate) appearsto contain his name. Some have connected himwith the obscure Irish god Bile (see BILE).

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion.New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp. 67, 85, 124, 129; Rhys, John. The WelshPeople. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906, p. 43.

Belisama (Belesama, Belisma) ContinentalCeltic and British goddess. This powerful god-dess, found in several places in the ancient Celticworld, was an unusual circumstance in that mostdivinities are found in only one site. She wasboth a cosmic goddess and one associated withthe RIVERS that, to the Celts, sheltered the pre-eminent divinities of good fortune and abun-dance. As her name may be derived from wordsfor “brightness” or “shining,” it has been pro-posed that she is a continental Celtic corollary toBRIGIT, the Irish flame goddess of healing. Thatthe Romans connected her to MINERVA, as theydid the hot-spring goddess SUL of Bath, is alsosuggestive of Belisama’s possible original ruler-ship of healing, water, and the solar flame.

In Lancashire the River Ribble once boreBelisama’s name, according to the ancient

Egyptian geographer Ptolemy, and it is thoughtthat the headless statue still to be found near theriver represents her. More recently the spirit ofthe Ribble was said to be named PEG O’NELL, atyrannized servant girl who drowned while fetch-ing water and who vindictively returns to claim avictim every seventh year. The only way to avoidsuch a human tragedy on Peg’s Night was to sac-rifice small birds or animals to the waters, a tra-dition in which some have discerned a memoryof human sacrifice to the water divinity.

Sources: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 11; Straffon, Cheryl. The EarthGoddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, p. 141.

Bellieus Arthurian hero. A minor character inthe tales of king ARTHUR, Bellieus became aknight of the ROUND TABLE by a curious means:He found the pure knight LANCELOT in bed withhis lady, which Lancelot claimed was entirely amistake. Bellieus was honor-bound to challengethe invader, who proved much the better swords-man. Despite his wounds, Bellieus survived andjoined Lancelot at Arthur’s court, CAMELOT.

Beltane (Bealtaine, Beltain, Beltine, Beltaine,Bealtane, Là Beltain, May Eve, May Day,Cétshamain) Celtic festival. Celebrated onMay 1, Beltane was one of the four great festivalsof what is conventionally called the ancientCeltic year—although it has been argued thatthe CALENDAR, not found on the Continent, rep-resents only the Irish seasonal cycle. Beltane isessentially an agricultural festival, its roots in thecycle of grazing and planting. Traditionally,Beltane marked the beginning of the summerand the movement of cattle from sheltered win-ter pastures to the mountain buaile or “booleys”of summer, where the grass would be fresh andgreen. As might be expected of a festival thatbegins an agricultural cycle, weather divinationwas important, with frost being deemed omi-

40 Beli

nous of bad times ahead, while rain was a sign ofgood fortune and a strong harvest.

As with other such festivals, Beltane began atsundown on the eve of the festival day. LikeSAMHAIN in the fall, Beltane was a day when thedoor to the OTHERWORLD opened sufficientlyfor FAIRIES and the dead to communicate withthe living. Whereas Samhain was essentially afestival of the dead, Beltane was one for the liv-ing, when vibrant spirits were said to come forthseeking incarnation in human bodies or inter-course with the human realm.

The name is related to words referring tofire. The spurious connection with the Semiticgod BA’AL has been long since disproven, butdivinities such as BELENUS and BELISAMA havebeen connected with the bonfires of spring,which were the most significant part of theBeltane celebrations in several Celtic lands. OnBeltane Eve, hearth fires were extinguished,then relit from a bonfire made on the nearestsignal hill. In Ireland these fires were thought tohave been lit around the land in response to thesacred fire of ÉRIU on the hill of UISNEACH, inthe Island’s center, or at its royal center at theHill of TARA.

The famous story of the “Easter fire” or“Paschal fire” lit by ST. PATRICK as he attemptedto Christianize Ireland is anachronistic, for therewould have been no Easter fires in the pre-Christian period; the fires in question were forBeltane, and Patrick was being both sacrilegiousand politically challenging by lighting his ownfire on SLANE hill before the royal fire blazed.

Beltane fires, which may have originated sim-ply in the need to burn off brush before thefields and pastures were put into use, were lit inWales until 1840 and in Ireland regularlythrough the middle of the 20th century, withCATTLE being driven near or between fires inorder to assure their safety in the coming year. Itwas considered especially significant if a whiteheifer was seen in the herds, presumably anincarnation of BÓAND, the white cow goddess ofabundance. At the same time, Beltane was anight when evil could strike cattle, drying up

their milk and causing them to sicken and die.Thus many Beltane rituals, including huntingHARES (shape-shifted WITCHES), and speakingCHARMS over BUTTER churns, have a basis in thebelief that agricultural produce is particularlyvulnerable at this time of year.

There are strong indications that Beltane hadits origins in a festival for the protection of cat-tle. In ULSTER, as in other parts of Ireland, cattlewere driven around raths and other areasbelieved to be residences of the fairy race. Therethey were bled, and after their owners had tastedthe blood, it was poured into the earth withprayers for the herds’ safety. In Devon in Britaina ram was tied to a STANDING STONE andbutchered, its blood pouring over the stone; theanimal was then cooked, hide and all, and itsburnt flesh devoured to bring good luck.

It was not only a time of prayers for animalwell-being but of rituals for human health aswell, Beltane being one of the days on whichIrish holy WELLS were most frequently visited,together with IMBOLC on February 1 and LUGH-NASA on August 1. Well visitors performed aPATTERN or ritual walk, usually sunwise aroundthe well, then left offerings (coins or CLOOTIES,bits of cloth tied to the sacred trees that shadethe well) while praying for health and healing.Usually no words were to be spoken except inprayer, and the visitor departed without turningback to look at the well. These rituals, still prac-ticed in many parts of Ireland, may have onceincluded the carrying of sacred water to Beltaneritual sites, where trees and fields were sprinkledwith prayers for an abundant harvest.

Decoration of a “May bush” was popularuntil the late 19th century in rural Ireland and inurban areas as well, with groups vying for themost resplendent tree covered with flowers andribbons and bits of bright fabric. The THORN

tree, traditionally the abode of the fairy folk, wasa favorite for May bushes, but others could sub-stitute, especially the ASH, considered the pre-miere Beltane tree in Ireland. In Dublin andBelfast, bushes were cut outside town and thendecorated in various neighborhoods, with

Beltane 41

attempts to steal another district’s May bushcausing much jollity. The disreputable behaviorof some Beltane revelers caused the May bush tobe outlawed in Victorian times. In Cornwall thesycamore was the favored “May tree”; celebrantsstripped its new branches of leaves and craftedlittle flutes. In Liverpool the festival long sur-vived in rudimentary form, with houses andhorses being decked with flowers for the day.

Beltane dew was believed to have the powerto increase sexual attractiveness. Maidens wouldroll in the grass or dip their fingers in the dewand salve their faces, hoping thus to becomefairer. In Britain one of their number was chosenas the May Queen, who was ceremoniously mar-ried to the May King, an act that symbolized thejoining of the land’s fertile powers. But in somecases there was a queen only, without a consort,which some scholars view as evidence that thegoddess was invoked rather than the god at thistime; in Britain the May King was called the“Beltane carline” or “old woman,” which has ledto the same interpretation.

Sexual license, with the magical intention ofincreasing the land’s yield, is believed to havebeen part of the annual event. English Beltanefestivals focused on that transparently phallicsymbol, the MAYPOLE, around which dancerscavorted (see MORRIS DANCING). The full ritualentailed bringing in a cut tree from the wood-lands and erecting it in the town square or a sim-ilar public gathering place. In the Cotswolds themaypole was associated with “summer bowers”built of new-budding trees and decorated withflowers and a large china doll called the “lady.”Plays about ROBIN HOOD and maze-games, bothoriginally part of the Beltane festivals, slowlydiminished into children’s games rather thansacred calendrical rituals.

Remnants of the maypole festival are stillfound in some English towns, most notably inChipping Campden, but maypole dancingtoday is usually a folkloric revival, for thedances were outlawed in Puritan England in 1644. It is probable that it was not so muchthe dances themselves that caused concern but

the usual aftermath, the “greenwood weddings”of young people who spent Beltane nighttogether under the pretext of gathering flowersto deck the town next morning, for the Puritanscomplained that girls who went a-maying “didnot one of them return a virgin.”

Virginity was not the only thing sacrificed tothe new season. Animal sacrifices continued intohistorical times; in Dublin the skull and bones ofa horse were burned. Some have suggested thathuman sacrifice occurred at this time, althoughperhaps only in times of plague and need. InBritain until the 18th century, part of theBeltane festival was the preparation of a roundcake that was broken up and distributed; who-ever got a blackened piece was designated the“devoted” and the other celebrants mimed push-ing the selected into the fire, suggesting anancient sacrificial ritual. Such round cakes,called Beltane bannocks, were typically madefrom the last sheaf of the previous year’s harvest.In Britain parts of the cake were offered to theland, with the words, “I give you this, preservemy horses; I give you this, preserve my sheep; Igive the FOXES this, preserve my lambs; I givethis to the hoodie CROW and to the EAGLE.”

On the Isle of Man, Beltane fires and thestrewing of flowers were said to scare awaywitches, who were most active on this day butwho could be most effectively countered then aswell. DIVINATION on Beltane or Beltane Eve wascommon among the Manx islanders: Light blaz-ing from a house meant a wedding was in theoffing, while dim light meant a funeral. Girlsplaced snails on pewter dishes that night, watch-ing until midnight after washing face and handsin dew from a wheatfield, in the hopes that thecreatures would write their husband-to-be’sname on the dish. Protection of cattle and homewere also part of the Beltane ritual, for the door-way was strewn with rushes and primroses whileROWAN crosses were fastened to the cattle’snecks. Leaves of ELDER trees were affixed towindows and doors as protection against fairypowers. But fairy beauty would leave its mark onthe dew, which could be gathered and used as a

42 Beltane

beautifying potion. Until some 50 years ago, theManx islanders celebrated Beltane with a contestbetween the Queen of Winter and the Queen ofthe May, represented by girls whose attendantsstaged mock battles that ended in a festival.

In Scotland cattle were preserved from theinfluence of witchcraft by placing garlands ofrowan and honeysuckle around their necks; redthreads tied in their hair or woven into thewreaths likewise protected dairy cattle frommilk-stealing witches, who were especially activeon Beltane. Records from the 18th century showthat a pot of eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk wasplaced on the Beltane fire, after a bit of the mix-ture had been thrown onto the ground to honorthe spirits; once cooked, the oatcake was dividedinto nine parts and offered to the animals whomight steal the harvest: one part to the crow, oneto the eagle, one to the fox, and so forth. Even aslate as the 19th century, Beltane fires were stillbeing built in rural districts of Scotland and cat-tle driven between them for purification.

The Beltane festival is alluded to in severalrecent popular works, including the science-fiction cult classic, The Illuminatus! Trilogy byRobert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, in whichconspiratorial forces of the Bavarian Illuminatiand their henchmen meet (and are defeated by)the orgiastic forces of alternative culture; in thefilm The Wicker Man, in which a remnant Celticsociety sacrifices a puritanical policeman toincrease the land’s fertility; and in the “LustyMonth of May” sequence in the musical Camelot.

See also GLEN LYON.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker and Co.1976, p. 40; Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore ofthe Cotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974,p. 24; Burne, Charlotte Sophia. Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings, Part II. Yorkshire: EPPublishing, 1974, p. 354–363; Carmichael,Alexander. Carmina Gadelica: Hymns andIncantations. Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne Press,1992, pp. 83–85, 586 ff; Danaher, Kevin. “Irish

Folk Tradition and the Celtic Calendar.” InRobert O’Driscoll, ed. The Celtic Consciousness.New York: George Braziller, 1981, pp. 217–42;Danaher, Kevin. The Year in Ireland. Cork:Mercier Press, 1922, pp. 90 ff; Harland, John,and T. T. Wilkinson. Lancashire Legends.London: George Routledge and Sons, 1873, pp.96–97; Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, p.248–260; Killip, Margaret. The Folklore of the Isleof Man. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1975, p.64; MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dulbin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 12, 63; Rhys, John. CelticFolklore: Welsh and Manx. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1941, pp. 308 ff; Ross, Anne. Folklore of theScottish Highlands. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd.,1976, pp. 67, 132; Whitlock, Ralph. The Folkloreof Wiltshire. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976,p. 42; Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, MysticCharms and Superstitions of Ireland. London:Chatto and Windus, 1902, p. 101.

Beltany Irish mythological site. In the farnorthwestern county of Donegal, a huge circleof some 60 stones once caught the beams of therising sun on the morning of BELTANE, May 1; analignment between a pillar stone and a stoneengraved with small indentations called cupmarks indicates the sunrise on that day. WhileSTONE CIRCLES indicating astronomical align-ments are far from unusual in Ireland, most wereengineered as much as 4,000 years before theCelts arrived with their four festivals markingthe midpoints between solstices and equinoxes;the pre-Celtic builders of stone circles more typ-ically marked the equinoxes themselves. ThusBeltany presents an archaeological puzzle: Is it aCeltic site, inspired by the stone circles that theyfound in Ireland? A pre-Celtic site whose orien-tation has been misread by enthusiasts? Or anastronomical accident?

Bendonner Irish folkloric figure. ThisScottish GIANT terrorized the coast of ULSTER

Bendonner 43

until the residents requested the aid of FINN

MCCOOL, a folkloric version of the great Irishhero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. Finn challenged thegiant to battle, then dressed himself in swaddlingclothes. When the monster came to call, hefound an enormous baby in an immense cradle,and he became so terrified of its strength that heran away without Finn’s having to lift hisweapons. He never bothered the people ofUlster again.

Ben Bulben Irish mythological site. Near amound of stone atop this famous, dramaticallysweeping peak on the coast above the town ofSligo in the western Irish province of CONNACHT,the romantic hero DIARMAIT Ua Duibne died as aresult of a wound from a magical BOAR who hadkidnapped him and to whose back the hero clung.Diarmait managed to kill the beast, but then acci-dentally brushed against the body, puncturinghimself with a poisonous bristle. As Diarmait laydying, FIONN MAC CUMHAILL—whose intendedwife GRÁINNE’s love for the much-youngerDiarmait had consumed years of Fionn’s waningenergy as he pursued the lovers across Ireland—arrived on the scene. A healer, Fionn could havesaved the young man, but instead he tauntedDiarmait, who had been so beloved for his beauty,with his gory ugliness. The mountain is famous incontemporary letters as shadowing the site of thegrave of William Butler Yeats.

Benn Étair (Ben Edair, Ben Edar) Irishmythological location. Now the well-known Hillof Howth near Dublin, Benn Étair appears inmany legends. In the tale of the SONS OF TUIRE-ANN, the exhausted heroes believe if they wereable to see Benn Étair their strength wouldreturn; the hill may have been thought to havehealing power. The grieving widow of the heroOSCAR, AIDÍN, was buried there by the BARD, OISÍN.Benn Étair was also the dwelling place of a fairywoman, ÉTAIN of the Fair Hair, who died of grief after her mortal husband was killed; the hillis said to have been named for Étain’s father, ÉTAR.

Ben-Varrey See MERMAID.

Berba Irish goddess. Tutelary goddess of theRiver Barrow.

See also CESAIR.

Bercilak See GAWAIN.

Berecynthia Continental Celtic goddess. Thisobscure goddess was described by the earlyChristian author Gregory of Tours as being conveyed, in the form of a white-veiled image,through the fields in spring and whenever cropsthreatened to fail. She may be related to the oth-erwise little-known BRIGINDO; both appear to havebeen regional Celtic FERTILITY goddesses. Sinceone of Gregory’s coreligionists, Martin of Tours,destroyed most of the “pagan idols” of the region,it is unlikely that images of Berecynthia survive.

Berguisa Continental Celtic goddess.Goddess of crafts among the Celts of what isnow eastern Burgundy, she was the consort ofthe god UCUETIS.

Berrey Dhone (Brown Berry) Manx god-dess. On the Isle of Man, this HAG or WITCH

lived either on top of North Barrule Mountainor inside it. Like other forms of the CAILLEACH,she was an Amazonian GIANT, and her rockyheelprint can still be seen on the mountainside.

Biddy Irish goddess. This nickname forBRIGIT was commonly used in Ireland on thespring feast of IMBOLC, when children went beg-ging from house to house. In Kerry, white-garbed young men—the “Biddy Boys”—sang ateach doorstep, “Something for poor Biddy! Herclothes are torn. Her shoes are worn. Somethingfor poor Biddy!” Although the tradition fadedduring the latter part of the 20th century, it hasbeen lately revived, with Biddy boys and girls inoutrageous straw hats dancing in Kerry towns,begging donations for the poor.

44 Ben Bulben

Biddy Early Historical Irish heroine. The“White Witch of Clare” was a renowned healerin the eastern part of Co. Clare area of Ireland inthe 19th century, and her name is still currentalmost a century and a half after her death.Legends about her, although exaggerated andoften including mythological motifs, are clearlybased on a real woman of Feakle, a parish in therolling hills known as Slieve Aughty (seeECHTHGE). Biddy was reputed to have beengiven a magical blue bottle by the FAIRY folk, intowhich she peered to ascertain the cause of illnessor unhappiness. She was frequently at odds withthe local clergy, who deemed her powers devil-ish; one of the most famous tales tells how Biddycursed a clergyman for making defamatoryremarks about her, causing his horse to bepinned in place until she spoke words to freehim. She had several husbands, each increasinglyyounger; when she died, she tossed her blue bot-tle in a stream (or lake, or river, depending onthe speaker) where it reportedly still rests today.

Source: Lenihan, Edmund. In Search of Biddy Early.Cork: Mercier Press, 1987.

Biddy Mannion See FAIRY MIDWIFE.

bilberry Symbolic plant. This berry (Vacciniummyrtillus), also called the whortleberry or mul-berry, was a significant calendar marker in Irelandup to the present. Festivals celebrating the Celticsummer feast of LUGHNASA included climbinghills to gather bilberries, which were eaten on thespot or saved to make pies and wine; afterLughnasa, the berries were said to lose their fla-vor. The start of bilberry season was also the startof harvest, and many omens were sought from theberry bushes at this time, for crops were expectedto be good when berries were plentiful, buthunger threatened when the berries were scarce.

Source: MacNeil, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts 1 and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 182, 422.

bile (bele; pl., bili) Symbolic plant. A sacredTREE, often found near a holy WELL or other hon-ored site, is even today in Ireland decorated withofferings, especially strips of cloth called CLOOTIES.In ancient times such a tree would have marked anINAUGURATION site, and its branches would haveprovided the wood used for the king’s scepter.There is also a god of this name, ancestral fatherto the MILESIANS who were the last invaders ofIreland, but it is unclear if tree and god are con-nected; indications that Bile was an underworlddivinity could be linked to the tree’s function as asymbol of the unification of the underworld(roots) and upper world (branches).

The term bile was used to designate a sacredtree or any genus, although certain kinds oftrees, including OAK, YEW, and ASH, werethought to have special powers. The Irish place-poems, the DINDSHENCHAS, describe five greattrees of ancient Ireland, including an oak thatbore nuts and apples at the same time as acorns,replicating the trees said to grow in the OTHER-WORLD. The second sacred tree was the YEW OF

ROSS, described as a “firm strong god,” while theremaining three were ash trees, most notably themythic Ash of UISNEACH, which, when felled,stretched 50 miles across the countryside.

In addition to having totem animals, theancient Celts may have believed in ancestraltree-spirits; we find one ancient Irish groupgoing by the name of Fir Bile, “tribe of thesacred tree,” while the Continental Eburoneswere the “yew-tree tribe.”

The cutting of sacred trees was utterly forbid-den among the Celts, a tradition that sometimescontinued into Christian times. Weapons were notpermitted around the oak of BRIGIT in KILDARE, atree that was probably sacred before the founda-tion of the convent at that site, for the town’s nameincludes the words for church (kil-) and for oak(-dare). The tradition of protecting such trees sur-vived in folklore until recently; in the Irish villageof Borrisokane in east Co. Galway, it was said thatif anyone so much as burned a broken-off branchof the town’s sacred tree in his fireplace, his housewould burn to the ground.

bile 45

This reverence for trees is one of the mostdeep-rooted of Celtic beliefs. DRUIDS held theirsacrifices in sacred groves called NEMETONS, thedestruction of which by the Romans was a bru-tal blow to the heart of the people, as was theChristian demand that trees no longer be hon-ored with offerings and prayers. Despite theheavy fines levied on those who broke these reg-ulations, Celtic tree-worship continued, as isevidenced by the frequent fulminations againstit, generation after generation, by churchmen.Martin of Tours, renowned for smashing idols,was unable to gain destructive access to a sacredpine tree in central France. Faced with such fer-vent devotion, the Church converted the treesalong with their worshipers, declaring themsacred to the Virgin Mary or to lesser saints,decking them with saints’ images, and usingthem as sites for Christian ritual.

Sources: Brenneman, Walter, and MaryBrenneman. Crossing the Circle at the Holy Wellsof Ireland. Charlottesville: University ofVirginia Press, 1995; MacCulloch, J. A. TheReligion of the Ancient Celts. London: Constable,1911, pp. 54, 60, 103, 162, 201.

Billy Blind British folkloric figure. In north-ern England, this name was sometimes given toa male form of the BANSHEE, the FAIRY who pre-dicts death; he also sometimes helped aroundthe house like a BROWNIE.

birch Symbolic plant. One of the Celticsacred trees, the birch (species betula) stands forthe second letter of the TREE ALPHABET. A short-lived but graceful white-barked tree, the birchprovided wood for the MAYPOLES used inBELTANE dances.

bird Symbolic animal. Birds are found asemblems or escorts of Celtic goddesses, especiallythe carrion-eaters, such as CROWS or RAVENS, thataccompanied goddesses of war and death. Birds

sometimes represented souls leaving the body, astheir connection with warrior goddesses wouldsuggest, but they also were seen as oracular. Thedesigns formed by birds in flight were the basis ofa now-lost system of DIVINATION.

Not all Celtic bird imagery was gloomy orforeboding. Sweetly singing birds surround god-desses such as RHIANNON, whose presence wasalways indicated by their joy-giving song, orCLÍDNA, whose bright-feathered companionseased the pain of the sick with their songs.Individual bird species had specific associatedtraditions.

See COCK, CRANE, DOVE, DUCK, EAGLE, EGRET,GOOSE, HERON, OWL, SWALLOW, SWAN, WREN.

Biróg Irish heroine. In the Irish story of theconception of the hero LUGH, this woman DRUID

helped Lugh’s father, a human named CIAN, dis-guise himself in women’s attire to gain entry tothe prison of the fair EITHNE, daughter of BALOR

of the Evil Eye.

birth Mythic theme. FERTILITY, whether ofthe fields, of the herds, or of humans, was nottaken for granted by the Celts. The number ofrecorded invocations and rituals that wereoffered to increase fertility suggest that it was amatter of serious concern. Birth itself was notwithout its dangers, and so protective rituals fora safe childbirth included drinking waters ofholy WELLS or wearing clothing dipped in them.As many wells had oracular functions, it is likelythat parents-to-be also consulted them about theexpected child.

Bith Irish hero or god. Son of the biblicalNoah and father of CESAIR, the original settler ofIreland who fled the flood in her own ark.According to the BOOK OF INVASIONS, Bith camealong, landing with Cesair in MUNSTER in thesouthwestern part of the island, then moved with17 of Cesair’s 50 handmaidens to ULSTER. Therehe died on Slieve Beagh, where he is said to have

46 Billy Blind

been buried under the now-destroyed GreatCairn (Carn Mór). As the Irish word bith meanscosmos, this shadowy god may have originallyhad greater significance than his fragmentarymyth implies.

Black Annis British mythological figure.Outside Leicester rise the Dane Hills, namedafter the ancestral goddess DANU and said to behaunted by the fearsome blue-faced Black Annis,a degraded goddess figure who may derive fromDanu. In a cave known as Black Annis’s Bower,she was said to ambush children and eat them.She was sometimes pictured as a HARE (springritual hare-hunting is known in the area) or aCAT (dragging a dead cat in front of hounds wasanother spring ritual of the area). In other sto-ries, she is said to have been a nun who turnedcannibal. She may be a form of the weather-controlling ancient goddess, the CAILLEACH.

Sources: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 92; Straffon, Cheryl. The EarthGoddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, p. 124.

Black Chanter Scottish mythological instru-ment. An enchanted musical instrument, part ofa bagpipe, of which many tales are told inScotland. Given to the leader of the Chisholmsof Strath Glas by a foreign magician, it permit-ted one to travel through the air if played by aCameron, the traditional pipers of the area. TheBlack Chanter served as a kind of BANSHEE, pre-dicting death by cracking the evening before adeath in the family. Each time this occurred, aring of silver was placed around the chanter torepair it, until the whole instrument was coveredwith silver rings.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp.57 ff.

Black Dog Irish, Scottish, and British mytho-logical figure. This spectral creature, usuallyshaggy and as big as a calf, was familiar through-out the insular Celtic world as an indication ofgreat change and probable death. OccasionallyBlack Dogs could be helpful, but it was necessaryto be wary of them, for one glance of their eyescould kill.

In northern England this beast was some-times called a BARGUEST and thought to be aportent of death; the barguest led all the dogs ofa district on a rampage through an area wheredeath was about to occur, all howling and creat-ing a memorable disturbance. In East Anglia thedog is called Black Shuck, while in Cumbria itwas Shriker. In Westmoreland the dog wascalled the Capelthwaite and performed doggyservices, like rounding up herds, for the locals,while the same creature on the Isle of Man wascalled the Mauthe Doog. The Black Dog is alsofamiliar to Irish folklore and has been sighted atIrish sacred sites as recently as the 1990s. It islikely that lore about this ghostly creatureinspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Houndof the Baskervilles.”

Sources: Clarke, David, with Andy Roberts.Twilight of the Celtic Gods: An Exploration ofBritain’s Hidden Pagan Traditions. London:Blandford, 1996, p. 145; Coxhead, J. R. W.Devon Traditions and Fairy-Tales. Exmouth: TheRaleigh Press, 1959, pp. 94–95; Lamb, Cynthia.“Following the Black Dog.” In PatriciaMonaghan, ed. Irish Spirit: Pagan, Celtic,Christian, Global. Dublin: Wolfhound Press,2001, pp. 43 ff; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 90.

Black Vaughan British folkloric figure. InLancastershire this savage GHOST was said tohave been so vile in life that he remained onearth to torment his neighbors after his death,even resorting to SHAPE-SHIFTING into a fly todrive their horses wild. The ghost was finally

Black Vaughan 47

exorcised by a woman with a newborn baby,whose purity and innocence Black Vaughancould not tolerate.

Bladud British hero or god. This king wassaid by Geoffrey of Monmouth to have foundedthe great spa at BATH, shrine to the Celtic god-dess SUL, lighting the unquenchable fire of thegoddess there; some argue that Bladud was not ahuman king at all but the spirit of the place, orGENIUS LOCI.

Blaí Irish heroine. Mother of OISÍN, the poetof the band of heroes called the FIANNA, she wasturned into a deer by a magical enemy and con-ceived her son while in that form. FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL was the father. Oisín was born inhuman form, and Blaí was warned not to touchhim. But she could not resist and stroked himgently with her tongue, leaving a small furrypatch forever on Oisín’s forehead. Often thisheroine is given the name of SADB.

Source: Almqvist, Bo, Séamus Ó Catháin, andPáidaig ó Héalái. The Heroic Process: Form,Function and Fantasy in Folk Epic. Dublin: TheGlendale Press, 1987, p. 4.

Blaise Arthurian hero. Blaise, an otherwiseobscure figure, taught magic to the great MERLIN.

Blanchefleur (Blancheflor) Arthurian hero-ine. When the ROUND TABLE knight PERCIVAL

entered the domain of the wounded FISHER

KING, he met and wooed the beautifulBlanchefleur (“white flower”); in some texts, thename is given as belonging to Percival’s sister,otherwise known as DINDRAINE.

Blarney Stone Irish folkloric site. In Co.Cork, in the 15th-century Blarney Castle, is astone that is said to convey eloquence (withoutthe requirement of honesty) upon those who kiss

it. The stone was blessed by CLÍDNA, the region’sFAIRY QUEEN, after the local ruler CormacMacCarthy had asked for help in winning a law-suit. Kissing the stone at dawn as Clídnainstructed, MacCarthy was instantly gifted withglibness and talked his way out of trouble. Toprevent others from having the same advantage,MacCarthy had the stone installed in an inacces-sible part of the castle wall, where it remains tothis day, attracting tourists who hang upsidedown to plant a kiss on the stone and winClídna’s gift.

Bláthnat (Blanaid, Blathait, Bláithíne) Irishgoddess. This goddess, whose name means “lit-tle flower,” was daughter either of MIDIR, king ofthe Irish FAIRIES, or of the human king ofULSTER, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA. In Irish legend,she was brought from the OTHERWORLD by thehero CÚCHULAINN, who also brought forth hermagical CATTLE and CAULDRON. But his com-panion in that raid, CÚ ROÍ, then stole them all.To make matters worse, Cú Roí buriedCúchulainn in sand and shaved off his hair, sub-jecting him to humiliation by all passersby.

Bláthnat did not live happily with Cú Roí, asis evidenced by the fact that she plotted his assas-sination only a year later with Cúchulainn, whobecame her lover. She is thus the Irish version ofthe Welsh BLODEUWEDD, for she revealed toCúchulainn the secret way to kill her husband.The story does not end with that bloodshed, forCú Roí’s poet FERCHERTNE pushed Bláthnatover a cliff, killing himself in the process.Despite her enslavement by Cú Roí, Bláthnat isoften characterized as deceitful and traitorousfor plotting his death. In Christian legend she isdescribed as converting and entering the con-vent rather than being killed.

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p.71; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 84, 381.

48 Bladud

blemished king Mythic theme. Among theCelts, a king could only claim the goddess of theland as his wife—and through her, the SOVER-EIGNTY of the country—if he were whole andwithout blemish. If injured, he was forced toabdicate the throne, as was NUADA, who lost hisarm at the first Battle of MAG TUIRED and whohad to give up leadership of the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN until he was provided with a magicalprosthesis. The motif also forms the basis of thelegends of the FISHER KING that are so importantin the Arthurian cycle.

Blodeuwedd (Bloduwith, Blodeuedd) Welshgoddess. When the presumably virginal ARIAN-RHOD was tricked into giving birth to a son ofquestionable parentage, she laid a curse on himthat he would never have a name, weapons, or awife. But her brother GWYDION tricked heragain, so that she provided the first two items forthe newly named LLEU LLAW GYFFES. Then withthe help of his magician uncle MATH, Gwydioncreated a wife for the young man, who may havebeen his son.

In the fourth branch of the Welsh collectionof myths, the MABINOGION, we hear how the twomagicians constructed the aptly namedBlodeuwedd (“flower-face”) from nine kinds ofwildflowers, including meadowsweet, oak,broom, primrose, and cockle. But this creature ofno earthy race was unhappy with her lot. Shegrew restless as Lleu’s wife and conceived a lustfor a handsome hunter, GRONW PEBYR, whom sheconvinced to kill Lleu. Knowing that her husbandcould only be killed when bathing by the side of ariver, under a thatched roof over a cauldron, whilestanding with one foot on a deer, she dared Lleuto assume that unlikely posture, whereupon herlover dispatched him with ease. For her part inthe murder, she was turned into an OWL by hercreators. It has been argued that this apparentlytreacherous woman is the shadow of an ancientgoddess of death; Robert Graves finds in her anancient queen whose ritual marriage to the kinglasted but a year before his sacrifice.

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion.New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp.111–116; Graves, Robert. The White Goddess: AHistorical Grammar of Poetic Myth. New York:Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1948, pp. 308–316.

Blondine (Velandinenn, Princess Velandinnen)Breton heroine. A folktale of Brittany tells of alovely princess whose story is replete withmythological motifs, suggesting that she may bea degraded goddess. When the young man CADO

insulted a mysterious FAIRY, she put a curse onhim that could only be lifted by the unknownprincess Blondine. No human could tell Cadothe way to Blondine’s land, but he overheardsome CROWS talking about her and, hitching aride on the back of one, found Blondine beneatha tree (see BILE) beside a mirror-bright WELL.Convincing her to marry him, Cado stoleBlondine away from her magician father, whocast unsuccessful spells at the couple as they fled.Once on earth, however, Cado proved false toBlondine by losing the ring she had given him,whereupon his mind was wiped clean of anymemory of her. He was betrothed to anotherwoman, but when Blondine arrived at his wed-ding, wearing her matching ring, he regained hismemory and his senses; his brother married theother bride, while Cado and Blondine werefinally wed.

Source: Luzel, F. M. Celtic Folk-Tales fromArmorica. Trans. by Derek Bryce. Dyfed,Wales: Llanerch Enterprises, 1985, pp. 35–44.

blood Mythic theme. Roman writers con-tended that blood was sacred to the Celts andwas used in grisly rituals such as drinking theblood of slain enemies. But whether such writerscan be credited is difficult to say, for their audi-ence consisted of people afraid of the Celts,whose warriors had almost conquered Romeitself; thus Roman authors must always be readwith some suspicion when they paint the Celts asbarbarians—in this case, bloodthirsty ones. Yet

blood 49

other indications support the picture of bloodrituals among the Celts. Blood brotherhood, forinstance, remained a tradition in the Scottishisles until historical times. And there seems littlequestion that the blood of animal SACRIFICES wassmeared on trees in the sacred groves or NEME-TONS. Blood may have been interpreted as bear-ing the essence or life force; thus drinking bloodwould restore the warrior.

Blue Men of the Minch (Fir Gorm, FirGhorma) Scottish folkloric figures. Scotland’scoastal waters between the inner and outerHebrides, known as the Minch, are haunted byblue-skinned beings who may descend fromSEALS or who may be fallen angels. The BlueMen control the weather in that region and,therefore, ship traffic as well. Even on calm days,it is said, the Minch can be turbulent because theBlue Men are swimming about, stirring thewaters. The Minch is sometimes called the BlueMen’s Stream or the Current of Destructionbecause its waters are so unpredictable and dan-gerous. Skippers who are not fast-witted are notencouraged to traverse the passage, for the BlueMen call out rhymes to them, and if anothergood couplet is not sung back to them, they cap-size the boat.

Bóand (Boann, Bónn, Boinn, Bóinn, Boadan;possibly Bouvinda) Irish goddess. Bóand’s namemeans “woman of white cows” or “shining cow,”although the COW does not appear in her legend,unless this goddess is the same as the similarlynamed BÓ FIND, the ancestor of all Ireland’s cows.She may also be identical to the goddess referredto by the great Egyptian geographer Ptolemy asBouvinda, a name that connects Bóand with otherIndo-European cow goddesses.

Bóand gave her name to the River Boyne,along which Ireland’s greatest ancient monumentsstand. Of her, the story common to Ireland’s RIVER

goddesses is told: that she visited a forbiddenWELL, where she lifted the stone that protected it.The waters of the well rose and drowned her,

forming the river as it did so. The well is called thewell of SEGÁIS, which was Bóand’s name in theOTHERWORLD. An alternative name for the Boyneis Sruth Segsa, “river of Segáis,” further showingthe identity of the two names.

Bóand is also a goddess of wisdom, for oneroot of her name meant both “white” and “wis-dom”; in some stories, she was blinded by the ris-ing river, reflecting a common connection ofinner vision and outer blindness, as well as con-necting her through the motif of the single EYE

with the famous resident of the river source, theone-eyed SALMON sometimes called FINTAN. Irishfolklore claimed that if you drank from Bóand’sriver in June, you would become a seer and poet.Finally, Bóand has associations of abundance andprosperity, for Celtic rivers were seen as sourcesof the FERTILITY of their watersheds.

Bóand is connected to the solar year, as god-dess of the great tumulus of Newgrange—BRÚ NA

BÓINNE or “palace of Bóand” in Irish—which isIreland’s most famous winter SOLSTICE site.There she was seduced by the good god DAGDA

away from her husband NECHTAN (a name forNUADA; in some stories, ELCMAR). To hide theiraffair, Dagda caused the sun to stand still for ninemonths, so that Bóand could bear their child,AONGHUS Óg, without Nechtan’s knowing thatmore than a day had passed. In some versions ofthe story, Bóand is given the name EITHNE.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Vol. III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dulbin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co. Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 27–39.

boar Symbolic animal. The male PIG or wildboar, pictured in art and on coins from bothinsular and continental sources, was the mostsavage animal that the ancient Celts were likelyto encounter. As a consequence, the boar cameto represent strength and tenacity and sexualpotency; its meat was often part of the CHAM-PION’S PORTION lauded in song and story, whileits skin was used for warriors’ cloaks. (The word

50 Blue Men of the Minch

boar in several Gaelic languages is TORC, also theword for the warrior’s neckpiece). Because itsmeat was so favored, the boar represented pros-perity as well; on the Isle of Man, the ArkanSonney or “lucky piggy” was a beautiful whiteFAIRY pig that brought good luck. The boarappears in several important cycles of Irish leg-end, most importantly the death of the romantichero DIARMAIT Ua Duibine, who killed a boarthat was terrorizing a region, only to die whenhe stepped on one of its poisonous bristles as hetried to measure its great size; there are also fre-quent mentions of an OTHERWORLD pig thatcould be carved up and devoured but that wouldendlessly replenish its own flesh. In the WelshMABINOGION, boars originate in the Otherworld,which is perhaps the source of their fiercestrength in the surface world.

Sources: Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the WestHighlands. Vol. III. Edinburgh: Edmonston andDouglas, 1862, p. 81; Green, Miranda. Symboland Image in Celtic Religious Art. London:Routledge, 1989, pp. 27, 139.

boat Symbolic object. An important imageconnected with the Celtic goddess of waters,found in sculptures from the Roman period; theunnamed goddess from Nuits-Saint-Georges inFrance holds a CORNUCOPIA while standing onthe prow and rudder of a boat. As all these sym-bols are also associated with the Roman goddessFortuna, the boat may link the ideas of FERTIL-ITY (seen by the Celts as connected with thewaters that fed the land) and abundance (seen bythe Romans as the goddess of fortune).

See NEHALENNIA.

Bochtóg Irish heroine. In Ireland this FAIRY

woman saved people from drowning by awaken-ing them if they fell asleep on the shore as thetide rose. When visible, usually in roughweather, Bochtóg was a beautiful woman withwaist-length blonde hair.

bodach (carle) Scottish folkloric figure. Inthe Highlands the bodach could appear either asa relatively harmless trickster or, as the BodachGlas or Dark Gray Man, as a male BANSHEE whowas seen just before a death. Its name refers toits appearance as an old man, who made beckon-ing motions or stared into windows after dark.He was, however, more frightening than trulydangerous. The Bodach á Chipein, or “Old Manwith the Peg,” was a friendly and approachableHighland FAIRY who watched humans at theirordinary tasks and wept whenever funerals wentby. The word is sometimes found in Ireland,referring to the same figure.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p.489.

Bodb Derg (Bove Derg, Bodhb, Bodhbh)Irish god or hero. The most powerful magicianof the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the wise Bodb Dergwas the son of the good god DAGDA and brotherof AONGHUS Óg, god of poetry. He reigned froma great palace on the shores of LOUGH DERG.Bodb Derg was elected king of the Tuatha Dé,much to the annoyance of LIR, who stormedfrom the meeting in protest. But upon his returnhome, he found his wife (whose name is notrecorded) taken ill; she died after three days andBodb Derg, in a gesture of sympathy and soli-darity, sent his three handsome foster daughtersto minister to Lir at SHEE FINNAHA, his palace.

Eldest of the three was ÁEB, with whom Lirquickly fell in love. But, after giving birth to FION-NUALA and her brothers, Áeb died. Lir married yetagain, this time his wife’s foster sister, AÍFE, whogrew insanely envious of her stepchildren andenchanted them into SWANS. Although he couldnot undo her powerful spell, Bodb Derg punishedAífe by turning her into a demon or a CRANE.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 1–36.

Bodb Derg 51

Bodhmall (Boghmin) Irish heroine. A DRUID,she was the foster mother of the great heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL and instructed him in theoccult arts.

Bó Find Irish goddess. When Ireland was abarren, empty island, this magical white COW

appeared with her sisters, the red cow Bó Ruadhand the black cow Bó Dhu, and rose from thewestern sea. The red cow headed north, the blacksouth, and Bó Find went to the island’s center, allthree creating life behind them as they traveled.When she reached the island’s center, Bó Findgave birth to twin calves, one male and onefemale; from them descended all Ireland’s CAT-TLE. Sites along her route often still bear namesthat incorporate the word “Bó,” the most famousbeing her sacred island, Inis Bó Find, now knownas Inisbofin, off the Galway coast. See BÓAND.

Source: Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, MysticCharms and Superstitions of Ireland. London:Chatto and Windus, 1902, p. 22.

bog Symbolic site. Formed of centuries ofsphagnum moss and other plants compacted inwater, bogs were a prominent feature of the Irishand Scottish landscape until recent times. Peat,harvested from the bogs, is still dried into turfand burned as fuel in both countries. Until themiddle of the 20th century, turf-harvesting was alabor-intensive process, but mechanical harvest-ing has meant the destruction of vast ancientbogs in both countries. With that destruction,folkloric sites have also been lost, for bogs aretypically liminal zones (see LIMINALITY), neitherdry nor wet, inhospitable for building roads orhomes—and thus, perfect entrances to the OTH-ERWORLD. Bogs are also important archaeologi-cally, for the lack of oxygen and the excess oftannic acid in bog water mean that objects lost orsacrificed in bogs (see BOG PEOPLE) are astonish-ingly well preserved. Many of the archaeologicalriches viewable today in the National Museumof Ireland consist of bog discoveries.

Bog of Allen Irish mythological site. One ofIreland’s most extensive BOGS, it covers much ofthe southeastern midlands and surrounds ALMU,ancient capital of LEINSTER; the bog and hill areboth named for an obscure goddess or heroinenamed ALEND.

bog people (bog men) Archaeological arti-fact. Throughout Europe, those harvestingburnable peat from BOGS occasionally encounterbodies of people who were lost and drowned inbog lakes—or sacrificed in ancient times.Because of the preservative power of bog water,the bodies of these people are well preserved,although the tannic acid dyes their skin brown.Archaeologists have examined these bog bodiesto determine if they died accidentally or, as issometimes clear, were killed as part of a sacrifi-cial rite. Most sacrificed bodies come fromEuropean bogs, especially from Denmark, butthere are also finds in Celtic lands. Found in1984 at Lindow near Liverpool, the LINDOW

MAN was garroted or strangled after being fedpollen of the sacred plant MISTLETOE; his bodyhas been analyzed as evidence of HUMAN SACRI-FICE and of the THREEFOLD DEATH.

Source: Ross, Anne. “Lindow Man and the CelticTradition.” In Stead, I. M., J. B. Bourke, andDon Brothwell. The Lindow Man: The Body inthe Bog. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,1986, pp. 162–169.

bogan (buckawn, bòcan, bauchan) Scottish(occasionally Irish) folkloric figure. This SHAPE-SHIFTING night sprite was a trickster, occasion-ally helpful but usually malicious. Found fre-quently in the Highlands and less often inIreland, the bogan also appeared in America,having immigrated to the New World with thosehe served—or haunted. The MacDonald familyof Morar lived with a bogan named Coluinn gunCheann who was cheerful to the family buttended to murder visitors and leave their muti-lated bodies near the river. Finally he killed a

52 Bodhmall

man whose friend, a strong man named JohnMacleod, took revenge on the bogan, wrestlingit to the ground and threatening to drag it intothe dangerous daylight. But the bogan promisedthat, if freed, he would leave the land—and kepthis promise.

Sources: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, pp. 19, 79; Douglas, GeorgeScottish Fairy and Folk Tales. West Yorkshire: EPPublishing, 1977, pp. 143 ff.

bogie (bogle, bug, bug-a-boo) Scottish mytho-logical figure. A class of trickster figures foundin the Scottish Highlands, where March 29 wasBogle Day, as well as in England, where bogiescould go about in troops (see TROOPING FAIRIES)or alone (see SOLITARY FAIRIES). Bogies tended tosettle in trees, attics, lofts, and other high places.There are many categories of bogie, dependingupon attire and attitude; these included the help-ful BROWNIE, the tormenting boggart, and thedestructive NUCKELAVEE, as well as various gob-lins who appeared in devilish skeletal form.

boggart See BROWNIE.

Bolg See FIR BOLG.

Bolvinnus Continental Celtic god. Little isknown of this god from Gaul whom the Romansidentified with their warrior god MARS.

boobrie (tarbh boibhre) Scottish folkloric fig-ure. The SHAPE-SHIFTING specter of Highlandtradition sometimes appeared as a COW or as aWATER HORSE. Occasionally it was seen in theform of a huge insect with long tentacles, whichsucked horses’ blood. It haunted LAKES, cryinglike a strange bird; indeed, it commonly assumedthe form of a waterbird, but one vastly larger

than any duck or swan ever seen. Its footprint onland was said to be the size of a large deer’santlers. The boobrie preyed upon calves and lambsand thus was a danger to subsistence farmers;when cattle were not handy, he ate OTTERS.

Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabála Érenn)Literary text. Its Irish title, Lebor Gabála Érenn,literally means “the book of the takings ofIreland” or “the book of Irish conquests,” but itis usually translated as the Book of Invasions or theBook of Conquests. It was compiled in a dozen sep-arate manuscripts in approximately the 12thcentury, but portions date to much earlier; thepoetic text describes the six invasions of Irelandfrom the time of the biblical flood to the arrivalof the final settlers. Although the text is inter-rupted at times by recitations of biblical mate-rial, it is nonetheless an invaluable source forstudents of Celtic mythology.

First came CESAIR, granddaughter of Noah,escaping the flood in her own ark but not leavingmany descendants; then the Partholonians (seePARTHOLÓN), also from the east and descendantsof the GIANT MAGOG, who were destroyed byplague; and then the Nemedians, people from theCaspian Sea who followed their leader NEMED

and who fought the monstrous FOMORIANS.The Fomorians apparently never invaded

Ireland, although they appear over and over as thestory progresses, to be beaten back time and againby new arrivals; they seem to be always residenton the island rather than coming from elsewhere.The Fomorians drove out the Nemedians, whowere forced to return to their earlier lands, wherethey were enslaved for many centuries. Butfinally, under the new name of FIR BOLG, theNemedians returned to Ireland; nothing is men-tioned of the Fomorians at this point, suggestingthat either they left the Fir Bolg alone or the twogroups made an alliance. When the final immor-tal race arrived, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN or peo-ple of the goddess DANU, they defeated both theFir Bolg and the remnant Fomorians to becomethe rulers of Ireland for many centuries.

Book of Invasions 53

But even immortals have limits to theirterms, and so the Tuatha Dé Danann too wereforced to yield Ireland, this time to a mortalrace, the Sons of Míl or the MILESIANS. Thedescendants and followers of a Scythian manwho married a noble Irishwoman, they wonIreland from the Tuatha Dé—who did notdepart but disappeared under the ground, wherethey became the FAIRY people.

Having been composed after Christianization,the Book of Invasions attempts to bring Ireland’shistory into Judeo-Christian tradition, with suchobvious interpolations as Noah. But from thismélange of fact and myth, scholars construct con-nections with archaeologically proven migrationsto Ireland. Thus the text is a useful tool for dis-covering Ireland’s past, as well as a significantresource for study of Irish mythology.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936; MacAlister, R. A.Stewart. Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of theTaking of Ireland, Parts 1–4. Dublin: Irish TextsSociety, 1941; MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. LeborGabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland,Part 5. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1956.

borrowed days Mythic theme. The stormydays of late spring, when winter seems to havesuddenly come back to life, were until recentlycalled the Borrowed (or Borrowing) Days or theSkinning Days in the west of Ireland. Legendhad it that the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN, the cow ofabundance—also called the Old Brindled Cowor the Gray Cow—defied winter by claiming itcould not kill her, but winter stole several daysfrom spring and skinned the cow in retaliation.

Source: Danaher, Kevin. The Year in Ireland. Cork:Mercier Press, 1922, p. 85.

borrowing fire Scottish and Irish ritual. It wasvital, in ancient times, to keep the hearth firealight, for the making of a new fire was an ardu-

ous procedure. Only once each year, on BELTANE

Eve, was the fire allowed to die; the next day itwas relit from one of the festival blazes. Shouldthe fire die out at any other time, the householderwould likely have to relight it using a fire-drill, atool in which the whirling of a wooden stick in asmall hole in a wooden plank creates sufficientfriction for sparks to be born. Borrowing firefrom the neighbors was unlikely, as it was believedthat this gave the borrower power over the CAT-TLE—and thus, the wealth—of the lender.

Bors de Ganis Arthurian hero. Only threeknights of the ROUND TABLE were pure enoughof heart to gain the magical chalice called theGRAIL: PERCIVAL, GALAHAD, and the least-knownof the three, LANCELOT’s cousin Bors de Ganis.

Borvo (Bormanus, Bormo) Continental Celticgod. Among the Gauls, Borvo was the god ofhealing SPRINGS, a male version of the goddessknown in the singular as SUL, in the plural as theSULEVIAE. Depicted as a warrior seated beneath ahorned SERPENT, he was son of SIRONA and con-sort of DAMONA, also called Bormana. To theRomans, Borvo was identical with the healingAPOLLO. His name may mean “boiling,” anappropriate name for a god of hot springs.

Boudicca (Boudica, Boadicea) British hero-ine. This historical Celtic queen achieved almostmythic status with her war against the invadingRomans, which she launched shortly after thehorrific destruction of the important DRUID

sanctuary on the island of ANGLESEY. Her peo-ple, the Iceni of the southeastern part of Britain,had borne the earliest brunt of the Roman inva-sion. When her daughters were raped and herhusband killed, Boudicca rallied her people andtheir allies to wage a strong, if ultimately unsuc-cessful, campaign. Having seen the treatmentmeted out to captive queens, Boudicca took herown life when defeated, calling out to the wargoddess ANDRASTE as she died.

54 borrowed days

Braciaea Continental Celtic god. Thisobscure Gaulish god was equated by the Romanswith their warrior god MARS. His name mayderive from a Gaulish or Welsh word for “malt,”suggesting a connection between drunkennessand aggression and recalling traditions thatCeltic leaders gave their warriors alcoholic bev-erages before battle.

Bran Irish mythological beast. One of the pri-mary hunting hounds of FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,whose name means “crow,” Bran was born a DOG

because Fionn’s sister, UIRNE, was cursed by a jeal-ous rival and turned into a bitch. After whelpingBran and SCEOLAN, Uirne was restored to humanform, but her TWIN children (variously describedas daughters or sons), remained trapped in caninebodies. Yellow-footed and red-eared, Bran becameFionn’s favorite dog, so fast she could overtake fly-ing birds. Bran had one offspring, a black femalepup who was fed on milk. The woman who tendedher was instructed to feed her all the cow’s dailyoutput, but she secretly held back some for herself.The hungry pup attacked a flock of wild SWANS

and was killed when she could not be stopped.Bran met her own death because of such exu-

berant hunting. She had almost caught a fawn—the enchanted poet OISÍN—and was about toclose her jaws around him when Fionn openedhis legs wide. The fawn ran between, followedclosely by Bran, but Fionn snapped his legs shuton her, breaking her neck. Sadly, for he loved hishunting companion, Fionn buried her atCarnawaddy near Omeath in Co. Louth.

Source: Hyde, Douglas. Beside the Fire: A Collectionof Irish Gaelic Folk Stories. London: David Nutt,1890, pp. 15 ff.

Bran Meaning “crow” or “carrion eater,” thisname is common in heroic literature in severalCeltic lands, applied to figures including:

• Bran, the Breton hero who was reincarnatedas a CROW after dying in prison for his waragainst the Vikings.

• Bran Galed, a Welsh hero who owned anendlessly full drinking horn.

• Bran mac Febail, an Irish hero who in theImram Brain or Voyage of Bran, fell asleep afterhearing FAIRY MUSIC and, upon awakening, setout to find its source and the FAIRY LOVER whocame to him in dreams. He found her in theOTHERWORLD, an island in the western sea,where they lived happily for years that seemedbut moments in fairy time. When Branreturned to this world, his years caught upwith him, but he was able to speak the story ofhis adventures before he turned to dust.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 588; Gregory,Lady Augusta. Gods and Fighting Men: The Storyof the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna ofIreland. New York: Oxford University Press,1970, pp. 30 ff; Hyde, Douglas. Beside the Fire:A Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories. London:David Nutt, 1890, pp. 15 ff; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí.Myth, Legend and Romance: An Encyclopedia of theIrish Folk Tradition. New York: Prentice-HallPress, 1991, p. 50.

Brangien (Braignwen, Brangaine, Golwg)Arthurian heroine. In the great romance of TRIS-TAN and ISEULT, the maidservant Brangien acci-dentally gave a love-potion—designed to beshared by Iseult with her husband king MARK ontheir wedding night—to the heroine and herescort Tristan as they were traveling by sea toMark’s court. The two fell into fated love, and,to ease her mistress’s pain, Brangien took Iseult’splace in the bed of Mark on their wedding night.

Brân the Blessed (Bendigeidfran, BrânFendigeid, Bendigeid Fran, Bendigeit Vran, BrânLlyr) Welsh hero or god. One of the greatheroes of the Welsh epic cycle, the MABINOGION,Brân was the son of LLYR and brother of the fairBRANWEN. He was so huge that not a singlebuilding could house him, so he lived happily in

Brân the Blessed 55

the open air. When Branwen was lured away toIreland, where she was virtually imprisoned, Brânled an expedition to retrieve her, during which hesuffered a fatal wound from a poisoned spear.Dying, he instructed his warriors to cut off hisHEAD and carry it back to Wales. They did so,discovering along the way that Brân’s head(called Urdawl Ben, “the noble head”) was quiteentertaining, singing and telling stories for 87years before its burial, in an ongoing party calledthe Assembly of the Wondrous Head.

Brân is one of those hard-to-categorize fig-ures over which scholarly debate rages, somecontending that he is a literary figure while oth-ers find him an ancient god. Among those whocontend the latter, Brân is variously a Celtic seadeity or a pre-Celtic divinity merged with a latergod, a form of the British god BELATUCADROS, oran early version of the FISHER KING.

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion.New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp.67–84; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studiesin Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 119.

Branwen (Branwen ferch Llyr) Welsh hero-ine or goddess. In the second branch of theMABINOGION, Branwen (“white raven”) was thedaughter of LLYR and sister of the great heroBRÂN THE BLESSED. She was given in marriage toking MATHOLWCH of Ireland, but when her half-brother EFNISIEN insulted the Irish people bymutilating their horses, Branwen was put towork as a scullery maid in punishment. From herkitchen prison she trained a starling to carrymessages back to Wales, describing her plight.Her brother Brân led an expedition to rescueher, but he was killed in the attempt, andBranwen died of her sorrow and was buried,according to tradition, in the barrow called BeddBranwen. Branwen has many similarities to theWelsh goddess RHIANNON; both were exiled bymarriage and enslaved by their husbands’ peo-ple. The interpretation of this heroine as an

ancient goddess is strengthened by her connec-tion with a nipple-cairned mountain peak in theBerwyn range of Wales called Branwen’s Seat.

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp. 68–82.

Brastias Arthurian hero. Although he servedGORLOIS, duke of Cornwall, this knight helpedthe bewitched UTHER PENDRAGON enter the bed-room of IGRAINE, the duke’s wife. No one elserealized the treachery, for the great magicianMERLIN had altered Uther’s appearance so that heseemed to be Gorlois, home from battle to spenda night with his wife. Brastias, in league withMerlin, welcomed the disguised Uther, who con-ceived the future king ARTHUR with Igraine thatnight. When Arthur ascended the throne,Brastias became one of his strongest supporters.

Brâzil (Brazil) See HY-BRÂZIL.

Brega (Bregia) Irish mythological site. Thisgreat central plain, described in several ancienttexts, is believed to be the rich agriculturalregion that is now Co. Meath and parts of Co.Westmeath.

Bregon Irish hero. In the Irish mythologicalhistory, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, this man was anancestor of the MILESIANS, who were the finalconquerors of the island.

brehon Irish judge. A member of the class ofDRUIDS, the ancient Irish brehon (from the Irishbrithemain, “judge”) did not evaluate cases orenforce the law as today’s lawyers and judges do,for both were prerogatives of the king. Rather, thebrehons used precognitive skill and drew on thehistory and poetry they had memorized in theirmany years of training to guide their people.They were also bound by spiritual powers to bejust in their actions; the great judge Sencha was

56 Branwen

said to have broken out in blotches when he pro-nounced a biased judgment regarding women.Some brehons wore special garments or jewelrythat kept them just: MORANN wore a chain aroundhis neck that, if he attempted to speak a false judg-ment, tightened and choked him, while it grewloose and comfortable when he spoke truly.

There are many historically renowned womenbrehons, and women were not barred from druidictraining, yet many scholars contend that womenwere not permitted to function in this capacity.Many sources refer to the great Brig (or BRIGIT),an honored woman brehon; she healed Sencha’sblotched face by correcting his biased judgmentagainst women. Thus there is some evidence forwomen, perhaps the daughters of jurists, servingin this capacity, which some scholars have taken toindicate equity of opportunity between the sexes,while others argue that it was the exception ratherthan the norm. There is perhaps no other area ofCeltic studies that draws such controversy, forwhere the evidence is slight, even scholars projecttheir own desires and fears upon the past. Thequestion of women brehons is far from settled.

The brehon laws, developed in ancient timesand passed on through the oral tradition, werefirst codified in the fifth or sixth century. Thebrehons continued to practice until the 17thcentury; the Case of Tanistry in 1608 broughtIreland under British common law, on thegrounds that the brehon laws caused “barbarismand desolation.”

Bréifne (Breffni) Irish goddess or heroine.One of the most famous territories of Ireland isnamed for this obscure figure, who may havebeen the goddess of the region’s SOVEREIGNTY.According to the DINDSHENCHAS, the place-poetry of Ireland, Bréifne was a WARRIOR

WOMAN who died defending her land and itspeople from evil invaders.

Brenhines-y-Nef Welsh goddess. Ancientand obscure Welsh sky goddess and maternalforce, ancestral mother of humanity.

Brennius (Brennus) See BELENUS.

Bres (Breaseal) Irish god. There are severalfigures of this name in Irish mythology.

• Bres mac Elatha, the most important figureof this name. Originally named Eochu, he wasnicknamed Bres (“the beautiful one”) becauseof the fairness of his appearance, but theactions of this crossbreed son of the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN princess ÉRIU (or EITHNE) and theFOMORIAN king ELATHA did not match thesplendor of his countenance. As king of TARA,he was so stingy that he would not light a firein the great hall nor feed visitors anything butunbuttered crackers.

Bres even refused beer to a BARD. Thatpoet, CAIRBRE mac Éadoine, paid him back inkind, leveling a (literally) blistering SATIRE atthe king: “Without food upon a dish, withouta cow’s milk on which calves grow, without ahouse in the gloomy night, without story-tellers to entertain him, let this be Bres’sfuture.” Stung by the satire, Bres felt his facebreak out in boils. As a BLEMISHED KING

could not rule, Bres was driven from thethrone, whereupon he turned traitor andjoined the forces of his father, fighting againsthis former people but losing in the secondbattle of MAG TUIRED.

In some accounts Bres’s consort was thegoddess BRIGIT; their son, RUADÁN, was killedat Mag Tuired.

• Bres, a member of the Tuatha Dé Danannwho was killed in the first battle of MagTuired.

• Bres (Breseal), lord of HY-BRÂZIL, an ISLAND

of the OTHERWORLD that floats in the westernocean; whether he is the same as the half-Fomorian Bres is difficult to determine.

Breuse (Breuse sans Pitie) Arthurian hero.An evil knight whose nickname means “withoutpity,” Breuse was one of the great enemies ofking ARTHUR of CAMELOT.

Breuse 57

Brí Irish heroine. The mythologically impor-tant FAIRY MOUND of BRÍ LÉITH was named inpart for this obscure heroine, who was loved bya warrior named LIATH. Daughter of MIDIR andresident in his SÍDHE or palace, Brí went to visitLiath in TARA, where both were killed, althoughthe source is unclear as to how or why. Midir’sgreat palace was named after the lovers, whowere never united in the flesh but whose nameswere thereafter wedded.

Brian Irish god. This still-popular Irish namederives from an ancient god of the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, one of the tragic SONS OF TUIREANN.Son of the great goddess DANU and the other-wise obscure human hero TUIREANN, Brian wasone of three brothers who ambushed CIAN,father of the great hero LUGH and an enemy oftheir father. To avoid a confrontation, Cianmetamorphosed into a PIG, but not soonenough: Brian turned his brothers into DOGS

who set out after their prey and showed mercyonly by allowing Cian to turn back into a man ashe died. Lugh then demanded, as recompensefor the murder, that Brian and his brothers per-form eight impossible feats; they completedseven but failed at the last one and were killed byLugh and his companions.

The name was also borne by one of the mostfamous of Ireland’s high kings, Brian Boru(Bóroma), whose historical reality has becomeenshrouded with legend. Hailing from Clare,near the mouth of the Shannon, Brian was orig-inally ruler of a tiny kingdom, but taking onboth foreign and Irish foes, he rose to be highking. He ruled for many years and finally diedwhile mustering the Irish forces against theVikings at Clontarf.

Briccriu (Bricriu, Bricriu Nemhthenga, Bricriuof the Poisonous Tongue) Irish hero. The bitter-tongued poet of the ULSTER CYCLE appears mostnotably in the epic Briccriu’s Feast, in which he setgreat champions against each other for theCHAMPION’S PORTION, causing much bloodshed.

He acted similarly in the story of MAC DATHÓ’sPIG. The texts commemorate the power of Irishpoets, whose words were believed to have magi-cal powers over men. Briccriu is said to have beenkilled near the Ulster lake that bears his name,Loughbrickland, where he made a slightingremark about the sexual appetite of queen MEDB

and was brained by her lover FERGUS mac Róich.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 254, Gantz,Jeffrey. Early Irish Myths & Sagas. New York:Penguin, 1981, p. 219. Gregory, Lady Augusta.Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the TuathaDe Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1970, p. 67.

brídeóg Symbolic object. A puppet said to rep-resent St. Bridget, the Christian figure whoassumed many of the traits of the earlier Celticgoddess BRIGIT, the brídeóg was constructed oftwo long clusters of green rushes plaitedtogether to form a small square; the unplaitedrushes were then drawn together and bound toform the body of the doll, while a second clusterof rushes, bound near each end to suggest hands,was attached crosswise to the body, the wholething then being dressed in rags. Sometimes thefigure was formed of a broom or churn-dash,again dressed in rags and with a turnip for ahead. In Ireland until recent times, this effigywas carried on the eve of Brigit’s day—theancient Celtic feast of IMBOLC—from house tohouse by children demanding pennies “for poorBIDDY.” In many villages, only unmarried girlscould carry the brídeóg (which means “littleBrigit”), although in other places both boys andgirls participated in the procession.

Source: Danaher, Kevin. The Year in Ireland. Cork:Mercier Press, 1922, p. 24.

Brigantia Continental Celtic and British god-dess. The northern half of the island of Britain—

58 Brí

the northern six counties of today’s nation—wasoccupied in the early historical period by theBrigantes, a Brythonic Celtic people who wor-shiped this ancestral goddess, memorialized inthe names of the rivers Braint in Anglesey andBrent in Middlesex. Sculptures of and inscrip-tions to her from Roman times conflate her withVictoria, Roman goddess of victory, andCaelestis, a Syrian sky goddess. Her name (“highone”) may connect her to the Irish goddessBRIGIT; she has also been connected with theGaulish goddess BRIGINDO. In Ireland, Brigit isnot generally known as a RIVER goddess, but herconnection there to holy WELLS may indicatethat the Celts saw her as a divinity of water andthe fertility it brings.

Brigindo Celtic goddess. Obscure ContinentalCeltic protector goddess invoked to assure abun-dance of crops.

Brigit (Bride, Brigid, Brighid, Brid, Bridget,Briid) Irish goddess. There are two importantfigures of this name: Brigit the goddess, andBrigit of Kildare, an early Christian saint whodied ca. 525 C.E. Whether the latter is aChristianized version of the former is the subjectof some contention, although even the mostdevout admit the accretion of implausible leg-ends around a woman of dubious historicity.While there is all likelihood that a brilliantabbess who bore the name of a Celtic goddesslived in Kildare, it is not likely that she time-traveled back to Bethlehem to serve as midwifeat the birth of Jesus, nor that she pulled out hereyes to avoid marriage and then replaced themwith no damage to her sight, nor that she usedsunbeams to hang up her wet mantle.Accidentally made a bishop by a god-intoxicatedcleric, Brigit the saint has much of the powerand magic of the earlier goddess.

As goddess, Brigit is a rarity among the Celts:a divinity who appears in many sites. Her namehas numerous variants (Brig, Bride, Brixia,Brigindo). As Celtic divinities tended to be

intensely place-bound, the apparently pan-Celticnature of this figure is remarkable—sufficiently sothat some argue that the variants of the namerefer to the same figure. The Irish Brigit ruledtransformation of all sorts: through POETRY,through smithcraft, through HEALING. Associatedwith FIRE and CATTLE, she was the daughter of thegod of fertility, the DAGDA; as mother of RUADÁN,she invented KEENING when he was killed. Sometexts call Brigit a triple goddess or say that therewere THREE goddesses with the same name, whoruled smithcraft, healing, and poetry, respectively.This triplication, a frequent occurrence amongthe Celts, typically emphasized or intensified afigure’s divine power.

It is not clear whether the Brigit mentionedin the great compilation of ancient Irish lawcalled the SENCHAS MÓR as Brigh Ambui was thegoddess; parallel male figures in that section ofthe text such as CAI and NIALL are mythologicalor quasi-historical. From Brigh Ambui, “femaleauthor of the men of Ireland,” the renownedBREHON or judge Briathra Brighi got her name;the text implies that it was common for womenjudges to be called Brigit. The question ofwomen’s rights in the law and as lawyers isunsettled; however, Brigh Ambui is mentionedthird in the Senchas Mór’s list of important fig-ures in the lineage of Irish law.

Many scholars hypothesize an all-femalepriesthood of Brigit, even suggesting that menwere excluded from her sanctuary. She may havebeen seen as a bringer of civilization, rather likeother Indo-European hearth goddesses (Vesta,Hestia) who ruled the social contract from theirposition in the heart and hearth of each home. InIreland the mythological Brigit was not imag-ined to be virginal; indeed, she was the consortof one of the prominent early kings of Ireland,the unfortunate BRES mac Elatha, and bore hima son, Ruadán.

Brigit’s feast day was IMBOLC, February 1, stillcelebrated in Ireland today. Her special regionwas the southeast corner of Ireland, LEINSTER,also the historical home of the saint who bearsher name. St. Brigit is still honored in KILDARE,

Brigit 59

ancient seat of her abbey. Little can be verifiedabout her life, but legend has filled in theblanks. Brigit is said to have been born of aChristian slave mother and a pagan Celtic king,at dawn as her mother stood on the threshold oftheir home; miracles attended upon her birth,with light pouring from the child, who wasnamed by the DRUIDS of the court after the pan-Celtic goddess described above. When grown,she refused marriage, pulling her eyes fromtheir sockets to make herself so ugly no onewould have her; but then she healed herself andset out in search of a place for her convent.Tricking a local king out of land, she establishedone of ancient Ireland’s great religious centersat Kildare, whose name includes both kil-(church) and dar-(OAK, sacred to the druids),signifiers of two spiritual traditions of Ireland.There she was both abbess and bishop, for shewas made a priest when St. Mel, overcome withthe excitement of blessing the abbess, acciden-tally conferred holy orders on her.

The historian Giraldus Cambrensis reportedin 1184 that nuns had for five hundred yearskept an undying flame burning to St. Brigit, atradition that recalls the fire rituals of SUL andBATH and may have had a basis in Celtic religion.The miraculous flame, which never producedany ash, was doused not long after Giralduswrote, and the nuns dispersed; but in 1994, theBrigidine sisters returned to Kildare and relitBrigit’s flame. An annual gathering on Imbolcbrings pilgrims from around the world to see thefire returned to the ancient fire-temple, discov-ered on the grounds of the Protestant cathedralduring restoration in the 1980s. Vigils at theWELL dedicated to Brigit and other ceremonial,artistic, and social-justice events make up theremainder of the celebration of Lá Féile Bhride,the feast of Bridget, in Kildare today.

The Irish conflation of goddess and saintseems even stronger outside Kildare, where vari-ous traditions of greeting the rising spring atImbolc were sustained through the late years ofthe 20th century. February 1, ancient festival ofBrigit the goddess, continues even today to be

celebrated as the feast of Brigit the saint. Oldfolkways, some with clear pre-Christian roots,have died away in most lands, although onlywithin recent memory. However, some tradi-tions, like the BIDDY Boy processions in Co.Kerry and the crios bridghe (“Brigit girdle”) in Co.Galway, have been recently revived. Workshopsare now offered in many places in constructingthe four-armed rush Brigit cross and the rushpoppet called the BRÍDEÓG (little Brigit).Meanwhile, around the world, neopagans andChristians alike bring honor to Brigit in variousways, including on-line societies of Brigit.

Sources: Berger, Pamela. The Goddess Obscured:Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddessto Saint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985, p. 70;Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica: Hymnsand Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.: LindisfarnePress, 1992, pp. 81, 581; Condren, Mary. TheSerpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion and Powerin Ancient Ireland. San Francisco: Harper & Row,1989, pp. 47 ff; Danaher, Kevin. The Year inIreland. Cork: Mercier Press, 1922, pp. 13 ff;NightMare, M. Macha. “Bridey in Cyberspace”and Callan, Barbara. “In Search of the CriosBhride.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed. Irish Spirit:Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin: Wolf-hound Press, 2001; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. The Heroin Irish Folk History. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan,1985, pp. 16 ff.

Brí Léith Irish mythological site. A famousFAIRY MOUND in the center of Ireland, Brí Léithwas the palace of the greatest of fairy kings, MIDIR.Several mythic tales are set at Brí Léith, mostnotably that of ÉTAIN, the reborn heroine whowas Midir’s lover through several lifetimes. It issaid to have been named for an obscure heroinenamed BRÍ, which may be another name for Étain.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.Ltd., 1906, pp. 3, 299–301.

60 Brí Léith

Brisen Arthurian heroine. The friend ofELAINE—not the Lady of Shalott, but Elaine ofCorbenic—Brisen was a magician who found away to help her friend, who was infatuated withthe splendid knight LANCELOT. Knowing thatLancelot was in love with queen GUINEVERE,Brisen got him drunk and whispered that thequeen was waiting in a secret chamber. When hearrived there, Lancelot found a beautiful womanwith whom he spent a blissful night, awaking toBrisen’s trickery.

Britannia British goddess. There is some evi-dence that the ancient Celtic residents of theisland of Britain saw their land as a goddess ofSOVEREIGNTY, like ÉRIU of Ireland. This contro-versial view has detractors as well as supporters.A very early Roman coin (161 C.E.) from Britainshows a female figure mounted on a globe andbearing a shield and spear; she has been inter-preted as Britannia, a name also used of Englandduring its imperial period in the 18th and 19thcenturies. The name may derive from the tribalname Pritani.

Source: Ross, Anne, and Michael Cyprien. ATraveller’s Guide to Celtic Britain. Harrisburg,Pa.: Historical Times, 1985, p. 101.

Britovius Continental Celtic god. Little isknown about this god of the region near Nîmesin France, whom the Romans saw as similar totheir own warrior god MARS.

Brittany See GAUL.

Brixia (Bricta) Continental Celtic goddess.Known from only one site, the thermal SPRING

of Luxeuil in southern France, this goddess hasbeen linked to BRIGIT in her HEALING aspect.

Brocéliande (Broceliande) Arthurian site.This legendary forest in eastern Brittany is said

to have been the site where the great magicianMERLIN was imprisoned by his mistress, the fairbut ambitious VIVIANE, in an attempt to trick hismagical knowledge from him; legend claims thathe lives forever within a great tree there. Alsowithin the forest is a piercingly cold fountainthat brews storms at the behest of its ladyguardian (see OWEIN and BARENTON). As theCelts were known to believe in the sacredness ofTREES, this still-standing primeval forest nearRennes (now called the Forest of Paimpont) maybe Europe’s last remaining NEMETON.

brollachan See VOUGH.

Bron See FISHER KING.

Bronach Irish heroine or goddess. In the westof Ireland, a famous line of cliffs mark the edgeof the Co. Clare coast. The highest of them isCeann na Cailighe, “hag’s head,” named for thismythological HAG, also called the “hag of BlackHead” for another nearby rocky place. Someresearchers claim the CAILLEACH of the area isnot Bronach but MAL.

Bronwen Welsh goddess. Several writershave connected this obscure ancestral goddess ofWales with the later epic heroine BRANWEN, butothers warn against such conflation. Her name,which may mean “white-bosomed one,” is foundas the name of a mountain in north Wales.

brounger British mythological figure. ThisBritish spirit, said to haunt the island’s east coastand to levy a tax of fish upon fisherfolk, mayhave descended from a Celtic thunder god.

brownie Scottish and British folkloric figure.In naming the youngest branch of her GirlScouts, feminist Juliette Gordon Low recalledthe cheery, helpful household spirits of Scotlandand the English midlands. Usually seen as a

brownie 61

housebound and friendly member of the FAIRY

race, there is some evidence that the browniemay in fact be a late mythological developmentwith no roots in the Celtic or pre-Celtic world-view, arising from a kind of disguised ancestorworship in which the forebears are imagined ashanging about to help the living. But because ofthe brownie’s close connection to the fairies, thelittle household sprite may have such an exaltedpast as well. The specialized brownie called theGRUAGACH in the Hebrides indeed seems to havebeen divine at some point, for until recently milkofferings were poured over its sacred stones toconvince the gruagach to guard the herds.

Just as controversial as its origin is the matterof the brownie’s appearance. Most observersclaimed the brownie was a stout hairy man,while others said that although short, thebrownie was not necessarily rotund, and his hairwas fair and flowing. In either case, he usuallywore ragged brown clothes. Despite Low’sapplication of the term of little girls, the browniewas typically male.

The brownie specialized in doing barn work atnight: threshing, tidying, currying horses, and thelike. Outdoor work was not beyond his domain,for he would also help with sheepherding, mow-ing, and running errands. Obviously, a householdwith a brownie was a happy one; the brownie wasnot always invisible but could serve as a confi-dante and adviser if necessary. Sometimes thebrownie was offered a libation of milk, left in aspecial pitcher or bowl, but as with other residentaliens, it was important not to make a fuss over hisneeds. It was especially crucial never to notice hisraggedy clothing, for to offer him a suit of humanclothes would result in the offended brownie leav-ing to seek employment elsewhere.

Often found in Cornwall, the boggart was atrickster version of the brownie, who causeddestruction, tossing things about the house atwhim; any brownie could become a boggart ifmistreated by his family. Equivalent creatures inother Celtic areas include the BUCCA of Wales,the Highland BODACH, and the Manx fenodyree(see GLASTIG).

Sources: Briggs, Katherine. The Fairies in Traditionand Literature. London: Routledge & KeganPaul, 1967, pp. 28 ff; Keightley, Thomas. TheFairy Mythology. London: H. G. Bohn, 1870,pp. 307, 357 ff; MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. ThePeat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of theHighlands & Islands. Edinburgh: The MorayPress, 1937, pp. 44 ff.

Brú na Bóinne (Brug na Bóinne) Irishmythological site. Three great mounds of rockrise on the banks of the River Boyne, between thetowns of Slane and Drogheda in east centralIreland: KNOWTH, Dowth, and Newgrange. Thehuge tumuli are each built around an interiorpassageway of STANDING STONES, many carvedwith exuberant SPIRALS, sunbursts, and stars.Additional massive boulders hold in place thebase of the mounds, and standing stones circlethe central mound, Newgrange.

These sites were not built by the Celts, whocame into the land almost three millennia aftertheir construction by unknown people approxi-mately 5,000 years ago. The so-called MEGA-LITHIC CIVILIZATION also gave us the AVEBURY

and STONEHENGE sites much later than the Irishstructures. The engineering and astronomicalgenius of these people remains unsurpassed; thecentral mound, Newgrange, is carefully orientedto the winter SOLSTICE sunrise, incorporatingawareness of the change in the obliquity of theecliptic (the earth’s wobble), which was onlyrediscovered in the last century. In addition, thegreat buildings are constructed so that 6,000years of rain has fallen on them without pene-trating their interiors, for a system of guttersdraws the water away from the inner chambers.

Although the Celts did not build the mounds,they soon wove stories around the sites, whichthey may also have used for ritual or burials.Newgrange was the palace (Brú) of BÓAND, god-dess of the river beneath the mound. It wasBóand (sometimes called EITHNE) who first livedthere with ELCMAR (sometimes NECHTAN).When she decided to take the DAGDA as her

62 Brú na Bóinne

lover, she asked him to hold the sun steady in thesky for nine months, so that her pregnancy couldpass in what seemed to be a single day. This sub-terfuge worked, and AONGHUS óg was safelyborn. He later tricked his father into leaving theBrú so that he could make it his home.

The other two mounds on the site, Knowthand Dowth, do not figure so largely in Celticmyth, nor is much known about their astronom-ical orientation, although there are suggestionsthat they are oriented toward significantmoments in the solar and lunar years. Dowth,whose name means “darkness” or “darkening,” isslightly smaller than the other mounds; it con-tains two highly ornate inner chambers.Knowth, whose rock art is unsurpassed any-where in Europe, has recently been opened tothe public.

Sources: Cooney, Gabriel. Landscapes of NeolithicIreland. London: Routledge, 2000; Gwynn,Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas. Part II. Vol.IX. Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd., 1906,pp. 11–25; Moane, Geraldine. “A Womb Not aTomb: Goddess Symbols and Ancient Ireland.”Canadian Women’s Studies: Les cahiers de lafemme. Vol. 17, 1997, pp. 7–10; O’Sullivan,Muiris. Megalithic Art in Ireland. Dublin:Country House, 1993; Thomas, N. L. IrishSymbols of 3500 BC. Cork: Mercier Press, 1988.

Brunissen Continental Celtic heroine or god-dess. In Provence, France, we find tales of a FAIRY

QUEEN of this name, which means “the brownone” or “the brown queen”—tales whose motifsrecall such Celtic BIRD goddesses as RHIANNON.Bereft of her family and left an orphan in the mag-ical forest of BROCÉLIANDE, Brunissen wept con-stantly for seven years. Only the song of magicalbirds could ease her until a knight of the ROUND

TABLE, Giflet (or Jaufré), who had passed throughseveral tests as he traveled through the forest andwho had then fallen into an enchanted sleep, drewBrunissen’s attention away from her grief. Some

have called Brunissen a legendary form of the darkside of an ancient SUN goddess, the “black sun” ofthe OTHERWORLD.

Source: Markale, Jean. Women of the Celts.Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1986, pp.74–75, 111.

Bruno (Bruno le Noir, La Cote Male-Taile)Arthurian hero. The only rags-to-riches tale inthe Arthurian canon is that of Bruno, whoworked cleaning pots when he first came toCAMELOT but finally, after he married MALEDIS-ANT, rose to become a landowner and knight.

buada (buadha) Irish ritual. The king, inancient Ireland, was subjected after INAUGURA-TION to a series of mystic regulations. He wasforbidden to do some things (see GEIS), whilerequired to do others, called buada: eating certainfoods, behaving in certain ways. The king atTARA, for instance, had to eat the meat of theHARES of Naas, a food apparently taboo to others.Breaking these rules would result in the land’sceasing to bear food, which in turn would lead tothe king’s removal from office.

See also KINGSHIP.

Buan Irish heroine. When the hero MAC

DATHÓ was killed, his severed HEAD was broughthome to his wife Buan. She asked questions of it,and, like the famous head of BRÂN THE BLESSED,it spoke back to her, revealing the treachery thathad led to his death. Buan wept herself into hergrave, from which the magical HAZEL CollBuana grew; rods of such hazel bushes were usedas DIVINATION tools. Buan may descend from theearly goddess BÚANANN.

Búanann Irish heroine or goddess. Mentionedby the early Irish scholar Cormac as the motherof heroes, a common epithet for a goddess,Búanann is an obscure figure whom some haveconnected with deities of the land’s abundance.

Búanann 63

Her name is sometimes translated as “goodmother,” a phrase that may be impersonal ratherthan specific. Some texts contrast her with ANU,mother of the gods. Some stories from the FEN-IAN CYCLE name her as a WARRIOR WOMAN whotrained the great hero, FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

bucca (bwca, bucca-boo, pwca, bwci, coblyn,bwbach, bwciod) Welsh mythological being.This household sprite of Wales was very like aBROWNIE; he would work for food, but if ahouseholder failed to leave out a bowl of milk orother treat, mischief was likely to result.Similarly, it was important not to ask the buccaits name, for the question would cause it to leavethe farm in disgust. Some folklorists and story-tellers distinguish between the helpful buccagwidden and the evil bucca dhu. The name issometimes used as a generic term for FAIRY.

bug Celtic folkloric figure. Variations of this syllable are found in the names of many sprites,especially meddlesome ones, in Celtic countries:bug-a-boo, bugbear, bullbeggar, bogle, BOGIE,BOGAN, boggart, boogyman. As boge is a wordfound in other Indo-European languages meaning“god,” the frequency of this syllable’s appearancein the names of spirits in Celtic countries has beenused to support the argument that such creaturesare diminished deities, although other scholarsutterly reject this connection. Yet others have con-nected this word to BOG, often seen as a liminallocation or opening to the OTHERWORLD.

On the Isle of Man, a bug or bugganehaunted a church reputed to have been built inthe 12th century by St. Ninian, which was calledby a variant of his name, St. Trinian’s. Thechurch was never roofed, because every timeroofers ascended to do so, a coarse-haired appari-tion destroyed their work. A tailor attempted toundo the buggane’s magic by sewing the roof tothe rafters, but even he was chased away by thebuggane, who threw his own head at the tailor.The buggane was never seen after that, but theroofing project was also abandoned.

Sources: Killip, Margaret. The Folklore of the Isle ofMan. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1975, p.106; Ross, Anne. “Lindow Man and the CelticTradition.” In Stead, I. M., J. B. Bourke, andDon Brothwell. The Lindow Man: The Body inthe Bog. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,1986, pp. 162–169; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc. 1972, p. 87.

building to the west Mythic theme. In tra-ditional Celtic countries, it was ill-advised tobuild an addition to your house on the west side,for you might be inadvertently building on FAIRY

property. Places built on “gentle land” wherefairies lived would find themselves the site ofendless trouble. A youth building a cowhouse onone such place—to spite the old folks whowarned him against it—found his cattle mysteri-ously dying, and darts (see FAIRY DARTS) thrownat him while he slept in his bed. He took the roofoff the cowhouse to expose it to the elements,and all was well again.

Buitch (Fir as Mraane Obbee, or “man ofenchantment”; Fir as Fysseree, or “man ofknowledge”) Manx witch. The generic Manxword for WITCH probably derives from thatEnglish word, just as buitcheragh probably comesfrom “witchcraft.” The craft was considered gen-erally harmful among residents of the Isle ofMan, although some practitioners could use theirskills for good.

bull Symbolic animal. Found iconographicallyin Europe before the rise of the Celts, the bullmay derive from the pre-Celtic past. Both inimage and story, the bull was embraced by theCelts, who associated it with ferocity on theone hand and agricultural abundance on theother. Some Continental sanctuaries show evi-dence of bull sacrifices; entrances to shrineswere sometimes guarded by bull skulls. Animportant Continental god connected to the

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bull was ESUS, who also appeared as a woods-man cutting down trees in the presence ofbulls; some scholars have seen the tree and bullas parallel images of sacrifice.

The bull as emblem of strength and feroc-ity appears in significant Irish texts, mostimportantly in the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, wherethe great cattle raid on ULSTER is launchedbecause of the residence in that province of abull, DONN CUAILNGE (actually a transformedswineherd), the only equal on the island of thegreat white-horned bull of AILILL mac Máta,FINNBENNACH (also a transformed swineherd).The bull as emblem of abundance connects tothe general importance of CATTLE among theherd-owning Celtic people, as does the reiter-ation of the image of the food-beasts in thereincarnated swineherds.

See also BULL-SLEEP, WATER BULL.

Sources: Green, Miranda. The Gods of RomanBritain. Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd.,1983, p. 8; Green, Miranda. Symbol and Imagein Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge,1989, pp. 89, 149; Hull, Eleanor. The CuchullinSaga in Irish Literature. London: David Nutt,1898, pp. 111 ff; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religionof the Ancient Celts. London: Constable, 1911,p. 243.

bullaun Symbolic object. Round stones withholes in them, found at holy WELLS and othersacred sites in Ireland, bullauns have beendescribed as feminine symbols like the yonistones of India. They were held to have healingpower, especially helping women to conceive orto survive difficult pregnancies. Some bullaunswere large flat boulders with basins, either natu-ral or artificial, from which women would drinkwater ritually. Bullauns were also used as recep-tacles for libations or fluid offerings.

bull-sleep (bull feast, tarbhfleis) Irish andScottish ritual. One of the great DIVINATION

rituals of ancient Ireland was the tarbhfleis or

bull-sleep, used to determine who was therightful king of TARA. A poet, who had beentrained as a seer, gorged on the flesh of a just-killed BULL, then slept wrapped in its bloodyhide in an attempt to divine through dreamsthe identity of the next king. Should the poetfail, the punishment was death. Sometimes thepoet’s vision was cryptic, as when the kingCONAIRE appeared as a naked man surroundedby BIRDS, approaching Tara. At that momentConaire, whose mother was a bird, dreamedthat he should approach Tara naked, thus ful-filling the prophecy.

A similar ritual was known among theScottish Highlanders, who bound up a diviner inbulls’ hides and left him to dream of the future.The ritual was apparently long-lasting; a literarytourist in 1769 described a ritual of “horriblesolemnity” practiced in the Trotternish districtin which a man was sewn up in an oxhide andslept under a high waterfall to gain precogni-tive knowledge.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 249;Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands.London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 58.

burial rites See FUNERAL RITES.

butter Mythic object. Butter was connectedin folklore to FAIRIES and WITCHCRAFT. Irish andScottish rural life revolved around CATTLE,which provided food in the form of milk, butter,and cheese, as well as meat. Churning butterfrom cows’ milk was an important part ofwomen’s work in these lands: Milk was beatenuntil the butterfat congealed into a yellow mass.The leftover liquid, buttermilk, was consumedas a nourishing drink, while the butter itself wasshaped and stored until use. At any point in theproceedings, the process could fail and the but-ter be spoiled, leaving only a half-congealed,half-liquid mess. The most common complaintwas that, no matter how hard the woman

butter 65

churned, the butter did not “come” or thickenfrom the liquid milk. At such a time, it wasalleged that someone was “stealing” the butter,which was indeed forming within the churn butwas being spirited away. As fairies were thoughtto have a great hunger for butter, they were acommon culprit, but WITCHES were also blamed.

See BUTTERY SPIRITS.

buttery spirits British and Scottish mytho-logical beings. Fairies loved rich food, so this

was a generic name given to fairies who stoleaway butter.

See FAIRY FOOD.

Buxenus Continental Celtic god. This Gaulishdivinity, known only from a single inscription,was described by the occupying Romans as simi-lar to their warrior god MARS.

bwca See BUCCA.

66 buttery spirits

Cabyll-Ushtey Manx mythological creature.On the Isle of Man, this variety of the WATER

HORSE was a monster that stole cattle (and some-times people) from the safety of land anddrowned them in lakes or in the sea.

Cado Breton mythological figure. A sea godor sea monster of Brittany, he came to force thebeautiful pagan princess DAHUT to live with himforever beneath the ocean waves. In the ensuingtumult, Dahut’s magnificent city of YS wasdestroyed. Some versions of the tale call Dahut’scompanion the DEVIL. Cado also appears in thestory of the princess BLONDINE as a forgetfulsuitor who betrays his intended bride after free-ing her from her magician father’s captivity.

Cáel (Caol) Irish hero. One of the greatromances of Ireland is that of Cáel, a slender heroof the FIANNA who won the heart of the maidenCRÉD by reciting praise-poetry to her. She hadchallenged the BARDS of Ireland to create a poemabout her palace, into which no man had everstepped, with the prize being her own hand.Using the telepathic abilities that resulted fromhis poetic training, Cáel crafted the winningverse. But he was soon killed in battle, and Créd,overcome with grief, climbed into the grave to liebeside him one last time, then died there of grief.

caepion See LAKE.

Cáer (Cáer Ibormeith) Irish heroine or god-dess. A moving Irish romance tells of thiswoman, beloved of the sweet god of poetry,AONGHUS Óg. After dreaming repeatedly of awoman he had never met, Aonghus grew solovesick that he set out wandering through theworld, searching for his mysterious beloved.Finally, on the Lake of Dragon’s Mouths,Aonghus found Cáer, swimming in the form of aSWAN decked in 130 golden chains. Immediatelyhe, too, became a swan, and the two flew away,singing so sweetly that any who heard themelody slept soundly for three days and threenights. One of W. B. Yeats’s most famous poems,“The Song of Wandering Aengus,” is basedupon this tale.

Caer Arianrhod (Caer Aranrhod) Welshmythological site. The great mythic castle ofARIANRHOD, goddess or heroine of the MABINO-GION, was said to have been destroyed, like theBreton city of YS, by an inundation brought onby the sinfulness of its inhabitants; this is proba-bly a post-pagan belief reflecting a Christianjudgment on the wanton, free-spirited behaviorof the goddess, who was said to have had affairswith MERMEN. A rock off the coast of North

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Wales, nearly a mile out to sea, is said to be thewreckage of Arianrhod’s great castle, while othersources say it was moved to the heavens.

Caer Idris Welsh mythological site. At thetop of a mountain in Merionethshire, there is aformation of rock reputed to have magical pow-ers. Anyone who spent the night sitting in thestone chair would greet the dawn either insaneor inspired with poetry.

Caer Nefenhir Welsh mythological site. Themysterious “castle of high heaven” was an OTH-ERWORLD location that appears in severalancient texts, including the story of KULHWCH

AND OLWEN.

Caer Wydyr Welsh mythological site. The“glass fortress” was another Welsh term forANNWYN, the mythic and magical OTHERWORLD.

Cai Irish hero. The first BREHON or judge inIreland was the otherwise obscure Cai, a mem-ber of the race of MILESIANS. He had studied inEgypt, where he learned the law of Moses andarranged the marriage of Míl to SCOTA, daughterof the Pharaoh. When the great biblical floodoccurred, Cai fled with Moses, with whom heendured the desert sojourn, but finally he joinedhis own people in central Europe. From there hesailed for Ireland, serving as brehon to theinvaders. The Arthurian hero KAY is also calledby this name.

Cailitin (Calatin, Calatín) Irish hero. Therewere 28 parts to this DRUID warrior: one man andhis 27 identical sons, each of whom was missinghis left hand and right foot. After serving anapprenticeship in sorcery in Scotland, the multipleCailitin enlisted in the service of the great queenMEDB, who set him/them against the great heroCÚCHULAINN, who killed the entire Cailitin con-tingent. But the druid’s wife promptly gave birth

to two posthumous sets of horrific triplets, oneeach of daughters and sons; the former includedthe battle-crow BADB, whom Medb trained in wiz-ardry that ultimately was used to bring aboutCúchulainn’s death. The one-eyed daughters, inleague with Cúchulainn’s enemy LUGAIDH macCon Ró, brought about the hero’s death.

Cailleach (Callech, Caillech, Cailliach, CailleachBhéirre, Birrn, Béarra, Bhear, Beare, Birra inIreland; Sentainne Bérri on the Isle of Man,Caillagh ny Groamagh in Ulster, Cally Berry; inScotland, Cailleach Bheur, Cailliche, and Carlin).Scottish and Irish folkloric figure or goddess.This important figure probably descends from apre-Celtic divinity; she is not found among thecontinental Celts but is widespread in place-nameand legend in Ireland and Scotland. Her name,meaning “veiled one” or “hooded one,” is not ofCeltic origin but is still used in modern Irish andScots Gaelic as a name for an old woman or HAG.Her antiquity is suggested by the names born bythe largest mountains in those lands (Slieve naCailleach, Knockycallanan) and by legends thatshe created the landscape by dropping rocks fromher apron or throwing them angrily at an enemy;creation legends often are attached to the oldestdivinities of a land, and settlement in Ireland pre-ceded the Celts by some 7,000 years. TheCailleach was said to have formed the islands offMUNSTER, in Ireland’s southwest, by towing landaround with a straw rope, that broke, leaving theislands of Scariff and Deenish stranded in the sea.Another tale tells how she struck an escapingBULL with a rod as he swam away from her, turn-ing him into an island of rock.

The Cailleach was described as an ancientwoman with a blue-gray face and uncannily sharpeyesight, so sharp that she could see 20 miles asclearly as her hand before her—this despite hav-ing but a single eye. In spite of her advanced age,the Cailleach was said to have inordinatestrength, so much so that she could best thefastest reaper in the land in a one-on-one contest.Although she was described as unappealing and

68 Caer Idris

even fearsome, legend does not show her actingin a threatening fashion toward humans. To thecontrary, one of her primary activities was thebestowal of SOVEREIGNTY on the chosen king,who typically had to kiss or have intercourse withthe Cailleach in her hag form before she revealedherself as a splendid young woman—a motifoften interpreted as a poetic image of the landblossoming under the rule of a just king. Suchtales may derive from a pre-Celtic cosmic tale inwhich the winter sun’s daughter is born as an oldwoman and grows younger through the winter,ending as a lovely maid, which was adopted bythe arriving Celts and melded to their own mythof kingly INAUGURATION.

In Ireland the Cailleach was especially associ-ated with Munster, where she was called the Hagof Beare after a prominent peninsula there;sometimes she has the name of Beara, while atother times she is called Boí. Her divinity wasemphasized by triplication, with identical sisterssaid to live on the nearby Dingle and Iveraughpeninsulas. These areas were associated with theOTHERWORLD, in this case especially as a loca-tion of the CAULDRON of plenty, for theCailleach in that region was considered a god-dess of abundance, as her personal name Boí(COW, symbol of plenty) suggests.

The Cailleach was preeminently the goddessof harvest, whose name was given to the lastsheaf cut in each field; dressed in women’sclothes and honored during the harvest festivi-ties, the Cailleach sheaf was kept safe until thenext year’s harvest. The hag goddess was some-times said to appear as a HARE or other smallcreature; a shout went up from harvesters as theyapproached the end of a field to “drive theCailleach” into the next field. Some argue thatthis harvest Cailleach was a separate goddessfrom the Hag of Beare, although others see bothas aspects of a creative and protective goddess ofthe land.

In Scotland Carlin was the name given to thespirit of SAMHAIN, the end of the harvest; thesheaf representing her was exhibited in the hometo discourage Otherworldly visitors. The

Scottish Cailleach was, however, less connectedwith agriculture than with the wildwood, for shewas seen as a herder of DEER, whose milk shedrank. Probably because fine weather was soimportant during harvest time, the Cailleach wasseen as a weather spirit, sometimes called “theold gloomy woman” or envisioned as a cranewith sticks in her beak which forecast storms.Winter storms were sometimes greeted by thedescriptive phrase, “The Cailleach is tramplingthe blankets tonight.” She was the “sharp oldwife,” the Cailleach Bhuer, the latter word (“cut-ting”) probably referring to wintry winds; shewas also called the “daughter of the little sun,”presumably that of winter. Mumming dancesdrove her away in spring, when she was replacedby the figure of Bride, a maiden figure possiblyrelated to BRIGIT, who married a hero once thewinter-witch was frozen into stone; the day ofher defeat was March 29.

On the Isle of Man, the Caillagh nyGroamagh (“gloomy old woman”) was a WITCH

who, around IMBOLC, the beginning of spring,went out to gather twigs for her fire; if it was fineand bright, she gathered enough wood to extendthe winter, but if weather kept her indoors, sheran through her previously gathered woodpile,and spring came earlier.

A hag-like figure appears in many legendsfrom the insular Celtic lands; she was guardianof the wildwood and its animal life, an ARTEMIS-like figure who may ultimately derive from aseparate aged goddess conflated with theweather-witch Cailleach. This figure, called theHag of the Hair or the Hag of the Long Teeth,was said to punish hunters who killed pregnantanimals, choking them to death with her hair;she was often accompanied by a monstrous CAT.In a story told in Scotland, the Cailleachbefriended a hunter, permitting him to seewhich deer she struck in her herd and thusmarking it as prey.

The Cailleach appeared in Arthurian legendas the LOATHY LADY who begged a kiss of akingly contender. She appeared as a hag to PER-CIVAL, mocking him because he failed to answer

Cailleach 69

the questions of the mysterious FISHER KING andthus lost the sacred GRAIL that would havehealed the land. She also appeared under thename of RAGNELL in a famous Arthurian story, inwhich she assumed the alternative forms of hagand maiden.

One of the most famous Irish medievalpoems, written ca. 900 C.E., depicts the Cailleachas a woman mourning her beauty and forced totake the veil in her old age; apparently theChristian author understood the veiled woman asa nun rather than as the earlier crone goddess.However much the author of the “Lament of theHag of Beare” attempted to bring the Cailleachto heel, he could not entirely subdue her earliernature, for she slipped in a boast about renewingher virginity like the self-renewing Cailleach ofold. In addition to her appearances in Gaelic-lan-guage literatures, the Cailleach appeared asMilton’s “blew, meager hag” and as the foul “oldewyf” in Chaucer’s “The wife of Bath’s Tale.” The20th-century Irish poet Austin Clarke updatedthe Cailleach’s image in his poem. “The YoungWoman of Beare.”

See also GLEN LYON.

Sources: Hyde, Douglas. Beside the Fire: ACollection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories. London:David Nutt, 1890, pp. 161 ff; MacNeill, Máire.The Festival of Lughnasa, Parts I and II. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1982, pp.160–161, 412–413, 207–208; MacKenzie,Donald A. Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life:Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition. Glasgow:Blackie & Sons, Ltd., 1935, pp. 136–155;McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales. Vol.2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp.166, 379 ff; Paton, C. I. Manx Calendar Customs.Publications of the Folk-lore Society, reprinted.Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited,1968, p. 37; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditionsof British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 78; Straffon, Cheryl. The EarthGoddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, pp. 45–52, 179–180.

Caílte (Cailte, Caoilte) Irish hero. A nephewof FIONN MAC CUMHAILL and hunter for the fairGRÁINNE, this FIANNA hero was a poet whoentertained after the evening meal with recita-tions and song. He was also an athlete renownedfor his fleetness of foot. How fast was Caílte? Sofast that he could herd rabbits by racing aroundthem. So fast that he was able to pick up a fistfulof sand from every beach in Ireland every morn-ing, so that if any enemy had stepped upon theland, he could smell the intruder.

In several texts Caílte was described as run-ning the entire length and breadth of Ireland ina single day. In others, he raced with the HAG

goddess CAILLEACH at CRUACHAN, cutting offher head as he ran; in other stories about theCailleach, this motif of decapitation resulted in arebirth missing from this version, unless it canbe found in what appears to be a separate storyof Caílte racing with a young and beautifulwoman; because hag and maiden together com-prise the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY, it is possiblethat the two tales are mirror images or part ofthe same original.

Caílte was not fast enough to outrun change.In a famous passage in the COLLOQUY OF THE

ELDERS, Caílte argued pagan values against ST.PATRICK, who preached for Christianity, theworldview that eventually won out against thatof the Fianna.

Caíntigern Irish goddess or heroine. Thisminor figure in Irish mythology was the motherof the magical king MONGÁN, whose father wasthe Irish sea god, MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Cairbre (Carbry, Carpre, Cairpre, Corpre)This common male name was borne by severalIrish legendary heroes:

• Cairbre mac Éadaoine (Corpre mac Étaine),a poet who bore the matronymic or personalname of his mother the poet ÉTAN; his fatherwas OGMA, god of eloquence. Cairbreexpected to be treated with the hospitality due

70 Caílte

a BARD, but when he visited the royal resi-dence at TARA, he was shut into a stinking hutand fed nothing but stale bread. His SATIRE onthe stingy ruler BRES mac Elatha raised soreson the king’s face; as a BLEMISHED KING couldnot reign, Bres was forced to step down.Cairbre employed his magical poetic powernext in the second battle of MAG TUIRED,assisting the TUATHA DÉ DANANN toward vic-tory. When he died, his mother’s heart brokeand she died with him.

• Cairbre Cinn-Chait (Catcheann), a usurperwho ruled over the MILESIANS. His name,“CAT-head,” was given to him because he hadthe head of a feline. He seized the throne ofTARA by ambushing and killing the heirs. Butas the Irish land would not bear fruit under anunjust king, this Cairbre’s short reign was fol-lowed by the resumption of the kingship by itsrightful kings.

• Cairbre Lifechair (of the Coffey) This highking’s outrage at being taxed for his daughter’swedding led to his waging war upon the wan-dering heroes of the FIANNA, which in turn ledto the destruction of that legendary fightingforce—but at the cost of Cairbre’s life, at therenowned battle of GABHAIR.

• Cairbre Nia Fer, a king of TARA whoopposed CÚCHULAINN and was killed by him;he was renowned for his 12 handsomedaughters.

Sources: O hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend andRomance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish FolkTradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991,p. 70; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studiesin Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 100.

Cairenn Irish heroine. The consort ofEOCHAID Mugmedón and mother of NIALL ofthe Nine Hostages, Cairenn was said to havebeen a British princess who was captured andenslaved in Ireland despite her regal status; thusthe great king of TARA, ancestor of the O’Neill

family, would have been half-British. Eochaid’sfirst wife, MONGFHINN, was jealous of her hus-band, and thus Cairenn stole away from Tara’scourt to give birth near a sacred WELL. As withmany early Irish kings, Niall’s birth and later lifeare described in mythological terms.

cairn Mythological site. On the tops of moun-tains and at other significant places throughoutthe Celtic lands, mounds of rock are found, leftby the unknown pre-Celtic people of the MEGA-LITHIC CIVILIZATION. Some of these have interiorchambers, while others apparently do not. Manycairns were adapted by the Celts to their ownmythological uses and became sites of legendand, possibly, ritual as well (see COURT TOMBS).

cait sith Scottish mythological animal. In theScottish Highlands, this black spectral creatureof ambiguous species (probably feline) was solarge that it was sometimes mistaken for a BLACK

DOG. Although its name (“fairy CAT”) suggeststhat it was of the FAIRY race, it was also reportedto be a shape-shifting WITCH or her familiar.

cake (struan, strone) Symbolic object. At cer-tain feasts, cake (sometimes called bannock) wasserved, not only as a festive food but as part of aritual. In some sites, the cake was displayed to allin attendance, then won by the best dancer orathlete, who was then charged with breaking anddistributing the cake. One piece of the cake wassometimes blackened, and the person who drewthat piece was said to be “devoted,” a custom thatmay suggest an ancient rite of HUMAN SACRIFICE.

Sources: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 88, 624; Ross,Anne. “Lindow Man and the Celtic Tradition.”In Stead, I. M., J. B. Bourke, and DonBrothwell. The Lindow Man: The Body in the Bog.Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986,pp. 162–169.

cake 71

Caladbolg Irish mythological object. Thesword of the great warrior FERGUS mac Róichmay have been associated with king ARTHUR’smagical EXCALIBUR, for its name reflects theWelsh name for the latter. Caladbolg causedrainbows whenever Fergus used it, as when helopped off the tops of the midlands mountains,creating the flattened hills we see today.

calamity meat Irish folkloric motif. This termwas used of animals that died accidentally, fallingover a cliff or crushed by a boulder or in anotherunusual fashion. The bodies of such animals weresupposed to be buried whole, with not a bite takenof them nor a steak cut off their flanks, for theywere thought bewitched by the FAIRIES—or, evenworse, to be the disguised body of an aged deadfairy, left behind when the living animal was stolenAWAY. It was best as well to puncture the animal’shide with an IRON nail before burying it, to protectthe land in which it was buried from further fairyinfluence. Until recent times, rural people inScotland and Ireland refused to eat calamity meatfor fear of devouring a fairy cadaver.

Sources: MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-FireFlame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands& Islands. Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937,p. 3; O hEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends ofDonegal. Trans. by Máire MacNeill. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, p. 79.

Caledonia Celtic land. Now used poetically tomean Scotland, Caledonia was originally a tribalterritory in northern Britain. When the Romansoccupied the island, they encountered a peoplecalled the Cadedonii, who later united with otherCeltic tribes including the Lugi, Taezali,Decantae, and Smeretae to form the Caledonianconfederacy, which fiercely opposed Romanoccupation. The Caledonian language, still notcompletely understood, has been claimed as anancestor to or relative of Welsh. The ancienttribal name still hides in the name Dunkeld, the“fort of the Caledonians,” in Scotland.

calendar Cosmological concept. Unlike mostancient people, the Celts did not divide the sea-sons at SOLSTICES (the year’s longest and shortestdays) and EQUINOXES (when day and night areequal). Rather, they began and ended seasons atthe central points between the solar pivots. Thuswinter began on SAMHAIN, November 1, midwaybetween the autumnal equinox on September 21and the winter solstice on December 21.Similarly, spring began on IMBOLC, February 1;summer on BELTANE, May 1; and fall on LUGH-NASA, August 1. Some scholars have argued thatthis annual division was not Celtic but Irish, sincesuch a calendar is not found among the conti-nental Celts and since it more clearly reflects theseasonal cycle in Ireland than in France. Suchgreat stone monuments as STONEHENGE andNewgrange (see BRÚ NA BÓINNE) are pre-Celtic,designed to mark points of the solar year ratherthan the midpoints celebrated by the Celts;nonetheless the Celts adapted them to their ownuse and wove myth and legend around them.

The Celts saw darkness as preceding light,both in the diurnal and the annual cycle. Thus aday began at sundown; Samhain began on theevening of October 31, which we now callHallowe’en or the “hallowed evening.” SimilarlySamhain marked the beginning of the new yearand the end of the old. This precedence of nightover day has given rise alternatively to theoriesof a dualistic struggle between light and dark onthe one hand, and a matrifocal society that hon-ored women’s cycles on the other; neither inter-pretation has been proved or disproved.

A break in this pattern came in the organiza-tion of the lunar months, which began with thefull moon, perhaps because it was more readilyvisible than the dark new moon. The COLIGNY

Calendar of the continental Celtic people showsthe months as follows: Samonious (October/November), Dumannios (November/December),Ruaros (December/January), Anagantios(January/February), Ogronios (February/March),Cutios (March/April), Giamonios (April/May),Simivisonios (May/June), Equos (June/July),Elembiuos (July/August), Edrinios (August/

72 Caladbolg

September), and Cantlos (September/October).A 13th month, Mid Samonious, was added every30 months to adapt the lunar year to the longersolar year.

Source: Danaher, Kevin. “Irish Folk Tradition andthe Celtic Calendar.” In Robert O’Driscoll, ed.The Celtic Consciousness. New York: GeorgeBraziller, 1981, pp. 217–242.

Caliburn (Carliburnus, Caladfwlch, Caedvwlch)British mythological object. Alternative name forEXCALIBUR, the magical sword of ARTHUR.

Callanish (Callernish) Scottish mythologicalsite. This STONE CIRCLE on the isle of Lewis andHarris, part of the Outer Hebrides off Scotland,is widely renowned. Every 18 years, the fullmoon, as seen from Callanish, rises from the feetof a woman-shaped hill and travels across herbody until it sets behind her head. Celtic peoplesprobably converted such monuments, built bythe MEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION some 4,000 yearsprior to their arrival in the land, to their own rit-ual purposes. Local tradition has it that thestones of Callanish, like many other stone cir-cles, were originally GIANTS who were turned tostone, in this case for refusing the opportunity toconvert to Christianity.

Sources: Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of PrehistoricSites in Britain. London: David & Charles,1976, p. 28; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess:Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, p. 18.

Callirius British god. Equated by the Romanswith the woodland god SILVANUS, Callirius washonored at a temple near Colchester; he mayhave been the GENIUS LOCI of the region.

Camelot Welsh and British mythological site.Several places in England and Wales lay claim tohaving been the site of the legendary court ofKing ARTHUR, where noble knights gathered

around the ROUND TABLE to determine theirnext adventurous quest; a favorite contender isCadbury Camp in Somerset. The great palacewas said to have been erected overnight by themagician MERLIN. The name Camelot has cometo mean an ideal kingdom, despite the downfallof its heroic king Arthur. Camelot should be dis-tinguished from AVALON, the OTHERWORLD

realm of the LADY OF THE LAKE and other pow-erful beings; Camelot was entirely of this world,though affected by influences from beyond.

Camlan (Camlaun, Camlann) Welsh mytho-logical site. This unknown spot was said by earlywriters to be the site of the final battle of kingARTHUR’s reign, at which he was defeated by hisson/nephew MORDRED and from which he wastaken to the OTHERWORLD by the mysteriousLADY OF THE LAKE.

Camulos (Camulus) British god. Little is leftto identify the significance of this god whosename was incorporated in the important town ofCamulodunum, “fort of Camulos,” nowColchester. The invading Romans identifiedhim with their war god MARS. It has been theo-rized that he may be a parallel to the Irish ances-tral father CUMHALL, father of the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL.

canach (catkin, clòimh-chat) Scottish folkloricmotif. The fluffy white wool of the cattail, a reedthat grows in marshes, was once thought to beshape-shifted WITCHES, riding to their secretgatherings on the winds. The same was said tobe true of snowflakes, in which witches couldhide as they traveled. The fibers of catkins orcat-wool, which carry the seeds of such trees asthe birch and the poplar, could be twisted intolittle white cords that were reputed to keep awayWITCHCRAFT and other evil.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp.369, 370.

canach 73

Candlemas See IMBOLC.

Canola Irish heroine. The HARP, one of today’semblems of Ireland, was invented by this leg-endary woman. After arguing with a lover, Canolaleft his side to wander the night. At the seashore,she heard sweet music and, under its influence,fell asleep under the stars. Upon awakening, shediscovered that the music had been made bysinews, still attached to the rib-bones of a whale,through which the wind was singing. This discov-ery inspired her to build the first harp.

Cano mac Gartnáin Irish hero. This characteris closely parallel to CÁEL, for both were warriorBARDS beloved of CRÉD, the princess of CON-NACHT, daughter of the legendary king GUAIRE.Cano fled to Ireland after his father’s murder,and although Créd was already married to aking, she and Cano fell hopelessly and instantlyin love. Although he refused to consummatetheir affair until he had regained his kingdom,Cano gave his EXTERNAL SOUL to Créd in theform of a stone. Their attempt to meet for a trystwas thwarted by Créd’s stepson, child of herrejected husband, and in despair the queen killedherself—crushing Cano’s soul-stone in theprocess and thus killing him as well.

Caoimhe (Keeva, Keeva of the White Skin)Irish heroine. The daughter of the great heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, she does not figure sig-nificantly in legend, except as the wife of Fionn’sgreat enemy, GOLL MAC MORNA.

Caointeach (Caoineag) Scottish mythologi-cal being. Highland names (“wailer” and“weeper” respectively) for the BANSHEE, whocalled out when death was imminent. She sat bya waterfall and wailed before any death, butmade a particular commotion when disasterloomed; the Caointeach of the Macdonaldsmourned for days in advance of the horrific mas-sacre at Glencoe.

The Caointeach was sometimes seen to washthe clothing of the doomed at night, like theWASHER AT THE FORD. She was not an unfriendlyspirit, despite the woe her presence predicted,and she found human grief to be desperatelyaffecting, causing her to weep even more copi-ously. Like other FAIRIES, these beings were care-fully ignored; it was especially important not toreward them for doing their jobs, which causedthem to disappear leaving the family without adesignated death-warner.

The Welsh version of this creature was calledthe Cyhyreath; her cries were said to imitate thesighs and groans of the dying.

Caolainn Irish heroine or goddess. This nameis given to a female figure associated with a heal-ing WELL in Co. Roscommon, where Caolainnwas said to have healed herself of a self-inflictedwound. When a man spoke admiringly of herbeautiful eyes, Caolainn gouged them out andflung them at him, then groped her way to thewell, tore rushes from its perimeter, and wipedher bloody sockets, whereupon her eyes grewback. The same story was told of BRIGIT, theChristian saint, who was also associated withwells that offer HEALING for eye complaints.

Caoranach (Keeronagh, Caorthannach) Irishmythological being. This monstrous serpentlived in the waters of LOUGH DERG in Donegal,in Ireland’s northern province of ULSTER. Nearthe Christian pilgrimage site of Station Island, astone is still pointed out as the skeleton of thiscreature. Now called the Altar of Confession,the indented stone resembles a BULLAUN, anancient pitted stone whose use and significanceis unclear. The serpent Caoranach—like the skydemon CORRA (the DEVIL’S MOTHER), who mayhave been the same mythic creature—was killedby ST. PATRICK, who fought Caoranach for twonights and two days while both were submergedin the waters of her LAKE. Many legends say thatPatrick did not succeed in killing Caoranach,who is allegedly still alive in the lake and appears

74 Candlemas

during stormy weather. Like a WATER HORSE,she could suck men and cattle into her voraciousmouth; she was also a portent of doom, for any-one who saw a light inside her cave would diewithin the year.

Earlier legends link Caoranach to mytholog-ical heroes like FIONN MAC CUMHAILL and hisson, CONAN. When the shinbones of Fionn’smother were thrown into Lough Derg, theyimmediately came alive as Caoranach. The ser-pent swam instantly to shore and swallowedConan, but the hero fought his way out from herbelly, killing the serpent in the process. WhenConan emerged, he was both skinless and hair-less, thus earning the name Conan Muil, “baldConan.” The blood of the dying serpent stainedthe lake red, hence its name (“Dark Lake”). In aChristian version of this story, Patrick himselfwas swallowed by Caoranach, cutting his wayout with his crosier.

See also GARRAVOGUE.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 503.

captive fairies Irish mythological theme.Although not easy to do, it was possible toensnare some kinds of FAIRIES under certain cir-cumstances. LEPRECHAUNS could be captured bygrabbing the little fellows by their teeny shoul-ders; they employed all kinds of trickery toescape, and so rarely did their stash of hoardedGOLD pass into human hands. Fairy women whoswam about earthly LAKES disguised as SWANS

could be captured if one stole the swanskin robethat lay in the reeds by the side of the lake (seeSWAN-MAIDEN). The robe, however, had to bekept from the maiden’s sight thereafter, for nomatter how many children an apparently con-tented fairy wife might bear to her human hus-band, should she reclaim her swanskin she woulddisappear into the nearest lake. The same wastrue of SEAL-wives or SILKIES, whose skin robeshad to be similarly concealed; several famous

families of Ireland, including the Coneellys andthe Flahertys, are said to have descended fromsuch captured seal-wives.

captive in fairyland See FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

Caradawg (Carradoc, Caradog) Welsh hero.In the Welsh mythological texts called theMABINOGION, Caradawg appeared as the son ofthe heroic king BRÂN THE BLESSED. Although stilla youth, Caradawg was left behind as ruler ofWales when his father traveled to Ireland to wagewar against the king who was holding Caradawg’saunt BRANWEN in an abusive marriage. ButCaradawg was unable to hold his father’s throneagainst a usurper, CASWALLAWN, who killed allthe royal retainers but Caradawg; his failure toprotect the throne caused Caradawg to die ofheartbreak. Another Caradawg, who bears thename of Freichfras (“of the strong arm”) orBriefbras (“short-armed”), is named in literatureas an adviser to king ARTHUR.

Carlin Scottish heroine or goddess. InScotland, this was a name for the CAILLEACH as aharvest divinity.

Carman Irish goddess or heroine. This pow-erful figure in Irish legend was said to have beenone of the earliest rulers of Ireland, a mighty butdestructive sorceress whose three sons wereequally distressing: darkness (Dub), wickedness(Dothur), and violence (Dian). Together theymaliciously blighted Ireland’s corn until the peo-ple of the goddess DANU, the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, mustered sufficient magic to driveCarman’s sons from the land.

Carman herself was a greater challenge. Firstthe Tuatha Dé sent a BARD against her, but hefailed to stop her destructive energy; then asatirist came, but he too failed; finally the sor-ceress BÉ CHUILLE cast a spell sufficient to undoCarman’s. Upon hearing that her sons had beenkilled, Carman died of grief. Despite the enmity

Carman 75

between the Tuatha Dé and Carman, a great fes-tival was staged in her honor, called the ÓENACH

Carman, whose site has been variously locatedon the Curragh in Co. Kildare and on the plainsof the River Barrow in the same county, suggest-ing that she was a force to be propitiated. Similarfestivals were also staged in honor of the god-desses TAILTIU and TLACHTGA, suggesting anancient connection of such goddesses to the har-vest season.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Vol. III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 3–27; MacCulloch, J. A. TheReligion of the Ancient Celts. London: Constable,1911, p. 167; Raftery, Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland:The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thamesand Hudson, 1994, p. 82.

Carravogue See GARRAVOGUE.

Carrigogunnel See GRANA.

cart Continental Celtic symbol. In many partsof the continental Celtic world, archaeologistshave found models of a feminine figure—assumed to be a GODDESS—being borne on acart or wagon, some of them from the earliestCeltic era (ca. 800 B.C.E.). The bronze Strettwegcart shows this figure; the arguably Celtic orCeltic-inspired GUNDESTRUP CAULDRON showssmall men riding alongside a cart on which alarger female figure is carried.

There is little textual evidence of a ritualinvolving a cart, except the description by theRoman historian Tacitus of a Germanic rite inwhich a goddess was carried in an ox-drawnwagon around the land in the spring. A similarrite was known in Celtic Gaul, where the god-dess was called BERECYNTHIA, a name not other-wise known. In some areas, the annual con-veyance of the goddess through the greeningspring survived Christianization, for we have

early medieval records of the goddess riding hercart through the fields to protect the crops.

Source: Berger, Pamela. The Goddess Obscured:Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddessto Saint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985, p. 31.

Casan Buidhe (Yellow Legs, Weaver of theYellow Legs) Scottish folkloric figure. Thisfamous wizard preyed upon travelers as theyattempted to cross rivers. He shape-shifted intoa large STAG and terrified those in the middle ofthe ford so that they dropped their treasures torun for safety, or drowned in fright, whereuponhe helped himself to their wealth. Finally, aSMITH (always a magical being) confronted thewizard and destroyed him.

Source: McKay, John G. More West HighlandTales. Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological andFolklore Society. Edinburgh: Oliver andBoyd, 1969, p. 461.

casting a glamour See GLAMOUR.

Caswallawn (Casswallon, Caswallan, Caswallanfab Beli Mawr) Welsh hero. In the Welsh sto-ries compiled as the MABINOGION, this warriorwore a cloak of invisibility that gave him greatadvantage in battle. He used it to wage waragainst his own cousins, taking the throne ofBRÂN THE BLESSED from his son CARADAWG

while Brân was in Ireland fighting to free hishostage sister, BRANWEN. Caswallawn contendedwith the Roman emperor Julius Caesar for thelove of the fair FFLUR, possibly a form of thegoddess of SOVEREIGNTY whose approval per-mitted a man to rule.

cat Folkloric animal. In ancient Ireland, wildcats resembling the cougar or mountain lionranged the land; the pre-Celtic people of theMEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION may have honoredthem, if the burial of a cat at the great chamber

76 Carravogue

of FOURKNOCKS is evidence of a religious rite.Although the big cats have long since becomeextinct in all the ancient Celtic lands, they liveon in myth and legend, and the smaller Scottishwild cat is still found in the woods and moors ofnorthern Scotland.

Prowling the night with glowing eyes, show-ing extraordinary physical flexibility and agility,cats were believed to seek the companionship ofold women who practiced magic as WITCHES.On the Isle of Man, all cats were believedunlucky, while in Ireland only black ones were tobe avoided—unless their blood was needed forhealing rituals. In Scotland black cats werebelieved to be SHAPE-SHIFTING witches, a beliefthat may explain some common AmericanHallowe’en decorations. The contemporary fearof black cats, like their association with witchesand Hallowe’en, may be Celtic in origin,although some have traced the connection to theGreek goddess of witchcraft, Hecate, who wasalso associated with cats.

The connection of cats and witchcraftincludes fortune-telling rituals; DIVINATION bykilling cats was used in Scotland. Both witchesand cats were believed to have the power to con-trol or predict the weather. When a cat washedits face, rain was supposed to follow; if it walkedaway from the fire, a storm was brewing.Caution and even discomfort was the typicalreaction to cats, hence the common Irish greet-ing, “God bless all here except the cat.”

Several important mythological sites arenamed for cats, although there is little mythol-ogy left to explain the names. A cave in Ireland’sCo. Roscommon, believed to open into theOTHERWORLD, is called OWEYNAGAT, the Caveof the Cats. It is not known whether Oweynagatis the cave recorded as the site of a divination riteinvolving a spectral cat. In Scotland’s BlackWood of Chesthill in magical GLEN LYON, a tallmegalith called Clach Taghairm nan Cat, “thestone of the devil cat,” was said to be where catsgathered to celebrate Hallowe’en.

Cats are found in myth as well as folklore.Black cats, like BLACK DOGS, were often found at

Otherworldly sites and events. Cats appear in anumber of Celtic tales, usually in circumstancesthat suggest a connection to the Otherworld. Inthe Voyage of MAELDUIN, the hero came upon amagical island on which a majestic palace stood,all hung with gorgeous draperies. There a singlecat lived in splendor. When one of the hero’scompanions attempted to steal some of theisland’s treasures, the cat shape-shifted into anarrow and brought the thief down.

The most famous extant legend regardingsupernatural cats came from Ireland, where itwas said that the land’s chief BARD, SeanchánToirpéist, was disgusted once when mice walkedupon the banquet table and stuck their whiskersin the egg he was about to eat. This inspired himto compose a SATIRE in which he derided theIrish cats—including their high king—for failingto keep the island free of mice. Across the land,in his palace at the BRÚ NA BÓINNE, the king ofcats Irusan magically overheard the satire andswelled up to twice his normal size in fury at theinsult. He leapt across the land and grabbedthe poet, fully intending to eat him, but whenthe grappling pair reached the abbey ofClonmacnoise, where the saints Kieran andDunstan were doing some metalwork (seeSMITH), the plot was foiled. The saints threwmetal rods like javelins at the cat, which droppedthe terrified poet and disappeared.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, pp.6, 31 ff; Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions ofthe Irish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969,pp. 14–15.

Cathaír Mór (Cathaoir Mór) Irish hero.Before the great CONN of the Hundred Battlesbecame king of TARA, this king—whose namemeans “great battle-lord”—reigned over theland. Although little was recorded of the kinghimself except his replacement by and death atthe hands of Conn, Cáthaír was the father of

Cathaír Mór 77

several significant women: EITHNE Tháebfhota,wife of the hero and king CORMAC MAC AIRT andmother of his son CAIRBRE Lifechair; andCOCHRANN, mother of the romantic hero DIAR-MAIT Ua Duibne. One text describes a dream ofCathaír’s, in which a woman was pregnant anunduly long time, finally giving birth to a sonnear a fragrant, singing fruit tree. His DRUID

explained to Cathaír that the lady was the RiverSlaney that ran near Tara, her child the harbor atits mouth, and the singing tree the king himself.

Cathbad (Cathbhadh) Irish hero. A powerfulDRUID of the court of king CONCOBAR MAC

NESSA, Cathbad was an important figure in theULSTER CYCLE. Lusting after the studiousmaiden Assa (“gentle”), Cathbad had her tutorskilled to gain access to her; this violent destruc-tion of her peaceful life turned the girl into awarrior who went by the name of NESSA

(“ungentle”). Cathbad was undeterred, however,by his intended victim’s fierce strength.Surprising Nessa at her bath—the only time shewas without her weapons—he raped her andthereafter kept her hostage as his concubine.

But Nessa outwitted Cathbad. Skilled inreading omens, she realized that a WORM thatshe found floating in a glass of wine wouldimpregnate her with a hero, whereupon sheswallowed it, conceiving the king CONCOBAR

MAC NESSA. Cathbad later became the teacher ofConcobar’s hero, CÚCHULAINN, and father of theheroine FINDCHÓEM, who employed the samemethod of insemination as had Nessa. Cathbadmade an appearance in the romantic tale ofDEIRDRE, before whose birth he predicted shewould bring sorrow to Ulster.

Cathleen ni Houlihan (Caitlín Ní hUallacháin)Irish goddess. This name for the SOVEREIGNTY

goddess was made popular by W. B. Yeats in hisplay of the same title, in which the resplendentactress and activist Maud Gonne appeared asCathleen, a poor old woman who turned into aqueen, echoing the tales of the CAILLEACH.

Cath Paluc Welsh mythological figure.“Paluc’s Cat” was a Welsh monster in felineform who ate 180 men at every meal. The pres-ence of such figures in Celtic mythology has ledsome to argue for an ancient cult of the CAT, ofwhich Cath Paluc is believed to be a vestige.

Cathubodua (Cauth Bova, Badb Catha) Con-tinental Celtic goddess. Gaulish goddess whosename means “Battle Raven.” See BADB.

Cat Sith Scottish folkloric figure. In theHighlands, this huge dark creature was believedto be either a FAIRY or a WITCH in disguise.

cattle Symbolic animal. Cattle were an impor-tant economic resource to the Celts, who werepredominantly a herding people. Thus cattle notonly represented wealth symbolically but definedit in fact. In consequence, many Celtic divinities,rituals, and myths were connected with cattle.The white COW goddess BÓ FIND represented theabundance of stable, healthy herds, while theMÓRRÍGAN was the OTHERWORLD aspect of cattle,driving her herds through the narrow opening ofthe cave at OWEYNAGAT and away from the sur-face world. DIVINATION was performed by sleep-ing in the hide of a recently slaughtered BULL

(see BULL-SLEEP); cattle were driven between sig-nal fires on BELTANE, the beginning of the sum-mer grazing season, to magically assure theirhealth and well-being.

See also BUTTER.

cattle raid Irish ritual and mythological text.Stealing CATTLE from neighboring kingdomsrepresented an ongoing and dangerous sport foryoung men, who gained acclaim and powerthrough their prowess in the cattle raid. Becausecattle represented wealth and power, there mayhave been a ritual aspect to these cattle raids;certainly they appear in numerous myths.

The cattle raid (Táin) was also an Irish liter-ary form, the most famous of which described

78 Cathbad

the epic raid by CONNACHT’s queen MEDB

against the PROVINCE of ULSTER, in order tosteal a great BULL who could match her hus-band’s legendary white bull FINNBENNACH; thestory is told in the epic TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.Another famous cattle raid involved FRÁECH,husband of Medb’s daughter FINNABAIR.

Caturix Continental Celtic god. Inscriptionsto this obscure god, whose name seems to mean“king of battle,” have been found in centralEuropean regions; the occupying Romans iden-tified Caturix with their warrior god MARS.

caul Folkloric motif. Infants are sometimesborn with a veil of skin, called a caul, over theirfaces. In most cultures, this was believed to set thechild apart from others in some way; such was thecase in Celtic lands, where the caul typically sig-nified access to OTHERWORLD knowledge. On theseagirt Isle of Man, children born with a caul werebelieved to be blessed, as they could never drown;they grew up to become sought-after fishingmates. The caul was usually preserved and wornor carried as a charm against the sea’s fury. InIreland the caul was called the “cap of happiness”and was preserved as a good-luck charm.

Cauld Lad British folkloric figure. This formof the BROWNIE was occasionally found inBritain, where he shivered nakedly but helpedaround the house until the householder, worriedabout his condition, gave him a cloak, thus LAY-ING THE FAIRY and causing his disappearance.

cauldron Celtic symbolic object. The caul-dron was both a domestic object, used in thehome for brewing and stewing, and a sacred one,the secret place where new life was brewed andstewed. As such, it was a symbol of great powerto the Celts. The Roman author Strabodescribed a sacramental cauldron sent by theCimbri to Caesar Augustus; Strabo claimed thatthe Celts ritually cut the throats of prisoners

over such cauldrons. A ritual of that sort mayhave been the reason for the creation of theGUNDESTRUP CAULDRON. This great silver ves-sel was found in Denmark, not commonly con-sidered Celtic territory, but the mythic figureson the cauldron (including CERNUNNOS and anunidentified gigantic goddess), as well as inter-lacing abstract decorations, mark it as a likelyCeltic product. Other, smaller cauldrons havebeen found deposited in BOGS and LAKES, appar-ently as offerings to the OTHERWORLD powers.

The cauldron’s basic meaning was fullnessand abundance; Ireland’s “good god,” called theDAGDA, had a cauldron forever filled with goodthings, while the Welsh goddess CERIDWEN usedhers for cooking up a broth that endoweddrinkers with unfathomable wisdom (see TAL-IESIN). Yet even abundance and plenty could bemismanaged. In the Welsh MABINOGION, we finda cauldron of rebirth—Irish in origin—whereinsoldiers’ bodies were thrown so that they mightcome back, alive yet soulless, to fight again.

cave Symbolic site. Openings to the OTHER-WORLD held a special place in the Celtic imagina-tion. These were to be found in such liminalzones as BOGS and swamps; in land surrounded bywater, such as seagirt ISLANDS; and in places thatjoin different levels of the world, such as caves andMOUNTAINS. The parallelism of cave and moun-tain was reinforced when raths or HILLFORTS werebuilt near natural caves. In Ireland the mostmythologically significant cave was OWEYNAGAT,the Cave of the Cats, a natural undergroundgallery beneath MEDB’s rath at CRUACHAN in Co.Roscommon. Down its tiny entry, the great queenMÓRRÍGAN drove her Otherworldly cattle; withinit, the great CAULDRON of abundance, once keptat Tara but later returned to the Otherworld, wasstored. The cave, like other passages to theOtherworld, was considered especially powerfulon SAMHAIN, when spirits rushed around it. Manyof the epics set at Cruachan begin on Samhain,including the Adventure of NERA and the famousTÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

cave 79

Ceasg Scottish mythological being. Sea cap-tains were often born from the mating of thisHighland MERMAID—half woman, half SALMON—who was also known as the maighdean na tuinne or“maiden of the wave.” Like other capturedFAIRIES, she was said to grant wishes to her captor.But like any other seagoing siren, she was alsocapable of capturing humans, who usually losttheir lives upon entering her watery domain.

Ceibhfhionn (Cabfin) Irish goddess. ThisIrish goddess of inspiration stood beside theWELL of wisdom, filling a vessel with its water,which she then spilled on the ground rather thanletting humans drink it. She may be a humanform of the magical FISH that lived within thepool, an elusive being that kept wisdom for itselfby eating the nuts that fell from enchantedHAZEL trees into the well’s water.

Ceisnoidhe Uladh See DEBILITY OF THE

ULSTERMEN.

Celidon (Cellydon) Arthurian site. Like thelegendary forest BROCÉLIANDE in Brittany, thedense woods of Celidon in Britain appear in sev-eral legends, although their actual location is notknown. An important battle that led to a victoryfor king ARTHUR’s knights took place at Celidon;the magician MERLIN wandered there during hisperiod of madness.

Cellach Irish hero. Rapist son of the goodking CORMAC MAC AIRT, he played little role inmyth except to cause the end of his father’sreign; when Cormac fought the vengeful fatherof Cellach’s victim, his eye was put out, thusforcing him to step down from the throne ofTARA because a BLEMISHED KING could not reign.

Celtchair Irish hero. The laws of HOSPITALITY

were taken very seriously by the Celts, and whenthe warrior Celtchair offended against this tradi-

tion by spilling blood on the FIDCHELL board onwhich his king, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, was con-tending with the hero CÚCHULAINN, Celtchair wasforced to take on three impossible tasks to repairthe damage to his reputation. He managed two ofthem, but then was killed when a spectral DOG,scourge of the land, splattered its blood upon himas he killed it. The poisonous blood endedCeltchair’s life, but he died with his honor intact.

Celtic pantheon Celtic religion was funda-mentally pantheistic, based on a belief in manyrather than one god. Fiercely tribal and extraor-dinarily local, the Celtic religious world was alsoradically different from the structured, hierarchi-cal mythologies of Greece and Rome. Few CelticGODS or GODDESSES are known from more thanone carved inscription or a single mention in atext; the majority appear to have been divinitiesof a small region, a tiny unit of population, orboth (see TUATH). This extreme polytheism gaverise to the oath used by Celts in Roman times, “Iswear by the gods my people swear by.” Anyvision of an organized Celtic pantheon, with onedivinity at the top and descending ranks beneath,cannot be supported by literature or archaeology.

The invading Romans dealt with the over-whelming number of Celtic divinities by inter-preting them all as versions of Roman gods; thuswe have dozens of titles for MERCURY or MIN-ERVA. But how closely Celtic deities actually cor-responded to Roman ones is impossible to know.The APOLLO of one place may have been a heal-ing god, while the Apollo of another placedownriver was a divinity of song and magic.Thus Roman renaming of regional divinitiesboth preserved them in vestigial form andcloaked their true identities.

Source: Brunaux, Jean Louis. The Celtic Gauls:Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries. London: Seaby,1988, pp. 68–70.

Celtic religion The differences between reli-gion, mysticism, superstition, ritual, and myth

80 Ceasg

have been carefully articulated by scholars, butthere is often unacknowledged bias in the use ofone or the other word to describe the practicesand beliefs of people in Celtic lands. Religion istechnically the practice of ritual based in asocially supported sequence of narratives; mysti-cism is a personal engagement with nature thatresults in a feeling of timeless unity; superstitionis a baseless belief or ritualized behavior thatoften represents a degraded form of an earlierreligion. Mythology and ritual are connected,the first being a narrative or narrative sequence,the second being actions or behaviors that evokeor reflect that myth.

Certain problems arise in defining anddescribing Celtic religion. The Celtic peoplesdid not employ writing, believing that religioussecrets were better shared orally. Thus there islittle textual evidence for what the Celtsbelieved; what we have was written down afterliteracy arrived, along with Christianity, inCeltic lands. We also have some texts written bythose who were at war with the Celts, includingthe Roman general (later emperor) Caesar andthe army geographer Tacitus; whether theyaccurately recorded what their enemies believedis unclear, even doubtful. Thus the mythic basisof Celtic ritual may not be accurately known.

The same is true of Celtic ritual. The DRUIDS

left no prayer books or other evidence of howthey enlivened mythological narrative throughritual. We have only descriptions of Celtic ritualswritten by foreigners and enemies. Even whenaccuracy was their goal—and propaganda-conscious leaders writing to convince an audienceto continue a war may have not made accuracy aprime intention—a writer might misapprehendthe meaning of ritual, making a false analogy to a known ritual or failing to see references that the typical member of Celtic society wouldimmediately recognize.

Besides written texts, Celtic religion can bestudied through analysis of objects found byarchaeologists. Here too, however, we face diffi-culties of interpretation. Whether an object wasintended for ritual, was merely decorative, or was

made for nonreligious use is not necessarily clearfrom examining it. Similarly, its connection tomythological narrative may not be known, eitherbecause the myth has been altered in transmis-sion or because it has been completely lost. Inaddition, Celtic artists began to follow classicalmodels after the Romanization of Celtic lands, soit becomes extremely difficult to tease out thesolely Celtic part of Romano-Celtic finds.

Despite these difficulties, some aspects ofCeltic religion are generally accepted. It waspolytheistic, meaning that there were many gods(see POLYTHEISM). There were, in fact, so manygods and goddesses that some seem only to havebeen known in a very small area or among asmall group. In addition, the Celts left no grandTEMPLES, leading scholars to picture a ritual lifecelebrated in NATURE. Together, these two factslead to a description of Celtic religion as basedin the natural aspects of the land, which variedgreatly from place to place and therefore mayhave been quite differently celebrated.

Celtic revival Contemporary movement. Inthe last quarter-century, many people have beendrawn to Celtic spirituality and mythology, seek-ing a spiritual vision rooted in heritage thatmeets contemporary needs. Ecological concernsdraw those who find in the Celts a pre-capitalis-tic view of land that supports a post-capitalistutopian vision; to such seekers, the Celtic viewof NATURE as permeated with spiritual meaningis significant and satisfying. Others cast a wom-anist or feminist eye on Celtic literature inwhich strong, active women play a major role.Still others are drawn by personal heritage andthe search for deep roots in an imagined paganpast. Many of these people simply read booksabout Celtic matters and listen to spirituallyinspired Celtic music; others take self-describedpilgrimages to Celtic lands, while yet othersform groups that practice rites allegedly derivedfrom Celtic sources. Such seekers may callthemselves DRUIDS, pagans (see PAGANISM), NEO-PAGANS, wiccans (see WICCA), or WITCHES.

Celtic revival 81

Such attempts are not new; the British orderof Druids, established almost a hundred yearsago, grew from an earlier revival of interest inpersonal applications of real or imagined Celticlore, while the great burst of Irish creativitycalled the CELTIC TWILIGHT was both ritual andartistic. Celtic revivalism has grown impressivelyin recent years, leading some scholars to objectto—even to deride—its varied movements.From a scholarly point of view, many partici-pants are indeed deficient; they do not read theoriginal languages or even, in some cases, seekout competent translations of significant texts.Some of the material they believe traditional isof relatively recent origin; some of their ritualsderive from Masonic rather than Celtic sources;some of their hopeful social attitudes are not yetsupported by archaeology. Yet Celtic revivalismseems unlikely to wane in the near future.Should scholars become less resistant to thespiritual quest, they could find a ready audiencefor their work among practitioners, who in turncould root their reinvented religious practicesmore firmly in history.

Source: Carr-Gomm, Philip. The DruidRenaissance. London: Thorsons, 1996.

Celtic shamanism Although found through-out the world, shamanism is often described as anarctic religion; the word shaman derives from theTungus language of southern Siberia. Somescholars argue that aspects of Celtic religion sug-gest a connection with shamanic traditions, whichmay or may not mean a historical connection withthe peoples of the arctic. Primary links betweenCeltic religion and shamanism are the role of thepoet as SHAPE-SHIFTING seer (see BARD) and thevision of another world separate but linked toours (see OTHERWORLD). According to this inter-pretation, the poet’s ability to become “a wave ofthe sea, a tear of the sun”—as the famous “Songof AMAIRGIN” has it—is similar to the transforma-tion of a shaman into a BEAR or other animal whilein a trance induced by drumming and dancing;

similarly, the role of the poet in maintaining socialbalance through SATIRE can be seen as similar tothe healing function of the traditional arcticshaman. Further, the Celtic Otherworld has beencompared to the Dreamtime of the Australianaboriginals, a culture defined as shamanic.

Other aspects of traditional shamanism arearguably absent from Celtic life; it is not known,for instance, whether ingestion of psychotropicplants was known among the Celts, althoughthere is strong evidence of alcohol use for thatpurpose (see ALE). Similarly, there is no indica-tion of a Celtic version of the so-called arctichysteria, a mental disorder that usually precedesshamanic initiation. Yet such acknowledgedshamanic practitioners as the Okinawan nuruand the south Korean mudang are trained formany years and rarely suffer mental collapse, sothe lack of “arctic hysteria” among the Celtsdoes not in itself mean their religious culturecannot be called shamanic. The lack of scholarlyagreement on this topic has not inhibitedgroups and individuals from promoting them-selves or their organization as representatives ofCeltic shamanism.

Some scholars object to the construction ofCeltic religion as shamanic, arguing that theword is properly used to describe Asian religionsand that there is little evidence of religious influ-ence from that area on the Celts. Some academ-ics evince discomfort with any reconstruction ofhistorical religion, and, indeed, the more egre-giously commercial versions of Celtic shaman-ism have little theoretical or spiritual basis.Serious scholars disagree, in some cases pro-foundly, on whether to consider Celtic religionas shamanic.

Sources: Cowan, Tom. Fire in the Head: Shamanismand the Celtic Spirit. San Francisco:HarperSanFrancisco, 1993; Lonigan, Paul,“Shamanism in the Old Irish Tradition.” Eire-Ireland, Fall 1985, pp. 109–129; Matthews,John, and Caitlín Matthews. Encyclopedia ofCeltic Wisdom: A Celtic Shaman Sourcebook.Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1994.

82 Celtic shamanism

Celtic Twilight artistic movement Thisterm describes an early 20th-century Irishmovement, predominantly literary but alsoinvolving artists, politicians, and other visionar-ies who saw themselves living in a long dimevening after a glorious ancient “day” of Celticheroism and romance. Such poets as WilliamButler Yeats, inspired by such ideas, wrotepoems using the personae of ancient divinities ortelling their myths; dramatists like Lady AugustaGregory set their works in a (sometimes tooimaginatively) reconstructed Celtic Ireland.

Some of the artworks of the period seem self-conscious, even contrived, especially when com-pared to early modernist art produced at thesame time. Yet the ideals of the Celtic Twilightresulted in the recording of a significant amountof folklore and oral literature that might other-wise have been lost. In addition, part of themovement was the attention to the then-dyingIrish language; Celtic Twilight ideals were inpart responsible for the promotion of Irish as thenational language of the new Republic and theinsistence on teaching Irish in the new nation’sschools, which led to the maintenance of the lan-guage during a critical time.

Center See MÍDE.

ceó druídecta See DRUID’S FOG.

Cera Irish god. A name given to the DAGDA,perhaps signifying “creator,” occasionally usedin texts or place-names.

Cerbnat Irish heroine. This obscure figure isnamed in the BOOK OF INVASIONS as one of theFIVE wives of the hero PARTHOLÓN, the othersbeing Aifi, Elgnad or DEALGNAID, Cichban, andNerbgen. She is otherwise unknown.

ceremony Celtic ritual. Consistent with thedecentralization of Celtic religion, there seem to

have been no ceremonies shared by all Celts.Even the major holidays (see CALENDAR) con-ventionally associated with the Celtic year mayhave been only Irish; thus the presumption thatBELTANE fires were lit throughout the Celticworld, for instance, or rush crosses were plaitedeverywhere at IMBOLC, cannot be upheld. In thesame way, we find no evidence of rites of passageshared across Celtic Europe, no formulae formarriage or initiation; even death customs vary,with cremation and exhumation both beingfound, sometimes even within one tribe. Thereis significant evidence that the kingly INAUGURA-TION ritual—in which a woman representing theearth goddess offered a drink (and possibly,other refreshments as well) to the new king—was practiced throughout Ireland. Yet the ritualis not found in other European Celtic lands,leading some to argue that it originated amongpre-Celtic people, while others claim similar rit-uals in India suggest an Indo-European origin.

What defines Celtic religion, therefore, isnot shared ritual but shared COSMOLOGY orworldview. The Celts saw NATURE as sacred,therefore honoring the elements in outdoor fes-tivals rather than by building temples or shrines.They were not dualistic in their worldview;paired divinities were complementary ratherthan in opposition. Many scholars perceive athreefold division of society (king, nobles, com-moners) reflected in aspects of their religion. Noevidence, however, has been found of a pan-Celtic ritual or ceremony.

Ceridwen (Caridwen, Cerridwen, Cariadwen,Keridwen) Welsh goddess. On an island in themiddle of Lake Bala (Llyn Tegid) in north Walesthis fearsome goddess (sometimes called a WITCH

or sorceress) lived with her mate, TEGID VOEL

(“the bald”), and their two children, the beautifulCreirwy (“light”) and the ugliest little boy in theworld, AFAGDDU (“dark”). To compensate for hisunfortunate appearance, Ceridwen planned tomake her son a great seer, and to this end shebrewed a powerful secret mixture of herbs. Into

Ceridwen 83

her CAULDRON she piled the herbs to simmer fora year and a day—a magical length of time appro-priate to such a concoction.

The brew had to be stirred regularly, andCeridwen was not always on hand to keep thebrew mixed. So she set a little boy named GWION

to stir the cauldron, warning him that he must onno account taste it. Three tiny drops splatteredfrom the cooking pot onto Gwion’s thumb, whichhe popped in his mouth to ease the burn.Immediately, all the wisdom and inspirationCeridwen had intended for Afagddu was Gwion’s.

When she discovered the boy’s unwittingtheft, Ceridwen was furious. But with his newinsight, Gwion had foreseen her reaction andfled. Ceridwen started after him. Gwion trans-formed himself into a HARE; Ceridwen matchedhim, turning into a greyhound. He became aFISH, she an OTTER; he became a BIRD, she ahawk; finally he turned into a grain of wheat, shebecame a hen, and she ate him up.

In Celtic legends, eating is often a form ofintercourse that leads to pregnancy; many hero-ines and goddesses become pregnant afterdrinking an insect in a glass of water. And so itwas with Ceridwen, who was impregnated bythe transformed Gwion; nine months later, shebore a boy child. Still angry at the thieving littleboy but touched by his reborn beauty, Ceridwenset him adrift on the sea, from which he was res-cued by a nobleman; he grew up to be the greatpoet TALIESIN.

Ceridwen, although clearly a mother in thistale, is described in terms more common to theCAILLEACH or HAG goddess. She was a magicianor WITCH who possessed enviable occult knowl-edge, including that of SHAPE-SHIFTING. Thatshe may have originally been a cosmic goddess oftime and the seasons is suggested by the names ofher two children. Some have interpreted thestory of Ceridwen and Gwion’s many transfor-mations as a tale of initiation and rebirth.

The cauldron that is one of the primaryemblems of Ceridwen appears in other Celticmyths as a symbol of abundance; in Ireland it isthe OTHERWORLD vessel from which the fertility

god DAGDA distributes wealth and plenty. ThusCeridwen, despite her fierce appearance, mayhave originally been a goddess of the land whosefertility provided abundant food.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 43.

Cerne Abbas Giant British mythological siteand folkloric figure. On a hill near the village ofCerne Abbas in Dorset, England, the green turfhas been removed down to the chalky white soil,outlining the shape of a man more than 200 feettall. The figure bears no name, nor is it knownwho carved it in the turf. Another turf-cut fig-ure, the WHITE HORSE OF UFFINGTON, has beenrecently dated to the Iron Age, when Celtic peo-ple lived in Britain, but it is not known whetherthe Cerne Abbas GIANT derives from the sameperiod. Most scholars theorize that the Giantwas already graven into the hillside by the timethe Celtic tribe called the Durotriges arrived inthe area.

Others argue, however, that aspects of theGiant connect him to other Celtic mythologies.Most noticeable about the figure is his enormouserection (30 feet long), which has led to anassumed connection with FERTILITY; a local beliefof long standing was that the Giant helpedwomen become pregnant, for which reason out-door assignations on or near the figure were com-mon. The Giant also carries a huge club, like theIrish DAGDA, held aloft to emphasize its phallicsymbolism; a similar mallet-endowed god wasknown among the continental Celts as SUCELLUS.

Source: Newman, Paul. Gods and Graven Images:The Chalk Hill-Figures of Britain. London:Robert Hale, 1987, pp. 72–101.

Cernunnos Celtic god. Cernunnos was oneof the greatest and most ancient Celtic gods, hisname and image found among both continentaland insular peoples as far back as the fourth cen-

84 Cerne Abbas Giant

tury B.C.E. His name, which appears in only oneinscription from France, has been translated as“the horned one,” although that is controversialand derives from iconographic rather than lin-guistic sources. For the image, if not the name,of a horned god is found elsewhere, including onthe important GUNDESTRUP CAULDRON.

The horns Cernunnos wears are never thoseof domesticated animals, but rather those of aSTAG, suggesting a connection with the powersof the wildwood. A link has also been suggestedto the seasonal cycle, since DEER sprout antlersin the spring and shed them in the fall. Animals,both wild and domesticated, accompany him invirtually all known images; he is thus sometimescalled the Master of Animals.

Often Cernunnos wears or bears a TORC,symbol of high status and holiness. He may haverepresented a force of abundance and prosperity,for he is often portrayed accompanied by sym-bols of plenty like the CORNUCOPIA and themoneybag. No myths are known of him, but heremains a common image today, for the hornedDEVIL image apparently was derived from him.

Cesair (Cessair, Cesara, Kesair, Heriu, Berba)Irish goddess or heroine. According to the BOOK

OF INVASIONS, this was the name of Ireland’s firstsettler. The text was not written until afterIreland became Christian, and the scribes weremonks with an interest in depicting Ireland as aholy land. So its authors combined Ireland’smythological history with biblical stories.

Thus Cesair was described as the granddaugh-ter of the biblical Noah who escaped the greatFlood by sailing away from the Holy Land.Whereas Noah had a boat full of animals, Cesairspecialized in people, loading her ship with 50women and three men. Four days before thewaters raged, before Noah even boarded the ark,Cesair and her followers arrived in the safety ofIreland—which was never affected by the other-wise worldwide flood. Her route was far fromdirect, for after leaving from Meroe on a Tuesday,she sailed down the Nile and traveled to the

Caspian and Cimmerian seas, then sailed over thedrowned Alps, from which it took her nine daysto sail to Spain and another nine to reach Ireland.

Arriving on the southwest coast, at BantryBay in Co. Cork, Cesair and her crew disem-barked and divided the land among the crew.There being only three men, Cesair constitutedthree groups, each with more than a dozenwomen but only one man. But the demands ofthe women soon proved too much for Cesair’sfather, BITH, and brother, LADRA, who died fromexcessive sexual exertion, while the last man,FINTAN mac Bóchra, fled the eager women.

The names of the women who accompaniedCesair appear by their names to represent theworld’s ancestral mothers, for they includedGerman (Germans), Espa (Spanish), Alba(British), Traige (Thracian), and Gothiam(Goth). Thus their arrival can be read as creatinga microcosm of the entire world’s population inIreland. Several other companions, includingBANBA and BÚANANN, echo the names of ancientIrish goddesses.

It has been theorized that Cesair was a god-dess of the land, for she is sometimes thought tobe the daughter of the earth goddess Banba,While at other times she is herself called Berba(the goddess of the River Barrow), or Heriu, aname similar to that of the primary land-goddess, ÉRIU. Thus Cesair may have been aform of, or assimilated to, those importantdivinities. The fact that THREE men divided thewomen among them, each taking a primarybride (Fintan with Cesair, Bith with Bairrind,and Ladra with Banba), makes Cesair and hercompanions a parallel grouping to the better-known trio Banba, FÓDLA, and Ériu.

Source: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Part 1.Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941, pp. 166–248.

Cet (Cet mac Mágach) Irish hero. A greatULSTER warrior, Cet was said to have been elo-quent as well as brave, especially in boasting

Cet 85

about his prowess in battle. In some legends Cetnamed the boy who grew to be the greatest war-rior of his people, CÚCHULAINN.

Cethern mac Fintain Irish hero. This warrioris described as the tutor to the great hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL, who gained all the world’s wis-dom by eating part of a SALMON named FINTAN. AsCethern’s name shows that he is the son of Fintan,his presence in the stories may serve to intensifythe connection between Fionn and Fintan.

Cethlion (Cethlenn, Ceithlenn, Céthlionn,Caitlín, Kethlenda of the Crooked Teeth).Irish heroine or goddess. Buck-toothed queen ofthe ancient Irish race called the FOMORIANS andwife of their leader BALOR, Cethlion was aprophet who foresaw her people’s defeat at thehands of the invading TUATHA DÉ DANANN at thesecond battle of MAG TUIRED. This foreknowl-edge did not stop her from waging a fierce bat-tle in which she wounded or killed one of thechiefs of her enemies, the DAGDA.

cétnad Irish ritual. This form of DIVINATION

was practiced by BARDS, who chanted throughtheir hands in order to locate stolen property,especially CATTLE. A special chant, addressed tothe otherwise unknown seven Daughters of theSea, was used to discover how long someonewould live.

champion’s portion Irish mythologicaltheme. Several Irish epics center on this tradi-tional Celtic practice, whereby the most promi-nent warrior at a feast was given the curad-mír,or choicest portion, of the meat served, ofteninterpreted as the thigh. Should two or morewarriors claim the prize, a fight was immediatelywaged, sometimes with deadly results. This tra-dition, recorded as far back as the first centuryB.C.E., gave the sharp-tongued BRICCRIU anopportunity for troublemaking when he set sev-eral champions against each other.

changeling Irish, Scottish, occasionally Bretonfolkloric figure. FAIRY babies were withered littleraisinettes, ugly to look at, more like wizened oldpeople than darling newborns. As a result, fairyparents were tempted to steal away chubby,cheery human babies, leaving enchanted fairy off-spring in their place. Thus a strong traditionexists of protective rituals, including having nick-names for children so that the fairies cannot knowtheir true names and thus gain power over thesouls of the children.

A speedy baptism was important, becausethat Christian ritual made a child unattractive tofairies; burning old leather shoes in the birthingchamber was a good substitute. Should parentsfind a child changed—a bad-tempered, angry,and squalling brat where once there had been asweet, placid babe—there was little recourseexcept a trip to FAIRYLAND to reclaim the stolenchild. Sometimes the fairy enchantment (seeGLAMOUR) was so strong that even the parentsbelieved the changeling child to be human. Butfairy behavior finally revealed itself, and if not,a test could be administered to the suspectedfairy offspring. The suspicious parent must dosomething out of the ordinary, like beating anegg in its own shell rather than in a bowl orannouncing an intent to brew beer from eggs.This caused no end of puzzlement to thechangeling, which finally dropped its cover anddemanded to know the purpose of the action.Having thus revealed itself, the fairy wouldnonetheless remain until the stolen child waslocated in the OTHERWORLD.

Sometimes human parents attempted toforce the return of their children by exposing thechangeling to the elements. There is tragic evi-dence that such beliefs were occasionally used toexcuse the abuse and even murder of childrenwho may have been unwanted or handicapped.In Wales, alleged changelings were driven awayby being exposed to the elements, starved, ordrowned, in the belief that the fairies wouldcome rescue their lost kin.

Fairy changelings did not need to be infants;sometimes older humans were stolen away

86 Cethern mac Fintain

because the fairies needed their special gifts. MID-WIVES and musicians were especially at risk, aswere beautiful people of either sex. Sometimesthese stolen ones were replaced by an enchantedstock of wood. As with child changelings, there isevidence that people suffered torture and deathat the hands of relatives who believed them tohave been taken AWAY. In the 19th century, ayoung woman named Bridget Cleary was appar-ently burned to death by her family after takingunaccountably ill, showing that the belief wasstill strong at that point—or that it was used todo away with an ambitious and therefore trou-blesome woman of the community.

See also FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

Sources: Bourke, Angela. The Burning of BridgetCleary. London: Pimlico, 1999; Briggs,Katherine. The Fairies in Tradition and Literature.London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, pp.115 ff; Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, p. 517; Croker, T.Crofton. Fairy Legends and Traditions of the Southof Ireland. London: William Tegg, 1862, p. 36;Curtin, Jeremiah. Tales of the Fairies and of theGhost World Collected from Oral Tradition in South-West Munster. New York: Lemma PublishingCorp., 1970, p. 23; Douglas, George. ScottishFairy and Folk Tales. West Yorkshire: EPPublishing, 1977, pp. 125 ff; Kennedy, Patrick.Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:Benjamin Blom, 1969, pp. 84, 89; Parry-Jones,D. Welsh Legends and Fairy Lore. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1953, p. 42.

chariot Celtic symbolic object. The Celts wereamong the first European peoples to domesticatethe HORSE. They did not ride upon the animals’backs but instead hitched them to speedy chariots,used for travel and, especially, for battle. Bothgods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, aredescribed or depicted as charioteers; in addition,parts of chariots—bridle, wheel—appear in theiconography of divinities, such as EPONA.

charm The opposite of a CURSE—a formuladesigned to bring bad luck—is a charm (in Irish,eólas), a spell or incantation to attract good for-tune; sometimes the word is used to mean bothattracting good and repelling bad, as in, forinstance, a “charm against the evil eye” used inScotland, where a few words were spoken whilegathering WATER from beneath a bridge that waslater sprinkled protectively on the household. TheCeltic lands provide many examples of charms,which entailed certain ritual gestures, specifiedofferings, the gathering of specific herbs, and/orincantatory words. Charms were sung to hastenthe BUTTER, when the monotonous action ofchurning milk began to tire the milkmaid.Similarly there were waulking charms, to ease thelabor of making linen. A milking charm collectedin Scotland is typical: With each flow of milk anew verse was sung, calling on a different saint, formany ancient charms were Christianized and con-tinued in use even until recent years. In Ireland,charms included stealing a DEAD HAND from acorpse and the liver of a black CAT, the first beingeffective in churning butter, the second dried intoa foolproof love potion. In Cornwall charms werewritten out on bits of paper and kept in pocketsand purses; one was simply the untranslatableword nalgah above a picture of a four-winged bird.

Sources: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 350, 377 ff, 643;Courtney, M. A. Cornish Feasts and Folklore.Penzance: Beare and Son, 1890, pp. 143 ff;Kavanagh, Peter. Irish Mythology: A Dictionary.Newbridge, Co. Kildare: The Goldsmith Press,Ltd., 1988, pp. 30–33.

Children of Lir Irish heroine and heroes.Their story is called one of the THREE SORROWS

OF IRELAND. Happily married to king LIR, themagician’s daughter ÁEB gave birth first to a twinson and daughter, Áed and FIONNUALA. Her nextpregnancy was less fortunate however, and shedied giving birth to a pair of twin sons, FIACHRA

Children of Lir 87

and CONN. Orphaned when their belovedmother died, the four children of king LIR fellinto the care of their aunt AÍFE who, filled withspite and envy, bewitched the children intoSWANS and cursed them to live nine hundredyears in that form. The children kept theirhuman emotions and senses and were givenhauntingly sweet singing voices. When theirenchantment ended, they aged and died andturned to dust, all within moments.

Children of Llyr Welsh heroes and heroines.The second branch of the Welsh MABINOGION

tells the story of a war between Wales andIreland. See BRANWEN.

Chimes Child British folkloric figure. Inrural Somerset, a child born after Friday mid-night but before dawn on Saturday was believedto have the SECOND SIGHT and to be a healer.

Chlaus Haistig Irish heroine. In the legendsof the heroic FIANNA, we find a queen muchharassed by the powers of the OTHERWORLD.Time after time a long hairy arm would reachinto her home and steal one of her children, andthe queen could do nothing to stop it. Sherequired the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL to makea GEIS, a sacred vow, to help her. He stayed up allnight to catch the WITCH Chlaus Haistig uponthe roof, reaching down to steal the queen’s chil-dren; holding the witch hostage, Fionn gainedthe release of the other boys and girls.

Source: Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions ofthe Irish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom,1969, p. 228.

Christianity As Celtic religion was polytheis-tic in the extreme, the arrival of monotheisticChristianity might have meant the extirpation ofCeltic practices. And indeed, the loss of muchcontinental Celtic material can be traced toChristian campaigns such as that of idol-smashingMartin of Tours in what is now France. Yet reli-

gious practices proved harder to break thansculptures, although a series of edicts empha-sized the need to eliminate traditions such asthat of honoring STONES and TREES. The Edictof Arles (452 C.E.) proclaimed that “if any infideleither lighted torches, or worshiped trees, foun-tains or stones, or neglected to destroy them, heshould be found guilty of sacrilege.” A centurylater the Council of Tours recommendedexcommunication for those found guilty of thesame practices. After another century, ancienttraditions still held, so that the Decree of Nantes(658 C.E.) encouraged “bishops and their ser-vants” to “dig up and remove and hide to placeswhere they cannot be found, those stones that inremote and woody places are still worshiped.”

Clearly people were continuing to find theirway to the old sites of worship, some of whichhad been taken over by the Celts from pre-Celtic people and therefore had been in use formillennia. Finally the church took a clue fromearlier Roman invaders and proposed a versionof the INTERPRETATIO ROMANA. In the words ofthe seventh-century Pope Gregory, “Takeadvantage of well-built temples by purifyingthem from devil-worship and dedicating them tothe service of the true God. In this way, I hopethe people will leave their idolatry and yet con-tinue to frequent the places as formerly, so com-ing to know and revere the true God.”

This new attitude meant that ancient prac-tices continued under the rubric of church cere-monies. Even with this expanded definition ofChristian worship, pagan ceremonies seem tohave continued in some areas, for the Church ofScotland appointed a commission in 1649 toeliminate “druidical customs” (see DRUID) stillpracticed in certain areas. More often, Celtic tra-ditions were absorbed into Christianity, so thatancient Celtic festival days became Christianfeasts, churches were built on old holy sites, andpagan divinities were “canonized” as saints.

In Ireland the same general pattern was fol-lowed, with ancient sites being consecrated toChristian uses. A difference between Ireland andthe other Celtic countries rests in the role of

88 Children of Llyr

monks and other literate Christians in sustainingthe ancient traditions. The earliest writtenworks of Irish literature we have, including theTÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, were transcribed by Christianreligious men. While it is likely that some motifsand beliefs in most flagrant discord withChristian values were altered or suppressed,without the monks’ work even more of Celticreligion may well have been lost. Christianitytherefore exists in a complex relationship toCeltic religion, as both preserver and destroyer.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker andCo., 1976, p. 115; Bradley, Ian. CelticChristianity: Making Myths and Chasing Dreams.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

Christmas See NOLLAIG.

Ciabhán (Keevan of the Curling Locks,Ciabhan) Irish hero. Briefly a member of theFIANNA, the band of heroes led by FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, Ciabhán was asked to leave the heroicband because of his womanizing. So he set sail tothe west, toward the FAIRYLAND of TÍR TAIRNGIRI,the Land of Promise, where he astonishedobservers with his juggling abilities. The fairyqueen CLÍDNA took him as her lover but lost herlife because of their affair: She drowned whileawaiting his return from a hunting expedition.

Cian (Kian, Cian mac Cainte) Irish hero.When BALOR, king of the FOMORIANS, was toldthat he would be killed by his grandson, hethought he could outwit the prophecy because hisonly daughter EITHNE was still a virgin. So helocked her in a high tower, where she would nevermeet a man and therefore never bear a child.

Balor proved his own undoing, for he cov-eted the magically abundant COW, the GLAS

GHAIBHLEANN, which was in the keeping ofCian, a man from the mainland. Some tales saythat Cian was the cow’s owner, while others say

that he was merely the cowherd, the ownerbeing a magical SMITH. Sailing over from hishome on Tory Island, off the northwest coast ofIreland, Balor stole the cow and brought herback to his distant home. Unwilling to lose sucha splendid beast, Cian went secretly across thewaters, where he found a greater prize: the fairEithne. Helped by a DRUID woman, BIRÓG, hedecked himself in women’s clothes and took upresidence in the tower, where he seduced Eithne.She gave birth to three sons, two of whom weredrowned by their grandfather; the survivingchild was the hero LUGH. In variants of the story,Cian is called Kian or MacInelly; he is also saidto have impregnated Eithne’s other 12 hand-maids, all of whom gave birth to SEALS.

In some stories, Cian is described as a son ofthe physician god, DIAN CÉCHT, which wouldmake him one of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, thepeople of the goddess DANU. He died when threebrothers, the SONS OF TUIREANN, ambushed himbecause of enmity between Cian and their father.To his humiliation, he attempted to avoid theencounter with the armed warriors, turninghimself into a PIG and pretending to scour theforest floor for acorns, but the brothers sawthrough the SHAPE-SHIFTING and turned them-selves into DOGS to bring Cian down, only per-mitting him to return to human form just beforedeath. The great earthwork called the BlackPig’s Dyke is said to be his petrified body or tohave been dug by him while in pig form.

Cichban Irish heroine. This obscure figure isnamed in the BOOK OF INVASIONS as one of theFIVE wives of the hero PARTHOLÓN, the othersbeing Aife, Elgnad or DEALGNAID, Nerbgen, andCerbnat. She is otherwise unknown.

Cicollus Continental Celtic god. An obscuregod whose name seems to mean “great protec-tor,” he was worshiped in central Europe whereinscriptions to him from Roman times—callinghim a form of the warrior god MARS—werefound. He may be the same as the protector god

Cicollus 89

APOLLO Anextiomarus. His consort was the god-dess LITAVIS.

Cigfa (Kigva) Welsh heroine or goddess. Inthe third branch of the Welsh MABINOGION, thiswoman became the wife of PRYDERI, son of thegoddess RHIANNON and her consort PWYLL. Afterher husband became strangely entrapped with hismother in a magical FAIRY MOUND, Cigfa livedchastely with Rhiannon’s second husband, MAN-AWYDAN, until the latter was able to find a way tobreak the enchantment on their spouses.

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp. 90–95.

Cill Dara See KILDARE.

Cilydd Welsh hero. The father of the heroKULHWCH, he encouraged his son to ask forassistance in finding his true love, OLWEN, bytraveling to the court of his cousin, king ARTHUR

of CAMELOT.

Cimbáeth (Cimbaoth) Irish hero. With twoother ULSTER kings, ÁED Ruad and DÍTHORBA,this legendary ruler agreed that each in turnwould rule for seven years. The agreement,overseen by a committee of poets, nobles, andDRUIDS, worked until Áed Ruad was killed.When his daughter MACHA Mong Rua (Red-Haired Macha) took his place, both Cimbáethand Díthorba opposed her claim in battle.However, she was the stronger and won, after-ward wedding Cimbáeth and killing Díthorba.

City of Ys See YS.

Clan Baíscne Irish heroes. The followers ofthe great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL were calledby this name, especially when they foughtagainst the followers of the one-eyed GOLL MAC

MORNA, who were called after him the CLAN

MORNA. The two rival clans eventually joined toform the FIANNA.

Clan Morna Irish heroes. This name is usedto describe the followers or tribe of the greatwarrior GOLL MAC MORNA, traditional enemiesof the CLAN BAÍSCNE who served the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL. After numerous skirmishes therival clans joined to form the FIANNA.

Clarine Arthurian heroine. In some texts, this isthe name given to king ARTHUR’s sister, although itis unclear whether she is the same individual as theone otherwise known as MORGAUSE.

Clarisant (Clarisse) Arthurian heroine. Sisterof a knight of the ROUND TABLE, GAWAIN,Clarisant was the daughter of king ARTHUR’s half-sister MORGAUSE and the king of the remotenorthern island of Orkney. She lived in anenchanted castle with her lover, Guireomelant.

Clas Myrddin (Merlin’s palace, Merlin’s enclo-sure) Arthurian site. The entire island ofBritain was said to be the palace of the greatmagician MERLIN, who served as its guardian.

Clídna (Cleena, Clíodna, Cliodna, Clíona,Clidna Centfind) Irish heroine or goddess. Inevery series of nine waves, Irish legend main-tains, the ninth one is the largest; it is still calledClídna’s wave, Tonn Clíodhna, for a goddess ofthe TUATHA DÉ DANANN who was the world’smost beautiful woman, called Clídna of the FairHair. Especially associated with the southwest-ern province of MUNSTER, she is sometimescalled its FAIRY QUEEN, although that title is alsoclaimed by ÁINE and AEVAL. Clídna lived in thefairy hill in Cork called Carrig Cliodna; she isalso associated with offshore rocks calledCarrigcleena; thus like other fairy queens shemay have originally been a goddess of the land.

Many romantic tales are associated withClídna. In one, she was courted by CIABHÁN, thewomanizing outcast of the heroic band calledthe FIANNA, who won her hand in her homelandof TÍR TAIRNGIRI, the Land of Promise. Unlike

90 Cigfa

most mortal lovers of fairy women, Ciabhántraveled back and forth between this world andthe OTHERWORLD safely. While he went huntingon the Irish mainland, he took Clídna along toGlandore (“golden harbor”). Clídna’s lover wentashore as she stole a nap in their boat. But a hugewave crashed over the boat, drowning the beau-tiful Clídna.

Despite this report of her watery demise,Clídna managed to live on to have more roman-tic adventures. She fell in love with a man namedJohn Fitzjames, who already had a human lovernamed Caitileen Óg; this girl followed Clídnainto the Otherworld, angrily demanding thereturn of her man. Although she came close topersuading Clídna to let her sweetheart go, eventhe witty tongue of Caitileen Óg was ultimatelyineffective against Clídna’s desires.

Clídna is connected with several importantIrish families; she had affairs with Earl GeraldFitzgerald of the Desmond Geraldines (son ofthe fairy queen ÁINE) and with Caomh, ancestorof the O’Keeffes. Cládna served as BANSHEE tothe MacCarthys, to whom she told the secret ofthe BLARNEY STONE, that touching it with thelips would make anyone eloquent—a supersti-tion that lasts to this day. Her connection withnobility suggests that Clídna was goddess of theSOVEREIGNTY of sea-lapped Munster.

Sources: Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and FightingMen: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and ofthe Fianna of Ireland. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1970, pp. 111 ff.; Gwynn,Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas. Vol. III.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 207–213.

clipping the church British ritual. InEngland some village churches were sites of aritual wherein children performed a circle dancearound the churchyard, touching (“clipping”)the church’s walls as they cavorted. As churcheswere often erected on ancient holy sites (see

CHRISTIANITY), this rite has been seen as reflect-ing a ritual once conducted beside or inside astone circle, where the stones were touched bypassing celebrants. In the Cotswolds the rite wascelebrated when the YEWS in the churchyardwere clipped around the AUTUMN EQUINOX.

clootie Ritual object. A clootie is a rag, ribbon,or strip of cloth tied to a sacred tree or BILE

growing near a holy WELL or other honored sitein Ireland and Scotland. Typically the rag wastouched to a part of the body in need of HEAL-ING before being tied to the tree; this practicecontinues to the present. In the case of one treebeside a well in Scotland, tens of thousands ofribbons deck the surrounding trees and shrubs.

Sources: Clarke, David, with Andy Roberts.Twilight of the Celtic Gods: An Exploration ofBritain’s Hidden Pagan Traditions. London:Blandford, 1996, p. 96 ff; MacCulloch, J. A. TheReligion of the Ancient Celts. London: Constable,1911, p. 201.

Clota (Clud, Clutoida) Scottish goddess. Theeponymous goddess of Scotland’s River Clydeand of the FERTILITY of its watershed, Clota alsoappeared on the Continent as the SPRING

nymphs called the Clutoida.

Clothra (Clothru) Irish heroine or goddess.The legendary Irish king EOCHAID Fedlech hadfour impressive daughters: MEDB, EITHNE,MUGAIN, and Clothra, as well as three sons, allnamed Finn and collectively named the FINN

Emna. Clothra bore a single son to her threebrothers, LUGAIDH Riab nDerg, whose body wasdivided into three parts by red stripes, each sec-tion having been fathered by a different brother.Clothra then lay with her son Lugaidh, by whomshe conceived the hero CRIMTHANN Nia Náir,who was born posthumously, for Clothra waskilled by her jealous sister Medb. This sequenceof incestuous matings suggests an ancestral god-

Clothra 91

dess, as does Clothra’s appearance in many Irishgenealogies.

clover Symbolic object. The four-leafed cloverwas said to be magical or lucky because it alonecould break through the GLAMOUR that FAIRIES

used to disguise the reality of their surroundings.Holding up such a clover would permit one tosee things as they really were: a CAVE where a cot-tage appeared, a toothless old man where a hand-some one had stood seconds before. The oil ofthe four-leafed clover may have been the mainingredient in FAIRY OINTMENT.

cluricaune (cluricane, cluracan) Scottish andIrish mythological being. Whereas his kin, theLEPRECHAUN, was an industrious little fellow, thisSOLITARY FAIRY was quite the opposite, preferringto lounge about and primp his handsome clothing:his silver-buckled shoes, cap with golden lace, andsuit of RED—the typical color of the Solitary Fairy;TROOPING FAIRIES, by contrast, wore GREEN. Fondof tippling, the cluricaune would steal into winecellars, especially those belonging to alcoholics, tosteal a few bottles. He was hard to exterminate, forif an owner tried to move, the cluricaune wouldsimply travel along inside a cask.

The name cluricaune was most often used ofthis fairy being in Co. Cork; in nearby Co. Kerry,he was the Luricaune; in Tipperary, theLugirgadaune; in Ulster, the Loghery Man. Onecluricaune named Little Wildbeam, who haunteda Quaker family in Cork, was most helpful if aservant left a bit of beer dripping from the cask;he shrank and wedged himself into the spigot sothat not a drop was lost. If the maids did not feedhim well, the fairy came out at night and beatthem senseless. This all became too much for thefamily, and when the cluricaune would not vacatethe premises, they packed up and moved, only tounpack and find their annoying helper had madehis way to their new home.

Source: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends andTraditions of the South of Ireland. London:William Tegg, 1862, p. 73.

Cnabetius Continental Celtic god. His namehas been translated as “the crippled one,” but lit-tle is known of this god to whom inscriptionshave been found in Celtic regions of Germanyand Austria. The Romans connected him withtheir protective warrior god MARS; he has beenlinked by scholars with such wounded kingly fig-ures as the Irish NUADA.

Cnoc Ailinee See KNOCKAULIN.

Cnoc Áine See KNOCKAINY.

Cnucha Irish heroine. This obscure Irish hero-ine or goddess was said to have been the nurse ofCONN of the Hundred Battles. She died of a feverand was buried by her father, Connad, in the areanear Dublin called Castleknock in her honor.

Cnú Deiréil Irish hero. Harpist of FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL; see DWARF.

Cobhthach (Covac) Irish hero. This cruelking forced his young brother, LABHRAIGH Lore,to eat mice, whereupon the child was frightenedinto muteness. He is sometimes described asLabhraigh’s uncle. He killed Labhraigh in hislust for the throne of the PROVINCE of LEINSTER.

Cochrann Irish heroine. She was the daugh-ter of the king of TARA, CATHAÍR MÓR, andmother of the romantic hero DIARMAIT UaDuibne. She also gave birth to Diarmait’s neme-sis, the great wild BOAR named DONN UA

DUIBNE. She had betrayed Diarmait’s father witha shepherd who had magical powers, and whenshe gave birth to a boy, Diarmait’s father killedit. The shepherd waved a HAZEL wand over thechild’s body, restoring him to life. It was not ahuman life that Cochrann’s child lived, however,for he awakened from death as a boar. From thenon, he lived to confront his half-brother andexact his revenge for his unfortunate state.

92 clover

Cocidius British god. The Romans associatedthis northern British god with their war godMARS, but despite being favored by soldiers,Cocidius’s horns suggest that he was probablyoriginally a hunters’ god, as the alternative iden-tification with SILVANUS also suggests. Oneinscription from Britain connects Cocidius withan otherwise obscure Celtic god namedVernostonus, although the significance of thatlinkage is not clear.

cock Symbolic animal. Although domesticchickens were more utilitarian than religious,the cock or rooster drew some superstitions toitself. Possibly because of its harsh call, the cockwas believed to protect against danger thatmight approach from an unanticipated direction;this power was especially strong in March. Blackcocks were viewed as lucky, while white cockswere just the opposite.

Coel (Coel Hen) British god. “Old KingCole was a merry old soul,” the nursery rhymesays, but Coel was not actually a king at all—hewas an ancient Celtic god, “old Coel,” euhemer-ized or diminished into a mere human. His nameremains in the town of Colchester.

cohuleen druith Irish folkloric object. IrishMERMAIDS wore this little cap, which allowedthem to swim beneath the waters of lakes and seawithout danger. Should her cap be lost or stolen,however, the mermaid henceforth was forced toremain landbound.

Cóiced Mythic theme. This term, whichmeans “a fifth,” was used to describe the ancientPROVINCES of Ireland. The four geographicalprovinces were LEINSTER in the east, MUNSTER

in the southwest, CONNACHT in the west, andULSTER in the north. The fifth province, MIDE,or Meath, was not so much a geographical as acosmological concept, representing the truecenter, sometimes defined as the hill of UIS-

NEACH or, more specifically, the rock called theSTONE OF DIVISIONS on that hill. In historicaltimes, the province of Meath was establishednear the center of Ireland’s landmass, but themystical connotations of the island’s provincialdivisions were never lost.

Coinchenn (Coinchend) Irish heroine. ThisWARRIOR WOMAN was put under a CURSE of deathif her daughter DELBCHÁEM should ever wed, soshe challenged every suitor who came seeking themaiden’s fair hand. Coinchenn usually won herbattles with the suitors, placing their heads onpoles around her house to form a macabre fenceand hiding her daughter in a high tower. Oneman was stronger than she, and then only withFAIRY help: the king of TARA, ART MAC CUINN, whoeventually gained Delbcháem’s hand.

coins Symbolic object. The Celts had nocoinage before the Roman invasions; the meansof their economic exchange is not entirely clearbut seems to have been based on barter. Metalcoins were a revolutionary invention; prior tothe widespread acceptance of money, goodsthemselves had to be transported to market andgoods gotten in exchange carried back. EarlyRoman-era coins show some Celtic designs,indicating that local craftspeople were findingways to create appropriate coins. Ultimately,coins substituted for images of afflicted parts ofthe body in rituals at holy WELLS; throwing coinsin fountains is still superstitiously practicedtoday, the result of such offerings being avaguely described “good luck.”

Colgrevance Arthurian hero. This knight ofthe ROUND TABLE played a minor role in the storyof OWEIN and the LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN, for hewas the first knight to encounter the fountain’sguardian, the mysterious Black Knight who wasthe lady’s husband. Defeated by him, Colgrevancereturned to CAMELOT with the tale, which spurredOwein to attempt to win over the Black Knight.

Colgrevance 93

Coligny Continental Celtic site. At thisarchaeological site in southeastern France, anartifact was found that has been very importantin Celtic studies. The bronze fragments of theColigny Calendar document five years, divid-ing time into a 12-month lunar or moon yearwith 355 days and inserting a 30-day monthafter every 30 months to bring the CALENDAR

back into sequence with the solar or sun year.The calendar was found in a shrine to theRomano-Celtic MARS and is believed to havehad a ritual function. It is the only Celtic cal-endar known to archaeology.

Colloquy of the Elders (Colloquy of the Sagesor Ancients, Acallam na Senórach, Agallamh naSeanórach) Irish mythological text. An impor-tant Irish narrative text, source for many of thelegends of the FIANNA, the Colloquy of the Elderswas composed in the 12th century, presumablyby Christian monks. It tells of two members ofthe Fianna, OISÍN and CAÍLTE, who after a longstay in FAIRYLAND met with ST. PATRICK andengaged him in a discussion of religion and val-ues. They traveled with the Christian monk,pointing out the holy sites and telling storiesconnected with them (see DINDSHENCHAS).Despite being composed during Christiantimes, the text is satirical toward Patrick andreverent toward the two aging survivors ofpagan Ireland.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York; HenryHolt and Co., 1936, pp. 457 ff; Dillon, Myles,ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: The Mercier Press, 1968,p. 119; Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 283 ff.

comb Symbolic object. The comb is associatedwith the MERMAID, who was thought to sit on arock combing her lovely HAIR, the better to luresailors to their deaths. Invoking the principle ofSYMPATHETIC MAGIC—like attracting like—Scottish girls were warned not to comb their hair

in the evening when their brothers were at sea,because it might draw the energy of a dangerousmermaid to their ship. Combing one’s hair on aWednesday would result in sterility, although thereason for this belief is unclear.

In Ireland, the comb was especially associ-ated with the goddess-queen MEDB, whose sexualpotency was legendary. The comb appears torepresent the feminine force, especially in itsmalevolent form, a motif that appears in Scottishlore that described bad girls as combing fleas andfrogs from their hair, while good girls wouldrelease GOLD and jewels.

Conaire (Conare, Conaire Mór, Conaire MessBuachalla) Irish hero. Born from the union ofhis mother, MESS BUACHALLA, with the bird godNEMGLAN, Conaire was the grandson of thegreat goddess or fairy queen ÉTAIN. His storypoints up how vital it was that every sacred vowor GEIS required of the ruler be followed.Conaire attained the throne of TARA after DIV-INATION (see BULL-SLEEP) revealed that he wasits rightful king. With INAUGURATION came aseries of demands, including the stipulation thathe must never stand between two competingvassals. He did so, however, inserting himselfinto an argument between his brothers.

As he returned to Tara from that expedition,he was forced to break other vows, letting redriders pass him on his horse, riding with Tara onhis right hand, and entering a hostel after night-fall. A fearsome HAG appeared at the door anddemanded entry, but Conaire clung to the last ofhis geasa, that no woman should be alone withhim at night in Da Derga’s hostel (see DA

DERGA). At that, she cursed him while standingin a magical position, and he was stricken withan unquenchable thirst even as the hostel burstinto flame. His inauguration had made him thespouse of the lady of the land’s SOVEREIGNTY,and the fearsome hag who threatened him as hislife ended may have been her in vengeful form.

Sources: Dillon, Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: TheMercier Press, 1968, p. 79; O’Rahilly, Thomas.

94 Coligny

Early Irish History and Mythology. Dublin: TheDublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946,p. 124.

Conall This ancient name, often anglicized asConnell and meaning “wolf,” is born by a num-ber of heroic figures.

• Conall, son of Eochaid, whose sons wereturned into BADGERS by the goddess GRIAN

after they attacked her fort on the mountainof KNOCKGRANEY. In retaliation, he foughtGrian. Neither was able to gain an advantageuntil Grian sprinkled him with FAIRY dust,whereupon Conall stumbled away and died.

• Conall Cernach, “victorious Conall,” hero ofthe ULSTER CYCLE, son of the poet AMAIRGIN

and queen FINDCHÓEM, foster brother to thehero CÚCHULAINN. He appears in severaltexts, in which he performs amazing feats likeswallowing a boar whole. He killed manymen, often brutally. He was the only warriorto survive the holocaust at the hostel of DA

DERGA, where his king CONAIRE was killed.• Conall Gulban, son of NIALL of the Nine

Hostages and founder of the ancient kingdomof Tír Chonaill in Co. Donegal. His name,corrupted into Bulben, was given to a famousmountain in Co. Sligo (see BEN BULBEN),where he was said to have been killed whileattempting to release the fair EITHNE fromthe hands of a kidnapping GIANT. Many folk-tales revolve around this figure, who appearsas a hero second only in popularity to FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL.

Source: Gardner, Alexander. Popular Tales of theWest Highlands. Vol III. London: J. F. Campbell,1892, p. 98.

Conán Irish hero. Common in Irish mythol-ogy, this name means “wolf” and was born bymany minor figures in the heroic cycles, mostimportantly Conán mac Morna (Conan Maeol),a comic blusterer sometimes called “Conán of

the Bitter Tongue,” who has been compared tothe Scandinavian trickster Loki. Bald and usuallyattired with a black fleece wig, he was a tubbybuffoon who nonetheless was great friends withthe heroic FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. Another heroof this name was Conan Muil or Conan the Bald,Fionn’s son, who lost his scalp when swallowedby the great monster CAORANACH.

Conaran Irish goddess. This obscure goddesswas mother of three magician daughters who,lusting after the great warriors of the FIANNA, setout to ensnare them—literally, for they spun amagical web that trapped the heroes. All threewere killed by the warriors; see IRNAN.Sometimes Conaran is described as a male fig-ure, a prince of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN.

Concobar mac Nessa (Conchubar, Concho-bhar, Conachar) Irish hero. A great king ofULSTER, he figures in many of the tales called, theULSTER CYCLE. Concobar bears a matronymic,for he is named for his mother NESSA, a studiousgentle girl who became fierce and warlike afterbeing raped by the DRUID CATHBAD, who may beConcobar’s father, although his father is alsogiven as Fachtna Fathach, king of Ulster. It mayhave been neither: Nessa drank a drink contain-ing a magical worm that may have impregnatedher by supernatural means.

After being widowed, Nessa was courted bythe great king FERGUS MAC RÓICH, who gave uphis throne at EMAIN MACHA for a year upon herrequest, so that Concobar’s children might claimroyal descent. When Fergus wanted his throneback, he found that Nessa prevented his reas-suming power; angrily, he left Ulster to take upwith CONNACHT’s queen MEDB, a former wife ofConcobar who later launched a cattle raid onConcobar’s territory (see TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE).

Like the other men of Ulster, Concobar suf-fered from debilitating pains whenever an inva-sion threatened, because of a curse put upon theregion’s warriors by the dying goddess MACHA.Concobar may himself have been responsible for

Concobar mac Nessa 95

that curse, for he demanded that the pregnantgoddess race against his fastest horses (in sometellings, the blame is placed upon Macha’s boast-ful husband CRUNNIUC). Fergus came close tokilling Concobar at the end of Medb’s cattle raid,but the Ulster king lived until hit with a ball madeof calcified brains that ultimately felled him.

In addition to Medb, Concobar was marriedto all her three sisters: EITHNE Aittencháithrech,CLOTHRA, and MUGAIN; his sons and daughtersfigure in many Irish legends. He also lusted afterother women, most notably DEIRDRE, whom heattempted to raise to become his concubine butwho escaped with her true love; the sad conclu-sion to the tale shows Concobar as a schemingvindictive person, far from the ideal king ofCeltic legend (see KINGSHIP).

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, pp. 131 ff; Hull,Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature.London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 267 ff.

Condatis British god. The shrines of theminor water deity Condatis were situated at theconfluence of RIVERS.

Condwiramur Welsh heroine. In some leg-ends, she was the wife of the heroic king PERE-DUR and mother of their son Lohenergrain.

Conn (Con) Irish hero. Several importantIrish figures go by this name, including:

• Conn of the Hundred Battles (ConCétchathach, Conn Céadchathach), one ofthe great legendary kings of Ireland. He wasthe first to be recognized by the magical stoneLIA FÁIL, which screamed when he approachedit. So designated as the true king, he walkedthe ramparts of TARA each day to assure thathis people’s enemies, the monstrous FOMORI-ANS, would not catch him unawares.

Before becoming king at Tara, Conn con-trolled the northern part of Ireland, with astrong rival named EÓGAN Mór ruling overthe southern part; the division between themwas a row of glacial hills called the EISCIR

RIADA. Conn was not happy to remain in hissector, invading Eógan’s region and defeatinghim. Eógan fled and then returned with addi-tional aid, but to no avail, for Conn once againwon over him at the battle of Mag Léna,where Eógan Mór was killed. These and otherwars won Conn the epithet “of the hundredbattles” or “fighter of hundreds.”

Many of the stories regarding Connemphasize the need for the king to remain inright relationship to the land so that it mightbe fruitful. Offered the cup of SOVEREIGNTY

by a beautiful unknown woman, he took as hisqueen the virtuous EITHNE Táebfhorta. Theland, well pleased under such good kingship,bore three harvests every year. But when hemarried BÉ CHUMA, who had been evictedfrom the OTHERWORLD for her disreputableways, Conn found the land did not agree withhis actions, for not a COW gave milk until theFAIRY woman was sent away.

