An Chraobh Airgid

God or goddess

Manannán mac Lir

Manannán mac Lir

Say it: MAN-un-awn mok LEER Manannán (Ulster) /ˈmˠanˠən̪ˠanˠ/

“Son of the sea”: lord of the Otherworld across the water.

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

Where Bran sees a clear sea, Manannán in his chariot sees a flowery plain. He made the Crane Bag from the skin of a woman turned into a crane, and in Cormac’s tale he is the stranger with the silver branch.

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 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.
  • The Song of Amairgen A poet sets his right foot on Ireland and sings that he is the wind on the sea. Three queens of the old gods meet him, and each asks for the island’s name.
  • Cormac and the Silver Branch A grey-haired stranger brings Cormac a silver branch whose music puts every sorrow to sleep. The price: his daughter, his son and his wife.
  • The Voyage of Bran Music puts Bran to sleep, and he wakes beside a silver branch in blossom. He is gone a year, he thinks. At home he is already an old story.

See also

  • Ailbhe Cormac’s daughter: the first price of the silver branch.
  • Cairbre Lifechair Cormac’s son, taken by the stranger with the silver branch.
  • The Crane Bag Manannán’s bag of treasures, full at high tide and empty at the ebb.
  • Eithne the Long-sided Cormac’s queen, and the last of the three that Manannán took.
  • The Fountain of Knowledge The shining fountain in the Land of Promise, with five streams flowing out of it.
  • Fuamnach Midir’s first wife, who turned Étaín into a fly.
  • Lir Lord of Síd Fionnachaidh, father of the four swans.
  • The Silver Branch The token of the Otherworld. This site takes its name from it.
  • Tuireann Father of Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba.

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.