An Chraobh Airgid

God or goddess

Nechtan

Neachtan · Old Irish Nechtan

Lord of the síd where the Boyne rises, and keeper of the secret well.

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

Husband of Boann, and lord of Síd Nechtain, the hill where the Boyne rises: the first Dindshenchas poem of the Boyne calls him son of Labraid, and the hill his grave. In its green was a secret well that burst the eyes of anyone who looked to its bottom, and none dared go near it but Nechtan and his three cup-bearers, Flesc, Lám and Luam; when Boann walked round it to test its power, it rose and followed her to the sea. P. W. Joyce, in 1906, wrote that the old documents make him a king of Leinster and a poet. The poems of the Boyne give his well no hazels and no salmon: those belong to other wells, like the fountain Cormac saw, on which the Well on this site draws.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • Boann and the Secret Well Whoever looks into Nechtan’s secret well, his eyes burst. Boann walks three times round it to show it has no power over her, and the water rises.

See also

  • The Fountain of Knowledge The shining fountain in the Land of Promise, with five streams flowing out of it.
  • Síd Nechtain Carbury Hill and Trinity Well. Nechtan’s hill, where the Boyne rises from the well that rose against Boann.

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.