Conn is a major figure in stories from theFENIAN CYCLE, for it was during his reign thatthe great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL wasborn. Some stories tell of Conn’s execution ofFionn’s father, CUMHALL, for kidnapping andraping his mother, MURNA; despite this, Fionnwas a friend to Conn. Conn’s children includeART MAC CUINN and CONNLA.

• Conn mac Lir (son of Lir), one of the CHIL-DREN OF LIR who were turned into SWANS bytheir jealous stepmother AÍFE.

Connacht (Connaught, Connachta) Irishmythological site. Ancient Ireland was dividedvariously into four or five PROVINCES, called inIrish CÓICED. The most westerly was Connacht,named in some legends for king CONN of theHundred Battles; the others were ULSTER, LEIN-STER, MUNSTER, and, sometimes, MIDE. The first

96 Condatis

syllable in Connacht means “wisdom,” and sothe province is traditionally connected with thatattribute, while its site in the WEST connects itwith the FAIRY people who were thought to pre-fer that direction. Ancient associations withConnacht were education, stories and histories,science, eloquence, and all forms of learning.The capital of ancient Connacht was CRUACHAN.

The counties of Galway, Mayo, Sligo,Leitrim, and Roscommon make up modernConnacht, smallest of Ireland’s provinces andone of its poorest. It has long been considered abastion of traditional culture, for invaderstended to push the Irish “to hell or Connacht,”in Oliver Cromwell’s memorable phrase. ManyAmericans derive their heritage from thisregion, for its poverty led to massive emigrationduring the 19th-century famine years.

Connla (Conla, Conlaí, Conle) More than adozen Irish mythological figures bear this name,some of them minor and several major.

• Connla, son of CÚCHULAINN (Finmole). Inone of the most tragic of Irish myths, the boyConnla was conceived by the WARRIOR WOMAN

AÍFE from her encounter with the hero-in-training Cúchulainn, who had come to studywith Aífe’s mother SCÁTHACH. Cúchulainn lefta ring with Aífe as a token, should she conceive,of her child’s parentage. When the boy hadgrown and wished to seek his father, Aífe gavehim that ring and sent him to Ireland.Challenged to give his right to enter the courtof ULSTER by Cúchulainn, Connla refused togive his name. The two fought, and Connlawas killed by his own father.

• Connla Cóel, a FAIRY king.• Connla of the Golden Hair, son of CONN

of the Hundred Battles. Earthly power heldno appeal for this son of the king of TARA

once he had met a woman of the FAIRY raceupon the mystical hill of UISNEACH. He trav-eled with her, according to the Adventures ofConnla, to her land, where he was offered

eternal life and pleasure. He was never seenagain on this earth.

See FAIRY LOVER.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 488; Hull,Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature.London: David Nutt, 1898, p. 79; Joyce, P. W.Ancient Celtic Romances. London: ParkgateBooks, 1997, pp. 106 ff.

Connla’s Well (Cóelrind’s well) Irish mytho-logical site. It is not known for whom this WELL

is named, whether FAIRY or mortal. Nor is itknown where the well is located, whether underthe sea, in the OTHERWORLD, or somewhere inTipperary. The well could be recognized by thenine HAZEL trees that hung over it, dropping nutsinto the water, and by the fat SALMON (or trout)that fed off the nuts, each nut staining the fishes’skin with mottled spots. If you found the well,you could eat the nuts yourself, or drink thewater, or even catch the salmon and eat them;any of those actions would bring you WISDOM

and inspiration. The river goddess SÍNANN wasone of those who found the well, but she paidwith her life for succeeding at her quest.

Continental Celts See GAUL.

Cooley See CUAILNGE.

Corann Irish heroine or goddess. Thisobscure figure gives her name to a woodedregion of Co. Sligo in Ireland’s northwest.When some of her favorite hunting dogs werekilled by a wild BOAR, she buried them and raiseda ceremonial mound over their bodies.

Corbenic Arthurian site. The name of thecastle of the FISHER KING may derive from theLatin words for “blessed body.”

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Corc mac Luigthic (Conall Corc, Conall macLuigthig) Irish hero. This heroic Irish king wasinaugurated into the throne of Cashel, in thesouthwestern PROVINCE of MUNSTER, by hisFAIRY mother FEDELM; in the process of his INAU-GURATION, his ear was magically singed red. Hetraveled to Scotland to meet the king of the Pictsbut had been treacherously set up for murder, forhis shield had been blazoned with OGHAM letterscalling for his death. An ally altered the messageto one of welcome, however, and Corc wound upmarrying the king’s daughter and returning toIreland to establish a dynasty.

Corineaus British hero. This ancient warriordefeated the monstrous GIANT named GOG orGogmagog; little else is known of him.

Cormac mac Airt (Cormac mac Art) Irishhero. Among the dozens of Irish characters whobore the name of Cormac, the most importantwas Cormac mac Airt, king of TARA. The land’sprosperity was contingent upon the rectitude ofits sovereign, and in Cormac’s time SALMON prac-tically leapt out of the rivers, the land was heavywith grain, and the COWS gave so much milk therewere not enough pails to hold it. FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, the great warrior and leader of theband of FIANNA, lived during Cormac’s reign.

As is typical of heroes, Cormac’s conceptionand birth were marked by mysterious signs andportents. When his father, ART MAC CUINN, wastraveling toward his death at the battle of MagMucrama, he stopped overnight at the home ofa SMITH who prophesied that any child con-ceived by his daughter ACHTAN would become aking. Art slept with Achtan, leaving her instruc-tions that any resulting child should be fosteredin CONNACHT. As she neared the time for herchild’s birth, Achtan traveled across Ireland tosatisfy Art’s request, but she went into labor dur-ing a thunderstorm and gave birth to the newking under a hedgerow. Suckled by a WOLF thatadopted him while his mother sought for help,Cormac survived and thrived in the wilderness,

growing up to take the throne as predicted. Firsthe had to wed MEDB Lethderg, the SOVEREIGNTY

figure who was also said to have been married tohis grandfather and father.

Although tempted away from his realm bythe OTHERWORLD beauties offered him by thesea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR, Cormac resistedtheir blandishments and came back to this worldbearing a magical golden cup that broke when-ever lies were spoken in its presence but mendeditself when truth was told. As great a king as hewas, he was ultimately forced from the throneafter being disfigured when another king cameto Tara furious because Cormac’s son CELLACH

had raped his daughter. In the fight that ensued,Cormac’s eye was put out. As a BLEMISHED KING

was unacceptable, Cormac stepped down infavor of his son CAIRBRE Lifechair.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co. 1936, p. 503; O’Rahilly,Thomas. Early Irish History and Mythology.Dublin: The Dublin Institute for AdvancedStudies, 1946, p. 132.

Corn Dolly (Corn Maiden) Scottish andIrish folkloric symbol. A roughly human-shapedfigure constructed from straw at harvest time,the Corn Dolly was often crafted from the lastsheaf cut at harvest-time. Its origins are obscurebut clearly mythic or ritual. The Dolly is associ-ated with two figures of arguable antiquity: theCAILLEACH or HAG, and BRIGIT or the Bride, whomay have been the hag’s maiden form. Often theCorn Dolly was stored in a house or barn fromfall until spring, when it played a role in sowingor other rituals associated with new life.

Source: Meaden, George Terrence. The Goddess ofthe Stones: The Language of the Megaliths.London: Souvenir Press, 1991, pp. 204–205.

Cornouaille Breton mythological site. ThisBreton kingdom was famous in myth and legend

98 Corc mac Luigthic

as the home of the dissolute princess DAHUT; itwas also the land to which TRISTAN brought thefair ISEULT at the beginning of one of Brittany’smost romantic tales.

cornucopia Mythic symbol. From theMediterranean came this horn of plenty, anemblem of FERTILITY that was embraced by theCelts, to whom the concept of abundance was acentral part of religion. Although most com-monly associated with goddesses such as Arecuraand EPONA, the cornucopia was sometimes gravenwith the image of gods, including CERNUNNOS.

Corotiacus British god. Little is known ofthis Celtic god honored at Suffolk; the invadingRomans connected him with their war godMARS.

Corp Criadh (Corp Creagh) Scottish ritualobject. In the Highlands until the 19th century,clay dollies were sometimes fashioned by thosewho wished to work ill upon their neighbors orrevenge themselves upon false lovers. Thisobject was stuck with pins or cut, then placed ina stream where the running water would slowlydissolve the clay. When the image was entirelygone, the intended victim—having sufferedfrom the pricks and cuts inflicted on the CorpCriadh—would die. Should anyone see the dollybefore its final dissolution, the spell was brokenand the victim would recover.

Source: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911, p. 16.

Corra Irish heroine or goddess. The skydemon defeated by ST. PATRICK on the top of themountain that now bears his name, CROAGH

PATRICK, drowned in Lough Corra at the base ofthe mountain after Patrick threw his silver bell ather and brought her down from the air. Otherversions of the legend say that Patrick chasedher across the country until she drowned in

LOUGH DERG, where the monster serpent CAO-RANACH (a related name) also lived; this mayhave given rise to the tale that Patrick drove thesnakes from the isle, when in fact they neverlived there (see SERPENT). Corra has been inter-preted as a MOTHER GODDESS whose power wasbroken by the arrival of patriarchal Christianity.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 503.

Corrgenn (Coincheann) Irish hero. TheDINDSHENCHAS, the poetry of Irish place-namestranscribed in the 12th century, say thatCoincheann was the murderer who killed thegod DAGDA’s son, ÁED MINBHREC, for seducinghis wife. He was then sentenced to carry his vic-tim’s body on his back until he found a stone ofequal size beneath which to bury it. He finallylaid his burden down at the famous HILLFORT ofGRIANÁN AILEACH.

cosmology Celtic philosophy and spiritualwisdom was neither written down nor con-strained by text but conveyed instead throughoral narrative, poetry, art, and ritual. Thusscholars must piece together Celtic belief fromarchaeological and textual evidences oftenwidely separated in time and place. What makesthe study of Celtic religion even more compli-cated is that most texts derive from Ireland,which has few graven images; most images derivefrom the Continent, where there are few knownCeltic texts. Because continental and insularCelts lived in lands where indigenous beliefs maywell have been different and had varying impactson Celtic life, comparison of text and image isdifficult. Does a horned god found in Francemean the same as a horned figure mentioned inan Irish text? How can one be certain?

An added difficulty arises because of the aston-ishing POLYTHEISM of the Celts. Few Celtic divini-ties appear in text or inscription more than once(see CELTIC PANTHEON). Whether this means that

cosmology 99

the Celts had a vision of ultimate divinity of whichthe multiple forms were only aspects, or whetherthere was no such abstract concept of divinity, wecannot know. Finally, many Celtic texts were writ-ten by Christian monks; we have no way to knowwhether, how, and how much they may havealtered texts to bring them into congruence withtheir own beliefs.

Scholars have, despite these difficulties,attempted to find common threads among Celticreligious texts and artifacts. They speak of theCeltic worldview as based in the concept of anOTHERWORLD, a land of perfect if somewhat ster-ile beauty to which humans have occasional access.Such access comes at certain sacred times (such asBELTANE and SAMHAIN) or in liminal places (BOGS,ISLANDS). Residents of the Otherworld could passinto our world more readily than we could passinto theirs, and they commonly made raids on thisworld to acquire things and people they desired.BARDS and musicians were frequent visitors to theOtherworld, from which they brought back beau-tiful poems and songs.

The Celts were not dualistic in their view ofthe world, preferring to speak of balance ratherthan conflict between winter and summer, maleand female, night and day. The goddess of SOV-EREIGNTY symbolized abundance and prosperity,although she also had a dark aspect, in which shebrought death and destruction. The heroichuman king was her consort, hemmed aboutwith sacred vows that kept the land fertile andthe people safe (see KINGSHIP).

Despite arising originally from a nomadicbackground, Celtic religion was deeply rooted inplace, with hundreds of divinity names knownfor SPRINGS and RIVERS, hills and promontories.Whether this is the result of coming into contactwith nonnomadic people cannot be determined,but the sense of humans as guardians of theearth’s sanctity was reflected in a belief that peo-ple and place were deeply connected.

countless stones Scottish and British folk-loric motif. There is a common story told of the

STONE CIRCLES erected by the pre-Celtic peo-ples of Britain: that one cannot ever correctlycount the number of stones in the ring. Bad luckwas said to afflict anyone who even tried tocount the stones, especially the stones of STONE-HENGE and of Stanton Drew. In some tales, abaker decides to break this spell by putting a loafof bread upon each one of the stones in turn, butthe loaves disappear as he continues around thecircle, so that the stones remain uncounted.

Source: Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of PrehistoricSites in Britain. London: David & Charles,1976, p. 63.

couril Breton folkloric figure. The courilswere evil, or at least mischievous, FAIRIES whocongregated around ancient STONE CIRCLES,especially those of Tresmalonen, where theyenjoyed dancing all night. Should a human wan-der near them in the darkness, they capturedhim and kept him dancing until he died ofexhaustion. Or, if the hapless wanderer was ayoung woman, they enjoyed her favors and lefther pregnant with a half-fairy child.

Source: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911, p. 73.

courtly love Literary and historical move-ment. In the lands of the continental Celts, acultural movement began in the Middle Agesthat glorified the service of a knight to a marriedwoman (whose husband was sometimes theknight’s lord). The knight pledged himself to hislady and then, through heroic service, tried towin the right to her heart—and presumably, toother parts of her as well although intercoursewas forbidden to the courtly lovers. Courtly loveexisted primarily as a literary movement, withtraveling poet/singers called troubadours andlater trouvères praising the relationship betweenknight and lady, but there were also “courts oflove” in the palaces of such notables as Eleanor

100 countless stones

of Aquitaine, where women heard the com-plaints of those who felt their lovers had notacted in keeping with the elaborate rules ofcourtly love. Other famous “courts” were thoseof Eleanor’s daughter, Marie of Champagne; thecountess of Flanders, Elizabeth de Vermandois;and even the queen, wife of Louis VII, Alix deChampagne. The movement, with its emphasisupon at least spiritual and sometimes physicaladultery, was never condoned by the Christianchurch but has been tied to ancient Celtic mythsin which a younger lover gains the heart of aqueen from an older king.

See DIARMAIT, GRÁINNE, and FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL; LANCELOT, GUINEVERE, and kingARTHUR.

Source: Markale, Jean. Courtly Love: The Path ofSexual Initiation. Rochester, Vt.: InnerTraditions, 2000.

court tomb (court cairn) Mythological site.Relics of the pre-Celtic MEGALITHIC CIVILIZA-TION found throughout the Celtic lands includethese early burial structures. Typically a pavedsemicircular courtyard stands in front of a CAIRN

or stone mound, which covers a small interiorchamber whose entrance faces east. The court-yard at the impressive court tomb at Creevykeelin Ireland’s Co. Sligo could easily have held 50people. Archaeologists speculate that, if themounds were indeed gravesites, the courtyardscould have been used for funerary ceremonies.

Source: Harbison, Peter. Pre-Christian Ireland:From the First Settlers to the Early Celts. London:Thames and Hudson, 1988, p. 47.

Coventina British goddess. Known from sculp-tures found at a sacred WELL in Northumberland,Coventina was portrayed as a reclining womanpouring WATER from an urn, or as a woman sur-rounded by plants, who emptied her water-vesselonto them. Although primarily a British god-dess, especially ruling the Carrawburgh River,

Coventina has also been found in Spain andFrance with titles like Augusta and Sancta, “high”and “holy,” that emphasize her importance. Shemay, like other Celtic water goddesses, have had aHEALING aspect.

Source: Allason-Jones, Lindsay. “Coventina’s Well.”In Billington, Sandra, and Miranda Green, eds.The Concept of the Goddess. Routledge: Londonand New York, 1996, pp. 107–119.

cow Symbolic animal. BULL and cow were sig-nificant Celtic symbols for the feminine and mas-culine powers, the bull representing warriorstrength, the cow indicating abundance and pros-perity. Used in ancient Ireland as a way of calcu-lating wealth, the cow was a provider of MILK andBUTTER, two vital foodstuffs. Many goddesseswere associated with cows, including BRIGIT,BÓAND, and the MÓRRÍGAN. But the cow itselfcould be divine, as in the case of the GLAS

GHAIBHLEANN (in Scotland, Glas Ghaibhnann), amagical white cow spotted with green whowalked about the land, providing milk from herinexhaustible udder to anyone who wished it.Wherever she passed, the grass grew greener andsweeter, the farmers grew wealthier. These asso-ciations indicate to many scholars a connectionwith cow-cults in other Indo-European lands.

All cows in Ireland were said to be thedescendants of the OTHERWORLD cows thatarose from the western ocean at the beginning oftime: BÓ FIND, the white cow, and her sister BóRuadh and Bó Duh, the red and black cowsrespectively. Cows were, not surprisingly, associ-ated with women, not only in legend but in real-ity, for women did the milking, made the butter,and tended the cows in their summer pastures.

Sources: O hEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends ofDonegal. Trans. by Máire MacNeill. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, pp. 265,329; O’Sullivan, Patrick V. Irish Superstitionsand Legends of Animals and Birds. Cork: Mercier,1991, p. 10.

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co-walker Irish and Scottish folkloric figure.Just before or after someone died, an exact replicawas often seen walking about. A woman on herdeathbed might be seen at church, or a recentlydeceased man at his own wake. These co-walkerswere sometimes described as TWIN souls, freedwith the approach of death, but they were alsospoken of as FAIRIES disguised as the person whostood on the edge of the OTHERWORLD. It wasimportant never to speak to these shades or fairies,who would ultimately depart and not be seenagain, although it is unclear whether the dangerwas considered to be to the deceased or the living.

Craebhnat (Creevna) Irish heroine. NearDoneraile in the southwestern PROVINCE ofMUNSTER, a sacred TREE was dedicated to thiswoman who, when confronted with the demandthat she marry, tore out one of her eyes, hopingthat her disfigurement would drive away herpotential groom. The tree was an ASH, one ofIreland’s magical trees. Another tree nearby wassaid to possess the power of keeping peopleafloat; anyone who carried the slightest shavingof its bark or wood could never drown. It is notclear whether the local people envisionedCraebhnat as a FAIRY or as one of the SAINTS.

Craiphtine (Craftine, Cratiny) Irish hero.One of those credited with the invention of themusical instrument most connected to Ireland,the HARP, this musician appeared in myths of thehero LABHRAIGH, whose fitful sleep he easedwith his melodies. So powerful was Craiphtine’smusic that he was able to send entire armies tosleep with it, making him very useful to his rulerin times of war.

Crandelmass Arthurian hero. This minorcharacter in the legend of king ARTHUR ofCAMELOT was one of the early opponents toArthur’s rule.

crane Symbolic animal. The Celts believedthat BIRDS, like TREES, stood in two worlds,

belonging to the OTHERWORLD as well as thisone. Birds like the crane—at home not only in airand on land but also in the water—were espe-cially magical. Cranes typically represented thefeminine force, especially when they appeared inTHREES; because they stand upright, they wereimagined to have originally been human. In folk-lore cranes represent bad will and miserliness.

One of the most significant Irish mythsinvolving cranes is that of FLONNUALA and herbrothers, the CHILDREN OF LIR, in which the evilsorceress stepmother AÍFE transformed the chil-dren into SWANS and was herself cursed tobecome a crane. A strange crane-like stance, inwhich a person stood on one leg while holdingout one arm, was used in cursing; the goddessBADB assumed this position at DA DERGA’s hostelwhen she cursed king CONAIRE for breaking hissacred vows. An ancient Irish taboo on eatingcrane’s meat has suggested to some that the birdonce had a totemic function, as an ancestraldivinity or symbol.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in CelticReligious Art. London: Routledge, 1989, pp. 183,279; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 38.

crane bag Irish mythological symbol. Textsdisagree as to whether the AÍFE of this tale is thesame as the evil stepmother of the story of theCHILDREN OF LIR. Some describe the jealous sor-ceress Aífe, after being turned to a CRANE for hermalevolence in turning the children of Lir intoswans, flying away to live on the sea, the domainof MANANNÁN MAC LIR; other tales appear todescribe another woman of the same name.Despite her wickedness, she lived to the ripe ageof 200 and died of natural causes, whereuponManannán crafted a bag from her feathery skinin which to hold treasures, items of worth thathad been lost in shipwreck. Another story has itthat Aífe fell in love with a man named Ilbhreac,the beloved of the sorceress Iuchra, who cursedher rival and condemned her to become a crane.

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Attempts to gain possession of the crane bagform the basis of several hero tales, includingones centered on FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

Crannóg (Crannog) Archaeological site. Earlysettlements in Celtic lands were often built onartificial ISLANDS in LAKES and were made of brushand surrounded by wattle fences; the lake providedprotection for the residents of the crannóg as wellas the necessary life-giving liquid. There is someevidence that the building of the circular dwellingson such lake settlements was invented in pre-Celtic times; they were used into the earlyChristian era, and indeed in some cases as late asthe 17th century C.E. Some restored crannógs canbe seen at historical parks, notably Cragganowen,near Ennis, Co. Clare, in Ireland.

Source: Aalen, F. H. A. Man and the Landscape inIreland. London: Academic Press, 1978, p. 87.

creation Cosmological concept. Most cul-tures have a myth that describes the creation ofthis world, usually from the chaos of an earlierworld by a divine power, often a GODDESS. TheCelts are among the few people who lack such amyth. Although several ancient authors includ-ing Strabo and Caesar refer to a Celtic cosmol-ogy, its creation myth either has been lost ornever existed. Both Ireland and Scotland knowcreation stories centering on the great HAG, theCAILLEACH, who created the earth by droppingthings (pebbles that became boulders, and thelike) from her apron, but the Cailleach, althoughabsorbed into the lore of the Celts, appears tohave been pre-Celtic.

Créd Irish heroine. Two famous breast-shaped mountains, the PAPS OF DANU in thesouthwestern province of MUNSTER, are associ-ated with this FAIRY QUEEN or legendary heroine,who demanded that, to become her lover, a manhad to compose a splendid praise-poem describ-ing her heavily guarded palace—without ever

seeing it. CÁEL, a seer as well as a poet, pene-trated her defenses with his inner vision, com-posed the requisite poem, and won Créd’s love.“Wounded men spouting heavy blood wouldsleep to the music of fairy birds singing abovethe bright leaves of her bower,” were the wordsthat won her heart. To protect her beloved, Crédmade him a magical battle-dress; nonetheless hewas killed in the service of his king, whereuponCréd threw herself into his grave and died. Crédwas a poet herself, and one of her songs isincluded in the COLLOQUY OF THE ELDERS.

Either the same figure or another heroine ofthe same name was the daughter of legendaryking GUAIRE and ancestral mother to theO’Connors. She too died tragically when,although married to another king, she fell inlove with the warrior poet CANO MAC GARTNÁIN.Cano was visiting from Scotland, where hishome was once so cheery that 50 fishing netswere rigged so that whenever fish were caughtthe bells chimed out. His father had been mur-dered, however, and Cano had escaped to thecourt of Créd’s husband, where he was smittenwith the queen. Créd, similarly stricken, gaveeveryone a sleeping potion except Cano, towhom she revealed her desire. Out of prideCano refused to consummate his love with Créduntil he had regained his patrimony. He gave herhis EXTERNAL SOUL—a stone containing hisessence—as a pledge of his love. The meddlingof Créd’s stepson brought such torment thatCréd killed herself, crushing the stone of Cano’ssoul as she did so; Cano died several days later.

Creiddylad (Cordelia, Creudylad) Welsh god-dess. The springtime feast of BELTANE was dedi-cated in parts of Wales to Creiddylad, in whosehonor a great contest was held between two con-tenders for her hand, GWYTHYR FAB GREIDAWL

and GWYNN AP NUDD. Such May contestsbetween winter and summer are known in otherCeltic lands as well. Creiddylad was transformedinto Cordelia, daughter of Lear in Shakespeare’splay, but in Welsh mythology she was not the

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daughter of LLYR the sea god but of the the heroLLUDD; Shakespeare, who drew on the works ofGeoffrey of Monmouth in writing his play, con-fused the two.

Creidne (Crédne) Irish god. One of the arti-san gods of the magical race called the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, Creidne “the brazier” specialized inprecious metals like bronze and GOLD. Togetherwith GOIBNIU and LUCHTAR, he was one of na trídée Dána, the three craft gods of the Tuatha Dé.Danann Creidne made the weapons his peopleused in their battle against their terrifyingenemy, the FOMORIANS. Some tales claim he wasthe SMITH who crafted the silver hand for kingNUADA when the latter was injured in battlewhile other tales credit DIAN CÉCHT. Legendsays that Creidne was drowned while attemptingto import gold from Spain. Another Creidne wasone of the WARRIOR WOMEN who fought withthe famed FIANNA.

Crimthann Several kings of Ireland werecalled by this name, as was the Christian saintwho became the missionary scholar ColumCille. The most important figures namedCrimthann were:

• Crimthann of Tara, fosterling of king DIAR-MAIT; his charms caught the eye of queenBECFHOLA, but his unwillingness to travel onSunday, when she was available for a tryst,ended their affair prematurely.

• Crimthann Mór mac Fidaigh, brother ofthe supernatural MONGFHINN and father ofthe cannibal woman EITHNE Úathach, wasrecorded as a historical king of TARA but existsat the margin between myth and history, as hisrelatives indicate.

• Crimthann Nia Náir, whose father was thestriped man LUGAIDH Riab nDerg, and whosemother was also his grandmother, the incestu-ous CLOTHRA. Probably the incest motif herepoints to Clothra’s position as goddess of SOV-EREIGNTY, married in turn to each of the

kings of her land. He lost his life in the battleof the INTOXICATION OF THE ULSTERMEN, asdid his fierce foster mother, the satirist RICHIS.

Croagh Patrick Irish mythological site. Inthe west of Ireland, in Co. Mayo, a dramatic tri-angular mountain rises from sea level to 2,500feet. Often wrapped in clouds, the mountain hasbeen sacred for millennia, for pre-Celtic ruinshave been found on its summit that date to theNeolithic period. It was once called CruachanAigle after AIGLE, a man who died there aftercarrying rocks in his pockets up its slopes; it nowgoes by the name of Croagh Patrick, after thesaint who Christianized Ireland. It was there thatST. PATRICK fasted for 40 days and 40 nights inemulation of Christ’s desert sojourn, then wres-tled with the powers of pagan Ireland and finallydefeated them in the form of CORRA, a demonwho drowned in a LAKE at the peak’s base.

The powers of PAGANISM did not stay thor-oughly defeated, however, for the ancient festi-vals reemerged in new, albeit Christian dress.Such was the case with LUGHNASA, the ancientharvest festival that was converted to the still-extant Christian ritual of climbing CroaghPatrick, locally called The Reek, on the lastSunday in July. As many as 60,000 pilgrims—including, on one occasion, Princess Grace(Kelly) of Monaco—annually ascend the moun-tain, some barefoot, some on their knees.Climbing hills on Lughnasa was standard Celticpractice. More remnants of paganism cling tothe festival in its local name, Domhnach ChromDubh or CROM DUBH’s Sunday, after anotherpagan divinity that Patrick defeated in his strug-gle for Ireland’s soul.

Source: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 167–188.

Crobh Dearg (Crove Derg) Irish goddess.“Red claw” was an Irish goddess of the south-western PROVINCE of MUNSTER, sometimes saidto be the sister of LATIARAN, a Christianized god-

104 Creidne

dess of the region, as well as the important localsaint Gobnat. Possibly a form of BADB, CrobhDearg is associated with a holy WELL on or nearthe famous PAPS OF DANU. Local traditioninvolved visiting the well and its nearby FAIRY

MOUND, Cahercrovdarrig, on BELTANE; CATTLE

from the vicinity were driven there for purifica-tion until recent times.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa.Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 272–274.

Crochan (Cruacha) Irish heroine or goddess.The pregnant servant of the runaway queen ofTARA, ÉTAIN, Crochan gave birth to the greatqueen and goddess MEDB in a cave in CONNACHT

called variously OWEYNAGAT, the Cave of theCats, or Síd Sinche, the fairy mound of Sinech(an otherwise unknown personage whose namemeans “large breasts”). Although the cave lookslike a hole in the earth, Crochan saw the mysti-cal site as a beautiful FAIRY palace and lived thereeven after her daughter built a palace on a rathor HILLFORT and named it CRUACHAN in herhonor. Her name means “vessel”; she is some-times called Crochan Crocderg or Croderg, “theblood-red cup.”

crodh mara Scottish mythological animal.The Highlanders of Scotland believed that, outin the ocean deeps, the FAIRIES kept hornlesssupernatural CATTLE that could come ashore tomate with mortal COWS, bettering the herds ofearth. They were often RED, like many fairycreatures, but they were also sometimes seen asgray or dun.

Crom Cruach (Crom Crúaich, Cenn Cruaich,Cromm Cruaich) Irish god. There is noknown narrative regarding the activities of thisdeity, but he is recorded in several ancientsources as the primary god of the ancient Irish.He was worshiped, it is said, in the form of stone

idols to which children were sacrificed. KingTIGERNMAS worshiped Crom Cruach in this wayevery SAMHAIN, smashing the heads of first-bornchildren against his ghastly image—believed tobe the Killycluggan Stone with its scowling face,now on display in the National Museum ofIreland. Such stone images of the divine weresaid to have been destroyed by ST. PATRICK, fol-lowing in the footsteps of such continentalexemplars of piety as St. Martin of Tours, whodemolished hundreds of Celtic and Roman stat-ues in his attempt to purify the land of paganinfluences. Many STANDING STONES, STONE CIR-CLES, and other sacred images nonethelessescaped uninjured. Some have connected CromCruach to the DAGDA, the “good god” who pro-vided abundance to his children; the early Irishscholar Vallancey claimed Crom-eocha was aname of the Dagda.

In the DINDSHENCHAS, the place-poetry ofancient Ireland, Crom Cruach is described as awar-inducing idol, at the base of which the bloodof first born children had to be poured. So longas one-third of all children were sacrificed tohim, the cruel deity would provide MILK andcorn for the surviving people. The place wherehis GOLD idol stood, ringed by twelve fiercestone figures, was called Mag Slecht, believednow to be in northeast Co. Cavan.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 21–23.

Crom Dubh Irish god or hero. This obscurefigure appears in legends of ST. PATRICK as apagan king who grew angry at Patrick for failingto sufficiently thank him for the gift of THREE

BULLS; the saint had only said “thanks to god”with the arrival of each gift. When Patrick wrotehis words on three slips of paper and had theirweight calculated against that of the bulls, theywere revealed to be identical, and Crom Dubhimmediately was converted. Crom Dubh’s name

Crom Dubh 105

remains current as the title of the annual cele-bration at Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo. Patrick’skingly adversary is sometimes called CROM CRU-ACH, suggesting that the “king” was a humanizedversion of an ancient god.

Cromlech See DOLMEN, MEGALITHIC

CIVILIZATION.

Crón Irish goddess or god. Obscure ancientIrish divinity mentioned in several texts as “theswarthy one” or “the dark one” and connectedwith a giant SERPENT, perhaps the one alsoknown as CAORANACH. She was said to live in anenchanted valley called Crón’s Glen.

Crónánach Irish hero. Despite an impres-sively ugly appearance, this OTHERWORLD piperfrom the FENIAN CYCLE played marvelously, andwhen morning light struck his features, he wastransformed into a handsome man who couldpass for a king.

crooker British folkloric spirit. Travelers tothe Derwent River in the English Peaklandswere cautioned to beware of this haunting spirit.

crossing water Folkloric motif. In someCeltic lands, including on the Isle of Man, it wasbelieved that FAIRIES could not cross runningwater; thus if one were pursued by the WILD

HUNT, running across a stream offered protec-tion. Standing water was no substitute, as fairieswere often said, especially in Ireland, to live onISLANDS in or under the waves of LAKES.

crow Symbolic animal. One of the mostmythologically significant BIRDS of Celtic lands,the black-feathered crow was usually connectedto the goddess in Ireland, although in Wales it isthe god/hero BRÂN THE BLESSED who bears acrow-name, for Brân means raven or “carrioncrow.” Black-winged MÓRRÍGAN and the scald-

crow BADB both took crow forms, as did the con-tinental Celtic CATHUBODUA; all were connectedwith battle, and some have described the shriek-ing black-robed DRUID women of ANGLESEY asenacting the part of the crow goddess as battleraged. War, death, and foreboding were associ-ated with the crow goddess, who flew over thebattlefield searching for carrion rather like theScandinavian Valkyries.

Perhaps because they hover over dying beastsas though predicting death, crows were believedto have premonitory or divinatory powers (seeDIVINATION). Continental Celts believed thatcrows could reveal where a town would best besituated. They could be trusted to settle disputeswisely; complainants had only to set out similarlysized piles of food and let the birds either eat orscatter one claimed in advance by the moretruthful contender. In Ireland it was consideredill-fortune to have a crow look down your chim-ney, for that would indicate a coming death.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 247;O’Sullivan, Patrick V. Irish Superstitions andLegends of Animals and Birds. Cork: Mercier,1991, p. 25.

Cruachan (Crogan, Rathcrogan, Cruachain,Crúachu, Rathcruachain, Bri Ele) Irish mytho-logical site. In the eastern part of the westernPROVINCE of CONNACHT was its capital,Cruachan, the seat of its great queen and god-dess, MEDB. Now anglicized as Rathcrogan andclose to the tiny town of Tulsk in Co.Roscommon, Cruachan was one of Ireland’smost important ancient sites, the regional equiv-alent of EMAIN MACHA in ULSTER and TARA inMEATH. Replete with earthworks and antiquities,some 49 in all, it can still be visited today.

The land around it rises gradually, so thateven the relatively small raths and other earth-works on the site command a grand view overthe province and out to the midlands. The cen-tral rath (see HILLFORT) after which the complex

106 Cromlech

is named, rises to 4 meters in height and is 88meters in diameter. Other earthworks in the areainclude Dáithi’s Mound, topped with a tallSTANDING STONE; avenues that resemble thoseat Tara; and most important, the CAVE of theCATS, OWEYNAGAT.

The figure most closely associated withCruachan was Medb. She was born there, in thecave of Oweynagat, to a woman namedCROCHAN Crocderg who gave her name to theentire area. At Cruachan Medb lived with herhusband AILILL. Nothing remains of Medb’s sup-posed fort except the unexcavated steep-sidedrath near the center of the archaeological site,ringed about by five concentric circles. Also onthe two-mile-square site are the Rath of theBulls, whose name recalls the most significantstory set at Cruachan, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE orCattle Raid of Cooley, an expedition that set outfor ULSTER from Cruachan on SAMHAIN.Samhain was also the time of the other great epicset at Cruachan, the Echtra Nerai, the Adventuresof NERA, in which one of Ailill’s men descendedto the OTHERWORLD through Oweynagat.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 237–242;Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas. vol.III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 349–355; Hull, Eleanor. TheCuchullin Saga in Irish Literature. London:David Nutt, 1898, pp. 111 ff; Raftery, Brian.Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish IronAge. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994, p. 70.

Crudel Arthurian hero. When the Jewishmerchant JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA arrived inBritain bearing the GRAIL, the cup that JesusChrist had used at his Last Supper, he was met bythe pagan king Crudel, who imprisoned the visi-tor until he was released by Christian warriors.

Crunniuc (Cronnchu, Crunnchu) Irish hero.A mortal man selected by the goddess (or FAIRY

QUEEN) MACHA, who lived with him on his farm,bringing prosperity and wealth to man and land.When Crunniuc announced his intention of trav-eling to the Assembly of ULSTER, a pregnantMacha attempted to dissuade him, but to no avail;he would brook no opposition. So she settled fora promise that he would not discuss her with any-one, nor even mention her presence in his life.

Crunniuc was unable to keep his promiseand, even worse, boasted that Macha was fasterthan the king’s swiftest horses. A race ensued,which Macha won. She collapsed at the finishline, however, giving birth to TWINS as she diedand cursing the entire region with the famousDEBILITY OF THE ULSTERMEN. Nothing is said ofCrunniuc after his wife’s death, although he can-not have been a popular person thereafter.

Cuailnge (Cooley) Irish mythological sites.This lush peninsula juts out into the Irish Sea onthe east coast of Ireland, just below CarlingfordLough, a narrow bay named for a Viking calledCarling who plundered the area in historictimes. The name of the peninsula is now usuallyanglicized to Cooley. To the north, across thebay, rise the blue-gray Mountains of Mourne,while along the spine of the Cooley peninsularun the low forested Cooley mountains. Theregion is famous in Irish myth, for it was to thisnarrow strip of land, home to the magical bullDONN CUAILNGE, that the great TÁIN or CATTLE

raid was launched by queen MEDB from herstronghold in CRUACHAN.

See TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

Cúchulainn (Cuhullin, Cú Chulainn, Cuchul-lin) Irish hero. Irish legend has no hero tomatch him, nor any stronger or more renownedin battle, although the mighty FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL comes close. Cúchulainn appearsmost prominently in the ULSTER CYCLE, whichtells how he was born magically when hismother, DECHTIRE, drank water with a worm init; the same magical conception story is told ofCúchulainn’s king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, so the

Cúchulainn 107

two are mythic doubles. Concobar was eitherDechtire’s brother or father, and when theunmarried woman began to show her pregnancy,rumors circulated that the child was the result ofincest. Dechtire married, but her shame causedCúchulainn to be born prematurely; he livednonetheless, bearing the name of SÉTANTA.

All the heroes of Ireland argued over whowould foster the brilliant young man, but hismother decided that each should offer a specialgift. Thus Cúchulainn gained all the best ancientIreland had to offer: the poetry of AMAIRGIN, theeloquence of Sencha, the wealth of Blaí Briuga.The powerful FERGUS MAC RÓICH served as histutor in the manly arts, while kindly FINDCHÓEM

nursed him; CONALL CERNACH was his fosterbrother and Concobar, his foster father.

Variants claim Cúchulainn was the son ofSUALTAIM MAC ROICH, an otherwise unknownULSTER chief usually called his foster father; orof the god LUGH, conceived when Dechtire wasin the enchanted form of a bird. All the talesagree that Cúchulainn showed his warriornature early. At five years old, he went along tothe great court at EMAIN MACHA, challenging allthe boys there to a contest with child-sizeweapons, which he won handily.

When king Concobar traveled to CUAILNGE—a place that would play such an important part inCúchulainn’s later life—the boy Sétanta was leftbehind playing. He caught up with the royal partyat the home of the SMITH, CULANN, which wasguarded by a vicious dog that Cúchulainn easilykilled in order to enter. The host deplored thiswanton killing, but the gracious seven-year-oldpromised to serve as Culann’s hound until hefound a suitable replacement. Thus the boyearned his adult name, for Cú means “hound,”and the hero was the “hound of Culann.”

We next hear of the boy hero when he grewfurious at his hurling companions and brainedthem all, going into such a contortion of furythat he became virtually unrecognizable. Heraged back to Concobar’s fortress, still swollenwith fury—for when he fought, Cúchulainnwent into what was called the “warp-spasm,”

with one eye retreating into his skull while theother protruded, and with columns of blood andlight projecting from his head. It took severalhuge vats of water to cool his fury.

When he grew old enough to court a woman,Cúchulainn settled upon the fair EMER, who hadall the finest attributes of womanhood as he did ofmanhood. Emer’s father, FORGALL MANACH, didnot approve of the match and sent Cúchulainn onwhat he thought was a fool’s errand: to study withthe WARRIOR WOMAN SCÁTHACH in Scotland.There Cúchulainn convinced the skilled warriorto teach him her secrets, which resembled thekind of astonishing feats seen today in martial-artsmovies. One impressive maneuver, however, heseems to have invented himself: the SALMON-leap,a kind of frisky pounce that made Cúchulainn vir-tually unstoppable in battle.

While in Scotland, and despite his promise tobe true to his intended Emer, Cúchulainn had adalliance with the warrior AÍFE, who conceived ason by him. When he was grown to young man-hood, Aífe gave their son CONNLA Cúchulainn’sring and sent him to Ireland. The boy refused toidentify himself to his father, and so Cúchulainnunknowingly and unwittingly killed Connla.Despite ultimately marrying Emer, Cúchulainnhad many affairs, including one with the fairyqueen FAND, who stole him away from humanlife. None, however, resulted in another son.

Cúchulainn’s most famous adventure was hissingle-handed defense of Concobar’s Ulsteragainst the CATTLE RAID initiated by queenMEDB. His chief weapon was his spear, GÁE

BULGA. As Cúchulainn was not actually anUlsterman, he did not suffer the debilitybrought on by the dying curse of MACHA,wherein the men of Ulster would fall down insomething resembling labor pains for four daysand five nights whenever their land was attacked.While the Ulstermen were writhing in pain,Cúchulainn fended off one hero after another,killing them all in single combat, including hisbeloved foster brother FERDIAD. (For a completedescription of Cúchulainn’s feats in that epicbattle, see TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.)

108 Cúchulainn

Cúchulainn died when he violated his GEIS orsacred vow never to eat DOG meat. Various ver-sions of his death are given in ancient texts, butone constant is his refusal to meet death in anyother way than standing. To assure that he woulddo so, Cúchulainn had himself chained to a pil-lar, where he was attacked by javelins and otherweapons even long after his death. Only whenthe carrion CROWS, servants of the goddessBADB, flew down to peck at his eyes, was the heroacknowledged to be gone.

Cúchulainn has inspired much literatureafter the heroic period. Yeats wrote several playsabout him, including The Only Jealousy of Emer,about his affair with the fairy queen Fand, andOn Baile’s Strand, about his unwitting murder ofhis only son. Morgan Llywelyn’s historical novelRed Branch details the Cúchulainn saga.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, pp. 134–153; Hull,Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature.London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 15, 253.

Cucullatus See GENIUS CUCULLATUS.

Cuda British goddess. An obscure goddess,found in Cirencester, ancient capital of theCeltic Dobunni tribe; she was depicted seatedand holding an egg, apparently a symbol of fruit-fulness and potential.

Cuilenn (Cullen, Culann) Irish hero. ThisFAIRY king gave his name to a unique feature ofthe Northern Irish landscape, the Ring ofGullion, a huge circle of mountains created byancient volcanic action. A mountain in the cen-ter, SLIEVE GULLION, was said to be his home—although local folklore also named the CAIL-LEACH as the occupant of the mountain, livingbeneath the CAIRN that crowns its summit. Nearthe summit of the mountain is a LAKE, said toturn gray anyone who swims in it.

FIONN MAC CUMHAILL tried his luck by swim-ming there, having been challenged by the FAIRY

QUEEN ÁINE’s lustful sister MILUCRA to do so.Because Áine had pledged never to sleep with aman with gray hair, and because she wantedFionn for himself, Milucra set about making himunattractive to her sister. She built andbewitched a little lake on the summit of themountain, where she tricked Fionn into swim-ming. He emerged silver-haired, aged, and bent.His men, the FIANNA, captured Milucra andforced her to give their leader a restorativepotion from her golden CORNUCOPIA, but indoing so she made sure his hair remained silver.Some texts say it was Cuilenn came to Fionn’srescue by offering him a drink from a goldencup, which also endowed the hero with wisdom.

Sources: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 351 ff;MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa, PartsI and II. Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éire-ann, 1982, p. 164.

Cuirithir See LIADAN.

Culann Irish hero. A SMITH who forged theweapons for CÚCHULAINN’s foster father, CON-COBAR MAC NESSA, he was entertaining the menof ULSTER when the boy SÉTANTA arrived lateand wantonly killed his favorite dog. Culann wasangry, and Sétanta offered to serve in thehound’s stead until a canine replacement couldbe found, thus becoming Cú Chulainn, “houndof Culann.” Some texts conflate Culann andCuilenn, who may be the same or derived fromthe same figure.

Culhwch See KULHWCH.

Culhwch ac Olwen See KULHWCH AND

OLWEN.

cumhal See MILK.

cumhal 109

Cumhall (Camall, Camhall) Irish hero. Fatherof the great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, whomhe sired upon the unwilling MURNA, afterabducting her from her father TADG mac Nuadatand causing enmity between his family, the CLAN

BAÍSCNE, and hers, the CLAN MORNA. Althoughlegends of Cumhall’s death vary, he is commonlyheld to have been killed by Tadg’s ally, CONN ofthe Hundred Battles, king of TARA.

Cunedda Welsh hero. In some mythologicaltexts, this man is one of the original settlers ofWales, who arrived with his eight sons to foundthe Celtic kingdoms there. The dynasties ofGwynedd were named for him.

Cunobelinus (Cunobeline) British hero. Thefigure upon which Shakespeare built his tragichero Cymbeline was a southern British warriorwhose 40-year leadership of the Catuvallauniansended with the invasion of the Romans.

Cunomaglus See APOLLO.

Cunrie (Kundrie, Kundry) Arthurian hero-ine. The name of the LOATHY LADY in someArthurian texts; she is a form of the goddess ofSOVEREIGNTY.

cup See GRAIL.

curad-mír (curadmir) See CHAMPION’SPORTION.

Cú Roí Irish hero. As CÚCHULAINN was thegreat hero of ULSTER, the northern PROVINCE ofIreland, so was Cú Roí to MUNSTER in the south-west; possibly the hero stood at the center of a lostepic cycle of which only tantalizing bits remain.Even the meaning of his name is unknown—thefirst part means “hound,” a common name forheroes, but the last part is unclear, as is his con-nection to the mythological ancestor DÍRE, of

whom he was sometimes said to be the son butsometimes appeared to be the double. Similarly,Cú Roí’s relationship to the various figures namedLUGAIDH is confusing, although the latter issometimes mentioned as the former’s son.

Like Cúchulainn, Cú Roí first revealed hisprowess as a child, becoming a fighter at a pre-cociously early age. After reaching maturity heembarked upon many adventures and cam-paigns, being king at TARA according to sometexts and therefore subject to the kind of GEIS

that such kings as CONAIRE also endured. He wassaid to have traveled to the OTHERWORLD in thecompany of Cúchulainn to steal away its treas-ures, including the magical woman BLÁTHNAT,three Otherworldly COWS, and a CAULDRON ofabundance. The agreement was that the bootywould be evenly split—how three cows can beevenly divided among two heroes is notrevealed, though the parallelism of woman andcauldron is notable—but Cúchulainn renegedon the deal. Cú Roí, in retaliation, buriedCúchulainn so that only his head stuck out of theground, then shaved his erstwhile companionentirely bald and covered him with cow dung.

Bláthnat became Cú Roí’s queen, but shebetrayed him by conspiring with Cúchulainn,whom she had taken as a lover, to reveal the cir-cumstances that would permit her husband to bekilled: If a SALMON, his EXTERNAL SOUL, waskilled, Cú Roí would meet his doom. And indeed,upon the slaying of the magical salmon, Cú Roílost his strength and was easily killed. Cú Roí wasavenged when his loyal poet FERCHERTNE

grabbed the traitorous woman and leapt off a cliffto his death—causing hers at the same time.

Cú Roí had many adventures before thatunfortunate end, including one in which he dis-guised himself as a herdsman to create dissentamong Cúchulainn and two other heroes,CONALL Cernach and LÓEGURE BÚADACH.Urging them each to cut off his head, in returnfor which he would cut off theirs, Cú Roí wastwice decapitated and twice rejoined head tobody, but both Conall and Lóegure refused tofulfill the entire bargain. Only CÚCHULAINN

110 Cumhall

offered his own neck after the third decapitationand miraculous recapitation, and so Cú Roíannounced him as the chief of all heroes.

Unlike his human Ulster counterpart, Cú Roíappears to have been originally a deity trans-formed into a hero, for he lived in a rotatingOTHERWORLD fortress whose entrance disap-peared after sunset; the site is variously locked inthe Slieve Mish mountains of Co. Kerry or atTemair Luachra, an untraceable place that prob-ably refers to TARA in Co. Meath. Within thatcastle he kept his magical CAULDRON, so hugethat 30 oxen fit inside it; thus he resembles thefertility deity called the DAGDA. Some have foundin Cú Roí an ancestral deity of Munster, others afigure of the sacred king who brings good for-tune with an honest reign (see SACRAL KINGSHIP).

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York: HenryHolt and Co., 1936, p. 328; Gantz, Jeffrey. EarlyIrish Myths & Sagas. New York: Penguin, 1981,p. 219. O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish Historyand Mythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 321.

curse Cosmological concept. The Celts,because they believed fiercely in the power of theword, took both blessing and cursing very seri-ously. A special power and responsibility of theBARD was to ensure that the king was generousand responsible. Should a king prove stingy, aswas the case of BRES mac Elatha, it was the poet’sjob to level a sufficiently dreadful curse upon himthat he would become physically blemished.Since a BLEMISHED KING could not retain thethrone, such a curse would bring new leadership.

Other famous curses in Celtic mythologyinclude the one that AÍFE, stepmother of theCHILDREN OF LIR placed on her stepchildren,which turned them into SWANs; the retaliatorycurse leveled upon her by the children’s grandfa-ther, the magician BODB DERG, which turned Aífeinto a CRANE; and the curse of MACHA thatbrought down the men of ULSTER every time

they were invaded (see DEBILITY OF THE ULSTER-MEN). Curses were not easily undone, for theyrequired someone more powerful than the origi-nal speaker to change their outcome. They couldalso be long-lasting; Aífe’s curse on the Childrenof Lir lasted almost a thousand years.

Humans as well as divinities employed verbalcurses. In Ireland a person visited a designatedspot—a holy WELL or CURSING STONE—andspoke the words, sometimes while engaging insome ritual, such as turning round stones againstthe sun (counterclockwise). The interruption inthe expected order would be carried forthtogether with the words to bring destruction tothe victim. In Cornwall pins stuck into apples orpotatoes caused harm to the intended victim,and it was believed that verbal curses becameineffective if spoken aloud rather than mutteredin a low tone.

cursing stones Irish ritual object. AroundIreland, one can still find stones that are reputedto carry curses farther and faster and to makethem stronger than if the same curse is utteredwithout the help of the stones. Typically they aresmall round stones in a graveyard or other sacredsite. Often a specific ritual is attached to the useof the cursing stones. In Ballysummaghan andBaroe, in Co. Sligo, for instance, one has to bebarefoot for the curse to work. Undoing thecurse is difficult, if not impossible. In the Sligocase, the cursed person has to agree to be tem-porarily buried while charms against the curseare recited. In Co. Clare, at Kilmoon betweenKilleany and Lisdoonvarna, some famous cursingstones led in the 18th century to a murder afterthe victim was believed to have been “turning thestones against” the attacker.

cú síth Scottish mythological being. Unlikeother FAIRY creatures, the Highland fairy DOG

was neither black (see BLACK DOG) nor RED withwhite ears, but dark green and the size of a smallBULL. It made enormous footprints, the size of alarge man’s, and always moved in a straight line

cú síth 111

as it traversed the world hunting for prey,including other dogs.

Custennin Welsh hero. This minor figure inthe story of KULHWYCH AND OLWEN was theherdsman to Olwen’s father, the GIANT YSPAD-DADEN PENKAWR.

c’wn annwn (cwn annwfn) Welsh mytholog-ical beings. The hounds of the OTHERWORLD ofWelsh mythology were, like many other FAIRY

creatures, RED with white ears, although theycould also look like normal beagles. But they didnot act like normal DOGS, ranging through theworld baying in terrifying voices. Their presencewas believed to portend death.

See BLACK DOG, GABRIEL HOUNDS.

Cycle of the Kings (Historical Cycle)Mythic story sequence. There are several majorsequences of Irish mythology, centering on dif-ferent figures, geographic areas, and eras. TheULSTER CYCLE revolves around the heroes of thatprovince, CÚCHULAINN and CONCOBAR MAC

NESSA, as well as FERGUS mac Roich, who joinstheir great opponent MEDB. The FENIAN CYCLE

centers on FIONN MAC CUMHAILL and the band ofwarriors he leads, the FIANNA, including OISÍN

and DIARMAIT. The MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE

includes stories of the gods themselves, includingthe great divinities of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN.

The HISTORICAL CYCLE, sometimes called theCycle of the Kings, includes tales of the kings ofTARA, including CONN of the Hundred Battlesand NIALL of the Nine Hostages, as well as ART

MAC CUINN and the mad king SUIBHNE. Many ofthe myths incorporated in this cycle focus on theking’s righteousness or lack thereof and itsresults. Some of the kings are known to historicalrecord, but the stories told of them are exagger-ated and magical. Like other Irish mythologicaltexts, these tales reveal something of the past, butexactly what is highly questionable.

Cyhyreath See CAOINTEACH.

Cymidei Cymeinfoll Welsh heroine. AWelsh giantess and wife of the similarly giganticLLASSAR LLAESGYFNEWID, she owned the CAUL-DRON of regeneration that gave rise to much ofthe action of the second branch of the MABINO-GION. She herself gave birth to innumerablearmored warriors, once every six weeks; hername has been translated as “big bellied battler.”

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion.New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp.72, 75, 87.

Cymon Welsh hero. He plays a minor role inthe story of OWEIN, the hero who married thelovely LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN, for he setOwein’s quest in motion when he unsuccessfullyfought against the Black Knight who was belea-guering the lady’s domain.

Cymru Welsh term. The people of Waleswere not originally called Welsh, which means“strangers” in the tongue of their British neigh-bors. In their own language, still in use, the peo-ple are called “brethren” or “friends.” Cymru isthe land, Cymri the people, and Cymric the lan-guage they speak.

Cynan Welsh hero. The brother-in-law of thequasi-historical king MAXEN, Cynan helpedMaxen become the western Roman emperor. Hewas rewarded for his service by being allowed totake control of Brittany, where he mutilated thelocal women by cutting out their tongues, inorder to preserve his own warriors’ Welsh lan-guage by eliminating any potential competition.Like Maxen, Cynan is probably fictional ratherthan strictly mythological, invented to serve apolitical purpose rather than linked with ritualand worship.

112 Custennin

Da Derga (Da Dearga, Ûa Dergae) Irish godor hero. One of the most significant Irish narra-tives dealing with the ancient Celtic vision ofKINGSHIP is set in the hostel or inn of this obscurecharacter. When the king of TARA, CONAIRE,arrived at Da Derga’s hostel on the magical feastof SAMHAIN (November 1) after breaking a seriesof sacred vows (see GEIS), he faced his doomwithin it. First a HAG came to him demandingentrance; when he denied it, she stood on one leglike a CRANE and cursed him. Immediately,Conaire developed an all-consuming thirst, whichno water from any source in Ireland couldquench, and died of it. Da Derga made noattempt to help him, implying that he was inagreement with the punishment.

The identity—indeed even the name—of DaDerga is unclear. Some texts give him as ÛaDergae, “the nephew of the red goddess,” whileothers call him Da Derga, “the red god.” If theformer is correct, he could be related to MEDB orFlaith, goddesses of SOVEREIGNTY, a reasonableenough connection given that the story’s mainpoint is the punishment of the king for notmaintaining his sacred vows as the earth goddessdemanded. If the latter, he may have been a godof the OTHERWORLD, for the color RED is com-monly linked to that realm. Da Derga has virtu-ally no personality and little role in the storynamed for him.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 93; Dillon,Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: The MercierPress, 1968, p. 105; Gantz, Jeffrey, ed. andtransl. Early Irish Myths and Sagas. New York:Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 60 ff.

Dagda (Daghdha, Dagdae, Dagda Mór, Cera,Samildanach) Irish god. This ancient Irishdivinity was called “the good god,” because hewas good at everything; while other gods of theTUATHA DÉ DANANN were specialists, the Dagdawas an artisan and a diviner, a husbandman anda warrior and a wise king, all at once. He wasalso benevolent, the god of abundance andfecundity. The Dagda owned a magical CAUL-DRON that could never be emptied and a mallet(whose phallic meaning is unmistakable) so hugeit had to be be dragged along on a cart. He alsohad a pair of magical PIGS that could be eatenagain and again but always revived themselves,as well as an orchard that, no matter the season,was always filled with fruit. The Dagda was thusnot only an ideal of masculine excellence butalso a god of the earth’s FERTILITY.

He was no handsome swain; far from it. TheDagda was portrayed as an almost comic charac-ter, wheeling his huge mallet along, dressed in atoo-short tunic that left his privates exposed,indulging his extreme and excessive appetites

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whenever he desired. Yet he was invariably help-ful, a force of fertility that could not be ignoredor avoided. He was called by several alternativenames that stress his benevolence: EochaidOllathair, “father of all,” and Ruad Rofhessa,“lord of great knowledge.” Some scholars con-nect him with the mysterious god named CROM

CRUACH, citing as evidence the Dagda’s untrans-lated title Crom-eocha. He was also one of themultivalent gods who were called by the title ofSamiladanach, “many-skilled man.”

The Dagda had many mates among the Irishgoddesses, including the black-winged MÓRRÍ-GAN, whom he encountered at the River Unshin(Unius) in CONNACHT, standing with one footon each bank and washing the clothes of thoseabout to be killed in battle (see WASHER AT THE

FORD). True to form, when the Dagda saw theenormous goddess bending over the stream, hewas overcome with desire and engaged her inintercourse. So satisfactory did she find theirencounter that she agreed to support his side inthe next day’s battle at MAG TUIRED, singing hermagical chants from the sidelines as the TuathaDé Danann fought their mortal enemies, themonstrous beings called the FOMORIANS, andfinally drove them from Ireland.

Most often, the Dagda is described as theconsort of BÓAND, another deity of abundance.Among their many children were the goddessof inspiration, BRIGIT, and the god of poetryand beauty, AONGHUSÓG; thus poetry is, sym-bolically, the offspring of an abundant life. TheDagda’s other children included the FAIRY kingMIDIR and the great magician BODB DERG. Asconsort to Bóand, the Dagda was associatedwith the great BRÚ NA BÓINNE, the vast cere-monial earthworks on the Boyne, the rivernamed for Bóand, which later became his sonAonghus’s palace. Because the Dagda had consorted in secret with Bóand, who was at the time the wife of the god NECHTAN, he issometimes called the foster father of Aonghus.He was sufficiently devoted to his son that,when Aonghus wanted to marry, the Dagdaprovided the bride-price: clearing 12 great

plains overnight so that Aonghus might havehis beloved.

Another of the Dagda’s many children was ÁED

MINBHREC, who was killed in a jealous rage by aman named CORGENN. Despite his power, theDagda could not revive his beloved son, but he puta sacred vow (see GEIS) on Corgenn, forcing him tocarry his victim’s body on his back until he founda stone the exact size and weight of the deceased.Only then could Corgenn rest. Thus the manhauled the body around Ireland until he found aplace for it: the ancient HILLFORT of GRIANÁN

AILEACH in Co. Donegal.Although the force of fertility itself cannot be

killed, the Dagda was said to have died in thesecond battle of MAG TUIRED. He foughtvaliantly, even heroically, but a woman namedCETHLION, wife of the Fomorian king BALOR,killed the Dagda. Afterward he continued hisreign from the afterlife of the OTHERWORLD,where he enjoyed his four great palaces and atehis fill from his magically abundant cauldron andever-fruiting orchard.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp.74–77 ff.

Dagonet Arthurian hero. Although originallyonly king ARTHUR’s jester, Dagonet showed hisbravery in battle after being knighted as a joke.

Dahut (Dahud, Ahés, Ahé, Keben) Bretonheroine or goddess. The most renowned Bretonfolktale tells of a princess whose great city of YS

gleamed behind its seawalls off the coast of LaRaz, at the tip of the peninsula of Brittany, orperhaps in the port of today’s city of Douarnenez.Daughter of the Christian king GRADLON, Dahutherself followed the old religion and worshipedthe old powers of the land. With the help of thesea magicians called the KORRIGANS, Dahut set

114 Dagonet

about building the world’s most magnificent city.Great walls were erected so that marshy landcould be reclaimed from the deep; the walls wereso cleverly painted by DWARFS that they appearedto be GOLD. Only Dahut had the key to the gatesthat kept back the waters, and she wore it on achain around her fair neck. She built herself abeautiful palace, with stables whose marble floorsmatched the colors of the horses they housed.Her wealth came to her from the sea, for she hadcaptured and harnessed sea DRAGONS, whichdaily brought her riches from abroad.

Magnificent homes rose within the new city,which became so renowned that it would one daybe said that Paris itself was only a reflection, likeYs (par-Ys, a false etymology) but not so grand.But the people of Ys grew hard and selfish; theywould not endure beggars or even working peo-ple in their beautiful city, accepting only thosewho were wealthy and beautiful. Despite themiserliness of her people, Dahut’s city rang dayand night with music and song, while Dahutreceived in her own palace entourages of princesand nobles from around the world.

That palace harbored a dark secret, for eachnight Dahut selected the most handsome of hervisitors and secretly gave him a mask that, shewhispered, would allow him to pass unseen toher tower bedroom. And so he did, slippingexcitedly past the guard and into the waitingarms of the princess. After a night of pleasure, asthe swallows flying past the tower windowsalerted them to dawn’s arrival, the chosen manwould put on the mask again to retrace his steps.But this time the mask would grow tighter andtighter until it squeezed the very breath out ofthe unfortunate young man, after which a ser-vant would haul the body to an abyss betweenHuelgoat and Pualoauen.

One night Dahut met her match, however.Dancing at a ball with a prince whose attractivedemeanor set her thinking about that evening’spleasure, she was surprised to hear him call for acertain tune on the pipes. As she danced, shefound herself whirling faster and faster, unableto stop. The people around her, too, danced

faster and faster, growing more and more terri-fied at their inability to stop either the music ortheir response to it. Then the stranger—for thiswas not really a prince but CADO, a sea demonwho wanted Dahut in his own realm forever; orperhaps it was the DEVIL himself—slipped hishand into Dahut’s secret neck-pouch andextracted the silver key to the great seawalls. Asthe horrified residents danced on and on, theysaw him open the sluices, saw the water begin topour into the city, saw it rush into the ballroomand rise around their dancing feet.

Only the Christian king Gradlon was able toget away, led off by St. Coretin (or GUÉNOLÉ insome versions), who provided a horse for him.The king rode into Dahut’s palace to rescue her,but as soon as she mounted behind her father,the horse refused to move. The saint called toGradlon to push his daughter into the water,and, desperately, he did so, pushing Dahut intothe turbulent sea. Then, in a great leap, thehorse moved again. It struck the Rock of Garrecon the Breton coast, where its hoofprint can stillbe seen. Some tales say that Dahut was throwninto the very abyss where her victims rested, theAbyss of Ahéz. Others claim that Dahut did notdie but lives on, as a MERMAID floating above hersunken city, still luring men to their doom.

The story of Dahut may well have its basis inancient Celtic myth, but with the coming ofChristianity, condemnation of ancient paganrites was so interwoven with the tale that it isimpossible to know what elements are originaland what were added to make it an instructionalparable. In the beginning of the story, Dahutlives at one with nature and the elemental spirits,who make possible her regal life in her crystallinecity. That she brings death as well as life to thecity suggests that she was based on a misinterpre-tation of an ancient divinity of life’s cycle.

Sources: Breton Folktales. London: G. Bell & Sons,1971, p. 198; Guyot, Charles. The Legend of theCity of Ys. Trans. and illus. by Deirdre Cavanagh.Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,1979.

Dahut 115

Dáire (Dara) Irish hero. Like ÁED and AILILL,Dáire is a name found frequently in Irishmythology and mythological history. Meaning“fertile” or “fruitful,” it is sometimes anglicizedas Dara; but the name Dara may also derive fromdoire, which means “oak” or “oak grove.” Somescholars contend that although the various fig-ures bearing this name appear to be differentand have different regional associations, theyspring from the same root, perhaps a god likethe DAGDA who ruled FERTILITY. In addition toseveral minor figures in the FENIAN CYCLE, themost important figures bearing this name are:

• Dáire, father of LUGAIDH Laíghde and hisfour brothers (also named Lugaidh); Dáireheard a prophecy that his son Lugaidh wouldbecome king of Ireland. Hedging his bets,Dáire gave that name to all his sons.

• Dáire, son of FIONN MAC CUMHAILL (some-times recorded as CONÁN), who was swal-lowed by a monstrous worm that he killedfrom within to free himself.

• Dáire of the Poems, BARD and musician ofthe band of heroes called the FIANNA, who wasknown for the beauty of his songs.

• Dáire Derg, “red Dáire,” a one-eyed villainwhose children, the Fothads, were adversariesof FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

• Dáire mac Dedad, ancestor of the Érainnpeople, an early race in Ireland, perhaps anancestor god euhemerized or demoted into amortal.

• Dáire mac Fiachan, owner of DONN CUAIL-NGE, the great brown BULL sought by queenMEDB in the epic TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE. Dáireoriginally agreed to give the Donn to Medbin exchange for her “friendly things” (one ofthe epic’s most famous phrases), but when heheard Mebd’s men boasting of how Dáire’sacquiescence was irrelevant as they wouldtake the bull in any case, he decided to fightrather than be perceived as weak. This deci-sion set in motion the CATTLE RAID on histerritories, in what is now the Cooley penin-sula in Co. Louth.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa.Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 434–436, 451–452.

Daireann (Doirend, Doirinn) Irish heroine.The sister of the better-known heroine SADB,Daireann took a fancy to the great warriorFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, who did not return theinterest. In revenge, she poisoned him—notwith a death potion but with an enchanted elixirthat drove the great man insane. Most of Fionn’sfollowers, the FIANNA, abandoned him during hisinsanity, but they returned when his wits did.Daireann’s pride took another blow when Fionnhad a child with Sadb, who became his favoritefollower, the poet OISÍN.

Dáirine Irish heroine. This Irish princess,daughter of the minor king Tuathal Techtmar,caught the eye of the king of Ireland’s easternprovince, LEINSTER. But that king, Eochaid, wasforced by Tuathal to marry Dáirine’s older sisterFITHIR instead. Eochaid outwitted his father-in-law, however; he claimed that Fithir had died andpromptly wed the younger sister. He did not havemuch happiness with her, for Dáirine happenedupon the place where Fithir was being held cap-tive and thus discovered her husband’s perfidy.

Dame du Lac See LADY OF THE LAKE.

Dames Vertes French folkloric figures. Inareas of modern France that were once Celticterritory, we find folktales about these “GreenLadies” who lurk in the forests, luring travelersinto ravines by their beauty and their sweetvoices, then tormenting them by holding themupside down over waterfalls and laughing attheir terror. Such elemental spirits are found inmany cultures; in the case of the Dames Vertes,they were especially associated with the wind, onwhich they traveled across the land, makingplants grow with their breath. They could alsotake human form, always being dressed in

116 Dáire

GREEN, a color known in Ireland to be thefavorite choice of the FAIRY people.

See also GREEN LADIES.

Damona Continental Celtic goddess. Amongthe countless goddesses of Celtic Gaul we findDamona, whose name appears to mean “divineCOW” and who thus may be a goddess similar tothe Irish BÓAND; she has also been interpreted asa goddess of sheep. She was described as theconsort, variously, of the gods BORVO andAPOLLO Mortitasgus, both relatively obscuredivinities; she may have been polyandrous, hav-ing both husbands at once.

Dana See DANU.

dancing lights See FAIRY LIGHTS.

dancing stones see MERRY MAIDENS.

Danu (Dana, Anu, possibly Donand, Danann)Irish goddess. Since there was once a goddess ofthis name in Ireland, it is possible that oneappeared in other Celtic countries as well.Although no myths about her still exist, there aremany place-names that bear her name; the DaneHills, home of the HAG named BLACK ANNIS; thegreat river Danube of eastern Europe; and thefamous PAPS OF DANU in Ireland’s southwesternprovince of MUNSTER, two rounded breast-shapedhills topped in prehistory with rock CAIRNS in theposition of nipples. Most significantly, we find anIrish divine race, thought to represent the gods ofthe Celts, called the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the peo-ple of the goddess Danu; they were later called thedaoine sídhe, anglicized as Dana O’Shee or FAIRY-folk, after being demoted and diminished fromdivinity into folktale figures.

Danu’s name has been derived from the OldCeltic dan, meaning “knowledge,” and she hasbeen linked to the Welsh mother goddess DÔN.Some texts call her the daughter of the mightyDAGDA, the good god of abundance, a connec-tion that supports the contention that she was an

ancient goddess of the land’s fertility. She may bethe same as Danann, daughter of the wildernessgoddess FLIDAIS in some texts. She is sometimessaid to be the mother of the SONS OF TUIREANN.

See also ANU.

Source: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and the Goddess:Women, Religion and Power in Ancient Ireland. SanFrancisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 57.

Daoine sídhe Irish folklore figures. One ofthe many euphemisms for the FAIRY people ofIreland, this term means “folk from the mound,”for these diminished deities were believed to livein the ancient BARROWS, HILLFORTS, and otherprehistoric monuments of Ireland (see FAIRY

MOUND). Many other cordial and flatteringterms were used, presumably to elicit the goodwill of the amoral and sometimes mischievousfairies: The Good Folk (daoine maithe), TheGentry (daoine uaisle), and simply Them.

darkness and light Cosmological concepts.Today we see dawn as the beginning of the day,which ends in night, but to the Celts, day beganwith evening and ended with afternoon, just asthe year began with fall and ended in summer.Thus Celtic holidays fell on what we would con-sider the night before the actual feast day: forexample, SAMHAIN, November 1, is still cele-brated as Hallowe’en on October 31. Althoughany Celtic creation myth has been lost, this pat-tern suggests that our sunlit world was precededby another, more shadowy one. The mythologi-cal idea of the OTHERWORLD, that separate butconnected place from which objects in thisworld derive power, points to the same idea. TheCelts did not see darkness and light as antago-nists, in the way that the Persian philosophy ofManichaeism, for instance, did; rather, they werecomplementary parts of a single whole.

Source: Rees, Alwyn, and Brinely Rees. CelticHeritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales.London: Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 83 ff.

darkness and light 117

Dark Rosaleen See ROISIN DUBH.

Darlughdacha (Darludacha) Irish heroine.When the Celtic goddess BRIGIT was convertedinto a Christian saint of the same name, monkish writers provided her with a humanbiography: She was abbess of the great religiouscenter at KILDARE. In these Christian texts,Darlughadacha—whose name means “daughterof (the Celtic god) LUGH”—was described as St.Brigit’s boon companion, who shared a bed withher. When Darlughdacha deliberately burnedher feet to mortify the flesh after gazing lustfullyat a warrior, Brigit miraculously healed her.Although there may have been a historicalwoman of this name who was the companion ofa Christian abbess in Kildare, scholars argue thatit is more likely that Darlughdacha was an oth-erwise lost Celtic goddess translated into aChristian nun.

Source: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and the Goddess:Women, Religion and Power in Ancient Ireland. SanFrancisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 71.

Dathí (Dathi, Daithí) Irish hero. The lastpagan king of Ireland, Dathí was reputedlyburied in CONNACHT’s great provincial capital atCRUACHAN, where a STANDING STONE (which farpredates his alleged reign in the fifth centuryC.E.) is said to mark his grave. Dathí, a nephew ofNIALL of the Nine Hostages, reigned inConnacht for 23 years before succeeding to thethrone at TARA. There is some evidence that thehistorical Dathí was never a king at all but merelya successful warrior who invaded the Continentand was promoted in rank by later annalists.

Daui Irish hero. Two minor figures in Irishlegend held this name: Daui Dalta Dedad, a kingof TARA who kept his brother from becomingking by blinding him; as a BLEMISHED KING

could not rule, this proved an effective way togain power, but Daui was assassinated only sevenyears later. Another king, Daui Ladrach, was

similarly ambitious and willing to kill to gain thethrone, but the warrior LUGAIDH Laíghde wascleverer, using Daui’s ambition to clear the pathfor his own ascension.

Davy Jones Scottish and Welsh folkloric fig-ure. “Davy Jones’s Locker,” a common name forthe ocean, appears to derive from a Celtic godwho entered his OTHERWORLD kingdomthrough WATER. Although most RIVERS in Celticlands were named for goddesses, a few in Britain(Tavy, Tay) have been derived from the Celticroot word taff, “stream,” which could have beenChristianized into Davy. This might explain thefirst name, but what about Jones? Scholars pointto a Scottish god of the ocean with the slightlysimilar name—SHONEY, who lived in theOtherworld where he imprisoned those whodrowned. Thus the familiar Davy Jones maydescend from a Celtic divinity whose lockup wasthe briny deep. Alternatively, Davy Jones maycombine the most common first and last namesfound in Wales, where David is sometimesspelled Davydd; the presumed god of the deep,in this interpretation, is simply a conversationalimage for the ocean, used by Welsh sailors whobrought the phrase into currency.

Source: Spence, Lewis, The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin BlomInc., 1972, p. 15.

dead hand Irish folkloric object. An old Irishbelief held that a hand cut from a dead person—especially a victim of murder, an executed crim-inal or a child—held great magical power.Thieves could not be caught if they were carry-ing a dead hand; cream need only be stirred ninetimes for huge amounts of BUTTER to form.

Deae Matres Continental Celtic goddesses.“Divine Mothers” is the translation of the Latinname given to one of the most common goddessimages found in Celtic lands. The sculpturessometimes show two mother figures, but more

118 Dark Rosaleen

often there are THREE, the number that repre-sented intensification to the Celts. Typically theMothers are shown seated; often they appear tobe of different ages (young maiden, fertilemother, and aging crone), but they are alsosometimes depicted as identical triplets. Theyhold sacred objects: sacrificial knife, offeringplate (PATERA), foodstuffs, bread, FISH. Sincemany, if not most, Celtic divinities are connectedto the FERTILITY of the land and the people whodepend upon it, it is not surprising that thesegoddesses are associated with food and abun-dance. In addition to the figure commonly calledDEA NUTRIX, the “nourishing goddess,” we alsooccasionally find the Mothers in the form calledthe “pseudo-Venus” or false VENUS, a singlevoluptuous woman holding symbols of fertility.There is no historical indication of the ritualpractices connected with these goddesses, whoseem to have been absorbed into the Romanreligious framework early in imperial times.

Dealgnaid (Delgnat, Elgnat, Elgnad) Irishheroine. When the invader PARTHOLÓN arrivedin Ireland, he brought his wife Dealgnaid. Aftersuccessfully establishing his people on fertileland, he set about conquering additional terri-tory—leaving his wife alone with only a hand-some servant, Togda, to keep her company. Andkeep company the servant did, right into thebedroom. When Partholón returned to find hiswife in another man’s arms, he did not blame herbut himself because, knowing his wife’s desires,he should not have abandoned her. The couplereconciled, and Dealgnaid bore the ancestors ofthe Partholonian people.

Dea Nutrix (pl., Deae Nutrices) British andcontinental Celtic goddesses. Excavations in anumber of temples of Roman Britain have yieldeddozens of small pipe-clay statuettes of three simi-lar figures holding fruit, eggs, grain, children, andother symbols of abundance and FERTILITY; theymay be similar to the DEAE MATRES, the tripleDivine Mothers. Sometimes the same goddess is

depicted singly, in which case she often nurses aninfant; both forms of the divinity emphasize theirrelation to food. The name the Celts used of thesedivinities has been lost, and so they are called bya Latin term meaning “nourishing goddess.” Thecult of Dea Nutrix seems to have been wide-spread, for her figure has been found in England,France, and southern Germany, sometimes intemples, sometimes in graves, sometimes thrownas offerings into sacred springs.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, pp. 26, 29, 108.

death Cosmological concept. Archaeologicalevidence suggests that the Celts believed in per-meable boundaries between this world and thenext, with certain locations such as the hearthand burial grounds perceived as places where thedead could reenter this world after their demise.Caesar claimed that the continental Celtsbelieved in REINCARNATION, while other writersof his era expressed their belief that the impres-sive bravery of Celtic warriors stemmed fromtheir belief that they would live to fight again.Whether this represents actual Celtic belief is asubject of scholarly dispute.

Burial practices are often used as evidence indetermining a culture’s view of death. In the latecenturies B.C.E., the continental Celts buriedtheir dead, often with significant “grave goods”like mirrors and weapons; some of the greatestarchaeological finds come from such early Celticgraves. But then the Celts began to practice cre-mation, burning the bodies of their dead; it isnot known whether this indicated an alterationin their beliefs or adoption of Roman customs.Among the insular Celts, by contrast, there is noevidence of burial until the first century B.C.E.suggesting that cremation or excarnation (expo-sure) was practiced. There is also evidence inmyth that some human remains, especially theHEAD, may have been preserved, especially in thecase of those killed in battle.

death 119

The dead did not occupy a realm separatefrom this world, like the Christian Heaven orHell, but continued their relationship to thoseleft behind—a relationship that could be eitherhappy or destructive, depending on the events ofphysical life. In the Scottish Highlands it wasbelieved that the dead could return to wreakphysical vengeance on the living who hadharmed them; thus death was not a terminationbut a transubstantiation, a change in form.

The Celtic conception of the OTHERWORLD

where gods and FAIRIES lived was later meldedwith the Christian realm of the dead. Similarly, thedead became confused with the fairies; such wasthe case with the Irish farmer who, kidnappedAWAY from his cabbage garden, found himself surrounded by people, dead for years, who spokehollowly in an unknown tongue and whom hebanished by speaking the name of God. Evenmodern people occasionally confuse the dead withthe fairies, for both sneak across to our world inorder to work mischief. Like the land of the fairy,the land of the dead was often positioned out inthe western sea, often floating as an unstableISLAND (although Spain is mentioned in one Irishtext as the home of the dead, something that maybe SATIRE). Just as readily, the dead were imaginedresting quietly in their graves, ready to come forthwhen occasion demanded or the season was right.

Although the contention is controversial,some have seen the likelihood of a belief in rein-carnation in Celtic myths and traditions. A beliefin reincarnation would explain the lack of inter-est in where the dead reside. In addition, Celticwarriors were renowned throughout the ancientworld for their fearlessness, because theybelieved that death was a passage to another life.

Before finding another body, the dead couldreturn to this world for a certain reason or on acertain day. Thus we find Irish folktales of youngmothers who return nightly to nurse their left-behind infants and of lovers who come back towatch over a beloved; sometimes the deceasedreturn for nothing more than to sit by the fire andsmoke a pipe or otherwise engage in the comfort-ing activities of the life left behind. Most com-

monly, the dead returned on the festival ofSAMHAIN on November 1, when the veils betweenthe worlds were thin. On Samhain, a murderedperson could return to exact vengeance just asreadily as a thankful family member could grant aboon. Relationship between living and dead,therefore, seems to have been imagined as con-tinuing after the transition of death.

Sources: Cunliffe, Barry. the Ancient Celts. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 208 ff;Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customs andSavage Myths: Selections from the BritishFolklorists. Vol. II. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1968, p. 29; MacCulloch, J. A.The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London:Constable, 1911, pp. 165 ff; Ross, Anne.Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 40.

death coach (dead coach) Irish folkloricobject. On foggy nights in Ireland, a black coachcould sometimes be seen drawing up to a home.Black HORSES drew the coach, which had nocoachman nor occupants. Or perhaps there was adriver, but he had no head; the horses too mightbe headless. This coach was sent from the land ofthe dead to fetch someone from this life. It wouldnever leave this earth empty; if someone notscheduled to die were to stand in the coach’s way,he would become the victim, so it was best toavoid such a coach and, certainly, never toattempt to stop it from picking up its intendedpassenger. Sightings of the death coach foretolddeath, just as did the cry of the BANSHEE.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 221; Westropp, T. J.Folklore of Clare: A Folklore Survey of CountryClare and County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths.Ennis, Co. Clare: Clasp Press, 2000, pp. 10–12.

Debility of the Ulstermen (es NóindenUlad; Ceisnoidhe Uladh) Irish mythological

120 death coach

theme. The men of the province of ULSTER werecursed because of a man’s mistreatment of hiswife. The pregnant goddess MACHA warned hermortal husband, the farmer CRUNNIUC, not tomention her when, against her will, he went tothe Assembly of Ulster. But speak of her he did;indeed, he boasted that she was swifter than theking’s best horses. At that, a race was proposed,and Macha was brought forth from her home.Pointing out how near to term she was, Machabegged not to be forced to run, but the kinghoped her size would slow her down, so the racewent forward. Macha, powerful and swift even inadvanced pregnancy, was around the trackbefore the king’s horses had made it halfway. Butthe exertion brought on labor pangs, and shedied giving birth to TWINS.

As she died, Macha called down a CURSE onthe men who caused her death: that, wheneveran enemy attacked, the Ulstermen would fall tothe ground for four days and five nights withpain such as she endured in her labor, for ninetimes nine generations. This Curse of Machaplayed an important part in the Irish epic TÁIN

BÓ CUAILNGE, for the hero CÚCHULAINN, whowas not born in Ulster and therefore not suscep-tible to Macha’s curse, had to hold off the entirearmy of CONNACHT while the Ulstermenwrithed in agony with their “debility.”

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989,pp. 31–32, Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 208.

decapitation See HEAD.

Decca (Deoca) Irish heroine. In the mytho-logical story of the CHILDREN OF LIR, one of theTHREE SORROWS OF IRELAND, this historicalMUNSTER princess of the seventh century C.E.married the king of CONNACHT. Hearing a taleof singing SWANS—the enchanted maiden FION-

NUALA and her four brothers, whose humanvoices remained despite their transformed bod-ies—Decca demanded to see them. When herhusband refused, she left him; he gave in and hadthe swans brought to their palace, where Deccawas able to see them just as they turned intohuman beings again, only to die of advanced ageand turn to dust before her eyes.

Dechtire (Dechtere, Deichtine, Dectora)Irish heroine or goddess. The mother of the greatIrish hero CÚCHULAINN conceived her child inmiraculous fashion. One day, Dechtire and her 50maidens simply vanished from EMAIN MACHA, thegreat capital of ULSTER where she lived with herbrother (or father), king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA.Nothing was heard for years, but then a flock of51 birds appeared on the fields around the capital.They were appallingly hungry, eating everythingthey found until the fields were barren, not evena blade of grass left. Faced with famine, the peo-ple of Ulster tried to follow the birds in chariots;hunting them, they believed, would provide somefood for the starving people, as well as endingtheir depredations. All the great warriors ofUlster rode out on the hunt: manly FERGUS MacRoich, bitter-tongued BRICCRIU, sweet-singingAMAIRGIN, and finally king Concobar himself.When the hunting party found the flock, theynoticed that the birds flew in pairs, each joined bya silver chain, while at their head flew one wear-ing a yoke of silver. But try as they might, the mencould not catch up with the birds, which led themsteadily southward.

Growing weary, Briccriu and Fergus went insearch of lodging and found a spacious housewhere a man and a woman welcomed them. Thenext day a wondrous child was found. Legendoffers several variations on how Cúchulainn(then called SÉTANTA) was conceived and born.Most commonly his conception, like that ofother heroes, was miraculous in needing nofather. Spying a tiny worm in a glass of wine,Dechtire recognized an opportunity to givebirth to a hero and drank it down; or perhaps she

Dechtire 121

was impregnated by the god LUGH, either whileshe was in bird form or in her human body, in adream or in real time. When she was ready togive birth, Dechtire vomited out the child, thusremaining virgin while becoming a mother.Discovering the miraculous child, the warriorsof Ulster argued over who should raise it.Finally, the land’s greatest heroes decided toshare the boy’s upbringing, each offering his spe-cial gifts to Dechtire’s son. At that point,Dechtire disappears from the story; some schol-ars believe that her ability to give birthparthenogenetically points to a pre-CelticMOTHER GODDESS who was absorbed into thepantheon when the Celts arrived in Ireland.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, p. 89; Hull, Eleanor. The CuchullinSaga in Irish Literature. London: David Nutt,1898, p. 15.

Dé Danann (De Danaan) See TUATHA DÉ

DANANN.

Dee (Deva) British goddess. “The goddess”is the meaning of this name, which was borne bythe British RIVER believed to be, like most riversin Celtic lands, a feminine divine force. TheRiver Dee was believed to need feeding withhuman victims at regular intervals; a folk rhymetells us that “Bloodthirsty Dee, each year needsthree; but bonny Don, she needs none.” TheRomans called Dee by a variation of their ownword for “goddess,” Deva.

deer Symbolic animal. The Celts saw the fleet-footed woodland herds as the wild equivalent oftheir own domesticated herds of CATTLE. Likecattle, whose herds were guided by a strongBULL, the deer herds had a virile leader, the STAG;both animals were associated with gods of mas-culine power, ESUS and CERNUNNOS, respectively.Similarly parallel were the doe and the COW, and

their goddesses FLIDAIS and BÓAND both symbol-ized maternal love and abundance. Deer off-spring also appear in mythology, most memo-rably in the story of the transformed SADB whogave birth to her fur-faced son, OISÍN the BARD,whose name is still used in Irish to mean “fawn.”

In the Scottish Highlands, we find stories ofGIANT goddesses who tended vast herds of deer;the island of Jura (from the Norse for “deerisland”) was occupied by Seven Big Womenwho ran with the deer. Similarly, the CAILLEACH

named Beinne Bhric was a HAG who could shape-shift into a gray deer (see SHAPE-SHIFTING).Unlike the hesitant SEALS or SWANS, shy beingsthat could be caught and tamed, the deerwomen of legend were eager to mate withhuman men. Such folklore has led some to theorize an ancient cult of the deer, in which theanimal was viewed as sacred, perhaps eventotemic or related to humanity as distant ances-tors. Traces of such a religious vision are fainterin Ireland and Wales, which may indicate thatthe cult died out earlier there or that it wasexclusively Scottish.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp.408, 500.

Deimne (Demna, Demne) Irish hero. Thiswas the childhood name of the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL, whose adult name means“fair” or “brilliant.”

Deiotaros Continental Celtic god. Knownfrom the Celtic people called the Galatae in AsiaMinor this god’s name means “the BULL-god” or“the divine bull,” suggesting that he may be sim-ilar to TARVOSTRIGARANUS of Gaul.

Deirdre (Derdriu, Deridriu) Irish heroine.She is called “Deirdre of the Sorrows,” and thestory of this tragic heroine certainly fulfills the

122 Dé Danann

promise of her title; together with the tales of theCHILDREN OF LIR and of the SONS OF TUIREANN,the story of Deirdre and the SONS OF UISNEACH

is called one of the THREE SORROWS OF IRELAND.The tale begins at Deirdre’s birth, which

happened to coincide with a feast that her father,the poet and storyteller Fedlimid mac Daill, washosting for the king of Ulster, CONCOBAR MAC

NESSA. In attendance at the feast, and thereforeat the girl’s birth, was the druid CATHBAD, whoimmediately foresaw her future: that the girlwould grow to be the most beautiful woman everknown, and that she would cause the destructionof the kingdom. Most of the Ulstermen grewpale with horror at the prophecy and demandedthat the child be put to the sword to spare thekingdom, but the lustful king Concobar refused.Determined to be the one who enjoyed that phe-nomenal beauty, Concobar decided to have theinfant reared as his private prize. EntrustingDeirdre to LEBORCHAM, the wise woman (occa-sionally called a wise man), Concobar returnedto his palace at EMAIN MACHA and turned hisattention to other matters, trusting that whenthe girl had grown to womanhood, he wouldtake her for his own.

But such was not to be. As she neared the endof her maidenhood, Deirdre saw a RAVEN flydown to drink the blood of a calf spilled on snow.She turned to Leborcham and whispered that shewould love a man with skin that white, lips thatred, hair that black. Leborcham knew immedi-ately who was her fated partner: Concobar’snephew NOÍSIU, son of the warrior UISNEACH. Soshe arranged, despite her promise to the king,that the two young people should meet.

Instantly they fell in love. Unable to livewithout each other, they ran away, accompaniedby Noísiu’s brothers Ardán and Ainnle.Concobar, furious at losing his prize, pursuedthem around Ireland, but finally the fourescaped to Scotland, where they lived a ruggedbut happy life in the woods near Loch Etive.Deirdre and Noísiu may have had children, for ason Gaiar and daughter Aíbgéne are mentionedin some texts. But Deirdre’s beauty once again

attracted the attention of a king—this time, theScottish king in whose woods they were living.When he decided that the beautiful Deirdremust be his wife, she and the sons of Uisneachfled again, this time to a remote island where,they thought, they could finally live in peace.

Back in Ulster, however, Concobar had notceased tormenting himself about the loss of hisgorgeous prize. He lured the couple back toIreland by vowing that he had lost interest inDeirdre; Noísiu, homesick, agreed to return.Despite premonitions of doom, Deirdre reluc-tantly agreed, and with the three sons ofUisneach sailed for Ireland under an ominousblood-red cloud. Immediately upon landing,Noísiu and his brothers were set upon byConcobar’s warriors, who killed them withoutoffering them a chance to defend themselves.Hauled back to Conobar’s court in chains,Deirdre bitterly reproached the king for hisdeceit and violence.

Once he had Deirdre, Concobar decided heno longer wanted her. So, to humiliate her fur-ther, the king gave her away to one of the menwho had killed her lover. As the murderer boreher away in his chariot, Deirdre leapt from it andwas killed, her head smashed against a stone.Because of his lust and deceit, many of Ulster’sfinest warriors became disgusted with Concobarand abandoned his kingdom to serve underqueen MEDB of CONNACHT, who then launched awar on Concobar that is the basis of the mostsignificant Irish epic, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

Sources: Dillon, Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: TheMercier Press, 1968, pp. 53 ff; Hull, Eleanor.The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature. London:David Nutt, 1898, pp. 23 ff.

Delbáeth Irish goddess. This obscure Irishgoddess, “fire-shape,” is mentioned in the BOOK

OF INVASIONS as the mother of DONAND, believedto be the same as the important goddess of earth,DANU. Another figure of this name was a DRUID

associated with the mystical hill of UISNEACH,

Delbáeth 123

where he was said to have built a great FIRE fromwhich FIVE points of light streamed out.

Delbacháem Irish goddess or heroine. Anancient Irish ADVENTURE tale tells of this womanof the OTHERWORLD, held captive in a hightower by her mother, the fierce WARRIOR

WOMAN COINCHENN, who had been cursed thatshe would die if her daughter ever wed. To pre-vent this, Coinchenn challenged every suitor tobattle, invariably besting them all. But onefinally came who could win over her: the king ofTARA, ART mac Cuinn. He had been placed undera GEIS by his stepmother, the self-willed andwanton FAIRY BÉ CHUMA, that he could not eatuntil he had stolen Delbcháem from her magicalisland. Bé Chuma thus plotted against both, forshe was angry at Art for resisting her advancesand for showing interest when she disguised her-self as the beautiful Delbacháem; she hoped thatboth would die in the attempted rescue. But Art,with the assistance of beautiful and mysteriouswomen, discovered how to free Delbcháemsafely, causing her mother’s death as predicted.Upon returning to Tara, Art banished the trou-blesome Bé Chuma.

Delga Irish hero. This obscure ancient char-acter lives on today, for the name of his palaceDÚN Delgan remains in the important city nameDundalk. Little is known of Delga; even his raceis disputed, for some tales call him a FOMORIAN,while others say he was a member of the FIR

BOLG, both legendary groups of Irish invaders.

deosil See DIRECTIONS.

derbfine See FINE.

Derbforgaill (Dervorgilla, Devorgilla) Irishheroine. Several mythological Irish heroinesbear this name, which is also that of an historicalIrish woman Derbforgaill of LEINSTER, who in

the 12th century C.E. married the Ua Ruairc(O’Rourke) chieftain of Breffni near Sligo.While her husband was on a pilgrimage, she ranoff with or was kidnapped by DIARMAIT macMurchada (Dermot MacMurrough). The result-ant war between her husband and her lover ledto the arrival of Norman warriors and to theirsettlement of Ireland, which in turn broughtabout the destruction of the Celtic way of lifeand the eventual claim of ownership of Irelandby England. Derbforgaill is often derided as anadulteress or blamed for Ireland’s later woes, butshe acted in keeping with ancient Irish beliefsthat a woman had the right to choose her con-sort rather than being held captive in marriage.

A mythological woman of this name was aSHAPE-SHIFTING daughter of king Ruad whoconceived a passion for the hero CÚCHULAINN

and transformed herself and her maidens intoSWANS to fly to him. But when he saw the greatwhite birds, Cúchulainn did not react asDerbforgaill hoped: He threw rocks at her untilhe brought her to earth. As she fell, Derbforgaillturned back into a woman, and the shockedhero, hoping to save her life, fell to his knees andsucked the stone from her flesh. AlthoughDerbforgaill was healed, Cúchulainn’s actionmade them blood kin and thus thwarted herambition of sharing his bed. Derbforgaill thenmarried LUGAIDH Riab nDerg, a friend ofCúchulainn’s. She died when, in a contest to seewho could shoot urine the farthest, Derbforgaillso overwhelmed the other women that they fellupon her and killed her. To avenge her death,Cúchulainn massacred 150 women of the family,causing Derbforgaill’s husband to die of grief atthe slaughter.

Source: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, p. 82.

dergfhlaith Irish ritual drink. Combining thewords for dark RED (derg) and SOVEREIGNTY

(flaith) as well as that for ALE (laith), this termmeans “the dark-red ale of sovereignty” and is

124 Delbacháem

used to describe the drink offered to the king bythe earth goddess to seal their union. This IrishINAUGURATION custom is believed to have conti-nental Celtic antecedents but may have evolvedfrom the union of Celtic invaders with an earlier,goddess-centered culture; scholars disagreed onthe subject. Acceptance of the red ale bonded theking to the land, encircling him with sacred vowsand responsibilities (see GEIS and BUADA) specificto his region, in addition to the demands of GEN-EROSITY and nobility required of all Irish kings.Some myths connect the red ale specifically toMEDB, goddess of sovereignty who was human-ized into the great queen of CONNACHT; it is alsoassociated with other goddesses of the land,including ÉRIU and Flaith.

Dér Gréine (Dia Griene) Irish and Scottishheroine or goddess. “Tear of the sun” is thename of a heroine in several Irish and Scottishtales; she may have originally been a goddess,daughter of the sun deity or the sun itself. InIreland she was the daughter of a king, given tothe hero LAOGHAIRE Mac Crimthann as areward for his service to her father in killing thefierce GIANT named GOLL MACMORNA. InScotland this figure’s mythological roots showthrough the folktale in which, held captive inthe Land of Big Women, Dia Griene was freedby a young man named Brian (a generic folktalename) with the assistance of the CAILLEACH indisguise as a FOX. As Dia Griene and her charm-ing, if bumbling, male companion attemptedtheir escape, the Cailleach sacrificed herself topermit their safe return.

Source: Monaghan, Patricia. O Mother Sun: A NewView of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom, Calif.:The Crossing Press, 1994, pp. 76–78.

Derravaragh (Lake Derravaragh, Darravaraugh)Irish mythological location. On the shores of thisscenic lake in Co. Westmeath, FIONNUALA and herbrothers, the CHILDREN OF LIR, were turned intoSWANS by their evil stepmother AÍFE.

destruction (togail, togla) Irish mythologicaltext. Among the various categories of heroictales in Ireland, which include visions (see AIS-LING) and VOYAGES as well as CATTLE RAIDS andWOOINGS, is the class of tales called destructions.As the title indicates, the tales concern thedestruction, often by fire, of a building. Themost famous of these tales, the Destruction of DA

DERGA’s Hostel, describes a king’s failure toobserve the sacred vows that his role required(see GEIS) and his resulting death.

Deva See DEE.

Devil Christian cosmological concept. TheCelts had no image of an evil force that resem-bled the Christian DEVIL. The Celtic worldviewwas instead ambiguous and non-dualistic, withdark balancing light rather than warring with it.Christianization meant that some Celtic divini-ties were redefined in the new religion as nega-tive forces; this is not uncommon, for the gods ofone religion often become the devils of the next.The continental Celtic god of wilderness, CER-NUNNOS, was the main inspiration for Christianiconography of the devil, with his horns and par-tially animal body. When goddesses were demo-nized, they were sometimes described as theDEVIL’S MOTHER.

Source: Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of PrehistoricSites in Britain. London: David & Charles,1976, p. 20.

Devil’s Father (Duveruckan, Duvephucan)Irish folkloric figure. Unlike the DEVIL’SMOTHER, a figure that draws on ancient god-desses and mythological monsters of paganIreland, the Devil’s Father seems to have beenentirely invented after Christianization ofIreland. The Devil’s Father haunted wakes,where he hoped to meet his son stealing the soulof the deceased. He could be recognized easily,for he had THREE legs, a RED tail, and a phallus-shaped walking stick.

Devil’s Father 125

Devil’s Mother (Kiraghna, Keeronagh) Irishgoddess or heroine. Just as male gods sometimesappear in Christian thought and iconography as the DEVIL, so goddesses were occasionallytransformed into demonic forces by those whowished to deter their continued worship. InIreland such goddesses were sometimes calledthe Devil’s Mother, a name borne by a largesquat mountain in northern Connemara, inIreland’s western province of CONNACHT. Twocharacters who were said to have battled thearriving ST. PATRICK—the bird-fiend CORRA andthe fearsome serpent CAORANACH—also bearthis name.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 400.

Devona (Divona) Continental Celtic Goddess.A Celtic goddess of whom little is known, she maybe the same as SIRONA, the Gaulish goddess ofHEALING. SPRINGS, especially thermal or hotsprings, were believed to have healing powers(modern science is finding some support for thisbelief), and Devona may have been a spring god-dess, for the second part of her name seems toderive from the Celtic root for “stream,” while thefirst syllable means “goddess.”

Diana Roman goddess. Her name appears onmany sculptures found in Celtic lands occupiedby Rome, but like the Greek goddess ARTEMIS,Diana was not originally a Celtic goddess. Anancient Italic goddess of the open sky, Dianabecame a lunar divinity of the hunt in Romantimes; her name was then carried to Celtic landsby invading legionnaires, who renamed appar-ently similar goddesses after the Diana of theirhomeland. Many Celtic goddesses wereabsorbed under her name, their personal nameslost to history; often it is not possible to tellwhether or in what ways the original Celtic god-dess was similar to the Roman import. Severalgoddesses of the wilderness kept their own

names and identities, however: ABNOBA, the god-dess of the Black Forest; ARDUINNA, the boargoddess of the Ardennes forest; the CAILLEACH,pre-Celtic Scottish goddess of wildlife; the beargoddess ARTIO of Britain and Gaul; and the Irishwoodland maiden FLIDAIS.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 42,177; MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 417; Straffon, Cheryl. TheEarth Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of theLandscape. London: Blandford, 1997, p. 31.

Dian Cécht (Dian Chect, Diancécht) Irishgod. When members of the magical race calledthe TUATHA DÉ DANANN were ill or wounded,they called for Dian Cécht, their master ofleechcraft, who knew the location of a SPRING

called the Well of Slaine that healed everywound except beheading. HEALING gods werecommon among the Celts; Dian Cécht appearsto be an Irish corollary to the healing water godsknown on the continent as APOLLO, althoughthat name was not Celtic but applied throughthe INTERPRETATIO ROMANA by invading Romanlegions to local healing gods, most of whomwere connected to healing waters.

Despite his powers and his knowledge of thesecret spring, Dian Cécht was not invariably suc-cessful. He failed to heal NUADA, king of theTuatha Dé Danann after a battle with the mon-strous FOMORIANS on the plain of MAG TUIRED.An enemy cut one arm completely off, and a sev-ered limb was beyond even Dian Cécht’s skill toheal. Because a BLEMISHED KING could not reign,Nuada was forced to yield the throne of TARA tothe evil half-Fomorian BRES mac Elatha. Brescreated havoc in the land, and so the Tuatha DéDanann pleaded with Dian Cécht to try again.

This time, Dian Cécht created a completelyfunctional arm of silver for Nuada, who hence-forth was known as Nuada of the Silver Arm.But that was still not sufficient, for although he

126 Devil’s Mother

could fight strongly with his metal arm, Nuadawas still too physically damaged to rule. DianCécht’s son MIACH, a healer like his father, finallyhealed Nuada completely by magically helpinghim grow skin over the silver prosthesis.

Furious at being outshone by his offspring,Dian Cécht killed Miach. Miach’s devoted sisterAIRMID, tending his grave, found hundreds ofherbs growing, one for every part of the humanbody, one for every day of the year. As she wassorting them and creating a system for their use,Dian Cécht crept up on his daughter anddestroyed her careful work; with that action thesecrets of healing were taken from this earth. DianCécht was humanized into MAC CÉCHT, husbandof the land goddess FÓDLA, one of the three landgoddesses who greeted the invading Celts.

Source: O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 66.

Diarmait (Dermot, Diarmuid) Irish hero.Many Irish heroes bear this name, which alsoappears in surnames like MacDermott, Donn,MacDiarmuid, Gwynne, and Gwynn; these areborne by people who claim descent from one oranother of the mythological Diarmaits. Themost important Diarmaits are:

• Diarmait, king of TARA, who plays a minorrole in the tale of his wife BECFHOLA; unhappywith Diarmait, she desired his foster sonCRIMTHANN, and when Crimthann disap-pointed her, she traveled instead to the OTHER-WORLD with the fairy king FLANN ua Fedach.

• Diarmait mac Murchada (MacMurrough,McMurrow), the historical prince of LEIN-STER who eloped with the feisty DERBFOR-GAILL, or kidnapped her from her husband,the chieftain of the Ua Ruairc (O’Rourke)clan of Connaught; that she took her dowrywith her suggests that she was functioningunder the old law that encouraged women’sfreedom in selection of a mate and assured

their financial well-being when they changedmarriages. History meets myth in this tale, forits combination of love, politics, and betrayalhas attracted many poets and storytellers overthe centuries. Whether Derbforgaill wasraped or seduced or, as some contend, was theseducer, her one-year residence withDiarmait led to lasting consequences. Herhusband called for vengeance, gathering hisforces together with those of the high king,Tairdelbach Ua Conchobair (TurloughO’Connor), and Derbforgaill was promptlyreturned to the wilds of Breffni, the UaRuairc stronghold. But Diarmait was unwill-ing to concede defeat; he went abroad andgathered an army of Normans under Richardde Clare, Earl of Pembroke, popularly knownas Strongbow, who married Diarmait’sdaughter Aífe to tie himself more closely tothe cause. Landing in Waterford, Strongbowmarched on and took Dublin, beginning along period of Norman and later British con-trol over the island.

• Diarmait Ua Duibne (Diarmait Ó Duinn,Dermot O’Dyea), descendant of the obscuregoddess Dubinn; he was the most famous ofthe mythological heroes of this name.Diarmait was the fated lover of beautifulyoung GRÁINNE who was betrothed to theaging FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. Diarmait wassaid to have a “love spot” (see BALL SEIRC) onhis forehead, given to him by a magicalwoman who told him that it would make himirresistible to any women who saw it. Sometales describe Diarmait as hiding his love spotunder bangs or otherwise keeping it covered,so that he might proceed with a normal lifeunhindered by women’s desires.

At a feast in Fionn’s hall, however, a breezelifted Diarmait’s hair. Gráinne spied the lovespot and fell hopelessly in love. Diarmait wasunwilling to elope with the espoused wife of hishost and leader, but Gráinne was unwilling tolive without him. When she learned that herbeloved was under a GEIS that forbade him torefuse a woman who came neither mounted

Diarmait 127

nor on foot, neither in the night nor the day,she came to him riding a mule, just at sundown,thus fulfilling the demands of the geis. They setoff together, but Diarmait still refused to sleepwith her because of his fear of Fionn or his loy-alty to his leader. And so the couple lived in theforest chastely—much to Gráinne’s annoy-ance—until a mysterious invader threatenedGráinne in the night, whereupon she shamedDiarmait into becoming her lover.

Thereafter they traveled through Ireland,endlessly pursued by Fionn and the FIANNA;the stones on which they slept, actually pre-historic DOLMENS, are still called “beds ofDiarmait and Gráinne.” Legend has it thatthere are exactly 366 dolmens in Irelandbecause the year they spent running fromFionn was a leap year. When Fionn finallycaught up with the pair in Co. Sligo’s forest ofDubros, Diarmait hid in a HAZEL tree. Fionn,suspecting Diarmait’s hiding place and know-ing the young hero’s weakness for the gamecalled FIDCHELL, sat down beneath the treeand called for his board. He called as well forOISÍN, Diarmait’s friend, to be his opponent.

Fionn’s instinct was shrewd, for Diarmaitcould not resist helping Oisín win. With per-fect aim, he threw hazelnuts down from thetree, straight at the space where Oisín shouldmove next. Instantly Fionn knew he hadfound his prey and pulled Diarmait out of thetree. The pursuit did not end with the recap-ture of the lost bride after all, for Gráinneremained with Diarmait, who returned to theFianna. (Some legends say that they retired toCo. Leitrim and raised a family.) Fionn hadthe last word, however, by withholding treat-ment when Diarmait was injured while hunt-ing wild BOAR beneath BEN BULBEN in Sligoand allowing his rival to die in agony.

Sources: Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the WestHighlands. Vol. III. Edinburgh: Edmonston andDouglas, 1862, p. 81; Cross, Tom Peete, andClark Harris Slover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. NewYork: Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 370; Dillon,

Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: The Mercier Press,1968, pp. 135 ff; Gregory, Lady Augusta. Godsand Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha DeDanaan and of the Fianna of Ireland. New York:Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 269 ff;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 365–366.

díchetal do chennaib Irish divination ritual.Among the many forms of DIVINATION used bythe ancient Irish, this one remains mysterious.Described as “composing on the fingertips,” it isunclear whether it was a form of psychometry(divining information about a person or objectthrough touch) or a kind of INCANTATION (per-haps using fingertips as mnemonic devices formemorizing words or syllables). It may have beena form of prophecy in which BARDS and seersamong the DRUIDS drew meaning from a kind ofautomatic uncomposed flood of speech. Despiteits basis in Celtic religious practice, ST. PATRICK

allowed its continued use when other divinatorypractices were forbidden, because this ritual didnot involve invoking the names of the old gods.

Dígne (Dige, Dighe, Duibne) Irish goddess.Goddess of the land of MUNSTER in southeastIreland, she was later merged with the HAG god-dess CAILLEACH. The Dingle peninsula in Co.Kerry, reputed to be Ireland’s most scenic area,bears her name. Inscriptions in OGHAM writinghave been found there bearing Dígne’s name;she has therefore been interpreted as the ances-tral goddess of the region.

Díl Irish heroine. This obscure figure isknown only from the BOOK OF INVASIONS, whichsays that she was the wife of the equally mysteri-ous DONN; she drowned as her people, the MILE-SIANS, arrived in Ireland.

Dinadan (Dinaden) Arthurian hero. Thesatirist of the ROUND TABLE, Dinadan is a rela-tively obscure figure who appears as a pranksterin several Arthurian tales. He fought a tourna-

128 díchetal do chennaib

ment with LANCELOT, who wore a dress for theoccasion; when Dinadan lost, he had to donwomen’s attire.

Dindraine Arthurian heroine. The sister ofPERCIVAL, this minor character in Arthurian leg-end was a generous woman who gave her bloodto heal a woman of leprosy.

Dindshenchas (Dinnshenchas, Dinsheanchas)Irish mythological text. Usually translated as“poetry of place,” these ancient Irish textsdescribe the myths associated with various placesin the landscape. The date of their compositionis unknown; the Dindshenchas may have beenrecited orally before being written down in the12th-century Book of Leinster and in othermedieval manuscripts.

Each of these place-poems gives the mythsrelated to a site, which often explain the place-name. Many ancient Irish stories come down tous through the Dindshenchas. Often the poemsdo not actually tell the story but allude to it, soalthough they represent a major source of infor-mation on Celtic mythology, it must sometimesbe supplemented by other texts. Given the lateand post-Christian date of transcription, it isunclear whether the poems are reliable, but inmany cases, the Dindshenchas is the only sourcefor a myth or mythological figure.

See also PLACE-LORE.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co, Ltd,1906–1924. Reprinted Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies, 1991;Ó Murchadha, Diarmuid, and Kevin Murray.“Place-Names.” In Buttimer, Neil, Colin Rynne,and Helen Guerin, eds. The Heritage of Ireland.Cork: The Collins Press, 2000, pp. 146–155.

Dinny-Mara (Dooinney Marrey, Dunya Mara)See MERMAN.

Dinomogetimarus Continental Celtic god.Only one inscription exists naming this Gaulishgod, whom the Romans identified with theirwarrior divinity MARS.

Dìreach See FACHAN.

directions (aiats, deosil, tuathal) Cosmologicalconcept. The Celts did not have four directions,but five: NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, and center.The fifth direction makes clear the relativity of therest, which are judged from the position of thespeaker. The center is not only a directionalmarker but a spiritual or philosophical conception,for as the speaker moves, so does the center fromwhich all directions are measured. The radicallyplace-based nature of Celtic religion seems linkedto this concept of direction.

This elusive fifth direction appears in themythological division of Ireland into fivePROVINCES. Four provinces existed on theearthly plane: LEINSTER in the east, MUNSTER inthe southwest, CONNACHT in the west, andULSTER in the north. The fifth province, thecenter, could not be limited to a single place.Although a central province called MIDE orMeath was designated in medieval times, theoriginal fifth province was a moveable, evenmultiple, site. Each province had a center (CRU-ACHAN, KNOCKAULIN, EMAIN MACHA, KNOCK-AINY), and the island as a whole had two centers,the hills of UISNEACH and TARA. Upon Uisneach,an even more central center was found: theSTONE OF DIVISIONS, a huge boulder that wassaid to show the map of Ireland. Thus the centeris, in Irish mythological thought, both manyplaces and no place.

In addition to the directions of the compass,another set of directions was important to theCeltic worldview. This was the differencebetween deosil and tuathal—the first meaning tomove southward in a circle, the second to movenorthward. Today we would say clockwise andanticlockwise or counterclockwise, but theseIrish words come from a time when the Sun, the

directions 129

Moon, and the stars were the only timepiecesknown. Clocks rotate as they do because the sunmoves in that direction around the horizon,always moving toward the south; indeed, southis defined as the direction of the sun at noonfrom the Northern Hemisphere, for despite ourperception that the sun stands overhead, it is infact always to the south. Thus to move deosil(deiseal, desiul) is to move in the direction of nat-ural order, while to move tuathal is the opposite,to go against nature. This belief continuesamong contemporary NEO-PAGANS who believethat to go widdershins, or counterclockwise, in aritual circle brings bad luck.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992; Hull, Eleanor.Folklore of the British Isles. London: Methuen &Co. Ltd., 1928, pp. 72–80; MacCulloch, J. A.The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London:Constable, 1911, pp. 193, 237.

Dirona See SIRONA.

Dis Pater (Dispater, Dis) Continental Celticgod. This Latin name, given by Julius Caesar toan unknown god he believed was the primarydivinity of his Gaulish enemies, means “Fatherof Hell.” The Celts had no conception of anunderworld in an afterlife or in a place of tor-ment, so Caesar may have gotten it wrong. Thiswould not be the only time he did so, as he alsoimagined that his Celtic foes had a pantheonresembling that of Rome, with a centralizedadministration and an order of precedence,although in fact the Celts had no such bureau-cratic organization of their divinities.

What god Caesar and his legions renamedDis Pater is impossible to know, although threegods have been nominated: the one sculptedwith a hammer who goes variously by the namesof SUCELLUS and TARANIS, the horned god CER-NUNNOS, and the woodland god ESUS (called bythe Romans by the name of their parallel divin-ity, SILVANUS). This god may have been a divin-

ity of the OTHERWORLD, the Celtic domain ofthe gods and later of FAIRIES, which faintlyresembles the Roman underworld. But far frombeing a distressing place, the Celtic Otherworldwas beautiful beyond measure, timeless, andpopulated by gifted immortals.

Díthorba Irish hero. In the tale of MACHA

Mong Rua (Red-Haired Macha), Díthorba wasthe name of an allegedly historical king of ULSTER

with whom Macha’s father, ÁED RUAD, sharedrulership in seven-year cycles; the third king inthe team was CIMBÁETH. Magical NUMBERS

appear consistently in this tale, for in addition tothe three kings with their seven-year reigns, wefind the arrangement sustained by seven DRUIDS,seven BARDS, and seven nobles, suggesting thatthe story is not historical but mythological.

Díthorba opposed Macha—sometimesdescribed as his niece—when, after her father’sdeath, she took his place in the kingly cycle. Shewent to war for her rights and killed Díthorba,whose sons escaped to the Burren, the rockylands of Co. Clare. Macha hunted them downthere and, disguised as a HAG, approached them.Each in turn attempted to rape her; each in turnshe overpowered. When all were tied together,she led them back to EMAIN MACHA, the Ulstercapital, where she forced them to dig theimpressive HILLFORT still visible today.

Divano Continental Celtic god. This obscuregod was identified by the Romans with theirwarrior divinity MARS.

divination Celtic ritual. Attempting to seeinto the future was an important duty of theDRUIDS among both the insular and the conti-nental Celts. Early documents, all written bytheir Mediterranean enemies, depict the Celts assuperstitious to the extreme. Tactitus claimedthe Celts regularly read the still-pulsing entrailsof sacrificed men, and Strabo agreed, but bothwere Romans who had reason to paint their ene-

130 Dirona

mies as barbarians, so this evidence for HUMAN

SACRIFICE is arguable. Other comments are lesscontroversial, including the use of ANIMALS indivination rites and the reading of auguries inthe flight of BIRDS.

A great deal of evidence from Ireland,untainted by Roman influence but possiblyaffected by the Christian faith of transcribers,shows that the druids, and especially the BARDS,used divination often. They had several elabo-rate and complex mechanisms for entering thealtered states necessary to speak prophecies:chanting of incantations (see DÍCHETAL DO CHEN-NAIB), psychometry or reading the auras ofobjects (see TEINM LAEDA), trance (see IMBAS

FOROSNAI), and use of letters (see OGHAM). Plantstoo had their uses in divination; the wands car-ried by druids have been interpreted as diviningrods. Some texts suggest that a kind of yoga waspracticed by druids who, holding themselves inspecific postures, spoke their prognostications.The most elaborate and complex ritual of div-ination was that used to determine a new king;after devouring raw meat, a poet was wrapped ina recently slaughtered BULL-hide to dream of thenew king (see BULL-SLEEP).

Although specialists were required for themost complex issues, divination was also prac-ticed by ordinary Celtic people who, like peoplebefore and after them, desired to know what lifeheld in store for them. On several pivotal daysduring the year, especially SAMHAIN onNovember 1, the future could be read in OMENS

and dreams even by ordinary folk.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 247 ff.

divination through incantation SeeDÍCHETAL DO CHENNAIB.

divination through letters See OGHAM.

divination through touch See TEINM LAEDA.

Dobharchú (Dorraghow, Dobharchu, Otter-King) Irish folkloric figure. The unsleepingblack-and-white striped king of the OTTERS was,in Irish legend, a supernatural being whohunted and killed humans. The king was diffi-cult to kill, for he was vulnerable only to silverbullets. Not only that, but hunting him wasdangerous, even fatal, for a successful hunterwas likely to die within a day. Even such anextreme penalty might be worth risking to obtainthe hide of the Dobharchú, for even the small-est piece of the hide of the king otter protectedits holder from drowning. Into historical times,bits of non-kingly otter fur were sold byunscrupulous merchants to sailors, who hadgreat need of protection from death by water.Several families claimed descent from otters,most significantly the McMurrows.

dobie (dobbin) British folkloric figure. A kindof BROWNIE, the dobie was known for beingrather simple, if well-meaning; thus its namebecame slang for a dim-witted person. Somedobies were ghosts rather than FAIRIES; both kindshaunted houses and could be sent away (see LAY-ING THE FAIRIES) by giving them gifts. The nameis also applied to RIVER spirits with the power ofSHAPE-SHIFTING, as well as to HOLED STONES

found on riverbanks, which were believed to beexcellent protective AMULETS.

dog Symbolic animal. Dogs appear frequentlyin the myth and folklore of Celtic lands: as theANIMAL form of a divinity, usually a goddess; as acompanion to heroes, usually male; and as spirit-beings associated with the OTHERWORLD. Theconnection of dogs with religion may be veryancient in Celtic lands, because remains of theirbones, found in early sites, appear to indicatethey were killed sacrificially. The disgust thateven contemporary people in the ancient Celticlands feel toward eating dog meat, not shared bypeople of many lands, may be a long-lastingmemory of a taboo against consuming the fleshof a sacrificial victim.

dog 131

The first category of dog imagery is exempli-fied in the sculpted altars dedicated to the goddessNEHALENNIA, who was invariably shown with asmall lapdog gazing up worshipfully from besideher feet. Like other Celtic goddesses, she had nomore frequent animal companion. Fruit and eggsalso appear on such altars, suggesting that the dogsymbolized FERTILITY and abundance. Or dogsmay have been seen as healers, for they accom-pany such goddesses as the continental HEALING

goddess SIRONA. Dogs lick their wounds untilthey heal; this may have led to the common (ifmistaken) belief in Celtic countries that dogs canheal human wounds through licking. It is alsopossible that Roman visions of the dog as healerfound their way into Celtic iconography, for thesculptures of healing goddesses with dogs datefrom the period when Celtic lands were occupiedby the legions of imperial Rome.

Not all dogs are healing companions; the dogwho accompanies the massive goddess on theGUNDESTRUP CAULDRON, found in Denmark butapparently illustrating Celtic myth and ritual,seems connected with death, an associationfound as well in the folkloric BLACK DOG. Butdeath, in the Celtic worldview, led to rebirth, sothe dog images buried in graves may have repre-sented the promise of future life. Similarly dogand corn appear together on statues of the god-dess, suggesting that the Celts connected thedeath of the seed with new growth, and both withthe dog as healer and psychopomp or leader ofthe souls of the newly dead. Connections of dogswith the Otherworld appear in the stories of theIrish goddess BÓAND, drowned with her little lap-dog Dabilla, and LÍ BAN, who was turned into aMERMAID together with her unnamed pet dog.

Several gods are associated with dogs, notablyNODENS. But more commonly the male figuresassociated with the dog are heroic warriors;indeed, the Irish word for “hound,” cú, becomesthe first syllable in the name of the great heroesCÚCHULAINN and CÚ ROÍ. Just as goddesses hadlapdogs, heroes had hunting hounds, many ofwhose names come down to us in legend:ADHNÚALL, BRAN, and SCEOLAN, dogs of FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL; the Welsh Drudwyn, huntingdog to the hero KULHWCH; and Failinis, houndof the god LUGH. These dogs appear merely tointensify the masculine strength of their ownersand rarely—with the exception of Fionn’s Bran—had personalities of their own. Yet through theirhunting, they embodied the life-and-death cycle,bringing food to the human table that entailedthe death of birds and other animals; thus thesehunting hounds may have associations similar tothose of the companions of goddesses.

Also straddling the line between life anddeath was the ambiguous FAIRY dog or BlackDog, a fearsome apparition with burning eyesand a terrifying howl. Seen in Germany andBritain as well as Ireland, the Black Dog warnedof death and war; at the outbreak of World WarII, there were many sightings in Europe of thismythological beast. Irish superstition connectssuch dogs with the BANSHEE or death-warningfairy woman; dogs howling near the home of asick person were believed to predict death, whilethe first note of the traditional funeral dirge wassaid to replicate the howling of the Black Dog.

The CÚ SÍTH or fairy dog was distinguishedfrom the Black Dog by the color of its coat,which was dark green. It moved soundlessly,always in a straight line, so it was easy to tell fromother dogs that followed scent-trails in big lopingcircles. The Cú Síth could bark, and loudly, butonly three times. On the third, it sprang forwardand devoured anyone nearby. On the Isle ofLewis in the Hebrides, it was believed that a sur-vivor of such an attack was able to extract a toothfrom the Cú Síth, which served as a local ORACLE

until it emigrated, with its owner, to Canada,where it is presumably still to be found.

In Scotland even dogs entirely of this worldwere credited with having some supernaturalpowers. When they howled at the moon orgrowled at nothing in particular, it was believedthat they were alerting their human keepers tothe presence of supernatural or fairy powers.Dogs were also believed to see ghosts of thedead, witches, or other persons only visible topeople with SECOND SIGHT.

132 dog

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroid: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p.163; Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in CelticReligious Art. London: Routledge, 1989, pp. 28ff, 89, 144; MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. ThePeat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of theHighlands & Islands. Edinburgh: The MorayPress, 1937, pp. 37 ff; Whitlock, Ralph. TheFolklore of Wiltshire. London: B. T. Batsford,Ltd., 1976, p. 129.

Dòideag Scottish heroine. This allegedly his-torical WITCH of the Isle of Mull off Scotlandwas blamed—or given credit, depending on thepolitics of the speaker—for the destruction ofthe Spanish Armada when it invaded England.Such control over the weather is typically attrib-uted to the HAG named the CAILLEACH, onwhom Dòideag seems to be patterned.

dolmen Symbolic structure. Doorways ofstone leading nowhere stand in fields and pas-tures, on rocky hills and in verdant valleys,throughout Celtic lands. The Breton word forthese structures is dolmen, meaning “table ofstone,” although one would have to be a GIANT

to eat off most dolmens; contemporary archaeol-ogists prefer the term portal tomb, while inWales the same structures are called cromlechs(from words meaning “bent” and “flat stone”).These distinctive and memorable structures arealso called DRUID altars, but they were builtthousands of years before the Celts and theirpriests arrived in the land.

Perhaps as many as 6,000 years have passedsince the stone uprights were capped with theirhuge crossbeams, yet the engineering of thesemysterious prehistoric people was so exact thathundreds of these structures are still standingtoday. Indications of burials have been found inrecesses under dolmens, leading archaeologiststo call them tombs, but burials were few in com-parison to the population. Those whose remains(sometimes cremated elsewhere) rest beneath

the dolmens may have been victims of HUMAN

SACRIFICE, or they may have been people of highstatus who were considered worthy of a distin-guished burial. But this does not mean that theplacement and building of dolmens may nothave had purposes other than the funereal; sim-ilar structures found in the Canadian arctic serveboth as geographical markers and as shamanicdoorways to another world.

The Celts, arriving long after the dolmenswere built, created many tales about them. InIreland the stone structures are called “beds ofDIARMAIT and GRÁINNE,” for the eloping couplewere said to have slept together on a differentone each night, as they fled her furious intendedhusband, FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. This legendconnects the dolmens to FERTILITY and sexuality,as does the frequent folklore that claims thestones either cause sterility and barrenness, orthat they increase the likelihood of conception.Such lore may encode pre-Celtic understandingsof these pre-Celtic monuments, may be Celtic inorigin, or may represent Christian interpola-tions into Celtic legend.

dolorous blow Arthurian motif. In stories ofthe FISHER KING, this is the name of the acciden-tal blow struck to his groin by his brother BALIN,which caused the land to become barren.

Domnall (Donal, Domnal, Dónal, Donald,sometimes Daniel) Irish or Scottish hero.Popular in both Irish and Scottish tradition, thisname was carried by a number of minor heroesand kings, most significantly Domnall of TARA,who succeeded the mad king SUIBHNE; andDomnal Míldemail, the Scottish king to whoselands the hero CÚCHULAINN was sent by thefather of his intended bride, EMER, who fearedfor his daughter’s virtue.

Domnu (Déa Dumnu) Irish goddess. Thisobscure Irish goddess is mentioned in the BOOK

OF INVASIONS as the ancestral mother of the mon-strous FOMORIANS, who were defeated by the

Domnu 133

magical TUATHA DÉ DANANN. As the Tuatha Déhave been often interpreted as gods of the arriv-ing Celts, while the Fomorians represent an ear-lier people, Domnu may have been an ancestralgoddess of the early Celtic or pre-Celtic Irish.Domnu’s name has been translated as “deep,”which suggests that she is a goddess of the oceandepths or the misty depths of the OTHERWORLD.Inver Domnann (Broadhaven) in Co. Sligo mayderive its name from her.

Dôn Welsh goddess. Just as the Irish divinitiesare called the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the tribe ofthe goddess DANU, so the gods of Wales werecalled the Children of Dôn after this otherwiselittle-known goddess. Among Dôn’s many chil-dren, several figure prominently in the Welshlegends transcribed in the MABINOGION. Herdaughter was the virgin mother ARIANRHOD, whowas nominated to serve as footstool to Dôn’sbrother, king MATH. Of Dôn’s four sons, threerepresented important social roles, while the lastwas a trickster who eludes definition: GWYDION

the BARD, GOVANNON the SMITH, the farmerAMAETHEON, and the troublemaking GILFAETHWY.

Dôn herself played little role in Welshmythology. Her name, however, connects her to anumber of other divinities connected with theland’s FERTILITY. In Ireland both Danu and therelated ANU encouraged prosperity; on theContinent, a hypothesized Danu was a goddess ofthe watercourses whose name was reflected in theimportant river system, the Danube. Support forthis theory comes from the occurrence of Welshrivers with names similar to Dôn’s: Trydonwy andDyfrdonwy, the latter also being the name in theTRIADS of one of the THREE WELLS in the ocean.

Alternatively, Dôn may be another form ofthe name DOMNU, believed to be the goddess ofthe ocean and ancestral mother of the FOMORI-ANS, whom some describe as early Celtic settlersin Ireland. Finally, some texts show Danu’s chil-dren as children of the goddess BRIGIT, leavingopen the possibilities that they may representthe same divine force, that they may originally

have been the same, or that they were confusedby the storyteller.

Like the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Children ofDôn bear the name of their mother, while nofather is mentioned. Their inheritance was thusmatrilineal, or traced through the maternal line(see MATRILINY). Not only that, but Dôn’s chil-dren continue the tradition, for her brotherMath was succeeded not by his own son but byhis nephew, Dôn’s son Gwydion; then Gwydionwas succeeded by his sister Arianrhod’s son,LLEU LLAW GYFFES. These matrilineal succes-sions have given rise to the theory that thedeities derived from a time when humans, too,traced ancestry through the mother-line. Thosewho argue this interpretation of the myths alsosuggest that matriliny may have been a pre-Celtic tradition carried over into Celtic timeswhen indigenous women bore children to theinvaders; the myths would then describe the“inheritance” by half-Celtic children of theirmothers’ lands. Others point to the consistencyof matrilineal descent in Celtic myth from vari-ous lands as providing evidence that the Celtsthemselves once traced lineage in this fashion.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. “Queen Medb,Female Autonomy in Ancient Ireland, and IrishMatrilineal Traditions.” In Jones-Bley, Karlene,Angela Della Volpe, Miriam Robbins Dexter,and Martin E. Huld, eds. Proceedings of theNinth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference.Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study ofMan, 1998, pp. 95–122; Dexter, MiriamRobbins. Whence the Goddesses: A Sourcebook.New York: Pergamon Press, 1990, pp. 42–46;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 103; Rhys,John. The Welsh People. London: T. FisherUnwin, 1906, p. 37; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 21.

Donagha Irish folkloric character. In the farsouthwest of Ireland, folklore tells of a married

134 Dôn

couple—Donagha, a lazy man, and his carpingwife VARIA—who fought constantly andviciously. Granted two wishes by the FAIRY folk,Donagha was so lazy that he wasted one of themasking that the load of wood he was carryingshould walk home by itself; it grew legs and didso. When her lazy husband arrived home withhis strange companion, Varia upbraided him forthe waste of a good wish. Thereupon Donaghawished her far away. Her cabin instantly flew off to Teach na Vauria in Co. Kerry, while he himself flew off to Teach an Donagha—Donaghadee, near Belfast, in Co. Down—on theother end of the island.

Donand Irish goddess. This obscure Irishgoddess is noted in the BOOK OF INVASIONS as themother of the three heroes BRIAN, IUCHAIR, andIUCHARBA (see SONS of TUIREANN). She is usuallyconsidered to be identical to DANU, although shemay originally have been a separate goddess.

Donn Irish god. The shadowy Irish god of thedead, whose name puns on “brown” and “king,”appears in few myths and is often confused withor absorbed into other mythological characters.Donn lived at Tech Duinn, the House of Donn,a rocky island off the southwest coast of Ireland;he is also connected with Donn Well in Co.Donegal. He was often conflated with theDAGDA, the benevolent god of abundance andfecundity, but they in fact had little in commonaside from residence in the OTHERWORLD. Donnrepresented isolation and death, especially deathby drowning, for from his seaside home hebrewed up storms to cause shipwrecks, the bet-ter to draw more souls to his realm.

Donn Bó Irish hero. Famous for his sweetsinging, this young Irish warrior was slain and,as was customary, decapitated by his killer. Butwhen his HEAD was taken to the victory banquetand displayed on a pillar, it began to sing such apiercingly beautiful melody that everyone in thehall was reduced to tears.

Donn Cuailnge (Don Cooley, Donn Tarb)Irish mythological beast. The great BrownBULL of Cuailnge was the only animal inIreland that matched FINNBENNACH, the greatWhite Bull. One lived in ULSTER, in the fieldsof the minor king DÁIRE; the other in CON-NACHT, in the fields of the provincial queenMEDB’s consort AILILL mac Máta. When Medband Ailill argued over who owned more, thequeen was discouraged to discover that herherds had no equal to Finnbennach. Sendingher warriors to Dáire, Medb asked for a year’sloan of Donn Cuailnge, offering a fortune andher own “friendly thighs” to cap the deal; shehoped that during his stay in Connacht theDonn would impregnate one of her cows with asplendid calf, thus making her the equal ofAilill in possessions.

At first Dáire was quite willing, especiallygiven the rental fee, but when he heard some ofMedb’s men boasting that they would take theDonn whether his owner approved or not, hebecame enraged and refused Medb’s offer. Thusbegan the cattle raid that makes up the greatestof Irish epics, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

It was, in fact, not a mere bull that Medbsought. Donn Cuailnge was the reincarnation ofa man named FRIUCH, who had once worked as aswineherd for the magician BODB DERG. Anotherman, RUCHT, worked nearby for a man namedOchall. The two fought over everything and,after they died, continued as they reincarnatedin many forms (see REINCARNATION). Theyfought WORMS, STAGES, RAVENS, warriors, andphantoms before reincarnating as the splendidbulls, a SHAPE-SHIFTING that is otherwise onlyseen in gods and BARDS. Medb had her way andbrought the Brown Bull to Connacht, but assoon as Finnbennach and the Donn were in thesame pasture, their aeons-long combat beganagain. Donn Cuailnge killed Finnbennach, butdied of his wounds shortly thereafter.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 152–159.

Donn Cuailnge 135

Donn Fírinne Irish fairy king. Within themountain of KNOCKFIERNA (Cnoc Fírinne, thehill of Fírinne) in Co. Limerick was the SÍDHE orFAIRY palace of this king of Ireland’s magicalrace, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN. Donn Fírinne,one of the best-known fairy kings of the land,sometimes kidnapped mortal women to join himin his fairy dances. Because they would never beseen again in the surface world, this figure maybe connected to the obscure OTHERWORLD kingof the dead, DONN.

Donn Ua Duibne (Donn O’Duin, Donn ÓDuibhne) Irish mythological beast. This wildBOAR killed the romantic hero DIARMAIT UaDuibne, but it really was not a boar at all but aSHAPE-SHIFTING human. The boar wasDiarmait’s half brother, borne by his motherCOCHRANN to her lover, a shepherd. WhenDiarmait’s father, also named Donn, discoveredthat his wife had given birth to another man’schild, he killed the infant by crushing it. Thechild’s father, however, knew magic: He waved aHAZEL wand over the mangled body, and thechild came back to life but transformed into awild PIG. The unfortunate Donn lived only towreak vengeance and, when Diarmait cameupon him on the legendary hill of BEN BULBEN,knew that his chance had come. Although Donnlost his life to Diarmait, he was able to prick thehero with one of his needle-sharp whiskers, andDiarmait bled to death.

dooinney-oie (night-man) Manx folkloric figure. This kindly Manx water spirit warnedsailors and farmers of storms by calling, howling,or sounding a horn.

Dornoll (Dornolla) Irish heroine. The pow-erful but unattractive daughter of DomnallMíldemail, king of Scotland, Dornoll was aDRUID and WARRIOR WOMAN who fell in love withthe hero CÚCHULAINN. But he spurned her tostudy with another Scottish amazon, SCÁTHACH.

Dorraghow See DOBHARCHÚ

dove Symbolic bird. Among the continentaland British Celts, the dove was associated withHEALING and with ORACLES, a connection thatmay have arisen because the ill are often eagerfor insight into the future.

Dowth See BRÚ NA BÓINNE.

dracae Scottish folkloric figure. The dracae areevil water FAIRIES who attempt to lure passersbyby SHAPE-SHIFTING into the forms of desirablegolden objects that appear to be floating just outof reach in LAKES and RIVERS. When the travelerreaches, the GOLD cup drifts slightly away untilthe victim falls into the water and drowns. Onecaptive of the dracae found herself beneath thewaves in a beautiful land where she was enslavedas a MIDWIFE to the FAIRIES. At last released, shediscovered that because she had touched her eyewith FAIRY OINTMENT, she perceived the dracaepretending to be normal men and women, walk-ing unnoticed among us.

dragon Mythological beast. Breathing fire,eating maidens, scorching villages—the dragonof medieval legend was an enormous scalymonster, sometimes winged, often snaky, thatdemanded a hero. In Britain, ST. GEORGE or ST.MICHAEL rescued the land by slaying the evilbeing, who was sometimes said to be the DEVIL

himself. In Ireland, ST. PATRICK was thefavorite dragon-killer of storytellers, for hefought and killed the monstrous CORRA, CAO-RANACH, and OILLIPHEIST, all described asmonstrous beings. Indeed, despite the fact thatsnakes never existed in Ireland, these fearsomecreatures were described as serpentine. A num-ber of interpreters have found in these imagesa coded message about the extirpation of paganbeliefs by the new Christian religion, an inter-pretation that has been applied as well to theGeorge/Michael motifs.

136 Donn Fírinne

In Britain, however, saints were not required;regular heroes could step in when necessary tofight WORMS—called that not because they weresmall or insignificant, but because worm was theNorse and Saxon word for “dragon.” FamousEnglish dragons included those of Unsworthand Wantley, the latter having seven heads andthree times that many sets of eyes. In the 12thcentury the famous Linton Worm ravishedRoxburghshire with its poisonous breath; it waskilled when a local hero shoved a blazing branddown its throat. Even as late as 1614, a dragonwas allegedly sighted in West Sussex. Whilesome reports touched on standard characteris-tics such as breathing fire, eating sheep andmaidens, and the like, others described dragonsas beautiful, especially when curled up to sleep,their scales looking like shining jewels.

Killing dragons was not easy, for those shin-ing scales protected them. One Scottish dragonhad to be lured out of her lair, where she wasnursing several dragonets between destructiveforays around the countryside. Finally oneCharles the Skipper hit on the clever stratagemof building a bridge of empty barrels, coveredwith iron spikes. When the dragon venturedonto the bridge, the spikes impaled her.Meanwhile, back at the cave, her children werebeing smoked to death by her erstwhile prey. Indespair at losing her brood, the dragon flailedherself with her massive tail until she died, on arock still called Dragon Rock.

Although often described as based in Celticbelief, dragon tales are in fact of unknown ori-gin. They occur most frequently in Wales, anation symbolized by a red dragon; the Welshhero who became king ARTHUR’s father bears theprovocative name of UTHER PENDRAGON, whichmay mean “dragon’s head.” Some writers haveimaginatively linked dragons with undergroundRIVERS, others with earth energy; their mostfamous contemporary appearance is in the workof American-born Irish writer Anne McCaffery,whose fantasy civilization of Perth is describedin Dragonhold, Dragonflight, The White Dragon,and many other works.

Sources: Douglas, George. Scottish Fairy and FolkTales. West Yorkshire: EP Publishing, 1977, pp.77 ff; Harland, John, and T. T. Wilkinson.Lancashire Legends. London: George Routledgeand Sons, 1873, pp. 63 ff; MacDougall, James.Folk Tales and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English.Edinburgh: John Grant, 1910, p. 97.

dreams Cosmological concept. In addition tothe AISLING, a traditional form of Irish poetry inwhich supernatural encounters occurred while thepoet was in a dreaming state, the dream had sig-nificance in Celtic religion as a place that couldprovide access to the OTHERWORLD. Mythsemphasize this connection, for FAIRY people areable to visit human dreamers, as the fairy queenFAND did when she seduced the hero CÚCHULAINN

and as the unnamed fairy of the western isle didwhen she lured BRAN mac Febail away to herrealm. Such beliefs are also reflected in the form ofDIVINATION called the tarbhfleis or BULL-SLEEP, inwhich a BARD, glutted with the meat of a newlyslaughtered bull, slept wrapped in the bloody hidein order to dream the identity of the new king.

Dreco Irish heroine. A sorceress of the FOMO-RIANS, the mysterious people described as mon-strous in the BOOK OF INVASIONS, Ireland’s mytho-logical history, Dreco used a poison draught tokill 20 warriors sent against her. The exact site ofthe slaughter, Nephin (Nemthend) overlookingLough Conn in Co. Mayo, is known from Irishplace-name poetry, which describes Dreco as aBARD as well as a magician.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 15.

druid Celtic social role. Members of the priestlyclass among the Celts were called druids, from aword interpreted variously as meaning “oak” or“wise.” Although the druids did not write downtheir beliefs, which were transmitted orally to the

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chosen initiates, we have some textual documenta-tion from other sources. Early Roman writersincluding Caesar described a priesthood of magi-cians and poets, philosophers and lawyers—for thedruids played all of these roles in Celtic society.Caesar reported that an elected chief druidpresided over an annual meeting at the center ofthe Celtic territories in Europe, where they dis-cussed and disputed and settled difficulties.

Both men and women served as druids,although possibly in different ways; the Irishword bandrui, woman druid, emphasizes the factthat the priesthood was not limited to one gen-der. Whether male or female, the druid wentthrough an extensive period of training beforeassuming the office’s authority and responsibility.It is not clear whether the role was hereditary orwhether, like Asiatic shamans, Celtic druids werecalled to their vocation by an inward leaning.

Once the period of training had passed, thedruid served as a seer who used various means ofaltering consciousness in order to forecast andadvise the people. Oracular traditions includingincantation (DÍCHETAL DO CHENNAIB), psychome-try (TEINM LAEDA), writing (OGHAM), or trance(IMBAS FOROSNAI) were employed to discern thecorrect path for an individual or a tribe; in thissense, druids served as political advisers as well ascounselors. They also conducted SACRIFICE, bothseasonally and when their divinations showed itnecessary; because they foresaw the future, theywere important adjuncts to the work of all mem-bers of the society, from herdsman to king.

Finally, druids were educators; many youngpeople studied with them for a time, learning thehistory of their people, religious concepts, math-ematics, astronomy, writing, and other subjectsbefore returning to life in the other classes ofsociety. Since all education was through memo-rization, the training that future kings, warriors,and craftsmen received was instantly accessibleto them in later life.

Druids and BARDS were connected, althoughthere is scholarly contention as to whether theyformed a single order or separate orders. Certainlytheir duties overlapped, for poets entered an

altered state of consciousness to compose versesand were expected to have SATIRES ready should aking prove ungenerous. Both druid and bardrelied upon magic, for the magic of words was animportant part of Celtic belief; although poetsspecialized in verbal magic, they also took part inother magical rites such as the tarbhfleis, the BULL-SLEEP, in which they attempted to dream the iden-tity of the new king. The duties of both bard anddruid so overlapped with those of the BREHONS,the legal experts, that it is difficult to discern clearlines of distinction between these groups.

Several writers have suggested a connectionbetween druidical practice and shamanism, anarctic religion based in the belief that otherworlds above and below the visible world can beaccessed through altered consciousness (seeCELTIC SHAMANISM). The druids indeed prac-ticed ways of entrancing themselves; they ateacorns before prophesying, confined themselvesto darkened rooms, chanted incantations, andotherwise attempted to strain their senses to seevisions. This view of the druid as shaman hasgained advocates in recent years, although somescholars limit the term to religions derived fromthe spiritual practices of Siberian magicians.

The religious ceremonies conducted by thedruids are all but lost to our knowledge. Theywere apparently conducted in the open air, prob-ably in sacred groves called NEMETONS; as OAKS

were especially sacred, it is highly likely that oakgroves were favored locations for ritual. WhetherHUMAN SACRIFICE was part of these rites is fiercelydebated; Caesar spoke of men and animals beingburned in wicker cages, but Caesar was an enemyof the Celts and might have consciously orunconsciously painted them as cruel barbarians.

With the coming of Christianity, the druidsdisappeared. In some cases their power hadalready been broken, for when the Romansinvaded, they put to the torch the druids’ sacredgroves on the Continent and, in a slaughter stillremembered by history, on the sacred isle ofANGLESEY in the Irish Sea. With their sanctuariesdestroyed, the druids’ power waned. Some druidsmay have become Christian monks or otherwise

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adapted to the new religion, but it is certain thatmany died with their memorized knowledge stillsealed in their minds. A number of druidicalrevivals have been seen in the last few centuries,ranging from the Gorsedd poetic competition inWales, established in 1792, to the various Celticshamanic societies functioning today.

Sources: Brunaux, Jean Louis. The Celtic Gauls: Gods,Rites and Sanctuaries. London: Seaby, 1988, pp.57–65; Lonigan, Paul R. The Druids: Priests of theAncient Celts. Contributions to the Study ofReligion, No. 45. Westport, Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1996; Lonigan, Paul, “Shamanism in theOld Irish Tradition.” Eire-Ireland, Fall 1985;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 287 ff, 305ff; O’Curry, Eugene, “Druids and Druidism inAncient Ireland,” in Matthews, John. A CelticReader: Selections from Celtic Legend, Scholarshipand Story. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press,1991, pp. 15 ff; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain:Studies in Iconography and Tradition. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 52.

druid’s egg See SERPENT STONE.

druid’s fog (féth fiada, ceó druídecta) Sym-bolic object. One of the powers that DRUIDS weresaid to possess was the ability to wrap themselvesin mist and thus to pass by their enemies (or eventheir friends) undetected. This invisibility mayhave actually been a form of SHAPE-SHIFTING—the passing druid might become a veil of mist,just as he or she could become an animal or abird—rather than a fog conjured by and separatefrom the druid. As possessors of this magical fog,druids were like gods or FAIRIES, who were alsosaid to have such power; the TUATHA DÉ DANANN

received the druid’s fog as a consolation prizeafter losing Ireland to the MILESIANS. ST. PATRICK

was similarly believed to have made himself invis-ible to the eyes of those who would harm him; inthe famous poem “St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” heand a companion passed by dangerous druids,who saw only a fawn and a deer.

druid’s glass See SERPENT STONE.

druineach Scottish folkloric figure. Not fre-quently encountered by humans, this Highlandspirit appears in spring to beat upon the ground,an activity that brings forth the first green growth.

Dryantore Irish hero. The hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL and his warrior band, the FIANNA, killedDryantore’s three sons as well as the husband ofhis sister AILNA. This GIANT then set out to punishthe murderers. After snaring them in a DRUID’SFOG that Ailna created, Dryantore captured Fionnand his harper, the sweet-singing DÁIRE, andimprisoned them in his OTHERWORLD palace. Therest of the warriors found and freed them, andDryantore was killed in the ensuing battle.

Drystan See TRYSTAN.

duality Cosmological concept. The concept ofduality can be understood in two different ways.Some writers use it as a synonym for dualism, thephilosophical division of the world into twoopposing sets of categories: black and white, lightand dark, male and female. One of the mostprominent philosophical dualists was theChristian bishop Augustine of Hippo, who was afervent follower of the Persian sage Mani in hisyouth and continued to espouse an either/or phi-losophy after his conversion. Augustine waged anardent and ultimately successful campaign againsta competing philosophy, that of the presumablyCeltic monk Pelagius (see PELAGIANISM), founderof the “happy heresy” that the natural world wascreated just as God wished. Augustine, by con-trast, rejected the physical and especially sexualworld as a hindrance to gaining admittance toheaven, a view that lasted long after the teachingsof Pelagius were forgotten. Later Church Fathers,heavily influenced by neo-Platonic ideas that the“ideal” world is better than the “real,” continuedto support a dualistic vision of sin and salvation.

The double vision of the Celts was not dual-istic in this sense. From its earliest period, Celtic

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art showed a fascination with forms that wereboth one thing and another (the RAM-HEADED

SNAKE, for instance), or that were meant to beseen from two different angles. Divinities wereoften double or even multiple, or could changeforms at will. Celtic dualism suggests a vision ofthe world as filled with complementary dyads, sothat rather than light and darkness, or male andfemale, as opposing each other, they can be seenas part of a great whole.

Source: Ross, Anne, “The Divine Hag of the PaganCelts.” In Venetia Newall, ed. The Witch Figures.London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, p. 146.

Dub (Dubh, Dubhlinn, Dublind) Irish hero-ine or goddess. The capital city of the Republicof Ireland, Dublin, is named after this famousBARD and DRUID woman, for it was originallyDubh-linn or “the pool of Dub,” a deep pool inthe mouth of the River Liffey, into which dubfell after being killed by a slingshot. The shotwas cast in revenge after Dub drowned a womanwith whom her husband was consorting, makingthe tale a tangle of betrayals and vengeance.Because dubh also means “dark” and the name ofthe city is often translated as “dark pool,” thisheroine may have been invented to explainDublin’s name. The town was originally foundedby Norsemen, who called it Dyflinasrski; inIrish, the town is called Baile Átha Cliath, thetown on the wicker ford, in remembrance of thewicker bridge built by the bitter-tongued BARD

named AITHIRNE.

Dubinn Irish goddess. This obscure goddessis known through her descendent, DIARMAIT UaDuibne, Ireland’s most romantic hero.

Dubthach (Dugall Donn) Irish hero. Chris-tian legend provides this as the name of thepagan chieftain father of St. BRIGIT who con-sorted with her Christian mother, one of theslaves in his court. Several significant anecdotes

in the life of St. Brigit revolve around disputeswith her father: when she gave away his bejew-eled sword to a beggar; when, to prevent himfrom finding her a husband, she caused her EYES

to pop out of her head and dangle down hercheeks on bloody threads. In Scotland, Brigit’sfather was Dugall Donn.

duck Symbolic bird. The animal of SEQUANA,goddess of the source of France’s river Seine, whowas often depicted sailing in a boat whose prowwas shaped into a duck’s head. BIRDS are oftensymbols of Celtic divinity, especially of goddesses.

Duibne See DÍGNE.

dullahan (dúlachan, dulachan) Irish folkloricfigure. The headless horseman of Irish tradition,the dullahan was sometimes described as thedriver of the DEATH COACH; elsewhere he was aphantom who rode a horse that had lost its ownhead. A masculine and lesser-known form of theBANSHEE, the wailing FAIRY that predicted death,the dullahan carried news of impending death toanyone who saw him riding past—though theymay have seen nothing after he struck out theireyes with a flick of his whip.

Dumaitis Continental Celtic god. An obscuregod from Gaul, identified by the invadingRomans with their god MERCURY, Dumaitis isknown only from a single inscription.

Dumbarton Scottish mythological site. Oneof the most significant historical sites ofScotland is a huge two-peaked basalt rock north-west of Glasgow, a reminder of ancient glacialaction. Given its prominence and ease ofdefense, the rock of Dumbarton has been afortress since prehistory. Although its most sig-nificant legend describes it as the site of ST.PATRICK’s objection to Roman soldiers whenthey attempted to enslave some of his congrega-

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tion, not all local legend is pro-patrician;another tale has it that the huge rock droppedthere as witches were throwing stones at St.Patrick to drive him from Scotland. Such storiesof landscape creation through rock-casting aretypically told of the CAILLEACH, an ancient god-dess who could easily be imagined as wishing thedeparture of the arriving Christians.

Source: Straffon, Cherly. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 172.

Dún Mythic location. In Irish and ScottishGaelic, this word means “fortress.” It is used ofmany mythological sites, including:

• Dún Ailinne, a great HILLFORT in Co.Kildare established in Neolithic times buttaken over as a provincial capital by the Celtsaround the seventh century C.E.; easterncorollary to CRUACHAN in CONNACHT andEMAIN MACHA in ULSTER. It is now calledKNOCKAULIN Hill. Recent excavations at DúnAilinne have revealed several banks—amongthe largest earthworks in the land—and a widecauseway; foundations of ancient structureshave also been uncovered at the site. The siteis named for ALEND, an obscure goddess.

• Dún Aonghusa (Dún Angus), a fort on theAran Islands that uses a sheer cliff as protec-tion on one side, while the rest is stone.Legend has it that the FIR BOLG, the secondmythological race to arrive in Ireland, builtthe fort and named it after Angus, their chief.

• Dún Bolg, legendary place of battle wherethe warriors of LEINSTER showed their objec-tion to the bórama or COW-tribute they wereforced to pay to the king of TARA. The story,reminiscent of that of the Trojan Horse, tellshow disguised warriors erupted from basketshanging from the cow-tribute’s backs and bat-tled the king’s men into submission.

• Dún Delgan, named for the FOMORIAN chiefDELGA, this fortress became CÚCHULAINN’s

home; the modern Irish town of Dundalk isnamed after it.

• Dún Scaith, the fortress of the warrior womanSCÁTHACH, on the Isle of Skye near Isleornsay.The same name appears on the Isle of Man asa portal through which Cúchulainn’s warriorsinvaded the OTHERWORLD to gain possessionof its magical CAULDRON of abundance.

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p.66; Raftery, Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland: TheEnigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thamesand Hudson, 1994, p. 71.

Dun Cow (Y Fuwch Frech, Y Fuwch LaethwenLefrith) British and Welsh folkloric figure.Like the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN in Ireland, the greatDun Cow wandered the British and Welsh land,giving milk to anyone who asked. Unable torespect their good fortune, some evildoers killedthe cow to make stew, or attempted to milk herinto a sieve, which killed the ever-giving cow. InLancashire she is said to have died at a farmcalled “The Old Rib,” where her whale-sized rib bone was long displayed. In Wales she wascalled Y Fuwch Frech, “the freckled cow,” and YFuwch Laethwen Lefrith, “the milk-white milchcow”; she was said to have borne two long-horned OXEN called the Ychen Bannog, who killedthe monstrous AFANC.

Another Dun Cow was a magical ever-fruitfulbeast that belonged to an Irish SAINT who, uponthe cow’s death, had it tanned and made into vellum so that it could become a book. In theBook of the Dun Cow many of Ireland’s greatmyths were recorded, including the epic TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE, the story of a great cattle raid.

Sources: Harland, John, and T. T. Wilkinson.Lancashire Legends. London: George Routledgeand Sons, 1873, pp. 16–19; Parry-Jones, D.Welsh Legends and Fairy Lore. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1953, p. 135.

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dunnie (doonie) British folkloric figure. InNorthumbria this mischievous sprite disguiseditself as a midwife’s horse when a woman was inlabor, then disappeared, leaving the midwifestranded; it did the same to plowmen who wentto hitch up the team, only to find themselvesalone in the barn. In Scotland the same creature,called a doonie, often appeared in the shape of ahorse but could also seem to be an old woman orman; the same wicked and sometimes dangerousteasing was attributed to the doonie as to itssouthern relative.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 92.

dunter See POWRIE.

Durgan Irish heroine. This unfortunateIrishwoman was destroyed by her own truth-telling. Herccad, Durgan’s mother, was sleepingwith one of her slaves, and Durgan reported thisto her father. Herccad then arranged to have herdaughter killed, to cover her disgrace.

dwarf Folkloric figure. Dwarfs or little peoplefound in most Celtic lands were immigrantsfrom Scandinavia or Germany, where they werecommon folkloric characters resembling trolls.In Irish lore dwarfs were either FAIRIES or simplyshort people like the harpist of FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, Cnú Deiréil; the creatures in the for-mer case were not true dwarfs but shapely smallversions of normal-sized humans. Legends ofpint-sized people inspired one of the greatSATIRES of the English language, JonathanSwift’s Gulliver’s Travels, whose human hero wasa GIANT among the diminutive Lilliputians.

Dyfed (Dyved) Welsh region. Much of theaction of the MABINOGION is located in this

region of southwest Wales; Dyfed is thought totake its name from the tribal name of theDemetae, a Celtic tribe that dwelled there.Dyfed’s king was PWYLL, husband of the goddessor heroine RHIANNON; it was in Dyfed that shebore his child PRYDERI and was punished for herperceived betrayal. There, too, ARAWN, lord ofthe OTHERWORLD, reigned for a year, havingexchanged rulerships with Pwyll so that thehuman lord could rid ANNWN of the king’s mostresolute opponent. Historically, the region gaverise to the first codification of Celtic law inWales, called the laws of HYWEL DDA after theking who encoded them.

Dylan (Dylan Son-of-Wave, Dylan Eil Ton)Welsh hero or god. In order to become the cere-monial footholder to king MATH of Wales, ARI-ANRHOD was asked to submit to a test to ensurethat she possessed the requisite virginity. Butwhen she stepped over Math’s wand, a babydropped from her womb (despite the fact that shewas unaware she was pregnant) and fled immedi-ately to the sea. He is sometimes called Dylan AilTon, “son of wave” or Ail Mor, “son of the sea,”and so he has been interpreted as beingArianrhod’s child with a sea god or MERMAN.(Arianrhod second child, born on the same occa-sion, was LLEU LLAW GYFFES.) Certainly the seawas Dylan’s element, for he swam like a fish andtook great pleasure in feeling the waves under hisbody. But he was killed by his uncle, the rapistGILFAETHWY, whose assault on Math’s previousfootholder had set in motion the entire story.

Dyfr (Dynwir) British heroine. At kingARTHUR’s court at CAMELOT, we find three fig-ures known as the THREE SPLENDID WOMEN:Dyfr the golden-haired, the challenging ENID,and the virtuous TEGAU EURFRON. Dyfr is theonly one with little legend connected with her,except the acknowledgment of GlewelwydGafaefawr, a knight, as her lover.

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Eachlach Urlair (Eclock Urleer, Eachraisùrlair, Creeper on the Floor, Trouble-the-House)Scottish folkloric figure. This feminine spirit—aBOGIE or WITCH—was believed to live near castlesand to provide unspecified, even mysterious, serv-ice to their residents. Her name came to meanany domestic servant, but in Highland folkloreshe is described as having originated not in thehuman world but in the OTHERWORLD.

Eachtach Irish heroine. The loyal daughterof the Irish hero DIARMAIT Ua Duibne and hisbeloved spouse GRÁINNE, she attacked herfather’s lord, FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, when Fionnrefused to help Diarmait as he fought to thedeath with an enchanted BOAR.

each uisce (each uisge) See WATER HORSE.

Eadán (Edán) Irish hero. Eadán arrived inIreland with the MILESIANS, the last wave ofinvaders and the victors at the battle of Tailtiuover the magical TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the tribeof the goddess DANU. Among the Tuatha Dé wasFÓDLA, one of the three primary goddesses ofthe land, together with BANBA and ÉRIU. Eadánkilled Fódla in battle. Not all of Fódla’s peoplewere killed, however. Many of them moved to anOTHERWORLD, from which they continued tohave influence on the world they left behind.

eagle Symbolic animal. This large bird of prey,once relatively plentiful in Celtic lands, is far lessso now. Despite its impressive size and fierceness,the eagle did not hold much symbolic poweramong the Celts, who used it primarily to indicatecomprehensiveness in a list of a mythological fig-ure’s alternative identities. Thus Ireland’s one-eyed SALMON of wisdom sometimes appeared asFINTAN, an ancient invader who shape-shiftedinto many forms, including the eagle; in Britishlegend, a magical PIG named HENWEN gave birthto eaglets as well as bees and WOLVES. Only theWelsh hero LLEU LLAW GYFFES was solely identi-fied with the eagle, into which form he changedafter he was treacherously murdered by his wife.The eagle’s appearance was sometimes associatedwith ORACLES or interpreted as an OMEN of thingsto come; the eagle could also be a form worn by aSHAPE-SHIFTING magician or BARD.

Apart from mythology, there are folkloric ves-tiges of a belief in eagles’ might, for they appear inWales as having the power of DIVINATION. Thereit was believed that eagles who lived on MountSnowdon were oracular and had the power to con-trol weather; those whose ancestors had eateneagle flesh were thought to have extraordinarypsychic powers, to the ninth generation.

Easal (King of the Golden Pillars) Irish hero.In one of the THREE SORROWS OF IRELAND, the

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tale of the SONS OF TUIREANN, Easal was a kingwho helped the young warriors. Condemned toperform a dozen near-impossible feats as retri-bution for murdering their father’s enemies, thethree men would have died had not Easal giventhem food from magical PIGS that, killed eachday and devoured each evening, were found for-aging happily and in fine health the next morn-ing. Eating the flesh of these magical beings alsoinoculated one against any disease. Easal mayhave been a reflection of the great god of abun-dance, the DAGDA, who was also said to possessmiraculous self-restoring pigs.

east Cosmological concept. In the mythologi-cal directions of the ancient Irish, east was thedirection of commerce and wealth, opposite tothe western province of wisdom. The directionof sunrise, and thus, metaphorically, of begin-nings and openings, the east is the location ofthe PROVINCE of LEINSTER, connected withyouthful vigor and enterprise.

See DIRECTIONS.

Easter Non-Celtic festival. The Christian feastof Easter appears in Celtic lands as a substitute forBELTANE, the spring festival that similarly cele-brated resurrection and returning life. The mostfamous Easter story in Ireland confuses the twofestivals, having ST. PATRICK lighting an “Easterfire” on the top of SLANE hill near TARA, in directcompetition with the high king’s fire on the latterhill. Since pagan Ireland did not celebrate Easter,the fires must have been those of Beltane. Otherspring and Beltane traditions were transferred toEaster after Christianization, including the ideathat the sun danced on that day and that holyWELLS hold greater efficacy for cures on that day.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 88, 354.

Eba Irish heroine. This obscure mythologicalcharacter appears in the BOOK OF INVASIONS as a

healer who went to sleep on a shore called Traig(Trá) Eba, where she was drowned by the risingtide. She may be the same as Abba, the compan-ion of the first settler to reach Ireland, thewoman CESAIR.

Éber (Eber, Ébir) Irish hero. In the BOOK OF

INVASIONS several characters bear this name,which may be derived from the similarly namedEber (Heber) in the biblical Book of Genesis.The most important was Éber Finn, chief of theMILESIANS and son of the eponymous MílDespaine (Mil of Spain or the Spanish soldier).After his people’s defeat of the magical race, theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, Éber was granted thesouthern half of the country, while his brotherÉREMÓN was awarded the north; Éber, unhappywith the division and believing his portion to besmaller than Éremón’s, mounted an unsuccessfulwar in which he was killed. Another character ofthis name, Éber Donn, was Éber Finn’s enviousolder brother; he played but a small role in Irishmyth and was often conflated with the king ofdeath, DONN. The figures are easily confusedand may have originally been one.

Ebhla Irish heroine. Daughter of the evil druidCATHBAD and his wife Maga, Ebhla was the grand-daughter of the god of poetry, AONGHUS Óg. Herchildren were the fated SONS OF UISNEACH.

Ébhlinne (Evlinn, Ébliu, Éblenn, Eblinne)Irish goddess. In Co. Tipperary, near the bor-ders of Co. Limerick in Ireland’s southwestprovince of MUNSTER, this mountain goddesswas honored in the range called the TwelveMountains of Ébhlinne (also called SlievefelimMountains, the Keeper Hills, and the SilvermineMountains). The highest peak in the range isMAUHER SLIEVE (Máthair-Shliabh), the mother-mountain, where MIDSUMMER celebrations inÉblinne’s honor, marking the Celtic harvest feastof LUGHNASA, continued until recent times. As iscommon with ancient goddesses adapted into a

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new culture, Ébhlinne was euhemerized into aqueen of the region.

From the DINDSHENCHAS, Ireland’s geograph-ical poetry, we learn that Ébhlinne was thedaughter of GUAIRE, king of the BRÚ NA BÓINNE,the pre-Celtic mound city on the River Boyne ineastern Ireland. Married to the king of Cashel,Ébhlinne eloped with her stepson, but the escap-ing lovers were drowned in the waters of LoughNeagh. The motif of a woman leaving an olderking for a younger man is found frequently inCeltic mythology, the most famous being thelove triangles of GUINEVERE, LANCELOT, andARTHUR in Britain; TRISTAN, ISEULT, and MARK

in Cornwall; and GRÁINNE, DIARMAIT, and FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL in Ireland. Contemporary schol-ars link such stories to the figure of the goddessof SOVEREIGNTY, who kept the land fertile bymarrying consecutive kings.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, andCo., Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 22; MacNeill, Máire.The Festival of Lughnasa, Parts I and II. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1982, pp.214, 428.

Echtach (Echta) Irish heroine or goddess.This obscure figure was pictured as a spectral OWL

who haunted the region of east Co. Clare, whereher sister, the cannibal woman ECHTHGE, lived. Itis unclear whether she is the same figure as thesimilarly named EACHTACH. Some sources haveEchtach as Echthge’s rival rather than her sister.

Echthge (Aughty, Echtga, Eghchte) Irishgoddess. In the area around the low, rolling Irishhills called Sliabh na Echthge (Slieve Aughty,mountains of Echthge) in east Co. Clare, theconnection of the land’s name to a mysteriousgoddess of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN is stillremembered. Daughter of the god NUADA of theSilver Hand, Echthge received the lands nownamed for her as her dowry after she slept with

the man who owned them. Little is known of herexcept epithets or titles—“the awful one” and“awful daughter and terrible goddess”—and afragmentary legend about her killing and eatingher own children.

Because many place-names in her region arederived from the name of the CAILLEACH, thepre-Celtic HAG goddess, the Celtic Echthge mayhave absorbed or become absorbed into thatolder divinity. The Slieve Aughty area is bestknown in recent times as the home of the famousWhite Witch of Clare, BIDDY EARLY, of whomstories are still spun; much of the earliest pub-lished Irish folklore derives from the area, whichbordered upon Coole Park, the demesne of LadyAugusta Gregory, near which poet WilliamButler Yeats wrote of “fair Eghte of the streams.”

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Vol. III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 201–213.

echtra See ADVENTURE.

Ecne Irish hero or god. Grandson or great-grandson of the ancestral Irish goddess DANU,Ecne was an early divinity of poetry, WISDOM,and inspiration. He plays little part in myth.

Ector (Ector de Maris, Ector of the ForestSauvage) Arthurian hero. Several figures con-nected with the great knight LANCELOT bear thisname. Ector de Maris was Lancelot’s brotherand joined him as a knight of the ROUND TABLE;Ector of the Wild Forest was Lancelot’s fosterfather.

eel Symbolic animal. Fish do not play muchrole in Celtic legend, with only the SALMON hav-ing a significant mythological association.Almost as frequently, we find the eel, but only inIreland, where the eel was a plentiful source offood during its annual spring migration. Said to

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grow out of horsehairs left too long in the water,eels were believed to have the ability to reincar-nate themselves; they were sometimes said totravel across land to graveyards, where theyslithered underground and ate the corpses. InCo. Clare, near LISCANNOR, a monster eel calledan OLLIPHEIST or eascú crawled up from thewater to sneak into graveyards and feast. It waspursued across the country by the outraged res-idents and finally killed near the CAIRN calledConn Connachtach in Kilshanny, some milesdistant from the sea.

Eels appear in myth as well as folklore: Thefearsome goddess MÓRRÍGAN appeared as an eelto the hero CÚCHULAINN, perhaps in her role asa foreteller of doom; the monstrous CAORANACH

fought with saints and heroes from the depths ofLOUGH DERG (“dark red lake,” called so after herblood shed copiously at her death).

Efnisien (Evnisien, Efnissien) Welsh hero orgod. The evil brother of the hero BRÂN THE

BLESSED, Efnisien was the cause of the warbetween Wales and Ireland that forms the cen-terpiece of the second branch of the collection ofepic tales called the MABINOGION. When Brânagreed to the proposal of the Irish king MATH-OLWCH to wed their sister, the sweet BRANWEN,Efnisien used the occasion to stir up trouble (hisusual role in Welsh myth) by mutilating the IrishHORSES. Such sacrilege—for horses partook ofdivinity as well as being cherished by warriorsfor their usefulness in battle—ignited a warbetween the two previous allies. This resulted indeep unhappiness for his sister, who was held avirtual prisoner in Ireland and forced to endurehumiliation and deprivation at her husband’shands. When Brân heard of this, he marchedinto Ireland with his armies.

The Irish had a weapon in this war. Becauseof Efnisien’s troublemaking, Brân had givenMatholwch a magical CAULDRON in which dead soldiers could be placed and which would revive them as zombie-like killing machines.Matholwch brought out the cauldron to keep his

troops strong against the mighty forces of Brân.Efnisien redeemed himself, however, by leapinginto the cauldron. As it could reinvigorate onlythe dead, his living body caused it to burst apart.

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, pp. 77–79.

egg Symbolic object. Eggs appear in theiconography of Celtic goddesses of abundance likeSIRONA. An obvious symbol of potential life, theymay also have conveyed the promise of rebirth, forthey are found among grave goods. Some eggs hadmagical properties—for example, the crimsoneggs of CLÍDNA’s birds, which bestowed the powerof SHAPE-SHIFTING on those who ate them. Amagical egg-shaped object called the SERPENT’SSTONE may have represented an egg.

egret Symbolic bird. Waterbirds were impor-tant religious symbols to the Celts, for they livedcomfortably in various elements: in air, in water,on land. The egret was the special symbol of thecontinental Celtic god ESUS, although the CRANE

also appears in his iconography.

Eiddilig Gor British mythological figure.One of the Three Enchanters of Britain, thisDWARF could escape any pursuer by changing hisform into any being of earth, air, or water.

Eire (Érie) See ÉRIU.

Éirinn (Eirinn) Irish heroine or goddess. Insome texts, this name is given as that of themother of the three goddesses of the Irish land:ÉRIU, BANBA, and FÓDLA. As her name is formedfrom that of Ériu, the titular goddess of theisland, it is likely that Éirinn does not representa real myth but a poetic tradition.

Eiscir Riada (Eisgir Riada) Irish mythologi-cal site. The Irish word eiscir, which means aseries of low ridges, has become esker, the inter-

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nationally recognized term for such relics of theglacial era. Ireland was relatively late in seeingthe prehistoric glaciers melt, for until approxi-mately 10,000 years ago, most of the island layunder ice. Because it is a relatively young land,Ireland has many glacial features besides theesker, including drumlins (small, moundlikehills) and erratics (large boulders).

One of the most impressive of Ireland’s glacialvestiges is a band of eskers that divides the islandalmost exactly in half, running from Dublin toGalway. Called the Eiscir Riada, it marks themythological border between the lands of thesouthern king (variously ÉREMON or EÓGAN MÓR)and the king of the north (ÉBER Finn or CONN ofthe Hundred Battles). In ancient times it formeda road across the boglands. The Esker Riadacrosses the Shannon River, the main waterwayinto the Irish interior, near the hill of UISNEACH,mythologically important as the central pointwhere the land’s four PROVINCES meet.

Éis Énchenn (Ess Euchenn) Irish heroine.When the great hero CÚCHULAINN traveled toIsle of Skye, off Scotland, to learn martial artsfrom the WARRIOR WOMAN named SCÁTHACH, hewas opposed by three strong men who were nomatch for the Irish hero. Cúchulainn struck offtheir heads and proceeded on his journey. On hisway back, he had to travel along a narrow roadthat ran along the edge of an abyss. As he creptalong, he encountered a frail HAG who asked himto step aside and let her pass. As there was roomfor but a single traveler on the narrow road,Cúchulainn obligingly hung out over the abyss,clinging by his toes. But the crone—who was ÉisÉnchenn, the mother of Bir, Blicne, and Ciri,the warriors that Cúchulainn had killed—stomped on his hands, hoping to send him tum-bling to his death. Instead, Cúchulainn did hisfamous SALMON-leap and struck off ÉisÉnchenn’s head, killing her.

Source: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, p. 79.

Eisirt Irish folkloric figure. Just as FAIRY com-munities have their FAIRY QUEENS, so they haveBARDS that are even more powerful than humanpoets. Eisirt was one of the OTHERWORLD’s mostsignificant poets, servant of king IUBDAN. Hecaused trouble when, challenged to make goodon his claim that ULSTER was populated byGIANTS, he traveled there and returned with thecourt DWARF—who was still monstrous by com-parison with fairy folk. Fascinated, king Iubdanhimself went to Ulster, with his tiny wife BEBO,who attracted much male attention.

Eisteddfod Welsh festival. Perhaps thelongest-sustained Celtic festival (although thatclaim is sometimes challenged by Ireland’s PUCK

FAIR), this bardic competition is held each year atvarious venues in Wales, near the ancient feast ofLUGHNASA on August 1. Many scholars believethe festival began in Celtic times or shortlythereafter, when BARDS steeped in oral traditionengaged in poetical combats. The currentassembly was reestablished in 1860 as a nationalevent, but it can be traced by historical refer-ences to 1176. Both poetry and song are featuredat the events of the National Eisteddfod, withthe Welsh language almost exclusively used.

Eiteag Scottish folkloric figure. This FAIRY

was said to live in the remote and beautiful GlenEtive, a valley that bore her name; she may be afolkloric echo of a land goddess.

Eithne (Ethna, Ethne, Ethné, Annie) Irishheroine or goddess. This common Irish name,which means “sweet nutmeat,” was borne bydozens of queens, heroines, and goddesses inIrish mythology, the most common being:

• Eithne, daughter of BALOR. The king of themonstrous FOMORIANS, Balor of the Evil Eye,had one beautiful daughter, Eithne (some-times called Eri), mother of the hero LUGH.There are several versions of how she came to

Eithne 147

conceive. One, apparently older, says that herfather had been granted a prophecy thatEithne’s child would kill him. To ensure thatthe prophecy would not be fulfilled, he shuthis daughter up in a tower in his remote king-dom on Tory Island, off the northwest coast ofIreland, assuming that a girl who never sees aman could never have intercourse with one.

Unfortunately, prophecies are not so easilythwarted, and Balor’s own actions led to hisundoing. Coveting the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN,the cow who never ceased giving milk andwho lived on the mainland in the care of ahuman named CIAN, Balor stole it. But Cianwould not let the magical being escape with-out a fight. He dressed himself as a womanand, with the help of a woman DRUID namedBIRÓG, slipped into the tower and lived withEithne until she had borne triplets, includingLugh. Balor, still attempting to outwit theprophecy, threw the children into the sea, butLugh survived to kill his grandfather at one ofthe most famous of Ireland’s mythologicalbattles, the second battle of MAG TUIRED.

Myth being nothing if not inconsistent,there are variants to the story: One has Cian’sname as MacInelly; another gives the name ofthe physician god DIAN CÉCHT as Eithne’slover and father of Lugh; yet another names asher lover Mac Cennfaelaid, the brother of thecow’s owner, Gaibhlín, and states that MacCennfaelaid fathered the SEAL-people uponEithne’s 12 handmaidens; yet another says thatEithne, offered by her Fomorian people as apledge of friendship to their enemies theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, became the wife of theirking NUADA and therefore the ancestress of thehero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. Some scholarshave found early evidences of Eithne as a vir-ginal goddess who lived only on the milk of asacred COW and was guarded from male inter-course by demons; that hypothetical figure ispresumed to have become degraded into theEithne of folklore. A late legend describesEithne leaving the Otherworld and meetingST. PATRICK, only to die a fortnight later; this

story seems to confuse the divine Eithne withthe quasi-historical princess (below).

• Eithne, wife of ELCMAR, an alternative namefor the RIVER goddess BÓAND.

• Eithne the Fair, a human woman so charmingthat she was noticed by FINNBHEARA, king ofthe MUNSTER FAIRIES, who cast a spell over her,causing her to slip slowly into a sleep fromwhich she could not be awakened. In herdreams she visited the OTHERWORLD, a land sobeautiful that upon awakening, she found thisworld frightful and ugly. Despite a guardplaced upon her, Eithne escaped from her hus-band and traveled to Finnbheara’s FAIRY

MOUND at KNOCKMA in Co. Galway, at a placecalled the Fairies’ Glen. Her pursuing husbandoverheard the fairies gossiping about howhappy Finnbheara was with his beautiful prizeand how he could never be thwarted until sun-light entered the center of his mound.

Brokenhearted but persistent, Eithne’shusband set to work digging into the mound.He dug and dug but found nothing, until heheard voices murmuring that he must throwsalt upon the ground. As soon as he did so, hecould see Eithne in the fairy court, fromwhich he pulled her. But at home, sheremained in a comalike swoon, unable tocommunicate. Finally Eithne’s husband dis-covered a tiny fairy PIN holding a sash, andwhen he removed it, Eithne awakened—believing she had been away but one night,when in fact she had been asleep a year.

• Eithne Aittencháithrech (“having furzehair”), sister of the great queen MEDB and, likeall her sisters, wife of king CONCOBAR ofULSTER. She does not appear significantly inlegend, being outshone by her sisters.

• Eithne Ingubai, wife or mistress of the heroCÚCHULAINN in occasional texts, although themore common name for his wife is EMER andfor his mistress, FAND.

• Eithne of TARA, sometimes called EithneTháebfhota or Long-Sides, daughter of kingCATHAÍR MÓR and wife of several kings ofTara, including CONN of the Hundred Battles

148 Eithne

and his grandson, CORMAC MAC AIRT, to whomshe bore a son, CAIRBRE Lifechair; while shereigned at Tara the fields bore three cropseach year, showing that she was a form of thegoddess of SOVEREIGNTY.

• Eithne Úathach or Eithne the Horrible, acannibal woman who became more beautifulthe more infant flesh she devoured.

• Eithne of CONNACHT, a quasi-historicalprincess who, with her sister FEDELM, left thegreat capital of CRUACHAN one morning tobathe in the little spring called OGALLA.There they met white-clad men whom theymistook for DRUIDS. In fact, the men weremonks, including ST. PATRICK, whom theyasked to explain the new religion. “Who isyour god?” the girls asked, “Is he manly?Does he have beautiful daughters? Is he thesea and the sky?” Patrick, cleverly ignoringthe question about god’s daughters, con-verted the girls, who instantly died in order togo to heaven with unstained souls. Thistransparent piece of Christian propaganda isinteresting in the questions that theprincesses put to Patrick, which reveal theanimism of the Celts before Christianity.

Sources: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 320, 403–404, 551–552;Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms andSuperstitions of Ireland. London: Chatto andWindus, 1902, p. 42 ff.

Elaine (Elayne, Elain, Elane) Arthurian hero-ine. In the room where she was held captive by acurse, Elaine of Astolat (the Lady of Shalott)wove magnificent tapestries that permitted her tosee the events of the outer world without leavingher castle. On one of those tapestries a handsomeknight appeared, and Elaine fell in love with him.Finally she could bear it no longer, and althoughshe knew it would mean her death, she set off ina boat for CAMELOT and the handsomeLANCELOT, dying along the way of her love for

him. This powerful and evocative story was theinvention of Sir Thomas Malory in his MorteD’Arthur, but, like so much Arthurian material, itwas derived from earlier Celtic legend.

The original Elaine may have been the sirenof Scotland’s Clyde River. There she lived on arock-built castle on the rock of DUMBARTON, star-ing into a magic mirror in which she could see allthat went on in the world—a mirror that has beeninterpreted to mean the waters itself, whose mir-roring surface could be “cracked” by storms. Shemay be related to the Welsh FAIRY ELEN.

Another Elaine had what her namesakedesired: She slept with Lancelot and bore hisson, GALAHAD. Daughter of the FISHER KING,Elaine arranged to have accomplices getLancelot so drunk that he thought he was sleep-ing with his beloved GUINEVERE; thus heremained pure despite his physical adultery. Yetanother figure of this name Elaine of Garlot,played a very minor role in Arthurian legend asa half sister to king ARTHUR; unlike two othersisters, MORGAN and MORGAUSE, who turnedagainst the son of their mother’s deceit, Elaineassisted Arthur by marrying one of his enemies,NENTRES, thus forging an alliance.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 18.

Elatha (Elada, Eladha, Elotha) Irish hero. Thefirst residents of Ireland, the FOMORIANS, were ter-rifying monsters, say the early Irish texts. But therewere a few upon whom one could look withoutloathing; a few were even beautiful. EITHNE,daughter of the Fomorian king BALOR, was such abeauty. So was the king Elatha, whose name means“craft” or “skill,” who mated with the land goddessÉRIU, whose people, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, ulti-mately displaced the Fomorians from their Irishlands. She was already married, but who couldresist a golden-haired man wrapped in a cloak allembroidered with gold thread? (In some variants,it was Eithne who received Elatha in this fashion.)

Elatha 149

After their tryst, Elatha gave Ériu a goldenring and prophesied that she would bear a son.And so she did, but their son BRES mac Elathawas not popular among the Tuatha Dé, and soÉriu sought help among Elatha’s people. Herliaison finally led to the famous battle of MAG

TUIRED, when the Fomorians were evicted fromIreland, for the half-Fomorian Bres, elected king,proved a stingy and unreliable one, and he wasousted by the Tuatha Dé king NUADA. Some readthese complex myths as encoding the continuingstruggles between various waves of Celtic immi-grants to Ireland’s shores, who had to jockey forrulership with the island’s earlier residents.

Elcmar Irish god or hero. This shadowy fig-ure appears in legends connected with thefamous BRÚ NA BÓINNE, the neolithic monumenton the banks of the River Boyne in north centralIreland. He was said to be the husband of theRIVER goddess BÓAND (sometimes, in this con-text, called EITHNE) who cuckolded him with theDAGDA; variants have it that Bóand’s husbandwas NECHTAN or NUADA. When the son ofBóand and the Dagda, AONGHUS Óg, was born,he evicted Elcmar from the Brú by reciting acharm at a feast his father was hosting—the samecharm used to expel the early mythological racecalled the FIR BOLG from Ireland by the TUATHA

DÉ and, in turn, by the MILESIANS who drove theTuatha Dé into the OTHERWORLD.

elder Symbolic tree. In most Celtic lands, itwas considered very unlucky to burn the wood ofan elder TREE (genus Sambucus), because the spir-its of FERTILITY were thought to live within it. Ifa desperate situation arose that demanded use ofelder wood, it was important to ask permission ofthe tree and its spirits; even with appropriatebegging, the branches might bleed when you cutthem. The tree’s name hints at a connection withthe ELF people; it was called the eller tree in thenorth of Britain where, until quite recent times,rags were offered to these trees to bring goodluck. In the Cotswolds, elders were associated

with WITCHES; an elder tree might be a trans-formed sorceress or carry malign power, so it wasavoided in building furniture, especially cradles.In Ireland and on the Isle of Man, the elder wasone of the trees most often connected with theFAIRIES and with GIANTS. Despite its frighteningreputation, the elder tree was used to make berrywine and flower tea.

Sources: Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974,pp. 13, 120; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditionsof British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, pp. 107–108.

Éle Irish heroine. One of the lesser-knownsisters of the great queen and goddess of Ireland,MEDB, Éle’s name seems to indicate that she wasof the FAIRY or elfish race.

Elean nam Ban (Eilean nam Ban Móra)Scottish folkloric site. Highland folklore tells ofan “Isle of Women,” located somewhere off thecoast, on which a green WELL marked the edgeof the world. Such mysterious ISLANDS, not tieddown in time or space, are a common motif inCeltic folklore and represent portals to the OTH-ERWORLD. Sometimes the island is called Eileannam Ban Móra, the Island of the Big Women,suggesting that the residents were GIANTS; thename was sometimes applied to an actual island,the Isle of Eigg.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969,p. 48.

Elen (Elen of the Hosts, Ellen, Helen, Ellyll,Ellyllon) Welsh heroine or goddess. Scores ofchurches in Wales are dedicated to St. Helen,mother of the emperor Constantine. What was aRoman matron doing in Wales? Folklore claimsthat she was Welsh herself, daughter of COEL

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Hen, “old King Cole.” The Welsh pseudo-saintHelen was a Christian version (or conversion) ofthe earlier Welsh mythological figure Elen,whose name seems to mean “sprite” and whowas the wife of the great magician MERLIN. Elenalso appears in the Welsh Dream of Maxen: Theepic’s conquering hero became emperor ofRome but returned to Wales to seek the lovelymaiden of his dreams; marrying Elen, he forti-fied the country with the help of her brothersand returned to Rome to conquer it once again.Yet another—or perhaps the same?—Elenappears as a builder of magical highways that sheused to transport her armies across the countrywhen they were needed, for which she wasdubbed Elen of the Hosts.

Elen’s name may be derived from the Welshword for ELF or ghost, ellyll (pl., ellyllon), whichin turn recalls several Irish FAIRIES who bear thename Aillén. The small, transparent ellyll wasusually a SOLITARY FAIRY, but the ellyllon some-times gathered under the rulership of theirqueen, MAB, to dance about as TROOPING

FAIRIES. Often the ellyll acted like a BROWNIE,working around the house until discovered, atwhich time it instantly took its leave. But theywere also creatures of great magic who lived inwild areas, eating toadstools for dinner.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 233 ff; Straffon,Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic and PaganLegacy of the Landscape. London: Blandford,1997, pp. 71, 144.

elf (elves, elven, elfin folk) This name for thepeople of the OTHERWORLD came into Britainfrom Scandinavia with Viking raiders and immi-grants; it soon became naturalized and is found asoften as such words as FAIRY and BROWNIE.

elf-locks Folkloric motif. When a FAIRY vis-ited a sleeping human, he or she often dreamedof a blissful romantic encounter. But the one

seduced in dream awakened to find that his orher hair was hopelessly tangled, impossible tocomb out. Such mischief was common whenfairies and humans interacted whether in sleepor waking life.

elf-shot (elf-smitten) Folkloric motif. Whenfairies attacked a beast or a person, they had morethan magic to use as a weapon. They also had tinyarrows that they flung with great force so that,despite being almost invisible, they caused greatdamage. A single elf-shot could bring down aCOW, so folklore tells us. Those injured by thesedarts fell into partial or full paralysis, still called byits old name of FAIRY STROKE.

Elgnad See DEALGNAID.

Elidyr (Editor) Welsh hero. Many stories aretold of people who have gone to FAIRYLAND, butfew are as famous as that of this man, recordedin the 12th century by the Welsh geographerand historian Giraldus Cambrensis. As a child,Elidyr encountered two little men who took himto the OTHERWORLD, where he lived in ease andjoy. All was beautiful there—bountiful land,beautiful people, endlessly sunny weather. Elidyrstayed for a few hours and then realized hismother would be worrying over his absence andso, regretfully, departed for home.

It was a squalid poor home, and when he toldhis mother of the lovely land he had visited, shesent him back to get something they could use.Back he went, into the hole on the riverbankwhere he had descended before. And theOtherworld was just as he remembered it.Remembering his errand, he found a little goldball that he thought no one would miss. No one,however, can steal from the FAIRIES, so whenElidyr attempted to leave he was caught by thefairies, who were angry and disappointed at hisactions. They did not punish him but allowedhim to go back to the surface world, free andsafe. But thereafter, no matter how he sought,

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Elidyr could never find that riverbank entranceto fairyland.

Elin Gow Irish hero. There are many mytho-logical and folkloric versions of the Irish story ofthe GLAS GHAIBHLEANN, the magical COW thatgave forth milk so abundantly that no one whoowned her ever went hungry. The cow belongedto a SMITH, who was sometimes said to be thegod GOIBNIU, other times described as a mereman, Elin Gow (Elin the smith). Despite hislowly status, Elin had attempted to marry thedaughter of the king of Spain, who owned theGlas at the time. To earn the princess’s hand,Elin had to tend the magical cow—which wasdifficult, because the cow moved so fast that noone had ever been able to keep up with her for asingle day. If Elin failed, as so many had beforehim, he would not only lose the cow and theprincess but his life.

To everyone’s amazement, the Irish smithmanaged what no man had done before him,keeping pace with the cow for seven whole years.But when he brought the cow (nothing more issaid about the princess) back to Ireland andhired a man named CIAN to care for it, his helpergrew weary and went to sleep, allowing the cowto be stolen by the evil FOMORIAN king BALOR. Ifall’s well that ends well, the story has a happyending, for not only did Cian get the cow back,but he stopped for a tryst with Balor’s impris-oned daughter EITHNE and left her pregnantwith the hero LUGH.

Source: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894.

elm Symbolic tree. As with other sacredTREES, the Irish and British alike believed itwould bring misfortune to cut down elms (genusUlmus), trees with a graceful vase-like form thatmust have appealed to the aesthetic sense of theCelts as much as to people today, who plant elmsby the hundreds in cities despite the tree’s vul-nerability to disease. There is evidence that the

kind of blight that destroyed most Americanelms in the last century occurred in the historyand prehistory of Celtic lands, for there are peri-ods when the pollen record lacks elms, while atother times they are plentiful. It is possible thatthe folklore regarding protection of standingelms recognizes their genetic fragility.

Elphin (Elffin) Welsh hero. The foster fatherof the legendary great Welsh poet TALIESIN was abumbling sort of fellow who tended to get intotrouble. His own father recognized that when hediscovered that Elphin was spending his inheri-tance with no concern for the future. Elphin’sfather sent him down to a fish-weir, telling himthat his fortune would thereafter have to comefrom the water. That very day the rebornTaliesin—who as a servant boy in the home ofthe goddess CERIDWEN had accidentally sipped amagical fluid that made him incomparablywise—was hauled out of the sea, where he hadbeen thrown at birth. Elphin took the child homeand raised him tenderly, and Taliesin repaid himwith filial devotion. But Elphin never completelyreformed and occasionally needed to be rescuedby his foster son, who willingly obliged.

Elysium See FAIRYLAND.

Emain Ablach (Eamhain, Emhain; Abhlach)Irish mythological site. One of the greatest Celticvisions of the OTHERWORLD was that of EmainAlbach, the Isle of Apples, a beautiful place ofeverlasting summer whose handsome residentsdanced the sun-drenched days away. It was toEmain Albach that the hero BRAN mac Febailtraveled, lured there by a dream-woman who lefthim a silver branch that tantalized him withmemory of her loveliness. When he finallyreached it, he found her there and lived happilyfor uncounted years until he grew homesick forearth. His lover, NIAMH of the Golden Hair,reluctantly let Bran leave for home, together witha group of other visitors to her land. But when

152 Elin Gow

they reached the shores of Ireland, one sailor wasso moved that he leaped ashore. In theOtherworld, time passes more slowly than doesours, and the eager man could not endure thetransition to earthly time; all his years caught upwith him, and he died and faded to dust within aninstant. Bran, saddened by the choice betweendeath and exile, sailed away again; presumably hestill sails between this world and the other.

Emain Albach was said to lie somewhere offthe coast of Scotland or Ireland; many suchentrances to the Otherworld were depicted asseagirt green ISLANDS. Its capital was Cruithínna Cuan, and its king MANANNÁN MAC LIR, theIrish god of the sea for whom the Isle of Manwas named; occasionally that real island wascalled Emain Albach. The name may have beenthe origin of AVALON, the Arthurian Otherworld.

