M, muin, vine in the ogham.

Totems are mintan, the titmouse and the

colour mbracht, tartaned or parti-coloured. Dates September 2 -29.

MAB, to stutter, lisp, stammer, a tassel, a fringe, abuse,

vilify, reproach in anger, affront; mabag or babag, a short
piece of yarn, a filthy female. mabach, entangled, confused,
ravelled, fringed. Mab righan, Queen Mab, the Mhorrigan.
Mabladh, hacking, maiming; she was a noted warrior-
goddess.

This legendary queen of the Tuatha daoine went to

earth in western Ireland, beneath Cruachin, and was
supposedly the sidh-spirit of sovereignty. In ancient times,
the kings of Tara kept a house of virgins who tended the
sacred fires of Briid (the bride). One of these was expected
to yield her virginity to the Ard Righ, or High King, at each
festival of Samhainn (May 1). This pagan rite was expected
to rejuvenate the king, and the general fertility of the soil,
men and cattle. No king could rule the Gaelic countryside
without lying first at the side of "Mebd". It is suspected
that the goddess that the king symbolically married was
arachaic, pre-dating the Milesians and perhaps the Tuatha
daoine.

Katherine Scherman says that the Gaelic goddesses

were mother-fertility figures, but also "agents of death".
She describes all of them as "amorphous...of multiple
personality...veiled in shadows", which is another way of
saying that their stories are inextricably tangled. Badb,
Mebd, or Maeve is closely linked with both Emain, Nemain,
Emain Macha, or Macha, and Mhorrigan, Morrigan, or Morgan.
 To put the situation concisely, these are a trinity, often
represented under the single name Morrigan, a virgin
goddess of youth. Her mature counterpart is Medb and her
elder-form, the Macha. Morrigan corresponds with the
summer-goddess, who the Scots called Samh, a lady who
personifies the season they call samhradh, or summer. This
goddess-spirit ended her reign on the last day of November,
thus the festival called Samhainn (the fires on the hill of
Samh). Her alter-ego is the Cailleach Bheur, or Winter Hag,
another name for the Emain Macha, or Swift-moving One.
She was also known as the Geamir, the Gamer or Huntress,
and hence her season, the geamhradh, or winter. It is
notable that "cailleach" currently describes a "frosted" or
aged human woman, as well as an inhuman house-spirit, the
mate of the bodach, who the English refer to as the brownie.

MAC, obs. clear, pure, clean, as a verb, to bear, carry. Mac,

son; mic, the plural, sons; macaibh, the dative plural form,
also, the young of any animal species, poetically for a male
animal. Also seen as mhac. Macadh, obs. bearing, carrying.
See the next entry which relates.

MACAIBH MOR, aibheil, huge; mor, great. A favourite giant in

Gaelic folk tales.

MACALAIDH, fostering a son.

MAC A' LUIN, the sword of Fionn mac Cumail which fought of
its own accord. 1

MAC-AN-TOISICH, Macintosh, son of the priest. In the

wester Ross, whisky, from the fact that priests were
involved in the manufacture.

MAC, MHAC AOD, son of the day, son of hearth-fire, son of

Aod (see separate entry), the Mackay. Also termed the Clan
Morgan after the pagan goddess Mhorrigan.

1Tales Until Dawn, pp.. 35-36.

MAC CÉCHT, mac May, a son of Ogma. After the death of
Nuada of the Silver Hand at the second battle of Magh
Tuireadh, he and his two brothers took the body for burial to
Grianan Aileach, on the Inishowen Peninsula. Here, arguing
over the disposition of their father’s estates in Ireland,
they sought the advice of a stranger named Ith. They came
to suspect that this Milesian visitor was spotting the land
for his own folk so they killed him. It was in revenge for
thus killing that the Milesians sailed against Ireland,
ultimately defeating the Tuatha daoine. During the invasion
this lad was killed by Eremon, the son of King Mileus. He
was a husband to Fodhla, one of the three goddesses who
treated with the invaders to name the land after them (the
others were Banabh and Eire).

MAC CUILL. A son of Ogma and husband of Banbha, slain by

the Milesian named Eber. See Mac Cecht.

MAC DHUIBHSHITH, son of the black sigh, the Mac Phee. This
clan lived on South Uist in the Hebrides and were said to
have been anciently "in touch with the fairy-folk." They are
related to the MacDuffies, whose name is a phonetic variant.
The chief of the clan was resident at Colonsay, and island
which afterwards passed to the Macdonalds and the
Campbells, and finally to the MacNeills in the seventeenth
century. It has also been suggested that their patriarchal
ancestor was Dubhsidhe, who was Lector of Iona in 1164. If
so they may have been related to the sacred clan later
known as Mackinnon and were apparently Christians from a
very early date. "On the other hand there are those who say
the Macfies descend from a seal-woman." (The Hebridean
Connection, p. 80)

MAC GRÉINE. The son of Ogma, husband of the goddess Eire,

whose name was given to Ireland in earlier times. He was
slain by the Milesian druid named Amerigin.

MAC MHAOLIN, “Son of the tonsured one,” the Macmillan.

Pre-Reformation names were limited to those of ancient
and royal blood, thus this name implies descent from a very
old monastic family. Unlike the Roman Catholics the
Culdees were allowed to marry and reproduce. The Celtic
tonsure was not the bald circle later approved by the Roman
Catholic Church but the shaving of the whole front of the
head from ear to ear, leaving everything from their back to
grown untrammelled.

MAC MOINCANTA. When Manann left Ireland in disgust after

the election of Boabd Dearg as head of the Daoine sidh, Mac
Moincanta took his place as ruler of the sighe at Meadha. In
folklore this short-lived “king of the fairies” was
supplanted by Fionbharr.

MACNAS, sport, wantonness, festivity; the root mac, from

the rear, son. Implies sexual "sports." Confers with the OIr.
mhac, son. Ritual mating for the continued fertility of man,
beast, and the land, was the root element of Quarter Day
festivals.
MACHA, (mah-kha), machair, a plain, the Royston crow.
Also, a third part of the triad goddess Bafinne. She is often
defined as “Macha daughter of Aod the Red, wife to Neme,
although she is also represented as married to Crundchu.”
She alone governed the direction of future events. She was
the crone who cut the threads of the spirits of men and the
gods.

She befriended Ulster and had her first residence at

Emain Macha, but cursed the men of this province and
afterwards became the patroness of Connaught. Here she
was incarnate as Badb, Mebd or Maeve and fought an
unsuccessful battle against King Conor and his hero
Cúchullain. She also corresponds with Mhorrigan (the
goddess of the past) and is represented in folklore as the
Cailleach Bheurr or “Winter Hag,” the seeker after souls of
the dead.

Aside from her presence as myth,the reincarnate

Macha represents the beginnings of record The eleventh
century historian Tierna was astute in noticing that “All
historical records of the Irish, prior to the reign of
Cimbaoth (ca. 300 B.C.) are dubious.” Much which followed
was equally so, but it certainly marked the beginning of
some firm ground for history. This was the time of the
founding of the northern kingdom called Ulaid, or Ulster and
at its centre was Emain Macha, now represented by a few
grassy ramparts near Ard Macha, now named Armagh. Emain
is supposedly derived from eo, a bodkin and muin , the neck,
hence “a brooch worn near the neck.” The old Irish brooches
were large circular things of silver or bronze crossed by a
long thorn-like pin, and they do resemble the circular
ramparts of the old Celtic fortresses. Perhaps Macha wore
one of these?

It is said that she was the daughter of Aod ruairdh,

the Ulster king, whose two brothers Dithorba and Cimbaoth
succeeded him. “they agreed, in turn, to enjoy the
sovereignty of Ireland.” Translated this meant they
proposed to cohabit with Macha, who was technically
queen, but could not rule alone by the laws of the time. She
declined their first advances and fought and killed Dithorba
At last she forced Cimbaoth to accept her in a formal
marriage. The five sons of Dithorba by an earlier marriage
were put out by this and fled into Connacht where they
plotted against Macha.

Travelling on their trail the warrior-queen found them

in a wooded region, where, wearied from a hunt, they were
drinking and eating before an open fire. A master of
disguise, or perhaps a shape-changer, the lady put on “her
grimmest aspect.” Some have represented her disguise as
that of an ancient crone, while others say she took on the
looks of a war-goddess “red all over, with the terrible
flashing eyes as powerful as death itself.” Whatever the
case the brothers were individually taken by her
powerlessness or her sinister beauty, and not recognizing
her tried to lead her off into the woods for private parties.
She overpowered them all by arms or magic, and returned
with them as bound prisoners to Ulster. With the spear of
her brooch she supposedly marked the circle of the first
fortress of Emain Macha and set these captive princes at
the work of masonry and earth-filling.

