An Chraobh Airgid

God or goddess

The Morrígan

An Mhór-Ríon · Old Irish Morrígan

Goddess of battle and prophecy.

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

Goddess of battle and prophecy, a daughter of Ernmas. In the first battle of Mag Tuired she went with Badb and Macha to Tara, and for three days and nights they rained sorcery, mist and fire on the Fir Bolg. At Samhain, before the second battle, the Dagda found her washing herself in the river Unshin in Corann; the place was afterwards called the Bed of the Couple. When that battle was won she proclaimed the victory to the heights of Ireland and its sídhe, and then foretold the end of the world. In The Adventure of Nera she takes a cow out of the síd of Cruachan to the Brown Bull of Cúailnge; and in the Táin she comes to Cú Chulainn as a young woman offering him her love, as an eel, a she-wolf and a heifer in his fight with Loch, and as an old woman milking a cow with three teats.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • 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.
  • The Cattle Raid of Cooley An argument in bed over who is richer ends in a war for a brown bull, and one young man holding a ford against all Ireland.
  • The Adventure of Nera On Samhain night a man goes out in the dark to tie a withe round a hanged man’s foot, and follows the host of the sídhe into the cave of Cruachan.

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.