Emain Macha (Emania, Navan Fort) Irishmythological site. A late Bronze Age HILLFORT

in Co. Armagh, identified with the mythical cap-ital of the ancient PROVINCE of ULSTER. Thename of Armagh in today’s Northern Irelandderives from ard Macha, “the heights of MACHA.”A goddess of the magical race called the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, Macha came to this world to livewith a farmer named CRUNNIUC. As long as shelived with him, he was blessed with ample cropsand fine health among his herds—suggestingthat Macha was acting as the goddess of SOVER-EIGNTY. Despite his new wealth, Crunniuc grewrestless and decided to attend the Assembly ofUlster at the court of king CONCOBAR MAC

NESSA. Macha strongly advised against it, butwhen she saw he was determined to go, shebegged him at least to keep her presence in hislife a secret. Off he went, giving her the promiseshe desired.

Once he got to the Assembly, Crunniuc for-got his promise. Indeed, he did just the opposite,bragging that his wife was such a speedy runnerthat not even the king’s best horses could win arace with her. Hearing the boasts, kingConcobar grew infuriated and demanded that

Crunniuc prove that he spoke truly. Broughtforth from her home, Macha implored the kingto let her be, for she was heavily pregnant.Hoping that her pregnancy would slow hersteps, Concobar commanded the race to begin.

Quick as a flash, Macha was around thecourse, but as she crossed the finish line herlabor pains began. So hard and fast did theycome on that Macha died from the tearing painand loss of blood. Before she died she cursed themen of Ulster, promising that, every time theland was invaded, they would fall down writhingwith pangs like hers (see DEBILITY OF THE

ULSTERMEN). Macha died giving birth to TWINS,from which the place of Assembly was hence-forth called Emain Macha, supposedly meaning“the twins of Macha.”

Another etymology is also provided in Irishmyth. Once again the central character is Macha,but this time Macha Mong Rua, “red-hairedMacha,” a WARRIOR WOMAN who went to waragainst her father’s colleagues when they refusedto honor her ascension to the throne to replacehim upon his death. She killed one of her oppo-nents, CIMBÁETH, but his five cowardly sons ranfrom the battlefield. She pursued them acrossIreland to the rocky Burren, where she foundthem camped out under the stars. Disguising her-self as a loathy HAG, she crept near them, anddespite her effective and revolting disguise, everyone of them in turn attempted to rape her. As theydid, she overpowered them and tied them up,dragging them back to Ulster and using a broochfrom her neck (eo-muin) to mark out a vast hillfortthat she forced them to build for her.

That mythological fort still stands, not faroutside today’s Armagh city. The ancient sacred-ness of the place is still apparent from theunusual number of churches in the town, for theearly Christians often built their churches onground that had already been held sacred by theCelts. Called Navan Fort, the Hillfort is anarchaeological dig and heritage site, equivalentin stature to the other great capitals of ancientIreland, such as CRUACHAN in CONNACHT, TARA

in MEATH, or KNOCKAULIN in LEINSTER.

Emain Macha 153

Research at the site has dated it to 700 B.C.E.,rather earlier than the time of the first Celticinvasion; either Emain Macha was originally asettlement of the pre-Celtic peoples, or CelticIreland must be moved back 300 years from itscurrent beginning point. Over the next 800years, nine rebuildings took place, with less thana century between each. This could indicate aland in the grip of war, or regular rebuildings forother reasons (ritual or cultural), or a mixture ofdestruction and rehabilitation. One structure oflog and stone seems to have been built specifi-cally for the purpose of being burned andburied. Emain Macha continued to be an impor-tant political and cultural capital until approxi-mately 500 B.C.E.

Only Tara figures more importantly in Irishmyth than Emain Macha, which in turn is fol-lowed closely by Cruachan. It may be thatEmain Macha is so well remembered becausethe ULSTER CYCLE (also called the Red BranchCycle for the hall of treasure at Emain Macha) isthe best-preserved sequence of stories fromancient Ireland. Emain Macha was the palace ofking Concobar and the place where the exploitsof the hero CÚCHULAINN occurred and wereretold; it was toward Emain Macha that thegreat queen MEDB marched her armies on thecattle raid described in the epic TÁIN BÓ CUAIL-NGE. Perhaps myths as extensive as these origi-nally existed for the other capitals of Ireland, butonly the Ulster Cycle remains to suggest whatglorious narratives might have been lost.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906, pp. 125 ff; Raftery, Brian. Pagan CelticIreland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London:Thames and Hudson, 1994, pp. 74 ff.

Emer (Eimher, Emer Foltchaín, Emer of theFair Hair) Irish heroine. For almost two mil-lennia, the name Emer has been synonymouswith the ideal of womanhood, for she possessed

in equally high measure each of the six gifts offemininity: a sweet voice, fine speech, beauty ofform and feature, wisdom, chastity, and skill inneedlework. This paragon of femininity becamethe wife of the epitome of masculinity, the heroCÚCHULAINN—although not as quickly as eitherof them could have wished. Cúchulainn foundhis way to Emer’s side after his king, CONCOBAR

MAC NESSA of ULSTER, became concerned that somany of the women of his household hadbecome obsessed with the handsome hero. Hesent off to find the best woman in the land forCúchulainn to marry, figuring that the hero’smarriage would quell the lustful feminine fires(it did not, neither for them nor for him). Aftera year and a day, the men returned to EmainMacha, capital of Ulster, with the news that theyhad found no one perfect enough for the hero.So Cúchulainn himself set off, for he had heardthat FORGALL MANACH had a daughter whosewisdom and beauty all admired.

When Cúchulainn arrived, he found Emerteaching needlework to all the women of thehouse. He exchanged some riddling words withher, and she matched him, word for word andwit for wit. “I am,” she told him, “a TARA amongwomen, the whitest of maidens, one who isgazed at but gazes not back; I am the untroddenway.” Almost immediately the well-suited pairfell in love, but Forgall placed two things inopposition. One—the fact that Emer’s older sis-ter Fial was not yet married—was beyondCúchulainn’s control, but the second—that hewas not yet well enough trained in the manlyarts—he could do something about.

So Cúchulainn set off for Scotland, to learnfrom the greatest teacher of the arts of war: aWARRIOR WOMAN named SCÁTHACH. As they sep-arated, Emer and Cúchulainn vowed to be true toeach other. She was; he was not. Within a shorttime he had conceived a son with Scáthach’sdaughter (or sister, or double), ÁIFE. And that wasnot the only affair the hero would have, whileEmer remained invariably monogamous.

As the ULSTER CYCLE, to which the story ofEmer belongs, was transcribed by Christian

154 Emer

monks, it is likely that the figure of Emer wastamed, if not created, by them to model behav-ior expected of Christian women, for mytholog-ical Celtic women of earlier periods were asready to act upon their desires as their men were,with the goddesses of the land being especiallyfickle in their relationships with human kings. Itis impossible to say if the figure of Emer wasderived from a more self-sufficient earlier god-dess or if she was always a human woman.

After his return from Alba, Cúchulainn natu-rally expected to marry Emer. But Forgall con-tinued to refuse, and he imprisoned Cúchulainnin the fortress of Lusca (now Lusk, Co. Dublin).But he did not realize how much Cúchulainnhad learned from Scáthach, for the hero madehis improbably high SALMON-leap and freedhimself, killing several dozen men along the way.Forgall himself leapt to his death whileCúchulainn departed with Emer and othertreasures of the house—several cartloads of goldand silver—to his own home at DÚN Delgan(now Dundalk).

As he had before their marriage, soCúchulainn acted afterward, taking lovers whenhe willed. But Emer knew her own worth andrefused to be jealous of any woman whom thehero bedded. Only once did Emer become con-cerned, and that involved no human woman at allbut FAND, one of the greatest of FAIRY queens, wifeof the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR. FAIRY LOVERS

took their mates away to another realm, leavingthem impotent to love the merely human.

When Cúchulainn had been gone a monthwith Fand—which must have seemed likemoments in the OTHERWORLD—Emer decidedthat she had no recourse but to murder Fand. Shehid herself near where the illicit couple was mak-ing love, ready to spring and kill. When she sawhow tender and beautiful their desire was, shedecided to leave them to each other and to theirpleasures. Fand, however, discovered Emer and,realizing how much Emer loved her husband,returned to the Otherworld while the humancouple drank a potion of forgetfulness. Emer,loyal to the last, died with Cúchulainn on the

Pillar Stone to which he affixed himself so that hewould die standing upright after his last battle.

Source: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 7,57 ff.

Enid (Enide) Arthurian heroine. In severalArthurian romances, Enid appears the epitomeof womanly virtue, one of the THREE SPLENDID

WOMEN of CAMELOT, together with DYFR andTEGAU EURFRON. To prove his worthiness tomarry the beautiful Enid, the knight Erec set offon a series of adventures, one of which involvedhunting for a mysterious white STAG. Havingproven his strength and bravery, Erec retreatedto the joys of Enid’s company—which soonproved so delightful that he retired utterly fromhis knightly duties. After a time, courtly gossipthat Erec was no longer worthy of his wife,because he had grown lazy with too much love,reached Enid’s ears. Afflicted to her soul by therumors, Enid arranged that Erec should over-hear them. Outraged, Erec set out to redeem hisreputation—this time bringing Enid along forcompany. The two had many adventures andreturned to court successful and renowned. Inthe Welsh version of the same story, Enid’s over-attentive husband is called GEREINT. Referencesto Enid as the model of perfection in a wifeappear from time to time down to the present.

Eochaid (Echid, Eoachaidh, Echuid, Echaidgh)Irish hero. Irish mythology knows innumerableheroes and kings of this name, which means“horseman.” The various figures of this namemay ultimately derive from the same original andrepresent mythological beings, or some origi-nally human men may have been absorbed intothe ancient divinity, a hypothesized sun god. Themost important figures with this name are:

• Eochaid Airem, “horseman plowman,” washusband of the queen of TARA, ÉTAIN, ofwhom Ireland’s most beautiful love story is

Eochaid 155

told. Wishing to ascend to the position ofTara’s king and with enough successful com-bats to show his worthiness, Eochaid sched-uled his INAUGURATION. But the people ofIreland would not accept a king without aqueen to represent the SOVEREIGNTY of theland. So he set out to find the most beautifulwoman in Ireland and found her in Étain—who was the reincarnated lover of the FAIRY

king MIDIR.In many incarnations after being cursed by

a jealous rival, Étain had forgotten her iden-tity, so she went willingly to Tara to becomeEochaid’s wife, but Midir had not forgotten.He wagered with Eochaid and won Étainback, taking her to his great palace under thehill at BRÍ LÉITH. Étain was pregnant beforeleaving Tara, and she gave birth to a daughterwhom Eochaid unwittingly married (see ÉSA);their own incestuously conceived daughter,MESS BUA CHALLA, became the mother of kingCONAIRE. It has been argued that incest motifshide myths of origin, for in the beginning oftime, incest would have been the only way topopulate the globe. Thus this complex mythmay describe a time of world creation.

• Eochaid Fedlech, king of Tara and father ofsuperlative daughters: MEDB, CLOTHRA,EITHNE, ÉLE, and MUGAIN. He had four sonsas well: Furbaide and three boys, all namedFinn, who went by the collective name ofFINN Emna. Having brothers with the samename seems to have been a family trait, as thisEochaid was the brother of Eochaid Airem,above. He may actually have been the sameperson, since both were said to have beenmarried to Étain.

• Eochaid Iúil, god of the OTHERWORLD and, insome texts, husband to the fairy queen FAND.

• Eochaid mac Eirc, husband of the goddessTAILTIU and ideal king of early legend duringwhose realm the land bore abundantly, rainfell so softly as to seem like dew, and no manever lied. It may have been he, or Tailtiu’s nexthusband, Eochaid Gargh, who established theLUGHNASA fair at TELTOWN in her honor. A

member of the early race called the FIR BOLG,he fought the arrival of the magical TUATHA

DÉ DANANN but was killed at the first battle ofMAG TUIRED.

• Eochaid Garbh, second husband of the landgoddess Tailtiu and probable founder of thefamous Lughnasa fair at Teltown.

• Eochaid Mugmedón, quasi-historical kingand father of NIALL of the Nine Hostages bythe British princess CAIRENN; he is one of thegreat ancestral figures of Irish history, fromwhom several ruling families traced descent.

• Eochaid Ollathair, “all-father,” a name forthe DAGDA.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 508; Dames,Michael. Mythic Ireland. London: Thames andHudson, 1992, pp. 240–242, 17, 139.

eó fis See SALMON.

Eógan (Owen) Irish hero. Several quasi-historical Irish kings bore this name, whichmeans “yew tree,” including:

• Eógan mac Néill (mac Neíll Noígiallaig), sonof the great king of TARA, NIALL of the NineHostages and himself the founder of the king-dom of Tyrone (Tir Eógan) in the PROVINCE

of ULSTER; he is said to have established akingship at the impressive stone fort of GRI-ANÁN AILEACH in the fifth century C.E.

• Eógan of CONNACHT, a king who asked to beburied upright, facing the land of his enemies,so that his spirit could continue to defend hisland; but his enemies exhumed his body andburied it facing the other way.

• Eógan Mór (Eógan Taídlech, EóganFitheccach, Mug Nuadat), quasi-historical kingof the southwestern province of MUNSTER andhusband of BEARE, the legendary Spanishprincess who gave her name to the Beare penin-sula and who probably disguises an ancient god-

156 eó fis

dess of the land. Eógan waged unrelenting warupon CONN of the Hundred Battles at the bor-der of their two lands. When Conn invaded,Eógan fled to Spain; he returned to fight again,but he was again defeated and finally slain by hislongtime enemy Conn.

• Eógan, son of AILILL Olom, grandson ofEógan Mór and legendary founder of the his-torical Eóganacht (Owenacht) dynasty ofsouthern Ireland. Eógan was resting oncewith his foster brother, LUGAIDH mac Conn,when they heard marvelous music. Theytraced its source to a yew tree (the meaning ofEógan’s name) where a harper, FER Í (whichalso means “yew”), eluded their attempts tospeak to him. From that moment, despite thehypnotic harmony of the music, the brotherswere at war. Lugaidh’s manservant Do Deratook his master’s place in the field and waskilled by Eógan, who believed momentarilythat he had killed his brother; but then he sawfamiliar legs fleeing and realized that Lugaidhhad escaped. The brothers met again later,and that time Lugaidh brought with him aDRUID, Dil Maccu Crecga, who enchantedEógan. With the foresight that druids wereknown for, he first arranged that Eóganshould make love to his daughter, Moncha,knowing that her children would then becomekings of Munster. After fathering a son onMoncha, Eógan was killed in the battle.

• Eógan mac Durthacht, the man who killedthe romantic hero NOÍSIU in the tragic story ofDEIRDRE of the Sorrows, one the THREE SOR-ROWS OF IRELAND and a centerpiece of theULSTER CYCLE of stories. When king CONCO-BAR MAC NESSA finally realized that the beauti-ful Deirdre would never willingly be his, heangrily gave the heroine to Eógan, from whosechariot she threw herself, preferring suicide tolife without her lover. Eógan appears in severalother legends in supporting roles.

Eógobal Irish god. This obscure figure wasthe father (or perhaps grandfather) of two god-

desses or FAIRY QUEENS of the southwesternprovince of MUNSTER, ÁINE and GRIAN, whowere not raised by Eógabal but by the sea godMANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Epona Continental Celtic and British god-dess. Among people whose vision of divinity wasso polytheistic that the same name of a god orgoddess is rarely found more than once, Eponais an exception, for statues and altars to her havebeen excavated across continental Europe, thecenter of her worship, and in Britain—morethan for any other god or goddess of the Celts.Yet little is known of this goddess except that shewas connected with HORSES. Her name means“horse,” from the Gaulish epos, and she wasdepicted astride a horse (usually a mare), sur-rounded by horses, or even occasionally lyingnaked on the back of one.

The greatest concentration of inscriptions toEpona are found in Roman Gaul, especially inBurgundy, and in the Metz-Trier and Meuse val-ley regions of Germany, where great numbers ofimages and altars have been found. She was wor-shiped in Britain as well, but that expansion ofher domain may have occurred after Romanoccupation, for she was a popular goddess withthe legions, who may have brought her acrossthe North Sea with them. The soldiers alsobrought Epona back to Rome, for she is the onlyCeltic goddess granted a feast day (December18) there. She is, however clearly not Roman,for there were no such equestrian goddesses intheir pantheon. Often Epona carried a plate,called a PATERA; sometimes she bore symbols ofabundance, like sheaves of wheat and ears ofgrain, a SERPENT, or a CORNUCOPIA.

Such a prominent goddess, adopted whole-sale by the invading armies, was likely to havebeen associated with prestige and power; it isbelieved that her worship was especially strongamong the horse-riding warrior elites, whomothers may have wished to emulate. As kingstypically rose from this class, Epona may havehad a regal association.

Epona 157

Epona’s worship may have been spread by sol-diers, but her appeal was considerably broader, forsmall personal altars to Epona have also beenfound, presumably made for the home. Many ofthese show Epona as a maternal force, eitherfeeding horses from her hand or accompanied bya mare suckling her foals. She is also shown sur-rounded by unsaddled horses; indeed, any depic-tion of horses with a goddess points to Epona inher role as goddess of the FERTILITY of the landand of the animals that graze upon it.Occasionally she is referred to in the plural, as theEponas, emphasizing her reproductive powers.

Yet Epona was not herself an animal power,like CERNUNNOS the stag god; she was rarelyherself shown embodied in a horse but only rid-ing or accompanied by them. And although thatemblematic horse was forceful and vigorous,Epona was sometimes linked, like other MOTHER

GODDESSES, with images of death. She wasdepicted with the funerary bird, the RAVEN, orwith that OTHERWORLD creature, the DOG; orshe carried KEYS, suggesting her power to openthe entrance to the Otherworld. She may havebeen seen as a companion or guardian on thetrip to the next world.

As Celts commonly associated horses withthe SUN, this connection of abundance and deathcould refer to the sun’s daytime powers ofincreasing vegetative growth, on which theherds rely, and its evening journey beneath theearth, often called the night-sea-journey. Suchan interpretation is supported by her connectionwith hot SPRINGS, believed to be warmed by thesun’s passage on the earth’s nether side; as god-dess of thermal springs, Epona was connectedwith APOLLO and SIRONA.

Popular as Epona was on the Continent andin Britain, there is no evidence of her in Irelandand little in Wales, where, however, we find thehorse goddesses MACHA and RHIANNON respec-tively. Apparently similar divinities were oftenfound among the insular and continental Celts,with images found nearest Rome and myths andlegends found furthest away. Such is the casewith the horse goddesses: We have images of

Epona from the Continent and stories of Machaand Rhiannon from Ireland and Wales. It isunclear how closely connected such figuresmight be; scholars argue about how best tointerpret the connections among them.

It is similarly debated how and whether toconnect Epona with the mare that figures in anancient rite of the INAUGURATION of kings, asdescribed by Giraldus Cambrensis, who claimedit was practiced in Ireland in Celtic times. Theman to be inaugurated, he said, had to eat a stewmade from the meat of a freshly slaughteredmare and drink a broth made from her blood;only after engaging in that ritual was a manbelieved to be wed to the land goddess. Thisappears to echo an Indo-European rite fromIndia, where horses also figure in a marriage-inauguration ritual that solidified a king’s SOVER-EIGNTY over the land.

The most famous horse monument ofBritain, the 360-foot-long WHITE HORSE OF

UFFINGTON, has been dated to the Celtic era byarchaeologists, who nonetheless hesitate to con-nect the flowing white chalk figure with Epona.Whether named Epona or not, the WhiteHorse is thought to have been first carved intoits hillside on the Berkshire downs in 50 B.C.E.,after Celtic settlement but before the Romaninvasion that brought Epona’s worship toBritain. Since there is no evidence for a maledivinity of horses among the Celts, the WhiteHorse, if not Epona herself, may represent aBritish corollary whose name was lost with thearrival of the popular Gaulish goddess. Vestigesof such a horse goddess can also be traced in thefolkloric figure of Lady GODIVA and the myste-rious white-horse-riding woman of BanburyCross who appears in nursery rhymes.

Sources: Green, Miranda. The Gods of RomanBritain. Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd.,1983, pp. 23, 54; Green, Miranda. Symbol andImage in Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge,1989, pp. 16 ff; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain:Studies in Iconography and Tradition. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 206.

158 Epona

equinox Calendar feast. The Celts did not cel-ebrate the solstices, the year’s longest and shortestday, nor the equinoxes, those two days (approxi-mately March 21 and September 21) when dayand night are of equal length. Instead, the Celticcalendar focused on the points between thosesolar indicators (see IMBOLC, BELTANE, LUGH-NASA, SAMHAIN). However, pre-Celtic people inCeltic lands did note the equinoxes and solstices,as the great megalithic sites like the BRÚ NA

BÓINNE, LOUGHCREW, and STONEHENGE indicate(see MEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION). Some vestiges oftheir calendar feasts may survive in festivals likeNOLLAIG (which may, however, be derived fromthe Christmas holiday of the birth of Jesus) andSt. John’s Day or MIDSUMMER.

See also AUTUMN EQUINOX.

Érainn Historical people of Ireland. In thelate centuries of the last millennium B.C.E. aCeltic people that the ancient geographerPtolemy called the Iverni settled in southwest-ern Ireland; these people are generally called theÉrainn. They were not Ireland’s first settlers, theunknown people of the MEGALITHIC CIVILIZA-TION; nor were they the last to migrate there, forthe Lagin and Féni peoples followed. Scholarshave suggested that the mythological FOMORI-ANS and FIR BOLG people, who preceded themagical TUATHA DÉ DANANN on Irish soil, maybe a memory of these early people.

Erc Irish hero or heroine. A number of minorcharacters in Irish mythology, both male andfemale, bear this name, which means “salmon”or “speckled.” One was a WARRIOR WOMAN whofought with the great hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL as one of the members of his band,the FIANNA. Another was the brother of the lov-ing ACHALL; she died of grief at his murder.

Erce British goddess. An obscure goddess,called the “mother of earth,” Erce is knownfrom early British verbal formulae called

CHARMS; her name has been interpreted to mean“exalted one.” She may have been Germanicrather than Celtic, although the distinction isdifficult to make where those historical peopleslived and worshiped closely together.

Éremón (Heremon, Eremon) Irish hero. TheMILESIANS or Sons of Míl were the last wave ofinvaders of Ireland, according to the book of leg-ends called the BOOK OF INVASIONS. Leading theinvasion were two sons of Míl himself, Éremónand ÉBER Finn, who fought the magical forces ofthe TUATHA DÉ DANANN for control of the islandand were victorious; their myth is thought toencode real historical memory of a final wave ofCelts who, arriving in Ireland, took political con-trol from earlier Celtic and indigenous non-Celtic peoples.

After their victory the two brothers disagreedon who should rule the land, so the wise poetAMAIRGIN divided it in two along the low glacialhills that stretch from today’s Dublin to Galway,the EISCIR RIADA, with Éremón getting thenorth, Éber Finn the south. Éber Finn remaineddisgruntled and waged unrelenting war uponÉremón until the latter was forced to kill hisbrother. Now king of a united Ireland, Éremónestablished the kingship at TARA, naming thesacred hill after his wife, TÉA.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II, Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 22.

éric (eric, éraic, dire-fine, lóg n-enech) Irish legaltradition and mythological motif. “Honor-price” is the usual translation of this word thatdescribes an ancient Irish legal demand for rec-ompense for crimes according to the socialstanding of the victim. In Celtic Ireland, therewas no police force or court of law. Rather, eachperson had an honor-price according to rank,due upon murder or injury to the TUATH ortribe. If one man murdered another, for

éric 159

instance, the murderer and his kin would owe anéric of gold, cattle, slaves, and other valuables tothe victim’s kin, according to his rank. Othercrimes, such as slander and rape, were also pun-ished with the éric. As the entire kinship groupwas responsible for such debts, the legal require-ment had an inhibiting effect on hotheadedyouth most prone to violence.

Many Irish myths revolve around the collect-ing of an honor-price, as when the SONS OF

TUIREANN had to perform impossible feats aspunishment for killing their father’s enemy CIAN.“Every éric is evil,” stated the SENCHAS MÓR, thegreat collection of legal documents and com-mentaries, on the grounds that it almostinevitably led to more bloodshed.

Ériu (Éire, Erin) Irish goddess. The greenisland at the far western periphery of Europebears the name of its earth goddess, Ériu. That wedo not call Ireland FÓDLA or BANBA is explained bythe myth that, when the final wave of invaders,the MILESIANS, arrived on Ireland’s shores, theyencountered three sisters, all goddesses of theland, each of whom asked that the island be calledafter her. The sorceress Banba made her demandfrom the top of her favorite MOUNTAIN; so didFódla, when the invaders arrived at her mountain.Each stalled the Milesians in their attempt toreach the center of Ireland, and to each the samepromise was given. But at the center the invadersfound the resplendent Ériu, who made the samedemand as the others. Because Ériu promisedgreater prosperity than did her sisters, the chiefBARD of the Milesians, AMAIRGIN, decided to callthe island after Ériu (Érinn being the genitive ofher name, meaning “of Ériu”). The names ofFódla and Banba are still sometimes used aspoetic names for Ireland.

It was at the sacred central mountain, UIS-NEACH, that Ériu greeted the invaders. One,Donn mac Míled, replied to her demands withinsults, and Ériu calmly sentenced him to death;he drowned shortly thereafter, indicating thatÉriu had control over the seas as well as the land.

She may have been a cosmic goddess, for she isdescribed as decked in rings, while her name,which derives from the word for “round,” sug-gests that she originally may have been a solar orlunar goddess whose domain included the sky.Usually seen as a massive woman, Ériu wassometimes a long-beaked gray CROW. She wasalso embodied in her sacred mountain, whichslowly grew as she aged.

As goddess of the center, Ériu was the onewho ceremonially married the king in the INAU-GURATION rite, the banais ríghe, that tied his for-tunes to those of the land. She established theÓENACH or festival at Uisneach every BELTANE

(May 1), which involved markets and games aswell as more sacred events, including the light-ing of TWIN fires on the hilltop.

A member of the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, Ériu is described in different texts invarious relationships to the other divinities: asdaughter of ERNMAS, a mother goddess; as themother of the half-Fomorian king BRES macElatha; as the wife of the obscure god MAC

GRÉINE (son of the sun), also called Cethor; asthe lover of ELATHA, to whom she bore Bres; andas the queen of SOVEREIGNTY who is mistress tothe hero LUGH. Like so many other deities of theTuatha Dé Danann, she was killed at the fiercebattle of TÁILTIU by the very Milesians she hadwelcomed. Her grave on Uisneach hill is markedby the STONE OF DIVISIONS, a huge glacial boul-der that reputedly shows the map of Ireland onits cracked surface.

Source: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Part 5.Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1956, p. 35.

Erne Irish heroine or goddess. The place-name poetry of Ireland, called the DINDSHEN-CHAS, records the story of how the importantRIVER Erne and the LAKE from which it risesgained their names. A noblewoman namedErne—described as “chief among the maidens ofCRUACHAN,” the great capital of the PROVINCE of

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CONNACHT—traveled there with a group ofwomen, all of them frightened away from theirown home by the sound of a gigantic voice issu-ing from the tiny opening of the cave calledOWEYNAGAT or Cave of the Cats. Taking withher the COMB (symbol of feminine potency) ofher mistress, the great queen MEDB, Erne tookher party northward to a lake in which they alldrowned. The motif of the woman drowned inan important water-source usually indicates anancient goddess of the watershed.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Vol. III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 461–467.

Ernmas (Éirinn) Irish goddess. This rela-tively obscure Irish MOTHER GODDESS is bestknown for her offspring, the three goddesses ofthe land, FÓDLA, BANBA, and ÉRIU; the name ofthis goddess is also given in some ancient texts asÉirinn. Ernmas also appears as the mother of thetriple war goddesses, MACHA, BADB, and the MÓR-RÍGAN; her name is connected with the modernIrish word embas (“death by iron” or “death byweapons”).

Erriapus Continental Celtic and British god.Inscriptions in Gaul describe this deity, connectedby the Romans with their god of commerce, MER-CURY; in England horned gods like CERNUNNOS

have been linked with this obscure figure.

Ésa (Esa, Ess) Irish heroine. A minor figurein Irish mythology, Ésa was the daughter of thebeautiful ÉTAIN, a FAIRY woman reborn as a mor-tal, and the human king of TARA, EOCHAID

Airem. When Étain’s first love, the fairy kingMIDIR, came from the OTHERWORLD to reclaimher, she was pregnant with Eochaid’s daughterÉsa. Eochaid later unwittingly married this samedaughter, having been tricked into imaginingÉsa to be Étain. The daughter of Ésa and

Eochaid Airem was the madwoman and laterqueen, MESS BUACHALLA.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II, Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 22.

Esus (Hesus) Continental Celtic god. Notmuch is known of this Gaulish god, whose namehas been translated as meaning “strength” or“rapid motion” or even “anger.” There is theprovocative mention in the Roman author Lucanof “uncouth Esus of the barbarous altars,” whowas worshiped with human sacrifice in whichDRUIDS read the future from the streams of bloodrunning down victims hung in trees. Commentsfrom other early authors link Esus to the Romangods MERCURY and MARS, presumably indicatingthat he was a god of merchants and warriors.

We have as well inscriptions and altars show-ing Esus in the company of BULLS and CRANES orworking as a woodcutter. And there are namesthat seem to derive from his: the Breton town ofEssé, thought to have been a center of his wor-ship; the people called the Esuvii in the sameregion of France; and the personal namesEsugenos, “son of Esus,” and Esunertus, “strongas Esus.” Evidence of his cult has been found inEngland and Switzerland as well as France.

From this scant information—some comingfrom the pens of Celtic enemies and thereforesuspected of the taint of bias—scholars haveattempted to reconstruct the character and wor-ship of this clearly important continentalGaulish divinity. That his victims were hung inTREES, taken together with images of Esus cut-ting wood, suggests a deity of vegetation whosepowers were to be seen in the strong trees of theforest. The suggestive similarity between hisname and that of the Christian Jesus, as well asthe image of a victim hung on a tree, has led tosome imaginative interpretations, most recentlyin the popular novel Daughter of the Shining Islesby Elizabeth Cunningham.

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Esyllt (Essellt) Welsh heroine. The original ofISEULT, the romantic figure of Arthurian legend,Esyllt was described as the wife of king March(who became king MARK in the Arthurian cycle)and the lover of his nephew TRYSTAN (who simi-larly became TRISTAN). Her name is believed toderive from a phrase meaning “the one gazedupon” and may be Germanic rather than Celtic inorigin. But the story of her elopement with ayoung man, leaving behind her aging husband,recalls Celtic myths of the SOVEREIGNTY goddess.

Étain (Etaine, Aideen, Édain, Edain, Achtan)Irish heroine or goddess. The many Irishmythological figures who bear this name are eas-ily confused, because their myths so ofteninvolve reincarnation, disguise, and false identi-fication. They may, indeed, all ultimatelydescend from or be connected with a single earlysource, possibly a sun goddess. The meaning ofher name (“swift one”) and the early epithetEchraide (“horse-rider”) connect her with suchequine goddesses as the continental CelticEPONA, the Welsh RHIANNON, and the IrishMACHA. The Celts connected HORSE with theSUN, pictured as a steed that no one could out-run. There are several mythological renderingsof this goddess, most notably:

• Étain, lover of MIDIR, was an OTHERWORLD

woman whose affair with the FAIRY king Midiraroused the ire of his wife FUAMNACH, aDRUID and sorceress, who turned Étain into afly. In this miserable form she flew about theworld for many years until she fell into a cupof wine held by an ULSTER princess who,drinking down the cup with the insect-Étainwithin it, became pregnant. (Impregnation bydrinking insects is a common motif in Irishmythology.) The princess gave birth to a girlwhom she named Étain and who grew up tobe the most beautiful woman in Ireland.When EOCHAID Airem wished to be king atTARA, he was unable to proceed with his INAU-GURATION until he married, for part of the

inaugural festivities demanded a queen toenact the part of the goddess of the land.Searching through the land for the mostappropriate mate, he found the beautifulÉtain, who had forgotten her earlier life andagreed to marry him. Their wedding andEochaid’s inauguration were celebrated inhigh style, and nothing seemed to suggest ahappy future would not unfold.

But if Étain had forgotten Midir, Midirremembered Étain. First he came to Tara dis-guised as AILILL Anglonnach, her husband’sbrother, feigning illness and claiming thatonly the touch of Étain’s hand could soothehim. Étain reluctantly agreed to make lovewith him to save his life. The tangled storysometimes describes Midir as only taking onAilill’s identity to spare Étain’s honor whilehaving access to her. In most versions Midir isultimately rejected by the honorable Étain.

He then conceived of a new plan to win back his love. Coming to Tara in his own identity, he challenged Eochaid to playFIDCHELL, a game like cribbage. Eochaidbelieved himself to be a fine player, but he hadnever played against the forces of theOtherworld—or of true love. Midir won.They wagered again, and this time Eochaid’sdetermination to win was so strong that heput up Étain as the prize. Midir won again,and when he kissed Étain, all her memory oftheir former life together returned.Transforming themselves into beautifulSWANS, they flew out through the skylight atTara, once again together in love.

The king pursued them as they fled toCRUACHAN, the capital of CONNACHT, whereÉtain’s maid CROCHAN gave birth to the greatgoddess and queen MEDB (often described as adouble of Étain). Then they went to Midir’shome, the FAIRY MOUND at BRÍ LÉITH, whichEochaid stormed in an attempt to get his wifeback. But Midir was not about to lose Étainagain. He sent out 50 enchanted women, alllooking exactly like Étain, and dared Eochaidto chose the right one. Most of them were

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fairies but there were some humans amongthem, and Eochaid chose one of them. To hissorrow, it proved to be his own daughter, ÉSA,with whom Étain had been pregnant whenshe fled with Midir. Eochaid did not, however,find this out until he had sired a granddaugh-ter on this daughter. While some variants saythat Étain broke through the fairy GLAMOUR

herself and returned to Eochaid, most ver-sions of the tale end with her living happilyever after with her fated love Midir.

• Étain, lover of Eochaid Fedlech, was thedaughter of the king ÉTAR. She bore Étain Ógto the brother of EOCHAID Airem, whose namewas Eochaid Fedlech. Such duplication ofnames is not uncommon in early Irish literature.

• Étain Óg, daughter of the Étain above, mar-ried a king, Cormac, and bore him a daughter,for whom she had great ambitions. BecauseCormac had a baby daughter from an earlierrelationship, Étain Óg arranged to have thebaby killed. The warriors assigned to dothe dire deed were, however, so charmed bythe child that instead of killing her, they aban-doned her in a cowshed, hoping that shewould be found. And indeed, the cowherdwho used the shed adopted her, and so she wascalled MESS BUACHALLA, the herdman’s foster-ling. In some variants Mess Buachalla is thedaughter of ÉSA rather than of Étain Óg.

• Étain, lover of EÓGAN Mór, was a FAIRY womanwho rescued her lover, the king of MUNSTER,after his defeat at the hands of CONN of theHundred Battles. Her home was Inis Grecraigeor Beare Island in Bantry Bay; there she tookcare of her lover and his men until they wererecovered enough to return to the fray.

• Étain of the Fair Hair (Fholtfhild), a fairywoman who lived within the Hill of Howthnear Dublin, called BENN ÉTAIR after herfather, ÉTAR; married to a mortal, she died ofgrief when he was killed. The same name wasgiven to another fairy woman whose domainwas the sea, where she lived with her father,the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR, and her sis-ter, CLÍDNA of the waves.

• Étain, mother of CORMAC MAC AIRT; usuallycalled ACHTAN. When the Irish hero ART MAC

CUINN, lodging with a SMITH on the nightbefore a battle, was told that any child of thisÉtain was fated to be king at TARA, he sleptwith the girl in hopes of conceiving such ason. Leaving instructions that any child con-ceived should be fostered by a friend in thedistant province of CONNACHT, Art went tobattle and to his death. Étain did conceiveand, as instructed, traveled to Connacht togive birth in the foster father’s home, but agreat storm forced her to take cover, duringwhich her labor began. Wandering off to findhelp after giving birth to Cormac, Étainreturned to find the child gone, for a femaleWOLF had adopted him. Cormac’s wolf-mother raised him to boyhood, and he andÉtain were reunited when he claimed thethrone of Tara.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, pp. 93 ff; Dames,Michael. Mythic Ireland. London: Thames andHudson, 1992, pp. 233–238; Dillon, Myles, ed.Irish Sagas. Cork: The Mercier Press, 1968, p.15; Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and FightingMen: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and ofthe Fianna of Ireland. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1970, p. 88; Gwynn, Edward.The Metrical Dindshenchas. Part II, Vol. IX.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 22.

Étan Irish goddess. Often confused withÉTAIN, this name identifies a goddess of crafts,daughter of the healer god DIAN CÉCHT and wifeof OGMA, god of eloquence. Several other minorfigures, including a mistress of the hero CÚCHU-LAINN, also bear the name.

Étar (Étair, Eadar) Irish hero. A minor figurein legends of the beautiful romantic heroine or

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goddess ÉTAIN, Étar is sometimes described asÉtain’s father in her human reincarnation. Inother versions of the story, she is conceivedimmaculately by a queen who drinks up a wormin her wine, and Étar is her stepfather or fosterfather. Étar gave his name (“great”) to the Hill ofHowth near Dublin, called in Irish BENN ÉTAIR.He is said to have been the mate of ÁINE, the sungoddess who was daughter or lover of the seagod, MANANNÁN MAC LIR. For her wedding giftto him, Áine gave Étar a golden chain that pro-tected him both against drowning and againsthuman weapons. He was not protected againstdying of love, however, and when he died of abroken heart after Áine rejected him, he wasburied at Howth. In some texts, Étar appears asa woman who similarly died of love, but whetherthis indicates another being or an originalandrogynous god is not known.

Ethal Anbuail Irish hero. The father of theromantic heroine CÁER, beloved of AONGHUS

Óg, the god of arts, Ethal Anbuail was describedas a FAIRY king of CONNACHT.

evil eye See EYE.

Excalibur Arthurian symbol. The most famoussword in European history, Excalibur belonged toking ARTHUR of CAMELOT, to whom it was givenby the mysterious and magical LADY OF THE LAKE.Excalibur is often confused with the unnamedsword that Arthur, as a youth, extracted from amassive rock in which it had been magicallyembedded by the great magician MERLIN. Aprophecy that the man who could withdraw thesword would become Britain’s king brought manyknights to make the attempt, but all failed untilthe young Arthur withdrew it as easily as thoughit had been in butter. When he later broke thatsword in combat, Arthur was given Excalibur,made by the magical SMITH WAYLAND. The spe-cial property of Excalibur was that its scabbardprotected its possessor from all wounds.

But Arthur’s sister MORGAUSE (sometimes,MORGAN), in league with his son/nephew andenemy MORDRED, stole the scabbard fromExcalibur, leaving Arthur vulnerable. Woundedin his final battle, Arthur heaved the sword intoa lake, from which a mysterious womanly handemerged, presumably that of the Lady of theLake. Should Arthur reappear to lead his landagain, it is said that the great sword will be readyfor his hand.

The name Excalibur is a corruption of theWelsh Caladfwlch, which became Caliburn and,through a false connection with Latin, finallyExcalibur. Connections have been drawn withCALADBOU, or “hard fighter,” the sword wieldedby the great Irish hero FERGUS mac Róich.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 222.

external soul Symbolic object. Some cultureshave believed that the soul could exist outsidethe body: in a stone, for instance, or a tree.Several Celtic myths allude to this belief: Thequeen CRÉD fell upon and crushed the soul ofher beloved CANO MAC GARTNÁIN; the heroCÚCHULAINN killed his rival CÚ ROÍ by catchinga SALMON that hid his soul. In addition, folkloredescribes moths or butterflies—and occasionally,BEES—which appear after a person’s death andwhich hold their escaping soul.

Source: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911, pp. 76 ff.

eye Symbolic object. A common and complexsymbol, the eye has spiritual significance botharound the world and in Celtic lands. An earlier(probably Neolithic or New Stone Age) Europeancult surrounding an Eye Goddess is detectedbehind the carved eye-like spirals that peer fromrocks throughout the Celtic lands; that pre-Celticgoddess may have influenced the conception of

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the CAILLEACH, noted for her single eye. Manysuch one-eyed beings are interpreted as solarpowers. As a SUN goddess, the Cailleach wouldrepresent the weaker sun of winter, for she isinvariably associated with the storms of that season; her alternative form is found in Scotlandas Bride, the summer maiden, but whether thatfigure is connected with the Irish goddess ofspring’s awakening, BRIGIT, is difficult to deter-mine. The evil-eyed FOMORIAN king, BALOR, issimilarly associated with the winter season, whenhis single eye blighted vegetation.

Irish Brigit’s connection with the eye, andtherefore potentially with the sun, is greatlystrengthened by the dedication of many Irishholy WELLS to her. While offering HEALING

powers against many diseases, the wells wereheld to be especially effective in curing eye dis-eases. While the ritual varied slightly fromregion to region, typically one was to rise atdawn, perform the well’s PATTERN or prescribedritual actions, then bathe the eyes in the well’swater. Diseases that might cause blindness, suchas glaucoma and diabetes, were equally likely tobe cured by the water of holy wells.

Irish belief in the magical powers of sightincluded SECOND SIGHT, the ability to see thingsat a distance or before they happened, and theevil eye, in which a spiteful person could curse

another merely with a glance. The envious could,it was believed, gain possession of an object bylooking at it with ill intent. Squinting—commonamong the nearsighted—was sometimes inter-preted as casting a CURSE. Precautions against theevil eye, including verbal CHARMS and protectivegestures, were common in rural Ireland into the19th century. In Scotland, too, there was a fear ofthe power of the evil eye, which was believed toresult from covetousness or envy; someone look-ing upon another’s fortune with resentmentcould destroy that good luck. “Envy splits therocks,” a Scottish proverb warned. Healthy ani-mals could die, people be struck down by an ill-ness impossible to diagnose, houses burn to theground—all from a mere glance. To assure one-self of protection against such ill fortune,Scottish people took precautions: not allowinganimals into the barn with full bladders, puttingsixpence in a bowl of water, wearing RED threadaround the neck.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p. 59;Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica: Hymnsand Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.: LindisfarnePress, 1992, pp. 136–147; Crawford, E. G. S. TheEye-Goddess. Chicago: Delphi Press, 1994.

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fachan (athach) Scottish folkloric figure. Thisone-legged, one-eyed monster haunted thewilder districts of Scotland. In its one hand,which grew from its chest, it held a flail coveredwith iron apples, with which it struck out atpassersby while hopping about on its single leg.One form of the fachan was called the ATHACH;another, called the dìreach, haunted the lonelyGlen Eitive. As a DRUID cast curses by standingon one leg with an arm in the air (see GLÁM

DÍCENN), some believe the stories of the fachanderive from fear of that posture’s power.

Fachtna Irish hero. Several heroes bear thisname, but only one has any importance in Irishlegend. The king of ULSTER, Fachtna Fáthach,married the studious girl whose original namehad been Assa (“gentle”) but who turned into thewarrior NESSA (“ungentle”) after the evil DRUID

CATHBAD had killed her beloved tutors in anattempt to ravish her. Whether Cathbad suc-ceeded is difficult to know, because althoughNessa did bear a son, he came forth carrying aWORM in his hand. Nessa explained that she hadconceived after drinking from a glass in whichtwo worms were swimming, thus becomingmagically impregnated. Her son bore her name,becoming CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, but was rearedby Fachtna and took over the throne of Ulsterfrom him.

Faerie (Fairy, Feri) Contemporary religion.The tradition in contemporary American neo-paganism that bears this name can be consideredpart of the CELTIC REVIVAL, although it is onlymarginally related to Celtic worldviews, derivinginstead from folkloric images of the diminishedgods of the FAIRY realm. (See NEO-PAGAN.)

Faifne Irish hero. In Irish place-lore, this poetwas the brother of the “noble and skillful”maiden AIGE, who was transformed into a doe byevil FAIRIES. Fleeing from the hunters and theirdogs who relentlessly pursued her, Aige finallylost her life when trapped by the minor kingMeilge, apparently an enemy of her family.Fulfilling the duty of a BARD, her brother thencast a SATIRE so strong it raised blemishes uponthe murderer, thus ending his kingship (seeBLEMISHED KING). Meilge’s warriors then turnedupon the poet and killed him.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906, pp. 67–71.

fairy (faery) Celtic folkloric figure. Celtic fairylore is vast, with some form found in every Celticland. While there are many regional variations,

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there are also similarities among the fairies foundin Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle ofMan, and Brittany. Many scholars argue that thefairies are degraded versions of ancient gods,both Celtic and pre-Celtic, whose powerremained active in the people’s minds even afterthey had been officially replaced by later reli-gious beliefs. Other theories are that fairies werethe faded memory of indigenous people replacedby later immigrants, or elemental spirits of nature.Finally, folklore sometimes fails to distinguishfairies from the dead, nor is it possible to deter-mine if the Celts themselves originally blurred thedistinction between the two or whether that is alater confusion. Fairies are described as stealingpeople from this world (see FAIRY KIDNAPPING),and the difference between death and this sort ofkidnapping is difficult to discern.

Most fairies lived in great cities, where theydanced and feasted constantly; when they trav-eled to another fairy court, they did so in a greatthrong that caused a huge wind (see FAIRY

BLAST). When such TROOPING FAIRIES encoun-tered people on these expeditions, they snatchedup and took AWAY those they favored; for thisreason rural people warned against walking nearFAIRY MOUNDS and other liminal places at night,when the fairies were most likely to be about.Other fairies were SOLITARY FAIRIES, includingthe shoemaking LEPRECHAUN and the tipplingCLURICAUNE. They lived alone, often busyingthemselves about some craft or industry. Suchfarmyard familiars as the BROWNIE and theBUCCA were helpful to humans unless sent awayby being showered with gifts. But some solitarieswere more frightening, such as the BANSHEE andher sister, the FAIRY LOVER; encounters witheither led to death or disappearance.

In appearance fairies were typically small,about 31/2 feet tall, and red-haired; indeed, RED

hair was not only construed as indicating fairyblood in humans but in animals as well. Shortpeople with red hair would not be mistaken for fairies unless they wore the distinctive fairycolors of red and GREEN. Most fairies wereexceedingly comely, with long hair like silk and

glowing complexions that, even when green,were a delight to behold.

Fairies were immortal, or perhaps appear tohave been so because of the difference betweenour world’s time and theirs (see FAIRY TIME).Tales describe wizened old fairies or a fairyfuneral, but such stories are rare. More com-monly fairyland is described as a place withoutdeath or pain, where even fairy battles have nomortal consequences.

The fairies were immoral as well as immortal,for they stole away married men and women fromtheir spouses, drank hard liquor to excess andpunished anyone who brewed his own and did notshare it with them, and otherwise broke the bondsof normal society. But they had their own moral-ity and code of behavior. They demanded respectfor their privacy and punished anyone who spiedupon them. Beyond that, the fairies demandedqualities that make social intercourse pleasant: noboasting or coarse language on the one hand, butno gloominess or lack of generosity on the other.They were fanatical about neatness and punishedanyone who was slatternly enough to offend theirsensibilities. Finally, although they thought noth-ing of stealing from our world, they would notendure anyone stealing from theirs, and they pun-ished such theft ruthlessly.

They were both respected and feared. “Theirbacks towards us, their faces away from us, andmay God and Mary save us from harm,” was aprayer spoken whenever one ventured near theirdwellings. The tendency to speak of them ineuphemisms such as The Gentry and The GoodNeighbors hid a fear that they might retaliateagainst anyone who did not flatter them in thisfashion.

The word fairy itself is not in any way Celticor from any of the Celtic lands. It is a derivationfrom the Roman fatae, the powers or goddessesof fate, through the French faerie. The word firstbecame fays, and fay-erie meant being under thepower of the fays (see GLAMOUR). It is a slipperyterm used by various writers to refer to differentbeings of the OTHERWORLD: diminished god-desses, elves, even ghosts.

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Sources: Briggs, Katherine M. The Personnel ofFairyland. Cambridge: Robert Bentley, 1954;Briggs, Katherine. The Fairies in Tradition andLiterature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1967; Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911; Keightley, Thomas.The Fairy Mythology. London: H. G. Bohn, 1870;Kirk, Thomas. The Secret Commonwealth of Elves,Fauns, & Fairies. London: David Nutt, 1893.

fairy (Irish) Once they were divine: theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, the children or people ofthe goddess DANU. According to the mythologi-cal history of Ireland, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, theTuatha Dé were the penultimate invaders of theisland, wresting control from the sturdy dark FIR

BOLG and the fierce FOMORIANS. When the finalinvaders came, the Tuatha Dé went the way oftheir enemies, being defeated in the great battleof TAILTIU by the Sons of Míl or MILESIANS.

The Milesians did not evict the defeated racefrom Ireland; instead, a deal was made that theTuatha Dé would take the underside of the worldwhile the Milesians ruled the surface. Throughthis curious treaty the ancient race remainedwithin the hills, under the bogs, and in other lim-inal areas of Ireland, where they were transformedinto the fairy people. Sometimes the story of theirfall from power was connected to the Christianstory of the angels’ fall from heaven, and the fairieswere thus described as fallen angels.

Some divinities of the Tuatha Dé Danannappear in Irish fairy lore, such as CLÍDNA,MACHA, and MIDIR, while others do not. Thusthe mythological description of their banish-ment to FAIRYLAND is at odds with actual fairylore, which survived largely through the oral tra-dition until it was collected by folklorists in thelate 19th and early 20th centuries. Whetherthere were ever tales describing such divinities asthe DAGDA and BRIGIT living under the local hillis a matter of conjecture.

The people of the OTHERWORLD were rarelyreferred to by speakers either as fairies or as

Tuatha Dé Danann; fearing their power, theirhuman neighbors called them by such Irishphrases as the Daoine Maithe (the GoodPeople), the Áes Sídhe (People of the FairyMounds), and the Daoine Uaisle (the Gentry).Other names used were similarly euphemistic,such as the Wee Folk, the Hill Crowd, the RedCaps, and the Host of the Air, a phrase used byWilliam Butler Yeats as the title of one of hismost memorable early poems.

Sources: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends andTraditions of the South of Ireland. London:William Tegg, 1862; Curtin, Jeremiah. Tales ofthe Fairies and of the Ghost World Collected fromOral Tradition in South-West Munster. New York:Lemma Publishing Corp., 1970. Originallypublished, London: David Nutt, 1895;Gregory, Lady Augusta. Visions and Beliefs in theWest of Ireland. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe,1970; Lenihan, Edmund. “The Fairies Vs. theMoney Economy.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed.Irish Spirit: Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global.Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 2001, pp. 122 ff;MacManus, Dermot. The Middle Kingdom: TheFaerie World of Ireland. Gerrards Cross: ColinSmythe, 1959; O hEochaidh, Séan. FairyLegends of Donegal. Trans. Máire MacNeill.Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1977;Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms andSuperstitions of Ireland. London: Chatto andWindus, 1902, pp. 37 ff.

fairy (other Celtic) Fairy traditions are foundin other Celtic lands as well as Ireland, mostnotably in Scotland and on the Isle of Man.There is not, however, a single Celtic root-wordthat describes the fairies of different lands, lead-ing some to question as to whether there wasever an overall Celtic fairy-faith or whether thefairies derive from pre-Celtic people’s beliefs.On the Isle of Man, the fairies were called fer-rish, a word that seems to derive from theEnglish word fairy, which immigrated so longago that it has become incorporated into place-

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names like Close ny Ferrishyn, “fairy hill.” Theferrishyn (p1.) dressed in RED caps and GREEN

coats, lived in the branches of nut trees, andtraveled with packs of red-eared white hounds.They liked to disorient people who walked thehills in the evening, turning them around so thatthey do not know where they are headed (seePIXY-LED, STRAY SOD). In Wales the fairies werecalled the twlwyth teg or “fair family”; inCornwall the spyrys or “spirits”; in Brittany theKORRIGANS or “sea-fairies.”

Sources: Douglas, George. Scottish Fairy and FolkTales. West Yorkshire: EP Publishing, 1977, pp.103 ff; Leather, Ella Mary. The Folk-Lore ofHerefordshire. London: Sidewick & Jackson,1912, pp. 43 ff; Parry-Jones, D. Welsh Legends andFairy Lore. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1953;Rhys, John. Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941, pp. 197 ff.

fairy animals Folkloric motif. In their beauti-ful FAIRYLAND, the fairies kept magical CATTLE

(see FAIRY COW) as well as DOGS (see BLACK DOG)and CATS (see CAT SITH). All of these lookedrather like their kin in our world. But there wereother, wilder fairy animals, creatures that existedneither entirely in our world nor entirely in theOTHERWORLD. There were fairy HORSES thatlived in the ocean (see WATER HORSE) and SEALS

that were really people (see SILKIE). There weremonstrous beings (see AFANC) as well as less terri-fying but still unlikely beings (see KELPIE). Suchbeings were not necessarily under the commandof the fairy folk themselves but were linked to thefairies by their Otherworldly natures.

fairy arrow See FAIRY DART.

fairy battle Folkloric motif. FAIRIES were gen-erally considered to be immortal; thus battles tothem were like sporting events to us, opportuni-ties to engage in rough and sometimes risky play.The fairies of various PROVINCES of Ireland were

believed to contest with each other in the waythat hurling teams do today, traveling across theland to do night battle and then carrying theirwounded home at dawn. Phlegm-like substancesfound on bushes in the early morning werebelieved to be the fairies’ blood, shed in the end-less battles.

fairy blast (fairy wind, elfin eddy) Folkloricmotif. When TROOPING FAIRIES traveledtogether, the speed of their passage created ablast of wind discernible even in this world.Sometimes in the summer the traveling fairiescould be seen, swirling up dust and straw on eventhe stillest day. But that dust devil hid the resultsof FAIRY KIDNAPPING, for as the troop passed,things disappeared from our world. If one threwa left shoe at the whirlwind, anything the fairieswere stealing dropped from their hands. Men,women, children, animals, all were known toappear from within a fairy blast subjected to thistreatment. Bonnets, knives, and earth from mole-hills could work as a substitute for the shoe, espe-cially if the words “that’s yours, this is mine” werespoken as the object was hurled into the whirl-wind. But if the speaker attempted to trick thefairies out of something rightfully theirs, like oneof their astonishing sets of bagpipes, the theftbackfired when the human discovered the magi-cal possession dissolved into dust or turned intowoodland debris in his hands.

The fairy blast was strong enough to pick upadult humans and carry them long distances.Those who traveled at night were most subjectto such kidnapping, as were those who wanderedonto or who deliberately disturbed a FAIRY PATH.Tales are legion of people who found themselvesfar away from their starting point, dropped bythe fairy blast in London or New York or aninaccessible region of ice. Occasionally thesecaptives were returned to the place they left, butoften they could not recognize the place becausethe wind had blown their wits away, or theyreturned so long after their disappearance thatall was changed.

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Source: McKay, John G. More West HighlandTales. Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological andFolklore Society. Edinburgh: Oliver and Body,1969, p. 18.

fairy boat Scottish folkloric motif. OffScotland, a ghostly boat was sometimes seen bysailors whose boats were about to be struck bya storm. This warning permitted them, if theyheeded it well, to haul into shore and survivethe coming weather. Those who ignored thewarning were likely to lose their lives at sea.This tradition is one of the many in whichFAIRIES and the dead are hopelessly confused,for the fairy boat was often said to be crowdedwith familiar faces, the men of the area who hadbeen lost at sea and were returning to warntheir erstwhile friends of danger. In someregions of coastal Ireland, it was believed thatno one ever really drowned; they were takenaway to live with the undersea fairies. As bodieswere often lost in the stormy sea, this comfort-ing belief was rarely contradicted.

fairy bride Folkloric motif. Among humansprone to FAIRY KIDNAPPING, brides occupy oneof the top categories. Many tales exist of womenwho, upon returning home in their bridal finery,fall into a swoon from which they cannot beawakened (see FAIRY SLEEP). Commonly, thegroom had to locate the FAIRY MOUND intowhich the bride’s soul had been stolen; there hefound her dancing and had to steal her back.Even upon returning home, though, he foundhis bride still unconscious, in which case herclothing was searched for any tiny remnant (aPIN, a thread) of FAIRYLAND. Removing thatswiftly brought her back to consciousness.Occasional stories exist of young men en routeto their weddings being snared by FAIRY LOVERS,but brides were much more at risk.

Source: Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions ofthe Irish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom,1969, p. 111.

fairy circle Folkloric motif. When FAIRIES

danced, they left their mark upon the dewygrass, which thereafter showed a perfect circle.These naturally occurring rings of green are infact caused by biological agents such as fungus,but they were believed enchanted and even dan-gerous. Sleeping in a fairy circle was ill-advised,for the fairies might return and carry off thesleeping person (see FAIRY KIDNAPPING). CATTLE

were guided away from the circles, which werebelieved (without reason) to be poisonous.

fairy colors Folkloric motif. Two colors weremost often connected with the FAIRY folk: RED

and GREEN. Their men wore red caps and green(though occasionally blue) breeches, whilewomen donned green dresses. Because of theirfondness for these colors, fairies were believed totake umbrage when humans wore them andcould cause trouble for such miscreants. A cen-tury ago, many women in the Scottish Highlandsrefused to wear green on the grounds that it wasunlucky; Dundee’s defeat at Killiecrankie wasexplained by the rumor that he wore green onthat fateful day. SOLITARY FAIRIES sometimes woregray, as though to distinguish themselves fromtheir TROOPING FAIRY kin.

Source: MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-FireFlame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands &Islands. Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, p. 4.

fairy cow (fairy cattle, crò sith) Folkloricmotif. FAIRIES were often openhanded to theirhuman neighbors, and never more so than whenthey offered the use of their COWS. Fairy cowswere almost invariably hornless RED cattle withwhite ears, or speckled red-and-tan. They gaveprodigiously of milk and always had TWIN calves.

One story from Co. Donegal tells of a familywith 10 children who were slowly starving in alean winter. While the parents debated one nightwhat they could do to scrabble together somefood for their offspring, they heard the noise oflowing. Outside, in the dire storm, they found a

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red-speckled cow that they brought into thebyre. The next day the cow gave birth to a femalecalf and began to give forth milk abundantly.Worrying over whose animal had wandered ontotheir land, the family asked around the region,but no cow was reported missing. The cowstayed with them for years, having a calf eachyear and filling the buckets with sweet milk. Oneday the man, exasperated at finding the cowmunching in a field of new oats and forgetting tobe grateful for his good fortune, raised his staff toher. Gathering all her little herd together, thecow disappeared and was never seen again.

Another form of fairy cattle was knownunder the name of CALAMITY MEAT. This was ananimal that appeared to have died accidentallybut that had actually been stolen by the fairies toswell their Otherworldly herds. In place of thecow in this world, the fairies left a piece of ALDER

wood enchanted so that it appeared identical tothe cow that had been “elf-smitten.” Because ofthe belief that fairies kidnapped cattle, it wasdeemed important never to eat the flesh of ananimal that died in an unusual fashion. Underseafairies were believed to have their own cattle thatgrazed on the seaweed, appearing to us likeSEALS or sea-lions.

Sources: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, pp. 60, 121;MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-FireFlame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands& Islands. Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937,pp. 40 ff; McKay, John G. More West HighlandTales. Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological andFolklore Society. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd,1969, pp. 166 ff; O hEochaidh, Séan. FairyLegends of Donegal. Trans. Máire MacNeill.Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1977,pp. 265, 329.

fairy crafts Folkloric motif. Generally FAIRIES

lived simple, irresponsible lives devoted to danc-ing and feasting, but some fairies had jobs. Themost familiar Irish fairy, the LEPRECHAUN, was

shoemaker to the fairy world; a SOLITARY FAIRY,he industriously kept the dancing troops shod.Fairy women were often described as brilliantspinners and weavers; they were also quite criti-cal of the skills of human women in those areas.

fairy dart (fairy arrow, saighead sithe) Folk-loric motif. Miniscule arrows, perfectly shaped,were said to litter the ground around fairyhaunts in Scotland and Ireland; it is likely theterm originally described prehistoric flintheads.The fairy SMITH made these arrows specificallyfor use against humans, who could be greatlyinjured by the arrows despite their tiny size. Astory from the Isle of Skye says that a couplereaping by moonlight found their tools fallingfrom their bleeding hands, although they couldfind no reason for the wounds. They abandonedtheir work and, next day, found the tiny arrowsthe fairies had hurled at them when they got tooclose to the Good People’s secret places. And agood thing they retreated, for Scottish traditionsays that being struck by the dart was a form ofFAIRY KIDNAPPING; the outer shell of the personremained (or appeared to die), but his or her trueself lived in the confines of FAIRYLAND. Cowsstruck by the dart ate like other animals but gaveno milk.

Said to have been made with hellish help, thedart was crafted by the fairy smith but sharpenedand polished by the DEVIL. Both people and ani-mals were targets of the tiny weapon thrown bythe fairy folk, sometimes for spite, sometimes asretribution for treading on fairy property, andsometimes just to make mischief. People wouldtypically not feel the darts, but their handswould soon swell with painful arthritis. The dartpassed through the skin without puncturing it,so it was not always possible to accurately diag-nose the fairy wound. Without treatment, how-ever, that wound was invariably fatal.

There were several ways to cure the ill effectsof a wound from a fairy dart. The most effectivewas to find the wounding dart and to take a drinkof water while holding the dart below the water.

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If the dart was too small to locate, the nextrecourse was the Mary Candle: a candle drawnthree times around an animal’s forelegs or a per-son’s torso, then three times around the belly,then three times around the hind legs or thighs.Performed on a beast, this ritual required twopeople, who made the sign of the cross withevery completed pass around the cow, thenpassed the candle along the cow’s backbone andfinished with the sign of the cross again, madebetween the horns. This ritual was only effica-cious if the fairy dart had not pierced the ani-mal’s heart; if it had, death was inevitable.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p.91; Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customsand Savage Myths: Selections from the BritishFolklorists. Vol II. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1968, p. 24; MacGregor,Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Talesand Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, p. 16; OhEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends of Donegal.Trans. Máire Mac Neill. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, pp. 29, 79, 81;Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms andSuperstitions of Ireland. London: Chatto andWindus, 1902, p, 81–83, 200.

Fairy Flag Scottish folkloric motif. One ofthe most famous relics of FAIRYLAND to be seenin our world is the Fairy Flag of DunveganCastle, belonging to the MacLeod clan, on theIsle of Skye off Scotland. One fall night, it istold, a GREEN-clad woman was seen entering thenursery of the castle, where she found the infantheir sound asleep and his nurse napping. Such acaller would generally be suspected of planninga FAIRY KIDNAPPING, but the woman merely satdown and began to sing a beautiful air called“Taladh na Mna Sithe,” or “Lullaby of the FairyWoman.” The nurse awakened but was immobi-lized by fright as she watched the fairy woman

carefully wrap the child in a silken garment.Then the woman disappeared, leaving the childsafe and sound.

When the nurse carried the child down to thegreat banqueting hall to tell the strange tale to hisparents, all eyes were captured by the mysteriousfairy blanket. It became the special banner of theMacLeods, and it was said to protect all membersof that clan when they went to war. (Every nurseto the MacLeods had to learn the lullaby of thefairy woman, too, as it was believed to weave amagical protective spell around the children.)

Other versions of the genesis of the FairyFlag are that it came into the MacLeods’ posses-sion through a magical woman of the HolyLand, who claimed the unfurled flag would casta GLAMOUR that made each soldier seem like anentire battalion. Finally, it is claimed that one ofthe chiefs of the MacLeods was wooed by a fairywoman who came to this world to be with him;she could not remain away from her home, how-ever, and left the Fairy Flag behind when sheabandoned him.

Source: MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-FireFlame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands& Islands. Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937,pp. 20 ff.

fairy food Folkloric motif. Fairy food wastastier than anything that one can find on earth,but FAIRIES preferred our grosser fare and snuckinto our world to steal it. They especially desiredour BUTTER, from which they stole the essenceor FOYSON, for however tasty, fairy food offeredlittle nourishment. Many charms to preservebutter are known, including putting mulleinleaves or holy water in the churn. Fresh-bakedbread was also a favorite of the fairies, whowould steal it away if it were left unguarded.

By contrast, sometimes the fairies providedfood from their own larders to help their humanneighbors in time of need. Many stories ofIreland’s Great Hunger of the 1840s and otherhard times tell of food such as marvelous sweets

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being found in abandoned fields, saving a familyfrom starvation. Generally, food discovered insuch peculiar circumstances was thought to becursed and should be avoided, but severe hungerseemed to make such foods available to human-ity. As the fairies were reputed to be gifted bak-ers, their fairy cakes made of oatmeal and barleywere especially tasty.

Many stories claim that however delightful tothe senses fairy food appears, it is really only twigsand pebbles with a GLAMOUR or spell cast uponthem. It was especially important never to eatwhen visiting FAIRYLAND, whether by choice orbecause one was the victim of FAIRY KIDNAPPING,for once a human devoured fairy food there, itwas virtually impossible to return to earthly life.

fairy fort See FAIRY MOUND.

fairy hill See FAIRY MOUND.

fairy housekeeper (Toice bhrean bear tiqhe)Irish folkloric figure. At the bottom of theenchanted LOUGH GUR in Co. Limerick, astrange figure resides. Once every seven yearsthe lake’s water disappears, revealing the fairyhousekeeper who walks over to a stone chair, sit-ting there for a few hours before disappearingwith the reappearance of the lake.

fairy hunger See HUNGRY GRASS.

fairy islands Folkloric motif. EnchantedISLANDS in the western ocean are a typical loca-tion for the OTHERWORLD or FAIRYLAND. Oftenthese islands were said to drift around, not beingtied down to any one place (or time) but appear-ing at intervals and in different sites. One suchfairy island appeared every seven years to thesouthwest of Rathlin O’Birne island, off thecoast of Co. Donegal. It was possible to settlesuch a land, to bring it into this world, by land-ing live embers on it.

fairy kidnapping Folkloric motif. An impor-tant part of fairy lore is the idea that fairies reg-ularly steal from humans. Of all the ways thatFAIRIES could upset the human world, the mostdisturbing was the fairy kidnapping or snatch-ing. This is to be distinguished from FAIRY

THEFT, which does not involve the mysterioustransportation of human beings; families couldlive more easily without their BUTTER than with-out their mother. Fairies would steal what is bestin our world: the sweetest cream as well as themost brilliant musician. Thus many rituals andverbal formulae were designed to avert theattention of the fairy world. One of these was thebestowal of nicknames, under the belief thathearing the real name of a beloved person wouldalert the fairy kidnapper to a potential victim.

Anyone could be taken by the fairies, but cer-tain categories of humans were most vulnerable.As fairy babies were both rare and, when born,exceedingly ugly, our own charming infants weregreatly at risk. Sometimes they would be simplysnatched away; at other times, a substitute wouldbe placed in the cradle, either an enchanted rockor stick or, worse yet, an ugly fairy (seeCHANGELING). For this reason, new mothers inthe Isle of Man made certain that a pair of theirhusband’s trousers was always in their bed, for thepants would scare the fairies away. Beautiful youngpeople were also highly desired; brides on theirwedding day might be snatched away before themarriage could be consummated (see FAIRY BRIDE),and handsome young men could wander away onthe arm of a RED-haired girl, never to be seenagain (see FAIRY LOVER). Finally, musicians andpoets of genius were sometimes stolen away fortheir talents, forced to entertain the fairy throng atone of their endless balls, and then discarded whenthe fickle Good Folk had had their fill.

Generally, one discarded by the fairies pinedfor the beautiful land left behind and died notlong after returning to mortal life. Some sturdiersorts were condemned in a different fashion, ifthey accidentally or purposely stole the magicalsalve that let them see the fairies with their mor-tal eyes (see FAIRY OINTMENT).

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Sources: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911, p. 59; MacGreogor, Alasdair Alpin.The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions ofthe Highlands & Islands. Edinburgh: The MorayPress, 1937, p. 5.

fairyland Folkloric or mythological site. Theland of the OTHERWORLD beings known asFAIRIES was not entirely of our world but notentirely separate. Sometimes just called fairy, itexisted just beyond reach, on a floating ISLAND

out in the western ocean or beneath a grassymound (see FAIRY MOUND), on a bleak wet BOG

or floating in the air. There were portals orgates between the worlds through which thefairy folk came forth and through whichhumans could pass to visit them. However, formost people, the passage was one way, for it wasrare for humans to return from fairyland—although they might return so far distant intime or place (see FAIRY TIME) that they foundnothing familiar to great them.

Fairyland was beautiful, in a static andunchanging sort of way. Trees there bore blos-soms and fruit simultaneously, the sun alwaysshone, and the weather was always mild andfine. There was no death in fairyland, nor dis-ease, nor pain of any kind. Food there tastedbetter than any food on earth, and the winebrought a pleasant sensation without ever caus-ing drunkenness. The fairies spent their time inmerrymaking, dancing, and flirting and makinglove without ceasing.

Paradoxically, despite (or perhaps because of)the perfection of their world, fairies lusted forwhat our world holds. They made frequent raidson this side of the veil, stealing away people andBUTTER and shiny objects. Some stories claimthat they always returned what they borrowed,but fairy borrowing, FAIRY KIDNAPPING, andFAIRY THEFT are generally indistinguishable tothe human eye. There are many NAMES FOR

FAIRYLAND, most of which stress its beauty anddistance from the surface world of humanity.

fairy lights Folkloric motif. When TROOP-ING FAIRIES traveled from one of their OTHER-WORLD dance halls to the next, they went ingreat processions, carrying torches above theirheads. As the fairy race is smaller than thehuman race, people saw such parades as twin-kling lights, streaming along invisible butalways-straight pathways.

fairy lover (fairy mistress, lianan sidhe, la belledame sans merci) Irish, Scottish, and Bretonfolkloric figure. Many stories of FAIRYLAND cen-tered on this ravishingly beautiful woman—for itwas almost always a woman—who stole away themost brilliant poet or the most handsome manfrom this world and made him her lover. Notthat it required much work on the fairy woman’spart, for these gorgeous beings made the mostbeautiful mortal woman seem coarse and unat-tractive. The fairy mistress called to her chosenmate through dreams that haunted him until hesought her out, living on her charmed ISLAND inthe western sea or beneath some ancient mound.Once he tasted her charms, he rarely attemptedto leave her, since she was not only magnificentto look upon but was utterly wanton. Becausetime passed differently in fairyland than in ourworld, a single night with the fairy mistress creptby pleasantly while centuries slipped away on thisside of the veil. When, as occasionally happened,the human lover grew homesick, he returned tofind his home dissolved in the mists of time andusually lost his fairy lover to boot. Such was thecase with the great BARD, OISÍN, who was stolenaway from this world by the beautiful NIAMH ofthe Golden Hair. Despite his joy with Niamh; hebecame homesick and begged to be allowed abrief visit home; she warned him to remain uponhis magical horse while he looked upon hisbeloved Ireland, but when he leaned down totouch the soil, he fell from astride his mount andinstantly dissolved into dust.

Fairies were notoriously fickle, so sometimesa fairy woman discarded her human husband andsend him unceremoniously back into this world.

174 fairyland

Rarely could such a man recover to lead a nor-mal life. More commonly, he pined away anddied soon after his return, longing for the beau-ties he saw in fairyland. Occasionally, as withTHOMAS THE RHYMER, he survived and finallyreturned to his fairy lover, to live happily in theOtherworld thereafter.

Some described the fairy lover as the sister ofthe BANSHEE, the spirit of life and beauty as dis-tinguished from the foreteller of doom. But bothtook the human lover from this life, although indifferent ways. Several goddess figures appear inboth guises, as does ÁINE of the magical lakeLOUGH GUR, who became the bride of a humanearl and bore his son before abandoning him;she is said to serve as banshee or death-warnerfor local families in Co. Limerick.

Occasionally fairy kings stole human maidensaway, often on their wedding day (see FAIRY

BRIDE); in addition, there are tales in Scotlandand Ireland of male fairies who seduced youngwomen (see GANCONER). But it is much morecommon to find the fairy lover in female form.Her image has inspired many artists, includingthe English poet John Keats, who immortalizedher as “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” the beauti-ful woman who has no mercy.

Sources: Briggs, Katherine. The Fairies in Traditionand Literature. London: Routledge & KeganPaul, 1967, pp. 123 ff; Wilde, Lady. AncientLegends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland.London: Chatto and Windus, 1902, p. 134.

fairy midwife Folkloric motif. Like the bride,the baby, and and the musician, the midwife wasa category of human almost irresistible to fairies.They were apparently unskilled in this medicinalart themselves, so when a difficult birth wasoccurring in FAIRYLAND, they had to send forhelp from their human neighbors. Rarely didthey do as humans did, however, hiring a mid-wife or asking a friend to serve in that capacity.They simply took what they needed, kidnappingthe best midwife they could find. Sometimes

they left an enchanted stick or elderly fairy inher place, but often she just vanished. Once thechild had been safely born, the midwife wasreturned to home and family, often with a finereward for her help—unless she had unwittinglyrubbed her eye with salve (see FAIRY OINTMENT),in which case she was blinded in punishment.

One of the most famous fairy midwives wasthe Irishwoman Biddy Mannion of the island ofInishshark, who was stolen away by no less thanthe king and queen of the fairies to care for theirsickly child. Biddy served well, leaving a thrivingfairy infant behind when she returned home,where she discovered that a GLAMOUR or spellhad been cast upon a fairy substitute so that noteven her own family had realized her absence.

Sources: Briggs, Katherine M., and Ruth L.Tongue. Folktales of Britain. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1965, p. 38; Kennedy, Patrick.Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 106; Parry-Jones, D.Welsh Legends and Fairy Lore. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1953, p. 53.

fairy mist Irish folkloric motif. Like theDRUID’S FOG that hid people from sight, the fairymist appeared suddenly and without warning. Itwas especially dangerous at night or on bogs andsimilar wild places. Some legends claim thatbeing surrounded by the fairy mist was an OMEN

of impending death.

fairy mound (fairy fort, fairy hill) Folkloricsite. Throughout the Celtic lands we find tracesof a race even more ancient than the Celts—theunknown people of the MEGALITHIC CIVILIZA-TION who lived approximately 5000 B.C.E. andbuilt thousands of structures of stone. Some, likeSTONEHENGE and BRÚ NA BÓINNE, are interna-tionally renowned, but such monumental struc-tures are less common than the PASSAGE GRAVE,the DOLMEN, and the other vestiges of a peoplewho spoke an unknown language, worshipedunknown gods, and disappeared for an unknown

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reason. Their influence continued, however, forthe incoming Celts recognized the sanctity oftheir monuments and reinforced it with tales offairies who lived within the BARROWS and underthe dolmen arches.

Small natural hills and drumlins might also,although rarely, be labeled as fairy mounds.More often ancient barrows were said to coverdiminutive cities where the fairies danced theendless days away. Walking past such mounds atnight or on the turning points of the year(BELTANE on May 1 and SAMHAIN on November1) was considered very risky, for the otherwiseinvisible door might open and the passerbymight be lured into an at-first pleasurable, butendless and inescapable dance. Such fairymounds are called in Irish SÍDHE; the fairies wholived within them thus became the DAOINE

SÍDHE, the people of the fairy mounds. Earlytexts say that they were originally the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, the ancient magical race con-demned to live beneath the earth when theMILESIANS invaded Ireland.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 99 ff; MacCulloch,J. A. The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London:Constable, 1911, p. 66; Ross, Anne. Pagan CelticBritain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition.London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 41.

fairy music Folkloric motif. Irish FAIRY folk,like Irish human folk, were renowned for theirlove of music. They could not get enough of agood tune and were known to kidnap a finemusician (pipers and harpers were especially atrisk), keeping them overnight to play at theirfairy dances, then returning them to earth.Usually the payment for a job well done was ahaunting melody full of what the great harperTurlough O’Carolan called PLANXTY, a hypnotiz-ing irregularity of rhythm or tone that distin-guishes fairy music from music composed bymortals. O’Carolan spoke from experience, for

he was a harper of ordinary ability until he sleptone night on a FAIRY RATH or within a FAIRY

RING. When he awoke, he was filled with wildmusic that he played until he died.

Fairy music was sometimes heard at night;the period between midnight and dawn was themost common time for such events. Usually themusic came from FAIRY MOUNDS, but sometimesthe source was invisible, surrounding the nighttraveler, coming from all directions at once, withthe sound of laughter echoing within it. A darkspot on a BOG might open suddenly into FAIRY-LAND, or the side of a big boulder, or a bit of wildfield, or the weedy patch beneath a FAIRY TREE.Peering into the opening, one saw a tiny worldfilled with celebrating fairies. Rare was the per-son who managed to escape without being over-whelmed with desire to join the dance, fromwhich few humans ever returned.

Fairy music was never somber. Their tunesmade the feet tap and the body sway in dance.Many tales are told of how fairy music so pos-sessed a human that he or she was unable to stopdancing. If one were in FAIRYLAND, that presentedno problem, for the years slipped away duringthese endless dances while everyone remainedstrong and young. Here on earth, someonecursed to dance endlessly died from the exertion.

There is some contention as to what thefavorite musical instrument of the fairies was,some saying the bagpipe, some saying the HARP.Some legends speak of fairyland as a kind ofmusic school where talented pipers and harperslearned their trade; others describe it as a kind ofancient musical award, for only the very bestmusicians disappeared without a trace and wereunderstood to have been taken AWAY.

Those who built their homes on fairy-haunted places were often disturbed in theirsleep by the music emanating from them (inother legends, their possessions were scatteredby the FAIRY BLAST). In Scottish folklore we hearof a man who built his house on an ancient HILL-FORT and never got a wink of sleep until hemoved—but he learned several tunes by heartbefore being forced to relocate.

176 fairy music

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An Interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker andCo. 1976, p. 169; Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore ofPrehistoric Sites in Britain. London: David &Charles, 1976, pp. 31, 50; Killip, Margaret. TheFolklore of the Isle of Man. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1975, pp. 37, 38; MacGregor,Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Talesand Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, pp. 13, 29ff; O hEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends of Donegal.Trans. Máire Mac Neill. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, p. 119; Wilde,Lady. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms andSuperstitions of Ireland. London: Chatto andWindus, 1902, pp. 29 ff.

fairy ointment Folkloric motif. A kind of salvemade in FAIRYLAND, possibly from the oil of four-leafed clovers or SHAMROCKS, fairy ointment per-mitted the viewer to see things as they really are.The fairy ointment appears often in stories ofmidwives who were taken AWAY to attend to thebirthing mothers (see FAIRY MIDWIFE); instructedto apply the ointment on the eyes of the newborn,the midwife unwittingly rubbed her own eye anddeposited some of the ointment there, suddenlyseeing a ruined shack where a palace hadappeared the moment before, and a wizened oldthing where a charming babe had been.

Such fairy ointment permanently bestowed achange in vision, permitting the viewer to seethrough any fairy GLAMOUR or spell set up tohide portals to fairyland. The fairies themselveswere stripped of their invisibility and could beseen stealing about the land, taking the essencefrom food, kidnapping brides, and workingother mischief. This power infuriated the fairies,who punished theft of the fairy ointmentharshly; even if the ointment was taken unwit-tingly, the fairies blinded the thief.

Source: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, p. 156.

fairy path Folkloric motif. In rural Ireland itwas considered very important not to build ahouse so that it crossed the paths that FAIRIES tookin moving from one region to another. Unlikehumans, fairies followed straight paths whereverthey went, even when that meant traveling overlakes or bogland or even the sea. Because theirunbending paths went straight through obstacles,havoc was likely to be created by the continualpassage of fairies through a house built in theirway; anything built in the fairies’ path will beeither destroyed or become uninhabitablebecause of trouble within the place. Frequentlythe fairies punished unwary builders by tossingthings around inside an offending house with theFAIRY BLAST of wind, or by carrying off the culpritto another space or time. Because fairies werebelieved to live in the western regions, BUILDING

TO THE WEST was discouraged where there wasevidence of fairy haunting.

Source: Danaher, Kevin. Folktales from the IrishCountryside. Cork: Mercier Press, 1967, pp.251–252.

fairy queen Folkloric figure. FAIRYLAND wasimagined as a monarchy, ruled by a beautifulqueen. Some fairy kings are mentioned in litera-ture and legend, but by far the most frequentroyalty of the OTHERWORLD is a goddess figurelike ÁINE, CLÍDNA, or FAND. It was upon this tra-dition that two important authors drew: EdmundSpenser, who lived in Ireland while writing hisallegorical poem The Faerie Queene, and WilliamShakespeare in his creation of TITANIA, mate toOBERON in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

fairy rath Folkloric site. The Celts erectedwalls of earth, called raths or HILLFORTS, to pro-tect their hilltop palaces, and these circular wallscan be seen across the ancient Celtic lands eventoday. One reason so many raths are stillextant—never having been leveled by farmers orbuilt upon by householders—is the insistence offolklore that such places were openings to

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FAIRYLAND and were therefore off-limits todevelopment. Fear of the punishment that cameof meddling with anything belonging to thefairies also extended to FAIRY TREES and FAIRY

MOUNDS. Many of Ireland’s most significantancient monuments have remained to this daybecause of these beliefs, sometimes derided assuperstitious but serving an admirable purposein preserving the past.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 32–37.

fairy ring Folkloric motif. Sometimes one sees,on a grassy field, a circle of a darker green. Sucha pattern has long been believed to mark the placewhere FAIRIES frolicked in their circle dancesaround their beautiful queen. These fairy ringswere believed enchanted even when the fairieswere not using them as dance floors; livestockwere kept from grazing on them, and they wereprotected from the plow as well. Tales of plaguesthat struck cattle after a farmer unthinkingly ordeliberately allowed his herds to graze on a fairyring are legion. Other stories tell of people whounwittingly or arrogantly stepped into a fairy ringand found themselves dancing frenetically with-out the ability to stop; some even danced them-selves to death. Someone outside the circle couldsave the unfortunate dancer only by grabbingsome clothing that reached outside the circle, foranyone reaching within it would be struck by thesame wild need to dance.

fairy sleep Folkloric motif. Someone whowas the victim of FAIRY KIDNAPPING might notdisappear entirely—although that often hap-pened—but might lapse into a coma-like sleepfrom which he or she could not be awakened. Awoman of the Burren in west Co. Clare was oncefound in such a state, but when her rescuer over-heard the fairies speaking among themselvesabout still possessing the tablecloth she had beenwrapped in when kidnapped, he reclaimed the

cloth and restored the woman to consciousness.Often, the clothing of a person who visitedFAIRYLAND was pierced by a tiny PIN; until it wasremoved, the person slept without waking.

fairy-stricken cattle See CALAMITY MEAT.

fairy stroke Folkloric motif. We still speak ofsomeone who loses control over part or all of hisbody as having suffered a stroke. The full or par-tial paralysis that we now know to be caused byan interruption of blood to the brain or a clottherein was believed in the past to be a punish-ment for offending the FAIRIES. They could pun-ish anyone who angered them—by cutting downa FAIRY TREE, for example, or allowing cattle tograze in a FAIRY RING, or stealing anything thatbelonged to them—simply by touching theoffender. The stroke of a fairy hand, powerfulenough to paralyze even the strongest man, wasgreatly feared. Many sites of legendary impor-tance, such as FAIRY MOUNDS, were protected forgenerations by this belief.

fairy theft Folkloric motif. For all their sen-sitivity to humans stealing from them—a mis-demeanor that they punished with all theirmight—the FAIRIES thought nothing of stealingfrom humans. Food was their favorite target,for their own FAIRY FOOD was not as nourishingas ours. They did not actually carry the foodaway; they drained its essence (called FOYSON

or toradh), leaving it stale and dry and useless.They stole a lot of BUTTER, and they also stoleMILK by making the drinker spill it, then lap-ping up its essence. Strong drink, too, wasoften taken AWAY. Anything, in fact, coulddraw their attention and be spirited away fromour world, including human beings (see FAIRY

KIDNAPPING).

fairy time Folkloric motif. Time passed dif-ferently in FAIRYLAND than on earth. It sped byhere, while there it was endless. An evening

178 fairy ring

passed at a fairy dance might be the equivalent ofcenturies of human time. Many stories tell ofpeople lured or kidnapped into fairyland whostayed what seemed to be a short time and who,returning, found everything changed. The mostfamous of these stories is the tale of the poetOISÍN, a member of the heroic band called theFIANNA and lover of the beautiful NIAMH of theGolden Hair. His time with her was endlesslyloving and beautiful, but he finally grew home-sick for earth. Despite Niamh’s discomfort withthe idea, he traveled back to visit his old friends,but found everything changed. Pagan Irelandwas gone; church steeples rose everywhere.Confused, he forgot Niamh’s warning not totouch the soil of earth. Leaning off his horse, hefell from the saddle. Immediately all the years hehad lived came upon him, and he withered, died,and turned to dust all in an instant.

Source: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, pp. 398 ff.

fairy tree Folkloric motif. The TREE was oneof the most important religious symbols to theCelts; virtually all species of trees were deemedmagical in some ways. None was more tightlylinked to the FAIRY world than the THORN orhawthorn, whose spiky thorns, white blossoms,and distinctive RED haws or berries were said tohave been favored by the Good People. All indi-vidual hawthorns shared in the fairies’ generalbeneficence toward their species, but certainthorns marked fairy lands: those that grew fromthe top of ancient mounds or raths (see FAIRY

MOUNDS); those that grew alone in a stony field;those that grew in a group of THREE; and thosethat grew together with an OAK and an ASH tomake the most magical of all groves.

Stories of the misfortune that befell thosewho dared cut down a fairy tree are legion,including one from the 20th century regarding aplanned hospital in Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo. The

only available field had two fairy trees in it, butno one in the area would agree to cut eitherdown. When a man was found willing to risk thedeed, no one was surprised when he suffered astroke (see FAIRY STROKE) the next day. The hos-pital, however, went up without difficulty. Thesame is not true of an American-owned factorybuilt in Ulster some 20 years ago; perhaps themost popular current tale about fairy thorns isthat of the ruin of the DeLorean car company,whose factory was built over the sacrificed rootsof a fairy tree.

Belief in fairy trees has not entirely died outin Ireland. In 1999 a famous fairy thorn tree inCo. Clare gained worldwide attention when alocal schoolmaster, Eddie Lenihan, waged acampaign to have a road redirected that wouldotherwise have been built over the grave of thetree. The fairy thorn of Newmarket-on-Fergusstill stands on the main road from ShannonAirport, testimony to the ongoing strength ofreverence for the fairy folk in Ireland.

Source: Lenihan, Edmund. “The Fairies Vs. TheMoney Economy.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed.Irish Spirit: Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global.Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 2001, pp. 122 ff.

Falias Irish mythological site. The magicalrace called the TUATHA DÉ DANANN or tribe ofthe goddess DANU came from four sites, of whichFalias was one. Ireland’s INAUGURATION STONE,the LIA FÁIL, came from Falias, whose ruler wasnamed MORFESSA.

Fand (Fann) Irish folkloric or mythologicalcharacter. The most famous of Ireland’s FAIRY

queens was Fand, “tear,” beautiful wife of the seagod MANANNÁN MAC LIR who, like other FAIRY

LOVERS, stole away the heart of a mortal. And itwas no mere man she captivated but the greatestof Irish heroes, CÚCHULAINN. She came to himin a vision in which she whipped him senseless;he fell into a lovesick stupor in which he lingeredfor a year. When the year had passed and the

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great feast of SAMHAIN came, at which time pas-sage to the OTHERWORLD is possible for mortals,he went to Fand, leaving behind his loyal wifeEMER, the paragon of Irish womanhood.Although Emer had endured his other affairs,she could not bear to lose him to FAIRYLAND, soshe followed him. When she saw how deeplyFand loved him, and he her, Emer offered tostep aside. Fand, not to be outdone, offered thesame and returned to her own husband, whowrapped her in his magical cloak to make herforget the human hero. On earth, Cúchulainnand Emer drank a potion of forgetfulness andreturned to their earlier state.

Far Darrig (Fear Darrig; pl., Fir Darrig)Irish folkloric figure. RED is the color of FAIRY-LAND, and thus the Far Darrig (“red man”) isone of the mysterious beings who inhabited thatworld. Dressing characteristically in red, he wasa mischievous and rather ugly, short, and annoy-ing Irish FAIRY who believed his practical jokeswere entertaining, when in fact they wereappalling and cruel. It was considered unlucky atany time to refuse a request from the Far Darrig,who could be quite imaginative in his punish-ments. The Far Darrig sat by the fire, smoking apipe and thinking; he would eat a repast left by afriendly family but did not like to be spied upon.His presence in a house brought good fortune.

Far Gorta (Fear Gorta; pl., Fir Gorta) Irishfolkloric figure. The “hungry man” of Irish leg-end may be the GHOST of someone who died offamine or a wraith from the OTHERWORLD; hestood by the roadside begging and rewardedthose who gave him alms with good fortune.

See HUNGRY GRASS.

Far Liath See GRAY MAN.

fasting (in Irish, troscad; in Welsh, ymprydio)Celtic ritual. To “fast against one’s enemy” was atraditional form of protest in ancient Ireland and

Wales. When a wrong had been done, the victimwould sit upon the doorstep of the oppressor,taking no food and telling passersby of the crimecommitted. Those who were of elevated rank(kings and BARDS, for instance) could avoid pay-ing the ÉRIC or honor price for someone they hadinjured; in such cases fasting was the injured per-son’s only form of reprisal. An effective form ofprotest that often resulted in the situation beingrectified, the hunger strike is described in severalancient mythological texts. The tradition neverentirely died out, being revived at intervals as aform of nonviolent protest.

Source: Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law.Vol. III. Dublin: School of Celtic Studies,Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. EarlyIrish Law Series, 1988, pp. 182 ff.

Faughart Irish mythological site. The smalltown of Faughart in Co. Louth is renowned asthe birthplace of St. BRIGIT, a Christianized ver-sion of the Celtic goddess of the same name. Aholy WELL there is reputed to have special heal-ing powers over eye diseases.

fawn See DEER.

Fea Irish goddess. The sister of BADB, Fea wasan Irish war goddess of whom little is known.

feast (féis) Celtic ritual. The great feasts ofthe ancient Celtic world were often literally so,with much food and drink being shared amongthe participants. But the word has a deepermeaning than simply a party, for the feasts wereheld on seasonally significant dates: SAMHAIN

(November 1), the beginning of winter; IMBOLC

(February 1), spring’s awakening; BELTANE

(May 1), the start of summer; and LUGHNASA

(August 1), the harvest feast. Little is actuallyknown about how the Celts celebrated these fes-tivals, although analysis of folklore and traditionoffers some suggestions about ancient beliefs.

180 Far Darrig

Fedelm (Fidelma, Feidhelm, Feithline) Irishheroine or goddess. Several heroic Irish womenbear this name, including:

• Fedelm, seer of CRUACHAN, a poet andDRUID who met queen MEDB as she was aboutto launch the CATTLE RAID that forms thebasis of the great Irish epic, the TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE. Fedelm cut a dashing figure,armed and mounted in a chariot, her goldenhair falling past her waist and her eyes brightwith three irises each. Asked by Medb if shehad the IMBAS FOROSNAI, the prophetic light offoresight, Fedelm said that indeed she did.But when Medb, hoping for victory, askedwhat the future of her enterprise would be,Fedelm predicted, “I see crimson, I see red.”Her words proved true, for the raid had abloody conclusion, and many of Medb’s bestwarriors were killed.

• Fedelm, princess of CONNACHT, who withher sister EITHNE was met one morning whilebathing in the sacred SPRING of OGALLA bywhite-clad men they mistook for DRUIDS; themen were, in fact, ST. PATRICK and his follow-ers. Fedelm and Eithne asked a series of ques-tions of Patrick that tell much about the pan-theism of ancient Celtic religion, includingasking if their god resided in NATURE or not.The story ends with the girls accepting bap-tism from Patrick and dying instantly, in orderto ascend to heaven in perfect purity. Giventhat Eithne and Fedelm are powerful goddessnames of the region, it is difficult not to seethis legend as propaganda.

• Fedelm the Nine-Times Beautiful (FedelmNoíchrotach, Fedelm Noíchride or Fresh-Heart), a WARRIOR WOMAN of great beauty (asher name emphasizes) who chose the heroicCONALL Cernach over her husband, CAIRBRE

Nia Fer, and may have accepted the evengreater hero CÚCHULAINN as her lover as well.

• Fedelm of Munster, FAIRY caretaker of thefuture king of Cashel, CORC MAC LUIGTHIC,who was marked by fire during a ritual cele-brated by Fedelm and her sisters.

The name Fedelm may have been a genericterm for a woman prophet, for a related name(Gaulish Uidula) can be seen in an early Celticinscription, found in a woman’s grave, thatdescribes a college of sorceresses or seers. Thetext is difficult to interpret but appears to referto a magical sisterhood.

féis See FEAST.

féith na filíochta Irish folkloric motif. The“vein of poetry” was believed to be located in therear scalp of BARDS who, when they began com-posing, felt blood surge through the vein inexactly the meter necessary for the poem.

Fenian Cycle Cycle of Irish myths. Enduringlypopular, the cycle of tales about the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL and his merry band of heroes,the FIANNA, include some of the most famouscharacters of Irish myth: DEIRDRE of theSorrows, the fated lovers DIARMAIT andGRÁINNE, OISÍN the poet, and the heroic Fionnhimself. The divinities of Celtic times arecloaked in human form in these quasi-historicaltales centered on the southern lands of Ireland,LEINSTER and MUNSTER, as another great heroiccycle centers on the PROVINCE that provides itsname, ULSTER. The cycle exists in written form,both in ancient and more modern texts, as wellas in the form of innumerable oral tales thatexaggerate the warrior antics of the Fianna.

fenodyree See GLASTIG.

feolagan Scottish folkloric figure. A dangerousand elusive FAIRY that was said to plague sheep-herders, especially on the islands of theHebrides—and most especially those pasturedaround Kebock Head on the Isle of Lewis. Largerthan the usual fairy, the feolagan paralyzed sheepby walking across their backs. Immobilized,unable to either eat or drink, the animals soon

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died. There was only one way to break the spell ofthe feolagan, which was to capture him and forcehim to walk across the sheep’s back again, in theopposite direction. It was important that the feo-lagan be the very one that originally bewitchedthe sheep, or the attempted cure only broughtmore paralysis to the animal. When a great num-ber of sheep were affected, one could imprisonthe guilty feolagan in a jar of salt, grains of whichcould then be used to cure the sheep.

Source: MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-FireFlame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands& Islands. Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937,p. 131.

Ferchertne (Fercetrniu) Irish hero. ThisBARD served the heroic king CÚ ROÍ, whoabducted the woman BLÁTHNAT from the OTHER-WORLD; she conspired with his enemies to causehis death, whereupon the loyal Ferchertne leaptfrom a cliff in MUNSTER, pulling Bláthnat over theside with him and causing both their deaths.

Ferdiad (Ferdia, Fear Diadh) Irish hero. Oneof the most famous single combats in Irish epicliterature is that between Ferdiad and his belovedfoster brother, the hero CÚCHULAINN, withwhom he trained on the Isle of Skye with thewarrior woman SCÁTHACH. When the DEBILITY

OF THE ULSTERMEN—the result of a curse thatthe goddess MACHA laid on the warriors of thatprovince after its boastful and competitive menhad caused her death—struck, just as the massedarmies of queen MEDB were marching toward theborder between ULSTER and her province ofCONNACHT, Cúchulainn was left to single-hand-edly hold the line until the crisis passed; becausehe was not Ulster-born, Cúchulainn was not sub-ject to the curse. One after another he challengedand beat the heroes of the Connacht army.Perhaps the last best chance of Medb in her cam-paign was Ferdiad, whose tough skin (for whichhe was sometimes called Conganchness, “horn-skinned”) might have offered protection against

Cúchulainn’s weapons. But Ferdiad refused tofight his foster brother, for such a fight wouldhave to be to the death.

Cúchulainn stood at the ford that ultimatelybore Ferdiad’s name (now Ardee, Co. Louth),gaining glory and wreaking havoc, killing onewarrior after another in single combat. FinallyMedb promised her fair daughter FINNABAIR toFerdiad if he would fight, and he reluctantlyagreed. For three days the well-matched pairfought, neither gaining the upper hand. But atlast, Cúchulainn used his magical spear, GÁE

BULGA, to kill his foster brother, although to winin such circumstances caused him great sorrow.

There is some evidence that the figure ofFerdiad derives from an earlier, possibly divine,original, perhaps an ancestral god of the peoplearound the river ford where Ferdiad was said tohave been killed. Such minor ancestor figureswere frequently swept into larger narratives,being both preserved and altered by such action.

Fergus (Feargus) Irish hero. There is nomore virile a name than this in Irish tradition, forit means “male potency” or “manhood” (some-times translated simply as “semen”). Dozens offigures bear the name, including 10 members ofthe heroic band of warriors, the FIANNA; becausethere are so many it has been suggested thatFergus was not an individual name but wasderived from a title of kingship. Most of the char-acters are minor; most are related to the northernprovince of ULSTER; all may descend from thesame original. The most important mythologicalfigures with this name are:

• Fergus Fínbél, the Fianna’s poet, who althoughnot as skilled nor as important as the belovedOISÍN, was an advisor to FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,who in some sources is Fergus’s father.

• Fergus Foga, an early king of Ulster whoinvented the spear.

• Fergus Lethderg, one of three sons of themythological settler NEMED and ancestralfather to the British people.

182 Ferchertne

• Fergus Mòr (Fergus mac Eirc), an ancestralfigure of Scotland who asked to be crowned inhis own kingdom while seated on the famousINAUGURATION STONE from the hill of TARA,the LIA FÁIL. Ireland’s great stone was sentacross the water for the occasion, but thenFergus Mòr refused to send it back.

• Fergus mac Léti (mac Leide, mac Leda), anUlster king whose fantastic adventures arethought to have been the inspiration forJonathan Swift’s satirical masterpiece,Gulliver’s Travels. Once when he was out sail-ing, Fergus was set upon by small watersprites who intended to steal his possessionsand drown him. He turned the tables andsnatched them up, holding them until theyagreed to grant his three wishes. Fergus madeonly one wish in three parts: He wanted to beable to swim underwater in ponds, lakes, andthe ocean. The fairies agreed, but restrictedhis powers by saying he could not submergehimself in Lough Rudraige in Ulster—where,of course, he was soon tempted to swim.There he encountered a water monster calleda muirdris, which frightened him so muchthat his head turned around to face his back.He survived, but his DRUIDS faced the difficultquestion of whether this change made him aBLEMISHED KING and therefore unfit to reign.Through some loophole of interpretation,they determined that having one’s head onbackward was not a blemish, but to keepFergus from knowing what had happened,they covered all the mirrors in EMAIN MACHA,the great royal residence of Ulster. And soFergus lived happily enough for seven years,until a woman he had mistreated revealed thetruth. Fergus returned to Loch Rudraige andkilled the muirdris, but fell dead of exhaustionafterward, his head still facing backward.

• Fergus mac Róich (mac Roech, mac Roth,MacRoy), the greatest of heroes by thisrenowned name. He was king of Ulster—theprovince most associated with the regal nameof Fergus—when he married NESSA, the WAR-RIOR WOMAN whose son bore her name: CON-

COBAR MAC NESSA. She agreed to wed Ferguson the terms that her son ascend to the thronefor a year, so that thereafter his progenywould be royal. Fergus willingly agreed, butwhen the year was over he discovered thatNessa had plotted with his nobles to keep himfrom returning. Fergus went south fromUlster and gathered allies at TARA, butConcobar resisted the army and maintainedcontrol of Fergus’s former kingdom.

Fergus made peace with his usurper, butConcobar’s continual treachery finally turnedhim into an enemy. When the fated beautyDEIRDRE was born and a prophecy revealed thatdesire for her would destroy the land, Concobarrefused his druids’ advice that the infant bekilled to spare the land bloodshed. Instead hesent her away to be raised to womanhood, withthe intention of having her beauty for himself.She found her own lover, however, and escapedwith him to Scotland. From there Deirdre, herlover NOÍSIU, and his brothers, the SONS OF UIS-NEACH, were lured back with a promise of safety,which Fergus guaranteed with his honor. But nosooner had Fergus departed the court thanConcobar had Noísiu killed and took Deirdrefor himself—although she outwitted him bychoosing death over life without her love.Fergus, infuriated that his honor had beenbesmirched by Concobar’s devious plan, raidedthe royal court at EMAIN MACHA and burned it tothe ground. (Archaeological excavations have,indeed, found evidence of a huge conflagrationat Emain Macha in the dim prehistorical past.)

Fergus took his warriors and headed west, tothe court of queen MEDB at CRUACHAN, thewestern equivalent of Emain Macha. There,according to many texts, he became her lover.They were well matched, for both were sexuallyvoracious. His manhood was so impressive thatthe seven-foot-tall stone pillar on Tara calledthe LIA FÁIL is also called Bod Fhearghais,“Fergus’s phallus.” His surname may imply hisfather was a stallion, appropriate to such a well-endowed hero.

Fergus 183

As Medb’s lover, he may have fathered a childcalled Ciar, who gave his name to Co. Kerry inthe southwest of Ireland. Fergus served Medbwell in the CATTLE RAID related in the Irish epicTÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, dispatching hundreds of hisformer countrymen with his enormous swordCALADBOLG. He would even have killed hisenemy Concobar had not the king’s son success-fully opposed him. The great epic telling ofthese deeds might well have been lost, forIreland’s poets fell on hard times with the loss ofSOVEREIGNTY of the Celtic kings. But severalBARDs went to Fergus’s grave and, using anancient formula for invoking the dead, broughtback his ghost. Fergus recited the entire ancienttale, retrieving it for new ages to enjoy.

Fergus got into that grave because of hisaffair with Medb. Although Medb praised herhusband, AILILL mac Máta, for his lack of jeal-ousy, even the patient Ailill could not help butmake a bitter comment when he saw his wifefrolicking nude with Fergus in a lake (either onenear Carrickfergus in Co. Antrim or LoughCarrowmore in Co. Mayo). Ailill’s faithful friend,the warrior-poet LUGAIDH, killed Fergus, pre-tending he had mistaken him for a STAG. Thisconfusion may indicate that Fergus was originallya god, perhaps a horned god like the continentalCERNUNNOS, which his love affair or marriagewith the woodland goddess FLIDAIS also suggests.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 471; Dillon,Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: The MercierPress, 1968, pp. 40 ff; MacCulloch, J. A. TheReligion of the Ancient Celts. London: Constable,1911, p. 336.

Fer Í (Fer Fi) Irish hero. Possibly originally agod, this magical harper of MUNSTER played sobeautifully that no one who heard him couldresist responding; if he played a sad song, allwept; a happy song, and all would laugh with joy;a lullaby, and everyone would fall sound asleep.

He unwittingly caused the enmity between thefoster brothers LUGAIDH mac Conn and EÓGAN

when they overheard him practicing outdoorsand fell to disputing at whose court he shouldplay. That argument led to a bitter feud thatended with Eógan’s death. Fer Í, in the mean-time, became the father of two important fairyqueens of Munster, ÁINE and her TWIN sisterGRAIN, suggesting that he was a FAIRY king ordiminished god himself.

He was described, in the region around themagically important LOUGH GUR in Co.Limerick, as a RED-haired DWARF and brother ofÁine. He played suantraighe, “sleep music,” onhis THREE-stringed HARP, which put not onlypeople but the world to sleep, so that the springsthat fed Lough Gur froze up and looked likestones beneath the glassy surface. He could alsoplay gentraighe, “laughter music,” melodies solight that those who heard them burst intodelighted laughter.

ferrish See FAIRY (OTHER CELTIC).

fertility Cosmological concept. To peoplewho live close to the land, the question of fertil-ity is the most compelling one they face. Shouldthe land grow sterile, should the herds grow bar-ren, should the rivers not run flush with fish,death from starvation can soon follow. The Irishlinked the fertility of the land to the king’s right-eousness; they believed that if the king behavedgenerously and honorably, the goddess of theland’s SOVEREIGNTY, the king’s spouse, would behappy and bear abundantly. Fertility was thusneither in the domain of the feminine nor of themasculine but existed in the balance struckbetween them. Among the continental Celts,images of abundance—the CORNUCOPIA and theEGG—are found with both gods and goddesses.

festival See CALENDAR, FEAST.

fetch (feach) Scottish and Irish folkloric fig-ure. Each of us was thought to have a kind of

184 Fer Í

detachable aura, like a shell, around us. It lookedexactly like us and could wander like a ghost inplaces distant from our bodies. Encounteringone’s fetch had various meanings: If you metyourself in the morning, it meant good luck wascoming; but if you ran into your exact image inthe evening or near a graveyard, death was onthe way. Those with SECOND SIGHT could seethe fetches of other people as well as their own.The fetch was apparently distinct from the CO-WALKER, which could be a FAIRY or ghost ratherthan an aura.

féth fiada See DRUID’S FOG.

Féthnat Irish goddess. This obscure memberof the magical race, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN,was a gifted musician.

Fflur Welsh heroine or goddess. This obscurefigure appears in the Welsh TRIADS as thebeloved of the hero CASWALLAWN, who foughtwith Julius Caesar for her hand. Her name sug-gests that she may be related to the flower-maiden BLODEUWEDD; the contention of tworulers points to a connection to the goddess ofSOVEREIGNTY; but Fflur’s legend and its mean-ing are virtually lost.

Fiacclach mac Conchinn (Fiacail, Fiachumac Conga) Irish hero. The vigorous fosterfather of the Irish hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,Fiacclach provided Fionn a magical sword thatnever missed its mark.

Fiachna Irish hero. Common in Irish mythol-ogy, possibly meaning “raven,” this name bornemostly by minor heroes. The exceptions are:

• Fiachna of MUNSTER, an incestuous king whofathered a son on his daughter MUGAIN.

• Fiachna mac Báetáin, whose wifeCAÍNTIGERN bought a victory for him bysleeping with the sea god, MANANNÁN MAC

LIR, who so desired her that he arranged forFiachna to win the battle in return for hiswife’s favors. This Fiachna may be a historicalking, though his genealogical background—he was thought to have been conceivedparthenogenetically by his mother—suggestsa divinity or totem ancestor.

• Fiachna mac Dáire, to whom a WORM spokewhen he snagged it while fishing in Cuailnge,in the northern PROVINCE of ULSTER. Themiraculous talking worm made an odd predic-tion: that war would be waged over a BULL

from the region. Unlikely as the predictionseemed, the worm had reason to know itstruth, because it was the reincarnated soul of aswineherd who would later take the shape ofthe great Brown Bull, DONN CUAILNGE. Thisbull would become the object of the CATTLE

RAID launched by queen MEDB in CONNACHT,who had been advised by another worm (theswineherd’s most bitter enemy, who wouldbecome the White Bull of Connacht,FINNBENNACH) to marry AILILL mac Máta,thus setting the stage for the epic battlebetween the two bulls.

Fiachra Irish hero. Several minor mythologi-cal characters have this name, most notably oneof the doomed CHILDREN OF LIR.

Fial Irish goddess. Goddess of the River Feale,which empties into the great Shannon and whichbears her name, Fial was a typical Celtic RIVER

goddess, associated not only with the water butwith the entire watershed, thus being a divinity ofFERTILITY and abundance. The name is also givento the daughter of the goddess MACHA, who diedgiving birth to Fial and her twin brother Fall.

Fianna (Fenians, Fiana) Irish heroes. Al-though the name is used generically to refer toany group of armed warriors wandering the Irishcountryside (and thus used of revolutionaries inseveral eras), the usual mythological reference isto the group that served under the leadership of

Fianna 185

the great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. The storiesof the FENIAN CYCLE are among the best known ofIreland’s ancient tales.

There may be an historical aspect to the sto-ries, for there were indeed such roving bandswho made their skills and weapons available tovarious kings. They were not exactly mercenar-ies, although they certainly required paymentfor their services, sometimes taken in bootyfrom those they defeated, for they were fiercelyloyal to their chosen king and did not readilychange sides. Texts indicate that such bandsfound a place in Irish society in the early MiddleAges and may well have existed before then. Nottied to a single TUATH or kingdom, these fiannaseem to have fought to keep invaders like theVikings out of Ireland. The rough-hewn socialorganization seems to have disappeared by thetime of the Normans’ arrival in the 12th century.

Standing on the outskirts of society, thefianna were a meritocracy, with membershipbased upon skill and strength rather than nobleblood or wealth. Thus the fianna can be seen asa means of social advancement for those whopossessed the requisite abilities. Such raw talentwas shaped into warriors through an exhaustingboot-camp or initiation. The applicant was, forinstance, placed in a deep hole and given ashield; the members of the fianna then threwspears from which a less-than-able applicantcould suffer dire wounds—or worse. The appli-cant would be chased through the woods and, ifcaught, wounded as well as rejected for mem-bership. On top of all this, the new member wasexpected to be a poet, able to thrill the fiannawith compositions and recitations.

Women were not excluded from the fianna,although more typically the warriors are said tohave been men. There are stories of WARRIOR

WOMEN like Creidne and ERC, both members ofFionn’s Fianna, as well as other women whofought solo rather than with a band of warriors.That there is some likely historical referent forsuch figures can be found in Roman writers whodeplored the fact that Celtic women foughtalongside their men.

Thus it is possible to see the Fenian Cycle asglamorizing the exploits of an exemplary band ofwarriors, living in the wildwood, ready to fightfor the sake of glory, to avenge an insult or toprotect Ireland’s high king. These tales areamong the most continually popular of Irishmyths and include not only tales of glory butalso romances like the story of ÉTAIN, reborn torejoin her fated lover MIDIR, as well as poeticphilosophies like the story of OISÍN the BARD,stolen away from earth by a FAIRY QUEEN, wholater returns to a world from which paganismhad been driven.

fidchell Irish game. This ancient game wasrather like today’s cribbage, in which pegs (prob-ably of wood, as the name means “wood wis-dom”) were moved about a board. Fidchell alsoapparently resembled chess in being a game ofstrategy whose intention was the taking of theopponent’s pieces. No examples of the game-board have been found, but the game appearsfrequently in mythology, most memorably in thewager by the fairy king MIDIR against the king ofTARA, EOCHAID Airem, with the queen ÉTAIN asthe prize.

Fideal Scottish folkloric figure. This High-land siren figure lured handsome young meninto lakes and ponds, then drowned them; she isa species of VOUGH.

Fiecal Irish heroine. One of the wise womenwho reared the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, sheplays a minor role in the cycle of stories devotedto him.

fifth province See MIDE.

Figgy Dowdy (Madge Figgy) Cornish folk-loric figure. In Cornwall old tradition uses thisname for the spirit of a holy WELL at CarnMarth, where dolls were baptized in an unusualritual. As most such places were originally ruled

186 fidchell

by goddesses, some find in Figgy Dowdy’s pecu-liar name a misapprehension of the Cornishwords for “the reaper goddess” or “the goodgoddess of the scythe.” She may be related to thelegendary witch MADGY FIGGY.

fili (file; pl., filid, filidh) Celtic social role. Inearly Ireland poets, or filid, were highly trainedmembers of a hierarchical profession with sevenlevels, of which the ollam was the highest.Families of filid, like the Ó Daillaighs of Co.Clare, organized schools and trained their kinand other apprentices in demanding, rigorousmemorization. Hundreds of pieces had to bememorized before a new composition wasattempted; in addition, there were techniques ofDIVINATION to learn as well as other magical rit-uals. It can be hard to distinguish the fili fromthe BREHON, or lawyer, and the BARD, or singer,as there is some overlap among their fields; sim-ilarly, in very early times the DRUID and fili wereinterchangeable, for poetry was believed to be amagical art. No more clear a connectionbetween them can be found than the position of SATIRE, whose stinging words were demandedof the poet whenever a king needed to be chastened. The magic of the fili’s words woulddisfigure the wrongheaded king, thus causinghim to lose his right to rule (see BLEMISHED

KING). As Celtic Ireland waned, the power of thepoets became more mundane; they attachedthemselves to powerful chieftains whose praisesthey sung. Even after the great poetic schoolshad ceased to function, the status of the poetremained high, as it does in Celtic lands today.

Find Irish divinity. This word, which means“white,” appears in the names of many mytho-logical figures and folkloric heroes. There issome evidence of an early divinity by this name,possibly a god who prefigures the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL or a goddess related to BÓAND,the white COW goddess whose name is carried bythe River Boyne. The geographer Ptolemy, inthe second century C.E., spoke of a divinity

called Bouvinda, whose name is cognate with themagical cow BÓ FIND, who is in turn possibly anaspect of Bóand. It is unclear whether this wordis a name or a title, and whether it refers to aspecific figure or to the radiant nature of divin-ity itself.

Findchóem (Finncháem, Fionnchaomh) Irishheroine or goddess. Like other Irish mythologi-cal women, Findchóem chose an unusual way toconceive: When she found a WORM in a glass ofwater from a holy WELL, she drank the waterdown, worm and all, in the hopes that she wouldconceive a hero. She did, bearing the heroCONALL Cernach; but her foster son CÚCHU-LAINN was even more powerful. Such unnaturalconception is found in other lands as well, forexample in mythological stories of ancestralmothers of Chinese dynasties, and may reflect aperiod when lineage was traced through themother. Evidence of such MATRILINY is found inmuch early Irish mythological material, withseveral kings bearing their mother’s names;AILILL mac Máta of CONNACHT, named for hismother, the obscure Máta; and the king ofULSTER, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, named for hismother NESSA—who was also Findchóem’smother. Findchóem herself may be a double ofher own mother, who conceived in exactly thesame fashion. Such duplication is common inIrish and other Celtic mythology.

Findias (Finias, Findrias) Irish mythologicalsite. A mysterious city of the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, it was ruled by a master of WISDOM

named USCIAS. The unerring sword of kingNUADA came from Findias.

fine (derbfine) Irish social role. The “kingroup,” or fine, was a major form of social organ-ization in ancient Ireland. Those who weredescendants of the same great-grandfather,called derbfine or “true kin,” shared land thatcould not be sold by any member without theconsent of the others; less closely related people

fine 187

constituted the fine. The individual was respon-sible to the group for his good behavior, sincethe entire kin group was held responsible for anyÉRIC or honor price due for the injury or killingof a member of another kin group. Conversely, ifa member of the fine was killed or injured, thewhole group shared in the honor price, whichwas usually paid in COWS. Heads of kin groups,chosen by election, negotiated for the group andrepresented them in public gatherings.

Source: Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law.Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies. Early Irish LawSeries, Vol. III, 1988, pp. 12–13.

Fíngein Irish hero. Common in Irish narra-tives, Fíngein is the name of several significanthealers and some minor kings.

Finn Irish hero. This name, which like FIND

means “white” or “fair” and refers to WISDOM

rather than skin tone, was a common name forheroes both male and female; it is a variant of thename given to the greatest of Irish heroes, FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL. The most prominent Finnswere the three identically named triplet brotherswho were known as the Three Finns of EmainMacha or Trí Finn Emna, despite their givennames of Bres, Nár, and Lothar. Together theyimpregnated their sister-lover, CLOTHRA ofCONNACHT, with a son who was born with redstripes dividing the portions of his body inher-ited from each of his fathers. They then took uparms against their father, king EOCHAID Fedlechof TARA, but were defeated by him, whereuponhe died of sorrow at their loss.

Finnabair (Findabar, Fionnúir) Irish heroineor goddess. The beautiful daughter of MEDB ofCONNACHT may be a double of that goddess-queen, for she has many of the same qualities,including a steely sense of her own worth. Sheloved the hero FRÁECH and agreed to a tryst with

him on an island surrounded by a deep pool.Fráech, swimming naked out to her, had to fightoff a fierce sea-monster, which attempted toremove that which would have made their trystenjoyable. Despite his bravery and his desire forFinnabair, Fráech could not fulfill the dowrydemands of Medb and AILILL mac Máta, her par-ents, who coveted the CATTLE of the OTHER-WORLD that were part of Fráech’s fortune. Manyadventures ensued before Finnabair and herlover were united. They were soon parted againwhen the girl was captured and dragged to afortress in the Alps, from which Fráech freed her.

During the CATTLE RAID on the northernPROVINCE of ULSTER, recorded in detail in theepic TAIN BÓ CUAILNGE, Medb offered Finnabairto various warriors in return for their willingnessto fight against the hero CÚCHULAINN, who wassingle-handedly holding off the Connacht army.Like other heroes, Fráech took up the challenge;like other heroes, Fráech was killed. Finnabairthen died of a broken heart. This heroine is verylikely a diminished goddess, as are others whoshare the name—GUINEVERE in the Arthuriancycle, as well as the Welsh heroine Gwenhwyfarand the Cornish Jennifer.

Finnbennach (Findbennach, Fionn Bhean-nach) Irish mythological beast. This splendidwhite-horned BULL began his existence as aswineherd named RUCHT, who served a mancalled Ochall Ochne and who argued constantlywith another swineherd, FRIUCH. Their enmitywas so deep-seated that every time they died, theywere reborn as enemies. They were RAVENS,fighting in the air; they were STAGS, fighting inthe woodlands. Finally they were reborn as water-WORMS in different streams and in distant parts ofIreland. It was difficult for them to wage warupon each other in this lowly form, to say noth-ing of the miles between them. So they set aboutpreparing to continue their warfare in anotherincarnation. Rucht whispered to queen MEDB ofCONNACHT that she should wed AILILL mac Máta;Friuch similarly whispered to the king of

188 Fíngein

Cuailnge that he should prepare for war thatwould be waged over a bull. Then the two wormswriggled themselves into position to be drunk upby two COWS, thus impregnating them so thatthey could both be reborn as bulls.

The reborn swineherd became the mostmagnificent bull in Connacht. Born into Medb’sherd, he felt it beneath him to be owned by awoman and thus joined her husband Ailill’s,making him one bull richer than she was. As thisdramatically altered her legal relationship withAilill, Medb set about finding a bull as superb asFinnbennach, locating the other reborn swine-herd in the powerful body of the brown bullDONN CUAILNGE of ULSTER. Medb’s CATTLE

RAID finally brought together the bitter enemies,who immediately set upon each other in a fiercebattle in which Finnbennach was killed—but inthe process, he gored Donn Cuailnge so that theother bull died as well. This cattle raid waschronicled in the Irish epic TAIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

The SHAPE-SHIFTING and REINCARNATION

that mark this curious story suggest that the twoswineherd/water-worm/bulls were originallygods or BARDS, the two categories of beings mostprone to such behavior. If that is so, the explana-tory referents are lost, leaving just a vigorous taleof war and battle.

Finnbheara (Finvarra, Fin Varra, Fionvarra,Finbar). Irish hero. FAIRYLAND was more oftenspoken of as ruled by a queen rather than a king,but Finnbheara is an exception. From his FAIRY

MOUND at KNOCKMA near Tuam in Co. Galway,he ruled all the fairies of the western province ofCONNACHT—or, some say, all the fairies ofIreland. Although he had a fairy wife, ÚNA,Finnbheara specialized in stealing beautifulwomen, lulling their suspicions away with thesoothing music of fairyland and then snatchingthem from this world. In the bright beauty ofFinnbheara’s palace, these women forgot theirearthly lives and danced and sang without sadnessor sorrow. Sometimes, as in the story of EITHNE

the Fair, the woman’s body remained behind and

she seemed to be in a coma from which she couldnot be aroused; sometimes she simply vanished.Both Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats col-lected tales of Finnbheara; he appears in several ofYeats’s plays and many of his poems as a symbol ofthe beautiful OTHERWORLD.

Source: Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, MysticCharms and Superstitions of Ireland. London:Chatto and Windus, 1902, p. 43.

Finnéces Irish hero. When the great heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL was a small boy, he livedas a student with the DRUID Finnéces. Some saythey lived near the mouth of the River Boyne inthe east, some say near the falls of ASSAROE in thewest. In either case, they lived near a pool overwhich magical HAZEL bushes hung, droppingtheir nuts into the water and nourishing theSALMON that swam there. For seven yearsFinnéces had been waiting for just the rightmoment to gain the WISDOM that the salmonheld within itself. When the time was right, thedruid caught the FISH, who came to his line asthough by prearrangement.

Finnéces set the fish to cook, leaving the boyFionn to watch it and warning him not to touchit or taste it. But the salmon sizzled and spat-tered onto Fionn’s thumb, which he stuck intohis mouth to ease the pain. Immediately wisdomflooded him—the very wisdom that the olddruid had been hoping to attain. Almost thesame story is told of the great Welsh BARD TAL-IESIN, but it is the CAULDRON of the goddessCERIDWEN that holds wisdom in that tale; thename of the boy who steals wisdom in that storyis GWION, cognate to Fionn. Given the similar-ity of the names Finnéces and Fionn, some havesuggested a doubling of one figure; additionally,the salmon is often sometimes called FINTAN,another similar name.

Source: O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 326.

Finnéces 189

Finnen (Fennel, Finnine, Fininne) Irish god-dess. One of the FAIRY QUEENS or goddesses ofthe significant archaeological region aroundLOUGH GUR in eastern Co. Limerick, Finnenbears a name meaning “white” or “brilliant,” par-allel to other mythic figures including the greathero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. She forms a pairwith another local goddess, ÁINE, “the brightone,” suggesting an ancient TWIN sun goddess.

Finn McCool Irish and Scottish folkloric fig-ure. Legends and tales of this GIANT abound inIreland (especially in the northern province ofULSTER) as well as in Scotland. Although adegraded form of the great Irish hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL, Finn is also a figure in his ownright, a kind of Paul Bunyan, full of recklessenergy. The most famous stories told of him arethat he created the GIANT’S CAUSEWAY, arenowned basalt rock formation, by droppingstones, and that he bested the giant BENADON-NER through trickery; other variants say Finnslew the giant who built the causeway.

Fintan Irish hero or god. “The white ancient”is the meaning of this name, which is worn byseveral important mythological figures:

• Fintan the salmon, also known as GOLL EssaRuaid (“the one-eyed one of the red water-fall”), who swam in the pool at the source ofone of Ireland’s rivers, variously the Boyneand the Erne, nibbling the HAZEL nuts thatdropped from magical bushes that surroundedthe water. He was caught by the DRUID

FINNÉCES and eaten, accidentally, by the greathero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, who therebygained immense WISDOM.

• Fintan mac Bóchra, the most ancient ofIrishmen, the only one to survive the floodthat brought the seafaring queen CESAIR andher 50 women to Ireland. The women wereaccompanied by only three men, two of whom“perished of embraces,” according to the BOOK

OF INVASIONS, while Fintan, to save himself,

fled. He then transformed himself into manyshapes, including the one-eyed SALMON GOLL

Essa Ruaid as well as an EAGLE and a hawk.Such SHAPE-SHIFTING is seen also in BARDS

such as AMAIRGIN and TUAN MAC CAIRILL, aswell as in the stories of several divinities.

• Fintan, son of NIALL Nioganach, who playsa minor role in the tale of the INTOXICATION

OF THE ULSTERMEN.

Fiongalla Irish heroine. This obscure figureis connected with the southwestern PROVINCE ofMUNSTER, where the “fair-cheeked one” wasbewitched by the powerful woman DRUID

Amerach from ULSTER, who grew no olderdespite the passing years. She made Fiongallavow never to sleep with a man until one broughther magical YEW berries, HOLLY boughs, andmarigolds. Amerach lost her power overFiongalla when a hero named Feargal performedthe almost impossible task.

Fionn Cycle See FENIAN CYCLE.

Fionnghal nam Fiadh (Flora of the Deer,Sorch an O-rfhuil, Clara of the Golden Hair, theCrazed One of the Mountains) Scottish hero-ine. In a story that resembles the Irish tale of thewild woman MIS, the beautiful maiden Fionnghalwas jilted by her lover, who took his ambitiousmother’s advice to marry a richer woman.Fionnghal went mad, running into the moun-tains naked and screaming. She lived thereamong the DEER, growing hair so that shelooked like a member of the herd, who acceptedher as one of their own.

Eventually all her kinsmen and other pursuersgave up the chase, save her once-beloved, whokept tracking her despite her madness. At lastone day he found her, naked and asleep, in hisown campsite. He covered her with his cloak andwaited. When she awoke she was sane and thank-ful but told him that she was dying and, indeed,did so soon thereafter. Her lover brought her

190 Finnen

body down from the mountains and, as soon ashe had delivered it to her kin, died himself. Fromtheir adjoining graves, two great weeping willowsgrew up and entwined themselves.

Source: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, p. 657.

Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn Mac Cool, FinnMac Cumhal, Demne Máel) Irish hero. Thereare two great heroes in Irish mythology, each thecenter of a cycle of myths and connected with anera and a PROVINCE. The great warrior CÚCHU-LAINN of the ULSTER CYCLE is the first; he isdescribed as living at the height of CelticIreland’s power (presumably the fifth and sixthcenturies C.E.) and is associated with the north-western province. A later hero is FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, whose warrior band, the FIANNA,recalls the unattached bands of protective war-riors common in Ireland through the earlyMiddle Ages. Because their center was at theHill of Allen (see ALMU) in Co. Kildare, theFianna and their leader are linked to the south-eastern province of LEINSTER.

Fionn bears the name of his father,CUMHALL, who died when he was young.Legend varies about why he was left fatherless atan early age. In one tale, Cumhall raped thenoble MURNA and was killed in retaliation by thehero CONN of the Hundred Battles, leaving theunfortunate Murna pregnant with Fionn. Inanother, Cumhall was innocent of wrongdoingbut fell into conflict with an opposing clan; theconflict between Cumhall and Fionn’s CLAN

BAÍSCNE with their antagonists, CLAN MORNA, isthe basis for much legend in the FENIAN CYCLE.Other variants exist as well, all of which empha-size the early demise of Fionn’s father and theimportance of feminine energy in his early life,for it was through his mother Murna that Fionnclaimed divine descent from her ancestor NUADA

of the Silver Hand, king of the mythologicalTUATHA DÉ DANANN. The most significant influ-

ence on Fionn’s childhood was his aunt and fos-ter mother, the DRUID BODHMALL, who nursedhim and began his education, which was fur-thered by LUATHS LURGANN, a WARRIOR WOMAN

who trained Fionn in the martial arts and whomhe accidentally killed.

As is the case with all such heroes, Fionn’spower was evident early; while still a boy, heacquired all the world’s WISDOM and revealed hisgreat skill as a fighter. Sent by his aunt to studywith the hermit druid FINNÉCES, Fionn (thencalled Demne Máel or “druid’s tonsure”) was leftto watch a SALMON turning on a spit. Thatsalmon was no ordinary fish but the renownedsalmon of wisdom, sometimes called FINTAN, aBARD who had lived in many incarnations andthus gained all possible wisdom. Finnéces hadbeen watching for seven years—not coinciden-tally, since the time of Fionn’s birth—for thesalmon to rise in the waters of the sacred WELL

(see ASSAROE), and when it did, he captured itneatly and set it to cook, intending to devour itand thus gain all of Fintan’s vast vision. But thesalmon splattered onto Fionn’s thumb, and hestuck it in his mouth to salve the pain. Thus didFionn gain all the salmon’s wisdom; from thenon, all he had to do was suck on his thumb andhe would enter an altered, visionary state inwhich he could see past, present, and future. Asall the names of the characters in this story areconnected, the salmon has been seen as a tripli-cation or intensification of Fionn himself.

Not only wisdom was Fionn’s from child-hood but also strength and skill with weapons.His name derives from his first fight to thedeath, when after winning an athletic competi-tion he was challenged as victor by a rival, whomhe killed, whereupon he was dubbed “the fairboy” or Fionn, a name that stuck. To it wasadded his father’s name, so that the hero went bythe full name of Fionn mac Cumhaill, Fionn sonof Cumhall.

From that point, as with all such heroes,Fionn was sent to study his craft further andchose the warrior woman BÚANANN, who is par-allel to the Scottish amazon SCÁTHACH who

Fionn mac Cumhaill 191

trained Cúchulainn. But he had a male tutor aswell, the warrior CETHERN MAC FINTAIN. By thetime he entered manhood, Fionn had all thenecessary skills for fame and glory: He was theworld’s fastest runner, he never missed the markwith his spear, he could swim across any body ofwater, and he had the added advantage of beingable to suck his thumb and know the where-abouts and weaknesses of his enemy.

Like king ARTHUR gathering the knights ofthe ROUND TABLE, Fionn gathered a band ofwarriors to defend his province, Leinster. Suchfianna seem to have been a real feature of ancientIrish life; rather than maintaining standingarmies, kings relied upon such groups and theirleaders for protection against invaders, but theyalso fought among themselves, as the continualdisputes between Fionn’s Clan Baíscne and theopposing Clan Morna show. Among Fionn’sdearest companions in the Fianna were his hunt-ing dogs BRAN and SCEOLAN. Many Fenian leg-ends describe Fionn’s prowess in battle, as whenhe becomes the only hero powerful enough tosubdue the monstrous AILLÉN TRENCHENN, whoregularly burned the palace at Tara.

Fionn is now generally believed to have origi-nally been divine, a status made clear in legendsthat he created the countryside as part of his activ-ities. He is said to have cut mountains in half withhis sword and left scratches where he clung torocks as he climbed. More often the Fenian storiestell of adventures in the human realm. A typicalstory tells of a slovenly man who approachedFionn when he was traveling in Scotland andgained employment as a carrier of the hero’s bag-gage. The man revealed a superhuman strengththat impressed even Fionn. Not only that, but hecould hunt, and every morning caught a deer forbreakfast; beyond that, the man could cook, alwayshaving the deer nicely grilled by the time warriorsof the Fianna were awake. One member of theFianna was envious and bitter; this man, CONÁN,challenged the slovenly servant to a race to theHill of Howth and back again, with the loser to bedecapitated. The man refused to permit Conán towager his head but accepted the challenge.

They set off, with the slovenly servant stop-ping to take pebbles from his shoe and to cut hislong trailing cloak. He still reached the goalbefore Conán, however, and he struck Conánsuch a blow that his head turned around on hisneck. Fionn demanded that Conán’s head be setright, and the servant agreed, but only if Fionnwould take him to his home. As they arrived, theservant was transformed into a prince, for thecurse he had been laboring under could only belifted if he entered his home with Fionn macCumhaill. Such folktales, which probably weredrawn into the orbit of the Fenians from theirdisparate original sources, are typical of thoseconnected to Fionn in the oral tradition.

The Fenian Cycle places an unusual empha-sis on courtship and love for such an apparentlymasculine sequence of tales. Because Fionn hasno single wife, he is linked to one woman afteranother: SADB, who was turned into a DEER, sothat Fionn’s brilliant son OISÍN was born withfawn’s fur for brows; ÁINE, by whom he had twosons; the poetess CRÉD; the unnamed daughterof the king of Greece; the married Maer and theunfaithful Maigneis; and many others. As hegrew older, Fionn remained desirous of womenbut became less desirable himself. In his dotagehe was betrothed to the beautiful GRÁINNE, whopreferred the young hero DIARMAIT; the saga oftheir elopement and pursuit by Fionn does notshow the elder hero in the best of lights, espe-cially when he refused to heal his wounded rival,but it is full of realistic drama.

The story of how Gráinne became Fionn’sbetrothed is told in the place-lore legends of theCAIRN-crowned hill SLIEVENAMON. Desiring ayoung partner, Fionn volunteered to impregnatethe strongest, speediest girl in MUNSTER—thewinner to be determined by a footrace. Standingon the cairn atop Slievenamon, Fionn gave a sig-nal, at which point all the young women of theprovince ran toward him. Competitive and strong,the king’s daughter Gráinne outran everyone andreached the hilltop first. But she never, the storysays, bore the heroes she had been promised,although some variants say that after her lover’s

192 Fionn mac Cumhaill

death, Gráinne agreed to fulfill her duties asFionn’s wife and bore him several children.

Just as there are multiple versions of the storyof Fionn’s birth, so there are variants of howFionn died. Most commonly the hero’s antago-nists of the Clan Morna are blamed; the head ofthat clan, the one-eyed GOLL MAC MORNA, dealtthe death blow. Fionn’s death is said to have hap-pened at numerous locations around bothIreland and Scotland. He may have been rebornas the hero MONGÁN. Or perhaps Fionn did notdie at all, but rests with the Fianna, sleeping in acave somewhere in Ireland until his land needshim again, like the once and future king ARTHUR

of Britain.

Sources: Almqvist, Bo, Séamus Ó Catháin, andPáidaig ó Héalaí. The Heroic Process: Form,Function and Fantasy in Folk Epic. Dublin: TheGlendale Press, 1987, p. 76; Cross, Tom Peete,and Clark Harris Slover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales.New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1936, pp. 260ff; Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland. NewYork: Benjamin Blom, 1894, pp. 407, 438, 463;Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of the IrishCelts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, pp.222–223; MacKillop, James. Fionn macCumhaill: Celtic Myth in English Literature.Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,1986; McKay, John G. More West HighlandTales. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Vol. 2. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd,1969, p. 69; Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Fionn macCumhaill: Images of the Gaelic Hero. Dublin: Gill& Macmillan, 1988.

Fionnuala (Finola, Finnguala, Fionnuala,Fionguala, Finnuala, Fionnula) Irish heroine.One of the most famous Irish myths centers onthis girl, child of king LIR and his beloved firstwife ÁEB, who was the daughter of the magicianBODB DERG. Lir and Áeb were happy togetherand delighted when Fionnuala and her twinbrother ÁED were born. But then Áeb died giv-ing birth to her second set of twin sons, FIACHRA

and CONN, and Lir married his wife’s foster sis-ter AÍFE, hoping to make a happy home for hismotherless children.

Aífe was jealous of her charges, however, andplotted against them. Convincing Lir that shewas desperately ill and needed the attentions ofher foster father, Aífe set off with the children toBodb Derg’s home in the west. Along the way,she turned on them and transformed them intoSWANS, cursing them to remain so for 900 years.

Even Bodb Derg’s magic was not enough toundo the damage—although he turned his fosterdaughter into a demon of the air (in some ver-sions, a CRANE) in retaliation for her action. Butthe CHILDREN OF LIR were left as swans withhuman emotions and human voices to sing oftheir woes. They spent 300 years on LoughDerravaragh in the center of Ireland, then 300years on the frigid Sea of Moyle to the north,and finally on an island in the far west, off Co.Mayo (although local legend in west Co. Corkalso claims they lived there). There the enchant-ment finally wore off, but the years they hadlived caught up with them instantly, and theyaged, died, and turned to dust, to be buried inthe old way, standing upright in the grave.

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, ed. and trans. Early IrishMyths and Sagas. New York: Penguin Books,1984, pp. 147 ff; Gregory, Lady Augusta. Godsand Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha DeDanaan and of the Fianna of Ireland. New York:Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 124 ff;Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances. London:Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 1–32; Kennedy,Patrick. Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. NewYork: Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 27; Markale,Jean. Women of the Celts. Rochester, Vt.: InnerTraditions, 1986, p. 242; Squire, Charles.Mythology of the Celtic People. London: BrackenBooks, 1996, p. 142.

Fir Bolg (Gáilióin, Fir Domnann) Irishmythological race. The legendary history ofIreland tells of many invasions—indeed, it is

Fir Bolg 193

called the BOOK OF INVASIONS. Although the magi-cal and sometimes monstrous races described areclearly mythological, the text does reflect the his-torical truth that Ireland was settled in multiplemigratory waves. Some of these were non-Celticpeople, including the unknown earliest settlersand the later Picts. Then came the Celts, not allat one time but in several waves. The earliest werepeople whose dialect was called P-Celtic; later-comers spoke a Q-Celtic language. It has notbeen established beyond dispute how manymigrations took place, or what tribes came, norfrom what area they originated. What is clear isthat Ireland was not settled all at once by only onepeople; nor was there always a peaceful reactionto new people arriving in already occupied lands.

Among these early immigrants or invaderswere some that have come into legend as the FirBolg; earlier scholars derived their name from thepresumed connection with the word for “bag”and called them “men of the bags,” but the cur-rent understanding is that their name is related tothe tribal names Builg or Belgae, the same Celtictribes that gave their name to Belgium. Thesepeoples may have traced their descent from ahypothesized ancestral divinity named Bolg orBulg, possibly the ruler of thunder; thus theirname would mean “sons of the god/dess Bolg”and would be corollary to the later TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, “children of the goddess DANU.”Legend has it that the Fir Bolg were

descended from the children of NEMED orNemedians, another mythological race who hadlived in Ireland generations before the Fir Bolg.Cast out by the fierce FOMORIANS, Nemed’s sonSTARN found himself in Greece, where hisdescendants were enslaved for 230 years, carry-ing bags of dirt to build up hills. Eventually theyturned these bags into boats and escaped,returning to their ancient homeland.

They arrived on the harvest feast of LUGH-NASA under the leadership of Dela, who dividedthe island among his sons: the southwesternPROVINCE of MUNSTER went to Gann andSengann; SLANE took the eastern province ofLEINSTER, and Rudraige, ULSTER to the north.

Dynasties were established and kings began torule. Among the Fir Bolg kings of note wereEOCHAID mac Eirc, who ruled the middleprovince with his famed wife TAILTIU; Rinnal,who invented spear points; and DELGA, who builtthe great fort of DÚN Delgan, now Dundalk inCo. Louth. Other renowned members of the FirBolg were the healer Fíngein Fisiochda and thehero SRENG. Curiously, there is no mention ofthe monstrous Fomorians who drove out the FirBolg ancestors, although they reappear ulti-mately to combat the Fir Bolg’s own conquerors.

The Fir Bolg ruled for only 37 years before theTuatha Dé Danann arrived, the most magical ofIreland’s mythological races. In the great combatcalled the first battle of MAG TUIRED, the TuathaDé Danann king NUADA drove the Fir Bolg fromIreland, although he lost his arm and his right tothe throne in the process (see BLEMISHED KING).Like later (and possibly earlier) conquered peoplesin Ireland, the Fir Bolg retreated to the distantreaches of the Celtic world: the Aran Islands offIreland’s west coast, where their king Aonghusbuilt the great fort of Dún Aongusa; to islands offthe Scottish coast; and to wild Connemara, wheretheir king was said to be named Bola, a possiblederivative of their tribal name.

Irish place-names refer to this mythologicalrace: Dún Bolg in Co. Wicklow, Moherbullog inCo. Clare, Moyboulogue in Co. Cavan. If theydo represent a Celtic people who were driven tothe geographical fringes by later Celtic invaders,it is likely that the inhabitants of those areasdescend from the Fir Bolg.

Sources: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Part 4.Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941, pp. 1–90;O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, pp. 16, 42.

fir chlis Scottish folkloric figure. The “nimbleman” personified the northern lights or auroraborealis in Scottish folklore.

194 fir chlis

Fir Dea See TUATHA DÉ DANANN.

Fir Domnann See FIR BOLG.

fire Symbolic element. The force of fire is dif-ferent from the other major elements in that it isnot constant. Water is available in rain as well asrivers and oceans; the earth is everywherebeneath our feet; air surrounds us continually.But fire is found in only two ways: in the domes-tic hearth and in the flames of wildfire, which areoften set by lightning. More distantly, fire can beimagined as existing in the SUN, often pictured asa ball of flame; there is evidence that the Celtsconnected the earthly and solar fires.

Fire deities are found in Celtic mythology,typically with wildfire divinities being male andthose of the hearth fire, female. TARANIS, thecontinental Celtic thunder god, was associatedwith lightning and with the fires that typicallyfollowed its strikes. LUGH appears to have servedthe same function in insular mythology.Honoring the hearth fire was a belief shared bythe Celts with their Indo-European kin fromareas as diverse as Lithuania and India; the ritualwas most notable in the cult of the Roman Vesta,served by a college of priestesses. A similar col-lege appears to have served the Irish goddessBRIGIT; interpreters argue that the Christian sis-terhood of Kildare replicated the Celtic tradi-tion in which an ashless, ever-burning fire wastended by one sister each night for 19 nights, the20th being left for Brigit herself. UnderChristianity, that flame blazed for more than 10centuries, to be extinguished by a Protestantbishop; the holy flame was relit in 1994 by mem-bers of the Brigidine order, the continuation ofthat established by St. Brigit.

Given the preponderance of female hearth-fire divinities and the association of that fire withthe sun, the likelihood of the sun being perceivedas a goddess seems high. However, a longstand-ing belief that all cultures honored the sun as amasculine force has kept this question frombeing examined until recently. In the last several

decades, evidence has mounted that sun god-desses were more common than previously pro-posed. Many scholars now offer evidence that theCelts saw the sun as a feminine force, as nurtur-ing as the hearth goddess; others suggest a dou-ble rulership of the sun by both god and goddess.

In Ireland fire was connected with a numberof festivals. Those of MIDSUMMER may be dis-placed from celebrations of LUGHNASA, theCeltic summer festival, or may hearken to a pre-Celtic past. St. John’s Eve, celebrated on June 23,just two days after the year’s longest day on thesummer SOLSTICE, was called Bonfire Night inmany regions of Ireland. Celebratory blazes,always circular, were lit near holy WELLS and atother sacred sites, and dances were held throughthe night. Neglecting the fires might mean thatFISH would not come into the rivers nor fieldsbear grain and potatoes. In Co. Limerick, therewas a tradition of striking dancers with a recentlycut reed to protect them against illness; the reedswere then tossed into the fire, the potential con-tagion thus being burned away. The bravestdancers leapt over the fire, whose ASHES wereused in blessings on crops, stock, and homes.

In Scotland fire was construed as both protec-tive and purifying; fire carried around a house ina sunwise direction protected building and occu-pants from harm. Into recent times in Scotland,the NEED-FIRE was practiced when famine or epi-demic threatened; all hearth fires in an area wereextinguished, then a group of men created a newfire by rubbing planks of wood together until aflame burst forth. Those attending the ceremonytook a flame of the new fire to their home, whilethe original fire was doused with water and theashes smeared on cattle for protection.

Sources: Danaher, Kevin. The Year in Ireland. Cork:Mercier Press, 1922, p. 135; MacCulloch, J. A.The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London:Constable, 1911, pp. 261 ff, 199 ff;McCrickard, Janet. Eclipse of the Sun.Glastonbury: Gothic Image, 1994, p. 22; Ross,Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London:B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 98.

fire 195

Fir Ghorm (Fir Gorm) See BLUE MEN OF

THE MINCH.

Fir Gorm See BLUE MEN OF THE MINCH.

first footer (qualtagh) Scottish folkloric fig-ure. In Scotland and on the Isle of Man, the firstperson (or being of whatever species) met on theroad when on the way to a christening or a wed-ding was traditionally offered bread and cheese,to buy the goodwill of the spirits for the newyear. More important was the first person toenter a home on January 1. Called the qualtaghamong the Manx and the first footer in Scotland,this person should be a dark-complected man ofhearty good health. On the Isle of Man, RED-headed people were feared as first footers, forthat coloring was thought to be connected to theFAIRY realm, while in Scotland redheads wereacceptable. It was important for the first footerto bear a gift, for an empty-handed caller indi-cated poor fortune for the year. In return, thefirst footer was offered something, usually foodor drink.

fish Symbolic animal. The preeminent Christ-ian symbol had significance to the Celts as well.The fish was emblematic of WISDOM, especiallyin the form of the SALMON or trout that wasbelieved to swim in holy WELLS and other watersources. These fish were said to be speckled, withthe same number of spots as the HAZEL nuts theyhad devoured from the magical bushes that sur-rounded the well.

Fisher King British or Arthurian hero. InGRAIL legends, especially in stories concerningthe pure knight PERCIVAL, we find the image of aking who, injured almost unto death, sits in hisboat and fishes while the land about him withersand dies. Once a virile and vital young man, hehad unwisely attacked a mounted stranger who,before he died, left a portion of his sharp lancein the young king’s groin; on the lance tip were

the words, “The Grail.” Kept alive, but not well,by a magical stone, the king waited in agony forsomeone to lift the enchantment.

Although some disclaim any Celtic influenceon this figure, others point to the motif of theBLEMISHED KING, in which the land and its rulerare seen as a married couple, with the earthreliant upon the king’s health to be fruitful. Theearth goddess could not be fructified by theFisher King, who needed the curative power ofthe Grail to revive himself and the land. In addi-tion to works based upon the Grail legends, thisfigure appears in T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”and in the film comedy The Fisher King.

In some texts Alain le Gros appears asPercival’s father, called the Fisher King becausehe reproduced a biblical miracle, feeding a throngof people with only one fish, then building thecastle of CORBENIC as a home for the Grail. Othernames for the Fisher King include Anfortas(“infirmity”), Alain, Bron, Pelles, and Rothniam.

Fithel (Fítheal, Fíothal, Fithil) Irish hero. Awise judge or BREHON of Irish tradition, he adju-dicated the disputes of the warrior band, theFIANNA, who served under his brother FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL; he eventually departed to serveunder king CORMAC MAC AIRT at TARA.

Fithir Irish heroine. When the beautifulFithir drew the eye of the king of LEINSTER, thegirl’s father Túathal Techtmar refused her handto the king, forcing him to wed her older sisterDÁIRINE instead. But then Dáirine mysteriouslydied, or so the king reported when he returnedonce again to ask for Fithir’s hand. This time hiswish was granted, but when Fithir discoveredthat her sister was actually imprisoned with herhandmaidens in a high tower in a thick darkwoodland, she died of shock and shame.

five Cosmological number. The most signifi-cant numbers to Celtic peoples were THREE,representing intensification, and five, represent-ing a natural order, as witnessed by the five

196 Fir Ghorm

fingers of each hand and the toes of each foot.Five may have formed the basis of the early Irishcounting system, for the number appears inmany mythological contexts (the five-pointedspear of the CONNACHT king AILILL mac Máta,the five sacred names of the hill of TARA, the fivewarriors who simultaneously killed the heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL). In addition, there was asocial context, for the smallest family unit, calledthe geilfine, comprised five people. Irelandapplied the number geographically, dividing theisland into five mythological PROVINCES, ofwhich the central one, MIDE, was a magically sit-uated center around which the other four werelocated. Thus five can be seen as a magicallyenhanced version of four, the number of whole-ness, as well as a naturally occurring number thathas its own innate power.

Source: Rees, Alwyn, and Brinley Rees. CelticHeritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales.London: Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 118 ff,186 ff.

Flaith (Flaithius) See SOVEREIGNTY.

Flann Irish hero. Several minor figures ofIrish mythology bear this name, which means“blood-red.” The two most prominent may beversions of the same figure, for both arerenowned lovers: Flann mac Díma, lover ofMUGAIN, wife of DIARMAIT mac Cerbaill, whoburned down Flann’s house and caused him todrown, thus bringing a curse upon himself; andFlann ua Fedach, the FAIRY KING who elopedwith the queen of TARA, BECFHOLA.

Flidais (Flidas, Fliodhas) Irish goddess. ManyEuropean cultures had a woodland goddess likeFlidais, who resembles the Greek ARTEMIS, theRoman DIANA, and the continental Celtic ARTIO.Flidais represented the force of FERTILITY and ofabundance. As goddess of wild beasts, whose veryname means “doe,” she rode in a chariot drawnby DEER; as goddess of the domestic herds, she

possessed a magical COW that gave enough MILK

to supply 30 people each night.Her animal nature was also revealed in her sex-

ual behavior, for she was as voracious as her con-sort, the randy FERGUS Mac Róich; if Flidais wasnot interested, Fergus made do with seven normalwomen. Flidais was sometimes said to be marriedto the fairy ÁDAMMAIR, about whom nothing else isknown. Her daughters had temperaments similarto hers: BÉ CHUILLE, evicted from FAIRYLAND forher promiscuity; another wanton woman of whomlittle legend remains, Bé Téite; and finally FAND,the wild FAIRY who stole away the hero CÚCHU-LAINN from his admired wife EMER.

Source: Clark, Rosalind. The Great Queens: IrishGoddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen NíHoulihan. Irish Literary Studies 34. GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, 1991, p. 31.

Florence Arthurian hero. The great knightGAWAIN had several illegitimate sons, includingFlorence, who was killed when LANCELOT,trapped in queen GUINEVERE’s bedroom, fledwith sword flying.

foawr Manx folkloric figures. These GIANTS

were said to live at sea and to amuse themselvesby throwing boulders at passing sailors. Theyare occasionally thought to be derived from themythological Irish race, the FOMORIANS.

Fódla (Fodla, Fodhla, Fóta) Irish goddess.Three goddesses of the magical race, theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, met the mortal MILESIANS

when they staged the final invasion into Irelandrecorded in the mythological BOOK OF INVASIONS.The goddesses each offered to let the invaderspass if they would name the land for her. TheMilesians cavalierly promised they would do so,and so she stepped aside. Fódla met the invadersat Slieve Felim, a mountain in Co. Limerick, oron nearby MAUHER SLIEVE, otherwise dedicatedto an obscure goddess named ÉBHLINNE, whichmay be another name for Fódla.

Fódla 197

BANBA met the invaders on her mountain,Slieve Mis; she offered them the same arrange-ment, and they made the same agreement withher. But it was ÉRIU, goddess of the centralmountain of UISNEACH, who was the mostimpressive and wealthy, and so Ireland (Érinn) isnamed for her. Some versions of the Book ofInvasions claim that it was not Ériu who ownedUisneach but Fódla; the three goddesses of theland are sometimes conflated in this fashion.Fódla was married to MAC CÉCHT, a warrior ofher tribe. She was killed by EADÁN at the battleof TAILTIU—which marked the victory of theMilesians over the Tuatha dé Danann.

fod seachran See STRAY SOD.

fogou Cornish mythological site. Undergroundstone chambers found in Cornwall, believed tohave been built between between 500 B.C.E. and500 C.E., fogous appear to have been places of rit-ual. As there is evidence of occupation by Celtsduring the latter part of that period, it is possiblethat the fogous were built by or used by them,although evidence suggests a pre-Celtic spiritualvision. An important clue is the alignment ofmany of the fogous to the summer SOLSTICE

sunrise, which betrays a different CALENDAR

than that used by the Celts; some have suggestedthat the stone chambers are late revivals of theMEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION that inspired STONE-HENGE. Legends link the fogous with unearthlywomen, possibly goddesses. The beehive-shapedfogous often have secret chambers within them;imaginative reconstructions center on the ideaof initiation or other ceremonies being held inthe small chambers.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore ofancient sites in the British Isles. New York:Walker and Co., 1976, pp. 76, 20; Straffon,Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic and PaganLegacy of the Landscape. London: Blandford,1997, pp. 20, 84–85.

Fomorians (Fomoire, Fomhóire, Fomoré)Irish mythological race. Lurking in the back-ground in Ireland’s mythological history aremonsters, which prey upon the various settlersand wage unrelenting war until they are at lastdefeated by the magical TUATHA DÉ DANANN. Asthere is general agreement by scholars that themyths of Ireland’s settlement related in the BOOK

OF INVASION and other texts are based in ancienthistory, the question has arisen as to who, then,these demonic beings could be. Certainly it isunlikely that they had but one leg, and one armcoming out of their chests, as early descriptionshave it. But there is little evidence to determinewho they really were. Earlier interpretations ofthem as sea monsters or pirates have been dis-counted as based on false etymology, for the morin their names is not the word for “sea” but for“phantom.” More commonly they are nowinterpreted as the remnant ghosts of ancientdivinities whose people, subjugated in earlyinvasions, remained in Ireland and intermingled(and intermarried) with the invaders.

While the earliest narratives do not distin-guish one Fomorian from the next, in latermythological texts they are individually por-trayed. They seem the peers of the Tuatha DéDanann, with whom they frequently intermarry;the Tuatha Dé goddess ÉRIU, after whom Irelandis named, took as her husband the Fomorianking ELATHA; their son BRES Mac Elatha becameking at TARA for a short time. The gigantic andevil Fomorian King BALOR, too, was related tothe Tuatha Dé through his daughter, the fairEITHNE, whose son was the half-breed LUGH.Such alliances were not stable, and the TuathaDé finally met the Fomorians in the greatestcombat in Irish mythology, the second battle ofMAG TUIRED, at which Lugh killed his grandfa-ther Balor and the Fomorians were driven for-ever from the island and into the sea.

Forgall Manach Irish hero. He was father tothe beautiful EMER, the most accomplishedwoman in Ireland and therefore the fit wife for

198 fod seachran

the hero CÚCHULAINN; Forgall’s main role in theULSTER CYCLE is to thwart Cúchulainn’s desires.Forgall, whose surname means “the wily one,”sent the hero away to train with the WARRIOR

WOMAN SCÁTHACH on the Isle of Skye, therebyensuring that his daughter’s husband wouldbecome the greatest of Irish heroes, as Scáthachran the world’s best martial arts academy.

Fortuna Roman goddess. Not a Celtic god-dess, the Roman divinity of fortune is foundnonetheless throughout Britain with her rudder,her wheel, and her CORNUCOPIA, all symbols ofher power to steer the faithful through life’schanges and to offer them abundance. Celticgoddesses of abundance were typically earthdeities, but Fortuna was honored more in urbanareas; she was, however, associated with a plenti-ful harvest during her June festival, the Cerealia,celebrated in rural Britain until the 19th century.

Fortunate Isles Mythological site. VariousISLANDS just off the shores of Ireland andScotland have been called by this name, whichrefers to the belief that FAIRIES or the gods of theTUATHA DÉ DANANN lived on beautiful floatingislands in the western sea.

fosterage Irish social custom. Noble childrenin ancient Ireland were not reared by their ownfamilies but by unrelated people, in a systemcalled fosterage. The practice created bondsbetween families and territories, so intense thatthe bond of fosterage was held to be five timesstronger than that of blood. The childrenreceived training—in druidic arts, in war, inhouseholding—together with their food andlodging, which was provided in accord with thechild’s family’s social status. Children raised inthe same household became foster brothers andsisters to each other without being related byblood. Some of the most intense relationships inIrish mythology are those between fosterlings,and unquestionably the most poignant singlescene in the many Irish tales is the combat

between the hero CÚCHULAINN and his belovedfoster brother FERDIAD, which after three daysended in Ferdiad’s death.

Myth suggests that fostering by the mother’sbrother—the child’s uncle—was particularlycommon. Thus Cúchulainn was fostered in thecourt of his uncle, king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA.Such reliance upon the maternal uncle suggeststhat despite emphasis in Irish law on strict limi-tation of women’s rights, the matrilineal line wasconsidered significant (see MATRILINY). Thelegal relationship between uncle and fosterlingwas almost as strong as that between parent andchild; it was a fosterling’s duty to care for his fos-ter parents in their age. The bonds created bysuch fostering were thus not only emotional butlegal and financial.

Fothad Canainne Irish hero. One of threebrothers, he was connected with two PROVINCES,the western region of CONNACHT and the east-ern one of LEINSTER. Most of his legend has dis-appeared or been absorbed into that of the war-rior hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, but he isinterpreted as a diminished ancient divinity, pos-sibly a fire god.

Fourknocks Irish mythological site. Amongthe many relics of the MEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION

in the Irish midlands, Fourknocks is outstandingfor its size. While most other PASSAGE GRAVES areso small that only a few people can comfortably fitwithin their inner chambers, the huge mound atFourknocks could hold several dozen with ease.Lintels engraved with zigzag designs are part ofthis impressive site’s decorations.

four-leafed clover See FAIRY OINTMENT.

fox Symbolic animal. In the Cotswolds, thewily fox was connected with a similarly cannyhuman—the WITCH, who could assume the fox’sshape in order to steal BUTTER from her neigh-bors and otherwise wreak havoc on the region. As

fox 199

foxes are known in farming communities for theirnighttime raids on valuable chicken flocks, theconnection of evil witch and thieving fox seemedeasy to those searching for a target for their anger.

foyson Folkloric motif. Within every sub-stance on earth is its foyson or toradh (“essence”).The foyson of food is its nourishment, and it wasthis, Irish folklore contends, that the FAIRIES

stripped from food when they stole it. The MILK

might remain there, creamy in the milk pail, butwithout its foyson, it had no nourishment left.Many rituals and verbal CHARMS existed to pro-tect the foyson of foodstuffs from being stolenAWAY by fairies.

Fráech (Fraoch, Fraich, Fróeach) Irish hero.The romantic hero beloved of FINNABAIR,daughter of queen MEDB of CONNACHT, Fráechwas the son of the goddess BÉBINN and thus washalf-divine. His appearance was entirely divine,for he was the most handsome man in Ireland.His reputation preceded him to Medb’s court atCRUACHAN, and Finnabair fell in love withFráech just from the descriptions of his mascu-line glories. Her desire was only heightened byhis actual presence. Happily, he fell just as muchin love with her. Finnabair gave him a little ring,a gift from her father AILILL mac Máta, and sug-gested that he ask for her hand in marriage.

Whether from greed or because he opposedthe match, Ailill set a dowry that Fráech couldnot meet, demanding that the young man bringthe magical red-eared COWS of his goddess-mother to Cruachan. This seemed impossible,so Fráech resigned himself to the loss ofFinnabair. But Ailill was not assured that theyoung man would not elope with his love, so hestole Finnabair’s ring from Fráech while the lat-ter was swimming, tossing it into the water,where a SALMON ate it. Then he challengedFráech to gather the magical healing berriesfrom a ROWAN tree growing on an island; thetree was guarded by a DRAGON that almost killedFráech, but he defeated the dragon in single

combat. Fráech was so badly wounded that ittook all the nurses of the OTHERWORLD to bringhim back to health, whereupon he returned toearth, caught the ring-swallowing salmon,returned to Cruachan, and demanded Ailillagree to his courtship of Finnabair. This time, healso agreed to bring his magical cows to Ailill,and so an agreement was finally struck.

After happy years with Finnabair, Fráechreturned home one day to find her, their chil-dren, and his magical cows gone. He tracedthem to a stone castle in the high Alps, fromwhich an Irish spirit helped him free them. Buttheir reunion was short-lived, for in IrelandMedb was mustering her armies for a CATTLE

RAID on ULSTER, which Fráech joined immedi-ately upon their return. Facing the greatest ofIrish heroes, CÚCHULAINN, at a ford in the RiverDee, Fráech lost his life in combat, andFinnabair died of grief.

This mythological story migrated fromIreland to Scotland, where it lodged in a roman-tic ballad about the “daughter of Donald” lovedby the handsome Fraoch, who swam acrossLough Luaim to get her the berries she desired.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 377; McKay,John G. More West Highland Tales. Vol. 2. ScottishAnthropological and Folklore Society.Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p. 115.

Fraechnat Irish heroine or goddess. One ofthe women who arrived with the first boatload ofinvaders into Ireland, according to the place-lore called the DINDSHENCHAS, was Fraechnat,who died and was buried on a mountain thatbears her name, Slieve Fraech. She does not,however, appear on the list of CESAIR’s compan-ions in the BOOK OF INVASIONS, so she may havebeen a local divinity adapted to the tale.

framing spell Scottish magical belief. Crossingtwo threads, in the way they would be interwovenon a loom, was an occasional spell in Scotland.

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Friuch Irish hero. The swineherd of thesupernatural magician BODB DERG had suchantagonism toward his competitor RUCHT,swineherd to the farmer OCHALL OCHNE, thatwhenever he died, he reincarnated in a form thatmatched Rucht’s. Their combat went on lifetimeafter lifetime, in the air and on the land and inthe sea, as they wore various animal and humanbodies. Finally they contrived to be reborn asthe strongest BULLS in Ireland—Rucht as thewhite-horned bull FINNBENNAC and Friuch asthe brown bull DONN CUAILNGE. The two greatbulls of course fell upon each other in combat,each killing the other. The story of their endlesscycle of REINCARNATION is part of the back-ground to the great Irish epic, TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

frog Symbolic animal. While it is relativelyrare for frogs to be described as magical in Celticfolklore, there is a Scottish tradition of the KingFrog, who wore on his head a jewel that hadgreat power for HEALING. The only way toobtain the stone was to locate the King Frog,who hid in a fen or BOG, then let down a tameOTTER into the water in hopes of scaring thefrog to the surface. When he appeared, onerapped him on the head, thus dislodging thestone, which had to be grasped quickly lest it dis-appear beneath the water’s surface.

Fuamnach Irish heroine. This DRUID was thejealous wife of the FAIRY king MIDIR. WhenMidir sought to replace her with the beautifulÉTAIN, Fuamnach struck back. With a potion shereceived from her foster father, she poisonedÉtain, who was transmuted into an insect.(Romantic versions of the story call the trans-formed Étain a butterfly, but others more baldlycall her a worm or a fly.) Some versions say thatFuamnach waved a branch of ROWAN, a magicaltree, thereby turning Étain into a puddle ofwater, a worm, and a fly; another wave of thewand created such a wind that the fly was blownclear out of Midir’s palace. Fuamnach did notultimately prevail, however, for Midir sought

out Étain after her rebirth as a human once againand, though she was queen of TARA, brought herback to his OTHERWORLD home.

fuath See VOUGH.

Fuinche See MURNA.

funeral rites Ritual observance. Not much isknown about ancient Celtic funerary rituals, butburial rather than cremation or exposure appearsto have been the norm. Stones carved withOGHAM writing are thought to have been erectedto mark some graves, although not necessarilyfor those of lower status. Grave-goods—itemsdeposited in the grave, presumably to accom-pany the dead to the OTHERWORLD—are foundin profusion: chariots, coins, ornaments,weapons. There is some evidence of HUMAN

SACRIFICE at the graves of rulers, for skulls arefound detached from the rest of the skeleton,pointing to decapitation.

There is both archaeological and textual evi-dence of a fear that the dead could return tohaunt the living, and some funerary rites seemdesigned to forestall that, including binding thefeet of corpses as though to assure they wouldnot wander about. Later customs kept the feetfree, apparently to speed the dead on their wayto the Otherworld and prevent their hangingabout to bother the living.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp.309, 337 ff.

Furbaide Ferbend Irish hero. This ULSTER

warrior, son of CONCHOBAR MAC NESSA, used hissling to kill the great queen MEDB of CONNACHT,his aunt. Furbaide’s mother was Medb’s sister,CLOTHRA, whom Medb killed at the very place(Lough Ree in the Shannon River) whereFurbaide killed her.

Furbaide Ferbend 201

furze Symbolic plant. One of the most com-mon BOG plants of Ireland, the thorny furze iscrowned with vanilla-scented yellow blossomsfor much of the year. It has little value except astinder, but it was described as feeding manyNEED-FIRES and other sacred blazes, presumablybecause it was so plentiful. Fairy legends say thatpeople under a GLAMOUR or spell will mistakethe gold of furze for real metal and stuff theirpockets with it before returning home to find alitter of petals. (See also GORSE.)

Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith See DUN COW.

Fynnodderee Manx folkloric figure. The“hairy one” of the Isle of Man loved humanwomen—so much so that he was evicted fromthe OTHERWORLD for missing too many FAIRY

dances while pursuing non-fairy maidens. Heroamed about, neither of this world nor theother, unable to settle down or to cut his longshaggy hair. Despite his loneliness, the fynnod-deree was invariably kind to humans and couldbe as helpful as a BROWNIE.

Source: Keightley, Thomas. The Fairy Mythology.London: H. G. Bohn, 1870, p. 402.

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Gabhair (Gavra, Gowra) Irish mythologicalsite. The great legion of warriors known as theFIANNA, followers of the epic hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, were almost invariably successful inbattle. Even such warriors, however, finally meettheir match, and so it was that the Fianna wasfinally routed at a great battle at Gabhair, said tobe a plain near Garristown, Co. Dublin. TheFianna had grown arrogant and troublesome, sothe high king CAIRBRE Cinn-Chait decided toend their domination over the land. He was suc-cessful, but in doing so lost his life to Fionn’sgrandson, the warrior OSCAR—who himself waskilled in the battle.

Gablach Irish heroine. The GIANT womanGablach was wooed by an equally huge manfrom Spain named Lutur. When Gablach’s fam-ily met her fiancé, an army surrounded them anddemanded battle, for the human hero Fuitherhad set his sights on winning Gablach’s hand.His violent suit came to naught, for Luturpicked up a roofbeam and brained several dozensoldiers, which excited Gablach so that shejoined in the fight, killing Fuither in her ener-getic defense of her betrothed.

Gabriel hounds (Gabriel ratchets, gazehounds, lyme hounds) British folkloric figures.

In Britain spectral dogs (see BLACK DOG andPOOKA) were thought to disguise themselves asmigrating waterbirds, especially wild geese, andto fly overhead barking in voices that soundedlike birdcalls. When they circled over a houserather than flying straight on, it portended deathor other disaster. The antique name “ratchet,”meaning a hunting hound, shows that the beliefis an old one, probably related to such FAIRY fig-ures as the BANSHEE and other foretellers ofdoom. The “Gabriel” to whom the houndsbelonged is another name for GWYNN AP NUDD,the Welsh king of the OTHERWORLD, and doesnot refer to the Christian archangel.

Gadelus See GOIDEL.

Gáe Assail Irish mythic symbol. Ireland’smagical race, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, had fourtreasures: an inexhaustible CAULDRON that wasowned by the beneficent god DAGDA, the INAU-GURATION STONE called the LIA FÁIL that stoodon the royal hill of TARA, the sword of the war-rior king NUADA that always found its victim, andthe Gáe Assail, a spear that returned to the handsof its thrower when it had finished its bloodybusiness. If the thrower yelled the word for“yew” (ibar) while launching the spear, the resultwas certain death for the victim.

6G

203

Gáe Bulga (Bolga, Bolg) Irish mythicweapon. The famous weapon of the Irish heroCÚCHULAINN was given him by his teacher, theWARRIOR WOMAN of the Isle of Skye, SCÁTHACH.The Gáe Bulga seems to have been a spear orjavelin (gáe) that could slice through flesh, thusgiving its bearer an immense advantage in battle.Cúchulainn used it to kill the two men most dearto him: his son CONNLA and his foster brotherFERDIAD. Some scholars have derived the secondpart of the spear’s name from the FIR BOLG, oneof the ancient mythic races of Ireland.

Gaheris (Gaheris of Orkney) Arthurianhero. One of the sons of king LOT of Orkney andMORGAUSE, the half-sister of king ARTHUR whoalso gave birth to Arthur’s illegitimate son andimplacable enemy, MORDRED. Gaheris was oneof those whom LANCELOT killed as he rescuedqueen GUINEVERE from execution by burning.

Gahmuret Arthurian hero. According to onetext, the man who was later to be the father ofthe pure knight PERCIVAL joined the army of theCaliph of Baghdad, where he single-handedlyrescued a besieged queen, Belkane of Zazamanc,from two armies. Entranced with her savior,Belkane married him and bore a son, Feirefiz,but even the glories of her realm could not keepthe warrior from returning to Wales, where hefound another woman ready to be won throughbattle: the fair HERZELOYDE, who becamePercival’s mother.

Gaiar Irish hero. In some texts, this otherwiseobscure figure is the son of the doomed loversDEIRDRE and NOISÍU.

Gaiblín See GAVIDA.

Gáilióin See FIR BOLG.

Gaine Irish heroine. In the place-poems ofancient Ireland, the DINDSHENCHAS, this other-

wise unknown woman is named as “learned anda seer and a chief DRUID,” although how shecomposed and prophesied is unclear, because shenever spoke a word. Yet it was Gaine who namedthe central hill of the land UISNEACH, “oversomewhat,” because her student, the powerfuldruid MIDE, had cut off the tongues of Ireland’sother druids, buried them on the hillside, and satover them.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924.

Galahad (Gwalchafed) Arthurian hero. Oneof the chief knights of the ROUND TABLE,Galahad was the illegitimate son of LANCELOT

and ELAINE of Corbenic. The young Galahadwas king ARTHUR’s perfect representative: themost pure, the most loyal, the most chaste of allhis knights. As such, he offers a foil to the humanand imperfect Arthur as well as to the noble butflawed Lancelot. Thus Galahad, in manyArthurian tales, became the one who found themystical chalice called the GRAIL, after which theknight was never seen again; apparently, the con-tact of his pure soul with the powerful vessel senthim instantly to heaven. Although his name mayhave Celtic roots, suggesting a falcon of battle,and despite his FAIRY heritage as the foster son ofthe LADY OF THE LAKE and the son of Elaine,scholars agree there is no true Celtic analoguefor this saintly figure; rather, Galahad seems apost-Christian invention grafted onto the leg-end’s pagan rootstock.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 315 ff.

Galahaut (The Haute Prince) Arthurianhero. A minor figure in the story of king ARTHUR

and his knights of the ROUND TABLE, Galahautwas at first Arthur’s enemy but, when the brave

204 Gáe Bulga

LANCELOT defeated him, converted to the side ofCAMELOT. So devoted was Galahaut to his erst-while opponent that he died of grief when heheard that Lancelot had died.

Galatia Ancient Celtic land. This area of cen-tral Anatolia (now Turkey), settled by Celts inthe third century B.C.E., was mentioned by theChristian St. Paul in his epistles to the residentsof the region.

Galehodin Arthurian hero. The most out-standing knight of the ROUND TABLE,LANCELOT, had only one brother, Galehodin,who is otherwise obscure. A number of figureswho surround Lancelot have similar names(GALAHAD, GALAHAUT), which may indicate thatthey derive from the same original.

Galióin (Gailioin, Gálian, Galioin) Irishmythological race. This tribe of Irish settlers ofunclear heritage appears in two importantmythological texts: the quasi-historical, the BOOK

OF INVASIONS and the epic TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE. Inthe former they are described as part of theinvading FIR BOLG people; in the latter, theirfierceness so intimidates queen MEDB that sheconsiders having them killed rather than riskkeeping them as allies, but her lover FERGUS macRóich convinces her that, separated and spreadamong the troops, they would be an invaluableasset, as they prove to be. They are thought torepresent an early Celtic tribal group.

Gallizenae Breton folkloric figures. Thesehistorical DRUID women lived off the west coastof Brittany, on the Isle de Sein (Sena) nearPointe de Raz, at a site usually connected to leg-ends of the dissolute pagan princess DAHUT andher city of YS. They are believed to have been acollege of priestesses rather like the one thoughtto have served the Irish BRIGIT, practicing DIV-INATION and other forms of MAGIC withoutintercourse, social or otherwise, with men.

Galvia Irish mythological figure. The name ofthe contemporary county of Galway derivesfrom this obscure figure, said to have been aprincess drowned in the RIVER that bears hername. As the same story is told of two goddesses,SÍNANN and BÓAND, it is likely that Galvia wasonce an important goddess of the watershed.

Gamh (Gam) Irish mythological site. InIreland’s Co. Sligo, a holy WELL was known inmedieval times as one of the Mirabilia Hiberia,Ireland’s wonders. On the side of the hill ofTullaghan, opposite a sheer precipice, a half-salt, half-sweet well rises from a space amongTHREE flagstones. The well is now dedicated toST. PATRICK, and the story is told that it sprangup when the saint, pursuing the demon calledvariously the DEVIL’S MOTHER and CAORANACH,became thirsty and prayed for water, where-upon the well broke through the rock. Patrickthen hid nearby until the demon, also thirsty,came to drink; her blood caused the well’s bit-terness. The well’s pagan history can still befound in the common tale that it harbors sacredSALMON, which, if caught and eaten, willnonetheless be seen frisking about the well thevery next day.

The DINDSHENCHAS, Ireland’s place-namepoetry, name the region around the well SliabGamh, the mountains of Gamh, after a servantof the MILESIAN invader ÉREMÓN. Gamh wasbeheaded, but whether in battle or as punish-ment for some wrongdoing is not clear; the cor-rupted text seems to indicate that Gamh waskilled because of failure to observe agriculturalrituals. His head, thrown into the well, caused itssweet water to turn salty part of each day.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, andCo., Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 22; MacNeill, Máire.The Festival of Lughnasa, Parts I and II. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1982,pp. 113–114.

Gamh 205

ganconer (gean-cannah, gan-ceann, gean-canach, love-talker) Scottish and Irish folkloricfigure. Maidens in Scotland were traditionallyadvised to stay away from lonely country roads,especially those in mountain areas, for theymight meet this handsome fairy—readily recog-nizable by his clay pipe—who would make thempromises so sweet that, after he evaporated fromsight, the girl was left to pine away and die. Theganconer was the male version of the much morecommonly found FAIRY LOVER or mistress.

The same figure was found in Ireland, wherehe was called the geancanach and was said toespecially favor milkmaids. The Irish poet EthnaCarbery wrote of him: “Who meets the Love-Talker must weave her shroud soon,” for his lovewas destructive. The word used to be applied tohuman men who were excessively boastful abouttheir sexual prowess.

Ganore Occasional name for GUINEVERE.

Garaid Irish hero. In the FENIAN CYCLE, welearn of this old warrior who the women ofFIONN MAC CUMHAILL’s court feared might makeadvances to them; therefore they tied his beardand hair to the walls of their home while heslept. Awaking with a start, Garaid tore off hisscalp trying to free himself and then explodedwith fury, burning the house—at Drumcree,near Mullingar—with all the women in it andlaughing sadistically as they died.

Garb Mac Stairn Scottish folkloric figure.This Scottish GIANT appears in a legend of theIrish hero CÚCHULAINN. Desirous of a BULL thatthe hero owned, Garb traveled to Ireland but,reaching Cúchulainn’s house, found only a ser-vant who claimed the house was empty exceptfor his sick mistress. Nonetheless Garbdemanded access to the house’s owner andpushed his way into the sickroom. There hefound the woman, lying wanly, suckling a largebabe. The giant poked his finger into the baby’s

mouth and Cúchulainn—for the large baby washe—bit down so hard he struck bone. Garb andCúchulainn then began to fight to the death, andit took a week for the superhuman hero to winagainst the fierce Scottish giant. A similar storyis told of FINN MCCOOL, the folkloric version ofthe hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

Gareth (Gareth of Orkney, Beaumains,Gaheriet) Arthurian hero. A minor hero ofArthurian romance, he was the nephew of kingARTHUR, son of his half-sister MORGAUSE andking LOT of Orkney. Because of his most notablephysical trait, KAY named him Beaumains, “beau-tiful hands.” Gareth was accidentally killed byhis best friend LANCELOT, who was desperatelystruggling to save queen GUINEVERE from theexecutioner’s flames.

Gargantua Continental Celtic god. The greatFrench satirist Rabelais based the most famousGIANT in French literature upon this obscure oldCeltic god, perhaps originally named Gurgiuntor Gargam. A resident of the OTHERWORLD, heburst through occasionally to create landscapesby tossing around rocks or opening a cask so thatfloodwaters covered the earth.

Garland Sunday (Garden Sunday, GarlicSunday) See LUGHNASA.

Garravogue (Carravogue, Garbhóg, Gheara-gáin, Garrawog, Garragh-Maw) Irish folkloricfigure. Two similarly named HAG-like beingsappear in Irish oral folklore, both of whom maydescend from the ancient goddess called theCAILLEACH. In Co. Sligo, the River Garravoguewas said to be named for a WITCH who fell into itand drowned; the same story is told of themaiden GILE, whose drowning formed LoughGill, so the two may have originally been thesame figure in maiden and hag form.

In Co. Meath, and nearby Co. Cavan, thewoman Garrawog broke the Sabbath by eatingblackberries on the way to church, was turned

206 ganconer

into a giant SERPENT or cannibal, and dissolvedwhen ST. PATRICK threw holy water at her. Inother versions of the tale, Patrick threw his apos-tolic staff at her, whereupon she split into fourpieces, one going up into the air, two off to thesides into LAKES, and the final piece disappearingunderground beneath a large rock.

The fact that the hag split into pieces thattravel to the four DIRECTIONS argues thatGarravogue was an ancient goddess figure sup-pressed by Christian apologists, for cosmic god-desses whose bodies form the tangible world areoften described in myth in this way. That the haggoddess was not entirely suppressed underChristianity is evidenced by the legend thatGarrawog will rise again when enough peoplebearing her surname (Gargan or Garraghans)walk over her grave. A carved head in nearbyClannaphillip, once in the church but nowinstalled behind the grotto of the Virgin Mary, issaid to represent Garrawog.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, andCo., Ltd., 1906, p. 18; MacNeill, Máire. TheFestival of Lughnasa, Parts I and II. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1982, pp.400–401, 517–522.

Gaul Ancient Celtic land. The Celtic landsnow generally contiguous with the nation ofFrance, as well as adjoining lands now part of thenations Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland,were brought under Roman domination byJulius Caesar, who wrote of them in his GallicWars. It is from Caesar that we learn much ofwhat is known about the culture and religion ofthe continental Celts. But as Caesar soughtpolitical domination over the Celts, it is difficultto evaluate his truthfulness. What we do know isthat the people Caesar called Gauls were not asingle tribe but many disparate tribal peopleswho shared a common language and roughlycommon beliefs and customs.

As with other Celtic peoples, the Gauls arebelieved to have mixed and mingled with thepeople who inhabited their lands before them,probably Old Europeans. They later moved onto the islands off the coast, so that Britain andIreland received a culture already changed byencounters with the indigenous peoples of Gaul.In addition, the Germanic tribes slightly to thenorth are not easily separable geographicallyfrom the Celts of Gaul, so that religion and cul-ture on the Continent were both complex anddynamic. Much of that richness has been lostthrough the reinterpretation of continentalCeltic or Gaulish divinities into Roman cate-gories and the application of Roman names tothem in a process known as the INTERPRETATIO

ROMANA. Thus we have MERCURY listed as thechief of gods and MINERVA following shortlyafter. In some cases, the original Celtic name ofthe divinity in question became a surname, butin many others, the original was lost.

Gavida (Gaiblín, Gaibhleen, Goibhleann)Irish hero. Brother of CIAN and uncle of the heroLUGH, Gavida fostered his nephew until he wasold enough to meet his fate as the killer of hismonstrous grandfather BALOR of the Evil Eye.Sometimes this figure is said to be identical tothe SMITH god GOIBNIU.

Gavrinis (Gavr’inis) Breton mythologicalsite. In the center of a small harbor off the coastof Morbihan in southern Brittany is an islandupon which the fabulously engraved ritualchamber of Gavrinis is found. Far predating theCelts, the CAVE is linked by its SPIRAL iconogra-phy—deeply incised carvings decorating morethan a score of enormous granite uprights—toIreland’s BRÚ NA BÓINNE and by its megalithicrock architecture to Britain’s STONEHENGE.Although it is not possible to know for what pur-pose they were intended, such monuments aretypically oriented toward some astronomicalpoint; in the case of Gavrinis, the winter SOLSTICE

sunrise, toward which it is oriented precisely.

Gavrinis 207

Some have theorized that the rising SUN, as itbegins its rebirth toward summer on that day,may have been thought to revivify the bonesplaced within, of which traces have been found.

Like other monuments of the MEGALITHIC

CIVILIZATION, Gavrinis was probably known bythe local Celtic peoples and may have been a rit-ual site for them, some 3,000 years after it wasbuilt. Other Breton megalithic sites appear infolklore as the place of OTHERWORLD happen-ings, so as was the case in Ireland, superstitiouslocal lore may have protected such monumentslong after their meaning was forgotten.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 409 ff.

Gawain (Gawain of Orkney, Gawayne, Gavin,Gauvain, Gwalchmei) Arthurian hero. Gawainis one of the best known of the knights of theROUND TABLE who served the great kingARTHUR. He was Arthur’s nephew, son of hishalf-sister MORGAUSE and king LOT of Orkney,and was one of Arthur’s first supporters.

Hero of a famous early English romance, SirGawain and the Green Knight (c. 1370 C.E.) by“the Pearl Poet,” which like other Arthurian lit-erature draws heavily on Celtic themes, Gawainwas challenged by a monstrous Green Knight.The hero fought fiercely and beheaded thestranger, but the Green Knight returned for thecombat exactly one year later. Meanwhile, thewife of his host Bercilak had attempted threetimes to seduce the chaste Gawain, with no suc-cess save that she left her girdle with him.Inexplicably, instead of returning the incriminat-ing piece of underwear, Gawain hid it.

When the beheaded and reheaded giantGreen Knight reappeared, he struck three timesat Gawain, the third one a crippling wound asretaliation for hiding the girdle. Several Celticthemes are found in the romance, especiallybeheading (see HEAD) and triplicity (see THREE).Some scholars have interpreted Gawain as a late

version of the Celtic SMITH god GOIBNIU, theGreen Knight may be a literary counterpart tothe British folkloric figure, the GREENMAN.

Gawain is also known from the tale of RAG-NELL, a woman who had been bewitched so thatshe appeared ominously ugly. Beneath that terri-fying exterior, however, Ragnell was a pure spiritwho gained Gawain’s love. Upon their marriage,she confided her secret to him, telling him thatshe could only appear as a young maiden for partof each day. Did he prefer, she asked, that she bea beautiful woman in the daytime, when hisfriends could admire her, or at night, when hecould enjoy her charms? Gawain wisely offeredthe choice back to her, whereupon she revealedthe solution to the riddle, “What do womenwant?,” which he had been charged with answer-ing. Women, she told him, want to be given thechance to choose their own life. The spell thatheld her captive was then broken, she became abeautiful young woman again, and Ragnell andGawain lived happily together thereafter.

Source: Turner, R. C. “Boggarts, Bogles and SirGawain and the Green Knight: Lindow Manand the Oral Tradition.” In Stead, I. M., J. B.Bourke, and Don Brothwell. The Lindow Man:The Body in the Bog. Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1986, pp. 170–176.

Geali Dianvir Irish hero. He was the eldestson of the king of the FIR BOLG, Irish invaderswho may be mythological memories of earlyCeltic arrivals; his people were defeated byBALOR, king of the evil FOMORIANS, who simi-larly may reflect historical indigenous peoples.After the battle, the defeated Fir Bolg sailedaway from Ireland, returning to the mysteriousland of Gallowna, where they attempted torecoup their strength.

From Gallowna, Geali Dianvir was sent backto repair the damage to his people’s reputationthat Balor had dealt. When he arrived in Bantry,in western Co. Cork in the southwesternPROVINCE of MUNSTER, Geali Dianvir found the

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Formorian queen surrounded by Balor’s men,who every night applied venom to their swordsso that they were unbeatable in battle. Thevenom was obtained from a WELL into which thewarriors plunged their weapons; the Fir Bolghero decided to eliminate their advantage byturning it from poison to clear water. To do this,he poured 20 measures of the MILK of the magi-cal COW of abundance, the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN,into the well. The Fir Bolg hero was then able togain the advantage over Balor’s men and drivethem to the outer reaches of the land.

Source: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, p. 298.

Gebann Irish god. This obscure god is knownonly as the father of the beautiful goddessCLÍDNA and as the chief DRUID of the sea god,MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Gebrinius Continental Celtic god. Identifiedby the Romans with their warrior divinity MARS,this god appears in several inscriptions in landsinhabited both by Celts and by Germans, so it isunclear which culture gave rise to him.

geis (geas, geiss, ges; pl., geasa, gessa) Irish ritualvow. Magical vows or pledges were oftenrequired of kings and other heroes in Irish literature, apparently reflecting a real religious custom. In some cases, the reason for the geis isgiven, as when the king of TARA, CONAIRE, isinstructed not to eat the flesh of birds, becausehis mother had been enchanted into that form atone point, making him kin to the birds. Butmore often the geasa seem frivolous, as withConaire’s vow not to ride around Tara with hisright shoulder to the sea, nor to let THREE RED

horsemen ride past him to the hostel of a redman, nor to be away from Tara more than eightconsecutive nights.

Sometimes geasa are extraordinarily compli-cated, even exaggerated, as with DIARMAIT’s vow

never to refuse a woman who came to him nei-ther in the day nor at night, neither on horsebacknor on foot, neither clothed nor naked. Comic asthey may seem, the geasa were deeply serious, somuch so that breaking such a vow meant death.Geasa were not chosen by the man making thevow—for it was invariably a man—but wereimposed by DRUIDS or by women, the latter oftensubstituting for the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY.

Kings were especially subject to sacred geasa,which provided a mechanism to evaluate theirintegrity (see KINGSHIP). The land’s FERTILITY

depended upon the king’s righteousness; thus aking who broke his geasa as Conaire did causedprivation when the land became sterile. Heroestoo were pledged to avoid taboo places, people,and foods, or to satisfy certain peculiar demands,their strength and even continued life dependingupon their performance. Geasa are wound into theplot of many ancient Celtic legends and romances.

Sources: Dillon, Myles. There Was a King in Ireland:Five Tales from Oral Tradition. Texas FolkloreSociety. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971,p. 21; Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 433–434.

Gelorwydd Welsh hero. This obscure figureis named in some texts as a warrior who bathedthe dying on battlefields with his own blood,bringing them great peace.

generosity Cosmological concept. An ancientCeltic king faced many requirements or sacredvows (see GEIS), but the most important was gen-erosity. An ungenerous king, such as the half-FOMORIAN BRES turned out to be, would bedriven from his throne by SATIRES and mighteven die miserably in punishment for his greedand stinginess. The traditional expectation ofroyal generosity was translated in Celtic landsinto a general requirement of hospitality, espe-cially to strangers. In post-Celtic times, beliefthat the FAIRIES would punish the ungenerouskept alive the priority given to this value.

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genius cucullatus (pl., genii cucullati) Conti-nental and British Celtic god(s). Named for ahood (in Latin, cucullus) attached to a cloak,these “hooded spirits” are found across Celticlands on the Continent and in Britain; in the former, they appear singularly, while in Britainthe cucullati are invariably triplets. Althoughtheir exact function and meaning is not estab-lished, their form suggests that they were spiritsof FERTILITY, for they look like a group of smallphalluses; in some sculptures, indeed, removingthe hood reveals not the head of a man but thatof a phallus.

In Britain the genii cucullati were depicted asDWARFS holding EGGS, further emphasizing theirconnection to fertility. The distribution patternof these sculptures is identical to that of themother goddesses called the DEAE MATRES, withwhom they often appear; sometimes the goddessthey accompany is named CUDA.

genius loci (pl., genii locii) Continental Celticand British god(s). This Latin phrase, meaning“spirit of the place,” refers to the divinities thatembody and are embodied within special natural places: mountains, WELLS, waterfalls,even prominent glacial boulders. The Celts sawNATURE as filled with divinity, each god or goddess being connected with a specific site; forthis reason, few divine names are found in theCeltic world more than once. RIVERS and MOUN-TAINS tended to be seen as goddesses; ancientTREES and some watercourses as gods.