She founded the legendary Emain Macha, the capitol of

Ulster for six hundred years after her death. Macha's
foster-son, Ugani-Mor (the Great) who succeeded her, led
armies into Britain and some say his ambition took him to
the Continent, where he conquered some of the
Mediterranean lands. All of the present leading families of
Ireland trace descent to Ugani Mor, the patriarch of royalty
in three provinces of Ireland.

This woman was the living model for the “goddess”

named Macha, Emain Macha or Nemain . As we have already
noted she was later reincarnate as the deer-like woman
who went to live with the woodsman named Crundchu. When
he wagered her in a race against the Ultonian horses this
caused her to abandon Ulster for Connaught and place her
curse for “nine times nine generations” upon the fighting
men of the north. The counterpart for the mature warrior-
queen Baobd, was unquestionably Mebd, also known as
Maeve, or May, the daughter of the high-king Eochaid
Feidlech.

She may also be remembered as the first wife of

Conchobar mac Nessa, king of Ulster. Leaving him she
secured Connaught as her principality through a May-
December union. After that she made a third marriage to
Ailill of Leinster. Macha-dubh, the otter.

MACHLAG, matrix, womb, belly, mating. Machlagach, uterine,

bellyingmachuil, a spot or blemish

MAC-MALLACHD, “son of curse,” The Devil.

MAC-MIC, grandson.

MACNAS, wantoness, sport, lasciviousness, festivity;

machnasach, licentious, gay, festive, buxom.

MAC-RATHA, a prosperous or innately lucky fellow, god-

gifted.

MAC-TALLA, son of rock; an Echo. The name given North

America’s first all Gaelic periodical (Antigonish, Nova
Scotia).

MAELDUIN, mael + duin, miller, a maul, grinder + man. The

voyages of Maelduin are found in the ms. entitled The Book
of the Dun Cow (1100 A.D.) He was one of Celts supposed to
have explored the Atlantic. In the process he landed upon
the Island of Mill and nearby found "a grim looking mill" (a
whirlpool). Here he interviewed the sea-giant in charge and
was told, "Here comes to be ground all that men begrudge
one another." The voyagers saw that this was a very busy
place so they "sained" (crossed themselves) and sailed
away. In their voyages the company saw the undersea
realms of the Fomors: "They found themselves in a sea, thin
like mist, that seemed as if it might not support their craft.
In the depths they saw a fortress, and a fair land beneath
them. A monstrous beast lodged in a tree there with droves
of cattle and an armed warrior beneath it. As they watched
the beast foraged at will among the cattle, devouring them
one by one.” Fearing they should fall through the mist-like
sea-sky, Maelduin ordered that they should sail on. See
imrama.

MAAG MOULACH, mag, powerful, great, lustful, a paw or

claw, arable field, Productive; molach, hairy, rough, shaggy.
The weregild of Tillochgorum, Scotland. Maag has
correspondence with the Eng. Mab or Maeve, which is
founded on the Gaelic Mebd who was one of the three
bafinne. The Cailleach bheurr or “Winter Hag.” "One with the
left hand, all over hairy." A creature invisible except as a
forerunner of death and destruction. A boabh, similar to the
male bodach described above. Alexander Macpherson noted
frequent references to this banshee in Presbyterian Synod
Records. Apparently attempts were made to verify or deny
her existence but the researchers could not come to any
conclusion. They did interview two men who testified upon
the Bible that they had seen her: "A young girl with her left
hand all hairy." Magach, creeping, crawling, mocking.
Magair, a jester, an ape, a stone, testicle.

MAGA. The daughter of Aonghas Og she who wed a human

named Ross the Red. Their son Fachtna married Ness.

MAGH, a field, level, country, field of battle; mag-aoraidh, a

field of worship. Confers with the early Celtic magos. This
word is scattered all about France in compound word-names
and is also commonly seen in Ireland. It is also buried
within modern maps of countries that are no longer
considered Celtic. Thus in Switzerland we find Uro-magus
which has become Promasens. In the Rhineland there is
Brocomagus, currently called Brumath, and in the
Netherlands Nimègue. There are several variants on this
last name in Lombardy and Austria. The nominative form of
this word is the Gaelic Màigh, which corresponds with the
English May. A bit of linguistic research reveals this lady as
the tri-partite goddess often identified as Bridd but more
accurately designated as Bas-finne, her parts being the
goddesses Mhoriggan, Badb and Macha. She is sometimes
given as the daughter and/or mate of the creator-god.

MAGH DA CHEO , Plain of the Two Mists, also a synonym for

lands in the west, the Otherworld. Significantly there are
two major fog zones in the northwestern Atlantic.

MAGH INDOG, INDOC, “Plain of the Sewer.” Features in

Christian embellishments of the myth of Dead Lands in the
west. Hell, Hades. In The Book of the Dun Cow Cúchullain
was conjured back from the west by Saint Patrick to argue
the merits of paganism against those of the new religion.
Instead, the hero recounted his deeds in times long past and
strongly suggested that the pagans who was present convert
to Christianity.

MAGH MELL, (Moy Mal), the Great Plain (of the sea).
Sometimes said to be the site of Tir-nan-Og and the other
Fomorian undersea kingdoms. Certainly the location of the
"Dead World" known as An Domhain. See also Maelduin.

MAGH MON, “Plain of Sports,” Plain of Indolence; synonym

for the Otherworld. According to tradition the first
business of the gods after the creation of their homeland
was the creation of playing fields. The patron of sports
was Lugh, the sun/creator god, and the preoccupation of the
gods was horsemanship and betting.

MAGH TUIREADH, (Moy Tirra), Plain of Thunder, “Plain of

Towers.” “Thor’s Plain.” The first battle fought here was
between the Firbolge and the Tuatha daoine. The Daoine won
but King Nuada lost his hand and his kingship. The second
followed from this when Breas became king, was deposed
and led the Fomorians against the Tuatha daoine. Here
Nuada was slain, but Balor of the Evil Eye was brought
down by Lugh and the day went to the warrior-magicians.
The second battle was actually at a more northern location,
the place being technically Ess Dara.. When it was over only
three Fomorians remained in Ireland, the rest retreating
into the Western Ocean. The four sea-giants continued to
spoil the country of corn, milk and fruit “and whatever
came from the sea,” until they too were driven away on a
Samhain eve by Mhorrigan and Aonghas Og.

The exact lands from which the Tuatha daoine came is

unknown but they had no intention of returning there. Once
they beached their vessels on the strands of ancient Ireland,
they burned them so that they could not be used by the
Firbolgs, or tempt them to retreat. This done they wrapped
their host in an impenetrible black cloud and marched
inland. When the Firbolgs became aware of their peril the
Tuathans were entrenched on a mountain near the Plains of
Sligo in the western province later called Connaught. The
Firbolgs were conscious of their own numerical superiority,
but disliked the tales of irrestible weapons, and did not
immediately respond to demands for battle or capitulation.
When the two armies were drawn up at Mag Tured (Moytura,
on the Mayo-Galway border), the Firbolgs insisted that the
 etiquette of war be observed. While the Tuathans shuffled
impatiently, emissaries explained that time would be
needed to sharpen swords and spears. On another day it was
found that armour needed refurbishing, and weeks later, the
Firbolgs insisted on time to refurbish their helmets. Not to
be rushed into warfre, the dark curly-haired clansmen
insisted on the perfection of their last wickerwork shield
before they would march. In fairness, they observed that
the Tuathans lacked the heavy spears that they carried and
insisted that their enemies have time to equip themselves.
On the other hand, the Firbolgs noted that they needed a
few weeks to forge the light-weight swords preferrred by
the Tuathans. Altogether, the Firbolgs managed tom keep
the Tuatha daoine fuming and freting and impotent for a
hundred and five days before any conflict took place.

While the Tuathans were technologically superior it

seemed that they lost the war known as trickery, but they
did manage one point: As the Firbolgs had obvious numerical
superiority, the Tuthans suggested that the armies should
fight one-on-one, excluding the majority of Firbolgs. The
latter were reluctant to go this far with the ethics of
battle, but recognized the justice of the argument and
agreed.

