An Chraobh Airgid

Being of the sídhe

Niamh

Niamh Chinn Óir

Niamh of the Golden Head: the daughter of the King of Tír na nÓg, who rode out of the west for Oisín.

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

In the Lay of Oisín in the Land of Youth she rides to Loch Léin on a white horse shod with gold, tells Fionn she has refused every king’s son who courted her, and lays a geis on Oisín to come away with her. In Tír na nÓg she bore him two sons, whom she named Fionn and Oscar after his father and his son, and a daughter, Flower of Women. When he asked leave to see Ireland again, she warned him three times never to get down from the white horse.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • Oisín in Tír na nÓg Niamh of the Golden Head carries Fionn’s son away to the Land of the Young. Three hundred years go by like three, and then he asks to go home.

See also

  • Fionn mac Cumhaill Leader of the Fianna: poet, hunter and seer. In later folklore, a giant.
  • Loch Léin Lough Leane. The lake at Killarney where Niamh found the Fianna hunting.

Sources

Later literary work. Composed by a named poet or writer from older material.

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.