Such place-deities had multiple functions,guiding FERTILITY, prosperity, and death withintheir region. With Roman settlement, names ofthe invading gods were affixed to the nativeones—or, in some cases, the now-unnamednative divinity was subsumed into the Romangod (see INTERPRETATIO ROMANA). APOLLO andMINERVA and MERCURY stood in for dozens, evenhundreds, of specific place-identified Celticnature gods and goddesses. Because altars tounnamed deities of place were simply carved with“genius loci,” many specific names have been lost.

Such altars typically bore emblems of abundanceand fertility like the CORNUCOPIA, the turretcrown, and the PATERA or offering plate.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,p. 99; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studiesin Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 30.

Gentle Annie (Gentle Annis) Scottish folk-loric figure. A supernatural HAG with blue-blackskin, Gentle Annie was the weather spirit whobrought raw winds down Cromarthy Firth inScotland. Her name, which is clearly a flatteringand mollifying one, has been connected to theancient goddess name ANU; her appearance andpersonality resemble the CAILLEACH.

gentry See FAIRY.

Geodruisge Irish folkloric figure. This GIANT

from Co. Mayo had his palace on DownpatrickHead, locally called Dún Geodruisge. He stoleCATTLE from a powerful WITCH who cursed him,so that his palace broke off from the mainland,sending the thieving giant out to sea.

George See ST. GEORGE.

Gereint (Keraint, Gereint fab Erbin) Welshhero. With his wife ENID, this Welsh hero isdescribed as presenting the perfect model of theloving couple. Yet their legend is convoluted atbest and their relationship hardly seems ideal.Described as cousin to king ARTHUR, Gereintwon Enid’s hand through service to her kinglyfather. After their marriage, he devoted himselfto leisurely pursuits with her, neglecting hiskingdom until both his subjects and Enid herselfbegan to complain. Rather than listening to thecriticism, Gereint punished Enid cruelly forrepeating comments about his unworthiness to

210 genius cucullatus

rule, even suspecting that her actions were anindication that she had been unfaithful.

Gereint then set out to prove the rumorswrong, almost dying in an attempt to prove hismanly strength. He dragged Enid along,demanding that she remain completely silent.She did not, for she kept seeing disasters on thehorizon; he ignored her, causing himself greattrouble. Finally, however, they came to the castleof OWEIN. There, ignoring not only Enid’s warn-ings but those of his host, he attempted to win atan enchanted game, held in a court surroundedby severed HEADS. Approaching a maiden sittingwithin the court, Gereint was assaulted by herprotector, a fierce knight. In the ensuing fight,Gereint proved himself, killing the knight andending the violent games forever. Thereafter, hereconciled with his loyal wife Enid.

Geróid Iarla (Gerald, Earl of Desmond; theRed Earl) Irish hero. When Maurice, the Earlof Desmond in southwestern MUNSTER, saw thebeautiful fairy queen ÁINE swimming in the formof a SWAN at the mouth of the River Comóg thatflows into enchanted LOUGH GUR, he fell hope-lessly in love with her. The only way to claimsuch a SWAN MAIDEN was to steal her cloak, whichMaurice did. Thus did Áine come to live withhim and to bear their child, the next earl, Geróid.

Maintaining a relationship with a FAIRY

BRIDE, however, meant living with the prohibi-tions and taboos she set down. Áine requiredthat Maurice never show surprise at anythingtheir son might do, but the earl forgot himselfwhen, at a banquet, Geróid leaped into a bottleand out again. The boy and his mother immedi-ately disappeared into the LAKE—or perhapsGeróid transformed himself into the GOOSE thatswam by at that moment. Every seven years on amoonlit night, Geróid rides forth from LoughGur on a white HORSE.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 79.

ghost Folkloric figure. Because the OTHER-WORLD and the land of the dead blend togetherin the Celtic mind, it is difficult to distinguishthe ghosts of dead humans from those dimin-ished divinities called the FAIRIES. Often the twogroups of beings were described as frequentingthe same magical parts of the landscape (BOGS,LAKES, and ISLANDS); they had roughly the samehabits of life; and ghosts, like fairies, could takehumans away with them to the Otherworld.

Not all people became ghosts, but only thosewho suffered an interruption of the normalcourse of life, such as a young mother who diedin childbirth and was concerned for the safety ofher child; such an unsettled soul could come backto haunt house and family. Elders who died aftera full life sometimes returned as well, however,taking a pipe by the fireside and otherwise keep-ing up the activities of a long settled life; thisseems to be stirred more by habit than by desireto affect the lives of the living.

Those who died violent deaths could some-times be seen haunting the location of theirdemise, as was the case when a headless ghostappeared in a small west Mayo town; such ghostscould be sent away with holy water or blessedcandles. Ghosts appeared not only singly but enmasse, as when the entire crew of a ship thatwent down at sea appeared just before anotherstorm to warn their erstwhile fellows. Such gen-tle ghosts were the exception; more commonly,ghosts attempted to lure the living into the gravewith them.

Sources: Jones, T. Gwynn. Welsh Folklore and Folk-Custom. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1930,pp. 32–50; Ó Catháin, Séamus, and PatrickO’Flanagan. The Living Landscape: Kilgallian,Erris, County Mayo. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1975, pp. 102, 119.

Gialla Deacair (Gilla Dacker) See ABARTA.

giant (giantess) Folkloric figure. The fact thathuge rocks, bigger than anything that could be

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readily moved by humans, were deposited acrossthe islands of Ireland and Britain by retreatingglaciers meant that the landscape suggestedhuge beings powerful enough to build the otherlandscape features. Common tales tell of gigan-tic women who drop boulders from their apronsand of feuding giants who throw the boulders ateach other.

Giant figures of men and animals are foundcarved into the chalk hills of southern England;sites like the LONG MAN of Wilmington and theCERNE ABBAS GIANT in Dorset that show largemale figures are locally said to be the outlinesdrawn around giants killed on the hillsides. Thedate of origin of these figures is unknown, so itis difficult to say whether this represents a sur-vival of a Celtic belief. Other English folkloresimilarly refers to giants who had to be slain inorder to make the countryside safe for settle-ment; the hero Tom Hickathrift of the Norfolkmarshes was said to have killed the Giant ofSmeeth. Although most giants were threateningto humans, some of the race had positive quali-ties; Jack o’ Legs from Herefordshire was aROBIN HOOD character who redistributed thewealth of the local rich to the area’s poor.

In Scotland the Great Cave (or Cave ofRaitts) in Inverness was said to have been builtby a giantess who carved the 70-foot cavernfrom the hillside while her companion giantsquarried the stone used to prop up the cave’ssides. Such landscape-forming legends are fre-quent in Scotland, where we find the story ofgiants who sought to marry the daughters of ahuman knight; the girls were saved by men whofought with a giant HAG who had the power toturn them to stone. Her curses could be liftedand the petrified returned to life, however, withthe water from a WELL on the Island of the BigWomen, a mythical land that appears in manyScottish folktales, apparently a specifically giant-occupied part of the OTHERWORLD.

In Wales we find the giantess Mol Walbee,who found a pebble in her shoe and tossed it tothe ground, where it still stands as a huge boul-der in a churchyard. She seems to be a form of

the pre-Celtic CAILLEACH, credited throughoutthe islands as the creator of landscapes. A womanof gigantic proportions, the Cailleach formedmountains whenever she let slip pebbles fromher apron. Not all earth-forming giants werefemale, however; in Cornwall there are stories ofhurling matches between groups of male giants,their thrown pebbles forming mountains. InIreland too we find the GIANT’S CAUSEWAY, amonumental series of basalt slabs that form whatseem to be steps out to sea, said to be the cre-ation of giant carvers.

The connection of giants with the formationof the landscape, as well as texts that describethem as resident before human occupation invarious Celtic lands, suggests that they are recol-lections of ancient divinities displaced by laterinvaders or immigrants. Similarly, the naming ofprominent hills for such non-Celtic divinities asthe Cailleach suggests that she and her giant kinwere honored by pre-Celtic people whose reli-gious visions were accommodated and absorbedby the Celts.

Invaders often describe the divinities of theconquered as monstrous, and giants like theFOMORIANS of Ireland were said to occupy landsdesired by historical people, who had to elimi-nate them in order to gain access to the land’swealth. In his History of the Kings of Britain,Geoffrey of Monmouth said that the first king ofBritain (then called Albion), Brutus, arrived tofind only a few inhabitants, all of them giants,including the monstrous GOG, who was defeatedby the heroic wrestler Corineus; an image of thebattle can still be seen in London’s Guildhall,where the figures are inaccurately named Gogand Magog.

The most famous literary vestige of thisCeltic folkloric tradition is Jonathan Swift’sGulliver’s Travels, in which the eponymous herofinds himself variously a giant among tiny peopleand a mite among giants.

Sources: Briggs, Katherine M., and Ruth L.Tongue. Folktales of Britain. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1965, pp. 68 ff; Campbell, J. F.

212 giant

Popular Tales of the West Highlands. Vol. III.Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1862, pp.1 ff; Curran, Bob. Complete Guide to CelticMythology. Belfast: Appletree, 2000, pp. 94 ff;Dillon, Myles. There Was a King in Ireland: FiveTales from Oral Tradition. Texas Folklore Society.Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971, p. 39;Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of Prehistoric Sites inBritain. London: David & Charles, 1976, p. 27;MacKenzie, Donald A. Scottish Folk-Lore andFolk Life: Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition.Glasgow: Blackie & Sons, Ltd., 1935, pp.99–117; McKay, John G. More West HighlandTales. Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological andFolklore Society. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd,1969, p. 28; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditionsof British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 71.

Giant’s Causeway Irish mythological site.One of the great natural wonders of thePROVINCE of ULSTER is a strangely shaped massof basalt rocks near Portrush, Co. Coleraine.Folklore claims that FINN MCCOOL, the dimin-ished version of the great mythological heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, killed the Scottish GIANT

who built the step-shaped rocks as a first step inhis invasion of Ireland.

Giants’ Dance British mythological site. Thisname is given to STONEHENGE in the geographi-cal commentary of Geoffrey of Monmouth in1136 C.E. According to many legends, STONE

CIRCLES were formed when WITCHES or othersupernatural creatures danced on a Christianholiday (often Sunday) and were turned to stonefor such frivolity; the enormity of the trilithonsof Stonehenge may have given rise to the ideathat the petrified beings were giants.

Sources: Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of PrehistoricSites in Britain. London: David & Charles,1976, p. 28; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 84.

Gile (Gilla) Irish heroine or goddess. TheLAKE beside the small and picturesque westernIrish city of Sligo, Lough Gill, is named for thisprincess or diminished goddess, daughter of anotherwise unknown father named Romra. Gilewas bathing in the waters of a spring whenOmra, apparently her lover, approached. Unableto bear his looking upon her nakedness, Gileducked her head under the water and acciden-tally drowned.

Her foster mother, finding the girl’s body,began to weep so vigorously that the spring andher tears joined to form the “vast and stormylake,” as the place-name poetry, the DINDSHEN-CHAS, describes Lough Gill. Romra and Omrathen fell into battle, each killing the other; bur-ial CAIRNS are said to have been erected overthem, although the text is unclear as to whetherthose are the renowned ones atop nearby CarnsHill. Given that the names of father and loverdiffer only by one letter, they may be connectedfigures or TWINS. Like much of Ireland’s place-name poetry, the story of Lough Gill seems afragmentary myth dislodged from its explana-tory context.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 18.

Gilfaethwy (Gilvaethwy) Welsh hero. Violentbrother of the Welsh poet-hero GWYDION andson of the mother goddess DÔN, Gilfaethwy con-ceived a lust for the virgin GOEWIN who served hisuncle, king MATH, as ceremonial footholder.According to the Welsh compilation of mythol-ogy, the MABINOGION, Goewin did not respond toGilfaethwy’s desire. Refusing to attend to herrefusal, he assaulted and raped Goewin. In pun-ishment Gilfaethwy was turned into a DEER, PIG,and WOLF, consecutively.

Gillagréine (Giolla Gréine) Irish goddess orheroine. Although relatively obscure, this ancient

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figure has left her name across the landscape ofeast Co. Clare in Ireland. In despair at learningthat, although her father was human, her motherwas a sunbeam, Gillagréine leaped into the waterof Lough Gréine or Lough Graney (“lake of thesun”), floated down to Daire Gréine (“sun’s oakgrove”), and finally came to rest at Tuam Gréineor Tuamgraney (“the sun’s tomb”). She may havebeen an early SUN goddess of the region.

Gille Dubh (Ghillie Dhu) Scottish folk-loric figure. In relatively recent times—at the endof the 18th century—this FAIRY man appeared inthe region around Loch a Druing in the ScottishHighlands. A rather seedy-looking person, hewore nothing but moss and leaves, and hisunkempt black hair fell about him like a cloak. Hewas a silent, kindly sort, ready to rescue the lostand care for those in need. Nonetheless he wasmade the object of sport by some local lairds, whodecided to use the poor fairy for target practice.He made himself scarce; a full night’s hunting didnot scare him up, nor was he ever seen afterward.

Gillian (Jillian) British folkloric figure and site.In England, mazes called Gillian Bowers were cutinto turf. In springtime the young men ran racesthrough these turf mazes, while a woman imper-sonating the otherwise unknown folkloric figureGillian was “imprisoned” at the center of the mazeand “freed” by the race’s winner. Such mazes arealso found in Scandinavian countries, where theygo by the unexplained name of Troy Towns. A rit-ual of freeing the SUN maiden from her wintercaptivity seems implied by the game. A goddessnamed Gillian, perhaps ruling the springtime, mayhave given her name to these sites.

Source: Monaghan, Patricia. O Mother Sun: A NewView of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom, Calif.:The Crossing Press, 1994, pp. 108–110.

Giona (Giona mac Lugha) Irish hero.Despite being a grandson of the great hero

FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, Giona was a lazy fellowand could not control his warriors, who foundhim an uninspiring leader. Fionn took the youngman under his tutelage and formed him into agreat hero of the FIANNA.

glám dícenn Irish ritual posture. When aBARD or a DRUID wanted to cast a truly effectiveCURSE in ancient Ireland, he or she wouldassume a particular position: standing on oneleg, holding out one arm, and closing one eye.This fearsome position intensified the power ofthe verbal curse so that its power was impossibleto avoid. The HAG who destroyed king CONAIRE,in the story of DA DERGA’s hostel, assumed theglám dícenn before she cursed him for breakinghis sacred vows (see GEIS).

glamour Folkloric motif. A glamour is aspell, cast by a FAIRY or a WITCH (occasionally, agypsy), that caused humans to imagine thingsthat are not there and to see things as they arenot. Originally a Scottish word, the wordpassed into international usage stripped of itsmagical meaning and now indicates only fasci-nating personal attractiveness. In the past,glamour was never sought after but was ratherto be avoided or broken—the latter by usingFAIRY OINTMENT or holding up to one’s eyes abit of four-leafed clover or SHAMROCK (whichmay have been the main ingredient in fairyointment). The clover’s power would permitthe viewer to see reality rather than fairy fan-tasy; thus a visitor to FAIRYLAND would see amiserable CAVE rather than a gorgeous ball-room, and the people there would be old andwizened rather than firm and young.

Glanlua Irish heroine. A minor figure in oneof the tales of the heroic FIANNA, this womanassisted their leader FIONN MAC CUMHAILL inescaping from the imprisonment of a GIANT

named DRYANTORE.See AILNA.

214 Gille Dubh

Glas Ghaibhleann (Glas Ghaibhnann, GlasGavlen, Glas Gownach, Glas Gainach, GlasGaunach; Fuwch Leathwen Lefrith) Irishmythological figure. Irish folklore and mythol-ogy tells of a great COW whose MILK was so plen-tiful that it could feed multitudes; because of the100% cream content, its milk made copiousBUTTER as well. The cow was so strong that shecould wander through three of Ireland’s fourPROVINCES in a single day; thus place-namesacross the land (usually beginning with Glas, asin Glasnevin, although also occurring in suchforms as Knockglas, “mountain of the Glas”)bear testimony to her passage. (Her namebecame a common noun for SPRING or stream,so at times it is difficult to distinguish the origi-nal intent of such place-names.) As she traveled,she gave milk to anyone who needed it, fillingwhatever vessel they carried, no matter howlarge or small. It is possible that the Glas is anancient image of the Irish land itself, for Irelandis occasionally called Druimin Donn Dilis, “thefaithful brown white-backed cow.”

The Glas did not have to have a calf in orderto give milk. Indeed, as much as five years couldpass without the cow calving, yet her milkflowed unceasingly. Some stories say that shewas a FAIRY beast, belonging to the king of theLand Under Wave or the OTHERWORLD; otherstories suggest she was the goddess BÓ FIND, whotook the form of a white cow.

Usually the cow was said to be guarded by aSMITH named Gaivnin Gow, Gavidin, or simplyGavin; in Ireland, the smith was said to liveamong the rolling hills of Co. Cavan. The smithkept the Glas’s halter, to which she came unfail-ingly every night; some legends say that the Glaswas the smith’s enchanted sister or stepsister. InIreland place-names associated with the cow areoften found near sites named for the smith.Some versions of the story name the smith godGOIBNIU as the owner of the Glas.

Many legends center on plots set in motionby greedy people who wished to steal the Glasfor their exclusive enrichment, but she invariablyescaped or was freed, bringing her abundance

back to the people. In one story the Glas wasconfined by a man within Glen Columkille inCo. Donegal, but she levitated into the air and,clearing the high ridges around the glen, disap-peared into the sky. Since that time, legendclaims, there has been no free milk in Ireland.

Other legends claim that a wicked womantried to milk the Glas into a sieve and, angered,the cow disappeared from earth. Another tale,from the rocky region called the Burren, saysthat someone tried to milk the Glas into a swallow-hole called Poll na Leamhnachta (“holeof sweet milk”), but when even the Glas’simmeasurable milk could not fill the endless cavity, the exhausted cow disappeared, and shehas never again been seen on the Burren, previ-ously her favorite pasturage.

The Glas appears in Britain, Scotland, andWales under the name of the DUN COW, whosemythological background is made clear indescriptions of her impossible abundance. As inIreland, the British Dun Cow was killed bygreed: A WITCH tried to milk her into a mesh,killing the miraculous beast; a whale rib inKirkham, Lancashire, was long said to have beenone of the Dun Cow’s bones. In Wales the cowwas called Fuwch Leathwen Lefrith; she wan-dered the country, generously giving forth milkuntil she reached a valley, Towry, where the res-idents saw her as potential steak-and-kidney pie.Before they could slaughter her, she disap-peared, taking all her abundance with her.

The cosmological and cosmic significance ofthis magical cow is reinforced by scholars whotrace the motif to the Indo-European mytholo-gies of India, where we find cloud cows who rainmilk down upon earth and who, according to theRig Veda, were stolen by the demon Vritra, whowished to bring drought and famine to earth.This connection of the cow not only with milkbut with water is found in the figure of the river-and cow-goddess BÓAND, after whom the RiverBoyne is named. The connection between cowand river is further reinforced by descriptions ofthe cow’s meandering course across the land,never traveling less than six miles a day.

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The Glas figures prominently in the story ofthe magical conception of the hero LUGH, grand-son and killer of the monstrous FOMORIAN kingBALOR of the Evil Eye. After Balor had been drivento the periphery of Ireland by the fierce warriorsof the FIR BOLG, he reigned from a frighteningfortress on Tory Island off Co. Donegal. Oppositehim on the mainland, at Druin na Teine, lived thesmith with his magical cow. Balor conceived apowerful desire to own the cow—thus removing itfrom Ireland, where it nourished the people—butthe smith watched it incessantly, only taking hiseyes off it when he worked at the forge; while hewas working, the Glas was closely guarded by aman variously named CIAN, MacInally, or Fin sonof Ceanfaeligh. He had to follow along behind theGlas—never in front of her—as she meanderedthrough the island, keeping up with her strenuouspace. She moved so fast and so far that it was nowonder that Cian finally grew inattentive and tooka nap.

At that point Balor struck. He stole the Glasand packed her aboard a boat that sailed for ToryIsland, stopping en route at the little islandcalled Inishbofin (Inis Bó Find, “island of thewhite cow”), where she drank from a WELL

called Tober na Glaise (“gray cow well”); whenthey landed at Tory it was at Port na Glaise(“gray cow port”).

The smith, furious to find his magical cowgone, threatened Cian with death unless she wasreturned in three days. So Cian traveled toBalor’s realm, where the king gave him impossi-ble tasks to fulfill in order to earn back the cow.While there, however, Cian spied Balor’s beauti-ful daughter EITHNE, trapped in a high towerbecause Balor feared the prophecy that her sonwould kill him. Balor reasoned that, if Eithnenever saw a man, she could not bear a child, thusproviding her father with immortality.

Disguised as a woman, Cian slunk intoEithne’s lodgings and seduced her; the child shebore was Lugh, who was later to kill Balor inbattle, fulfilling the prophecy. Cian returned thecow to the smith but died at Balor’s hands inretaliation for his seduction of Eithne.

The cow of abundance is connected in mythand legend to various figures, most commonlyBRIGIT, who as Ireland’s St. Brigit was said to havea cow that gave copious milk and filled the abbey’sstorehouses with butter. This connection of Glasand Brigit extends to Britain; a sculpture of thesaint as milkmaid can be found in GLASTONBURY.

Sources: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, pp. 283, 296;Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, pp.150–153; MacNeill, Máire. The Festival ofLughnasa, Parts I and II. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1982, pp. 163–165.

Glass-ben (Glass) Irish heroine. The nurseof the hero OSCAR, she died when she learnedthat her fosterling was killed in battle.

glastig (glaistig, glaistic, glaisein, glaishrig)Scottish and Welsh folkloric figure. A FAIRY ofScotland and Wales, “the gray-handed one” wasa gray thin woman (sometimes, a GIANT) whoselong yellow hair hit the ground behind her; likeothers of her race, she wore the preferred fairycolor, GREEN, from which she was sometimesknown as the green glastig. Rarely seen in com-pany (although sometimes a pair could be spot-ted together), the glastig hung around farmswhere there were COWS; she was also foundaround people of friendly demeanor but lowintelligence, whom she loved and cared for.

The glastig had a preternaturally loud voicethat could be heard many miles away. As a spiritof the MILK cattle, she demanded an offering ofthe first milk taken each morning; failure toobserve this politeness resulted in her drying upthe milk or otherwise punishing the stingy dairy-man. If offered regular libations of milk, left inpitcher or bowl on the doorstep, the glastigstayed for some time. As a householding spiritlike the BROWNIE, she cleaned especially wellwhenever guests were on the way, so awakeningto a sparkling clean house was an immediate sig-

216 Glass-ben

nal to look out for visitors. As with other labor-ing spirits, it was important never to speak of theglastig or, even worse, to compliment her labor,for that forced her to move away to another farm.

In the Isle of Man the fenodyree was a figuresimilar to the glastig; she lived in the mountainsbut snuck down to the farmlands to tend to thefields and to help secretly about the house. Likesimilar fairy figures, she refused to accept pay-ment or recompense for her work and disap-peared if it was offered.

Source: MacKenzie, Donald A. Scottish Folk-Loreand Folk Life: Studies in Race, Culture andTradition. Glasgow: Blackie & Sons, Ltd., 1935,pp. 176–194.

Glastonbury British mythological site.Considered by some to be the site of the OTHER-WORLD island of AVALON, the small southwesternEnglish city of Glastonbury has many mythicaland legendary associations. Below its pyramidalhill, the TOR, lie the ruins of several significantChristian sites, including Glastonbury Abbey,beneath which king ARTHUR and queen GUINE-VERE are said to be buried, and the renownedChalice WELL, also called the Blood Spring, withits iron-red waters. The legend of JOSEPH OF ARI-MATHEA says that he built the first Christianchurch in Britain there. As Christian chapels andchurches were often established on older Celticand pre-Celtic sacred sites, it is no surprise tofind that Glastonbury was held in legend to bethe entry to ANNWN, the Welsh Otherworld,where the fairy king GWYNN AP NUDD reigned;there is evidence of Iron Age, probably Celtic,settlement on the Tor, which may point to aCeltic origin for that folkloric character. Thusthe site remains connected in legend to thesacred even if the original monuments and mythshave been lost.

glastyn (glashtin) Manx folkloric figure. Onthe Isle of Man lived this form of the spectralWATER HORSE, who appeared as a handsome man

with curly hair, beneath which, if carefully exam-ined, were ears that looked remarkably like thoseof a horse. Handsome he might be, but he wasalso dangerous. He snuck into the homes ofyoung women when they were alone—theirfamilies having gone to market or out fishing—and dragged them into the sea to their deaths.

Glen Lyon Scottish mythological site. In anastonishing survival of ancient, possibly Celtic,ritual, a Scottish region continues an age-oldtradition centered on summer’s beginning atBELTANE on May 1. Located in the Grampionmountains of Tayside near Fortingall is a smallvalley called Glen Lyon. Within the small valleyare many place-names associated with theancient goddess, the CAILLEACH or HAG: GlenCailliche (Hag’s Glen), Allt Cailliche (Hag’sStream), and Tigh nam Cailliche (Hag’s House),the last being a pile of water-smoothed rocks ofroughly human form. The largest, a bit over afoot in height, is named the Cailliche; twosmaller stones go by the names of the Bodach(old man) and Nighean (daughter). Some smallunnamed rocks represent the old woman’sbabies. Each Beltane, a local resident washes thestones and replaces them in a traditional spot;each SAMHAIN the hag and her family are putaway into a small stone house.

The connection of the ritual appearance anddisappearance of the stone family with theCeltic holidays may indicate that it derivesfrom Celtic times, although the hag goddessherself is believed to reach back even deeperinto prehistory and represent a cosmic goddessof the pre-Celtic people. Legends in the areasay that the Irish hero, FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,once lived there.

Sources: Clarke, David, with Andy Roberts.Twilight of the Celtic Gods: An Exploration ofBritain’s Hidden Pagan Traditions. London:Blandford, 1996, pp. 66 ff; Straffon, Cheryl.The Earth Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of theLandscape. London: Blandford, 1997, p. 177.

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Glewlwyd Gafaelwar Welsh hero. This war-rior and guardian figure of Wales was absorbedinto Arthurian legend as the watchman at thegates of king ARTHUR’s court at CAMELOT.

gnome Folkloric figure. Not a Celtic creatureat all, the gnome found in Celtic lands derivesfrom medieval science and alchemy that imag-ined creatures appropriate to each of the fourelements: salamanders (fire), nereids (water),sylphs (air), and gnomes (earth). The gnomeswere thought to live under the earth, workingperhaps as miners; the word itself may derivefrom genomus, “earth-dweller.” They are easilyconfused with such truly folkloric creatures asFAIRIES and KNOCKERS, but have no real legendsattached. The DWARFS familiar to modern chil-dren from the tale of Sleeping Beauty are a vari-ation of the gnome.

goat Symbolic animal. There is evidence thatthe goat was among the animals consideredsacred to the Celts and therefore useful for SAC-RIFICE. Because of a CURSE, goats were forbiddennear the Christian abbey in KILDARE, originally asite of Celtic worship. As the sanctuary wassacred to women, and men were barred from it,the goat may have represented the male force;the horned god CERNUNNOS was often depictedwith goat’s legs, though with stag’s horns. Thesexuality of the male goat is legendary; inChristian imagery, derogation of the male sexualforce is indicated by showing the DEVIL as agoat-footed being. Perhaps this connectionexplains why ST. PATRICK was so often describedas a goatherd: a symbolic way of describingChristianity’s control over male sexual instinct.In folklore the same energy is personified asPUCK or the POOKA, a FAIRY being.

The most notable remnant of ancient regardfor the animal is the still-extant PUCK FAIR, a har-vest festival in the town of Kilorglin in south-western Ireland, where a white male goat iscrowned as king, fed fresh cabbage, and dis-played aloft on a platform while festivities go on

beneath it. The fair’s name comes from the Irishword poc, meaning “he-goat.” The fair tradition-ally lasts three days in mid-August: GatheringDay, when the goat is installed as king; Fair Day,when festivities abound; and Scattering Day,when the goat is taken from his perch and sold atauction or released into the wild. Documentedevidence shows that the fair has been continuallyheld since at least 1613, although it is believed itsearliest date is much earlier; some, however,contend that the obvious pagan symbolism ofthe rite would have caused its eradication duringthe period of Christianization and claim it is amedieval or Norman invention.

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p.74; MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 290–300, 414.

goayr heddagh Manx folkloric figure. TheIsle of Man is haunted by this FAIRY creature orGHOST that takes the form of a GOAT.

Goban Saor (Gobhan Saor, Gubawn Seer)British and Irish folkloric figure. In parts ofBritain and Ireland where Vikings lived, we findvestiges of the divine SMITH, WAYLAND, in thisfolktale character. An amoral figure, he once putan old woman into his furnace so that he couldhammer her into a young maiden. He is said tohave served as architect on many significantchurches. It is often difficult to tease out the var-ious cultural strands in tales of Goban Soar, wholike the Celtic smith god GOIBNIU is sometimesdescribed as the owner of the great cow of abun-dance, the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN.

goblin (hobgoblin) British folkloric figure. Ageneral name for evil FAIRIES, “goblin” indicatesa being who is at best mischievous and irritating,at worst dangerous. Goblins came in various

218 Glewlwyd Gafaelwar

guises, including the VOUGH and the POOKA, theBOGIE and the WATER HORSE; all have roots inthe Celtic vision of the OTHERWORLD; they arethus distinct from GNOMES, which belong to thelore of medieval alchemy. English poet ChristinaRossetti used aspects of traditional fairy lore inher long poem “Goblin Market,” linking theimage of leering, evil goblins with the motif ofFAIRY KIDNAPPING to create a frightening visionof emotional distress.

Gobnat (Gobnait, Cobnat, Abby, Abigail) Irishheroine, saint or goddess. A Christian shrine inIreland’s Co. Cork, at the town of Ballyvourney,shows a SHEELA NA GIG, a self-exposing HAG

whose image has been linked to ancient MOTHER

GODDESSES. The resident spirit of the shrine issaid to be St. Gobnait, patroness of BEES, who maybe a Christianized version of an ancient goddess ofthe locality. The bees served as her watchdogs,warning her against any danger that approached.

She is said to have been one of three sisters,the others being the more clearly mythologicalCROBH DEARG (or LASAIR) and LATIARAN. In earlyFebruary the beginning of spring in Ireland andthe time of the Celtic feast of IMBOLC are devotedto Gobnait, suggesting that she was the first of atriad of seasonal goddesses, for her sisters are alsolinked to dates in the ancient calendar. A famousshrine to her is located at what is now Kilgobnet(church of Gobnat) in Co. Kerry.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 73.

Goborchinn Irish mythological race. Abranch of the ancient mythological Irish raceknown as the FOMORIANS, the Goborchinn wereruled by EOCHAID Echchenn, “horse-head.” Asthe Fomorians were consistently associated withthe sea, the Goborchinn may have some connec-tion to the mythological WATER HORSE. Thosewho interpret the BOOK OF INVASIONS, in whichthe Goborchinn appear, as a mythological

record of actual immigrations into Ireland sug-gest that the Fomorians represent a pre-Celticpeople of which the Goborchinn were part.

god (gods) Cosmological concept. It isimpossible to speak of the “God of the Celts,”for the Celts were polytheistic in the extreme;they did not believe in one but in many gods.Unlike the Romans, who conquered the Celtsand reinterpreted their religion even as theyrecorded it (see INTERPRETATIO ROMANA), theCelts did not arrange gods in a hierarchicalorder. Despite Caesar’s announcement that MER-CURY was the chief Celtic god, there seems tohave been no such head of a ranked pantheon.

In particular, the Celts did not believe thatmale gods took precedence over goddesses;there is significant evidence that the reverse wastrue. While goddesses seemed to represent sta-ble parts of the landscape (mountains and RIVERS

and the like) as well as the force of FERTILITY andmany human arts, gods more typically lent theirenergies to the changeable aspects of life: thesurging sea, the transformations of MAGIC, theburgeoning of vegetative and animal life. Oftengods were seen to reflect the life of human men,as with ploughman gods and hunters, althougheven those could also indicate the cycle of fertil-ity that led to abundance.

goddess (goddesses) Cosmological concept.The prominent role played by the goddess inCeltic lands has been noted by virtually all schol-ars of the subject, although whether that promi-nence translated into greater freedom or powerfor actual women is a subject of fierce con-tention. Similarly, there is debate about whetherthe strong goddess figures found in Celtic landswere adopted from earlier, presumably matrilin-eal, cultures such as the Picts, or whether theyrepresented the Celtic worldview. Whichever istrue, Celtic goddesses had in common withCeltic gods their special link to place; most god-desses are found in only one place and seem tohave been envisioned as intertwined with its

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powers. Goddesses are particularly connectedwith fresh water, both in the form of SPRINGS

(usually called WELLS) and of RIVERS; with ANI-MALS, especially the COW; and with MOUNTAINS,especially high peaks.

Celtic goddesses had several functions: Theywere maternal, caring for the earth itself as wellas for individual children; they were prophetic,especially foretelling death; and they were trans-formational, connected with poetry andsmithcraft and healing. The domain of the vari-ous MOTHER GODDESSES included the entire life-cycle, from birth through adolescence and theFERTILITY of maturity. Such maternal goddesseswere envisioned as protective forces, providingthe necessities of life—especially food—to theirhuge families of human children. These mater-nal goddesses are often envisioned as being theearth itself; round mountains were envisioned asthe breasts of the great mother goddess, andrivers were imagined alternatively as her bloodand her nourishing MILK.

Images of the mother goddess are ubiquitousthroughout the Celtic world; probably they wereused as protective AMULETS as well as objects ofworship. The strength of the mother goddess hasled many scholars to propose that the Celts had amatrilineal social organization in which descentwas traced through the mother-line; others, however, contend that vestiges of such a socialstructure represent the heritage of pre-Celticgroups like the Picts, as does the practice ofpolyandry or multiple husbands so common inCeltic mythology. Yet others deny all indicationsof the importance of the ancestral mother as fem-inist propaganda and propound the idea that theCelts were completely patriarchal and patrilineal.

In addition to the mother goddess, we findthe feminine divine associated with PROPHECY

throughout the Celtic world. In many cases sheseems a goddess of death, predicting rather thanbringing about the inevitable end of life. Finally,we find goddesses associated with transforma-tion: with the INAUGURATION of kings (see SOV-EREIGNTY) and with SHAPE-SHIFTING, as well aswith POETRY, with smithcraft, and with HEAL-

ING. Some contend that all are aspects of mater-nity, but goddesses associated with prophecy andtransformation are not usually described as hav-ing children, which suggests that the domainswere separate.

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, pp.175–176; Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989, p.9; MacCullogh, J. A. Celtic Mythology. Chicago:Academy Publishers, 1996, pp. 93, 224;Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise. Celtic Gods and Heroes.Trans. Myles Dillon. Mineola, N.Y.: DoverPublications, Inc., 2000, pp. 24–37.

goddess-king marriage See SOVEREIGNTY.

goddess of sovereignty See SOVEREIGNTY.

Godiva (Godgifu, Dame Goode Eve)British heroine. In 1967, on the reputed 900thanniversary of Lady Godiva’s death, the town ofCoventry held a celebration in her honor. Herapparently historical story incorporates somany Celtic mythological motifs that it is diffi-cult to discern the truth behind the legend.Both she and her husband, Leonfric earl ofMercia, are mentioned in medieval chronicles,which praise her generosity and record detailsof her famous ride.

When Leonfric piled such ruinous taxesupon his vassals that the land was groaning andpeople were starving, Godiva pleaded formercy. But Leonfric refused to alleviate thepeople’s woes. Cruelly, he taunted his wife thatonly if she rode naked through Coventry townwould he ease the tax burden on his people.The brave lady took up the challenge, but topreserve her modesty she asked that the win-dows of the town be shrouded with fabric onthe day of her ride. Then, dressed only in herlong HAIR, she rode through the empty streets.

220 goddess-king marriage

Only one person—Peeping Tom—ignored herrequest, and he was struck blind at the sight ofher resplendent body.

The region around Coventry was home to theCeltic tribe called the Brigantes, who recognizedthe HORSE goddess either as EPONA or underanother name. Their own tribal name indicatesthat they honored BRIGIT, a goddess known inother contexts to have the power both to blindand to restore sight. The image of a mountedwoman clad only in her hair is known in Irelandfrom the story of the forthright heroineGRÁINNE. Finally, female nakedness as a Celticcult practice to increase the FERTILITY of thefields is known from classical sources, includingthe Roman author Pliny; Lady Godiva’s ride hadthe effect of providing more abundance for herimpoverished people. Thus the legend of LadyGodiva both disguises and preserves the image ofan ancient goddess protector.

Source: Davidson, Hilda Ellis. “The Legend ofLady Godiva.” In Patterns of Folklore. Totowa,N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1978, pp. 80–94.

Goewin Welsh heroine or goddess. Chosento perform the ceremonially important office offootholder to king MATH of Wales, whose feetwere never to touch the ground—a commonindicator of a sacred king—Goewin had the mis-fortune to inspire lust in the heart of one ofMath’s nephews. Aided and abetted by hisbrother, the trickster poet GWYDION, GIL-FAETHWY raped Goewin. He was punishedseverely for the crime, but Goewin lost both hervirginity and her position, for only an untouchedgirl was permitted to hold the king’s feet. As par-tial recompense, Math married her and madeher queen.

Gog (Gogmagog, Gigmagog) Cornish folk-loric figure. This Cornish GIANT was describedby Geoffrey of Monmouth as attacking theBritish king Brutus during his INAUGURATION

ceremonies, only to be soundly defeated by the

warrior Corineus. The legendary figure laterdeveloped into two threatening beings, Gog andMagog, who attacked Londinium (London) dur-ing the reign of king Vortigen.

Goibniu (Goibne, Gaibnenn, Gobnenn) Irishgod. The SMITH of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, thetribe of the goddess DANU, Goibniu was one ofthe three gods of craft who created a new arm fortheir king NUADA when his arm was struck clearoff in battle. As a BLEMISHED KING, it appearedNuada would be forced to resign his rulership.Goibniu set to work, crafting a silver arm so per-fect that, attached to the stump, it began workinglike a real arm. (Some versions say the god ofhealing, DIAN CÉCHT, crafted the silver arm.)Nuada of the Silver Arm was still not consideredunblemished, and so the stingy and evil half-Fomorian BRES mac Elatha ascended to thethrone, only to be driven out not long after. Thesituation was resolved when the gifted physicianand magician MIACH sang incantations that madeskin grow over Nuada’s silver arm, making himwhole once again. With that bionic arm, Nuadawas able to lead his people to victory in the sec-ond battle of MAG TUIRED, which established theTuatha Dé’s dominion in Ireland.

Before the battle, the son of Bres and BRIGIT

came to spy upon Goibniu and steal his magicalsecrets. Goibniu killed the lad, RUADÁN, whichcaused his mother to invent the wild sound ofKEENING to express her grief. For himself,Goibniu was able to heal his wounds by travelingto the sacred WELL on SLANE hill.

Every smith was a magical figure in ancientIreland, turning raw stone first into metal andthen into beautiful and useful objects such as jew-elry and weapons. Such high prestige carries overto the mythological sphere as well. Sometimesnamed as the owner of the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN,the COW of abundance, Goibniu was said to livein Co. Cavan, where the name of the IronMountains suggest an early mining industry.This connection with abundance is also empha-sized by the myth that Goibniu possessed a

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CAULDRON from which his guests could endlesslydrink and, instead of becoming intoxicated, growever younger and more healthy. In folkloreGoibniu survived as GOBAN SAOR, a sharp andclever smith who appears in many tales.

Goidel (Gadelus, Gaedhal, Gael, Gaedel Glas,Gathelus) Irish hero. It is probable that thisfigure is a literary invention rather than a realdivinity; he is named as the ancestor of theGoidelic (Gaelic) Celts of Ireland, Scotland, andthe Isle of Man. In a complicated and clearlyChristianized text, he is said to have been thegrandson of an Egyptian Pharaoh, healed of achildhood illness by the biblical Moses. Englishpoet and propagandist Edmund Spenserdescribed Goidel or Gathelus as the son ofCecrops of Argos, a mythological Greek king,who married a princess of Egypt and took her toSpain, where they became the ancestors of theIrish race. Goidel may be the same as the figurewho otherwise appears as Míl (see MILESIANS),although he is also called one of Mil’s sons orgrandsons. His ancestor RIFATH SCOT was theone who, in the chaos of the biblical Tower ofBabel, became a speaker of Scots Gaelic; Goidelhimself created the Irish language by joiningwords from the other 72 languages he knew.

gold Symbolic metal. Gold was a valuablemetal to the Celts, who were renowned as metal-workers, but its value was based as much in mythas in commerce. It was associated with the SUN

and, as such, with prosperity brought aboutthrough the growth and abundance of summer’svegetation. This association made gold a sought-after metal for personal ornamentation; TORCS orneck-rings of twisted gold are among the treas-ures of ancient Celtic design and craftsmanship.Ritual objects, like the golden BOAT found inBroighter BOG, also attest to the importance ofgold to the Celts, both insular and Continental.

The Celtic reverence for gold was noted byancient authors. Diodorus Siculus noted that theCelts had “a strange and peculiar custom in con-

nection with the sanctuaries of the gods; for in thetemples and sanctuaries which are dedicatedthroughout the country a large amount of gold isopenly placed as a dedication to the gods.” Theopenly displayed gold would not be stolen, forthat would bring on unshakable bad fortune; thesame tradition can be found in the placing ofCOINS in sacred spots in Ireland and Britain today,which similarly tend to remain undisturbed.

Gold was also linked with the GODDESS andher diminished form, the FAIRY QUEEN, for suchbeings were often described as having longgolden HAIR. ÁINE and ÉTAIN are described ascombing their golden locks with a golden COMB.The lights of FAIRYLAND are often said to begold, and human greed could be tempted by theapparent wealth of gold found there, thoughstolen pocketsful would reveal themselves to beonly the butter-colored flowers of the GORSE

when the visitor returned to earth.In degraded form after the decline of Celtic

religion, this magical substance became nothingbut money, as when leprechauns were sought fortheir pot of gold and the treasure of the goddesswas transformed into the “Money Hole” ofMUNSTER, a place of inexhaustible wealth lostsomewhere on the slopes of the Loughfennelmountains. Thistles were sometimes said togrow at locations of buried FAIRY gold.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 91–98,118–119; Ó Catháin, Séamus and PatrickO’Flanagan. The Living Landscape: Kilgallian,Erris, Country Mayo. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1975, pp. 111 ff; Raftery,Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of theIrish Iron Age. London: Thames and Hudson,1994, pp. 23–25; Ross, Anne. Pagan CelticBritain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition.London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 19.

Goleuddydd Welsh heroine or goddess. Thelegend of this Welsh princess, whose namemeans “bright day,” probably disguises an

222 Goidel

ancient goddess of FERTILITY, who may deriveeither from Celtic or pre-Celtic sources. Shemarried a prince, CILYDD, but was unable to con-ceive by him, causing consternation among herpeople, who both wished for an heir to thethrone and worried over the symbolism of a bar-ren couple on the throne. Unfortunately, whenshe finally became pregnant, Goleuddydd wentmad and refused to live indoors, raging throughthe wilderness instead (the same motif is foundin the Irish tale of MESS BUACHALLA). When thetime of her labor came, she went to the sty of aswineherd and there bore her son, thereaftercalled KULHWCH or “pig.” Like RHIANNON, theWelsh HORSE-goddess who bore a colt, we havehere a transparent disguise for an ancient PIG

goddess of fertility.

Goll mac Morna (Aed, Aodh mac Fidga)Irish hero. This one-eyed warrior was the tradi-tional enemy of the great Irish hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL. He was a hero originally named Aed(“bright”), son of Morna (hence, mac Morna).His father may have been a GIANT of the FIR

BOLG people, who are associated with theprovince of CONNACHT, also Goll’s domain.When Aed lost an eye in combat with a mannamed Luchet, he became Goll (“the one-eyed”). Other versions of the tale say that Goll’sopponent was CUMHALL, Fionn’s father, whomGoll promptly killed and beheaded. This initi-ated an endless feud between Goll’s family, theCLAN MORNA, and Fionn’s, the CLAN BAÍSCNE.

Goll was not always Fionn’s enemy, for herescued the hero from the clutches of three pow-erful HAGS who held him captive in the cave ofKeshcorran, and Fionn rewarded him by givingGoll his daughter in marriage. Nor was Fionnalways Goll’s foe, for he once found him sleepingby the Shannon River and, sheathing his sword,let the weary one-eyed warrior rest. Thus manysee Fionn and Goll as part of a mythologicalcycle in which each relies upon as well as opposesthe other. Ultimately, however, enmity rules:Fionn, freed from Keshcorran, promptly killed

Goll’s grandson FER Í, which began the cycle ofviolence again. Ultimately driven to the edge ofIreland, Goll lived without food or water for 30days, becoming wild with despair and hungerbefore dying at the hands of a minor member ofthe FIANNA, Mac Smaile. Goll’s death did not endthe feud, which continued until the Fianna wasfinally overcome at the battle of GABHAIR. Somelegends say that after his death Goll found a newhome in one of the magical ISLANDS of the west-ern sea, on whose shores he had met his doom.

Goll also appears in the legend of LUGH, thehalf-FOMORIAN, half-TUATHA DÉ DANANN herobest known for killing his grandfather, the fierceand evil BALOR. One version says that Lugh waskilled by Goll, while in another Lugh killed Gollafter the great second battle of MAG TUIRED.Goll himself is easily confused with theFomorian king Balor, who had one evil EYE thatkilled with a glance. Finally, a minor taledescribes Goll’s death at the hands of the youngwarrior LAOGHAIRE mac Crimthann, who wonthe hand of his beloved DÉR GRÉINE as a result ofhis successful battle against the gigantic Goll.

Goll mac Morna may be connected with, oridentical to, another one-eyed figure, theSALMON who swam in the pool near the famouswaterfall of ASSAROE and sometimes named FIN-TAN, who also bore the name of Goll Essa Ruaid.This identification further links Goll to Fionn,for it was the salmon of Assaroe that, cooked andaccidentally eaten by Fionn (see FINNÉCES) thatgave Fionn his magical insight and WISDOM.Finally, Goll mac Morna has been linked toanother one-eyed hero, Goll mac Carbada,killed by the ULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN in afight that echoes Fionn’s with Goll.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 186.

Golwg (Golwg Haffddydd) Welsh heroine.In some early Arthurian legends, this is the nameof the maidservant to ESYLLT, who later became

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the lover of a friend of TRYSTAN’s. When thestory evolves into that of Tristan and ISEULT, themaid’s name is given as BRANGIEN.

Good God, The See DAGDA.

goose Symbolic bird. Both the tame and thewild goose (see BARNACLE GOOSE) had mytho-logical and symbolic significance to the Celts.The barnyard goose, a notoriously aggressivebeing, was seen as an image of the warriordivinities, both male and feamle. Stone geeselined the temples of Gaul, while Brittany pro-duced bronzes of war goddesses with goose-headhelmets. Given this symbolism, it is ironic thatthe Celtic siege of Rome was ended when thegeese of the goddess Juno Moneta’s temple setup such a commotion that the defenders wereroused and the invading Celts defeated. Sostrong was the identification of Celtic peoplewith the goose that the animal was a taboo foodamong the Britons, used for DIVINATION andeaten only on ritual occasions. Some FAIRY

beings could change by SHAPE-SHIFTING intogeese, as could the waterbird-hero Geroid Iarla.

Goreu (Goreu fab Custennin) Welsh hero. Arelatively obscure character, Goreu appears as ahidden child in the story of KUHLWCH AND

OLWEN—hidden because a GIANT, OLWEN’s fatherYSPADDADEN PENKAWR, had eaten his 22 earlier-born siblings. Freed by king ARTHUR, Goreubecame a member of the court of CAMELOT andultimately slew his family’s gigantic enemy.

Gorgon Greek goddess. A familiar icon to theRomans was the decapitated HEAD of theGorgon Medusa, whose image from Greekmythology was taken over by them and used asan apotropaic or warning sign. When theRoman legions arrived in Celtic lands, theyfound a well-established cult of the head; theGorgon seemed a familiar emblem and wasadopted into some Romano-Celtic temples,

most notably that of SUL at the famous thermalsprings or AQUAE SULIS at Bath in southwesternBritain. While Medusa was a goddess, the Celticsacred head was typically a male one; thus the“male Gorgon” found in the temple of Sulis is aunique melding of Greek, Roman, and Celticmeanings in one image.

Gorias Irish mythological site. Somewhere inthe OTHERWORLD was the magical city of Gorias,from which the TUATHA DÉ DANANN receivedone of their great treasures, the spear of LUGH.

Gorlois Arthurian hero. IGRAINE, one of themost beautiful women in Wales, was married tothe duke of Cornwall, Gorlois, and was themother of several daughters, including the mag-ical MORGAN and the doomed MORGAUSE.Although she was happy with her husband,Igraine caught the attention of the heroic UTHER

PENDRAGON, who wished to take her to bed.Igraine was a faithful wife, however, and soUther conspired with the magician MERLIN toappear to Igraine in the body of her husband.Igraine did not know that Gorlois was alreadydead by Uther’s hand when she conceivedARTHUR, the once and future king of Britain.

Gorm (Gorm the Grim) British mythologi-cal site. The image of a GIANT of this name iscarved into the side of the gorge of the RiverAvon. Gorm probably descended from a localdivinity made monstrous by the interpretationsof Celtic (possibly Viking) religion by Christianpriests. The image was said to represent a canni-bal; vestiges of belief in a figure with this nameare also found in Orkney.

gorse Symbolic plant. A hardy plant foundthroughout Ireland and Britain, gorse grows inharsh as well as fertile conditions. In spring thetough prickly bushes burst out with velvety fra-grant yellow flowers, some of which remainthrough the summer. It had two major uses: as a

224 Good God, The

fuel, for it is plentiful and burns at an intenseheat; and as the mainstay of hedges, for CATTLE

hesitate to approach its spiny, dense growth. InWales, a sprig of gorse was worn as protectionagainst WITCHCRAFT. (See also FURZE.)

Govannon (Gofannon, Gafannon) Welshgod. The Welsh SMITH god, a parallel deity tothe Irish GOIBNIU, was a great artificer linkedwith the magician king MATH. Smithcraft wasconsidered almost magical in early times, whenthe refining of metal was still a new and rareprocess. The divine smith had agricultural pow-ers as well, for it was he who cleaned the plowsat the end of planting, to ensure that the tools ofabundance would serve another year.

Govannon appears in the collection of mythscalled the MABINOGION as the accidental mur-derer of the goddess ARIANRHOD’s magical sonDYLAN, who was mourned by the very waves ofthe sea. In folklore Govannon was renamedGOBAN SAOR and described as the builder of earlychurches. In addition to his role as god of crafts-manship, Govannon had power over the ele-ments and the weather; some have found in himan ancient thunder divinity like TARANIS.

Gradlon (Gradlon Muer, Grallon, Garallon,Gralon) Breton hero. In one of the most dra-matic stories from the Celtic region of France—Cornuoille or Brittany—we learn of the kingGradlon and his beautiful pagan daughter,DAHUT. He was a loving father who indulged hisdaughter’s every wish, including attending hernightly balls and other diversions within thewalls that protected the low-lying city from thesurging sea. A monk, GUÉNOLÉ, warned himabout his daughter’s allegedly evil proclivities,but Gradlon would hear nothing against Dahut.Yet the beautiful city of YS was doomed, forDahut attracted the attention of CADO, a sea godor sea monster who wanted to drag the princessdown to the undersea world with him. Themonk saved Gradlon, for the king had acceptedChristianity despite his daughter’s more tradi-

tional beliefs; in some variants, Guénolé forcesGradlon to sacrifice Dahut to the sea in order tosave himself, while in others the two simplyescape as the deluge pours into the magnificentcity of Ys.

Gradlon appears in several other tales fromBrittany, which show him as a model of theCeltic regional king who made his land wealthyand who protected it by defeating the Vikings onthe Loire river. In some texts, his name is said tohave been borne by later kings of the region.

Grail (Holy Grail) Symbolic object. Gen-erally pictured as the sacred cup from which theChristian savior Jesus drank at his Last Supperin Jerusalem, the Grail is also sometimes said tobe the platter on which he was served his breador paschal lamb at the Passover dinner he sharedwith his disciples on the night before he died. Athird alternative holds that the Grail was a cupthat caught the blood of Jesus as he lay dying.After his crucifixion and resurrection, JOSEPH OF

ARIMATHEA, a merchant at whose house the LastSupper was held, transported the Grail toBritain. Thus the Christian emblem of the mys-tery of transubstantiation—the change of com-mon bread and wine into the body and blood ofJesus—became grafted onto a series of legendsand myths of Celtic origin to become a complexyet compelling tale that continues to inspirepoets and thinkers.

The Grail quest was set in motion by a youngknight of the ROUND TABLE, PERCIVAL, whofound himself in a dead kingdom ruled over by aking who had been wounded in his groin, thesymbol of his FERTILITY, and so could do noth-ing but fish in the land’s increasingly emptyLAKES, for which reason he was called the FISHER

KING. The king welcomed Percival to his castle,where a banquet was prepared.

There the young knight was presented withstrange visions: Before his eyes appeared a float-ing chalice and a bleeding lance that hovered inmidair while the court sat in silence. Percivalchose to remain silent in the face of these marvels,

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never asking what they signified. The visionthen evaporated, as did the palace and the kingand all his court.

And so the quest began. The Grail quest tooka different form for each knight who embarkedupon it, for each was granted the quest appropri-ate to his character. Various endings are proposedin various texts: The thinly disguised Christianhero GALAHAD receives the Grail and is transfig-ured into sanctity; LANCELOT finds the GrailCastle but falls into a trance and does not enter;Percival returns to the Grail Castle, asks the rel-evant questions—whose is the cup, why does thelance bleed, and what does it all mean?—and thusheals the king and restores the land, after whichhe himself is elevated to the KINGSHIP.

The story of the quest for the Grail includesseveral Celtic motifs. The Fisher King is theBLEMISHED KING of Celtic tradition, which heldthat any king with a physical blemish could notrule. The Grail itself is the CAULDRON thatappears in many forms in Celtic myth: It is theWelsh goddess CERIDWEN’s cauldron whereinWISDOM was brewed, the cauldron of rebirth ofthe Welsh hero EFNISIEN, and the great ever-abundant cauldron of the Irish god DAGDA. Thesymbolic meaning of the Grail fluctuates, but itis connected generally to fertility, although insome Christian tellings it appears to representthe opposite, being linked with the refusal toaccept sexuality and thus with sterility.

Sources: Cowan, Tom. Fire in the Head: Shamanismand the Celtic Spirit. San Francisco:HarperSanFrancisco, 1993, p. 164; Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries.Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe HumanitiesPress, 1911, pp. 311–325.

Gráinne (Grania, Grainne, Grace) Irish hero-ine or goddess. The story of this fiery woman andher lover DIARMAIT Ua Duibne is one of the mostfamous of the entire FENIAN CYCLE, told andretold in many variants. It begins with a race upthe sides of the MUNSTER mountain called SLIEVE-

NAMON, “the mountain of the women.” When theaging hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL announced thathe would wed the fastest woman in Ireland, theself-possessed princess Gráinne decided that thehonor should be hers. Fionn sat on the CAIRN

atop the mountain, and at a signal all the womenraced toward him. Fleet of foot and fierce ofheart, Gráinne reached the prize first. And so thewedding was set.

Various texts claim that Gráinne was aprincess of ULSTER, of Munster, or of TARA.Most agree that the wedding feast was held onthe royal hill of Tara, where a monument calledRath Gráinne still stands. But before the wed-ding festivities had ended, Gráinne had noticedthat her new husband was considerably olderthan she was. Restlessly, she looked around.

Among the gathered heroes of Fionn’s band,the FIANNA, was Diarmait Ua Duibne, a youngman who had many clearly visible attractions butwhose most irresistible was under cover. Either acap or bangs always covered Diarmait’s fore-head, for there was a dimple or birthmark calleda BALL SEIRC—a beauty mark that caused anywoman who saw it to grow crazy with love. Atthe festival, Diarmait was playing with Fionn’sdogs, and as he did so he happened to toss hishair from his forehead, and the ball seirc wasrevealed. Instantly Gráinne fell hopelessly inlove with him. (This theme of fated love occursas well in the Celtic-inspired story of TRISTAN

and ISEULT, but there the fated affair is launchedthrough mistaken sharing of a love elixir.)

Diarmait had no desire to run off with thenew wife of his leader, one of Ireland’s fiercestwarriors. But he did not reckon on Gráinne’swillfulness. Gráinne learned that Diarmait wasunder a GEIS, a sacred vow, never to refuse awoman who came to him neither clothed norunclothed, neither afoot nor on horseback, inneither daylight or dark. And so Gráinne arrivedveiled in mountain mist or catkin down, mountedon a GOAT, just at sunset, and thus found a way toforce him to run away from Fionn with her.

In some versions of the tale, Gráinne druggedthe entire Fianna—including her intended hus-

226 Gráinne

band, but sparing the man she desired—and con-vinced Diarmait to elope with her. The coupleran toward the Shannon River that cuts Irelandin half, sleeping there in what became known asthe Wood of the Two Tents, for Diarmait fearedto sleep in the same tent with Gráinne, knowingthat Fionn was on their trail. Once again Gráinneprevailed, mildly mentioning to Diarmait—aftera narrow escape from a monster—how nice it wasto know something, at least, found her desirable.Shamed, Diarmait joined Gráinne in her tent.

Fionn was indeed behind them, together withthe entire Fianna. The couple kept a step ahead oftheir pursuers, Gráinne wrapped in a cloak ofinvisibility while Diarmait leaped stupendouslengths to stay out of danger’s reach. Each nightthey slept on a different stone bed, so that theDOLMENS that mark the Irish countryside are nowknown as the “beds of Diarmait and Gráinne.”They ran so far and so fast that they never slepttwo nights in one place nor ate a cooked supper—but they ran far and fast together.

Finally, however, they grew exhausted by theirconstant travel and took refuge with a giant namedSEARBHAN, who let the couple hide in his magicalROWAN tree, warning them however to leave theberries strictly alone. But hungry Gráinne couldnot resist, and Diarmait killed Searbhan so thatthe two could eat the magical fruit. Unfortunately,Searbhan’s dying screams revealed the couple’slocation to the pursuing Fionn.

Climbing quickly up the tree, Diarmait andGráinne hid from her former suitor, his formerleader, but Fionn suspected where they were. Hesat beneath the tree and began to play FIDCHELL, acribbage-like board game that had beenDiarmait’s passion, against his friend OISÍN theBARD. Unable to resist indicating the best move tohis chum, Diarmait dropped berries onto theboard from above, thus revealing his location toFionn. And so the pursuit began again, until thegod AONGHUS óg pleaded the lovers’ cause to thepursuing Fionn, and the pair was restored tofavor. They did not return to Fionn’s abode at thefort of Almu, rather, they retired to Gráinne’s rathnear the magical cave of Keshcorran in Co. Sligo.

Fionn finally had his revenge: He luredDiarmait into a wild BOAR hunt atop the leg-endary peak of BEN BULBEN, knowing that theyoung man was under a geis never to hunt boarand realizing that Diarmait would have a hardfight against the boar, Gulben, who was a manwhom his father had killed, enchanted into thatfierce form. When the magical boar lay deadwith no injury to Diarmait, Fionn again tauntedhis rival, forcing him to pace out the length ofthe corpse. A sharp bristle stabbed him andDiarmait fell down, near death from unquench-able bleeding. He begged Fionn to bring himwater, and the old man did so, but then let ittrickle away as the dying Diarmait watched,remarking that Gráinne should see his beautifulbody like that, all covered with gore and blood.

Because of her name, which hides the wordfor SUN within it, Gráinne has been often inter-preted as a diminished goddess of SOVEREIGNTY,whose selection of Diarmait over the failingFionn meant the passage of her power to theyounger man. Similarly, the circuit of Ireland bythe loving couple recalls the king’s circuit of hislands with the goddess as well as the daily move-ment of the sun across the landscape.

Sources: Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the WestHighlands. Edinburgh: Edmonston andDouglas, 1862, pp. 39 ff; Dillon, Myles, ed.Irish Sagas. Cork: The Mercier Press, 1968, p.135; Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and FightingMen: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and ofthe Fianna of Ireland. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1970, pp. 269 ff; MacCullogh,J. A. Celtic Mythology. Chicago: AcademyPublishers, 1996, pp. 150, 254.

Grana Irish heroine. In Co. Limerick, atCarrigogunnel (“rock of the candle”), a lightshone every night, killing whoever cast eyesupon it. Grana was the name of the WITCH orFAIRY who lit the smiting candle; she may be adiminished form of GRÁINNE or GRIAN, god-desses associated with that area. One of the

Grana 227

valiant FIANNA, Regan, donned a cap of invisibil-ity and snuffed Grana’s candle, thereby destroy-ing her power.

Grannos (Grannus) See APOLLO.

Gray Man (Far Liath, Liath Mhor) Scottishfolkloric figure. A GIANT specter who hauntedthe Scottish shores as well as those of Ireland,the Gray Man is thought to personify the seamist in which travelers can be lost and, there-after, drowned. He looked especially for boatscarrying RED-haired people and women butwould attack any other boats at whim.

Sources: Curran, Bob. Complete Guide to CelticMythology. Belfast: Appletree, 2000, pp.126–127; Douglas, George. Scottish Fairy andFolk Tales. West Yorkshire: EP Publishing,1977, pp. 94 ff.

green Symbolic color. Together with RED, thiswas the color most favored by the FAIRY races whoinhabit the ancient Celtic lands. Many humans,especially in Scotland, traditionally refused towear this color so as not to offend their fairyneighbors; indeed, some Scottish families consid-ered it fatal to don the color. Common associa-tions between the color green and flourishingvegetation point to the fairies’ earlier incarnationas spirits of FERTILITY and abundance.

Green Children British folkloric figures.Mythology and history collide in the tale of theGreen Children, a girl and boy with GREEN skinand hair who abruptly appeared in Suffolk in the12th century. They spoke no known languageand, although clearly ravenous, refused to eatthe meat they were offered. Although the boydied shortly after the pair crawled out of a holeunder a downed tree, the girl lived to learnenough human speech to tell her rescuers thatshe and her brother came from a race that livedbeneath the earth. She called her home St.

Martin’s Land, which she described as a land ofconstant rain that otherwise closely resembledthe upper world. The girl explained that she andher brother had become lost while tending theirflocks and had accidentally come up to the sur-face world. The girl later married, but she keptfrequenting the place of her emergence and oneday disappeared, presumably to find her wayhome. Recent theories hold that the childrenwere not FAIRIES at all—as their coloring sug-gested—but that their green hue was the effectof malnutrition, and that they were simply lostchildren from a war-torn area of England whohad reached the unfamiliar “surface” by travel-ing through abandoned mineshafts.

Source: Keightley, Thomas. The Fairy Mythology.London: H. G. Bohn, 1870, pp. 381 ff.

Green Isle Scottish mythological site. One ofthe FORTUNATE ISLES, the Green Isle was a partof FAIRYLAND filled with orchards of magicalfruit, especially APPLES. The Green Isle wassometimes called the Isle of Apples and imag-ined to be inhabited only by women.

Green Ladies British folkloric figures. Likethe identically named DAMES VERTES in France,these FAIRY maidens were thought to haunt freshwater—WELLS and LAKES and pools—in Britain.They were sometimes destructive, luring peopleto their death like MERMAIDS, but could be jovialand pleasant as well.

Green Man British folkloric figure. Foundcarved in stone and wood in English medievalart, this figure of a man’s face peering out fromleaves and branches—or perhaps composed ofthose leaves and branches—is one of the mostevocative and mysterious evidences of folkbelief in Celtic lands. Although known by noother name than the Green Man, he has beeninterpreted as representing a guardian spirit ofthe corn, a masculine force of abundance. Most

228 Grannos

faces have a mild or even benevolent look,although a few look angry or threatening; someseem intoxicated.

A similar figure is found outside England asearly as Roman times, when a male Medusa wassometimes used as an ornament; whether thehead had religious significance is unknown,although he may have represented the woodlandgod SILVANUS. But the male mask in Britain isdistinct in that the leaves are not a decorationbut part of the face, which either emerges fromthem or dissolves into them.

If there was a myth or legend that defined themeaning of the Green Man, it has been lost. It ispossible, however, that vestiges remain in litera-ture and folk tradition. The Knight that GAWAIN

meets in the poem Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight is often interpreted as a literary reflectionof this figure. The dancer called JACK-IN-THE-GREEN, who wears a leaf-covered mask in someBritish festivals on BELTANE (May 1), may be aliving representative of the Green Man.

Sources: Basford, Kathleen. The Green Man.Ipswitch: D. S. Brew, Ltd., 1978; Bord, Janet,and Colin Bord. The Secret Country: An interpre-tation of the folklore of ancient sites in the BritishIsles. New York: Walker and Co., 1976, p. 76;Ross, Anne, and Michael Cyprien. A Traveller’sGuide to Celtic Britain. Harrisburg, Pa.:Historical Times, 1985, p. 121; Spence, Lewis.The Minor Traditions of British Mythology. NewYork: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972.

Grian Irish goddess. Although many com-mentators find evidence of SUN gods among theCelts, there is equal or stronger evidence thatthe sun was seen as a goddess, at least in Irelandwhere a goddess with the clearly solar name ofGrian (“sun”) is found. As her name is pro-nounced like “green,” some places that includethis syllable, like Pallas Green near the FAIRY hillof KNOCKAINY, may refer to Grian; some haveposited the derivation of that word from thesolar power to bring forth plants.

Although no myths remain of Grian inIreland, she is found in place-names likeTuamgraney and Lough Graney, which are alsodescribed as locations important to the obscurefigure GILLAGRÉINE. Grian is described as thesister or twin of another goddess with solarattributes, ÁINE, the goddess or FAIRY QUEEN ofthe magical lake LOUGH GUR. As Áine was asso-ciated with summer rituals, it has been proposedthat Grian ruled the winter sun. Whether thereis any connection between Grian and the vibrantheroine GRÁINNE is not established. Many god-desses were called Grian as a kind of title; thusMacha is called “sun of womanfolk.”

Sources: Condren, Mary. The Serpent and theGoddess: Women, Religion and Power in AncientIreland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p.35; O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 289.

Grianán Aileach (Greenan Elly, Aileach,Oileach; Ailech Néit; Aleach Ned) Irishmythological site. An impressive, huge stonetriple-walled HILLFORT in Co. Donegal goes bythis name, which means the “sunroom” (grianán)of the otherwise unknown Aileach, said to be awoman or a goddess buried under the structure.But the vast circle of stone is no sunroom, andAileach has also been defined as the name of theland or the tribe of its builders. Thus while thestructure itself speaks eloquently of past impor-tance, the name is more puzzling than explana-tory. Occasionally it is said to have been namedafter GRIAN, the hypothesized SUN goddess, butthat is true only insofar as the word grianánderives from that of the sun.

Aileach is listed in early texts as the capital ofthe PROVINCE of ULSTER after the fall of EMAIN

MACHA, thus putting it on the same level of suchimportant sites as TARA and CRUACHAN. Legendhas it that the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the mytho-logical tribe of the goddess DANU, built GrianánAileach and held it against the MILESIAN

Grianán Aileach 229

invaders; their king, NUADA of the Silver Arm, issaid to be buried beneath its walls. The site wasalso the special home of the beneficent godDAGDA, who buried his son ÁED Minbhrec there.Grianán Aileach was one of the last forts to beheld by the historical rulers who descended fromthe Celts, for it remained the seat of the Ui Néilldynasty, descendants of NIALL of the NineHostages, until the 13th century.

Griflet (Jaufre) Arthurian hero. This youngman, one of the first knights of the ROUND

TABLE was the lover of BRUNISSEN.

Grimes Grave Goddess British goddess.Because it is difficult if not impossible to date rock,the cultural origin of the tiny figure that goes bythis name cannot be unquestionably established.The goddess was found in Norfolk, England, inthe area of prehistoric (4000 B.C.E.) flint minescalled Grimes Graves, where pit-mines as deep as50 feet were dug with only deer antlers as shovels.Roughly shaped from white chalk, the goddess fig-ure is squat and smirking, possibly pregnant; shereminds many observers of the SHEELA NA GIG,controversially labeled a goddess figure. That theGrimes Goddess was deliberately deposited in themine is argued by the offerings found with it: achalk phallus and several small chalk balls, a chalklamp, flint blocks, and antlers. The original nameof the goddess has been lost, and her meaning canonly be a subject of conjecture.

Grisandole See AVENABLE.

groa’ch Breton folkloric figure. In Brittany wefind a folkloric figure that may be related to theScottish and Irish GRUAGACH, but which had anevil disposition in contrast to the gruagach’shelpful one. Once, it was said, there was a boyand a girl, promised as spouses to each other atbirth but orphaned and left to grow up as bestthey could. When he came of age the boy,Huarn, went off to seek his fortune. Hisintended, Bellah, gave him three TALISMANS: a

bell that would ring when he was in danger; aknife that would free him from any bonds; and astaff that would take him wherever he wanted togo. Off Huara set, walking until he reached theIsle of Lok, where a FAIRY woman lived sur-rounded by the waters of the LAKE. She took himbeneath the water and showed him a palace, allbuilt of seashells with crystal and coral decora-tions that made soft music as he passed. A gardenof water plants grew around it, and within itpeople were celebrating merrily.

Inside the palace the groa’ch lay down upon agolden bed, her GREEN dress clinging to hervoluptuous body and coral ornaments winkingfrom her silky black hair. She urged the boy tostay with her, promising him the riches of thesea, for her lake opened into it through a secretpassage, and all her treasure was gathered fromships that sank in the ocean. Huach almost for-got himself in the splendor of this FAIRYLAND,but back home Bellah heard the bell ring and,disguised as a boy, came rushing to save herpromised lover. As they escaped together, the seadrowned the palace of the tempting but destruc-tive water-WITCH.

Source: Breton Folktales. London: G. Bell & Sons,1971, pp. 117 ff.

Gromer Somer Joure Arthurian hero. Thebeautiful maiden RAGNELL was turned into aHAG by this evil magician.

Gronw Pebyr Welsh hero. After the Welshpoet-hero GWYDION had created a woman offlowers for his son/nephew LLEU LLAW GYFFES,the flower-wife BLODEUWEDD grew tired of herhusband and fell in love with the hunter GronwPebyr. The two conspired to kill Lleu, withBlodeuwedd providing the secret informationabout her husband’s vulnerability and GronwPebyr striking the fatal blows.

grove See NEMETON.

230 Griflet

gruagach (grogan, grógach) Scottish andIrish folkloric figure. This figure may descendfrom Celtic guardian divinities who watchedover specific families and may originally havebeen divine ancestors. In Scotland the gruagachwas a FAIRY woman who watched the CATTLE

like a barnyard BROWNIE; she required fre-quent libations of MILK, preferably poured intospecial hollowed-out stones (see BULLAUN)called leacna gruagach. She dressed in GREEN,as was the fairies’ habit, and had long goldenHAIR, another indication of her OTHERWORLD

nature. Even on sunny days, she was oftendrenched, as though she had been out in adownpour, and quietly asked humans whoencountered her if she could stand beside thefire and dry herself.

The gruagach could also be male; in Co.Donegal, an immigrant Scottish family reportedseeing a small man hanging about the farm-stead, dressed only in his long RED hair (a suresign of fairy blood). When the farmer was laterinjured while threshing oats, the little naked fel-low took over and kept a steady pace of workdespite his lack of appropriate attire. Thewoman of the place, apparently suspecting herlaborer was a fairy, avoided speaking to him orthanking him for his work (see LAYING THE

FAIRIES). But after several days of work by thegruagach, the woman took pity upon his naked-ness and knit him a tiny sweater. That was all ittook; the little guy disappeared the next day.The gruagach’s name has been connected withterms for “hair,” with which they were believedto be spectacularly endowed.

Sources: Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions ofthe Irish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom,1969, p. 136; MacCullogh, J. A. CelticMythology. Chicago: Academy Publishers,1996, p. 245; MacDougall, James. Folk Talesand Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English.Edinburgh: John Grant, 1910, pp. 217–221; OhEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends of Donegal.Trans. Máire MacNeill. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, p. 89.

Guaire Irish hero. The father of the mountaingoddess ÉBHLINNE of MUNSTER, Guaire lived inthe great BRÚ NA BÓINNE, the prehistoric stonecomplex on the banks of the River Boyne, far tothe north of his daughter’s land. Another Guairewas an historical king of CONNACHT, renownedfor his GENEROSITY; he even provided meals toanchorites in the nearby mountains by having thefood whisked through the air. Guaire’s castle atKinvarra in Co. Galway, which can still be visitedtoday, was the site of the challenge to the BARD

Senchán, which resulted in the return of the lostepic, TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, from the OTHERWORLD.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 327–328.

guee Manx curse or prayer. On the Isle ofMan, it was traditional to both pray and CURSE

while kneeling; cursing was called “wishing uponthe knees.” One strong traditional curse wascalled the Skeab Lome or “naked broom,” inwhich a broom was invoked as a power to sweepaway evil (or one’s enemies).

Guénolé (Guénole, Gwénnolé, Winwaloe)Breton hero. This Breton SAINT was the abbot ofYS, the beautiful doomed city of the pagan princessDAHUT. It was Guénolé who saved GRADLON,Dahut’s father, while sentencing Dahut to diebeneath the waves of the sea. Such figures, inter-polated into Celtic myth with the coming ofChristianity, sometimes have at their root anancient elemental divinity, transformed andhumanized. As Guenole is connected with the sea,he may have taken on some aspects of an ancientsea god; conversely, he may simply represent theintrusion of Christian morality into Celtic culture.

Guid Folk See NAMES FOR THE FAIRIES.

Guinevere (Guenièvre, Gwenhwyvar, Gwen-hwyfar, Ganore) Arthurian heroine or goddess.

Guinevere 231

The theory that the stories of the quasi-historicalking of Britain, ARTHUR, derive from Celticmythology is strongly supported by the centralposition of Guinevere in the tales. If, as manyagree, Arthur’s “wife” is a thinly disguised Welshgoddess, the sad tale of her betrayal of the agingking for the noble younger man becomes a vari-ant of the common story of the king’s marriage tothe goddess of SOVEREIGNTY—a goddess whomarried one king after another, for she was theland itself. In offering herself to the manly knightLANCELOT, by this interpretation, Guinevereenacted the traditional role of the goddess.

Variants in which Arthur married threewomen, each named Guinevere, furtherstrengthen the identification of this queen withthe THREE-fold goddess, as does the derivationof her name (gwen, white; hwyvvar, FAIRY orspirit) from words that link her to the OTHER-WORLD and to the Irish goddess/heroineFINNABAIR. Similarly, her marriage to Arthur onthe festival of summer’s beginning, BELTANE,points to a ritual drama rather than merely adynastic alliance.

The story of Guinevere’s marriage to anaging king and her later love for a handsomeknight almost exactly parallels the Irish story offair GRÁINNE and her young lover DIARMAIT,who ran away from the aging FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL; there are also parallels in the forcedmarriage of the the young heroine ISEULT toking MARK of Cornwall despite her love for theyounger TRISTAN. Like Diarmait, Lancelot atfirst attempted to maintain his loyalty to his kingwhile sleeping next to the woman he loved, plac-ing a sword between them to deter intimacy, justas Diarmait pitched two separate tents.

Ultimately, however, love conquered caution,and the resulting affair between Lancelot andGuinevere split the loyalties of Arthur’s knightsof the ROUND TABLE. Many of them went off onhopeless quests, including that for the GRAIL.Guinevere finally determined that she could nolonger live with Arthur and arranged an abduc-tion, instructing her maidens to dress inGREEN—the color of FAIRYLAND—on the morn-

ing of Beltane, further support for the idea thatshe was herself from the Otherworld. Some ver-sions of the story describe a decision by Arthurto execute Guinevere for her unfaithfulness,with Lancelot rescuing her at the last minutefrom the flames.

Her escape, however, was followed by aneventual return to Arthur. By then the court ofCAMELOT was in ruins and its king was in com-bat with his mortal enemy and bastard son, MOR-DRED. Although in many tellings Guinevere isblamed for the shambles that Camelot became,it was Arthur who had planted the seed of itsdownfall. Arguments for interpretation ofGuinevere as the goddess of Sovereignty pointto early legends that Mordred carried off andmarried Guinevere in an attempt to solidify hisclaim to Camelot’s throne, suggesting that she,rather than Arthur, held the keys to the king-dom. Contemporary renderings of the tale,including Marion Zimmer Bradley’s wildly pop-ular Mists of Avalon, attempt to redeem centuriesof disdain for Guinevere.

Sources: MacCullogh, J. A. Celtic Mythology.Chicago: Academy Publishers, 1996, p. 123;Markale, Jean. Courtly Love: The Path of SexualInitiation. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions,2000, p. 116.

Guinglain Arthurian hero. A minor figure inthe tales of CAMELOT, Guinglain was the son ofthe transformed HAG, RAGNELL, and the exem-plary knight of the ROUND TABLE, GAWAIN.

Gundestrup Cauldron Archaeological treas-ure. In 1891 a great silver CAULDRON was foundin a Danish peat BOG, where it may have beeneither ritually deposited or hidden in a time ofcrisis. Bas-reliefs across the face of the vessel,which is believed to date from the 2nd or 1st cen-tury B.C.E. show enigmatic scenes that appear tobe rituals, and figures that appear to be divine.Because the site where the treasure was found isof ambiguous history, it has sometimes been

232 Guinglain

argued that the cauldron represents Germanicrather than Celtic material, but most scholarsagree that the cauldron either was of Celtic man-ufacture or was influenced by Celtic belief. Agoddess being conveyed on a cart and a hornedgod resembling the one known elsewhere as CER-NUNNOS are among the most important figureson the vessel.

gunna Scottish folkloric figure. A CATTLE-herding BROWNIE of the Scottish islands, thegunna hung about small farms making sure thecows did not trample the garden. As with manysuch helpful sprites, he went naked despite theweather. Any attempt to provide clothes drovethe gunna away (see LAYING THE FAIRIES).

Gutuatros (pl., Gutuatri) Continental Celticsocial role. This name was born by certain con-tinental Celtic DRUIDS who served at specifictemples. As the name appears to mean “speak-ers,” they may have practiced DIVINATION.

Guy Fawkes British folkloric belief. The1605 failure by Roman Catholics to destroy theEnglish Houses of Parliament, led by a mannamed Guy Fawkes, led to an annual festival,supposedly in honor of the conspirators’ execu-tion. The date of the festival, November 5, issuspiciously close to the old Celtic feast of win-ter’s beginning, SAMHAIN, on November 1. Inaddition, the typical celebration involves bon-fires, which may have replaced the festival firestraditional to Samhain.

Guyomard Arthurian hero. The lover of kingARTHUR’s half sister, the sorceress MORGAN,Guyomard was an untrustworthy knight who soangered Morgan that she cursed a valley in themagical forest of BROCÉLIANDE. Any knight whowandered into that PERILOUS VALLEY after beingunfaithful to his mistress would be trapped thereforever, surrounded by imagined demons andinsurmountable obstacles. LANCELOT, who was

ever true in his heart to his beloved Guinevere,finally broke the enchantment.

guytrash See TRASH.

Gwalchmei (Gwalchmei fab Gwyar) Welshhero. In Arthurian legend, Gwalchmei appearsas the world’s speediest runner and as one of theadvisers to the mythological king ARTHUR.

gwartheg y llyn Welsh folkloric figures. MostCeltic lands have tales of FAIRY COWS that recallthe supreme importance of their herds to theancient Celts. In both Scotland and Irelandthese cattle of the OTHERWORLD were imaginedas having the typical coloring of fairy beings:RED body and white ears. In Wales the patternchanged slightly, for the gwartheg were com-pletely white like GHOSTS. They could inter-breed with the stock of earthly farmers, much tothe advantage of the mortal COWS visited by astray white fairy BULL. Alternatively, a fairy cowmight decide to settle down on this side of theveil, producing prodigious amounts of MILK

until, like the mythical cow of abundance calledthe GLAS GHAIBHLEANN, she was driven away bygreed. One farmer who attempted to slaughterhis fairy cow found her and all her progenycalled AWAY by a LAKE-maiden.

Gwawl Welsh hero. A minor character in theWelsh MABINOGION, he was a suitor for the handof the goddess/queen RHIANNON against theheroic king PWYLL. Through trickery, Gwawlforced Pwyll to step back from his suit, but Pwyllreturned the favor by tricking Gwawl into crawl-ing into a bag, which he then used like a footballwith his warriors.

Gwendydd (Gwendolyn, Gwendolena, Gwend-dydd, Gwyneth, Ganieda, Venotia) Welshheroine. This Welsh woman was the sister of therenowned magician MERLIN—perhaps his TWIN,

Gwendydd 233

perhaps his lover, perhaps both. It was to herthat Merlin passed on his magical powers and hisknowledge, once the seductive VIVIANE hadtrapped him in her magical forest. In tales thatdescribe her as Merlin’s wife, Gwendydd mar-ried the generous king RHYDDERCH HAEL afterMerlin went mad.

Gwenfrewi (Winefride) Welsh heroine. Thequasi-historical 7th-century Gwenfrewi wasassaulted by a local prince, whose attempt on hervirtue she managed to escape. He came after herand, drawing his sword, decapitated her as pun-ishment for her self-control. Rolling down a hill,her HEAD came to rest in a little valley, where ahealing WELL immediately burst forth. Bueno, aminor SAINT and Gwenfrewi’s uncle, put herhead back on her shoulders, where it instantlyknit together, leaving only a small thin scaracross the throat as evidence of the crime.

Gwern Welsh hero. The child of the Welshprincess BRANWEN and her Irish husband, kingMATHOLWCH, did not live long. His uncleEFNISIEN mutilated Matholwch’s horses withoutreason, which gave the king cause to holdBranwen a prisoner in Ireland, during which timeshe bore Gwern, who was named king of the landin his infancy. Efnisien killed Gwern by burninghim alive when he was only three years old, caus-ing the great battle in which most of the Welshheroes and all the warriors of Ireland were killed.

Gwidion See GWYDION.

Gwion (Gwion Bach) Welsh hero. The nameof the great Welsh bard TALIESIN in his firstincarnation was Gwion, whose adventures beganwhen he was a little boy hired by the great HAG

goddess CERIDWEN to tend to household tasks.An important one was to stir the CAULDRON inwhich Ceridwen brewed herbs for a year and aday, intending to make her ugly son AFAGDDU

wise, in order to make up for his appearance.

Warned not to taste the brew, Gwion tried tofollow orders, but the stuff bubbled out andseared his skin. The boy popped his finger intohis mouth and, therefore, absorbed all the WIS-DOM intended for the goddess’s son. In a series oftransformations, Ceridwen pursued him until heturned himself into a grain of wheat that, trans-formed into a hen, she gobbled up. It impreg-nated her so that she gave birth to a rebornGwion, who became the great poet Taliesin.

gwrach y rhibyn Welsh folkloric figure. Likethe WASHER AT THE FORD, this BANSHEE-likeFAIRY woman warned of imminent death, usuallyby standing at a crossroads or near a bend in astream. She was huge and hideous, with coarseRED hair, a massive nose, and eyes that shone red.

gwragedd annwn Welsh folkloric figure.While most FAIRY women were dangerous tohumans, luring men to FAIRYLAND to enjoy anddiscard, the Welsh LAKE maidens or GwrageddAnnwn were a different breed, for they enjoyedsettling down with human men and made excel-lent wives. However, there was a firm tabooagainst ever lifting a hand to such a lake maiden.Even a blow struck in jest caused them to leavehusband and children behind, taking all theirfairy wealth—which could be substantial—andplunging into the nearest lake.

Gwri Welsh hero. This name was given to thekidnapped hero PRYDERI by his foster father,after the boy had miraculously appeared fromout of the night sky one BELTANE.

Gwyar (Anna) Welsh goddess. The story ofthis ancient Welsh goddess, wife of the god ofheaven, is fragmentary. All that is left is themeaning of her name (“gore”); her relationshipto king ARTHUR, said to have been her brother(at other times the name given for Arthur’s sisteris MORGAUSE or MORGAN); and the informationthat she had two sons, one good, the other bad.

234 Gwenfrewi

Gwyddno (Gwyddno Garanhir) Welsh hero.A minor figure in the story of KULHWCH AND

OLWEN, he was said to have a basket that wasmagically filled with food at all times—a basketthat Kulhwch had to steal in order to gain hisbeloved Olwen.

Gwydion (Gwidion, Gwydion ab Dôn)Welsh hero. The son of the great Welsh mothergoddess DÔN, Gwydion figures importantly inthe great compilation of myths called theMABINOGION. Although he is central to theaction, he plays a secondary role to the moreactive parties: his brother GILFAETHWY, his uncleMATH, his sister ARIANRHOD. When Gilfaethwyconceived a lustful fixation upon the maidenGOEWIN, ceremonial footholder to king Math,Gwydion helped him find an opportunity torape her. In punishment, Math turned the broth-ers into DEER, PIGS, and WOLVES consecutively.When he gained his human form back, Gwydionproposed that, as the deflowered Goewin couldno longer be footholder to Math, Arianrhod takeher place.

But Arianrhod failed to pass a magical test ofvirginity, giving birth to a wriggling lump of fleshthat leapt into the sea to become DYLAN Son-of-Wave and another unformed child whomGwydion nursed in a chest until he was oldenough to claim arms and a name from hismother. Arianrhod, still angered by Gwydion’sconnivances, refused, but Gwydion found a wayto trick her into naming the boy LLEU LLAW

GYFFES. Next, with Math’s help, Gwydion formeda woman, BLODEUWEDD, from flowers to be theboy’s bride. That, too, ended poorly, with the girlattempting to murder her husband, who turnedinto an EAGLE. Gwydion, always ready withMAGIC, brought Lleu back to human form andsent Blodeuwedd away in the form of an OWL.

Other tales show Gwydion changing fungusinto horses and creating seagoing ships fromthin air. Under the name of Gwion, he wasimprisoned in the OTHERWORLD, where hebecame a BARD as a result of the inspiration he

received. He may have brought back more thanpoetry from the Otherworld of ANNWN, for onetext refers to him as a thief who stole magicalswine and brought them to the surface world.This magician, poet, and trickster is believed tobe a diminished version of an earlier Welsh god,one whose domain included both the stars,where he lived in the Milky Way (CaerGwydion), and the underworld of Annwn.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 378.

gwyllion Welsh folkloric figure. In Walesstrange female spirits were said to haunt lonelyroads. With her apron thrown over her shoulder,trudging wearily along carrying a wooden milk-pail, this ancient HAG wore ash-colored rags andan oblong four-cornered hat. There is no recordof her attacking those she met on the roads, buther appearance was fearsome enough to frightenlonely travelers. Like other members of theFAIRY races, she feared metal, especially IRON,and vanished instantly if confronted with a knifeor other piece of cutlery.

Gwynn ap Nudd (Gwyn ap Nudd, Herne,Herne the Hunter, Gabriel) Welsh hero. TheWelsh king of FAIRYLAND, “White One, son ofthe Dark,” was said to reside under GLASTON-BURY TOR, the small pyramidal hill that is south-western England’s most significant feature.Gwynn reigned over the folk called the TYLWYTH

TEG, beautiful tiny people who wore blue anddanced all night in the fashion of Irish FAIRIES.His special feast was spring’s beginning,BELTANE, when he led the WILD HUNT to raid theland of the living. His name means Gwynn, sonof Nudd; his father was king of a Hades-likeOtherworld called ANNWN. He could material-ize at will, surrounded by his beautiful host play-ing FAIRY MUSIC. His queen was the daughter ofLLUDD, CREIDDYLAD, on whom Shakespearebased the character of Cordelia in King Lear.

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Alternative names used of Gwyn ap Nuddare Herne the Hunter, the frightening figurewho skulks around Windsor Forest in England;and Gabriel, known best for his vicious fairyhounds.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 152 ff; Lonigan,Paul R. The Druids: Priests of the Ancient Celts.Contributions to the Study of Religion, No. 45.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996, p.169; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions of

British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 109.

Gwythyr fab Greidawl Welsh folkloric fig-ure. This warrior was one of two contenders forthe hand of the maiden of springtime, CREIDDY-LAD, in Welsh folk ceremonies that marked theBELTANE season. Representing the summer,Gwythyr always won, defeating the winter king,GWYNN AP NUDD.

Gyre-Carling See HABETROT.

236 Gwythyr fab Greidawl

Habetrot (Habitrot, Gyre-Carling, Gy-Carlin) British folkloric figure. A spinner god-dess diminished after Christianization to a FAIRY

spirit, Habetrot was a healing spirit. Those whocould induce her to weave them a garment neversuffered from illness. She appeared in some areasof Britain as a FAIRY QUEEN (Gyre-Carling orGy-Carlin) who stole any flax left unspun at theend of a year.

On the Scottish border the tale is told of a lazygirl who, instructed by her mother to finish spin-ning seven hanks of yarn, hurt her fingers. Wan-dering in search of a stream in which to soothe herhands, the girl encountered an old spinningwoman who gave her seven lovely soft hanks spunby ghostly women with twisted mouths. The silkythread attracted a handsome lord who married thegirl for her spinning skills. The girl brought herhusband to Habetrot, who showed him thedeformed spinners and predicted that his new ladywould soon look that way. Shocked, the lord for-bade his wife to spin—permitting her to live theidle happy life she preferred.

Source: Douglas, George. Scottish Fairy and FolkTales. West Yorkshire: EP Publishing, 1977, pp.109–110.

Habondia (Abundia, Abunditia) Germanicor Celtic goddess. The name of this obscure

goddess became the word abundance, suggestingan earth or harvest divinity. Habondia was foundin Celtic lands but may be Germanic; she wasnoted by medieval WITCH-hunters as the partic-ular divinity of their prey.

Hafgan (Havgan) Welsh mythological fig-ure. In Welsh mythology Hafgan (“summersong”) was one of two rival kings of the OTHER-WORLD who battled constantly. His opponentwas the better-known king ARAWN of ANNWN.Hafgan was magically endowed with the abilityto recover from any blow once he had received asecond; thus his opponents had but one chanceto lay him low. In the collection of Welsh mythscalled the MABINOGION, Arawn asked the humanprince PWYLL to be his substitute for a year andto battle Hafgan for him. Magically switchingtheir appearances, Arawn went forth to rulePwyll’s land for a year, while Pwyll descended toAnnwn to take Arawn’s throne for the same time;at the end of the year, Pwyll defeated Hafgan insingle combat.

hag Irish and Scottish folkloric figure. Old,blind or one-eyed, humpbacked, with rheumyeyes and hairy chin, the hag of Irish andScottish legend was not beautiful at first look.But kiss her, and she became a gorgeous

6H

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maiden in full bloom of youth. This unlikelyreversal is found in many stories of the greatgoddess of SOVEREIGNTY, of war goddesses likethe MÓRRÍGAN and MACHA, and the pre-Celticcreator goddess, the CAILLEACH. In Arthurianlegend the hag appears as the LOATHY LADY,who spurs on the quest for the GRAIL, and asRAGNELL, who leads her husband to understandwhat women really want.

Sources: Clark, Rosalind. The Great Queens: IrishGoddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen NíHoulihan. Irish Literary Studies 34. GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, 1991; Condren, Mary.The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion andPower in Ancient Ireland. San Francisco: Harper& Row, 1989; Moane, Geraldine. “A WombNot a Tomb: Goddess Symbols and AncientIreland.” Canadian Women’s Studies: Les cahiersde la femme. Vol. 17, 1997, pp. 7–10; Ross,Anne, “The Divine Hag of the Pagan Celts.” InVenetia Newall, ed. The Witch Figures. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, pp. 139–164.

Hag’s Glen (Coom Callee) Irish sacred site.In the southwestern province of MUNSTER, tradi-tionally associated with the powerful figure ofthe HAG named the CAILLEACH, the scenic valleyof Coom Callee (Hag’s Glen) forms part ofMacGuillycuddy’s Reeks, Ireland’s highestmountains. Local legend has it that a hag in thatglen cared for a small child and that a rock wasimprinted with their footprints. In the mid-19thcentury an old woman living alone in the Glenwas given the name of the Cailleach, furtheringthe identification of the valley with the mytho-logical hag.

hair Symbolic object. Hair was an importantritual and spiritual symbol to the ancient Celts.Warriors wore their hair long and their mus-taches untrimmed when they went into battle,sometimes treating them with lime to create afearfully wild appearance. Women’s hair waslong as well, often braided or otherwise dressed;

hair was considered a mark of their sexual power.DRUIDS wore a special tonsure or haircut thatdistinguished them from others in the tribe.

Folklore records many superstitions thatemphasize the continuing importance of hair asa symbol. People were careful never to throwcut or combed hair into fire, for fear that theywould come down with fever; this is typical ofmagical part-equals-whole thinking. RED hairwas considered especially significant, for itshowed that FAIRY blood ran in the person’sveins. MERMAIDS lured sailors by combing theirhair, and according to the principle of SYMPA-THETIC MAGIC it was dangerous for girls toCOMB their hair when their brothers were at sea.Animal hair also had power, especially that ofHORSES, which could come alive if put in water.Should a person, especially a child, be bitten bya DOG, the wound had to be bound with hairfrom the animal to ensure healing.

Hairy Jack British folkloric spirit. A BLACK

DOG from the Lincolnshire region, he hauntedwild places in the region and turned himself intoa little lame man in order to pass unnoticedamong the neighbors.

Hallowe’en (Hallowmas) See SAMHAIN.

Hallstatt Archaeological site. At this impor-tant site, near Saltzburg in Austria, a great treas-ure of ancient Celtic artifacts was found. Datedfrom approximately 700–600 B.C.E. (after theURNFIELD period but before the LA TÈNE), theartifacts included weapons and tools of bronzeand IRON, as well as some ritual objects. Buriedwith their presumed owners, the design of theobjects suggests a cultural change from earliertimes, when less decorated objects had been thenorm. A parallel change from cremation, only afew generations earlier, to earth entombmentsuggests a change in the worldview of these veryancient Celts, for how people treat their deadtells a great deal about what life (if any) was pre-sumed to lie ahead.

238 Hag’s Glen

These Hallstatt-era bodies were laid out onfour-wheeled wagons and encased in a tomb ofOAK that was then covered with earth. Bronzevessels, iron spears, and traces of meat and poul-try were found buried with them, presumablyindicating the beginnings of Celtic belief thatthe OTHERWORLD of death required sufficientgrave goods (weapons, tools, ornaments) for thesoul’s happiness.

The fact that a great SALT-mining region islocated near Hallstatt gives rise to the theory thatthe early Celtic wealth was derived from miningand trading in salt, an extremely valuable com-modity in the days before refrigeration. Salt wasused to preserve meats, and as the Celts were aCATTLE-raising people, such a preservative hadgreat value in keeping people fed through thelong winters. Buried saline deposits were minedand the salt pulverized for transportation and use.

hammer Celtic symbol. The “god with thehammer” was a common image of divinityamong the continental Celts; variously calledTARANIS, DIS PATER, SILVANUS, and SUCELLUS, hewas depicted as strong, mature, and bearded. Asa symbol of the force and energy of such gods,the hammer is sometimes interpreted as repre-senting storm and thunder, although there is nodefinite indication of such a meteorologicalmeaning. Indeed, other interpretations connectthis god to the earth’s FERTILITY rather than tothe sky; the fact that the god often carries a cup,common symbol of earthly energy, supports thisinterpretation. Finally, some commentators seethe hammer as representative of the blightingforce of winter, although that remains a minor-ity view. The club or MALLET carried by theDAGDA may be an Irish form of the hammer.

Handsel Monday (Di-luian an t-sainnseil)Scottish festival. The first Monday after HOG-MANY (New Year’s Day) was a day for DIVINATION

or forecasting futures through games of chanceand trial; on the Isle of Skye this day was the firstin a sequence of 12 days whose weather predicted

that of the following 12 months. The holiday’sname is anglicized from the Scottish sainnseal, thegift offered to every visitor on this day.

hare Symbolic animal. The hare, in Ireland,was believed to be a WITCH in disguise, perhapsbecause the animal was mythically connected tothat witch-like being, the CAILLEACH. When ahare was injured, a witch in the neighborhoodwould sport an identical injury. The same beliefis found on the Isle of Man, where a woundedhare would always get away unless shot with asilver bullet; the transformed witch would there-after be found, either alive or dead, with an iden-tical wound.

In Scotland it was believed that witches tookthe form of hares in order to steal MILK—a com-mon target of magical theft. Disguising herselfas a hare, the witch would sneak into a barn andsuckle the milk from a COW’s udder. If caught,the hare would instantly turn back into humanform. Hares seen in unusual places, including inregions where they were not typically found,were similarly believed to be disguised witches.If pursued, such hares would run into houses,revealing the witch’s habitation. If one found agroup of hares together, it was clearly a gather-ing of a witches’ coven.

The fierce temperament of hares was some-times assigned to the FAIRY Rabbit, a bold beingthat tried to drown people at sea; if the potentialvictims were carrying earth from their home, orfrom legendary Tory Island, they could surviveeven the onslaught of this malicious spirit.

Such folklore may be a late recollection of anearlier religious meaning for the hare. Caesarrecorded that eating the flesh of the hare wastaboo to continental Celts, which suggests thatthe animal was seen as sacred or ancestral; DioCassius mentioned a DIVINATION using haresthat was employed by the Celtic warrior queenBOUDICCA before she entered battle. Such frag-ments of ancient lore suggest that the SHAPE-SHIFTING character given to hares in folkloremay be a vestige of ancient religious imagery.

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Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, pp.8, 33; O hEochaidh, Séan. Fairy Legends fromDonegal. Trans. Máire Mac Neill. Dublin:Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1977, p. 247;Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Irish Superstitions. London;Gill & Macmillan, 1995, p. 57; O’Sullivan,Patrick V. Irish Superstitions and Legends ofAnimals and Birds. Cork: Mercier, 1991, p. 76.

harp Symbolic object. The stringed instru-ment that today symbolizes Ireland was associ-ated in ancient times with the beneficent godDAGDA, at whose call it would fly across the land,killing anyone that stood in its way. The Dagdaharp had only THREE melodies: sleep, grief, andlaughter. A similar legendary harp can be foundin the Welsh tale of KULHWCH AND OLWEN.

See also CRAIPHTINE.

harvest dollies Celtic folkloric figures. Untilthe relatively recent past, the harvest celebrationin Celtic lands was replete with mythologicaland folkloric significance. On the Isle of Man wefind straw images called mheillea (“harvest”) orbaban ny mheillea (“doll of the harvest”), whichwere decorated with ribbons to form dresses andreferred to as “maidens,” feminine figures prob-ably derived from an ancient goddess of theabundant harvest. Approximately four inchestall, these figures were often crafted from thefinal sheaf harvested. Such harvest dollies werekept near the hearth until replaced by a similardoll after the next year’s harvest. In Scotland asimilar “harvest maiden” was thought to protectfarms against fairy mischief if suspended some-where within the house.

hawthorn See THORN.

Haxey Hood Games British folkloric festi-val. In the small town of Haxey in Humberside,a traditional midwinter game takes place on

Twelfth Night, the last day of the old Christmasholidays. In medieval times, legend says, thescarlet hood of a local noblewoman, Lady deMowbray, was blown off her head as she rode tochurch, and a dozen men sprang forward to saveit for her. Delighted, she granted the village aplot of land—the Hoodland—whose produceprovided a hood for a contest among 12 vil-lagers, still held each year under the guidance ofthe RED-dressed gobbans (boggins, boggans). Afool begins the ceremony in the wee hours of themorning by giving an oration in the townsquare. As he finishes with the words “Houseagainst house, town against town, if you meet aman knock him down, but don’t hurt him,” a fireis lit at his feet; this is called “smoking the fool.”

When the fool’s part has finished, the gamesproper begin. The King Gobban throws 12hoods into the air, and everyone scrambles forone. Anyone who manages to get away with ahood to the safety of a village inn gets freedrinks. Some have argued that the origins of thisrite are far more ancient than the medievalperiod and have seen in it the memory of a ritualof HUMAN SACRIFICE.

hazel Celtic sacred tree. One of the mostrevered trees among the Celts, the hazel (genusCorylus) was thought to produce nuts of WISDOM

when it grew at the sources of great RIVERS; thenuts made the flesh of fish (especially SALMON)speckled, with one spot appearing for each nuteaten. Thus the most speckled fish brought themost wisdom to the eater. Stories of both theBoyne and the Shannon rivers include descrip-tions of the magical hazel groves that fed the fishthat swam at the river’s source. Uneaten nutsturned into bubbles of inspiration, readily seen inthe Shannon’s source in Co. Cavan, which bub-bles from underground SPRINGS feeding the pool.Hazel trees were said to shade CONNLA’S WELL

somewhere in Co. Tipperary; anyone eating theirnuts would become a brilliant BARD and scholar.

The connection of hazelnuts with wisdom isalso found in Celtic mythology that requires

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bards to carve their staffs from hazel wood andin the taboo against burning the wood of thehazel tree. Hazel twigs are still said to guidewater-witches to underground streams. In theAmericas the unrelated witch-hazel tree (genusHamamelis) is thought to have the same power.Hazel, like THORN, is one of the traditional treesbelieved to be inhabited by FAIRIES. In IrelandTara was once described as a hazel grove; inScotland the word Carlton (from the ancientCeltic word Calltuinn) designates an area wherea sacred hazel grove once thrived.

Source: Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, pp.128–129.

head Celtic symbol. Sculptural and literaryreferences to the head appear throughout theancient Celtic world, so much so that earlyscholars used to speak of the “cult of the head,”although that phrase is currently out of academicfashion. Sculptured heads without torsos—thusinterpreted as severed from the body—havebeen found in many sites, dating as far back asthe earliest proto-Celtic culture of the URNFIELD

period. At times, such disembodied heads areinhuman, having three faces; occasionally asculpture combined the head with the phallus toproduce a double image of potency. Religioussculptures of the head of a sacred animal havealso been found; thus the sacredness of the headwas not necessarily limited to the human. Thesacred head was used over the entire Celtic areafor many centuries, making it the single mostimportant and common Celtic religious symbol.

Myths as well as ritual objects emphasize theimportance of the head: The head of Welsh heroBRÂN THE BLESSED (whose name has been con-nected to pen, the Welsh syllable meaning“head”) continued speaking for years after hisdeath, as did the Irish MAC DATHÓ and CONAIRE

Mór, although the Irish heads’ capacity forposthumous speech did not last as long. After theyoung musician and warrior DONN BÓ was killed

in battle, his head was brought to a feast where,asked to sing, it produced such a piercing melodythat the music reduced everyone to tears. Thespeaking (or singing) severed head, neitherentirely of this world nor fully in the OTHER-WORLD, was believed to have oracular powersand could be consulted to learn the future.

In folklore this ancient mythological visionsurvived in stories of GIANTS with the power toreplace their severed heads on their bodies andgo on as before; thus it was imperative for theiropponents to keep head and body far apart untilboth were blue with cold and the danger ofrecapitation was past. Similar magical powerswere granted to the decapitated head in talesthat it could, of its own volition, become aweapon and attack the warrior who severed itfrom its body.

Such stories recall ancient Celtic traditions.Warriors traditionally cut off and displayed theheads of defeated enemies, for the head was seenas the place where personality or essence wasmost condensed or pure, rather like the contem-porary American image of the heart. TheRoman author Livy described the Celtic Boiiwarriors placing the severed head of an enemychieftain in a TEMPLE, while lesser warriors’heads were strung from the bridles of those whodefeated them, presenting a fearsome appear-ance to enemies. Greek historian DiodorusSiculus similarly described warriors beheadingthose they killed in battle and strapping theirheads to horses’ bridles or nailing them uponhouses. Poseidonius speaks of being sickened bythe sight of so many heads on display around aCeltic chieftain’s home, but he adds that famil-iarity dulled his horror. Distinguished enemies’heads were embalmed in cedar and kept in a spe-cial box, to be proudly displayed when talkturned to exploits of war.

These historical records are reflected in Irishmyth that tells of the hero CÚCHULAINN return-ing from battle carrying nine heads in one hand,10 in the other, and of his wife EMER’s acceptanceof the heads of his own 10 slayers upon thehero’s death. The heads of defeated enemies

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were called “the masts of MACHA,” a poeticphrase that otherwise referred to acorns onwhich PIGs feasted. Other Irish sources speak ofwarriors taking out the brains of their defeatedvictims and mixing them with lime to form a“brain ball” that could be used as a weapon ordisplayed as a trophy; it was the brain ball ofthe hero Meisceadhra that was hurled atMeisceadhra’s killer, king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA,lodging in Concobar’s head and eventually caus-ing his death.

There is evidence that the Celts connectedtheir reverence for the head with that for WATER,since skulls and metal replicas of heads have beenfound in sacred SPRINGS and WELLS. The reverenceoffered the “heads” of RIVERS—their sources—such as that which holds sacred the round pool atthe source of the Shannon River, may combinethese two symbolic meanings into one.

Sources: Chadwick, Nora. The Celts. New York:Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 161 ff; Green,Miranda. The Gods of Roman Britain. Aylesbury:Shire Publications Ltd., 1983, p. 66; Green,Miranda. Symbol and Image in Celtic ReligiousArt. London: Routledge, 1989, p. 211;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 240 ff;Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies inIconography and Tradition. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1967, pp. 61 ff, 104, 120.

healing Traditional healing took severalforms, including herbal remedies, spells, and rituals. The efficacy of some ancient herbalremedies has been upheld by contemporary bio-chemistry, while other remedies are untested orhave been proven ineffective. Many of our com-mon modern drugs derive from plant sources,like aspirin (salicylic acid) from willow (plants ofthe genus Salix), which is known in many landsas an effective remedy against pain. In Scotland,St. John’s Wort (Hypericum pulchrum) was knownas an herb useful for keeping away FAIRIES whomight steal people from their beds; this suggests

that what we now call depression was earlierdescribed as FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

Other forms of healing required magical rit-uals, as when trailing pearlwort (Sagina procum-bens) was attached to the skins of animals andpeople to protect them against the evil EYE. Evensuch rituals may have resulted in healing; mod-ern medicine knows the so-called placebo effect,whereby people given sugar pills show improve-ments similar to those in patients given realmedicines. Scientists continue to explore theconnection of body, mind, and spirit.

In Ireland water from holy WELLS wassprinkled on or fed to sick animals and people;in Scotland chanted spells assisted in the heal-ing of minor injuries and ailments like sprainsand boils. Various regions also had specifichealing rituals; often these involved visitingplaces held sacred by pre-Celtic people, such asSPRINGS and STONE CIRCLES. Some of theseplaces may have induced healing by purelyphysical means, as with thermal springs thatmay have relieved the pains of arthritis, butmore commonly the location has no detectablebiological effect. The gathering of herbs sometimes required specific rituals (cut withmaterial other than IRON, gathered at specifictimes of day, rewarded with drinks of wine) ofapparently magical intent and import.

Many healing techniques were widely knownand used by ordinary people. In some cases, how-ever, local herbalists or WITCHES might be calledupon; these were often older women who earneda modest living from consulting with their neigh-bors in times of need, but such power could back-fire if such a person were suspected of using herpowers for ill and was accused of WITCHCRAFT.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, pp.103 ff; Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N. Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 377 ff; Kavanagh,Peter. Irish Mythology: A Dictionary. Newbridge,Co. Kildare: The Goldsmith Press, Ltd., 1988,

242 healing

pp. 42–53; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 206.

healing stones Celtic ritual object. Bouldersand pebbles with holes in them were honored inmany Celtic lands as healing stones; the tradi-tion, often associated with stone monuments ofthe MEGALITHIC CIVILIZATION, may reach backinto pre-Celtic times. In Brittany newborns werepassed through the hole in the healing stone atFouvent-le-Haut to protect them from the ail-ments of infancy and from the spells of malevo-lent WITCHES; in Amance money was tossedthrough a HOLED STONE as a substitute for thechild to be protected. In Cornwall the roundrock at MEN-AN-TOL, near Madron, was thoughtto prevent and cure rheumatic ailments if onecrawled naked through the stone or was pushedthrough by others while repeating a spell a mag-ical number of times (usually THREE or nine).

In England similar rites have been recorded.The Long Stone of Gloucestershire was said tocure children with measles, whooping cough,and other contagious diseases, while those whocould safely drop through a large holed stone inDartmoor, called the Tolmen, into the NorthTeign River below would be cured of arthritis. In Ireland children suffering from the limb-twisting vitamin deficiency called rickets werepassed through the Cloch-a-Phoill in Co.Carlow in hopes of a cure. Another huge (10 ¥ 9-foot) stone, located at a triple crossroads in Co.Sligo and called either Clochbhreach (SpeckledStone) or Clochlia (Gray Stone), has an appar-ently natural small (2 ¥ 3-foot) perforationthrough which children with measles werepassed. Holed stones from Ireland were reveredthrough England and Scotland as being especiallyefficacious healers. Indeed, one Irish rock inNorthumberland was never permitted to touchEnglish soil, to preserve its healing powers; itwas held to work best if applied by a person ofIrish blood or ancestry.

In Scotland stitch-stones relieved skin ailmentsand other chronic complaints; they were kept by

the healed individual until called for by someoneelse, whereupon the most recently affected deliv-ered the stones for use. The Stones of Stenness onOrkney were considered curative of many ail-ments if one walked around them three times deosil(in the direction of the SUN, or clockwise).

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker andCo. 1976, pp. 41–47, 60; Grinsell, Leslie V.Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain. London:David & Charles, 1976, pp. 15, 25; Meaden,George Terrence. The Goddess of the Stones: TheLanguage of the Megaliths. London: SouvenirPress, 1991, p. 186.

hearth Symbolic site. The Celts connectedthe center of home with the OTHERWORLD. Thehearth, where the cooking fire blazed—a FIRE

that, in most cases, provided heat for the homeas well—was a significant spiritual symbol. Earlyarchaeological sites show an emphasis on thehearth, which was found decorated with divinesymbols like those on the ram’s-head andironsfound in Gaul.

It is believed that sacrifices to the family’sancestors were made at each home’s hearth. Itwas a liminal space, not entirely of this world butopening out to that of the spirits. FAIRIES andGHOSTS were attracted to the hearth, especially atpivotal days such as SAMHAIN, the beginning ofwinter on November 1; on that night, ghosts ofthe deceased would sometimes be seen warmingthemselves by the hearth-fire or sitting in theiraccustomed place, calmly smoking or knitting.

heather Symbolic plant. Common in Irelandand Britain, the low-growing heath or heather is atough BOG plant that blooms with charming pinkor purplish flowers that carpet wild areas in sum-mer. BEES love heather and make from it a honeythat is a favorite food in parts of Scotland. InIreland heather was classed as a “peasant” tree, butit nonetheless is included in the TREE ALPHABET.

heather 243

Heathrow British archaeological site. Nowthe name of an airport near London, Heathrowwas originally a pre-Roman Celtic settlementfrom the fourth century B.C.E., which includedan impressive square earthworks originallytopped by a timber TEMPLE and surrounded by acolonnade of posts. Such a square-within-a-square design has also been noted in templebuildings in other Romano-Celtic regions, sug-gesting that the design has roots in Celtic reli-gious views.

heaven Cosmological concept. The Celtsgenerally did not imagine heaven and earth asopposed to each other; nor did they describethem as a complementary pair. There is, forexample, no myth of the marriage of heaven andearth, nor of their forced separation, as occurs insome other cultures. Instead, fragmentary mythssuggest that the Celtic worldview was similar tothat found in shamanic cultures (see CELTIC

SHAMANISM). While in Judeo-Christian cosmol-ogy heaven is usually seen as the abode of thedead and of the divine forces, the Celts locatedboth in the OTHERWORLD, which could be foundout to sea, under a hill, or in an invisible universeparallel to ours, but never in the sky.

Hedessa British folkloric figure. This spirit ofthe small SPRING in the Peaklands that bears hername (Hedess Spring) may derive from anancient water goddess.

Hefydd Hen (Hefaidd Hen, Heveidd Henn)Welsh hero or god. Hefydd the Ancient or OldHefydd was the father of RHIANNON, the mytho-logical horsewoman who appears to be a dimin-ished goddess. Thus Hefydd himself may havebeen an ancestral Welsh divinity, although norecorded story explains his mythical function.

Heilyn Minor Welsh hero. When BRÂN THE

BLESSED waged his fierce war on Ireland in theWelsh epic MABINOGION, only a few warriors

survived the battles. Heilyn was one; he openedthe magic door through which the survivorsescaped.

Hellawes Arthurian heroine. A sorceress,Hellawes attempted unsuccessfully to seduce thegreat knight LANCELOT.

Hellyas Arthurian hero. This minor figure inArthurian legend was an ancestor of the ROUND

TABLE knight LANCELOT.

Hengroen (Llamrei) Arthurian figure. Thisname is given in the Welsh TRIADS to kingARTHUR’s horse in the final battle at CAMLAN.

Henky Scottish folkloric figure. In the islandsoff Scotland, Orkney and the Shetlands, FAIRY

people could be detected because they limped(“henked”) when they danced, although the rea-son for this handicap is not explained in folklore.Thus Henky was a common name for a fairyperson in that region.

Henwen British goddess of abundance. InBritish mythology this magical sow-goddess(“old white one”) came forth early in creation togive life to the world. As she roamed the hillycountryside, she gave birth to litter after litter.Instead of piglets, however, Henwen produced agrain of wheat and a BEE; a grain of barley and abee; a WOLF cub, an eaglet, and a kitten, eachstrange litter in a different part of the country.

Hen Wife (Cailleach nan Cearac) Scottishfolkloric character. On farms in the ScottishHighlands, a woman who kept chickens wasbelieved to have magical powers and thus to beassociated with WITCHCRAFT. The same was nottrue of a man who operated the same business.The character of the Hen Wife appears in anumber of folktales and may be connected withthe CAILLEACH as goddess of animals, or it may

244 Heathrow

simply derive from the perceived power ofwomen who earned their own living through thesale of EGGS and meat.

herbs See HEALING.

Hercules Romano-Celtic god. Celtic artistsdid not typically depict gods in human form;with the arrival of the invading Romans around200 B.C.E., however, they adapted their style toreflect classical figure modeling. In addition, theINTERPRETATIO ROMANA—the renaming ofCeltic gods and goddesses with the names ofRoman divinities—encouraged artists to carvedeities with classical as well as Celtic attributesand to label them with Roman names. Thus theGreco-Roman hero Hercules appears frequentlyin Celtic art, particularly on the Continent, as analtered version of Celtic gods, some of whosenames are known, while others are lost. SEGOMO,BORVO, and SMERTRIUS are all shown as brawny,powerful gods bearing Herculean clubs, butwhat these gods meant to their people is notentirely clear; Borvo’s connection with the heal-ing springs at Aix-les-Bains suggests that he mayhave fought disease rather than other gods.According to the second century C.E. Greekwriter Lucian, the god of eloquence, OGMIOS,was depicted as Hercules because verbal talentwas a kind of strength among the Celtic people.

Herla British folkloric or mythological being.In Herefordshire it was believed that a king ofancient times, Herla, still haunted the land in theform of a tiny half-animal man astride a largeGOAT. Trapped in the OTHERWORLD centuriesago, Herla was doomed to lead the WILD HUNT,called Herla’s Rade, on moonlit nights—although some sources say that he transferredthis duty to the English king and thereafterrested in the Otherworld.

Hermes See MERCURY.

Herne British folkloric figure. In The MerryWives of Windsor, Shakespeare speaks of Herne asa hunter who hanged himself from an oak tree andwas thereafter forced to haunt the woods where hedied. Herne the Hunter appears in various legendsas a horned spirit, suggesting that he may haveoriginated as a woodland deity like CERNUNNOS.One tale from Windsor Forest describes Herne inlanguage typical of FAIRIES, for he was said to shoothis victims with invisible darts if they intrudedupon magical places. (See GWYNN AP NUDD.)

heron Symbolic animal. Several BIRD specieshad specific symbolic value in Celtic tradition.One of these was the heron, which as a waterbirdexisted in several elements (air, land, water), thusbecoming an emblem of OTHERWORLD power.Herons appear in contexts similar to that ofCRANES, typically representing the feminineforce. An exception is the story of the bittersatirist AITHIRNE who sought to steal the heronsof the FAIRY MOUND of BRÍ LÉITH. These heronsrepresented the sinful quality of inhospitality.

hero’s portion See CHAMPION’S PORTION.

Herzeloyde Arthurian heroine. This princessof Wales did not want to marry just anyone; shedemanded a man who was truly heroic. And soshe let it be known that whoever won a tourna-ment would win her hand as well. After years ofadventuring in the east, the warrior GAHMURET

arrived on the scene just in time to claim theprize. Gahmuret was rather footloose and, afterimpregnating his bride, left for the east onceagain, where his luck ran out and he was slain.Heartbroken, Herzeloyde moved to a smallwoodland cottage, where she gave birth to herson, PERCIVAL, whom she intended to keep fromall knowledge of his heritage. His heroic bloodfound its way out when Percival was old enoughto join king ARTHUR at CAMELOT.

Hibernia Celtic land. This ancient name,which meant “winter country,” was used by Greek

Hibernia 245

and Roman writers to refer to both Ireland and,occasionally, Britain. To Mediterranean peoples,the rainy chill of Ireland apparently seemed a per-petual winter.

high king (ard rí, ard ri, ard righe) Irish socialrole. The question of what power the king ofTARA had over other Irish kings is far from set-tled. Because a king’s power came from theTUATH (his people and their land) and from hisunion with the goddess of the land, there seemslittle likelihood that Tara’s king held centralizedpolitical authority. While it is easy today toimagine a group of lesser kings who reported tothe high king, that was not the case. The highking held a ceremonial and religious officerather than a political one. He could not demandthat other kings follow his orders, but he had theresponsibility of keeping Ireland fertile andblooming by following his BUADA and geasa (seeGEIS), his sacred vows and taboos. Many highkings figure prominently in mythology, includ-ing NIALL of the Nine Hostages, CONN of theHundred Battles, and CONAIRE.

hill See FAIRY MOUND.

hillfort (rath, ráth, dun, dún, lis, cashel)Celtic archaeological site. Across Ireland, and tosome extent in Britain as well, remains of Celticsettlements still stand, their various names alldescribing a high wall of earth, usually atop ahill, and usually circular. Some archaeologicalevidence suggests that over these permanentfoundation walls, buildings of wood wereerected; some archaeological evidence has beenfound supporting that theory. Built fromapproximately 700 B.C.E. through the earlyMiddle Ages, the hillforts are connected toCeltic settlement and seem to have been loca-tions for trade, government, and ceremony.

That Ireland was a populous land in the firstcentury of the common era is suggested by morethan 30,000 surviving hillforts, each of which

would have housed from several dozen to severalscore residents. Many towns today still carry thename of the hillfort of the area: Rathangan,Lisdoonvarna, Lisadell, Dunmore. Cashels aresomewhat larger than other hillforts and, likethe town that bears that name in Tipperary, wereusually built on high, easily defensible ground.In all cases, the earthen walls of the hillfortsappear to have been constructed to simplifydefense of the site. Some hillforts important inmyth include GRIANÁN AILEACH, EMAIN MACHA,TARA, and CRUACHAN.

Sources: Aalen, F. H. A. Man and the Landscape inIreland. London: Academic Press, 1978, pp. 81ff; Raftery, Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland: TheEnigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thamesand Hudson, 1994, pp. 38 ff.

Hill of Allen See ALMU.

Hill of Tara See TARA.

Hill of Uisneach See UISNEACH.

Hill of Ward See TLACHTGA.

Historical Cycle (Cycle of the Kings) Irishmythological texts. Several sequences of Irishmyths appear in ancient manuscripts, generallydivided, in roughly chronological order of thesupposed occurrences, into the MYTHOLOGICAL

CYCLE, the ULSTER CYCLE, the FENIAN CYCLE,and the Historical Cycle. The last includes sto-ries whose events would have occurred betweenlate Celtic and early Christian times (third to11th century C.E.). Many tales appear based inhistorical reality, but they have been embellishedwith mythological motifs and descriptions ofsupernatural happenings. The stories oftenrevolve around the important ritual and politicalcenter at TARA and concern the Celtic concept ofSOVEREIGNTY or right rulership. Among thekings who appear in the Historical Cycle are

246 high king

CONN of the Hundred Battles, CORMAC MAC

AIRT, MONGÁN, and GUAIRE.

hoard Archaeological site. Celtic hoards,found in BOGS and similar hiding places, includegold TORCS, embellished CAULDRONS, and lunaeor moon-collars. Scholars believe that the treas-ures were deposited in the bogs to protect themagainst theft by invaders, perhaps Vikings.Hoards were also intended as SACRIFICE, perhapsin cases of epidemics or other disasters, eitherthreatened or actual.

hob (Hobtrust, hobtrush, hobgoblin) Britishand Scottish folkloric figure. The syllable hob,frequently found in words related to FAIRIES, isbelieved to be a diminutive for Robert, a namegiven to English BROWNIES or helpful householdspirits; the flattering name ROBIN GOODFELLOW

comes from the same stem. In northern Britainthe hob was a kindly spirit, helpful to local peo-ple when they needed HEALING or farm work. Aswith similar beings, it was important never toreward the hob in any way, for that would scarehim off (see LAYING THE FAIRIES).

Less kindly hobs were also known in folklore,such as Hob Headless, a scary being who haunteda road near the River Kent. Confined under arock for 99 years, Hob Headless trappedpassersby who rested upon his rock, gluing themdown so that they could not rise and escape. HobHeadless is typical of the hobgoblin, a genericname for malicious spirits. In Scotland hobgob-lins caused distress and mischief just for theirown sake. They took on ominous forms to terrifypeople walking at night; even a haystack couldbecome a threatening apparition, coming alive inthe night and frightening the traveler into anexhausting run or a useless fight against the invis-ible foe. Variant legends say that to encountersuch an apparition indicated coming death.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970,

p. 131; Clarke, David. Ghosts and Legends of thePeak District. Norwich: Jarrold Publishing, n.d.,p. 36; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 90.

hobbyhorse British folkloric figure. Manyfolkloric events are believed to be remnants ofearly religious ceremonies, degraded by the pas-sage of years. One of these is the hobbyhorse, apuppet of a horse worn by a man in parades atBritish festivals. As the syllable hob usually indi-cates a connection with the OTHERWORLD, thehobbyhorse is thought to derive from Celtic prac-tice, perhaps related to the horse goddess EPONA.

Hogmany (Hagmany) Scottish festival. Thelast day of the year in Scotland (sometimes called“the night of the candles” or “the night of thepelting”) was celebrated with many traditionalactivities, some of which have roots in the Celticworldview. Candles were kept lit all night.Houses were decorated with HOLLY, branches ofwhich were used to whip boys for their own pro-tection, with each drop of blood drawn assuringthem of a year of good health.

A man dressed in a cowhide bellowedthrough the streets, followed by men and boysthrowing snowballs and striking him with aswitch to create a loud boom. This rowdy pro-cession followed the sun’s course (see DIREC-TIONS) THREE times around the village, strikingeach house for good luck, demanding treats ormoney or both, and repeating a nonsense rhyme.Upon being admitted to a home, the Hogmanyparty offered the caisein-uchd—a sheep’s breast-bone on a stick—to the household, to be placedin the fire and held to the noses. Such peculiartraditions have their roots in protective ritualsintended to keep the participants healthythrough the new year and may earlier have beenused for DIVINATION.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands of

Hogmany 247

Scotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p.230; Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 76–78, 579; Ross,Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London:B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 122.

holed stones Symbolic object. In addition totheir uses for healing (see HEALING STONES),large rocks with holes in them were used in allthe Celtic lands to seal marriage vows. Lovingcouples clasped hands through the natural holeswhile pledging their troth. In some regions achurch wedding was not considered valid unlessvows were also spoken at the holed stone. InBritain the term DOBIE Stone is applied to thesenatural formations, connecting them with theFAIRIES of that name.

hollow hill Irish folkloric site. The idea thatsome hills are hollow, the better to accommo-date the FAIRY palaces within them, is typical ofIrish images of the OTHERWORLD as a regionclose to our world yet not part of it.

holly Symbolic plant. Its red berries and shinyevergreen leaves made the common holly (genusIlex), a small TREE or shrub, especially visible insnowy woodlands, and thus it became associatedwith the Christian midwinter feast of Christmas.The name comes from Middle English and isassociated with the word holy. BeforeChristianization, however, the tree had beensacred to the Celts as the emblem of the ruler ofwinter, the Holly King, whose opponent was theOAK King; a vestige of this seasonal combat maybe found in the Welsh myth of combat betweenthe kings HAFGAN and ARAWN. The holly is sym-bolically paired with the IVY, the first represent-ing the masculine force, the second symbolizingthe feminine; the connection remains familiarthrough the holiday song, “The Holly and theIvy,” whose melody and lyrics date to themedieval period.

holy wells See WELL.

honor-price See ÉRIC.

hooper (hooter) Cornish folkloric figure. Ahelpful but sometimes vindictive Cornishweather spirit like the Scottish GRAY MAN, thehooper was a dense fog that blocked out allvision, or a cloudy curtain from which a centrallight shone. Anyone who saw the hooper stayedashore, for its appearance was invariably fol-lowed by fierce storms. One legend tells of asailor who jeered at the hooper and took out hiscrew despite the warning; his boat passed intothe gloom and was never seen again.

horn (antlers, horned god, horned goddess)Symbolic object. One of the primary symbols ofthe god of male potency, horns or ANTLERS arefrequently found on Celtic divinities. Two majorforms of the horned god have been cataloged.The first wears the antlers of a STAG and sitscross-legged, staring forward. This Gaulish godis usually dubbed CERNUNNOS, “the horned one,”after an inscription found on a sculpture of thistype in Paris; he is thought to represent a force ofprosperity. Occasionally this figure is depicted ashaving THREE HEADS, although it is possible thatsuch sculptures indicate the connection ofCernunnos with other gods. Gaulish MERCURY

and COCIDIUS are also occasionally shown wear-ing horns, although the symbol is not alwaysassociated with these divinities of wealth.

The second type of horned god showedhorns of domestic animals, usually those ofBULLS, attached to the heads of male deities.Although many such divinities have been found,they have no distinctive symbols save the hornsto tell us what they represent. As horned helmetshave been found, presumably originally worn bywarriors or leaders, the horns may representleadership and power.

Goddesses are also found with horns,although less often than gods. Usually the god-

248 holed stones

dess wears antlers, which are found on the headsof some female DEER, although occasionallybulls’ or goats’ horns crown a goddess’s head.Such goddesses are believed to indicate a forceof animal nature and a link between femalefecundity and the animal world.

A peculiarly Celtic religious symbol was theRAM-HEADED SNAKE, which was translated inChristian times to an image of evil rather thanof power. The Christian DEVIL with its ram’shorns is a direct descendant of this powerfulCeltic divinity.

Some folkloric celebrations seem to encodeancient rituals of the horned god; see ABBOTS

BROMLEY.

Sources: Green, Miranda. The Gods of RomanBritain. Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd.,1983, pp. 64 ff; Green, Miranda. Symbol andImage in Celtic Religious Art. London:Routledge, 1989, pp. 27, 87, 96; Ross, Anne.Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography andTradition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1967, pp. 18, 127, 132.

horse Symbolic animal. One of the mostimportant animals to the Celts was the horse,not only for religious and symbolic reasons butalso for practical ones. The Celts were knownthroughout ancient Europe for their horseman-ship, especially in warfare. Horses were centralto the Celtic way of life as a means of trans-portation and as an indication of nobility. Celticnobles rode in chariots instead of on horse back,while less honored warriors formed the mountedcavalry. Nobles were often buried with theirhorses and gear, indicating a connection in lifethat was not ended by death.

The funerary use of horses in Celtic landsmay derive from their association with the solarpower; the SUN is seen in many cultures as bear-ing the dead away at sunset and into rebirth atdawn. Celtic COINS with solar and equineemblems suggest a connection between horsesand the sun, the spoked wheel, a double image of

sun and horse-drawn chariot, was especiallylinked to the goddess EPONA, champion of theCeltic cavalry under Roman occupation, whosecult spread into Rome itself. Some have found inthe nursery rhyme “Ride a cock horse toBanbury Cross, to see a fine lady upon a whitehorse” a faint folkloric echo of Epona; similarconnections have been drawn to the quasi-historical figure of Lady GODIVA, who rodenaked on horseback to protest her husband’soppressive taxation policies.

On the Continent the widespread cult of thegoddess Epona (whose name means “horse” or,because it is feminine in gender, “mare”), passedfrom the Celts to the Roman legionnaires, forwhom she became the cavalry goddess. ManyRomano-Celtic sculptures and reliefs showEpona seated on a horse, surrounded by horsesor foals, or offering feed to horses. Because of thereverence due the horse and to Epona, the Celtsdid not eat horseflesh, a taboo that has passedinto contemporary European cuisine. The taboowas lifted on sacramental occasions when horseswere sacrificed, as at the midsummer festival.

In Ireland the horse was connected with thegoddess of SOVEREIGNTY through the banais ríghe,the sacred marriage of king and land goddess thatthe early geographer Geraldus Cambrensis claimsincluded the sacramental mating of the king witha white mare; the mare was then killed andcooked into a broth that the king drank. Thiscurious ritual, recorded in no other text, hascorollaries in other parts of the Indo-Europeanworld, most notably in India, but there is schol-arly debate over whether the HORSE SACRIFICE

was indeed part of Irish royal INAUGURATION.An Irish corollary to Epona is found in

MACHA, who proved herself faster than the king’steam in a horse race that ended in her death.Also in Ireland, connection between horses andhumans appears in the post-Christian folktalethat Noah brought animals two by two into theark, except for the horse; he accidentally broughtonly a mare, which was impregnated by one ofNoah’s sons, so that all horses today have a dis-tant human ancestor. This peculiar tale seems to

horse 249

dimly reflect the same alleged kingship ritualmentioned above.

Irish folklore credited horses with SECOND

SIGHT, especially with the ability to see GHOSTS

of the dead—possibly a connection to the ani-mal’s ancient funerary symbolism. According tolegend, a rider who looked between the ears of amount shared the horse’s ability to see ghosts.Horses were sometimes stolen and ridden byFAIRIES; in the early morning the animals werelathered with sweat as though they had spent thenight galloping despite being confined to theirstalls. Only one horse could not be stolen by thefairies, and that was the fiorláir or true mare, theseventh consecutive filly born of a mare. Wherethe true mare was born, a four-leafed CLOVER

called Mary’s Clover sprang up, imbued withcurative powers. Such a rare horse protected herrider from any harm, of this world or another,and could never be beaten in a race. Othersuperstitions also emphasized the protectivepower of horses; burying a horse’s head in abuilding’s foundation kept its occupants safe.

In Wales the horse is associated with the figureof RHIANNON, a goddess who appears in the firstbranch of the MABINOGION riding an impressivelyspeedy white horse and surrounded by endlesslysinging birds. After she married king PWYLL,Rhiannon gave birth to a son who was kidnappedunder mysterious circumstances; she bore theblame, and until her name was cleared, she had tocarry all visitors to the palace on her back, thusreinforcing her connection to the horse.

In England horse figures are found carvedinto the turf of chalky lands such as Berkshireand Wiltshire. Eleven white horses are cut intothe sides of hills, dated according to their style tothe late 18th or early 19th century and inter-preted as regimental emblems. However, someof these horses may have been carved over ear-lier, possibly Celtic, horse figures. Apparentlyunchanged for many centuries is the renownedWHITE HORSE OF UFFINGTON, whose slender,graceful body stylistically resembles horses fromCeltic coins. Archaeologists are hesitant to pro-vide a date for the Uffington horse, although

excavations measuring the rate of slippage downthe hillside have calculated its age as consistentwith Celtic occupation of the region.

“Scouring” the horses—removing the turfthat would have grown over them if not regularlyweeded—was a community affair that often coin-cided with a fair or market; the seven-year cycle ofscouring the Uffington horse continued intorecent centuries, with more than 30,000 peoplerecorded as having attended the ceremonies andfestival in 1780. The English novelist ThomasHughes set his 1889 book, The Scouring of theWhite Horse, at the festival; the book is consideredan adequate source for folklore of the region.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, pp. 92–93; Green, Miranda. TheGods of Roman Britain. Aylesbury: ShirePublications Ltd., 1983, p. 23; Green, Miranda.Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art. London:Routledge, 1989, pp. 146; Ross, Anne. PaganCeltic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition.London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 321.

horse sacrifice Irish ritual. The early travelerto Ireland, Giraldus Cambrensis, wrote anaccount in the early sixth century C.E. of a ritualHORSE sacrifice that many scholars haveaccepted as accurate, despite the absence of anysimilar accounts. According to Giraldus, theINAUGURATION of the Irish HIGH KING at TARA,the banais ríghe, required that the candidate haveintercourse with a white mare, who was thenkilled, cooked up into broth, and devoured bythe king. Often described as a “barbaric” rite,this unusual ritual might be disregarded asunlikely, save that it echoes another Indo-European inauguration, in which the queen wasto wear the hide of a newly slaughtered mare forritual coition with the king.

Source: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, pp. 92–93.

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hospitality Symbolic ritual. In Celtic Irelandthe king’s duty included the redistribution ofwealth through endless feasting and open-doorhospitality. Should a king fail to provide for guests,he could lose the throne, as happened when thebeautiful half-FORMORIAN king BRES fed a BARD

poorly and was forced from power as a result.Hospitality was not only required of kings.

Other members of society were expected toopen their doors to the needy and to travelers.Those who set up households at crossroadsthereby showed their willingness to feed andhouse the passerby. Largesse was equal to theperson’s means; thus an impoverished personcould offer meager food, while a wealthy onewas expected to spread an impressive table. Cutsof meat and other foods were offered accordingto the caller’s social rank; only a few visitorscould expect honey wherever they went. ThusCeltic expectations of hospitality were a form ofresource reallocation.

hot water Irish folkloric motif. Irish lorewarned against throwing hot water outside atnight, for fear that it might strike and harm theFAIRY folk who lingered in the farmyards afterhours. In the days before drains were installed incottage kitchens, the housewife threw the cook-ing and cleaning water onto the stones of thehaggard or courtyard, thus cleaning the yardwith the used water. Cries warning the fairiesagainst the coming boiling splash (“Towards ye!Towards ye!”) would also have been useful inkeeping any unobserved humans safe frominconvenient drenching.

Hu (Hu Gadarn, Hu the Mighty) Neo-pagangod. The prime deity of some cults of contem-porary NEO-PAGANS who claim to be practicingDRUIDS, this agricultural divinity appears to dateto the Middle Ages, although he may be a ves-tige of an earlier god.

Hulac Warren (Hector Warren) British folk-loric site. A great rock called the Warren Stone

near Buxton was once a GIANT of this name. Whenhe tried to rape the maiden HEDESSA, she turnedinto a spring, while he was petrified into stone.The story, which recalls tales of the Greek Apollo’sattempts on innumerable nymphs, may be a com-bination of classical and indigenous stories.

human sacrifice Celtic ritual. According toRoman sources, both the continental and theinsular Celts practiced human sacrifice. JuliusCaesar described a ritual in which victims weretrapped, together with scores of animals, in agigantic human form made from wicker, thenburned alive; Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, andTacitus agree that the Celts sacrificed humanbeings to their gods. The latter claimed that theCeltic priesthood of DRUIDS “deemed it a duty tocover their altars with the blood of captives andto consult their deities through human entrails.”The murderous assault on the Celtic sanctuaryat ANGLESEY was explained as necessary to exter-minate a priestly class that Tacitus said wor-shiped at altars “soaked with human blood.”

Later writers, friendlier to the Celts, arguedthat the Romans slandered their most powerfulEuropean enemies. Contemporary evidencesuggests that human sacrifice may indeed havebeen practiced, although probably not regularly,by the druids. Such sacrifices may have been anancient form of capital punishment, reserved forcriminals and other prisoners. Because the Celtsare thought to have believed in REINCARNATION,the taking of a human life would have had a dif-ferent meaning for them than for those whobelieved in a single lifetime.

Sacrificed humans may not have suffered a tor-tuous death in Caesar’s WICKER MAN. Bodies foundin BOGS in circumstances that suggest sacrifice ofpeople with fine nails and skin and full stomachs,perhaps individuals of a high, perhaps even royal,class who were well treated before death. Some,such as the LINDOW MAN, appear to have sufferedthe THREEFOLD DEATH of strangling, cutting, anddrowning. Some myths, such as that of the HIGH

KING CONAIRE, who was burned to death in the

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hostel of DA DERGA, support the idea of humansacrifice as a Celtic practice.

Sources: Lonigan; Paul R. The Druids: Priests of theAncient Celts. Contributions to the Study ofReligion, No. 45. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 100 ff; Piggot,Stuart. The Druids. London: Thames andHudson, 1968, pp. 110 ff.

hungry grass Irish folkloric site. Folklore isnever static; significant historical moments findtheir way into folktales. This was the case with theIrish Famine, called in Irish An Gorta Mór, TheGreat Hunger. English occupation of the islanddenied Irish farmers the right to own land, so mostlived as impoverished tenants of often absent land-lords. What made this possible was an agriculturalimport from South America: the potato, whichthrived in the rainy Irish climate. A small patch ofland, even one measuring less than an acre, whenplanted with potatoes could provide enough suste-nance to support a farming family.

Combined with limited access to other food,such monoculture provides the conditions forfamine when disease or poor weather strike.Such was the case in 1848–50, when an airbornefungus caused the potatoes to turn into blackslime immediately after harvesting. There wasstill ample food available, in the form of CATTLE

being readied for market, but most livestockbelonged to the landlords, and so millions oftenant farmers starved. That Ireland continuedto export food throughout the Famine years ledto continuing bitterness and political strife.

Although the blight passed within thedecade, the effects of the Famine were felt foryears thereafter; Ireland’s population today isstill only half what it was before the Faminestruck. Actual morbidity figures are unknown,especially given the poor records kept during thedisaster, but it is generally agreed that betweenone and one-and-a-half million people diedfrom starvation and disease, while approximatelythe same number were forced to emigrate.

From this tragic sequence of events came thelegend of the hungry grass, patches of soil thatare so infected with memories of the GreatFamine that anyone who steps on them isinstantly stricken with insatiable hunger, andsoon dies even though well fed. Sometimes it issaid that hungry grass grows over the unmarkedgraves of Famine victims, other times that itsprings up wherever people died—by the road-side or in hovels—of hunger. Animals are lessaffected by hungry grass than humans, althoughthere are stories of cattle that died mysteriouslyafter eating it.

hungry man (féar gortach, far gorta) Irishfolkloric figure. A variant of the legends of theHUNGRY GRASS that causes insatiable hunger inanyone who treads upon it, the hungry man is aninsistent vision of a starving beggar who standsby the roadside with his hand silently out foralms; giving the hungry man food brings goodluck. Like the hungry grass, this figure isassumed to have arisen after the Famine of the1840s, although it may have tapped into earlierfolkloric traditions.

Hy-Brâzil (Hy-Brazil, Hy-breasal, Hy-brasil, IBreasil) Irish mythological site. Somewhere inthe ocean, the Celts believed, was a magicalisland of peace and plenty ruled over by a king,BRES, or a FAIRY QUEEN, NIAMH of the GoldenHair, or occasionally MANANNÁN MAC LIR, the seagod. The ISLAND appeared every seven years,usually in a different place, always in the west.Several islands off the west coast of Ireland laidclaim to be Hy-Brâzil, including Inisbofin off theGalway coast. In 1908 many people claimed theyhad spotted Hy-Brâzil in the Atlantic off the westcoast of Ireland, floating in an area of the oceanwhere no island had previously been seen.

Belief in the existence of Hy-Brâzil wasstrong and long-lasting; the land appears onmedieval European maps as a real island, usuallylocated off Ireland. When European sailorsreached South America, they believed the rich

252 hungry grass

lands there to be the mythological land of plenty;thus one of that continent’s major countries stillbears the name of the Celtic magical island.

Hy-Brâzil is sometimes confounded or con-flated with Otherworldly sites like TIR NA NOG

(“the land of youth”) and MAG MELL (“the plainof delights”), but each has its own distinctivequalities.

Source: Löffler, Christa Maria. The Voyage to theOtherworld Island in Early Irish Literature.Salzburg Studies in English Literature. Salzburg,Institut Für Anglistik und Amerikanistik,Universität Salzburg, 1983, pp. 306 ff.

Hyperboreans Celtic people. The ancientGreeks recorded the existence of a people theycalled the Hyperboreans, a name meaning“beyond the north wind,” a semi-mythologicalpeople with magical powers. These peaceful veg-

etarians worshiped APOLLO, it was said, in a hugestone circular TEMPLE associated by some withSTONEHENGE, although most ancient geogra-phers placed the Hyperborean homeland inEurope rather than on the island of Britain. Bythe fourth century B.C.E., Greek authors were say-ing that the alleged Hyperborean homeland waspopulated by the people they called Celts, adopt-ing one of the names the Celts themselves used,which meant “the lofty ones” or “the warriors.”

Hywel Dda (Howel Dda) Welsh hero. In thesouthwestern Welsh kingdom of DYFED in the10th century (ca. 910 to 950 C.E.), king HywelDda (Hywel the Good) created an impressivebody of law codified in the late 12th (somesources say 13th) century as Cyfraith Hywell orthe Laws of Hywel, the first unified body of lawin the land. This legal code is often described asthe Welsh parallel to the Irish BREHON laws.

Hywel Dda 253

Ialonus Continental Celtic god. This obscuredivinity who ruled cultivated fields was identifiedby the Romans with MARS, now conventionallydescribed as a war god but originally a divinity offertility.

Iarbanel Irish hero. In the legendary historyof Ireland, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, the heroNEMED was the father of Iarbanel, who was inturn ancestor of the gods known as the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, or tribe of the goddess DANU; fromIarbanel’s brother Starn descended the TuathaDé’s enemies, the FIR BOLG. It is not clear ifIarbanel was the consort of Danu, as this geneal-ogy implies, for she is not linked with any god.

Ibath, Ibcan Minor Irish heroes. Descendantsof the hero IARBANEL, they were called NEMEDIANS

after Iarbanel’s father, their grandfather NEMED.

Iberia Celtic location. The peninsula todaycalled Spain and Portugal was, in ancient times,a Celtic stronghold. Myth connects Iberia withIreland, for one group of mythological migrantsdescribed in the BOOK OF INVASIONS were theMILESIANS, or the Sons of Míl; its alternativename, Hibernia, derives from this word. Thename of Míl Despaine, mythological forebear ofthese migrants, translates into “Spanish soldier.”

I Breasil See HY-BRÂZIL.

Icauna Continental Celtic goddess. To theCelts, both continental and insular, RIVERS

were invariably goddesses who ruled both thewaters and the lands of the watershed. Icaunawas the tutelary goddess of the Yonne River innorthern France.

Icovellauna Continental Celtic goddess.Inscriptions to Icovellauna have been found atMetz and Trier in Germany, but little is knownabout her meaning or cult. As the first syllable(Ico-) of her name means “water,” she is presum-ably a WATER divinity, probably the HEALING

goddess whose octagonal shrine was excavated atthe SPRING of Sablon.

Source: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in CelticReligious Art. London: Routledge, 1989, p. 40.

Igerna See IGRAINE.

Igraine (Egraine, Yguerne, Igrayne, Ygerna,Igerna, dgerne, Eigr, Ingraine) Welsh andArthurian heroine. When the beautiful Igrainecaught the eye of heroic UTHER PENDRAGON, hewas overcome with desire to have her as his con-sort although, already partnered with GORLOIS,

6I

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Duke of Cornwall, Igraine had no desire forUther. Conspiring with the magician MERLIN,Uther changed his appearance so that Igrainebelieved herself to be sleeping with her husbandalthough her companion was in fact thebewitched Uther. From their mating the futureking ARTHUR was conceived; after news ofGorlois’s death reached Igraine, she marriedUther, who had resumed his original appearance.

Igraine had several other children byGorlois. Two have similar names and may derivefrom the same original: MORGAUSE and MORGAN

are frequently confused in legend. The otherwas ELAINE of Garlot.

Source: Ellis, Peter Berresford. Celtic Women:Women in Celtic Society and Literature. GrandRapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing,1995, pp. 61–62.

Ilberg Irish god. When the god of fertility,the DAGDA, decided to relinquish his leadershipof his people, the ancient Irish gods called theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, Ilberg was a contender forthe post. Son of the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR,Ilberg did not get the nod and thereafter retiredto his palace at the magical waterfall of ASSAROE.

Ildathach Irish mythological site. When theOTHERWORLD was envisioned as a floatingISLAND, it sometimes bore this name, whichmeans “many-colored land,” in reference to itsgorgeous and unearthly hues.

Ile (Eila, Yula) Scottish goddess. One of thelargest of the Hebrides, a string of islands offScotland’s west coast, the isle of Islay was namedfor this goddess. Sometimes she is described as aqueen or princess named Yula of Denmark.Although Ile, even in diminished form, is anobscure figure, the island that bears her name isless so, for it was the inaugural site for the Lordsof the Isles, who in a typical Celtic INAUGURATION

rite stepped on a stone impressed with footprintsto receive their office. See INAUGURATION STONES.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 147.

images Cosmological concept. Celtic artiststraditionally employed a decorative and ornateabstraction for ritual objects whose spiritual orreligious meaning can only be guessed at. Mostengravings, sculptures, or other images of conti-nental Celtic gods and goddesses date to theRoman era, with the exception of severed HEADS

that date to as early as the eighth century B.C.E.and occasional rough-hewn wooden planks withgraven heads and flat bodies.

After the Roman invasion, Celtic artists onthe Continent and in Britain began to produce(sometimes mass-produce) human-formeddivinities that show skill in modeling and followclassical patterns; clearly it was not lack of abil-ity that discouraged representation of gods inhuman form. The fact that the most populardivinities sculpted were those that would appealto wealthy members of society suggests thatthese Romanized Celtic divinities were madeeither for Roman residents of the provinces orfor well-off Celts wishing to emulate their newmasters. The connection of such images toRoman influence is made clear not only in theclassical draperies that shroud them but in thefact that they are not found in Ireland, wherethe Roman legions never invaded.

Why the Celts originally declined to showtheir divinities as men and women is not wellunderstood, for in myth the gods and goddessesmove about, fall in love, engage in battle, anddo other things that seem to require bodies.Celtic art, rather than being representational,tended to be decorative and abstract, even artthat had spiritual meaning. In some cultures,such as Islam, it is forbidden to depict thedivine as human, but we have no documentedevidence for such a philosophy among theCelts, who in any case turned to such depic-tions with great ease after Roman contact. SeeINTERPRETATIO ROMANA.

images 255

Sources: Piggot, Stuart. The Druids. London:Thames and Hudson, 1968, pp. 79–86;Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic andPagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 29.

imbas forosnai (imbus forosna, himbas forosnai)Divination system. Among the Irish DRUIDS,this form of DIVINATION was used to discoverthe location of hidden or stolen objects or tolearn secrets kept from public knowledge. Theterm, “illumination between the hands,” refersto the second stage of the ritual. First the BARD

or seer chewed on raw meat, which was thenoffered to the powers of the OTHERWORLD. Theanswer to the query was supposed to come intothe seer’s mind by the next day, but if that didnot happen, the second stage began: Afterspeaking incantations into his or her hands, theseer slept with palms on cheeks and dreamedthe answer to the queries.

Imbolc (Imbolg, Óilmelc, Oímelg, Olmec,Candlemas) Celtic holiday. The Celtic yearwas broken into four parts, and the pointsbetween the equinoxes and solstices were cele-brated as major festivals. Imbolc, on February 1,was the day on which winter ended and springbegan. Its name means “in the belly,” presum-ably because cattle and sheep were pregnantwith spring’s young at this time; it has also beenconnected with a word meaning “to wash,” pre-sumably referring to ritual purification. Thealternative name of Óilmelc refers to the lacta-tion of ewes that also occurs around this time.

Yet although it was described as spring’s awak-ening, the weather at this time was generallymore wintry than not. Thus weather MAGIC andDIVINATION were common to the day. The Manxsaid the “Old Woman of the Spells,” a form of theCAILLEACH, tried to find dry sticks on Imbolc inorder to build a fire, thus making herself com-fortable enough to prolong winter; such tradi-tions may form the basis of the AmericanGroundhog Day. In Ireland the day was dedicated

to St. BRIGIT, the Christianized version of theCeltic goddess of the same name, whose feast daythis became; many folkways celebrate her, includ-ing plaiting swastika-like crosses fashioned ofreed and rush to invite Brigit into the home.

On the Isle of Man, the day is called Laa’lBreeshey, the day of Brigit. Manx customsincluded leaving the front door open so thatBrigit (or in some cases, the FAIRIES) might feelwelcomed and enter, or sweeping out the barnand leaving a lit candle to burn there beside atable on which ale and bread (the “Brigit sup-per”) was offered to the visiting spirits, whethersaintly or fey. As in other Celtic lands, the Isle ofMan saw weather divination practiced on thisday. One tradition said that as far as the sunbeamreaches on Imbolc, that far will the snow comebefore BELTANE on May 1; thus, as in otherplaces, a bright Imbolc was thought to promise alengthened winter. A similar belief had it thatwhen Imbolc was sunny, a wet or snowy springwas in the offing. A rainy or snowy Imbolc, bycontrast, would force the Cailleach, the weather-controlling HAG, to stay indoors rather thangathering more wood for her fire. Without lay-ing in an additional stock of fuel, she would beforced to end winter early.

In Britain seasonal symbolism outweighedweather divination. As in other Celtic lands,Imbolc was associated in the Cotswold hill-country with candles that represented theincreasing strength of the sun being lit through-out the house to celebrate the day. Tea was tra-ditionally to be served without any artificiallight, for on Imbolc the sun’s light was supposedto be strong enough to illuminate the tablespread with the feast.

In Scotland rush or reed figures of Brigitwere constructed and dressed in bits of cloth,with a shell called “the guiding star” placed onthe chest. This poppet was carried from house tohouse, usually by young women, or put to bedwith lullabies. Ashes strewn on the doorstepwould be checked in the morning to see if Brigithad honored the household with a visitation,which was thought to bring good luck for the

256 imbas forosnai

year. Sometimes a piece of peat was put inside asock, then hit upon a step while a verse wasrecited asking that SERPENTS not come forth.

Ireland’s various regions had different tradi-tions for this day. The day was generally a holi-day when rural work stopped, although farmersmight plow a ceremonial furrow in the springfields or put a spade into the earth as a ritualinvocation for good harvest. Strips of cloth orribbons were placed outdoors, to catch the firstlight of the sun on Imbolc or the dew of thedawn; called a Brat Bríde or Brigit’s cloak, thecloths were used for healing throughout theyear. The faithful visited (and still visit) holyWELLS dedicated in Brigit’s name. In KILDARE arush swastika cross was plaited; hung over thedoor, it protected against fire until the nextImbolc, when the dried cross would be stored inthe rafters while another green one took itsplace. In western Connemara a straw ropeplaited from rye straw cut by hand was formedinto a circle (the crios bridghe or Brigit cross) andcarried from door to door so that people couldleap through it while praying for health andgood fortune. In southwestern Co. Kerry mum-mers dressed in white imitated Brigit beggingfrom door to door. Both of these latter customshave been revived in recent years, most signifi-cantly at Kildare, a town traditionally associatedwith the figure of Brigit transmogrified into theChristian saint; there the celebration of Imbolchas become an important local festival.

Sources: Berger, Pamela. The Goddess Obscured:Transformation of the Grain Protectress fromGoddess to Saint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985, p.70; Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974, p.19; Callan, Barbara. “In Search of the CriosBhride.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed. Irish Spirit:Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin:Wolfhound Press, 2001; Carmichael, Alexander.Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations.Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp.583–584; Paton, C. I. Manx Calendar Customs.Publications of the Folk-lore Society, reprinted.

Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited,1968, p. 35; Ross, Anne. Folklore of the ScottishHighlands. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976,p. 126.

immortality Cosmological concept. Althoughsome writers describe the Celtic gods as immor-tal, tales such as that of battles of MAG TUIRED

describe the deaths of many of them. Gods andgoddesses are occasionally victims of treacherousmurder, as when MEDB was struck down whilebathing. Thus it is not clear that the idea ofimmortality—in the sense of never sufferingdeath—was part of the Celtic vision of divinity.Some Irish legends speak of a food that, wheneaten by the gods, kept them young and hale: thePIGS of the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR, the con-tents of the ever-full CAULDRON of the smithGOIBNIU, and APPLES from the OTHERWORLD.The myths suggest that, without such magicalfood, divinities might age and die just like mor-tals, but existing texts and oral tales do notdescribe any deaths from old age among the gods.

Some ancient sources refer to a Celtic beliefin the immortality of the human soul, whichpassed through various bodies; this is moreproperly termed REINCARNATION or metempsy-chosis. Some argue that rebirth in different bod-ies was not a Celtic vision of the afterlife but aclassical misinterpretation, and that the Celtsinstead believed in the soul’s reawakening in anOtherworld that resembled this one point forpoint, except for being timeless. Death, in eithercase, was a change in form instead of an ending;such a belief may explain the fearlessness thatancient writers ascribed to Celtic warriors.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 503; MacCulloch,J. A. The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London:Constable, 1911, pp. 158, 376.

immovability (automatic return) Folkloricmotif. The great stone monuments of the

immovability 257

pre-Celtic people must have impressed the newsettlers, for many superstitions accrued to thesites, which preserved them against desecrationeven millennia after the builders had passedaway. One of these beliefs—recorded as far backas the early British historian Nennius—was thatsuch stones would, if moved from their sacredlocation, return the next day of their own power.Sometimes the thief would be hurt or killed inthe stone’s return.

Source: Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of PrehistoricSites in Britain. London: David & Charles,1976.

imp British folkloric figure. An old word for acutting from a tree is imp or ymp, and the termcame to be applied during Puritan times to FAIRY

people as offshoots of the DEVIL. The concept isentirely a Christian one; pre-Christian residentsof Celtic lands did not believe in a specific forceof evil, much less that the people of the OTHER-WORLD were the evil one’s children.

imram See VOYAGES.

inauguration Celtic ritual. Although little isknown of inauguration rituals among the conti-nental Celts or those in Britain, there is signifi-cant evidence of the ritual’s form in CelticIreland. The king was not an all-powerful personwhose word was law, but rather a man chosen—often by inspired poets using complex DIVINA-TION methods, although possibly through featsof arms—to be married to the goddess of theland. The banais ríghe, the feast of inauguration,celebrated the marriage of the goddess of SOVER-EIGNTY with her chosen king. The site of the rit-ual was a sacred hill such as TARA or a holy WELL;as there were hundreds of kings in ancientIreland, their inauguration presumably was heldat the most sacred place in their territory.

What exactly happened at this ritual isunclear. Giraldus Cambrensis relates a complex

ritual involving the king’s mating with a mare;the mare was then killed and cooked, and theking was given its broth to drink (see HORSE SAC-RIFICE). Although that ritual finds echoes inother Indo-European lands, there is no furtherevidence that it occurred in Ireland.

More commonly, it is believed that the ritualincluded two main elements: the offering of adrink (possibly water from the sacred well,although red ALE is also mentioned) and inter-course with the goddess, or a woman represent-ing the goddess. Again, it is not known howwidespread such practices were or whether thecoition was symbolic or actual.

After inauguration it was the king’s duty tofollow many ritual requirements (see BUADA). Ifhe did so, the goddess offered the reward ofabundant food and fine weather, while a king’sfailure to please the goddess would result infamine and disease and eventual removal fromoffice. To assure that the king did his utmost toprovide for his people, his life was bounded bysacred taboos and promises called geasa (seeGEIS). See also MEDB, KINGSHIP.

Sources: Brenneman, Walter, and MaryBrenneman. Crossing the Circle at the Holy Wellsof Ireland. Charlottesville: University ofVirginia Press, 1995; Green, Miranda. Symboland Image in Celtic Religious Art. London:Routledge, 1989.

inauguration stones Celtic sacred object.Both literary and historical evidence support theidea that Celtic kings were invested with theiroffice while standing upon a sacred stone. Themost famous such stone was the LIA FÁIL,reputed to have been brought from the OTHER-WORLD to stand upon the Irish hill of TARA.(Some legends say that the stone visible there inancient times was not the real Lia Fáil; the realstone remained forever in the Otherworld whilea replica was sent to this world.) The stone, thatstands today at the same site, often described asresembling a phallus, is not the original.

258 imp

According to one legend, the original Lia Fáil,also called the Stone of Destiny, was moved toScotland in ancient times and used as an inaugu-ral stone for 34 kings of Scotland. In 1296 thisstone (now called the Stone of Scone) wasremoved from Scotland by order of Edward Iand installed beneath the English coronationchair in Westminster Abbey in London; there itwitnessed the inauguration of every Britishmonarch, including today’s Elizabeth II, withthe single exception of Mary I. The Stone ofScone was, however, returned to Scotland in1996, leaving open the question of whether thenext British monarch will travel there to becrowned upon the sacred stone.

Evidence that the Stone of Scone is not theoriginal Lia Fáil can be sought in traditions thatthe Lia Fáil screamed when the true kingtouched it. There is no historical evidence forthe Stone of Destiny screaming upon the coro-nation of either Scottish or English monarchs.

The Stone of Scone is not the only inauguralstone known in Celtic lands. The stone uponwhich seven 10th century Saxon kings werecrowned can still be seen beside the Guildhall inKingston-upon-Thames. The Black Stone ofIona stood in the cathedral at Strathclyde until1830, when it was lost; prior to that, it was usedby highland chiefs as a witness in contracts andoaths. Finally, the Stone of the Footmarks on theScottish island of Islay was recorded as the sitefor inauguration of the chiefs of the ClanDonald; the incoming ruler stood barefoot, feetin the footprints graven in the stone, to take hisoath of office. That inaugural stone, however,was deliberately destroyed in the 17th century.

Ireland, too, had inaugural stones other thanthe mythological Lia Fáil. Near Belfast, theO’Neills were inaugurated while sitting in astone chair that was last heard of in 1750, whenpurchased for use as a garden ornament; it hassince disappeared. Another stone chair, calledthe Hag’s Chair, can be seen on the heights ofthe CAIRN-studded hill of LOUGHCREW, but itslegendary connection with inauguration isslight.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker andCo., 1976, pp. 66 ff; Salvin, Michael. The Book ofTara. Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1996, pp. 17 ff.

incantations See DIVINATION, IMBAS FOROSNAI.

incest Mythic theme. Tales that involveincest, especially that between brother and sister,have been interpreted as representing creationmyths, because at the beginning of time the onlyway to populate the world would have beenthrough incest. Implications of sexual congressbetween brother and sister appear in severalCeltic myths, most prominently that of ARI-ANHROD, who bore two sons when asked to mag-ically prove her virginity; sources imply that thefather of these children was her brotherGwidion. King ARTHUR, too, had a child with hissister, the magical MORGAUSE. Such incestuousunions are often used to argue the original divin-ity of figures that have been diminished or euhe-merized into human form.

Inchiquin Irish mythological site. Near thesmall town of Corofin on the Burren, a wildrocky area of west Co. Clare, the tiny gray LAKE

of Inchiquin is said to have a magical past. Threebeautiful women lived there in undergroundcaves, coming forth each night near a sweetwa-ter SPRING. The lord of the area heard of themand, spying upon them, found one to his liking.He stole her from her sisters and took her to hisfortress. She did not object, becoming his wifeand bearing him several children. But she for-bade him to ever invite company home—FAIRY

women who agree to marry humans typicallyexact some such promise—and he pledged to herthat he would not. Intoxicated while out withfriends one night, he broke his promise, butwhen he arrived home with the company, hefound his wife and children departing for thespring from which she had come. The errantlord could never recapture her, for the spring’s

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waters rose until it became today’s lake, foreverhiding the entry to the fairy realm.

Sources: Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of theIrish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, p.282; Westropp, T. J. Folklore of Clare: A FolkloreSurvey of County Clare and County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths. Ennis, Co. Clare: Clasp Press,2000, pp. 4–5.

Indech Irish god. In the great Irish tale of thesecond battle of MAG TUIRED, this FOMORIAN

hero wounded the god OGMA of the opposingarmy, the tribe of the goddess DANU called theTUATHA DÉ DANANN. Indech was the son ofDomnu, a goddess of fertility who has beendescribed as a version of Danu herself. Theancestry of Irish mythological figures is oftenquite tangled in this way. Some scholars arguethat the various “tribes” of divinities representthe many waves of immigrants to the island;intermarriage among these immigrants led tointerconnections among their divinities.

Inghean Bhuidhe Irish goddess. One ofTHREE related goddesses known in the southwest-ern province of MUNSTER, “the yellow-hairedgirl” was the SISTER of LATIARAN, apparently anancient fire goddess, and the mysterious CROBH

DEARG or “red claw,” perhaps another fire deity;the third sister is sometimes said to be LASAIR.Christianized into a SAINT, Inghean Bhuidhe washonored on May 6 with rituals around a sacredWELL. She is an obscure figure, known and hon-ored within a small geographical region but withlittle legend to describe her powers.

Inis Glora Irish mythological site. The lastof three places to which the enchanted CHIL-DREN OF LIR were condemned, Inis Glora (nowInish Glora) is a small island off the west coastof Co. Mayo.

Intarabus Continental Celtic god. Anobscure god, the meaning of whose name cannot

be determined, Intarabus is known from severalinscriptions from Germany and Belgium. TheRomans identified him with their own warriorgod MARS, suggesting a connection with war ordefense of land.

Interpretatio Romana (“Roman interpreta-tion”) Cosmological concept. When theinvading Roman legions arrived in Celtic lands,they confronted a complex group of divinitiesthat only faintly resembled those they had leftbehind in Italy. Most disturbingly, there was notightly organized pantheon with a hierarchicalorganization (see CELTIC PANTHEON). Nor didthe Celts assign divine duties—ruler of the birthchamber, for instance, or god of the field bound-aries—to specific gods as did the Romans.Instead, there was a clutter of gods and god-desses, some of whom seemed to be honored inonly the smallest of regions, for Celtic divinitiestended to be linked to specific places rather thanto abstract meaning.

So the Romans set to work making order outof perceived chaos. Where there was a healinggoddess, she was renamed MINERVA, or a healinggod, APOLLO; where there was a powerful god,he became MARS. Gods of commerce or prosper-ity became MERCURY. Sometimes the old Celticnames were joined to the new name, so that SUL

becomes Sulis Minerva (Minerva of the sun) inthe town of healing springs now called BATH, andMars Lucetius (Mars of light) in the same place.In other places, however, the old name wasstripped away, so that we have dozens of inscrip-tions and sculptures to the Roman god JUPITER,shown dressed in Celtic garb and sometimeseven wearing a neck ring called a TORC. Whatsuch gods’ original names were is lost to history.

The Celts did not traditionally depict theirdivinities in human form, nor did they worshipindoors. Thus the building of TEMPLES, forinstance, to the HORSE goddess EPONA and thecreation of temple sculptures of her riding a marewere an innovation in Celtic lands, brought bythe Roman soldiers but ultimately embraced by

260 Indech

the conquered Celts. Both temples and sculptureswere inspired by classical originals, althoughretaining some native features. Continental Celticpeoples provide most of the inscriptions, templeruins, and sculptures, while the island of Britainalso offers a significant number; Ireland, however,because it was never invaded by the Romans, hasno tradition whatsoever of interpreting nativedivinities as Roman ones.

The reinterpretation of indigenous divinitiescontinued under the Rome-based Christianchurch, which learned from the legions thatpeople resist having their ancestral divinitiesstripped from them. Instead of interpretingCeltic gods and goddesses as aspects of the trini-tarian god, Christian evangelists took PopeClement’s advice to leave undisturbed theancient holy places and to adopt old gods intothe new religion as saints. Thus many Celticsaints, notably BRIGIT, have pagan origins.

intoxication Mythic theme. Ancient Greekand Roman writers refer frequently—and dis-paragingly—to the Celtic love of intoxication.Although some of these accounts were simplyderision of another culture, there is also evidencethat the Celts, both continental and insular, tookto drinking with the same gusto they showed inother aspects of life. Celtic leaders often offeredtheir warriors liquor before battle, in order tofree them from fear of injury and death. Thesight of blue-painted warriors, wild with drink,charging across a battlefield is described as terri-fying by more than one ancient writer. Drink alsofigured in Irish INAUGURATION rituals, whichinvolved the new king’s drinking the ALE of thegoddess of the land. Whether the king drankenough to become tipsy is not known, nor is itestablished what the drink symbolized, whetherthe potential intoxication of power or the absorb-ing of some spiritual essence.

Irish literary sources invariably describedrunken behavior as occurring around the fallfeast of SAMHAIN; the doors to the OTHERWORLD

were said to open that night, and strong drink

may have either protected against or enhancedthe likelihood of seeing into it. Archaeologistshave found huge Celtic brewing vats but few stor-age vessels, suggesting that extra grain was usedfor brewing, which supplied binge drinking; oncethe cauldrons were empty, such excessive drinkingwould come to a halt until the next Samhain.

Intoxication of the Ulstermen (Mesca Ulad)Irish literary text. In the tale of this title from thegreat ULSTER CYCLE, king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA

convinced his foster sons, the heroes CÚCHU-LAINN and FINTAN, to let him rule their lands fora year. At the end of that time, the king went offto celebrate restoration of their lands to theiroriginal rulers, intending to spend the first partof the evening with Fintan in the west, the second part in the eastern part of the territorywith Cúchulainn. Halfway through the night thewarriors were so intoxicated that they could notfind Cúchulainn’s fortress, winding up instead atthat of their enemy, CÚ ROÍ, who attempted totrap them in an iron house that he set on fire.Cúchulainn, realizing that his expected guestswere missing in transit, found and freed them,after which the Ulstermen destroyed Cú Roí’spalace. Like other texts involving drunkenness,the Intoxication of the Ulstermen is described asoccurring at SAMHAIN, the winter feast onNovember 1.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, pp. 215 ff; Gantz,Jeffrey, ed. and trans. Early Irish Myths andSagas. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, pp.188–218.

invasions See BOOK OF INVASIONS.

Iona Scottish mythological site. Best knownnow as the center of Celtic Christianity foundedby St. Columcille, this tiny island in Scotland’sInner Hebrides is thought to have been the site

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of a Celtic shrine to a goddess, IOUA, whosename the island originally bore and who hasbeen interpreted as a divinity of the MOON.Others connect the island’s name to a word forYEW, a tree associated with sacred places andwith death. The island’s holy WELL was said tohave risen directly from the magic CAULDRON ofthe TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the mythological tribeof the goddess DANU; its name, Tobar na h’oigeor “fountain of youth,” suggests that it conveyedthe cauldron’s powers of IMMORTALITY to thesurface world. Those looking into the well atdusk or dawn, or on the night of the full moon,would see visions and receive healing. Althoughas a Celtic site it was open to both men andwomen, under Christianity women (except fornuns) were barred from residing on Iona;nonetheless one of the island’s churches is hometo a pregnant, self-exposing female figure calleda SHEELA NA GIG.

Sources: Ross, Anne, and Michael Cyprien. ATraveller’s Guide to Celtic Britain. Harrisburg,Pa.: Historical Times, 1985, p. 68; Straffon,Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic and PaganLegacy of the Landscape. London: Blandford,1997, p. 176.

iorasglach (iorsglach-úrlair) Scottish folkloriccharacter. A beggarly woman in threadbareclothing appears as a seer in some Highlandfolktales, typically striking the ground whereshe sits before uttering her prophecies to thelord and the court. This strange figure may be a faint folk memory of a Celtic or pre-Celtic rit-ual of DIVINATION.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969,p. 496.

Ioua Scottish goddess. Ancient Scottish MOON

goddess who gave her name to the famous sacredisland of IONA.

Iovantucarus Continental Celtic god. Thename of this god has been translated as “the onewho loves the young,” suggesting a god of chil-dren or adolescents. The Romans interpretedhim as both the warrior god MARS and the god ofcommerce and eloquence, MERCURY.

Irnan Irish heroine. The goddess CONARAN ofthe TUATHA DÉ DANANN had THREE daughters,all skilled in the magical arts. Sent to capturesome members of the heroic band of warriorscalled the FIANNA, they spun a magical web thatheld the men fast until the hero GOLL MAC

MORNA appeared to do battle with them. Hekilled Irnan’s two sisters, but the web held untilhe threatened Irnan too with death. She agreedto break the spell but instead turned into a mon-ster and demanded that the three Fianna warriorsfight her, in the traditional Celtic fashion of sin-gle combat. Fearful of her power, the heroes—OISÍN, OSCAR, and Celta—all refused, leavingtheir leader FIONN MAC CUMHAILL himself to dobattle. Goll stepped in instead, killing Irnan. Thestory is a curious one, not tied to any of the majormyth cycles, but it reflects a common theme ofheroes killing HAG-monsters that may hide anancient creation tale in which a goddess is killedin order to make the earth. See GARRAVOGUE.

iron Folkloric motif. FAIRY folk dreaded ironmore than any other substance, so it was consid-ered wise to carry nails in one’s pocket if one waspassing a fairy rath, to put nails in the bottom ofMILK pails to keep fairies from stealing milk, andto hide a nail in the bed where a mother was giv-ing birth to assure the child would not become aCHANGELING. Iron crosses were believed effec-tive as fairy repellents, and iron scissors couldserve the purpose if held open to form a cross.

The source of these traditions, found acrossthe Celtic lands, is unclear. The Celts wereamong the earliest Europeans to successfullywork iron; their metalwork was justly renownedand provided wealth through trade with theirneighbors. Indeed, the very word iron comes

262 iorasglach

from a Celtic word, iarn, which was adopted intoLatin and thereby spread through Europe. If, assome contend, the fairy people were originallythe gods of pre-Celtic peoples, their reputed fearof iron might reflect a historical conflict.

Sources: Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customsand Savage Myths: Selections from the BritishFolklorists. Vol II. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1968, p. 25; O hEochaidh, Séan.Fairy Legends of Donegal. Trans. MáireMacNeill. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1977, p. 167.

Is See YS.

Iseult (Isolt, Isolde, Essyllt, Essellt) Cornishor Breton heroine. The great romance that pairsIseult with her lover TRISTAN, in opposition toher husband King MARK, parallels the even morefamous British love triangle of GUINEVERE,LANCELOT, and ARTHUR. Mark, king ofCornwall (occasionally, Cornuaille in Brittany),found a single strand of golden HAIR so gorgeousthat he immediately fell in love with the womanfrom whose head it came, and he dispatched hishandsome young nephew Tristan to Ireland tofind Iseult. On the return voyage, becalmed atsea and thirsty, Iseult offered Tristan a drink thather mother had brewed for the wedding night.Fearful that her daughter would live in a lovelessif politically expedient marriage, the mother hadused arcane herbal knowledge to make a potionthat caused intense and boundless love. Meaningto assure her daughter’s happiness, she insteaddestroyed it, for Iseult was hopelessly bound toTristan from the moment they shared the magi-cal drink.

Despite her feelings, Iseult did not yield her-self physically and continued her journey,becoming the bride of Tristan’s uncle and king.Her maid BRANGIEN, taking pity upon Iseult andfeeling guilty for having served the magicpotion, took her mistress’s place in bed withMark on their honeymoon, but eventually Iseult

had to do her wifely duties. She tried to remainfaithful to her wedding vows but began to meetTristan in secret. Her suspicious husband sub-jected Iseult to a magical test of her purity; shewas to cross a stream that, were she impure inany way, would drown her. Just as the test was tobegin, Tristan arrived disguised as a beggar andhelped Iseult cross the stream. The queen wasthus able to honestly say that no man hadtouched her save her husband and the helpfulbeggar. Ultimately, however, the pain of theirdeceit caused the lovers to separate, althoughthey lived miserably without each other’s lovedand loving presence. Tristan married a womanwith Iseult’s name (see ISEULT OF THE WHITE

HANDS), but he died of a broken heart uponhearing a false report that the first Iseult wasdead or would not come to him, and Iseult livedin sorrow until she too died.

Many commentators detect in this tale ofdoomed love a typically Celtic motif: the selec-tion of the king by the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY,without whose approval no man can hope torule. In addition to the tale’s Arthurian echo, itslove triangle is found in Ireland in the story ofFIONN MAC CUMHAILL and his bride GRÁINNE,who eloped at their wedding with the handsomeDIARMAIT; but in the Irish tale the heroine is farless a victim of circumstance and male lust, andmuch more an active party to the romance.

Sources: Bedier, Joseph. The Romance of Tristan andIseult. Trans. Hilaire Belloc. New York: VintageBooks, 1965; Markale, Jean. Courtly Love: ThePath of Sexual Initiation. Rochester, Vt.: InnerTraditions, 2000, p. 77.

Iseult of the White Hands Cornish orBreton heroine. After TRISTAN had finally beenseparated from his fated lover ISEULT, he mar-ried another woman of the same name, calledIseult of the White Hands. Her happiness wasshort-lived, however, as Tristan, hearing of theoriginal Iseult’s death, pined away and died. Theduplication of Iseult’s name in the story suggests

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a hidden meaning connected to the role of theoriginal Iseult as a goddess of SOVEREIGNTY: thatTristan replaced MARK in the favor of the god-dess, suggesting that the older man was nolonger fit to rule as king.

island Mythological site. The Celts consid-ered islands to be liminal places, neither quitehere nor quite in the OTHERWORLD, and thususeful as gateways for passing between worlds(see LIMINALITY). Islands share this marginalitywith natural sites such as BOGS, STONE CIRCLES,hills, and SPRINGS, and human-constructed sitessuch as HILLFORTS and HEARTHS as well.

There are many mythological islands inCeltic tradition, including AVALON, the Isle ofApples, to which king ARTHUR was guided bythe LADY OF THE LAKE; the Isle of Women, anisland or islands in the western ocean ruled bya beautiful queen and inaccessible except by herwill (see TIR NA MBAN); and HY-BRÂZIL, a magi-cal island that was visible only once every sevenyears. There are also actual islands aroundwhich tales and myths accrue; one of these isthe small Isle of the Living in Ireland’s south-western province of MUNSTER, near Roscrea,where no person had ever died or ever woulddie; another is Inisbofin off the Connemaracoast, where the mythological white COW

appears every seven years. In Scotland theHebrides are called the Isles of the Blessed;they are described as lands where budding andharvest occur simultaneously, which thoughnot factually correct does correspond todescriptions of FAIRY islands.

Sources: Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of theIrish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, pp.219; Löffler, Christa Maria. The Voyage to theOtherworld Island in Early Irish Literature.Salzburg Studies in English Literature. Salzburg,Institut Für Anglistik und Amerikanistik,Universität Salzburg, 1983; Ross, Anne, andMichael Cyprien. A Traveller’s Guide to CelticBritain. Harrisburg, Pa.: Historical Times, 1985.

Island of Pigs Irish mythological site. Thisname was given to Ireland by the invading MILE-SIANS, because the magical residents called theTUATHA DÉ DANANN had cast a cloud of enchant-ment over the land, causing it to seem like asmall pig-shaped island rather than the generousgreen island it truly is.

Isles of the Blessed See FORTUNATE ISLES.

Isolde See ISEULT.

Íte (Ita, Íta, Mo-Íde, Míde) Irish saint. AChristian woman of whom legends are told thatare studded with pagan motifs, the historical Ítelived in the sixth century C.E. and founded a con-vent called Cill (church of) Íte, now Killeedy,Co. Limerick. Like the KILDARE nun BRIGIT, Íteseems almost mythological, possibly because hername was that of a goddess with whom she wasconflated. Íte’s chamber shone as though on fire,she cured a man by removing his horse’s ears,and most important, she owned the mythologi-cal COW of abundance, the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN.Her miracles involved controlling the weatherand the flight of birds, thus connecting her toearth goddesses of the MUNSTER region whereshe lived.

Source: Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend andRomance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish FolkTradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991,p. 259.

Íth Irish hero. This minor character makes anappearance in the BOOK OF INVASIONS, where he isthe first of his tribe, the MILESIANS, to spot thegreen island of Ireland on the horizon. He led agroup of his people there but was quickly killedby the residents, the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN. His nephew Míl Despaine avenged hismurder by leading the Milesians in a successfulinvasion of Ireland.

264 island

Iubdan (Iubdán) Irish hero. In the early IrishADVENTURE tale Eachtra Fhergus Mac Léide, wemeet Iubdan, the tiny boastful king of a peoplecalled the Faylinn, and his tiny queenly wifeBEBO. His poet, EISIRT, tried to contain Iubdan’sexcessive bragging by telling him that nearbyULSTER was populated by giants—and proved itby traveling to Ulster and inviting back the poetÁeda who was in fact a dwarf. Then Eisirt put aGEIS, an unshakable demand, on Iubdan that hemust taste the porridge of FERGUS mac Léti, theking of Ulster, before the next dawn. Taking hiswife Bebo along, Iubdan set off to satisfy thegeis—but the couple fell into the porridge andwould have been drowned had they not beenrescued and fished out. The tiny queen caughtthe fancy of king Fergus, who kept her as hismistress for a year and a day, after which Iubdanbought their freedom with a pair of flying shoes.The adventure tale of Iubdan has been cited as asource for the famous Lilliput section ofJonathan Swift’s satirical commentary onhumanity, Gulliver’s Travels.

Iuchair (Iuchar) Irish divinity. He was one ofthe THREE sons of the primal goddess DANU,who were known as the SONS OF TUIREANN andwho were given a series of impossibly difficulttasks after killing their father’s enemy CIAN.Iuchar may have been an ancestral divinity, andlike his brothers BRIAN and IUCHARBA, he is

sometimes said to have been the father of ECNE,a divinity of wisdom and inspiration. Because thebrothers are so confused in the tales, somescholars have seen them as a triplication of onefigure; others identify them with the threeimportant TUATHA DÉ DANANN kings called MAC

CUILL, MAC CÉCHT, and MAC GRÉINE.

Iucharba Irish divinity. This minor god wasone of the SONS OF TUIREANN and had little roleseparate from his brothers.

Iupiter See JUPITER.

ivy Symbolic plant. The ivy (genus Parthenocissus),a vining plant that grows quickly, almost ram-pantly, symbolized summer to the Celts; the IvyKing was described as opposing the Holly King inthe endless flux of the seasons. At other times, theivy was described as a feminine plant, opposed tothe masculine HOLLY.

Iwein See OWEIN.

Iweriadd Welsh heroine. In some sources,Iweriadd is given as the name for the mother ofthe heroes BRÂN THE BLESSED and MANAWYDAN;in other texts, the heroes’ mother is PENARD-DUN, otherwise given as the name of the motherof their sister BRANWEN.

Iweriadd 265

Jack-in-Irons British folkloric figure. In thenorthern English region of Yorkshire, travelersat night sometimes heard the sound of clankingchains and saw a strange looming figure calledJack-in-Irons. Jack said nothing, threatening orotherwise, but his presence was nonetheless saidto be quite frightening.

Jack-in-the-Green British folkloric figure.In some rural British communities where springfestivals descending from the Celtic spring feastof BELTANE continued until recent times, amasked young man dressed in a costume ofleaves danced through the streets. He is thoughtto be connected with Celtic tree-cults or withthe mysterious figure called the GREEN MAN

found in some architectural contexts in Britain.

Jack-o-Lantern See TINE GHEALÁIN.

Janiform See JANUS.

Januaria Continental Celtic goddess. A figureof a goddess by this name is known from a singleHEALING shrine in Burgundy, in southwesternFrance. She is shown playing a pipe, which hasbeen interpreted as indicating that music wasused in her healing rituals.

Source: Green, Miranda. “The Celtic/Goddess asHealer.” In Billington, Sandra, and MirandaGreen, eds. The Concept of the Goddess.Routledge: London and New York, 1996, pp.28 ff.

Janus Roman god. Rome had a god, Janus,who had two faces that looked in different direc-tions; his name comes down to us in “January,”the month that looks both forward to the newyear and back to the old. In Celtic lands theRomans encountered occasional two-faced stat-ues of unnamed gods and called them after theirfamiliar god; scholars sometimes call these fig-ures Janiform, “having the same form as Janus.”The original Celtic meaning of the figures islost, although they have been connected bothwith the reverence for the HEAD as symbol ofessence and power and with the assignment ofspecial power to TWINS.

Jeannie of Biggersdale British spirit. In theNorth Riding of Yorkshire, this dreadful spiritwas said to live in Musgrave Woods where, likeother BOGIES or boggarts, she threatened passingtravelers. One farmer who attempted to driveher out of the region lost his horse when Jeanniecut it in two; the man was lucky to escape withhis life.

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Source: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, p. 239.

Jenny Greenteeth British water spirit. Aboggart or threatening sprite known until the19th century, Jenny was said to haunt the streamsof Lancashire, seeking to drown passersby. Suchspirits may descend from early WATER divinitiesand may encode a faint folk memory of HUMAN

SACRIFICE. Some scholars theorize that Jennywas only a nursery tale told to quiet unrulyyoungsters; the threat of a green-toothed mon-ster hiding in pools would have kept adventurouschildren away from potential danger.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 13.

Joan d’Arc (Jeanne-d’Arc) French heroine.There have been consistent attempts, both fic-tional and otherwise, to associate the historical fig-ure of Joan d’Arc with residual Celtic beliefs in theFrench countryside from which she came. Joanwas born ca. 1412 C.E. in the northern region ofLorraine, in a rural area where ancient beliefsremained as superstitions despite Christianity.

Early in her life Joan began to hear voices—two female, one male—that she understood to beSAINTS revealing her destiny. At the age of about15, dressed in male garb, she traveled to meet theDauphin, the embattled heir to the Frenchthrone, and announced herself as his general.Aware of the propaganda value of the girl’s oddlycharismatic quest, the Dauphin and his advisersagreed and were surprised by Joan’s quick andaccurate grasp of military strategy. At the head ofher soldiers, Joan fought the English at Orléans,driving through their ranks to lift the city’s siegeand earning the title “Maid of Orléans.”

Within a year, she had won the throne for theDauphin, crowned as Charles VII with Joan athis side. Despite her prowess, Joan was captured

by French allies of the British, who sold her tothe enemy. A trial for WITCHCRAFT followed inwhich Joan refused to deny her “voices,” thesources of her inspiration. She was burned at thestake in 1431, apparently before she had turned20. Only 25 years later she was granted a posthu-mous “trial” and declared innocent; in 1920 shewas canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

In addition to coming from an historicallyCeltic part of France, Joan responded toOtherworldly powers and embodied an ancientCeltic image of the woman as warrior that hadbeen submerged for centuries. Several contem-porary novelists, notably Anne Chamberlin (TheMerlin of St. Giles Well, The Merlin of the OakWood), draw inspiration from the Celtic motifs inthe historical story of Joan. That this interpreta-tion has deep historical roots is suggested by thefact that her inquisitors asked Joan what knowl-edge she had of the FAIRY faith or those whopracticed it. Joan herself had no doubts that herinspiration was Christian; she answered, in allcases, that she was responding to the voices ofsaints, not those of fairies.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 263.

Joseph of Arimathea Arthurian hero.Although he figures but slightly in the ChristianBible, the merchant Joseph of Arimathea has asignificant role in the story of the GRAIL. It wasat his house that, on the night before his death,the savior Jesus had his Last Supper, in whichthe Grail was used as part of the dinner service.Whether it was a chalice or a platter, the objectwas sanctified with the miracle of transubstanti-ation, when bread and wine are turned into thebody and blood of the Christian god’s son.

Joseph was the only one of Jesus’ disciples(and possibly, his uncle) with enough money tobury his master after the crucifixion on MountGolgotha, the mountain of the skull. In returnfor his services, Pontius Pilate—the Romanprovincial official who had sent Jesus to his

Joseph of Arimathea 267

death—gave him the Grail. (The story is self-contradictory at this point, because Josephshould not have needed to be rewarded with hisown cup or platter.) He then set off on a pro-longed journey around the Mediterranean, bear-ing the Grail and converting people to the newreligion of Jesus. Finally he came to rest inBritain, where he had once traveled with Jesuswhen the savior was a boy. Joseph had manyoccasions to travel to the rich tin mines ofCornwall, but he passed up that region to settlein GLASTONBURY. There he thrust his staff intothe ground on Wearyall Hill, and it burst intobloom despite the wintry weather. Assured bythis miracle that he was to remain, Joseph builtthe first Christian church in Britain there.

Jowan Chy an Hor (John of Chyanhor)Cornish folkloric figure. The Celtic language ofCornwall in the far southwest of the island ofBritain has little written literature; indeed, theonly known folktale in the language is that cen-tered on this heroic peasant and his exploits,which parallel those of similar folkloric heroeswho adventure about the countryside showingtheir shrewdness and resiliency.

Jupiter (Iupiter, Jupiter, Jove) This Romanname was applied to various Celtic gods, includ-ing the relatively obscure Brixianus, Ladicus,Latobius, and Poeniunus. Under the INTERPRE-TATIO ROMANA, Celtic divinities were identifiedwith similar (or presumed similar) Roman gods.In the process, the original names of some gods

were preserved as a surname to Jupiter’s; othergods, however, were obliterated by this Romanhabit, their individual significance disappearinginto the mighty figure of the sky-lord.

Despite Caesar’s contention that the CelticJupiter ruled the heavens, it is impossible to knowwhether the Celtic god was connected to the sky,as was the Roman original. The fact that manyimages carry a WHEEL, often a solar symbol, hasled some to call the Celtic Jupiter a SUN god,although he is more convincingly described as agod of abundance and FERTILITY. Sculptures andreliefs show a mature, bearded man with curlymustache and beard; usually he is naked, showinghim to be well-muscled and strong. He can bedepicted carrying a thunderbolt, in which case theCeltic Jupiter is often called TARANIS, after thename of the thunder god of the continental Celts.

In addition to the images just described, wealso find the Celtic Jupiter depicted as a mountedhorseman fighting a monstrous SERPENT; theRoman Jupiter was never depicted astride aHORSE. The god was also honored with the so-called Jupiter columns, tall four-sided (or eight-sided) pillars found on the Continent. These pillars were carved in the form of a tree, and theirattachment to Jupiter suggests he may have beenconnected with the Gaulish tree god ESUS.