When the battle came, it raged for four days. The

Firbolgs seeing themselves cut down, arranged a truce and
suggested that casulties be restricted by pitting 300
hundred men from each side against one another in the
concluding fray. Some reporters said that the Firbolgs were
absolutely "routed to the outermost isles of the sea," but it
appears that the Tuathans gained a pyrrhic victory: "So
bravely had the losing ones fought, and so sorely exhausted
the De Dannan, that the latter, to end the struggle, were
glad to leave to the Firbolgs that quarter of the Island
wherein they fought (Connaught)."2

Scherman has another version of the fate of the

2 Macmanus, Ibid., p. 3.
 Firbolgs: "The subordinate people retreated to the wild
places of the south and east, the provinces of Munster and
Leinster, to pursue a style of life simpler and rougher than
that of the new aristocracy..." 3

Where they went is unimportant. A major event of the

battle at southern Moytura was the slaying of the High King
Eochaid, the Horseman of Heaven. He fought so notably he
was incorporated as a god-spirit of the Tuatha daoine.
Sreng, a fierce warrior of the Firbolg side had cut off the
hand of the Tuathan king called Nuada. This was not an
irreplacable member since the new race included Creidne a
master of mechanical magic, who created a new articulated
hand made of silver. Unfortunately, one of the laws of the
Tuatha daoine excluded men with physical blemishes from
holding leadership, any defect being seen as a weakening of
the god-spirit of the king. Nuada was therefore forced into
retirement with consequences which we will outline in the
next chapter. As for the Firbolgs, those banished to the
outer islands (presumably the Hebrides of Scotland)
returned to the larger Island in the second century of the
Christian era. Their chief was Angus, a leader of Clann
Umor. They were given an unpleasant welcome in Ulster and
eventually took the side of southerners under Queen Maeve
of Connaught. For this, they were granted the seaboard of
Galway and Clare and the Arran Isles. On Inishmore, one of
these islands, they built Dun Angus, a notable redoubt whose
dry-stone walls were up to twelve feet in thickness. The
seaward wall of this fortress once overlooked a sheer cliff
two hundred feet above the water, but much has eroded
away. Nevertheless, it is still obvious that this holding
place of the ancient Firbolgs once covered eleven acres of
the Island.

Among the Gaels the Pictii (Latin, painted ones) were

termed the Cruithnians (wheat-eaters). They became
confounded with the Firbolgs because they occupied common
lands, were equally obscure in origins, and shared a

3 Katherine Scherman, Ibid, p. 260.

matriarchal system of government, with descent in the
royal line according to female succession. According to
legend, Crimthann in the interest of resettling these violent
folk gave them Irish wives to take to Alba with them. This
was done on condition that inheritance favour these women,
and this became a hereditary condition among the Scottish
Picts.

MAGOG & JAPHET. Partholon was a descendant of these sons

of Adam. It must be understood that the transcribers of
unwritten tradition were Christians, who wished to give the
Hibernians the best possible geaneology. Whatever his
background, Partholonan followed the example of the
Biblical Cain and murdered his father Sera, hoping to inherit
his kingdom.

This is very reminiscent of the killing of the Oolathair

by his sons and this portion of the tale may be a
reinterpretation of that myth as Sera appears to be a form
of the Gaelic siar or iar, the “west.” Note that none of the
murderers inherited their fathers holdings but were all
forced into exile. It was thus that Partholon and a number
of close friends set sail upon the ocean and finally settled
in Munster, Ireland, arriving singnificantly on the first day
of May, which is to say beulteinne. It was sometimes
claimed that this hero came from Spain, but it will be
recalled that the Gaelic for this place is more correctly
understood as a synonym for the “dead-lands,” which were
understood to be placed in the western Atlantic.Some
biographers insisted that Sera had a kingdom in Scythia but
a ballad-sheet has Tul-tunna, the survivor of the flood sing
these words:

When Partholan came to the island

From Greece in the Eastern Land,
I welcomed him gaily to my land
And feasted the whole of his band

We think that this early Munster-man did not come

from the west and have T.W. Rolleston for support. He says:
“The Celts as we have learned from Caesar, believed they
were descended from the God of the Underworld, the God of
the Dead. Partholan is said to have come from the West,
where beyond the unsailed Atlantic, the Irish Fairyland...the
Land of the Happy Dead, was placed. His father’s name was
Sera (?the West?). He came with his queen Dealgnaid and
twenty-four men and an equal number of female companions.
He is recorded as having three legitimate sons, the eldest
named Eber (the same name as one of the sons of Mil), and
one “a hireling.” His other sons were Rudraihe (Roderick)
and Laighhlinne (Lochlann), and an unnamed by referred to
as “the hireling.” When Rudhraidhe died his was buried by
his father in a place which erupted water from the
gravesite, and this flood continued creating the modern Loch
Rudraidhe. The first record of fornication in Ireland was
followed by a second.

The queen was “ignored” by her husband and while he

was away on a journey she had an affair with a household
servant named Todga. When the leader returned he forgave
his mate, noting that he was not blameless and had been
wrong in leaving her without company.

When the Partholonians arrived in ancient Eiru it was

a wilderness embracing three huge lakes and nine rivers on
a single plain. The persistence of these numbers in druid
magic dates from these early observations. The new men on
the land are said to have hunted the plain, set up the first
hostels, and cleared the land for agriculture. The old tales
insist that the Farlanders had two ploughmen in their
retinue and that these men were equipped with four working
oxen and ploughs with iron blades.

These men were not long in place before they met the
sea-roving Fomorians, This race emerges again and again in
the Book of Invasions and they are hardly ever represented
as a “civilzed race,”an epitaph which Donnelly gives them in
his book Atlantis the Antediluvian World. They did come
with “sixty ships and a strong army” as this writer
suggested, but they did not kill Partholon and they failed to
defeat his people as he suggests. Some of the Irish claim
descent from the sea-folk of the underwater kingdoms, and
perhaps Ignatius Donnelly is one of these!

A greater number of Irish have taken the other court,

e.g. Katherine Scherman: “In Partholan’s time these savages
lived on costal islands, and fought against Partholan’s race
although equipped with but “one foot, one hand and one eye.”
Some men said that these intruders were shape-changers,
cannibals often observed to have the heads of animals
(probably because they wore the hides of their totem
animals), Strangers always have an uncanny appearance!
This historian thought that the Fomors were probably some
faint racial memory of Mesolithic man, a stone-bearing
creature “who crept round the edges of the country catching
what food he could with his rude weaopons and eking out a
static existence...presenting his infelicitous countenance
and his paltry resistence to more progressive successors.”

We shall soon see that that the Fomorians were not all
that ineffectual although Partholon did meet and defeat
these hordes who were led by Cichol Grinchenghos (the
Footless). The Farlanders actually fell prey to the first
plague in Ireland after they had gathered for some unstated
purpose near the Old Plain called Senmag. Tallaght, on the
west slope of Dublin mountain is notorious as the actual
site of the death of nine thousand men and women, the
descendants of the original settlers. It is claimed that they
all expired within a week and those who survived gave them
a mass burial.

One can see tumuli on the hillside which seem to

support theis myth. In the year 774 A.D. the king of Leinster
gave this place to Christian monks for a monastery, but
even less remains of their monastery. This place was much
too close to a very good harbour, which the viking Norse
preferred when they came to establish a settlement at
Dublin.
MAIDE-DOICHIOLL, “the stick of inhospitality.” A white
wand placed across doorways when people were dining or
engaged in matters which required privacy. Inns used this
means of declaring a full house.

MAIDSEAR MOR, a changeling, maidsear, a major from

English models; mor, great. The Daoine sidh, having a small
genetic stock, plundered the "human" population for wet-
nurses, day labourers and breeders. It was said that
unbaptized infants and pregnant women were preferred for
their exchanges. To disguise the pilfering of people, the
sithe left behind a shape-changed member of their own
race, typically a decrepit elder of their own race. Where
such was not available, the sithe sometimes substituted
their own children, reclaiming them at some later date.
Sometimes the pseudo-child would appear to sicken and die,
while the real baby was raised as one of the sigh. In other
instances, in spite of the close similarity in form, the
exchange might be noted because the "child" appeared
wizened, or sickly, or fretful, or displayed an unnatural
appetite for food. In such cases, the changeling was
abandoned or made to reveal itself when approached with a
hot branding iron. The changeling also fled when placed in
the intertidal zone of the ocean. When the replacement
retreated the true baby was likely to be found in a basket at
the door.

MAIGH, the month of May, obs. pleasant, agreeable.

