An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Lir

Lear · Old Irish Ler

Say it: leer

Lord of Síd Fionnachaidh, father of the four swans.

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

A lord of the Tuatha Dé Danann who expected to be made king and was passed over for Bodb Dearg. He made his peace by marrying Bodb’s foster-daughter Aobh, and after her death her sister Aoife. Strictly, Lir is the genitive of Ler, “sea”, which is why the children are Clann Lir. The tale never makes him a sea-god; later writers sometimes merged him with the father of Manannán mac Lir.

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.
  • Fionn and the Burning of Tara For twenty-three years a man of the sídhe has played Tara to sleep at Samhain and burned it. Then a boy of ten, an outlaw, offers to keep it till morning.

See also

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.