Sources: Green, Miranda. The Gods of RomanBritain. Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd.,1983, p. 46; Green, Miranda. Symbol and Imagein Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,p. 117; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 29.

268 Jowan Chy an Hor

Kay (Kai, Cai, Cei, Sir Kay) Arthurian hero.The kindly and sometimes buffoonish Kayappears in a number of Arthurian stories asARTHUR’s companion, foster brother, andseneschal (steward). He may have originallybeen a Welsh god of war, for the Welsh tale ofKULHWCH AND OLWEN describes Kay as beingable to go without sleep for nine days andstand underwater for the same length of time,to stretch himself as tall as the tallest tree, andto warm his comrades in cold weather simplywith the heat of his body—all more than mor-tal powers. If Kay put a pack on his back, itbecame invisible; if he went into battle, nofewer than a hundred warriors would fall to hissword.

One of the most significant stories in whichKay appears is that of the kidnapping of queenGUINEVERE by the king named MELEAGANT.With Lancelot, Kay trailed Meleagant to his cas-tle, where Kay was injured in an attempt to freethe queen. Lancelot sneaked into the roomwhere the injured Kay was sleeping; Guineverewas in the same room, and Lancelot went to herbed, leaving bloodstains on the sheets. The nextday, Kay was accused of taking advantage of thequeen, but Lancelot did battle to reclaim hisfriend’s honor.

Some scholars believe that Kay was a god ofCeltic peoples who were traditional enemies ofArthur’s tribes; thus the connection of the two

heroes in legend is interpreted as a folk memoryof political links forged in reality.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 122 ff.

keening Irish ritual. In Ireland ritual mourn-ing for the dead was apparently a pre-Christianrite that survived into historical times despiteclerical opposition. Keening was invented, leg-end has it, by the goddess BRIGIT after her sonRUADÁN was killed in battle. It was a women’sritual, for they were the ones who screamed andclapped their hands over the body. Usually keen-ers were women of the village who were skilledin creating the woeful melodies, but wives anddaughters could also join in the keening (fromIrish caoin).

kelpie Scottish spirit. In Scotland storms at seawere believed caused by these mischievous, some-times destructive, beings. Usually they appearedas blue men, although they could also assume thefearsome shape of a WATER HORSE. The BLUE

MEN OF THE MINCH made waters constantly tur-bulent, discouraging all navigation; other kelpiesstirred the waters only when they wished to causetrouble, so that even a smooth river or pond couldturn treacherous once a traveler stepped into it.Kelpies were said to be able to leap up onto a

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horse passing over a ford, driving it mad with fearand endangering the rider. Boats could fall intothe hands of malevolent kelpies—unless the skip-per could complete rhyming couplets and forcethe kelpie away from the vessel. Kelpies have beendescribed as a Scottish version of the Breton KOR-RIGAN, but the latter is more typically a lustfulmaiden, while the kelpie is not so highly sexed.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 28; MacGregor,Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Talesand Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, p. 116.

Kenneth of the Prophecies (Brahan Seer,Kenneth MacKenzie, Cainnech, CoinneachOdhar Fiosaiche) Scottish hero. This folkloricfigure can be described as the Scottish Nos-tradamus, a man with supernatural powers to pre-dict the future. An echo of the Celtic BARD asprophet and diviner, Kenneth MacKenzie isalleged to be historical, but his story is filled withmythological motifs. His mother, napping near anancient sacred site, dreamed of GHOSTS whodescribed to her a powerful blue STONE. Shefound it and gave it to her son, who saw the futurewhenever he held it. Some tales say that Kennethforesaw the tragedy of the Highland Clearances,when people were moved off the land to makemore profit for landlords; others that he foresawthe destruction of the ancient clan system. Anunfulfilled prophecy says that the entire Isle ofLewis and Harris will be destroyed in battle.Kenneth’s magic blue stone is said to lie since hisdeath beneath the waves of Lough Ussie, ratherlike the similar drowned blue power-object of aparallel Irish figure, BIDDY EARLY.

Source: Folk-Lore and Legends: Scotland. London:White and Allen, 1889, pp. 5–8.

Kerhanagh (Kiraqhna) Irish monster. In theIrish western province of CONNACHT, a mythical

beast of this name—which means “fire-spit-ter”—was said to have been driven by ST.PATRICK from the sacred mountain calledCROAGH PATRICK. The demon then traveledacross the land, poisoning holy WELLS with itsfetid breath, as Patrick followed in hot pursuit,nearly losing the trail in Sligo. When the saintstruck his staff on a rock near the hill ofTullaghan, sweet water poured forth, permittingPatrick to quench his thirst and reenter his bat-tle with the monster, from which he emergedvictorious. Such stories of Patrick and his battleswith monsters have been variously interpreted asindicating Christian extirpation of earlier pagan,possibly Celtic, cults, or as showing Patrick step-ping in for an earlier mythological hero whodrove away threatening spirits. The Kerhanaghmay be the same figure as CORRA and/or CAO-RANACH, although the legends differ. She issometimes called by the English name, theDEVIL’S MOTHER.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 515.

Keshcorran Irish mythological site. A cavenear this small Irish town in the western provinceof CONNACHT was said to be the dwelling-placeof three frightening HAGS. Reputedly, the cavesof Keshcorran were connected by an under-ground passage to the most mythically importantnatural cave in Ireland, OWEYNAGAT (Cave of theCats) where the phantom queen MÓRRÍGAN lived.There is, however, no actual connection betweenthe caves, despite stories that a woman was ledbetween them by a calf, to whose tail she wasclinging. To explain the discrepancy between factand fable, local people say that the DEVIL stoppedup the passage.

The cave appears in the story Buidhean ChéiseCorainn or the Fight of Keshcorran; the great heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL was held captive there bypowerful hags or goddesses, described as mem-bers of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the ancient

270 Kenneth of the Prophecies

divinities of the land. Fionn is associated withthe cave in other tales of the FIANNA that call ithis original home, while other stories claim thatit was the abode of a magical SMITH. The god-dess ÁINE was also said to live there, disguised asa hag, unusual behavior for this divinely radiantfigure. Although the stories are confusing andconfused, they offer evidence that Keshcorranhad deep mythological significance.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, p. 238; MacNeill,Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa, Parts I and II.Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1982,p. 186.

key Celtic symbol. Several goddesses includ-ing the horse goddess EPONA and the mothergoddesses called the DEAE MATRES were depictedholding keys, usually interpreted as indicating ahappy passage from this life to the OTHERWORLD

of death.

Kildare Irish mythological site. Its namederives from words for “church” and “OAK,” andthis important town and district, in the easternPROVINCE of LEINSTER, draws together importantsymbols of Celtic and Christian spirituality. It isespecially associated with the figure of BRIGIT, aChristian saint presumed to have derived from aCeltic goddess, whose central sanctuary wasthere. The most significant day in the region isFebruary 1, the old Celtic feast of IMBOLC, stillcelebrated as Lá Féilé Bhríde, the day of Brigit.

killeen Irish sacred place. Across Ireland, “chil-dren’s burial grounds” or killeens are found, care-fully marked on maps and preserved againstdestruction. These small bits of field or grove wereused for the burial of fetuses that were miscarriedas well as babies who were born prematurely orwho otherwise died without Christian baptism. Assuch, the babes were forbidden burial in Christiancemeteries, so the bereaved parents put them to

rest in places held sacred before Christianity cameto Ireland. Few of the original divinities to whichthese sacred grounds were dedicated are known.

King of Ireland’s Son (Mac Rígh Éireann)Irish hero. In one of the richest of Ireland’s orallytransmitted tales, the eponymous hero shot aRAVEN in winter. Seeing its red blood and blackfeathers against the stark white snow, the King ofIreland’s Son was inspired to seek out a womanwith the same coloring (the same motif appearsin the more literary story of DEIRDRE). Thus heembarked upon a long series of adventures,including taking care of the estate of a poor manwhose debts would have denied him burial if theking’s son had not worked to pay them. In doingso, the king’s son won the gratitude of the dyingman, which was later to be helpful in his quest.

As he searched for his beloved, the king’s sonfound helpful servants. One was a GREEN MAN

who desired a kiss from the intended bride;another, a man whose ears were so acute he couldhear grass growing. Other servants appeared: aman who kept one finger always to a nostril sothat his strong breath would not blow downhouses; a speedy runner who kept one foot tieddown; and a strong man. All were helpful in thetests set by the GIANT who held the king’s son’sbeloved in enchanted bondage. When theprincess was duly won, the little Green Mandemanded his fee of the first kiss and furtherdemanded to be locked alone with the princesswhen he collected it. His demands were met, andraging SERPENTS appeared that would have killedthe king’s son had he been alone with his bride,but the Green Man killed them. The sturdyGreen Man was revealed as the grateful dead manwhose debts the king’s son had paid, and all livedhappily ever after. The numerous folkloric motifsthat appear in this story make it a favorite amongthose who categorize and analyze such tales.

Source: Hyde, Douglas. Beside the Fire: A Collectionof Irish Gaelic Folk Stories. London: David Nutt,1890, pp. 19 ff.

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Kings, Cycle of the See HISTORICAL CYCLE.

kingship Sacred role. Although our currentimage of a king is that of a man with absolutepower, to the Celts kingship was an office ofresponsibility and limitation. Upon INAUGURA-TION, the king entered a sacred marriage withthe goddess of SOVEREIGNTY, possibly embodiedin the queen as representative of the goddess ofthe land. So long as the king lived righteously,the land was fertile, the crops plentiful, the peo-ple well fed. As one text puts it, in the reign of arighteous king, “It was not possible to travel(Ireland’s) forests easily on account of her fruit;it was not easy to travel her plains on account ofthe amount of her honey.” But should the kingfail to satisfy the goddess with his rectitude, thecrops would fail and famine threaten.

Some scholars have interpreted the Celticking’s role as sacral (see SACRAL KINGSHIP). Suchscholars contend that the king was less a leaderthan a priest, pointing to duties (BUADA) andtaboos (see GEIS) that had little do with politicsor military might, being instead symbolic actionsthat showed the people that the king lived withwhat was called in Ireland “the prince’s truth,”fírinne flatho. According to a seventh-centuryC.E. text, the king was never to oppress anyoneby force of arms and was never to listen tounwise supporters.

Righteous behavior included HOSPITALITY,for it was part of the king’s role to provide foodand shelter for all who needed or desired it. Inaddition, the king was hedged around withsacred vows that varied from region to region;the king of TARA, for instance, was never toremain abed when the sun was up, while the kingof CONNACHT was forbidden to ride a gray-speckled horse to CRUACHAN while wearing agray-speckled robe. In Wales the mythologicalking MATH could never let his feet touch theground but had to always have them in the lap ofa virgin. Peculiar as such rules may seem, theyparallel the taboos imposed upon royalty inother lands and seem intended to continually

remind the king that he was not free to live asother humans are but must be always aware ofthe responsibility of his office. Several myths tellof the resulting chaos when kings broke theirgeasa or failed to satisfy the demands of hospital-ity. Thus the beautiful BRES was forced fromTara’s throne when he fed a poet meager scraps;the king CONAIRE died horribly in the hostel ofDA DERGA when he unwittingly broke the sacredvows of his office.

The rigors of Irish kingship have led some tohypothesize a Celtic vision of the king as a sacri-ficial priest whose life might be ended should hisbehavior bring on famine and disease. Sourcesfor the responsibilities of the Celtic kings outsideIreland are relatively rare. Similarly, it is difficultto discern what the specific duties of the variouslevels of kingship were and how they related toeach other. Irish law describes kings of a tribe (rítuaithe), kings of several tribes (rí ruiri), provin-cial kings (rí coícid), and finally the HIGH KING

(ard rí). In early times the apparently “higher”offices of provincial and high king seem to figuremore prominently in myth than in history; onlyafter the Middle Ages does the high king’s roleseem to become political and strategic.

Source: Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law.Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies. Early Irish LawSeries, Vol. III, 1988, pp. 17–21.

klippe Scottish folkloric being. In Forfarshire inScotland the klippe was a brown-skinned dwarfishFAIRY who haunted the moors and the roads.

Knight of the Glen (O’Donohue of the Glen)Irish folkloric figure. The FAIRY king of theupper lake of Killarney in the southwestern Irishprovince of MUNSTER was the Knight of theGlen, Daniel O’Donohue. One of several storiestold of this supernatural figure was that he stoleaway a local man, John Connors, bewitching alog to look like the man’s body while he kept theman himself asleep in the OTHERWORLD. The

272 Kings, Cycle of the

enchanted log was duly waked and buried, withgreat mourning and ceremony, while the realJohn slept on in FAIRYLAND. When John finallyroused and returned home, he frightened familyand friends out of their wits and could barelyconvince them he was not a GHOST.

Source: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, p. 17.

knitting Folkloric motif. The creation of fabricby twisting yarn together using two needles wasan important craft in Celtic lands, especiallyIreland and Scotland. It is believed to have beeninvented in the eastern Mediterranean, making itsway over trade routes to the islands off Europe,where it was quickly adopted as a way of creatingstrong garments from sheep’s wool. Specificdesigns and combinations of patterns evolved—the Jersey, the Guernsey, the Aran, the Shetland,the Fair Isle—that are still in use today, althoughno longer specific to village and regions. Thecommon sight of a woman knitting soon gainedarchetypal or symbolic importance; the goddessÁINE or her substitute, the FAIRY HOUSEKEEPER

known as TOICE BHREAN, was said to sit beneaththe waves of magical LOUGH GUR knitting, andother folktales similarly show the knitting womanas having magical or prophetic powers.

Source: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 109–110.

Knockainy (Cnoc Áine) Irish mythologicalsite. Near the enchanted waters of LOUGH GUR

in Co. Limerick is this low mountain toppedwith a single stone CAIRN, the home or SÍDHE ofthe FAIRY QUEEN named ÁINE. She may haveoriginally been the regional goddess ANU orDANU, whose children were the gods called theTUATHA DÉ DANANN. Some interpret Áine as aSUN goddess, for a sun-WELL near Knockainybears her name. Knockainy was especiallyimportant as a festival site at MIDSUMMER or atthe harvest feast of LUGHNASA on August 1,

when processions of people bearing clars orstraw torches drove their herds up the slopes ofthe hill with prayers for Áine’s protection. Thehill was once called Collkilla or “hazel-wood”; asthe HAZEL marked sacred spots where wisdomcould be gained, this ancient name may furtherpoint to the significance of Áine’s hill.

Knockaulin (Cnoc Ailinne, Knockawlin)Irish mythological site. The kings of the easternPROVINCE of LEINSTER once called Knockaulin(originally known as DÚN Ailinne) their royalseat, equivalent to TARA in the magical centralprovince of MIDE and EMAIN MACHA in ULSTER.Recent excavations have revealed Celtic earth-works on the hill, supporting local legend aboutthe hill’s significance. Located near Kilcullen inCo. Kildare, the low hill is often confused withthe nearby Hill of Allen (see ALMU), seat of thegreat hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

knocker (knacker) Cornish folkloric figures.In Cornwall strange knockings were sometimesheard on mineshaft walls. Nobody appearedafter the unearthly rapping, for the invisibleknockers were the ghosts of long-dead miners(possibly Jews, who indeed worked in theCornish mines, but more likely FAIRIES), stillhard about their work.

The knockers were not dangerous but help-ful, their knocking growing louder when minerscame near a rich vein of ore. They did not botherwith mined-out tunnels; they only haunted richmines, preferably those where a fortune could bemade extracting tin. Hearing a knocker was asign of good luck, but if one said rude thingsabout them, these spirits could turn vindictive.Knockers did not like crosses, so miners tradi-tionally were careful not to wear them or to leavetools crossing each other when leaving work atnight. They also did not like whistling, althoughsinging in mines was acceptable.

Occasionally knockers haunted WELLS andCAVES, as other fairies might, but they tended tospecialize in mines and related most strongly to

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miners. They were private creatures who did notappreciate being spied upon. One man who didso, by the name of Barker, managed to learntheir fairy language sufficiently to hear themexpress their annoyance at his presence, andtheir plan to leave their fairy tools on his knee.Thereafter, the man suffered immense pain andstiffness in his knees, hence the Cornishproverb, “stiff as Barker’s knee.”

Source: Courtney, M. A. Cornish Feasts and Folklore.Penzance: Beare and Son, 1890, p. 138.

Knockfierna (Cnoc Fírinne, Knockfeerina)Irish mythological site. The “hill of truth” formsa twin to KNOCKAINY, the sacred hill only sevenmiles away; it offered an opening to the OTHER-WORLD and was the traditional site of LUGHNASA

gatherings. Near several other important hills inCo. Limerick connected with the FAIRIES,Knockfierna was said to be the residence of animportant fairy king, DONN FÍRINNE, whomsome connect with the king of the Otherworld,also named DONN.

Knockgrafton Irish mythological site. Onthis mountain, in the Glen of Aherlow at thebase of the Galtee Mountains, a hunchbackoverheard FAIRIES singing a monotonous songthat went, “MONDAY, TUESDAY.” His quick-witted ability to extend the fairy song thrilledthem, and they cured his deformity. The story isa common one in Celtic lands.

Knockgraney (Cnoc Gréine) Irish mytholog-ical site. A hill near KNOCKAINY, not far from thesmall town of Pallas Green, is dedicated to the sis-ter, TWIN, or double of ÁINE named GRIAN, “sun.”

Knockma (Cnoc Meadha, Cnoc Mheadha)Irish mythological site. A hill near Tuam in Co.Galway, Knockma bears the name of MEDB but isbetter known as the mound of FINNBHEARA, FAIRY

king of the western province of CONNACHT, who

lived there with his fairy bride ÚNA (also calledNUALA). The site is now called Castle Hackett.

Knocknarea (Cnoc na Ria) Irish mythologi-cal site. Above the small northwestern town ofSligo rises a high mountain that was topped,some 6,000 years ago, with a mound and a rockCAIRN. According to legend, the cairn (MiosgánMéabha, or “Mebh’s lump”) covers the grave ofthe most famous of Ireland’s queens, MEDB ofCRUACHAN. But medieval texts say the cairn waserected by Eógan Bél, Connacht’s last pre-Christian king, and Medb is said to have beenkilled many miles away, on the shores of LoughRee on the River Shannon. Local tradition inSligo holds that those ascending the mountainshould carry with them a small stone or pebbleto add to the cairn; conversely, it is very bad luckto take any stones away.

Knockshegowna (Cnoc Sídhe Úna) Irishmythological site. Over the rolling countrysideof north Co. Tipperary, in an area replete withstories of magical FAIRY MOUNDS, rises thisimpressive hill, said to be the SÍDHE or palace ofÚNA, an Irish FAIRY QUEEN. She was said to haveappeared there in the form of a calf one eveningwhen a piper, Laurence Hoolahan, would notstop annoying her with his ceaseless drunkentweetings. When she spoke to him in humanlanguage, he was most surprised and was easilyconvinced to mount on her back. Within a sec-ond, the pair was at the River Shannon, 10 milesaway, having flown through the air to get there.Úna was surprised that the piper was not terri-fied, but perhaps he was too intoxicated to showit. Because of his apparent courage, she leapedback and agreed to let him continue playing onthe hillside as long as he wished. The story maybe a fanciful one deriving from the misunder-standing of the hill’s name as Fairy Calf Hill.

Knowth Irish mythological site. Near thebetter-known ancient site of Newgrange are two

274 Knockfierna

other mounds, Knowth and Dowth, all on hillsoverlooking a bend in the River Boyne andtogether called the BRÚ NA BÓINNE, the palaces ofBÓAND, the river goddess. The great mound ofKnowth and its companions were built some 6,000years ago by an unknown people of great engi-neering skill and astronomical sophistication; thehuge CAIRN of Knowth was oriented toward thepoint of sunrise on the spring and fall EQUINOXES,the times when day and night are equal. Knowth,which was under excavation for almost threedecades, was opened to the public in early 2002, soit is now possible to view the impressive rock carv-ings, considered to be the most beautiful andexpressive of all megalithic art in Europe.

Source: Eogan, George. Knowth and the Passage-Tombs of Ireland. London: Thames and Hudson,1986.

korrigan (corrigan, ozeganned) Breton folk-loric figures. In Brittany the sea, RIVERS, andSPRINGS were said to be inhabited by lovely lust-ful golden-haired women who tried to lure meninto their beds—and to a watery death. Suchwater sirens are common folkloric figures, foundin almost every land. What distinguishes theBreton version is their association, in oral folk-lore, with ancient worshipers of earth goddessesor with women DRUIDS, from whom the korrigansare said to be descended. The persecution of ear-lier faiths by Christianity resulted in a fierce folk-loric enmity between the korrigans and celibatepriests, who were subject to endless lascivioustemptation by the spirits. The korrigans play animportant part in the story of the pagan princessDAHUT, for they built her beautiful city of YS.

Korrigans were small FAIRIES, less than two feettall, and had translucent wasp-like wings. Lovelywoodland grottoes with running streams (inFrench, grotte aux fées, or in Breton, feunteun arcorrigan) were especially attractive to korrigans,who made their homes in such places. If con-tacted there, they could sometimes tell the future.Seeking them out could bring danger, however,

for korrigans like other fairies were immoral andmight as readily steal a person or child as tell afortune. Some Breton legends speak of the korri-gans as doomed human souls, unhappily trappedthrough tragic death to wander the earth, butmore typically they are seen as nonhuman. InBreton folklore the term korrigan is often used asa synonym for the entire fairy race.

Korrigans are said to be less visible in even-numbered than odd-numbered centuries (the2000s will see rather less activity than the 1900s,for instance). They are more likely to be seen attwilight than in the daytime, as is typical of suchliminal beings. Some korrigans spent their timeguarding buried treasure, while others mademischief for humans, tickling horses and causingnightmares. They derived most pleasure fromcircle dances within or near the pre-CelticSTONE CIRCLES and megalithic shrines stillfound in Brittany, singing “MONDAY, TUESDAY,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday” (Di Lun, DiMerh, Di Merhier…) but never mentioning thedays of the weekend, for to do so caused magicaldeformation such as a lump on the back.

Kulhwch (Culhwch, Kilhwch) Welsh hero.The hero of an important literary tale fromWales, Kulhwch was a cousin of the legendaryking ARTHUR and may have descended from anancient Welsh divinity.

See also KULHWCH AND OLWEN.

Kulhwch and Olwen Arthurian tale. The late12th-century Welsh tale Kulhwch and Olwenreaches back into Celtic myth and forward intothe legends of the quasi-mythological king ofBritain, ARTHUR. The hero Kulhwch was born ofa princely man, CILYDD, whose wife GOLEUD-DYDD went mad after becoming pregnant. Whilepassing a PIG shed, she went into labor, whencethe child was named Kulhwch or “pig-run.”When Goleuddydd died, the boy’s ambitiousfather gained a new wife through murder, killingthe king of a neighboring land and carrying offthe queen to become stepmother to the

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orphaned Kulhwch. The new queen hoped thatKulhwch would marry her own daughter, butwhen he failed to show interest, she cursed herstepson: that he would never marry until he wonthe daughter of the fearsome GIANT YSPAD-DADEN PENKAWR. Other versions say that themother, Gilydd, survived her trauma and,remarried to a new husband, encouraged her sonto seek the woman of his dreams, OLWEN.

When he grew up, Kulhwch hoped to winOlwen, the giant’s daughter, and sought the helpof his cousin Arthur to win her hand. He enteredthe court of CAMELOT and recited his distin-guished heritage right back to the goddess DÔN

and thus won Arthur’s aid. They set out with ateam of warriors and traveled until they metKulhwch’s aunt, sister of his long-dead mother,who warned them that no one ever left thegiant’s castle alive. Undeterred, Kulhwch andArthur approached the castle. There Kulhwchmet Olwen, and the two fell instantly in love.The maiden refused to leave without her father’sblessing. That blessing could only be won if thehero performed 40 impossible tasks, one ofwhich involved the capture of a scissors, razor,and COMB from a terrifying pig named TWRCH

TRWYTH. Kulhwch completed the tasks—thetale grows very lengthy at this point—and thuswon his beloved Olwen.

The text has been interesting to Celtic schol-ars because it occupies a middle ground betweenmyth and legend, being composed of mytholog-ical motifs familiar from other Celtic lands aswell as heroic names and personalities. Manymagical and OTHERWORLD characters andobjects are woven into the tale.

Kundry See CUNRIE.

Kyteler, Alice Irish heroine. Unlike Europe,including England and Scotland, Ireland did notexperience a WITCH-burning hysteria. Only onewoman was ever executed for WITCHCRAFT, andthat was Petronilla, maid to the wealthy mer-chant Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny. Accused,together with 11 friends and members of herfamily, of witchcraft and heresy in 1324 byBishop Richard Ledrede of Ossory, Aliceescaped to England, where she lived out her lifewithout history making note of her again. Theaccusations against her represented the first timethat witchcraft was described as a heresy based innon-Christian beliefs.

Source: Davidson, L. S., and J. O. Ward. The SorceryTrial of Alice Kyteler. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medievaland Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1993.

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La Belle Dame sans Merci See FAIRY LOVER.

Labhraidh Luathlam ar Cleb (Labriad)Irish hero or god. Ruler of MAG MELL, the “plainof honey” where the trees were always loadeddown with magical fruit and vats of mead couldnever be emptied, Labhraidh arranged for thehero CÚCHULAINN to spend time withLabhraidh’s wife’s sister, the lovely FAIRY QUEEN

FAND. In return for this dalliance, Cúchulainnhad to fight and defeat three warriors who weretroubling Labhraidh. This bargain set in motiona love triangle, because Fand was the only com-panion who tempted Cúchulainn to break faithwith his wife, the peerless EMER. The story istold in an ancient text called Cúchulainn’sSickness, which formed the basis for the play byWilliam Butler Yeats, The Only Jealousy of Emer.

Labhraigh (Labraid) Irish hero. Mythicaland possibly historical ancestor of the people ofthe eastern province of LEINSTER, Labhraigh wassaid to have invaded Ireland in the second cen-tury B.C.E. besting an opponent namedCobhthach to gain his territory. A longer versionof his legend reveals two kings, both calledLabhraigh. The first, Labhraigh Lorc, had anevil brother (or uncle) named COBHTHACH, whoyearned to be king over Leinster in the place of

AILILL Áine, the true king. Cobhthach pretendedto be near death, and when Labhraigh leanedover in grief, stabbed him to death; thenCobhthach poisoned Ailill. Ailill left a son, onewho was called Moen (“speechless”) because henever spoke. At least, he did not until struck bya ball when playing football one day, whereuponhis playmates gave him the name of LabhraighMoen (“the speechless one speaks”).

Labhraigh Moen grew to be a kindly andgenerous nobleman, so much so that heattracted the attention of the evil usurperCobhthach—who promptly banished him to thewilds of MUNSTER, far to the southwest, wherethe people were called the Fir Morca. There theking’s daughter, the lovely MORIATH, fell in lovewith the exile. Stealing into court with hisharper, the magnificent CRAIPHTINE, LabhraighMoen waited until the magical music put thecourt to sleep, then seduced Moriath. When, thenext morning, her mother heard Moriath sigh ina knowing satisfied way, she instantly guessedthe truth, but the parents did not attempt tostand in the lovers’ way. Labhraigh was wel-comed by the king, and together the couple wenteast to win back Labhraigh Moen’s kingdom.

First they captured the fort at Dinn Ríg, onceagain using Craiphtine’s magical music—thistime to put the defenders to sleep, while theattackers kept their ears carefully coveredagainst the sleep-inducing music. Then

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Labhraigh Moen set about making a trap for theusurper. He built a great hall, all of IRON, andonce Cobhthach had entered, locked the doorand heated the building up with bellows untilthe evil king and his entire army died.

In another version of the story, Moen becamespeechless when Cobhthach forced him to eatthe hearts of his father and grandfather.Banished to Brittany, he heard the music ofCraiphtine and, immensely moved, broke hissilence to praise the harper. Thereafter, he raisedan army and defeated the usurper Cobhthach atDinn Ríg, the fort of kings.

Various interpretations have tried to discernthe historical truth behind these fanciful narra-tives. The speechlessness of the king has beenunderstood as an indication that he did not speakthe language of the country or that he was insome way blemished (see BLEMISHED KING). In avariant of the legend, it was not Labhraigh whowas dumb but anyone who saw him without haircovering his ears—for the king had the ears of anass. (Anyone who did not keep silent was killed.)Then a young barber whispered the dreadfulsecret to a TREE, which was cut down and used tomake a HARP for Craiphtine, and which then sangout the secret entrusted to it. Shamed, Labhraighrevealed his unsightly ears for all to see.

Ladra (Adra) Irish hero. In the BOOK OF INVA-SIONS, we read of the earliest arrivals in Ireland:the lady CESAIR, with her 50 handmaidens and ascant three men. Ladra, the ship’s pilot andCesair’s brother, was one of the three. Once hehad brought them safely to land, Ladrademanded more territory than Cesair was willingto give. He set off to found his own kingdom, buthe died trying to satisfy the many women whohad accompanied him there, or perhaps from anoar that penetrated his buttocks. It is unclearfrom the multiple texts whether this figure is thesame as ADRA or a separate character.

Lady of the Fountain (Laudine) Arthurianheroine. The mysterious Laudine, the Lady of

the Fountain, may descend from an ancientCeltic goddess of SPRINGS, for she ruled a splen-did pool called BARENTON in the center ofBrittany’s magical forest of BROCÉLIANDE.Because Barenton’s waters had the power to stirgreat storms, it was fiercely guarded byLaudine’s husband, the Black Knight namedEsclados le Roux. CYMON, a knight from kingARTHUR’s court, tried to slay the guardian, onlyto be driven away. Returning to CAMELOT,Cymon related his story and inspired the youngknight OWEIN to seek out the place and take onthe Black Knight in single combat.

This time, the young adventurer had assis-tance, in the person of a maiden named LUNED,who told him the secret way to slay the Knight.Once that task had been accomplished, Lunedhelped Owein win the heart and hand ofLaudine, who was quite willing to be wooed andwon by such a brave knight. For a year the cou-ple lived happily and contentedly together, butthen Arthur and his knights happened by.Owein’s lady entertained them splendidly, thenwas heartbroken when her husband begged to beallowed to accompany them on their adventures.Laudine agreed, only to be abandoned by herthoughtless knight.

War and adventure held so much appeal thatOwein forgot to return to the Lady of theFountain as the seasons passed and a new yearbegan. When the maid Luned arrived at theking’s company, Owein was shamed in front ofthe ROUND TABLE knights by her revelation ofhis betrayal. He went mad, roving the forest likea wild beast. Befriended by a lion and later byLuned, Owein followed the maidservant’s sug-gestion and slipped up to Laudine’s fountain inthe dark of night. There he began sprinkling itswater on the steps around it, causing greatstorms to ravish Laudine’s land. Her maid toldher of the Knight of the Lion—Owein in dis-guise—who could save her, so long as she wouldhelp him reconcile with his beloved lady.Desperate to save her land, Laudine agreed, andwhen Owein was revealed to be the saviorknight, she kept her promise as he had not.

278 Ladra

Source: Markale, Jean. Courtly Love: The Path ofSexual Initiation. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions,2000, p. 112.

Lady of the Lake Arthurian heroine. Themysterious Lady, sometimes called NIMUE orMORGAUSE although also differentiated fromthose characters, gave the king-to-be ARTHUR themagical sword EXCALIBUR. In early texts she is aFAIRY, a semidivine being who exists in a worldparallel to ours, the Celtic OTHERWORLD, calledin her case the Land of Women (see TIR NA

MBAN). The Lady lived on a magical LAKE sur-rounded by her maiden servants; she capturedLANCELOT and raised him to be her protector, forwhich he was called Lancelot of the Lake. Insome sources, Lancelot was the Lady’s lover and,by her, the father of the pure knight GALAHAD.

Later texts demoted the FAIRY QUEEN to amere sorceress, who created an illusory lake tokeep people away from her land. Her power inthe Arthurian legends remained firm, however,for she protected Arthur throughout his life, andit is to her that Arthur returned at the end of hislife. Giving back Excalibur to the lake’s depths,the wounded king was then conveyed away—towhere, no one knew—by the Lady. Her connec-tion with Arthur has been described as parallelto that of the Irish goddess MÓRRÍGAN and thehero CÚCHULAINN.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 327.

Láeg (Laeg, Lóeg) Irish hero. Charioteer tothe greatest of ULSTER’s heroes, CÚCHULAINN,Láeg saved his master by taking a spear intendedfor him.

Lair Derg Irish goddess. This name or title,which means “red mare,” was used of ÁINE, god-dess or FAIRY QUEEN of southeastern Co.Limerick. RED is generally an OTHERWORLD

color, and HORSES had associations with death;the title thus seems to point to Áine as a goddessof death who takes us on a ride to the afterlife.

lake (lough) Symbolic site. Celtic religionsaw WATER as sacred, so it is not surprising thatlakes were seen as potent symbols of the OTHER-WORLD. Tales of cities beneath lake waters arefound in many Celtic lands (see INCHIOUIN,LOUGH REE), as are stories of magical beings whodwell either under the lake’s waves (see LÍ BAN)or on magical ISLANDS (see LADY OF THE LAKE).

The religious meaning of the lake as a pas-sageway to the Otherworld seems to reflectancient Celtic rituals in which treasures wereoffered to lakes; the great horde of objects foundin the shallows (LA TÈNE) of Switzerland’s LakeNeuchâtel were probably deposited ritually, per-haps to drive away plague or with an equallyserious intention. Similar offerings were made atholy WELLS, which were commonly used for sea-sonal festivals, while lakes seem to have beenmore commonly visited ritually in times of greatneed. Records show that offerings to a lake nearToulouse in southern France preceded the endof a pestilence; the unreliable warrior Caepionthen stole the treasures. When he was killed inbattle soon after, this was taken as a sign that hehad been punished for his greed. Such legendsdid much to protect lake deposits from thieves,and recent excavations at LOUGH GUR revealedsignificant and valuable artifacts.

lake maidens Celtic folkloric characters.Throughout the Celtic lands, LAKES were seen asentrances to the OTHERWORLD. In those lakeslived FAIRY women whose enchanted palaces underthe waves could sometimes be seen from shore.These lake maidens—who sometimes appeared asSWAN MAIDENS—made wonderful wives forhuman men, but they were hard to capture. Onehad to steal something from the lake maidens;when she appeared as a SWAN, it must be her robeof feathers; at other times it could be her COMB oranother personal object. Then she would come

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meekly to shore and become as industrious andpleasant a wife as a man could wish.

However, such maidens invariably placedtaboos around their husband’s behavior; the hus-band of ÁINE of LOUGH GUR could express nosurprise at anything their son did, while MELU-SINE’s husband could not see her on Sundays.The Welsh lake maiden Nelferch extracted fromher husband the agreement that he should notstrike her without reason; she set a limit of THREE

mistakes. They lived happily except for his ten-dency to tap her when he wanted to get herattention. Despite the good intentions behind hisactions, she still considered it breaking her rule,and upon the third incident she disappeared.Whenever a lake maiden’s rule was broken, sheinstantly disappeared, returning to her wateryhome, sometimes taking her children with herbut just as often leaving them orphaned.

Source: Rhys, John. Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941, pp. 2, 23.

Lambton Worm British folkloric figure. Theword WORM may seem to indicate an insignifi-cant being, but in fact it was the Norse andSaxon word for DRAGON. One of the mostfamous British dragon stories concerns theworm that haunted the northern region aroundLambton Castle. Its presence among humansbegan with an unruly 14th-century lord whowent fishing on Sunday morning instead ofgoing to church—and in full view of the chapelat that. His luck was bad until, just as the churchbells stopped, something bit at his line. Hehauled in a strange creature, a sort of EEL withnine mouths. Appalled and frightened, he threwit down a WELL—still locally called Worm’sWell—and set about to reform his life. He evenwent to the Crusades. Meanwhile, in the well,the worm was growing larger and larger, until itemerged a true monster to ravage the country-side and kill all the knights sent to combat it.

When the lord returned from the HolyLand, he found his lands in disarray and his peo-

ple in fear. Realizing his guilt, he pledged to killthe worm. A wise woman advised him that hemust have a SMITH make spiky armor and that hemust fight the worm from the rock in the mid-dle of the River Wear. In addition, she warned,he must kill the first creature he met upon hisvictorious arrival home. Planning ahead, thelord arranged to have a DOG let out the momenthe approached his castle, then set off to do bat-tle with the monster. It was a fierce struggle, butthe worm finally impaled itself upon the spikesof the lord’s armor and died. Alas, in the excite-ment of the lord’s return home, his aged fatherran to congratulate him. The lord immediatelykilled the dog that had, indeed, been let out asthe designated victim, but it was not sufficient tomeet the conditions set out by the old woman,and as a result no lord of Lambton died in hisbed for nine generations.

Lammas See LUGHNASA.

Lamorack de Galles Arthurian hero. KingPELLINORE’s son, he was a famous warrior of theROUND TABLE. He killed the husband of kingARTHUR’s half-sister MORGAUSE, and her sons,who included GAWAIN, killed him in retaliation.

Lancelot (Lancelot of the Lake, Lancelot dulac, Lanceloz, Lanzelot von Arlac) Arthurianhero. The handsomest and bravest knight of theROUND TABLE, he became the lover of ARTHUR’squeen GUINEVERE, thus creating a fatal trianglethat serves as the central dramatic conflict in theArthurian cycle. The connection of Celticmythology with the MATTER OF BRITAIN—thetales relating to king ARTHUR and his knights ofthe Round Table—has been widely argued, withgeneral agreement that there is a connection butless agreement on specifics. Thus in the charac-ter and actions of the heroic knight Lancelot wemay find Celtic themes and motifs, as we do inthe other primary characters of the narrative,Arthur and Guinevere.

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Lancelot’s background is not clear from thetexts; the fact that he is called “of the lake” sug-gests a relationship to the mysterious LADY OF

THE LAKE, which in turn has led some to specu-late that Lancelot was of the FAIRY people,although many texts claim that the Lady wasonly his foster mother and that his father was theFrench king Ban of Benoic, of whom little moreis known. Other tales say he was the son of kingPant of Genewis and his wife, Clarine, fromwhom the infant Lancelot was stolen by theLady of the Lake while Clarine was nursing herhusband’s battle wounds. The Lady then raisedhim in ignorance of his true family, whichLancelot learned as a young man.

He came to CAMELOT then, drawn by thefame of the great king and his beautiful queen.From the first he and Guinevere were drawn toeach other. In the interests of her virtue and thecourt’s harmony, however, both resisted theirattraction. When Guinevere finally spent a nightin the forest alone with Lancelot, the upstandingknight put a sword between them, to assure thathe would not yield to fleshly temptation. Arthur,finding them sleeping virtuously beside eachother and separated by the sword, took thesword with him, thus ensuring that the couplewould realize they had been observed. Lancelotdeparted the court, intent upon seeking glory inthe field of battle, and left a heartbrokenGuinevere behind. (A similar incident occurs inthe parallel Irish tale of GRÁINNE and DIARMAIT,but Gráinne was a more forthright and sexuallydemanding partner.)

One story, told by Chrétien de Troyes as LeChevalier de la charrette or The Knight of the Cart,says their affair began when Guinevere wasstolen away from Camelot by the giant or kingMELEAGANT. Lancelot set out in pursuit of thekidnapped queen, but he soon lost the track andhad to rely upon a strange DWARF who was drag-ging a cart full of condemned prisoners. Whenthe dwarf told Lancelot that the only way hewould ever see his beloved again was to join thecriminals in the cart, Lancelot did so willingly.Approaching Meleagant’s castle, Lancelot was

confronted by two bridges: one that wentbeneath the moat, smooth and straight; theother, made of a sword blade, that went abovethe water. Desperate to find Guinevere,Lancelot took the shorter route, wounding him-self dreadfully in the process. Locating thequeen in a bedroom where the seneschal KAY

slept, himself wounded, the bleeding Lancelotjoined his beloved in her bed. The next day,when bloodstains were found on Guinevere’ssheets, Kay was accused of seducing her, andLancelot had to fight for his friend’s honor.

When Guinevere returned to Camelot, it wasas Lancelot’s mistress as well as the land’s queen.His fall from perfection meant that when hewent on the quest for the sacred GRAIL, he wasunable to attain his goal. Their affair was keptsecret in the court, and Lancelot performedmany noble deeds in Guinevere’s honor. Hefreed the many knights held captive in the PER-ILOUS VALLEY, part of the forest of BROCÉLIANDE

that king Arthur’s half-sister, the sorceress MOR-GAN, had enchanted. Because she had beenbetrayed, she made sure that any knight who hadever wronged a woman would become trappedby her magic, seeing the trees as great battle-ments guarded by fire-breathing dragons. Manyknights were trapped there, including the seem-ingly pure GAWAIN, until Lancelot—ever true tohis queen and lover—freed them all.

The beginning of their affair was also thebeginning of Camelot’s downfall. Lancelot wasnot to blame, nor the hopelessly smitten queen,for Arthur’s own past rose up to destroy his idealkingdom. Guinevere was convicted of treasonand sentenced to death by burning, but Lancelotarrived just in time to save her, and in the com-motion killed his own best friend, the uprightknight GARETH. Arthur’s own illegitimate sonMORDRED, conceived upon MORGAUSE, began awar on Camelot that ended with the deaths of allthe heroes except Arthur, who was taken away bythe mysterious Lady of the Lake—perhaps to riseagain as Britain’s “once and future king.”According to some sources, Lancelot died in thatfinal battle, although others say that he survived

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to become a saintly hermit in his castle, while hisbeloved Guinevere retired to a convent.

The Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love trian-gle echoes two more clearly Celtic romances:one from Ireland, that of the heroic leaderFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, his young followerDiarmait, and the lady Gráinne; the other fromCornwall, that of the aging king MARK, the fairknight TRISTAN, and his fated lover ISEULT. Inspite of some similarities, the stories have signif-icant differences. The assertive Gráinne put aGEIS or sacred vow upon Diarmait that he mustcarry her off and later taunted him into sleepingwith her, while Guinevere was less forthright inexpressing her desire for Lancelot; some haveseen the influence of Christianity in her hesita-tion. The Arthurian material lacks the magicalmotifs of that of Tristan and Iseult, who fellhopelessly in love after drinking a MAGIC potionintended for the bride to share with king Markon her wedding night. Thus magically entan-gled, the couple fought unsuccessfully againsttheir love; the trials of Iseult parallel those withwhich Guinevere’s virtue was tested.

The similarity of these three stories, all fromdifferent Celtic lands, has led scholars to suggestthat all derive originally from a myth in whichthe goddess of SOVEREIGNTY transfers her love toa new and younger king and thus authorizes hiskingship. Lancelot, like Tristan and Diarmait, isselected by the goddess-queen as her next lover.If this were indeed a story of dynastic change, thegoddess’s choice would have indicated that a newking was to be installed. From this mythologicaloutline, three Celtic cultures elaborated theirown intensely evocative human tales.

In some texts Lancelot is the lover of the Ladyof the Lake and, by her, the father of the pureknight GALAHAD. In other tales he was the acci-dental lover of ELAINE of Corbenic, by whom heconceived Galahad when, intoxicated, he believedhe was sleeping with his beloved Guinevere.Some Arthurian tales do not show Lancelot asGuinevere’s lover but as a faithful servant of theking; this has suggested to scholars that the lovetriangle was a late development of the myth.

Source: Markale, Jean. Courtly Love: The Path ofSexual Initiation. Rochester, Vt.: InnerTraditions, 2000, pp. 69, 116.

Land of Promise See TÍR TAIRNIGIRI.

Land of Women See TIR NA MBAN.

Land of Youth See TIR NA NOG.

Land Under Wave See TIR FO THUINN.

Laoghaire (Loegaire, Leary) Irish hero. Thisname is common among Irish heroes, including:

• Laoghaire, son of NIALL of the Nine Hostages.Quasi-historical high king of Ireland, duringwhose reign St. Patrick lit the BELTANE fire onSLANE hill; upon hearing the preaching ofPatrick, Laoghaire was instantly converted.

• Laoghaire Buadhach, “Laoghaire the victo-rious,” a hero of the ULSTER CYCLE who diedrather than let a poet, Aodh, be killed by theangry king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA.

• Laoghaire mac Crimthann, consort of theheroine or sun goddess DÉR GRÉINE, whom hewon by killing a fearsome GIANT named GOLL

MAC MORNA. He was lured to the OTHER-WORLD by a young FAIRY king, Fiachna, whocame to beg his aid against an invader.Laoghaire was willing to help, but he foundhimself trapped, for once in FAIRYLAND he wasunable to return to home, and he remainedthere forever.

Lasair Irish heroine or goddess. In theprovince of ULSTER, this obscure figure is con-nected with a holy WELL called Tobar Lasair(Tobar Lastra) in Co. Monaghan, where she wascelebrated with a festival on April 18. She is moresignificantly associated with MUNSTER, where shesimilarly is associated with a well that she sharedwith her sister, the otherwise unknown Ciar. As

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Lasair’s name means “flame,” while Ciar’s means“extreme darkness,” the two may be TWINS thatrepresent the important cosmological concept ofbalance or complementarity.

Lasair’s name appears in several groupings ofheroines or goddesses. She is said to have beenthe sister of LATIARAN and INGHEAN BHUIDHE,with whom she lived in a monastic cell at the lit-tle town of Cullen in Co. Cork. She later movedto nearby Killasseraugh (Cill Lasaire, “church ofLasair”), where she remains the patron SAINT ofthe parish. She was said to have had a holy wellnear Cullen, but its location has been lost, as hasthe date of her festival.

La Tène Period of Celtic culture. At theregion called La Tène (“the shallows”) in LakeNeuchâtel in Switzerland, one of the greatest ofarchaeological finds was made by amateurexplorers in 1858: a huge deposit of thousands ofobjects, apparently thrown into the LAKE as partof a ritual, that ranged from golden TORCS toiron CAULDRONS, from elaborate silver broochesto sacrificed DOGS, PIGS, and CATTLE. The hordegave its name to the third period of the develop-ing Celtic culture, the earlier ones being theURNFIELD and HALLSTATT; the La Tène period isnow divided into three phases, I, II, and II.

Full of SPIRALS and whorling designs, themetal decorations on the art found in the horde,apparently created by a colony of artists on thelakeshore, represent masterpieces of ancient art.Old European or pre-Indo-European designshave been traced in the art of La Tène, as haveGreek, Etruscan, Scythian, and even Persiandesigns, suggesting that the La Tène peoplewere part of a wide network of cultural exchangein the Mediterranean world. Although the artistsof La Tène only worked from ca. 500 B.C.E. untilca. 100 C.E., the style lasted until the Normanconquest of Ireland in 1169.

Latiaran (Lateerin, Lateeran) Irish goddessor heroine. In the tiny town of Cullen in north-ern Co. Cork, a strange monument is dedicated

to Latiaran: a STANDING STONE in the roughshape of a heart, which stands near a diminutiveholy WELL dedicated now to St. Latiaran, a holywoman unknown elsewhere. Local legend has itthat she was a woman of such modesty that, whenshe was carrying some boulders (or hot coals) inher apron and a SMITH commented approvinglyon the shapeliness of her ankles, Latiarandropped her apron. The standing stone fell outof it, wedging itself upright in the ground,whereupon she disappeared beneath it. Thestone, called Latiaran’s heart, can still be seen ina patch of grass near the graveyard in Cullen.

Two aspects of this curious tale suggest anancient goddess converted into a SAINT with thecoming of CHRISTIANITY. The smith is elsewhereknown as a magical being whose exemplar is thegod GOIBNIU. The motif of rocks falling fromthe apron is otherwise found in tales of theworld-creating HAG, the CAILLEACH. ThatLatiaran (whose name is untranslatable) was afire goddess is suggested by the hot coals shecarried, as well as the names of her two sisters:LASAIR (“flame”) and INGHEAN BHUIDHE (“yellow-haired girl”). Or they may have been seasonaldivinities, for they each ruled a different part ofthe growing seasons: Lasair, the first of spring;Inghean Bhuidhe, the beginning of summer; andLatiaran, the harvesttime, connected with thatseason by the local tradition that women shouldcurtsy to Latiarin’s heart as they passed duringharvest and by the marking of Latiarin’s feast dayon the last Sunday in July, the old Celtic festivalof LUGHNASA.

Even today the PATTERN or ritual to Latiaranbrings rural people from around the region tocelebrate the harvest. Latiaran Sunday is held onor just before July 25, her feast day. It was thefirst day for eating potatoes in that region, andthe weather was reputed always to be fine.

Latiaran, whose name is found nowhere elsebut in Cullen, has been interpreted as corrupteddiminutive form (from a hypothesized Laisrian)of the better-known Lasair. Both may be variantsof the great figure of BRIGIT, who like Latiaranwas said to have carried hot coals, in Brigit’s case

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in the town of Ardagh, where she dropped themat “the little church of Lasair.” As Brigit was agoddess connected with fire, it is possible thatLasair and Latiaran were originally titles or localnames for her.

Sources: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 268 ff; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí.The Hero in Irish Folk History. Dublin: Gill &Macmillan, 1985, pp. 20–21.

Latis Continental goddess. Little is known ofthis obscure goddess, who has been interpretedas a goddess both of beer and of holy WELLS.

Latobius Continental Celtic god. A fewinscriptions bear the name of this obscure god,whom the Romans associated with their warriordivinity MARS. His name has not been translated.

Laudine See LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN.

Launfal (Sir Launfal, Lanval) Arthurianhero. In the works of the 12th-century Frenchpoet Marie de France we find many Celticmotifs, perhaps derived from the folklore ofBrittany. In one of Marie’s most famous compo-sitions, a puritanical knight of king ARTHUR’scourt, Launfal, hated the beautiful queen GUIN-EVERE, to whom he felt morally superior evenbefore she fell in love with the glorious knightLANCELOT. At her wedding feast, Guineveresnubbed Launfal, prompting him to pack up andmove back to his own castle, where he soonspent more than he had. He was in despair ofwhat to do when a FAIRY LOVER namedTryamour came to his rescue, providing himwith all the riches he needed in exchange for hislove. Her one demand was that he never boast ofher. He agreed, and they began to enjoy them-selves together, he providing love in exchangefor a great white horse, a hard-working squire,and an inexhaustible purse.

After seven years, Launfal returned toCamelot. To his surprise the hated Guinevereflirted with him. Once again Launfal becamemorally indignant and rebuffed her. Infuriated,Guinevere snarled that Launfal was so ugly nowoman would ever look at him. Stung, theknight forgot his promise and began to brag toGuinevere of his lady’s beauty and wealth.

As soon as he returned to his quarters, Launfalrealized his mistake, for all his wealth had disap-peared. To make matters worse, Arthur returnedhome to discover Guinevere, her clothingdisheveled and torn, accusing Launfal of rape.When he explained his side of the story, he wasset free for a year, with the demand that he pro-duce his beautiful lady; after a year, Launfal had toreturn and await condemnation. Unlike everyother story of a man who breaks his pledge to afairy lover, Launfal was saved when Tryamourappeared and took him away to FAIRYLAND.

Source: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, pp. 366 ff.

Lavaine Arthurian hero. A minor character inthe tales of king ARTHUR, he was ELAINE’sbrother and a friend of Lancelot.

Law of the Innocents Celtic custom. One ofthe oldest extant laws in Scotland is the Law ofthe Innocents, which provides protection forunarmed civilians during warfare. Written in ca.700 C.E. by the Christian cleric Adomnán, ninthabbot of IONA, the law penalized men who tookadvantage of war to rape women; some scholarshave used this part of the law to argue that Celticsociety, far from being fair to women, put themat grave risk with its warrior ways. Others, how-ever, argue that women in Celtic lands did, infact, have considerable power, which began todecline after Christianization and the arrival ofSaxons and Vikings. In either case, the Law ofthe Innocents was used in the late 1990s by three

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women who protested against nuclear arms inScotland by dismantling a Trident submarinecontrol center; they were acquitted by an orderto the jury by judge Margaret Gimblett.

Laying the Fairies Folkloric concept. Therewas only one way to get rid of FAIRIES: give themsomething. When fairies, especially BROWNIES,helped human beings, they did so for their ownreasons, not to gain money or clothing. Somewent naked and departed immediately uponbeing handed clothing (or hand-knit tinysweaters). When fairies were driven off by thiskind of misguided generosity, the former ownerwas said to have “laid” them.

Leborcham (Lavercam,Lebarcham,Levarcham,Lebharcham) Irish heroine. The nurse of thetragic heroine DEIRDRE of the Sorrows, she wasborn a slave but rose into the ranks of nobility byher wit and strength and finally became a BARD.Leborcham was so fleet of foot that she couldrun the entire length of Ireland in one day andbe back by dawn to deliver news, a talent thatbrought her to the attention of the king ofULSTER, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA. When thedoomed Deirdre was born and Concobar deter-mined to raise her to become his concubinedespite predictions that she would cause thedownfall of the land, Leborcham was put incharge of the girl’s upbringing and education. Itwas Leborcham who told Deirdre, struck by thesight of a RAVEN’s blood against snow, of the manwhose coloring resembled that sight: NOÍSIU,Deirdre’s fated lover.

Leborcham remained loyal to her charge,and she tried unsuccessfully to warn the girl toleave Ireland after she and her lover had beentricked into returning from their Scottish exile.Unfortunately, Deirdre was already home andunwilling to go back into exile. Leborcham thentried another route: She went to Concobar andtold him that her hard life in the wilderness haddestroyed Deirdre’s beauty, although sheremained as radiant as ever. Alas for the girl, the

king chanced to see her again and so realizedLeborcham’s deceit. When her lover was killed,Deirdre chose death over remaining as the king’senslaved consort.

Source: Dillon, Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: TheMercier Press, 1968, pp. 53 ff.

Lebor Gabála Érenn See BOOK OF INVASIONS.

Leherennus Continental Celtic god. Believedto be of pre-Celtic origin, Leherennus was wor-shiped in the mountain range of southernFrance, the Pyrenees; the Romans identified himwith their warrior god MARS.

Leinster (Laighin, Galian) Irish province.One of the five ancient divisions of Ireland (withMUNSTER, CONNACHT, ULSTER, and MIDE),Leinster is the eastern PROVINCE, where today’scapital city of Dublin is located. It was tradition-ally associated with prosperity and commerce, aswell as nobility, good manners, and hospitality.

Leinster has historically been the richest ofIreland’s provinces, constituting the “pale” ofAnglo influence during the English occupation(the source of the expression “beyond the pale,”which referred to regions that remained moreCeltic). The name derives from an early Celticpeople called the Lagin (Laigin, Laighnigh).Today, Leinster includes the counties of Dublin,Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford,Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wexford,and Wicklow.

Len Irish hero. This obscure figure is knownfrom several legends as the SMITH to the greatmagician BODB DERG. After him, the scenic lakesof Killarney in Co. Kerry are called, in Irish,Loch Lein.

Lén Línfiaclach Minor Irish hero. One ofthe several craft gods of ancient Ireland, LénLínfiaclach lived in a LAKE where he devoted

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himself to crafting beautiful objects for FAND,daughter of the wilderness goddess FLIDAIS andone of Ireland’s most powerful FAIRY QUEENS. Todo his work, Lén Línfiaclach threw his anvilevery night toward the east. As it traveled, it leftthree trails: one of water, one of fire, and one ofpurple jewels, which Lén Línfiaclach gatheredfor his creations.

Lenumius Continental Celtic god. Equatedby the Romans with MARS, who was god of bothwar and agriculture, Lenumius is known fromsome inscriptions, but we have little other infor-mation about him.

Lenus Continental and insular Celtic god. InGaul and parts of Britain, Lenus was invoked asthe ancestral god of the Treveri tribe. Statuesshow him standing next to a large BIRD, perhapsa GOOSE; the juxtaposition may indicate his ownpowers or his partnering with a goose goddess.

Leodegrance Arthurian hero. This otherwiseobscure character was the father of the greatbeauty GUINEVERE, who became the wife of hisally, king ARTHUR.

leprechaun (leipreachán, lùracán, luchramán,luchragán, luchorpán, lupracánaig, lurikeen)Irish folkloric figure. The most familiar IrishFAIRY is today depicted as a dwarfish man withGREEN clothing who knows the location of thepot of GOLD at the rainbow’s end. One of manyspecies of Irish fairy, the leprechaun was a soli-tary sort (see SOLITARY FAIRIES), encountered farless frequently than the more common TROOP-ING FAIRIES, who danced and sang and led trav-elers astray. Finding the leprechaun was only thefirst step to finding his treasure, for then one hadto extract that information from him. The onlyway to do so was to trap and hold the little man,keeping him clearly in sight. The leprechaun’sfavorite trick to get out of such a trap was toclaim that a monster approached, prompting his

captor to look up momentarily, whereupon theleprechaun disappeared.

The leprechaun’s name comes from leith brogan, the maker of the brogan or shoe; he wasthe fairy’s shoemaker (sometimes tailor), anindustrious being rather like the Scottish andBritish BROWNIE, except that he rarely worked foranyone but himself, whereas the Brownie was avolunteer farm laborer. Of a somewhat surly disposition, the leprechaun could become down-right malicious when crossed, so it was consideredimportant to be polite when dealing with one.

There is some evidence that this fairy figurehad a mythological antecedent: the importantand all-talented god LUGH, sometimes called theshoemaker Lugh-chromain, “little stoopedLugh.” As patron of the arts and of treasure,Lugh was diminished after Christianization (seeCHRISTIANITY) and remained in this folklore fig-ure. The BOOK OF INVASIONS also mentions a raceof small-bodied monsters begotten by the bibli-cal Noah’s son Ham because his father hadcursed him; these may have provided a mythictemplate for the leprechaun.

The leprechaun appears in some literaryworks, most notably the early 20th-century comicnovel Crock of Gold by Dubliner James Stevens,which was the basis for the popular Americanmusical (and later movie) Finian’s Rainbow.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 241, 242;Keightley, Thomas. The Fairy Mythology.London: H. G. Bohn, 1870, pp. 371 ff;Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of the IrishCelts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 130;Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms andSuperstitions of Ireland. London: Chatto andWindus, 1902, pp. 56 ff.

Leth Cuinn, Leth Moga Irish geographicaldivisions. Along the EISCIR RIADA, the great gla-cial ridge that divides Ireland from Dublin toGalway, the land was once divided between the

286 Lenumius

leaders CONN of the Hundred Battles to thenorth and EÓGAN MÓR (under his name of MugNuadat) to the south. The northern region wascalled Leth Cuinn, while the southern regionwas Leth Moga. This is one of several ancientdivisions of Ireland, the most common being thedivision into the five PROVINCES.

Lethderg Irish heroine or goddess. Thisname appears in the DINDSHENCHAS, the place-name poetry of Ireland, as the daughter of thegreat king of the province of ULSTER, CONCOBAR

MAC NESSA. She was carried off by a party of war-riors in the service of a minor king, Fothad. Theobscure tale points to a form of the goddess ofSOVEREIGNTY, who establishes a man in KING-SHIP when he mates with her. The name alsoappears as a compound name for MEDB, the greatwarrior queen whose connection to the sover-eignty goddess has been well established.

Leucetius (Loucetius, Leucetius) ContinentalCeltic and British god. Known from a fewinscriptions in continental Gaul and Britain,Leucetius was the consort of a better-knowndivinity, the goddess of sacred groves namedNEMETONA. An inscription to the pair was foundat the healing shrine of BATH, called by theRomans AQUAE SULIS, suggesting that Leucetiusmay have been a HEALING god. In Gaul, Leucetiuswas considered a form of MARS, perhaps as a heal-ing divinity, for the warrior Mars was sometimespictured fighting off disease. Leucetius’s nameincludes the syllable for “bright” or “shining” andhas been interpreted to mean “lightning.”

ley lines Folkloric belief. The belief thatthere are invisible lines of power that runbeneath the earth and connect ancient sites ofpower is a modern myth whose beginnings canbe traced to the works of the writer AlfredWatkins, who charted in 1925 what he dubbed“the old straight path.” Watkins believed that hehad discovered an ancient form of geomancy or

earth-energy tracking, indigenous to Britain.There is no mythological or other folkloric evi-dence of such a belief. In addition, the sites areso widely disparate in both time and place thatfew real “straight tracks” can be traced. There isno evidence that ley lines, under any name, werepart of Celtic belief.

Liadan (Líadan, Liadhain, Lídain) Irishheroine. The BARD Liadan came from the Irishregion most connected with music and song, thesouthwestern province of MUNSTER. Anotherpoet, Cuirithir, fell in love with her while shewas making a poet’s circuit of the island, but sherefused to interrupt her tour and declined hisadvances, instead inviting him to visit her athome in Co. Kerry. When he did not appear, sheentered a convent. She soon regretted her deci-sion but then found that Cuirithir had become apriest. This ended the possibility of consumma-tion of their love, although their confessor sug-gested that they sleep together chastely as aproof of their holiness. When Cuirithir wasexiled for seeking out Liadan, she died of grief athis praying stone. The story, although Christian,has many Celtic echoes, including the positionof women as poets and the testing of the virtueof the lovers (also found in the story ofLANCELOT and GUINEVERE) by having themsleep together without giving in to their passion.

Lia Fáil (Lia Fal) Irish mythological object.One of four great magical implements of theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, the people of the goddessDANU, the Lia Fáil or Stone of Destiny was agreat STONE pillar that shrieked when touchedby the true king. It came from the OTHER-WORLD, from the magical city of Fálias. (TheTuatha Dé’s other magical objects, each from adifferent Otherworld city, were a spear thatnever missed, an invincible sword, and an inex-haustible CAULDRON.) The Lia Fáil was said tostand on the great hill of TARA in Ireland, whereit was used in INAUGURATION ceremonies of theHIGH KING. A stone still stands on Tara hill, but

Lia Fáil 287

there is some dispute as to whether it is the trueLia Fáil. For one thing, legends claim that thetrue Lia Fáil has been long resident in the OTH-ERWORLD, where it was taken when its ownerswere banished from the surface world, and thatthe stone in this world is a substitute. Other leg-ends state that the true Lia Fáil is now inScotland. In the sixth century C.E., Tara’s kingMUIRCERTACH MAC ERC loaned the Lia Fáil to hisScottish brother, FERGUS MÒR, who then refusedto send it back; it became the Stone of Scone(Sgàin), which was stolen by the English kingEdward I after the fall of Macbeth (1057) andinstalled under the throne at Westminster Abbey,serving for centuries as the INAUGURATION STONE

and authorizing symbol of English monarchs(though not, reportedly, shrieking). The stonewas returned to Scotland in 1996 after several ear-lier attempts by Scottish nationalists to recover it.

Still other versions of this story have it that theScottish Stone of Scone is not the Irish Lia Fáil atall but a stone that came from Egypt. It had itsown magical power, having been hallowed inancient time when the biblical Jacob slept upon itand dreamed of angels ascending to heaven.

Lianan Sidhe (Liannan-Shee) See FAIRY

LOVER.

Liath Irish hero. There are several figures inIrish mythology who bear this name. One was amember of the race of NEMED, who cut down allthe trees on the hill of TARA so that corn couldgrow there, after which the hill was called DruinLéith in his honor. The other (who may be thesame figure) loved a woman named BRÍ but wasprevented by their deaths from wedding her; theirnames live on in the double name of BRÍ LÉITH,given to one of the great FAIRY MOUNDS of Ireland.

Liath Macha Irish mythological animal. The“gray of MACHA” was the name of the favoriteHORSE of the ULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN; thesteed, which magically arose from a LAKE, was agift from Macha, the primary goddess of Ulster.

Lí Ban (Liban) Irish heroine. The story ofthe MERMAID Lí Ban (“finest of women” or“beauty of womanhood”) was first recorded inthe ANNALS OF IRELAND in the 17th century butwas said to date to the 6th century. Variouslydescribed as the daughter of the king of Tara,AÉD ABRAT, or of the obscure Ecca (her mother isnot named, but may have been ÉTAIN), Lí Banwas swept away by a flood that resulted fromsomeone’s failing to cover a sacred WELL. As aresult, the well swelled and overflowed until itdestroyed the kingdom of Aéd Abrat, drowninghim and most of his family. Only Lí Ban sur-vived, together with her little lapdog, both ofwhom were caught within an underwater bubblewhere they lived for a year. Watching the playfulSALMON, so comfortable in the element thattrapped her, Lí Ban prayed to become a FISH.

Her wish was granted: She was turned into amermaid with a salmon’s tail and a woman’storso and head. Her pet dog became an OTTER,and together the pair swam in the waters ofLOUGH NEAGH for 300 years. During that time,Ireland became Christian—a common folkloricmotif also found in the stories of another trans-formed maiden, FIONNUALA, and in that of OISÍN

who lived in FAIRYLAND with the queen NIAMH ofthe Golden Hair.

At the end of three centuries, Lí Ban calledout to a passing boat, entreating the men she sawto capture her and instructing them to meet heron the shores at Inver Ollarbha. In that boat wasa priest, Beoc, who first went to Rome on anerrand, then arranged for the mermaid’s capture.She was hauled up and kept in a half-submergedboat, so that she could swim until it had beendetermined what should be done with this mirac-ulous maiden. At first the local kings and priestsargued over who had the right to claim her, butangels instructed them to wait until two OXEN (orSTAGS) appeared—and then to trust that thebeasts would haul the maiden to the territory inwhich she belonged. The miraculous oxen did,indeed, appear and carried Lí Ban to the churchof the priest who had first found her, Beoc. Thereshe asked to be baptized so that she might die

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immediately and ascend to heaven, whereuponher wish was answered and she was namedMurgen, “sea-born.” Dying immediately, shebecame a SAINT and was regarded as a holy virgin.

This mixture of pagan and Christian ele-ments shows how ancient divinities werebrought into the domain of the new religion. LíBan was probably once a goddess like BÓAND andSÍNANN, two other divinities whose mythsinvolve a well magically overflowing. Her origi-nal myth, however, is probably hopelessly lostunder the accretion of Christian motifs.

Another (perhaps originally the same) Lí Banwas a FAIRY QUEEN, consort of the ruler of MAG

MELL, “the honeyed plain,” and sister of thegreat fairy beauty FAND; she and her husband,beset by monstrous FOMORIANS, set in motionone of Ireland’s greatest love stories when theyasked the hero CÚCHULAINN to save them. Hedid so, but he fell in love with Fand—the onlylove affair that threatened the durability of hismarriage to the paragon of womanhood, EMER.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 97 ff.

Licke British fairy. Licke is named, in severaltexts, as a small FAIRY who worked as a cook inthe OTHERWORLD.

Lífe (Liffey) Irish heroine. The goddess of theRiver Liffey (see ANA LIFE) and of the plain (MagLífe) through which it flows, Lífe was describedin the place-poetry of ancient Ireland, the DIND-SHENCHAS, as a sweet, hardworking, pleasantwoman who died giving birth at Port Agmar inAran, whereupon her consort, the otherwiseunknown Deltbanna, son of Drucht, died of grief.

Another story says that Deltbanna was herhusband, and that Lífe was a Pictish woman whocrossed the lovely plain through which theLiffey now flows. The river was called at thetime Ruitheach, “the flashy torrent,” and Lífesaid that its prospect was the most beautifulthing she had ever seen. Deltbanna immediately

named the plain for her, and the river took itsname from that affectionate act.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906, p. 61; Healy, Elizabeth, withChristopher Moriarty, Cerard O’Flaherty. TheBook of the Liffey: From Source to the Sea. Dublin:Wolfhound Press, 1988.

liminality Cosmological concept. The Celtssaw this world as impinging upon or existing par-allel to an OTHERWORLD of spirits, FAIRIES, anddivinities. Places that were not quite one thing,not quite another—twilight and dawn, the turn-ing days of the year, geographical sites like BOGS

and LAKES and misty ISLANDS—were the pointsof exchange between these two worlds. Such lim-inal (literally, “shadowy”) places and times werevery important in Celtic myth and ritual. OnSAMHAIN and BELTANE, the year’s most powerfuldays on November 1 and May 1, respectively, vis-itations from the Otherworld could be expected;passing at twilight near a FAIRY MOUND on eitherday amplified the liminality and thus made onesubject to FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

Lindow Man Archaeological find. In the BOG

near the British town of Lindow, one of the mostimportant and baffling Celtic archaeologicalfinds was made in 1984: a human body, pre-served by the bog’s tannic water, which appearedto be that of a HUMAN SACRIFICE who had suf-fered the THREEFOLD DEATH of Irish legend.Whether this man died in ancient times becauseof some offense or as an offering to removefamine or plague is impossible to determine, butthe find has given rise to significant research.

Source: Ross, Anne. “Lindow Man and the CelticTradition.” In Stead, I. M., J. B. Bourke, andDon Brothwell. The Lindow Man: The Body inthe Bog. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,1986, pp. 162–169.

Lindow Man 289

Linton Worm See DRAGON.

Lionel Arthurian hero. This minor knight ofthe ROUND TABLE was a cousin of the superlativeLANCELOT.

Lios Irish mythological site. The term lios isoften used to describe HILLFORTS and STONE

CIRCLES in Ireland. One site of that name isespecially renowned, as it is the largest stone cir-cle in the land, with a circumference of almost160 feet. Near the mythologically significantLOUGH GUR, the huge circle dates from as muchas 4,000 years before the Celts arrived inIreland. Like many such structures, it is astro-nomically aligned, in this case to the setting ofthe moon at MIDSUMMER.

Lir (Lear) Irish hero. The great Irish sea godMANANNÁN was called “mac Lir,” meaning “son ofLir,” but it is not entirely clear who Lir was. Somehave described him as an earlier sea god who wasabsorbed into an invading people’s mythology bybeing named as the antecedent or father of one oftheir own gods. Despite the similarity of names,Lir has nothing to do with the ShakespeareanKing Lear, who may be based on the Welsh godLLUDD, whom Shakespeare may have confoundedwith LLYR, another Welsh divinity. Lir may be thesame as or distinct from the king of the samename, whose children were turned to swans (seeCHILDREN OF LIR) by their evil stepmother, in oneof the THREE SORROWS OF IRELAND. The story,one of the most familiar in Irish legend today, isnot ancient but arrived from Britain or France inthe Middle Ages; however, it has many motifs andthemes that are typically Celtic, such as SHAPE-SHIFTING and magical incantations.

Lis (Lios) See HILLFORT.

Liscannor Irish mythological site. In thesmall town of Liscannor near the renownedCliffs of Moher, a holy WELL dedicated to the

goddess turned-saint BRIGIT gathers the faithfulon February 1, Brigit’s feast day and the Celticfeast of IMBOLC or spring’s awakening. A PAT-TERN of circular transits up and down a hillsideprecedes a visit to the well itself; the well’s waterstrickle down the rocky wall of the well house,which penetrates to within the hill, an unusuallocation that has led scholars to theorize that theoriginal figure to whom the well was devotedwas a goddess, rather than a saint.

That goddess was probably not Brigit, for thededication of the well to her is relatively recent.Until the 1950s, the pattern day was on LUGH-NASA, the old Celtic harvest feast on August 1.That day is associated with goddesses likeTAILTIU who died while giving birth—a repre-sentation of the vegetation’s death to providelife—and to the HAG of harvest, the CAILLEACH.The nearby cliffs are called, in Irish, Ceann naCaillghe, “the hag’s head,” reportedly becausethe hag MAL leapt from their top to her death.Some local legends connect this hag with themonster called the OLLIPHEIST.

Litavis (Litavus) Continental Celtic goddess.Not much is known of this goddess, whose nameseems connected with words for “earth” or“broad,” suggesting that she was a deity of thewide world. She was sometimes described as theconsort of the god CICOLLUS, whom the Romanssaw as similar to their god MARS, but she was notherself renamed by the invading legions.

liver Symbolic food. Scottish Highlandershistorically had a superstitious aversion to liver,which was considered inedible. Not even mon-sters like WATER HORSES ate their victims’ livers,which were sometimes the only trace of theunfortunate human meal left at the scene of adisappearance.

Llacheau (Lohot) Arthurian hero. Thisobscure figure was said to have been an illegiti-mate son of king ARTHUR.

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llamhigyn y dwr See WATER-LEAPER.

Llassar Llaesgyfnewid (Llassar Llaes Gyfne-wid) Welsh god. A relatively obscure WelshGIANT, he owned a CAULDRON that figures impor-tantly in the collection of Welsh myths called theMABINOGION, for it had the power to regenerate thebodies of slain warriors. The evil Evnyssenemployed the cauldron’s power in his people’sgreat but ill-fated battle with the Irish. Llassar’swife, CYMIDEI CYMEINFOLL, was a cauldron of warherself; every six weeks a fully armored warriorsprang from her womb. Some interpreters claimthat the cauldron belonged to Cymidei rather thanto her husband.

Llefelys (Llevelys) Welsh hero or god. InWelsh myth, this king ruled on the Continentwhile his brother, LLUDD, ruled Britain. He cameto Lludd’s aid in ridding Britain of three plagues.

Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Llew Llaw Gyffes)Welsh god or hero. When the goddess ARIAN-RHOD sought to become king MATH’s foot-holder—an office previously held by the maidenGOEWIN, whose rape rendered her unsuitable toperform the sacred duties—she was tested toensure her virginity. To Arianrhod’s surprise andhorror, as she stepped over Math’s magical rod,she bore two children. One, DYLAN, disappearedimmediately into the sea; the other, an unformedball of flesh, was snatched up by Arianrhod’sbrother, the poet GWYDION, who put it in a mag-ical chest where it formed finally into a child—aboy, who may have been Gwidion’s own son,born of his love for Arianrhod.

It was a mother’s right to name her children,and Arianrhod angrily refused to name the pre-mature babe born through trickery. So Gwydiontricked his sister again, forcing her to grant thename Lleu Llaw Gyffes—”bright one of the skil-ful hand”—to the boy. Similarly, it was her rightto arm him with weapons, and here againGwydion tricked Arianrhod so that Lleu could

be outfitted as a warrior. Finally she cursed hermysterious son, declaring that he should neverwed a human woman. Once again, Gwydiontricked his sister, this time with Math’s help. Thetwo men formed a woman out of flowers, and soLleu was married to BLODEUWEDD, the aptlynamed “flower-face.”

Unfortunately, Lleu had no happiness withhis wife. She soon took a lover and began to plothow to be rid of him. Because Lleu was pro-tected from harm by the strange fact that hecould never be killed when inside or outside,while on horseback or afoot, Blodeuwedd chal-lenged him to stand under a thatched roof by theside of a river, with his foot on a deer. Lleu tookthe dare. Standing in this unlikely position, Lleureceived his death-blow and sailed away in theform of an EAGLE. His murderer did not go free;she was turned into the nocturnal OWL.

Many scholars have seen Lleu as a paralleldivinity to the Irish LUGH, although the com-plex story has little in common with those toldof its alleged Irish cousin.

Lludd (St. Lludd) Welsh saint or goddess.Christianity, employing the same adoption ofnative divinities that the Roman legions earlierpracticed, “converted” many ancient divinities,calling them SAINTS but keeping their symbols,and sometimes even their narratives, intact.Thus we find that when Lludd was decapitatedfor her holiness, her head rolled down a hill;where it stopped, a healing SPRING gushed forth.The motif of the miraculous HEAD is typicallyCeltic, as is the power ascribed to healingWELLS. Behind this Welsh saint, therefore, anearly goddess may hide.

Lludd Welsh god or hero. Several figures inWelsh mythology bear this name; they may beaspects or echoes of each other or distinct fig-ures, although it is difficult to disentangle them.The most important is Lludd Llaw Ereint(NUDD), an ancient British king whose brotherLLEFELYS ruled on the Continent; the two were

Lludd 291

sons of BELI, god of death. According to the earlyhistorian Geoffrey of Monmouth, it was Lluddwho built London, but the god behind thisalleged king can be detected by Geoffrey’sdescription of a temple dedicated to him (on thesite of today’s St. Paul’s, near the old entrance tothe city called Ludgate).

Three plagues struck Britain while Lludd wasking: a race of demons called the Corianiad; twoDRAGONS; and a GIANT magician. With hisbrother’s help, Lludd defeated all three, settingpoisonous insects lose on the Corianiad, gettingthe dragons drunk so that they were easy to kill,and killing the magician in mortal combat. It isbelieved that this ancient royal characterinspired William Shakespeare in his play KingLear, but he confused Lludd’s name with thesimilar Welsh figure LLYR.

Llwch Llawwyanawc (Llwch Lleminawc,Llwch Llenllawc) Welsh hero. This minorcharacter in Welsh legend bore a flaming swordas he led king ARTHUR through the dim OTHER-WORLD.

Llyn Tegid See TEGID.

Llyr (Lear) Welsh god. Not much is knownabout this ancient god, who may be the same asthe Irish sea god LIR. Some scholars interpretLlyr as an underworld or OTHERWORLD divinity,but as the Celts often described the Otherworldas an ISLAND in the sea or as a land beneath thewaves, these two interpretations are not neces-sarily in conflict. The Welsh Llyr was father ofthe hero MANAWYDAN, with the great mothergoddess DÔN’s daughter PENARDDUN; he alsosired the warrior BRÂN THE BLESSED and thelove goddess BRANWEN, with the queen namedIweriadd (Ireland).

In some texts Llyr appears as a human king,Llyr Llediath, “Llyr of the foreign accent,”while in later folklore he was Christianized as aSAINT who was buried under the River Sahr, anappropriate site for an ancient water divinity.

Geoffrey of Monmouth mentions a King Leir,on whom Shakespeare is assumed to have basedhis memorable mad king.

Loathy Lady Arthurian heroine. The fouland ugly HAG who appears in some Arthuriantales is a form of the ancient goddess of SOVER-EIGNTY, who becomes a blooming young womanwhen kissed by the rightful king; she also recallsthe great pre-Celtic figure of the CAILLEACH, theweather-controlling GIANT. In some legends ofthe sacred GRAIL, she appears as the figure whoasks candidates the mysterious questions thattest their purity. Variously known as Cundrieand as lady RAGNELL, the Loathy Lady inspiredthe medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer inhis “Wife of Bath’s Tale.”

lob British folkloric spirit. Like HOB, the sylla-ble lob appears in many British FAIRY names.Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire was a big BROWNIE whodid hard farm labor despite his lazy name. Theterm lubber (as in “landlubber”) descends fromthis term and was used to describe people whowere so distracted from ordinary life that theywere clumsy and foolish.

Lóequre Búadach. Irish hero. Minor figurein the story of the feast of BRICCRIU.

location of Otherworld Cosmological con-cept. The Celtic OTHERWORLD was a place ofthe dead, the gods, and the FAIRY people, but itwas neither above nor below our earth, wherethe Christian description locates heaven andhell. Rather it existed in a parallel universe, notentirely separate from our world but not withinit either. This contiguous world was believed tobe reached through portals in either time orspace (see LIMINALITY). Temporally, the dates ofSAMHAIN on November 1 and its opposite feastof BELTANE on May 1 were considered to beopen to the Otherworld; in this world, border-land places like BOGS and ISLANDS served as thesame kind of doorway. Within the Otherworld,

292 Llwch Llawwyanawc

time moved differently than in this world; peo-ple who spent a night there might return to dis-cover a hundred years had passed on earth.

Locha Irish heroine. Handmaiden to queenMEDB of CONNACHT, she was killed in the greatCATTLE RAID on ULSTER described in the Irishepic, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

Lochlann (Lochlanns, Lochlannachs) Irishmythological site. In some texts, this appears asthe name of the northern land of the FOMORI-ANS, the opponents of the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN and several other mythological Irishraces. Occasionally the Fomorians are called theLochlanns or Lochlannachs. Some scholars haveinterpreted Lochlann as Denmark and lowerScandinavia; the Fomorian capital city of Berva,mentioned in some tales, is otherwise unknownand believed to be entirely legendary.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, p. 430.

Loireag Scottish folkloric figure. This waterFAIRY of the Hebrides, like the similar HABETROT,was a spinner, an appropriate skill for a matronspirit of a region where tweed-making was animportant economic role for women. Loireagwas small and plain but fierce, giving trouble ifany rituals connected with spinning, warping,weaving, or washing were neglected. She was alsoa musician with a sweet voice—again, somethingto be expected in a region where women sang asthey performed their textile labors, as can be seenin the famous “waulking songs” of Scotland,whose heavy rhythm accompanied the equallyrhythmic work of preparing cloth.

lone sod See STRAY SOD.

Long Man (Long Man of Wilmington)British folkloric site. On Windover Hill in EastSussex, a figure of a man holding two immense

staffs is carved into the white chalk soil. At 226feet, it is even taller than the CERNE ABBAS GIANT

(although it lacks that figure’s notable sexualorgan). The Long Man may represent someunknown god of the Celts or a pre-Celtic peo-ple. Local legend has it that the outline wastraced around the body of a real GIANT after hewas killed on the hillside by pilgrims; the talemay recall Christian opposition, which may alsohave resulted in the figure’s emasculation.

Source: Newman, Paul. Gods and Graven Images:The Chalk Hill-Figures of Britain. London:Robert Hale, 1987, pp. 134–154.

Lorois Arthurian hero. A young knight ofCAMELOT, Lorois encountered a court ofmounted women while riding through thewoods one day—beautiful damsels, entirelynude, with flowers in their hair. Riding besidethem were their lovers astride strong HORSES.Behind that splendid party came another, morepitiful one: a hundred thin women dressed inblack and riding scrawny horses, who wereaccompanied by thunder and snow as they rode,followed at a distance by a hundred men of sim-ilar appearance. The first group were those whohad opened themselves to love, while the secondgroup had refused it.

losses of the year Scottish and Irish ritual. AtSAMHAIN, the Celtic festival on November 1 thatmarked the end of one year and the beginning ofanother, many rituals and games of DIVINATION

sought to discover the “losses of the year”:whether the coming year would be a happy onewith few losses, or a difficult one with manylosses. In Scotland the tradition moved to HOG-MANY on January 1, when the evil of the past yearwas expunged by a thorough cleaning and theFIRST FOOTER foretold the coming year’s luck.

Lot Irish heroine. A fierce WARRIOR WOMAN

of the unearthly FOMORIANS, Lot led her peoplein their war against their enemy, the people of

Lot 293

PARTHOLÓN. As with most Fomorians, she wasdescribed as improbably ugly, with lips on herbreasts and four eyes on her back.

Lot (Lotha) Arthurian hero. A minor charac-ter in Arthurian legend, he was the husband ofking ARTHUR’s half sister MORGAUSE and fatherof the knight of the ROUND TABLE, GAWAIN. Hispart in the action is mainly through his sons,since he fell to the powerful king PELLINORE inArthur’s battle for the throne; the sons of thetwo kings feuded thereafter.

Loucetius See LEUCETIUS.

Loughcrew (Sliab na Cailleach) Irish mytho-logical site. A great megalithic burial center inCo. Meath, near the center of Ireland, Loughcrewis connected in legend to the great HAG, theCAILLEACH, and its Irish name means “mountainof the hag.” There are a number of PASSAGE

GRAVES and other ritual sites on the several hillsthat make up the Loughcrew complex, one ofIreland’s oldest and richest in graphic ornamen-tation—SPIRALS, starbursts, meanders, and otherdesigns are carved into the granite rock. On theside of one hill is the Hag’s Chair, a grouping ofrocks that form a seat from which one can seeseveral distant counties. Atop that hill is a deco-rated CAIRN oriented to the sunrise on springand fall EQUINOX.

Lough Derg Irish mythological site. Thelegends about Lough Derg in Co. Donegalclaim that it was occupied by a great monster (orSERPENT) called CAORANACH, whose massacre byST. PATRICK bloodied the lake waters (hence itsname, “dark red lake”). Another LAKE of thesame name is found in Co. Galway, where thegreat magician of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, BODB

DERG, was said to have had his palace.Since Ireland became Christian, Donegal’s

Lough Derg has been the most significant placeof pilgrimage, especially to St. Patrick’s Purgatory

on Station Island, where the saint was said to havedescended through a CAVE to an OTHERWORLD inorder to do battle with evil. The legend, however,does not date from early Christian times but tothe medieval period. In the late 16th century pil-grims were housed in dormitories according totheir PROVINCE, so that the island formed amicrocosm of all Ireland. The site continues toattract pilgrims today.

Source: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 22 ff.

Lough Gur Irish mythological site. Thissmall LAKE in Co. Limerick, inhabited for almost6,000 years, is surrounded by low hills, each ofthem connected with a goddess (see ÁINE) or god(see DONN FÍRINNE). Site of the largest extantSTONE CIRCLE in Ireland, the Grange, the lake isbelieved to be an entrance to the OTHERWORLD,a belief common to Celtic lands where water wasseen as the dividing line between this world andthat of the FAIRIES.

The many legends connected with the lakeemphasize a cycle of time, usually seven years.Each time that cycle passes, distinctive eventsoccur. The lake empties of water, and passersbysee a tree growing from its bottom, covered witha GREEN cloth; beneath it, a woman namedTOICE BHREAN sits KNITTING. The goddess orfairy queen Áine is similarly seen at Lough Gureach time the seven-year cycle ends, as is herenchanted son GERÓID IARLA, born to her afterher affair with Maurice, earl of Desmond, whosaw her swimming in the form of a SWAN andstole her cloak in order to capture her. As withother such marriages, the groom was put undera taboo by the bride, in this case to show no sur-prise, no matter what their son might do.Maurice forgot himself when, at a banquet, thenow-grown Geróid shrank himself into a tinybeing and leaped into a bottle, then out again,resuming his regular size. The moment Mauricecalled out in amazement, Geróid disappearedinto Lough Gur, appearing on its surface as a

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GOOSE. Every seven years, he emerges from hisfairy residence on the island named for him,Garrod Island, and takes on human form as heleaves the lake. He rides a white horse and leadsthe WILD HUNT across the land.

Other legends tell of a FAIRY HOUSEKEEPER

who appears on the chair-shaped ancient monu-ment called the Suidheachan or “housekeeper’sseat” near the lake. The housekeeper once fellasleep when the dwarf harper, Áine’s brother FER

Í, stole her COMB (a female anatomical symbol,suggesting the theft might have been a rape),whereupon the housekeeper cursed the CATTLE

of the region as well as the dwarf. Fer Í returnedthe comb, but to no avail, for the CURSE held andhe died. The housekeeper, or another fairywoman, is believed to “steal”—drown—a humanin the lake waters once every seven years. Thelands around the lake are believed to be the ter-ritory of the fairy race, who frequently kidnapchildren from its shores.

Sources: Carbery, Mary. The Farm by Lough Gur:The Story of Mary Fogarty. London: Longmans,Green and Co., 1937; Croker, T. Crofton. FairyLegends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.London: William Tegg, 1862, pp. 167 ff;Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 73 ff; Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries.Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe HumanitiesPress, 1911, pp. 78–79, 81 ff.

Lough Neagh Irish mythological site. Thislarge LAKE in the northern province of ULSTER

was originally a WELL, but when a carelesswoman left the lid off, the well waters explodedand formed the lake. In the process, the family ofthe maiden LÍ BAN drowned, leaving the girlalone beneath the waves with her little lapdog.Watching fish frolic about her, Lí Ban prayed tobe turned into one; she was instantly trans-formed into a MERMAID with a SALMON’s tail, andher little dog became an OTTER. Other storiesfrom the region say that a magical city appears

on clear days beneath the lake’s waves, and thatthe folkloric FINN MCCOOL formed the lakewhen he scooped up a handful of dirt and threwit after an escaping GIANT, the lake being thehollow left by Finn’s hand, and the Isle of Man,the clod of dirt he threw.

Lough Ree Irish mythological site. A LAKE bythis name, formed by the great River Shannon,is said to have a city in its depths, visible on cleardays. It was on its shores that the great queenand goddess MEDB was killed by her nephewFURBAIDE FERBEND in retaliation for her murderof his mother, her sister CLOTHRA.

loup-garou (loup-garow) See SHAPE-SHIFTING.

Luan Manx god. On the Isle of Man, the godknown in other Celtic lands as LUGH or LUGOS

was called Luan; he was an agricultural divinitywhose feast was on the major Celtic holiday ofLUGHNASA on August 1.

Luaths Lurgann Irish heroine. Her namemeans “speedy foot,” and she was aptly named,for this WARRIOR WOMAN was the fastest runnerin Ireland. She took in a nephew at whose birthshe had been MIDWIFE, a boy who would growup to become the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,when he needed protection against those envi-ous of his great potential. In her forest home,Luaths Lurgann trained the boy in the martialarts. Fionn was devoted to his aunt, but he acci-dentally killed her when, pursued by an enemy,he picked her up and ran to safety. Fionn ran sofast that the wind, tearing through the warriorwoman’s body, ripped her to shreds, leaving onlyher thighbones, which Fionn used to dig a LAKE,still called with her name, Loch Lurgann.

Lubbard Fiend British folkloric figure.Although not known from other sources, this

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character appears in the work of the greatEnglish poet John Milton, who in L’Allegrodescribes a “drudging Goblin” who threshedcorn “that ten day-laborers could not end”before lying down by the fire to sleep off hislabors until dawn, at which time he disappeared.This “fiend” seems a friendly BROWNIE or per-haps a lubber (see LOB), but the Puritan languageof the time led Milton to describe his helpfulFAIRY farmhand in negative terms.

lubber See LOB.

Lucan Arthurian hero. One of the mosttrusted members of king ARTHUR’s court, Lucanserved as his butler throughout his reign and wasby his side at the battle of CAMLAN when Arthurwas wounded. Despite that fatal cut, Lucanattempted to save his king and died doing so.

Luchtar (Luchta) Irish god. One of the minorgods of craftsmanship, Luchtar was the brother ofthe smith GOIBNIU. Ruler of carpentry, Luchtarcrafted the spearshafts for the gods of the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, the people of the goddess DANU, intheir fight against the monstrous FOMORIANS, inthe mythological second battle of MAG TUIRED.

Lugaidh (Lugaid, Lughaidh) Irish hero.Several Irish heroes bear this name:

• Lugaidh Laíghde (Loígde), who had fivebrothers, all named Lugaidh. The brotherswere out hunting when they encountered a HAG

guarding a WELL, who demanded that one ofthem sleep with her. All but Lugaidh Laíghdepulled away in disgust, but he made love to her.Pleased with his abilities, the hag turned into alovely young maiden who revealed herself tohim as the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY.

• Lugaidh mac Con Roí, son of CÚ ROÍ andenemy of CÚCHULAINN. He is sometimes saidto be the son of BLÁTHNAT and to have hatedCúchulainn because his mother betrayed his

father for that hero. He gave Cúchulainn afatal javelin-thrust, then allowed him to diewith dignity, decapitating the dying hero as hepropped himself upright against a pillar stone.Lugaidh was then killed by CONALL Cernach.

• Lugaidh, friend of Ailill mac Máta, whokilled FERGUS mac Róich. The great warriorFergus had incurred Ailill’s enmity by becom-ing the favorite lover of queen/goddess MEDB,and Lugaidh and Ailill discovered the loversswimming nude one day. Despite his blind-ness, the warrior-poet Lugaidh hurled hisspear at Fergus and killed him.

• Lugaidh Riab nDerg (Lugaigh of the RedStripes) was the son of CLOTHRA, MEDB’s sis-ter. Three brothers impregnated Clothra atthe same time, and Lugaidh was the son of allthree. Three red stripes across his body delin-eated which part of his body had been sired bywhich brother.

• Lugaidh mac Conn, foster son and enemy ofthe MUNSTER ruler AILILL Olom, whodefeated Ailill’s army at the battle of MAG

MUCRAMHAN. Lugaidh later tried to apologizeto the Munster king, but Ailill infected himwith his poisoned breath, and the hero died.

Lugh (Lug, Luga, Lui Lavada, LughLámfhoda, Lugh Samildánach) Irish god. Oneof the great heroes of Irish mythology, Lugh wasthe grandson of the frightening FOMORIAN kingBALOR of the Evil Eye. A prophet had warnedBalor that he would be killed by his grandson,but the Fomorian believed he could keep himselfimmortally safe by assuring that his daughternever saw a man, much less had intercourse withone. CIAN foiled that plan by dressing as a womanto sneak into the tower where Lugh’s motherEITHNE was held captive. Eithne had tripletsons—a motif that suggests that Lugh was origi-nally a multiple god—but only one lived. Andthat grandson Lugh did, indeed, kill his grandfa-ther, because he had been raised among theTUATHA DÉ DANANN and fought on their side inthe mythological second battle of MAG TUIRED.

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Other sources call Lugh a son of the DAGDA,the great fertility god of Ireland. In the BOOK OF

INVASIONS, we are told that Lugh gained his titleof “many-skilled” when he arrived at TARA andentreated its king to permit him to join theTuatha Dé Danann, proclaiming that he hadalready fostered with one of them, the sea godMANANNÁN MAC LIR. The Tuatha Dé were atfirst unwilling to accept Lugh. When they askedwhy they should accept him, he said he was agood carpenter, but they already had one ofthose. Lugh then said he was a SMITH, but therewas already a smith in residence too. BARD,harper, historian, hero, magician—all of thesealready lived with the Tuatha Dé Danann atTara. Did they have anyone who was skilled inall these arts, Lugh asked. The gods had toadmit that they did not, and so Lugh was admit-ted to their company and dubbed Samildanch,“the one of many skills.”

Lugh’s second title, Lámfhoda, “of the longarms,” came not because his arms dragged on theground but because his weapons extended hisreach beyond other warriors’ abilities. Lugh’sprowess with the javelin and sling made him afierce opponent, as his grandfather Balor learnedwhen they met in battle. The fact that Lugh wasgenerally recognized as a harvest god suggeststhat this battle with Balor was part of a mythiccycle whose meaning is now lost but that mayhave depicted a seasonal change. For it was Lughwho led the Tuatha Dé against the Fomorians inthat great final battle. After winning the cam-paign, Lugh decided to spare the life of the half-Fomorian king BRES, in exchange for agriculturalinformation—another connection between Lughand the seasonal cycle that culminates in harvest.

Lugh has been described as cognate withother Celtic gods: LLEU LLAW GYFFES in Walesand LUGOS in Gaul. He is sometimes describedas a solar divinity because of the brightness of hisface; some contend that his name is connected tothe Latin word for light, lux. Lugh is more accu-rately described as a god of arts and crafts, hisname probably deriving from the Celtic wordlugio, for “oath,” as Lugh oversaw the keeping of

promises. He may have migrated from theContinent after the Celts had moved to Ireland,the story of his arrival at the door of Tara amythic memory of his assimilation into the godsof the land.

Lugh’s heritage runs through Irish mythol-ogy: he was the father of ULSTER’s greatest hero,CÚCHULAINN, whom he sired on the humanwoman DECHTIRE. Lugh fought beside his sonduring the great TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, but asCeltic power in Ireland waned, so did Lugh’sreputation. CONN of the Hundred Battles, kingof Tara, waited within a DRUID’S FOG as Lughprophesied the king’s future, but thereafter Lughdisappeared from Ireland. Some believe he wentundercover, appearing as the folkloric craftsman,the LEPRECHAUN, whose name has been trans-lated as “little stooping Lugh.”

Source: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, pp. 296 ff.

Lughnasa (Lammas, Lughnasadh, Lughnasad,Garland Sunday, Crom Dudb Sunday, BilberrySunday; on the Isle of Man, Laa Lhuanys; inWales, Calan Awst) Celtic festival. The fourgreat FEASTS of the Celtic year ended withLughnasa, the harvest festival on August 1; thenext feast, SAMHAIN, marked the beginning of thenew year. Named for the god LUGH, Lughnasawas noted among the continental Celts as thetime when the great Council of the Gauls washeld. In 12 B.C.E. the Roman emperor Augustusdemanded that the great assembly meet at thealtar dedicated to the god at Lyons (a town namedfor Lugh), thus both asserting his power over thesubjugated Celts and implying that he could sub-stitute for the great Lugh in Celtic worship.

In Ireland the festival was said to have beencreated by Lugh in honor of his mother, thegoddess TAILTIU, who died on that day and inwhose name an athletic contest was held. Somesources give the name of Lugh’s mother asBALOR’s daughter EITHNE and call Tailtiu his fos-ter mother; yet other sources say that Lugh

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established the festival in honor of his two wives,Buí (a COW goddess) and NÁS (otherwiseunknown, but connected with the word for“assembly”), a combination of words thattogether present a good picture of a CATTLE fair.

Primarily a harvest festival, Lughnasa wasalso a ritual of propitiation of awesome powersthat might endanger the harvest, and it was cel-ebrated with fairs and gatherings, some of whichcontinue today. Although the actual date of theCeltic feast was August 1, the change of calen-dars from Julian to Gregorian in the MiddleAges affected Lughnasa more than the other fes-tivals. Vestigial Lughnasa celebrations are stillfound in previously Celtic lands, stretchingacross a full month from late July through mid-August. Scholars occasionally argue over thedesignation of a festival as related to Lughnasa,but they have in common a focus on celebrationof first fruits and the sale of livestock. InEngland Lughnasa festivals are found at BritfordFair at Warminster on August 11 and atHighworth Fair on August 13, both sheep fairs.

Lughnasa fairs were times at which contractswere established, possibly reflecting Lugh’sancient role as a sponsor and guarantor of oaths.One of these was the betrothal or marriage con-tract, including that kind of trial marriage called aTELTOWN marriage, whereby the couple plightedthemselves until the following Lughnasa, atwhich point the bond could be made permanentor broken without consequences.

On the Isle of Man the great fair of Santonwas celebrated on August 1, when people gath-ered to sell produce and livestock. Visiting ofholy WELLS was also common, as was the climb-ing of MOUNTAINS; Snaefell Mountain was thefavored destination, and tales abounded of inde-cent behavior that took place among young peo-ple enjoying the Lughnasa holiday there.

In Wales Lughnasa is called Calan Awst or“August Festival” and is traditionally marked byclimbing hills to gather berries. A Welsh tradi-tion claims that Lughnasa was the day that thebiblical maiden, Jephtha’s unnamed daughter,went to the mountains to bemoan that she would

be killed before losing her virginity; this story,like Manx rumors of sexual indiscretions, sug-gests that enjoyment of sexuality in the open airwas part of the festival.

In Ireland the Sunday nearest that date is stilltraditionally celebrated as marking the harvest.Variously called Garland Sunday, BilberrySunday, and Crom Derg Sunday (after an earlyharvest god), the festival is called Reek Sundayin Co. Mayo after the “reek” or mountain,CROAGH PATRICK, where the greatest Lughnasacelebration is now held. As many as 60,000 pil-grims climb the pyramidal peak beside the seaon the Sunday nearest Lughnasa; local traditionhas it that pilgrims are guaranteed heaven if theymake the climb THREE times. Once they haveascended the peak, today’s Christian pilgrimsfind not only a chapel dedicated to ST. PATRICK,who reputedly fought with forces of evil at thatsite, but ruins of neolithic structures, suggestingthat the site was sacred to pre-Celtic people,while the designation of Lughnasa for the climbindicates that the mountain continued to besacred to the Celts as well.

There are dozens of Lughnasa mountainsaround Ireland, including Mount Brandon inKerry, where another significant ascent stilltakes place on Lughnasa. Near Brandon the old-est known Lughnasa celebration takes place:PUCK FAIR in the small town of Kilorglin. Now astreet fair with booths and bands, Puck Fair isarguably ancient; some researchers contend thatit dates back only several hundred years, butlocal tradition holds that it is of Celtic origin.The “puck” of the fair’s title is a wild GOAT cap-tured on a nearby mountainside and broughtinto town, where the small creature is displayedfor three days (Gathering Day, Fair Day, andScattering Day) on a high platform about thetown’s main street. The goat’s reputation as arandy creature may reflect other associations ofthe Lughnasa festival with licentious behavior.

In Scotland the Lughnasa celebrations tend togroup themselves around ST. MICHAEL’s Day orMichaelmas on September 29, the archangelMichael having been substituted after Christian-

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ization for Lugh. Especially popular in theHighlands, Michael was the patron of HORSES,perhaps an odd role for an angel but enthusiasti-cally celebrated with races. On the eve ofMichael’s feast, carrots were baked into a specialbread pudding called a struan, and a cereal wasmade of all the grains grown in the area; carrots(the most phallic of vegetables) were alsoexchanged as tokens of affection, for whichMichaelmas was sometimes called Carrot Sunday.Visitations to cemeteries and circuits of burialgrounds indicated a somber side to the festival.

Sources: Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 189;MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa, PartsI and II. Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éire-ann, 1982; Paton, C. I. Manx Calendar Customs.Publications of the Folk-lore Society, reprinted.Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited,1968, pp. 68 ff; Ross, Anne. Folklore of theScottish Highlands. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd.,1976, pp. 16, 140; Whitlock, Ralph. The Folkloreof Wiltshire. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976,p. 59.

Lugos (Lugus, Lugoves) Continental Celticand British god. The god known as LUGH inIreland and LLEU LLAW GYFFES in Wales appearsin Gaul as Lugos (or, in several cases, as a groupof three gods called the Lugoves). Sometimesregarded as a solar god, he is more accuratelydescribed as a divinity of crafts, as his connectionby the Romans with their god MERCURY shows.As the Celts were widely known for their crafts-manship, the importance of this god cannot beunderstated. His name appears in many place-names: in France, Lyons, Léon, Loudan; inHolland, Leiden; in Britain, Lugavalum (mod-ern Carlisle) as well as London (Lugdunum;alternative readings claim the word comes fromCeltic for “wild place”).

luideag Scottish folkloric figure. A monstrousfemale being who haunted a LAKE on the Isle of

Skye, the luideag was terrifyingly ugly and easilyangered.

lunantishee Irish folkloric being. The FAIRY ofthe blackthorn tree (see THORN), one of the treesmost beloved of the Irish fairy folk, the lunan-tishee was especially active on the feasts thatbegin summer and winter, respectively, LUGH-NASA on August 1 and SAMHAIN on November 1.

lunar divinities See MOON.

lunastain Scottish folkloric custom. OnLUGHNASA, the Celtic harvest feast celebratedaround August 1, people in the Highlands andislands of Scotland made a special CAKE calledthe lunastain; alternate names are luinean whengiven to a man, luineag when the recipient was awoman. Such breads or cakes may have origi-nated as propitiatory offerings or magical foodto protect the eater or to bring good luck. A sim-ilar cake called struan was made and eaten on thefeast of ST. MICHAEL.

Luned Arthurian heroine. This minor charac-ter in Arthurian romance served the mysteriousand beautiful Laudine, the LADY OF THE FOUN-TAIN; she effected a reconciliation between hermistress and OWEIN, her unreliable estrangedhusband, after a reformed Owein saved Lunedfrom danger. Some of Luned’s powers suggestthat she was originally a FAIRY woman; the asso-ciation of fairies—in Breton, KORRIGANS—withforest fountains strengthens this connection.

luridan Scottish folkloric figure. Recorded in1665 as a BROWNIE-like FAIRY farmhand of theScottish islands, the luridan also has much incommon with the ancient Celtic conception ofthe GENIUS LOCI or spirit of a place, for he wastied to various sites, first in Wales and later onthe large island of Pomonia in the Orkneyislands. As with others of his fairy ilk, the luridanwas a fine and diligent housekeeper, sweeping up

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and washing dishes at night, and rising early tostir the fire so that the house was warm when thefamily awakened.

lurikeen See LEPRECHAUN.

Luter Irish folkloric figure. In the Book ofLeinster, we find mention of this Irish GIANT with14 heads, who loved a woman giant namedGoabal whose “charms” (not further defined)“extended over 80 feet.”

Luxovius Continental Celtic god. Knownonly from one inscription at a healing SPRING ineastern France, this god is believed to have been

the consort of BRIXIA, a goddess sometimeslinked to the important goddess BRIGIT.

Lyonesse Arthurian site. British poets, espe-cially those who worked with the Arthurian leg-ends that make up the MATTER OF BRITAIN,believed there was an ISLAND of this name offBritain that had been drowned by the sea.Lyonesse has been located off Cornwall, near theIsles of Scilly, where a rocky outcropping calledthe Seven Stones is locally called “the city.” Thetradition combines the motif of the sunken city(see YS, INCHIQUIN) with that of the floatingisland of the Celtic OTHERWORLD. Alfred LordTennyson invokes the tradition when he speaksof the “sunset bound of Lyonnesse.”

300 lurikeen

Mab (Mabb) Welsh folkloric figure. InIreland the great goddess MEDB was diminishedover time into a quasi-historical queen of thesame name. In Wales the same process resultedin this FAIRY QUEEN who offers only a hint ofearlier divinity. Queen Mab is best known fromthe reference in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet,where she appears as the “fairies’ midwife,” arole traditionally played by a human victim ofFAIRY KIDNAPPING. Queen Mab’s other duty,according to Shakespeare, was to bring night-mares—once again, a role rarely ascribed toMedb but common among mischievous fairies;her playfulness has led some scholars to deriveher name from the Welsh term for child, mab,which also appears in the collection of mythscalled the MABINOGION. Shakespeare borrowedBritish and Welsh fairy lore at will; althoughvivid, his portraits of mythological beings arenot necessarily accurate.

Mabinogion (Mabinogi) Welsh mythologicaltexts. Much of what we know today aboutWelsh mythology comes from tales compiled asthe four branches of the Mabinogion; anothereight tales are sometimes counted as part of thecollection. The stories are found in two sources:The White Book of Rhydderch (1300–1325) andThe Red Book of Hergest (1375–1425). Althoughwritten after Christianization, the narratives are

apparently based on the earlier oral literature ofWales and thus offer us a window into theCeltic past. The first English translation of the Mabinogion was not made available until1838–49, when the work of Lady CharlotteGuest was brought to print.

The word Mabinogion was applied to the talestranslated by Lady Guest; it is the plural form ofthe Middle Welsh word mabinogi, the term pre-ferred by specialists today. The name of the col-lection has been derived from the obscure boygod MABON or MAPONUS, “son of the mother,”and from the term for a young poet, mabinog; thelatter suggests that the stories were a trainingmanual for BARDS-to-be.

The Mabinogion’s tales concern the Childrenof Dôn, the descendants of an ancient and little-known goddess, DÔN; the Children of Dôn areparallel to the Irish divinities known as theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, the people of the goddessDANU, a name cognate to Dôn. Dôn’s children’sfather is not mentioned, which has led some toassume that the Mabinogion dates from a periodin which MATRILINY, the charting of descentthrough the mother rather than the father, wascommon. This interpretation gave rise to theimaginative retellings of the tales by EvangelineWalton in the mid-20th century.

The first branch of the Mabinogion centerson the prince of DYFED, PWYLL, who was con-vinced to exchange realms with the king of the

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OTHERWORLD, ARAWN. His kingdom, ANNWN,was under siege by the mighty HAFGAN, whocould only be killed if his opponent felled himwith a single stroke. Pwyll agreed to theexchange of kingdoms as well as to the battlewith Hafgan, whom he killed with a singlethrust, freeing the kingdom and winning theeverlasting gratitude of Arawn.

Soon after, Pwyll met the fair princess RHI-ANNON, whose speedy HORSE and Otherworldlybeauty make her divine origin clear; after astruggle with GWAWL, a rival for her hand, Pwyllwed Rhiannon. Their wedded life was far fromblissful. The disappearance of their newborn sonon BELTANE night, plus traces of blood aroundthe queen’s mouth, led to accusations thatRhiannon had murdered and devoured theinfant. Although her life was spared, Rhiannonwas condemned to carry visitors to the palace onher back as though she were a horse.Fortunately, the infant prince was not dead butsafe, having been carried off by a spectral crea-ture who dropped the boy on a distant farm,where he was tenderly raised. When the youngprince, PRYDERI, learned of his heritage andreturned to the palace, his mother’s innocencewas revealed, and the land rejoiced.

The second branch of the Mabinogiondescribes the heroic journey to Ireland by thehero BRÂN THE BLESSED and his warriors, who setout to rescue the imprisoned princess BRANWEN.Brân and Branwen were children of LLYR, as werethe hero MANAWYDAN and two half brothers, thekindly NISIEN and his evil TWIN, EFNISIEN. Brânand Manawydan, having accepted the proposal ofthe Irish warlord MATHOLWCH, sent Branwen offfor what they hoped would be a happy and pro-ductive married life in Ireland. At the wedding,Efnisien performed a macabre surgery onMatholwch’s horses, cutting off their tails, lips,and ears. This destroyed any hope of marital har-mony for Branwen, who despite producing anheir to the realm, GWERN, was subjected to con-stant abuse. Finally she sent a starling back toWales, to alert her brothers to her suffering; theymounted a war to free Branwen, succeeding only

in losing many lives. Branwen, freed and boundfor home, died of a broken heart when shelooked back and saw the island that had been herprison and that was her saviors’ tomb.

The third branch of the Mabinogion concernsBranwen’s brother, Manawydan, and the son ofPwyll and Rhiannon, Pryderi. At a double wed-ding ceremony, Manawydan wed the widowedRhiannon, while Pryderi took as his wife the faith-ful heroine CIGFA. Not long after this happy day,the two couples found their land utterly barrenand covered by a strange white mist. Nothinggrew in the fields; the people were destitute. Theirrulers eked out a living for awhile by hunting,finally giving up to become shoemakers in easternBritain. Their work was so exquisite that othercraftsmen became infuriated and threatened thegroup, whereupon they returned to Wales.

Worse was in store for them, for Pryderi andRhiannon fell under an enchantment and van-ished. After further hardships Manawydan andCigfa learned that the curse was leveled byfriends of Gwawl, the suitor for Rhiannon’s handwho had been humiliated by Pryderi’s father.Once peace had been made among the families,all the couples were reunited in happiness.

Finally, the fourth branch tells of the rape ofGOEWIN, ceremonial foot-holder to king MATH,and the complications regarding her successor.Math’s designated successor was his nephewGWYDION—another indication of matrilinealsocial organization—so it was natural thatGwydion’s own sister ARIANRHOD would wish toserve as foot-holder. Before she could take theoffice, she had to prove her virginity. Math setup a magical test: If she could step over his magi-cian’s staff, her purity would be proven.

The test was a trick, and Arianrhod found her-self giving hasty birth to two children of whoseconception she had been unaware—DYLAN, son ofthe sea, and an unnamed bundle of unformedflesh that Gwydion took to himself. Angered athaving been deceived, Arianhrod swore she wouldgive that son neither a name nor arms—two pre-rogatives of the mother. Gwydion again trickedher into naming and arming her son, LLEU LLAW

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GYFFES. In fury, Arianhrod cursed the boy, declar-ing that he would never have a wife from thisearth. Yet again Gwydion and Math found a wayaround her, creating a bride for Lleu from a pileof flowers. The flower-maiden BLODEUWEDD

proved treacherous and had her husband killed byher lover GRONW PEBYR.

In addition to these four branches, severalother important Welsh mythological stories areoften considered part of the full Mabinogion.These include the Dream of MAXEN, the roman-tic story of KULHWCH AND OLWEN, the adventureof OWEIN in winning the mysterious LADY OF

THE FOUNTAIN, and the story of the reincarnatedBARD named TALIESIN.

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976.

Mabon (Mabon vab Modron, Mabon fabModron) Welsh hero. A relatively obscure fig-ure, Mabon appears as a divine youth in the earlyArthurian story of KULHWCH AND OLWEN asMabon vab MODRON, “Son, son of Mother”; nofather is mentioned, although whether that is tostress his matrilineal descent or because the fatheris insignificant is unclear. Another figure of thesame name is known as Mabon vab Mellt; he maybe the same Mabon bearing the patronym of hisfather MELLTS or a different god altogether.

Mabon’s presumed earlier significance isalluded to in an early text that calls him “one ofthe Three Exalted Captives of the Island ofBritain.” That phrase refers to a story from theWelsh MABINOGION in which Mabon was rescuedby the hero KULHWCH from the OTHERWORLD,where he had been held captive after being stolenfrom his mother in his infancy. So many years hadpassed that Mabon was the oldest living human.After his rescue, Mabon helped Kulhwch gain thehand of his chosen mate OLWEN. Two similarlynamed characters take minor roles in Arthurianliterature—Mabonagrain and MABUNZ—both ofwhom are held captive, suggesting that the motifof captivity was basic to Mabon’s myth.

Some have derived the name of the great col-lection of Welsh myths, the Mabinogion, fromMabon’s name. Others connect him with theobscure god MAPONUS. Although presumed tohave once been a significant figure, he is now abaffling puzzle.

Mabunz (Mabuz, Mâbûz) Arthurian hero. Insome texts, this name is given for the magicianson of MORGAN, the sorceress sister of kingARTHUR. It may be a form of the name of thedivine boy, MABON, whose mother is normallycalled MODRON, leading some scholars to con-nect these Arthurian figures with Welsh mythol-ogy. Mabunz is also described as the son of theLADY OF THE LAKE or of another Arthurian hero-ine, CLARINE.

Mac Cécht (Mac Cecht) Irish god. Thisminor Irish divinity was a farmer and the husbandof one of the goddesses of the land, FÓDLA, amember of the magical race called the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN. Fódla’s name means “divided” or“plowed” land, while Mac Cécht’s parallel namemeans “plowman” or “son of the plow,” suggest-ing that both were deities of agriculture. He mayalso have been a god of HEALING, for when theking of the Tuatha Dé lay dying, Mac Céchtwalked across the parched land looking for waterto revive him and was led by a wild DUCK to aSPRING; water was typically envisioned as a sourceof healing by the Celts. Mac Cécht was the son ofOGMA, god of eloquent speech, and lost his life incombat with one of the invading MILESIANS. Heand his brothers MAC CUILL and MAC GRÉINE,husbands of the three land goddesses made up atrio of parallel gods. Another Mac Cécht was ahero who championed the doomed king CONAIRE

at DA DERGA’s hostel, where he killed the man whodecapitated Conaire and then offered the king’sHEAD its last drink.

Mac Conglinne (Anéra meic Conglinne)Irish hero. Not actually a mythological character

Mac Conglinne 303

but a figure from SATIRE, Mac Conglinne expe-rienced a vision in an Irish AISLING poem of the12th century. A poor BARD from Co.Roscommon, Mac Conglinne went on a POET’SCIRCUIT of the PROVINCE of MUNSTER, where heheard that poets were well treated—but wherethe king was suffering from the disease ofuncontrollable gluttony. When Mac Conglinnearrived in Cork, however, he received no poet’swelcome but was put up in a dingy hovel wherehe was eaten alive by fleas and lice. Furious, MacConglinne composed a satire so scathing thatthe abbot condemned him to be crucified. Thenight before the execution, he was tied to aSTONE like the great hero CÚCHULAINN.

In the cold and dark, Mac Conglinne wasattended by an angel who recited a long poemdescribing a land composed entirely of food—avision that he knew was the missing secret torestore the ailing but gluttonous king to health.When day broke, the accused satirist demandedto be brought to the king, where he recited aluridly specific vision of the land of MILK andhoney of which the angel spoke, while cookinghaunches of meat before a manacled king. Thesuffering king finally vomited a demon from hismouth, who grabbed some of the food and dis-appeared. The satire combines references toancient Celtic beliefs in the ancient requirementof HOSPITALITY and the prestige of the poet, aswell as folkloric motifs of monstrous beings whocan possess human bodies.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark Harris Slover,eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York: Henry Holtand Co., 1936, p. 551.

Mac Cuill Irish god. The husband of the landgoddess BANBA, the name of this minor divinitymeant “son of HOLLY,” a plant associated withwinter, suggesting that he may have been con-nected with that season. With his brothers MAC

CÉCHT and MAC GRÉINE, each of them the con-sort of one of the three important land god-desses, he belonged to a trio of parallel gods.

Mac Dathó (Mac Datho, Mes Roeda) Irishhero. Hero of the ULSTER CYCLE tale Scéla mucceMeic Dathó, Mac Dathó was a warrior whoseprize hunting hound AILBE was coveted by twokings, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA of ULSTER andAILILL mac Máta of CONNACHT. Unable torefuse either of the powerful rulers, he invitedthem and their warriors to a feast where heserved an immense roasted PIG. As the finestchampion was always given the best part of afeast (see CHAMPION’S PORTION), an argumentensued as to who would be so honored. In themelee that followed, the hound Ailbe was killed,providing Mac Dathó a solution to his problem.

Source: Dillon, Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: TheMercier Press, 1968, p. 79.

Mac Gréine (Mac Gréne) Irish god. MacGréine was the husband of the important earthgoddess who gave her name to Ireland, ÉRIU.With his brothers MAC CÉCHT and MAC CUILL hebelonged to a trio of three parallel gods whosewives were land goddesses. His name means“son of the SUN,” and although this is often citedas proof of an ancient Irish solar god, it may bea matrilineal name or title, the word for sunbeing feminine in Irish. It is clear that MacGréine does not bear his father’s name, for hewas, like his two brothers, son of the god of elo-quence, OGMA. Mac Gréine lost his life to thewarrior poet AMAIRGIN of the MILESIANS.

Macha Irish goddess. The great capital ofancient ULSTER, the northernmost of the ancientPROVINCES of Ireland, was named EMAIN MACHA,“TWINS of Macha,” after this goddess. Sheappeared from nowhere—or from the OTHER-WORLD—at the door of the human farmerCRUNNIUC and made herself at home, helpinghim create bounty from the land and, ultimately,becoming pregnant by him. As with other FAIRY

LOVERS, Macha placed a requirement on herhusband: that he not brag about her. He couldnot keep silent when, at the Assembly of Ulster,

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he saw the king’s HORSES and knew his supernat-ural wife could beat them in a race. Boasting ofMacha’s prowess, Crunniuc drew the attentionof the king, who demanded that he prove hisclaim. Macha was dragged to the Assembly,where she pointed to her advanced pregnancyand begged not to be forced to race. The king,sure he would win because of Macha’s perceivedhandicap, said that the race must go on.

Macha raced, handily beating the king’s swiftteam but going into labor at the finish line. Theeffort killed her, and she died giving birth to hertwins, a girl named FIAL and a boy named Fall.As she died, Macha cursed the men of theprovince (see DEBILITY OF THE ULSTERMEN),declaring that every time an enemy threatened,the warriors would become weak as women—some interpret this as ghost labor pains—for fivedays and four nights, for nine generations.

This is the most famous goddess namedMacha, but there were two others, who may ormay not have originally been the same. The firstMacha was an obscure figure who was said to havebeen the wife of NEMED, one of the first settlers ofIreland. It was in her honor that the first plains ofIreland were cleared of thick forests. Macha, look-ing into the future and seeing the bloodshed thatwould afflict the country during the great CATTLE

RAID of Cuailnge (TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE), died ofheartbreak. Like her more famous namesake, thisMacha does not appear to be a goddess of war;both deplored men’s war-making activities and, inthe case of Macha wife of Crunniuc, brought dif-ficulties to men who engaged in battle. The deri-vation of her name from words for “earth” or“field” also suggests a peaceful aspect to Macha.

Yet Macha is described by several ancientauthors as a war goddess; the HEADS of fallenwarriors were described as “the masts of Macha,”a term that otherwise described the plentifulacorns on which half-wild PIGS fed. Macha is saidto have been one of the “three Morrigna” orthree goddesses of war (see MÓRRÍGAN). Herassociation with horses may have given rise tothis connection, for Irish warriors went to battleeither in chariots or mounted on horseback.

Although the two Machas discussed abovehad little to do with war, the third Macha was atrue warrior. Macha Mong Rua (Mongruad),Red-Haired Macha, is alternately described as aform of the goddess or as an actual historical fig-ure bearing the goddess’s name. The Annals ofIreland describe a woman named Macha who wasqueen of the whole island in 377 B.C.E. Herfather, ÁED RUAD, made a compact with twoother kings—DÍTHORBA and CIMBÁETH—toshare rulership of the land, each of them reign-ing for seven years. Their prowess as rulers wasto be judged in three ways: Acorns (“mast”) hadto be abundant, thus providing good fodder forpigs; fabrics had to take dyes well; and womenhad to survive childbirth safely. All went well formany years under this shared rulership. Theland was fruitful, the people were happy, andchildren were well fed.

When Áed drowned in a waterfall and Machaattempted to take his place in the succession, hercorulers objected. So Macha waged war uponthem, killing Díthorba and besting Cimbáethbefore allying herself with him through mar-riage. When Díthorba’s five sons escaped, shepursued them, disguised as an ancient HAG

whom they attempted to rape. She overcamethem all and marched them back to EmainMacha, where her warriors attempted to executethem. Macha, however, thought a better punish-ment was to force them to dig the massive earth-works now known as Navan Fort. The siteincludes a large artificial mound, several sacredWELLS, a racecourse, and other ritual sites. Anew museum at Emain Macha includes holo-graphic projections of the presumed stages ofEmain Macha’s ritual past.

Macha’s connection with Ulster and with thetales of the ULSTER CYCLE have led some schol-ars to a rgue that she was the goddess of theregion’s SOVEREIGNTY; she would thus have beenthe peer of such important divinities as ÉRIU,after whom the island of Ireland was named, andMEDB, the goddess/queen of CONNACHT. Thatinterpretation of Macha’s significance is not,however, accepted without argument. Others

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interpret Macha as a pre-Celtic goddess who wasassimilated into the social structure of the Celts.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, pp. 90–91; Hull, Eleanor. TheCuchullin Saga in Irish Literature. London:David Nutt, 1898, pp. 91 ff; Straffon, Cheryl.The Earth Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of theLandscape. London: Blandford, 1997, p. 36.

MacInelly See CIAN.

Mac Moincanta Irish god. A minor divinityof the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, he was called “fatherof the gods” after the beneficent DAGDA gave upthat title. Later he was called a FAIRY king, but hewas unseated as the head of the Irish fairies bythe more important Fionnbharr.

Mac Roth Irish hero. A minor hero of theTÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, the great epic of the CATTLE

RAID by queen MEDB of CONNACHT upon theadjoining PROVINCE of ULSTER, Mac Roth wasthe fleet messenger of Medb’s consort, kingAILILL mac Máta, and was said to have been ableto cover all of Ireland’s roads between sunrise andsunset of a single day. Another man of the samename was the minor king of Ulster who ownedthe great brown BULL, DONN CUAILNGE, whomMedb wished to borrow for a year, to impregnateone of her COWS and provide her with an off-spring as good as one of Ailill’s bulls. Medboffered a fortune in gold and her own fine favorsas rent for the bull, which was quite sufficient forMac Roth. But when he overheard Medb’s war-riors mocking him, saying that if he would notrent the bull, they would steal it, Mac Roth can-celed the deal and the provinces went to war.

Madgy Figgy (Madge Figgy) Cornish hero-ine. This renowned WITCH of Cornwall livednear Raftra, where she made her living scroung-ing debris from wrecked ships. Some believed

she magically called up storms to cause suchwrecks, sitting on a huge basalt rock off Land’sEnd that has a level space on its top where shecould invoke the weather spirits. Once she andher crew of wreckers found the body of aPortuguese lady on the shore, drowned in one ofthe storms Madgy Figgy had raised. The witchclaimed the jewels the woman wore and hidthem in a chest in her house. Every night there-after, a strange light would be seen traveling toMadgy’s cottage, until finally a stranger came totown and followed the exact path of the light.When he left, he had all the woman’s jewels, andMadgy had a fortune in ransom. “One witchknows another, living or dead,” she said sagely.

Source: Hunt, Robert. Cornish Customs andSuperstitions. Truro: Tor Mark Press, n.d, p. 34.

madness Mythological theme. In Celticmythology, we find a number of figures who gomad—a state that generally leads to developmentof a prophetic or other paranormal skill. Malefigures tend to go mad because of the horrors ofwar, suffering what we might call post-traumaticstress disorder today but was called “soldier’sheart” in ancient Ireland, where the kings SUIB-HNE and MUIRCERTACH MAC ERC both went madfrom battle fatigue and died before being fullyhealed. In Welsh mythology, the warriorMyrddin (who becomes the magician MERLIN inthe Arthurian material) went mad from the hor-ror of the battle of Arfderydd and retreated toScotland, where he both healed himself and dis-covered his prophetic powers.

The connection of madness with battle isreinforced by the presence in Irish mythology ofthe war goddess NEMAIN, “war-frenzy,” whosename suggests that insanity was put to use inbattle. Occasionally, female figures plagued withmadness are found, most notably MESS

BUACHALLA, whose insanity derived from herdiscovery that she had unwittingly committedincest with her father; and MIS, who went madafter drinking her own father’s blood. Even in

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such cases, madness is typically a result of vio-lence or bloodshed.

Source: McDowell, Patricia. “Soldiers’ Heart.” InPatricia Monaghan, ed. Irish Spirit: Pagan,Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin: WolfhoundPress, 2001, p. 22.

Madrun See MODRON.

Maedoc (Mogue, Maodhóg, Saint Maedoc)Irish legendary figure. Some of the earlyChristian SAINTS of Ireland have attributes orengage in activities that seem connected with theCeltic OTHERWORLD. Such is the case withMaedoc, associated with the eastern province ofLEINSTER. He was said to have been born afterhis mother, queen EITHNE (also the name of agoddess), saw the MOON enter her husband’smouth at the very moment he saw a star enterhers. In 598 C.E. Maedoc set out on the back ofa sea monster from Wales, where he had giventhe last rites to the land’s patron saint, David. InIreland he quickly converted the local chieftainand built a church, eventually becoming bishopof Ferns, then capital of the province.

Maelduin (Maeldun, Maeldúin, Maol Dúin,Mael Dúin, Maeldune) Irish hero. One of themost famous VOYAGE poems of ancient Ireland,variously said to have been recorded in the ninthand the 11th centuries, concerns this younghero. Maelduin was born of violence after hisfather raped a nun, who then died giving birth tohim. Maelduin’s aunt raised him and told himthe story of his conception and birth. In an epicstory sometimes called the “Irish Odyssey,”Maelduin then set off for the land of the Vikingsto avenge his father, who had been killed bythese invaders. Sixty warriors attended upon theyoung man, and their adventures constitute themajor part of the tale. They met with giant ants,monster CATS, and other extraordinary beingsbefore coming to an OTHERWORLD ISLAND

where they all found FAIRY LOVERS. Such mis-tresses were, however, notoriously difficult toleave, and Maelduin’s group nearly remainedtheir captives for eternity. In the end, however,they returned to the human world.

Source: Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and FightingMen: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and ofthe Fianna of Ireland. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1970, pp. 31 ff, 41 ff.

Maer Irish heroine. This minor Irish heroinedabbled in the occult arts, bewitching nine nutsso that, when he ate them, the hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL would come to her bed. Suspectingthe curious gift, Fionn did not eat the nuts andthus thwarted Maer’s plot.

Maeve See MEDB.

Maga See EBHLA.

Magdalenenberg Continental Celtic archae-ological site. A significant gravesite of the conti-nental Celts was excavated in the early 1890s,and then again in the 1970s, at Villingen-Schwenningen in Germany, near the originalsource of Celtic culture. One of the largest bur-ial mounds in the region, it covered more than ahundred graves, in which numerous ritual andpersonal artifacts were found.

magic Cosmological concept. Magic is classi-cally defined as actions or words performed orspoken with the intention of effecting a change,usually in the external world. The distinction isfurther made that magic is typically an individualpursuit rather than a communal one; when thegroup performs a ritual or chants special words,that is usually defined as religion rather thanmagic. In the case of the Celtic DRUIDS, theboundary between individual and communalpursuits becomes somewhat slippery, as individual

magic 307

action might be taken for a communal good. Forexample, a SATIRE might drive an ungenerousking from the throne; what seems an action ofpersonal vengeance has at its base the social dutyof the BARD to assure that wealth is redistributedthrough the king, the satire proving a correctivemeasure that promotes social harmony.

Individual Celts, like all other ancient peoples,practiced magic, both propitiatory (intended tokeep bad events away) and intercessory (intendedto draw good things near). AMULETS were usedfrom earliest times to ward off evil; apparentamulets have been found in the early Celticarchaeological sites of LA TÈNE and HALLSTATT.Verbal magic is also known to have been used,especially in the form of CURSES, of which there ismuch evidence in the mythological texts.

Some Celtic magical practices survive indegraded form into the present, as superstitions;for instance, shortened versions of personalnames—nicknames—are still used, though nolonger with the intent of keeping loved oneshidden from OTHERWORLD eyes and thus safefrom FAIRY KIDNAPPING. In addition, the ritualof leaving small rags at sacred WELLS or tied toTREES survives to this day; the rags, calledCLOOTIES, have variously been described as left-behind prayers or as purgative rituals that con-dense within themselves negative influences tobe discarded.

Many Celtic divinities had magical powers.This is especially true of deities associated withdruids or bards. In Wales we find the magician-bard GWYDION, who was able with the help ofhis uncle MATH to turn flowers into a bride forhis foster son LLEU LLAW GYFFES; in Arthurianlegend derived from Welsh sources, we find thegreat magician MERLIN, whose powers includedSHAPE-SHIFTING. In Ireland many deities had thepower to change their shapes, most notably thesea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Mag Mell (Magh Meall) Irish mythologicalsite. The terms “plain of honey” and “plain ofdelights” appear in several Irish narratives as

descriptions of the OTHERWORLD, where life isendlessly joyous and sweet, where trees bearblossoms and fruit at once, and where there isneither discomfort nor death. Although thename of this FAIRYLAND seems to imply that it isa level place on land, it is often described as afloating ISLAND, the domain of the sea god MAN-ANNÁN MAC LIR.

Mag Mon See NAMES FOR THE OTHERWORLD.

Mag Mór (Mag Mor, Magh Mhór) Irishmythological site. The “great plain” was a placein the OTHERWORLD where the dead lived, walk-ing incessantly over its level surface; it was seenas a kind of parallel dimension accessible fromthis world. Folklore suggests that the belief wasfound in Ireland as recently as 70 years ago.

Mag Mucramhan (Mag Mucrama) Irishmythological site. A field near the castle town ofAthenry in Co. Galway is the reputed site of agreat battle between the ruler of the province ofMUNSTER, AILILL Olom, and his enemy and fos-ter son, LUGAIDH mac Conn.

Mag Muirthemne Irish mythological site.The great hero of ULSTER, CÚCHULAINN, wassometimes said to live on the plain of MagMuirthemne, south of contemporary Dundalk(DÚN Delgan in Irish), although that town is morecommonly described as the site of his fortress.

Magog Irish and British hero. The name of afamous Cornish GIANT appears as well in themythological history of Ireland. In the BOOK OF

INVASIONS, Magog was said to have been theancestor of PARTHOLÓN and NEMED, two earlyinvaders; he was the ancestor as well of theScythians, reputed to have been ancient relativesof the Irish. It is not known whether there is anyconnection between this Irish figure and theCornish giant GOG.

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magpie Symbolic bird. In Ireland it was con-sidered an ill omen to see a magpie when settingout on a journey, while seeing a speckled horseor “magpie pony” was almost as unlucky. Fourmagpies in a row indicated a death in the family.

Mag Réin See NAMES FOR THE OTHERWORLD.

Mag Tuired (Moyturra, Mag Tuirid, MaghTuireadh, Moytirra) Irish mythological site.Two great battles in Irish myth took place onthe plain called Mag Tuired, both of whichresulted in the victory of the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, the people of the goddess DANU, overanother race in the struggle to rule Ireland. Inthe first battle of Mag Tuired, Tuatha Dé war-riors under the leadership of their king NUADA

wrested control of Ireland away from the earlierresidents, the FIR BOLG, while in the second andmore famous battle, the tribe of Danu drove outthe FOMORIANS.

There is considerable contention about whatactual location is referred to in the ancient leg-ends. Although it is agreed that Mag Tuired was inthe western province of CONNACHT, sites in Co.Mayo and in the adjoining Co. Sligo have beenproposed. At the latter, megalithic remains arestrewn about the area and could have given rise tothe name, which means “plain of the pillars.”

Maiden Castle British mythological site. InDorset, a great HILLFORT was built during the IronAge, presumably by the Celts, atop an earlierstructure used by pre-Celtic people. In their turn,the invading Romans in the fourth century cappedthe hill with a temple of their own, dedicating it toDIANA. The site has thus been held sacred for asmuch as 6,000 years and seems to have beendevoted to a wildwood goddess, if the Roman des-ignation follows that of earlier peoples.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 97.

Maine (Maine, Mainí, The Manes) Irishheroes. These minor characters are the sevenidentically named sons of the great queen MEDB

of CONNACHT and king AILILL mac Máta. Onelegend about the Maines says that Medb vio-lently wished for the death of her enemy, kingCONCOBAR MAC NESSA of ULSTER. A DRUID

prophesied that her son Maine would kill him.Medb had no sons by that name, so she renamedthem all.

One of the Maines, the one originally calledSin and later Maine Mórghor, went off with aband of warriors to Ulster to court the maidenFearbh, daughter of Gearg. They were all enjoy-ing the HOSPITALITY of Gearg when a strangewind blew up, which Maine’s druid warned was abad OMEN. Meanwhile a woman of the OTHER-WORLD appeared to Concobar and led him toGearg’s home, where the host was slain as well asMaine Mórghor. Medb had a vision of what washappening but arrived too late to save her son.

Another hero of the same name was a Norseprince who did king Concobar mac Nessa’s willwhen the errant hero NOÍSIU returned to Irelandwith the beautiful but doomed DEIRDRE; Noisíufell to Maine’s sword.

Mairenn Irish heroine. A king of TARA hadtwo wives, one of whom, Mairenn, always worea gorgeous headdress of gold. The other,MUGAIN, was envious of her co-wife’s jewelry butsuspected that Mairenn was hiding something.Indeed she was, for Mairenn was bald beneaththe gold, as the whole court might have seenwhen a bribed woman jester yanked the head-dress off Mairenn’s head. Mairenn cursedMugain, but even as she did so, splendid goldenlocks covered her head so that no one saw hershame. As a result of her ill will, Mugain wasforced to bear a lamb and a SALMON before shecould give birth to a human child.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 326–327.

Mairenn 309

Mal Irish goddess. In the far west of Ireland isthe scenic wonder called the Cliffs of Moher,known in Irish as Ceann na Caillghe, “the headof the HAG.” The hag in question was calledMal—the nearby resort town of MiltownMalbay is named after her—and she was said tohave given her name to the land after she diedpursuing a handsome man across the country-side, intent upon making him her lover.

Mala Liath Scottish folkloric figure. In Rossand Cromary in Scotland, this name was givento a CAILLEACH or HAG figure who tended aherd of wild PIGS. The Cailleach in Scotlandappears often in this form as a goddess of wildanimals, especially DEER; in other lands she ismore typically a weather divinity or creatorgoddess. She may descend from a pre-Celticdeity, since the word cailleach is not derivedfrom any of the Celtic languages, although ithas been adopted into several as a word for anold woman.

Maledisant Arthurian heroine. The name ofthis obscure character in Arthurian legendmeans “ill speech,” and she derided a knight,BRUNO, until she fell in love with him, where-upon her speech became sugary and sweet.

Malekin British folkloric spirit. This FAIRY

was said to haunt a castle in Suffolk after she wasstolen away from her human family, who left herin the weeds while they worked in a nearbycornfield. Her story was recorded in the 13thcentury by Ralph of Coggeshall, an early collec-tor of such tales.

mallet Symbolic object. Several Celtic gods,especially SUCELLUS, carry a tool that resemblesa HAMMER. Others lug about a much larger toolusually called a mallet, a kind of bat whose phal-lic symbolism is clear. The Irish god DAGDA wasknown for his enormous mallet, so big that hedragged it around on a wheeled cart.

Man (Isle of Man, Mannin, Ellan Vannin)Insular Celtic site. The small ISLAND betweenBritain and Ireland was settled in the fourth orfifth century C.E. by Irish sailors, who named itafter the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR. Althoughnot geographically remote, the Isle of Man wasmeteorologically so; boat travel to the islandwas hindered by frequent storms, so the Manxlanguage slowly divided itself from its parentIrish. The residents of the island were fiercesailors who, in ancient times, counted as part oftheir realm the islands far to the north, theHebrides; these were lost to Scotland at the bat-tle of Largs in 1263.

Many ancient customs continued into quiterecent times on the island, including thelongest-running parliament in Europe, theTynwald; stories of mythological import longremained part of the oral tradition. The arrivalof regular boat service in the 1830s, however,encouraged the decline of the Manx languageagainst the favored English tongue; in 1974 thelast native speaker of Manx died at the age of 74.

Manann (Manning) Folkloric figure. In Irishfolklore this name is given to the pagan oppo-nent of ST. PATRICK, a figure who was said tohave been confined to a pool in Co. Monaghanafter being chased across the land by the saint.Transforming himself into a BIRD, a HARE, and aFISH, Manann was finally trapped when the saintprayed that, whatever he was, he would remainso until the end of time. As he was at thatmoment a fish, Manann never set fin outsidewater again.

Despite his confinement, Manann kept agreat treasure with him in the pool, though noone could ever get it because of the magical pro-hibitions around it. When people tried to drainthe pool, FAIRIES appeared and began pipinguntil the workers—and the pool water, too—began to dance, frightening the workers awayand ending the project. Manann has beendescribed as a folkloric survival of the great seagod, MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

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Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 166–168.

Manannán mac Lir (Manandan, Monanaun,Mananan, Oirbsiu) Irish god. An oceanicdivinity, Manannán is described as the son of(“mac”) LIR, an even older although obscure godof the sea. He never lived on land but made hishome somewhere in the ocean, on an ISLAND

variously called MAG MELL (“plain of honey”),TÍR TAIRNGIRI (“land of promise”), and EMAIN

ABLACH (“island of apples”), the last of which hasbeen occasionally connected with the ArthurianOTHERWORLD of AVALON.

A master of SHAPE-SHIFTING, Manannánwas like the Greek Proteus (from whom we getour word protean, many-formed). He couldgrant this power to those he cherished and whocherished him, which made him a popular deityamong BARDS and those who practiced DIVINA-TION. Manannán’s magical powers were many.He traveled across the sea, faster than the windcould blow, in a magical self-propelling boatmade of copper, drawn by a HORSE namedEnbharr (“splendid mane” or “water-foam”)whose HAIR was the froth of the waves. Hecould make a dozen men seem like an army; hecould throw a handful of chips into the brineand make them look like an armada. He had amagic cloak that, when he shook it out, causedforgetfulness.

He was not originally one of the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, the most important deities of ancientIreland, but by the 10th century he had beenabsorbed into their number. It was he, accordingto some tales, who gave the Tuatha Dé the ideaof living under hills instead of leaving Irelandaltogether, and for that he was accepted amongthem. In return he gave the tribe of DANU threegifts: the DRUID’S FOG or cloak of concealment;the feast of GOIBNIU where old age was kept atbay; and finally his own magical PIGS that couldbe killed each day, eaten each evening, and yetcome alive again every morning.

Manannán sometimes appears in literature asa human figure, a sailor who never was lost at seabecause of his uncanny celestial navigationalskills; he is thus described in the works of theIrish scribe Cormac. In other stories from theoral tradition, he was a merchant mariner who,tired of Ireland, moved his base of operations toScotland, where he appears in many folktales.

Manannán gives his name to the Isle of Man,where the sea’s presence is always felt and wherehis grave can still be seen. Oral traditions aboutManannán were scanty in other Celtic regions,but the long survival of the Manx tongue meantthat traditions about the sea god survived on Maninto relatively recent times. Until the 1830s, whenregular boat service began, there was little regularcontact between the Isle of Man and other lands,nor did the residents generally speak English. Butthe Manx language, a branch of Gaelic that wasrelated but not identical to the tongues of Irelandand Wales, did not long survive the intensifiedcontact with other lands, declining rapidly in the19th century; the last native speaker of Manx diedin the latter part of the 20th century.

Manannán was, according to legend, the firstking of the island named for him; he lived in acastle on the top of Mount Barrule, where he isburied, although other stories claim his burialmound can be seen on the seashore beneath PeelCastle. A vantage point looking out to sea wascalled Manannán’s Chair, from which he wassaid to keep watch. Manx fishermen claimedthat, as they mended their nets, Manannán cameto them, walking along the seashore followed bya curious being who seemed to have no head ortorso but three legs—the symbol of the ever-moving sea and also the crest of the Isle of Man.

Manannán was associated with several god-desses and FAIRY women. Most prominent in lit-erature was his daughter or wife FAND (calledFairyland’s “pearl of beauty”), the only threat tothe idealized marriage of the hero CÚCHULAINN

and his paragon of womanhood, EMER.Manannán was also associated with the SUN god-dess ÁINE, who left his watery bed to rise eachmorning; but other legends call her his daughter

Manannán mac Lir 311

rather than his spouse. His children were theheroes Gaiar and MONGÁN.

Sources: Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and FightingMen: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of theFianna of Ireland. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1970, pp. 96 ff; Killip, Margaret. TheFolklore of the Isle of Man. London: B. T. Batsford,Ltd., 1975, pp. 5, 43; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 25.

Manawydan (Manawyddan, Manawydan fabLlyr) Welsh god. From his name, it appearsthat Manawydan should be cognate to the Irishgod of the sea, MANANNÁN MAC LIR, but in Walesthis divinity was more associated with faminethan with sailing. He remained, however, associ-ated with the OTHERWORLD, which to the Welshwas more typically below ground than out to sea,as it appeared to the Irish.

Manawydan appears in several branches of theMABINOGION, the great collection of Welsh mytho-logical tales that dates to the Middle Ages. In thesecond branch, Manawydan accompanied hisbrother, the gigantic hero BRÂN THE BLESSED, toIreland to free their sister BRANWEN from an abu-sive marriage to king MATHOLWCH. When theygot there, the king had set many traps for the res-cuers, who fought so fiercely that only a fewIrishmen survived—leaving Ireland empty exceptfor five pregnant women. Manawydan accompa-nied the miraculous HEAD of his brother Brân backto Wales, as well as providing safe passage for theirunfortunate sister Branwen, who died of sorrow atthe bloodshed upon arriving safely home.

Manawydan went on to become the secondhusband of the miraculous queen (and probablegoddess) RHIANNON, in a double wedding withher son PRYDERI and his beloved CIGFA. Shortlythereafter the land became strangely barren, allits people and animals disappearing into anOtherworldly mist. After attempting to eke out aliving through hunting, Manawydan took thegroup east, where they worked as artisans.

Manawydan proved so talented as a shoemakerthat other craft workers, fearing they would losebusiness, rose up and drove the group away.Back in Wales, things grew steadily worse, forRhiannon and Pryderi fell under an enchant-ment and disappeared.

Living chastely with Cigfa, Manawydan ven-tured into the markets again, again to be drivenback for his threatening excellence. He thenturned to farming but constantly found his cropsravaged. Finally he caught several mice devour-ing his grain and made plans to ceremoniouslyexecute them. As he prepared to do so, travelersarrived and bargained for the mice’s safety—forthe vermin were the disguised friends of an oldenemy of Pryderi’s father. Trading the rodents’lives for the freedom of his own family,Manawydan was able to reunite the two couples,who settled down to a happy life thereafter.

Sources: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion.New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976;Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions of BritishMythology. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc.,1972, pp. 25–26.

Manching Continental Celtic archaeologicalsite. One of the largest and best-known Celticsettlements was excavated near the Bavariantown of Ingolstadt. A five-mile-long wall sur-rounded the many buildings of the settlement,and domestic and some ritual artifacts werefound there; most of these are now housed inmuseums in Munich and Ingolstadt, althoughsome remain at a small museum on the site.

Maoilin (Meeling, Miss Moylan) Irish hero-ine. Near the town of Duhallow in Co. Cork,there is a rock on which a shape like a handprintwas long visible. It was said to have been leftthere by Maoilin, a girl who escaped from mar-riage to a man she did not love by rising into theair, flying across the valley, and disappearing intothe rock. Another version of the story says thatshe was stolen away from her human bride-

312 Manawydan

groom by a spectral one who took her to FAIRY-LAND. The rock was long visited on the harvestfestival of LUGHNASA, when it was decked withflowers. Some believe Maoilin to be the vestigeof an ancient goddess of the land or a FAIRY pro-tector of its prominent families.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, pp. 210–211.

Maol Flidais Irish mythological figure. Likethe great GLAS GHAIBHLEANN, the COW whogave endless amounts of MILK, the Maol Flidaiswas a symbol of abundance. Owned by the wild-wood goddess FLIDAIS, this beast may have orig-inally been a goddess, for she is described asequal to her mistress. Not only did she give milkcopiously, but her gentle lowing could be heardacross the land.

Maponus Welsh hero or god. A minor Welshand British divinity, his name has been translatedas “son of the mother” or “divine youth”; he isconnected with the goddess MODRON, “mother.”Known from several sculptures that show him asa naked lad holding a lyre, he may be the same asthe similarly named god MABON. The Romansequated Maponus with APOLLO, suggesting thathe was connected with the arts.

Marcassa Breton heroine. A traditional Bretonfolktale tells of the beautiful distant castle of theprincess Marcassa, where a magical BIRD roostedwho held the cure for the mysterious illness ofthe land’s ruler. The bumbling hero, princeLuduenn (“little cinders”), set off to find the birdand thus speed the king’s recovery, for his twostrapping older brothers had gone forth andnever returned. It did not take him long to findthe brothers, who were living wildly and well in adistant city, where they stole his little money andturned him out. So Luduenn set off, poor butdetermined, to find princess Marcassa’s palace.And indeed he found the palace, and within it a

bird caged in gold, but first he was tempted tosteal some magical self-replenishing bread and akiss from the princess herself.

The kiss impregnated the sleeping princess,and when her son was a year old, she went insearch of the father. Encountering the evilbrothers, she realized that she was on the rightpath and that they had stolen her bread fromLuduenn. When she reached the palace, shefound her magical bird had been so fretful with-out her that he had worked no HEALING for theking. Once again in her presence, the bird sangjoyously, and the king was soon well. WhenMarcassa told him what she had discoveredabout Luduenn’s older brothers, the king hadthe dissolute boys killed and installed Marcassaand Luduenn as king and queen. This story hasmuch in common with the Scottish folktale ofBrian and DÉR GRÉINE.

Source: Luzel, F. M. Celtic Folk-Tales from Amorica.Trans. Derek Bryce. Dyfed, Wales: LlanerchEnterprises, 1985, p. 84.

March (March fab Merchiawn) Welsh hero.The Welsh corollary to king MARK of the legendof TRISTAN and ISEULT, March was called one ofthe “Three Seafarers of the Island of Britain,”where he arrived on a boat from the land of theNorsemen to become his cousin king ARTHUR’soccasional adviser.

mare Mythological animal. Although HORSES

in general had mythological significance to theCelts, special importance was given to the femalehorse. The continental horse goddess EPONA waspictured riding on a mare or surrounded by fil-lies; the Irish goddess MACHA raced horses whilepregnant, as though she were a mare herself; theWelsh goddess RHIANNON similarly rode on amagical mare. At UISENACH, the central sacredhill of Ireland, a rampart and ditch have beeninterpreted as being a horse temple, becausebeneath the outer ring were found tunnels in theshape of a stallion pursuing a mare.

mare 313

Myth often diminishes into folklore andsuperstition. Thus it was with the sacred horse,who lived on after Christianization in the folkbelief in the “true mare,” the seventh consecu-tive filly borne to a mare. This lucky animalcould not be kidnapped by the FAIRIES, and shecould protect her owners from FAIRY KIDNAP-PING as well. Where a true mare was foaled,SHAMROCKS grow in her honor.

Marie au Blè French folkloric character. IntoChristian times in Valenciennes, at the time ofthe ancient Celtic harvest feast of LUGHNASA, agirl dressed in white was led through the streetsby dancing young men. “Mary of the Wheat”was accompanied by an attendant who carried awhite cloth upon which were displayed the firstgrains of harvested wheat. The festival, nowabandoned, appears a late continental survivalof Lughnasa.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 387.

Mari Lwyd (Mari Llud) Welsh folkloric fig-ure. In the period between Christmas andJanuary 6—the old New Year’s Day—an oldHOBBYHORSE tradition was celebrated until rel-atively recent times in villages throughoutSouth Wales. The head of a horse, said to be theMARE Mari Lwyd and decorated with ribbonsand other finery, was carried from house tohouse by a group that, demanding entry withobscure words, were answered with more versesfrom within. The horse and her carriers werefinally admitted, whereupon celebrations fol-lowed. Such “trick-or-treating” typicallydescends from earlier prophylactic or wardingrituals, so the Mari Lwyd may have been a ritualof safety and propitiation of cosmic powers forthe year. The modern Welsh poet DylanThomas knew of this folklore, which inspiredhis “Ballad of the Mari Lwyd.”

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 77.

Mark Cornish hero. The great romance ofTRISTAN and ISEULT tells of a love trianglebetween that couple and king Mark of Cornwall(occasionally, of Cornouille on the Bretoncoast). When he was presented with a singlestrand of hair of dazzling gold, Mark decidedthat the woman from whose head the hair camewas the world’s most beautiful—and that hewould have her for his bride. Discovering thatthe woman in question was the Irish princessIseult, Mark sent his nephew Tristan to bringher to his court. On the journey home, the pairaccidentally drank a potent liqueur that had themagical power to make people love until death.Thus bound, Tristan and Iseult could never behappy apart.

Nonetheless, Tristan dutifully brought hisbeloved to her new husband. When Iseult couldnot bear to spend her wedding night with Mark,she sent instead her handmaiden, BRANGIEN, whopretended to be the queen and was deflowered byMark. The fated couple struggled against theirlove but finally left the court for several years tolive together. When they returned, Mark took hiswife back without complaint.

Mark is a relatively shadowy and passive fig-ure compared to the active lovers. He is clearlyparallel to two other Celtic heroes whose wivessimilarly left them for younger men: kingARTHUR of Britain, whose queen GUINEVERE

preferred the young knight LANCELOT; and theaging Irish hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, whoseforthright bride GRÁINNE ran off with his under-ling DIARMAIT. This recurrent plot has recalledto many commentators the motif of a goddess ofthe land’s SOVEREIGNTY choosing a more virileand younger ruler as an older one fades.

Source: Bedier, Joseph. The Romance of Tristan andIseult. Trans. Hilaire Belloc. New York: VintageBooks, 1965.

314 Marie au Blè

marriage Ritual and cosmological concept.The current understanding of marriage as a rela-tionship between a man and a woman who havepledged sexual fidelity and economic interde-pendence for life is relatively new and, eventoday, limited to only certain regions of theworld. As the Celtic world encompassed manylands with differing customs, it is not possible tocategorically describe a single rite or tradition ofmarriage shared by all. A contemporary interpre-tation of some Celtic traditions as representinggreater rights for women within marriage hasboth adherents and opponents; some believe thatwhere such freedom is found, it derives from thecustoms of earlier settlers like the PICTS.

Mythologically, marriage often was used as away of representing the relationship between aking and the land. Joined in a symbolic unionwith the goddess of the land’s SOVEREIGNTY, theking was expected to live righteously, not break-ing any of his sacred vows (BUADA) or taboos (seeGEIS). Such rectitude would result, it wasbelieved, in the land’s being fruitful and the peo-ple, thus, well fed and happy.

Marrock Arthurian hero. A werewolf, Marrockcould not assume human form unless he hadhuman clothing. His wife, wishing to spend timewith her lover, hid Marrock’s clothes, forcing himto live as a WOLF in the hills. King ARTHUR

encountered him and, realizing he was under anenchantment, brought him home, whereMarrock was so friendly to his wife that sherelented and returned his clothes. Thereupon, heresumed his humanity and his marriage.

Mars Continental Celtic and British god.When the Roman legions subjugated variousCeltic tribal lands, they practiced the INTERPRE-TATIO ROMANA, calling local divinities by Romannames. Thus we have more than 60 versions ofMars, the Roman god of agriculture who, inlater times, became a god of war—under the rea-soning that Roman fields needed to be protectedby warriors against invaders who might take

them over. Whether the Celts saw their ownMars as similarly connecting war and agricultureis not clear, although some inscriptions andsculptures suggest as much, especially those inwhich Mars is depicted as wearing a warrior’sattire but holding a CORNUCOPIA filled with thefruits of the harvest.

Mars is in some cases described as a protectorof the people, identified with the god TEUTATES

(“ruler of the people”), found in several sites.Other commentators suggest that the Celtic“Mars” may have been a god of the wildwoodand/or of HEALING, the latter apparently arisingfrom the image of a warrior fighting off disease.

Many inscriptions and altars to Mars arefound through Celtic lands, suggesting that hewas a popular divinity or that the divinities sub-sumed in the Roman god were so. Typical depic-tions of Mars show him in Celtic military garb,sometimes even wearing a twisted-metal TORC

around the neck—an interesting decision giventhat the Celtic warriors had been defeated by theoccupying Romans. In some cases Mars is shownnaked, carrying a weapon, a clear reference tothe tradition of Celtic warriors going to warwithout clothing or armor. Another Celtic motifappears in the occasional multiplication of Marsinto THREE gods. Mars was never known as atriple god in Rome, but the Celts often empha-sized divine power in this symbolic manner.

Mars figures are especially found in Britainand, on the Continent, among the Belgai and theRemi. In some cases a surname is provided for theMars figure, which has been interpreted as origi-nating in the original Celtic name for the regionalor tribal divinity. Some of these names include:

• Mars Alator.• Mars Albiorix, “world-king,” tribal god of

the Albici of Gaul.• Mars Beatucadrus, “bright one” or “comely

in slaughter.”• Mars Braciaca, possibly a god of grain or ALE.• Mars Camulos, shown with an OAK crown or

with ram’s horns.• Mars Caturix, “battle-king.”

Mars 315

• Mars Lenus, a healing SPRING god of Trier inGermany.

• Mars Lucetius, “light.”• Mars Mediocius, found only in Colchester,

England.• Mars Mogetius, whose name appears on two

inscriptions from Bourges and Seggau.• Mars Mullo (“mule” or “wall”), a healer

depicted with a horned SERPENT.• Mars Nabelcus, known from several inscrip-

tions in France.• Mars Rigisamus, “king of kings.”• Mars Smertrius, whose name includes the

same syllable for abundance as found in thegoddess Rosmetra.

• Mars Vesontius.

Mary (Saint Mary) Christian figure with Celticresonances. When the Roman legions arrived inCeltic lands, they practiced the INTERPRETATIO

ROMANA, whereby indigenous divinities wererenamed with Roman names while keepingtheir original iconography and legends. In thesame way, the Roman church adopted andadapted itself to the multiple indigenous reli-gions of Europe by absorbing some of theirspiritual visions into its own. Very useful in thisproject was the figure of the mother of Jesus,the virgin Mary, who assumed the symbols andstories of a number of Celtic and otherEuropean MOTHER GODDESSES.

In England a folk belief claims that the entireisland was Mary’s bridal dowry, provided by herbrother, the merchant JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA, whobrought the GRAIL back to Britain after the deathof Mary’s son Jesus. In some legends Mary herselflived out her life in Britain after the resurrection.

Mary Candle See MILKING CHARMS.

Mary Morgan (Morrigain) Breton folkloricfigure. This siren or MERMAID was said to hauntthe shores off Brittany, singing sweetly to bringsailors to her dangerous rocks. She was espe-

cially associated with the Bay of Douaranez,where the legendary princess DAHUT was said tohave built her crystal city of YS. Sailors werewarned to carry a crucifix or other AMULET withthem when sailing past Mary Morgan’s rocks.

Math (Math fab Mathonwy) Welsh hero orgod. The fourth branch of the Welsh mytholog-ical texts called the MABINOGION bears the nameof this mythological figure. In it we learn of kingMath of Gwynnedd, whose ceremonial foot-holder GOEWIN was raped. Much of the action ofthe story revolves around Math’s attempts toreplace the girl with a qualified applicant, whohad to be a virgin in order to keep Math magi-cally safe. The apparently strange demand thatMath never set foot on the ground was a com-mon kind of kingly taboo or GEIS found in Celticlands; in Ireland, for instance, the king of Tarawas never to spend more than eight nights awayfrom home.

Math’s character is a rather shady and evenunpleasant one. He was not above conspiringwith his nephew GWYDION to reveal the secretsof Gwydion’s sister ARIANRHOD; he also collabo-rated in the building of an artificial bride forArianrhod’s son, LLEU LLAW GYFFES, to thwartthe curse that he would never find a wife. Thefact that his heir was his nephew, rather than hisson, gives support to the theory that MATRILINY,succession through the mother, predominated inancient Welsh culture.

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976.

Mathgen Irish god. A minor member of theTUATHA DÉ DANANN, the magical tribes of thegoddess DANU, Mathgen was a magician; he maybe connected to the Welsh figure of the magi-cian-king MATH.

Matholwch Irish hero. In the second branchof the MABINOGION, the great compilation of

316 Mary

Welsh myths, we learn of an Irish king who triedto establish tighter bonds with the Celtic peo-ples across the Irish Sea in Wales, by marryingthe beautiful young princess of the land, BRAN-WEN. Once they were back in Ireland, he treatedher poorly because her evil half-brotherEFNISIEN had attacked his horses. DespiteBranwen’s giving birth to their son, GWERN,Matholwch abused her physically and verbally,until her heroic brothers BRÂN THE BLESSED andMANAWYDAN brought an army to free her.

Matholwch set a trap, inviting the warriorsfrom Wales to a banquet where warriors hid, dis-guised as sacks of grain, all about the dining hall.Efnisien intuited the danger, however, and killedthe saboteurs. In the fighting that ensued, Brânand all but seven of the Welsh heroes were killed,though they took all the Irish warriors with themto the grave, including Matholwch. Arrivinghome in Wales, Branwen died of a broken heartat the carnage brought on by her unhappiness.

Matres See DEAE MATRES.

matriliny (matrilineality) One of the mostcontentious areas of contemporary research intothe Celts is that of gender relations. Were Celticwomen freer than others in their time, or is that aprojection by scholars imagining a culture with-out strict gender stereotyping? Those who envi-sion the Celtic world as one in which women hadmore rights (presumably, more obligations as wellas greater power) point out that many mytholog-ical heroes in Celtic lands bear their mother’s, nottheir father’s, names. In Ireland we find the kingof ULSTER, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, son of hismother NESSA; the king of CONNACHT, AILILL macMáta, son of the woman Máta; the romantic heroDIARMAIT Ua Duibne, whose name translates as“Dermot, descendant of the ancestral motherDubinn”; and finally an entire race, the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, “people of the goddess DANU.” InWales we find MABON vab MODRON, “Son, son ofMother.” In Wales we also find king MATH, whosethrone was inherited by his sister’s son (GWYDION,

son of DÔN), who was in turn succeeded by his sis-ter’s son LLEU LLAW GYFFES, all suggestive of amatrilineal inheritance.

The tracing of descent through the mother-line rather than patrilineal or father-line succes-sion is not a clear argument for greater rights orpowers for women, but it is suggestive of differ-ent gender relations during the periods in ques-tion. Because many of these figures date from anearly mythological strata, it has been proposedthat matriliny is a remnant of the cultural organ-ization of the pre-Celtic people called the PICTS.

Source: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. “Queen Medb,Female Autonomy in Ancient Ireland, and IrishMatrilineal Traditions.” In Jones-Bley, Karlene,Angela Della Volpe, Miriam Robbins Dexter,and Martin E. Huld, eds. Proceedings of theNinth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference.Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study ofMan, 1998, pp. 95–122.

Matrona British and continental Celtic god-dess. Her name means “mother,” and she wasmother of the obscure British god MAPONUS,whose name seems to mean nothing more than“son of the mother.” Matrona’s name survives inthe name of the river Marne in France, whichformed the border between the settlements ofGaul and those of the Belgae. Celtic RIVER

divinities were typically goddesses who embod-ied not only the life-giving force of the river’sWATER but the FERTILITY of the land of thewatershed. She may be the same goddess foundin Wales as MODRON.

Matronae See DEAE MATRES.

Matter of Britain (Matière de Bretagne)Literary term. This term describes the Arthurianlegends that, growing from presumed Celticroots, became part of the literary heritage ofEngland and, to a lesser extent, France, wheresome Arthurian material is found in Celtic

Matter of Britain 317

Brittany. The figures of LANCELOT and GUINE-VERE, the knights of the ROUND TABLE, the sor-ceress MORGAN and the magician MERLIN, andking ARTHUR himself are part of this cycle oftales, as are the motifs of the GRAIL quest and thelove triangle that destroys a heroic court.

From medieval times, artists and authorshave found inspiration in the Matter of Britain,but the Arthurian revival of the 19th centuryencouraged widespread use of the figures, narra-tives, and motifs of Camelot. Alfred LordTennyson wrote numerous pieces on the subject,notably Idylls of the King, while in America thesatirist Mark Twain used Merlin as a central fig-ure in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’sCourt. The 20th century began with some rela-tively straightforward treatments of Arthur,including T. H. White’s The Once and FutureKing and The Sword in the Stone, while theAmerican poet T. S. Eliot relied upon the relatedGrail figure of the Fisher King in “The WasteLand.” Later, a women’s viewpoint was intro-duced in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s popularnovel, The Mists of Avalon, and its many prequels.Films inspired by the Arthurian material includeExcalibur by John Boorman, who named his pro-duction company after Merlin.

Matus (Matunus) British divinity. This BEAR

deity—possibly a god, possibly a goddess—washonored at Risingham, just north of the great wallthat emperor Hadrian built to keep Britain safefrom the aggressive tribes of the north. It is pos-sible that Matus was Pictish rather than Celtic.

Maughold (St. Maughold, Machutus) Manxlegendary figure. Early Christian legend on theIsle of MAN tells of this man who, after beingconverted by ST. PATRICK, was padlocked to asmall boat and put out to sea; the key was thrownoverboard, where a FISH ate it. Maughold wasrescued, but the lock could never be openeduntil, many years later, a fish was caught andserved to him, and it proved to contain the long-lost key. Unlocked at last, he rose to become

bishop of the island. Folkloric motifs in thisstory, as well as the celebration of Maughold’sfeast at the old Celtic harvest holiday of LUGH-NASA, suggest that a Christian legend absorbedan earlier pagan one.

Mauher Slieve Irish mythological site. In thesouthwestern PROVINCE of MUNSTER, manymountains are named for goddesses (see ÁINE,MIS). In Co. Tipperary, in the center of a groupof 12 mountains named for the otherwiseobscure goddess ÉBHLINNE, rises a hill calledMauher Slieve, the Mother Mountain, whichwas a traditional site of celebrations for theCeltic harvest feast of LUGHNASA. Some versionsof the BOOK OF INVASIONS say that the goddess ofthe Mother Mountain was FÓDLA, one ofIreland’s THREE major earth goddesses.

Mauthe Doog See BLACK DOG.

Maxen (Macsen, Macsen Wledig) Welshhero. An historical king, Maxen was originally aRoman soldier from Spain (possibly of Celticorigin, although that is unclear) who married aCeltic woman named ELEN (Helen) Lwddogafter he moved to Britain in ca. 383 C.E. A finewarrior and general, he was proclaimed emperorMagnus Maximus of Rome by his legions, whomhe led in an assault on the continental Romanlands and finally upon Rome itself. The emperorValentinian II left the city when the usurpingwestern emperor arrived, but Theodosius,emperor of the eastern part of the vast Romanterritory, met Maxen in battle and defeated him,having him put to death on July 28, 388 C.E. Hiswidow Elen was permitted to return to Wales,where she became the ancestral mother of sev-eral dynasties. Maxen appears in Welsh litera-ture in the visionary 12th-century poem, TheDream of Maxen.

maypole Folkloric object and custom. Astrong straight sapling, cut down and reerected

318 Matus

near the festivals of BELTANE, was a reminder ofthe life burgeoning in the woods and fields eachspring. Dancers wrapped ribbons around thetrees and performed elaborate synchronizeddancing beneath them (see MORRIS DANCING).The maypole has been seen as a degraded formof the cosmic world TREE.

mead Symbolic drink. A wine made fromhoney, mead figures in a number of Celtic mythsand legends as a drink favored by warriors. Itsmost consistent mythological association is withthe goddess/queen whose name is the same asthe drink, MEDB, and who represented the intox-ication and danger of KINGSHIP.

Meath See MIDE.

Medb (Maeve, Medbh, Medhbh, Meave)Irish goddess and heroine. From her royal seat atCRUACHAN, the great capital of the westernprovince of CONNACHT, a queen named Medbreigned with great vigor and power. Behind herstands the figure of a goddess, perhaps the god-dess of the land whose marriage to the kinggranted him SOVEREIGNTY over her territory andhedged him about with sacred vows (see GEIS) atthe same time. As a goddess, Medb is linked withthe FIVE fierce figures known collectively as BADB

or and sometimes including the MÓRRÍGAN.At Medb’s capital, now Rathcrogan near

Tulsk in Co. Roscommon, more than 70 ritualand royal sites of the Celtic Iron Age are still vis-ible, including the nearly circular main HILL-FORT on which it is believed that the local kingswent through the ceremony of INAUGURATION.In a huge nearby CAVE with a tiny entrancecalled OWEYNAGAT, Medb was born of an other-wise obscure woman named CROCHAN Crocderg(“the blood-red cup” or “red cream”). Althoughoriginally from the royal hill of TARA, Crochanfled with her mistress, the reborn fairy queenÉTAIN, from the king EOCHAID, Étain’s humanhusband, who followed in hot pursuit. When

they reached Oweynagat, the pregnant hand-maiden so admired the fairy palace or SÍDHE

there that Étain made a gift of it and named thearea around it after Crochan.

A flight from danger also appears in the storyof the princess or priestess ERNE, after whom animportant lake and river are named. Medb gaveErne several important treasures, notably herown COMB and casket (both feminine sexualsymbols). Just then, a GIANT came fromOweynagat, terrifying Erne and her maidens,who fled as a group toward the mythologicalwaterfall of ASSAROE. They drowned before theyreached shelter, their bodies dissolving tobecome Lough Erne. The story is a commonone, appearing near Cruachan in the story of theprincess GILE who became Lough Gill, as well asin the stories of RIVER goddesses like BÓAND,SÍNANN, and GARRAVOGUE.

Medb’s name means “mead” or “intoxication,”which may refer to the cup she offers the king athis inauguration, and/or to the intoxication ofbattle (both figurative and literal, for mead wasprovided to Irish warriors before battle). In leg-end, Medb is fiery and self-willed, sleeping withwhomever she chooses for her own pleasure or togain political advantage through her “friendlythighs” (one of the most famous phrases in theTÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, the great epic of her CATTLE

RAID upon ULSTER). She was never without “oneman in the shadow of another” (another famousphrase from the Táin), and although she keptAILILL mac Máta as her consort, her favored loverwas the massively endowed FERGUS mac Róich,whose appetite matched hers and whose nameindicates his manliness.

Fergus played an important role in Medb’scattle raid, which began with the so-called pillow-talk scene where Medb lay in bed with Ailill,praising herself and her possessions. Ailill claimedto have more than Medb—a claim that dimin-ished Medb’s social status according to BREHON

law. When she found that Ailill did, indeed, havein his herd a splendid white BULL she could not match, Medb set out to find its equal. Theonly such equal was in Ulster, however, where the

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brown DONN CUAILNGE grazed on the lands ofthe minor king DÁIRE. (The two bulls were thereincarnations of bitter enemies, fated to causetrouble; see FRIUCH and RUCHT.)

First Medb tried to coax Dáire to loan herthe great brown bull for a year, hoping that itwould leave her COWS pregnant with astonishingoffspring. Dáire overheard Medb’s warriorsboasting that his cooperation was irrelevant, forthey intended to take back the bull even if herefused to lend it. Insulted, Dáire prepared forwar. Medb marshaled her armies to march uponUlster, taking advantage of the CURSE she knewwould leave the men of the province unable todefend themselves (see DEBILITY OF THE

ULSTERMEN)—a curse leveled upon them by thegoddess MACHA in retaliation for their abuse ofher during her pregnancy. Knowing her oppo-nents would be writhing with the pains of awoman in labor for four days and five nights assoon as she launched the campaign, Medb setout from Cruachan, marching north and east.She traveled in an open cart with four chariotssurrounding her, dressed in all her royal finery.

However, Medb made her plans without fig-uring on the strength of the hero CÚCHULAINN,who single-handedly defended Ulster againstone great Connacht champion after another.While this combat was underway, Medb stolepast and kidnapped the bull she needed. Soonthe Ulstermen roused from their cursed stateand began a massive battle against the forces ofConnacht, who were finally driven off.

In perhaps the greatest anticlimax in ancientliterature, the two bulls fell upon each other andfought—a fight of such magnitude that itextended across all the fields of Ireland.Although the brown Donn Cuailnge finallykilled Ailill’s white FINNBENNACH, he himselfdied not long after limping home to Ulster.Without the white bull, Ailill’s possessions thenmatched Medb’s, making her once again equal toher husband. Thus, from Medb’s standpoint, theending is a happy one.

Medb met her own end on the ISLAND ofClothrann in Lough Ree in the River Shannon,

a place that was apparently sacred to her. On theisland was a WELL in which Medb bathed eachmorning, apparently thereby renewing heryouth and strengthening her power. Hernephew FURBAIDE FERBEND could not forgiveMedb for killing his mother, her sister CLOTHRA.Although the island was far from shore, he prac-ticed hurling stones from a slingshot until he wassure of his aim, then flung a ball of dried brainsacross the water to bring down the great Medb.

Medb may have died on Lough Ree, but sheis said to be buried far away, in the great mega-lithic tumulus of KNOCKNAREA above the townof Sligo. Despite these connections withConnacht, she is also associated with the centralprovince, MIDE, most notably with the hill ofTARA, where Rath Medb may have been the siteof ancient kingly inaugurations. Under the nameof Medb Lethderg (“Maeve Red-Sides”) shemarried one king of Tara after another, showingher to be the great goddess of Sovereignty soimportant in Irish myth.

Often described as a war goddess or warrior-queen, Medb indeed seems a strong battle leader,quite willing to put her champions in harm’s wayto gain her will. Her connection to battle isintensified by the fact that she is shadowed,throughout the Táin, by the even more frighten-ing figure of the black-winged Mórrígan, asuperhuman bird-woman who foretold thefuture of warriors as they began to fight. ThatOweynagat, the Mórrígan’s home, was atCruachan suggests that the two figures wereclosely connected in the Irish mythological mind.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, pp. 91–93; Hull, Eleanor. TheCuchullin Saga in Irish Literature. London: DavidNutt, 1898, p. liii; Kinsella, Thomas, transl. TheTain. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1969.

Medocius British god. Known from only oneinscription in Colchester, Medocius may havebeen a local god of the land, a GENIUS LOCI; he is

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associated with the Roman god MARS, so he mayhave had a warrior aspect, possibly as protectorof territory.

Medros Continental Celtic god. This obscuregod connected with CATTLE may be a Celtic ver-sion of the Persian hero-god MITHRAS; thePersian god was popular among the Romanlegionnaires, who brought him to Celtic lands.

megalithic civilization (megalithic culture)Pre-Celtic culture. Across all of the Celtic landsare found great structures made of rock, thework of a pre-Celtic people whose name andculture are obscured by the lack of written doc-umentation. Called megaliths (“big rocks”),these structures give their name to the so-calledmegalithic civilization of approximately 5000B.C.E. It is not known whether the monumentsfound in Ireland and Britain and in parts of theContinent (Brittany and, arguably, Malta) werebuilt by waves of immigrants, possibly bringingnew religious conceptions to the areas theyinvaded, or whether the style of architecture andits attendant religious conceptions spreadamong people of various cultures and languages.

Megalithic monuments range from a singleupright STANDING STONE, called a MENHIR fromthe Breton word for such objects, to groups ofstones that form a PASSAGE GRAVE, DOLMEN

(from the Breton tol men, “table of stone”), orcromlech (from the apparently contradictoryphrase “bent flat stone” in Welsh), to STONE

CIRCLES that may surround or incorporate dol-mens or menhirs. The size of megalithic struc-tures ranges from the intimate to the immense,with STONEHENGE in Britain and the BRÚ NA

BÓINNE in Ireland being the most famous if notthe largest, an honor held by the great stone cir-cle at LOUGH GUR.

Many of the monuments are decorated withsymbols that have been variously interpreted assunbursts and stars, water meanders, and othernatural forms. Some archaeologists argue thatthese symbols form a consistent language that

permits interpretation of the meanings of thestructures—usually as goddess TEMPLES—butthat theory is controversial.

Only two statements can be made of themegalith builders without argument. First, theywere extraordinary engineers, creating the old-est remaining human structures out of workedand unworked rock. Second, they had an almostunsurpassed knowledge of the stars, for many oftheir monuments are precisely oriented to a spe-cific constellation, MOON or SUN phase, or othersuch astronomical point. Thus the great tumulusat Newgrange admits the light of the winterSOLSTICE dawn through a stone transom thatallows for the obliquity of the ecliptic, or theearth’s wobble; on the same day, the lines ofstones (alinements) at Carnac in Brittany point tosunrise. By contrast, the great open circle atStonehenge is oriented toward the summer sol-stice dawn, and the CAIRN at LOUGHCREW opensto the dawn of both EQUINOXES.

The megalith builders were not Celts. Theirmonuments, apparently connected to their reli-gious beliefs, were not designed by DRUIDS.Continuing misinformation about the sites’builders has led to demands by revivalist druidsocieties for access to Stonehenge for MIDSUM-MER ceremonies, ceremonies that may not actu-ally represent those of the Celtic priesthood.

If the Celts did not build the great stone struc-tures, it is likely—although by no means proven—that they used them for ceremonies. If the impres-sive size and moving architecture of themonuments inspires contemporary worshipers,there is no reason to believe ancient peoples didnot respond the same way. What is clear is thatthese great ancient sites became embedded in folk-lore in Celtic lands, where they were described ashaunted by FAIRIES. Many folktales describe mys-tical events that happened within or around suchmonuments; it is impossible to tell whether suchstories contain kernels of ancient lore from thetime of the builders, actual historical experiences,or a fertile and poetic imagination.

The Celts, who honored deity out-of-doorsand in multiple sites, would have found the

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megalithic monuments suitable for private orpublic rituals. That such religious behavior con-tinued through Celtic times and into the periodof Christianization is suggested by continuededicts of the church against such worship,together with traditionally Celtic rituals atWELLS and SPRINGS. The Councils of Arles(443–452), Tours (567), and Toledo (681 and693) all decried worship of stones in ruined sanc-tuaries; as late as 1410, British archbishops werestill calling for elimination of rituals at the sites.

At the same time, religious credit accrued tothose who damaged or destroyed the ancientstones. Superstitious belief in the stones’ powershad kept them standing long after their buildershad passed away—indeed, it does so today—butduring the Middle Ages, priests and their fol-lowers attacked many stones. One of the mostsignificant reminders of this period is theimmense stone phallus called Longe Pierre orLong Peter in Brittany, which would have stoodsome three stories tall but now lies broken intoseveral pieces on the ground. That so manystone circles and other vestiges of the megalithiccivilization can still be seen in Celtic lands todaytestifies to the continuing power the stone mon-uments hold over the spiritual imagination.

Sources: Aalen, F.H.A. Man and the Landscape inIreland. London: Academic Press, 1978; Bord,Janet, and Colin Bord. The Secret Country: Aninterpretation of the folklore of ancient sites in theBritish Isles. New York: Walker and Co., 1976;Cooney, Gabriel. Landscapes of NeolithicIreland. London: Routledge, 2000; Crawford,E.G.S. The Eye-Goddess. Chicago: DelphiPress, 1994; Gimbutas, Marija. The Languageof the Goddess. London: Thames & Hudson,1989; Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of PrehistoricSites in Britain. London: David & Charles,1976; O’Sullivan, Muiris. Megalithic Art inIreland. Dublin: Country House, 1993.

Meg Mullach (Maug Moulach, MaggieMoloch) Scottish folkloric figure. One of the

many BROWNIES who aided humans with theirceaseless work, Meg took care of the castle ofTullochgorm, which belonged to the Grantfamily. Although Meg looked like a small child,she had an impressive head of HAIR, whence shewas sometimes called Hairy Meg. (Some ver-sions of her story say that she had hairy handsand that she sometimes reached down chimneysto steal children.) Once she helped a stingyfarmer who, realizing that she would do all thework of the farm for free, fired all hisfarmhands; Meg responded by asking for herwages too. As it was forbidden to offer recom-pense to a brownie (see LAYING THE FAIRIES),Meg was within her rights when she disap-peared upon receiving her wages.

Meiche (Mechi, Merca) Irish hero. The greatwar goddess MÓRRÍGAN had one son, Meiche,who had THREE hearts; coiled up within each ofhis hearts were three SERPENTS that, if allowed togrow to maturity, would break forth from hisbody and devastate the land. MAC CÉCHT, a war-rior of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, averted the dis-aster by killing Meiche and throwing the burnedremnants of his body into the Barrow River.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906, p. 63.

Meilge Irish hero. When Meilge killed a fawnthat turned out to be the bewitched maidenAIGE, her brother FAIFNE punished him by utter-ing a SATIRE so fierce that boils popped out onMeilge’s face. Meilge replied in bloody fashion:He had the poet-satirist killed.

Meleagant (Melwas, Meleagraunce, Mellya-graunce) Arthurian hero. In Arthurian legend,a king or giant named Meleagant kidnappedqueen GUINEVERE and held her against her willuntil the beloved knight LANCELOT came to her

322 Meg Mullach

rescue (or, in some versions, until a saint namedGildas talked him into freeing her). In order toreach her, Lancelot had to cross a strange bridgethat went either underwater by a long route orabove the water on a knife-edge. Eager to be athis lover’s side, Lancelot took the upper track,wounding himself horribly in the process. InGuinevere’s chamber, he joined her in bed, leav-ing the sheets bloodied. He failed to considerthat his friend KAY, also wounded seriously, wasasleep in the same room. Although Lancelotcrept away before dawn, Meleagant found theblood and charged Kay with sexually assaultingthe queen. Too weak to defend himself, Kay wasdefended by Lancelot, who then freedGuinevere. Meleagant is called the king ofSomerset, the SUMMER LAND, which makes itprobable that he was originally either a god or aFAIRY king.

Mellts Welsh god. This obscure Welsh godappears to have been an ancestral divinity.

Melor (St. Melor) British and continentalCeltic hero. Many SAINTS in Celtic lands are dis-guised versions of Celtic heroes and gods, forthe migration of mythological motifs from ear-lier times to later figures is a constant in humanculture. In Cornwall and Brittany we find storiesof St. Melor, a supposed early medieval priestwho was murdered and decapitated under theorders of his evil uncle.

As his assailant carried away the severedHEAD, it began to speak. The murderer grewfaint with fear as Melor instructed him to strikethe ground with his staff. Pure water gushed out,while the staff took root and flowered into alovely fragrant tree. As a result, healing WELLS inforests were dedicated to St. Melor; there aredozens of such shrines in Brittany as well as afamous one at Linkinhorne in Cornwall. Suchtree-shaded wells were HEALING shrines; Melorappears to have stepped in for an earlier healinggod or goddess, permitting pagan rituals to con-tinue under Christian protection.

Melusine (Melusina) Continental Celticfolkloric figure. Melusine was the daughter of abeautiful water FAIRY named Pressina who,according to a French folktale, chose a humanman for her mate. Common to such unions wasa vow demanded by the wife—in this case, thatthe husband should never see her while she wasdelivering a child. As with other such recklesshumans, Pressina’s husband grew too excitedwhen he heard she had delivered triplets.Rushing into the birth chamber, he confrontedan angry woman who reminded him of hispromise, then disappeared with the children. (Insome versions of the story, Pressina took theform of a huge SERPENT to give birth.)

The eldest of Pressina’s THREE daughters wasMelusine; her sisters were Meliot and Palatina.All were reared on a magical ISLAND typical ofthe Celtic OTHERWORLD. Melusine grew upangry at her father for breaking his promise andtherefore denying them the comforts of humanlife. When she grew old enough to take action,she orchestrated a raid on her father’s castle,confining him and all his attendants inside amagical mountain. When Melusine returnedhome, she did not find her mother happy at thisvengeful action; instead, Pressina cursed her tobecome a snake for part of every Sunday.

Like her mother, Melusine finally found lovewith a human man, Raymond of Poitou. Andlike her mother, she put limitations on her hus-band: in this case, that he never enter her roomson Sunday. Of course human husbands neverkeep such a vow, and when Raymond saw hispart-snake wife one Sunday, she disappeared infury at his betrayal and thereafter haunted hisfamily as a kind of BANSHEE.

Melwas See MELEAGANT.

Men-an-tol Cornish mythological site. Nearthe village of Lanyon in Cornwall, a megalithicmonument was famous for curing childhood ail-ments as well as spinal deformities. The hugeround boulder with a hole in its center was the

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site of a ritual in which the afflicted were pulledthrough the stone, naked, and then rolled on thegrass THREE (or three times three) times. Thestone can also be used by the hale and healthyfor DIVINATION, for if one put two brass PINS onthe rock and asked a question, the dancing pinswould tell the answer.

See also HEALING STONES.

menhir Mythological and folkloric site. Oftencalled a STANDING STONE, the menhir is a single,usually enormous, stone erected upright in theground by the people of the mysterious MEGA-LITHIC CIVILIZATION some 6,000 years ago.Sometimes the stones were “dressed” or workedinto a specific shape, but usually they wereerected without alteration. There is considerablespeculation about how ancient people moved thestones from their original location, sometimesmany miles from their eventual homes, andengineered them into place.

Mercury British and Continental Celtic god.With the arrival of the Roman legions, scores ofCeltic gods who were radically localized—foundonly in one place or among one tribal group—were renamed after Roman gods. Whether themany gods renamed “Mercury” were originallysimilar, and what the god’s original powers were,is difficult to determine. Caesar claimed thatMercury was the god most worshiped among allthose of the Celts and that he was the most oftendepicted in art. Under his Roman name heremained popular among the Celtic peoples ofboth the Continent and Britain.

Celtic Mercury was shown with a COCK, ram,or GOAT, all symbols of virility and masculineprowess; he was never a warrior like the CelticMARS, but rather a god of commerce and pros-perity. He carried a bag or purse of money, sug-gesting success at transactions. Although alwaysshown in Roman dress, Mercury often wore aTORC, the twisted neck-piece that indicatedprestige and power. Occasionally the CelticMercury was imagined as a messenger or herald

of the gods, although this typically Roman visionwas rare in comparison to Mercury’s importanceas a god of traders and commercial prosperity.

At times the winged double-snake caduceus,a classical emblem still used by doctors andpharmacists, was shown as one of Mercury’sattributes, suggesting powers of HEALING. Thegod was often connected with ROSMERTA, a heal-ing water goddess who was never Romanized.The couple was especially worshiped in Braint, ahealing shrine in Gaul.

Several gods have been argued as the originalof the Romanized Mercury. TEUTATES, the godof the tribe, and ESUS, the woodland god, areboth described with the name Mercury by thepoet Lucan. Some local names survive including:

• Mercury Artaios, “bear” or “ploughed land.”• Mercury Arvernorix, Avernus.• Mercury Cimiacinus, a god of roads in

Britain.• Mercury Cissonius.• Mercury Cultor, “the farmer.”• Mercury Dumaitis, Dumias, “hill” or

“mound.”• Mercury Iovantucarus.• Mercury Moccus, possibly “PIG,” known

from one inscription in France.• Mercury Visucius.

Merlin (Myrddin, Myrdinn, Merddyn, Merddin,Merlinus) Arthurian hero. Aside from the trian-gulated lovers LANCELOT, GUINEVERE, and kingARTHUR, the great magician Merlin is the mostrenowned character in the Arthurian legends. Hewas the power behind the throne, creating andmaintaining the fair realm of CAMELOT. Evenbefore Arthur’s citadel was built, Merlin wasengaged in adding to Britain’s architectural her-itage, for it was he who erected STONEHENGE onSalisbury plain, raising the STONE CIRCLE from itsoriginal site in Ireland and flying it by MAGIC

across the sea to its present site.Merlin’s gifts were recognized early. As a boy

he was chosen to become a foundation sacri-

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fice—a HUMAN SACRIFICE offered to stabilize thefoundation of a new building and to protect it,through his death, from shifts in the earth thatcould damage the structure—but he saved him-self by going into a visionary trance and utteringan extended PROPHECY about the land’s futurerulers and challenges.

The vision was centered on a great DRAGON

that the boy Merlin saw in the foundation’s pit.That dragon led him to envision the greatestking the land would ever know. Arthur wouldnever have been conceived without Merlin’sassistance, for he transformed UTHUR PEN-DRAGON into the semblance of count GORLOIS

of Cornwall so that Arthur’s father could havehis way with beautiful but loyal IGRAINE,Gorlois’s wife. In one night of passion with thedisguised Uther, Igraine conceived the futureking; Uther then killed Gorlois and took Igraineas his wife.

When Arthur was old enough to claim hisinheritance, Merlin led him to a sword in a hugestone; this unnamed weapon is not to be con-fused with EXCALIBUR, the magical gift of themysterious LADY OF THE LAKE that later keptArthur safe from being wounded in battle. Thesword in the stone could only be removed by therightful king. Though many had tried, none hadsucceeded in removing it from its rocky prison,but with one tug, Arthur freed it and revealed hisdestiny, as Merlin knew he would.

Merlin served as Arthur’s confidante andadviser during the happy years at Camelot whenthe ROUND TABLE knights quested for glory.Despite his magic, Merlin either did not see orcould not stop the erosion of Camelot’s powerand prestige, nor Arthur’s eventual defeat.Merlin himself never died but lives on some-where in an OTHERWORLD where he was trappedby his lover, the FAIRY QUEEN or sorceressVIVIANE (sometimes, MORGAN). Some tales saythat Viviane feared he might be attracted toother women, others that she wished to ensurehis immortality. Using the very enchantments hehad taught her, Viviane trapped Merlin in atower or encased him in a great TREE in the

magical forest of BROCÉLIANDE, where he con-tinues to live, immobile and powerless.

Behind this figure of literature and legend isthe ghost of an earlier, possibly divine, figurecalled Myrdinn, after whom the island of Britainwas called Clas Myrdinn or “Myrdinn’s enclo-sure.” In Welsh sources, Myrdinn was said tohave been a warrior who, having gone mad (per-haps the basis for the related figure of MYRDINN

WYLLT) from the horrors that he witnessed at thebattle of Arfderydd, fled to Scotland, where hemeditated until he attained the power ofprophecy. Some argue that Myrdinn was the SUN

divinity worshiped at Stonehenge; that argu-ment assumes the deity was male rather thanfemale, an unproven assertion. Upon the arrivalof Christianity, Myrdinn was said to have takenthe treasures of the land and nine BARDS andgone into retirement in an island off Wales.