MAIGHDEAN, a maiden, possibly from AS. maegden. last

handfull of corn cut from the land. Considered a lucky omen
if done before Samhain, otherwise the sheaf cut war an
cailleach, the “Old Woman.” The cutter of this heaf; a
virgin, maid, maiden. Supports for a spinning wheel.
maighdeanas, the maidenhead. maighdean-buaine, the last
corn cut. maighdean-chuain, a mermaid. A May-lady, one of
the main actors in the ritual sex of May Day, typically a
virgin. Confers with the Gaelic Mhorrigan, which is
essentially the same word. She is of course Badb or Mebd
who Shakespeare borrowed as his model for the literary
creation called Maeve, the Queen of the May. In ancient
Ireland the Ard-Righ, or “High King” at Tara, held tenure
only on promise of annual couplings with the virgins from
Lugh's mound, from the hill called Brugh-na-Boyne. His
public failure was considered a sign that he lost favour
with Lugh/ Aonghas the god of love. In that event, he was
rather unpleasantly "retired" and his ashes scattered on the
fields so that his spirit could be returned to his people.
Consumption of this treated grain invariably "impregnated"
some "fortunate" woman after the next harvest. The rebirth
of the spirit of Lugh was revealed to the woman in a vision
or a dream. It will also be noted that Lugh's virgins were
considered to be of the race known as the Daoine sidh; thus
the little people, the magicians of the earth, were annually
reunited with the Milesian race which supplanted them.

MAIGHDEAN CHUAIN, maiden of the ocean, mermaid.

MAIGHDEAN MARA, maiden of the sea, a sea-trow of the

female sex, a mermaid, muir, the sea, gen. mora, Latin mare,
English mere, a lake.

MAIGHDEAN BUIN, the Meddling Maiden. Buin is a common

nickname for the Winter Hag. This word implies possession,
belonging to (the maiden); buin, to meddle, interfere, tear
away from, set apart. It was thought that the spirit of Samh
or the "maidhdean" (maiden) was literally embodied in the
"kern" (corn, horn or harvest grain). While the corn might be
spirited it was seen that it could not over-winter in
northern climates and had to be cut down. The spirits of the
corn were assumed to flee before the reapers, the queen of
the corn being finally entrapped in the last standing sheath.

The honour of cutting down the Samh fell to a person

whose destiny was to find marriage before the following
harvest. The last sheath was itself called the
"maidhdeanbuin" (the violated or shorn maiden) if cut
before the night of Samhuin; if after, it was the Cailleach
Bheur, or Winter Hag. The defoliation of a maiden meant
that it was acquired by the household of the cutter, and this
was considered a good omen for the farm; but having to
board the Hag was thought to presage a bitter winter for the
community and very bad luck for the person responsible for
the cutting. Not unnaturally, a lot of subterfuge went on in
attempts to acquire the maiden and avoid getting the hag.
In either case the sheath, embodying the "spirit of the corn"
was made up into a doll which hung on the kitchen wall
until the spring planting. It was then baked into a loaf and
fed to ploughmen and his horses, both of whose droppings in
the field, returned the spirit to the soil. It then spread
through the crops and entered people, impregnating females
who gave birth to new embodiments of the queen of the
corn.

The chief event of Samhain Eve was the "samhnagan",

or fire of Samh, which noted the end of Samh's ride, winter
beginning of the first day of Samhainn, or November. While
there were agricultural rites attached to this date. the
harvest in Ireland and Scotland was usually in the barns by
this time, leading to the conclusion that the first pagan
rites honoured some imperative of a herding rather than a
food gathering race. Sir George James Fraser has
suggestive that mark was originally the time when the
herds were returned to their winter byres from the upland
meadows.

MAIGHDEAN UAINE, A green maiden or banshee. The banshee

is sometimes said to stand in a middle position between the
sighe and mortal men, since she is often said to have been
“a mortal placed under an enchantment that gives her a
fairy nature.”

In the Highlands she is sometimes called the glaistig,

or “grey-green-monster,” and here she is observed as a pan-
like creature, beautifully human from the waist up, a
female goat from there down. To hide this deformity she
wears a long green shift and is thus known as the
maighdeann uaine, or “Green Maiden.” In life the Green Lady,
or banshee, was usually a woman of high scruples and
honourable position if less than perfect morality. After
death she haunted the house, or castle, that she supervised
in life, and in death wandered the corridors and by-ways,
often putting things in order.

When any great fortune or misadventure was about to

befall a household she let forth cries of joy or lamentation.
This was the torman mulaid, a cry which could be of
unearthly sweetness and melancholy. Hugh Miller speaks of
the Green Lady of Banffshire, “tall and slim and wholly
attired in green, with her face wrapped up in the hood of her
mantle, who haunted the grounds of the castle wherrre she
had once been mistress.” Another of this kind is tied to
Ardblair, “a property given to the Blairs by William of
Lyon.” Stonehaven also has a Green Lady, in fact “Green
Ladies are so common that people (in Scotland) have become
quite accustomed to them, remarking only, “There she goes
again.””

MAIGHEACH, MHAIGHICHE, (myuch), EIr mil + maige, beast of

the plain, a hare, a shape-changed witch. The hare, the cock
and the goose were identified by Caesar as the prime
animals in Celtic cult-rites. One of the animals preferred
for shape-change.

MAIGHISTER. master, the May Lord, the King of Tara at the

time of Milesian rule. Confers with the English mayor and
magician. Connected with the Latin magister. In former
times, the reign of the High-King was limited in time.
Whether he failed or not at public sex, he was ritually
eliminated on the battlefield by his next of kin if any
physical weakness revealed a loss of god-spirit. He was
later thought reborn, as Lugh incarnate, in some branch of
his extended family. The master was often a magician since
he often rose to power through promotion within the druidic
class. As time passed, certain very cagey kings began the
habit of creating substitute "monarchs" to "go to earth" on
their behalf at the time of the fire festivals. At first,
close relatives, who were thought to share his god-spirit,
were sacrificed; but as the concept of the clann developed
(and all people were seen as relatives of the king) the
druid-priests became less selective, substituting blood in
quantity where quality was not to be had. The May-Lord and
Lady became publicly entwined at the Beltane and Samhain,
and their actions were thought to inspire general fertility
(partly by example) in men, beasts and crops.

MAIGHRE, very finely woven cloth. In some locales the

weaver's loom was referred to as an beairt, a spider's web,
and weavers were known for their beairteas or wealth. The
best, and most closely woven cloth, supposedly came from
the looms of the Daoine sidh, and they sometimes gave bits
to humans as a special sign of a relationship (note the
"fairy-flag" of the MacLeods). In other instances it was
exchanged for a needed product or service.

MAILE, obs. Ancient funeral pyre, mala, a husk or shell of

anything. It was thought that the spirit could best be
returned to the land, from which it had come, by being
reduced to “earth.”

MAINNE, name given each of the seven sons of Mhorrigan.

They were outlawed from Ireland but periodically raided the
place and took part in the ambush of King Conaire Mor.
The Mhorrigan herself was pictured as sexually
voracious and her sons were said to be seven in number, all
named Maine, a word related to An Domhain, the Deep, and to
Maigh, May, one of the names given their mother, The Gaelic
mainne, has the sense of a place where one is delayed, hence
a residence; thus do-mainne, the residence of Don.
Mainisdir, or monastery, is from this source. The sons
Maine Andoe (the Swift); Maine Athairamail (the Father-
like); Maine Gaib Uile (the Furious); Maine Mathairamail (the
Mother-like); Maine Mingor (the Dutiful); Maine Milscothach
(of a Thousand Shadows); Maine Morgor (of the Blue-green
Sea) and Maine Mo Epirt. A nasty bunch they responded to
their mother’s call to march against the north in the Táin
war.

They were exiled to England by King Conaire Mor and

joined the one-eyed king of that land and Conaire's three
dissident sons in a military effort that ended in his death.
As noted the word mainne is nothing more than a form of
maigh. The latter is connected with the obsolete magh,
great, from which the modern magh, a wide expanse of land,
a plain. Also related is mag, a ridge of arable land, a lazy
bed, a paw, or hand. This last word circles back on the
Cailleach who is also known as Mag Molloch, the One with
the Hairy Hand. As the human testicles are hairy they are
magairlean, the great, powerful things, the source of
increase. From this last maghar, “things that hang down,”
or fish bait. This word is also wrapped into maigheach, a
hare, literally “a beast of the great plain,” and an
appropriate symbol of sexual increase. In this family of
words we also find maigean, a child just beginning to walk,
a fat one, a little man. These essentially Celtic words
resurface in the Anglo-Saxon tongue as maeg, where it also
means strength, power or force. The English words may and
main can be shown to confer in meaning but this use is now
obsolete except in the expression, “with might and main.”
This word also has the connotation of a broad expanse, and
was used to designate both mainland and the main or high
sea. The State of Maine and the Spanish Main are two
examples of this employment. The word may also denote
the chief centre of interest, desire or ambition, and is
related to the Latin magus, a magician; manus, hand; and
magister, from which magistrate and master. There is also
the Anglo-Saxon maegden, which is the source of the word
maiden. The word magicus passed from the Latins to the
French to the English to become magic. Maineas, mistake or
blunder, mainidb, madness, rage, folly.

