An Chraobh Airgid

God or goddess

Aengus Óg

Aonghus Óg · the Mac Óc

The young god of the Brú: lover and trickster.

Open it on the full site There every name opens, and a web shows who is kin to whom.

Son of the Dagda and Boann. He won Brú na Bóinne by asking to hold it for a day and a night, then claiming it forever, since all of time is made of days and nights. In another tale he falls sick with love for a girl he has seen only in dreams.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • Boann and the Secret Well Whoever looks into Nechtan’s secret well, his eyes burst. Boann walks three times round it to show it has no power over her, and the water rises.
  • The Dream of Aengus For a year a girl plays to Aengus in his sleep. When he finds her, she is one of thrice fifty girls on silver chains, and every other year she is a swan.
  • The Wooing of Étaín A fly on the wind drops into a golden cup and is born again, remembering nothing. A thousand years on, her first husband comes to Tara to play for a kiss.
  • The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne Promised to the ageing Fionn, Gráinne puts the feast to sleep and lays a geis on Diarmuid to take her away. Fionn hunts them for sixteen years.

See also

  • Brú na Bóinne Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. The mansion of the Boyne: a tomb older than the pyramids, and a house of the gods.
  • Samhain The start of winter. The night the mounds stand open.
  • Sliabh na mBan Slievenamon. The mountain of the women, where Bodb Dearg kept his síd.

Sources

Medieval manuscript. Written down by Irish scholars between the eighth and seventeenth centuries.

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.