Source: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Histories of theKings of Britain. London: J. M. Dent and Sons,1912, pp. 113 ff.

mermaid (Merrow, Morrough, Moruach,Moruadh, Maighdean-mara, Ben-Varrey, MaryMorgan) Continental and insular folkloric fig-ure. Half-human, half-fish beings are found inthe folklore of all Celtic lands, from the west ofIreland across Scotland and England to thecoasts of France. These figures most oftenappeared as female, although male merfolk areoccasionally known. They had much in commonwith other half-human beings such as SWAN

MAIDENS and SEAL people but had special powersas well.

A mermaid was a kind of sea FAIRY, an OTH-ERWORLD creature who swam in shallow coastalwaters, often with the intention of drawinghumans into the brine and to their deaths. Insome tales, mermaids did so because they foundhuman men irresistibly attractive; in these talesthey are typical FAIRY LOVERS. Their sweetsinging lulled people to sleep wherever watercould lap over them so they drowned; these

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figures may be confused with the classical siren,a death-messenger who appears as a bird as wellas a singing maiden.

Unlike the more common fairy mistresses,mermaids were not necessarily lovely. Some hadGREEN teeth or RED noses or PIG eyes. Their hairmight be green and scraggly, made up of seaweedor kelp. Despite this, they seemed to attractenough men that sailors were warned to keepwatch for them; if they spotted you before younoticed them, you were invariably captured.Mermaids were said to be fond of brandy; theyworked in teams to wreck ships carrying it sothat they might forage among the wreckage forunbroken bottles. (The red nose many mermensport was attributed to excessive indulgence.)

Every mermaid wore a little cap called aCOHULEEN DRUITH, which permitted her to safelyswim below the waves and to live in reefs with-out danger. Should a human man wish to take amermaid as his wife, it was important to steal thecap and keep it safely hidden. (Similarly, SwanMaidens’ feather cloaks and Seal Women’s furcoats had to be kept from their view.) If a mer-maid found her cap, she put it on and escapedfrom land, leaving husband and children behind,without a thought or a second glance. As long asshe remained ashore, however, the mermaid wasa wonderful wife: industrious, loving, sensuous,making the risk of her loss worth taking and herabandonment devastating.

All the coastal Celtic lands had their own ver-sions of the mermaid. In Cornwall the mermaidcloaks an ancient sea-goddess, pictured holding amirror, possibly influenced by classical interpreta-tions of the seaborne Aphrodite, Greek goddessof lust and love. The Mermaid of Zennor isCornwall’s most famous manifestation; in a smallcoastal village in Penwith, a girl emerged fromthe ocean to lure the best singer from the church’schoir, Matthew Trenwalla, down to the depths toshare her home and her love. Her image can stillbe seen in the town’s church. In Brittany the mer-maid was apt to steal away young men and keepthem imprisoned underwater, which invariablyresulted in the boys’ death from drowning.

In England mermaids were associated withfreshwater as well as the ocean; the LAKE MAID-ENS did not live in running water but only inpools and other still water. The first syllable intheir name, which appears to mean “sea” (fromthe French, mer), in fact comes from the Anglo-Saxon meer for “lake” or “inland sea.”

Manx mermaid tales emphasized their irre-sistible seductiveness. They lured potentiallovers by holding out coral, pearls, and other seariches—even jewels stolen from ships theywrecked. If a potential mate came to his sensesbefore leaping to certain death and ran awayfrom the alluring mermaid, she heaved stones athis departing figure. If she struck him, he wasdoomed: even though safely on dry land, he diedshortly thereafter.

In Scotland the Maighdean-mara was a half-fish, half-woman who appeared on offshore rockslate at night or near dawn, combing her splendidlong HAIR (see COMB). From a distance she lookedentirely human, but upon further acquaintance itwas clear she had no legs, only a fish-tail. That tailcould, if the mermaid desired, be shaken off, mak-ing her appearance entirely human. She couldthen be very helpful to humans, which was notgenerally the case with her kind.

The Scottish islands are rich in mermaidfolklore. On the Isle of Skye fair-haired peoplewere said to descend from mermaids; membersof the Morrow, MacMorrow, MacCodrums, andMacMurray families were their living relatives.In Orkney, off the northern coast of Scotland, amermaid was recorded to have appeared in thesea in the 1890s, her milk-white body, long arms,and unnaturally tiny head visible from shore. Inthe Hebrides the mermaid did not sport a magi-cal cap as in other lands; instead she had a mag-ical belt that had to be stolen to tame her. Herdescendants were said to have the gift (or curse)of foreseeing who would die at sea. In theShetlands many people believed themselvesdescended from mermaids, pointing to a smallmembrane between fingers and toes (actually anatural, although unusual, physiological muta-tion) as proof.

326 mermaid

In Brittany the mermaid appeared as a siren,luring men to their deaths in treacherous waters.Their leader was the pagan princess DAHUT, whofloated above her submerged city of YS and sangbeautifully to passing sailors. Should a man ven-ture toward her, however, he drowned in thewild ocean waves. Dahut, whose legend describesher murderous love for men, may have been amermaid before being depicted as a princess, or the opposite may be true. In some parts of Brittany it was said that all mermaids aredaughters of Dahut.

In Ireland the moruadh or moruach (“sea-maid”) was known from the earliest literature, forin the BOOK OF INVASIONS mermaids played in thewaves as the invading MILESIANS approached theshore. The Annals of the Four Masters describesmermaids as GIANTS: 195 feet long, with fingersseven feet long and hair measuring 18 feet. Themoruadh was a typically sportive and seductivecreature who regularly mated with humans; nomembers of the Lee family ever drowned,because they were descendants of mermaids.

Sir Walter Scott, in The Bride of Lammermoor,related the tradition that drinking from a mer-maid’s WELL was fatal, in this case to those of theHouse of Ravenswood. The mermaid’s mostfamous literary appearance was in the somewhatsadistic story of “The Little Mermaid” byDanish author Hans Christian Andersen, whodescribed the pains a mermaid underwent tohave her tail cut into legs; this was an inventionof the author and never part of folklore, but itbecame well known as a result of the Disney filmof the same name. A contemporary vision of themermaid appears in the film Local Hero byScottish director William Forsythe, in which anelusive mermaid appears as a goddess of SOVER-EIGNTY who protects her land.

Sources: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends andTraditions of the South of Ireland. London:William Tegg, 1862, p. 180; Kennedy, Patrick.Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 121; MacGregor,Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales

and Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, pp. 105 ff;McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales. Vol.2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp.117 ff; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, pp. 42, 51; Straffon, Cheryl. TheEarth Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of theLandscape. London: Blandford, 1997, p. 95.

merman (Dinny-Mara, Dooinney Marrey,Dunya Mara) Irish and Scottish folkloric figure.Although the half-fish FAIRY creatures of the seawere usually female, there are occasional descrip-tions of mermen in literature and folklore. Unlikethe corresponding female, the merman was rarelyattractive, having piggy eyes and a bright RED nosefrom living on brandy salvaged from wreckedships. Their breath was also unsavory because theyenjoyed dining on raw fish. According to the earlyBritish historian Holinshed, a merman was cap-tured alive during the reign of England’s KingJohn; dubbed the Wild Man of Oxford, he did notlive long in captivity.

Merry Maidens British folkloric site. A num-ber of STONE CIRCLES in Britain bear this name.Typically, local legend says the stones were orig-inally women who, dancing on a Sunday, wereturned to stone for their blasphemy. In somecases the stones are called “nine maidens,” whichmay refer not to their number but to “noon”—the ninth hour in the ecclesiastical day, whence‘nones,’ the midday service—for the hour atwhich they were transformed.

At Stanton Drew a wedding dance was onceso merry that all of Saturday night passed with-out anyone’s noticing. As Sunday morning drewnear, a black-clad stranger appeared and took thefiddle from the chief musician. The music thestranger played was impossible to resist. Eventhe weary, and even those who could not dance,leapt to their feet. On and on the dancers cir-cled, until at dawn they all turned to stone. The

Merry Maidens 327

fiddler—who was of course the DEVIL—prom-ised to come back to play for them again, but,devils being devils, he did not, leaving them pet-rified to this day.

The story of dancers being turned to stone isfound in many variations: STONEHENGE is some-times called the GIANT’S DANCE, suggesting anancient story in which the stones are trans-formed dancers; in Devon a man named RaggedDick was turned to stone with his companionswhen they danced at an inappropriate time; andin the Shetland Islands trolls were turned tostone at Haltadans (“stop the dancing”) togetherwith their musician when the sun rose, a clearsurvival of Scandinavian mythology.

Although dancing was the usual activity pun-ished by petrification, other actions could bringthe same result: Doing WITCHCRAFT broughtthe stony paralysis on Long Meg and herDaughters in Cumbria, while doing farm chores(shearing sheep, digging turnips) on Sundaycaused other people to be turned to stone.

Mesca Ulad See INTOXICATION OF THE

ULSTERMEN.

Mesgedhera (Mesgeara) Irish hero. ThisIrish warrior was better known after death thanbefore, for it was a “brain ball” made from hisscooped-out brains mixed with lime thatseverely injured the great king of ULSTER, CON-COBAR MAC NESSA, when hurled by an opponent.The brain ball lodged in Concobor’s head, andalthough the king survived the wound, it led tohis death years later when the ball shook loose.

Mess Buachalla (Mes Buachalla) Irish god-dess. When the FAIRY QUEEN or goddess ÉTAIN

eloped with her fated lover, the fairy king MIDIR,her human husband EOCHAID Airem set off in hotpursuit of the pair. By the time he caught them atMidir’s stronghold of BRÍ LÉITH, Étain had givenbirth to a girl, a daughter conceived with Eochaid.When Eochaid demanded his wife back, Midir

responded with a fairy trick: He sent out 50 iden-tical women, one of whom was Étain while therest were bewitched to look just like her.

True love sees even through fairy GLAMOURs,and a true lover would have been able to tellÉtain from the others, but Eochaid was moreinterested in having a queen to assure him thethrone of TARA than in Étain herself. Thus he wasunable to tell his real wife from the 49 enchantedversions of her. He picked a woman and took herback to Tara, where she reigned, looking exactlylike the lost queen. She was in fact his owndaughter, who eventually went mad with theknowledge of their incest. She raved about thecountryside, living in the open, for which shegained the name of Mess Buachalla, “theherdswoman” or “The cow herd’s fosterling.”

Another version of the story says that she wasthe daughter of Étain and CORMAC, king ofULSTER, who ordered her killed because hewanted a son as heir. But so sweet was the babythat the warriors ordered to carry out the deedleft her instead with the herdsman of the highking, Eterscél, whence she got her name. Shegrew to a woman of great beauty and wed thehigh king, but not before mating with a bird godnamed NEMGLAN, by whom she conceived theking CONAIRE.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906.

Miach Irish god. Son of the physician godDIAN CÉCHT and brother of the herbalist AIRMID,Miach was himself a brilliant doctor and magi-cian who made skin grow around the silver handof king NUADA, who had been wounded in thegreat second battle of MAG TUIRED and had thuslost his throne. Dian Cécht had crafted a cun-ning hand of silver, one that worked just like areal hand, but it was not sufficient to remove thetaboo against a BLEMISHED KING. Only Miach’smagical healing restored Nuada as king.

328 Mesca Ulad

Alas for Miach, his brilliance brought him noglory, but death at the hands of his enviousfather. Because Dian Cécht had tried and failedto heal Nuada, he could not tolerate his son’ssuccess. Miach’s HEALING powers did not ceasewith death, for the most powerful herbs in theworld grew up on his grave. Airmid tended themuntil they were ready to harvest, then classifiedthem according to the good they would bring tohumanity. Dian Cécht again stepped in, how-ever, scrambling the categories so that the heal-ing knowledge was lost to humankind.

Michael See ST. MICHAEL.

Midac Irish hero. From the land of the Danesonce came a warrior, Colga of the HardWeapons, who was offended that Ireland was theonly seagirt island not under his control. Hisinvasion brought him against the heroic warriorscalled the FIANNA, who, despite being outnum-bered, defeated Colga’s men. Colga himself fellbeneath the weapons of OSCAR, one of the great-est of the Fianna.

Colga had brought his young son, Midac,with him to Ireland. The Fianna’s leader, FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL, decided that rather than kill theboy as an enemy, he should be brought to ALMU

and reared as an Irishman. And so he was, but hecould not shake his fury at seeing his fatherkilled, and he quietly plotted revenge.

Fionn’s men noticed that the boy was sullenand distant, and at length prevailed upon Fionn tosend him away. Giving Midac rich lands in coun-ties Limerick and Clare, Fionn also bestowedupon the young man CATTLE and servants so thathe would want for nothing. Fionn sent him awayand gave little more thought to the boy.

For 14 years, Midac lived peacefully enoughnear the bright waters of the Shannon. Then theFianna came hunting on KNOCKFIERNA, a FAIRY

hill near Midac’s land. A noble warriorapproached them, dressed like a Danish warrior,and demanded that Fionn answer some riddlingpoems. Fionn, who was as gifted with wit as with

strength, quickly saw through the riddles, but hefailed to notice the identity of the young man,whom other members of his band immediatelyknew to be Midac. His identity revealed, Midacinvited the band back to his palace for a banquet.

That palace, surrounded by magical ROWAN

trees, was a splendid sight—but it was silent andunoccupied. Still undeterred, Fionn entered thepalace and made himself comfortable in thegrand banquet hall. Midac entered, stared atthem, and departed without a word. It was thenthat Fionn and his warriors realized that a traphad been set; they had been deceived by a GLAM-OUR and were really being held hostage in acrude shack. One after another of the Fiannawarriors came to their rescue, with DIARMAIT

finally lopping off Midac’s head.Fionn was not free, however, for a CURSE had

been placed on him that he could not leaveMidac’s palace until the blood of THREE foreignkings was sprinkled on its soil. And so Diarmaitwent back, to do battle with three armies andtheir kings. He was so strong and valorous that,despite being vastly outnumbered, he was able todecapitate all three kings and drag their HEADS

into Midac’s palace; as soon as the kings’ bloodstruck the floor, it turned back into a rude shack.The story of entrapment in a bewitched palace isa common one in folklore.

Midas of the Mountains, King See MIDIR.

Mide (Meath) Irish geographical division;Irish hero. Ancient Ireland was divided into thefour PROVINCES still recognized today: LEINSTER

in the east, MUNSTER in the southwest, CON-NACHT in the west, and ULSTER in the northeast.In addition, there was a fifth province, Mide orMeath, which was not of this world but wasinstead a mysterious and elusive center point.This corresponds with an Indo-European visionof the world as divided into four physical dis-tricts, with the invisible center as the fifth.

During the reign of the historical HIGH KING

Tuathal Teachmhair (130–160 C.E.), a county

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near the center of the island was named Meath,and it is still called “royal Meath” because theisland’s political center, the hill of TARA, laywithin it. The original Mide, however, was not ageographical concept but a spiritual one. Theword Mide means “neck” as well as “middle” andso has been interpreted as the point at which theabstract idea of the land’s SOVEREIGNTY (symbol-ically, the HEAD) attaches to the physical landitself (symbolically, the body). That joining wassaid to have occurred on the hill of UISNEACH inthe island’s center, and even more precisely at agreat cracked boulder on the hill, the STONE OF

DIVISIONS, in what is now Co. Westmeath.According to the Dindshenchas, the place-

poetry of Ireland, Mide was a person as well as aplace. A DRUID and son of the otherwiseunknown Brath, he was fostered by the god-dess of the land, ÉRIU, and lit the first fire onor near Uisneach. The fire blazed for sevenyears, fed by gifts from all of Ireland’sprovinces. In the seventh year, other druidsobjected aloud to keeping Mide’s fire ablaze, sohe gathered them together and cut out theirtongues, which he buried in the hill. He thensat above their tongues, and his teacher, thewoman druid GAINE, named the place Uisneach,“over somewhat.”

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992; Gwynn, Edward.The Metrical Dindshenchas. Part II. Vol. IX.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd., 1906, p.43; Rees, Alwyn, and Brinley Rees. CelticHeritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales.London: Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 118 ff.

Midir Irish fairy king or god. In one of themost romantic tales of ancient Ireland, the FAIRY

king Midir fell in love with the beautiful ÉTAIN.Unluckily, he was already married to the jealousDRUID FUAMNACH, who cast a spell on her rival.Étain immediately turned into a fly—a beautifulfly, but a fly nonetheless. In this form she flew

about until she accidentally drowned in a glassof wine.

A princess drank the glass of wine and soonfound herself pregnant (see PREGNANCY

THROUGH DRINKING). Her child was the rebornÉtain, who grew up to be just as beautiful as inher earlier incarnation. She had no memory ofher earlier life as Midir’s beloved, and so shemarried the king of TARA, EOCHAID Airem. Midirhad never forgotten her, however, and set aboutgaining back his beloved.

He arrived at Tara and challenged the kingto a game of FIDCHELL, with the prize being akiss from Étain. As he kissed her, memoryflooded back to Étain, and she remembered herearlier life as Midir’s beloved. Together, theyflew away through the skylight at Tara, joinedby a golden chain.

In addition to this romantic tale, Midir alsoappears in the story of the movement of his peo-ple, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, from the surface ofIreland to a parallel world underground. Whenthe father of the gods, the DAGDA, decided tostep down from his leadership of the tribe, hisson BODB DERG was selected to replace him.Only Midir—called “the proud”—refused toaccept the will of the other gods and launched awar against them. Not only did he not win hisgoal, but the bloodshed caused the other gods toleave the surface world to hide in their fairypalaces or SÍDHES. Midir lived thereafter in hisown sídhe, that of BRÍ LÉITH—Slieve Callory orArdagh Hill, in western Co. Longford, where hesurvives in local folklore as Midas, a giant whosteals children who walk past his hidden palace.

Source: Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and FightingMen: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and ofthe Fianna of Ireland. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1970, pp. 88 ff.

Midsummer (Midsummer eve) Calendar fes-tival. The Celts did not celebrate the SOLSTICES

(longest and shortest day of the year) nor theEQUINOXES (days of equal light and darkness in

330 Midir

spring and fall) but rather the days in the centerof each season (see IMBOLC, BELTANE, LUGHNASA,SAMHAIN). Nonetheless, as the Celts encounteredearlier peoples who used the solar pivot-points asCALENDAR feasts, they adopted rituals to markthose days. In addition, the change from theJulian to the Gregorian calendar dislocated someof the old Celtic holidays from their originaldates, so that some Lughnasa harvest ritualsmigrated to become midsummer festivals nearthe end of June.

The day called Midsummer is not technicallythe middle of summer at all, but actually the sea-son’s beginning on June 21, the day when theSUN is at the closest point to the northern hemi-sphere that it will be all year and when night isconsiderably less than day. In some Celtic lands,as in Scotland and Ireland, daylight lasts wellinto the evening hours on the summer solstice,with as little as five or six hours of darkness;dancing and feasting were common at that time.

In England, girls went out to STONE CIRCLES

and whispered the names of their favored youngmen to the stones, which were said to predict thefuture on that day. It was also useful to gatherthe seeds of ferns, to be used in potions of invis-ibility, and to sow hemp, to be used to see por-tents, on this day. In Cornwall, girls left theirunderwear turned inside out and watched, atmidnight, for a ghostly form to appear and turnit right, thus finding out the identity of theirfuture husbands. Alternatively, they could plucka rose, tie it up in a bag, and save it untilChristmas, at which time if it were worn tochurch, the faded rose would irresistibly attractthe groom-to-be.

Sources: Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974, p.14; Hunt, Robert. Cornish Customs andSuperstitions. Truro: Tor Mark Press, n.d.

midwife Folkloric motif. The midwife whostood at the door of birth—which was, in thepast, often the door of death as well—was once a

powerful figure. Usually a woman with knowl-edge of HEALING herbs and medicinal tech-niques, she was among the Celts also believed tohave the power of PROPHECY, a power grantedmidwives in many other cultures as well, pre-sumably because they saw patterns in the birththat continued throughout the child’s life.

Midwives also had a special sort of second sightthat permitted them to discover when FAIRIES werestealing human children. A midwife traveling to alate-night birth might encounter such fairiesintent on kidnapping; arriving at the home of thelaboring mother, she would discover that the childwas dead, stolen by those she had encountered.Legend tells of midwives who traveled to the OTH-ERWORLD to steal back such infants.

Midwives were—with poets and musicians,babies and lovers—the people most likely to bevictims of FAIRY KIDNAPPING, for their special-ized knowledge was useful to those of theOtherworld. Fairy children were often bornweak and in need of intensive care in order tosurvive. Midwives, unlike others stolen by thefairies, were usually returned to this worldunharmed and lived a healthy life thereafter.

Midwinter See NOLLAIG.

Míl (Míl Despaine, Milesius, Míle Easpain)See MILESIANS.

Milesians Irish mythological race. In theIrish mythological history, the BOOK OF INVA-SIONS, we read of the descendants of a heronamed Míl Despaine—probably a nameinvented by the mythological historians from theLatin term “miles Hispaniae” or “soldier ofSpain.” This mythological ancestor was of theline of the biblical Noah through his sonJapheth, whose descendants wandered throughSCYTHIA and Egypt before arriving in Spain.One ancestor, Fénius the Ancient, was a consult-ant on the Tower of Babel and the only personwho understood all the cacophony of language

Milesians 331

spoken there, while his descendant GOIDEL

invented the Irish language by mixing them alltogether. The same Goidel was bitten by a snakein Egypt and was healed by Moses, who proph-esied that his descendants would find a place tolive without any such noxious SERPENTS.

Leaving Egypt, the ancestors of the Irishreturned to Scythia, where they found them-selves at odds with those who had stayed behind.The wanderers thus set out again, on boats acrossthe Caspian Sea. MERMAIDS hindered theirprogress until they hit upon the idea of meltingwax and using it to block their ears (a motifapparently adapted from Homer’s Odyssey). Thispermitted them to pass unharmed through to theMediterranean and finally to the shores of Britain.There, climbing a high tower on a fine winter day,Míl’s uncle ÍTH saw a misty island to the west anddecided to take a group of settlers there.

When Míl heard that Íth had been killed inIreland by the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, he set sail toexact revenge, but he died on the way. His wifeSCOTA reached the shores but was cut down in bat-tle; their sons finished what Míl and Scota hadbegun, finally winning control of the entire island.

His descendants, the Milesians or Sons ofMíl, were the final waves of settlers on Irishshores, displacing the earlier gods and god-desses, children of the mother goddess DANU.Most scholars today believe there is some histor-ical truth, however degraded in transmission, inthese Irish legends. In such interpretations, theMilesians were the ancestors of the historicalGoidels. The legends of Egyptian and Scythianconnections, as well as the Spanish link itself, aregenerally considered inventions of medievalwriters who imagined connections betweenScythae and Scoti, Iberians and Hibernians.

milk Folkloric motif. Celtic people relied onCATTLE for much of their food; for this reason,we find much folklore surrounding milk. A cowtypically gives approximately a gallon to a gallonand a half of milk a day for nine months aftercalving; thus a cow with calf (called a milch cow)

was a valued source of liquid nourishment and ofBUTTER and cheese that were made from milk.Milch cows, called in Irish cumhals, were so valu-able that in ancient Ireland they were the basis ofexchange and valuation of other goods and evenof people’s social rankings (see ÉRIC).

Irish myth speaks of the abundant cow, theGLAS GHAIBHLEANN, who did not even need tohave a calf to produce milk; she filled to over-flowing every vessel brought to her. When anevil person attempted to milk her into a sieve,however, the great cow disappeared from thisearth. Attempts to thwart the natural abundanceof cows formed part of much folklore. WITCHES

were believed to be able to steal milk right out ofa cow’s udder, without needing a pail, just bypassing a needle near the beast (dung-forks,chimney crooks, and other implements were alsonamed as tools for milk theft). The witch couldthen pass the implement near her own poor cow,which would then give forth the milk of anentire neighborhood. While the witch enjoyedthe real milk, the cows she bewitched gave onlya thin fluid, which would not form butter orcheese. Milk could be protected by the recitationof MILKING CHARMS.

milking charms Folkloric ritual. As herdingpeople who relied upon CATTLE for much oftheir food, those in Celtic lands had many super-stitions about protecting their food supply, inparticular the MILK that was drunk fresh as wellas made into BUTTER and cheese. Various ritualsensured that no one would make off with themilk from a COW: The first drops of milk wouldbe allowed to splatter on the ground; the sign ofthe cross would be made over the cow’s udder;CHARMS and prayers would be spoken.

There were also taboos. No one could step inspilled milk nor cross in front of a cow that hadkicked over a milking pail. In Ireland on BELTANE,the feast of summer’s beginning on May 1, milk-ing charms were especially necessary, as fairiesand witches roved about, trying to steal all themilk out of the cows’ udders. Twigs of ROWAN

332 milk

were tied to cows’ tails; a Mary Candle wasmelted and the wax rubbed into cows’ hides.

In Scotland milking charms were connectedwith LUGHNASA, the harvest festival on August 1:Juniper was burned before the barn or stale urinesprinkled on its door; balls of hair were put intothe milk pail to keep the milk from beingbewitched away. A strong charm involved boilingcow dung into a paste, then adding severalstraight metal PINS; any witch attempting to stealmilk would suffer stabbing pains until she arrivedat the farmhouse door with entreaties for mercy.Similarly, putting urine in a bottle and corking itwould stop up the kidneys of any thieving witch.Finally, a certain way of keeping the milk flowingwas to place the herb pearlwort on the BULL

before conception; any resulting heifers would beprotected throughout their milking life.

Milucra (Miluchrach) Irish goddess. The sis-ter of the better-known goddess ÁINE, Milucrabecame infatuated with the great hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL—as did Áine, who was knownfor her lustful ways. Because her sister had swornshe would never sleep with a gray-haired man,Milucra enchanted a lake on SLIEVE GULLION inULSTER so that it would dye the hair of anyswimmer gray. The young virile Fionn, meetinga beautiful maiden on the lake’s shores whoclaimed her golden ring had dropped into thewater, volunteered to swim out and retrieve it.He did find the ring, but when he reemerged hewas not only gray-haired—therefore unappeal-ing to the sensuous Áine—but also witheredwith age. The FIANNA captured Milucra andforced her to give their leader a drink thatrestored his youth, but his hair stayed silver.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 315 ff.

Minerva (Minerva Medica) Romanized Celticgoddess. In Rome this goddess of HEALING wasabsorbed into the powerful Greek warrior god-dess Athena, but Minerva was no fighter at all,

except against disease and pain. In Celtic landsthe Romans found many similar goddesses whosehealing powers were found in the headwaters ofRIVERS, in hot SPRINGS, and in other WATER

sources. One such goddess can be seen even todaycarved into the Roman quarries near the RiverDee in Chester; she is depicted with OWL andGORGON’s head, symbols of the Greek Athena.Julius Caesar said that the Celtic Minerva taughtarts and crafts to humanity, but that is not clearfrom the remaining images.

Sometimes the Celtic goddess was completelyrenamed, her original name lost to history; inother cases the Celtic name remained. OneMinerva was called Vitrix (apparently “victor” or“victorious”), found in many relief carvings of ahelmet-crowned female head. Another is associ-ated with BELISAMA, the warrior goddess. Themost famous Celtic Minerva was SUL, the god-dess of the thermal springs at BATH in Britain.

Sources: Green, Miranda. The Gods of RomanBritain. Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd.,1983, p. 30; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess:Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, pp. 24–29.

Mis (Mish, Miss) Irish heroine. The toweringmountain range of Slieve Mish in Co. Kerry isnamed for this woman, who was given the moun-tain as her bride-price, according to the place-lorecalled the DINDSHENCHAS. Daughter of a warrior,she found her father’s bloodied body after a battleand, desperate with sorrow, drank his blood,which drove her mad. Mis went into the moun-tains and lived by killing animals with her barehands, until a harper named Dubh Rois sang, andshe drew near to listen to him. Speaking for thefirst time since her madness struck, Mis inquiredabout his musical instrument, which she remem-bered from her father’s house, and then about hissexual instrument, which she did not remember.Tenderly and carefully, he showed both to her.

When Dubh Rois made love to her, Mis losther wildness and gradually grew to love her

Mis 333

rescuer. Her recovery seems to have been com-plete, for when Dubh Rois was later killed inbattle, she did not go mad again but became aBARD to lament his loss. The parallel of this storywith the familiar Irish tale of a goddess of SOV-EREIGNTY who appears as a HAG until kissed,whereupon she becomes a beautiful girl, hasbeen noted by scholars. The story is also similar,with a gender reversal, to the Sumerian myth ofthe taming of the wild man Enkidu by the tem-ple woman Siduri.

mistletoe Symbolic plant. An evergreen para-sitic plant that grows on deciduous trees andshrubs, the mistletoe (Viscum album) retainssome of its ancient symbolic power even today.The British tradition of placing a sprig of mistle-toe in the home at the winter holidays, underwhich kissing rituals take place, is still commonin England and America today. The associationsof mistletoe with pre-Christian religion are stillso strong that it is not used in church decora-tions, reflecting an ancient belief that it was sac-rilegious to bring it into church.

The Roman author Pliny the Elder saidmistletoe was the DRUIDS’ most sacred plant,especially when it grew on an OAK—a tree sacredto the Celtic priesthood. He said the plant washarvested in ritual fashion on the sixth day afterthe new moon. After a ritual banquet, two whiteBULLS with bound horns were led to the mistle-toe-bearing tree and were slaughtered after theplant was cut down with a golden sickle. Amistletoe harvested under such circumstances—called “all-heal”—was believed to be powerfulmedicine against barrenness and impotence, aswell as a remedy for poisons.

Source: Crow, W. B. “The Mistletoe Sacrament.”In Matthews, John. A Celtic Reader: Selectionsfrom Celtic Legend, Scholarship and Story.Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1991.

Mithras Persian deity. Although found inCeltic lands, especially in Britain around the

region of Hadrian’s Wall, this deity of light wasnot Celtic but imported by the Roman legions,for there were many legionnaires who wereespecially devoted to Mithras. His temples,called Mithraea, were the site of the blood ritualcalled the Tauroboleum, in which a worshiperwas drenched in the blood of a newly slaugh-tered BULL as a kind of baptism. There is no evi-dence that the rite was used by the Celts, whohad their own bull ritual called the BULL-SLEEP.

Moccus Continental Celtic god. Known fromonly one inscription that includes his name,which may mean “PIG,” this god was identifiedby the Romans with their deity MERCURY.

Modron (Madrun) Welsh goddess. In theWelsh mythological texts called the MABINOGION,we find references to this obscure goddess whosename means “mother,” making her parallel tothe continental Celtic goddesses called DEAE

MATRES, “the divine mothers” as well as toMATRONA, “mother.” Little myth is attached toher, which has led some to envision her as anearly, even pre-Celtic, divinity whose name sur-vived while her narratives and rituals were lost.In Cornwall a SAINT called Madrun or Madron isfound, possibly a Christianization of the earliergoddess; rituals at St. Madrun’s WELL includedropping PINS into the water to foresee thefuture health of the petitioner.

Mogetius Continental Celtic god. Anobscure god mentioned in two inscriptions,Mogetius was identified by the Romans withtheir deity of war, MARS.

Mogons (Mogounos) Continental Celtic god.This obscure god may derive his name from aword meaning “to increase,” suggesting a divinityof strength and FERTILITY.

Mog Ruith (Mug Ruith) Irish hero. Severalmedieval Irish sources mention this DRUID,

334 mistletoe

whose name has been interpreted to mean “thewheel magician” under the assumption that heused a wheel as a tool for DIVINATION. His leg-end involves travels to the eastern Mediterranean,where he met Simon Magus, a great magician;there Mog Ruith followed king Herod’s com-mand to cut off the head of the early follower ofChrist, John the Baptist. For this ancient crimeof Mog Ruith’s, the Irish have suffered famineand other tragedies.

Some texts give him as the father of the mys-terious TLACHTGA, after whom a significantmythological site is named. He is described asMUNSTER’s chief druid, who saved their warriorsin battle by miraculously drilling a WELL with anarrow or spear. Then he built a fire from thewood of magical ROWAN trees, over which hechanted incantations until he saw clearly enoughto prophesy victory. Suited in a bird cloak, heflew into the air and did battle with the opposingdruids, while the Munster warriors killed theirfoes beneath him.

Molling (St. Molling) Irish legendary figure.A quasi-historical figure who lived in the seventhcentury C.E., Molling was absorbed into Celticlegends of FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, who is said tohave been the saint’s foster brother. The magicalSMITH, GOBAN SAOR, built Molling’s church forhim from sacred trees. It was at Molling’s churchthat king SUIBHNE died after living as a madman.Such mythological motifs often were connectedwith historical figures in order to extend theirsacred powers.

Mollyndroat Manx folkloric figure. On theIsle of Man we find the tale of a GIANT who servedan evil DRUID. In a story similar to the familiarEuropean tale of Rumpelstiltskin, Mollyndroatheld a woman captive and refused to set her freeuntil she guessed his name. This folkloric figuremay be connected with the evil giant MELEAGANT,also known as Mellyagraunce, who in Arthurianlegend kidnapped queen GUINEVERE.

Moltinus Continental Celtic god. His nameshares its derivation with contemporary wordsreferring to sheep (English mutton, Frenchmouton) and has been interpreted to mean“ram.” This god is known from only twoinscriptions, and unlike many other Celticgods, he was not identified by the Romans withone of their own divinities.

Mona See ANGLESEY.

Monday, Tuesday Folkloric motif. A com-mon tale told of the FAIRIES is that, although theylove dancing and singing, they had a limitedmusical repertoire. They sang, over and over,the words “Monday, Tuesday” (in Irish, DaLuan, Da Mart). A hunchback, irritated by theirrepetitive song, once added “and Wednesday”(Agus da Cadin) to their song, causing them greatexcitement and delight. In gratitude for theirnew melody, the fairies removed the man’shunch, and he walked away straight as an arrow.Another hunchback in the vicinity, hearing thestory, rushed to the same place and waited untilthe fairies arrived. The moment they startedsinging he interrupted them with “and Friday”(Agus da Hena), and the fairies, incensed at hisrudeness, promptly gave him the first man’shump on top of his own.

Mongán (Mongan) Irish hero. An historicalking of the seventh century C.E., Mongánnonetheless is partially mythological. Said to bethe son of the sea god MANANNÁN MAC LIR,Mongán (“hairy fellow,” a name reputedly givenhim when he was born with a full head of HAIR)inherited his father’s SHAPE-SHIFTING talent aswell as his ability to move between this worldand the OTHERWORLD.

Mongán was conceived when his divine fatherdisguised himself as a human king, a motif thatparallels the story of the conception of kingARTHUR; Mongán is also described as the reincar-nation of the Irish hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,

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whose fair wife GRÁINNE ran off with the heroDIARMAIT in a story parallel to that of GUINEVERE

and LANCELOT. Thus Mongán, however histori-cal his reign, seems also to reflect an ancientCeltic tale of the goddess of SOVEREIGNTY.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 546.

Mongfhinn (Mongfhin, Mongfhionn) Irishheroine. Her name was used as a charm to keepaway evil spirits, but Mongfhinn herself was notespecially pleasant. Stepmother or foster motherto NIALL of the Nine Hostages, she tried to poi-son him but instead killed herself on SAMHAIN

night, the feast of winter’s beginning onNovember 1. In some areas of Ireland that holi-day was called the Festival of Monghfinn. Thisobscure figure may have originally been animportant goddess, for her name includes thedivine syllable fionn, “light,” and women onceprayed to her on Samhain.

monster Folkloric figure. The monsters ofone people were often the gods of an earlier peo-ple. In many Celtic lands, rather than becomingmonstrously large and frightening, the old deitiesbecame smaller and rather appealing, like theLEPRECHAUNS and FAIRIES that are found in thefolklore of Ireland and Scotland. GIANTS are alsofound, especially in Britain, behind whose awfulvisages hide elder gods. Goddesses were oftenvilified by followers of male-centered monothe-ism, so that some monstrous female figures, likethe CAILLEACH, are derogatory descriptions ofpowerful early deities. Monstrosity of itself doesnot always indicate divinity, unless combinedwith SHAPE-SHIFTING or other magical powers.

moon Cosmological concept. The moon,with its changing phases and its connection withthe tides, was a natural object of importance tothe Celts as to most other cultures. The Celts

originally divided the year according to moons,according to the Roman author Pliny, with thenew moon beginning each month as the nightbegan each day. Festivals were celebrated atmoonrise; thus we have May Eve, the eveningbefore BELTANE, and Hallowe’en, the eveningbefore SAMHAIN.

Some scholars believe that the moon wasespecially significant to agriculturalists, becausethe moon’s waxing and waning was believed toinfluence the growth of plants, just as it does themovement of the tides. An indication of Celticawareness of the lunar waxing/waning cycle isfound in the belief that MISTLETOE and othermagical plants should be harvested under a wan-ing moon—the declining light of the luminaryindicating that time was ripe for endings. In theScottish Highlands, similarly, sowing was alwaysdone under a waxing moon, with the belief thatas the moon swelled, so would the tiny plantswithin the seeds.

There is also evidence of ancient lunar rituals;the Roman author Strabo tells of night-longdancing among the Celts when the moon wasfull. Through the 18th century, such dances wereheld at STONE CIRCLES in the Scottish Highlands.In the 19th century people in the insular Celticlands still bowed and curtseyed to the new moon,while in Cornwall people merely nodded whilereaching into their pockets to touch their moneyfor good luck. In Ireland a full moon broughtpeople to crossroads where they danced beneathits pearly light; the tradition was almost elimi-nated through priestly opposition but has beenrecently revived in the area around Ennis, Co.Clare, and other rural regions.

Sources: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, p. 578; Hull, Eleanor.Folklore of the British Isles. London: Methuen &Co., Ltd., 1928, pp. 61 ff; Leather, Ella Mary.The Folk-Lore of Herefordshire. London:Sidewick & Jackson, 1912, pp. 15–16;MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 173–179.

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Mór (Mor, Mór Mumhan) Irish goddess orheroine. This female figure, whose name means“big” or “great,” has been described as the landgoddess of the southwestern PROVINCE of MUN-STER; her full name means “the great one ofMunster,” and the term Mór was often used ofterritorial goddesses. Like many other ancientgoddesses, she shrank into a figure of folktale.

Once, it was said, a woman named Mór arrivedwith her husband Lear (possibly LIR, an early seagod) at the promontory in Co. Kerry that bearsher name. They built a house not far from there,at the foot of Mount Eagle. Lear and Mór livedthere comfortably, for the sea brought them any-thing they wished. (There is an echo in this tale ofstories of MERMAIDS who lived off the spoils ofships they had caused to be wrecked at sea.)

One day Mór climbed to the top of themountain above her and, for the first time, sawhow large was the land in which she dwelled.While there on the mountain she was, as theysay in the Irish countryside, “taken short,” andsquatted to relieve herself—a mythologicalmotif found in many stories of creation by god-desses. To this day, the ravines that cut throughthe mountains of Munster are said to haveresulted from Mór’s gigantic streams of URINE.

Mór’s happiness was destroyed when hersons, the pride of her life, were lured into tryingtheir luck as seamen. As her happiness fled, sodid her power, for she withered up in sadness.Her temper grew so bad that her husband lefther, sailing north and finally settling far awayfrom his desolate wife.

The vestiges of an ancient goddess can befound in local folklore, for the place where Mórcame ashore—Dunmore Head, from Dún Mór,Mór’s HILLFORT—was also “Mary Geeran’shouse,” in Irish Ty-Vor-ney Gerane, possiblyTigh Mhorie ni Greine, “the home of Mór, childof the SUN.” Dunmore faces the setting sun, saidlocally to be “Mór on her throne,” another sug-gestion of a sun goddess. Additionally, the storyis told that Mór went mad and had to be tamedby the king of the Munster stronghold ofCashel—the same story told of MIS, the goddess

of the Slieve Mish mountains that bisect thepeninsula on which Mór was said to live. Thetwo may have originally been the same figure.

A similar GIANT woman of this name is foundin the Highlands of Scotland, where she was saidto have been the daughter of the otherwiseunknown Smûid, who was washed away in a floodwhile carrying a group of travelers on her back.

Sources: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, p. xli; McKay,John G. More West Highland Tales. Vol. 2.Scottish Anthropological and Folklore Society.Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p. 54.

Morann Irish hero. According to severalmedieval sources, Morann was a wise BREHON orjudge, who wore a chain around his neck that,should he begin to speak false words or an unjustsentence, tightened until it strangled him. It wasalso said that if he placed this chain on the necksof the accused, it worked the same way, stran-gling them if they lied.

Morda Welsh hero. This minor figure in Welshmythology was an old man whose job was to tendthe fire beneath the goddess CERIDWEN’s greatCAULDRON. When the blind servant did not seeGWION taste the magical brew and so take the WIS-DOM from the cauldron, Ceridwen was furious andstruck him so hard that one EYE fell out.

Mordred (Modred, Modreuant, Medrawd,Medrawt) Arthurian hero. The illegitimate sonof king ARTHUR, conceived with Arthur’s half sis-ter MORGAUSE through the machinations of themagician MERLIN, Mordred was opposite to hisfather in all ways. Where Arthur was magnani-mous, Mordred was stingy; where Arthur wasbrave, Mordred was cunning and cowardly, but itwas Mordred who finally brought down the greatdream of CAMELOT and the ROUND TABLE.

The legends of king Arthur have a basis inCeltic myth, but they were elaborated by many

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generations of poets and imaginative writers,who used the outline of the tale to paint evoca-tive human portraits. The character of Mordredas Arthur’s enemy was established in the 12thcentury by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Prior tothat, as the Welsh hero Medrawd, he was a bravewarrior who died in the battle of CAMLAN. Afterhaving been absorbed into the Arthurian legendas the great king’s son and enemy, Mordred waslisted in the Welsh TRIADS as one of the “ThreeDishonored Men of the Island of Britain.”

Morfessa Irish hero. The magical race calledthe TUATHA DÉ DANANN came to Ireland fromanother land with four magnificent capitals, eachled by a master of wisdom rather than a king.One of these cities was FALIAS, from which camethe great INAUGURATION STONE called the LIA

FÁIL. Morfessa, “great wisdom,” was the wisdom-master of Falias, who gave the Tuatha Dé thestone when they sailed for Ireland.

Morfran (Morfran fab Tegid) Welsh god orhero. The son of the great goddess CERIDWEN

was an ugly child, and to make up for this disad-vantage his mother determined that he wouldbecome the world’s wisest person. She beganbrewing a collection of herbs that would bringhim that WISDOM, setting her servant boy GWION

to watch the CAULDRON. But Gwion accidentallydrank some of the brew, absorbing with it the wis-dom and bringing down upon himself Ceridwen’swrath. Welsh myth says little more of Morfran,save that his ugliness finally proved useful whenhe escaped the battle of CAMLAN because every-one mistook him for a devil. (See AFAGDDU.)

Morfudd (Morfudd ferch Urien) Welshheroine. This obscure heroine was the daughterof king URIEN; her mother may have been thegoddess MODRON.

Morgan (Morgen, Morgan Le Fay, Morgan lafée, Morgaine, Morgana, Orva, Orna, Oua,

Orains, Ornais, Morgain, Moruein, Morganz)Arthurian heroine. King ARTHUR had several halfsisters, children of their mother IGRAINE with herfirst husband, duke GORLOIS of Cornwall. Two arefrequently confused because of their similar namesand their questionable behavior: the sorceressMorgan and the ambitious queen MORGAUSE, whomay have originally been the same figure.

Morgan learned MAGIC while still a child in aconvent boarding school; some legends say shefurthered her study with the great magicianMERLIN. She soon gained great powers ofenchantment. When slighted by her lover GUY-OMARD, Morgan created the PERILOUS VALLEY

where any knight unfaithful to his lady would betrapped by his self-created illusions. She ulti-mately married a minor king, URIEN, andbecame the mother of OWEIN, the knight whowed the mysterious LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN in aromantic Arthurian tale.

While her brother ascended to triumph atCAMELOT, Morgan worked to bring disaster onArthur and his court, stealing and ultimatelydestroying the magical scabbard of EXCALIBUR,which protected the king in battle. Yet it was toMorgan that Arthur was brought at the end ofhis earthly life, so that she could take him to theOTHERWORLD, to die or be healed there.

Behind the shadowy woman of legend standsa powerful being whose close connection withthe Otherworld is made clear by her alternativename of Morgan Le Fay, Morgan “the FAIRY” or,even more powerfully, “the fate.” Early textsdescribe her as the most beautiful of ninewomen who lived on a FORTUNATE ISLE whereeverything was astonishingly fertile; her sisterswere Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea,Gliton, Tyronoe, and Thiten. Like manyanother FAIRY LOVER, she attempted to seducemen, fixing upon the fine knight LANCELOT asher prey—but without success.

Morgan may be connected with a similarlynamed goddess of Ireland, the MÓRRÍGAN, a divin-ity of death and battle. She may have descendedfrom a sea goddess, for the name Morgan survivesas a Breton name for sea fairies who kidnap

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human men, while in Wales LAKE spirits are calledMorgans; and the Fata Morgana, a sea mirage ofpalaces and columns complete with its ownwatery reflection, was according to medieval leg-end created by Morgan.

Source: Loomis, Roger Sherman. Wales and theArthurian Legend. Cardiff: University of WalesPress, 1956, pp. 105 ff.

Morgause (Morgawse) Arthurian heroine.Morgause’s mother was IGRAINE, the beautifulwife of the duke of Cornwall, GORLOIS. Knowingthat only the heroic UTHER PENDRAGON couldconceive a king with Igraine, the magician MER-LIN enchanted Uther into the likeness of herhusband so that the wife would commit adulterywithout realizing it. Arthur was thus conceived,but Igraine already had several daughters byGorlois, including MORGAN and Morgause, whobecame Arthur’s implacable enemies.

Yet Morgause also became his lover,unknown to the two of them, through Merlin’smeddling. When Arthur realized that he hadslept with his half sister, who had conceived thechild who would become his murderer, MOR-DRED, he attempted to have all the children bornat that time killed. Morgause protected her childby retreating to far Orkney, where she marriedthe king, LOT. From Morgause, Mordredlearned to hate his father/uncle, and with her heplotted the downfall of CAMELOT.

Because of the similarity of their names, theirdispositions, and their opposition to Arthur,Morgause and her sister Morgan are frequentlyconfused or conflated; they may have originallybeen a single figure.

Morholt (Morhold) Irish hero. This IrishGIANT was a warrior who annually came to theland of king MARK of Cornwall, where heclaimed a tribute or tax. The strong knight TRIS-TAN killed him, almost dying from Morholt’spoisoned sword. Tristan later fell in love withMorholt’s niece, the fair ISEULT.

Moriath (Moriath Morca) Irish heroine. “Sea-land” is the meaning of the name of this princessof ancient Ireland, daughter of the king of MUN-STER in the far southwestern corner of the island.Her story began when the high king Cobthachkilled his own brother LABHRAIGH Lorc, afterwhich he poisoned AILLIL Áine, the true king.Aillil’s son, Labhraigh Moen, was soon banishedfrom the kingdom, but he allied himself withCobthach’s enemy, Moriath’s father, Scoriath.

The moment Labhraigh set eyes on Moriath,he fell in love with her. Her father kept hisdaughter closely guarded, so Labhraigh enlistedthe help of his illustrious harper, CRAIPHTINE,who played so sweetly that the entire court fellinto blissful sleep, permitting the lovers topledge their troth to each other. WhenLabhraigh had to fight Cobthach, his harpercame again to the rescue, playing lullingmelodies so that the enemy army all went tosleep while Labhraigh’s army, prepared withearplugs, stayed wide awake. Upon ascending tothe throne of his own region, Labhraigh invitedCobthach to a dinner, trapped him in an IRON

house, and burned him to death.Some versions of this famous story have

Moriath as the wooer and her own harper as themiraculous musician, bearing love poems andmessages to Labhraigh, who became king withher help.

Source: O’ Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 198.

Mórrígan (Morrigan, the Morrigan, Mórrígna,Mórrigu, Mór-Ríoghain) Irish goddess. One ofthe most important goddesses of ancient Ireland,she was one of the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the tribeof the goddess DANU; she was also associated withthe FAIRY people, for she appears in some texts asa white COW with RED ears, colors that elsewhereindicate an OTHERWORLD origin. The Mórríganappears in other forms as well: as a giganticwoman who foretells the future of those about to

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do battle (see WASHER AT THE FORD), as a CROW,as an EEL, as a gray-red WOLF. Such SHAPE-SHIFTING is commonly associated with divinitiesconnected with DRUIDS and BARDS, both ofwhom were believed to have the power to changetheir outward appearance at will. The Mórríganwas herself a bard, singing her people to victoryat the great second battle of MAG TUIRED; she wasalso a magician, casting ORACLES and foretellingthe future. Most often, however, she took theform of a BIRD to swoop over battlefields, devour-ing the bodies of the slain.

A war goddess, Mórrígan is associated withthe other goddesses of battle: BADB, the scald-crow; NEMAIN, who spreads panic; and MACHA,the speedy horse of battle. Together they aresometimes called the “three Mórrígna,” althoughin other texts Mórrígan herself appears on thelist. Thus she is connected with triplicity, whichto the Celts meant intensification of power (seeTHREE), even though the exact trinities vary.

Despite, or perhaps because of, her connec-tion with war, Mórrígan is also depicted as hav-ing an immense sexual appetite. In one memo-rable myth, she had intercourse with the fathergod, the DAGDA, who came upon her while shewas straddling a river and, overwhelmed by hermassive charms, fell upon her lustfully. Inanother tale, she so desired the great heroCÚCHULAINN that she ambushed him, but whenhe rejected her, she turned upon him in fury andwas injured in their fight.

Her relationship to the hero was equallyambiguous in the tales of the ULSTER CYCLE,especially in the precursor tale to the Irish epic,the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE, called the Táin bóRegamna. In that story the Mórrígan lusted afterCúchulainn but also protected him in an almostmaternal fashion; she appeared to him in variousguises as he single-handedly defended theprovince of Ulster against the invading warriorsof CONNACHT. When he went forth to his death,she attempted, but without success, to stop him.

In the Táin the Mórrígan shadows that epic’smajor figure, queen MEDB, who herself was prob-ably a diminished goddess. The Mórrígan may be

an alternative or Otherworld form of Medb, forthe cave from which the Mórrígan was said toemerge (see OWEYNAGAT) was Medb’s birthplaceat Connacht’s capital of CRUACHAN. Like Medbshe was connected with TARA, where she cookedon a spit that could hold three kinds of food at onetime: raw meat, cooked meat, and BUTTER, withthe raw cooking perfectly, the cooked remainingunburnt, and the butter not melting away.

She had one son, MEICHE, in whose heartwere three great SERPENTS. The hero MAC

CÉCHT killed him, because had he lived, the ser-pents would have split his heart open anddevoured all of Ireland. Mac Cécht burned theheart to ashes, then threw the ashes into a RIVER,which boiled to death every living creaturewithin its waters.

The meaning of Morrígán’s name is dis-puted, with some saying that it means “phantomqueen” and others “death queen,” while still oth-ers derive it from a presumed early Indo-European goddess Rigatona, “great queen.” Thederivation of her name from the word for “sea,”common among early writers, is generally out offashion. The word mare that survives in “night-mare” may be a related word; it refers not to aHORSE but to a phantom or terrifying GHOST.

Yet others have described her as a version ofthe land goddess known as Flaith or SOVER-EIGNTY, for she was described as a HAG whocould transform herself into a young maiden.Additionally, she is identified with a pair ofbreast-shaped hills called dá chich na Mórrigna,“the paps of Mórrígan,” near the BRÚ NA BOÍNNE

in Co. Meath, which echo the similarly shapedhills devoted to the earth goddess of theprovince of Munster, DANU.

Sources: Clark, Rosalind. The Great Queens: IrishGoddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen NíHoulihan. Irish Literary Studies 34. GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, 1991; Dexter, MiriamRobbins. Whence the Goddesses: A Sourcebook. NewYork: Pergamon Press, 1990, pp. 88–89; Gregory,Lady Augusta. Gods and Fighting Men: The Storyof the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of

340 Mórrígan

Ireland. New York: Oxford University Press,1970, pp. 85 ff; Herbert, Máire. “Transmutationsof an Irish Goddess.” In Billington, Sandra, andMiranda Green, eds. The Concept of the Goddess.London and New York: Routledge, 1996, pp.141–151; Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga inIrish Literature. London: David Nutt, 1898, p.103; Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Tain. Dublin:The Dolmen Press, 1969.

morris dancing British ritual. In parts ofrural Britain, springtime festivals were enlivenedby the presence of men dressed in pleated whiteshirts and white trousers, wearing ribboned capsand bells. A fiddler played while the dancersstepped briskly about, led by a sword-carryingdancer upon whose weapon a CAKE was impaled.This traditional dance had its roots in a spring-time ritual of renewal. The phallic symbolism ofthe sword intensified that of the MAYPOLE, nearwhich the troupe often danced. The festival theycelebrated, BELTANE, often ended in licentiousbehavior appropriate to the burgeoning season.

mother goddess Cosmological concept. As isthe case in other cultures, not all goddessesamong the Celts have maternal natures; thereare goddesses of war and land and power as wellas of motherhood. Yet the Celts clearly honoredthe role of the human mother by deifying theforce of maternity in goddesses with simplenames such as DEAE MATRES, “the mothers,” orMODRON, “mother.”

These divinities may harken back to a pre-Celtic period, for there are evidences of mothergoddesses from as early as the neolithic period(ca. 4000 B.C.E.) in Gaul, where the Celts did notarrive until ca. 1500 B.C.E. The Celts may havebrought their own maternal divinities with them,or they may have adopted the mother goddessesof the indigenous people. Because there are nowritten documents from pre-Roman Celticlands, the genesis or evolution of the Celticmother-goddess figures remains problematic, butit is certain that by the time of the arrival of the

Roman legions in 400 B.C.E. the Celts had fullyembraced the image of the divine mother.

The mother or group of mothers was the mostfrequently carved votive image in Romano-Celticreligion, and many of these images are smallenough to suggest that they were used to adornhousehold rather than public altars. Others weresubstantial enough to be part of public ceremoni-als; some are believed to have been borne in pro-cession, rather as the image of the Virgin MARY

was later carried by the Catholic devout on May1, the feast of the “Queen of the May,” which wasoriginally the Celtic festival of BELTANE.

Such accommodation to the old Celtic cult ofthe mother was not, however, always the rule,for wholesale destruction of Celtic “idols” wasdemanded by such fierce opponents of paganismas St. Martin of Tours, who personally destroyedhundreds of images, many of them incontrovert-ibly feminine visions of the divine.

Source: Berger, Pamela. The Goddess Obscured:Transformation of the Grain Protectress fromGoddess to Saint. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985,pp. 29 ff.

mound See FAIRY MOUND.

Mound of the Hostages Irish mythologicalsite. On the hill of TARA in central Ireland—some-times called “royal Tara” because of its associa-tions with mythological and historical HIGH

KINGS of the land—there is a small tumulus orartificial mound of earth above a PASSAGE GRAVE

built of stone. Called the Mound of the Hostages,the site is associated with the great king NIALL ofthe Nine Hostages. The term hostages seems toimply people held against their will; the word fos-terers would be better, as the nine young men inquestion went to Niall’s royal seat willingly inorder to bind their families to his.

mountain Cosmological symbol. Mountainswere sacred to the Celts, but so was everything

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else in NATURE, which was the residence of thedivine. Divine force did not spread itself thinlyacross the world but tended to condense in spe-cific sacred places. WELLS and RIVER sourceswere important foci of divine power, as werehills and mountains. Both were typically viewedas feminine powers. A figure connected withhigh hills in Scotland and Ireland was the HAG

named the CAILLEACH, a figure that appears todescend from pre-Celtic times, which has led tosuggestions that some mountain worship mayprecede the Celtic arrivals.

Mountains had additional significance inIreland as places of royal or political power.Some of this significance may have originated inthe simple fact that high hills provide a good viewof the surrounding region, therefore assistingdefenders in case of assault. The hill of TARA,although not a dominating mountain in its ratherrolling countryside, offers such an impressiveview over the surrounding lands. Nearby,another small mountain, UISNEACH, became themystical center of the island; from its summit onecan see peaks in virtually all of Ireland.

Mountain Sunday See LUGHNASA.

mouse See RAT.

moving stones Folkloric tradition. Celtic landsare dotted with vestiges of the unknown pre-Celtic people who built STONE CIRCLES andother great undeciphered spiritual monuments.Many traditions and folktales surround suchsites, although it is not possible to know the gen-esis—whether Celtic, pre-Celtic, or Christian—of this lore.

One such tradition holds that the stones werenot firmly set in the soil, but were able to movearound at will. Usually such movement occurredat midnight, although sometimes at dawn; thisdid not happen daily but on significant feastdays, especially calendar points such as the mid-summer SOLSTICE and the Celtic fall feast of

SAMHAIN. The stones got up from their para-lyzed position and traveled about the country-side, often going to a nearby LAKE or RIVER tobathe and drink. Sometimes they turned intodancing stones (see MERRY MAIDENS) or justrolled around on the grass. When their briefwindow of freedom eased shut, the stones oncemore resumed their usual positions andremained there until their next outing.

Moyturra See MAG TUIRED.

Mugain (Mughain) Irish heroine. This sisterof the great goddess-queen MEDB became themother of a hero-king, Aed SLANE, but firstMugain had to learn to be kind to other women.She was co-wife, with MAIRENN, to the king ofTARA when she found herself consumed withenvy over a beautiful golden headdress thatMairenn always wore. Suspecting Mairenn ofhiding something, she bribed a member of thecourt to pull down the golden headdress andshame her rival. But it was Mugain who wasshamed for her behavior, for golden hairinstantly appeared on Mairenn’s head. Mugainwas punished by being forced to give birth to alamb and a SALMON before she could bear ahuman child. Some have equated her with MÓR,goddess of MUNSTER.

Source: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982, p. 326–327.

Mug Nuadat Irish hero. See EÓGAN.

Muilearach (Muileartach, Muir Larteach,Muilearteach) Scottish and Irish goddess. Aseafaring form of the great goddess figure calledthe CAILLEACH, this sea HAG was a formidablewoman, a bald one-eyed being with a blue-grayface and sharp protruding teeth. She was knownthroughout the Scottish Highlands as well as inthe island of Lewis and Harris and the southern

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Hebrides. An ancestral goddess, mother of theking of the mythological land of LOCHLANN,Muilearach lived underwater. She had a HEALING

aspect, for the pot of balm she carried couldmake the sick healthy and the weak strong.Nonetheless she was feared and was killed in agreat battle with the hero band called the FIANNA.

Under the name Muireartach, she was anIrish goddess, a one-eyed hag named “easternsea” who lived beneath the ocean waves with amagical SMITH. She loved merchants whocaressed her waves with their boats, but she also loved the treasures they carried and mightupend them just to gather them up into her “ill-streaming, bald-red, white-named” presence. Thegreat hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL killed her afterone too many shipwrecks were blamed upon her.

Muime Scottish folkloric figure. Her namemeans “stepmother” or “foster mother,” or “wetnurse.” She appears in Scottish folklore as anambiguous figure, sometimes representing goodluck, sometimes bringing the opposite. It was con-sidered an extremely bad OMEN to meet this figureif you were far from home, but nearby she was ahelpful sprite. The folkloric figure is believed tohide a memory of Celtic times, when the role ofthe foster mother was extremely important.

Muircertach mac Erc (Murtach mac Erc,Muirchertach meic Erca, Muircertach mac Erca)Irish hero. A historical king to whom mytholog-ical motifs have been attached, Muircertachreigned as HIGH KING of Ireland in the sixth cen-tury C.E. His name is puzzling, in that he bearsthe name of his mother ERC, a princess ofScotland, rather than that of his fatherMuireadhach, grandson of the famous king ofTARA, NIALL. Some scholars have suggested thatErc was originally a goddess rather than a humanwoman, although that does not fully explain whyMuircertach would be named for her.

Muircertach figures in an important talerecorded in the Annals of Ulster, in which hewrested the high kingship from the earlier resi-

dents of Tara, leaving no survivors. Years later, hemet a lovely woman, SIN, who offered herself tohim provided he would evict his own wife andchildren from Tara. He did so, but soon his king-dom was torn apart by fighting. The warriors whoattacked Muircertach were sent by Sin. Fearsomewarriors they were, too: blue men, men with theheads of goats, and similar MONSTERS.

They were in reality only sticks and stones,enchanted by Sin—whose family Muircertachhad killed when he conquered Tara. Muircertachwent mad, raging through the rain and snowuntil he came home and fell into a dream inwhich he saw demons coming to punish him.Imagining the palace on fire, he leapt into a vatof wine, where he drowned. The fire wasanother of Sin’s illusions, a final revenge for hisdestruction of her family.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 518.

Muirthemne Irish mythological site. Thegreat plain of Muirthemne was the site of thedefeat of one of the mythological races ofIreland, the FIR BOLG, who lost control of theisland to the people of the goddess DANU, theTUATHA DÉ DANANN—who in turn lost Irelandto another group of invaders, the MILESIANS.

Mullo Continental Celtic god. The name ofthis god, associated by the Romans with their wardeity MARS, may mean “mule” or “wall,”although there is no agreement on which is morelikely or what meaning the term would have.Mullo is shown in some images as bearing a RAM-HEADED SNAKE, and he may have been a divinityof HEALING, which that symbol often represents.

Mumu (Muman) See MUNSTER.

Munanna Irish heroine. In Irish folklore wefind the story of this woman who grew weary of

Munanna 343

living with a boring man. Finding a Viking piratemore to her liking, she set off to sea with himafter convincing her lover to kill her husband.Once back home in Norway, however,Munanna’s new husband grew worried that shemight repeat the behavior. On an outing on alake, he pushed her overboard to her death. Shethereafter haunted him, flying about his boat inthe form of a CRANE, a common bird transfor-mation for wronged women.

Munster (Mumu, Muman) Irish mythologi-cal site. Ireland was traditionally divided intofour parts: LEINSTER, the PROVINCE of wealth inthe east; CONNACHT, the province of wisdom inthe west; ULSTER, province of war in the north;and Munster in the southwest, province of musicand song. A fifth province, MIDE or Meath, sym-bolized the center; it was not, however, a geo-graphical but a mythological construct.

Munster, which today comprises the countiesof Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, andWaterford, is a province of varied landscapes. Itsgreat fertile valleys are among the richest inIreland. Its MOUNTAINS are the island’s highest;each range and many individual mountains areconnected with goddesses. Most impressive arethe PAPS OF DANU, two identical breast-shapedmountains in central Munster, capped withstone CAIRNS that form nipples.

Although all Ireland was associated with thegoddess, Munster was most closely identifiedwith the feminine principle. Many importantgoddesses derive from the region, including theCAILLEACH, the HAG-like figure who is especiallyconnected with the rocky BEARE peninsula in thesouth of the province and the similarly rockyBurren in its north; the sea goddess MÓR; and theFAIRY QUEEN ÁINE, whose mountain is visiblenear the island’s most haunted lake, LOUGH GUR.When FINTAN, the magical SALMON of WISDOM,was asked to define the provinces, he said thatMunster meant song and celebration, festivalsand poetry and the playing of games. Most sig-nificantly, Munster symbolizes FERTILITY, for

only with sufficient food can people enjoy thecreative arts.

Munster is also the legendary landfall forinvaders. Although archaeology shows that mostearly humans arrived in ULSTER, which is visibleon clear days from Scotland and thus attractedearly hunters and gatherers, mythology showswave after wave of invaders arriving onMunster’s rocky shores. CESAIR landed at Dún namBarc on the Dingle peninsula, where the MILE-SIANS also landed. The currents from Europethat left the medieval Spanish Armada wreckedon the Munster coast may have similarly carriedearly migrants, so there may be some truth inthe legends.

Murias Irish mythological site. One of thefour great cities of the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, Murias was the place from which theCAULDRON of abundance traveled to Ireland.

Murna (Murna of the White Neck, Murni,Murni Fair-Neck, Muirenn Muncháem, Fuinche,Torba) Mother of the great hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, Murna was the descendant of ÉITHNE

and thus of the fierce FOMORIAN king BALOR ofthe Evil Eye. Her father was TADG mac Nuadat,who ruled at ALMU, from which the warriorCUMHALL kidnapped her after his bid for herhand had been refused by her father.

Bringing the matter to CONN of the HundredBattles, king of TARA, Tadg was told thatCumhall was banished from Ireland for his deed.And so Tadg led the battle in which Cumhall waskilled—only nine hours after begetting Fionnupon Murna. She returned home to Almu, to begreeted by a furious father who threatened herlife, but Conn intervened and took the womanback to Tara, where she bore her child. When hehad grown, Fionn demanded an honor-price (seeÉRIC) from Tadg for the killing of Cumhall, hisfather. Rather than fight his powerful grandson,Tadg gave him Almu, which became Fionn’sseat. Other versions of the story say thatCumhall was killed by the unconquerable warrior

344 Munster

GOLL MAC MORNA, whom Fionn killed in retali-ation when he had grown to become Ireland’sgreatest hero since CÚCHULAINN.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 73.

music Art and religious symbol. Music, somuch a part of the heritage of Celtic lands today,plays a significant part in many myths. The actualmusic of the ancient Celts is unknown, for theCelts had no musical notation. Nor do we knowthe part music played in their daily and rituallives. Instrumental music is attested by early writ-ers who refer to trumpet-like wind instrumentsand stringed instruments that resembled lyres,but archaeology finds little support for such ref-erences, except occasional depictions on CelticCOINS of the Roman era. The HARP, now an iconof Ireland, was introduced there in medievaltimes, as was the bagpipe, which migrated to theinsular Celtic lands from the Balkans. Both mythand literature refer to singing, still a much-valuedart in Ireland and Wales.

In folklore, music plays an important part inFAIRY legends describing the OTHERWORLD

melodies that lure mortals into enchanted placesfrom which they find it difficult to escape (seeFAIRY MUSIC). Musicians are among the humansmost sought-after by fairies, who reward themfor playing at fairy celebrations by giving themone of FAIRYLAND’s beautiful melodies to takeback to earth; the famous “Derry Aire” (some-times known as “Danny Boy”) is the mostfamous song to come from the fairy world.

Myrddin See MERLIN.

Myrdinn Wyllt Welsh hero. According tothe British historian Geoffrey of Monmouth,“Wild Merlin” was a king who, like the Irishking SUIBHNE, went mad and fled to the woods,

where he lived in a BIRD costume (or perhapsactually transformed himself into a bird). Thename derives from a Welsh legendary figurewho became famous as the magician MERLIN.

Mythological Cycle Irish mythologicaltexts. This term is used to describe a series oftexts and stories that tell of the ancient divinitiesof Ireland. The central story describes a contestbetween mythological races, recorded in theBOOK OF INVASIONS. After unimpressive early set-tlements by the followers of NEMED andPARTHOLÓN, Ireland was occupied by the malev-olent FOMORIANS, who twice fought and twicewere pushed out by the FIR BOLG. They, in turn,lost their place to the mysterious and powerfulTUATHA DÉ DANANN, the people of the goddessDANU, in the first battle of MAG TUIRED. It was atthis battle that the heroic king NUADA lost hisarm and thus, because a BLEMISHED KING couldnot reign, lost the rulership of the land.

He was replaced by the half-Fomorian BRES,who although amazingly beautiful was also stingyand mean. After Bres refused to provide sufficientrations for a poet, he was forced from the thronewhen CAIRBRE spoke a satire so stinging that itraised boils on Bres’s face—thus making him tooblemished to continue to rule. By this time, themiraculous team of the healing god DIAN CÉCHT

and his son MIACH had created a replacementhand for Nuada: Dian Cécht by crafting it fromsilver, Miach by casting enchantments that causedskin to grow over the artificial limb. Nuadareturned to the rulership just in time, for he wasneeded to lead his people in another battle at thesame place as the earlier one.

The second battle of Mag Tuired began onthe sacred feast of SAMHAIN and pitted theTuatha Dé against the again-powerful Fomorians,led by the frightening king BALOR of the EvilEye, who looked through only one EYE normallybut in times of battle allowed warriors to lift thelid on his other eys so that it cast out murderousrays. His own half-breed grandson, the heroLUGH, killed him with a spear, after which the

Mythological Cycle 345

Tuatha Dé Danann ruled the land until, muchlater, they were replaced by the MILESIANS, astory that is not considered part of theMythological Cycle.

mythology Typically scholars use this wordto refer to the narrative cycles that underpin aculture’s religious rituals and folkways. In somecultures such narratives are codified into writ-ing; divinities then typically become organizedinto a pantheon, their relationships articulated,and the confusions of identity ironed out.

Because the Celts did not write down theirmyths but instead recited them, there is no sin-gle source or scripture that defines Celticmythology. In addition, sculptures and inscrip-tions date from the Roman invasion and weresubject to the reinterpretation of Celtic deitiesaccording to the Roman pantheon; thus it issometimes difficult to clearly distinguish whatthe Celts originally believed. Finally, many liter-ary sources were transcribed by Christianmonks, leaving open the possibility that thewritten myths themselves may be tainted withpost-Celtic material.

346 mythology

Nabelcus Continental Celtic god. Thisobscure divinity from the region of Vaucluse inFrance was associated by the Romans with theirwarrior god MARS.

na buchtogai See SEA FAIRIES.

name Cosmological concept. The power ofnaming is commonly connected to spiritualprowess in many cultures, as is evidenced in theChristian myth in which the first humans, Adamand Eve, are granted the power to name all theanimals they encounter. Bestowing a name on achild is an important act, one that Roman writ-ers claim was conducted in Celtic Gaul byDRUIDS. Some Irish texts speak of a kind of bap-tism, with babies dipped in streams or dunked inholy WELLS as their names were given to them.This was not easily supplanted by the Christianrite; in the Hebrides, a long-lasting traditioncalled for children to be sprinkled with drops ofwater immediately upon birth, at which time atemporary name was granted the newborn.

In Celtic lands, where the power of the worldwas held primary, the very sound of a name wasso important that to speak it was forbidden atcertain times. While at sea, Scottish fishermenwould not use the proper names of seabirds thatthey saw as threatening portents; similarly, names

of villages were not mentioned, the places beingreferred to obliquely instead, apparently to pro-tect those living there from potential harm fromFAIRIES or other spirits. Also in Scotland, peopledid not speak the name of a newborn child untilit had been baptized and thus, presumably, pro-tected from FAIRY KIDNAPPING. The tradition ofgiving nicknames or pet names to people simi-larly arises from the belief that, if fairy peopleknew the real name of a loved person, that per-son would be in danger of being stolen AWAY.

Sources: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p.388; Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands.London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 95.

names for fairyland Many names for theOTHERWORLD are found in Irish and Scottishsources, although it is unclear whether theseindicated geographically separate locations or aremerely variant descriptions of the land’s features.The names describe the Otherworld as an abun-dant flatland, as in MAG MELL (“plain of honey”)and MAG MÓR (“great plain”), or as a submergedisland, as in TIR FO THUINN (“land under wave”).Perhaps the most common name was TIR NA NOG

(“land of youth”), which emphasized the unfad-ing beauty of fairyland’s residents.

6N

347

names for the fairies Folkloric motif. Inplaces where the pre-Christian gods weredemoted into FAIRIES, these ancient powers arerespected sufficiently that it is still considereddangerous to call them by their real names.Therefore euphemisms are used, some vague,others flattering: Them, the Other Crowd, theGood Folk, the Good Neighbors, even ThatLot. In Scotland the common phrase was theGuid Folk, and on the Shetlands the GuidNeighbors, while the people of Wales used theterm TYLWYTH TEG, “the Fair Family.” On theIsle of Man names for the fairies included NyMooinjer Veggey, “the Little Kindred”; NyGuillyn Beggey, “The Little Boys”; and YnSleih Veggey, “the Little People.” This verbalhabit originated in Celtic beliefs about thepower of the word. One famous tale describeshow a man was kidnapped by the fairies simplyfor consistently using the word fairies ratherthan a euphemism when passing their abodes(see FAIRY KIDNAPPING).

names for the Otherworld Folkloric motif.Although, unlike with FAIRIES, there was notaboo against speaking of the OTHERWORLD, wenonetheless find many evocative names thatdescribe the Celtic PARADISE: ILDATHACH,“many-colored land”; MAG MÓR, the “greatplain”; MAG MELL, the “plain of honey”; MagMon, the “plain of sports”; Mag Réin, “plain ofthe sea”; TIR FO THUINN, the “land under wave”;TIR NA NOG, the “land of youth”; TIR NA MBAN,the “land of women”; and TIR TAIRNGIRI, the“land of promise.” These names sometimes areused of a specific Otherworld realm like thefloating ISLAND inhabited by the great FAIRY

QUEEN NIAMH of the Golden Hair, but they aremore generally interchangeable.

Nanny Button-Cap British folkloric figure.A small sprite known in Yorkshire, NannyButton-Cap was a good FAIRY who appears insome rhymes and stories; she was apparently ahelpful sprite similar to a BROWNIE.

Nar (Náir) Irish goddess. An obscure goddessof this name (“modesty”) is known from sometexts to have offered a high king of Ireland greatriches. She may be a form of the goddess of SOV-EREIGNTY more commonly known as Flaith.

Nár Thúathcaech Irish hero. “Shame” isanother name for the figure more commonlyknown as FRIUCH, an argumentative swineherdreincarnated as the great BULL DONN CUAILNGE

on whom the great queen MEDB of the westernprovince of CONNACHT set her sights. His namemay derive from his role in setting in motion thegreat carnage related in the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE,for it was his whisperings to Medb that encour-aged her to marry AILILL mac Máta, who in turnchallenged her to prove herself equal to him,whereupon the great CATTLE RAID on ULSTER

was launched.

Nás (Naas) Irish goddess or heroine. Thisobscure Irish goddess, known only as the wife ofthe great hero LUGH, is familiar in Ireland todaybecause of Naas, a prosperous town near Dublinthat still bears her name. The place is said tohave been the site of her death or burial. Itsancient importance is suggested by the BUADA ordemand that the king at TARA dine on HARES

from Naas, for which the town is called Naas naRí, “Naas of the Kings.” Reputedly Lugh insti-tuted the great assembly (see ÓENACH) ofTeltown in honor of Nás, although most oftenthat festival was said to have been organized tohonor his foster mother, the goddess TAILTIU.

Nasciens (Seraphe) Arthurian hero. Once apagan ruler named Seraphe, Nasciens (“knowsnothing”) took a new name when, blinded by hisarrogant attempt to look upon the GRAIL, hebecame a hermit monk who advised the knightswho rode out in the quest of the sacred object.

Natosuelta (Nantosuelta) Continental Celticgoddess. Her name has been translated as “mean-

348 names for the fairies

dering river” and “winding brook,” either one ofwhich makes it clear that she is a goddess of freshWATER. Like other Celtic RIVER goddesses, shedoubtless ruled the land of her watershed, in thiscase the River Trent in Britain. The Romanizedimages of this goddess do not stress her riverinenature. Rather, she is shown holding a pot—which could, arguably, hold river water but couldalso suggest that Natosuelta was a goddess of thehousehold, for she was occasionally invoked as aprotector of the home and HEARTH. Some imagesshow her carrying a house on a sort of pole; on itperched a RAVEN, common symbol of PROPHECY.A shrine to Natosuelta was erected at the Romansettlement of Ad Pontem (today, East Stroker inNottinghamshire), where she was shown accom-panied by an unnamed male deity. On theContinent, she was sometimes associated withthe god SUCELLUS, “the striker.”

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,pp. 24, 26, 42; Straffon, Cheryl. The EarthGoddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, pp. 24, 125.

nature Cosmological concept. The Celticlove of nature has been noted by many writers,from ancient times to the present. However, it isimportant to note that the Celts, being radicallypolytheistic (see POLYTHEISM) and seeing divin-ity as lodged in this world rather than as separatefrom it, did not think of nature as we commonlydo today. Nature was not evil or a source oftemptation, as to many Christian believers whodescribe this world as a failed copy of the origi-nal PARADISE. Rather, this world was filled withbeauty and splendor, as well as pain.

In one ancient Irish text, princesses EITHNE

and FEDELM of CONNACHT asked ST. PATRICK

and his followers if their god was “in the heavensor on earth, in the sea, in the rivers, in themountains, in the valleys.” St. Patrick assuredthe girls that god was, indeed, in all those places,but the saint and the princesses, although in

apparent agreement, meant quite differentthings. Patrick meant that a transcendent god,having created the world, still had power over it;the princesses intended no metaphor butexpressed a belief in what is called immanentdivinity, god found within nature rather thanoutside it.

A nature so suffused with divinity seems notto have been the vision of the Irish alone but tohave been shared with their Celtic relationsaround Europe. Supernatural forces werebelieved to pervade the natural world, which wasconsidered divine. The earth itself was typicallyfeminine, a goddess, as were bodies of WATER,especially RIVERS. For this reason, the Celts wor-shiped out of doors, in sacred groves calledNEMETONS rather than in roofed TEMPLES. Theforces of nature were not always benign butcould be threatening or even maleficent towardhumans, who were not seen as separate fromnature but as part of it.

Navan Fort See EMAIN MACHA.

Navel Stone See STONE OF DIVISIONS.

Nechtan (Elcmar) Irish god or hero. Thisrelatively obscure god appears in the story of thegoddess BÓAND, whose river, the Boyne, was saidto arise near a small HILLFORT called SídNechtain, “the FAIRY MOUND of Nechtan.”Sometimes identified with the better-known godNUADA, Nechtan was said to have lived originallyin the great stone tumulus called the BRÚ NA

BÓINNE with Bóand, his wife. But Nechtan wastricked by Bóand, who wished to sleep with thepowerful and well-endowed god, the DAGDA.They eloped together, and to hide the affair theDagda made the sun stand still in the sky fornine months so that their child could be bornbefore Nechtan realized what had happened.That son, AONGHUS Óg, then tricked Nechtaninto giving up possession of the great Brú naBóinne by claiming that he alone had been left

Nechtan 349

out when fairy palaces were assigned.Thereupon, Nechtan moved to another fairy hillnear the river’s source.

He lived there, some legends say, in the formof a SALMON, although that figure is more com-monly called FIND or FINTAN. The salmon livedon the nuts of WISDOM dropped by magicalHAZEL bushes that thrived at the river’s source.Anyone who could catch and eat the salmonwould be gifted with all its wisdom. Nechtan hasbeen connected with the continental Celtic godNODENS, in whose shrine in Britain sculptures ofhooked fish were displayed.

Nechtanebus Irish hero. A supposed Egyp-tian pharaoh, he was through his daughterSCOTA an ancestor of the Irish people. Scotamarried Míl, the wandering soldier whose chil-dren, the MILESIANS, were Ireland’s last settlers,according to the mythological history called theBOOK OF INVASIONS. Most scholars believe thatwork is not factually correct. Despite this doubt,there were indeed several pharaohs by the nameof Nechtanebus. The name of the hero or godNECHTAN seems to be derived from this name.

necromancy Cosmological concept. There issome question as to whether the Celts employedwhat is today called necromancy—speaking withor raising the dead, sometimes with the intentionof gathering information that only they possess.Folkloric tales describe WITCHES or FAIRIES ashaving this ability, but it is unclear whether nor-mal people could attain it. In Irish texts we find adescription of a long rite employed by a BARD

seeking to gain information through necromancy.Because parts of the greatest Irish epic, TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE, had been lost, the BARD SenchanTorpeist did MAGIC for several days that enabledhim to raise the spirit of the great dead hero, FER-GUS mac Róich, who had participated in the CAT-TLE RAID that forms the subject of the poem. Thepoet managed the difficult feat, memorizing themissing verses and reciting them aloud to anassembly of other poets before dying of the effort.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 151 ff.

Necthan Scéne Irish heroine. An obscurefigure, she appears as the mother of severalheroes who lost their lives to the ULSTER super-hero CÚCHULAINN.

need-fire Celtic ritual. FIRE was a potent sym-bol to the Celts, who viewed it as a seed or essenceof life. Several times each year, fire festivals wereheld; these may have begun with the need of agri-cultural peoples to burn off stubble from fieldsand brush from cleared forests and later acquireda mythological significance as a solar symbol. InIreland and on the Isle of Man, such festivals usu-ally included the dousing of house fires through-out the land, to be later relighted from the sacralfires of the festival (see BELTANE).

There would also be times when it was feltnecessary to call upon gods and other powers forassistance—when famine threatened, forinstance, or when disease ran rampant amongherds or humans, or when WITCHCRAFT was sus-pected (the latter was documented in Scotlandinto relatively recent times). Then the neededritual fire would be lit, regardless of the seasonor date. House fires would be extinguished, anddesignated celebrants (DRUIDS, in ancient times)made fire with a wooden fire-wheel or with flint.Once the primary fire was burning, each localhousehold would relight its hearth fire from it,thus spreading the intercessory ritual through-out the land.

In some cases, power was believed to comeonly from certain types of wood, which had to berubbed together to create a spark for the need-fire. There were often complex rituals connectedwith the need-fire, such as that the spark had tobe captured in hemp, which was then used tolight a candle, which in turn lit a torch, and thenfinally a pile of peat or turf bricks. At times onlymarried men were permitted to swivel thewooden fire-stakes against each other, suggest-

350 Nechtanebus

ing a sexual symbolism to the fire-making thatwas apparently believed constrained by themen’s marital status. Water was sometimes madepart of the ritual, with a CAULDRON being placedover the blazing fire; when it came to the boil, itwould be sprinkled over homes, people, herds,or whatever was in need of protection.

Occasionally need-fires were lit for protectionof women in childbirth, and for their children aswell, for it was believed that when a newly lit need-fire blazed nearby, FAIRY KIDNAPPING of infantswas less likely than if the child were unprotected.The ritual of protection sometimes included car-rying a blazing brand from the need-fire aroundthe house or herd in order to purify and protect it.

The tradition of the need-fire lasted long inCeltic lands. It was recorded to have been lit inthe year 1767 on the Scottish island of Mull,because a CATTLE disease was spreading ram-pantly and threatening the stock upon whichpeople depended for food and livelihood.Despite the spread of Christianity and thedemonization of ancient rites (the need-fire rit-ual was called “wicked” by local ministers), thepeople climbed the hill of Carnmoor with aWHEEL and some spindles made of OAK, a treesacred to the Celts. All the fires within sight ofthe hill were doused, and then the fire-wheel wasspun in a sunwise direction until sparks flewfrom it. As this occurred, the witnesses chantedan incantation, whose words are not recorded.According to tradition, the wheel had to makefire before noon, presumably because the sun’senergy was waxing or growing stronger untilthen. For three consecutive days, hours of spin-ning did not produce sufficient sparks, so peoplestopped the process until the next day. When theneed-fire was finally sparked into life, they tooka heifer afflicted with the disease and sacrificedher, burning the diseased part in the blaze. Allthe hearth fires of the region were then lit fromthe need-fire, and the rest of the animal wasroasted as a sacrificial feast to be shared.

The ritual of the need-fire was practiced byGermanic peoples as well as Celtic, as docu-mented by the great folklorist Jacob Grimm. It is

not clear whether the rite began with Germanictribes and spread to nearby Celts, or the reverse.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 199;MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame:Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, p. 21.

Nehalennia Continental Celtic goddess. Oneof the most important goddesses of the regionwe call the Netherlands was Nehalennia, a god-dess so popular that many large monuments andcarved inscriptions to her have been found inthat relatively small geographical area. She wasthe center of a large, popular, and wealthy cultthat involved not only Celts but Roman citizensas well. That she is little known in contemporarytexts is probably the result of our ignorance ofher mythology. No narratives about Nehalenniasurvive; we have only the many sculpted imagesdedicated to her, with their elaborate and quiteconsistent iconography, to use in interpretingwhat she meant to her people.

At two major cult sites on the North Sea,archaeologists have found temples filled withlarge monuments to her. One of these, on theIsland of Walcheren near Domberg, emergedfrom the sea on January 5, 1647, as a storm rav-aged the seacoast. When it subsided, a huge tem-ple to Nehalennia, dated to the second or thirdcentury C.E., lay uncovered from the seasidedunes. More than two dozen altars and othermonuments were part of the complex, which wasunfortunately mostly destroyed by fire in 1848.Records show that much pottery and manyCOINS were found on the site, suggesting com-mercial activity. It was a rich shrine, made ofstone brought from Metz, more than 400 milesaway in what is today Germany. PresumablyNehalennia was a special goddess to the seatraders who stopped in this ancient port for pro-visions, trade, and worship; that they believed sheblessed or controlled their activities is clear fromthe wealth they lavished on her shrine.

Nehalennia 351

Another shrine to Nehalennia was discoveredmore recently in 1979, when a fisherman work-ing the waters of the Oosterschelde estuary nearColijnsplaat found fragments of altars toNehalennia. Since then, almost a hundred arti-facts have been found in the area, thought to bethe temple called Ganuenta, which in late Romantimes flooded and sank beneath the waters of theestuary. From these two sites with their wealth ofstatuary, inscriptions, and other artifacts, it hasbeen determined that Nehalennia—despite ourignorance of her mythology—was a significant,perhaps the most significant, deity to the Celticresidents of the region.

She may have begun as the ancestral goddessof the local Celtic tribe, the Morini, but ulti-mately she was to become a goddess worshipedby the various travelers through the area, mostof them sea merchants and sailing crews whomade offerings to her for their continued safetyon the often dangerous waters of the North Sea,where her worship seems to have been concen-trated. Much of her iconography, not surpris-ingly, includes nautical imagery: boats, oars, rud-ders, shells, FISH, dolphins, and sea monsters.She was typically shown as a strong youngwoman, usually wearing a little cape around hershoulders and a round cap, which have beeninterpreted as a local costume. Usually she wasseated, although sometimes she stood with herfoot resting on the prow of a ship or hauling aboat by a rope.

Nehalennia’s name has been translated as“leader” and “woman who steers,” indicatingthat her position as goddess of seagoers did notlimit her domain but expressed it symbolically.She has been described as a goddess of death, theone who brings her devotees safely home to anOTHERWORLD beyond this one, which was oftenimagined by the Celts as an ISLAND somewhereoff in the western sea. Nehalennia was mostoften depicted with a DOG, which in other con-texts has been interpreted to represent aguardian of the dead. On most statues, theselarge beasts sit attentively at her feet, ears at thealert, looking more like guard dogs than pets but

with a kindly rather than fierce expression ontheir canine faces.

In addition to her connections with the sea,Nehalennia was also associated with the produc-tiveness of the land. She was depicted sur-rounded by symbols of abundance: the full COR-NUCOPIA, as well as baskets of produce and grain;on the top of many of her altars were sculptedrepresentations of heaped fruits, as though theyhad been piled upon her altar in offering. Sopredominant was this imagery that not a singleimage of Nehalennia has been found that doesnot include fruits on vegetables: she appearsunconcerned with human or animal fecundity,focusing instead on that of the vegetative world.

This combination of nautical and agriculturalimagery has been variously interpreted. As a god-dess of commerce, Nehalennia naturally wouldhave overseen the ships full of grain that were partof trade in those times; thus she may have beeninvoked for good harvests that would, in turn,lead to good profits. The imagery may have had aless selfish motivation, however, for Nehalenniamay have been envisioned as a goddess of theworld’s journey through the seasons. The fact thatsome of her altars show cosmic symbols such asSUN and MOON suggest that Nehalennia’s influ-ence was much larger than mere commerce butincluded all kinds of abundance and prosperity, inthis world and the Otherworld.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Celtic Goddesses:Warriors, Virgins and Mothers. London: BritishMuseum Press, 1995, p. 179; Green, Miranda.Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art.London: Routledge, 1989, p. 10.

Nemain (Neman, Neamhan) Irish goddess.One of a trio of war goddesses called the threeMórrígna, Nemain is the least known, the moreprominent being BADB (“scald crow”) and MÓRRÍ-GAN (“great queen” or “queen of phantoms”);Nemain’s name seems to mean “battle panic” or“frenzy of war.” So frenzied did she make warriorsthat they sometimes mistook their friends for

352 Nemain

enemies, resulting in tragedies of the kind todaycalled “friendly fire,” in which a man is killed byhis own comrades. She is described only briefly invarious texts as confusing warriors with her weirdcries. Like other war goddesses, she was imaginedto take the form of a CROW, which like other car-rion eaters was often seen hovering over battle-fields, waiting for a meal. Because her name maybe connected to the Celtic word for an outdoorshrine, NEMETON, she may represent the duty ofwarriors to protect sacred sites.

Nemed (Neimheadh) Irish god. In the BOOK OF

INVASIONS, Ireland’s mythological history, we readof this man who was an early settler on the island.A direct descendant of the biblical Noah throughhis son Japheth, Nemed was also descended fromthe monster god of Britain, MAGOG. Leaving hishomeland of SCYTHIA, he arrived three decadesafter the mysterious people of PARTHOLÓN werewiped out by an unknown plague, but while themalevolent beings called the FOMORIANS stillraged through the land. Nemed had set off forIreland with an armada of ships, but when his sea-men saw a tower of GOLD on a shore along theway, they tried to land in order to enrich them-selves. The sea was against them, however, and allthe boats but that in which Nemed and his wifeMACHA were traveling were dashed to bits.

Although Nemed kept on toward Ireland, ittook 18 months of sailing before they reachedlandfall. Nemed’s people had to fight three bat-tles to win the right to settle from the fierceFomorians, but finally that monstrous race wasdefeated, and Nemed set them to work to buildhis palace, Rath Chinneich in Armagh. Oncethat effort was done, Nemed massacred theworkers so that they could never build a palacebetter than his.

It was Nemed who, in honor of his wifeMacha (the first of three goddesses or heroinesby that name), cleared the first fields in the denseforests of the ancient island. As it happened,Nemed and his descendants, the Nemedians, didnot long remain in Ireland. After Nemed’s death,

the Fomorians paid back his attack on their peo-ple by forcing the Nemedians into servitude.When they tried to escape, their opponentscalled upon the winds and seas to crush therebellion, and all but one of the Nemedian shipswere overturned into the ocean.

That one carried Macha and Nemed’s son,FERGUS Lethderg, who moved to the next islandto the east, where with his son Britán (afterwhom some claim the island was named; othersources cite the goddess BRITANNIA), establishedhimself and became the ancestral father of theBritish people. Another descendant, Semeon,traveled as far as Greece, where he became theancestor of the FIR BOLG, who returned toIreland to fight the Fomorians again. Yet otherdescendants traveled far to the north where theybecame the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, returning towin Ireland from both the Fir Bolg and theFomorians at the two battles of MAG TUIRED.

Related to the Celtic word NEMETON, whichmeans “sacred place” or “grove,” the name ofthis god or hero has been interpreted as meaning“sacred person” or even DRUID. Some historicalfacts seem to hide in the complex tales of theBook of Invasions. The Nemedians were appar-ently a Celtic people who had resided for sometime in Ireland and then moved to Britain,where they remained powerful until the arrivalof the Germanic peoples called the Angles andSaxons. Unfortunately, attempts to interpret theBook of Invasions in light of actual settlement pat-terns are invariably conjectural.

Sources: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Part 3.Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941, pp. 115–200;O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History andMythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, 1946, p. 76.

Nemedians See NEMED.

Nemetius Continental Celtic god. Thegrammatical form of the Latinized name has led

Nemetius 353

scholars to presume this figure to have beendivine. Nemetius was honored at one site on thewest bank of the Rhine. The name is connectedto Celtic words for “sacred grove,” found also inNEMETON and NEMETONA.

nemeton Ritual site. The Celts worshiped notindoors but outside, in groves of TREES and atother sacred sites. There are many evidencesthat trees played an important part in Celtic reli-gious life, never more so than when rituals wereheld in forest clearings called nemetons, a namerelated to words in other Indo-European lan-guages (Greek némos, “glade,” Latin nemus,“sacred”) and may connect with the ancient Irishroot, nem-, which meant “heaven” but referredsymbolically to anything sacred.

Ancient classical authors made much of theoutdoor location of Celtic rituals; Strabodescribed the OAK groves in which theGalacians met, while Pliny the Elder andTacitus both spoke of the same among conti-nental Celts. Lucan, in a vivid passage,described groves “untouched by men’s handsfrom ancient times, whose interlacing boughsenclosed a space of darkness and cold shade,”wherein “images of gods grim and rude wereuncouth blocks formed of felled tree-trunks.”He reported a legend that the trees wouldsometimes appear on FIRE or stricken by earth-quake but would in reality be untouched andunharmed. Lucan also offhandedly mentionedthat this sacred grove was leveled by Caesarbecause it was too near some buildings theRomans were erecting.

After Romanization, the word nemeton wassometimes used of a stone TEMPLE, when suchbuildings replaced the sacred groves that gaveway to Roman axes. The word became part ofthe names of many Celtic settlements; thus wehave Drunemeton near Ankara, Turkey, wherethe Celtic Galacians lived; Nematacum andNemeton in Gaul, Nemetobrigia in the Celticregion of Spain called Galacia, Vernemeton inEngland, and Medionemeton in Scotland.

Sources: Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 198; Lonigan,Paul R. The Druids: Priests of the Ancient Celts.Contributions to the Study of Religion, No. 45.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996, p. 3.

Nemetona Continental Celtic and Britishgoddess. The name of this goddess derives fromNEMETON, the Celtic word for “sacred grove,” forthe Celts never worshiped indoors but rather inthe open air, especially in groves of TREES thatwere considered to embody the sacredness ofnature. Nemetona’s name, which has been trans-lated as “she of the sacred grove” or “the goddessof the shrine” may be related to that of theGermanic tribe, the Nemetes, whose ancestralgoddess she may have been; she has also beenconnected etymologically to the Irish war-god-dess NEMAIN, suggesting that part of the role ofthe warrior was to protect sacred sites. There issome evidence that in parts of Gaul, Nemetonawas honored as a god rather than a goddess.

Nemglan Irish god. This relatively obscuregod appears in only one Irish myth, that of theheroine MESS BUACHALLA, to whom he appearedas a BIRD and whom he then seduced. Their sonCONAIRE, the king of TARA, was told never toinjure a bird because of his descent from thatspecies, which has suggested to some scholars anancient belief in animal TOTEMS. Nemglan cameto Conaire before his INAUGURATION as king,revealing to him the secret requirements for hisselection and success.

Nentres (Nentres of Garlot) Arthurian hero.This minor figure in the stories of the great kingARTHUR opposed the king at the beginning of hisreign but later married ELAINE, Arthur’s half sis-ter, and became an ally.

neo-pagan (neo-Pagan) Modern religion.This term, which means “new pagan,” is used todescribe those who attempt to reconstruct

354 nemeton

ancient religion in ways appropriate to today’sworld. Some neo-pagans claim that their riteswere transmitted in secret for many generations,but there is little proof of such claims; rather,they may refer to family traditions that mixCHRISTIANITY, Celtic religion, and pre-Celticbeliefs, traditions that continue even today inparts of Europe and that are often derided thereas SUPERSTITION. Other neo-pagans make noclaims of secret information but describe theirreligion as a reconstruction of ancient beliefs. Inboth categories one finds groups and individualsinvolved in the CELTIC REVIVAL.

Nera (Neara mac Niadhain) Irish hero. Oneof the great literary and mythological texts ofIreland is the Adventure of Nera. The tale is setat CRUACHAN, the great palace of the goddess-queen MEDB of CONNACHT, on the magicalnight of SAMHAIN (November 1), the Celticfeast when the doors to the OTHERWORLD werebelieved to open. When king AILILL mac Mátaasked that someone attend to a hanged corpse,Nera volunteered, only to find the dead manable to speak. The corpse asked for a drink ofwater, and so Nera hoisted it upon his back tofind it a drink, but turning toward Cruachan,saw the palace ablaze. He chased the arsoniststo the cave of OWEYNAGAT, where to his won-derment he learned that he had foreseen anattack that would occur the following year onSamhain.

The woman who offered this informationbecame Nera’s Otherworld wife, but before set-tling down with her, Nera returned to Cruachanto warn Medb and Ailill of the attack he had fore-seen. The queen and king raided Oweynagat,destroying the army that would have burnedtheir palace. The adventures of Nera were notyet over, for the great war goddess MÓRRÍGAN

stole a COW from the herd that Nera’s FAIRY wifehad given him and took it to the upper world tobe bred with the great DONN CUAILNGE, thefinest brown BULL in Ireland. When the calf wasborn, it fell into a fight with the white bull of

Connacht, FINNBENNACH, who killed the youngbull. When Medb overheard people saying thatthe fight would have been different had it beenthe calf’s sire fighting, she swore she wouldsomeday see such a battle—which indeed cameto pass after her raid upon ULSTER, related in thegreat Irish epic, TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, pp. 248 ff.

Nerbgen Irish heroine. This obscure figure,known as “the vehement,” is named in the BOOK

OF INVASIONS as one of the FIVE wives of the heroPARTHOLÓN, the others being Aife, Elgnad (orDEALGNAID), Cichban, and Cerbnat. She is oth-erwise unknown.

Nerthus Germanic goddess. There is nodoubt that Nerthus is a Germanic goddess, butsome aspects of her cult influenced the rituals ofCeltic goddesses as well, suggesting that therewas a shared source for these rituals or that thegeographically close cultures influenced eachother. The Roman general and geographerTacitus describes the worship of Nerthus on asacred ISLAND to which no human was permittedentry; such islands are found commonly inCeltic lore as an image of the OTHERWORLD. Atintervals, however, Nerthus was stricken by adesire to leave her sacred isle to travel amongher followers. She was hauled forth on an OX-drawn cart and was greeted with great festivity.All warfare ceased while the goddess was abroadin the land. She was believed, by her passing, tobring FERTILITY to the fields. When her progresswas over, Nerthus was conveyed back to her holyisland, where those who attended her were putto death, apparently in the belief that no onecould be permitted to live who had looked uponthe face of the goddess. The image of the god-dess drawn upon a CART is found in Celtic con-texts as well; HUMAN SACRIFICE, too, may havebeen practiced by the Celts.

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Source: Tacitus. The Agricola and the Germania.Trans. H. Mattingly. New York: PenguinBooks, 1948, pp. 134–135.

Nessa (Ness, Nes, Assa) Irish goddess. Themother of the great king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA,Nessa was originally called Assa, “gentle one.”Her father was EOCHAID, king of ULSTER, whobrought up his daughter in dignity and comfort.She was a studious and quiet girl of great personalcharisma and beauty who drew the eye of the lust-ful DRUID CATHBAD. Realizing that she was neverwithout her 12 protective tutors, Cathbad hadthem all killed one night so that he could gainaccess to her. Cathbad underestimated the gentlegirl: Appalled and infuriated by the violence doneher beloved tutors, she gathered a company ofwarriors and set out to discover who was respon-sible and to wreak vengeance upon them.

She had never carried arms before, but angermade the girl strong, whence she became knownas Nessa, “ungentle.” She wandered acrossIreland, waging battle wherever she saw wrongdone, but she did not find who had killed hertutors. Then, one day as she bathed in a wilder-ness spring, the culprit found her. Cathbadsprang upon the unarmed, unguarded naked girland drew his sword on her. “Better to consent toyou than be killed without my own weapon,” shesaid. Cathbad forced himself upon her; somelegends say that in that moment Concobar wasconceived, while others say that Nessa outwittedher rapist by conceiving through magical means.Though she lived with him as a sexual hostage,she did not give birth despite prophecies that shewould bear a hero. An OMEN came to her oneday: Two WORMS appeared in a pail of waterfrom a holy WELL. Nessa drank them down, thusbecoming pregnant (see PREGNANCY THROUGH

DRINKING), but through her magical power sheassured that the child was born clutching one ofthe worms, so that no one would mistake thefuture hero for Cathbad’s son.

After Cathbad died, Nessa married again,this time by her own choice. Her husband was

FACHTNA, another king of Ulster, but he soondied too, whereupon she was courted by theimpressive warrior FERGUS mac Róich, her latehusband’s half brother, who had assumed thethrone. As she had a son already, Nessa worriedthat Concobar, not being of royal blood, couldnever become king. So she entreated Fergus togive up his throne at EMAIN MACHA for a year, toallow Concobar to reign in his stead; thereafterall of Concobar’s descendants could claim to beof the blood of kings. Nessa was more loyal toher son than to her husband, and after a yearFergus returned to discover that she had con-spired to keep him from regaining his throne.Furious, he left Ulster and joined forces with thequeen of the neighboring province, MEDB, whosoon waged war on Concobar’s territory.

Nessa’s name has been traced to the languageof the PICTS, a people who preceded the Celts inIreland and Scotland. Some scholars argue thatthe Picts were matrilineal, tracing a child’s fam-ily line through the mother’s rather than thefather’s family as in patrilineal descent. The factthat Nessa’s father gave his daughter land, in aregion where the Picts were strong, seems evi-dence for this theory. Whether Pictish or not,Nessa’s child bore her name, being calledConcobar mac Nessa, “son of Nessa,” ratherthan after his father, whether that was Cathbador a magical worm.

Source: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 4–5.

Nét (Néit) Irish god. An obscure Irish divin-ity known only as the mate of the war goddessNEMAIN and therefore presumed to be a god ofwar, Nét may be one of the rare Celtic war gods,for Celtic lands were usually under the power ofgoddesses. Or Nét may be the same figure asNEMED, the husband of MACHA, a goddess withwhom Nemain is sometimes confused or con-flated. Legends about Nét are contradictory:some name him as a member of the monstrousFOMORIANS, while others say he was one of the

356 Nessa

magical TUATHA DÉ DANANN. Nét is often con-nected with the Irish site of GRIANÁN AILEACH, agreat stone fortress in the far north of the islandwhose mythological importance is unarguablealthough interpretations of its meaning vary.

Neton Continental Celtic god. This obscuregod of the Celtic tribe called the Accetani, identi-fied by the Romans with their war god MARS, maybe connected to the Irish warrior divinity NÉT.

Nevydd See NEVYN.

Nevyn Welsh folkloric figure. This gorgeousWelsh MERMAID was the beloved of a young mannamed Ivan Morgan, who lived on theCarnavonshire coast. Like others of her kind,she made a wonderful wife, sensuous and loyal toher human mate. She bore him a son, Nevydd,and a daughter, Eilonwy, and the family livedhappily until she grew homesick for the land-under-wave in which she had been reared. Whilehis mother and father were visiting the OTHER-WORLD under the seas, their son Nevydd learnedthe truth of his heritage and died of shame,whereupon Eilonwy committed suicide out ofgrief—or at least, she tried, throwing herselfinto the water. She did not drown, for she wasrescued by a handsome merman prince who tookher off to live with him in the Otherworldbeneath the sea. Nevyn went back to land toclaim the body of her son, which she took awaywith her on a beautiful ship that magicallyappeared. The legend does not record what hap-pened to the bereaved Ivan. Nyved’s name issimilar to the Irish FAIRY QUEEN, NIAMH of theGolden Hair; they may originally have been thesame figure.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 42.

Newgrange See BRÚ NA BÓINNE.

Niall (Niall of the Nine Hostages, NiallNíoganach, Niall Naoi-ghaillach) Irish hero.One of the greatest of kings of TARA, Niall ruledfor more than a quarter century. The meaning ofhis first name is not known, although it has beentranslated as “cloud”; no earlier heroes bear it, sothe name Niall appears to originate with thisheroic figure. The latter part of his name,Níoganach or “of the nine hostages” comes fromhis agreement to take on as foster sons one boyfrom each of the five PROVINCES of the land, aswell as four from Britain. (Some sources say onewas from Britain and one each from Scotland,France, and Wales.) A STONE monument onTara, still standing today, is said to cover hisgrave. He is a quasi-historical figure, one of theearliest recorded HIGH KINGS of Ireland andfather of the important king Loegaire; Niall isbelieved to have ruled in the fifth century C.E.His descendants became the Uí Néill (O’Neill)family, one of Ireland’s most powerful for morethan half a millennium.

Niall was known as a raiding captain who tookmany captives, following in the footsteps of hisfather Eochu Muighmheadhon (“lord of slaves”)who captured Niall’s mother CAIRENN, a Britishprincess, on one of his raids. Eochu already had awife, MONGFHINN, who naturally favored her ownfour sons. She persecuted Cairenn and her sonuntil the BARD TORNA foresaw the child’s illustri-ous future and offered assistance to the womanand her baby. It is unclear whether Niall’s fatherwas king of Tara or whether Niall was the first ofhis family to hold that title.

Irish history at that time was thicklyencrusted by myth, and so we find stories aboutNiall that have more legendary than historicalaccuracy. In one of these, Niall and his fourbrothers went hunting one day, only to findthemselves in a region without game and grow-ing very thirsty. The only water they could findwas in a WELL guarded by a HAG so unsavory inappearance that the young men fell back in dis-gust when she demanded a kiss of them. OnlyNiall stepped forward to bestow a kiss, and otherfavors, upon the hag—who, pleased with his

Niall 357

performance, revealed herself to be a beautifulyoung woman in disguise. She told Niall that hername was Flaith or SOVEREIGNTY and bestowedupon him the KINGSHIP of the land.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 518; O’Rahilly,Thomas. Early Irish History and Mythology.Dublin: The Dublin Institute for AdvancedStudies, 1946, p. 208.

Niamh (Neeve, Niamh of the Golden Hair,Niave, Niam, Niau) Irish mythological figure.One of the great FAIRY QUEENS of Ireland,Niamh was so beautiful that no human mancould resist her: stately, fair of feature, andcrowned with cascading golden locks. Indeed,her very name means “beauty.” Daughter of theocean god MANANNÁN MAC LIR, Niamh lived farout to sea on a magical ISLAND, TIR TAIRNGIRI

(“land of promise”), to which she would take hercaptive and captivated lovers.

The most famous of Niamh’s lovers was OISÍN,BARD of the band of heroes called the FIANNA,who left his comrades behind to follow Niamh toher OTHERWORLD. There they lived in a swoon ofhappiness made even more blissful by the birth oftheir daughter PLUR NA MBAN (“flower of woman-hood”). Eventually, however, Oisín grew home-sick and begged to go back to Ireland. Niamh hadnot tired of her lover and was reluctant to let himgo into the danger she knew awaited him there,but he persisted, and she relented. She warnedOisín that under no circumstances should his foottouch the ground. Then she put him on a fairyhorse and sent him home.

Alas for Oisín, he returned to an Irelandutterly changed, for time passes more slowly inFAIRYLAND than on our earth. The warriors ofthe Fianna were long deceased, and Ireland hadlost its old gods with the coming of CHRISTIAN-ITY. The poet was so shocked that he fell fromhis horse. All his years came upon him, and hequickly died of advanced old age. One famous

poem is based on the conceit that, before dying,Oisín was able to converse with ST. PATRICK, whodespite the Fianna poet’s great eloquence aboutancient pagan ways, was able to convert him andbaptize him just before death. In any case, Oisínnever saw his beloved Niamh again.

Two less important figures also bear thename of Niamh. One is the mistress of the greatULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN; the other marriedthe son of king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, whomCúchulainn served.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 390 ff.

Nicnevin Scottish folkloric figure. In somesources, we find this as the name of the figureelsewhere called HABETROT, a beautiful FAIRY

QUEEN in a malevolent guise as the leader of theWILD HUNT that steals people from their homesto become entertainments for the fairies.

night Cosmological concept. Unlike our wayof beginning day with dawn, the Celts began itat sundown the night before. Thus Celtic feastdays were celebrated on the evening of what wewould call the previous day. Hallowe’en is stillcelebrated at sundown on October 31, the daybefore the Celtic feast of SAMHAIN, from which itis derived, and BELTANE began with May Eve cel-ebrations on April 30.

Nimue Arthurian heroine. This Welsh name issometimes offered as the personal name of themysterious figure called the LADY OF THE LAKE,the OTHERWORLD sponsor of king ARTHUR wholived on an ISLAND of women somewhere in thefairy mists. The name is also occasionally used ofthe lover of the magician MERLIN, who otherwiseappears as Arthur’s half sister MORGAUSE, who inturn has been assumed to be the Lady of the Lake.Even more confusingly, Merlin’s lover is calledVIVIANE in some texts. Such confusions are com-monplace where mythologies are orally transmit-ted and later written down by imaginative writers.

358 Niamh

One common story of Nimue was that shewas the daughter of the Roman goddess DIANA,her father having been a human man namedDinas. As the daughter of the woodland divinity,she was naturally raised in the forest, whereMerlin first met her. Her first request of him wasto teach her to make a tower out of thin air; hedid so, not realizing that his life would end whenshe fashioned just such a prison for him.

Nisien (Nissien, Nisyen) Welsh hero or god.The Welsh god BRÂN THE BLESSED had two halfbrothers who were opposite in temperament.Gentle Nisien wished only the best for every-one, but his evil brother EFNISIEN did nothingbut cause trouble. It was Efnisien who causedthe great war that led to Brân’s death in Ireland,by a random act of cruelty that caused the kingof that land to be set against Wales forever.Nisien tried to intervene, searching for a diplo-matic solution and offering apologies for hisbrother’s behavior, but to no avail. Nisien plays arelatively small part in the story, found in theWelsh tales recorded as the MABINOGION, andmay be simply a positive foil for his evil brother.

Nodens (Nodons) British god. Relatively lit-tle is known about this god, whom the invadingRomans said was the same as their warrior divin-ity MARS. A huge temple was devoted to him onthe banks of the Severn River at Lydney inGloucestershire, with a dormitory and severalHEALING sites; thus Nodens may have been envi-sioned as warring against disease. Nodens wasalso associated with the woodland god SILVANUS,suggesting that healing was believed to occurmost effectively in the peace of a natural setting.

Never represented in human form, Nodensmay have been pictured as a large DOG—often ahealing symbol to the Celts, although also aguardian of the dead—although the caninesculptures found in his sanctuaries may havebeen intended to represent the god’s attendants.His name has not been translated with certaintybut may mean “cloud-maker,” “wealth-producer,”

or “fisherman.” Because of the size and impor-tance of his sanctuary, Nodens is considered oneof Britain’s most significant Celtic gods; he issometimes said to be parallel to the similarlynamed Irish god NUADU and has been linked aswell to the Welsh god LLUDD, whose alternativename is Nudd.

Noínden Ulad See DEBILITY OF THE

ULSTERMEN.

Nóine (Nóindiu, Noidhiu) Irish folkloric fig-ure. Several curious legends feature this boy whowas born after a nine-year gestation. In some, heis said to have been conceived by his mother aftera water spirit seduced her when she was frolick-ing on the seashore; in another, she was madepregnant by the god of poetry, AONGHUS Óg.Upon his birth, Nóine uttered nine mysterioussayings, after which his grandfather died; thismotif seems to have come from the more com-mon story of the hero LUGH and his malevolentgrandfather, BALOR of the Evil Eye. Some schol-ars believe that Nóine’s tales provided a sourcefor stories about the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

Noísiu (Naeshe, Naisii, Naoise, Noise, Noaise)Irish hero. One of Ireland’s most romantic andtragic legends surrounds this young man, one ofthe SONS OF UISNEACH and lover of the beautifulheroine DEIRDRE. Doomed by a prophecy to beboth immensely beautiful and the cause of war,Deirdre was held hostage by the king of ULSTER,CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, who wished to defy fateand have her for his bride despite the many yearsthat separated them. Although she was broughtup without ever seeing a man, Deirdre dreamedof the existence of Noísiu. One day she saw aRAVEN’s feather and blood on snow, and shewished aloud to have a man with hair that black,lips that red, skin that white.

Her nurse, the BARD LEBORCHAM, took pityon the girl and introduced her to the man sheknew fit that description: Noísiu. Together with

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his brothers, Ardán and Ainnle, the pair eloped,running from the powerful king Concobar, whopursued them relentlessly. Finally the brothersand Noísiu’s beloved Deirdre found peace in thewilderness of Scotland, where they lived a hardbut healthy life until Concobar lured them backwith promises of forgiveness. Deirdre suspectedtreachery, but Noísiu yearned for home. As soonas they arrived, Concobar had Noísiu and hisbrothers killed. Deirdre thwarted his attempt totake her, however, by committing suicide in griefover the loss of her true love, Noísiu.

Noísiu and his brothers were the children ofan otherwise obscure man named UISNEACH;some have argued a connection with the impor-tant mythological site of Uisneach in Co.Westmeath. Their mother was Elbha, thedaughter of the nefarious druid CATHBAD; thusthey would have been half brothers to kingConcobar himself, according to tales that haveCathbad fathering the king on the gentle scholarAssa, who after his assaults on herself and herhousehold became the warrior NESSA.

Nollaig (In Welsh, Nadolig) Folkloric holi-day. Although the Celts did not celebrate theSOLSTICES and EQUINOXES, centering their wor-ship instead on the central days of each season(IMBOLC, February 1, in winter; BELTANE, May 1,in spring; LUGHNASA, August 1, in summer; andSAMHAIN, November 1, in fall), various pressurescaused the addition of other seasonal feasts tothe Celtic calendar. Earlier cultures had markedthe solstices as is evidenced by the orientation ofpre-Celtic stone monuments to the sunrise andsunset of those days. With the coming ofChristianity, the winter solstice became espe-cially important, for it was the date on whichJesus Christ was said to have been born. Thisalleged birthday of the savior was, in fact,adopted by the Christian church as a way ofadapting the preexisting winter solstice festivalsthat the new converts were loath to abandon.

Thus Celtic lands developed their own win-ter solstice rituals, which were called in Scotland

“Nollaig,” apparently from the Latin natalis(“birth”) as passed through Welsh. That this fes-tival is not necessarily devoted to the birth ofChrist, but is more generically a midwinter feast,can be detected by the fact that it is only some-times celebrated on Christmas; in some regionsit occurs on New Year’s Day, while still otherregions celebrated the entire week betweenChristmas and New Year as Nollaig. In Scotlandprocessions of youngsters used to walk fromhouse to house, reciting nonsense rhymes whosewords seem to refer to Celtic heroic figures;householders rewarded the singers with foodand drink, with the climax of the festivities onHOGMANY or New Year’s Day. In Ireland boyshunted WRENS that were then carried around thevillage to singing and elaborate pageantry. InIrish tradition, if one died during this period, itwas a sign of being blessed.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p.229; Gardner, Alexander. Popular Tales of theWest Highlands. Vol III. London: J. F. Campbell,1892, p. 28; Hyde, Douglas. Abhráin atá Leaghtaar an Rechtúire: Songs Ascribed to Raftery. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, n.d., pp. 28, 53.

Noreia Possible continental Celtic goddess. InRoman times this obscure goddess was worshipedin the lands around today’s Slovenia, which wassettled by both Celts and Illyrians; it is not certainto which ethnic group this goddess belonged.

north (tuasiceart) Of the four DIRECTIONS,this one had the most sinister implications forthe ancient Irish and, possibly, for other Celticpeoples as well. The SUN was seen to move southon its daily path, as though retreating from thenorth (a direction geographically defined as theopposite from the Sun’s daily position at noon).Because the sunrise direction (deosil) was sym-bolically connected with correctness and thenatural order, moving to the left or to the north

360 Nollaig

had the opposite connotations. Words con-nected with north have, even in modern Irish,negative connections, as with words for “fore-boding,” “curse” and “anguish,” all of whichderive from the word for “north.” The northernprovince, ULSTER, is most associated with war inancient epics.

Source: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, p. 46.

Northumbria Celtic region. In Celtic times,the climatically harsh part of Britain, nowknown as Northumbria, was called Bernicia; themore fertile southern part was called Deira.

Nothain Irish heroine. Like other madwomen and men of Irish legend (see MIS, SUIB-HNE), Nothain was driven mad by war.According to the DINDSHENCHAS, the place-poetry of Ireland, Nothain was a WARRIOR

WOMAN who, driven insane by an attack that lefther family dead, wandered the countryside,becoming shaggy and wild. Her father, the onlyone to survive the assault, searched for morethan a year before he found her, speechless withgrief. After a night spent in his comforting pres-ence, she finally spoke, only to ask if anyone elsehad survived. Hearing the sad news that the fam-ily was all dead, Nothain died of sorrow.

See also MADNESS.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 29–31.

Nuada (Nuada of the Silver Hand, Nuada ofthe Silver Arm, Nuadu, Nuadhu, NuadaArgatlám) Irish god. Leader of the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, the people of the goddess DANU, at thetime when they contested with the malevolentFOMORIANS for possession of Ireland, Nuada wasa great warrior and fine leader. In the fury of thefirst battle of MAG TUIRED, his right hand or arm

was sliced off by an opponent. Thus even thoughvictorious, Nuada forfeited his throne, for aBLEMISHED KING could not rule.

The half-Fomorian BRES replaced him butturned out to be so stingy he would not evenfeed the poet CAIRBRE—an offense against HOS-PITALITY that lost Bres his realm, for the BARD

cast a SATIRE upon him that raised boils upon hisface, thus making Bres too blemished to rule. Inthe meantime, a silver hand had been crafted forNuada by the healing god DIAN CÉCHT. Evensuch a marvelous appurtenance did not satisfythe needs of kingship, for it still constituted adefect. Then MIACH, a brilliant physician andson of Dian Cécht, used his medical and magicalskills to cause real skin to grow over the silverarm—thus entitling Nuada to reassume thethrone. For his efforts, Miach lost his life, killedby his envious father.

When the Tuatha Dé left the surface of thisworld to live beneath the earth in their magicalswellings or sídhe, Nuada became the lord ofALMU, an important early ritual site and magicalcenter of the PROVINCE of LEINSTER. Othersources place his palace at the great tumulus onthe River Boyne, the BRÚ NA BÓINNE, claimingthat he was the consort goddess of the region,BÓAND. Deceived by her with the god DAGDA,Nuada was further deceived when the son of thataffair, AONGHUS Óg, tricked him out of the greatpalace; NECHTAN, the name sometimes given forBóand’s deceived husband, may be an alternativename for Nuada. Nuada was later euhemer-ized—made human—in stories that make him anearthly king who fought with the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL for control of Leinster. At Almu,Nuada was said to keep one of the great treas-ures of his race, a sword that could not beescaped once it had been unsheathed.

A minor figure by this name was a human, aDRUID who served the king CATHAÍR MÓR.

Source: O’Conor, Norreys Jephson. Battles andEnchantments: Retold from Early GaelicLiterature. Freeport N.Y.: Books for LibrariesPress, 1970, p. 7.

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Nuala Irish heroine. This name is often usedas a shortened version of FIONNUALA, but it isalso given to the FAIRY QUEEN otherwise knownas ÚNA, who was the lover of the king of theFAIRIES, FINNBHEARA.

nuckelavee Scottish folkloric figure. OnOrkney, the islands northeast of Scotland, peo-ple occasionally reported being set upon bythis monstrous centaur, whose one-eyedhuman head was mounted on a RED-fleshedHORSE’s body that had flippers instead of legs.It lived in the sea and from there leapt out tokill humans or CATTLE as its whim took it. Theonly escape was to dash across fresh water,which this sea-being could not tolerate. Thenuckelavee was related to the more commonlyknown WATER HORSE, or possibly to the NYGEL

of Shetland.

Source: Douglas, George. Scottish Fairy and FolkTales. West Yorkshire: EP Publishing, 1977, pp.160 ff.

Nudd (Lludd) British god. A great temple ofthe Roman era was dedicated to a god calledNODENS, who is believed to be the same as theWelsh god Nudd or LLUDD. Given the locationof the temple and the depiction of Nudd as sur-rounded by tritons, symbols of the sea, he hasbeen interpreted as the god of the RIVER’smouth or estuary and possibly the headlandsaround it.

In Welsh mythology, the god called Nudd(more commonly, Lludd), was the ruler ofBritain and brother of the king of the Continent,LLEFELYS. He built London, but his reign was notentirely happy nor successful. A race of demonsattacked the land, then two DRAGONS, then agigantic magician. With the help of his brother,Nudd was able to conquer all of the plagues.

numbers Cosmological symbols. As in manyother cultures, the Celts saw numbers as myste-

rious, powerful, even magical. The most impor-tant were the numbers THREE and FIVE, butother numbers had significance as well. TheCeltic numerical system ended with 10—thenumber that could be counted on two hands—with larger numbers expressed in terms of mul-tiples (10 times 10) or, more commonly, as a“vast” host or “innumerable” army. In Old Irishwe find indications that numbers may have beenoriginally counted in a system of fives, reflectedin both mythology and family organization.

Although there is no written evidence of anumerological system whereby each number wasgiven a specific mystical meaning, the repetitionof certain numbers suggests such a belief. Theiteration of the numbers three and five in variousmythological contexts is an especially strongindication that such numerology originallyexisted and has been lost. Comparison of variousmyths suggests the following meanings for fre-quently occurring numbers:

Two—Connected with service or commit-ment, found in legends of enchanted womenchained together in pairs, in pairs of oracularRAVENS that accompany the hero CÚCHULAINN,and in the two loyal hunting DOGS of FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL.Four—Connected with wholeness. Because a

hidden fifth was implied (see PROVINCES), four isseen as a diminished version of five.

Seven—Connected with MAGIC, an interpre-tation that may have been adopted from non-Celtic, possibly Middle Eastern, sources; themost common usage shows typical Celtic multi-plication, in the belief that the SEVENTH SON of aseventh son (less frequently, the seventh daughterof a seventh daughter) was especially likely to bemagically gifted. In myths about transformation,a span of seven years is common; thus the god-dess ÉTAIN was forced to live for seven years as aninsect, and the magical LOUGH GUR dries upevery seven years to reveal its secrets.

nygel (Noggle, nuggle) Scottish folkloric fig-ure. On the Shetland Islands, this magical being

362 Nuala

appeared as a sweet gray pony. But if youmounted it, beware, for it would take you on afast ride to the sea and dunk you there. Attack bya nygel was far less threatening than that of theinvariably fatal WATER HORSE, of which the nygelseems a variant, or of its neighboring MONSTER

the NUCKELAVEE. The nygel loved millraces—thestreams that ran from the old water-poweredgrain and woolen mills—and grew angry if theywere accidentally left running at night; the FAIRY

beast forced the wheel to a stop, which wreakedhavoc on its machinery.

Nynnyaw (Nynniaw) Welsh hero. This rela-tively obscure king was a son of the god BELI

and, with his brother Peibaw, once waged a warin which all the land was destroyed. The reasonfor the war: They disagreed on astrologicalinterpretations. Few wars ever were begun forsuch meager cause, and so the two brothers wereturned into animals to teach them a lesson.

Ny Shee Manx folkloric figure. This term, inthe language of the Isle of Man, refers to theFAIRY folk called the SÍDHE in Irish.

Ny Shee 363

oak Symbolic plant. Large and impressivelylong-lived, the oak was one of the most impor-tant TREES to the Celts. In part, this was becauseof the oak’s usefulness: It provides abundantacorns, which were in ancient times a favoredfood of PIGS, whose flesh then became part ofthe human diet; its long-lasting wood is soughtafter for building; its bark produces a substanceuseful for tanning leather. The oak’s usefulnessextended to the spiritual plane as well; accord-ing to Roman author Pliny the Elder, the Celtsharvested MISTLETOE from oak trees for ritualuse in curing disease and encouraging humanFERTILITY.

Oak forests were common in continentalGaul, where we find early evidence of theirsanctity: Construction of oak funeral houses byHALLSTATT and LA TÈNE peoples suggests thatthe tree was connected with the afterlife orOTHERWORLD. The oak may have been associ-ated with a specific god, although which one isnot clear, because documents date only toRoman times, when Maximum Tyrius claimedthe oak symbolized the father of gods, who livedwithin the tree; the so-called Jupiter columns(JUPITER being the Roman version of Zeus)found in Gaulish temples have been interpretedas indoor substitutes for great trees dedicated tothe god.

Although trees in general were sacred to theCelts, who practiced their rituals in NEMETONS

or sacred groves, the Celtic priesthood ofDRUIDS held the oak to be the most sacred tree;indeed, the very word druid is connected to anancient word for “oak.” The Roman poetLucan described the druids as using acorns intheir prophetic rituals, masticating them untilthey saw visions; the story is hard to credit,because no hallucinatory substances have beenisolated in acorns. Wooden images from thepre-Roman and Roman periods have beenfound, carved of the strong and lasting wood ofthe oak.

Belief in the sanctity of the oak survived intothe post-Celtic era, when folklore envisioned theoak as a living being that, when cut, cried out ortook revenge upon the forester, maiming orkilling him as it fell. An oak was believed to makea desperate racket when felled, loud enough tobe heard a mile away. FAIRY folk were thought tolive in or around oaks; together with the ASH andthe THORN, the oak constituted the sacred treetrinity that marked fairy places.

The centrality of the oak in ancient Celticlife can still be detected in names that embodythe tree: the Celtic capital of the Galacians inTurkey, Drunemeton (“sacred oak grove”); andthe Irish abbey towns of KILDARE (“church of theoak”) and of Durrow (“plain of oaks”).

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,

6O

364

p. 152; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studiesin Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 33.

oakmen British folkloric figures. Occasionallyin the north of England, references are found inoral literature to FAIRY people who lived in greatOAKS; an old rhyme holds that “fairy folks/are inold oaks.” Especially powerful were oaks thatregenerated themselves after being cut; thesaplings that came forth in such circumstanceswere regarded with awe. In the Cotswolds eachvillage had a sacred tree, usually an oak, wherefairy beings were believed to hide. The artistBeatrix Potter used the tradition in her book TheFairy Caravan, in which oak people wore toad-stools for caps.

Source: Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974,p. 121.

oath Ritual act. Calling upon divine forces towitness the truth of a statement is known inmany societies, including those of the Celts, whoput great stock in verbal truthfulness—perhapsbecause they had no written language. Oathswere made by calling upon either gods or ele-mental powers (SUN, MOON, air), who wouldpunish the speaker for lying; a common form ofthe oath among the radically polytheistic Celtswas, “I swear by the gods my people swear by.”

Source: Cowan, Tom. “The Pledge to theElements.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed. IrishSpirit: Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin:Wolfhound Press, 2001.

Oberon (Auberon, Oberycome) British folk-loric figure. Oberon makes a memorable appear-ance in William Shakespeare’s A MidsummerNight’s Dream as a king of FAIRYLAND whosequarrel with his consort TITANIA prompts him tomeddle in the love affair of humans astray in the

forest. Oberon, who also appears in French andBritish romances, is more a literary than amythological character. He is associated with thefairy queens Titania and MAB.

Ocean Sweeper (Aigéan scuabadoir) Irishmythological object. One of the great treasuresof the Irish OTHERWORLD was a boat that movedthrough the sea under the power of its pilot’sthoughts. Brought from the Otherworld by theheroic LUGH, the magic boat became the prop-erty of the ocean god MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Ocelus Welsh and British god. This obscuregod, known from only a few inscriptions, wasassociated by the Romans with MARS.

Ochall Ochne Irish mythological figure. AFAIRY king from the western province of CON-NACHT, Ochall Ochne played a minor role in thegreatest of Irish epics, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE. Itwas his swineherd, RUCHT, who had an unendingargument with another swineherd namedFRIUCH; the two were born and reborn in differ-ent forms until they became the two great BULLS

who killed each other at the epic’s end.

Ochren (Coinchenn, Corrgend) Irish mytho-logical site. This name is occasionally used of anOtherworldly place beneath the ocean whereFAIRY people disported themselves by dancing inlabyrinthine patterns.

Octriallach Irish hero. The monstrous FOMO-RIANS, one of the early races of mythological Irishsettlers, are rarely known as individuals butappear rather as a frightening and murderousmass under the leadership of their king, BALOR ofthe Evil Eye. An exception is this spy wholearned the secrets of the Fomorians’ opponents,the TUATHA DÉ DANANN. DIAN CÉCHT, theTuatha Dé physician, bathed their wounded inthe magical WELL of Slaine, which healed all

Octriallach 365

their wounds (it could not, however, reconnectamputated limbs or HEADS). When he discoveredthis, Octriallach decommissioned the well by fill-ing it with earth, whereupon he was killed byOGMA, the god of eloquence.

Odras Irish heroine. A LAKE in Co.Roscommon, in Ireland’s western province ofCONNACHT, was named for this brave girl,daughter (or wife) of the hostel-keeper BuchatBuasach. When the MÓRRÍGAN, the great death-queen, stole Odras’s cow to mate with her ownOTHERWORLD bull, Slemuin the Smooth, Odraswas bold—or foolhardy—enough to go after thethief. She traveled to OWEYNAGAT, the cavebeneath the great provincial capital CRUACHAN,hoping to redeem her loss. There an enchant-ment overtook her, and she fell asleep under anOAK tree, just short of penetrating to theMórrígan’s domain. She never awoke, for theMórrígan turned her into the small lake thatbears her name, to keep her from reclaiming herstolen cow.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 22.

Óenach (Aonach) Irish ritual assembly. Atregular intervals, the Celtic peoples of Irelandgathered at sacred spots to celebrate seasonal rit-uals intended to recognize the honor of the nat-ural cycle while restoring the ancient union ofthe tribe. As the ancient Irish lived in relativelysmall groups in somewhat isolated spots, suchassemblies served many purposes other than theparamount religious ones. HORSES and CATTLE

were traded; young people met and courted;laborers were hired; contracts between other-wise distant parties were established. Some ofthe important Óenachs were those on BELTANE

at the sacred hill UISNEACH in the center ofIreland, and on LUGHNASA at the site dedicatedto the goddess TAILTIU.

Sources: Aitchison, N. B. Armagh and the RoyalCentres in Early Medieval Ireland: Monuments,Cosmology and the Past. Rochester, N.Y.: CrithnePress/Boydell & Brewer, 1994; Raftery, Brian.Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish IronAge. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994, pp.81 ff.

Oengus See AONGHUS.

Ogalla Irish mythological site. The Celtsrevered WATER, both fresh and salt, and manymyths are situated at or near water. Streams andWELLS—pure water that springs forth from under-ground—figure importantly in Irish myth and leg-end. One such narrative tells of two princesses ofCONNACHT, EITHNE and FEDELM, who went tobathe one morning in the holy SPRING of Ogalla,near the great capital city of CRUACHAN. Therethey encountered men who, dressed in white,looked to them like DRUIDS. They were not; it wasST. PATRICK and his followers.

The girls questioned Patrick about his god.Where, the girls asked, is that god located,whether in the earth or the sky or the sea? Doeshe have fine daughters, and are his sons beautifulto look upon? Patrick assured the princesses thatthe Christian god was all they desired (skirtingthe question of that god’s “daughters”). Thus heconverted the princesses of Connacht, who thenchose to die instantly upon baptism rather thanlinger in the sinful world. The end of the story isas clearly un-Celtic as the questions the girlsposed were pagan.

ogham (ogam) Celtic symbolic system. TheCeltic people did not practice writing as definedtoday; they did not use alphabetic letters nor pic-torial script to spell out words. Religious, ritual,and historical material was committed to mem-ory by the DRUIDS, who believed that such mate-rial was too precious to be written and thus atrisk of coming into the possession of thoseunprepared to understand or appreciate its

366 Odras

meaning and value. For this reason we have nowritten mythology, no prayer books, not evenhistorical works from the Celts themselves. Wehave instead only writings by people who cameinto contact with them (often through war) andby later descendants (often Christian monks);thus we must be careful to evaluate writtensources on Celtic material to discern political orreligious bias.

The fact that the Celts were not literatedoes not mean they lacked literature or wereunintelligent. The lack of interest in—somewould say taboo against—writing was based inthe importance of speech, which was held tohave great power. Even today, eloquent speechis especially valued as a human talent in theancient Celtic lands.

The Celts did have a symbolic script systemcalled ogham, said to have been invented byOGMA, god of eloquence, or by BRIGIT, goddess ofpoetry. Whether ogham developed after contactwith and in response to literate cultures is notclear, although many argue that it was inspired bythe Latin alphabet. The ogham “letters” werelines drawn horizontally and diagonally on wood;there are 20 different combinations of strokes.Epics refer to libraries of wooden wandsinscribed with such lines, but wood does not typ-ically endure for centuries; the inscriptions thathave been found—fewer than 400—are all carvedon stone, most giving only a single name or title.These ogham tablets predominantly come fromthe southwestern Irish province of MUNSTER,where some argue the script was invented inbetween the third and fourth centuries C.E., buttablets have been found in Wales and Scotland aswell. See TREE ALPHABET.

Ogma (Oghma, Ogme) Irish god. This Irishgod is believed parallel or cognate to the conti-nental Celtic god OGMIOS. He was the son of thebeneficent father god, the DAGDA, and father ofthe important goddess ÉTAIN and of the poetCAIRBRE mac Éadaoine. Although he has littlelegend, Ogma is said to have invented the writ-

ing script called, after him, OGHAM. He was alsoeloquent of speech and a great poet.

Ogmia British god. Assumed to be a Britishversion of the continental Celtic god of elo-quence OGMIOS and the Irish god OGMA, Ogmiawas depicted by Romano-Celtic artists as acurly-haired youth with rays erupting from hishead. Nothing is known of his myth or cult.

Ogmios (Ogmioc) Continental Celtic god.The Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata, in thesecond century C.E., connected Ogmios with thepowerful classical hero HERCULES, although itseems clear that the strength of the Celtic godwas rather verbal than physical; Ogmios wasdepicted as a dark-skinned bald man draggingpeople around by chains that stretched betweenhis tongue and their ears, symbolizing the powereloquence has over its listeners. For thismetaphorical strength he is called Trenfher,“strong man.” Ogmios’s advanced age suggeststhat fine speech is a gift of maturity rather thanyouth. In some contexts, Ogmios, describedbringing the dead to the OTHERWORLD, was asso-ciated with the Otherworldly divinity DIS PATER.

Ogniad Irish heroine or goddess. Thisobscure figure was the daughter of the impor-tant FAIRY king MIDIR and mother of the heroSIGMALL, but little is known of her except thatshe was lawless and self-willed. Whether herown mother was Midir’s consort ÉTAIN is unclearfrom textual evidence.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 9.

Ogyrvran (Ogyrven) Welsh hero. In Welshfolklore and literature, we find mention of thisGIANT who owned a CAULDRON from whichinspiration arose in the forms of sprites or

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FAIRIES. He may be a folkloric memory of a localversion of OGMIOS, the Celtic god of eloquence,to whom his name seems related.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 82.

Oirbsen Irish god. This obscure term was analternate name or title of the shape-shifting godof the sea, MANNANÁN MAC LIR, who drowned ina lake called Loch Oirbsen (now Lough Corrib).

Oisín (Oshin, Ossian, Oisin) Irish hero. Thepoet of the FIANNA, the band of warriors who fol-lowed the great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,Oisín was named “little fawn” because of the furacross his eyebrows, left when his mother SADB

licked her newborn while still wearing herenchanted DEER shape. He grew into the mosteloquent of his peers and, like many other poets,drew the attention of a FAIRY LOVER. In Oisín’scase, this mistress the most beautiful fairy of themall, NIAMH of the Golden Hair, who stole himaway from his human wife, the blonde beautyEibhir. Oisín traveled to her land far beyond thewestern waves, TIR TAIRNGIRI, the land of prom-ise, and lived with her for several happy weeks. Orat least it felt like weeks to Oisín—but becausetime passes differently in FAIRYLAND than it doeshere, Oisín was actually away for three centuries,during which time his friends died and Irelandchanged almost beyond recognition.

When he finally grew homesick, Oisín pre-vailed upon Niamh to let him visit earthly realityagain. She grudgingly agreed and even providedhim a magical horse, warning him that he wasunder no circumstances to touch the ground.(This common motif in folklore invariably indi-cates that someone will, in fact, touch theground.) And so Oisín went home, and he failedto attend to Niamh’s warning—although sourcesdiffer as to whether Oisín’s saddle gave way, or heleaned down to help a beggar, or he was overcomewith desire to feel earth beneath his feet again.

In any case, when Oisín touched the ground,his many years instantly came over him. He wasno longer the hale and healthy lad who had leftNiamh. He grew stooped and gray, then died andturned to dust, all in the wink of an eye. In someversions of the story, Oisín lived long enough todebate the values of Ireland’s ancient paganismwith ST. PATRICK, and to recognize the value ofthe Christian way enough to be baptized.

A character named Ossian, invented by the19th-century Scottish poet James Macpherson,was credited with the creation of a number ofpoems that Macpherson himself had written,inspired by the oral literature of his native land.When it was revealed that there was, in fact, noancient Scottish poet named Ossian whose workhad been translated, Macpherson was disgracedand the “Ossian forgeries” were dismissed assentimental. Yet Macpherson’s work was influen-tial, especially in Germany where it inspired theemergent Romantic poets.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 439; Joyce, P. W.Ancient Celtic Romances. London: ParkgateBooks, 1997, pp. 385 ff; Kennedy, Patrick.Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 40.

Olca Ái Irish hero. The GIANT Olca Ái onceso frightened the women of the capital of CON-NACHT, Ireland’s western province, that they fledacross the land and, still terrified, drownedthemselves when they reached a large body ofwater. The LAKE in which they perished bearsthe name of their leader, ERNE. Some have inter-preted the rough-hewn stone sculptures foundon White Island in Lough Erne as representingthe giant and one of the maidens.

ollam (ollamh, ollave) Irish bardic title. Thehighest of the seven level of FILI or poet, theollam was prepared to recite all of the 250 impor-tant stories of the land and 100 of the lesser tales.

368 Oirbsen

Ollamh Fódhla (Ollam Fodla, Ollamh Fodhla)Legendary Irish king. This HIGH KING was saidto have mounted the throne of TARA in 714 B.C.E.and to have first codified the law of the land. Hisname seems to mean “poet of FÓDLA,” (Fódlabeing one of the goddesses of the Irish land); aspoets were also BREHONS or judges, Ollamh mayhave held that position before being elevated tothe kingship.

Ollipheist Irish mythological being. A largesnaky creature, the Ollipheist wriggled throughthe soil of ancient Ireland, creating a gully downwhich water flowed to form the River Shannon.See LISCANNOR.

Ollototae Romanized British goddess, orRoman goddess. An inscription to this multiplegoddess was found at Chester, although it isunclear whether the divinity was a Celtic god-dess translated into Roman form, or a Romanadaptation of the Celtic earth goddess.

Olloudios (Ollouidias, Olludio) ContinentalCeltic and British god. This relatively obscureGaulish god may have been a local divinity(GENIUS LOCI) worshiped in a TREE, for his nameseems to derive from two words for “great tree”or “giant tree” (ollo-vidio). His special region wasthe islands off the south of France called theAntibes, where he was honored by the tribecalled the Narbonenses. Olloudios was alsofound in Britain, where in Gloucester he wasdepicted as having huge ears that stuck out fromhis head like wings.

Source: Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies inIconography and Tradition. London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1967, pp. 37, 172.

Olmec (Oílmelc) See IMBOLC.

Olwen Welsh heroine or goddess. The Welshtale of KULHWCH AND OLWEN centers on this

heroine, who may descend from an earlier god-dess. There are many indications that she wasoriginally a SUN goddess: her name, whichappears to mean “leaving white footprints” or“golden wheel”; her red-gold necklace and manygolden rings; her streaming yellow hair; and herpower to raise white flowers from every step shetook. The hero KULHWCH wished to marry her,but her father YSPADDADEN PENKAWR (“gianthawthorn tree”) opposed the match because hebelieved it would be the death of him (the samemotif is found in the apparently parallel Irishstory of BALOR of the Evil Eye and his daughterEITHNE, courted by the hero CIAN). Yspaddadenplaced 13 obstacles (possibly the 13 lunarmonths) in Kulhwch’s path, but with Olwen’sassistance the hero won her hand.

omen Cosmological symbol. To see an omen isnot necessarily to see into the future, despite themost common understanding of the word. Omensmay be portents hinting at events to come, butthey can also point to an event that has alreadyhappened in a distant place and so can be a formof far-seeing. Belief in omens has been part ofevery culture, for there are always those who wishto know more than their senses can tell them. Inthe case of the Celts, we find omens typically asso-ciated with unusual behavior of animals or stars;sometimes it is difficult to discern whether suchbehavior predicted, or caused, bad luck. In somecases, ritual relief was suggested; for instance, ifone caught sight of the new MOON through a win-dow, bowing THREE times to the moon wouldward off the bad luck that otherwise followed.

Things out of place or in the wrong seasonwere typically interpreted as omens or portents:A RAT seen at sea was considered among Scotssailors to be a sign that someone aboard woulddrown. Similarly any peculiar juxtaposition ofobjects or beings could represent an omen:Those same Scots sailors believed that seeing arat or mouse in a sieve was a sure signal of dan-ger to anyone at sea that evening, for their boatwould spring as many leaks as the sieve had holes.

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The Irish specified many omens of death:gaps in a sown field, a hen cackling on the roost,a DOG howling for three nights in a row.Horseshoes were oracular, for if they were foundwith the closed end pointing away, bad luck wascoming, but if pointed toward the finder, goodluck was approaching.

Sources: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 176–178; Harland,John, and T. T. Wilkinson. Lancashire Legends.London: George Routledge and Sons, 1873,pp. 228 ff; Ross, Anne. Folklore of the ScottishHighlands. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976,p. 94.

Oona (Ona) See ÚNA.

Oppida Archaeological site. This Latin wordis used to describe ancient Celtic towns such asthat found at LA TÉNE in Switzerland. The largefortified settlements of the sixth–fifth centuriesB.C.E. were built in easily defensible positions(on heights or promontories) and were oftenlocated near mineral deposits, which providedthe settlement’s source of wealth.

oracle Symbolic object or event. Systems ofDIVINATION often require the employment oforacles to indicate the future. Flights of birds,unusual weather, untimely blossoming: All theseand many other occurrences could predict theoutcome of events. Typically oracles were thingsdislocated in place (a seashell found on a moun-tain) or time (a tree blossoming in winter). A dis-tinction is sometimes made between OMENS,which predict ill-fortune, and the more neutralor positive oracle. The word is also used todescribe a prophet; that usage is more typicallyclassical, as in the Oracle of Dephi in Greece,rather than Celtic.

oracular head See HEAD.

Orc Triath Irish mythological beast. TheIrish corollary to the Welsh TWRCH TRWYTH wasa magical BOAR owned by the goddess BRIGIT.

Orlám Irish hero. One of the sons of queenMEDB and king AILILL mac Máta of the westernprovince of CONNACHT, Orlám was one of thefirst to die at the hands of the great hero CÚCHU-LAINN on the CATTLE RAID known as the TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE. Orlám’s charioteer carried his master’shead to Medb and Ailill, and for his efforts gotbrained with a stone thrown by Cúchulainn.

Oscar (Osgar) Irish and Scottish hero. Theson of the poet OISÍN and his human wife Eibhir,he was the grandson of the hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL. Oscar followed his father by becom-ing a member of the FIANNA, the band of war-riors that fought with Fionn. His name means“deer lover” and refers to his descent from hisgrandmother, Oisín’s mother SADB, who hadbeen enchanted into the form of a deer.

The fiercest of the Fianna warriors, Oscar ledthe group called “the terrible broom” because itswept clean any battlefield. After the death of hisgrandfather, Oscar became the head of themighty band. When they were finally defeatedin the battle of Gabhra, Oscar killed the leaderof their foes, the high king CAIRBRE, but died ofwounds from that battle. His wife, AIDÍN, weptherself to death when his father Oisín bore himaway to the OTHERWORLD.

Source: Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the WestHighlands. Vol. III. Edinburgh: Edmonston andDouglas, 1862, pp. 295 ff.

Otherworld Cosmological concept. Thisterm is used to describe an alternative realitythat was the home of spirits and divinities andthe beloved dead. This folkloric belief is foundin lands where the Celts formerly lived, givingrise to the supposition that it descends fromCeltic religion, but there is also the possibility

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that the Celts adopted the concept from indige-nous people whom they conquered. Not a“heaven” like that envisioned by Christianbelievers as above and separate from this earth,the Celtic Otherworld existed nearby, thoughjust out of reach. Sometimes it rested on anISLAND in the ocean that floated unfetteredthrough time or space. Such an island mightappear only every seven years, or it might move around the ocean and appear in differentlocations. At other times, the Otherworld wasimagined as beneath a hill, often an old fort (seeHILLFORT), which opened to reveal an entire vastcity. Shadowy and liminal not-here, not-thereplaces such as BOGS, CAVES, and reedy shoreswere also seen as gates to the Otherworld.

People of this world could visit the Otherworldby accident or design. They could be stolen away,usually by a FAIRY LOVER who wished to take pleas-ure with a handsome human lover. Musicians werelikely to be kidnapped (see FAIRY KIDNAPPING); ifthey played well for the Otherworldly dances, theymight be granted a special tune to play once theyreturned to earth. Midwives were stolen to helpwith Otherworldly births; it was important thatthey not question their kidnappers but do theirjobs quietly and hope for a speedy return home.Babies could be stolen, for human infants weremore beautiful than those born in the Otherworld;these could be reclaimed through various ritualsand tricks (see CHANGELING).

Those of this world did not have to await kid-napping to reach the Otherworld, for at certaintimes the doors would swing open. Such was thecase with the great Celtic holidays of BELTANE

(May 1) and SAMHAIN (November 1), whichremained magical in folklore long afterChristianization of Celtic lands. Liminal timeslike dawn, and shadowy weather conditions,could also provide moments when theOtherworld could break through to this one, orvisitors from this world could gain access there.

In the Otherworld time moved slowly, so thatan hour spent there could be a century here. Asa result, Otherworldly dwellers did not age andrarely died. There was no illness or pain or bad

weather there, but only beautiful sunny days thatwere passed in dancing and song. Trees of theOtherworld bore fruit and flowers at the sametime; the food served there was impossibly tastybut never filling.

Many names are used of the Otherworld:MAG MELL (“plain of honey”), TIR NA NOG (“landof youth”), and HY-BRÂZIL (the island of Bres,after which the South American country ofBrazil was named). Some scholars have derivedthe word AVALON, used of the mysterious andpowerful place of Arthurian legend, from thephrase EMAIN ABLACH (“island of apples”), usedto describe the Otherworld.

See also NAMES FOR THE OTHERWORLD.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, pp. 332–338; Löffler,Christa Maria. The Voyage to the OtherworldIsland in Early Irish Literature. Salzburg Studiesin English Literature. Salzburg, Institut FürAnglistik und Amerikanistik, UniversitätSalzburg, 1983; O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early IrishHistory and Mythology. Dublin: The DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies, 1946, p. 328;Patch, Howard Rollin. The Other World:According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1950, pp. 27 ff.

otter Symbolic animal. Both the Irish and theScottish Highlanders believed that this sleek,playful water mammal had the powers of theOTHERWORLD. Otters were believed to live inkingdoms like humans, ruled over by an otterking (sometimes called Dorraghow or DOB-HARCHÚ) whose skin was worth a fortune. It washard to catch such a creature, for it was virtuallyinvulnerable; a bit of white fur under its chinshowed the only point where it could be killed.Despite the value of the pelt, killing the kingotter was costly, for the murderer (whetherhuman or dog) would die soon after, apparentlytaken out of revenge by the otter-people.

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Some felt that the king otter’s pelt was wortheven that price, for a fragment of the hide wouldprotect an entire household from harm.Soldiers going off to war believed that theywould be protected from death at the front ifthey carried a portion of the skin of a king otter.According to tradition, the only ones whoescaped the historic massacre of the followers ofBonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden were thosecarrying king-otter skin. In Ireland a pursemade from the skin of the king otter would beforever filled with coins, making its owner fab-ulously wealthy.

Sources: MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of theHighlands & Islands. Edinburgh: The MorayPress, 1937, p. 132; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. IrishSuperstitions. London: Gill & Macmillan, 1995,pp. 55–57.

Owein (Owain, Iwein, Yvain, Owein fabUrien) Arthurian hero. In an Arthurian textfrom Wales (The Dream of Rhonabwy), this nameis given to a knight of CAMELOT, son of kingURIEN and king ARTHUR’s sorceress half sisterMORGAN. One day, while adventuring abroad,Owein heard of a land that suffered under thescourge of a mysterious Black Knight. He tracedthe Knight to a forest (see BROCÉLIANDE) anddefeated the villain there. There too he found afountain, guarded by a lovely maiden namedLUNED, who helped him win the heart of hermistress, an even lovelier maiden whose onlyname was the LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN.

Despite pledging to be true to her, Oweinwas unable to fulfill his vow, leaving her to goadventuring with king Arthur and forgetting toreturn. The Lady’s servant Luned followed himto Camelot, where she shamed him before theother knights for his faithlessness. He fled intothe forest, where he finally healed himself suffi-ciently to become a knight again. Adventuringabout the land in knightly fashion, he encoun-tered Luned again, whom he rescued from animprisoning GIANT. To repay his assistance,

Luned arranged a reconciliation between Oweinand the Lady of the Fountain.

Oweynagat (Cave of Cruachan, Cave of the Cats) Irish mythological site. In Co.Roscommon, in Ireland’s western province ofCONNACHT, there is a tiny CAVE of huge mythicimportance. Oweynagat is part of the greatarchaeological complex of CRUACHAN, theancient capital of the province of Connacht cen-tered on the fort of its goddess-queen MEDB.Still visible and accessible in a small field on theedge of the complex, 700 meters southwest ofthe great mound where Medb’s palace was saidto stand, the cave’s opening is quite small, somethree feet high by four feet wide, formed by amedieval souterrain or underground passage.After that narrow opening, the cave opens up toa huge cathedral-like space.

Oweynagat figures prominently in ancientIrish myth and legend. It was the birthplace ofMedb herself. The goddess and fairy queenÉTAIN, fleeing with her FAIRY lover MIDIR fromher human husband, stopped at Oweynagat withher companions, who included her maidservantCROCHAN Crogderg, whose name means“blood-red cup.” Midir was said to have wantedto visit a relative who lived in the cave, the oth-erwise unknown Sinech (“large-breasted one”),for whom he had great affection. At the end oftheir stay, Crochan was so enamored of theplace—which although it seems only a dingycave, is a great palace in the OTHERWORLD—thatshe begged to stay. Étain and Midir gave her thecave, and so it was there that Crochan’s daughterMedb was born.

Oweynagat also appears in the ADVENTURE

tale about one of her servants, a man namedNERA who saved Cruachan from an attack byOtherworldly forces with the assistance of afairy woman whom he met in the cave and mar-ried. She warned him that Medb’s beautifulpalace would be burned to the ground the fol-lowing SAMHAIN, a warning that brought theforces of Medb and AILILL mac Máta into thecave to eliminate the danger. As with other

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tales, this one associates the cave with the feastof Samhain.

The cave is also associated with the great fig-ure that shadows Medb throughout the epicthrough which she is most known, the TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE or CATTLE RAID on CUAILNGE—theMÓRRÍGAN, who drove her Otherworldly cattleinto the cave each sunset. She may be the onewho flew out of the cave, called “the hell-mouthof Ireland” in medieval documents, for appari-tions were said to appear there, especially on themagical Celtic festival of Samhain (November 1)when the veils between the worlds were thin andeven those without SECOND SIGHT could seebeyond this world and into the next.

The Mórrígan was known to have stolen theherds of a girl named ODRAS and to have driventhem down into the cave of Oweynagat.Undeterred by Mórrígan’s fierce reputation,Odras pursued her, trying to regain the cattleupon which she relied. She got almost toMórrígan’s domain, but the great queen was morepowerful than the girl and turned her into a lake.

How the cave got its name is unknown; noCATS appear in its folklore or myth. An oracularcave in Connacht where a cat was consulted byfortune-tellers is recorded in some texts, but itslocation is not given, so it is unclear whetherOweynagat is intended. Oweynagat is muchmore commonly associated with CATTLE thanwith cats; not only does the Mórrígan drive hercattle through the cave, but a woman was said tohave traveled underground for many miles,dragged there by a calf to whose tail she clung.

In a text from the 18th century, the cave wasdescribed as the “Hell-mouth of Ireland,” sug-gesting that the deities and spirits who had beenbelieved to live within Oweynagat were stillimagined as active, if diabolical. The cave is stillaccessible, although its frighteningly tiny entrymakes it one of the least-visited of Ireland’s greatmythological sites.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 237–239;Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, p. 22.

owl Symbolic animal. The majestic power ofthe night-hunting owl was recognized by peoplearound the world. To the Celts, the owl symbol-ized age and its attendant wisdom. The mostrenowned owl in Celtic literature is the trans-formed Welsh flower-bride BLODEUWEDD, whowas turned into an owl as punishment forbetraying her husband and persuading her loverto kill him. We also find an owl (the Owl ofCwm Cawlwyd) in the Welsh epic of KULHWCH

AND OLWEN, but the wise bird was unable to pro-vide the hero with the information he needed tofind his lover. In Ireland a vestigial owl goddessis found in the figure of Echtach, sister or dou-ble of the cannibal goddess Eghchte.

Some have interpreted the great spiralingpatterns that appear in eye-like pairs on somepre-Celtic monuments in Ireland, Britain, andFrance as representing an owl-faced goddess.This controversial viewpoint links thoseancient monuments to others in the eastern andcentral Mediterranean.

ox Symbolic animal. Although this word is notalways accurately used, sometimes merely indi-cating CATTLE, it actually means a castratedBULL, usually of the domestic bovine species.Because removing the testosterone-producingtestes from an animal typically produces a morepeaceable disposition as well as weight gain, andbecause having too many ambitious bulls in aherd could lead to fighting and thus loss of pre-cious animal life, some animals were transformedfrom bulls into oxen early in life. They then wereused for hauling, for their great bulk gave themgreat strength; they also found their way into thestewpot. Oxen are less important in myth andlegend than either COWS or bulls, but occasion-ally they appear to represent strength andendurance. Similarly, landscape features namedfor oxen were typically monumental; thus wefind, in the west of Ireland, a powerful range ofhills called the Ox Mountains.

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Padfoot English folkloric figure. In Yorkshire,this strange donkey-sized creature appeared as anOMEN of death; it looked like an amorphousshaggy ball with eyes or a woolly white DOG. Itcould become invisible at will and often roared orrattled to terrify unsuspecting travelers whopassed its lair. It was very important never tostrike out at Padfoot, for touching it gave themonster power over you.

See also BARGUEST.

Padstow Obby Oss Cornish ritual. In thesmall Cornish port of Padstow on BELTANE

morning (May 1), a HOBBYHORSE ceremony isstill held to mark the arrival of spring accordingto the old Celtic calendar. The celebration hasbeen linked to old Celtic HORSE rituals.

paganism Cosmological concept. All Celticreligion is pagan, for the word defines the poly-theistic world as distinguished from the monothe-istic. Celtic religion arose before the historicalChrist was born and thus before his followers hadarticulated their message. As Christians madetheirs the dominant worldview of Europe, theyemployed derogatory words to describe anyonewho continued to hold to the traditional beliefs oftheir ancestors. They were “pagans,” from theLatin pagani, which means “hick” although it is

more formally translated as “a country dweller.”Similarly, the word heathen was used to describesomeone who lived on the heath or moor, pooragricultural land where impoverished people ekedout a living and clung to ancestral beliefs. The useof these words betrays the urban background ofChristianity’s rise and the religious conservatismtypical, even today, of the country dweller.

Today the word pagan is used in America todescribe people, most often urban or suburban,who search for non-Christian spiritual traditionsarticulating a worldview that seems less dualist,less sexist, or more nature-embracing than theybelieve Christianity has become. Some scholarsargue that the term should not be applied topeople who adopt paganism, referring to suchseekers as NEO-PAGANS (“new pagans”), to dis-tinguish them from those who practice anunbroken tradition. Such distinctions have givenrise to several cults that declare themselvesdescendants of some religion, often Celtic, thatexisted in ancient times and was conveyed insecret through the ages. Most such claims arewithout substance, although there is strong evi-dence that folklore and place-lore (see DIND-SHENCHAS) conveyed ancient beliefs forward tocontemporary times.

Palomides Arthurian hero. Not British but aSaracen, an Islamic fighter, Palomides was one

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of the greatest knights of the ROUND TABLE,who served king ARTHUR in the quest for thesacred GRAIL.

Pamp (Pam) Irish hero. The BOOK OF INVA-SIONS gives this as the name of NEMED’s father,thus making him an ancestor of the race ofNemedians who were among the early invadersof Ireland. His name is believed to be a lateinvention, derived from the Latin Pompeius.

Paps of Danu (Paps of Anu, Dá Chich Anann)Irish mythological site. On the road between thescenic Lakes of Killarney and the city of Cork inthe southwestern Irish province of MUNSTER,two almost identical rounded hills rise from theDerrynasaggart Mountains. The top of each iscrowned with an ancient CAIRN, a rock construc-tion built some 6,000 years ago by unknownpeople who preceded Celtic settlement in thearea. The west Pap has not only a mound sur-mounted by a cairn but a stone chamber as well.Between the two hills is a stand of ragged rockscalled The Teeth.

The Paps are often cloud-hung, but whenthe mist clears, the cairns create an earth sculp-ture of nipples atop the rounded breasts of thepaired hills. The mountains are called the Paps(breasts) of DANU (sometimes ANU), after a god-dess who appears as an ancestral figure but towhom little myth accrues. The monument hasbeen interpreted as indicating that Danu was agoddess of the earth.

Danu is not the only female figure connectedwith the Paps. The poet CRÉD was said to havebuilt her palace on the side of the hills; a holyWELL on the Paps was dedicated to the strangefigure of CROBH DEARG (“red claw”), honored atBELTANE with visits to the well. The only malefigures associated with the twin mountains arethe BARD CÁEL and the hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, both lovers of Créd.

Paradise Cosmological concept. The Celtshad no concept that exactly parallels the eastern

Mediterranean vision of Paradise as a beautiful,unearthly world that existed before this one, thatwas lost to us through the human sin, and towhich the elect will go after death. Instead, theCelts believed in an OTHERWORLD that could bereached during one’s lifetime if one happened tobe in the right place at the right time. TheOtherworld was not necessarily a desirable des-tination, for the FAIRIES and minor divinities thatoccupied it could hold a person against his willand refuse to let him return. Not that the captivewould necessarily wish to run, for the CelticOtherworld was beautiful and satisfying, ifsomewhat sterile.

Their familiarity with this pleasant Other-world may have made it easy for the Celts toaccept the apparently similar Christian vision ofParadise. Although Christians might be given avisionary glimpse of the world to come, they can-not enter while in their earthly bodies, nor canthey readily return from Paradise once theyarrive there. As the home of God, Paradise isentirely unshadowed with the ambiguity of theCeltic Otherworld. Thus the differences betweenParadise and the Otherworld are profounddespite their slight and superficial similarities.

Paris Continental Celtic hero. In the Welshmythological tale of KULHWCH AND OLWEN, aking of this name appears as ruler over theregion where the French capital now stands.Most scholars dismiss the assumption that thisoffers proof of an historical Celtic king namedParis; rather, they say, the city’s name probablyderives from a local Celtic tribe, the Parisi; thesame tribe, or a branch of it, settled in Britain’sYorkshire region. Another legend offers a differ-ent idea of how Paris got its name: Because thecity was so beautiful, it was named par-Ys—“like-YS”—after the lost magical city of Brittany.

Partholón (Partholon, Parthalán, Parthanán)Irish hero. In the mythological history ofIreland, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, Partholón wasthe least significant of the invaders, coming after

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CESAIR and before NEMED and his followers.Unlike some of the other races that disguise ahistory of early settlement, Partholón is believedto have been invented by medieval historianswho based his name on Bartholomaeus, a figurefrom early Christian pseudo-history.

Partholón, it was said, came to Ireland fromGreece, where he had killed both his parents andhad been blinded in his left eye as punishment.(The theme of the one-eyed leader, which alsoappears in the stories of BALOR of the Evil Eye andthe warrior GOLL MAC MORNA, may be Celtic inorigin.) Thirty years after the biblical great flood,Partholón arrived in Ireland with his people, thePartholonians, who settled in after fighting off themonstrous FOMORIANS. Their battle was a strangeone: No blood was shed because the fighting tookplace entirely in the realm of MAGIC.

Life in Ireland was not happy for Partholón,who discovered that his wife DEALGNAID, whomhe left alone while he surveyed the land, tookadvantage of his absence to sleep with their ser-vant Togda; Partholón blamed not his wife buthimself, saying that women should never thus beabandoned with their needs for love unsatisfied.Partholón and Dealgnaid had four sons;together they cleared the forests and establishedfarms. After several hundred years a plaguestruck, and the descendants of Partholón wereall killed off, all between one Monday and thenext in May. Only TUAN MAC CAIRILL, a SHAPE-SHIFTING BARD, survived. A folkloric remnant ofPartholón was an Irish harvest spirit namedParthanán who stole any grain left unthreshed.

Source: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts1–4. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941, Pt. 2, pp.253–271; Pt. 3, pp. 2–102.

Partholonians Irish mythological race. SeePARTHOLÓN.

passage graves (Passage tombs) Mythologicalsites. Archaeological evidence of an ancient people

who preceded the Celts in Ireland, Britain, andBrittany, these stone structures are built of hugeboulders, arranged standing upright to form a cor-ridor leading to an inner chamber. The entirestructure was usually covered with earth, forminga mound (see FAIRY MOUND), but in many casesthis outer covering has worn away, leaving thestone skeleton clearly visible. As was the case with many ancient monuments of the MEGALITHIC

CIVILIZATION, these impressive ruins were believedhaunted by the Celts, and their superstitiousbeliefs concerning the tombs make up some of thelasting folklore of the Celtic lands.

patera Cosmological symbol. The continentalCeltic goddess EPONA is frequently shown carry-ing a flat object upright in her hands. This patera,or offering plate, also appears in other contexts:held by a deity, offered up by a human worshiper,filled with fruit or other produce, or entirelyempty. Some have interpreted the object not as aplate but as a small frame drum.

Patrick See ST. PATRICK.

pattern (patron) Ritual. A series of ritualactivities performed on a specific day and usuallyat a specific site, the pattern (Irish usage) orpatron (in Brittany) is apparently Christian butdescends from a Celtic, or sometimes pre-Celtic,original. Examples are numerous: visiting holyWELLS at ancient ritual times, climbing MOUN-TAINS on Celtic holidays, traveling along a cer-tain road or path while performing specifiedactions. The pattern often included walking incircles, leaving specified offerings, reciting spe-cific prayers, or drinking well water. In somecases the actions could be effective at any time,while at other locations the pattern had to bedone on a certain day and at a certain time.These rituals, which still continue today, aredescribed as Christian by their practitioners,who may be aware of pagan antecedents but whoare rarely bothered by them.

376 Partholonians

pech (peht, pict) Scottish folkloric figure. InLowland Scotland, this name used of the OTH-ERWORLD creatures otherwise known as FAIRIES

apparently derives from an ancient historicalpeople called the PICTS. As is common with fairyraces, the pech was fair-skinned and red-haired(see RED) and might be mistaken for a humanexcept that they were extraordinarily short.Despite their dwarfish height, they were strongand agile; they formed great lines in order tohaul stones from quarries to construct their cas-tles. Like many Otherworldly peoples, the pechscould not bear sunlight and fled to their resi-dences each dawn.

Peg O’Nell British folkloric figure. Figuresof legend are often earlier deities in degradedform. This seems to be the case with PegO’Nell, connected with the River Ribble inLancashire; the Ribble once bore the name ofthe RIVER goddess BELISAMA, who was worshipedat its source and on its shores. That her worshipmay have involved HUMAN SACRIFICE is sug-gested by some scholars who have found in thefigure of Peg O’Nell a vestige of that dreadfulrite. Peg was said to have been a servant girl whodrowned in the Ribble and, to punish those whofailed to rescue her, came back every seven yearsto steal another victim. (In Ireland, we find asimilar seven-year cycle of drowning connectedwith ÁINE, a fairy queen and ancient goddess ofthe haunted LOUGH GUR.) On Peg’s Night, whenthe Ribble rises to snare a new victim, it wasconsidered appropriate to make propitiatory sac-rifices of small birds or animals to the riverspirit. A headless stone statue at Waddow Hallon the river’s banks is believed to represent Pegor, in alternative theories, the goddess Belisama.

Peg Powler British folkloric figure. A haunt-ing GREEN-haired spirit of the River Teesbetween the counties of Durham and Yorkshire,Peg Powler may be a degraded descendant of theancient Celtic RIVER goddess of the area. Shewas said to wander about, especially on Sundays,luring young and old folks to a watery death;

those who drowned in the Tees were said to havebeen eaten by Peg Powler. When foam gatherson the waves of the river, it is called “PegPowler’s suds” and is said to be “Peg doing herlaundry,” while a white slick means she is milk-ing her cow and is called “Peg Powler’s cream.”

péist (bruckee) Irish folkloric figure. A mon-strous SERPENT or reptile, the péist appears in anumber of legends, including many in which it isovercome by ST. PATRICK. Typically the péist isassociated with WATER, usually fresh rather thanoceanic: it lives in a LAKE and can only be suc-cessfully killed when submerged. It is also calledthe OLLIPHEIST.

These beasts are especially common in thearea of west Co. Clare called the Burren, whereplace-names like Poulnapeasta (“water dragon’slair” or “péist-hole”) are found. Near Corofin apool that changed color and was marked withseveral funnel holes was believed to harbor abrown, hairy, big-eyed MONSTER.

Pelagianism (Pelagius) Cosmological con-cept. The fifth-century Christian philosopherPelagius is believed to have been a Celt, Britishor Irish (his opponent, St. Jerome, claimedPelagius was “stuffed with Irish porridge”), whogained many followers in the early church withhis “happy heresy.” Pelagius believed that all ofcreation was good and that the human enterprisewas to learn to love all that exists. Opposing thisvision was that of the North African clericAugustine, who had been greatly influenced bythe dualistic philosophy of the Persian sageMani in his youth, an influence that he neverentirely shed (see DUALITY). St. Augustine’scombat with Pelagianism was one of the defin-ing moments for the emerging Christian church.A brilliant and charismatic leader, Augustineargued fiercely against the Pelagian vision,which reflected a typical Celtic view of NATURE.

Pelleas (Pelles) See FISHER KING.

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Pellinore Arthurian hero. Brother of theFISHER KING Pelles, Pellinore was a great knightof the ROUND TABLE and, in some texts, father ofthe pure PERCIVAL.

Penarddun (Penardun) Welsh heroine. Thedaughter of the important goddess DÔN and thesea or death god BELI, Penarddun was one of theconsorts of king LLYR. She is sometimes calledthe mother of Llyr’s daughter BRANWEN as wellas his sons BRÂN THE BLESSED and MANAWYDAN

(some sources give another woman, Iweriadd, asmother of the first two). With another man,Eurosswyd, she had two sons of opposite tem-perament: the gentle NISIEN and the evilEFNISIEN. All of Penarddun’s children figureprominently in the mythological Welsh talescollected in the MABINOGION; she herself has lit-tle legend and appears to be an ancestral figure.

Penn Cruc Welsh god or hero. The Welshequivalent of the Irish harvest god of similarname, CROM CRUACH, Penn Cruc was worshipedat ancient mounds and STONES.

Percival (Perceval, Parsival, Parsifal, Parzifal)Arthurian hero. The son of the Welsh princessHERZELOYDE and the warrior GAHMURET,Percival was brought up in a cottage withoutknowledge of his illustrious parentage, and hebecame a knight noted for his simplicity andpurity. The quest for the GRAIL—the cup thatJesus of Nazareth used at his Last Supper, laterbrought to Celtic lands by the mysteriousJOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA—makes up a major partof the Arthurian legends. The story of the Grailquest begins with the knight Percival wanderingin a barren land. Its ruler had been wounded (seeFISHER KING) and could do nothing other thanfish from a boat, although nothing ever came tohis line. Dining with the king, Percival suddenlyhad a vision of a chalice and a bleeding lance.Trying to be polite, he said nothing about thecurious experience. The vision ended, and the

castle suddenly disappeared, leaving Percivalalone in the woodland, wondering how theFisher King and his lands could be saved.

The quest for the Grail was thus launched.Percival returned to ARTHUR’s court, and theknights of the ROUND TABLE set off, each ofthem experiencing a different quest thatmatched the needs of his soul. Percival finallywas able to rediscover the Grail Castle and thistime asked the necessary questions: Whose is thecup, why does the lance bleed? His questionsrestored the king to health, and thus the landbloomed again, and Percival succeeded theFisher King on the throne of the reborn land.

The great Breton writer Chrétien de Troyesfirst wrote of Percival in 1175 C.F. (Perceval, ouLe Conte du Graal); he appears in ThomasMalory’s Morte d’Arthur as Sir Percival; and he isParzifal in the Germanic versions of the storythat became part of German composer RichardWagner’s operatic cycle.

Source: Loomis, Roger Sherman. The Grail fromCeltic Myth to Christian Symbol. New York:Columbia University Press, 1963; pp. 196–222.

Peredur Welsh and Arthurian hero. In one ofthe great romances of Wales, we learn of thiscallow young man who, enduring many trialsand succeeding at many quests, became a nobleand admired knight. His character, somewhataltered, became the basis for the Arthurianknightly hero PERCIVAL. Some have found in hisname an echo of the GRAIL itself, for per means“bowl” in Brythonic Celtic; any connection tothe Grail, however, does not appear in most ver-sions of Peredur’s tale.

Perilous Bed Arthurian site. Unknown in thephysical world, the Perilous Bed magicallyappeared before knights who quested for thesacred GRAIL. It looked soft and inviting, butanyone who lay down upon it was punctured byinvisible knives, until GAWAIN destroyed thethreatening object.

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Perilous Seat (Siege Perilous) Arthuriansite. Like Celtic INAUGURATION STONES, thePerilous Seat recognized true heroism; only thefinder of the GRAIL could sit in it without disap-pearing. In some texts, PERCIVAL sat on thePerilous Seat after his first and failed encounterwith the FISHER KING; the stone cracked apart toindicate his unworthiness, but he later repairedit, sitting upon it after successfully finding theGrail and knitting the stone back together.

Perilous Valley Breton mythological site.Within the legendary forest of BROCÉLIANDE inBrittany, there was a haunted valley that hadbeen cursed by MORGAN, half sister of KingARTHUR and lover of the unfaithful GUYOMARD.To assuage her wounded feelings, Morganenchanted the valley so that any man who hadever betrayed a woman would find himself lostin the Perilous Valley, wandering as though PIXY-LED, unable to find the way out. The green val-ley would seem, to a faithless knight likeGuyomard, to be filled with monsters—all of hisown imagining. In the heart of the valley was alake called the FAIRY’s Mirror, from which night-mares rose like mist. No matter how manyknights happened into the valley, each wouldthink himself alone. Finally one of the knights ofArthur’s own court, the young GAWAIN, foundhimself snared in Morgan’s trap, and LANCELOT

went to save him. As Lancelot has never beenuntrue to his beloved GUINEVERE (his adulterywith ELAINE of Corbenic, whereby the heroGALAHAD was conceived, did not count becausehe was inebriated and believed himself to bemaking love to Guinevere), he was able to dispelthe enchantment and free the captives.

phantom islands Mythic symbol. ISLANDS

that appeared and disappeared in cloudy mistwere believed to be entrances to the OTHER-WORLD where FAIRIES, divinities, and the deaddwelt in endless sunny pleasure. These phantomislands could be seen out in the ocean or onlakes; some appeared regularly, usually on a

seven-year cycle, but others appeared once inthe mist and were never seen again.

Pict (pl., Picts, Pictii; in Irish, Cruithin,Cruithne; in Welsh, Prydyn, Priteni) There issome evidence that what we know as Celtic reli-gion and mythology includes vestiges of thebeliefs of the apparently non-Celtic ancient peo-ple called the Picts, or “painted ones,” a name thatmay derive from a tradition of tattooing theirbodies. Some argue that the Picts were Celts fromsuch tribes as the Caledonii and the Maecatae, forsome Pictish rules had names that seem to havebeen in the Brythonic (P-Celtic) language.Others claim that the Picts were a distinct ethnicgroup, speaking a non-Indo-European language.In either case, the Picts may have been matrilin-eal (see MATRILINY) basing descent on themother’s line rather than the father’s, as we findmany of the most ancient and presumably Pictishfigures named in that way (like the WelshGWYDION son of DÔN and MOBON son of MOD-RON), while later heroes and heroines bearpatronymics, based on the names of their fathers.

The Picts lived in what is now Scotland,where they left traces in the form of stone carv-ings of symbolic animals and objects such asBULLS and HORSES, SERPENTS and RAVENS, HAM-MERS and COMBS; these carvings may have repre-sented religious beliefs or tribal totems. Theywere allies with Celtic tribes in fighting theinvading Romans; it was against these fiercenorthern warriors that the great Hadrian’s Wallwas erected. They continued to be an historicalforce until the ninth century C.E., when theyunited with the Scots in a joint kingdom, afterwhich all traces of their language died out.

pig Symbolic animal. The pig is important inCeltic religious symbolism, as might be expectedamong people for whom it provided a vital meatsource, second only to the CATTLE that also fig-ure so significantly in myth and folklore. Earlypigs were smaller and fiercer than today’sdomestic variety; they lived half-wild in the

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forests, rather than confined to sties, and grewfat on the “mast” or acorns found under OAKS

that were themselves sacred to the Celts. In earlyCeltic culture the pig was a funeral animal; aconnection with the warrior class is also sug-gested by the occasional depiction of a BOAR ona helmet, although this may have been an evoca-tion of the animal’s fierceness when cornered.

Mythical and folkloric pigs include, mostnotably, the ever-regenerating pigs belonging tothe DAGDA in the Irish OTHERWORLD; any num-ber of people could slice pork off the creature,which would be found whole and hearty the nextday. Also in Ireland, the great boar—a trans-formed man—that killed the hero DIARMAIT UaDuibne is found, as is the enchanted sowCaelchéis, who was brought to her doom by aharper’s music. In Celtic Gaul there is evidenceof a god named MOCCUS (“porker”), whom theRomans assimilated to their Mercury. On theIsle of Man the Arkan Sonney or “lucky piggy”is an Otherworldly creature that, like others ofits fairy kind, could be distinguished by its RED

ears and white skin; it brought good luck if youcould catch it, but few ever did.

Sources: MacKenzie, Donald A. Scottish Folk-Loreand Folk Life: Studies in Race, Culture andTradition. Glasgow: Blackie & Sons, Ltd., 1935,pp. 56–71; MacNeill, Máire. The Festival ofLughnasa, Parts I and II. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1982, p. 185.

pilgrimage Cosmological concept. The sym-bolism of the pilgrimage—a journey to a sacredplace—is that of the journey of life, tendinginevitably to its conclusion in death and theafterlife. The conception, familiar to bothChristian and Islamic religions, had little placein Celtic thought. Not that the Celts did nottravel to holy sites; there is strong evidence thatthey did, evidence that continues in the PAT-TERNS or rituals held at such sites even today.However, travel and pilgrimage are not thesame. There was no holy center for Celtic reli-

gion, no place where anyone could come at anytime and expect to find an unchanging sanctity.The center was more a cosmological concept(see MIDE) than a geographical one; in addition,sites were connected to specific days and evenhours. Thus pilgrimage did not exist in the con-ventional sense among the Celts; rather, peopletraveled for various purposes to many sites, usu-ally near home rather than far away.

pin Symbolic object. Small pointed bits ofmetal or bone—pins and needles—were com-mon offerings at Celtic holy sites, especiallythose related to water, such as WELLS and RIVER

sources. Because pins were used to fasten clothtogether, they may have been symbolic prayersfor healing or “sewing up” of broken bones andeven broken hearts.

In FAIRY lore, tiny pins were secreted in theclothing of those who were victims of FAIRY KID-NAPPING. Upon returning to this world from theOTHERWORLD, the erstwhile captive wouldremain in a comatose state until the vestiges offairyland were located and removed.

pishogue (piséog, pistrog) Irish folkloricconcept. The term “pishogue” or “pishoguery”is still used in Ireland to dismiss old ways (“it’sjust a pishogue”) and occasionally to describefalse tales got up to seem like folklore. Originallythe word meant an Otherworldly bewitchmentthat caused the world to seem quite differentthan it really is (see GLAMOUR).

pixy (pigsie, piskie) British folkloric figure.One of the most commonly recognized namesfor the Otherworldly beings of FAIRYLAND, thisword was used in the West Country of Englandand in Cornwall. Like other such beings, pixiestypically wore GREEN or RED, had red hair andpointed ears, and were shorter than humans.Often they squinted as though they could notbear the light of day; indeed, they preferred thenighttime. (In Cornwall the piskie was some-

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what shorter, older, and more wizened than theBritish pixy.) Also typical was their mischievousmanner; they enjoyed leading people astray (seePIXY-LED) and rousing the animals in the dead ofnight. They could be friendly and helpful aswell, like BROWNIES and other household spirits,offering aid with housekeeping and farmyardchores. As with other such races, it was impor-tant to ignore the pixy’s contribution to thehousehold economy, because praise or giftswould cause the pixy to be “laid” or driven away(see LAYING THE FAIRIES).

Source: Crossing, William. Tales of the DartmoorPixies: Glimpses of Elfin Haunts and Antics.Newcastle upon Tyne: Frank Graham, 1890.

pixy-led (pixy leading, pouk-ledden) Folkloricmotif. Wherever we find belief in FAIRIES—inother words, in the ancient Celtic lands—wefind the tale that they entertained themselves byleading humans astray. They cast a GLAMOUR orPISHOGUE over a scene so that everythingseemed strange. A path disappeared, a gate wentmissing, a road dissolved: they remained real inthe physical world, but the pixy-led travelersimply could not find them. Round and roundthe traveler turned, looking desperately for afamiliar landmark, but until the pixy decided tolift the spell, it was to no avail. Being pixy-ledwas most common at liminal times and places(at dusk, in BOGS, at lakeshores) and on theancient Celtic feasts, especially SAMHAIN onNovember 1. That Shakespeare knew of thesuperstitions about being pixy-led is clear fromhis description of Puck’s doings in A MidsummerNight’s Dream: “to mislead night-wanderers,laughing at their harm.”

Several antidotes to being pixy-led have beenrecorded: carrying IRON, wearing clothing back-ward or inside out, wearing hobnailed boots,carrying SALT in the pocket, whistling or singingwhile walking. Although none offered a guaran-tee, such actions offered some protection againstfairy mischief. See also STRAY SOD.

place-lore Many European place-names are ofCeltic origin, especially those ending in variantsof -dunum (“fort,” or “town”) such as Lyon andVerdun in France (originally Lugdunum andVirodunum) and those including nemeton (“sacredgrove”) such as Nanterre (Nemetodurum). Inaddition to names, we find Celtic influence in thestories told of landscape features. As Celtic reli-gion was radically polytheistic, envisioning divini-ties as related to specific places and the peoplewho live there, place-lore was an important partof religion.

The naming of places oriented speakers andlisteners spiritually as well as geographically. Inancient Ireland the remembering of place-namesand the stories connected with them was animportant duty of the poetic class (see BARD);even today, Irish poetry often includes the nam-ing of specific places, although contemporarywork gives less information about the mytholog-ical lore connected with them. A specific form ofpoem told the tales of important places; theseplace-lore poems are collectively known as theDINDSHENCHAS. Some of the stories wereinvented by medieval poets to fill in gaps in whatwas known of locations, but in many cases thepoems, compiled in the 12th century, providelore that dates back far into the Celtic past. Acentury later, another collection expanded thepoetic place-lore and added interpretations inprose; together the volumes make up one of themost comprehensive, although difficult to inter-pret, works on Irish place-names.

Other Irish place-lore was never recorded inwriting but remained in local oral tradition. Suchmaterial presents specific challenges to thescholar, who must determine whether the tale wasan invention, a misinterpretation or misunder-standing, or a true myth. The study of place-loreis less developed in Celtic lands outside Ireland.

Plant Annwn (Plant Annwyn, Plant RhysDwfen) Welsh folkloric figures. The “tribe ofthe OTHERWORLD” and the “tribe of Rhys theDeep” were names for Welsh FAIRY people. The

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Plant Annwn lived below the surface of LAKES,where they kept their red-eared CATTLE (theGwartheg y Llyn) and teams of white DOGS (C’WN

ANNWN). Like other such beings, the PlantAnnwn could intermarry with humans, butshould the restrictions they put on their matesbe broken, they would instantly disappear. ThePlant Rhys Dwfen were a subspecies of fairy whowere extremely facile at marketing and thusgrew very wealthy.

planxty Folkloric motif. The music of theOTHERWORLD was, according to all who heard it,more beautiful by far than anything in ourworld. The great Irish harper TurloughO’Carolan, who fell asleep one day on a FAIRY

MOUND and awoke a musical genius, coined theword planxty to describe the special qualities offairy music. It was not as regular as our music,nor as rhythmic, but its odd dissonance anderratic rhythm produced a hypnotic and melan-cholic trance that ordinary music could not.Musicians who heard music in strange lonelyplaces could be certain that what they heard wasno earthly melody, but beautiful as the melodieswere, they were also difficult to remember. Evenif a fiddler played it over and over, by the time hereached home the melody had disappeared frommemory.

Following FAIRY MUSIC was a certain way toadventure, but there was no easy way to return tohuman life once you had heard it. On the Isle ofMan, a farmer named Lonagher Lowey wentinto a hill in search of the melodious sounds;there he found a complete town where a magnif-icent banquet was underway. Having some pres-ence of mind, Lowey poured off the wine he wasoffered, rather than drinking it, because eating ordrinking anything in the Otherworld makes itimpossible to leave. He was one of the rare peo-ple who returned unharmed from FAIRYLAND.

Source: Killip, Margaret. The Folklore of the Isle ofMan. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1975, pp.37–38.

pledge to the elements Continental Celticritual. In Gaul the following words were usedwhen speaking an oath: “If I break faith, may theskies fall on me, may the seas drown me, may theearth swallow me up whole.” The pledge callsupon the air, sea, and earth to bear witness to thespeaker’s truth. The words show something ofthe Celtic sense of ANIMISM, of the world beingalive and in this case, watchful.

Source: Cowan, Tom. “The Pledge to theElements.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed. IrishSpirit: Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin:Wolfhound Press, 2001.

plowing Ritual activity. The plowing of afield, necessary in spring to prepare the land forseed, is also an archetypal activity that appears inmyth and legend. Often it represents the firstarrival of a people in a new land; thus the variousraces of invaders to Ireland are described asclearing and plowing different regions of theland. Typically gods or heroes do the plowing,although goddesses are sometimes involvedwhen they inspire the work. An alternative namefor the harvest god CROM DUBH, Soicin, means“little plow,” suggesting a double god of springand fall; the name of MAC CÉCHT, husband of theland goddess FÓDLA (“unplowed land”) meanssimply “plowman,” as does the name Airem,borne by one of the mythological kings of Tara.

Plur na mBan Irish heroine. This minorheroine, whose name means “flower of woman-hood,” was the daughter of the fairy queenNIAMH of the Golden Hair and her favored love,the human poet OISÍN.

poet See BARD.

poetry Cosmological concept. Today poetry istypically understood as an art form, of little reli-gious consequence. To the Celts, matters weredifferent. Words were powerful; indeed, they

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had such power that they could alter our physi-cal world. Thus a poet’s word in ancient Irelandwas feared, for a SATIRE could be so stinging thatit could raise welts on a person’s face; in the mostdire situation, appropriately aimed words (con-nected with matching rituals) could bring abouta person’s death.

The Celtic BARD was as much a diviner orseer as a maker of lovely words. It seems clearfrom ancient sources that DRUIDS and poetswere, if not identical, at least nearly so; theywere similarly trained and may have been seen asdifferent stages of the same career. Both wereadept at SHAPE-SHIFTING: a druid literally so,being able to change into various bodies or tobecome an invisible fog; the poet throughmetaphoric words that find likenesses betweenapparently unlike objects and ideas and thustransform one thing into another.

In addition to being seers, poets were alsohistorians. Invention was not prized above accu-racy of knowledge; indeed, invention needed tobe rooted in tradition. Thus the poet’s trainingincluded memorization of long passages as wellas extemporaneous composition. Such rotelearning may have created a light trance or med-itative state in which visions of the OTHER-WORLD were more readily seen; thus the longand arduous training in traditional forms mayhave opened the door to, rather than sealing itagainst, invention and illumination.

poet’s circuit Irish mythological motif. Oncean ancient BARD had been fully trained, he or sheoften traveled through Ireland, meeting otherpoets, exchanging tales and poems, and engag-ing in poetic debate. It was while on a poet’s cir-cuit that the fair LIADAN met her fated lover,Cuirithir, she refused to interrupt her travelswhen he proposed to her.

Poisoned Glen Irish mythological site.When the heroic god LUGH killed the monstrousking of the FOMORIANS, BALOR, the victim’s evilEYE split the rocks of a small valley, which

remains dangerous to this day. The PoisonedGlen is near Dunlewey, in Co. Donegal.

polytheism Cosmological concept. Scholarsof religion separate the monotheistic from thepolytheistic worldview, the former seeing divin-ity as singular, the latter as plural. But the sub-ject is more complex than might appear fromthat division. Implicit in monotheism is dualism,in that whatever is not “god” becomes “not-god”; thus monotheistic religion is inclined todevelop a theology that includes evil. Similarly,monotheism typically has associated the divinewith something outside or above this world; thusNATURE becomes less holy in monotheistic reli-gion because it is created by god rather thanbeing god itself. Finally, all monotheisms arebased on the concept of a masculine divinity;there is no monotheistic religion that excludes amale god, while all exclude a female image of thedivine. All three of today’s most powerfulmonotheistic religions (in order of development:Judaism, Christianity, Islam) arose in a relativelysmall region in the eastern Mediterranean; theyare desert religions with an emphasis on imageryappropriate to that geographical region.

Polytheism, the belief in multiple divinities, ismore widespread and has been the predominantreligious system for most of the world over mostof the world’s history. Polytheism is typically farless dualistic than monotheism, although suchdualistic cults as the Persian Manichaeism areknown. More typically, evil is seen not as a cos-mic force at war with god/good but as part of thenatural cycle that is less comfortable, morefrightening, less understood. Thus death is notthe opposite of life, but a natural part of it. Thisdoes not mean that polytheistic peoples viewdeath with less fear or that they mourn their lostloved ones less; it does mean that death is nottypically defined as unnatural.

The Celts appear to have been polytheisticto the extreme; this is assumed because,although the names of more than 200 Celticgods and goddesses are recorded, few are

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known from more than one site. It is possiblethat the number of divinities may have beensomewhat smaller if each god had many titles,as the second person of the Christian trinity isknown as “Jesus,” “Lord,” “Christ,” “Savior,”“Son of Man,” and so forth. Sometimes thesame image appears in different locations underdifferent names; it is difficult to know if thatindicates regional or tribal manifestations of asimilar divine power or the same god under dif-ferent titles.