MAIRT, DI-, (je maarsch), Tuesday; genitive singular of

mart, cow, market-day." The mairt is a beef animal as
opposed to the bo or milk cow. The killing of the sacrificial
mairt was first described by Pliny. "After due preparations
are made for a sacrifice and a feast has been made under
the oak tree, they hail it as a universal healer and bring to
the spot two white bulls whose horns have been bound
before. A priest then climbs the tree and with a gold sickle
cuts the mistletoe upon it which is caught in a white cloth.
They then kill the animals praying that god may cause all to
prosper..." It is possible that this day may have once been
set aside for similar rites, but more recently it has been a
time for local markets, at which the herder offered the
meat of the mairt.Tuesday is a good day to get married, or
for setting the warp in the loom, or shearing, which means
cutting the corn, not the sheep. The Devil cannot touch what
is done on Tuesday." (CM, p. 162).

When Breas and his Fomorian allies were defeated by

the Tuatha daoine he made entreaties for his life and was
refused until he promised that he would reveal information
which would allow his conquerors to “plough, and sow and
reap” successful crops. His advice was this: “Let the
ploughing be on a Tuesday, and the casting of seed on a
Tuesday, and the reaping on a Tuesday.” Lugh felt that this
information was adequate to allow the release of Breas.

MAL, rent, tax, obs. King, prince, champion, soldier, poet. All
individuals having a levy on the common folk; MIR. mal from
AS mal, tribute-money. Confers with Eng. blackmail. Mala, a
money bag. Rent was taken at the quarter-days. Malach, a
heavy load, malairt, business. Mal-sluagh, a host or army.
And see the next.

MALLACHD, a curse, oath, imprecation; obs. to grow mild

(the effect of all this?) from Latin, maledictio. Malc, to
putrefy. A spell intended to produce blight or disease in
crops, cattle or men.

MANADH, an omen, a sign of luck, Also, chance, luck, an

omen, a sign, the Owl, an apparition, incantation,
enchantment, a lot. EIr. mana, perhaps from the sea-god
Manan mac Ler, the sea-people being noted for their ability
at fore-tellings. AS. manian, to warn or exhort, Latin
moneo, warn, advise. Manadaireachd, foreboding, predicting,
forete;;ing.

MANACH, monk, a foreteller, manachainn, monastery. An

isolated place like those preferred by Manan mac Ler.

MANANN, MANAN, MANAUN MAC LER, (Manaunan), a god, also

Manannán, literally “the son of the Sea.” Teut. Mannus
(according to Tacitus), the Skr. Manu, the “law-giver.”
Connected with the Island of Man, thus the EIr. Inis Manann.
a genitive from Mana, the Lat. Mona. The Manx form is
Manninagh, the Cy. Manau. This is the English man, a male
human. See entries above; leir, far-sighted, altogether,
complete, a single entity, an "eye." According to Manx
tradition the first ruler of their island, the Isle of Man, was
Mannanan-Beg-mac-y-Leirr, ""who kept the land under mist
with his necromancy."

At least one Manx historian has identified this ard-

righ as King Finian of Scotland. Although Ler was immortal,
Manann mac Ler was not, and this Fomorian sea-giant is now
said to lie in a thirty-foot grave outside Peat Castle. Here
his barrow served as the centre of pagan cult activities
until the middle of the nineteenth century. Until 1910, his
adherents used to appear annually to bless the fishing fleet.
This is almost certainly the Gaelic Manann mac Ler who
sometimes occupied Castle Manan in Ulster. Although the
sea-god lived partly on land he said that his true kingdom
was "a happy plain with a profusion of rose coloured
flowers, through which sea horses scamper in summer.
Speckled salmon leap among the clouds of the sea in that
place."

It is known that he was lord of Tir-nan-Og, the Land

of the Young, an island in the western Atlantic and that he
had dominion over An Domhain, “The Deep,” the place of
keeping for the unvirtuous dead. Once a year, at the season
called mid-winter Manann sailed his magical ship the
“Wavesweeper” to pick up souls of all the dead for
transport to one of these two realms. His places were off-
limits to humans while alive, thus Manann was a master of
illusion keeping the west uninhabited by cloaking it in mist,
surrounding it with icebergs or moving it below the surface
of the ocean when required. Manann and his wife Taillte
were foster parents to the Tuathan-Milesian hero Lugh, and
the sea-giant loaned him his sword and his own white sea-
stallion to lead the battle against the Fomorians. In late
mythology Cúchullain was pursued by Manann's wife Fand
but they were separated by sea-god who shook his cloak of
invisibility between them so that they might never meet in
any reincarnation of their spirits. See Ler.

MANNIN, the island of Man, G. Manninagh, the Manx people. G.

Gailek, the language which they spoke. EIr. Inis Manann, the
Isle of Man, early Cy. Manau, Latin, Mona, the EIr. god-name
Manannan mac Lir, Skr. Manu, the “Law-giver.” Teut. Mannus,
Eng. a man. In one tale Cúchullain and his friends landed
there, and penetrating a wilderness to the centre, they
found a pit swarming with venomous serpents.

In the legends of the world serpents represent not

only the sea-folk but their vast hordes of treasure. The
adventurers fended off these creatures but were soon
attached by an army of frogs, strangely equipped with bird-
like beaks. As they fought these animals they turned into
bird-headed dragons, like those on the prows of the Old
Norse longships. The Hibernians prevailed and carried off
three magic crows and a marvellous cauldron which on
command with overflow with gold and silver or an
inexhaustible supply of porridge mixed with meat. The
mariners harnessed the crows (befinds) to pull their vessel
back to the west and Ireland. At the last moment the gods
who guarded this place conjured up a storm and wrecked the
ship. Cúchullain and his companions were by then within
sight of the shores of their homeland and were able to swim
to shore, but they lost all the treasures of that magical
land. Here the Isle of Man is represented as the magical
counterpart of the western kingdom of An Domhain.

MANARAN, MANRAN, a necromancer or a conjurer, manas,

strength, power. mannainn, fool, sin, manna, bad, naughty,
mannar, obs. loosening of constraints, evil.

MAOIL DUBH, maol, brow, bald, barren, bleak; the “black-

browed hill.” The place of a waterfall in Cean Loch Gilp,
Lochgilphead, Scotland, the residence of a powerful river
spirit. When the people of Kintyre were returning home
from their successful war against Prince Charles they
paused here and the hindmost man fought a “a tererible
being.” When he overcame the beast he was able to extract a
favour from it. He chose “the speechless art” over “artless
speech” and became a successful blacksmith, a posessor of
witchr=craft and the evil-eye.

MAOLMOIRE, servant of the sea-born, servant of Mary, Myles,

Lat. Milo from miles, a soldier. The patriarch of the
Milesians, the final invaders of Ireland.

MAOR-SELIGE, game-keeper, maor, an official, baron, grave-

digger; often a minor actor in officialdom. The English
mayor, an official + silly. From the last the family name
Seely. The original game-keeper was An Cailleach bheurr,
“the Winter Hag,” or Macha, the weathered form of the
Bafinn.

MARBHADAIREAN. It was formerly held that food in the

stomach was processed by small living creatures who were
thus named.

MARBHPHAISG, the death-shroud, gave clothes, marb, dead,

lifeless, marble-like, Marbhphaisg ort! A useful curse, “A
death-shroud upn you!” The wish for a catastrophic and
fatal end.

MARC, horse. Norse marr, the Eng. mare. The Celts were
horsemen, a fact revealed in the naming of their creator-
god as Eochaid oolathir, the “Horseman of the Heavens.” The
horse-goddess is supposed to have been imported to Britain
from the Continent during the period of Roman activity in
both places. The Irish goddess Macha was of this type since
she raced on her husband’s wager against the kings stallions
and won. Mebd and Mhorrigan were her alter-egos, and
their connection with horses are mentioned elsewhere.
Other mythological characters show horsy-aspects, note:
Lair Dearg, the “Red Mare;” and Etain Echraide, the “Horse-
rider,” the latter a mate to Midir, a god of the Underworld.
Similarly, the god-hero Cuchulainn had two totem-horses,
born at his nativity, whose life-lines were bound to his.

