An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Cian

Cian

Say it: KEE-un

Lugh’s father, stoned to death by the sons of Tuireann.

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

In the Fate of the Children of Tuireann he is a son of Cáinte. Meeting his old enemies, the sons of Tuireann, alone on the plain of Muirtheimhne, he hid from them in the shape of a pig; they speared him, let him take his own shape, and killed him with stones, and six times the earth threw his body up. His son Lugh set them the greatest éiric ever asked. In Cath Maige Tuired he is Cian son of Dian Cécht, and Balor of the Fomorians gives him his daughter Ethne, Lugh’s mother. Joyce’s English calls him Kian.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • The Fate of the Children of Tuireann Three brothers stone Lugh’s father to death. His price sounds small: three apples, a pigskin, a spear, a hound’s whelp, and three shouts on a hill.
  • The Coming of the Tuatha Dé Danann They burned their ships on the shore, and for three days a druid’s mist hid them. Then they sent word to the people who held Ireland: half the land, or a battle.
  • The Second Battle of Mag Tuired A beautiful king who gives nothing, a stranger with every art, an eye no army can face, and a harp that plays sorrow, laughter and sleep.

See also

  • The Fomorians Old enemies of the gods. In folklore, giants.
  • Tuireann Father of Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba.

Sources

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

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