Unlike the Greeks and Romans, the Celtshad no organized hierarchical pantheon, no listof gods and goddesses arranged in order ofpower. Rather, there seems to have been a con-cept that divinity was deeply linked to place and,through place, to people. In Irish, the wordTUATH meant a people and the place they lived;each region had a divinity that represented theland, the land’s SOVEREIGNTY, and the peopleconnected with that land. This is most forcefullyexpressed by the goddesses of the Irish land, butsimilar conceptions seem to be found in otherCeltic regions, where numerous divinities per-sonify the powers of SPRINGS, RIVERS, riversources, lakeshores, and other sites.

From this place-based polytheism, somescholars have argued, grew a passionate love ofthe natural world, which is found expressed inCeltic poetry and in the folkways of Celtic coun-tries. Rituals were linked to the passage of sea-sons; OMENS were drawn from the flight of birdsand from other natural phenomena; stories weretold that explained the ways myth and placeintersected. Some have argued that there was animplied monism in Celtic culture—that whilenot seeing a single divinity as monotheism does,the Celts saw a unity in nature that could beexpressed as a singular being—but there is noevidence of a hierarchy that places one godabove others. Thus the arrival of Christianity inCeltic lands meant the adoption of and adapta-tion to a new worldview.

Source: Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 184 ff.

pooka (púca, phouka; in Wales, pwca; in England,pouke, puck) Irish folkloric character. Thespectral figure of the pooka was a familiar part ofIrish folklore, although there is great diversity inits description. Often it was said to be a whiteHORSE, but sometimes it appeared as a BLACK

DOG. It also could appear in the form of a GOAT,who lived in the woods and had a tremendouscapacity for leaping over fences and other obsta-cles. It may not derive from Celtic mythology,which knows nothing quite like it, but from thatof the Danes, who had a similar figure calledPukí. The pooka became, in Welsh, pwca, whoappears as Robin Goodfellow, the half-goat, mischief-making Puck whom Shakespeare evokedin A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Britain thepuck was a SHAPE-SHIFTER who tended to appearin human form.

Sometimes the pooka was friendly, helpingfarmers who treated it kindly, as in the story ofthe boy who made friends with a pooka and soonfound that a half-dozen were living in the barn,doing the farm’s work. As with any such OTHER-WORLD being, however, the pooka refused pay,and when the boy made a little suit for thepooka, it disappeared. In the famous story of thePooka of Kildare, the being appeared as a don-key, but when given clothing by the farm work-ers it disappeared.

Often the pooka was a harbinger of doom,indicating bad luck on the way. One taledescribes how a pooka, in the form of a goat,leaped onto a man’s shoulders; when he wenthome, he took to his bed and was unable tomove for three weeks with intense pain,although there was no visible mark from theattack. The pooka attacked most often afterSAMHAIN, the Celtic feast of November 1 whenwinter began, and was thought by some to be thecause of plants’ blighting in that season. In itshorse form, it would take its victims on a wildride, flying through the air in terrifying fashionand leaving the unfortunate rider far from wherehe started.

The Irish center of pooka appearances is inthe southwestern province of MUNSTER, where a

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castle called Castle Pooka near Doneraile (wherethe English poet Edmund Spenser wrote TheFaerie Queene) is said to be haunted by one; a rockcalled Carrig-a-Phooka, west of the little markettown of Macroom, is a common site of visitation;and on the island of Melaam near Kenmare,frightening noises attributed to the pooka areregularly emitted during storms and dark nights.The pooka makes an important appearance inthe modern Irish comic novel At Swim-Two-Birdsby Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan).

Sources: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends andTraditions of the South of Ireland. London:William Tegg, 1862, p. 135; Kennedy, Patrick.Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:Benjamin Blom, 1969, pp. 124–126.

portals to the Otherworld Cosmologicalconcept. The Celtic OTHERWORLD was not aplace apart from this world; there was no heavenhigh above or hell down far below. Rather, theOtherworld existed in a kind of parallel time andplace, near to this world but not accessible.Certain sites and times, however, offered portalsto the Otherworld. Then the veil betweenworlds, always thin, became even thinner; thenpeople could pass from one world into the other.Such places include ancient sites, both Celticand pre-Celtic. DOLMENS, which are door-likestructures of stone built by pre-Celtic people forunknown reasons, were especially likely to beplaces where one could enter the Otherworld.Similarly STONE CIRCLES, also artifacts of thepre-Celtic period, served as ways to enter there;Celtic HILLFORTS made ideal portals as well.Certain times also made an approach to theOtherworld easier; most significant were the twoancient Celtic holidays, BELTANE on May 1, andits opposite day, SAMHAIN on November 1, whenthe forces of the Otherworld could easily enterour world, and those from this side could slipover to the Other.

portal tombs See DOLMEN.

portent See OMEN; PROPHECY.

portune British folkloric figure. The wizenedand wrinkled portune was a typical BROWNIE-type fairy, delighted to help with farm work provided no payment was offered; it was alsonecessary to resist the temptation to replacetheir wrinkled, ragged old coats. They wereespecially useful in hauling and doing otherheavy work. Portunes lived on frog meat,roasted on hot coals. The name may come froma mispronunciation of the Roman god of the sea,Neptune, although the portune has no connec-tion to the ocean. Occasionally, the portunerevealed his FAIRY nature by turning mischievousand driving horses into swamps, laughing hys-terically at their wild attempts to escape.

power of the word see POETRY.

powrie (dunter) Scottish and British folkloricfigures. Noisy spirits, they set up a racket in oldbuildings and towers; when the noise grewimpossibly loud, death or ill fortune wasapproaching the hearer.

pregnancy through drinking, eatingMythic motif. There are a number of Celticmyths in which a goddess or heroine is madepregnant though the mouth, by eating or drink-ing. Most commonly, the pregnancy results fromdrinking down a WORM or other insect that hasdrowned in water or wine. The divine beautyÉTAIN, cursed by the wife of her lover, became afly and drowned in a cup of wine, which aprincess drank; when she gave birth nine monthslater, Étain was reborn in a new (but still beauti-ful) form. The hero CONCOBAR MAC NESSA wasborn clutching a worm, for his mother, the rav-ished scholar NESSA, wished to prove that herson’s father was a worm she drank rather thanthe DRUID who held her hostage; his paternalline being in doubt, Concobar bore his mother’sname. This motif is found in many other cultures,

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including the Chinese, where emperors werecommonly said to have been born throughmiraculous conception after their mothers ate ordrank something unusual. Some have arguedthat such myths disguise an ancient matrilinealsuccession, with property and names beingpassed through the mother’s family.

prophecy Religious ritual. The differencebetween a prophecy and an OMEN (or portent) isthat the first is the result of a ritual embarkedupon to find information about the future, whilethe second is an unsought gift. Omens such asthe flight of birds simply existed, like acts ofnature, although interpreting their meaning wasa skill learned by the Celtic priestly class ofDRUIDS. Prophecy, by contrast, could be courtedby initiates, and the druids practiced various rit-ual techniques that produced a trance or alteredstate that permitted a view into hidden matters.Prophecy permits early vision of the future; inthis, it is a specialized form of DIVINATION,which can also include learning about secretshidden in the past or present. Thus one mightuse divination to find out who had committed acrime but prophecy to discover whether the cul-prit would be caught.

The Celts used both prophecy and divinationfrom earliest times. Both Diodoros of Sicily andStrabo describe how HUMAN SACRIFICE (proba-bly the killing of prisoners or criminals) was usedto foretell the future; the victim was stabbedwith a dagger and, as he died, his death agonieswere decoded to reveal events yet to unfold.

In Ireland several complex rituals ofprophecy and divination were known, includingthe IMBAS FOROSNAI, or chanting into the finger-tips, and the tarhbfleis or BULL-SLEEP, in which adruid or poet slept inside the hide of a newlyslaughtered bull in order to dream the future(especially the identity of the future king).

protection against fairies Folkloric motif.FAIRIES were not evil; however, they wereamoral, not tied to the moral and ethicaldemands of humanity. Thus to protect oneself

against them was not the same as fending offevil, for they were merely playful troublemakersrather than devilish opponents. They commonlytried to lead travelers astray (see PIXY-LED, STRAY

SOD); this was a minor inconvenience and couldbe quite frightening, but even without protec-tion, the fairy eventually grew bored with thetrick and released the ensnared human.

More seriously, the fairies attempted to lureuseful or attractive people into the OTHER-WORLD, to do their bidding until released.Musicians were sought after to play for the end-less fairy dances; midwives were useful for deliv-ering fairy babies; and handsome people ofeither sex were desirable for sexual dalliance.Because time in FAIRYLAND passed so much moreslowly than in our world, a day spent there couldbe a lifetime here; the returnee might find lovedones dead and the world utterly changed. Evenmore dreadful, the returnee could find thisworld so flat and dull compared to the beautiesof fairyland that death followed soon after.

Therefore it was traditionally considered wiseto carry protection against fairies when going on atrip of any distance; indeed, even a short hikecould result in trouble, so filling one’s pockets withbread or SALT was always a good idea. The fairiesstayed away from anything Christian, so crosseswere useful, as was holy water. IRON, too, wasdreadful to the fairies, so keeping a knife, scissors,or nail in the pocket was considered well advised,as was mounting a horseshoe over entries to houseand barn. Four-leafed clovers or SHAMROCKS

exuded an oil that, if rubbed on the eye, couldremove any fairy enchantment; other useful plantswere St. John’s wort, daisies, and red verbena.Most effective of all was ROWAN or mountain ash,whose berries the fairies could not endure.

Actions could also break the fairy spell. Themost common was turning one’s clothing insideout or wearing it backward, the latter presum-ably based on the idea that the fairies fail to tor-ment someone who seems to be departing ratherthan approaching. Praying aloud, or singing, orwhistling, were held to be efficacious. As fairieswere believed to find running water frightening,leaping over a stream put protection between

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the traveler and the fairy—provided there wasnot another fairy standing on the distant shore.

province (cóiced) Irish geographical and cos-mological concept. The island of Ireland wasdivided into four main provinces, each with itsown significance: LEINSTER in the east, theregion of commerce; MUNSTER in the southwest,land of song and women; CONNACHT in thewest, the province of wisdom; and ULSTER in thenorth, the land of war and strife. These regionswere mythological constructs; indeed, there waslittle sense of the provinces as political units, asituation that remains so today.

In addition to the four main provinces, therewas a fifth, one that existed even more in therealm of myth than the others. This was MIDE orMeath, the central province. Its boundaries wereeven less firm than those of the others, becauseit represented the concept of the center ratherthan any specific geographical region. Severalhundred years ago, the county of Meath wasestablished, but the fifth province of Irelandremains just as elusive as in prehistory.

See also CÓICED.

Sources: Aitchison, N. B. Armagh and the RoyalCentres in Early Medieval Ireland: Monuments,Cosmology and the Past. Rochester, N.Y.: CrithnePress/Boydell & Brewer, 1994, p. 114; Dames,Michael. Mythic Ireland. London: Thames andHudson, 1992, pp. 14–16; Rees, Alwyn, andBrinley Rees. Celtic Heritage: Ancient Traditionin Ireland and Wales. London: Thames andHudson, 1998, pp. 118 ff.

Pryderi (Gwri) Welsh hero. In the first bookof the collection of Welsh mythology known asthe MABINOGION, this hero was born of the magi-cal woman (possibly originally a goddess) RHIAN-NON, who married the human prince PWYLL aftera strange courtship. Rhiannon appeared on animpossibly speedy mount and was chased byPwyll, who never could catch up with her. Whenhe finally simply asked her to pause, she willinglydid so. Once married, however, their lives were

soon unhappy, for when their son Pryderi wasborn, he quickly disappeared from his cradle. Hehad been, unknown to the court, snatched awayby an Otherworldly hand, but when the monstertried to add a foal from another part of the landto the night’s catch, the foal’s owner counterat-tacked, causing the monster to drop the tinyinfant and flee. This left the prince far fromhome, but happily the noble farmer whose horsehad been threatened, TEYRNON Twf Liant,adopted him and reared him in safety and com-fort under the name of Gwri.

When he learned the truth of his birth, theyoung boy set out to claim his inheritance.Finding that his mother had been accused ofmurdering him and was still being punished forthis imaginary crime, he set Rhiannon free byrevealing the truth of his absence. Rhiannonwelcomed him, but named him Pryderi, “care,”for all that she had suffered. The family livedhappily until their land was set upon by a strangecurse that caused its CATTLE and people to dis-appear in a magical mist, as described in thethird branch of the Mabinogion. Pwyll had died,and Rhiannon was remarried to the kingly MAN-AWYDAN; Pryderi too was married, to the fairmaiden CIGFA. Unbeknownst to them all, friendsof a rejected suitor for Rhiannon’s hand still har-bored a desire to avenge the humiliation he hadsuffered. Thus Pryderi was enchanted, togetherwith his mother, and held until their spousescould determine how to free them.

Prydwen Welsh mythological object. Thismagical boat, said to have been King ARTHUR’s,was described by some Welsh legends as able tonavigate both the waters of this world and that ofthe OTHERWORLD. The name was also usedoccasionally of Arthur’s shield.

puck British folkloric figure. The mostfamous little FAIRY in English letters is “thatmerry wanderer of the night,” Puck or RobinGoodfellow of William Shakespeare’s AMidsummer Night’s Dream. The puck was well-known to country dwellers as a kind of POOKA, a

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ghostly haunt that caused mischief wherever itwent. A small good-natured creature, the pucklived to make trouble, leading travelers astraywhenever possible (see PIXY-LED), pushing furni-ture about to make people fall flat on the floor,laughing at the annoyances he caused. Like anysuch being, a puck was friendly enough andcould be induced to assist in farm labor, pro-vided no reward or recompense was offered.

Under the name of ROBIN GOODFELLOW, thepuck was described in the 17th-century Britishfolklore as a half-human son of OBERON and acountry lass who took the fairy lord’s fancy.Robin was a normal child until the age of six,when he realized his ability to shape-shift, whichhe used to become a kind of ROBIN HOOD, caus-ing mischief to the rich but helping the poor.Some of these motifs have been traced to theCeltic myth of the half-human fairy king and seagod MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith inCeltic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin SmytheHumanities Press, 1911, p. 220.

Puck Fair Irish folkloric festival. On a week-end near the ancient Celtic harvest festival ofLUGHNASA, a strange ritual is held in the small vil-lage of Kilorglin in the southwestern province ofIreland, MUNSTER. A wild GOAT is captured in themountains near the town, then ceremoniouslybrought into the square and crowned king.Hoisted above the square, the Puck rules overthree days of events: Gathering Day, Fair Day,and Scattering Day. Festivities range from horseshows to outdoor games to music and drink. Atthe end of the fair, the Puck is taken back to themountains and released. Locals claim the festivaldates back to time immemorial, but some scholarssuggest that it is a relatively recent invention, per-haps 300 years old. The fact that the goat is notfound as an important symbolic animal in Celticculture, as well as the use of the word PUCK, whichderives from British rather than Irish sources (forIrish, see POOKA), supports the latter argument.

Purr Mooar Manx folkloric figure. On theIsle of Man, this OTHERWORLD specter hauntedpeople in the form of a PIG.

Pwyll (Pwyll Prince of Dyfed, Pwyll PendefigDyfed) Welsh hero. One of the primaryheroes of the collection of Welsh mythologicalnarratives called the MABINOGION, Pwyll appearsin the first branch of the series, where he wasasked by an Otherworldly king, ARAWN, toexchange places with him. Arawn was beinghounded by a murderous enemy and rival, HAF-GAN, and hoped that Pwyll would be able to savehis country. Pwyll agreed, and taking on theappearance of Arawn, ruled well in theOtherworld. So honorable was Pwyll that herefused to make love with Arawn’s queen,though she did not realize another man’s soulinhabited the semblance of her husband’s form.At the end of the year, Pwyll met the enemyHafgan in single combat—a classically Celticmotif—and defeated him, thus further bondinghim to the grateful king Arawn.

Back in his own world, Pwyll found himselfinfatuated with a beautiful woman whoappeared on a white HORSE that no one couldcatch. For many nights he chased RHIANNON tono avail, until finally he called out to her to stop.She did, and they were soon happily married,but their happiness was short-lived, for aftertheir son PRYDERI was born, Rhiannon was dis-covered raving with blood on her face, while thechild was nowhere to be found. Believing hiswife had killed and eaten their child, Pwyll pun-ished her by making her act as a horse, carryingvisitors on her back into their castle. She thusserved for many years before their sonPyrderi—who had in fact been kidnapped by aspectral arm and rescued by a distant farmer—returned to free her from her burdens. Pwyll’sreign thereafter was without disturbance andabundantly successful.

Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. NewYork: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976.

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questing beast (Beast Glatisant) Arthurianfigure. This monstrous but unexplained hybridcombined the bodies of SERPENT, DEER, andleopard. Although it had only four legs, thesound of 30 hooves was heard whenever it ran. Aknight—variously called PELLINORE and PALO-MIDES—pursued it endlessly, perhaps because itwas really human, a boy transformed to animalshape by the horror of seeing his mother tornapart by wild DOGS.

quintessence Cosmological concept. Thisword, derived from the Latin word for FIVE andindicating a distilled essence, describes the mys-tical center or MIDE, a place that is both every-where and nowhere, a pivot point around whichthe world turns. Although Mide exists as one ofthe five PROVINCES of ancient Ireland, it was notlimited to one location until the medievalperiod, before which it was a shifting boundlessspace. See UISNEACH; TARA.

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Ragallach (Raghallach) Irish hero. Thisobscure figure was said to have been king ofCONNACHT, the western PROVINCE of Ireland, inthe seventh century C.E. There is some historicalevidence of his life, although the elaborate talestold about him are partially legend.

Because of his greed for power, Ragallacharranged to have his only possible rival for thethrone killed—his nephew, who came to himwith guards but was shamed into leaving thembehind, permitting the king to kill him withease. Because of this heinous act, the DRUIDS

prophesied that Ragallach would be killed byhis own children. To avert this fate, Ragallachannounced that all his children should bekilled.

His queen, Murieann, hid their daughter(who is never named in the legends) in thewoods, where she was found and reared by apoor woman. The daughter grew into a splendidbeauty whose reputation reached the king; inkeeping with his greedy temperament and notknowing her identity, he demanded that the girlbe brought to him. Murieann was so insulted bythe king’s obvious infatuation that she fled fromthe court.

Several saintly men fasted in protest againstthe king’s behavior, with the result that he wasmagically ensnared on the next BELTANE night,the feast of summer’s beginning. A magnificentSTAG was seen racing through the land.

Ragallach gave pursuit and wounded the animal.The injured stag leapt into a river and swamaway, shortly followed by the king, who foundthe beast’s body at last, being divided amonghungry peasants. He claimed the meat, but themen fell upon him and killed him in the dispute.Nothing more is said of the daughter whosebeauty caused the king’s downfall, although it issaid the queen Murieann died of jealousy. Nor isit explained how the prophecy was fulfilled,unless the starving peasants were the king’sactual or metaphorical children.

Ragnell Arthurian heroine. After an enchant-ment had been cast upon her, turning her into aLOATHY LADY or CAILLEACH, Ragnell maintainedher sweet good humor and helped GAWAIN, aknight of the ROUND TABLE, learn the answer tothe riddle of what women really want. Despiteher uncomely appearance, the fine knight fell inlove with the wise and kind Ragnell. When theymarried, she told him that she could be a lovelywoman during the day and a HAG at night, or theopposite, and asked him which he preferred.When he gave her the power to make the choiceherself, she emerged from her enchantment,becoming a beautiful young woman and reveal-ing that women want to make their own deci-sions. She may be a form of the goddess of SOV-EREIGNTY. Ragnell’s tale became the basis for the

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medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s“Wife of Bath’s Tale” in the Canterbury Tales.

rainbow Cosmological symbol. The brightbridge of colors that decks the sky after a rain-storm has drawn many legends to itself in Celticlands, as in other cultures. In Celtic areas ofGermany the rainbow was believed to leavetraces of GOLD wherever it touched the earth;the belief gave rise to the production of a coinwith a slightly concave surface called a regenbo-genschüsselchen (rainbow-coin), which wasthought to have healing powers. In Ireland theLEPRECHAUN or fairy shoemaker was similarlysaid to hide his gold at the end of a rainbow.

ram-headed snake Continental Celtic reli-gious symbol. An unnatural combination ofmammal and reptile—and, occasionally, of FISH

as well—can be found in some religious art fromGaul, especially after the Roman occupation.The significance of this being, unique to theCeltic lands, is not known and can only be sur-mised from the way that Celtic artists showed itwith deities and as an ornament on religiousartifacts. The ram and ram-headed snake aresometimes shown with CERNUNNOS, the god ofwild lands, and thus may have been linked withFERTILITY.

rat British folkloric animal. Whether the ratand mouse were originally believed to have mag-ical powers among the Celts is unclear, but somevestige of that belief is found in the BritishCotswolds, where they were thought to haveprophetic or precognitive powers. When rats ormice suddenly left a house, it was believed toforetell a death the family. In Scotland seeing arat or mouse in a sieve meant the likely death ofsomeone at sea, as did seeing a rat swimming bywhen one was in a boat.

Source: Briggs, Katherine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974,p. 127.

rath See HILLFORT.

Rath Irish hero. In an Irish tale, a sailornamed Rath let himself be serenaded by a MER-MAID and her friends—who then tore the man topieces. Mermaids were not believed to be gener-ally murderous beings, but falling asleep to theirOtherworldly music was something to avoid, forthey were inclined to steal humans AWAY tobecome their lovers (see FAIRY KIDNAPPING).

Rath Chinneich Irish mythological site. Thelocation of the mythological palace of one of thefirst settlers of Ireland, NEMED, Rath Chinneichhas never been found, although it is believed tohave been in Co. Armagh.

Rathcrogan See CRUACHAN.

Rath of the Synods See TARA.

Ratis Continental Celtic goddess. The name ofthis obscure Gaulish goddess may be connectedwith the word for a HILLFORT or settlement (rath);she was a protector of such fortresses.

raven Symbolic animal. The distinctionbetween raven and CROW is not always clear tothe untrained eye, nor are they clearly distin-guished in Celtic myth. The two birds arerelated members of the genus Corvus, with theraven being considerably larger and typically amore northern bird than the crow. They havecommon eating habits, devouring carrion ratherthan, as with birds of prey like the EAGLE and thehawk, hunting their food live.

This dietary predilection meant that ravensand crows were often seen flying over battle-fields, waiting to feast on the slain. It was easy tolink the birds to war goddesses like the IrishMÓRRÍGAN and BADB, who were said to take theform of the birds when encouraging bloodshed.

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At the same time, the birds were seen as oracu-lar, a form of the goddess who washed the cloth-ing or armor of those doomed to die (seeWASHER AT THE FORD) in the next day’s battle.As a symbol of the OTHERWORLD, the ravencould indicate rebirth as well as death; thus thebirds’s meaning is far from simple and can seemself-contradictory.

Ancient tradition was carried through theages in folklore that claims that ravens areunlucky. If one is seen when ground is beingbroken for a house or when other new projectsare initiated, its appearance foretells a bad end tothe project. If they take to hanging around ahouse, it is considered a sure sign that one of itsoccupants is near death.

rebirth See REINCARNATION.

red Symbolic color. There were two colorsmost often associated with FAIRYLAND or theOTHERWORLD: GREEN and red, with the latterbeing the more popular color for TROOPING

FAIRIES, while SOLITARY FAIRIES tended to favorgreen. As a result, the color was consideredunlucky, even when on clothing or scarves wornby humans: Women wearing red petticoats wereavoided in the west of Ireland until recent times.Even more ominous was red hair or hide,whether on human or animals. Combined withwhite, red hair was a sure sign of fairy origin.Thus fairy CATTLE were believed to be whitewith red ears; a dog or cat born with the samecoloring was believed to be of fairy blood or aCHANGELING. Red-haired people were, by thesame reasoning, believed to have fairy blood.

There are many superstitions about such red-haired people and animals. It was consideredvery bad luck to meet a red-haired woman firstthing in the morning; a traveler might returnhome rather than risk continuing a journey thatstarted with such an evil portent. A persondressed in red could prove unlucky if he or shepassed in the morning or when one was begin-ning a project. Red-eared animals were believed

to have similar powers to predict (or possiblybring on) difficulties.

Red Branch Irish warrior group. The war-riors of the Red Branch were the protectors ofthe northern PROVINCE of ULSTER, rather as thelater heroic band, the FIANNA, protected theeastern province of LEINSTER. The most famousRed Branch warrior was the peerless CÚCHU-LAINN, who single-handedly fought off theinvading army of queen MEDB of CONNACHT.Some scholars have seen in stories of the RedBranch warriors a foreshadowing of the laterROUND TABLE knights who served king ARTHUR.

Red Branch Cycle See ULSTER CYCLE.

Redcap British folkloric figure. His little hatwas RED because he washed it regularly in bloodfrom his victims, whom he frightened to deathfrom his haunts in old ruins. His eyes were red,too, perhaps from staring into the darkness, everon the watch for new prey. Should youencounter, while adventuring around old castles,a wizened old man with wild hair wearing IRON

boots and carrying a big iron weapon, the onlything to do was to hold up a Bible, which causedRedcap to emit a horrific scream before disap-pearing. Occasionally this figure appeared as akind of useful BROWNIE, eager to help aroundthe house, but generally he was a fearsome spiritto be avoided.

Red Etin British folkloric figure. This Britishogre was ugly to look at (having THREE heads isnot typically considered handsome) but not nec-essarily unfriendly. His interest was CATTLE: hisown, which were large herds of OTHERWORLD

creatures (often with RED ears, a sign of theirFAIRY origin), and others’, which he protected forno fee. He may descend from an Otherworldlyguardian figure.

In one tale from Scotland, Red Etin appearsas a GIANT from Ireland to whose home the son

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of a widow came, thinking to spy on him from ahiding place. Unfortunately, Red Etin detectedthe presence of human blood. “Be he fromFife,” he bellowed, “or be he from Tweed, hisheart this night shall kitchen my bread.” He wasnot so cruel as he sounded, for he gave theyoung man three chances to avoid becomingdinner, and with the help of magical animals,the boy survived.

Reid, Thome Scottish folkloric figure. Thisis the name given to a visitor from the OTHER-WORLD who, according to Sir Walter Scott,appeared in 1576 to a Scottish woman namedElizabeth (Bessie) Dunlop of Ayrshire. Bessiewas surprised one morning to be greeted by agray-bearded man dressed all in gray except fora black bonnet (unusual colors for Otherworldlyapparitions, who tended rather toward wearingRED or GREEN). He spoke to her, offered herriches if she would give up being Christian, andthen disappeared when she refused.

Undiscouraged, he came back again andagain. Bessie invariably refused his demand, butshe learned that the spectral man’s name wasThome Reid and that he had been a soldierkilled in battle. Sometimes Thome appearedaccompanied by small beings, “good wights,” ashe called them, who lived with him in FAIRY-LAND. However persuasive he was, Bessie con-tinued to refuse to join him there, accepting onlyhis advice on how to heal her neighbors. Shebecame a renowned herbalist who wanted onlyfood as her fee. For four years Thome continuedto visit Bessie, all the while encouraging her toabandon this world for the Other. Her loyalty tothis world and its religion was not rewarded,however, for she was ultimately convicted ofWITCHCRAFT and burned at the stake.

reincarnation (rebirth) Cosmological con-cept. There is some dispute as to whether theCelts believed in reincarnation. The term isoften used in describing the east Asian religiousand philosophical belief that a human being is

born again and again in human form, with theactivities of one life affecting those of the next(the Hindu concept of karma). When a soul isbelieved to occupy various forms, both humanand animal, the proper term is not reincarnationbut TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.

Caesar claimed that the DRUIDS believed that,after death, the individual was given a new life,which explained why Celtic warriors were sofearfully brave on the battlefield, since theyknew they would find another body when theone they occupied was killed. Caesar was writingabout the culture he tried to conquer, so he maynot be an entirely credible source. Diodoros ofSicily similarly argued that the Celts believed inreincarnation, but he attempted to show thesimilarity of the Celtic belief system and that ofthe Hellenic philosopher Pythagoras, whobelieved that we would be born again in variousforms, not always human. Many Celtic legendsdescribe mythic beings reborn in various forms(see ÉTAIN, TUAN MAC CAIRILL, FINTAN, FRIUCH,TALIESIN), but whether this was believed to hap-pen to the common individual is not clear.

What the Celts believed about the afterlife isdebatable. The fact that gods and goddesses aswell as heroines and heroines were occasionallyreborn may not mean this was the usual fate ofmortal beings, but rather might emphasize theiruniquely divine qualities—for Celtic deities werenot necessarily immortal. The idea of anOTHERWORLD where the newly dead join theshades of the earlier dead, as well as the magicalbeings and divinities who lived there, does notnecessarily imply reincarnation. Such descrip-tions of Celtic belief may be influenced by theChristian conception of heaven as a place wherethe dead enjoy the presence of god forever. Thequestion of Celtic belief in reincarnation is thusstill an open one.

Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the AncientCelts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 348 ff.

religion See CELTIC RELIGION.

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Rhiannon Welsh goddess or heroine. It isprobable that, like other major characters in thecompilation of Welsh myths called the MABINO-GION, the magical horsewoman Rhiannon wasoriginally divine. Her name has been connectedwith a presumed ancient goddess named riga-tona, “great queen.” We find among the conti-nental Celts (and, to some extent, in Britain aswell) a HORSE goddess named EPONA, who maybe a figure parallel to Rhiannon, since Rhiannonthroughout her legend is associated withHORSES. The connection of Rhiannon tohorses has led some scholars to link her withthe SUN, often depicted by the ancient Celts inequine form.

As she appeared in the Welsh myth, Rhiannonwas an OTHERWORLD woman who rode herspeedy white horse around an enchanted spot.The king of the region of Dyfed, PWYLL,encountered her there and gave chase, but hismortal horse was no match for hers. Three timesthey raced, and finally he called out for her tostop, whereupon she did, admitting she hadheard of his prowess and had come to seek him.Rhiannon soon became Pwyll’s wife and queen—though not until he defeated another contenderfor her hand, GWAWL.

Life was not long happy for the pair, however,because after Rhiannon gave birth to their sonPRYDERI, she was found one BELTANE morningwith blood on her face and the child mysteriouslygone. Everyone jumped to the conclusion thatRhiannon had gone mad and killed her child, butthe blood was actually DOG’s blood, for findingthe boy missing, the nursemaids had killed apuppy and smeared its blood on Rhiannon’s facewhile she slept.

The nursemaids did not confess their secret,and so Rhiannon was punished. She was given acuriously light sentence: to serve as a mount forall visitors to the castle, bringing them from thegate on her back. She was ultimately releasedfrom bondage by the appearance of her sonPryderi, who had been stolen by a spectral figurebut later saved and reared by a distant nobleman,TEYRNON Twf Liant.

Rhiannon was widowed later in life, but soonremarried. The problems that plagued her firstmarriage came back to haunt the kingdom,which abruptly and mysteriously turned barrenwhen her son Pryderi assumed the throne.Rhiannon and her new husband, MANAWYDAN,joined Pryderi and his wife CIGFA in scraping aliving from the increasingly empty land. Finallythey gave up and found residence in a city far tothe east (perhaps London), where they eked outa living as artisans, an occupation at which theywere quite talented. In fact, they incurred thewrath of the less-talented local craftsmen, whorose up to drive them away.

Fearing for their safety, the family groupreturned to the wilderness of Dyfed, butRhiannon and her son immediately becameenchanted and disappeared. Unwilling to aban-don his wife even though he had no idea whereshe was, Manawydan searched for clues until hediscovered that the family of Gwawl, the formersuitor humiliated when Pwyll won Rhiannon,had come to punish them. After a suitable accordwas reached, Rhiannon and Pryderi were freedfrom enchantment and returned to this world.

Several scholars have connected Rhiannonwith the goddess of the land’s SOVEREIGNTY, forher presence in Dyfed made the land abundant,while her absence made it barren. She has alsobeen connected with the goddess of war whosename resembles hers (MÓRRÍGAN has some of thesame linguistic roots), especially because, likeMórrígan, Rhiannon is associated with BIRDS—in her case, THREE magical birds who fly alwaysaround her shoulders, singing so sweetly that thedead awaken and the living fall into a trance.

Sources: Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence theGoddesses: A Sourcebook. New York: PergamonPress, 1990, pp. 93–94; Gantz, Jeffrey, trans.The Mabinogion. New York: Barnes & NobleBooks, 1976; MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion ofthe Ancient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp.98 ff, 110 ff; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain:Studies in Iconography and Tradition. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 225;

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Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic andPagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, pp. 38–39.

Rhonabwy Welsh hero. This minor hero ismost notable for being skillful at DIVINATION; hedreamed of the great king ARTHUR before hecame to power.

Rhun Welsh hero. This human hero figuresin a curious story of faithfulness and betrayal.ELPHIN, the bumbling, boisterous king, braggedthat his wife was more faithful than Rhun’s. Todisprove this slight upon his wife, Rhun traveledto Elphin’s court and attempted to seduce thequeen. When she refused his advances, Rhundrugged her and chopped off her ring finger. Hebrought this arrogantly to Elphin, not realizingthat the queen and her handmaiden had swappedidentities; the bread dough under the fingernail,something a queen would never endure, told thestory. Rhun continued in his competition withElphin, next wagering with him as to whoseHORSES were faster. Through a trick engineeredby the canny BARD, TALIESIN, Elphin won therace and sent Rhun home.

Rhydderch Hael (Rhydderch Largus, Rhyd-derch the Generous) Arthurian hero. Owner ofa CAULDRON of abundance, Rhydderch is an oth-erwise obscure figure in Arthurian legend.

rí (ri) See KINGSHIP.

Riada Irish hero. The son of a king of MUN-STER Riada escaped a famine by taking his peo-ple on a long trek to happier climes. He first set-tled in Co. Antrim, in ULSTER, then boatedacross the Irish Sea to Scotland; both kingdomswere called Dál Riada after him.

Richis (Riches) Irish heroine. This satiristchallenged the great hero CÚCHULAINN after he

had killed her foster son, CRIMTHANN NIA NÁIR.Despite her bravery, she lost her life asCrimthann had done.

Rifath Scot Irish hero. According to themythological history, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, thisancestor of the Irish race was one of the workerson the biblical Tower of Babel. When, to punishhuman arrogance, God cursed all the workers bycausing them to speak in different languages,Rifath Scot began speaking Scots Gaelic. One ofthis descendants, GOIDEL, created the final ver-sion of the language.

Rigani Continental Celtic goddess. Thisname has been interpreted to mean “greatqueen.” It may be a title of ROSMERTA ratherthan indicating a separate goddess.

Rigatona (Rigantona) See RHIANNON.

Rigisamus (Rigonemetis) British and conti-nental Celtic god. His name meant “mostkingly” or “most regal,” and dedications to thisotherwise obscure god have been found both inBritain and France. The Romans equated him totheir warrior god MARS, as they did a similarlynamed divinity called Rigonemetis, “king of thesacred grove.”

Rigru Roisclethan (Rígru Rosclethan) Irishheroine. This woman of the OTHERWORLD

appeared to the king at TARA once, wailing hor-ribly and leading a mooing cow. She warnedking CONN of the Hundred Battles, who hadattempted to kill her son, and told him that theland would suffer so long as the lustful queen BÉ

CHUMA remained in power.

Ríonach (Riona) Irish heroine. The motherof the Christian St. Colman was a member ofan important family in the province of CON-NACHT. When Ríonach was seen to be pregnant,

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ambitious would-be kings realized that her her-itage would elevate her child to royal status (seeMATRILINY) and thus prevent them from gainingthe throne. These rivals hunted down the preg-nant woman who, in despair, jumped into theKiltartan River near Gort, Co. Galway, intentupon death.

She did not, drown however, but floateddownriver. She landed near Corker, draggedherself from the water, and gave birth beneath amagical ASH tree. Two monks—one blind, onelame—found her there with her infant son.Ríonach begged them to baptize the baby, butthere was no water within reach. One monkgrabbed some wet RUSHES, whereupon a holyWELL burst forth at that spot. The blind monkwashed his eyes, restoring his sight; the lamemonk bathed his leg, restoring his ability towalk. Colman grew up to become the patronSAINT of the region. Although a Christian tale,this story has many Celtic motifs.

Ritona Continental Celtic goddess. Thisobscure divinity was known in Gaul as a goddessof fords; she may have been, like many otherCeltic goddesses, connected with RIVERS as well.

river Cosmological concept. Rivers, sacred tothe Celts, were almost invariably described asgoddesses. Many rivers in Celtic lands still bearthe ancient names of the goddesses who werebelieved to live within them or whose deathscaused the release of their waters. Typically theriver goddess was pictured as a maternal pres-ence who provided food to those along herbanks; among the continental Celts, the riverwas often associated with the group of goddessesknown collectively as DEAE MATRES, “the moth-ers.” Whether through FISH caught in herwaters, grain watered by them, or meat fromCATTLE who drank along her shores, the rivergoddess was the great provider for the Celticpeople. Her waters were sometimes associated,as a result, with MILK, and the river goddess her-self with a COW.

The source of a river was especially sacred.The Celts believed that where WATER firstemerged from the ground, to swell into a riverby joining with smaller tributaries, great HEAL-ING power resided. Offerings were often made atthese river sources, suggesting that rituals wereperformed there to promote recovery from ill-ness or injury.

Similarly, SPRINGS were considered sacred,especially hot springs that became healingshrines. There is in fact significant therapeuticbenefit to be gained from bathing in hot springs,which can relieve the pains of chronic ailmentslike arthritis. Several important Celtic sites, likeBath in England, show evidence of having beenused in pre-Celtic times; in many cases, theinvading Romans continued to employ thesprings for their own medicinal purposes.

Some scholars argue that folk beliefs inhauntings or FAIRY activity around holy wells andrivers is a vestige of ancient Celtic religion. Thelegends of many FAIRY QUEENS connect them towater. This interpretation, although common, issomewhat controversial.

Among the Celtic river divinities (togetherwith the rivers they ruled) are the goddessesABNOBA (Danube, Avon), ALAUNA (Alaunus,Alun), BELISAMA (Ribble), BERBA (Barrow),BÓAND (Boyne), BRIGANTIA (Braint, Brent), Cluta(Clyde), COVENTINA (Carrawburgh), DANU

(Danube), DEE/Deva/Divona (Dee, Dive), ERNE

(Erne), FIAL (Feale), GARRAVOGUE (Garravogue),ICAUNA (Yonne), MATRONA (Marne, Madder,Moder, Maronne, Maronna), NATOSUELTA

(Trent), SABRINA (Severn), SEQUANA (Seine),SÍNANN (Shannon), and the folkloric figures PEG

O’NELL (Ribble) and PEG POWLER (Tees).Although rivers were typically seen by the

Celts as feminine forces, there are occasionalbreaks in the pattern. Occasionally a god appearsas consort of a river goddess. Even less frequently,river gods alone are found; whether the feminineconsort has been lost is not known. Gods of rivers(and the rivers to which they were connected)include Danuvius (Danube), NODENS (Severn),and the folkloric figures TAVY and DAVY JONES

396 Ritona

(Tavy). More typically, gods ruled healing springs(see BORVO, APOLLO Grannos, LUXOVIUS).

River sources, which are often similar tosprings, frequently had a male spirit residentwithin them. Commonly he took the form of afish, like the SALMON of WISDOM (sometimesnamed FINTAN) who lived in the spring at thesource of the Boyne or the Shannon in Ireland,gorging on nuts from magical HAZEL trees andgrowing wise. On the Continent, especially inBrittany, there are legends of EELS and trout wholive in sacred springs. Seeing such a being, eitherleaping from the water or swimming beneath itssurface, was extremely lucky.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of theAncient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 42,46, 180 ff; O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early IrishHistory and Mythology. Dublin: The DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies, 1946, p. 3; Ross,Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London:B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 78.

Roan (roane) See SILKIE.

Robin Goodfellow British folkloric figure.In his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream,Shakespeare conflated the figure of the mischie-vous FAIRY named PUCK with Robin Goodfellow,son of a fairy king (sometimes, OBERON) and ahuman mother. According to British folktales,Robin Goodfellow got into such trouble as achild that his mother threatened to whip him,prompting him to run away and become a tai-lor’s apprentice. He continued to make mischiefuntil threatened again, whereupon he ran awayonce more, this time looking for his father. Thereunion was a pleasant one, for Robin’s fathertaught him the art of SHAPE-SHIFTING, afterwhich he settled down and became a hard work-ing, helpful BROWNIE.

Robin Hood British folkloric figure. The fig-ure known as Robin Hood, who stole from the

rich and gave to the poor, may have some his-torical basis. Robin allegedly lived in medievaltimes in Sherwood Forest with the fair MaidMarian and his band of merry robbers, includingLittle John and Friar Tuck. There were, indeed,many highwaymen who lived in the Englishforests in those days. One of them seems to havecaught the popular fancy, although the RobinHood cult has always been more literate thanoral, enjoyed more by the upper than the lowerclasses, despite Robin’s supposed personal biastoward the latter.

The allegedly historical Robin Hood wasborn Robin Locksley in Brandfield Parish,Hallamshire. When he accidentally wounded hisstepfather and feared the violent retribution ofthe law, Robin fled to Loxley forest, where hemet a GIANT hermit named Little John. (Anearby grave was exhumed in 1784 and a thigh-bone 30 inches long was discovered, so LittleJohn, too, may have some basis in fact. Becausebad luck struck the excavator, the bone wasreburied and is now lost.)

There have been a number of controversialscholarly attempts to find a mythological basisfor the Robin Hood legends. Most propose aconnection between the alleged highwaymanand the GREEN MAN, a spirit of vegetation andfertility. By this interpretation, Robin Hood wasonce Robin of the Wood, also known as JACK-IN-THE-GREEN, who ruled as king of the May whileMaid Marian was its queen. Such figures wereespecially associated with the BELTANE festivalbut were also occasionally attached to the MID-SUMMER festivals of late June. A spot in Loxleyforest called Robin Hood’s Bower was said inlocal church records to be a site for Beltane fes-tivities involving a green-clad man; that customstill survives at nearby Castleon, while at ABBOTS

BROMLEY men still perform the horn dancearound a cross-dressed Maid Marion.

Some legends support the contention that anhistorical highwayman’s deeds became graftedupon an earlier figure whose mythic dutiesincluded creation of the landscape. One suchtale tells how Robin Hood and Little John

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challenged each other to a leaping contest.Robin said he could jump all the way overWormsley Hill, but when he tried he knockedout part of the hill with his heel, which becameButthouse Knapp. When Little John jumped, hetoo snagged the hill with his heel, with the resultthat Pyon Hill was formed. Together these hillsare still called Robin Hood’s Butts. Robin stillprotects the region, for folklore says that treas-ure hunters who attempted to dig there foundtheir tools disturbed and GORSE growing everyday over what they had dug the day before. Suchmischief is typically the work of FAIRIES, so thislegend connects Robin and Little John to theOTHERWORLD realm.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker andCo., 1976, p. 76; Briggs, Katherine M. TheFolklore of the Cotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford,Ltd., 1974, p. 35; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 106.

Roc Irish hero. Part of the mythic backgroundfor the romantic tale of DIARMAIT and GRÁINNE

regards this man, who had an affair with the god-dess Duibhne, wife of the gloomy god DONN.When a child was born of the affair, the outragedand cuckolded husband Donn crushed its skull.Roc knew MAGIC and saved his child by turning itinto a great BOAR. If not human, at least the childwas alive; it grew to monstrous size, living on thegreat mountain above Sligo called BEN BULBEN.Duibhne then returned to her husband and hadanother child, Diarmait, who later lost his life incombat with his beastly half brother.

Roisin Dubh (Dark Rosaleen) Irish folkloricfigure. This name is given in AISLING poetry to adark-haired maiden who wanders the roadwaysalone, hoping to meet a king strong enough tobreak her bondage. She is a late form of theancient goddess of SOVEREIGNTY.

Rollright Stones British mythic location. Thisgreat STONE CIRCLE at the border of Oxfordshireand Warwickshire has attracted many legends.One claims the Rollrights as COUNTLESS STONES

that deflect any attempt to discover their exactnumber. A clever baker tried to count the stonesby putting a loaf of bread on each one, intendingto gather the loaves and count them, but henever seemed to have enough loaves to cover thestones (or loaves may have disappeared as heplaced them on the rocks). Some scholarsbelieve these legends arise in an ancient traditionof offering food to the stones.

A significant legend about the RollrightStones concerns an invading king who heard aprophecy that he would be king of the wholeisland if he ever saw the town of Long Compton.He set off, but some of his own knights opposedthis goal and, when he was camped near the loca-tion of the Rollright Stones, began to plot againsthim. Fearing treachery, the king set off in thenight, but before he could mount the rise fromwhich he would see Long Compton, he met aWITCH who turned him into the King Stone—and his whispering knights into stones as well. Ifthe spell ever is broken, the king and his armywill conquer England, but for now they remainpetrified, while the witch who holds them liveson as an ELDER tree in the vicinity. Some claim tohave seen the stones sneak to a stream undercover of darkness, looking for a drink of water toquench their thirst. And every midnight, for amoment, the stones come to life and dance, whilethe King Stone drinks his fill. Although the stonecircles themselves are pre-Celtic, there is evi-dence of a Celtic HILLFORT in the area as well.

Romano-Celtic Archaeological term. Thisphrase is used to describe the divinities and reli-gion of the continental Celts and of Britain, asdepicted in art after the Roman conquest of thoseregions. The Celts did not portray their deities inhuman form, although there is some early evi-dence of animal-bodied gods and goddesses; moretypically, abstract symbolism was used, which can

398 Roc

be difficult to interpret. That the Celts did notsuffer from limited artistic skill is clear from thespeed with which they picked up the new mode ofimagery; within decades of Roman occupation,figurative sculptures in clay and bronze and stonewere found in shrines and temples. These showdivinities in typically Roman garb (althoughsometimes with the clearly Celtic TORC or neck-ring) but with Celtic symbols like the DOG, theHAMMER, and the headpiece with ANTLERS.Sometimes the inscriptions use Roman names;thus we have many Celtic MERCURY figuresdepicting a god who may have ruled commerce.Sometimes the Roman name was used with aCeltic one, as with Sulis Minerva, the healingdeity of the hot springs of BATH in England; occa-sionally only the Celtic name was inscribed on thedeity’s image, as with NEHALEINNIA, an importantgoddess of the Netherlands and its sea trade.

In addition to its cultural influence, theRoman occupation had an economic and socialimpact upon the Celtic inhabitants of theContinent and the island of Britain. By contrast,the Romans never colonized Ireland; thus thereare no Romano-Celtic artifacts from that land.Therefore it is not easy to interpret Celticarchaeological finds from the Roman provinces.The same is true of literary texts; as the Celts didnot use writing (see OGHAM) to record their his-tory and religion, relying instead on oral trans-mission, we have no indigenous material withwhich to compare that written by Romans andother observers.

The cultural scene was further complicated bythe importation of non-Roman religious cults—like those of the east Asian goddess Cybele andthe Persian god MITHRAS—into Celtic lands bythe Roman legions. The Celts were spirituallyadaptable (see POLYTHEISM) and may have wel-comed some of the new religious visions andopportunities. Taken together, these historicalfacts mean that the interpretation of Romano-Celtic material presents special problems forscholars, and there is much disagreement andcontroversy over the meaning of various texts andartifacts.

Rómit Rígóinmit Irish hero. This obscurefigure plays a minor role in the story of theINTOXICATION OF THE ULSTERMEN, when heappears with the rest of king CONCOBAR MAC

NESSA’s men at the fort of queen Cú Roi. He is ablack man with huge, bulging eyes who serves asConcobar’s fool, entertaining the court with hisjests and antics.

Ronán Irish hero. The Irish myth of Ronánrecalls the more famous Greek story of Phaedra,who fell in love with her stepson, was rejected byhim, and vengefully accused him of raping her.Ronán married a much younger woman who fellin love with her stepson, closer in age to her thanher husband. When the young man refused heradvances, she reported to Ronán that the boyhad raped her—for which Ronán put his son todeath. When the truth was revealed, Ronán diedof grief and his wife committed suicide.

Another Ronán (also called Rodán andRuadán) was the cause of the desolation of thegreat central hill of TARA, once the most impor-tant political and spiritual capital of the land.When Tara’s king, DIARMAIT, condemned himfor hiding a relative accused of murder, Ronáncursed the king and Tara itself. From that timeforward, Tara was never again as powerful as ithad been in Celtic times.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 538.

Rosault Irish legendary monster. This vastbeing lived in the sea but somehow came ashorein Co. Mayo, where it began vomiting. Witheach regurgitation, more beings were killed:plants, sea creatures, even humans, until themonster itself expired.

rose Symbolic plant. The fragrant flower ofmidsummer, the rose was used in DIVINATION

and MAGIC. Just as it represents romance today,

rose 399

in Celtic lands it was connected with love andloyalty. In the British Cotswolds the rose wasused in making magical spells to attract love orto capture the wandering interest of a lover.

Rosmerta Continental Celtic goddess. Hername, interpreted to mean “The GreatProvider,” suggests that she was a goddess ofabundance to her people in northeastern Gaul.The fact that she was sometimes depicted hold-ing a CORNUCOPIA or horn of plenty supports thistheory, as does her association with the godwhom the Romans called MERCURY after theirdivinity of commerce. Rosmerta was often shownwithout a consort, however, or accompanying animage of the emperor; from this scholars haveargued that she was an important goddess whoseprestige may have even outweighed that ofMercury, said by the Romans to be the chief godof the Celts.

Occasionally Rosmerta was described as agoddess of a SPRING, which to Celtic people mayhave represented HEALING. This associationmight also expand upon her meaning as a forceof abundance, for springs at the sources of riverswere connected with the symbolism of the fertileRIVER goddess. Rosmerta’s name has been asso-ciated with a Celtic word for protection and FER-TILITY, and she is sometimes depicted holdingthe CAULDRON of rebirth. Rosmerta’s myth isunknown, as are the specifics of her ritual.

Rothniam See FISHER KING.

Roth Ramach Irish mythological object. Thispowerful vehicle, called a “flying wheel,” was ameans of transport for the WITCH or goddessTLACHTGA and her father, the magician MOG

RUITH. On the Roth Ramach, they flew easilythrough the air, even as far away as Italy. Theruins of the magical machine are said to be visi-ble in a stone near Dromline in Co. Tipperary.

Round Table Arthurian legendary object. Thegreat table around which the knights of king

ARTHUR at CAMELOT gathered was originally builtfor Arthur’s father, UTHER PENDRAGON, perhapsin the OTHERWORLD. During Arthur’s reign, thetable symbolized equality between king andknights as well as among the heroic knights them-selves, who formed a spiritual brotherhood.When MORDRED, Arthur’s illegitimate son by hishalf sister MORGAUSE, took Camelot from hisfather, he struck the center of the Round Tableand destroyed it—and with it, the hope for har-mony and peace that Camelot promised.

rowan (mountain ash, wild-ash, quickbean,quicken tree) Symbolic plant. Not really an ASH

tree at all, the delicate-leafed rowan (genusSorbus) was associated with FAIRIES, WITCHES, andthe OTHERWORLD across the Celtic lands. Rowanis often found near STONE CIRCLES and otherancient monuments, as well as in graveyards,which may have given rise to the mystical con-nections of the tree. It was said to offer a fool-proof way of detecting witches; the unripeberries, before they turned RED, could be wavedover a suspected witch, who would instantly con-fess. “Rowan, amber, and red thread puts witchesto their speed,” says a Scottish rhyming proverb.

Pounded and strained, the berry juice was aprophylactic against bewitchment; it is unclearwhether the juice was swallowed, used to markthe skin, or simply carried on the threatened per-son. Crosses made of rowan wood were thoughtto avert the evil EYE; sticks of rowan wood wereuseful for driving CATTLE to pasture, becausethey did double duty in keeping away potentiallythieving spirits. Planting rowans around a houseor at the property line was held to be good magicagainst the envy of witches; occasionally the ashwas substituted. Rods made of rowan wood wereused in casting SPELLS. Like other FAIRY TREES,rowans tended to be long-lived in areas wherepeople believed in fairies, because terrible luckwas said to follow cutting one down.

Ruad Irish goddess. In place-lore surroundingthe once-magnificent falls (flooded by a hydro-

400 Rosmerta

electric project in the mid-20th century), atAssaroe, in Co. Sligo this maiden was said tohave given her name to the waterfall (Ess Ruad)when she died there. ABCÁN, the dwarf poet ofthe magical TUATHA DÉ DANANN, took Ruadfrom the OTHERWORLD to this world in hisbronze, tin-sailed boat, so that she might seducea human lover, AED Srónmár. The sounds ofMERMAIDS singing, or of music pouring from aFAIRY MOUND, caused Ruad to forget herself andleap into the white waters of Assaroe, where shedrowned. Assaroe is also said to be named after amale figure, the Ulster king Áed Ruad, whosename combines that of the titular goddess andher human lover.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.1906–1924. Reprinted Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies,1991, Part 4, pp. 3–9.

Ruadán (Ruadan) Irish god or hero. In theBOOK OF INVASIONS, the mythic history of Ireland,this heroic warrior was described as the son ofthe goddess BRIGIT and the half-Fomorian king,the beautiful but ungenerous BRES mac Elatha.In the great second battle of MAG TUIRED,Ruadán was injured fatally after being discov-ered spying on the enemy; his mother came tothe battlefield and began to cry out in a way thatbecame the traditional KEENING (from Irishcaoin, “lamenting”) used at Irish funerals.

Ruadh (Rua) Irish hero. One of the figuresin Irish legend who was snared by a FAIRY

LOVER, Ruadh was sailing one day when hisboat was becalmed off the north coast ofIreland. He set off to swim for help but insteadfound himself beneath the waves, where he wastaken up by nine lovely princesses, one ofwhom bore him a child. He eventually left thewomen, including the mother of his child,promising to return—then stayed away in

Norway for seven years, never intending toreturn. When he did come back, the nine fairymaidens intercepted his boat, throwing his sonat him so that both died.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,Ltd., 1906–1924, pp. 27–35.

Ruad Rofessa (Ruadh Ró-fhesa) Irish god.This name, which means “the red one who hasgreat knowledge,” was given to several Irishdeities, notably the god of fertility, the DAGDA,although it was also used of the mysteriousOTHERWORLD figure of death, DONN. The leg-ends about Ruad Rofessa are confused and con-fusing; it is unclear whether he was originally aseparate ancestral god who became connectedwith other divinities, or if the name was merelyan honorific title.

Rucht Irish hero. Little known in Irish mythunder his human name, this man is famous asFINNBENNACH (“white horn”), the greatest BULL

of the western PROVINCE of CONNACHT. That bullwas originally a swineherd named Rucht, whoargued with another swineherd named FRIUCH.Their enmity was so deep-seated that, reborn timeafter time, they continued to fight: as STAGS, asRAVENS, and finally as WORMS. Not much damagecan be done by fighting worms, and besides thetwo were across the island from each other. Theyset in motion the next stage of the battle, for oneworm encouraged the great queen MEDB to marryAILILL mac Máta, while the other warned DÁIRE toexpect an invasion of Ulster by Medb. Then theworms were swallowed by COWS that gave birth tothem again as bull-calves.

By the time the bulls had grown up, the stagewas set. Medb, offended that her husband ownedFinnbennach and thus was her social superior,set off to find a bull of equal value. The only onewas Rucht’s enemy of so many lifetimes, nowreborn as the brown bull DONN CUAILNGE. The

Rucht 401

battle for the bulls is the subject of the greatestIrish epic, TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE. When they finallywere brought together, Rucht and his age-oldenemy fell again to fighting. Rucht was killed,his bull body spread in pieces across the land,but Friuch did not live long after his victory,dying of exhaustion and loss of blood upon hisreturn home.

Rudianus Continental Celtic god. An obscuregod known only from several inscriptions inFrance that invoked his aid, he was identified bythe Romans with their warrior god MARS.

Rudiobus Continental Celtic god. Anobscure Gaulish god, Rudiobus is known onlyfrom a single artifact: a HORSE statue, which mayhave represented either the god in equine formor an offering to him. He has been connectedwith the Romano-Celtic MARS, who appearsunder the name of MULLO, possibly “mule.”

Rudraige (Rory) Irish hero. A relativelyobscure figure in Irish mythology, he was one ofthe leaders of the FIR BOLG, a race of invaders—the third group to arrive in Ireland—who wereput to the sword by the more powerful TUATHA

DÉ DANANN.

rune Non-Celtic alphabet. The word rune isoccasionally mistakenly used for the OGHAM

alphabet; it is more appropriately applied to theearly alphabet of Scandinavia. Occasionally theword is also applied by folklorists to a rhymingchant or CHARM.

rushes Symbolic plant. In Scottish fairy lore,rushes were said to mark FAIRY hiding places.This is in line with the idea that entries to FAIRY-LAND were found in places that were neither onething nor another; a spot where rushes grew,being wet but still solid ground, formed such aliminal place.

Ruturugus Irish hero. One of the sons of theIrish invader PARTHOLÓN, he was said by GiraldusCambrensis to have left his traces on “things stillliving,” although whether that means that hisgenetic inheritance was still visible or that he wasreincarnated in other forms is unclear.

Ryons (Riance) Arthurian hero. The cloakof this king of Wales was trimmed, not with fur,but with the beards of warriors he had killed.When he demanded king ARTHUR’s beard, theking of CAMELOT refused and conqueredRyons’s land instead.

402 Rudianus

Sabraan British goddess. This obscure god-dess is known from a single Romano-CelticTEMPLE built on a site in Gloucestershire that isbelieved to have been inhabited from pre-Celtictimes; thus she may have been derived from orconnected to a pre-Celtic goddess of the region.

Sabrina British goddess or folkloric figure. Agoddess of this name is believed to have beenhonored as the divinity of the Severn River inBritain; as many Celtic goddesses were seen asembodied in a RIVER and its watershed, thisinterpretation is supported by evidence fromboth insular and continental sources. Like manygoddesses, Sabrina survived not as a divine butas a folkloric figure, one who appears in thefamous “Masque of Comus” by English poetJohn Milton.

Milton based his Masque, a dramatic enter-tainment, on the legend of Locrine, king ofLoegria (an ancient name for the EnglishMidlands), who was defeated by an invadernamed Humber. Among Locrine’s subjects was alovely maiden, Estrildis, to whom the conquer-ing Humber took a fancy, despite being alreadymarried to the powerful princess Gwendolen ofCornwall. Rather than choose between his mar-riage vows and his infatuation, Humber hidEstrildis in an underground chamber, where sheconceived and bore their child, Sabrina.

When his powerful father-in-law died,Humber thought himself free of any conse-quence of his infidelity and brought forthEstrildis and Sabrina from their dark confine-ment. Gwendolen, furious at her husband’sbetrayal, marshaled her father’s troops andmarched upon him. When she proved victor, shedemanded that the unfortunate woman and herchild be drowned in the Severn. This late legendseems to support interpretations of Sabrina asthe resident spirit of the river.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 15.

sacral kingship Cosmological concept. Thisterm is used by some writers to represent theidea that KINGSHIP was not only a political rolewithin Celtic society but a sacred one. Althoughthere is evidence to support this contention, thephrase is a controversial one because of its use inother, non-Celtic, contexts.

Kings were often chosen from families ofroyal blood, but at other times a man from alesser family might be chosen through DIVINA-TION by DRUIDS or through feats of arms. Onceelevated through the ritual of INAUGURATION,the king was expected to follow a series of rulesand to abide by certain taboos (see BUADA and

6S

403

GEIS). Such understandings of Celtic kingshipare generally accepted today.

Far more controversial is the theory, gener-ally discounted but fiercely upheld by a minorityof scholars, that Celtic kings became human sac-rifices in times of need or disaster. There aresome mythological hints of such sacrifice (seeCONAIRE), but most scholars argue that a kingwas driven from power rather than killed if cropsfailed or other misfortunes occurred. Whetherthis constitutes a sacred kingship as the term isused in other contexts is still debated.

sacred grove See NEMETON.

sacrifice Cosmological concept. Sacrifice—the offering up of one thing in order to gainanother—was practiced by the Celts, as by virtu-ally all other peoples. Goods of various sortswere offered to gods and goddesses at regularintervals and, most significantly, in times of dan-ger. Typically an object was damaged in someway before being sacrificed; as the Celts usuallyworshiped outdoors rather than in temples, theobject would be deposited in a natural site. Thusa piece of jewelry might be smashed or a TORC

twisted out of shape before being thrown into aLAKE or buried in a BOG. An animal might bekilled; sometimes the entire animal was burned,so that no part of it was used for human food,but there are also evidences of portions (some-times the best meat) being sacrificed, while otherportions became part of a feast. Sometimes a dis-tinction is made between sacrifice, whichrequires that something be alive or once alive,and offerings, which were never alive; thus arti-facts like coins and jewelry constitute offerings,while plants and animals, to say nothing ofhumans, are sacrifices. More frequently, theterm “sacrifice” describes anything offered tothe gods and placed beyond human use.

See also HORSE SACRIFICE; HUMAN SACRIFICE.

Sources: Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, p. 157;

Wait, G. A. Ritual and Religion in Iron AgeBritain. BAR British Series 149(i) Oxford, 1985,pp. 122 ff.

Sadb (Saba, Sabia, Sava, Sadhbh, Blaí) Irishheroine. The beautiful maiden Sadb, daughterof the great magician BODB DERG, was turnedinto a DEER by one of his magical enemies, FearDoirche. Her sister DAIREANN became infatu-ated with the great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL

and drove him mad when he rejected her, butthat punishment did nothing to gain his affec-tion. Instead he regained his sanity and fell inlove with a mysterious woman who visited himat night after he had saved a fawn from beingkilled by his hunting dogs. After many nights ofpleasure, the dark DRUID—her father’s enemy—found that Sadb had managed to slip out of herdeer form and enjoy the hero’s affections. Hecast a darker spell upon her so that she couldnever regain her womanly form.

Heartbroken, Sadb fled from her lover, whosearched Ireland for nearly a year. Then, nearthe great flat peak of BEN BULBEN, he found adeer nursing a human infant. Recognizing hislover and their son, Fionn took the boy fromher tenderly, naming him OISÍN (“little fawn”).Little more is heard of Sadb, who apparentlylived out her years as a deer, but we hear muchof her son, who became the greatest poet andone of the finest warriors of Fionn’s band, theFIANNA. Some legends say that Sadb was so ten-der of heart that she died of shame and sorrowafter discovering how cruel her lover, Fionn,was in battle.

sain Irish and Scottish concept. The term,meaning roughly “to make holy,” is used of theactions of saints attempting to remove paganassociations from a sacred place. ST. PATRICK ofIreland, for instance, dipped his pastoral staff inmany holy WELLS, thus permitting ritual to con-tinue at the sites under Christian protection.Once sained, a place was considered to be pro-tected against evil spirits and FAIRIES, both of

404 sacred grove

which can be seen as vestigial forms of ancientCeltic and pre-Celtic divinities.

Sainnth Irish hero. In some texts, this is thename of the father of the goddess or heroineMACHA, an otherworldly woman who was forcedto race with the king’s horses. Little else isknown of him.

saints Folkloric figures. The Catholic Churchnow requires candidates for sainthood to gothrough an elaborate three-stage process, beingdeclared “venerable,” then “blessed,” and finally“saint.” That process was not put into place untilthe 10th century, however, under Pope John XV.Before that, saints were declared by popularacclaim, which provided the opportunity formore than one pagan divinity to creep into theprayer book with “saint” preceding his or hername. Some of the more egregious miscreants(like the Italian god of erections once known asSt. Priapus) were struck from the rolls in reformsorchestrated in 1983 by Pope John Paul II, butother saints of doubtful historicity remain,including Ireland’s beloved St. BRIGIT, who bearssuspicious resemblance to a Celtic goddess of thesame name. Neither Brigit nor Patrick are likelyto lose their place in the church calendar, giventheir importance to the Irish church.

In addition to converted divinities, therewere other saints, real humans, to whom mytho-logical and magical motifs accrued: in Ireland,Aedh Mac Breic, who flew through the air; St.Ailbe, who was suckled by wolves; St. Bega, whowas betrothed to Christ in her infancy butbecame a nun instead; dragon-slaying St.Finnbar; St. Flannan, who traveled to Rome ona boat made of stone; St. Cury of Brittany, wholived off the same self-regenerating fish foryears; and King ARTHUR’s Welsh friend St.Gwynllyw. These mythological accretions mayhave been added through a folkloric process,whereby through continual retelling the storiesof local saints and divinities and even FAIRY folkbecame confused and confounded; or through

the efforts of early monkish writers who createda literary character from a mortal saint, fleshingout historical facts with recognizably powerfulmythological motifs.

Source: Kelly, Sean, and Rosemary Rogers. SaintsPreserve Us! New York: Random House, 1993.

Saitada British goddess. This obscure goddessof the Tyne valley is believed to have representedgrief and suffering.

salmon Mythic figure. The salmon of Celticmyths is almost invariably a symbol of WISDOM,perhaps because of the FISH’s own remarkablelife-journey. Hatching from eggs laid in freshwa-ter pools and RIVERS, often deep inland, the fishtravel to the ocean, where they live for someyears. No one knows what biological mechanismtriggers the fish’s return to the pool or river of itsorigin; nor do scientists know how the salmonnavigates to a location it has only seen oncebefore. The unerring ability of the fish to find itshome, where it spawns (females laying eggs andmales providing milt, or sperm) and dies, is oneof the wonders of nature. Migrating salmonflood into rivers, intent upon their reproductivetask, providing food for animals and humans inthe few spring weeks of the spawning season.

The salmon of wisdom appears in severalimportant myths of the insular Celts: In Irelandit appears as FINTAN, the one-eyed ancient wholived many lifetimes; in Wales the salmon ofLlyn Llwy is the oldest and wisest of earthlybeings. Several Celtic sculptures from Gaulshow fish in contexts that suggest that the con-nection of salmon and wisdom was shared byCeltic people on the continent as well.

The most elaborate myths are found inIreland, where the salmon of wisdom lived in apool of water or a WELL surrounded by magicalHAZEL trees. Variously called the well of SEGÁIS

or CONNLA’S WELL, and described as the sourceof the Boyne and the Shannon rivers, this poolwas a liminal place, neither entirely in this world

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nor in the OTHERWORLD, but linking the two.The surrounding hazels dropped nuts into thewater, filled with all the world’s wisdom, whichcaused bubbles of inspiration called eó fis. Thefish—which could be either singular or multi-ple—ate the nuts, thus growing wise.

Some legends claim that the extra nuts washedout into the river and could be snared and eatendirectly by a seeker after wisdom. More often, thefish themselves had to be caught and devoured inorder for the wisdom to pass into a human being.Only two people ever tasted the salmon of wis-dom. The great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL didso, when he was a boy serving the druid-seerFINNÉCES. The DRUID hooked the fish and set itto cooking, but it spattered some grease onto theboy’s thumb. When Fionn sucked it, he discov-ered that he had absorbed all the fish’s wisdom.(This fish is sometimes named Goll Essa Ruaid,the one-eyed salmon of ASSAROE, after the poolbeneath the mythological waterfall where helived.) Also successful was the goddess SÍNANN,who caught the salmon that lived in the poolbeneath the white mountain Cuilcagh in Co.Cavan. When she ate the fish and was floodedwith its wisdom, the well rose up and drownedher and the wisdom she had absorbed.

The mythological salmon of wisdom sur-vived into very recent times in Irish folklore.Red-fleshed salmon were seen as fairy creaturesfrom the Otherworld (see RED); holy wells, eventhose dedicated to Christian observance, werevisited in the belief that salmon or trout (even,occasionally, EELS) living there could, if theymade their appearance, bring good fortune tothe viewer. Attestations of HEALING thatoccurred when a fish was seen leaping from aholy well continue to occur even today in partsof Ireland.

Sources: Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of theIrish Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, p.219; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend andRomance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish FolkTradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991,p. 203.

salt Symbolic material. The Celts based muchof their early wealth on salt, for there are extensivesalt mines near their great center at HALLSTATT inAustria. Salt was a necessity for ancient inlandpeople, who used the mined mineral to preservemeat through winter, making ham and jerky aswell as salted fish. Salt was not only used by theCelts but also traded for valuables from distantplaces. There is no evidence that salt had any reli-gious importance among the continental Celts,who viewed it entirely as a commodity of trade.

Among the insular Celts, however, saltbecame connected with the belief that a world ofmischievous and sometimes dangerous FAIRIES

was near to hand, which required that salt bealways carried on one’s person. This belief mayderive from the fact that salt is a preservative; itmight thus preserve one from fairy mischief.Fairies found salt abhorrent and avoided anytravelers who carried it; even salt water could doin a pinch. There are tales of people nearlystolen by the fairies but then abruptly let go,who later find a forgotten few grains of salt inthe seams of a pocket. Similarly, someone carry-ing salted meat or fish, even on dangerous dayslike SAMHAIN on November 1, could pass unmo-lested by fairy sites.

Fairies also could be kept away by carryingIRON—another of the earliest Celtic tradeitems—in the form of nails and scissors. It is notclear whether fairies were kept at bay becausethey loathed the mercantile world of trade,because they were pre-Celtic deities driven awayby the salt-and iron-bearing Celts, or foranother reason.

Samaliliath (Malaliach) Irish hero. Very fewmembers of the obscure race called thePartholonians are named in Irish myth, but onewho is remembered is this hero, who inventedbrewing and thus brought ALE to Ireland.

Samhain (Sauwin, Samuin, Samain, Sauin,Samonios) Celtic holiday. The Celts are typi-cally described as having four great holidays, one

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for each of the year’s seasons. IMBOLC (February1) marked the beginning of spring, BELTANE

(May 1) of summer, and LUGHNASA (August 1) ofthe fall harvest season. Most important wasSamhain (November 1), the festival of winter’sbeginning when, folklore says, the people of theOTHERWORLD came to our world to blight vege-tation with their breath, so that on the followingday nothing remained green and growing.

Samhain was the equivalent of New Year’s,for just as the Celtic day began at sundown, sothe year was believed to begin with winter. Somescholars, arguing that there is little evidence ofthese holidays on the Continent and pointing totheir appropriateness to Ireland’s seasonalchanges, contend that the “traditional Celtic”holidays are in fact only Irish. Others believethat because absence of evidence does not con-stitute proof to the contrary, we can assume thatthe festivals found among the Celtic Irish werecelebrated as well by other Celtic peoples.

Samhain is the Celtic holiday most observedtoday, for it has become the children’s holiday ofHallowe’en, celebrated with decorations, cos-tumes, and pranks. Christianized into All Saints’Day, the feast was carried to the New World andwas adopted not only in North America but inlands invaded by the Spanish (some of whomwere descendants of Celts from Galicia), whereit became Día de los Muertos, the Day of theDead. Thus Samhain is arguably the most long-lasting and widespread of the Celtic feasts.

Samhain was part of the agricultural calendarin two important ways. Firstly, it marked the day upon which PIGS were killed; the sound ofdesperate squealing must have added to the fear-ful quality of the feast, although there would alsobe seasonal treats like blood pudding to beenjoyed. In addition, COWS were brought downto protected winter pastures on Samhain, aftersix months in the mountains with their milk-maids. The movement of animals to and fromseasonal pastures continued well into moderntimes in Ireland.

While it is not known how the festival mightoriginally have been celebrated, evidence from

Irish mythological texts suggests that consump-tion of alcoholic beverages was part of the feast.Every story in which drunkenness figures (theINTOXICATION OF THE ULSTERMEN, for instance,and the Adventure of Nera, as well as descriptionsof the feast of kingly INAUGURATION called theFéis Temro) is said to take place at Samhain. Asthere is archaeological evidence of brewing vatsbut little evidence of storage vessels of the sortfound in wine-making regions like Greece, it ispossible that grain from the recent harvest wasbrewed and the mixture drunk during theSamhain season. Once the ALE was gone, lifereturned to normal until the next Samhain.

There is some evidence that FIRES were lit onhilltops on this occasion, as on other Celtic feasts.Although the hill of TARA is deeply associated withSamhain in mythology, the Samhain fire was notlit there. The nearby hill of TLACHTGA in Co.Meath has been proposed as the central fire forthis festival, as has UISNEACH for the oppositefeast of BELTANE. As the harvest’s end, Samhainwas a feast of both plenty and fear, for althoughfood had been gathered against the dark winter,there was no way to predict what that seasonmight bring. Thus DIVINATION rituals were prob-ably part of the event from ancient times.

If we know little of how the ancient Celts cel-ebrated the feast, we have ample evidence ofhow Samhain was viewed by later peoples.Innumerable legends and ghost stories are linkedto the holiday, when the veil between this worldand the Otherworld was lifted so that FAIRIES andthe dead could come forth, readily visible to eventhose without second sight. Fairies were espe-cially prone to stealing humans on Samhain. Forthis reason, people stayed close to home or, ifforced to walk in the darkness, carried IRON orSALT or turned their clothing inside out (see PRO-TECTION AGAINST FAIRIES). Fairies rode forth onthe WILD HUNT, hordes of them pouring out oftheir FAIRY MOUNDS and riding through thenight, kidnapping people they encountered onthe road. For this reason, it was considered ill-advised to walk near a fairy mound on Samhainnight, even more so than on ordinary nights.

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The dead also came forth from graveyards tovisit their old haunts; some traditions claim thatthey were friendly, seeking to enjoy the familiarfruits of human life once more, while othersviewed the returning dead as dangerous. Thosewho viewed the dead as friendly often set out a“dumb supper” of the favorite foods of thedeparted; their return was anticipated withrespect and only a touch of fear, and the nextday’s empty plates were pointed to as evidence oftheir visit. Those who viewed the dead as dan-gerous believed that, like the fairies, they werelikely to steal away loved ones and carry theminto the Otherworld of death.

On the Isle of Man, Samhain was said to bethe time when fairies specialized in stealinghuman victims (on the opposite feast of Beltane,they were more interested in stealing MILK andother animal products). It was also a night of div-ination. Women made Soddag valloo (“dumbCAKE”) on Samhain night; baked directly on theembers of the hearth fire, the cake was eaten insilence by the young women of the household,who then—without turning their back on thefire—retreated to their beds, in the hopes ofdreaming of their intended lovers.

Such divination was a common part ofSamhain rituals. Girls hid beside a neighbor’shouse, their mouths full of water, a pinch of saltin each hand, as they listened for the names ofeligible young men; the first one spoken wouldbe the husband of the girl who heard his name.Nuts were burned in the hearth and their pat-terns interpreted for clues about the future.Molten lead was poured into water, the shapes itformed indicating the future occupations of theinquirers. Those born on Samhain were believedto possess this divinatory skill in everyday life;should they be born with a CAUL or other indi-cation of spiritual power, they might be greatlyfeared and respected.

Some writers assert the existence of a godnamed Samhain, brother of CIAN, who lost thegreat COW of abundance, the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN,to the evil Fomorian king BALOR of the Evil Eye,but most find no evidence of such a figure.

Sources: Burne, Charlotte Sophia. Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings, Part II. Yorkshire: EPPublishing, 1974, pp. 378–390; Hull, Eleanor.Folklore of the British Isles. London: Methuen &Co., Ltd., 1928, pp. 227–247; Markale, Jean.The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating theDark Half of the Year. Rochester, Vt.: InnerTraditions, 2000; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth,Legend and Romance: An Encyclopedia of the IrishFolk Tradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press,1991, p. 105; Paton, C. I. Manx CalendarCustoms. Publications of the Folk-lore Society,reprinted. Nendeln/Liechtenstein: KrausReprint Limited, 1968, p. 76; Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise. Celtic Gods and Heroes. Trans. MylesDillon. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications,Inc., 2000, pp. 47–56; Whitlock, Ralph. TheFolklore of Wiltshire. London: B. T. Batsford,Ltd., 1976, p. 64; Wilde, Lady. Ancient Legends,Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland.London: Chatto and Windus, 1902, p. 78.

Samhair Irish heroine. The daughter of thegreat hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, Samhair mar-ried a man who, to please her, built a bed held upby three enormous pillars. Thus the palace ofSamhair and her husband Cormac Cas wascalled Dún-tri-lag (now Duntryleague, Co.Limerick), “the fort of the three pillars.”

Sampait (Sempait) Irish heroine. The storyof this strong and self-confident woman appearsin the DINDSHENCHAS, the place-poetry of ancientIreland. She was a BARD and a herdswoman who,when tending her flocks one day, was set upon bya nobleman named Crechmael. Believing that hehad the right to her body because she arousedhim, Crechmael attempted to rape Sampait. Shetrussed him up like a pig for slaughter and killedhim—by strangling him, one story says, whileanother says that she smashed in his skull inretaliation for his attempted crime.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

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Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 23–25.

sanctuary Celtic ritual site. The most com-mon forms of Celtic sanctuary are the NEMETON

or tree grove and the sacred water-source(SPRING, WELL, or pond). The latter was knownas far back as the LA TÈNE period, for dozens ofsacrificed weapons and other objects have beenretrieved from such ancient shrines. Typically theCelts worshiped in the open air, but three kindsof sacred buildings are known, which archaeolo-gists call the Belgic type, the VIERECKSCHANZEN,and the Celto-Ligurian. The first is a typicaltemple, a structure built for ritual and SACRIFICE

in which rich hoards of jewelry, weapons, andother metal objects have been found. The secondis a rectangular building similar to the Belgictemple but lacking any sacrificial goods. Finally,the rare Celto-Ligurian site, resulting fromRoman influence, appears much like a classicaltemple structure.

sanding the steps Cornish ritual. On NewYear’s Day in Cornwall, it was traditional to payboys to put sand on the steps of houses and otherbuildings in hopes of attracting good luck for theensuing year.

Sarras Arthurian site. This city was the sourceof the GRAIL and the destination of the knightswho quested in search of that sacred object. Thename appears to derive from the term “Saracens,”used in the medieval period to describe easternMediterranean or Islamic warriors. Some textsclaim it as the site of GALAHAD’s death.

satire Irish ritual. In modern times satire hasbeen defined as a literary work in which wit andirony are used to discredit vice and folly. Amongthe ancient Irish satire had a similar, but moreurgently moral, purpose, and it was specificallypoetic in form. The greatest satirical work inpost-Celtic Irish literature, Jonathan Swift’s bit-

ter “A Modest Proposal,” which proclaimed thatEnglish landlords should devour “suckling chil-dren” because they were already eating the par-ents alive, had much in common with its ancientforebears. Whereas today satire is sometimesused to expose political injustices but at othertimes has a merely playful or even a maliciouspurpose, in Celtic Ireland satire was more care-fully targeted speech: It changed society.

The role of the BARD was to balance thepower of the king (see KINGSHIP), who wasrequired to offer generous HOSPITALITY to alland to follow his sacred vows—his BUADA andGEIS—to the goddess of the land’s SOVEREIGNTY.Should the king fail, barrenness and faminecould result, so it was the poet’s duty to create asatire so powerful that its very words would raiseboils on the king’s face or otherwise cause defor-mation. Then, because a BLEMISHED KING couldnot rule, the failed leader would be forced frompower. Satires occur in several important Irishmyths, notably in the expulsion of BRES macElatha from the kingship of TARA after he provedungenerous, and in the stories of difficultiescaused by the bitter poet AITHIRNE.

Because satire was legally considered anassault, it could not be recklessly employed. Anhonor price or ÉRIC was demanded in cases ofunjust satire, including the coining of insultingnicknames, the repetition of satires by other poets,and the mocking of a person’s physical appearance.There was a legal requirement that the satire bebased in truth, for ancient legal tracts refer to whatwe would today call slander. Because the purposeof satire was not simple cruelty, it was illegal tocompose satires about people after death; suchcompositions required payment of the person’s fullhonor price to their relatives (see FINE). Evensatires based in truth required the poet to payrestitution—but a praise-poem sufficed and bal-anced out the damage done by the satire.

Source: Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law.Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies. Early Irish LawSeries, Vol. III, 1988, pp. 137–139.

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Scantlie Mab British folkloric figure. Anassistant to HABETROT, the spinning FAIRY,Scantlie Mab was an unattractive hooked-nosebeing, admired for her devotion to her OTHER-WORLD mistress.

Scáthach (Skatha, Scáthach nUanaid, ScáthachBunand, Scathach) Irish heroine. One of thegreat WARRIOR WOMEN of Irish legend, Scáthach(“shadowy one”) lived on the island named forher—what is now the Isle of SKYE, off Scotland.There she made warriors into heroes, for onlyScáthach knew the secrets that brought her suchstudents as the great CÚCHULAINN, who vowedhe would find her or die trying. The latter was afrighteningly real possibility, for to get toScáthach’s school, candidates had to pass theBridge of the Cliff, a great chasm thatCúchulann could only cross by performing hisgreat SALMON-leap (whether there was any con-nection to the salmon of wisdom is unclear).

Scáthach’s curriculum was challenging.Students learned strangely named martial arts:apple-feat, thunder-feat, supine-feat, salmon-feat of a chariot-chief; use of blade, spear, staff,and rope; hero’s call; use of the magical weaponcalled the GÁE BULGA. Not only did Scáthachteach her students, she also foretold theirfutures. In Cúchulainn’s case, she refused to doso—because she saw that he would murder hisonly son, CONNAL, who in some versions of thestory was, also Scáthach’s grandson.

Some legends say that Cúchulainn attemptedto battle with Scáthach for ownership of Skye.After days of exhausting combat they sat downand together ate the HAZEL nuts in which theworld’s WISDOM was hidden. With the clarity ofhis inner vision, Cúchulainn realized he wouldnever beat Scáthach, and he returned to Ireland,leaving the island of Skye to the warrior woman.The gift that Scáthach made to the hero uponhis departure, the great weapon called the GáeBalga, has been compared to the sword EXCAL-IBUR, offered to king ARTHUR by his mysteriousprotector, the LADY OF THE LAKE.

Some writers use the tales of women warriorssuch a Scáthach, as well as historical figures suchas Cartimandua and BOUDICCA and comments byclassical authors about Celtic women’s prowess inwar, to argue that Celtic women fought alongsidemen. Others refute such evidence, pointing tolaws that limit women’s activities or offer protec-tion to women in times of war.

Sources: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, p. 72;Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celtic andPagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 179.

Scéne (Skena) Irish heroine. An obscure fig-ure in the BOOK OF INVASIONS, she was the wife ofthe great BARD named AMAIRGIN. She died astheir people, the MILESIANS, were attempting toinvade Ireland.

Scenmed Irish heroine. A WARRIOR WOMAN,she led her army into battle against the greatULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN after he abducted herniece EMER, but the hero used the battle skills hehad learned from another amazonian woman,SCÁTHACH of Scotland, to defeat Scenmed.

Sceolan (Sceolang) Irish mythological beast.The story of this DOG is one in which SHAPE-SHIFTING plays an important role, for Sceolanwould have been human except that his motherUIRNE had been bewitched into canine form; shewas later restored to humanity, but her twin pups,Sceolan and BRAN, were not. Sceolan’s uncle, thehero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, adopted both dogsinto the FIANNA, his band of warriors, where theyserved well as hunters, fighters, and sentinels.

Scota Irish heroine. A vague figure in Irishlegend, she was called a daughter of the pharaohCingris in the BOOK OF INVASIONS, which com-bined ancient Irish lore with biblical legend.Another woman of the same name was also a

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pharaoh’s daughter, but this time he was namedNECHTANEBUS; she was wife of the Irish invaderMíl, thought to represent a Celtic tribal ancestor(see MILESIANS). Scota may have been a Celticancestor goddess, for the people of Ireland werecalled in ancient times “scoti” or “scots,” a namethat later came to rest in another Celtic home-land, Scotland.

Scythia Mythic site. Several Irish texts, notablythe BOOK OF INVASIONS, claim that the Irish orig-inated in Scythia. Although there was no actualancient land by that name, there was a migra-tory group in eastern Europe called theScythians. Noted for their horsemanship andtheir impressive gold, they may have in factinteracted with the Celts in their originalhomeland in central Europe, as the similarity ofswirling LA TÈNE art and some Scythian pat-terns suggests. Poet and propagandist EdmundSpenser used the mythological association ofthe Irish and Scythians to argue that, being bar-barians, the Irish should be exterminated—sothat their lands could then be distributedamong apparently non-barbaric English set-tlers like himself.

Source: Spenser, Edmund. A View of the State ofIreland. Ed. Andrew Hadfield and Willy Maley.Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1997,p. 44.

sea fairies (na buchtogai) Scottish and Irishfolkloric figures. The creatures of the OTHER-WORLD, the FAIRIES, did not only live beneaththe hills and in the midst of impassible bogs;they also lived on ISLANDS in the sea, especiallyones that disappear often behind misty clouds,or even in the ocean’s waves. Sea fairies usuallydisguised themselves as SEALS, just as their fresh-water counterparts the SWAN MAIDENS changedinto swans. Marriage between water fairies andhumans was apparently very common, if folklorethat claims seal ancestry for many coastal fami-lies is to be believed.

seal (seal people, silkie, selkie, roam roane)Scottish and Irish folkloric figure. A sleek furredmammal that lives in cold seas, the seal is foundalong Ireland’s west and northern coast (occa-sionally on the east coast, as near Skerries), inmany coastal regions of Scotland and, most sig-nificantly, on the Scottish islands. On land, sealstend to live in colonies, sometimes quite largeones; in the water, they are strong, gracefulswimmers who feed on fish and other sea life.

Many arctic people make seal meat an impor-tant part of their diet, but this was never the casein Ireland or Scotland, where eating seals wasconsidered a form of cannibalism. The idea thatseals are enchanted people (sometimes, fallenangels) is found in both lands, at times confusedwith MERMAID legends. This notion may beCeltic in origin or may derive from one of theother strata of culture; the appearance of sealpeople in Scandinavian folklore suggests anancient derivation from that region. Some schol-ars remark upon the claim of seal ancestry bycertain coastal families—in Ireland, theConeelys, Flahertys, MacNamaras, Sullivans,and many families on Achill Island; on theHebrides, the MacPhees; on the Scottish main-land, the MacCondrums; on the Isle of Skye, allfair-haired people. This may reveal an ancienttotemic system; the taboo on members of suchfamilies killing seals or eating their meat pointsin the same direction.

Seals do bear some resemblance to humanbeings, especially in their wild moaning calls andin the direct gaze from their soft dark eyes.Fishermen sometimes spoke or sang to seals, whowere thought to speak back, usually begging thatno harm come to them or their young. InDonegal, on the northwest coast of Ireland, it wasbelieved that seals were human beings wearing furcoats. Women of the seal people were thought tomake splendid wives, except that their childrenhad webbed toes and fingers. As with SWAN MAID-ENS, a man had to steal their animal-cloak andkeep it hidden, for if the seal woman ever foundher skin, she would disappear instantly into theocean. Some tales claim that silkies were not born

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as seals but were human girls drowned at sea andtransformed. Women, too, could find seal lovers,by sitting on lonely rocks and weeping into thesea. Such lovers were kind and gentle, but proneto sudden disappearances.

In Orkney, seals still congregate at SuleSkerrie, home of the Great Silkie of a famousancient ballad, who sang, “I am a man upon theland, I am a Silkie on the sea,” in order to seducea human woman into bearing his half-seal child;the child then returned to the ocean, only to bekilled by the woman’s husband while in his sealform. More recently, the image of the sealmaiden inspired American director John Sayles’smovie, The Secret of Roan Inish, in which someapparently human children discover that theyare the offspring of a silkie.

Sources: Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland.New York: Benjamin Blom, 1894, p. 150;Douglas, George. Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales.West Yorkshire: EP Publishing, 1977, p. 155;Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, pp.155–156; MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of theHighlands & Islands. Edinburgh: The MorayPress, 1937, pp. 95 ff; Spence, Lewis. The MinorTraditions of British Mythology. New York:Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1972, p. 53.

seanachie Irish folkloric figure. The seanachieor storyteller was an important figure in ruralIreland up until the late 20th century. A vestigialform of the ancient BARD who memorized thehistory and myth of the people, the seanachie spunyarns that were often based in the same material,though degraded by time and distance.

Seanchán Toirpéist (Senchán, Senchán Tor-péist, possibly Senchán mac Uarchride) Irishhero. This BARD may have lived in the late sixth-early seventh century C.E., but he certainly did notlive the life ascribed to him by his biographers.Like some Irish SAINTS of the period, Seanchán

was mythologized—given magical powers such asraising the dead and fighting with magical CATS.He is thought to have been attached to the courtof the legendary king GUAIRE of CONNACHT, atwhose court he learned that none of Ireland’spoets could recite the important epic, the TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE, in its entirety. Determined to remedythis loss, he traveled to the grave of one of theTÁIN’s heroes, queen MEDB’s lover FERGUS macRoich; there Seanchán (or his son, Muirghein)invoked the hero from the OTHERWORLD. Fergusmaterialized and recited the Táin, and, Irish poetshaving been trained in feats of memory, Seanchánmemorized it even as the words were spoken.When the ghost of Fergus appeared again atGuaire’s Court, Seanchán fell over dead.Variations of the story exist, including one inwhich Seanchán died of shame at his failure torecite the Táin when requested by the king, leav-ing it to his son to restore his reputation throughthe magical invocation of Fergus.

Source: Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend andRomance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish FolkTradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991,pp. 384 ff.

Searbhan (Sharvon the Surly, Sharvan, Searban)Irish hero. In the romantic tale of GRÁINNE andDIARMAIT, this GIANT and magician helped theescaping lovers by letting them hide in his magi-cal ROWAN tree. He warned them not to eat theberries, but Gráinne still craved the magical fruit,and Diarmait killed Searbhan so that they couldeat it. The giant’s dying screams revealed the cou-ple’s location to FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, who waspursuing them.

second sight Folkloric motif. In the ancientCeltic lands, whether on the Continent or onthe islands of Britain and Ireland (and in areas ofthe New World where people of Celtic heritagesettled), we find a common superstition thatsome people can see things invisible to the phys-ical eye. Folklorists have theorized that this is a

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degraded remnant of Celtic belief in an OTHER-WORLD that is sometimes visible, sometimes hid-den. This was an important part of Celtic reli-gious belief; DRUIDS and other BARDS (who wereconsidered seers as well as verbal artificers) prac-ticed some techniques of DIVINATION that theybelieved permitted them to see things hidden inpast, present, or future.

In the Scottish Highlands, someone who pos-sessed second sight was called a taibhseaer, whilethe vision itself was called taibhs. Another term,da-shealladh, does not translate literally as “secondsight” but as “two sights,” for it was believed thateveryone can see ordinary reality through “onesight,” but only gifted people can see the other-wise invisible world. This Otherworld includedGHOSTS of the dead who walked casually andwithout hindrance among the living, invisible tomost people but as real as a living body to the sec-ond-sighted. People with second sight also couldsee the FETCH, a duplicate person who appearedbefore a death, walking the path the funeralwould take, and FAIRIES, visible to the ordinarilysighted only at liminal times and places.

Like other unusual traits, second sight wasnot necessarily believed to be a gift; it was rarelyenvied, and seers often wished to be rid of it. Itwas generally hereditary but could make itsappearance in anyone who suffered a trauma orspiritual awakening.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p.120; MacDougall, James. Folk Tales and FairyLore in Gaelic and English. Edinburgh: JohnGrant, 1910, pp. 183–185; Ross, Anne. Folkloreof the Scottish Highlands. London: B. T. Batsford,Ltd., 1976, pp. 33 ff.

Seelie Court British folkloric motif. Theopposite of the UNSEELIE COURT, this group ofTROOPING FAIRIES brought only blessings to thosethey passed as they traveled through the land onthe great holidays of BELTANE and SAMHAIN.

Segáis (Segais) Irish mythological site andgoddess. In the tale of BÓAND, goddess of theRIVER Boyne, this was the name of the secret WELL

of wisdom (sometimes called CONNLA’S WELL,although it is possible the two sites were distinct).Despite prohibitions, Bóand chose to travel to thewell, placed by some high in the mountains ofSlieve Bloom, while others say it was the source ofthe Boyne itself, near Edenderry in Co. Kildare.

Like other mystic wells, it had the power togrant WISDOM to anyone who drank from itswaters or, alternatively, ate the FISH that swamwithin it. When Bóand approached, the wellrose up suddenly and drowned her, carrying herout to sea. Thereafter, its waters could neverreturn to the tiny space of the well, and the greatriver watered the land. The same story is told ofthe goddess of the River Shannon, SÍNANN, thusmaking this well the source of two of Ireland’smost important rivers; both tales are often heldup as warnings against women seeking wisdombut can as readily be seen as creation myths.

Segáis is also a name given to Bóand herself.The place-poetry of Ireland, the DINDSHENCHAS,says that she was called by that name in the OTH-ERWORLD, and that the other name for theBoyne is Sruth Segsa, “river of Segáis.” If thewell were in the possession of Bóand from thestart, as this implies, rather than of her husbandNECHTAN, the likelihood that her drowning wasnot punishment but creation is heightened.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Vol. III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 27–39.

Segomo (Segamonas, Neta Segamonas) Con-tinental Celtic god. This now obscure divinity(possibly “the victor” or “the victorious one”)once had a wide following, as is evidenced byinscriptions to him in Britain as well as in Gaul.

Sele (Seelie) British and Scottish folkloric fig-ure. Variations of this name appear all over Britain

Sele 413

and Scotland; it has multiple referents, includingFAIRY folk and sacred hills, folkloric figures andfestivals. Although found in Celtic lands, the wordmay not be Celtic in origin; it is related to OldNorse saell, “happy,” and old Teutonic saeli,“blessed,” as well as to Sil and Silly, Sal and Sally,names used of female figures in folklore and tales.The SEELIE COURT was a British and Scottishname for a troop of good fairies (evil fairies beingcalled the UNSEELIE COURT). Connections havebeen suggested to the magical MERMAID, theSILKIE, and with the sun goddess SUL.

Semias Irish hero. The members of the mag-ical TUATHA DÉ DANANN came from four cities,each of which was ruled by a master of WISDOM.Semias was such a master in MURIAS; he owned agreat CAULDRON of abundance, which hebestowed upon the beneficent god DAGDA.

Senach Irish goddess. This obscure divinity isinvoked in a magical charm as having control ofseven periods of time; she was nursed by FAIRY

women but is otherwise unknown.

Senchas Mór (Senchas Már, Senchus Mor)Irish text. An important collection of laws fromapproximately the fifth century C.E., whenCeltic influence still held sway in Ireland, theSenchas Mór offers a view into the world of theBREHONS, judges of the DRUIDS. AlthoughChristian influence was already prominent andmay have affected this legal tract, it is nonethe-less one of the earliest collections of legal docu-ments known in Ireland. The text includes somemythological references, for example, thederogatory description of AILILL mac Máta, hus-band of CONNACHT’s queen MEDB, as a man ofhasty judgment, and the comment that BARDS

were the judges in the time of the great ULSTER

king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA.

Source: Senchus Mor. Dublin: Alexander Thom,1856.

Senua British goddess. In 2002 a “new” Celticgoddess was discovered, her broken silver statuepart of a hoard of 26 precious objects hidden in theearth at her shrine in Hertfordshire during the latethird century, apparently when some disasterthreatened, and found by an amateur archaeolo-gist using a metal detector. The Romanized sculp-ture was much degraded by time, but BritishMuseum X rays of votive plaques, which showedSenua in the garb of MINERVA, revealed the god-dess’s name. Senua appears to have been a goddessof water, honored at a small SPRING and associatedwith HEALING. Her emergence from the earthafter 1,600 years of burial is a reminder that it isimpossible to know what aspects of Celtic religionstill remain unavailable to modern eyes.

Sequana (Sequena) Continental Celtic god-dess. The RIVER Seine originally bore this god-dess’s name. Sequana was especially honored atthe Seine’s source, Fontes Sequanae (“springs ofSequana”) near the French town of Dijon. There,a Roman-era shrine has been found where hun-dreds of COINS were offered to the bronze imageof a crowned woman, her arms aloft: she ismounted in a boat shaped like a DUCK, whichholds a berry in its beak. While other Celtic god-desses such as RHIANNON are connected to BIRDS,Sequana is the only one whose emblem is a water-bird; thus she may have combined the HEALING

qualities of the river goddess with the bird god-dess’s OTHERWORLD aspects. Another Gaulishriver goddess, NATOSUELTA, is similarly depictedwith a bird, but in her case it is the RAVEN, typi-cally a symbol of death.

Sequana’s healing powers can be recognizedfrom the many bronze and silver models of legs,eyes, breasts, and other body parts that weredeposited in the river source; such offerings usu-ally indicated the organ in need of healing. Shemay have been a very important goddess, for theRomans did not change her name to a Latin one;all inscriptions use only her original Celticname. A tribe named the Sequani may have beenconnected to Sequana, perhaps envisioning heras their divine ancestor.

414 Semias

Source: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,pp. 40, 157.

serpent (snake) Symbolic animal. Althoughthe snake is not found in all Celtic countries(Ireland being famously free of them), the ser-pent exists in all Celtic mythologies; it neverappears alone but always as the companion of adivinity. On the Continent, the snake was a typ-ical symbol of warrior gods, perhaps because ofits connections with wealth and FERTILITY.Often the snake was depicted with HORNS, sug-gesting a combination of reptile and mammal;the RAM-HEADED SNAKE often appeared with thewoodland god CERNUNNOS. The Romans associ-ated gods who accompanied snakes with MER-CURY, their divinity of commerce.

The alleged extermination of snakes fromIreland by ST. PATRICK was impossible, as theyare not indigenous to that island. Nonethelesswe find them in myth, usually as female figuressuch as the she-monsters CORRA and CAO-RANACH. Some interpret the dispatching of theserpent goddess as a memory of the disputebetween arriving Christians and an older, goddess-honoring paganism; others find a hidden seasonal myth in the stories, with the serpent representing the winter goddess whogives way to her double, the blooming spring. Inhis role as serpent-destroyer, Patrick may havestepped in for an earlier hero god, for in theDINDSHENCHAS we find the god of healing, DIAN

CÉCHT, slaying a serpent who would otherwisehave devoured all the CATTLE in Ireland.

Snakes do live in Britain, where the adderwas given special mythological considerationas the island’s only poisonous native snake. Itwas said to be a wise creature but very wily. Inthe Scottish Highlands the adder was associ-ated with the weather-controlling HAG, theCAILLEACH.

Sources: Carmichael, Alexander. CarminaGadelica: Hymns and Incantations. Hudson,

N.Y.: Lindisfarne Press, 1992, p. 584; Green,Miranda. Symbol and Image in Celtic ReligiousArt. London: Routledge, 1989, pp. 93, 141;Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies inIconography and Tradition. London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1967, pp. 151 ff; Wilde, Lady.Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitionsof Ireland. London: Chatto and Windus, 1902,p. 8.

serpent stone (serpent’s egg, druid’s glass, ser-pent bead, adder stone, Clach Nathrach, GlaineNathair) Symbolic object. Of all the methodsof DIVINATION and HEALING that the DRUIDS

used, the most powerful and the most mysteri-ous employed the serpent stone, a round bit ofglass that had magical powers.

The Roman author Pliny claimed that a war-rior of the Vocontian Gauls was executed byemperor Claudius because he carried an ovumanguinum or serpent’s egg when he went to court.The Romans seemed to fear the power of thisobject, which Pliny said could only be formed insummer, at a certain phase of the MOON. Then,countless serpents would writhe about each other,secreting a ball of liquid from their bodies andhunting it into the air while they hissed vocifer-ously. (Except for the ball of liquid, this is an accu-rate description of the mating habits of somesnakes, such as the garter snake, in which scores,even hundreds, of male snakes surround a singlefertile female, all squirming about in an attemptto fertilize her.) The serpents were apparentlygenerating the stone for their own use, for theywould set out in mad pursuit of any person whostole the object; only a man on a fast horse couldoutpace the furious reptiles, and then only if hecould speedily cross water, since the snakes wouldbe stopped by a running stream.

Although Pliny claimed he saw one as big asan apple, typically serpent’s eggs were closer tothe size of a nut. In addition to its apparent effi-cacy in lawsuits, the stone was used in healing.Those who suffered from bewitchment could becured by a glass of water, so long as the stone had

serpent stone 415

been dipped in it. Long after the druids hadpassed into memory, folklore still described suchstones as treasured medicine. In the 19th cen-tury, serpent stones were said to be found amongheather, where a snake had left its spittle afterslithering in a circle.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, pp.84 ff; Cármichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 38–80; Curran,Bob. Complete Guide to Celtic Mythology. Belfast:Appletree, 2000, p. 27.

Sétanta (Cúchulainn) Irish hero. When hewas a boy, the great ULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN

was called by this name, but when he grew oldenough to fight, he adopted a new name thatrepresented a debt of honor.

Setlocenia British goddess. Only one inscrip-tion has been found to “She of the Long Life,”apparently a goddess of prosperity and longevity.

seven Daughters of the Sea Irish divinities.These obscure goddesses were invoked in anincantation or CÉTNAD used to learn how longsomeone would live. “I invoke the sevenDaughters of the Sea,” the invocation says, “whofashion the threads of the sons of long life. Maythree deaths be taken from me! May three periodsof age be granted to me! May seven waves of goodfortune be dealt to me! Phantoms shall not harmme on my journey in flashing corslet, withouthitch. My fame shall not perish. May old age cometo me! Death shall not find me until I am old.”

Although otherwise unknown, these figuresmay be connected to the Seven Sisters whosename is given to several holy WELLS and ancientSTONE CIRCLES across Ireland. Seven was a mag-ical number in Ireland, although that sanctitymay be the result of Christianization; THREE andFIVE were more commonly sacred to the Celts.

seventh son Folkloric motif. In several areas ofCeltic influence, we find a belief that some peopleare gifted with SECOND SIGHT because of theirplace in birth order. The seventh son of a seventhson is reputed to be such a gifted—or cursed—individual. In the Cotswolds it was believed thatsuch people could see the double of a person whowas about to die (see CO-WALKER). The belief sur-vives in some areas of America where significantimmigration from Celtic lands occurred.

Sgeimh Soluis Irish heroine. The great bandof warriors called the FIANNA became unpopularafter the death of their leader, FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, because they grew greedy and vio-lent. This woman, granddaughter of the greatking of TARA, CORMAC MAC AIRT, refused to paytribute to the Fianna before her marriage. Theyattacked and, at the battle of GABHAIR, wereutterly defeated.

shamanism See CELTIC SHAMANISM.

shamrock Symbolic plant. There is no evi-dence that the clover or wood sorrel (both ofwhich are called shamrocks) were sacred to theCelts in any way. However, the Celts had a philo-sophical and cosmological vision of triplicity, withmany of their divinities appearing in THREE. Thuswhen ST. PATRICK, attempting to convert theDRUIDS on BELTANE, held up a shamrock and dis-coursed on the Christian Trinity, the three-in-onegod, he was doing more than finding a homelysymbol for a complex religious concept. He wasindicating knowledge of the significance of threein the Celtic realm, a knowledge that probablymade his mission far easier and more successfulthan if he had been unaware of that number’smeaning. When the shamrock appeared with fourleaves instead of the usual three, it was believed tobe valuable for making FAIRY OINTMENT.

Source: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 155–156.

416 Sétanta

Shan Van Vocht See SPÉIR-BHEAN.

shape-shifting Cosmological concept. Inmyth and folklore from Celtic lands, we find fre-quent mentions of shape-shifting or movingbetween bodies. In myth this is often associatedwith the powers of BARDS and DRUIDS, whocould transform their appearance without losingtheir essence. The great poet of the MILESIANS,AMAIRGIN, spoke a long poem upon first settingfoot in Ireland that described his various incar-nations as “a wave of the sea, a SALMON in apool,” while similar poems are credited to theIrish TUAN MAC CAIRILL and the Welsh TALIESIN.While it is quite possible to read these poems assimple lists of natural phenomenon, then con-struction argues against that reading, for eachline starts with “I am,” as though once havingtaken the shape of another being, the poet there-after remains partly salmon, hawk, star.

In myth, too, we find tales of people whochange from one form to another. Often thecause is enchantment, as when SADB, mother ofthe heroic poet OISÍN, was turned into a DEER; orwhen AIGE’s beauty provoked so much envy that aspiteful FAIRY transformed her into a doe; or whenthe evil AÍFE was changed into a CRANE in appro-priate punishment for cursing FIONNUALA and herbrothers to be SWANS for 900 years. Sometimesthe shape-shifter desired the new form: ÉTAIN andMIDIR flew away from TARA in the form of swans,a bird that mates for life just as they had mated foreternity; CIAN turned himself into a PIG to eludethe SONS OF TUIREANN; the Welsh CERIDWEN

transformed herself many times in order to cap-ture her thieving servant GWION.

Most fairies were believed adept at shape-shifting, although some of the smaller breeds(SPRIGGANS and the like) were trapped within asingle body. Monstrous fairy races like theWATER HORSE changed their shape when theywished to bring harm; a handsome young mancould change to murderous equine form in theblink of an eye. Some argue that fairies did notreally change form but placed a GLAMOUR

around themselves, causing viewers to see them

differently than they are, but the differencewould be irrelevant to witnesses.

In folklore the power to change shapes at willwas assigned to WITCHES, who typically assumedthe shape of a common animal—most often aHARE—in order to sneak about stealing MILK andBUTTER, driving CATTLE crazy, and otherwisedoing evil. If one hit a HARE in the leg and itescaped, it was certain that the next day an oldwitch would be limping about the village. Thuswhat may have begun as a magical act showingthe druid’s control over the physical worlddiminished, in folklore, to local mischief.

Source: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911, pp. 107 ff.

Shee Finnaha Irish mythological site. Thepalace of LIR, one of the kings of the TUATHA DÉ

DANANN people, was said to be located near thetown of Newtown Hamilton, on the borders ofcounties Armagh and Monaghan in today’sNorthern Ireland.

Sheela na Gig (Sheela-na-gig, Sheila na Gig,Síle na gig, Sheela Ny Gig, Síle na gCíoch)Irish goddess or folkloric figure. Smiling lewdlyout from rock carvings, the Sheela na Gig canstill be seen: a grinning, often skeletal face, hugebuttocks, sunken or absent breasts, bent knees,and a vagina held open. The stones have in mostcases been incorporated as gargoyles inChristian churches, usually over the entrance,although some are found in castles, mills, andother buildings.

The figures, commonplace in Irish andBritish villages, drew the attention of scholars inthe 19th century. The prudery of the era, how-ever, often resulted in the figures being misiden-tified (in one case, as a male fool holding hisheart open) or misinterpreted (as dirty jokes).Generally, the figures were believed pagan, anancient goddess brought into churches as anattempt to co-opt the devotion of her followers.

Sheela na Gig 417

More recently, scholars place the date of cre-ation of the Sheelas in the Christian MiddleAges—most date to the 12th century—and con-sider her a Christian icon. But what does shemean? Some interpret her as a warning againstlust, but more recently connections have beendrawn with folklore that connect this figure withthe HAG goddess.

Her name has been variously translated as“hag,” as a vulgar word for female genitalia, andas “the holy lady.” She has been called a FERTIL-ITY figure, but her grinning face and genital dis-play are complicated by the apparent ancientnessof her flesh and the fact that she generally lacksbreasts. In a few areas, rock scrapings were takenfrom the Sheela’s vulva and used as a means ofpromoting fertility and safe childbirth.

Her location over doors is often interpreted asmeaning she is apotropaic, intended to ward offevil; folklore that women could drive away evil byrevealing their genitals supports this interpreta-tion. Some figures, however, are placed lower inwalls; many of these show evidence of having beenconstantly touched in the genital area, perhaps asa ritual for good luck or HEALING; at Ballyvourneyin Co. Kerry, a ritual still remains of touching aSheela (there said to be the image of the localsaint, GOBNAT) with a handkerchief on the saint’sfeast day, February 11. A few Sheelas have holes inthe head, as though horns were once placed there.

Despite the known Sheelas being dated, withlittle dispute, to the Christian era, paganantecedents have been found. A small carving atTARA and a grotesque grinning figure fromLough ERNE are among the figures that suggestthat the Sheela’s posture and exaggerated featuresmay derive from an ancient divinity, probably agoddess. Similarly, the appearance of skeletalhags in Irish myth (see DA DERGA) suggest tosome a connection either to the multiform goddess of SOVEREIGNTY or to the pre-Celticdivinity called the CAILLEACH.

Several dozen Sheela figures can still be seen insitu in Britain and Ireland, while others have beenmoved to museums: but there is evidence thathundreds more once existed and were destroyed,

either through prudery or a thrifty need to use thestone elsewhere. Whether the Sheela na Gig is aCeltic figure, a remnant of the pre-Celtic past, oran apotropaic sculpture meant to represent aChristian conception of the impurity of the femaleflesh is still debated. The Sheela na Gig has beenused in recent times as an image of women’s powerby feminist artists in Celtic lands.

Sources: Anderson, Jorgen. The Witch on the Wall:Medieval Erotic Sculpture in the British Islands.London: George Allen & Unwin; Marron,Fiona. “Encounters with Remarkable Sheela naGigs.” In Monaghan, Patricia. Irish Spirit: Pagan,Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin: WolfhoundPress, 2001, pp. 297–306; McMahon, Joanne,and Jack Roberts. The Sheela-na-Gigs of Irelandand Britain: The Divine Hag of the Christian Celts,An Illustrated Guide. Cork: Mercier Press, 2000.

sheep Irish folkloric animal. Although sheep-rearing has been an important part of the Irisheconomy for hundreds of years, there is virtuallyno mythology in which they appear; BULLS andCOWS, by contrast, are extremely common inmyth. There are some folkloric references tosheep: It was considered unlucky to meet themearly in the morning, and it was considered best toknit in the evening, when the sheep were sleeping.

Source: O’Sullivan, Patrick V. Irish Superstitions andLegends of Animals and Birds. Cork: Mercier,1991, p. 80.

Shellycoat Scottish monster. This huge watermonster lived in the port of Edinburgh, where ithid under a coat of shells in order to torment thesailors who tried to pass out to sea. When not atwork wreaking havoc, Shellycoat left his coatunder a rock and became vulnerable to attack,for without it he was powerless.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 18.

418 sheep

shinny Scottish ritual. In Scotland, this ballgame, a bit like hurling, used to be played on theday of the winter SOLSTICE.

shoemaker Irish folkloric figure. Shoemakershave a greater stature in Irish folklore than theaverage craftsman probably because of the famousfigure of the FAIRY shoemaker, the LEPRECHAUN.Shoemakers appear as clever men who can causetrouble with their cleverness, as in the tale of theman who learned shoemaking from the fairies; hemade shoes for the parish priest, who was unableto say Mass whenever he wore the shoes.

Source: Ó Catháin, Séamus, and PatrickO’Flanagan. The Living Landscape: Kilgallian,Erris, County Mayo. Dublin: ComhairleBhéaloideas Éireann, 1975, p. 130.

Shoney Scottish god. Until the 1600s, a tradi-tion on the Isle of Lewis and Harris honored thisotherwise obscure divinity of the sea. EverySAMHAIN the fisher folk of the island would carryout a mug of ALE and pour it into the ocean, call-ing out to Shoney to accept the mug in returnfor filling the boats with fish. Some have seenhim as the basis for the seamen’s folkloric guide,DAVY JONES.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 28.

sídhe (shee, sidhe, síd, sí) Irish folkloric figure.This word has two meanings in Irish folklore.The primary meaning is a FAIRY MOUND, a hillbeneath which people of the OTHERWORLD live,out of sight of those with normal vision but visible to those with SECOND SIGHT. By exten-sion, the word is also used to mean the FAIRIES

themselves, as a shortened vision of the phrase“people of the sídhe.”

Many legends interpret the people of thesídhe as the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the ancienttribe of the goddess DANU who were driven

underground after their defeat by the MILESIANS,Ireland’s first human invaders. Each importantdivinity was provided his or her own sídhe, asMIDIR was given BRÍ LÉITH and ÚNA the moundof KNOCKSHEGOWNA.

Sigmall Irish hero. The grandson of the FAIRY

king MIDIR and son of Midir’s lawless daughterOGNIAD. Although Midir’s consort ÉTAIN may ormay not have been Sigmall’s grandmother, Étainis said to live now and forever in the OTHER-WORLD with Sigmall.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part II. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd,1906–1924, p. 9.

Silbury Hill British mythological site.Although built many centuries before the Celtsarrived in Britain, the massive artificial moundof Silbury Hill, near the STONE CIRCLE of AVE-BURY, is often mistakenly described as Celtic.Covering more than five acres, the pyramidalmound has attracted much folklore, includingthe story that the DEVIL built it, all in one night,dragging rock and earth to the site in a hugesack. Rumors abounded that a knight named Sil(Seal, Kil, Zel) was buried within it, mounted onhorseback and surrounded by all his treasure,hence the name Sil-bury. Excavations turned upno knight, and certainly no treasure. Instead, itwas discovered that the entire mound is carefullyconstructed in layers of organic and inorganicmaterial—peat and rock—making the whole hilla huge SPIRAL. Silbury has been connected withharvest rituals to the earth goddess.

Sources: Dames, Michael. The Silbury Treasure: TheGreat Goddess Rediscovered. London: Thames andHudson, 1976; Straffon, Cheryl. The EarthGoddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, pp. 14–15; Whitlock,Ralph. The Folklore of Wiltshire. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 23.

Silbury Hill 419

Silkie Scottish folkloric figure. Taking hername from the silk clothing she wore, thisScottish house-goddess sneaked into homes toclean whatever was left in disorder; too-carefulhousekeeping was as bad as slovenliness, for ifshe found nothing to clean, Silkie messed up therooms instead. Some have connected her withthe harvest goddess SELE and with the FAIRY folkcalled Silly WITCHES, while others consider her aform of the BROWNIE. The name silkie (or selkie)is also used for the apparently human SEAL race.

Source: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, pp. 364–365.

Sillina British goddess. Although her exis-tence has not been proven, scholars believe therewas a goddess of this name who gave her nameto the Isles of Scilly, where an impressiveRoman-era shrine was found.

Silvanus Roman god. This Roman name wassometimes applied to indigenous Celtic wood-land gods, most of whose names have been lostas a result of the INTERPRETATIO ROMANA.

Sin Irish heroine. This Irish FAIRY woman isprobably a remnant of an early goddess, for shewas said to have created wine from water andswine from leaves to feed the battalions of war-riors she had created with her spells. She appearsin a tale of the king MUIRCERTACH MAC ERC,whom she seduced and drove mad to punish himfor killing her family when she was a child.

Sínann (Shannon, Sinann, Sionann, Sionnainn,Sinand, Sineng) Irish goddess. The grand-daughter of LIR—apparently the hypothesizedancient sea god who was father of the oceanruler MANANNÁN MAC LIR, rather than thehuman king who was father of the heroic FION-NUALA—Sínann was goddess of Ireland’s most

important river, the Shannon, which waters one-fifth of the island. Like other Celtic RIVER god-desses, she was seen as ruling both the river’swaters and the land it irrigated.

Her legend is very similar to that of anotherimportant Irish river goddess, BÓAND. Warnedthat she should not approach a WELL—variouslynamed the well of SEGÁIS and CONNLA’S WELL—wherein wisdom was hidden, Sínann ignored theprohibition. In some sources she, like FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL, caught the SALMON of WISDOM

who swam there and, upon eating its flesh,became the wisest being on earth; in others, shemerely arrived at the well in search of wisdom.In either case, the result was the same: the wellbroke forth from its bounds in a great flood,drowning Sínann as it carried her to sea.Thereafter the river could never return to thelimiting confines of the well and instead wateredthe land. Although often interpreted as a cau-tionary tale, warning women against seekingwisdom, Sínann’s story can also be seen as a cre-ation myth, in which she sacrifices herself toestablish the land’s FERTILITY.

A minor story told of Sínann claims that thehero Fionn mac Cumhaill was set upon by sev-eral fierce warriors at Ballyleague, near thenorthern end of the great LOUGH REE. Almostovercome by the number of opponents, Fionnwas rescued by Sínann, who arrived with a mag-ical stone that, when Fionn threw it, killed all hisenemies at once. Fearful of the power ofSínann’s stone, Fionn threw it into the river,where it remains hidden in a low ford. Should awoman named Be Thuinne ever find it, it wouldindicate the world’s end is near.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Vol III. Royal Irish Academy, Todd LectureSeries. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd,1906–1924, Reprinted Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies,1991, Vol. III, pp. 287–291.

siren See MERMAID.

420 Silkie

Sirona (Dirona, possibly Tsirona) ContinentalCeltic goddess. Many inscriptions in France andother continental Celtic lands invoke this HEAL-ING goddess, whose name has been translated as“star.” Although Sirona was often connectedwith the Celtic APOLLO, she also stood alone.She was frequently depicted with SERPENTS andEGGS, suggesting a connection both to rebirthand to FERTILITY.

Source: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in CelticReligious Art. London: Routledge, 1989, p. 43.

Sithchenn (Sithchean) Irish hero. This DRUID

and SMITH was asked to prophesy for NIALL of theNine Hostages and his four brothers. Sithchenndid as asked, but in a strange way: He set fire tohis own forge, and then observed what items theyoung men grabbed as they fled the burningbuilding. Niall rescued the anvil, the smith’s mostimportant tool, leading Sithchenn to predict thatthe boy would grow up to become leader of allIreland from the great royal seat of TARA.

skriker (trash) British folkloric figure. Whendeath approached, this portentous figureappeared like a BANSHEE, predicting the event tocome. Sometimes the skriker wandered theforests of Yorkshire and Lancashire, screaming; orlike other FAIRIES he engaged in SHAPE-SHIFTING,transforming himself into a terrifying DOG.

Skye Scottish mythological site. The Isle ofSkye off Scotland’s west coast, largest of theInner Hebrides, was named for the woman war-rior SCÁTHACH.

Slane (Sláine, Áed, Slaine) Irish hero andmythological site. Although Slane himself is aminor figure in Irish mythology—being a leaderof the FIR BOLG, who were defeated by the magi-cal TUATHA DÉ DANANN—the place of his burialis famous. It was on Slane hill, overlooking thegreat bend in the River Boyne near the impres-sive ancient mounds called BRÚ NA BÓINNE, that

ST. PATRICK lit a fire one BELTANE. On nearbyTARA, the DRUIDS were gathered to light the firstfire of that festival night, and seeing the upstartblaze on a spiritually insignificant hill, went rightover to hear the word of the Lord and the ser-mon of the SHAMROCK from the man who wouldbring Ireland into Christendom. Another Slanewas a doctor of the Partholonians, one of themythological races that invaded early Ireland.

Slemuin See ODRAS.

Slieve Gullion (Sliab Cuilinn, Sliab Cuillinn)Irish mythological site. In Co. Armagh, a strangegeological formation, a circular valley formed byancient volcanic action, is centered around thelegendary mountain of Slieve Gullion. The peakwas named after, the FAIRY king CUILENN, whosehome it was said to be. More prominent in theregion’s mythology is the CAILLEACH, the greatHAG goddess who formed the landscape andcontrolled the weather. She was said to live inthe CAIRN that tops the mountain, which wasbuilt by the people of the pre-Celtic MEGA-LITHIC CIVILIZATION and was called by local peo-ple Cailleach Birrn’s house. From that point, sheonce threw a huge rock across the valley; she wasa GIANT, so the boulder seemed like a pebble toher. It landed miles away, in the DorseyRamparts, where it was honored until recenttimes. The great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL wassaid to be buried in the cairn, although the storyof how his body got there is not recorded.

Slievenamon (Slievenaman, Sliab na mBan,Mountain of the Women; Sliabh na Bhan Fionn,the Hill of Fair Women) Irish mythological site.In the southeast of Ireland, this CAIRN-capped hillwas named for the contest held by Irish womenwho wished to bed down with the heroic butaging FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. The winner of thecontest, GRAÍNNE, may have been fleet of foot, butshe was also fickle of heart, for at her weddingfeast she noticed the handsome hero DIARMAIT

and, putting a spell upon her husband-to-be and

Slievenamon 421

the wedding party (or possibly drugging them),eloped with the young man.

sluagh Scottish folkloric figures. The “Host ofthe Unforgiven Dead” were not FAIRIES, for theyrode forth only at night. They were the GHOSTS orsouls of those who had died without being for-given for earthly transgressions; they were trappedin this world and could not move on to the OTH-ERWORLD. They could never travel in daylight,being forced to reside always in gloomy night, andthey waged endless war upon each other, leavingstripes of their blood behind each morning.

Smertrius (Smertrios, Smertrio) ContinentalCeltic god. The name of this relatively obscuregod includes a syllable, smer-, also found in thename of the goddess ROSMERTA and apparentlymeaning “protection.” One sculpture believed tobe of Smertrius shows him as a strong, beardedman with a snake’s tail.

Smirgat (Smirnat) Irish heroine. One of thewives of FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, she was aprophet who revealed to the hero that if he everdrank out of a horn, he would die. Fionn tookthe warning seriously and always used a goblet.

smith Irish and continental Celtic mythologi-cal figure. From the beginnings of Celtic cul-ture, metalcraft was one of the Celts’ mainsources of wealth. Smiths, those who smeltedmetal (especially IRON and GOLD) from ore andformed it into useful and ornamental objects,were greatly revered. In myth, the smith (seeGOIBNIU and GOVANNON) became associatedwith MAGIC and alchemy; in Irish folklore, hewas connected with the magical COW of abun-dance, the GLAS GHAIBHLEANN.

snail bead Symbolic object. Like the SERPENT

STONE, the strange Scottish TALISMAN called thesnail bead was said to have been formed naturally,in this case by snails gathered into a great mass

and secreting a mysterious fluid. Such stoneswere rare and difficult to obtain, but they wereworth the trouble for their HEALING power: dip-ping the bead into a glass of water would create ahealing potion. Anyone wearing the bead on hisperson would be protected from all bad luck.

Source: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.Detroit: Signing Tree Press, 1970, p. 88.

snatching by the sídhe See FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

solar divinities See SUN.

solitary fairies Folkloric figures. In Irish andScottish folklore FAIRIES appeared either asTROOPING FAIRIES, who spent their time withothers of their kind, dancing and making merry,or solitary fairies, who preferred their own com-pany to that of others and were typically ill-natured. The most famous solitary fairy was theLEPRECHAUN, the miserly fairy shoemaker whohid his wealth away; the wary CLURICAUNE wasanother solitary fairy.

Source: Briggs, Katernine M. An Encyclopedia ofFairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and OtherSupernatural Creatures. New York: PantheonBooks, 1976, pp. 375–376.

solstice Calendar feast. The word means “sunsitting still,” and the sun does, indeed, appear tostand still on the several days surrounding thesummer and winter solstices on June 21 andDecember 21, the year’s longest day and longestnight, respectively. The changes in length ofdaylight and night slow and become almostimperceptible, before beginning again as the sol-stice period concludes. Although the solsticeswere not marked by the Celts, they must haveknown how to calculate them, as their ownannual feasts were based upon this knowledge.

See CALENDAR.

422 sluagh

Sons of Tuireann Irish heroes. A long andcomplex ancient story (Oidheadh ChlainneTuireann or The Tragedy of the Sons of Tuireann)tells of the brothers BRIAN, IUCHAIR, andIUCHARBA, children of the important goddessDANU (or DONAND) and the otherwise obscureTUIREANN, son of the god of poetry OGMA andthe craft goddess ÉTAN. The three set off toambush their father’s enemy, CIAN, known fromother tales as the clever man who seduced thefair captive EITHNE despite her father BALOR’sattempt to keep her hidden from all men.

Cian, realizing he was about to encounter theheavily armed sons of his enemy, transformedhimself into a PIG (see SHAPE-SHIFTING), but notfast enough, for the brothers changed into DOGS

and hounded him nearly to death, permittinghim to turn back into human form before theyfinished him off. Just as the Sons of Tuireannhad taken up their father’s cause, so did Cian’sson LUGH, who demanded a heavy honor-price(see ÉRIC) for his father. Brian and his brothersperformed seven impossibly difficult deeds, butthe eighth was beyond their strength, and soIuchair and Iucharba died, and Brian soon after.The tragedy of their deaths led the ancient Irishto name this tale among the THREE SORROWS OF

IRELAND, the others being the stories of the SONS

OF UISNEACH and the CHILDREN OF LIR.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 49; Joyce, P. W.Ancient Celtic Romances. London: ParkgateBooks, 1997, pp. 37 ff.

Sons of Uisneach (Usnech, Usna) Irishheroes. It is not known whether the paternalname of these Irish heroes is connected to thegreat Irish mountain UISNEACH, for little is saidof their father in the sad tale, which is remem-bered as one of the THREE SORROWS OF IRE-LAND, the others being the stories of the SONS OF

TUIREANN and the CHILDREN OF LIR.The tale begins with a prophecy by the chief

DRUID of ULSTER, CATHBAD, who declared at a

feast that the child born that day would be theworld’s most beautiful woman, but that shewould bring sorrow to the province. Some of the court wished to have the child killed imme-diately, but king CONCOBAR MAC NESSA wasintrigued. He determined to have DEIRDRE

brought up to be his companion and bedmate,and so she was raised under the tutelage ofLEBORCHAM (sometimes described as a womanpoet, sometimes as a male forester).

Nonetheless Deirdre’s heart was open to love.One day she saw a RAVEN drinking blood fromsnow, and she wished aloud for a man whose hairwas that black, whose lips were that red, whoseskin was that white. Wise Leborcham knew thatonly one man was that beautiful: NOÍSIU, oldestof Uisneach’s sons. She arranged for the pair tomeet in secret, thus sealing their fate. Knowingthat the king would be severely displeased withlosing his future consort, the couple fled, firstacross Ireland and then to Scotland, accompa-nied by Noísiu’s brothers Ardán and Aínnle. InScotland they lived happily on wild food in theforest, under the protection of the region’s king.

Concobar could not forget the fated beauty,and so he arranged for a treacherous invitation.Promising that all would be forgiven, he invitedthe three brothers and Deirdre back to Ulster.Despite forebodings, Deirdre agreed to go, inpart because the honorable FERGUS mac Róichwas the messenger. As soon as he arrived inIreland, the Sons of Uisneach were killed,whereupon Deirdre herself died—either by sui-cide, throwing herself from a chariot, or simplyfrom a broken heart. Thus the tragic heroine isknown as Deirdre of the Sorrows.

Source: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark HarrisSlover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 239.

Souconna Continental Celtic goddess. Thisotherwise obscure RIVER goddess may have ruledthe Saône, a river in eastern France, which boreher name in ancient times; however, there mayhave been two goddesses of the same name, for

Souconna 423

an inscription found at some remove from theriver also mentioned Souconna.

south Cosmological concept. In the spiritualgeography of Ireland, NORTH represented theDIRECTION opposed to the solar cycle, becausefrom the northern hemisphere the SUN movesalways toward the south from dawn to noon.Thus south is deosil in Irish, a word that alsomeans to move in a way congruent with the natural order. The southwestern PROVINCE ofMUNSTER takes on some of the mythological significances of its direction, representing poetryand song; it is also considered the province mostconnected with women and the feminine.

Sovereignty (Sovranty, Lady of Sovereignty,Flaith) The goddess of the land was envisionedin Celtic Ireland as bride of the king, wedded tohim at his INAUGURATION. The figure ofSovereignty is varied: It can be the unnamedloathy HAG who offers NIALL a drink at hersweetwater well, then demands a kiss in recom-pense; it can be ÉRIU, titular goddess of theisland; it can be fierce and willful MEDB, whoweds one king after another.

If the figures vary, the concept they embodyremains stable: that the king’s duty is to maintainthe land’s FERTILITY through righteous behavior.This meant that he had to offer HOSPITALITY to allwho came, to rule wisely, and to honor the sacredvows and taboos (see BUADA and GEIS) that camewith his office. Should he fail to do so, his reignwould be forfeit—if not his life, as was the case forCONAIRE, who, despite years of successful ruler-ship, broke his sacred vows and died a horribledeath as a result. The hag who came to him at DA

DERGA’s hostel to proclaim his death may be apunitive form of the goddess of Sovereignty.

See also KINGSHIP.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,p. 10; O’Brien, Marie Cruise. “The FemalePrinciple in Gaelic Poetry.” In S. F. Gallagher,

ed. Woman in Irish Legend, Life and Literature.Irish Literary Studies 14. Gerrards Cross,Bucks: Colin Smythe, 1983, pp. 26–37.

sow See PIG.

spéir-bhean (spear-ban, sky woman) Irishheroine. A late (16th–18th century) version ofthe goddess of SOVEREIGNTY through whoseright a king could rule in Ireland, the spéir-bheanwas depicted by BARDS of the time as a beautifulyoung woman, possibly from the OTHERWORLD,who wandered the roads searching for the land’strue leader. Her name was sometimes given asCATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN, sometimes is ROISIN

DUBH or Dark Rosaleen. Sometimes sheappeared as the Shan Van Vocht (Sean-bheanBhocht), the “poor old woman,” who recalls theHAG who turned young again when kissed by therightful ruler. The most famous version of thespéir-bhean is found in William Butler Yeats’s playCathleen ni Houlihan written for the revolutionaryleader Maude Gonne.

Source: Clark, Rosalind. The Great Queens: IrishGoddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen NíHoulihan. Irish Literary Studies 34. GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, 1991.

spells Ritual action. The use of verbal MAGIC

has a long history in Celtic lands, for BARDS werebelieved to have the power to transform thephysical world by the sheer power of theirspeech. In folklore this belief was translated intothe idea that rhyming spells can bring HEALING

(when the words are used to bless) or pain (whencursing is intended). Sometimes brief cere-monies accompanied the repetition of therhyme—dipping stones in water, rubbing partsof the body—but these were less important thanthe rhyme or recitation itself.

See CURSE.

Source: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p. 57.

424 south

spiral Mythological motif. Celtic art isrenowned for its interlacing spirals, which espe-cially deck the metalwork (shields, jewelry, andtools) found in their lands throughout the dura-tion of the culture. The motif continued to appearas late as the Christian Middle Ages, when suchmasterworks as the Book of Kells, with its ornatespiraling ornamentation, were created. Thoughthe spiral is associated today with the Celts, it ispossible that they adapted it from the imagery leftthem by the people of the MEGALITHIC CIVILIZA-TION, who carved great spirals across their stonemonuments. Many pre-Celtic spiral designs, likethe triple spiral of Ireland’s Newgrange (see BRÚ

NA BÓINNE), are complex artworks that suggest aspiritual importance. Whether and how the spiralwas transmitted from pre-Celtic to Celtic peoplehas not yet been studied.

Source: Meehan, Aidan. Celtic Design: SpiralPatterns. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.

spontaneous speech See DÍCHETAL DO

CHENNAIB

spriggans Cornish folkloric figures. Theseghosts of the ancient race of GIANTS were trans-formed into FAIRIES, who served as bodyguardsto other fairies. They were mischievous, thoughnot usually dangerous, preferring to scare offthose who might intrude upon fairy gatheringsrather than, for instance, murdering them. Likemany fairies, they were inveterate thieves, slink-ing about the countryside stealing BUTTER andother valuables.

spring Mythic site. WELLS and springs can bedifficult to distinguish, for they both serve simi-lar purposes in myth and legend as well as beingsimilar freshwater sources. Both were viewed ashaving HEALING powers, even at a distance, sothat water brought from a holy well or sacredspring could help someone unable to travelthere. Especially potent were thermal springs or“hot springs,” where early people could relax in

naturally warm (indeed, sometimes scaldinglyhot) waters; even into Roman times the greatthermal spring at BATH was visited by throngsseeking cures for physical and emotional pain.Many scholars have proposed that pre-Celticpeoples also used these sites, so rituals there mayhave derived from a mixture of religions. Earlierpeoples may have seen the sites as openings tothe womb of the earth mother, but the Celticheritage seems clear in the connection, foundthroughout the Celtic world, of water withabundance, fecundity, and health.

spring equinox Calendar feast. The Celts didnot mark the two EQUINOXES, when daylight anddarkness are of equal length, nor the SOLSTICES

in winter and summer, as most other peoples ofthe world do; rather, they marked the points inbetween, in their great festivals of SAMHAIN

(winter), IMBOLC (spring), BELTANE (summer),and LUGHNASA (autumn). Yet there are vestigialcelebrations in Celtic lands that suggest that ear-lier dwellers had marked time in the more con-ventional way; orientations of STONE CIRCLES

and such megalithic monuments as the BRÚ NA

BÓINNE in Ireland show that equinoxes and sol-stices were important to those earlier dwellers.

Sreng Irish hero. Less renowned than NUADA,his opponent in single combat in the first bat-tle of MAG TUIRED, Sreng was a warrior of theFIR BOLG who, sent to meet the invadingTUATHA DÉ DANANN, realized that his peoplewould be unlikely to beat their magicallyarmed foe. His own people refused to listen tohis counsel, so Sreng fought with the TuathaDé king Nuada, cutting off his arm and caus-ing him to lose his KINGSHIP.

stag Mythic animal. The horned male of theDEER held a significant place in the iconographyof the god CERNUNNOS, who wears antlers inmany sculptures and reliefs.

standing stone Mythic site. Hundreds of pil-lar-like stones still stand throughout all the

standing stone 425

ancient Celtic lands, sometimes in groups (seeSTONE CIRCLES) and sometimes alone. Erectedby pre-Celtic people of the MEGALITHIC CIVI-LIZATION some 6,000 years ago, such monu-ments are evidence of an early civilization withgreat engineering skills and an apparently deepreligious sense. See also DOLMEN.

Starn Irish hero. Two obscure figures carrythis name. One was a brother of the invaderPARTHOLÓN; the other, son of NEMED, was fatherof the poet TUAN MAC CAIRILL. Neither playsmuch role in myth.

St. George British saint and folkloric hero.The cross on the British flag today is an emblemof this saint, said to have been a soldier from theHoly Land who suffered martyrdom by theRomans. What such a figure has to do withEngland has baffled many; some believe that,like ST. MICHAEL and ST. PATRICK, St. Georgetook the place of an earlier mythological herowho protected the land by slaying DRAGONS.

Many scholars argue that St. George standsto England as St. Patrick to Ireland: as the sym-bol of Christian dominance over ancient paganways. Patrick killed the goddess-demons CORRA

and CAORANACH, while George slew the dragonthat haunted the wilder places of Britain, wherethe old ways remained strong the longest. Aswith St. Michael, George’s churches often standin ancient holy spots. The image of Georgekilling the dragon may have been an icon of thevictory of Christianity over Celtic paganism.

St. Michael Scottish and British saint andfolkloric hero. In Christian cosmology, Michaelwas one of the archangels of heaven who,tempted by the bright angel Lucifer to opposethe divine will, refused and remained at God’sside in a great angelic battle. His appearances inChristian legend are numerous, for he witnessedthe burning bush with Moses and spoke withAbraham. This angel-saint plays a significant

role in British and Scottish folklore, perhapsstanding in (as ST. PATRICK may in Ireland) for anearlier mythological hero figure. He was a spe-cialist at removing threatening DRAGONS fromthe land, an honor he shared with ST. GEORGE;the dragons have been variously interpreted asindicating residual pagan influences beatendown by Christianity, or earlier mythic beingswho were bested by a Celtic god or hero. Manysites or churches dedicated to St. Michael werebuilt on ancient sacred sites, notably the toweratop the TOR in GLASTONBURY, further support-ing the theory that his legends are influenced byCeltic or even pre-Celtic material.

St. Michael’s feast day on September 29,called Michaelmas, is close enough to theautumnal EQUINOX that harvest festivals havecollected around that day; in the Scottish islandsa special harvest-bread called struan or struanMichael was until recently served as part of theritual festivities. In Ireland “Michael’s portion”was an offering at harvest time.

stoat Irish mythological animal. This smallred-brown Irish land mammal, which looks ratherlike a weasel, was viewed anthropomorphicallyand thought to have human characteristics such asliving in families and holding rituals for theirdead. They were dangerous, for their saliva couldpoison a full-grown man; they were also mischie-vous and prone to thieving. It was not good luckto encounter a stoat when setting out on a jour-ney, even a short one, but one could turn the luckto good by greeting the stoat as a neighbor.

Source: Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Irish Superstitions.London: Gill & Macmillan, 1995, pp. 32 ff.

stolen bride See FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

stone Mythic motif. The mysterious pre-Celticpeople of Ireland, Britain, and Brittany wereastonishing stonemasons, building structures thatlasted almost 6,000 years; they also carved their

426 Starn

art onto the stones, leaving an unreadable butprovocative record of their beliefs. The Celts,who moved into these lands thousands of yearslater, saw no similar depth of symbolism in stone.They did, however, adapt the impressive sites—see BRÚ NA BÓINNE and STONEHENGE—to theirown rituals, including the important one of kinglyINAUGURATION. At Tara the impressive bouldercalled the LIA FÁIL was said to roar or shriek whenthe true king sat upon it; at Ireland’s center theSTONE OF DIVISIONS was said to map the fourprovinces of the island.

Adapting earlier stone structures to ritual usewas made easier by the fact that the Celts saw theworld in a pantheistic way, believing thatNATURE was animated by divinity and was there-fore sacred. Stones, like TREES and runningWATER, therefore were significant evidences ofdivine power.

stone circles Mythic site. Hundreds of stonecircles, ranging from tiny to enormous, dot theislands and peninsulas of the traditional Celticlands. Built by the people of the MEGALITHIC

CIVILIZATION thousands of years before the Celtsemerged into the historical records, the stonecircles were often kept as sacred spaces, beingleft relatively undisturbed while fields and townswere built around them. (In the case of AVEBURY,the town was built within the stone circle, one ofthe largest in Britain.) Although there were peri-ods in historical times when the stones weremoved or destroyed, in general folklore (oftenmislabeled “superstition”) preserved them, forthe archaeological sites were believed to be thehabitations of the FAIRY race.

Source: Harbison, Peter. Pre-Christian Ireland:From the First Settlers to the Early Celts. Thamesand Hudson, 1988, p. 94.

Stonehenge British mythological site. Onthe Salisbury Plain rises one of the ancientworld’s most famous monuments, Stonehenge.For hundreds of years, the great STONE CIRCLE

was wrongly associated with the Celts, who livedin the area thousands of years after the erectionof the stones in ca. 4000 B.C.E. The builderslived so far before historical time that we haveno information about who they were, what lan-guage they spoke, or what they believed, but thesimilarity of Stonehenge to other such monu-ments (notably Carnac in Brittany and BRÚ NA

BÓINNE in Ireland) has led scholars to speak ofthe MEGALITHIC (“big stone”) CIVILIZATION,named for their monumental constructions.Like other great megalithic monuments,Stonehenge was built with reference to the stars.It is carefully aligned to permit a particular illu-minating moment on the morning of the sum-mer SOLSTICE; both Carnac and Newgrange atthe Brú na Bóinne were aligned to the momentof sunrise on the winter solstice. Whoever thebuilders were, whatever their beliefs, they pos-sessed impressively accurate information aboutthe solar system.

Although its original myth and meaning arelost, Stonehenge in historical times attractedmany legends. The third-century B.C.E. writerApollonius claimed that it was a temple toAPOLLO and called the worshipers thereHyperboreans (“beyond the wind god Boreus”).Later stories claimed that the great magicianMERLIN built Stonehenge in a single day, bring-ing the stones by magical levitation fromIreland; they were called the GIANTS’ DANCE

because they had earlier been carried offthrough enchantment from Africa by Irishgiants. Another story credits the DEVIL withbuilding the stone structure, all in one night,chuckling at the surprise of the local populationwhen they awoke to find the massive buildingwhere, the evening before, there had been only aflat plain. A monk, overhearing the Devil’s brag-ging, interrupted him, whereupon the Devilthrew one of the huge stones at him—whichnicked his heel before falling to the ground,thereafter to be known as the Heel Stone. Theselegends hide a bit of truth. Although it isunlikely that teleportation was the means oftransit, it is true that the stones come from a dis-

Stonehenge 427

tance, some having been carried—perhaps rolledon logs—from as much as 26 miles away.

Despite scholarly agreement on the lack ofconnection between Celts and Stonehenge, thelocal antiquarian and man of letters John Aubreyargued, in the 17th century, that the site was aDRUID temple. In recent years the Order ofBritish Druids (established in 1781) has claimedthe right to celebrate their rituals within thestone circle. Robed in white in the pale dawn,the group may indeed be reenacting the pres-ence of Celtic peoples within the circle at thattime, but with no documentary evidence ofCeltic use of the site, such a reconstruction canonly be considered imaginative theater.

Sources: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 84; Straffon, Cheryl. The EarthGoddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.London: Blandford, 1997, p. 99; Whitlock,Ralph. The Folklore of Wiltshire. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 76.

Stone of Divisions (Aill na Mireann, Ail naMúenn, Catstone, Navel Stone) Irish mytho-logical site. Upon the flanks of the sweeping hillUISNEACH, mythic center of Ireland, a hugeboulder lies, left there by the retreating glacierssome 10,000 years ago. It rests about halfwaydown the hill, a half-mile away from the sum-mit, from which almost all of Ireland can beseen on a clear day.

Locally called the Catstone, although there isno legend or myth to explain the name, the greatglacial erratic is more formally known as theStone of Divisions, because its shattered face isbelieved to include a map of the four provinces ofIreland. With a good imagination one might,indeed, see MUNSTER, CONNACHT, ULSTER, andLEINSTER mapped in the cracks of the rock. Locallegend has it that the stone marks the grave of thegoddess ÉRIU, for whom Ireland is named. Thestone is also sometimes called the Navel Stone ofIreland. The phrase would seem to indicate that

it marked the point where the land was once con-nected to an immense mother, but little legendexists to further describe this phrase.

In the BOOK OF INVASIONS, the arrivingMILESIANS encountered three goddesses inturn, each standing on a mountain; eachobliged them to promise that the land would benamed after her (see BANBA, FÓDLA). Uponarriving at Uisneach, their poet AMAIRGIN

decided that the land should bear Ériu’s name,as it does to this day.

Source: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 196–199.

St. Patrick (Patrick, Patricius, Pádraig, Pátraic,Cothraige) Irish saint and folkloric hero. It isinteresting that no contemporary author from thefifth century C.E. mentions this name, for that iswhen the great St. Patrick was said to have beenconverting Ireland; Gildas and Bede, two impor-tant historians of the era, make no reference to aman named Patrick, which has caused some com-mentators to doubt that he ever existed. Althoughthat is a minority opinion, most writers agree thatfolkloric and mythological motifs gatheredaround an historic figure, so that anything writtenabout Patrick must be viewed with great cautionin terms of its historicity.

According to the various Lives written inearly Christian times and the two autobiogra-phies reputed to have been written by the sainthimself, Patrick was born in Britain to a familyof well-off Romanized Celts. Even such a gen-teel upbringing was insufficient protectionagainst sea pirates, who kidnapped the lad andsold him into slavery in Ireland (traditionally, inULSTER). For six years, until he was 22, Patrickwas a farm worker, apparently learning the lan-guage of his captors. Then he escaped and madehis way to the Continent.

There, he experienced a vision in which hewas instructed to return to Ireland in order toconvert the inhabitants to Christianity. Legenddoes not record what kind of training he

428 Stone of Divisions

received for this mission, but it tells much abouthis arrival in Ireland. Proselytizing among hisformer captors, Patrick used his knowledge ofIrish religion in order to explain the mysteries ofChristianity. The best known of his evocativeexplanations is his use of the SHAMROCK, proba-bly the common clover, to show how theChristian divinity can have three persons (father,son, holy spirit) while being still one god; in this,Patrick employed the familiar Celtic motif oftriplicity in an innovative fashion (see THREE).

The shamrock speech was said to haveoccurred on “Easter,” although the pre-PatricianIrish Celts would not have celebrated thatChristian feast. Rather, they were celebrating thespringtime festival of BELTANE, which involvedlighting fires on hilltops across the land. As thepeople waited expectantly for the fire to blazefrom the top of TARA hill, home of the high king,they were surprised instead to see a light from aninconsequential little hill nearby. The druidsrushed to SLANE to see who dared such a sacrilegeand found Patrick there over his offending fire.

Most of Tara’s court was, according to leg-end, easily converted, but some of the DRUIDS

did not wish to give up their power to the newhierarchy of priests and monks. Thus there are anumber of legends in which Patrick was said toengage in combat with the druids—legends thatare filled with un-Christian imagery suggestiveof the Celtic worldview. In one such story,Patrick was challenged to a magical combat by adruid, who enchanted a garment that Patrickwas to wear. Patrick did the same, and the druiddied horribly after putting on his garment, whilePatrick’s associate escaped unharmed (the greatsaint did not, apparently, risk putting on theenchanted garment himself). Some druids con-tinued to threaten Patrick, but he passedthrough their midst without their seeing him.He could read in the dark by the light of his ownglowing fingers; rain never touched him no mat-ter how severe the storm. Such magical eventsare clearly legendary rather than historical. Theinsertion of a druidical prophecy claiming thatPatrick would come to convert the land seems a

later interpolation designed to support theclaims of the new religion.

In several legends Patrick directly confrontsthe pagan world that his religion replaced. Inone such story, he encountered the princess ofCONNACHT one morning at the holy spring ofOGALLA, where they had come to bathe. Thegirls, EITHNE and FEDELM, mistook Patrick andhis monks for druids and began to discuss reli-gion with them. Learning that Patrick served anew god, the girls asked questions that giveinsight into the religious expectations of theCelts at the time, asking, for instance, where hisgod lived, whether in the earth or the sky or thesea? Satisfied by Patrick’s answers, the girlsaccepted baptism and then died instantly, toassure themselves of remaining unstained by sin.In a similar tale, Patrick encountered OISÍN andCaoilte, members of the heroic FIANNA who hadbeen stolen away and carried to the OTHER-WORLD. (Variants of the tale say Patrick metonly one, usually the poet Oisín.) He debatedwith them which religion held more promise,showing Christianity to be the more hopefulworldview, and thus converted the pagan sages.Such literary texts are useful in gaining insightinto what values and ideals Celtic Ireland held,as well as those brought from abroad by theproselyting Christians.

Also legendary were Patrick’s combats withvarious Otherworld powers. He split the HAG

GARRAVOGUE into four parts with his staff; hebattled the water monster called CAORANACH,sending her to a watery death (or perhaps not,depending on the legend consulted); he foughtwith the demon CORRA atop the mountain nowcalled CROAGH PATRICK in his honor; he smashedthe idols of CROM CRUACH. And, in the mostfamiliar legend, he drove the snakes out ofIreland (see SERPENT). That last is entirely fabri-cated, as there were no snakes in Ireland at thetime of his coming; this has been typically inter-preted as indicating the driving forth of paganCeltic divinities from the land.

Many sites in Ireland that are now devoted toreverence of St. Patrick were originally pagan

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sites that were SAINED or converted with the com-ing of Christianity. The most prominent of theseis Croagh Patrick (locally known as “the Reek,”from a word meaning “mountain”), the pyramidalmountain where Patrick is reputed to have foughtwith the demon Corra before flinging her into thesea at the mountain’s base. Ruins have been foundon Croagh Patrick’s summit suggesting that reli-gious observance there stretches back into theneolithic period, some 6,000 years ago. Today it isthe best-known Patrician site in Ireland. On ReekSunday in late July (see LUGHNASA), thousands ofpilgrims climb the steep path to the summit, someof them barefoot, some on hands and knees.

St. Patrick’s feast day of March 17 is cele-brated as a holiday in many countries where Irishinfluence has been strong. It was not traditionallya day of national importance in Ireland itself untilrecent times, being more typically an ethnic cel-ebration of descendants of the Irish diaspora.

Sources: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle BhéaloideasÉireann, 1982; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. The Hero inIrish Folk History. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan,1985, pp. 5 ff.

stray sod (lone sod, fod seachran) Irish folk-loric motif. While the idea of being lured offyour intended path by FAIRIES usually entails thefairy placing a GLAMOUR spell upon a site, inIreland the fairy people had a simpler, moreportable expedient. They put a stray sod—a littlepiece of enchanted grass—on the path and thenwatched as people became PIXY-LED or helplesslyconfused as to their location. It was possible tohide a stray sod in plain sight, even in the middleof a road. When a passerby’s foot struck the sod,all the surroundings became unfamiliar. Trappedthis way, a traveler could wander for hours, grow-ing ever weaker and more exhausted, until themischief-making fairy put everything right again.

stream Irish and Scottish mythological site.All flowing WATER was sacred to the Celts; most

RIVERS were named for goddesses, who wereimagined as generously watering the land. In adiminished way, streams and brooks had the sameHEALING quality. Most significant was the cross-ing or joining of THREE streams; as anythingoccurring in threes was significant to the Celts,such sites were considered magically potent. InScotland, as the sun rose, if you filled cuppedhands with water from the point of meeting, youcould have good luck and good health, as long asyou spoke the following invocation: “I will washmy face, in the nine rays of the sun, as Marywashed her Son, in the rich fermented milk.”

Source: Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands.London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 53.

Strid British folkloric site. Near Bolton Abbeyin West Yorkshire is a narrow pass in the RiverWharfe called the Strid. There, on BELTANE

morning, a woman was said to appear, riding awhite HORSE; she was thought locally to be thegoddess of the watershed, VERBEIA. Those whocrossed the river afterward were warned to becareful, for the goddess’s appearance oftenprophesied death from drowning.

Source: Clarke, David, with Andy Roberts.Twilight of the Celtic Gods: An Exploration ofBritain’s Hidden Pagan Traditions. London:Blandford, 1996, pp. 96 ff.

stroke (Elf-stroke, fairy stroke) The full orpartial paralysis that we now know to be causedby an interruption of blood to the brain or a clottherein was believed, in the past, to be punish-ment for offending the FAIRIES, who would“stroke” the offender in punishment. Those wholapsed into coma were believed to have beentaken AWAY and CHANGELINGS put in their place.Cutting down FAIRY TREES, plowing throughFAIRY MOUNDS or otherwise interfering withfairy business could bring on stroke. Many sitesof legendary importance were protected for gen-erations by this belief.

430 stray sod

struan See CAKE.

Sualtaim mac Roich. (Sualtam mac Roy,Subaltach, Sualtach) Irish hero. Foster fatherof the great ULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN, Sualtaimwas given the princess DECHTIRE in marriageafter she became pregnant by drinking water inwhich a magical WORM was swimming. Sualtaimplays little part in myth, except to warn the courtof EMAIN MACHA about the advance of queenMEDB’s armies in the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.Unfortunately he turned so quickly on his horse,the Grey of MACHA, that his own shield loppedoff his HEAD—which continued to call out warn-ings until the men of Ulster awakened fromMacha’s curse and protected their land.

Súantrade Irish hero. The music of this leg-endary harper was so sad that people died of bro-ken hearts just hearing it.

submerged city Mythic theme. The image ofa city under the water of a lake or the sea is com-mon to Celtic lands: Ireland’s INCHIQUIN lakeand LOUGH GUR both were said to have cities ontheir rocky bottoms; in Wales we find tales ofthe Lowland Hundred in Cardigan Bay; inBrittany the magical city of YS rested in the seaoff Pointe la Raz. Some of these were FAIRY

cities, for which the OTHERWORLD is sometimescalled Land Under Wave; some were originallysurface cities that sank, either because of thedecision of their residents to withdraw from thisworld, or because they were cursed by an evilpower. As there are in fact sunken settlements inthe areas covered by the Irish and North Seasand the Atlantic Ocean as the glaciers retreated,there may be some historical memory embeddedin these apparently fanciful tales.

Sucellus (Sucellos) Continental Celtic god.The name of this important Celtic god seems tomean “the striker,” and in his arms he carried thesymbol associated with his name, a great HAM-

MER or MALLET like the one that a similar god,the DAGDA, carried in Ireland. Found acrossGaul, sometimes in connection with the goddessNATOSUELTA, he was not renamed by the invad-ing Romans for one of their gods, although hewas sometimes associated with their woodlandgod Silvanus. Sculptors showed him as a maturebearded man with a fine head of curly hair, gaz-ing benevolently at the viewer. He wore native,not classical, clothing—a tunic and a cloak.Sometimes Sucellus wore a crown of leaves orwas joined by a hunting dog.

His hammer has been variously interpreted.It was so important to his identification thatsometimes the hammer alone, with no humanform, stood for the god. It was not usually con-nected with lightning, as with other hammergods such as the Greek Zeus and theScandinavian Odin. Rather, the hammer hasbeen interpreted to mean the power of vegeta-tion, driving itself up through the earth; thusSucellos is described as a FERTILITY god or agod of the wildwood. Perhaps because his ham-mer could reawaken life, he was also seen as agod of healing.

Source: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,pp. 46, 75.

Suibhne (Sweeney, Mad Sweeney, Suibne,Suibne mac Colmain, Suibhne geilt) Irishhero. When Suibhne, a king of a small region ofULSTER, went to war to support the king of theprovince, he did so with a cloud hanging overhim, for he had recently mistreated a monk, St.Rónán, who cursed him. The saint traveled tothe battlefield to attempt to make peace, butSuibhne again insulted him, this time alsokilling one of Rónán’s clerics, and the saintcursed him again.

When the battle started, it was fierce andhorrible. Whether because of Rónán’s curse orbecause of the horror of war, Suibhne went madand abandoned his post on the battlefield.

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Thinking himself a bird, he climbed a YEW tree.Each time he was found by his supporters, hefled again, always finding another tree in whichto make his home. Finally he arrived at amonastery, thought to have been at Rosharkin inCo. Antrim or Gleann na nGealth (the Glen ofthe Lunatics) in Co. Kerry, where a relative dis-guised himself as an old woman—the only oneSuibhne trusted—and finally brought the kingback to his throne. Then the old woman came tohim and reminded him how high he used tojump when he was mad. Suibhne tried it againand lost his wits again. He lived for a time withanother madman, Alladhán (also called FearCaille), who tried to leap into a waterfall anddrowned; after that, Suibhne partly recoveredhis sanity. When he reached his old palace, hewould not go in for fear of capture and wentaway lamenting his life. He wandered acrossIreland until he reached a monastery in Co.Carlow, where he spoke with the resident saint,MOLLING, and was in the process of dictating hisadventures to a scribe when, in a jealous fury, thehusband of the monastery’s cook stabbed himwith a spear.

Suibhne is not listed on any of the rosters ofhistorical kings, so it is believed that he was anIrish version of the figure known in Welshmythology as MYRDINN WYLLT, “wild Merlin.”The magician, well known in the story of KingARTHUR, went mad as a result of the massacre hewitnessed in the battle of Arfderydd. LikeSuibhne, he hid out in the woods, living off wildfoods and making prophecies.

During his mad days, Suibhne spoke in sen-suous poetry, and thus he is an attractive figurefor poets; both the American poet T. S. Eliot andthe Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney haveused him as a poetic persona, while the mid-20th-century Irish poet Austin Clarke wrote along poem entitled The Frenzy of Suibhne.

Source: Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Myth, Legend andRomance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish FolkTradition. New York: Prentice-Hall Press, 1991,pp. 394–395.

Suideachan Irish mythological site. On theslopes of the MUNSTER mountain Knockadooncan be seen AÍNE’s “birth chair,” a rock outcrop-ping that was said to be an entry to the OTHER-WORLD. There this goddess or FAIRY QUEEN sat,arranging her long golden hair with a goldenCOMB. As recently as a century ago, sightings ofÁine on her chair were not uncommon, althoughthose who witnessed her appearance were likelyto drown thereafter or to go to insane from thevision of her unearthly beauty. The chair wassometimes said to be the possession of an other-wise mysterious figure called the FAIRY HOUSE-KEEPER, suggesting an identity between the twomagical feminine figures of haunted LOUGH GUR.

Sul (Sulis, Sulis Minerva) British goddess. Atthe small city of BATH in central southwesternEngland, hot springs bubble forth at the rate of amillion gallons a day. They were called by theRomans AQUAE SULIS, “the waters of Sul,” and thesite was a significant center for commerce andHEALING, a combination of Lourdes and the MayoClinic where people came to pray and bathe in thesteaming waters, hoping to be cured of their ills.For many centuries after the legions left Britain,the baths were buried under silted-up deposits,but in the 17th century they were rediscovered byantiquarians. Today the great columns of the mainbath are open to the sky; from their level, one canlook up to see the medieval cathedral, its base sev-eral stories above the once-buried Roman baths.

The Romans associated the goddess of thethermal springs with their healing divinity, MIN-ERVA or Minerva Medica (“medical Minerva”),so that she is sometimes called Sulis Minerva; ina bronze sculpture found in the temple precinct,Sul is shown as a warrior maiden. More impor-tant, scores of inscriptions—many written onlead and deposited in Sul’s waters—reveal howactive the shrine was in ancient times. More than6,000 coins have been retrieved from the spring,most of Roman date. As goddesses of WATER areknown in other Celtic lands, it is assumed thatSul is the local form of that divine category.

432 Suideachan

Sul’s name suggests that she was a SUN god-dess, for it is connected to words that mean both“sun” and “eye.” Despite this pointed connec-tion, some scholars continue to look for a malesun divinity in the area, even suggesting that allinscriptions to Sul contain a misspelling of theword for “pig.” As a sun goddess, Sul would beconnected with such figures as BRIGIT, who inIreland was associated with holy WELLS (in thatcase, rarely thermal) that were said to have heal-ing properties. Like Brigit, too, Sul was said tohave been served by a college of priestesses whotended an eternal flame. Occasionally Sulappears in the plural (see SULEVIAE); the samename is occasionally given to Brigit.

Sources: Green, Miranda. “The Celtic/Goddess asHealer.” In Billington, Sandra, and MirandaGreen, eds. The Concept of the Goddess.Routledge: London and New York, 1996, pp.28 ff; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, pp. 94 ff.

Suleviae Continental Celtic goddess. Severaldozen inscriptions have been found to this mul-tiple goddess, whose name seems to mean “themany Suls,” thus connecting her with the Britishhealing goddess SUL. Caesar associated this teamof divinities with the Roman goddess MINERVA,who ruled HEALING.

Summer Land (Summer Country) Britishfolkloric site. This name is often used todescribe the OTHERWORLD, where the weather isalways fair, flowers bloom endlessly, and fruithangs ripe off the trees. It is also used in sometexts to describe the land of MELEAGANT, theogre who held queen GUINEVERE hostage untilthe fine knight LANCELOT rescued her.

sun Cosmological concept. In the 19th cen-tury, scholars sometimes spoke of mythology asa form of poetry, a collection of primitive narra-tives about the forces of NATURE. Primary

among these forces was the sun, whose presenceat the center of our solar system and impact onearthly life made it a likely candidate for divinityin many cultures. So insistent were scholars ofthat early period in finding solar connections tovarious gods that a backlash began. Today, “solarmythology” is disdained, and as result anti-quated attitudes about mythology haveremained unexamined for more than a century.

Primary among these attitudes is the presup-position that the sun is invariably a masculinesymbol. In fact, dozens of cultures from Japan toSouth America, from the arctic to Arabia, haveseen the sun as feminine. Yet examination ofsolar mythology generally halted while theassumption was still made that that the Celts sawthe sun as a male figure—as a god. Many candi-dates are proposed as the “Celtic sun god,”including LUGH and LANCELOT, yet there is nodefinitive statement in any Celtic-language textthat shows a god being honored as the sun.

There is, however, significant evidence that theCelts saw the sun as a goddess. Indeed, the nameof one goddess, SUL, means “sun.” In the Irish lan-guage the word for “sun” has been feminine ingender since the first recorded usage; this word,grian, is occasionally used for a minor goddess fig-ure who may be connected with or the same as themore prominent heroine GRÁINNE. A few scholarsare hesitantly examining this question, but thegeneral prohibition against solar mythologymeans that it has not been substantively explained.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Celtic Goddesses: Warriors,Virgins and Mothers. London: British MuseumPress, 1995, pp. 114–115; Green, Miranda.Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art. London:Routledge, 1989, p. 37; Hull, Eleanor. Folklore ofthe British Isles. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.,1928, pp. 67 ff; Monaghan, Patricia. O MotherSun: A New View of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom,Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1994, pp. 61–86.

superstition Cosmological concept. When onereligion is replaced by another, one, either

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through conversion or conquest, the earlier reli-gion rarely disappears entirely. Rather, its beliefsand rituals remain, although the context andmeaning was forgotten. Thus in the ancient Celticlands today, we find a general revulsion at eatinghorse-meat, considered a useful food in some areasof the world; this may derive from the old rever-ence for the HORSE among the Celts. Similarly,beliefs in the BANSHEE and other FAIRY beings,viewed as superstition today, represent an earlierbelief system in vestigial form.

Source: Henderson, George. Survivals in BeliefAmong the Celts. Glasgow: James MacLeose andSons, 1911.

Sutugius Continental Celtic god. A fewinscriptions from France attest to the existenceof this god, believed by contemporary scholarsto have pre-Celtic roots and equated by theRomans with their warrior god MARS.

swallow Folkloric animal. In Ireland the swal-low was considered a helpful bird; to kill onebrought bad luck.

swan Folkloric animal. The swan was often,like the SEAL, seen as a transformed human; occa-sionally the swan was believed to be a bewitchednun. It was considered lucky to see seven swansflying, because seven years of good luck wouldfollow; seeing a multiple of seven brought thatmany more years of good luck. Hurting or killinga swan, conversely, brought bad luck to oneselfand one’s entire community. See SWAN MAIDEN.

swan maiden Irish, Scottish, continentalCeltic folkloric figure. The story of a youngwoman who is half-bird appears throughout theancient Celtic lands. Sometimes the girl was saidto be under an enchantment, which might ormight not be broken; other times, no reason wasgiven for the maiden’s double nature. In the darkof night, such maidens took off their swan

plumage and left it beside the lakes in which theyswam, naked and beautiful. Should a man findthe feather cloak of such a woman, he couldmake her his wife by stealing it, whereupon (likea SEAL woman) she became a happy and hard-working helpmeet. Should the swan maiden everfind her feathers, she instantly converted herselfto bird form and flew away, leaving her childrenbehind without so much as a backward glance.

That this fairy tale has mythological roots isgenerally unquestioned. The BIRD is associatedwith religious imagery across Europe; it is foundamong the Celts as far back as the HALLSTATT

period. Many bird divinities had solar associa-tions (see SUN), while waterbirds were connectedto thermal SPRINGS that were believed to holdthe night-sun’s energy. One of the largest andmost graceful of waterbirds, the swan was some-times depicted as part of a team pulling a chariotor cart, each swan connected to the others by asmall chain. That motif appears in Irish mythol-ogy in the story of CÁER and AONGHUS ÓG, who,after falling in love, flew away together linked bya golden chain.

When a swan-woman married, she oftendemanded that her husband follow specific rules;the FAIRY QUEEN or goddess ÁINE, for instance,demanded that her husband, the Earl ofDesmond, express no surprise at anything theirchildren did. Should the rules be broken, theswan-wife and her children would instantlydepart, as Áine and her son GERÓID IARLA did,turning into waterbirds which still can be seenon the magical LOUGH GUR. A few scholars haveproposed that these legends recall a period whenwomen made specific demands in the negotia-tion of a marriage contract.

Sources: Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies inIconography and Tradition. London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 234; Ross, Anne.Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London: B. T.Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 54; Stuart-Glennie,John S. “Incidents of Swan-Maiden Marriage.”In Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customs andSavage Myths: Selections from the British

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Folklorists. Vol II. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1968, p. 523 ff.

swarth Scottish folkloric figure. A magicaldouble of a person, the swarth was dangerous tomeet on the road, because seeing the image ofyourself was an almost certain prophecy ofdeath’s approach. If, however, you were braveenough to speak with the swarth, you could gainmagical knowledge and SECOND SIGHT.

Sweeney See SUIBHNE.

sympathetic magic Cosmological concept.In many cultures and mystical traditionsthroughout the world, it was believed thatobjects of a specific shape or form affected othersimilar objects; thus a girl combing her hair athome in the evening could attract the attentionof a dangerous MERMAID, who also used a COMB

at that hour and liked to drown sailors. Anotherform of sympathetic magic was the suppositionthat parts always remain connected to thewhole; thus discarded HAIR and nails had a sub-tle power over the person from whom they orig-inally came. (See also EXTERNAL SOUL.)

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taboo See GEIS.

Tadg (Tighe, Tadc) Irish hero. This name iscommon in Irish history and mythology. Themost prominent bearer was Tadg mac Nuadat,grandfather of the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL;Tadg has been interpreted as a form of the godNUADA, although his name implies that he wasNuada’s son. A more obscure Tadg was fosterfather of the great king of TARA, CORMAC MAC

AIRT. When Cormac was a boy, he killed someBADGERS and brought them home for dinner.His foster father, revolted by their bloodyappearance, refused to eat them. It was well thathe did, for they were his SHAPE-SHIFTING

cousins. Another Tadg was the son of the cannyhero CIABHÁN who traveled to the OTHERWORLD

to meet the beautiful FAIRY QUEEN CLÍDNA.

taghairm Scottish ritual. A peculiar magicalritual is known from Scottish texts, whichdescribe how conjurers roasted live CATS overcoals until a giant cat named Big-Earsappeared; he may be a folkloric descendant ofthe ancient king of the cats, known in Ireland asIrusan. The rite of taghairm was known downthrough the 17th century, but it was stronglydiscouraged by the clergy, who proclaimed thatanyone who performed it was instantly con-demned to hell.

Tailtiu (Taillte, Tailtu) Irish goddess. Themythological history of Ireland parallels whatarchaeologists believe is its historical reality: wavesof invaders landing, sometimes doing battle withtheir predecessors, sometimes intermarrying withthem, sometimes both. The goddess Tailtiu standsat the boundary of two of these groups, the FIR

BOLG and the TUATHA DÉ DANANN. She may havebeen a member of the Fir Bolg, although she isalso said to have been a Spanish princess; in eithercase, she has been described by modern scholars asa goddess diminished into human form.

Tailtiu was married to EOCHAID mac Eirc, thelast Fir Bolg king, an ideal ruler during whosereign only truth was spoken in the land, whichbore abundant crops under fair skies. Eochaidwas killed at the first battle of MAG TUIRED,when the Fir Bolg battled the magical invaders,the Tuatha Dé Danann. Thereupon Tailtiu mar-ried EOCHAID Garbh, who despite the similarityof name to her first husband, was a member ofthe victorious Tuatha Dé.

Tailtiu traveled to the center of the island,where even today the land is the richest inIreland, and began to clear fields for planting,but the effort of felling the dense Irish forestkilled her. As she died, she asked that her funeralgo on forever, with HORSE racing and games andfestivities. And so her foster son, the god LUGH,established the August festival that, strangely,bears his name (LUGHNASA) rather than hers.

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On Lughnasa each year at TELTOWN, on theRiver Blackwater in Co. Meath, a great ÓENACH

or assembly of the tribes was held, devoted totrading, match making, and celebration as wellas to ritual athletic contests appropriate to theseason. Horse-racing may have been part of thefestivities, for there are legends that teams swamacross the nearby river as dawn broke. TheGreat Games at Teltown, also called the TailtianGames in Tailtiu’s honor, took place throughmedieval times; a smaller-scale festival was heldat the same site through the 19th century.

The Óenach Tailten was the most importantof the ancient Irish festivals, because it was heldclosest to the seat of political power, the hill ofTARA, whose kings sponsored the event. OtherLughnasa festivals (see CARMAN, TLACHTGA)were dedicated to goddesses who died; as earthgoddesses, they may have represented the dyingvegetation that fed humanity.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924, pp. 147–163.

Táin See CATTLE RAID.

Táin bó Cuailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley)Irish epic. The greatest extant piece of Irishmythological literature tells of a great CATTLE

RAID upon a region now known as the Cooleypeninsula; hence the piece is sometimes angli-cized as the Cattle Raid of Cooley. Part of theULSTER CYCLE of myths, the story was recordedin the Middle Ages by Christian monks at theimportant central monastery of Conmacnoise,but its material dates to earlier times.Presumably the tale had been conveyed orally, aswas the tradition among Celtic BARDS, for cen-turies before being transcribed.

Besides the tale itself, there are a number ofremscéla or fore-tales that described the reasonsfor the cattle raid. These include some of themost famous stories in Irish literature: how the

maiden NESSA was raped by the DRUID CATHBAD

and gave birth to a king who bore her name,CONCOBAR MAC NESSA, and how she then con-spired to put her son on the throne of ULSTER bystealing it from FERGUS mac Róich; how the god-dess or FAIRY woman MACHA came to earth to livewith the human farmer CRUNNIUC, who wageredthat she was faster than the king’s horses and thusbrought about her death, screaming the cursethat caused the DEBILITY OF THE ULSTERMEN

whenever they were attacked; how the lustfulking Concobar hid away the resplendent maidenDEIRDRE, who nonetheless escaped captivity withher beloved NOÍSIU and his brothers, the SONS OF

UISNEACH, who were later traitorously killed bythe king; how the great hero CÚCHULAINN wasbegotten, grew to manhood, wooed the fairEMER, and unwittingly killed his only son; andhow two angry pigkeepers were reincarnatedtime after time, always arguing with each other,until they found themselves in the bodies of twopowerful bulls, the great white FINNBENNACH

and the brown DONN CUAILNGE.All these stories set the stage for the Táin

itself. MEDB, queen of the western province ofCONNACHT, was lying abed one morning withher husband AILILL, comparing their net worth.Medb contended that she owned as much as ormore than Ailill, while Ailill believed she didnot. And so they called for their wealth to becounted, and indeed, Ailill was proven to beright: He had one bull more in his herds thanMedb did. To make matters worse, the greatWhite Bull had been born in Medb’s herds buthad migrated to Ailill’s. Since under BREHON lawMedb’s status as a wife was contingent upon hercomparative wealth, she set about bringing herpossessions up to par with her husband’s.

Discovering that the equal of the White Bullwas in the province of Ulster, on the Cuailngepeninsula, Medb sent word to the lord of thatregion, DÁIRE mac Fiachna, promising a fortunein gold and her own willing thighs as well, inreturn for the loan of the bull for a year. Shehoped that a powerful bull-calf would be siredon one of her own cows by the great brown

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DONN. Dáire was perfectly willing to make theloan, but when his men heard Medb’s warriorsbragging that they would take the bull whetherhis owner agreed or not, a furious Dáire with-drew his consent. So, just as her men had said,Medb set out to steal what she could not rent.

Medb had an advantage in her raid. Becauseof the curse of Macha, the warriors of Ulster suf-fered a debility whenever they were attacked,falling down in an agony that resembled laborpains. This went on for four days and fivenights—plenty of time for Medb’s army to beinto Dáire’s fields and off with the bull. And soshe assembled a great army at her capital city ofCRUACHAN and prepared her raid on Ulster.

While all of Ireland’s great warriors assembledto do her bidding, Medb encountered a womanbard or DRUID named FEDELM. She was a magnif-icent figure mounted on a chariot, dressed in goldand red embroidery, staring with unseeing eyes atthe chaos around her. When Medb asked whethershe had the IMBAS FOROSNAI, the ability to see thefuture, Fedelm said she had. So Medb asked herto predict the outcome of her quest. “I see crim-son, I see red,” Fedelm warned. Medb decided toignore this clear warning, however, so as not to bedeterred from her plan. The seeress, sheannounced, had seen only the wrath and rage ofwarriors. And so the die was cast.

The armies set out from Cruachan right afterSAMHAIN. As cattle-raiding was typically a sum-mer activity, they were marching off-season, at atime they would not be expected. Ailill himselfwent along to support Medb’s raid, as did herlover Fergus mac Róich, who was still angry atConcobar for cheating him out of the throne ofUlster and for manipulating him into causingthe deaths of the sons of Uisneach. They fore-saw a pleasant march through an unmannedland, with only victory ahead as they walked pastthe suffering Ulstermen.

They did not foresee that Cúchulainn wouldoppose them. The great hero was not anUlsterman, so he did not suffer from the provin-cial debility; indeed, he was ready to fightagainst any invader. On a tree, Cúchulainn

posted a warning, written in OGHAM letters,challenging any single warrior to combat.

And so they came, one after another, to fightagainst Cúchulainn. One after another theydied: the handsome FRÁECH, Medb’s sons MAINE

and ORLÁM, even Cúchulainn’s boyhood friendFERDIAD. The great winged goddess MÓRRÍGAN

came to help Medb, but even she could not stopthe slaughter. Yet while Cúchulainn was fendingoff warriors, Medb sneaked past and stole thebrown Donn. As she was escaping across theland with her prize, the men of Ulster recoveredfrom their curse and leapt into action. Althoughthey won the battle, they lost the bull, whichMedb brought back to Connacht with herretreating army. There the two reincarnatedswineherds, the white bull Finnbennach and thegreat brown Donn Cuailnge, did as they hadalways done. They fell to fighting, with thebrown fatally wounding the white and then,himself, dying of the exertion.

This was the ending of the story of the Táin,although there was a late tale added: of how theepic was partially lost, then restored by the son ofIreland’s chief bard, SEANCHÁN TOIRPÉIST, whocalled up the ghost of the great warrior Fergus athis grave. As Fergus had been a party to the raid,he was an excellent source for the missing mate-rial. The poet who performed the invocation,frightened by the apparition of Fergus’s ghost inthe king’s court where he was reciting the losttale, fell over dead upon its conclusion.

Sources: Hull, Eleanor. The Cuchullin Saga in IrishLiterature. London: David Nutt, 1898, pp. 111ff.; Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Tain. Dublin:The Dolmen Press, 1969.

Taise Irish heroine. This minor figure of leg-end became one of the wives of the hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL in order to free her father,ABARTA, from imprisonment by the FIANNA.

Taliesin (Taliesin Pen Beirdd, Telgesinus)Welsh hero. Like other great Celtic BARDS, the

438 Taise

poet Taliesin, whose work has been dated to thesixth century C.E., was said to be the reincarna-tion of an earlier mythic figure. Originally he wasthe boy GWION, servant to the great goddessCERIDWEN. Because Ceridwen’s son AFAGDDU

was born ugly, his mother decided to give himthe gift of inspiration and POETRY to make up forit. And so she brewed, in her magical CAULDRON,a potent mixture of herbs that needed to bestirred constantly as they cooked for a year and aday. Whenever she was busy about other things,Ceridwen assigned Gwion the duty of stirring. Ithappened that he was at the pot when the mix-ture bubbled over, burning Gwion’s finger. Stungby the pain, the boy popped his finger into hismouth, thereby absorbing all of the magicalpower Ceridwen had intended for her son.

The first gift his new vision endowed was animage of how furious Ceridwen would be whenshe found out what he had done. So Gwion ranaway. Ceridwen, when she found her potiondestroyed, ran after him. With the new power ofSHAPE-SHIFTING that he had gained from thebrew, Gwion transformed himself into a HARE,but Ceridwen became a greyhound in hot pur-suit. Every time he changed, she changed aswell: FISH and OTTER, BIRD and HAWK, withCeridwen always a hair’s breadth away from cap-turing the errant servant boy. Then, whenGwion turned himself into a grain of wheat,Ceridwen became a hen and ate him up.

In Celtic myths eating often leads to preg-nancy, and so it was with Ceridwen, who gavebirth to Gwion and set him adrift on the sea. Anobleman, ELPHIN, found the baby floating nearshore and took him home, raising him tenderlyas his own child, calling him Taliesin, “radiantbrow.” Taliesin grew to be the most eloquentpoet in the land, one who could see through theveil to the OTHERWORLD. Like the Irish poetsAMAIRGIN and TUAN MAC CAIRILL, Taliesinspoke of many incarnations, both human andanimal. He is said to be buried in a stone gravein Dyfed, called Bedd Taliesin; anyone whosleeps there wakes up either a poet or insane.The work that comes down to us as Taliesin’s

may have been indeed composed by a poet ofthat name, but the famous name may haveattracted to itself poems from the oral literature;the line between fact and myth is easily blurredin Taliesin’s case.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. The SecretCountry: An interpretation of the folklore of ancientsites in the British Isles. New York: Walker andCo., 1976, p. 59; Jackson, Kenneth, et al. Celtand Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border.Cambridge: University Press, 1963, p. 29;Nash, D. W., “Taliesin in Song and Story.” InMatthews, John. A Celtic Reader: Selectionsfrom Celtic Legend, Scholarship and Story.Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1991, pp.179 ff; Matthews, John. Taliesin: Shamanismand the Bardic Mysteries in Britain and Ireland.London: Aquarian/Thorsons, 1991.

talisman Symbolic object. The distinctionbetween a talisman and an AMULET is not invari-ably maintained, as the words are sometimesused as synonyms. While both words indicatemagical objects, a talisman draws good luck orthe blessing of gods to the owner, while anamulet wards off evil spirits and bad luck.

Tamara Cornish and British folkloric figure.The nymph of the RIVER Tamar, which forms theboundary between Cornwall and Devon, wasoriginally a maiden who wandered the landfreely, despite the annoyance this brought to herparents, two earth-dwelling GNOMES. TwoGIANTS, Torridge and TAVY, fought over her, andthe argument caused all three of the lovers todissolve into the rivers that bear their names.Although the legend itself was first transcribedin the 17th century, it is likely that it elaborateson an earlier tale, for the ancient geographerPtolemy named the Tamar as a major river of theregion. While the story of Tamara is similar tothat of other Celtic river goddesses like BÓAND

and SÍNANN, this story is unusual in having maledivine figures dissolving to form rivers.

Tamara 439

Tam Lin (Tamlane, Tam-a-Lin) British folk-loric hero. One of the most famous FAIRIES of theBritish border country was Tam Lin, a lasciviousyoung man who haunted Caterhaugh Wood andlured maidens away from their families in orderto ruin them. He had once been human, but thequeen of FAIRYLAND tricked him into passingover its borders, thus trapping him forever. Ayoung girl named Janet fell deeply in love withTam Lin and tried to bring him back to thisworld. Following Tam Lin’s instructions, Janetwent out on SAMHAIN night to watch the WILD

HUNT pass on the road. When a milk-whitesteed appeared, she knew Tam Lin would be rid-ing it, so she grasped him as he rode by and, justas he had predicted, found herself holding aneel, a bear, a lion, even a spike of fire. In spite ofthese tricks, she did not let go and so finallyfreed him from his enchantment.

tangie Scottish folkloric figure. This strangebeing occasionally appeared around water, bothfresh and salt, on the Orkney islands. Sometimeshe looked like a human being, at other times likea fierce WATER HORSE. The tangie’s name seemsto derive from the local word for seaweed, tang.

tanist (tanáiste) Celtic social role. Accordingto many ancient and medieval authors, Celticleaders had an elected assistant called a tanist.The English poet Edmund Spenser, who spentmost of his life in Ireland, noted that even in the17th century the Irish still elected their kingsand, at the same time, a tanist who assumed theleadership role upon the king’s death. Just as theking was not necessarily the eldest of a royal fam-ily, so the tanist was chosen for his talent andstrength rather than for family prestige or posi-tion. Some theorists believe that the tanist was areligious as well as a political role, possibly deriv-ing from the Celtic belief in the power of TWINS.

Tara (Temair, Temuir) Irish mythological site.Perhaps the most famous ancient site in Ireland,

Tara is a small hill in Co. Meath that has beenrenowned at least since Celtic times—perhapseven before, as there are stone monuments on thehilltop from the pre-Celtic period. Ireland’smythic history, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, tells howthe early invaders, the FIR BOLG, erected the firststructures on the hill, although the Stone Heap ofthe One Man, their supposed work, is not knownat Tara today. The place-poetry of Ireland, theDINDSHENCHAS, says that the name of the hillunder the Fir Bolg had been Druim Cáin; the ear-lier people of NEMED had called it Druim Léith,after LIATH who had cleared its slopes so thatthere would be enough sun for crops to grow;even before that it had been called Forduim, a hillon which magical HAZEL trees grew.

It was at Tara that the Fir Bolg king receivednews of the arrival of yet another wave ofinvaders—this time the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN—and at Tara that he mustered his hostsfor the first battle of MAG TUIRED. In that monu-mental event, the Fir Bolg were defeated andforced to cede Tara to the newcomers. TheTuatha Dé changed the name of the hill toCathair Crofhind and installed four treasuresthat they had carried from the mysterious citiesof their origin, including the LIA FÁIL or Stone ofDestiny, a great pillar (“a stone penis” accordingto some texts) that screamed when a true kingtouched it. Whether the stone that stands onTara today is the same stone is unknown; somesources contend that the Scottish Stone of Scone(see INAUGURATION STONES) that rested for cen-turies in Westminster Abbey and upon which theEnglish royals were crowned, is the real Lia Fáil.

There were also two great flagstones calledBlocc and Bluigne, which fit tightly togetherexcept when a true king arrived, when they wouldopen up so that he might pass between them.These stones, if they ever existed outside myth,are no longer to be seen on the hill. There wasalso a great Banquet Hall, the vestiges of whichcan be seen as earthen embankments on the hill.Legend has it that the Hall had nine separateareas for the various levels of society that wouldmeet there, but no such divisions are visible today.

440 Tam Lin

Despite their victory over the Fir Bolg, theTuatha Dé Danann were not the wisest rulers.Soon they were at war again, this time againstthe combined forces of the Fir Bolg and themonstrous FOMORIANS. Under the leadership ofLUGH, the Tuatha Dé once again won over theirfoes at the second battle of Mag Tuired, fromwhich they returned to Tara rejoicing.

They were not to remain forever as Tara’srulers, for a new and even stronger race arrivedin Ireland several hundred years later. Againstthe MILESIANS, even the Tuatha Dé could notprevail. They were forced to accept banishmentto the OTHERWORLD while the Milesians settledupon the green and fertile surface of Ireland. Adoorway to that Otherworld was thought to existon Tara, for it was described in a medieval poemas “the secret place on the road of life,” but itslocation is lost, or secret.

It was to Tara that the Milesian leaderÉREMÓN carried the body of his beloved wife,TÉA, who had asked that she be buried on themost beautiful hill in Ireland. This motif is foundon other sacred mountains as well: TLACHTGA,for example, is said to have been buried beneaththe mountain that bears her name, and theisland’s eponymous goddess ÉRIU rests on theslopes of the sacred central mountain, UISNEACH.Nothing is known of Téa except her dying wish.

Téa is not the only divine figure connectedwith Tara, for its goddess of SOVEREIGNTY wasvariously said to be ÉTAIN and MEDB. Étain wassaid to have been the reincarnated lover of theFAIRY king MIDIR, who in her human form mar-ried king EOCHAID of Tara, from whom Midirwon her by gambling. Medb, although more typ-ically associated with the great capital of theprovince of CONNACHT called CRUACHAN, is alsosaid to have married nine kings of Tara, one afterthe other; a HILLFORT on the site bears her name.Finally, the heroine or sun goddess GRÁINNE isassociated in myth with Tara, for she was to havebeen married at the palace there before sheeloped with one of her husband’s retainers.

Another mythic being, the COW goddess ofabundance, is also found on Tara’s heights, for

there is an earthworks called the Mound of theCow (now lost) and two WELLS, one dedicated tothe White Cow, the other to her calf. Some textsprovide the name Glas Teamhrach for themound, apparently referring to the magical cowGLAS GHAIBHLEANN, which gave milk endlesslyto anyone who needed it.

The great ÓENACH or assembly of Tara washeld on SAMHAIN, the day when the veilsbetween this world and the Otherworld werelifted; it was not held at Tara itself but at thenearby hill of Tlachtga (now called the Hill ofWard), from which the seasonal fires blazed. It isrecorded that Samhain was the time of the feisTemrach, the INAUGURATION feast when Tara’sking ritually married the goddess of the land.Some evidence suggests that the assembly washeld every THREE years rather than annually.The association of Tara with the beginning ofwinter makes it parallel to its twin mountain,Uisneach, where the opposite feast of BELTANE

was celebrated with great double fires.Among the many ancient structures and

earthworks on the hills is the so-called Rath ofthe Synods, a pre-Celtic site from the MEGA-LITHIC CIVILIZATION that later became importantto the Christian Irish, who believed incorrectlythat it had been the site of bishops’ councils inthe early days of the Church. The site is now par-tially destroyed because in the 19th century agroup of British believers tore through the earthin search of the biblical Ark of the Covenant,which they thought had been buried within it bythe daughters of the last king of Israel. Althoughthey never found the Ark, they destroyed muchof this ancient structure in their attempt.

Visitors to Tara today enter the site throughthe yard of a church once dedicated to ST.PATRICK but now converted to an educationalcenter. Almost directly ahead the ruined Rath ofthe Synods is visible. To the right, the long earth-works called the Banqueting Hall stretch in twoparallel lines; the name is probably incorrect, butit is not known for what reason the structure wasdesigned. Down the hill beyond the BanquetingHall is a small rath named for GRÁINNE, errant

Tara 441

wife of the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL, who mayhave originally been a goddess of Sovereignty.The larger rath, dedicated to Medb, is separatedfrom the main monuments by distance, lyingalmost two kilometers away; the rath was oncepart of the ancestral estate of the Anglo-Irishauthor Lord Dunsany, commonly regarded as theinventor of the literary genre of fantasy fiction.

A cut on the north side of Rath Medb’s bank,presumably the entrance, is aligned with the old-est site at Tara, the Mound of the Hostages. Apre-Celtic PASSAGE GRAVE, long covered by rub-ble, was excavated in the 1950s so that the cham-ber is now visible. Remains buried beneath themound have been dated to some 3,500 years ago,suggesting that the tales of Tara’s antiquity as asacred site convey some truth. The name of themound suggests that it was used as a prison, butit refers rather to the famous king of Tara, NIALL

of the Nine Hostages. He took on nine fostersons from various parts of the land; their rela-tionship to the king of Tara is questionablytranslated with the word “hostage.”

Near the Mound of the Hostages, two smallermounds rise from the green hilltop. One is theForradh, also called the King’s Seat or Place ofJudgment; in the Dindshenchas, this monument iscalled the Mound of Téa and is said to be hergrave. Atop this mound stands the upright LiaFáil, approximately one-half of it visible abovethe ground. Nearby rises a mound nearly identi-cal in size to the Forradh; called Cormac’sHouse, it is as yet unexcavated and is associatedin myth with the great king CORMAC MAC AIRT.