MARRACH, enchanted castle, thicket used to entrap wild

cattle. Root mar, to deceive. Such places were often said
hidden behind magical thorn trees. Similar cover protected
the side-hills of the sighe.

MART, March, Tuesday, time for farm work, busiest time of

the year, in great haste, seed time, a cow, a beef cow.,
cattle of any description. Notice that all the Gaelic months
were moveable, depending upon the arrival of “suitable”
weather. The Old Saxon Mart which is honoured in some
parts of Gaeldom, came mid-way through the current month
of March. The first Tuesday of sewing , or butchering, was
the day entitled an Mart. In agricultural districts the month
was sited after the snows, approximately April 12 to May
1. Ir. marta, Sc. mart, a cow killed and salted for use in the
winter. Martach, having many cows; martair, a crippled
animal or person. Thus Martain, the lowland Scot.
Martinmas in summer, (July 4) and Martinmas in Winter,
(about Nov 11), the former being the day that corresponds
with the English Whitsunday, which the Christians said was
the “translation day for St. Martin.” The later day was
thought appropriate for the ritual and practical killing of
the mart.

The time of a minor fire-festival, sometimes

considered a continuation of Samhain, or, at least, the
Samhain as displaced by the corrections in the Gregorian
calendar several centuries ago. The root may be marbh, to
die. The pagan festivities probably centred on the killing of
an ox or even a human representative of the king. In later
days the Christians said that the holiday was named for St.
Martin of Lourdes (France).

In popular lore he was embodied in the form of an ox

and cut up and eaten on the annual anniversary of his day.
This does not appear to be a Christian activity and the same
may be said for the taking of blood from the dead animal to
be spattered at the four corners of each home as a
protective against witchcraft. In addition, it was
traditional to smear the blood on the forehead of every
participant in the Mart. In Ireland, this day demanded the
eating of roast goose, the omission of this rite, leading to a
lack of this meat through the rest of the year.

The Mart was also taken as the appropriate time to

butcher animals and offer the carcasses for trade or sale.
As the business of taking in crops was at an end. and there
was usually a surplus of food, beggars were fed on this
date. The new wine was usually ripe by now and sampling
was a requirement of the pagan fire-festival. In Britain
drunkenness is still sometimes referred to as "St. Martin's
evil." Fishing was not allowed on the Mart it being expected
that rebellious souls would first meet the "horseman of the
waves" (the sons of Manann) and thus invite storm. No
wheeled vehicles (such as those used by the winter soul-
collectors) were allowed passage in this time for fear of
bringing on hunger and depravation during the winter
months.

In Germany and Scandinavia men drank the new brew

from the bragacups, ship shaped vessels of great capacity.
Here harvest-cakes were set out to honour Odin, and he or
the Dagda may be the prototype of the Mart, who was
annually cut down for the general good of the community.
Then again, the descendant god may be Lugh or Lokki for
Martin's Summer is the name given the "dog days"(which we
call Indian Summer), the last weeks of warm sultry weather
before winter. If this warmth occurs in October, the
designation is often St. Luke's Summer, or Little Summer of
St. Luke. If it happens about the end of November it is
typically referred to as Samhain Summer; if after this date,
Mart summer, or Saint Martin's Summer.

Notice that the Gaelic Samhuinn may actually

correspond precisely with the Day of the Mart as a result of
 an adjustment of the calendar in the sixteenth century. At
that time, eleven days were removed from September, with
some people following the new mode and others the old way
of reckoning time. It will be observed that the "Mart in
Winter" (Nov. 11) falls precisely eleven days beyond the
Samhain,, just as the "Mart in Summer" comes eleven days
after the Beltane (May 1). There are similar confusions
with the Lugnasad and the Imbolg, or Bridd's Day, and with
supplementary holidays attached to the English Quarter-
Days. Compare this with the lore surrounding milk-cows,
viz. bo, Boann, etc. An Aran islander has said: “The custom
was that on the 11th of November they would have a sheep
and they blessed it. St. Martin’s Day was a special day, they
killed a foul, maybe a cock or a hen. It was the custom to
cook it then. Some people wouldn’t spin that day, as Blessed
Martin was killed by some type of engine or machine. People
wouldn’t use any sort of a machine with a wheel on it.” 4

MATH-CAILLEACH. “The Good Old Woman,” math. Precedes

and aspirates the noun, obs. noble, heroic; presently good; a
nick-name for “Small-pox” (Cape Breton Island).
Presumably used to avoid offending the spirit of this
disease. See following.

MATHA MAC UMOTR, “Hero,” the chief druid to King

Laoghaire of Ireland in the fifth century. Before the
Christian missionaries arrived this man predicted that:
"One shall arrive here, having his head shaven in a circle,
bearing a crooked staff, and his table shall be in the eastern
part of his home; and he shall sing forth wickedness, and all
his household shall answer. When this man cometh he will
surely overturn our altars, seduce the people and bring them
after him. Further, he will free the slaves and magnify
kindred of low degree, and shall subdue personally the kings
that oppose him, and his doctrine shall reign forever after."
When a individual of this description, and twenty four
companions, arrived on the Wicklow coast in 432 the locals

4BridgetDonohoe, Shapel village, on Inisheer, as quoted by

Bernadette Campbell in the Magazine “Am Braighe,” p. 8, August, 1994.
slightingly referred to him as Padruig because of his
unassuming appearance, but he came to be called Saint
Patrick. The druids and the king were worried enough to
attempt to assassinate the newcomer, but he eluded them
using the "magic" of the Christian God.

MATHGAMAN, The patriarch of the land folk is spoken of as

Mathgaman, from math, a bear, good, forgiving, tame;
combined with gamhainn, (the French gamin) a year old
animal or stirk. It is thought that the word may compare
with the Welsh madawg, a fox, and that it may appear in the
Gaullish names Matugenos, Matuus and Teutomatus. Note
that this last brings us full circle to the god Teus the
Gaelic Hu. This last word becomes the Welsh huan, the sun.
Hence, mathgaman, the “bear-god.” The high-bear is of
course mathair, the Welsh modryb, the Latin mater, the
Norse móthir, our word mother.

In Welsh myth the patriarch of all the land gods was

said to be Mathonwy. Please note the corresponding
Brythonic “god” Artair who seems to derive from arto-s, a
bear. From him we have clann M’Artair, the Mac-arthurs.
This shadowy figure, who may be cognate with Don himself,
gave rise to the Gaelic goddess Danu, who the Welsh
labelled as Dòn. Her brother was also named Math, creating
another element of confusion with the parent-gods.

Fortunately Math proper had no offspring, but Danu,

sometimes called Anu, Boann, Boyne or Dana married Bil, the
Mouth (of Death) creating the hierarchy of land-gods for the
people known as the Tuatha daoine, literally, the folk of
Danu. Bil, whose holiday was the Beultuinne (fires of Beul)
was the son of Mangan, a “brother” to Mathgaman. Beul
(pronounced beahl), or Bile, or Bil, who the Welsh called
Beli, and the Gauls Bele, was informally the Dagda, the
daddy or father of the deagh, the good ones, or the gods.

In Irish myths the sons of this Union were Ogma of the

Honeyed Tongue, the god of politicians and tricksters;
Aonghas Og, the Young and Choice One, the god of love; and
Lugh, god of the sun, and Nuada, god of the moon. A daughter
was Bridd, or Bride, who the Christians preferred to name
Saint Brigit or Brigid. There were, of course, many extra-
marital children, the most fearsome the multi-headed
Macha who had a heart made of ice.

In Welsh myth the genealogy is more complex, the

children being noted as Gwydion, the slayer of Pryderi, the
keeper of the gates of the dark land; Arianrod, a dawn-
goddess; Gilvaethwy; Ameethon, god of agriculture;
Govannan, the smith-god (who is noted as the Goban saor in
Irish myth); Nudd or Lludd, the sky-god; Pendaron, a goddess
and the “twins” Nynniaw and Peibaw. In these lines we
find Gwydion the defender of men and the gods against the
dark lords. He married his sister Arianrod, giving us
Nwyvre, Dylan and Llew or Llaw, the last being cognate with
the Gaelic sun-god Lugh.

