An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Aoife

Aoife · Old Irish Aífe

Say it: EE-fuh /ˈiːfʲə/

Lir’s second wife, who turned his children into swans.

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

Aobh’s sister, sent to Lir to mother the children after Aobh died. Jealous of the love they drew, she struck them with a druid’s wand at Loch Dairbhreach. Bodb Dearg turned her into a demon of the air. She is not the Aoife of the Crane Bag: Irish tradition has several women of that name.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • The Children of Lir A jealous stepmother, a druid’s wand, and four children who must live nine hundred years as swans.

See also

  • The Crane Bag Manannán’s bag of treasures, full at high tide and empty at the ebb.
  • Loch Dairbhreach Lough Derravaragh. Where four children became swans.

Sources

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

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