Other monuments at the site include RathLóegaire, dedicated to Tara’s king at the time ofSt. Patrick’s arrival; the Sloping Trenches, site of amythical massacre of more than 3,000 maidenswho are thought to have belonged to a college ofpriestesses; several holy wells; and minor struc-tures and earthworks. Together, these monumentsmake Tara as important a site today, although fordifferent reasons, as it was in its storied past.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Part I. Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924; Ó Ríordáin, Seán. Tara: TheMonuments on the Hill. Dundalk: DundalganPress, 1992; Raftery, Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland:The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thamesand Hudson, 1994, pp. 65 ff; Rees, Alwyn, andBrinley Rees: Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition inIreland and Wales. London: Thames and Hudson,1998, pp. 146 ff.

Taran Welsh god. This obscure god is men-tioned once in the compilation of Welsh mythol-ogy, the MABINOGION; he is assumed to be similarto the continental Celtic thunder god, TARANIS.

Taranis (Taranos, Taranoos, Taranucnos)Continental Celtic god. This god was associatedboth with lightning strikes and with the fire thatoften follows. His name derives from a Celticword for “thunder” and is thought refer to thegod depicted with a HAMMER, although that godis also identified as SUCELLUS. The Romans, whobelieved Taranis to be the chief Celtic divinity,typically associated him with their own chief godJUPITER, although there is no evidence thatTaranis stood at the head of a pantheon. TheRoman poet Lucan claimed that Taranis, the“master of war,” was honored with HUMAN SAC-RIFICES that required the victims be burned alive.

tarans Scottish folkloric figure. Spirits ofunbaptized infants were called by this name inScotland. They were encountered in wild places,weeping over their inability to reach heaven.The belief appears to combine Celtic andChristian views of the afterlife, mixing up theOTHERWORLD with the Christian Limbo whereunsoiled but unsanctified souls spend eternity.

Tarbhfheis See BULL-SLEEP.

tarroo-ushtey Manx folkloric figure. TheWATER BULL of the Isle of Man was not as dan-gerous as such creatures normally are. Whereas

442 Taran

in other lands, such water monsters devouredpeople and CATTLE outright, the tarroo-ushteymerely blighted the crops. As with other FAIRY

creatures, this one could be warded off with awand of ROWAN.

Tarvostrigaranus (Tarvos Trigaranus) Con-tinental Celtic god. This obscure god is knownfrom two stone sculptures at Paris and Trier,where he was depicted as a BULL with THREE

CRANES or other waterbirds perched upon him.He may be similar to or identical with the godESUS.

tatter-foal (shag-foal) British folkloric figure.A kind of BOGEY or bogle, the tatter-foal was ashape-shifter (see SHAPE-SHIFTING) who appearedin many forms, including that of a monkey, butmost commonly a shaggy baby HORSE.

tattoo Celtic ritual. Although the word itselfcomes from the South Pacific, there is some evi-dence that the Celts decorated their bodies withpermanent markings. The tribal name of theScoti has been translated (perhaps fancifully) as“the scarred ones,” while the name of the PICTS

may mean “the pictured ones” or the “engravedones.” Roman writers describe Celtic warriors aspainted with the blue dye-plant woad, whileCOINS from the imperial era show faces withwhat seem to be tattoos. Whether the apparenttattoos were marks of status, totemic markers, orreligious symbols is unknown.

Tavy Cornish folkloric figure. The river spiritTavy warred with another GIANT, Torridge, overthe hand of the beautiful maiden TAMARA. Hewon her, but only after all three dissolved intorivers, for only the Tavy joins the Tamar, whilethe Torridge flows elsewhere. The name Tavyhas also been suggested as the origin of the seaspirit DAVY JONES.

Téa (Tea) Irish goddess or heroine. Thisobscure figure gave her name to the great royal

site of TARA in the center of Ireland. Little else isknown of her, except that its first earthen wallswere built at her request and that she died atTara, giving her power to the hill.

Tech Duinn (House of Donn) Irish mytho-logical site. A small rocky island off the BEARE

peninsula in west Co. Cork was believed to bethe home of DONN, a shadowy early god whoruled the OTHERWORLD of death. Unlike latervisions of the Otherworld as a magnificentlybeautiful land, Tech Duinn was a frighteningplace of darkness and dread. Its relationship tothe more typical Otherworld is unclear.

Tegau Eurfron Welsh heroine. One of theTHREE SPLENDID WOMEN of CAMELOT, TegauEurfron rescued her husband from a venomoussnake. She herself was bitten and lost one breastas a result. It was replaced with a breast made ofgold, which matched her golden hair.

Tegid Welsh mythological site. What is nowcalled Lake Bala in northern Wales—thelargest LAKE in that land—appears in mythol-ogy as Llyn Tegid, home of the great goddessCERIDWEN. It was there that she brewed hermagical potion in a CAULDRON, which she leftthe young boy GWION to watch while she didother chores.

When he accidentally swallowed some of thebrew, thereby gaining both WISDOM and poetictalent, Gwion fled the scene. The omniscientCeridwen knew what had happened and pursuedhim. Despite his newfound SHAPE-SHIFTING

ability, Gwion was at last eaten by the goddess,who gave birth to him again as the great BARD,TALIESIN. The lake’s mystical character remainedin local folklore, for it was believed that LakeBala’s depth could never be measured; anyonewho tried would be greeted by a booming voicedemanding that the measurement cease. DRAG-ONS were reputed to live in the lake’s bottomlesslower regions.

Tegid 443

Tegid Voel (Tegid Foel, Tegyd Foël) Welshgod. This obscure god or GIANT was the consortof the great HAG goddess, CERIDWEN; little else isknown of him, although the LAKE where the pairmade their home (now Lake Bala) bore his name.

teinm laeda (tienm laído) Irish ritual. Theancient Irish form of DIVINATION called teinmlaeda seems to have been what is today calledpsychometry—finding information from objectsby touching or holding them. A verse or incan-tation may have first been recited, and the DRUID

employing this technique may have touched theobject in question with a wand of HAZEL or othermagical TREE.

Legend suggests that direct transmission ofinformation was also possible: Holding a bone,the BARD Moén mac Etnae was able to discovernot only that it was the skull of a DOG, but alsothe name of the deceased pet. Sometimes thisform of divination is associated with chewing thethumb, as the hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL did inorder to prophesy. The teinm laeda was prohib-ited by ST. PATRICK, as was the better-knowntrance method called IMBAS FOROSNAI, apparentlybecause both required a SACRIFICE or prayer to apagan god or goddess.

Telgesinus Welsh hero. In one Welsh text,this name is given for the great BARD, TALIESIN,who instructed the magician MERLIN in thesecret ways of the universe.

Telo Continental Celtic goddess. This name,found on inscriptions to the HEALING spirit ofthe SPRING at Toulon in the French region of theDordogne, is believed to name a goddess,although Telo may have been a god.

Teltown Irish mythological site. On a farm inCo. Meath, near the River Blackwater, a large,long HILLFORT rises from a pasture. Nondescriptas it may be today, it was in ancient times one ofthe most renowned sites in the land, for it was

there that the king of royal TARA presided overthe annual games in honor of the goddessTAILTIU, who gave her name to the hillfort and,even today, to the townland that surrounds it.The games were part of the harvest assemblycalled the Óenach Tailten, held on the Celticfeast of LUGHNASA, the feast was named forTailtiu’s foster son, the god LUGH, who estab-lished the games and the assembly in her honorwhen Tailtiu died of exhaustion after clearingIreland’s central pasturelands.

Teltown was not only a site of games and trad-ing; it was also the location for the so-calledTeltown marriages, trial marriages contracted at amound across the road from the main center ofactivity. At this spot, long known as the Crockans,stood a wooden door pierced by a hole throughwhich young couples held hands while plightingtheir troth. If the match did not prove successfulwithin a year and a day, the pair could return tothe Crockans and undo the union.

Games at Teltown continued throughmedieval times, and the assembly, was held untilthe 19th century. Such continuity may have aneven longer history, for one of the earthworks atTeltown, the so-called Rath Dubh (“black rath”)may be built above a PASSAGE GRAVE; the sitemay have been selected because it was alreadysacred to the pre-Celtic people.

Source: Raftery, Brian. Pagan Celtic Ireland: TheEnigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thamesand Hudson, 1994, p. 82.

Temair (Temuir) See TARA.

temple Ritual structure. The Celts did noterect buildings for worship as did their con-querors, the Romans. They preferred to gatheroutdoors in NEMETONS or sacred woods, whereSACRIFICES and offerings were made; on hill-tops like UISNEACH and TARA, where great FIRES

were lit on festival days; and at holy WELLS

where such ceremonies as INAUGURATION

might be performed.

444 Tegid Voel

There is, however, some archaeological evi-dence of buildings that are variously called tem-ples or castles, which may have been used forassemblies that included religious ritual. At thefirst century B.C.E. British site called MAIDEN CAS-TLE in Dorset, evidence of a circular building hasbeen found; since the circle had cosmological sig-nificance to the Celts, this round building is inter-preted as having a religious purpose. Similarly,the remains of circular buildings have been foundin Ireland at EMAIN MACHA and DÚN Ailinne. AtEmain Macha there are indications of a centralpost which may have represented the centralTREE in a grove. Despite such occasional finds,there is no clear evidence that Celtic people weregenerally in the habit of protecting themselvesfrom the powers of nature as they worshiped.

Tephi Irish heroine. This obscure figureappears in the place-poetry called the DINDSHEN-CHAS as one of the early builders of the rampartsat the royal hill of TARA. She was an Egyptianpharaoh’s daughter, a fierce warrior who was car-ried away by Camson, an otherwise unknownchampion. At Tara, Tephi used her staff and herbrooch to trace the outlines of the great earthenwalls that were called, after her, the Rampart ofTephi. She died in Ireland and was buried else-where, possibly in Spain. The story may be areflection of the building of the capital of ULSTER

by MACHA, who similarly traced out its raths withthe pin of her brooch; alternatively, the story ofTephi may have inspired that of Macha.

Tethba Irish goddess or heroine. This little-known goddess was said to have given her secretname to the lands she most loved, now parts ofCo. Westmeath in the Irish midlands. Such sto-ries are typically told of the goddess of the land’sSOVEREIGNTY, the consort of the king.

Tethra Irish hero. This obscure divinity iscalled the FAIRY king of the OTHERWORLD.Nothing is known of him except that he was amember of the magical race called the TUATHA

DÉ DANANN, who were banished from the sur-face world by the conquering MILESIANS afterlosing the second battle of MAG TUIRED.

Teutates (Toutatis, Totatis, Teutate) Conti-nental Celtic god. This god’s name appears tomean “ruler of the people,” from the Celticword for “tribe,” which suggests an ancestralgod. Dedications to Teutates are most com-monly found in Gaul, occasionally in Britain,never in Ireland; he is sometimes connected to,or considered an alternative form of, the godCOCIDIUS, while the Romans believed he wassimilar to their warrior god MARS and to theirgod of commerce, MERCURY. The Roman authorLucan said that Teutates was honored by HUMAN

SACRIFICE, with the victims offered to him beingdrowned on SAMHAIN, the feast of winter’s starton November 1.

Teyrnon Welsh hero. In the story of RHIAN-NON and her son PRYDERI, this is the name ofPryderi’s foster father, who unwittingly saved theboy from being devoured by a monster. Seeing ahuge claw descend from the heavens on BELTANE

night, aiming at a newborn foal, he rushed to itsdefense. Slashing at the claw, Teyrnon caused itto drop its burden: the stolen child, whichTeyrnon and his wife brought up as their own.

Them (They, Them Folk, Themselves) SeeNAMES FOR THE FAIRIES.

thinness Cosmological concept. The Celtsbelieved that reality was not all the same every-where. While common reality was opaque andsolid, there were also “thin places” where theOTHERWORLD was near. These included FAIRY

TREES that grew alone in the center of a rockyfield; BOGS where people could be lost anddrowned; and ISLANDS that appear remote orclose according to atmospheric conditions. Therewere also “thin times” in the year, turning pointsat which Otherworld forces could penetrate to

thinness 445

our world, or dwellers here could happen intothat world. Although each day had a thin time attwilight, there were two days every year whentime grew so thin that the two worlds collided:the two Celtic feasts of BELTANE on May 1 andSAMHAIN on November 1. The idea of thinness intime and place may be connected to the belief inSHAPE-SHIFTING, the ability to transform one’sbody into that of an animal, a plant, or even a fog.

Thirteen Treasures of Britain British folkloric motif. Just as Ireland had four great treasures brought from the OTHERWORLD and signifying the SOVEREIGNTY of the land, soBritish lore names 13 objects of Otherworldlyorigin that reside in this world to betoken therightful ruler. The great king ARTHUR broughtthem back from the Otherworld kingdom ofANNWN. The treasures are: the sword of RHYD-DERECH, which would burst into flame whenborn by a rightful king; the bottomless hamperof Gwyddno; the mead-dispensing horn of BRÂN

THE BLESSED; an impressively speedy chariot; aHORSE-attracting halter; a knife that replenishedthe food it carved; a CAULDRON that would notboil food for cowards; a whetstone that sharp-ened only the weapons of the brave; a coat thatonly fit the noblest warriors; a crock and a dishthat served whatever the hungry desired; a self-playing chessboard; and the mantle of invisibility.

thistle Symbolic plant. This prickly plant witha soft purple blossom symbolizes Scotland; it wasbelieved to show the location of buried treasureand of forgotten graveyards.

Thiten See MORGAN.

Thomas the Rhymer (Thomas Rymour,Thomas of Ercildoune, True Thomas) Britishhero. The most renowned visitor to FAIRYLAND

was the historical 13th-century poet, ThomasLearmont, of Ercildoune on the Scottish-Englishborder. He attracted the attentions of a lustful

FAIRY LOVER, who stole him away (see FAIRY KID-NAPPING) and held him a happy captive for sevenyears. When it appeared he might be taken awayby the DEVIL to pay off an old debt of his mis-tress’s, however, the fairy queen relinquishedThomas to the human world. She gave him anambiguous gift: prophecy, without the ability tolie, which caused Thomas no end of troublewhen he returned to earth. Some versions of hisstory say that, at the end of his life, he returnedto fairyland, where he is seen by other visitors,attentively at the side of his happy mistress.

thorn Symbolic plant. One of the most power-ful and magical plants known in Celtic lands isthe thorn tree (variably species Prunus andCrageaeus). The blackthorn (Prunus) blooms eachspring near the BELTANE festival on May 1; besideits sweet white flowers are sharp, pin-like thornsthat can easily puncture flesh. The thorns limitthe usefulness of this tree, except as a CATTLE

hedge, but its magical use is significant, for thetree protected humans against the FAIRY people.It was hedged about with precautions to keep itfrom losing that power; it was especially impor-tant not to cut the trees on May 11 or November11, for the trees would take vengeance againstthe woodsman. The related whitethorn was sim-ilarly a protective plant, but its wood had to bekept out of doors, for fairies had extrasensoryawareness of its presence indoors and wouldhaunt the house where it was kept.

Hawthorns too bloom in spring, when theirpink blossoms are among the season’s mostextravagant. Bathing in the dew from hawthornblossoms on Beltane assured the seeker of per-petual beauty. The tree was angry if cut, andsometimes frightening animals emerged from aninjured hawthorn, chasing or injuring the wood-cutter. Those who cut down thorns were espe-cially prone to FAIRY STROKE, the paralysis thatstruck when a fairy touched one’s flesh, howevergently. When the thorn appeared in a group ofTHREE with an ASH and an OAK tree, that wastaken as a certain sign of fairy activity in the area.

446 Thirteen Treasures of Britain

Sources: Briggs, Katherine M. The Folklore of theCotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974, p.120; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 108.

three Cosmological concept. The Celts, bothcontinental and insular, saw three as a significantand powerful number; only FIVE appears moreoften in mythological or ritual contexts. Thenumber itself was considered sacred, and any-thing that appeared in three parts (see SHAM-ROCK) represented this religious value. In Walesa series of short poems called the TRIADS

encodes much mythological material; in Irelandwe find stories showing kings and heroes suffer-ing the THREEFOLD DEATH.

Many Celtic divinities appear in triplicate, asdo the DEAE MATRES or MOTHER GODDESSES ofGaul and the supernatural triple-horned BULL ofBritain. Triplicity seems, in many cases, a way ofintensifying the power of a figure. Althoughgoddesses are most often tripled (see MÓRRÍGAN,MACHA, BRIGIT), gods are occasionally elevatedinto a trinity; the continental god LUGOS appearsto be a tripled form of the god LUGH, and three-headed figures have been found, although theyare not clearly male or female. In addition toemphasizing a figure’s importance, the numberthree has been described as indicating a com-plete cycle: past, present, and future; mother,father, and child.

The sanctity of the number three may haverepresented, or been represented by, a threefolddivision of social functions: the sacred, the warlike,and the fertile. Each person in society had a placeaccording to the function he or she performed;thus BARDS and DRUIDS may have been grantedmore power than warriors and kings; goddesses ofSOVEREIGNTY would presumably have symbolizedthe third function, as well as farmers and otherswho created the abundance that society enjoyed.Support for such an argument is found in talessuch as that of CESAIR, who arrived in Ireland withonly three men to serve her 50 women—a story

that incorporates the other most significant num-ber, five, in expanded form.

Sources: Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 187; Green,Miranda. Symbol and Image in Celtic ReligiousArt. London: Routledge, 1989, p. 169; Powell,T. G. E. The Celts. London: Thames andHudson, 1980, pp. 154 ff.

threefold death Celtic ritual. Although thequestion of whether the Celts practiced HUMAN

SACRIFICE is not settled, there are evidences inIrish myth of a kind of sacrificial death withthree parts—often stabbing, burning, anddrowning. (Another version of the threefolddeath probably involved strangling, cutting, anddrowning.) At times, the various forms of execu-tion were parceled out among the gods; thusamong the continental Celts, those sacrificed tothe thunder god TARANIS were burnt, thoseoffered to the ancestral god TEUTATES weredrowned, while those who went to the TREE godESUS were hanged.

In Ireland several texts refer to the threefolddeath: MUIRCERTACH MAC ERC was wounded,then as he tried to escape his burning house, hefell and drowned in a vat of wine; the failed kingCONAIRE similarly was wounded, stricken with anunquenchable thirst, then burned alive. A bodyfound in Britain’s Lindow BOG (see LINDOW

MAN) showed that the victim, who had a noosearound his neck, had his throat slashed beforebeing drowned in the bogwater. If, as someargue, the Celts believed in REINCARNATION, theritual offering of a human life to attain a commu-nity good, such as relief from plague or famine,might have been seen as a noble way to die.

Three Sorrows of Ireland Irish mythologi-cal tales. The three stories known by this nameare among the most poignant in Irish mythology.They include the tale of DEIRDRE of the Sorrowsand her lover NOÍSIU, as well as his brothers, theSONS OF UISNEACH; the slaughtered SONS OF

Three Sorrows of Ireland 447

TUIREANN; and the heroic girl FIONNUALA andher brothers, the CHILDREN OF LIR.

Three Splendid Women Welsh heroines.Three women of king ARTHUR’s court were knownin the Welsh TRIADS as the Three SplendidWomen. They were the faithful and challengingENID, the model wife; the helpful TEGAU

EURFRON; and the obscure but beautiful DYFR.

Tiddy Mun British folkloric figure. Thosewho made their living from the now-drainedfens of England had a complex folklore that isnow regrettably mostly lost. Among the spiritsthey believed lived in the watery fens was TiddyMun (apparently, “tidy man”), a gentle white-haired soul who protected those who cared forthe land. When the fen waters rose in stormyweather, the fen people would pray for his inter-vention: “Tiddy Mun! Tiddy Mun! you withouta name, walking lame, harm none, Tiddy Mun,harm none, harm none.” With the draining ofthe fens to expand agricultural land, TiddyMun’s special habitat was lost, and he has notbeen recently seen.

Tigernmas (Tiernmas) Irish hero. A quasi-historical king of TARA, Tigernmas was a devoteeof the cruel god CROM CRUACH; he also broughtGOLD-smelting to Ireland, thus establishing oneof its most important ancient industries.

time Cosmological concept. The concept oftime is not standard throughout the world; eachculture’s calendar reveals its values and philoso-phy. To the Celts, each day began at sundown ofwhat we would consider the previous day, andjust as NIGHT preceded day, so winter precededspring, with the beginning of the year marked atthe feast of SAMHAIN on November 1. The yearappears to have been divided, not into four sea-sons, but into the two seasons of summer andwinter; each of those seasons, however, was fur-ther divided into two, a beginning and an end-

ing. A similar division has been found in someancient sources that suggests that each monthwas divided into two equal parts.

The year’s 12 lunar months alternatedbetween 29 and 30 days. To reconcile this 354-day calendar with that of the sun, a 13th monthwas added every 21/2 years; at the end of two suchcycles—that is, every five years—the 13th monthwas an occasion of celebration and sacrifice. Sixsuch five-year units, or 30 years, composedsomething that Pliny calls an “age,” which mayhave meant a generation. Time was linked tohistory, which was important to the Celts, whoinvested effort in memorizing long genealogies,but there was also the OTHERWORLD, where timeand space were radically different from those inour world and where the gods and FAIRIES lived.

Source: Brunaux, Jean Louis. The Celtic Gauls:Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries. London: Seaby,1988, pp. 45–48.

Tine Ghealáin (Jack-o-Lantern, Jack of theLantern) Irish folkloric figure. What is calledin other lands the will-o’-the-wisp, a light seenover bogs at night, was said in Ireland to be alantern carried by a dead gambler doomed towander forever because, although his soul wastoo stained to enter heaven, he had won his wayout of hell by beating the DEVIL at cards. Hisname was applied to the hollowed-out turnips(in the New World, pumpkins) used at SAMHAIN,when the veils between the worlds were thin.

Tintagal Cornish mythological site. ANorman castle on a steep headland overlookingthe Irish Sea, Tintagal is often described as thesite of king ARTHUR’s conception by his father,UTHER PENDRAGON, upon his mother IGRAINE,although there are other contenders to placesthat contact for the same identification. The castle dates to the 12th century, but there is evidence of occupation at the site some sevencenturies earlier; even earlier, the territory wasknown in the ancient world for its exports of tin.

448 Three Splendid Women

Near the castle itself is what appears to be anINAUGURATION STONE: a small depression in therock called King Arthur’s Footprint.

Tir fo Thuinn (Tir-fa-Tonn, Land UnderWave) Irish mythological site. One of themany names given to the OTHERWORLD orFAIRYLAND, Land Under Wave refers to the tra-dition that LAKES and the ocean hide the routebetween this world and the other. Stories ofcities beneath lakes or on the ocean bed, and ofMERMAIDS and MERMEN who live there, are com-mon in all coastal Celtic lands.

Tir na mBan (Tir na Ban) Irish mythologi-cal site. The Land of Women, one of manynames given to the Irish OTHERWORLD, seems tohave applied specifically to mysterious floatingISLANDS where FAIRY QUEENS like NIAMH of theGolden Hair reign. Such islands were famous, ornotorious, for the FAIRY KIDNAPPINGS that werelaunched from their shores.

Tir na nOg (Tir Na n-og) Irish mythologicalsite The Land of Youth was one of the manynames given to the OTHERWORLD, often con-fused or conflated with FAIRYLAND, because theancient gods called the TUATHA DÉ DANANN werebanished from this world and turned into FAIRIES.The name derives from the fact that no one evergrows old in the Otherworld; instead its inhabi-tants lead a charmed life, dancing and loving, eat-ing from the endlessly fruiting trees and neverhaving to face death. Local legend around theenchanted LOUGH GUR claims that the entranceto Tir na nOg is beneath the LAKE’s waters.

Tir Tairngiri Irish mythic location. TheLand of Promise was the domain of the beauti-ful NIAMH, a FAIRY QUEEN who chose her loversfrom the human sphere and employed FAIRY KID-NAPPING as a means of courtship. As daughter ofthe ocean god MANANNÁN MAC LIR, Niamh livedon a magical ISLAND that, like other areas in

FAIRYLAND, was ideal in all ways: perfect weather,endlessly fruiting trees, beautiful people.

Titania British folkloric figure. InShakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, thisname is given to the FAIRY QUEEN. While thename itself is not Celtic, deriving from a title ofthe Roman goddess DIANA, the conception ofFAIRYLAND as ruled by such a regent is typical ofBritish folklore.

Tlachtga Irish mythological site and goddessor heroine. Less known than the nearby hill ofTARA, Tlachtga nonetheless has deep mytholog-ical significance as the site of the great ÓENACH

or assembly of SAMHAIN, the festival of winter’sarrival on November 1. Now known as the Hillof Ward and located near Athboy in Co. Meath,Tlachtga is the site of impressive earthworksfrom the Celtic period. Its significance lastedinto historical times, for in 1168, the high kingRory O’Connor called together an island-wideassembly there.

Tlachtga rises near the western edge ofIreland’s central plain, called BREGA in earlytexts, now covering most of Co. Meath. Likeother significant mountains in the midlands,Tlachtga is not tall or striking, but its summitoffers a vista of almost half of Ireland. Themythic hills of Tara, SLANE, and LOUGHCREW arevisible on a clear day. A large series of earth-works forming a circular HILLFORT were likelytopped with wooden palisades to form a protec-tive wall. Four large banks fan out from the cir-cle, forming a shape similar to the Rath of theSynods on Tara. Nearby are several WELLS, oneof which has the unusual name of DRUID’s Well;it may be the source of the water known from anancient poem as one of the appropriate offeringsto the king at Tara.

Although not much attention has been paidto Tlachtga by scholars and archaeologists, itheld considerable significance in ancient times.Its curious name includes the word for “earth” inmodern Irish, tlacht, from which some have pro-

Tlachtga 449

posed a lost goddess of that name; the secondsyllable appears to mean “ray” or “spear” (seeGÁE BULGA). Some ancient texts claim that thehill got its name from a WITCH, daughter ofthe magician MOG RUITH. In a confusing tale,she is said to have traveled to Italy to studywith the great magician Simon Magus, fromwhom she learned to make a flying wheel orROTH RAMACH, with which she was able to sailback to Ireland. Somehow, the THREE sons ofSimon Magus tracked her there and raped heron the hill that bears her name. There too shedied, in labor with the three sons of the threebrothers, and there she is buried. Like the par-allel figure of TAILTIU, Tlachtga was honoredwith a festival organized in her memory by thegod LUGH.

Sources: Gilroy, John. Tlachtga: Celtic Fire Festival.Glanmire, Co. Cork: Pikefield Publications,2000; Gwynn, Edward. The MetricalDindshenchas. Royal Irish Academy, ToddLecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, andCo., Ltd., 1906–1924, Reprinted DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies, School of CelticStudies, 1991, pp. 187–191; Raftery, Brian.Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish IronAge. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994, p. 82.

tober See WELL.

tochmarc See WOOING.

togail See DESTRUCTION.

Toice Bhrean Irish folkloric figure. In somelegends from near the enchanted LOUGH GUR,this is the name given to the FAIRY HOUSEKEEPER

who sits at the LAKE’s bottom, knitting endlessly.The name means “slattern” or “lazybones” andrefers to the story that the lake was formed (likeLOUGH NEAGH) when the assigned guardian leftthe lid off a sacred well, which overflowed toform the lake. For her lack of attention, Toice

Bhrean was condemned to spend eternity at thelake’s bottom, beneath a magical tree that grewthere. Only once every seven years did she seedaylight, when the lake’s waters evaporated for afew moments.

toili Welsh folkloric figure. Sometimes atnight, a funeral seemed to pass through a village.All the villagers were visible, passing slowly andmournfully behind a casket, headed toward thecemetery, but all those villagers were reallytucked safe in their homes, for the spectral pro-cession was the toili or ghostly funeral. Thosewith SECOND SIGHT could sometimes see thempassing in the daytime as well. The appearanceof the toili was invariably a premonition thatsomeone’s death was imminent. It was importantto turn aside if one saw the toili pass, for anyoneswept up in its parade would die.

Tommy Rawhead (Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones, Old Bloody Bones) British folkloricfigure. Informants in the last century differed asto where this frightening BOGIE lived, some con-tending that he was a water demon who hauntedBOGS and other somber places, while othersbelieved he lived under stairs and in unused cup-boards. The creature was ugly beyond words,seated on top of a pile of bones with blood drip-ping out of his mouth.

Tom Thumb British folkloric figure.Although the tale of a man the size of a man’sthumb only dates to medieval times, the motif oftiny people is consistent with Celtic FAIRY lore.Tom’s adventures took him to the court of kingARTHUR at CAMELOT, where he arrived in thebelly of a SALMON which was intended for theking’s supper.

toot mounds British mythological site. Manyround hills that can be found in the Englishcountryside go by the common name of “tootmounds,” presumably related to an Indo-

450 tober

European real word meaning “to stick out”which evolved into such words as “tit” and“teat.” Because of their breast shape, some of thehills were topped by pre-Celtic people withCAIRNS to form nipples, reinforcing the idea thatthe earth was seen as a womanly, probablymaternal, body. The most famous such hills arein Ireland and are known as the PAPS OF DANU.

Tor British mythological site. Near the smalltown of GLASTONBURY in southwestern England,a strange pyramidal hill rises. Called the Tor, itwas renowned as an entrance to the OTHER-WORLD and as the home of the king of FAIRY-LAND, called in Welsh GWYNN AP NUDD. TheCeltic saint Collen met the FAIRIES and theirking on the hilltop, where he saw a beautifulpalace filled with dancing figures. When askedhow he liked it, Collen threw holy water at thepalace, whereupon everything disappeared.

The Tor is connected with many Arthurianlegends, for some contend that Glastonbury wasnone other than AVALON itself, the Isle of Appleswhere the great LADY OF THE LAKE conductedARTHUR. On the hilltop stands a tower dedicatedto ST. MICHAEL, who although a Christian figuremay have been absorbed into an earlier god orhero; upon the tower is carved BRIGIT milking aCOW, an image that is also found in otherGlastonbury sites. The tower stands near anIron Age settlement, showing that there hasbeen continuous habitation in the area for morethan 2,000 years.

Beneath the hill are two WELLS. One, thefamous Chalice Well or Blood Spring, has watersstained with iron so that they appear RED as blood.The other, the White Spring, has no such color-ing. The presence of TWIN wells with waters ofdifferent colors would doubtless have drawn theattention of ancient people to this powerful site.

A figure of this name appears in Arthurianlegend as a common-born man who desired tobecome a knight of the ROUND TABLE and who,after succeeding in that goal, was revealed to bethe illegitimate son of king PELLINORE.

Torba See MURNA.

torc (torque) Celtic religious object. Through-out the ancient Celtic lands, archaeologists havefound SPIRALS of coiled metal, often of GOLD andoften elaborately decorated. These torcs can bemassive or slender, and their use is made clearfrom sculptures and bas-reliefs. They were wornabout the neck, with the opening facing to therear. However beautiful the workmanship, thetorcs do not seem to have been simply ornamen-tal, for they are found around the necks of godsand goddesses, as though indicating a divinestature. Worn by humans, they may have had asimilar meaning—of religious dedication—or mayhave been indications of high social rank. Thebodies of BOG PEOPLE are often found wearingtorcs, suggesting that they may have been HUMAN

SACRIFICES rather than criminal executions.

Torc Triath Irish mythological figure. Theking of BOARS, this figure is parallel to the WelshTWRCH TRWYTH; some texts say it was one of themagical possessions of the goddess BRIGIT.

Torna Irish hero. A minor character in thestory of the great king of TARA, NIALL of theNine Hostages, Torna was a BARD who prophe-sied a great future for the baby Niall and offeredassistance to his mother CAIRENN.

totem Cosmological concept. This word isused by scholars to refer to an animal (occasion-ally, plant) believed to have been the ANCESTOR

or ancestral mother of a tribe. Because of thisancient connection, the members of that tribewere forbidden to kill or eat the flesh of theironetime relative. Vestiges of such a belief systemare suggested by certain folk beliefs, such as thesupposed descent by some coastal Irish familiesfrom SEAL women, and by mythological talessuch as that of the king CONAIRE, who was for-bidden to kill birds because his mother wasdescended from them.

totem 451

Toutiorix Continental Celtic god. Knownonly from a single inscription, this god seems tohave been an ancestral god or personification ofthe tribe, similar to TEUTATES. The Romansidentified Toutiorix with their healing god of thesun, APOLLO.

transmigration of souls (metempsychosis)Cosmological concept. Scholars do not agree onwhether the ancient Celts believed in REINCAR-NATION, although there are some texts fromRoman times that appear to refer to such abelief. Among those who do accept the idea,most agree that humans were not necessarilyreborn as humans but rather experienced what iscalled transmigration of souls, moving into thebodies of various animals, birds, and eveninsects. Irish mythology is filled with referencesto such events, as when the fair ÉTAIN waschanged into a fly and impregnated her ownmother so that she could be reborn as a human;the warring swineherds FRIUCH and RUCHT, whowere reborn as RAVENS and STAGS and BULLS;and the great BARD TUAN MAC CAIRILL, who livedas an EAGLE and a SALMON.

trash (guytrash) British folkloric figure. Aform of the SKRIKER, this evil being appearedjust before death as a shaggy DOG (trash) or aCOW (guytrash).

tree Cosmological concept. Trees were not, tothe Celts, merely large woody plants. They werealso religious symbols of the highest order. Thetree occupies many levels of reality, with its rootshidden in the dark underground and its branchesreaching for the sky. For this reason, the treerepresented wisdom: In both Irish and Welsh,the words for tree (fid and gwydd) and wisdom orwise one (fios and gywddon) are related.

This sense of the sanctity of trees is recordedby the earliest writers, for Tacitus describes thedark groves of ANGLESEY, where the DRUID

orders made their last failed stand against the

invading Romans, while other classical writersclaimed that the Celtic NEMETONS or sacredgroves were horrific places where the trees werestained with the blood of HUMAN SACRIFICE.Whether this is true or represents anti-Celticpropaganda, several sixth century B.C.E. sites inGermany (at Goloring and Goldberg) seem toindicate that shrines were built around a hugecentral post, believed to represent a sacred tree.The same building style was found in Ireland, atthe great capital of ULSTER called EMAIN MACHA.In addition, in some regions of Roman Gaulhave been found the tree-shaped JUPITER

columns, carved of stone but perhaps originallymade of wood.

Many tribal names on the Continent suggestthat people saw themselves as descended fromtrees: Eburones from YEWS, Lemovices fromELMS. Individual names, too, referred to trees, aswith Guidgen (“son of wood”) and Guerngen(“son of alder”). In Irish mythology we find fig-ures bearing tree names, like Mac Cuilen (“sonof holly”) and Mac Ibar (“son of yew”). All thesenames suggest that the tree’s upright form wasseen as parallel to that of humans, so much sothat trees could establish human families.

Individual trees were honored into historicaltimes in Ireland. There, legend says that FIVE

great trees were especially magical: the Tree ofRoss, a yew that grew from a seed of a tree in thebiblical PARADISE, bore fruit without ceasing; theTree of Mugna, an OAK, produced 900 bushels ofacorns every year, as well as the same amount ofAPPLES and nuts; the Tree of Tortu, an ASH, wasso huge that when it fell, it reached across theisland; the Tree of Dathi, named for a poet thatit killed as it fell; and the many-branched tree ofUISNEACH, which grew on the sacred mountainin the center of the island. The trees wereplanted by an otherwise unknown mythologicalfigure named Trefuilngig Tre-eochair, who car-ried a branch from the land of the setting sun. Ashe passed over Ireland, berries fell from thebranch, from which the five great trees all grew.

Medieval Irish law, called the BREHON lawsafter the druidical judges who originally articu-

452 Toutiorix

lated them, treated trees like people by dividingthem into classes. There were seven noble trees,for which fines or ÉRICS had to be paid if theywere cut down or injured; these were the oak,HOLLY, HAZEL, apple, BIRCH, ALDER, and WILLOW.Other trees had lesser value in the legal system.These were the peasant trees (elm, hawthorn,aspen, quicken), the shrubs (blackthorn, ELDER,spindle, test-tree, honeysuckle, bird-cherry, andwhite hazel), and the herbs (GORSE, HEATHER,broom, bog-myrtle, and rushes).

The most sacred tree was undoubtedly theoak, which was honored by the druids, who alsobelieved in the magical potency of the MISTLE-TOE that grows parasitically on that species. Thatthe Celts hung on to their sense of the sacrednessof trees long into Christian times can be detectedthrough the many and continued warnings byChristian clerics and rulers against tree worship.In the seventh century, the archbishop ofCanterbury pronounced that “no one shall go totrees, or wells, or stones, or enclosures, or any-where else except to God’s church, and theremake vows or release himself from them.” Werepeople not using trees, along with holy WELLS

and ancient stones, as sites of prayer and petition,there would have been no reason to inveighagainst the practice. Three hundred years later,King Edgar felt compelled to “enjoin that everypriest to zealously promote Christianity andtotally extinguish every heathenism; and forbidwell-worshiping and necromancies, and divina-tions, and worship with various trees and stones.”In Ireland, COINS are still offered to sacred trees(see BILE) at holy wells; the practice is discour-aged—because metal pounded into the bark haskilled more than one sacred tree—but survivesnonetheless.

Sources: Clarke, David. Ghosts and Legends of thePeak District. Norwich: Jarrold Publishing, n.d.,p. 16; Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image inCeltic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,p. 151; Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, pp.118–135.

tree alphabet (Beth-Luis-Nuin) Cosmolog-ical concept. The Celts arranged the most famil-iar and valuable TREES of their lands into a seriesthat had mystical meaning and could be used forDIVINATION. These formed the OGHAM alphabet,each letter of which was named for a tree. Theogham letters were drawn using a system of hor-izontal and diagonal lines; the letters and soundsthese symbols stood for are represented below,along with the tree that each letter was linkedwith. The sound of each letter is the same as theinitial sound of the tree’s Irish name.

B Birch (beith)L Rowan (luis)F Alder (fearn)S Willow (saille)N Ash (nuin)H Hawthorn (huathe)D Oak (duir)T Holly (tinne)C Hazel (coll)Q Apple (quert)M Vine (muinn)G Ivy (gort)NG Broom/fern (ngetal)STR Blackthorn (straif)R Elder (ruis)A Fir/pine (ailm)O Gorse (onn)U Heather (ur)E Aspen (edhadh)I Yew (ido)EA Aspen (ebhadh)OI Spindle (oir)UI Honeysuckle (uileand)IO Gooseberry (iphin)AE Beech (phagos)

This alphabet has been the source of somecontroversy, with some scholars dismissing itsimportance, while others stress it. It was notused as our alphabet is, as a means of transcrib-ing literary works and other compositions forlater reading, but rather as a divinatory tool andas a means of memorizing.

tree alphabet 453

Tree of Tortu (Irish mythic object, Ash of Tortu,Tree of Dath-í) One of the five great TREES ofIreland, it was an ASH, one of the most sacred treesto the Celts. The tree of Tortu was so huge thatwhen it was felled it stretched across Ireland.

tree soul Scottish folkloric symbol. Just as ahuman soul could lodge in a rock or an animal,the EXTERNAL SOUL could also reside in a tree.This belief may derive from the widespreadCeltic belief in the sanctity of TREES.

Tregeagle (John Tregeagle, Jan Tregeagle)Cornish folkloric figure. Once in Cornwall, leg-end says, lived an evil man who pledged his soulto the DEVIL after killing his wife. He outwittedhis fate, however, because he was so selfish thathe would not leave earth after his death butremained to interfere with neighbors whowished to use his land. Finally a local clergyman,intent on saving even lost souls, gave him thetask of emptying a pool with a seashell, which hedid until he wearied. At the moment he stoppedto rest, the devil appeared and dragged himaway, “roaring like Tregeagle,” as the Cornishsaying goes.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 96.

Trenfher See OGMIOS.

Trewa Cornish folkloric site. At this regionnear the town of Zennor, WITCHES were said tomeet for their MIDSUMMER festival, lighting fireson Burn Downs and dancing around, castingspells and otherwise concocting magic and mis-chief. The festival was centered on a strangerock formation called Witches’ Rock, whichlocal superstition holds is certain protectionagainst bad luck, if one touches it nine times atthe stroke of midnight.

triad Welsh and Irish literary form. Because ofthe mystic importance of the number THREE andto facilitate memorization by providing a stan-dard formula, poets and other BARDS composedmany short poems that listed three examples ofqualities, people, and places. Triads list theTHREE SPLENDID WOMEN of king ARTHUR’scourt, the THREE SORROWS OF IRELAND, andmany other groups. Scholars examine the triadsfor the mythological material they encode.

Source: Bromwich, Rachel. Trioedd Ynys Prydein:The Welsh Triads. Cardiff: University of WalesPress, 1961.

Triduana British goddess. In a story similar toone told of Ireland’s BRIGIT, this minor Britishgoddess is said to have pulled her eyes out of herhead to avoid an unwanted suitor. As Brigit wasa triple goddess, and Triduana’s name includesthe syllable for “three,” it is possible this was alocal title of the goddess.

triplicity See THREE.

Tristan Cornish hero. The story of Tristanand his fated love, ISEULT, is one of the greatromances of the Celtic world. He was a youngwarrior, strong and vigorous; he was talented inthe arts, being a fine musician and storyteller.And he was handsome as well, easy on the eyesof the many maidens who swooned after him,but Tristan was fated to love and be loved by thewife of his king.

When that king—Tristan’s uncle, MARK ofCornwall (sometimes, Cornouille in Brittany)—discovered a hair of the most glorious gold, hedetermined to marry the woman to whom itbelonged. That woman was Iseult, and Tristantraveled to Ireland to escort her to her wedding.On the way, Iseult’s handmaid BRANGIEN gave thetwo a potion to relieve their thirst. It was no ordi-nary drink, however, but a magic brew fromIseult’s mother, who to assure her daughter’s hap-

454 Tree of Tortu

piness had concocted a potion for her weddingnight. As she was meant to do with her king, Iseultfell in love with the handsome knight Tristan.

The couple tried to be true to their vows toking Mark, and the wedding went forward buteventually Tristan and Iseult consummated theirlove. Despite their happiness, Iseult finallyreturned to her husband. Heartbroken, Tristanmarried a woman with the same name, but hecould not bring himself to sleep with her, andwhen he heard the false news that his belovedIseult was dead, he died himself.

The story, long viewed as only a romantictale, has its basis in the myth of the goddess ofSOVEREIGNTY who chooses as her mate thestrongest and most virile lover. The same storyappears in variations throughout the Celticlands: in the story of king ARTHUR, his queenGUINEVERE, and her knight LANCELOT inBritain; and in the Irish myth of the aging heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, the glorious GRÁINNE,and the handsome DIARMAIT.

trooping fairies Folkloric motif. FAIRIES

came in two varieties: SOLITARY FAIRIES like theLEPRECHAUN kept their own company andavoided others of their kind, and the more com-mon trooping fairies who lived together in greatpalaces where they danced and sang the dayaway. (Some writers add a third category of fairybeing: the domestic fairy like the BROWNIE who,although living without other fairy kin, wasnonetheless sociable to humans.) Generallythese fairies caused little trouble to humans wholeft them alone, although sometimes they rodeforth on the WILD HUNT to steal babies andbrides AWAY to FAIRYLAND.

trow Scottish folkloric figure. On theShetland and Orkney Islands, these figures rep-resent the most common kind of FAIRY. Like theScandinavian trolls, from whom their nameprobably derives, the trows did not like sunlightand so were nocturnal creatures. Unlike trolls,trows were not typically turned to stone by sun-

light but were merely paralyzed, to return to lifeat nightfall.

Trows were found in two varieties. The seatrow lived beneath the waves, like a MERMAID orSEAL, while the land trows could be GIANTS orhuman-sized gray-coated fairies. If you met oneon the road, he walked backward rather thantoward you. Seeing one was unlucky, but over-hearing them talking to each other broughtgood luck.

Sources: Keightley, Thomas. The Fairy Mythology.London: H. G. Bohn, 1870, p. 105; MacGregor,Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Talesand Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, p. 104;Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions of BritishMythology. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc.,1972, p. 52.

Tryamour Arthurian heroine. In the poetry ofMarie de France, this FAIRY LOVER traded wealthfor sex with the knight LAUNFAL but, like any suchwoman, made one demand: that he never boastabout her. He was unable to fulfill his promise, asis common in such cases, but Tryamour was lesspunitive than others of her race and permittedLaunfal to join her in the OTHERWORLD.

Trystan (Drystan, Drystan fab Tallwch) Welshhero. In a Welsh-language version of the familiartale of TRISTAN and ISEULT, the hero and heroineare named Trystan and ESYLLT, and she is the wifeof king March ap Meirchion. The couple elopedto a forest, where they were besieged by March’sthree armies. The battle was bloody and brutal,and when it appeared that Trystan might win, kingARTHUR was called in to negotiate a truce. Thatwise king told them to share the woman’s favors,with one having her in the summer, the other inthe winter. March chose first: he wanted winter,when nights were longest, but Trystan trickedhim, claiming that because yew trees are greenyear-round, he would keep Esyllt forever. Trystanmay have derived from the lore of the PICTS, a

Trystan 455

mysterious northern British people whose culturalbackground is unknown.

Tuag Irish heroine. At the age of 15, this lovelygirl caught the eye of the god of the sea, MANAN-NÁN MAC LIR, although she had been reared onthe royal hill of TARA by the high king CONAIRE

himself. To ensure that she was kept safe, Conairedecreed that no man should approach Tuag’shome. Many nobles and kings came to court toseek her hand, but Manannán was determined towed her, so he sent his BARD, the dwarf FER Í, ashis emissary. Fer Í disguised himself a woman andcrept into her chambers, where he sang a lullabyso potent that she fell into a dreamless sleep.Continuing to sing to the girl, Fer Í hoisted heronto his shoulders and carried her away. Later,exhausted from carrying her strong body on hissmall shoulders, he set her down while he rested.Unfortunately, he chose his resting place poorly,for the waters of the Bann River rose and carriedTuag away, drowning her.

Similar stories are told of many river god-desses, such as BÓAND and SÍNANN, so Tuag maybe the goddess of the Bann River. Its estuary, TuagInber, bears her name. Three great waves weresaid to dash against Ireland’s coasts: the wave ofthe FAIRY QUEEN CLÍDNA, the Wave of Rudraige,and the wave that strikes the shores at Tuag Inber.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd.,1906–1924. Reprinted Dublin Institute forAdvanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies,1991, pp. 61–63.

Tuairisgeal (t-Urraisgeal) Scottish folkloricfigure. When the king of Ireland was out ridingin Scotland one day, he met this strange manwho lured him into gambling. Tuairisgealseemed an easy mark: First he lost his wife, thenhis horse. The third time, Tuairisgeal won, earn-ing the right to ask anything of the king. Hewanted only one thing: the answer to an unlikely

question. How had his father died? The king didnot know, so he set off to find out. RidingTuairisgeal’s horse and helped by Tuairisgeal’swife, the Irish king finally found himself in thecourt of Greece, where he learned thatTuairisgeal’s father had been a monster who hadturned children into WOLVES. The king ofGreece lost several children to the monster, andat last when his daughter was threatened by amonstrous claw, she was protected by angrywolves—her transformed brothers and sisters.One bit off the monster’s hand, after which theking of Greece tracked the creature to his homeand killed it. The wolfish children were immedi-ately restored to their human forms, and theking of Ireland had to bring bad news back to themysterious gambling stranger.

Source: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p. 3.

Tuan mac Cairill (Tuan Mac Carell) Irishhero. The brother of the early Irish invaderPARTHOLÓN, Tuan survived the plague thatkilled off his people and lived on in a series offorms, including a STAG, a BOAR and an EAGLE.After many such REINCARNATIONS, Tuan becamea SALMON that was eaten by a woman whobecame pregnant (see PREGNANCY THROUGH

DRINKING, EATING). Reborn as a human, Tuanremembered all his lives, which made him agreat and eloquent BARD. A similar story inWales told of the boy GWION who, eaten by thegoddess CERIDWEN while SHAPE-SHIFTING, wasreborn as the bard TALIESIN.

It was Tuan who narrated the mythologicalhistory of Ireland called the BOOK OF INVASIONS.He did so as an expert witness, having livedthrough almost all of Irish history. Some textsclaim that Tuan was the same as the salmon ofWISDOM, otherwise known as FINTAN.

tuath Irish concept. This word, often trans-lated as “tribe,” had a more complex meaning in

456 Tuag

ancient Irish than merely a group of people, forit also referred to the land upon which thatgroup lived. Each tuath chose its own king.Ireland had approximately 150 tuaths, hence thelarge number of kings in Irish mythology andhistory. Some scholars assert that the usual num-ber of members of a tuath was approximately3,000, leading to a proposed total population forthe island of nearly a half-million people. A sim-ilar word appeared in continental Celtic lan-guages, where it became the basis for the nameof an apparent tribal god, TEUTATES.

One ancient legal text says that not only doeseach tuath need a king, but other offices must befilled as well: BARD, churchman, and scholar.Kings were paid taxes (usually in food) by thetuath and could call upon the able-bodied men toassist in protecting the land and its people. Mostpeople stayed within the physical territory oftheir tuath virtually all their lives, seeing theirfriends and relations (and their enemies as well)at regular festivals and assemblies called ÓENACH.While most legal rights were confined to the ter-ritory of the tuath, the bard or poet had the rightto travel beyond the tuath’s boundaries and to betreated according to the expected standard.

Source: Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law.Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, DublinInstitute for Advanced Studies. Early Irish LawSeries, Vol. III, 1988, pp. 3–4.

Tuatha Dé Danann (Tuatha Dé, De Danaan,de Danaan, Fir Dea) Irish mythological race.According to the mythological history ofIreland, the BOOK OF INVASIONS, the penultimateinvaders were a magical race, distant descen-dants of the earlier children of NEMED. Theyfought against the monstrous FOMORIANS andthe tough FIR BOLG, defeating both to earn theright to rule the land. They kept control ofIreland for nearly 3,000 years, until the finalmigratory wave struck the island shores. TheMILESIANS fought bitterly against the Tuatha Dé,who refused to give way. Finally a treaty was pro-

posed, whereby the land would be divided. TheMilesians took the surface world, while theTuatha Dé took the rest: the misty ISLANDS out tosea, the bottoms of LAKES, and the FAIRY MOUNDS.And so they departed, yet never left, Ireland.They became the FAIRY people, immortal pres-ences that still interacted with their human neigh-bors, especially at times when the veils betweenthe worlds lifted, like the magical festivals ofBELTANE on May 1 and SAMHAIN on November 1.

The Tuatha Dé Danann get their name fromDANU, the goddess from whom they weredescended; for this reason they are also calledFir Dea, “men of the goddess.” They includemany of the greatest divinities of Ireland: BRIGIT,goddess of healing, smithcraft and poetry; ÉRIU,after whom the island is named; BÓAND, thewhite cow goddess of rivers; the three war god-dess, BADB, MACHA, and the MÓRRÍGAN; the goodgod DAGDA; MANANNÁN MAC LIR, god of the sea;the envious physician DIAN CÉCHT; the many-gifted LUGH; and many others. When they weredriven from the surface world, they each estab-lished a SÍDHE or palace, some of which wereespecially famous, such as KNOCKSHEGOWNA,where ÚNA lived, and BRÍ LÉITH, home of theloyal MIDIR. There they lived immortal, pleasantlives surrounded by beauty and song, only ven-turing to this world to engage in FAIRY KIDNAP-PING and similarly amoral activities.

Source: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor GabálaÉrenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts1–4. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941, pp.91–314.

tuathal See DIRECTIONS.

Tuireann (Turrean) Irish hero. Like a parallelfigure, UISNEACH, Tuireann receives little atten-tion in Irish mythology, although the story of histhree sons’ deaths is one of the THREE SORROWS

OF IRELAND. The young warriors set out afterCIAN, a hero with whom their father was at war.When he realized he was surrounded, Cian

Tuireann 457

turned into a BOAR and attacked, but the SHAPE-SHIFTING warriors turned into DOGS and broughthim down. They permitted Cian to resume hishuman shape just before he died. For this mur-der, the SONS OF TUIREANN had to perform aseries of exhausting tasks, from which they died.Their father, who was the consort of the greatgoddess DANU (sometimes called DONAND in thistale), himself died of sorrow at hearing the news.

Tuiren See UIRNE.

tulman Scottish folkloric site. This word isused in Scotland to describe the palace inside aFAIRY MOUND.

turning the jacket Irish folkloric symbol.Like carrying IRON or SALT, turning one’s cloth-ing backward or inside out is supposed to be asure protection against FAIRIES, who otherwisemight kidnap a traveler AWAY.

Turoe Stone Irish mythological site. In afield outside the small town of Loughrea nearGalway City, a human-sized boulder standsupright, its top swirling with ornate bas-reliefs.It originally stood near a rath called Feerworebut was moved in historical times to the currentsite. The ornamented stone appears to be in theLA TÈNE style, suggesting that it is Celtic in ori-gin. What purpose it was intended to serve isunknown, but four other pillar stones are knownin other parts of Ireland: at Castle Strange in Co.Roscommon, Killycluggin in Co. Cavan,Mullaghmas in Co. Kildare, and Derrykeighanin Co. Antrim. Such stones may have been sym-bolic central points, like the STONE OF DIVISIONS

on the hill of UISNEACH, which is said to beIreland’s exact center. A replica of the TuroeStone can be seen in the National Museum inDublin.

Source: Harbison, Peter. Pre-Christian Ireland:From the First Settlers to the Early Celts. London:Thames and Hudson, 1988, p. 158.

Tweedie Scottish folkloric figure. This minorwater spirit was the child of a water demon wholived in the Tweed River.

twins Cosmological concept. Although THREE

was the most significant number to the Celts,there is also evidence that they saw symbolicvalue in the number two. Celtic mythology fre-quently pictured goddesses who gave birth totwins. Typically one twin was light and the otherdark or, as in the case of the Welsh NISIEN andEFNISIEN, one good and the other evil. TheRomans associated such twin gods with their ownDioscures, Castor and Pollux.

Twrch Trwyth (Twrch Trwyd) Welsh mon-ster. In the tale of KULHWCH AND OLWEN, thehuman hero Kulhwch sought the hand of the fairOlwen, but her father YSPADDADEN PENKAWR

refused to permit the wedding until the groomhad performed 40 impossible tasks. The mostdifficult was the capture of a COMB, razor, andscissors from the horrifying Twrch Trwyth,who appeared to be a monstrous BOAR but wasin reality a bewitched king trapped in animalform for his misdeeds. With the help ofMABON, freed from bewitchment to help withthe quest, the great boar was found and cap-tured. Given that Kulhwch’s name means “pig-run,” the connection between hunter and preyappears close.

tylwyth teg (fair family) Welsh folkloric fig-ure. This name is often used as a NAME FOR THE

FAIRIES in Wales; there as in other Celtic lands,it was believed impolite or unlucky to refer theFAIRIES by their real names. The king of this fairfamily was GWYNN AP NUDD. Small, childlikebeings, the tylwyth teg wore homespun clothes ofblue, unlike most fairies who wore GREEN orRED. Petroleum was their BUTTER and toad-stools, their bread.

Tyronoe See MORGAN.

458 Tuiren

Uaithne (Uathe) Irish folkloric figure. Theharper who served the beneficent god, theDAGDA, Uaithne eloped with the Dagda’s con-sort BÓAND, with her he had three children,including the musician SÚANTRADE, who inher-ited his father’s great talent. The name is alsogiven to the Dagda’s magical HARP, which wouldonly sing when its owner demanded it.

Uathach (Uathach of the Glen) Scottishmythological figure. The daughter of SCÁTHACH,the WARRIOR WOMAN of the Isle of Skye, Uathachmet the budding hero CÚCHULAINN at the borderof her mother’s lands (the “glen” in her title) andchallenged him. Despite putting forth enormouseffort, neither could win against the other.Realizing that she had met her equal and findingthat enormously attractive, Uathach then setabout helping Cúchulainn with his studies in themartial arts. Although they shared a bed as well aslessons, Cúchulainn finally left Skye to return tohis home in Ulster, abandoning Uathach to returnto his intended wife EMER, to whom he hadpledged fidelity. A variant of the tale says the herowounded Uathach and then, when another loverarrived to help her, killed him, although whetherhe acted out of jealousy or defensiveness isunclear; in another tale, Uathach gave Cúchulainnhis greatest weapon, the mysterious magical GÁE

BULGA, as a reward for his sexual performance.

Uath mac Imoman Irish mythological fig-ure. In the Irish story of the Feast of BRICCRIU, thewarrior Uath mac Imoman challenged all ofIreland’s heroes to a test of their courage: Hewould let them cut off his head, if they would dothe same afterward. Two of ULSTER’s finest war-riors refused, but the great CÚCHULAINN agreed,despite knowing that Uath had FAIRY blood andthus was able to regrow his head. Cúchulainn’scourage was rewarded, and he went uninjured,for the blade of Uath’s sword refused to kill him.For this peculiar feat, Cúchulainn was hailed asthe land’s greatest warrior, an honor that trou-blemaking Briccriu used to stir up the rest of thewarriors against him.

Ucuetis Continental Celtic god. This obscuregod, consort of the goddess BERGUISA, wasdepicted carrying a HAMMER, which may indicatethat he was a parallel to the Irish god of fertility,the mallet-wielding DAGDA, or a local form ofthe hammer-bearing god SUCELLUS.

Uffington See WHITE HORSE OF UFFINGTON.

Uicce Irish hero. This obscure leader of theMILESIANS was, according to the BOOK OF INVA-SIONS, an important early Irish warrior of whomlittle is now known.

6U

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Uigreann (Uirgriu) Irish hero. Although thisobscure hero plays only a small role in Irishmythology, that role is significant, for he waskilled by the great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.Fionn, in turn, was killed by Uigreann’s fivesons, who all cast their spears at once.

Uirne (Tuiren, Tuirn, Tuirreann) Irish mytho-logical figure. The mother of the favorite huntingdogs of the heroic FIONN MAC CUMHAILL was hissister or aunt, Uirne, who was transformed into aDOG by a jealous rival for the affections of herhusband ULLEN. Uirne was pregnant when theenchantment struck her, and so her children wereborn as TWIN puppies, BRAN and SCEOLAN, whogrew up to become Fionn’s companions. Whiletheir mother was released from the spell, hertwins remained forever trapped in canine form.

Uisneach (Usnech, Usna, Uisnech, Usliu,Usnach, Usnoth) Irish mythological site. In thegeographical center of Ireland, a low hill risesamong the rolling lands near the village ofBallymore, between Athlone and Mullingar in Co.Westmeath. Although from its base Uisneach is anondescript hill, the view from its summit isextraordinary, for almost the entire island can beseen from that single vantage point. Ireland’s bowlshape, with mountains along the seashore rim anda great interior plain, is clearly visible from the topof the mountain that was, in ancient times, recog-nized as the island’s magical center (see MIDE).

In Celtic cosmology, the center is not somuch a physical as a metaphoric or spiritual loca-tion, and thus Uisneach shares with the hill ofTARA the title of Ireland’s center. In a mannertypical of the Celtic view of DUALITY, Uisneachand Tara make up a pair of TWINS that may, inancient times, have represented two differentkinds of power. Tara’s associations are predomi-nantly with the political and kingly history of theland, while Uisneach—now little known com-pared to Tara, whose fame remains widespread—was the center of spiritual power, the domain ofthe DRUIDS rather than the kings. The connec-

tion between two hills was recognized by ancientgeographers such as Giraldus Cambrensis, whocalled them “alike as two kidneys.”

Despite their apparent equality, however, it isUisneach rather than Tara that is more signifi-cant in mythology. For it was on Uisneach thatthe last wave of invaders, the MILESIANS, met thegreatest goddess of the land, ÉRIU. They hadpreviously met her two sisters, FÓDLA andBANBA, each standing upon her own mountain.In each case, the Milesians had promised toname the land after the goddess, provided she lettheir armies pass unopposed. Fódla and Banbaeach in turn stood aside, permitting theMilesians to pass to the center of the island,where they met the superlative Ériu. In awe ofher power and opulence, the Milesians cast theirearlier promises aside so that the island couldbear her name, as it still does today.

When Ériu was killed, local legend says thatshe was buried beneath the STONE OF DIVISIONS,a great, naturally placed boulder on the side ofUisneach that is said to mark the exact pointwhere the four PROVINCES come together. TheStone, sometimes called “the naval of Ireland,” isdescribed as showing, on its broken surface, themap of Ireland. More commonly, it was not agoddess killed on the hill but the god LUGH, whowas set upon by three gods, MAC CUILL, MAC

CÉCHT, and MAC GRÉINE, the last being Ériu’shusband. The myths are somewhat fragmentedand self-contradictory, but the connection of thehill with the magical center of the island andwith its tutelary goddess are invariable.

Apparently the first dwellers on the hill werethe FOMORIANS, ancient monsters who warredwith the magical TUATHA DÉ DANANN. TheFomorians required that the Tuatha Dé pay taxon all their kneading-troughs, querns, and bak-ing stones, as well as for every male of the tribe.Anyone who refused to pay the taxes had hisnose cut off. After the Tuatha Dé conquered themonstrous Fomorians, Uisneach became thehome of the strange DRUID MIDE, whose namemeans “middle”; thus the magician doubles themetaphorical meaning of the hill itself.

460 Uigreann

Mide lit a huge fire on the hill, fed with trib-utes from all the other druids of Ireland. Whenthey objected to paying this tax, Mide had themall killed and their tongues cut out; he had thetongues buried in the hill, sitting above them(the source of the hill’s name, “over somewhat,”although it may also refer to the hill’s prospect;the name is also translated as “proudly,” forMide sat proudly over the druids’ tongues).Another legend credits the igniting of theUisneach fire to the druid or fire goddess DEL-BÁETH, from whose blaze FIVE great points oflight streamed forth. Some scholars have inter-preted the mutilation motif as indicating culturalchange and the social oppression that oftenattends on it.

Fires were important in the mythology ofUisneach. They were also important ritually, forit was on that hill that the first BELTANE fire ofeach year was lit. Reconstructions of an island-wide ceremony suggest that the hill of Tararesponded to the twin fires on Uisneach’s summitwith its own fires, whereupon the other hilltopsof Ireland were similarly set ablaze. Yet early doc-uments also suggest that Tara remained dark, itsrole in the ceremonies being taken up by othernearby hills such as KNOCKAULIN and TLACHTGA.

Into historical times, Beltane fires were lit onUisneach, and CATTLE driven between them as aritual prayer for protection against disease andbad magic. Uisneach was also the site of a greatÓENACH or assembly, presumably held atBeltane. Until recent years, the assemblies con-tinued in nonreligious form as cattle fairs, forthe fertile region around Uisneach is one of themost renowned for its herds.

The connection of Uisneach hill to themythological figure of the same name is unclear.Little narrative exists about the warriorUisneach, whose wife Ebhla was the daughter ofCATHBAD, the evil DRUID who figures promi-nently in the ULSTER CYCLE, and his wife Maga,an otherwise obscure daughter of the god ofpoetry, AONGHUS ÓG. The SONS OF UISNEACH

figure in a story known as one of the THREE SOR-ROWS OF IRELAND (see DEIRDRE).

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:Thames and Hudson, 1992; Gwynn, Edward.The Metrical Dindshenchas. Part II. Vol. IX.Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd., 1906;Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances. London:Parkgate Books, 1997, p. 36; O’Rahilly,Thomas. Early Irish History and Mythology.Dublin: The Dublin Institute for AdvancedStudies, 1946, p. 171.

Ulfius Arthurian hero. One of the knightswho served UTHER PENDRAGON, Ulfius assistedhis master’s plot to SHAPE-SHIFT into the formof duke GORLOIS of Cornwall, so that he mighttake his pleasure with the virtuous IGRAINE

without the lady knowing of the deceit. Ulfius’sloyalty continued when he became chamberlainto king ARTHUR, the child conceived as a resultof the deception.

Uliad (Uliadh, Ultonian) Irish mythologicalfigures. This term, now out of fashion, was usedto refer to the people of the land of ULSTER, oneof Ireland’s four great PROVINCES.

Ullen (Ullan, Illann, Iollann) Irish hero. Thehusband of UIRNE, sister (or aunt) of the heroFIONN MAC CUMHAILL, Ullen was indirectlyresponsible for her bewitchment. A womanDRUID became enamored of Ullen and, gainingno attention from him, turned his wife Uirneinto a DOG out of spite. This won the druid whatshe desired, because Ullen slept with her to winback his wife’s human form.

Ulster Irish mythological site. One of thePROVINCES of ancient Ireland, Ulster is not syn-onymous with the political unit now called bythis name, for the old provincial boundariesincluded three counties (Monaghan, Cavan, andDonegal) that are part of the Republic ofIreland, as well as the six counties that make ofNorthern Ireland (Armagh, Antrim, Down,

Ulster 461

Derry, Fermanagh, and Tyrone) and are part ofthe United Kingdom. In myth, Ulster was asso-ciated with war, as the stories of the ULSTER

CYCLE make clear. FINTAN, the SALMON of WIS-DOM, when asked to describe the attributes ofthe various provinces, connected Ulster withbattle, strife, pride, and conflict. The capital ofthe ancient province of Ulster was EMAIN

MACHA; after the fall of Emain Macha, GRIANÁN

AILEACH became the capital.

Ulster Cycle (Red Branch Cycle) Irishmythological texts. The series of tales about thePROVINCE of ULSTER that make up the UlsterCycle are among the most renowned in Irish lit-erature. The Cycle begins with MACHA, a goddessor FAIRY QUEEN who was betrayed by her humanhusband. He wagered that she could outrun kingCONCOBAR MAC NESSA’s best horses, and so shedid, despite being ready to give birth to TWINS.As she died bearing her children, Macha leveleda curse that all the men of the province would falldown in intense pain whenever invasion threat-ened (see DEBILITY OF THE ULSTERMEN).

This left the province vulnerable to attack,which it suffered when queen MEDB of CON-NACHT marched upon the land, intent upon seiz-ing the great bull DONN CUAILNGE, in order tosettle a dispute with her consort AILILL macMáta. The greatest of Ulster’s heroes, CÚCHU-LAINN, held off Medb’s encroaching armies, forhe was not born of Ulster blood and was there-fore exempt from Macha’s curse. Other stories inthe Ulster Cycle include the tragic tale ofDEIRDRE and the SONS OF UISNEACH, the story ofNESSA the raped maiden, and of DECHTIRE themiraculous mother.

Úna (Oona, Oonagh, Nuala) Irish heroine.The beautiful FAIRY QUEEN of MUNSTER, thesouthwestern province of Ireland, Úna lived inthe great mound of KNOCKSHEGOWNA (CnocSídhe Úna) in Co. Tipperary. Despite her asso-ciation with Munster, Úna took as her lover thepowerful fairy king FINNBHEARA of the western

province of CONNACHT. Although he constantlycheated on her with non-fairy women, she didnot hold it against the human race, to whom shewas beneficent. One of the most famous storiesof Úna tells how, annoyed by a drunken piper,she turned herself into a calf and, with the piperclinging to her back, made a massive leap to theshores of the Shannon River. When the piperappeared undismayed by his calf-assisted flight,Úna forgave him his bad piping and returnedhim to the place from which she had stolen him.

Uncumber (Liberata, Livrade, Wilgefortis,Saint Uncumber) British folkloric figure. It ispossible that the SAINT of this name disguises anancient goddess of the region around Burton, inSussex, where Uncumber is still honored. Shehas strange duties for a Christian saint, forUncumber was charged with freeing wives fromthe encumbrance of their husbands. Once calledWilgefortis, Uncumber was a pagan princess ofsouthern France who, threatened by her fatherwith an unwanted marriage, prayed to be madeunattractive to men and woke up with a beard.

Undry (Uinde) Irish symbolic object. Thisname is sometimes given to the great CAULDRON

of the beneficent god DAGDA, which fed everyonewho needed food and refused no hungry person.

Unseelie Court British folkloric motif. TheFAIRIES who screamed through the earth on theirWILD HUNT are known by this name, whichmeans “unseemly” or “unholy.” While somefairies, like BROWNIES, were helpful to humanbeings, the TROOPING FAIRIES of the UnseelieCourt were dangerous. Anyone who saw themwas a potential victim for FAIRY KIDNAPPING.Good fairies who danced and sang but did notkidnap mortals formed the SEELIE COURT.

Urban (Urban of the Black Thorn) Arthurianhero. This guardian figure stood at a RIVER ford,protecting his land from invasion. Magical birds

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helped him: One, killed by PERCIVAL, wasrevealed to be an enchanted woman. He plays lit-tle part in Arthurian legend.

Urien British mythological figure andArthurian hero. In the works of the earlymythographer and historian Nennius, we learnof four ancient warriors, one of them namedUrien. With the others—Dhydderch, Gua-Ilaugand Morcant—Urien attacked the rulerTheodric, who held out against him for threedays on the island of Lindisfarne before suc-cumbing to their mightier force.

In Arthurian legend, Urien was the king ofGore and husband of king ARTHUR’s half sister,the sorceress MORGAN; their son was the heroicknight OWEIN. In some texts, Urien is matedwith the otherwise obscure MODRON, whom hemet at a RIVER ford, where they had intercourse,a motif that occurs as well in tales of the Irishgoddess MÓRRÍGAN. Urien’s name was adoptedby poet William Blake for one of his earth spir-its, although there is no evidence from earliertexts that he was a god or FAIRY.

urine (urination) Mythological motif. In Irishand Scottish mythologies, female creator figurescarve out gullies and ravines down the sides ofmountains by letting out enormous gushes ofurine. MEDB stopped the CATTLE RAID on ULSTER

to urinate, thus carving out a gulch that can stillbe seen today. More commonly, the HAG goddesscalled the CAILLEACH, along with her regionalforms such as MÓR, is credited with this landscape-creating behavior.

Urnfield Period of Celtic culture. The earliestperiod of Celtic culture is called the Urnfield,named for the practice of cremating the dead andthen burying the ashes in huge ceramic urns.Whether this period (ca. 13th–8th century B.C.E.)should be called Celtic is arguable, as it is not

known for certain what language those buried inUrnfield cemeteries spoke, and thereforewhether they were Celtic or not.

uruisg (urisk, water-man) British folkloricfigure. A stupid and slovenly kind of FAIRY whohaunted lonely waterfalls, the uruisg was notespecially threatening to humans, except forpretty girls who could be terrified by his leeringand lurching. Sometimes the uruisg appearedlike a BROWNIE, willing to help with farm choresprovided no recompense was offered, but moretypically he hid from human contact.

Uscias Irish hero. The mysterious cities fromwhich the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, Ireland’s magicalrace, originated were each governed by a masterof WISDOM. Uscias was the master of the city ofFINDIAS, from which the unerring sword of kingNUADA reached Ireland.

Usnach (Usnoth) See UISNEACH.

Uther Pendragon (Uthr Bendragon) Arthur-ian hero. The father of the great king ARTHUR,Uther Pendragon (“dragon-head”) desired thefaithful IGRAINE, wife of GORLOIS the duke ofCornwall, and with the assistance of the greatmagician MERLIN he had his way with her. WhileGorlois was away fighting some of Arthur’s men, aman looking exactly like him arrived at his homeand went immediately to bed with his wife.Gorlois was indeed far away, and the apparentduke was Uther, under a GLAMOUR to appear asIgraine’s husband. Once Arthur’s mother had con-ceived him, his father played little additional rolein his legend.

Source: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Histories of theKings of Britain. London: J. M. Dent and Sons,1912, pp. 147 ff.

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Varia (Vaum) Irish heroine. An Irish folktaletells of this nagging woman who was married toan unusually lazy man named DONAGHA. Whenhe was gifted by the FAIRY people with twowishes, he wasted one by asking that the load ofwood he was carrying would grow feet so that itcould walk by itself. When Varia cursed her hus-band for his foolishness, he wished that she wasfar, far away from him. Instantly he got his wish.She was lifted high in the air, touching down atat Teach na Vauria in Co. Kerry, while he wastransported to Donaghadee, at the other end ofthe island in Co. Down.

Vates Continental Celtic social role. This Latinword may have entered the language of Romefrom an original source in a Celtic language. Theword, which means “prophet,” refers to a socialcaste of diviners who, like DRUIDS and BARDS,served the religious needs of the people.

Venus Continental and British goddess.Throughout the Celtic lands occupied by theRoman legions, diminutive figures of clay havebeen found that represent an ample-breastedwoman wearing a hooded cloak, or naked andclad only in the cloak of her long hair. Becausethe figures often emphasize the public triangle,they are interpreted as FERTILITY figures and are

called by the name of the Roman goddess ofinfatuation, Venus. The name or names that theCelts used for this goddess has been lost.

The name of Venus is also given to a famousstatue in Brittany that represents a clearly non-local goddess, Isis of Egypt; but the currentshape has been carved over an earlier one, creat-ing an awkward though womanly form.Whether the Venus of Quimpilly represents aremnant of an earlier local goddess cult or animported divinity is unknown.

Verbeia (Verbia) British goddess. One of themany RIVER goddesses of Celtic lands, Verbeiawas the resident spirit of the River Warfe,known from inscriptions at a Roman fort inYorkshire. The name, which may mean “wind-ing river” or “she of the cattle,” may not be orig-inal, but a Latinized form of a Celtic name.Local legend has it that the river goddessappeared on BELTANE morning, on May 1, in theform of a white HORSE; anyone seeing theapparition should be wary of drowning in theriver’s spring flood. Such threatening tales havebeen interpreted as indicating a folk memory ofHUMAN SACRIFICE (see PEG POWLER). Horses arenot typical familiars of the Celtic river goddess,who is more likely to appear as a COW, so theconnection of the animal with Verbeia may indi-cate a confusion with the mare goddess EPONA.

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A sculpture found at Ilkley in Yorkshireshows the goddess holding two long snakes inher hands, possibly representing the waterywaves of her river. Some scholars have seen evi-dence of a solar cult in Verbeia’s iconography,which includes SPIRALS and WHEELS.

Viereckschanzen (sing., Viereckschanze)Continental Celtic site. Across the Celticregions of Europe, archaeologists have foundthese ritual enclosures, surrounded by a squareor rectangular ditch. Some show evidence oftimber buildings, presumably shrines or TEM-PLES, within them; burials too have been foundon these sites, as well as the remains of whatappear to have been animal offerings. Oftenthere are indications of a WELL in the enclosure.

Vindonnus (Vindonus) Continental Celticgod. The Romans equated this HEALING godwith their own APOLLO; he was worshiped inwhat is today called Burgundy and may have hadspecial power over EYE diseases.

Vinotonus British god. This obscure godmay have been connected with wine-making orgrape-growing, for his name seems to includethe syllable for “wine,” vin-. A shrine dedicatedto Vinotonus, found on the Yorkshire moors,points to his powers as a god of wild NATURE, asdoes his identification by the Roman legion-naires with their wildwood god SILVANUS. Thetwo associations may be linked by the tendencytoward wild behavior of wine-drinkers, or theconnection with wine may be a false etymology.

Vintius Continental Celtic god. This obscuregod was equated by the Romans with their TWIN

god Pollux, an unusual identification that unfor-tunately does not much illuminate the god’smeaning. His name seems to suggest a connec-tion with wind, as does the fact that Vintius washonored by Celtic sailors.

vision See AISLING.

Visucia Continental Celtic goddess. Thisobscure goddess is known from several inscrip-tions in southwestern France; sometimes she isseen with a consort, Viscucius, whose name isthe male form of her own. It is unclear what hercharacter or powers were.

Vitiris (Vitris, Venus, Hvitiris) British god.Many inscriptions to this popular god have beenfound in northern England, in contexts that sug-gest that he had nonnative as well as Celtic fol-lowers. However, nothing is known of what herepresented, although he is sometimes depictedwith a PIG or a SERPENT.

Viviane (Vivienne, Nimue) Arthurian heroine.The FAIRY LOVER of the great magician MERLIN,Viviane may be the same figure who appears insome legends under the name NIMUE, who may inturn be the mysterious LADY OF THE LAKE, protec-tor of king ARTHUR. Viviane is usually creditedwith Merlin’s magical demise. Various reasons aregiven for her actions toward him: that she wasangry when he refused to share his magical knowl-edge with her, that she was jealous of his wander-ing affections, or that she wished to save him fromthe pain of growing old. In any case, she encasedthe magician in a tree, where he still lives today.Or perhaps she just bewitched him so that hebelieved he was encased. The location of Merlin’sprison-tree is usually given as the legendary forestof BROCÉLIANDE in Brittany.

Vosegus Continental Celtic god. Althoughlike many other divinities of his region, Vosegusis known only from Roman-era inscriptions andsculptures, he is believed to have been the wild-wood god of the Vosges mountains in easternFrance, which bear his name to this day.

votive deposits Celtic ritual. It was commonpractice among the Celts to make offerings atholy places. COINS, PINS, and other jewelry,swords and other weapons, clay sculptures ofdivinities or human forms—any could be offeredto the divinity resident in a place, in hopes of

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gaining some boon or averting some danger.RIVER sources, WELLS, LAKES, and thermalSPRINGS were especially favored locations formaking such offerings.

vough (fuath, brollachan) Scottish folkloricfigure. This terrifying female BOGIE or KELPIE

was the most fearful apparition encountered inthe Scottish Highlands. She could be capturedbut not held; one apparently successful hunterfound, when his companions gathered around toadmire his catch, just a smear of jellyfish intowhich the monster had dissolved. Her namemeans “hatred” or “aversion,” which is how shewas generally greeted.

Although usually female, the vough occasion-ally appeared as male. Both had webbed feet andnoseless faces; they usually wore GREEN, theFAIRY color. They disliked daylight but enjoyedintercourse, sexual as well as conversational,with humans; thus some families, like theMunroes, claimed to have vough blood in theirveins (see also SEAL; SWAN MAIDEN). The wordbrollachan appears to describe the vough in itsimmature or larval stage.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands of

Scotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, p.188; McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p.14; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 23.

vow See GEIS.

voyage (Imram; pl., Imrama) Irish literarytext. One of several categories of literary textfrom which we derive our knowledge of Irishmythology (see also AISLING, DESTRUCTION,WOOING), the voyage tales describe how a herotravels to the OTHERWORLD and what he encoun-ters there. Some voyage tales have aspects of theaisling (dream-poem); a few have elements ofSATIRE. Some famous examples of this genreinclude the Voyage of BRAN, in which a human islured by a FAIRY LOVER to leave his home; and theVoyage of MAELDUIN, in which the hero encoun-ters several frightening Otherworld womenwhile at sea. A similar but distinct form, theADVENTURE, also describes trips to theOtherworld but pays less attention to the actualjourney, focussing instead on the destination.

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waff British folkloric figure. In Yorkshire thisname was applied to what is called elsewhere aCO-WALKER, a spirit double that appeared justbefore someone’s death. Unlike what occurredin other traditions, however, death could beaverted if one spoke sharply to the waff, whichbecame frightened and departed, leaving thespeaker a few more years of life.

wake Irish ritual. After a religious funeral,Irish people today typically gather to share foodand drink, stories and music. The tradition is along-standing one, with possible roots in thepagan past, when the deceased were believed tohave gone over to an OTHERWORLD from whichthey could occasionally return, especially onSAMHAIN night when the veils between theworlds were thinnest. Similarly, the wake mayhave its roots in a belief that the beloved deadare most vulnerable to FAIRY KIDNAPPING whennewly deceased; the wake then served to protectagainst fairy influences. In contrast, the world-wide fear that the dead may drag the living intothe Otherworld with them may have given riseto wake amusements as a means of protectingthe living.

Until recent times, the non-Christian aspectsof the wake were significant, so much so thatpriests attempted to discourage traditionalgames that may have descended from old rituals.

Gathering to “wake the dead” occurred before,rather than after, the funeral service. The bodywas laid out, face uncovered, often in the parloror best room; thus the deceased was able to“attend” the wake. Loud KEENING—wailing orsobbing, usually by women—announced that thewake had begun. Although members of the fam-ily might keen, unrelated women of the commu-nity assisted, expressing grief through loud cries.

During the wake, it was traditional thatsomeone always sit with the body, so that thedeceased was never alone while there were peo-ple in the house. Visitors arrived over the next12 to 24 hours, paying respects to the corpseand then finding their way to food and drink.Anyone was welcome, no matter how distantlythey knew the family or the deceased; no onewas turned away.

Despite the somberness of the occasion, visi-tors made quite merry, for it was considered illfortune for a wake to be without laughter. Muchof the merriment was verbal, for jokes and sto-ries, puns and rhymes were part of the occasion.Jokes could become quite insulting, with ridiculeand mockery formalized in games like “Makingthe Stack” (a gossip game) and “I Have aQuestion” (a self-revealing game). Then therewere indoor athletic contests, including “liftingthe corpse” (not in fact that of the deceased, butany corpulent visitor willing to stiffen his body),wrestling and arm wrestling, and piggyback

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riding (called “driving the pigs across thebridge”)—all likely to cause some commotion inthe narrow confines of an Irish cottage.

Some of the games hint at a belief in per-sonal rebirth, as when mourners pretended tobe dead and were awakened by their fellows.Others focused on the cyclical rebirth of lifeimplied in sexuality, for kissing and courtinggames like Frumso Framso, in which ardentkisses were exchanged among virtually all at thewake, were common.

Source: Ó Súilleabháin, Seán. Irish WakeAmusements. Cork: Mercier Press, 1967.

Warna Cornish heroine or goddess. Thepatron saint of shipwrecked mariners, honoredon the Isles of Scilly off Cornwall (see SILLINA),may have originally been the goddess of thatregion or its waters. History records a local habitof leaving offerings at Warna’s sacred WELL in aneffort to attract the wealth of wrecked ships tothe islands; this rather predatory prayer seems atodds with Warna’s alleged protective function.

Source: Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess: Celticand Pagan Legacy of the Landscape. London:Blandford, 1997, p. 83.

warrior women (bangaisgedaig) Mythicmotif. Throughout the ancient Celtic lands, wefind goddesses whose speciality was war: BritishANDRASTE, Irish BADB, Gaulish CATHUBODUA.We also find goddesses and heroines who werewarriors: the Irish MEDB of CONNACHT led herarmies into battle against the province to thenorth, ULSTER; the great SCÁTHACH of the Isle ofSkye trained heroes like CÚCHULAINN; Scáthách’sdaughter (or double) AÍFE not only trained withheroes but bore children to them. Beyond suchmythological material, we find historical evi-dence of women who led their tribes into battle,as did the British queens BOUDICCA andCartimandua, and of women who fought along-side their men to protect their lands and families.

Nonetheless there is general scholarly agreementthat Celtic women were not typically warriors.

Source: Clark, Rosalind. The Great Queens: IrishGoddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen NíHoulihan. Irish Literary Studies 34. GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, 1991.

washer at the ford (bean nigh, bean nighe,washer-wife, washing fairy) Irish and Scottishfolkloric figure. A form of the BANSHEE or deathprophet, this spectral woman appeared before adeath, washing the clothes of the doomed in ariver, stream, or small pool. A passerby heard anoise that sounded like water rippling; it was thesound of her slapping at the laundry in the coldwater. She appeared as a small GREEN-garbedwoman with RED webbed feet.

Occasionally the washer was said to be theghost of a woman who, dying in childbirth, leftlaundry unfinished, but most agree that she wasa member of the FAIRY race. Like others of herkind, the washer was generally prescient, able tosee other things in the future besides imminentdeath; thus if you could catch a glimpse of herbefore she saw you, you could demand aprophecy, which was always accurate. Such for-tune-telling was risky, however, because thewasher could injure those caught spying on her,inflicting broken bones by waving her washing.

The washer appeared most often before bat-tles, when she had a great pile of laundry to do;the more brutal the battle, the greater her work-load. As a result, she was sometimes associatedwith the war goddess BADB or with the phantomqueen MÓRRÍGAN.

Sources: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and FolkloreSociety. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, p.32; Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions ofBritish Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,Inc., 1972, p. 22.

wasteland Mythological motif. Their mythssuggest that the Celts believed that if a king were

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wounded in body or spirit, his land would ceaseto bear fruit and his people would starve. Manymyths revolve around the question of the BLEM-ISHED KING, but it is unclear how such beliefsaffected the lives of actual rulers. The most sig-nificant literary use of the motif appears inworks inspired by the GRAIL legend, in which theFISHER KING was wounded in his genitals (ormore discreetly, his thigh) and the land becamebarren. Exhausted and in pain, the king wasunable to rule but only fished in the increasinglysterile LAKES. In Irish legend a BARD was to cre-ate a SATIRE fierce enough to drive the failedking from the throne, but in Arthurian romanceknights instead sought the sacred Grail torelease the land from its endless winter.

water Cosmological concept. The Celts sawfresh water as sacred, whether it ran in RIVERS

and SPRINGS or was still in LAKES and WELLS.This appreciation for a vital part of the ecosys-tem is appropriate to a people to whom NATURE

was a source and residence of divinity. Wateroften appears as a dividing line between thisworld and the OTHERWORLD; thus FAIRIES live incities at the bottom of lakes or on islands in themiddle of rivers. Water from holy wells, usuallydevoted to a SAINT or diminished deity, was heldto be a HEALING medicine.

water bull (tarbh uisge) Scottish folkloricfigure. Like the more common WATER HORSE,this creature from the realm of the FAIRY wasunfriendly to humans; it often stood guard at theentranceway to FAIRY MOUNDS or palaces.

water horse (aughisky, agh-iski, eachuisge, eachuisge) Scottish and Irish folkloric figure. Thishorrible being rose from beneath the waves ofLAKES or from the ocean, looking like thestrongest and most powerful horse ever seen. Ifyou mounted it—unable to resist the temptationto ride as fast as the wind—you would soon regretyour decision. The water horse galloped away, sofast that the rider suffocated from lack of breath;

or the animal plunged back into the water, drown-ing the victim. Even worse were the water horsesthat grazed quietly by a riverside with no bridge;an unwary traveler who thought to keep clothingdry by riding the horse to the other side foundthat, once halfway across the river, the water horsedove down and tried to drown the rider.

For those who wanted to risk such a death, itwas important to point the water horse’s headinland, for if he ever saw water, the rider’s fatewould be sealed. The creatures, which came outmost often in November, were wily enough totake on forms other than equine; sometimes theyappeared as helpless maidens or handsomeyouths, but if you offered them a hand, theyturned instantly into a ravening beast who triedto eat you alive. (For this reason it was deemedwise to check the smile of apparent humans youmeet at watery places; any sign of green veg-etable matter stuck between the teeth was a sig-nal that the water horse had been grazing andshape-shifted when you appeared.) Humanswere not their only diet; they also ate CATTLE, soit was dangerous to leave a herd unattended on alakeshore. Sometimes they inexplicably left theorgans of their victims in the grass, to be foundby grieving relatives and frustrated herdsmen.

It was almost impossible to kill a water horse,although if you could snare it and hold it over afire—difficult to do, given the monster’s size—itmelted into a puddle of slime. Some legends saythat all lakes were the residue of ancient waterhorses, melted away at their death.

See also CABYLL-USHTEY.

water-leaper (llamhigyn y dwr) Welsh folk-loric figure. Like the WATER BULL or the WATER

HORSE, this monster (a kind of giant toad) hid inthe water until a man or beast walked by, where-upon it leaped out, grabbed its prey, and draggedit underwater to eat it.

waulking songs Folkloric motif. The songsthat were sung by groups of women as they“waulked” or shrank woolen fabrics to make

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them waterproof were filled with mythologicaland folkloric references. Because of the conser-vative force of such oral transmittal, the materialin the songs is often ancient. With the inventionof mechanical looms and machines to processwoolens, the tradition of women’s singing hasbeen in serious decline, although some contem-porary artists like Scotland’s Capercaille haverecorded and made available some of the age-old, heavily rhythmic, songs.

Wayland (Wieland) British folkloric ormythological hero. Like the Irish GOBAN SAOR,Wayland is a folkloric remnant of a mythologicalcharacter. The SMITH was, to the Celts, a magi-cal being with powers that exceeded those ofnormal humans; the Germans had similarbeliefs, so it is difficult to know whether thesmith whose name appears in British legend andfolkloric sites derives from one or both cultures.The lameness attributed to Wayland was a likelyimport from the Mediterranean, where thesmith god Vulcan was depicted as crippled.Wayland’s handicap was imposed upon him by alegendary king, Nithland (Nidud) of the Niars,who cut his hamstrings, the better to trap him atthe forge. Wayland got revenge by killing theking’s son and raping his daughter. AmongWayland’s many gifts was the forging ofsupremely effective weapons, such as EXCALIBUR,the sword borne by king ARTHUR.

weasel See STOAT.

well (tober, tubber) Mythological site. Hun-dreds of so-called holy wells are still in active usein Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; in Irelandapproximately 3,000 have been recorded.Although usually dedicated to a SAINT, there isclear evidence that they were originally pagansites, perhaps pre-Celtic but certainly honoredin Celtic times. Because fresh WATER was notonly a necessity for health and life but also asymbol of the magical OTHERWORLD, wells—

where cool, clean water sprang up from nearbedrock, more like a small stream than a deeppit—were especially revered. They were thesites for INAUGURATION of regional kings, whowould drink the water as a pledge of fidelity tothe SOVEREIGNTY goddess. They were also used,as they still are today, for HEALING rituals. Oftenthe water was believed especially potent on spe-cific days, including the Celtic holidays (IMBOLC,BELTANE, LUGHNASA, SAMHAIN). Later, holywells were honored as Christian sites, oftengiven saints’ names that echoed, like BRIGIT, aCeltic divinity. Rituals at holy wells continue tothis day in parts of Ireland and other Celticlands, usually involving a solemn processionaround the water, decoration of nearby treeswith ribbons called CLOOTIES, and placement ofstones, COINS, or other offerings in or near thewell’s water.

Wells were believed to have the power tomove if offended by ill-considered behavior;taboos were especially strong against placing anykind of litter or garbage in the well. Talesabound of wells departing from one region inthe middle of the night, accompanied by FAIRY

LIGHTS; the next day the well would be found inits new home in a competing district. Such sto-ries doubtless had the advantage of helping tokeep a region’s water supply free of pollution.

Wells appear in many myths, usually guardedby a woman, who might be young and beautiful(see LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN) or haggard withage (see CAILLEACH). Some narratives warn thatwomen should not approach certain wells, espe-cially those wherein the SALMON of wisdomswam. Goddesses such as BÓAND and SÍNANN

ignored the advice and traveled to the well ofSEGAIS or CONNLAs well, only to be drownedwhen the well rose up and chased them acrossthe land, forming rivers that bear the goddess’snames (the Boyne and the Shannon respec-tively). While usually cited as a warning againstwomen’s ambition for learning, the connectionof wells with women guardians suggests that themyths may have been altered or that they are infact creation narratives, for by tempting the well

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out of its bounds, Bóand and Sínann create thefertile watersheds of Ireland.

Sources: Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. Sacred Waters:Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland.London: Granada, 1985; Brenneman, Walter,and Mary Brenneman. Crossing the Circle at theHoly Wells of Ireland. Charlottesville: Universityof Virginia Press, 1995; Burne, CharlotteSophia. Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings,Part II. Yorkshore: EP Publishing, 1974, pp.412–434; Gribben, Arthur. Holy Wells and SacredWater Sources in Britain and Ireland: An AnnotatedBibliography. New York: Garland Publishing,1992; Hull, Eleanor. Folklore of the British Isles.London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1928, pp.106–117; Rackard, Anna. Fish Stone Water: HolyWells of Ireland. Cork: Atrium, 2001; Westropp,T. J. Folklore of Clare: A Folklore Survey of CountyClare and County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths.Ennis, Co. Clare: Clasp Press, 2000, pp. 49–53.

well dressing Folkloric ritual. In some areasof rural England, notably in Derbyshire and thePeakland district, a springtime tradition is stillpracticed wherein flowers, seeds, and other nat-ural objects are embedded in clay to form pic-tures, which are then displayed at holy WELLS.The tradition, which doubtless harks back to rit-uals of veneration addressed to the wells, contin-ues as a source of civic and community pride.Some of the patterned flower creations are quiteelaborate and artistic.

west Cosmological concept. To the Irish, thedirection of sunset was also the direction of theOTHERWORLD. FAIRY beings like NIAMH of theGolden Hair came from the west to lure humansto their lovely but sterile world. ISLANDS off thewest coast, such as Inisbofin (the island of themagical white COW), were magical because oftheir location. Unlike some other cultures, theIrish did not necessarily see west as a symbol ofdeath, except insofar as FAIRY KIDNAPPING tookhumans AWAY to another world.

Among Ireland’s PROVINCES of Ireland, thewesternmost is CONNACHT, one of the most cul-turally traditional regions; thus in Ireland’s spir-itual geography, west represents WISDOM andtradition.

See BUILDING TO THE WEST.

wheel Symbolic object. As a HORSE-rearingpeople who traveled in CHARIOTS, the Celtslearned how to made wheels early in their cul-tural history. Later the wheel became an imageof divinities, especially those associated with theSUN, which was imagined wheeling through thesky; rituals in honor of the sun often took theform of rolling wheels (sometimes set ablaze)down a hill. As a chariot wheel, the sun becameconnected with war, and it was often depictedwith warrior gods.

white Cosmological concept. Words trans-lated as “white” are often found in names andtitles of Celtic divinities. The word might bebetter translated as “shining” or “radiant,” for itrefers to a quality of light rather than theabsence of color. Many deities and heroic figuresbear names that suggest they were seen as ema-nating brilliant light: BÓAND (or BÓ FIND), theIrish COW goddess, whose brightness may be thelight reflecting off her RIVER, the Boyne; FINTAN

the SALMON, who swam in the sacred WELL andwhose flesh carried all the world’s WISDOM; andthe brilliant hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL.

White Horse of Uffington British mytho-logical site. Near Oxford, at a high point of theBerkshire downs, a huge earth sculpture can beseen up to 20 miles away: the flowing, swirlinglines of the White Horse of Uffington, createdby digging shallowly in the ground. Because theearth is chalky at that spot, removing the grassyturf from the surface created a startling whiteline in the green grass.

While there are several such British sculp-tures of great antiquity (see CERNE ABBAS GIANT),

White Horse of Uffington 471

only one depicts the image of a HORSE; otherchalk-outlined white horses exist, but they aremuch later in date and unconnected to Britain’sprehistory and Celtic era. Almost 400 feet long,the White Horse looks down on a valley calledthe Vale of the White Horse, where ceremonialhorse-racing may have occurred; a nearby smallmound called DRAGON Hill shows signs of wearon its top, as though spectators stood therewatching events in the valley below. Folkloreclaims that the hill is flat because ST. GEORGE

buried a dragon there; such legends often indi-cate an important pre-Christian site that neededto be SAINED or sanctified in terms appropriateto the new religion. On the hilltop above theWhite Horse can be seen the remains of anancient HILLFORT called Uffington Castle, itssteep earthen sides high enough so that, withinit, a visitor can see nothing but the sky above.

While it is not certain who carved the WhiteHorse into the hillside, most scholars todaybelieve it was of Celtic origin, perhaps built bythe Dubunni who lived in the area. The flowingstyle recalls horse patterns found on CelticCOINS of the Roman era; one such coin shows ahorse almost identical to the one carved into thehillside. Even presuming a Celtic origin, how-ever, archaeologists are not settled on whetherthe figure represents a divinity and if so, which.Among the Celts, the horse was the emblem ofthe goddess EPONA; there is no known horsegod, nor is the White Horse anatomically a stal-lion. As the White Horse appears to be runningfrom east to west, it may symbolize the SUN trav-eling across the sky from dawn to sunset.

While the White Horse itself is an impressiveearth sculpture it is even more impressive that itremains at all, for grass would soon obliterate thedesign were it not continually pulled out. Todaythe National Trust cares for the monument, butin the past it was “scoured” or cleared ofencroaching grasses every seven years, when ahuge local festival was held. For as much as 2,000years, the people around Uffington kept the horseclearly outlined on its height, long after the rea-son for its creation and its meaning were lost.

Sources: Marples, Morris. White Horses and OtherHill Figures. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1981, pp.28–66; Newman, Paul. Gods and Graven Images:The Chalk Hill-Figures of Britain. London:Robert Hale, 1987, pp. 19–41.

White Lady Folkloric figure. In both Britainand Ireland, this term is used of FAIRIES and ofthe GHOSTS of human women. There is no par-allel masculine term.

Wicca Modern religion. Although some self-identified Wiccans believe they practice anancient religion, most contemporary scholarstrace the development of the rituals and philos-ophy to mid-20th-century England. Celtic holi-days are celebrated (as are the solar holidays ofEQUINOXES and SOLSTICES), but contemporaryWicca is not a Celtic religion.

See also WITCHCRAFT.

wicker man Celtic ritual. According to JuliusCaesar, the Celts occasionally fashioned a hugehuman form from wicker, the bent branches ofWILLOW trees. Within this wicker prison, theyconfined animals and humans and then set fireto the vast structure. As Caesar had been fight-ing a military campaign against the Celts foryears, it is not clear that this report is anythingother than wartime propaganda. However, itinspired a CELTIC REVIVAL movie, “The WickerMan,” in 1973.

widdershins See DIRECTIONS.

Wild Hunt (Wild Host, Fairy Rade) Folkloricmotif. The idea that the FAIRIES regularly leavetheir OTHERWORLD residences and ride wildlyabout the surface world, snatching people fromtheir homes and carrying them AWAY, was foundthroughout the ancient Celtic lands. In Walesthe leader of the Wild Hunt was GWYNN AP

NUDD, king of the dead, who rode with the red-

472 White Lady

eared hounds called the CWYN ANNWN; he rodeon storm clouds to collect the souls of the newlydead, to take them to the afterlife. In ScotlandKing ARTHUR was said to ride on storm windswith the Wild Hunt, and the unforgiven humansouls of the SLUAGH made their own wild nightrides. At times, only dogs (see GABRIEL HOUNDS)forayed across the sky, baying like hounds ofhell. Gazing on the riders was dangerous, butthose who put a sprig of protective ROWAN overtheir doors could watch the procession insafety. Some scholars believe that this folkloricmotif grows from Germanic or Scandinavianroots.

willow Folkloric plant. The water-loving wil-low (genus Salix) comes in many forms, from themajestic weeping willow to the scrubby pussywillow that marks the spring. The folk reputa-tion of the plant as a healer has been scientifi-cally verified, because a chemical in its bark isthe equivalent of aspirin (whose name, salicylicacid, includes the Latin name for willow).

Winefride (Winifred) See GWENFREWI.

winter solstice See NOLLAIG.

wisdom Cosmological concept. To the Celts,wisdom was not an intellectual construct; wis-dom did not arise from reasoned thought butarrived as a gift from the OTHERWORLD of gods,FAIRIES, and the dead. In Irish mythology thegod ECNE (Wisdom) was the son of three gods ofcraftsmanship and knowledge, which suggeststhat wisdom was thought to arise through thebody. Wisdom is also depicted as connected withthe watery element, for it could be gained byeating the flesh of a magical SALMON that swamin a secret WELL (see CONNLAS; WELL SEGAIS); itwas something earned through effort rather thanbestowed like grace, yet the effort was moreOtherworldly than mundane. Finally, wisdomwas associated with the arts and especially with

POETRY, for DRUIDS and BARDS were often calledby names that expressed their wisdom.

witch Folkloric motif. Folktales and legendsare filled with stories of people—usually oldwomen, although occasionally men—who havemagical powers to enchant and bewitch. At timesthe powers attributed to these witches resemblethose of the CAILLEACH and other weatherdivinities, for they could raise storms with theirCURSES. Witches traveled easily: They could flyacross the land, and if they needed to cross theocean, any vessel would serve, including sievesand eggshells. They were shape-shifters (seeSHAPE-SHIFTING) who assumed animal form towork mischief in the area, often stealing theneighbors’ BUTTER rather than making theirown, taking MILK from the udders of the cows,and bringing fish up onto shore so they couldpick them up. They preferred to disguise them-selves as HARES or CATS but could also be RAVENS

or mice, gulls or sheep.

Sources: Campbell, John Grigorson. Witchcraft andSecond Sight in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970;Harland, John, and T. T. Wilkinson. LancashireLegends. London: George Routledge and Sons,1873; p. 248.

witchcraft Cosmological concept. In afamous and controversial book in the mid-20thcentury, Margaret Murray proposed that theEuropean pagan religion continued to be prac-ticed after Christianization, and that reportsgathered by priests of the Catholic Inquisitionproved that groups still met in ancient rituals(“sabbats”) despite the apparent conversion ofthe people. Further, she argued that some pock-ets of rural Europe had kept such traditions aliveinto the present. Many popular books continueto claim that witchcraft is an ancient religion,practiced continually and without alteration;more serious practitioners recognize that the rit-uals of contemporary witchcraft (see WICCA)

witchcraft 473

arose in the mid-20th century in England andrepresent an attempted reconstruction ofEuropean paganism. In addition to this contem-porary usage, there is a long-standing belief inCeltic lands that WITCHES can cause distress andmischief, but such witches were seen as magi-cally gifted individuals who did not need a covento work their spells.

Witta Contemporary religion. An inventedNEO-PAGAN religion that purports to be anancient form of Irish paganism, Witta has nobasis in any Celtic history or tradition; even thename is an invention.

wodwose (woodwose, wild men) British andScottish folkloric figure. In the forests, it was longbelieved, lived great hairy wild men, shy beingswho avoided human contact but did no harm toanyone. Some traditional British dances andmummers’ parades include cavorting imitations ofthe wodwose. The image of the wild man is alsofound in mythology; in Ireland mad king SUIBHNE

lived in a tree, while in legends of king ARTHUR thegreat magician MERLIN similarly went insane andhid in the forest (see MYRRINN WYLLT).

wolf Symbolic animal. Although now extinctin the ancient Celtic lands, the wolf once huntedthrough their forests. The wolf shares symbolicmeaning with its relative, the tame canine DOG,as a creature that could see into the OTHER-WORLD. In some ancient texts we find referencesto wolves as SHAPE-SHIFTING people. The IrishLeabhar Breathnach tells of people who,descended from wolves, could still change intothat form to prey upon their neighbors’ cattle,while Giraldis Cambrensis describes a familywho turned into wolves every seventh yearbecause of a curse, retaining human languageand having prophetic powers. On the Continentthe god DIS PATER was sometimes clad in wolf-skin; Julius Caesar reported that the Gaulsbelieved themselves descended from wolves.

wooing (tochmarc) Irish mythological text.Among the various categories of Irish narrativesare those that tell of the courtship of a woman orgoddess. Although all Irish literary texts werewritten down by Christianized monks, thefemale characters in such texts are often morevigorous and self-willed than the category titlemight imply. ÉTAIN, for instance, willingly goesalong with an invitation to commit adultery;BECFHOLA grew bored with king DIARMAIT ofTARA and took a FAIRY LOVER.

worm Folkloric figure. Looking rather like aSERPENT but entirely fantastic, the worm is aDRAGON figure that derives from Scandinavianmythology, which arrived in Celtic lands withthe invading Vikings. That connection mayexplain why worms are typically found in seasideareas, where Vikings might have landed.

The famous Lambton Worm was an eft, theimmature adult form of a newt, which grew toenormous size after being thrown into a WELL bya man sacrilegiously fishing on Sunday. It washard to conquer because its breath poisoned theair and, every time it was cut in two, it joineditself together and attacked again. In the sameway, the Dragon of Loschy Hill would neverhave been destroyed if a DOG had not carriedaway the hacked-off parts and buried them, sothey could not reassemble themselves. The mostfamous worm today is surely the Loch NessMonster, which might also be classified as a SER-PENT from the alleged reptilian shape of its head.

Aside from the monstrous worm, there is themythological creature that makes women preg-nant through the mouth (see PREGNANCY

THROUGH DRINKING, EATING). This worm istiny and apparently can breathe underwater, formost miraculous conceptions take place when awoman drinks a glass of water in which theworm is swimming. Many heroes are born fromsuch worm insemination; CÚCHULAINN, to makesure that his parentage was clear and that he wasnot the child of incest, emerged from the wombclutching a worm in each hand.

474 Witta

wren Symbolic animal. Many species of BIRDS

attract legends, but only the stately SWAN hasmore symbolic significance than the wren, a tiny,nondescript brown bird especially associatedwith the winter season. In ancient times the birdwas considered a prophet, although its cries werenotoriously hard to interpret; the glossaristCormac refers to the wren as “the DRUID bird.”

Killing a wren brought bad luck, even death;such ill fortune could extend itself to the herds,which were thought to give bloody milk after awren’s murder. In Brittany, even to touch a wrenor its nest would bring acne; worse, lightningcould strike the home of such an invader, or thehand that touched the wren’s babies wouldwither and drop off.

One day each year, however, the taboo had tobe broken: On a date near the winter SOLSTICE,the year’s longest night, boys killed a wren andbrought it from house to house, begging for alms“to bury the wren.” On the Isle of Man it was ser-vants who hunted the wren, suggesting that thepower to blight was not entirely removed, and

families might wish to protect themselves bydemanding that the hired help put themselves atrisk. After capturing the wren, the hunting partyfixed it to a long pole and walked around the vil-lage, chanting, “We hunted the wren for Robinthe Bobbin, hunted the wren for Jack of the Corn;we hunted the wren for Robbin the Bobbin, wehunted the wren for everyone.” The wren wasthen buried, with great ceremony, in the villagechurchyard, after which Christmas festivitiesbegan. Feathers from the buried wren werebelieved to protect the owner against death at sea.

Source: Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough.Vol. II: Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild. NewYork: St Martin’s Press, 1913, pp. 317–318.

wulver Scottish folkloric creature. Half-human, half-WOLF, the wulver lived like a WOD-WOSE and generally left people alone, althoughat times he could be helpful to those in need,leaving wild food on their doorsteps.

wulver 475

Yallery Brown British folkloric figure. Thisevil FAIRY was named for its yellow-brown hair,which made an odd frame around its witheredand aged face. Yallery Brown worked mischiefeven to those who tried to help or befriend him;he was a fairy to be avoided. As he lived in theBritish Fens, which have long since been drained,he may be no longer a danger to anyone.

Yann-An-Ord (John of the Dunes) Bretonfolkloric figure. Along the shorelines of Brittany,this unpleasant creature wandered, calling like aseabird; he was a form of the male siren calledthe YANNIG. He looked like a little old man in araincoat, rowing in a boat just off shore. Heespecially created a din at sundown.

yannig Breton folkloric figure. A dangerousFAIRY of Brittany, the yannig ate the unwary whodid not hide when he called three times.

yarkins British folkloric figure. A member ofthe Tiddy Folk (see TIDDY MUN), the yarkinslived in the Fens, the great Lincolnshire wet-lands that were drained in the 18th century toexpand agricultural land. The people of theFens had a complex and elaborate folklore fea-turing many fantastic FAIRY creatures; like theFens themselves, these tales are now virtually

lost. Little is now known about the yarkins,except that they demanded offerings to keepthe earth fertile.

Ychen Bannog Welsh folkloric figures. Thesecalves of the DUN COW were long-horned andstrong; they were also friendly to humans andlured the monstrous AFANC out of its protectiveLAKE so that it could be killed.

yew Symbolic object. The yew (species Taxus)is a sturdy evergreen that can grow to an impres-sive girth and age. Perhaps for this reason, yewswere associated with the OTHERWORLD, withdeath, and with immortality; they are commonlyfound in graveyards throughout Britain andIreland. In mythology a yew betokens transfor-mation, as when the Welsh hero LLEU LLAW

GYFFES turns into an EAGLE at his death andperches in a yew tree. Modern science is justlearning of healing chemicals found within yewtrees, such as taxol, used in fighting breast can-cer; as with many ancient beliefs, the Celtic con-nection between yews and immortality mayencode some scientific knowledge.

Yew of Ross Symbolic object. In Irish tradi-tion there were several TREES of great legend, oneof which was the Yew of Ross, which the DIND-

6Y–Z

476

SHENCHAS tells us was as broad as it was tall; itbore apples, acorns, and nuts, all at the same time.

y fuwch frech (y fuwch laethwen lefrith) SeeDUN COW.

Ygerna See IGRAINE.

y mamau (bendith y mamau) Welsh folkloricfigures. “The Mothers” was a name given insome Welsh tales to the OTHERWORLD figuresotherwise known as FAIRIES. The meaning andsignificance of the term is unknown; it is unclearwhether the fairy folk were believed to be ances-tral figures, as the name suggests. Bendith ymamau, “the Mothers’ blessing,” means goodluck brought by the fairies.

Ynys Gutrin (Ynys Wydrin) Welsh mythicsite. A legendary place that cannot be seen withphysical vision, “glass ISLAND” was a women’sdomain, inhabited only by nine beautiful maidens.

Ynys Wair Welsh mythic site. What is nowknown as Lundy Island, in the ocean waters offBristol, was once known as Ynys Wair, the islandof Gwair or GWYDION, the magician-BARD whofigures so prominently in the mythological talescollected as the MABINOGION.

Youdic Breton mythological site. Legendclaims that the mouth of hell can be found in theregion of Brittany’s known as Finistère (“earth’send”), in the BOG of Yeun. Because the Celts didnot see the OTHERWORLD as infernal, this legendmay be of Christian origin.

Yr Hen Wräch Welsh folkloric figure. Thegreat HAG who lived in the BOG nearAberystwyrth sneaked into town on cold mistyevenings and breathed on the people there, afterwhich they came down with fevers, chills, and

coughing. She appears to have been a protectivespirit of the bogs, for she has been inactive sincepeople started burning coal and gas rather thanpeat. At seven feet tall, with yellow skin andblack teeth, she was a frightening figure.

Ys (Is, Ker-Ys, City of Ys) Breton mythologi-cal site. One of the great tales of Brittany is thatof the pagan princess DAHUT, who spurned thenew religion of Christianity despite her father’sGRADLON’s devoutness. Instead, she gathered theKORRIGANS, the FAIRIES who lived in the sea, andhad them build her this great crystalline city offthe Breton peninsula, in an area so low that ithad to be walled to keep the water out (the namemeans “low town”). It was located in the Baie deTrépassés, “Dead Men’s Bay,” a treacherous partof the Atlantic that is rich not only in fish but inthe wealth of wrecked ships.

Its great seawalls protected Ys from thestorms that ravaged the coast. At certain times,the sea-gates were opened, so that the city’swastes could be carried away through an elabo-rate sluice system. Dahut kept the key to the sea-walls on a silver chain around her neck.

The people of Ys grew wealthy and con-tented. Dahut was content as well, living a lifethat was both sensual and rapacious, killing menafter she had her way with them. As a result, thegreat city of Ys was doomed; the seawalls broke(or perhaps Gradlon or one of Dahut’s loversopened them) and Ys sank beneath the waves.Some legends claim that you can still see itunder the waves at Douarnenez on certain dayswhen the sea is calm and the sunlight just right.

Source: Guyot, Charles. The Legend of the City of Ys.Trans. and illus. Deirdre Cavanagh. Amherst:University of Massachusetts Press, 1979.

Ysgithyrwyn Welsh mythological figure. Inthe story of KULHWCH AND OLWEN, one of thetasks set for the hero was snaring a tusk from thisOTHERWORLD boar.

Ysgithyrwyn 477

Yspaddaden Penkawr (Yspaddaden Pencawr,Ysbaddaden Bencawar) Welsh mythologicalfigure. The “great GIANT” or “chief giant” ofWelsh mythology appears in the romance of KUL-HWCH AND OLWEN, in which the titular hero, con-demned to marry no other woman than Olwen,asked the assistance of his cousin, king ARTHUR.With Arthur’s knights, Kuhlwch located Olwen’shome after a year’s search. There he discoveredthat Yspaddaden Penkawr, who needed four mento lift his eyelids, had no intention of letting hisdaughter marry—because a prophecy had saidthat he would die on the day of her wedding. Heattacked the company, but they defended them-selves well, and finally Yspaddaden offeredOlwen to Kuhlwch, provided he satisfy 13 diffi-cult challenges and 26 minor ones. Ultimatelythe hero did so, and as prophesied, Yspaddadenwas killed on Olwen’s wedding day. Many motifsin the story recall that of BALOR in Ireland.

Yvain See OWEIN.

Yvonne and Yvon Breton heroine and hero.A folktale from Brittany, presumably of Celticorigin, tells of a young woman who attractedthe eye of the SUN with her beauty, diligence,and patience. He carried her off to his home inthe sky one day, and a year later the family had heard nothing more of her. With his fivebrothers, Yvon started walking toward thewestern horizon, hoping to find the land of thesun. After many adventures, the brothers werediscouraged—all but Yvon, who continuedthrough trials and tribulations until he foundhis sister, happily at home in the sun’s house.When he returned home, Yvon discovered thatages had passed and that all memory of his family had disappeared from the land.

Source: Luzel, F. M. Celtic Folk-Tales from Amorica.Trans. Derek Bryce. Dyfed, Wales: LlanerchEnterprises, 1985, pp. 7–18.

Zeus See JUPITER.

478 Yspaddaden Penkawr

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Note: Boldface numbersindicate major treatment of a topic.

A

Abarta 1Abbey Lubber 1Abbots Bromley 1, 397Abcán 1–2, 401Abnoba 2Accalon 2Achall 2Achtan 2, 98. See also Étain,

mother of Cormac mac AirtÁdammair 2adder. See serpentadder stone. See serpent stoneAde 2ad-hene 2–3Adhnúall 3Adra 3Adsagsona 3adventure 3, 466Áeb 3, 9, 51, 87–88, 193Áed 3–4, 87–88Áed Abrat 3Áed Alain 4Áed Eangach 4Áed, husband of Aíbell 4Áed, king of Tara 3Áed Minbhrec 4, 99, 114, 230Áed Ruad 4, 305

Áed Slaine. See SlaneÁed, son of Eochaid Lethderg

3Áed, son of Lir 3Áed, son of Miodhchaoin 4Áed Srónmár 4, 401Aeí 4Aeracura 4áes dána 4áes sidhe. See fairy (Irish)Aeval 5Afagddu 5, 83–84, 234, 439afanc (dwarf) 5, 169, 476Agallamh na Seanóarch. See

Colloquy of the EldersAglovale 5Agnoman 5–6Agravaine 6Agretes 6agricultural rituals 6, 41Agrona 6Aguigrenons 6Aí 6aiats. See directionsAíbgréne 6Aibheaeg 6Aidín 6–7Aífe 7Aífe of the crane bag 7, 102Aífe of Scotland 7, 23, 97,

108, 155, 468Aífe, stepmother of the

Children of Lir 7, 9, 51,88, 102, 111, 193, 417

Aifi 7Aige 7, 166, 322Aigle 7Ailbe 8, 304Aileach. See Grianán AileachAilill 8–9Ailill Áine 9, 277Ailill Anglonnach 8Ailill of Aran 9Ailill mac Máta 8, 35, 200,

306, 309, 370, 414, 437.See also Medb

Ailill, Milesian king 8Ailill Olom 8–9, 11Ailinn 9Aillén 9–10Aillén, brother of Áine 10Aillén mac Midgna 9–10Aillén Trachenn 10, 192Aill na Mireann. See Stone of

DivisionsAilna 10Aimend 10Áine 10–11Áine of Donegal 11Áine of the Fenian Cycle 11Áine of Knockainy 10–11

chair of 432as fairy lover 175fairy mound of 273father of 157geis of 434knitting of 273at Lough Gur 294

INDEX6

486

Manannán mac Lir and311

Munster and 344sister of 229, 333

Ainge 12Airech 12Airmid 12, 127, 329aisling 12Aithirne 12–13, 245, 409Alain. See Fisher KingAlauna 13Albinal 13Albion 13Albiorix 13alder tree 13, 453ale 14Aleine 14Alend 14Alfasem 14Alice la Beale Pilgrim 14Alisander le Orphelin 14Alisanos 14All Saints’ Day. See SamhainAlmu 14, 361alp-luachra 15altar 15Amadán 15Amaethon 6, 15, 134Amairgin 16, 36, 410, 417Amairgin of Ulster 16Amairgin, son of Mil 16Amangons 16Amr 16amulet 16, 308, 439Ana Life 16–17Ancamna 17ancestors 17, 62Andarta 17Andraste 17, 468Andred 17Anfortas. See Fisher KingAngharad 18Anglesey 18, 54, 138, 251,

452Anglo-Saxons vi

Angwish 18animal divination. See

bull-sleepanimals 18–19animal sacrifice 19, 41, 42animism 19, 382Anind 19Anna 19Annals of Ireland 19–20Annaugh 20Annowre 20Annwn 20, 22, 68, 217, 302,

446Antenociticus 20antlers 20. See also hornAnu xiv, 20Aonbárr 21Aoncos 21Aonghus 21Aonghus, brother of Fand

and Lí Ban 21Aonghus of the Fir Bolg 21Aonghus Óg 21, 67, 349,

359, 434Apollo 21–22, 39, 54, 126,

210, 260, 313, 452, 465apple 22, 452–453Aquae Sulis 22, 37, 432Arawn 20, 22–23, 237, 302,

388Arberth 23archaeology vi–viiArd Éireann 23Ard-Greimne 23Ard Macha. See Emain

Machaard rí 23Arduinna 23Argante 23, 28–29Arianrhod 23–24, 67–68,

134, 142, 235, 259, 291,302–303

Armorica. See GaulArnemetia 24Artaios. See Mercury

Artemis 23, 24Arthur xv, 24–26

Annowre and 20in Avalon 28Bedwyr and 39conception of 56, 448court of 73defeat of 73father of 463foster brother of 269incest of 259Mark and 314Merlin and 325mother of 254–255son of 16, 337sword of 164wife of 232

Arthurian Cycle. See Matterof Britain

Artio 26Art mac Cuinn 24, 39, 98,

124, 163Arvalus 26Arvernorix 26Asenora 26ashes 27ash tree 26–27, 45, 179,

452–453, 454Assa. See NessaAssaroe 27Assembly. See ÓenachAssembly of the Wondrous

Head. See Brân the BlessedAssipattle 28astrology 28Atesmerta, Atesmerius 28athach 28, 166autumn equinox 28Avalon 23, 28–29, 153, 217,

371, 451Avebur 29Avenable 29Aveta 29away 29–30. See also

changeling

Index 487

B

Ba’al 31Bacorgladhra 31Badb 31–32, 161, 180, 319,

340, 352, 391, 468Bademagu 32badger 32Baile. See AilinnBairrind 32Balan. See BalinBalin 32ball seirc 32, 127, 226Balor 32–33, 89, 147, 165,

216, 296, 345, 383banais ríghe. See horse

sacrifice; inaugurationBanba 33–34, 146, 160, 161,

198, 304bandrui 34bangaisgedaig. See warrior

womenBan Naemha 34banshee 5, 34–35, 46, 74,

175, 434. See also dullahan;washer at the ford

baptism 35bard 35–36

cursing by 111druids and 138fairy 147Féith na filíochta of 181festivals of 147fili and 187poetry of 383requests of 12satire of 409seanachie and 412Seanchán Toirpéist 412second sight of 413shape-shifting by 417three and 447Tuan mac Cairill 456

Barenton 36, 278barguest 36

Barinthus 36barnacle goose 36–37Barrax 37barrow vi, 37Bath 37, 48, 432Battle of Mage Tuired. See

Mag TuiredBaudwin 37bean nighe. See washer at the

fordbean tighe. See fairy house-

keeperbear 37Beare 37–38beating the hounds 38Beaumains. See GarethBébinn 38Bebo 38, 265Bec 38Becfhola 38, 104, 127, 197Bé Chuille 38, 197Bé Chuma 38–39, 96, 395Bedwyr 39bee 39beech tree 39Belatucadros 39Belenus 39, 41Beli 40, 363Belisama 40, 41, 377Bellieus 40Beltane xiv, 40–43

agricultural aspect of 6ash tree and 27Belenus and 39in calendar 72cattle in 78Creiddylad in 103Easter and 144fairy mounds at 176feast on 180maypole in 318–319milking charms on 332moonrise on 336morris dancing at 341night of 358

Óenach on 366Otherworld on 292,

371, 385Padstow Obby Oss on

374Ragallach and 390Robin Hood and 397Strid on 430thinness on 446

Beltane fire 41, 54, 144, 429,461

Beltany 43Ben Bulben 44Bendonner 43–44Benn Étair 44Ben-Varrey. See mermaidBerba 44Bercilak. See GawainBerecynthia 44, 76Berguisa 44, 459Berrey Dhone 44Biddy 44Biddy Early 45, 270Biddy Mannion. See fairy

midwifebilberry 45bile (plant) 45–46Billy Blind 46birch tree 46, 453bird 46, 102Biróg 46birth 46Bith 32, 46–47, 85Black Annis 47Black Chanter 47Black Dog 47, 132, 238, 384Black Vaughan 47–48Bladud 48Blaí 48Blaise 48Blanchefleur 48Blarney Stone 48, 91Bláthnat 48, 110, 182blemished king 14, 49, 183,

196, 226, 361, 409, 469

488 Index

Blodeuwedd 49, 230, 235,291, 303, 373

Blondine 49, 67blood 49–50Blue Men of the Minch 50,

269Bóand 50, 114, 349, 361,

413, 459, 470boar 50–51, 451boat 51Bochtóg 51bodach 51Bodb Derg 51, 201, 294, 330,

404Bodhmall 52, 191Bó Find 52, 78bog 52, 404, 445Bog of Allen 52bogan 52–53boggart. See browniebogie 53bog people 52Bolg. See Fir BolgBolvinnus 53boobrie 53Book of Invasions x, 5, 53–54,

456Book of Kells xborrowed days 54borrowing fire 54Bors de Ganis 54Borvo 54, 245Boudicca v, 17, 54, 468Braciaea 55Bran 55Bran (hunting hound) 55,

410, 460Brân the Blessed 55–56, 75,

146, 241, 265, 292, 302,312, 317, 359

Bran, the Breton hero 55Bran Galed 55Brangeien 55, 263, 314, 454Bran mac Febail 55,

152–153

Branwen 55–56, 234, 265,292, 302, 312, 317

Brastias 56Brâzil. See Hy-BrâzilBrega 56Bregon 56brehon 56–57, 68, 187,

337, 414Bréifne 57Brenhines-y-Nef 57Brennius. See BelenusBres 57Bres (Breaseal) 57Bres (Breseal) 57Bres mac Elatha 57, 71, 111,

150, 251, 409Breton viiiBreuse 57Brí 58Brian 58, 423Brian Boru 58Briccriu 58, 459brídeóg 58Brigantia 58–59Brigindo 59Brigit 59–60

birthplace of 180boar of 370, 451companion of 118eyes of 165father of 140fire of 195Glas Ghaibhleann and

216at Glastonbury Tor 451Godiva and 221Imbolc and 256–257Kildare and 271Latiaran and 283–284puppet of 58son of 269, 401

Brí Léith 60, 288, 330, 457Brisen 61Britannia 61Britovius 61

Brittany. See GaulBrixia 61Brocéliande 36, 61, 465brollachan. See voughBron. See Fisher KingBronach 61Bronwen 61brounger 61brownie 61–62, 79, 131, 233,

247, 286, 299, 322, 385Brú na Bóinne 62–63, 150,

175, 231, 275, 321, 340,349

Brunissen 63Bruno 63Brythonic Celtic viiibuada 63, 258, 272, 424Buan 63Búanann 63–64, 191–192bucca 64bug 64building to the west 64, 177Buitch 64bull 64–65, 248. See also oxbullaun 65bull-sleep 35, 65, 78, 137,

138, 386burial rites. See funeral ritesbutter 65–66, 172, 178, 215,

473buttery spirits 66Buxenus 66bwca. See bucca

C

Cabyll-Ushtey 67Cado 49, 67, 115, 225Cáel 67, 103, 375caepion. See lakeCáer 67, 164, 434Caer Arianrhod 67–68Caer Idris 68Caer Nefenhir 68

Index 489

Caer Wydyr 68Cai 68Cailitin 68Cailleach 68–70

as Artemis 24Caílte and 70as Carlin 75in creation 103Dér Gréine and 125Dòideag and 133Echthge and 145eye of 165as hag 238on Imbolc 256Latiaran and 283Loughcrew and 294as Mala Liath 310mountains and 342as Muilearach 342Munster and 344Ragnell as 390serpent and 415Sheela na Gig as 418Slieve Gullion and 421urine of 463

Caílte 70, 94Caíntigern 70, 185Cairbre 70–71, 345Cairbre Cinn-Chait 71, 203Cairbre Lifechair 71Cairbre mac Éadaoine 70–71Cairbre Nia Fer 71Cairenn 71, 357cairn 71Caitileen Óg 91cait sith (fairy cat) 71cake 71Caladbolg 72calamity meat 72, 171Caldonia 72calendar 72–73, 94, 448. See

also Beltane; equinox;Imbolc; Lughnasa;Samhain; solstice

Caliburn 73

Callanish 73Callirius 73Camelot 73Camlan 73Camulos 73canach 73Candlemas. See ImbolcCanola 74Cano mac Gartnáin 74, 103,

164Caoimhe 74Caointeach 74Caolainn 74Caoranch 74–75, 126, 294,

415, 429captive fairies 75captive in fairyland. See fairy

kidnappingCaradawg 75, 76Carlin 75Carman 75–76Carravogue. See GarravogueCarrigogunnel. See Granacart 76Casan Buidhe 76casting aglamour. See glamourCaswallawn 76, 185cat 76–77, 169, 436Cathaír Mór 77–78Cathbad 78, 123, 144, 166,

356, 360, 423Cathleen ni Houlihan 78, 424Cath Paluc 78Cathubodua 78, 468Cat Sith 78cattle 41, 52, 78, 105, 122,

392. See also bull; cow; oxcattle raid 78–79, 437–438Caturix 79caul 79Cauld Lad 79cauldron 79

of Brân the Blessed 146of Ceridwen 84, 234,

439

of Cymidei Cymeinfoll112

of Dagda 113, 462Grail as 226Iona from 262of Llassar Llaesgyfnewid

291of Ogyrvran 367

cave 79Ceasg 80Ceibhfhionn 80Ceisnoidhe Uladh. See

Debility of the UlstermenCelidon 80Cellach 80Celtchair 80Celtic languages vii–viii,

xv–xviCeltic life xi–xiiCeltic pantheon xiii, 80Celtic people, definition of

ivCeltic religion xiii–xiv, 19,

80–81, 472, 474Celtic revival xi, 81–82, 166,

355Celtic rituals xivCeltic shamanism 82, 138Celtic society xi–xiiCeltic Twilight artistic move-

ment 83Center. See Midecenter 129ceó druídecta. See druid’s fogCera 83Cerbnat 83ceremony 83Ceridwen 5, 79, 83–84, 234,

337, 338, 417, 439, 443,444

Cerne Abbas Giant 84, 212Cernunnos 1, 84–85, 125,

248, 391Cesair 3, 34, 46, 53, 85, 278,

344, 447

490 Index

Cet 85–86Cethern mac Fintain 86, 192Cethlion 86, 114cétnad 86, 416champion’s portion 86changeling 29, 86–87, 173.

See also awaychariot 87charm 87Children of Lir 87–88

Áed 3Conn 96Decca and 121at Derravaragh 125Fiachra 185Fionnuala 193at Inis Glora 260mother of 3stepmother of 7in Three Sorrows of

Ireland 448Children of Llyr 88Chimes Child 88Chlaus Haistig 88Christianity ix–x, 88–89, 125Christmas. See NollaigCiabhán 89, 90–91Cian 58, 89, 148, 152, 216,

296, 417, 423, 457–458Cichban 89Cicollus 89–90Cigfa 90, 302, 387, 394Cill Dara. See KildareCilydd 90, 223, 275Cimbáeth 90, 305City of Ys. See YsClan Baíscne 90, 192, 223Clan Morna 90, 192, 223Clarine 90Clarisant 90Clas Myrddin 90Clídna 46, 48, 90–91clipping the church 91clootie 91, 308, 470Clota 91

Clothra 91–92, 104, 156,188, 296

clover 92, 177, 214cluricaune 92, 422Cnabetius 92Cnoc Ailinee. See KnockaulinCnoc Áine. See KnockainyCnucha 92Cnú Deiréil 92Cobhthach 92, 277–278Cochrann 78, 92, 136Cocidius 93, 445cock 93Coel 93, 150–151cohuleen druith 93, 326Cóiced 93Coinchenn 93, 124coins 93Colgrevance 93Coligny 94Colloquy of the Elders 94comb 94, 435Conaire 94, 112, 156, 209,

241, 328, 354Conall 95Conall Cernach 2, 95, 181,

187Conall Gulban 95Conall, son of Eochaid 95Conán 95, 192Conaran 95Concobar mac Nessa 95–96

conception of 78, 385Cúchulainn fostered by

199daughter of 287death of 242, 328Deirdre and 123, 183,

359–360, 423fool of 399foster father of 166intoxication of 261Maine and 309mother of 356palace of 154

son of 201in Táin bó Cuailnge 437in Ulster Cycle 462wives of 148

Condatis 96Condwiramur 96Conn 96Connacht 96–97, 387, 390,

470Conn of the Hundred Battles

96, 157, 287, 297, 395Connla 7, 97, 108, 204Connla Cóel 97Connla of the Golden Hair

97Connla, son of Cúchulainn 97Connla’s Well 97, 405, 420,

470Conn mac Lir 88, 92, 96Continental Celts. See GaulCooley. See CuailngeCorann 97Corbenic 97Corc mac Luigthic 98, 181Corineaus 98Cormac mac Airt 2, 23, 80,

98, 163, 328, 436, 442Corn Dolly 98Cornish viiiCornouaille 98–99cornucopia 99Corotiacus 99Corp Criadh 99Corra 99, 126, 415, 429Corrgenn 99cosmology 99–100

creation in 103darkness and light in

117death in 119–120Devil in 125directions in 129–130,

144dreams in 137duality in 139–140

Index 491

fertility in 184five in 196–197generosity in 209goddesses in 219gods in 219heaven in 244images in 255–256immortality in 257liminality in 289magic in 307–308mother goddess in 341mountains in 341–342names in 347nature in 349necromancy in 350night in 358numbers in 362omens in 369–370Otherworld in 370Paradise in 375poetry in 382–383polytheism in 383quintessence in 389rainbow in 391reincarnation in 393rivers in 396sacral kingship in 403sacrifice in 404shape-shifting in 417superstition in 433sympathetic magic in

435three in 447time in 448totem in 451transmigration of souls

in 452wisdom in 473

countless stones 100, 398couril 100courtly love 100–101court tomb 101Coventina 101cow 3, 101, 171, 339, 407.

See also Dun Cow

co-walker 102, 416, 467Craebhnat 102Craiphtine 102, 277–278,

339Crandelmass 102crane 7, 102, 344crane bag 7, 102–103Crannóg 103creation 103Créd 67, 74, 103, 375Creiddylad 103–104, 235,

236Creidne 104cremation 119Crimthann 104Crimthann Mór mac Fidaigh

104Crimthann Nia Náir 91, 104,

395Crimthann of Tara 104Croagh Patrick 104, 298Crobh Dearg 104–105, 260,

375Crochan 105, 319, 372crodh mara 105Crom Cruach 105, 378, 429,

448Crom Dubh 105–106, 382Cromlech. See Dolmen;

Megalithic civilizationCrón 106Crónánach 106crooker 106crossing water 106crow 106Cruachan 106–107, 355, 372Crudel 107Crunniuc 107, 121, 153,

304–305, 437Cuailnge 107Cúchulainn 107–109

Abcán and 2conception of 474Culann and 109Cú Roí and 110–111

death of 68and Debility of the

Ulstermen 121Derbforgaill and 124dog of 132vs. Éis Énchenn 147father of 297vs. Ferdiad 182Forgall and 199fosterage of 16, 199,

431Fráech killed by 200vs. Garb Mac Stairn 206home of 141, 308horse of 288in Intoxication of the

Ulstermen 261lover of 48, 148,

179–180, 277, 459Medb and 320vs. Mórrígan 340mother of 121name of 416Orlám killed by 370in Red Branch 392vs. Richis 395vs. Scenmed 410son of 7, 97in Táin bó Cuailnge 437training of 410vs. Uath mac Imoman

459in Ulster Cycle 462weapon of 204wife of 155

Cucullatus 109Cuda 109Cuilenn 109, 421Cuirithir. See LiadanCulann 108, 109Culhwch. See KulhwchCulhwch ac Olwen. See

Kulhwch and Olwencumhal. See milkCumhall 110, 191, 344

492 Index

Cunedda 110Cunobelinus 110Cunomaglus. See ApolloCunrie 110cup. See Grailcurad-mír. See champion’s

portionCú Roí 48, 110–111, 132,

164, 261, 296curse 111, 165, 214, 308,

473. See also Debility of theUlstermen; satire; spells

cursing stones 111cú síth 111–112, 132Custennin 112c’wn annwn 112, 473Cycle of the Kings 112Cyhyreath. See CaointeachCymidei Cymeinfoll 112,

291Cymon 112, 278Cymru 112Cynan 112

D

Da Derga 113Dagda 113–114

Bóand and 349cauldron of 79, 462as Cera 83as Easal 144harper of 459harp of 240mallet of 310Mórrígan and 340Nuada and 361pigs of 380as Ruad Rofessa 401son of 4, 297, 367

Dagonet 114Dahut 67, 114–115, 225,

231, 327. See also YsDáire 116

Daireann 116, 404Dáire Derg 116Dáire, father of Lugaidh 116Dáire mac Dedad 116Dáire mac Fiachan 116, 135,

320, 437Dáire of the Poems 116Dáire, son of Fionn mac

Cumhaill 116Dáirine 116, 196Dame du Lac. See Lady of the

LakeDames Vertes 116–117, 228Damona 117Dana. See Danudancing lights. See fairy lightsdancing stones. See merry

maidensDanu xiii, xiv, 117, 457. See

also Sons of Tuireann;Tuatha Dé Danann

Daoine sídhe 117, 176darkness and light 117Dark Roasleen. See Roisin

DubhDarlughdacha 118Dathí 118Daui 118Davy Jones 118dead hand 118Deae Matres xiv, 33,

118–119, 341, 396, 447Dealgnaid 119, 376Dea Nutrix 119death 119–120, 170. See also

bansheepredictors of 47, 51,

120, 175, 203, 234,374, 392, 421

death coach 120, 140Debility of the Ulstermen

107, 108, 111, 120–121,182, 305, 320, 437, 462

decapitation. See headDecca 121

Dechtire 121–122, 462Dé Danann. See Tuatha Dé

DanannDee 122deer 122, 249Deimne 122. See also Fionn

mac CumhaillDeiotaros 122Deirdre 6, 122–123, 183,

204, 285, 359–360, 447,462

Delbacháem 93, 124Delbáeth 123–124, 461Delga 124, 194deosil. See directionsderbfine. See fineDerbforgaill 124, 127dergfhlaith 124–125Dér Gréine 125Derravaragh 125destruction 125Deva. See DeeDevil 125, 249, 427, 454Devil’s Father 125Devil’s Mother 126Devona 126Diana 23, 126Dian Cécht 126–127,

328–329, 345, 361, 365Dian Cécht ‘ 148Diarmait 127–128Diarmait, king of Tara 38,

127, 399Diarmait mac Murchada 124,

127Diarmait Ua Duibne 127–128

ancestor goddess of 140ball seirc of 32brother of 398daughter of 143death of 44, 51, 136,

380geis of 209lover of 192, 226, 421Midac killed by 329

Index 493

mother of 92Searbhan and 412

díchetal do chennaib 128, 131,138

Dígne 128Díl 128Dinadan 128–129Dindraine 129Dindshenchas x, 129, 381Dinny-Mara 129Dinomogetimarus 129Dìreach. See Fachandirections xiii, 129–130. See

also east; north; south; westDirona. See SironaDis Pater 33, 130Díthorba 130, 305Divano 130divination 130–131. See also

astrologyalder tree and 13bull-sleep for 65with cats 77with cétnad 86by crows 106by eagles 143with hares 239king chosen by 258, 403oracle in 370with roses 399at Samhain 407–408

divination through incantation. See díchetal dochennaib; imbas forosnai

divination through letters. Seeogham

divination through touch. Seeteinm laeda

Dobharchú 131dobie 131dog 131–132, 169Dòideag 133dolmen 133, 321, 385dolorous blow 133Domnall 133

Domnu 133–134Dôn xiii, xiv, 134, 213, 235,

301Donagha 134–135, 464Donand 135Donn 12, 128, 135, 401, 443Donn Bó 135, 241Donn Cuailnge 135

Medb and 320, 348Mórrígan and 355owner of 116, 306reincarnation as 185,

189, 201, 401–402in Táin bó Cuailnge 437in Ulster Cycle 462

Donn Fírinne 136, 274Donn Ua Duibne 92, 136dooinney-oie 136Dornoll 136Dorraghow. See DobharchúDowth. See Brú na Bóinnedracae 136dragon 136–137, 426. See

also wormdreams 137Dreco 137druid xii, 137–139

astrology practiced by28

hair of 238Mog Ruith 334–335oak and 364poetry of 383prophecy of 386rituals of 81second sight of 413shape-shifting by 417three and 447

druid’s egg. See serpent stonedruid’s fog 139, 311druid’s glass. See serpent

stonedruineach 139Dryantore 139Drystan. See Trystan

duality 139–140, 383Dub 140Dubinn 140Dubthach 140duck 140, 414Duibne. See Dígnedullahan 140Dumaitis 140Dumbarton 140–141Dún 141Dún Ailinne 141Dún Aonghusa 141Dún Bolg 141Dun Cow x, 141, 215, 476.

See also cowDún Delgan 141Dunlop, Bessie 393dunnie 142Dún Scaith 141dunter. See powrieDurgan 142dwarf 142Dyfed 142Dyfr 142, 448Dylan 142, 225, 291, 302

E

Eachlach Urlair 143Eachtach 143each uisce. See water horseEadán 143, 198eagle 143Easal 143–144east 144Easter 144Eba 144Éber 144Ebhla 144Ébhlinne 144–145, 318Echtach 145Echthge 145echtra. See adventureEcne 145, 473

494 Index

Ector 145eel 145–146Efnisien 146, 302, 359, 378,

458egg 146egret 146Eiddilig Gor 146Eire. See ÉriuÉirinn 146Eiscir Riada 146–147Éis Énchenn 147Eisirt 147Eisteddfod 36, 147Eiteag 147Eithne 147–149, 307Eithne Aittencháithrech 148Eithne of Connacht 149,

349, 366Eithne, daughter of Balor

32–33, 89, 147–148, 149,216, 296

Eithne the Fair 148Eithne Ingubai 148Eithne of Tara 78, 96,

148–149, 156Eithne Úathach 149Eithne, wife of Elcmar 148Elaine 149Elatha 149–150, 198Elcmar 150elder tree 150, 453Éle 150, 156Elean nam Ban 150Elen 150–151elf 151elf-locks 151elf-shot 151Elgnad. See DealgnaidElidyr 151–152Elin Gow 152elm tree 152, 452Elphin 152, 395Elysium. See FairylandEmain Ablach 152–153, 311,

371

Emain Macha 153–154, 304Emer 108, 154–155, 180,

198–199, 277, 437Enid 155, 210–211, 448Eochaid 155–156Eochaid Airem 155–156,

161, 162, 328, 330Eochaid Fedlech 91, 156Eochaid Garbh 156, 436Eochaid Iúil 156Eochaid mac Eirc 156, 194,

436Eochaid Mugmedón 156Eochaid Ollathair 156eó fis. See salmonEógan 156–157Eógan of Connacht 156Eógan mac Durthacht 157Eógan mac Néill 156Eógan Mór 96, 156–157,

163, 287Eógan, son of Ailill Olom

11, 157, 184Eógobal 157Epona 157–158, 221, 249,

260, 376, 394equinox xiv, 28, 72, 159, 321,

425Érainn 159Erc 2, 159, 343Erce 159Éremón 159, 441éric 159–160, 180, 409, 453Ériu 146, 160, 161, 198, 304,

424, 428, 460Erne 160–161, 319, 368Ernmas 161Erriapus 161Ésa 161Esus 161, 324, 447Esyllt 162, 455Étain 162–163, 367Étain, of the Fair Hair 163Étain, lover of Eochaid

Fedlech 163, 163, 164

Étain, lover of Eógan Mór163

Étain, lover of Midir162–163

conception of 385Crochan and 319daughter of 161, 328father of 8husband of 155–156lover of 201, 330shape-shifting by 417at Tara 441transmigration of 452

Étain, mother of Cormac macAirt 163. See also Achtan

Étain Óg 163Étan 163Étar 11, 163–164Ethal Anbuail 164evil eye. See eyeExcalibur 25, 73, 164, 279,

338, 470excarnation 119external soul 164, 454eye 33, 164–165

F

fachan 166Fachtna 166, 356Faerie 166Faifne 166, 322fairy (faery) 166–167. See also

sídheas Daoine sídhe 117death and 170in dreams 137foyson taken by 200ghosts and 211giant 425goblin and 218iron feared by 262names for 348, 458,

472, 477

Index 495

oak and 364, 365offending 430origin of 457protection against 386,

406, 446, 458at Samhain 407second sight and 413shape-shifting by 417stealing from 151–152as superstition 434

fairy (Irish) 168fairy (other Celtic) 167–168fairy animals 168fairy arrow. See fairy dartfairy babies. See changelingfairy battle 167, 169fairy blast 167, 169fairy boat 170fairy bride 170, 173fairy circle 170fairy colors 170, 228fairy cow 105, 169, 170–171,

233, 392fairy crafts 171fairy dart 171–172fairy faith xvFairy Flag 172fairy food 172–173fairy fort. See fairy moundfairy hill. See fairy moundfairy housekeeper 173, 295,

432, 450fairy hunger. See hungry grassfairy islands 173fairy kidnapping xv, 173. See

also away; changeling; fairylover

of Áed 3of brides 170darts and 171death and 167depression as 242eating and 173fairy blast and 169fairy sleep from 178

of midwives 175names and 347need-fire and 351pins in 380at Samhain 408of Thomas the Rhymer

446wakes and 467

fairyland 168, 174, 189, 235,347, 365, 445, 449. See alsoOtherworld

fairy lights 174fairy lover 174–175. See also

MachaÁine as 211fairy kidnapping by 173ganconer 206of Launfal 284, 455of Maurice 90of Merlin 465Morgan as 338of Ruadh 401of Thomas the Rhymer

446fairy midwife 175, 177, 331fairy mist 175fairy mound 15, 175–176,

407, 458. See also sídhefairy music 176, 345, 382fairy ointment 92, 173, 175,

177, 214, 416fairy path 169, 177fairy queen 6, 90, 177,

179–180, 358, 449, 462fairy rath 177–178fairy ring 178fairy sleep 178fairy-stricken cattle. See

calamity meatfairy stroke 151, 178, 446fairy theft 178fairy time 167, 178–179,

292–293fairy tree 179, 445Falias 179, 338

Fand 155, 179–180, 197,277, 286, 289, 311

Far Darrig 180Far Gorta 180Far Liath. See gray manfasting 180Faughart 180fawn. See deerFea 180feast 180Fedelm 181, 438Fedelm of Munster 181Fedelm the Nine-Times

Beautiful 181Fedelm, princess of Connacht

181, 349, 366Fedelm, seer of Cruachan

181féis. See feastféith na filíochta 181Fenian Cycle 181fenodyree. See glastigfeolagan 181–182Ferchertne 182Ferdiad 182, 204Fergus 182–184Fergus Fínbél 182Fergus Foga 182Fergus Lethderg 182, 353Fergus mac Léti 38, 183, 265Fergus mac Róich 72, 183,

197, 296, 319–320, 350,356, 412, 423, 437

Fergus Mór 183, 288Fer Í 184, 223, 456ferrish. See fairy (other Celtic)fertility 46, 184, 220, 344,

424, 464festival. See calendar; feastfetch 184–185, 413féth fiada. See druid’s fogFéthnat 185Fflur 185Fiacclach mac Conchinn 185Fiachna 185

496 Index

Fiachna mac Báetáin 185Fiachna mac Dáire 185Fiachna of Munster 185Fiachra 87–88, 185Fial 185Fianna 185–186, 192

Abarta in 1Ailna and 10Ciabhán in 89clans in 90Dáire in 116destruction of 71in Fenian Cycle 181Fergus in 182–183at Gabhair 203Irnan and 262Midac and 329Oscar in 370poet of 368vs. Sgeimh Soluis 416

fidchell 128, 162, 186, 227,330

Fideal 186Fiecal 186fifth province. See mideFiggy Dowdy 186–187fili 35, 187, 368Find 187Findchóem 187Findias 187fine 187–188Fíngein 188Finn 188Finnabair 188, 200Finnbennach 188–189, 201,

320, 401, 437Finnbheara 148, 189, 274,

462Finnéces 189, 190, 191, 406Finnegan’s Wake 16–17Finnen 190Finn McCool xv, 44, 190,

213, 295Fintan 143, 190, 261, 405,

462

Fintan mac Bóchra 85, 190Fintan the salmon 190Fiongalla 190Fionn Cycle. See Fenian CycleFionnghal nam Fiadh

190–191Fionn mac Cumhaill

191–193. See also Fiannavs. Aillén mac Midgna

10Almu and 14brother of 196vs. Chlaus Haistig 88clan of 90daughter of 408Diarmait Ua Duibne

and 44, 226dogs of 3, 55, 132, 410,

460vs. Dryantore 139father of 110, 185in Fenian Cycle 181Finn McCool and 190fosterage of 52, 295,

335vs. Goll mac Morna 223grandfather of 436grandson of 214at Keshcorran 270–271lover of 11, 375madness of 116, 404Mark and 314Midac and 329mother of 344vs. Muireartach 343name of 122vs. Nuada 361reincarnation of 335silver hair of 109, 333son of 116teinm laeda used by 444tutor of 86, 189vs. Uigreann 460wisdom of 190, 406wives of 421, 422, 438

Fionnuala 87–88, 193, 362,448

Fir Bolg 193–194in Book of Invasions 53defeat of 309, 343fort of 141Geali Dianvir of 208historical basis for 159leaders of 421in Mythological Cycle

345origin of 353Rudraige of 402at Tara 440

fir chlis 194Fir Dea. See Tuatha dé

danannFir Domnann. See Fir Bolgfire 54, 195, 461fire, Beltane 41, 54, 144, 429,

461Fir Ghorm. See Blue Men of

the Minchfirst footer 196fish 196Fisher King 97, 133, 149,

196, 225, 378Fithel 196Fithir 116, 196five 196–197, 362Flaith. See SovereigntyFlann 38, 197Flidais 2, 197, 313Florence 197foawr 197Fódla 143, 146, 160, 161,

197–198, 303, 318fod seachran. See stray sodfogou 198folklore movement xiFomorians 198

in Book of Invasions 53defeat of 309, 353Fir Bolg and 194goddess of 133–134

Index 497

historical basis for 159king of 32–33land of 293Lot of 293–294in Mythological Cycle

345queen of 86spy of 365at Tara 441on Uisneach 460

Forgall Manach 155,198–199

Fortuna 199Fortunate Isles 199fosterage 199Fothad Canainne 199four 362Fourknocks 199four-leafed clover. See fairy

ointmentfox 199–200foyson 178, 200Fráech 188, 200Fraechnat 200framing spell 200–201Friar Rush 1Friuch 188–189, 201, 348,

365, 401, 452frog 201Fuamnach 201, 330fuath. See voughFuinche. See Murnafuneral rites vi, 201,

238–239. See also deathFurbaide Ferbend 201, 320furze 202Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith. See

Dun CowFynnodderee 202

G

Gabhair 203Gablach 203

Gabriel hounds 203Gadelus. See GoidelGáe Assail 203Gáe Bulga 204, 410, 459Gaelic viiiGaheris 204Gahmuret 204, 245, 378Gaiar 204Gaiblín. See GavidaGáilióin. See Fir BolgGaine 204Galahad 204, 226, 282Galahaut 204–205Galatia 205Galehodin 205Galióin 205Gallizenae 205Galvia 205Gamh 205ganconer 206Ganore 206Garaid 206Garb Mac Stairn 206Gareth 206Gargantua 206Garland Sunday 206Garravogue 206–207, 429Gaul 207Gavida 207Gavrinis 207–208Gawain 197, 208, 232, 379,

390Geali Dianvir 208–209Gebann 209Gebrinius 209geis 19, 94, 209, 226, 258,

272, 316, 323, 424. See alsofairy lover

Gelorwydd 209generosity 209genius cucullatus 210genius loci 210Gentle Annie 210gentry. See fairyGeodruisge 210

George. See St. GeorgeGereint 210–211Geróid Iarla 11, 211, 294ghost 211Gialla Deacair. See Abartagiant 211–212Giant’s Causeway 213Giants’ Dance 213, 427Gile 213Gilfaethwy 134, 213, 221Gillagréine 213–214Gille Dubh 214Gillian 214Giona 214glám dícenn 214glamour 92, 173, 177, 202,

214, 380, 381, 430Glanlua 214Glas Ghaibhleann 54, 89,

148, 152, 215–216, 264,332, 422. See also cow

glastig 216–217Glastonbury 217, 268, 451glastyn 217Glen Lyon 217Glewlwyd Gafaelwar 218gnome 218goat 218, 298, 384, 388goayr heddagh 218Goban Soar 218, 470goblin 218–219Gobnat 219Goborchinn 219god(s) vii, xiii, 219, 257,

396–397, 447. See alsoCeltic pantheon; fairy(faery)

goddess(es) vii, xiii–xiv,219–220, 257, 396, 447.See also Celtic pantheon;fairy (faery)

goddess-king marriage. See Sovereignty

goddess of Sovereignty.See Sovereignty

498 Index

Godiva 220–221, 249Goewin 23, 213, 221, 235,

302Gog 98, 221, 308Goibniu 208, 221–222, 296,

311Goidel 222, 332Goidelic Celtic viiigold 222Goleuddydd 222–223, 275Goll mac Morna 74, 90, 193,

223, 262Golwg 223–224Good God, The . See Dagdagoose 224Goreu 224Gorgon 224Gorias 224Gorlois 224, 254–255, 338,

339Gorm 224gorse 224–225, 453Govannon 134, 225Gradlon 115, 225, 231, 477Grail 225–226

Alfasem and 14Amangons and 16Fisher King and 196Joseph of Arimathea and

267–268Lancelot and 281Nasciens and 348Percival and 378Perilous Bed and 378Perilous Seat and 379purity of heart and 54in Sarras 409

Gráinne 226–227daughter of 143Godiva and 221Guinevere and 232, 282Iseult and 263lover of 127, 192, 421Searbhan and 412at Tara 441–442

Grana 227–228Grannos. See ApolloGray Man 228Greek writings, Celts in iv–vgreen 167, 170, 228Green Children 228Green Isle 228Green Ladies 228Green Man 228–229, 271Gregory, Lady Augusta 83Grian 95, 157, 229Grianán Aileach 229–230,

357Griflet 230Grimes Grave Goddess 230Grisandole. See Avenablegroa’ch 230Gromer Somer Joure 230Gronw Pebyr 230, 303grove. See Nemetongruagach 62, 231Guaire 231, 412guee 231Guénolé 225, 231Guid Folk. See Names for the

FairiesGuinevere 25, 231–232, 269,

280–281, 284, 286,322–323, 335

Guinglain 232Gulliver’s Travels 142, 183,

212, 265Gundestrup Cauldron 76, 79,

132, 232–233gunna 233Gutuatros 233Guy Fawkes 233Guyomard 233, 338, 379guytrash. See trashGwalchmei 233gwartheg y llyn 233Gwawl 233, 302, 394Gwendydd 233–234Gwenfrewi 234Gwern 234

Gwidion. See GwydionGwion 84, 234, 338, 439. See

also Gwydion; Taliesingwrach y rhibyn 234gwragedd annwn 234Gwri 234Gwyar 234Gwyddno 235Gwydion 23, 134, 235, 291,

302–303, 308, 477gwyllion 235Gwynn ap Nudd 203,

235–236, 451, 458, 472Gwythyr fab Greidawl 236Gyre-Carling. See Habetrot

H

Habetrot 237, 358, 410Habondia 237Hafgan 20, 237, 388hag 237–238, 357, 418, 424.

See also CailleachHag’s Glen 238hair 238Hairy Jack 238Hallowe’en. See SamhainHallstatt vii, 238–239, 364,

406hammer 239, 431Handsel Monday 239hare 239harp 74, 102, 240, 345harvest dollies 240hawthorn. See thornHaxey Hood Games 240hazel tree 240–241, 453head 56, 241–242, 266, 291,

323healing 26–27, 45, 65, 132,

242, 331, 425healing stones 243. See also

holed stoneshearth 243

Index 499

heather 243, 453Heathrow 244heaven 244Hedessa 244, 251Hefydd Hen 244Heilyn 244Hellawes 244Hellyas 244Hengroen 244Henky 244Henwen 244Hen Wife 244–245herbs. See healingHercules 245, 367Herla 245Hermes. See MercuryHerne 245heron 245hero’s portion. See champion’s

portionHerzeloyde 245, 378Hibernia 245–246high king 246, 343, 369hill. See fairy moundHill of Allen. See Almuhillfort 246, 337, 385, 391,

444, 449, 472. See also fairyrath

Hill of Tara. See TaraHill of Uisneach. See Uis-

neachHill of Ward. See TlachtgaHistorical Cycle 246–247hoard 247hob 247hobbyhorse 247, 314, 374Hogmany 247, 360holed stones 248. See also

healing stoneshollow hill 248holly 248, 453holy wells. See wellhonor-price. See érichooper 248horn 1, 85, 248–249

horse 157–158, 249–250,313–314, 384, 394. See alsoWhite Horse of Uffington

horse sacrifice 249, 250, 258hospitality 251, 272, 304,

409, 424hostel. See Da Dergahot water 251Hu 251Hugh. See ÁedHulac Warren 251human sacrifice xiv, 201,

251–252, 289, 325, 386,404, 442, 447

hungry grass 252hungry man 252Hy-Brâzil 57, 252–253, 371Hyperboreans 253Hywel Dda 253

I

Ialonus 254Iarbanel 254Ibath, Ibcan 254Iberia 254I Breasil. See Hy-BrâzilIcauna 254Icovellauna 254Igerna. See IgraineIgraine 25, 224, 254–255,

325, 338, 339, 463Ilberg 255Ildathach 255, 348Ile 255images 255imbas forosnai 131, 138, 256,

386Imbolc xiv, 44, 59, 72, 180,

219, 256–257, 271, 290immortality 257immovability 257–258imp 258imram. See voyage

inauguration 258. See alsoSovereignty

buada in 63of Corc mac Luigthic

98Epona in 158Ériu in 160horse sacrifice in 249,

250in kingship 272locality of 83in sacral kingship 403Sovereignty and 424at Tintagel 449at well 470

inauguration stones 183,258–259. See also Lia Fáil

incantations. See divination;imbas forosnai

incest 259Inchiquin 259–260, 431Indech 260Inghean Bhuidhe 260, 283Inis Glora 260inscriptions ixIntarabus 260Interpretatio Romana 21, 88,

260–261, 268, 315, 316,324, 333, 420

intoxication 261Intoxication of the Ulstermen

261invasions. See Book of InvasionsIona 261–262iorasglach 262Ioua 262Iovantucarus 262Irnan 262iron 262, 381, 386Is. See YsIseult 18, 55, 232, 263, 282,

314, 454–455. See alsoEsyllt

Iseult of the White Hands263–264

500 Index

island 264, 445Island of Pigs 264Isles of the Blessed. See Fortu-

nate IslesIsolde. See IseultÍte 264Íth 264Iubdan 38, 265Iuchair 265, 423Iucharba 265, 423Iupiter. See Jupiterivy 265Iwein. See OweinIweriadd 265

J

Jack-in-Irons 266Jack-in-the-Green 266, 397Jack-o-Lantern. See Tine

GhealáinJaniform. See JanusJanuaria 266Janus 266Jeannie of Biggersdale 266Jenny Greenteeth 267Joan d’Arc 267Joseph of Arimathea 107,

217, 225, 267–268, 316Jowan Chy an Hor 268Joyce, James 16–17Julius Caesar v, 19, 130, 207,

393, 472Jupiter 260, 268

K

Kay 269, 281, 323keening 221, 269, 401, 467kelpie 169, 269–270Kenneth of the Prophecies

270Kerhanagh 270

Keshcorran 270–271key 271Kildare 60, 271killeen 271King of Ireland’s Son 271kings xiiKings, Cycle of the

See Historical Cyclekingship 272klippe 272Knight of the Glen

272–273knitting 273Knockainy 273Knockaulin 141, 273, 461knocker 273–274Knockerfierna 274Knockgrafton 274Knockgraney 274Knockma 274Knocknarea 274, 320Knockshegowna 274, 457,

462Knowth 274–275korrigan 275, 477Korrigans xvKulhwch 90, 132, 223,

275–276, 303, 369, 458,477, 478

Kulhwch and Olwen275–276

Kundry. See CunrieKyteler, Alice 276

L

La Belle Dame sans Merci.See fairy lover

Labhraidh Luathlam ar Cleb277

Labhraigh 92, 277–278, 339Ladra 85, 278Lady of the Fountain 278,

299, 372

Lady of the Lake 279, 281,359, 465

Láeg 279Lair Derb 279lake 279, 404lake maidens 279–280Lambton Worm 280, 474Lammas. See LughnasaLamorack de Galles 280Lancelot 2, 25, 61, 149, 232,

280–282, 379Land of Promise. See Tir

TairngiriLand Under Wave. See Tir

fo ThuinnLand of Women. See Tir na

MbanLand of Youth. See Tir na

Noglanguages, Celtic vii–viiiLaoghaire 282Laoghaire Buadhach 282Laoghaire mac Crimthann

282Laoghaire, son of Niall 282Lasair 282–283La Tène vii, 283, 364Latiaran 260, 283–284Latis 284Latobius 284Laudine. See Lady of the

FountainLaunfal 284, 455Lavaine 284Law of the Innocents

284–285Laying the Fairies 285Leborcham 285, 359, 423Lebor Gabála Érenn.

See Book of InvasionsLeherennus 285Leinster 285, 387Len 285Lén Línfiaclach 285–286Lenumius 286

Index 501

Lenus 286Leodegrance 286leprechaun xv, 75, 171, 286,

391, 419, 422Leth Cuinn, Leth Moga

286–287Lethderg 287Leucetius 287ley lines 287Liadan 287, 383Lia Fáil 179, 258, 287–288,

338, 427, 440Lianan Sidhe 288Liath 58, 288Liath Macha 288Lí Ban 288–289, 295Licke 289Lífe 289Liffey. See Ana Life; Lífeliminality 289. See also

thinnessLindow Man 52, 251, 289Linton Worm. See dragonLionel 290Lios 290Lir 290, 292, 311, 417. See

also Children of LirLis. See hillfortLiscannor 290Litavis 290literacy iv, vi–vii, ix–xi,

366–367literature, Celts in iv–viliver 290Llacheau 290llamhigyn y dwr. See water-

leaperLlassar Llaesgyfnewid 291Llefelys 291, 291–292Lleu Llaw Gyffes 23, 49, 143,

230, 235, 291, 297, 299,302–303, 476

Lludd 291–292, 362Llwch Llawwyanawc 292Llyn Tegid. See Tegid

Llyr 292, 378Loathy Lady 69–70, 110,

238, 292, 390lob 292location of Otherworld

292–293Locha 293Lochlann 293Lóequre Búadach 292Loireag 293lone sod. See stray sodLong Man 212, 293Lorois 293losses of the year 293Lot 293–294, 339Loucetius. See LeucetiusLoughcrew 294Lough Derg 294Lough Gur 173, 294–295,

321, 431Lough Neagh 295Lough Ree 295loup-garou. See shape-shiftingLuan 295Luaths Lurgann 191, 295Lubbard Fiend 295–296lubber. See lobLucan 296Luchtar 296Lugaidh 296Lugaidh, friend of Ailill mac

Máta 184, 296Lugaidh Laíghde 116, 296Lugaidh mac Conn 9, 157,

184, 296Lugaidh mac Con Roí 296Lugaidh Riab nDerg 91, 296Lugh 296–297. See also

LughnasaBiróg and 46Dechtire and 122dog of 132father of 89Glas Ghaibhleann and

216

Goll mac Morna and223

leprechaun and 286Lugos and 299mother of 33, 147–148in Mythological Cycle

345Ocean Sweeper and 365on Uisneach 460uncle of 207wife of 348

Lughnasa xiv, 297–299bilberries in 45cake for 299in calendar 72feast on 180fire and 195hill-climbing on 104at Knofierna 274Maoilin and 313Marie au Blè in 314Midsummer and 331milking charms on 333Óenach on 366Tailtiu and 436at Teltown 444

Lugos 297, 299luideag 299lunantishee 299lunar divinities. See moonlunastain 299Luned 278, 299, 372luridan 299–300lurikeen. See leprechaunLuter 300Luxovius 300Lyonesse 300

M

Mab 301Mabinogion x, xi, 40, 142,

301–303Mabon 303

502 Index

Mabunz 303Mac Cécht 198, 303, 322,

340, 382Mac Conglinne 303–304Mac Cuill 34, 304Mac Dathó 8, 63, 241, 304Mac Gréine 304Macha 304–306

children of 153Crunniuc and 107curse of 111, 121father of 4, 405husband of 353Mórrígan and 340mother of 161in Táin bó Cuailnge 437in Ulster Cycle 462

Macha Mong Rua 4, 90, 130,153, 305

MacInelly. See CianMac Moincanta 306Macpherson, James xiMac Roth 306Madgy Figgy 306madness 306–307Madrun. See ModronMaedoc 307Maelduin 307Maer 307Maeve. See MedbMaga. See EbhlaMagdalenenberg 307magic 307–308, 399–400,

424Mag Mell 289, 308, 311, 347,

348, 371Mag Mon. See names for the

OtherworldMag Mór 308, 347, 348Mag Mucramhan 308Mag Muirthemne 308Magog 308, 353magpie 309Mag Réin. See names for the

Otherworld

Mag Tuired 309Maiden Castle 309, 445Maine 309Mairenn 309, 342Mal 310Mala Liath 310Maledisant 63, 310Malekin 310mallet 310, 431Man 42–43, 310Manann 310Manannán mac Lir 311–312

Áine of Knockainy and11

crane bag of 102daughter of 358Man named for 310as Oirbsen 368Robin Goodfellow and

388son of 255, 335steed of 20Tuag and 456

Manawydan 265, 292, 302,312, 317, 387, 394

Manching 312Manx viiiMaoilin 312–313Maol Flidais 313Maponus 313, 317Marcassa 313March 313, 455mare 250, 313–314Marie au Blè 314Mari Lwyd 314Mark 263, 313, 314, 454–455marriage 315Marrock 315Mars 315–316

Barrax as 37Belatucadros as 39Bolvinnus as 53Braciaea as 55Britovius as 61Buxenus as 66

Camulos as 73Caturix as 79Cicollus as 89Cnabetius as 92Cocidius as 93Corotiacus as 99Dinomogetimarus as

129Divano as 130Intarabus as 260in Interpretatio Romana

260Iovantucarus as 262Leherennus as 285Leucetius as 287Medocius as 320–321Mogetius as 334Mullo as 343Nabelcus as 347Neton as 357Nodens as 359Ocelus as 365Rigisamus as 395Rudianus as 402Rudiobus as 402Sutugius as 434

Mary 316Mary Candle. See milking

charmsMary Morgan 316Math 221, 302–303, 316Mathgen 316Matholwch 302, 316–317Matres. See Deae Matresmatriliny 134, 187, 199, 301,

317, 379Matrona 317Matronae. See Deae MatresMatter of Britain xv, 69–70,

317–318. See also ArthurMatus 318Maughold 318Mauher Slieve 318Mauthe Doog. See Black DogMaxen 318

Index 503

May bush 41–42maypole 42, 318–319mead 319Meath. See MideMedb 319–320

birth of 162Cailitin and 68cattle raid of 135, 154,

181comb and 94consort of 8Cruachan and 106–107daughter of 188death of 201, 274, 295father of 156Ferdiad and 182handmaiden to 293lover of 183–184Mab and 301Mórrígan and 340mother of 105Oweynagat and 372Rucht and 188–189sisters of 148, 150sons of 309, 370as Sovereignty 424in Táin bó Cuailnge

437at Tara 441–442urine of 463as warrior woman 468

Medocius 320–321Medros 321megalithic civilization 175,

321–322, 425–426, 427Meg Mullach 322Meiche 322, 340Meilge 322Meleagant 32, 269, 281,

322–323, 433Mellts 323Melor 323Melwas. See MeleagantMen-an-tol 243, 323–324menhir 321, 324

Mercury 140, 161, 210, 260,262, 299, 324, 334, 399,400

Merlin 324–325Arthur and 25imprisonment of 61lover of 358–359, 465madness of 29, 306magic practiced by 308palace of 90sister of 233–234Stonehenge and 427Uther Pendragon and

255wife of 151

mermaid 80, 93, 94, 288–289,316, 325–327, 332, 391,411

merman 327Merry Maidens 327–328,

342Mesca Ulad. See Intoxication of

the UlstermenMesgedhera 328Mess Buachalla 163, 306,

328, 354Miach 127, 221, 328–329,

345, 361Michale. See St. MichaelMidac 329Midas of the Mountains,

King. See MidirMide 93, 320, 329–330, 387,

389, 460–461Midir 60, 155–156, 162, 201,

328, 330, 367, 417, 419Midsummer 330–331midwife 331. See also fairy

midwifeMidwinter. See Nollaigmigration viiMíl. See MilesiansMilesians 331–332

in Book of Invasions 54Éremón of 159

Iberia and 254landing of 16, 33, 160,

197, 264, 344leader of 459origin of 350Scota of 410–411at Tara 441vs. Tuatha Dé Danann

168, 457on Uisneach 460

milk 178, 215, 239, 332, 473milking charms 332–333Milucra 109, 333Minerva 210, 260, 333, 432,

433Mis 306, 333–334mistletoe 334, 336, 453Mithras 334Moccus 334Modron 334, 463Mogetius 334Mogons 334Mog Ruith 334–335, 400,

450Molling 335, 432Mollyndroat 335Moltinus 335Mona. See AngleseyMonday, Tuesday 274, 335Mongán 70, 335–336Mongfhinn 336, 357monster 336months 72–73moon 336Mór 337, 344, 463Morann 57, 337Morda 337Mordred 25, 232, 281,

337–338, 339, 400Morfessa 338Morfran 338Morfudd 338Morgan 2, 224, 233,

254–255, 303, 338–339,372, 379, 463

504 Index

Morgause 224, 254–255, 294, 337, 339

Morholt 339Moriath 277–278, 339Mórrígan 339–340

cattle and 78cow stolen by 366Dagda and 114Medb and 320Morgan and 338mother of 161Nemian and 352Nera and 355Oweynagat and 373ravens and 391Rhiannon and 394son of 322in Táin bó Cuailnge

438as washer at the ford

468morris dancing 341mother goddess 220, 316,

341, 447mound. See fairy moundMound of the Hostages 341mountain 341–342Mountain Sunday. See

Lughnasamouse. See ratmoving stones 342Moyturra. See Mag TuiredMugain 156, 197, 309, 342Mug Nuadat 342Muilearach 342–343Muime 343Muircertach mac Erc 288,

306, 343, 420, 447Muirthemne 343Mullo 343Mumu. See MunsterMunanna 343–344Munster 69, 110, 337, 344,

384–385, 387, 424Murias 344

Murna 344–345music 345Myrddin. See MerlinMyrddin Wyllt 345, 432Mythological Cycle

345–346mythology 346

N

Nabelcus 347na buchtogai. See sea fairiesname 347names for the fairies 348names for fairyland 347names for the Otherworld

348Nanny Button-Cap 348Nar 348Nár Thúathcaech 348Nás 348Nasciens 348Natosuelta 348–349, 431nature 81, 349, 383Navan Fort. See Emain

MachaNavel Stone. See Stone of

DivisionsNechtan 349–350Nechtanebus 350necromancy 350Necthan Scéne 350need-fire 195, 350–351Nehalennia 132, 351–352,

399Nemain 306, 340, 352–353,

356Nemed 5, 194, 254, 305,

353, 375, 391, 440Nemedians 53, 254. See also

NemedNemetius 353–354nemeton 138, 349, 354, 409,

444, 452

Nemetona 287, 354Nemglan 354Nentres 354neo-pagan 251, 354–355,

374, 474Nera 355, 372Nerbgen 355Nerthus 355Nessa 95, 166, 183, 356,

385, 437, 462Nét 356–357Neton 357Nevydd. See NevynNevyn 357Newgrange. See Brú na

BóinneNiall 71, 156, 336, 341,

357–358, 421, 442, 451Niamh 152–153, 174, 179,

358, 368, 382, 449Nicnevin 358night 358Nimue 358–359, 465Nisien 302, 359, 378, 458Nodens 359Noínden Ulad. See Debility

of the UlstermenNóine 359Noísiu 6, 123, 157, 183,

204, 285, 309, 359–360,423, 447

Nollaig 360Noreia 360north 360–361Northumbria 361Nothain 361Nuada 12, 49, 126–127, 194,

328, 345, 361, 425Nuala 362nuckelavee 362, 363Nudd 362numbers 362nygel 362–363Nynnyaw 363Ny Shee 363

Index 505

O

oakmen 365oak tree 45, 179, 364,

452–453oath 365Oberon 365O’Brien family 5Ocean Sweeper 365Ocelus 365Ochall Ochne 201, 365Ochren 365Octriallach 365–366Odras 366, 373Óenach 76, 160, 366, 437,

441, 444, 449, 457, 461Oengus. See AonghusOgalla 366ogham vi–vii, 131, 138, 201,

366–367, 402. See also treealphabet

Ogma 260, 367Ogmia 367Ogmios 245, 367Ogniad 367, 419Ogyrvran 367–368Oirbsen 368Oisín 48, 94, 174, 179, 358,

368, 370, 382, 404, 429Olca Ái 368ollam 35, 368Ollamh Fódhla 369Ollipheist 146, 369Ollototae 369Olloudios 369Olmec. See ImbolcOlwen 276, 303, 369, 478omen 369–370, 374, 386Oona. See ÚnaOppida 370oracle 370oracular head. See headoral tradition viii–ixOrc Triath 370Orlám 370

Oscar 6–7, 370Ossian 368Otherworld xiii, 370–371.

See also fairylandin adventures 3Arawn in 22–23Beltane and 41birds in 102in cosmology 100cows of 101death and 120hounds of 112Ildathach as 255location of 292–293as Mag Mell 308names for 348, 449vs. Paradise 375phantom islands and

379portals to 385second sight and 413in shamanism 82voyage to 466west and 470

otter 131, 371–372Owein 112, 278, 299, 338,

372Oweynagat 77, 79, 270, 319,

340, 355, 372–373owl 373ox 373

P

Padfoot 374Padstow Obby Oss 374paganism 374Palomides 374–375, 389Pamp 375Paps of Danu 20, 344, 375Paradise 375Paris 375Partholón 7, 83, 89, 119, 355,

375–376, 402, 456

Partholonians 53, 376passage graves 199, 321, 341,

376, 442patera 376Patrick. See St. Patrickpattern 376P-Celtic viii, 194, 379pech 377Peg O’Nell 40, 377Peg Powler 377péist 377Pelagianism 377Pelleas. See Fisher KingPellinore 378, 389Penarddun 378Penn Cruc 378Percival 48, 204, 225, 245,

378, 379Peredur 96, 378Perilous Bed 378Perilous Seat 379Perilous Valley 233, 281, 338,

379phantom islands 379Pict 194, 356, 377, 379pig(s) 113, 144, 311,

379–380, 407pilgrimage 380pin 148, 178, 380pishogue 380, 381pixy 380–381pixy-led 381, 430place-lore 381Plant Annwn 381–382planxty 176, 382pledge to the elements 382plowing 382Plur na mBan 358, 382poet 18, 82, 186. See also bardpoetry x, 12, 382–383. See

also satirepoet’s circuit 383Poisoned Glen 383polytheism 383–384pooka 384–385. See also puck

506 Index

portals to the Otherworld385

portal tombs. See dolmenportent. See omen; prophecyportune 385power of the word. See poetrypowrie 385pregnancy, through drinking

or eating 121, 162,163–164, 356, 385–386,474

priest. See druidpronunciation xv–xviprophecy 331, 386protection against fairies

386–387province 129, 387, 389. See

also specific provincesPryderi 90, 234, 302, 387,

388, 394, 445Prydwen 387puck 387–388, 397. See also

pookaPuck Fair 218, 298, 388Purr Mooar 388Pwyll 142, 233, 237,

301–302, 387, 388, 394

Q

Q-Celtic viii, 194questing beast 389quintessence 389

R

Ragallach 390Ragnell 208, 230, 232, 238,

292, 390–391rainbow 391ram-headed snake 249, 343,

391, 415rat 391

Rath 391rath. See hillfortRath Chinneich 391Rathcrogan. See CruachanRath of the Synods. See TaraRatis 391raven 391–392rebirth. See reincarnationred 167, 170, 392Red Book of Hergst xRed Branch 392Red Branch Cycle. See Ulster

CycleRedcap 392Red Etin 392–393red-handed king 4Reid, Thome 393reincarnation 119–120, 251,

257, 393. See also transmi-gration of souls

religion. See Celtic religionRhiannon 46, 244, 250, 302,

312, 387, 388, 394Rhonabwy 395Rhun 395Rhydderch Hael 395rí. See kingshipRiada 395Richis 395Rifath Scot 395Rigani 395Rigatona. See RhiannonRigisamus 395Rigrus Roisclethan 395Ríonach 395–396Ritona 396rituals xiv, xv, 6, 41, 138river 396–397Roan. See SilkieRobin Goodfellow 247, 384,

388, 397Robin Hood 397–398Roc 398Roisin Dubh 398, 424Rollright Stones 398

Roman Empire, Celtic conflict with iv–vi

Romano-Celtic 398–399Rómit Rígóinmit 399Ronán 399Rosault 399rose 399–400Rosmerta 324, 395, 400Rothniam. See Fisher KingRoth Ramach 400Round Table 25, 400rowan 386, 400Ruad 1–2, 27, 400–401Ruadán 221, 269, 401Ruadh 401Ruad Rofessa 401Rucht 188–189, 201, 365,

401–402, 452Rudianus 402Rudiobus 402Rudraige 402rune 402rushes 402Ruturugus 402Ryons 402

S

Sabraan 403Sabrina 403sacral kingship 272,

403–404sacred grove. See nemetonsacrifice 404. See also animal

sacrifice; human sacrificeSadb 404, 417sain 404–405, 429–430Sainnth 405St. Augustine 377St. Brigit. See BrigitSt. George 426St. Helen 150–151St. Michael 298–299, 426,

451

Index 507

St. Patrick 428–430Beltane fire of 41, 144,

421, 429Caoranach killed by 74,

294vs. Corra 99at Croagh Patrick 104Crom Dubh and

105–106divination and 128dragon killed by 136Dumbarton and

140–141Eithne and 149Fedelm and 181at Gamh 205goat and 218vs. Kerhanagh 270on nature 349at Ogalla 366Oisín and 368pagan opponent of 310sain used by 404

saints 405Saitada 405salmon 223, 240, 350,

405–406, 473. See also Fin-tan

salt 386, 406Samaliliath 72, 406Samhain xiv, 406–408

agricultural aspect of 6ale and 14ancestors on 17Cailleach and 69dead during 120divination and 131fairy mounds at 176feast on 180Guy Fawkes and 233hearth and 243losses of the year on

293moonrise on 336night of 358

Otherworld on 292,371, 385

pooka and 384Shoney on 419at Tara 441thinness on 446Tine Ghealáin at 448at Tlachtga 449wakes and 467

Samhair 408Sampait 408sanctuary 409sanding the steps 409Sarras 409satire ix, 57, 71, 111, 166,

187, 308, 322, 383, 409.See also curse

Scantlie Mab 410Scáthach 7, 23, 108, 141,

410, 459, 468Scéne 410Scenmed 410Sceolan 410, 460Scota 332, 350, 410–411Scythia 5–6, 411sea fairies 411seal 75, 411–412seanachie 412Seanchán Toirpéist 412, 438Searbhan 412second sight 88, 165, 185,

250, 331, 412–413, 416Seelie Court 413, 414, 462Segáis 50, 405, 420, 470Segomo 245, 413Sele 413–414Semias 414Senach 414Senchas Mór x, 8, 414Senua 414Sequana 140, 414serpent 415serpent stone 415–416Sétanta 416. See also

Cúchulainn

Setlocenia 416seven 362seven Daughters of the Sea

416seventh son 362, 416Sgeimh Soluis 416shamanism. See Celtic

shamanismshamrock 177, 214, 386, 416,

429Shan Van Vocht. See spéir-

bheanshape-shifting xiii, 417

animals and 18druid’s fog as 139of Manannán mac Lir

311of Mórrígan 339–340of poets 36, 383of Robin Goodfellow

397in shamanism 82of witches 473

Shee Finnaha 417Sheela na Gig 219, 230, 262,

417–418sheep 418Shellycoat 418shinny 419shoemaker 419Shoney 419sídhe 363, 419, 457. See also

fairy moundSigmall 367, 419Silbury Hill 419Silkie 169, 420Sillina 420Silvanus 73, 93, 359, 420,

465Sin 343, 420Sínann 406, 413, 420, 470siren. See mermaidSirona 421Sithchenn 421skriker 421, 452

508 Index

Skye 421Slane 421Slemuin. See OdrasSlieve Gullion 421Slievenamon 421–422sluagh 422, 473Smertrius 245, 422Smirgat 422smith 283, 422, 470snail bead 422snatching by the sídhe. See

fairy kidnappingsolar divinities. See sunsolitary fairies 167, 422solstice xiv, 72, 195, 198,

207–208, 321, 422, 427,475

Sons of Tuireann 4, 135, 144,160, 265, 423, 447–448

Sons of Uisneach 144, 359,423, 437, 447, 461, 462

Souconna 423–424soul 164, 393, 452, 454south 424Sovereignty xii, xv, 424. See

also inaugurationagricultural rituals in 6ale as symbol of 14blemished king and 49Cailleach and 69Cathleen ni Houlihan in

78in cosmology 100fertility in 184geis and 209goddesses and 220Guinevere as 232hag and 238in Historical Cycle 246horse and 249Iseult as 314in kingship 272Loathy Lady as 292love triangles and 145,

162, 232, 263, 282

Macha and 305marriage and 315Mongán and 336Mórrígan as 340Niall and 358polytheism and 384Ragnell as 390Rhiannon as 394Sheela na Gig as 418spéir-bhean as 424three and 447Uisneach and 330

sow. See pigspéir-bhean 424spelling xv–xvispells 424. See also curseSpenser, Edmund 5–6spiral 425, 451spontaneous speech. See

díchetal do chennaibspriggans 425spring 396, 425spring equinox 425Sreng 194, 425stag 248, 425standing stone 38, 321, 324,

425–426Starn 426stoat 426stolen bride. See fairy kidnap-

pingstone 88, 100, 426–427. See

also cursing stonesstone circles 29, 100, 321,

327, 342, 385, 400, 425,427

Stone of Divisions 428, 460Stonehenge 175, 321, 324,

427–428stray sod 430stream 430Strid 430stroke 430. See also fairy

strokestruan. See cake

Súantrade 431submerged city 431Sucellus 310, 431Suibhne 306, 431–432Suideachan 432Sul 432–433Suleviae 433Summer Land 433sun (cosmological concept)

433superstition 433–434Sutugius 434swallow 434swan 434swan maiden 75, 434swarth 435Sweeney. See Suibhnesympathetic magic 435

T

taboo. See geisTadg 436taghairm 436Tailtiu 156, 194, 297, 436–437Táin. See cattle raidTáin bó Cuialnge x, 437–438.

See also Donn CuailngeAeí in 4Ailill mac Máta in 8Cúchulainn in 108Donn Bó in 135Fedelm in 181Fergus in 184Fráech in 188loss of 350, 412Medb in 319Sualtaim mac Roich in

431Taise 438Taliesin x, 438–439. See also

Gwionas bard 36Elphin helped by 395

Index 509

foster father of 152shape-shifting by 417Telgesinus as 444wisdom of 5, 84, 234,

443talisman 16, 439Tamara 439, 443Tam Lin 440tangie 440tanist 440Tara 440–442

burning of 9–10cursing of 399establishment of 159high king and 246in Historical Cycle 246kings of 57, 65, 71,

77–78, 94, 96, 98,118, 357, 448

in Mide 330Mórrígan and 340Mound of the Hostages

at 341name of 443queens of 38, 39,

148–149, 320raiding of 16Samhain and 407Uisneach and 460

Taran 442Taranis 268, 442, 447tarans 442Tarbhfheis. See bull-sleeptarroo-ushtey 442–443Tarvostrigaranus 122, 443tatter-foal 443tattoo 443Tavy 443Téa 441, 443Tech Duinn 443Tegau Eurfron 443, 448Tegid 443Tegid Voel 444teinm laeda 131, 138, 444Telgesinus 444

Telo 444Teltown 298, 348, 437, 444Temair. See Taratemple 444–445Tephi 445Tethba 445Tethra 445Teutates 315, 324, 445, 447,

457Teyrnon 387, 394, 445Them. See names for the

fairiesthinness 445–446. See also

liminalityThirteen Treasures of Britain

446thistle 446Thiten. See MorganThomas the Rhymer 175, 446thorn tree 179, 446three 362, 447, 454threefold death 251, 289,

447. See also Lindow ManThree Sorrows of Ireland

447–448. See also Childrenof Lir; Sons of Tuireann;Sons of Uisneach

Three Splendid Women 142,155, 443, 448

Tiddy Mun 448, 476Tigernmas 105, 448time 448Tine Ghealáin 448Tintagel 448–449Tir fo Thuinn 347, 348, 449Tir na mBan 348, 449Tir na nOg 347, 348, 371,

449Tir Tairngiri 311, 348, 358,

368, 449Titania 449Tlachtga 335, 400, 407,

449–450, 461tober. See welltochmarc. See wooing

togail. See destructionToice Bhrean 272, 294, 450toili 450Tommy Rawhead 450Tom Thumb 450toot mounds 450–451Tor 451Torba. See Murnatorc (torque) 451Torc Triath 451Torna 357, 451totem 451Toutiorix 452transmigration of souls 393,

452. See also reincarnationtrash 452tree 46, 88, 452–453. See also

nemeton; specific typestree alphabet 453. See also

oghamtree soul 454Tree of Tortu 454Tregeagle 454Trenfher. See OgmiosTrewa 454triad 454Triads xTriduana 454triplicity. See threeTristan 263–264, 339,

454–455trooping fairies 167, 174,

392, 413, 455trow 455Tryamour 455Trystan 455–456Tuag 456Tuairisgeal 456Tuan mac Cairill 36, 376,

417, 452, 456tuath 384, 456–457Tuatha Dé Danann xv,

457–458in Book of Invasions

53–54

510 Index

vs. Carman 75–76cities of 187, 344Creidne of 104Danu and 117Dian Cécht of 126Dôn and 301druid’s fog received by

139as fairies 168, 419at Grianán Aileach 229king of 51, 136leader of 361Lia Fáil of 287Lugh of 297Manannán mac Lir of

311in Mythological Cycle

345origin of 179, 353smith of 221at Tara 440victory of 309wisdom masters of 338,

414, 463tuathal. See directionsTuireann 457–458Tuireann, Sons of. See Sons of

TuireannTuiren. See Uirnetulman 458turning the jacket 458Turoe Stone 458Tweedie 458twins 266, 458, 460two 362, 458Twrch Trwyth 276, 451, 458tylwyth teg 348, 458Tyronoe. See Morgan

U

Uaithne 459Uathach 459Uath mac Imoman 459

Ucuetis 459Uffington. See White Horse

of UffingtonUicce 459Uigreann 460Uirne 410, 460, 461Uisneach 27, 160, 204, 330,

407, 460–461. See also Sonsof Uisneach

Ulfius 461Uliad 461Ullen 461Ulster 4, 90, 95, 153, 166,

183, 361, 387, 392,461–462

Ulster Cycle 58, 78, 107–108,437, 462

Úna 189, 274, 362, 462Uncumber 462Undry 462Unseelie Court 462Urban 462–463Urien 338, 372, 463urine 337, 463Urnfield vi, 463uruisg 463Uscias 463Usnach. See UisneachUther Pendragon 25,

254–255, 325, 461, 463

V

Varia 135, 464Vates 35, 464Venus 464Verbeia 464–465Viereckschanzen 409, 465Vikings viVindonnus 465Vinotonus 465Vintius 465vision. See aislingVisucia 465

Vitiris 465Viviane 325, 465Vosegus 465votive deposits 465–466vough 466vow. See geisvoyage 466

W

waff 467wake 467–468war furies 31Warna 468warrior women 468washer at the ford 5, 74, 468.

See also bansheewasteland 468–469water 469water bull 442, 469water horse 67, 169, 217,

362, 363, 417, 469water-leaper 469waulking songs 469–470Wayland 164, 470weasel. See stoatwell 41, 93, 405–406, 444,

470–471well dressing 471Welsh viiiwest 471wheel 471white 471White Book of Rhydderech xWhite Horse of Uffington

84, 158, 250, 471–472White Lady 472Wicca 472wicker man 251, 472widdershins. See directionsWild Hunt 106, 245, 358,

407, 440, 455, 462,472–473

willow 453, 473

Index 511

Winefride. See Gwenfrewiwinter solstice. See Nollaigwisdom 189, 190, 191, 196,

240–241, 405, 413, 420,470, 473

witch 473Buitch 64cats and 77fox and 199–200as hare 239Madgy Figgy 306milk stolen by 332shape-shifting by

18–19, 417transport of 400at Trewa 454

witchcraft 276, 473–474Witta 474wodwose 474

wolf 2, 474wooing 474worm 185, 385, 474. See also

dragon; Lambton Wormwren 475writing. See literacy; oghamwulver 475

Y

Yallery Brown 476Yann-An-Ord 476yannig 476yarkins 476Ychen Bannog 476Yeats, William Butler 83yew 45, 452, 476Yew of Ross 476–477

y fuwch frech. See Dun CowYgerna. See Igrainey mamau 477Ynys Gutrin 477Ynys Wair 477Youdic 477Yr Hen Wräch 477Ys 114–115, 225, 231, 275,

477Ysgithyrwyn 477Yspaddaden Penkawr 276,

369, 478Yvain. See OweinYvonne and Yvon 478

Z

Zeus. See Jupiter

512 Index