This being the case Lugh of The Long Arm is a third

generation god. The sun-god may correspond somewhat with
the second-generation Llud, who is a sky-god. His son was
Gwy, warder of Hades sometimes called Avalon, “an island
of the west.” To confuse the issue, Pendarun a sister to
Lugh, married the god the Welsh called Llyr, giving rise to
the House of Llyr , the Gaelic House of Ler. Thus it is clear
that the sea gods and the land gods were one race rather
than separate entities as Tuathan mythology sometimes
suggested. See next entry.

MATHANACH, Matheson, MG. Matgamna, the Ir. Mahon, “bear.”

M’Mhathan resembles M’Mhata, Mathew-son, as opposed to
Matheson. Math was a progenitor of the House of Don.

MATHGEN, the druid to the Tuatha daoine who promised to

“throw down all the mountains of Ireland upon the Fomor”
when the two races contested for ownership of the Emerald
Isle.

MEABH. Mebd, Maebd or Maeve, also Badb or Baobh; a spirit

within the triad goddess Bafinn and the prototype for the
Gaelic baobh or witch. Meabhal, obs. fraud, deceit, perfidy,
shame, reproach, meabhra, obs. a fiction, a lie, meabhrach,
cheerful, merry, pleasant. She was the model for the
English May Queen and Shakespeare's Queen Maeve. She was
the mature warrior-goddess, A virgin-goddess reincarnate,
as opposed to her “sisters, ”the Samh or Mhorrigan. Of
summer and the Macha, or Winter-Hag of the winter-season.

The Gaelic kings anciently assumed power, and held it,

as a result of their annual bonding with her at the Samhain.
She was often reincarnate in warrior-queens, and appeared
to service the king at Tara in the virgin maidens of the
Daoine sidh, who emerged from the hollow hill of the Brugh-
na-Boyne. The archaic Mebd, or Badb, was thus the queen of
sovereignty, with whom every king of Tara had to couple.
Her first encounter was with the god-giant Dagda, patriarch
of the Tuatha daoine. When they mated it was said that
their legs were planted on the two sides of the river Boyne,
and that their frenzy created earthquakes throughout the
land. That was not a happy union for the offspring was
Mecha, a monster quite like the world-worm fathered by
Lokki. Later the renewed "maiden" invested the Dagda's
"son" Lugh, and after that all monarchs down to the
Christian era. She was believed incarnate in the semi-
historic Mebd of Connacht (Connaught), the lady who
instigated the southern war with Ulster.

Like Odin, Mebd had informants, but these were

squirrels or magical songbirds, rather than the two dark
ravens of the Norse god. In Gaelic mythology Mebd was the
raven, or a wolf or any number of wild animals, since she
was the consummate Fomorian shape-changer. The Ulster
warrior Cethern described her as, "A tall, fair, long-faced
woman with soft features...She had a head of yellow hair
and two golden birds on her shoulders. She wore a purple
cloak folded about her, with five hand's breaths of gold on
her back. She carried a light stinging, sharp-edged lance in
her hand, and an iron sword in the woman's grip, held over
her head. She was massive..." and once declared, "the
hardest woman warrior in the world." One of six daughters
of the high-king of Ireland, Mebd herself boasted: "I outdid
all the others in grace and giving and in battle and warlike
conduct." As a neophyte she led fifteen hundred soldiers and
an equal number of freeborn men.

When King Conor of Ulster proved unequal to her

sexual demands she left him for King Ailill of Leincester,
but even then kept a young man named Fergas as her lover.
It has been suggested that those men who lusted after the
queen lost two-thirds of their strength to her by simply
gazing upon her. Her lover was no ordinary stud, since it
was claimed that "his nose, his mouth and his penis were
each seven fingers long and his scrotum the size of a flour
sack." While he was parted from Mebd, Fergas required
seven women per night to keep him happy. At that Mebd said
quite openly that she never took any man unless there was a
replacement standing in his shadow, and her quota ran to
thirty men per month. King Ailill was patient with all this,
saying simply, "I know all about queens and women. I lay
first fault straight at women's own sweet swellings and
loving lust."

For her part Mebd said: ""were my husband a coward ,

it would be unfit for us to be mated, for I by myself have
broken battles, and it would be a reproach should my
husband be less full of life than myself, and no sin that we
are equally bold. Should he be jealous, that would not suit
me...Ailill thou art not a sluggard...but it is to me than
compensation is due for a man dependant upon my
sovereignty is exactly what thou art!" The war between the
north and the south was supposedly fought over
misappropriated livestock, but the base cause seems to
have been King Conor’s preference for Mebd's sister Ethne
(literally, sweet kernal of the nut).

In her repeated attempts to seduce the northern hero

Cuchullain, Mebd seemed to be seeking sexual vengeance,
and her wrath was even more aroused by this warriors
repeated rejections. Although Ulster drove back the
invaders, Mebd finally overcame Cuchullain with her black
arts.

A mortal-goddess she was finally killed by a missile

from the sling of one of Conor's sons. Maeve's Lump, on a
mountaintop one thousand feet above Sligo Plain in
Connaught is rumoured to be her current resting place. From
sea-level it looks like a pimple on a hill, but close-up it
looms as a pile of loose stones fifty feet in height and two
hundred feet in diameter. Around it are satellite tombs,
smaller rock piles and stone circles. It is unlikely that the
historic Mebd is buried here since this pile dates the same
time as Newgrange (about 2500 B.C.) and is considered to be
a product of the Neolithic forerunners of the Celts. It is an
impressive artifact and it may be that the original
inhabitant was the primeval Mebd, the first form of the
mother-destroyer.

MEAMNA, MEANMNA, spirit, will, desire, strength, OIr.

menme, from the root men, to think, Skr. manman, the Latin
mens, the mind. English mean, mind, etc. The skull cage
was considered the site of a physical construct which
housed an invisible ghost or spirit which responded to the
god-spirit or "breath of life." It kept the blood-spirit,
resident in the heart from following a completely emotional
path. Thus the centre of clear thought and reason.

MEAS, fruit, acorns, "fruit of the forest." In Gaul it was

said that the druids ate acorns to gain prophetic powers.
Note that acorns constituted one of the fruits born on the
mythological sacred yew Eo Mugna. See separate note under
this heading.

MEASARRAS ALBH, direct reasoning, measarras,

measurement; allaban, wandering.

MEASARRAS BRIOSG, reasoning following upon subsequent

steps. See above

MEAMNA, spirit, will, root men, think, mind; Skr. manman,

mind, thought. A physical being thought to be stationed in
the head. This creature wandered during bouts of heavy
passion, during sleep and in severe illnesses.

MEANMAINN, MEANHUINN, an itch prognosticating news or an

omen. Usually having reference to good news or the arrival
of a wanted visitor (Sutherlandshire). "Gifted" individuals
were supposed able to project their primary souls upon
their befinne, and bring back information from the past,
present or future, through the sensory apparati of this
invisible spirit. As a rule the cowalker channelled
information through the eyes as foresight, hindsight or
farsight, but a few people sensed coming events through
touch; thus, "Somebody would say, rubbing his lips, "Indeed
it is the itch of a kiss (or the itch of a dram) I feel today."
And there was indeed an itch on his lips at the time. And
somebody else would say, "Indeed I am going to shake the
hand of a stranger today." "And how do you mean that?" "Oh,
there is an itch in the palm of my right hand." And another
man would say, "And what does it mean that a person's eye
is quivering."... "It is good news when the right, and not so
good when the left." And another might say, "Lord, how hot
my ear is." "Oh, well then, that's good enough...when the
heat is in the right ear they are making talk about you and it
is probably not very good. But when the great heat is on
your left ear, they are making excuses for you." (Tales Until
Dawn, pp. 209-210).

MEBD, MAEVE, MEABH, May Eve, “Drunk Woman.” The

reincarnate warrior goddess, a third part of the Bafinn . It
can be argued that she was the most engaging character in
the Táin , for her antagonist Cuchullain, the “Hound of
Ulster,” was predictably heroic. While Mebd was his equal in
beauty and ferocity she betrayed unusual appetites and an
unpredictable lack of fair play, to the extent that she might
be called an anti-heroine. This mature queen of the Celts
was very unlike the youthful raven- black Mhorrigan: A
warrior who was lucky enough to escape Mebd’s attack
described her as “A tall, fair, long-faced woman with soft
features. She had a head of corn-yellow hair, and wore a
purple cloak with five hands width of gold upon the
shoulders. She carried a light, stinging, sharp-edged sword
in her hand and held an iron sword in a woman’s grip aloft
over her head. A massive figure...” For her own part Mebd
said that she was “the last and haughtiest” of the six
daughters of the high queen. “I always outdid them all in
grace and giving and in battle and warlike combat.”
Moreover, she had charge of a battalion of fifteen hundred
mercenaries and an equal number of freeborn men.

While her dominion was peopled by some of Milesian

blood, the west of Ireland was largely a retreat for those
whose ancestors had been Firbolgs, Tuathans or Fomorians.
The problem of the brown bull arose from a domestic
squabble in which the queen and her consort were comparing
their earthly worth. Ailill pointed out the fact that his
personal possessions included the red bull called
Finnebenach. the best of its breed in the land. Mebd, in a
huff, went to her steward and asked if there was a better
animal in Ireland, and he said there was; “...the Brown Bull
of Cuailgne that belongs to Dara, who lives in Ulster.” Mebd
attempted to hire stud services but the drunken steward
made a bad impression when he visited Dara’s complex.

As a result Mebd was forced to make a foray into

Ulster to take the animal. Ferdiad, the former friend of
Cuchullain was now Mebd’s lover, but he would have
marched against Ulster without this alliance, for he longed
for vengeance because of the death of Deirdre and the sons
of Uisna. Here it should be noted that the bull represented
strength, virility and divine kingship. Druids bent on
divination ate the flesh of the white bull “from the sea,”
drank its blood and slept within its hide. Their dreams were
taken as an absolute reflection of coming events, for it was
said that the hide would tighten upon the body of a false
magic-worker, crushing the life from his body.

The west of Ireland was always equated with the

Otherworld that lay further toward the sun, and the advance
of Mebd’s army may be read as the on fall of night and the
forces of darkness. It was said that the two great “bulls”
of Ireland had originally been swineherds serving the kings
of the Tuatha daoine. “They had been successively turned
into two ravens, two serpents, two human warriors, two
demons, two animalcule, and finally fallen into the bodies
of these two kine.” Those who gathered on the Connaught
side were extraordinary: “the seven sons Maines. all sons of
Aillil and Mebd, each with his retinue; Cet and Anluan , the
sons of Maga with thirty hundreds of armed men; the
yellow-haired Ferdiad with his company of Firbolgs; the
boisterous Fomors who delighted in war and in strong ale.
There came also Mebd’s men from Leinster, so difficult to
control they were broken into small companies and
dispersed among the others. Then there was Cor mac
Conaire and Fergus mac Roi, and all the other exiles from
Ulster, those who had revolted against the northern king for
his duplicity with the sons of Uisna.

Before hostilities commenced Mebd went to her chief

druid and asked what might be the outcome of war and he
was enigmatic saying only that she would survive all
battles. On the way back from this meeting, she met an
apparition from the side. “a young maiden with yellow
tresses that fell below her knees,clan all over in a mantle
of green and holding a shuttle of gold for weaving upon the
loom.” This was clearly a form of the Bafinn, one of the
weavers of fate, and when questioned, she admitted being
involved with “weaving the hosts together for the foray
into Ulster.” Mebd asked what material emerged and the
maiden replied, “All the fabric of the future is be-
crimsoned.”

Mebd was surprised at this answer for her spies had

already told her that the warriors of Ulster were disabled
by pains resembling childbirth. When she asked who would
reduce her host she was told: “I see a man of small stature,
but the hero’s light is on his brown, a stripling young and
modest, but a dragon in battle, by him your slain will lie
thickly.” Notwithstanding, Mebd thought the foretellings
sufficiently positive to proceed.
 While this was happening, Cúchullain sent his mortal
father Sualtam to Emain Macha to rouse the troops. To
block the progress of Mebd’s host Cúchullain journeyed
south to Ardcullin and enacted magic at the standing-stone.
At first none of the southern druids could undo this magic
and Mebd’s army of 54,000 men were forced to encamp in a
sleet storm.

When this geise came unravelled Cúchullain killed

four men at the edge of the host and impaled their heads on
a four-forked pole. Again this was taken as a device
requiring counter-magic, and again some time elapsed
before the pole could be extracted from the ground. “By
these devices Cúchullain delayed the invaders until the men
of Ulster had recovered from their debility.” In all of the
earliest encounters Cúchullain was an unseen killer, a
guerilla, slaying men by twos and threes. In one notable
instance he killed a squirrel and a pet bird with his sling
while they sat on Mebd’s shoulders.

Afterwards, as the host moved closer to Ulster

Cúchullain was seized by the riastradh, a “battle frenzy,”
usually said to have been brought on by drinking blood and
other more active ingredients. In this condition the boy-
hero was seen as “a fearsome and multi-formed creature
such as had never been known before.” This “frenzy” may
have involved the magic of disguise as well as that of
ventriloquism for it is said that the sound of his voice “like
that of a lion” came from all quarters, while his head was
surrounded by “a blaze of light.” At that, Cúchullain made
no attempt to harry the host provided that they made no
advances and sent one warrior against him at a time.

Tiring of this game, Mebd sent Natchtantal into

combat, and taking a third of her army went by another
route on a sudden foray into Ulster, penetrating as far as
the northern coast at Dunseverick. There the keeper of the
Brown Bull had taken refuge, and the raiders captured him
and all the herds of the north, driving them south in full
view of Cúchullain as they returned. Cúchullain killed the
leader of the escort for the cattle but had no means of
taking back the Brown Bull. The supposed object of the war
having been obtained it might be suspected that Mebd would
withdraw in triumph, but she smarted under the failure to
kill Cúchullain and sent twenty warriors against him at a
time. He somehow kept them at bay.

In the midst of this operation a curious incident took

place: A young woman came to Cúchullain explaining that
she was the daughter of a king, and attracted by tales of his
exploits, had come to offer him her love. Tired from over-
exertion, Cúchullain put her off saying he had no interest in
women as things stood. Thus the woman “clad in the mantle
of many colours,” rewarded his rudeness saying, “It will go
hard with you for this act. When you do battle again I shall
be the eel about thy feet in the ford.” Her chariot then
carried her into the distance, where he saw her fly away as
a crow.

Immediately, the hero knew that he had rejected the

love and help of the redoubtable Mhorrigan. When Cúchullain
fought next against Loch, the Mhorrigan appeared as his
supernatural enemy. At one point she came charging at him
in the form of a white heifer with red ears, but he turned
her aside, blinding one of her eyes with the cast of his dart.
She then came swimming up the river as a black eel, that
attempted to upset him. While he was driving her off Loch
was able to wound him. Again she attacked as her totem,
the grey wolf, and again he was wounded, although he drove
her off. At this his battle fury took hold, and he drove the
gae bolg up against Loch “splitting his heart in two.”

The Mhorrigan was nearly killed by these efforts, but

so was Cúchullain, whose further duties at the Pass of
Ulster had to be assumed by his father, the god named Lugh.
With Lugh there fought one hundred and fifty boys of Ulster,
those in their puberty, not afflicted by the curse of Macha.
Three times they drove back the southern host, but were at
last slain. Cúchulainn awoke from his wounds to see this
carnage, and “drove furiously round and round the host, and
as he passed “the demons, goblins, and wild things of Eriu
all echoed his taunts.” In the uproar, the host thought that
many men had descended upon them and fell to killing one
another in the confusion of the moment.

It was said that six score and ten princes were lost to
Mebd as well as horse, women and wolf-dogs and common
men without number. Here again, it is said that Lugh fought
on at the side of his son. Cuchullain was now faced with the
magic of the druids of clann Cailtlin and with battle against
his former comrade Ferdiad, but he survived both
encounters. In the meantime the Ulster druids were able to
lift the curse of Macha and the hosts of Conchobar marched
southward to relieve the long-suffering hero. “And
Conchobar’s army fell upon eight scores of men in Meath,
who were carrying away a great booty of women-captives,
and they slew all.

Mebd was forced to fall back towards the south but

stood at last on the Plain of Garach in Meath. There she
personally led three charges amidst the Ulstermen, but even
so the men of Munster and those of Leinster retreated
leaving the Connaught men alone in battle. and these were
routed into their own country. Cúchullain even rode down
the seemingly invincible Mebd, but finding her cowering
under her chariot said, “I am not wont to slay unarmed
women.” He went further, protecting her from his own
forces until she safely crossed the Shannon at Athlone.

Thus Ailill and Mebd were forced to respect a peace

that lasted for seven years. Mebd felt obligated to
Cúchulllain for her life, but had a black hate for him
because of the dishonour his bravery had settled on her. She
sought vengeance and south the widow of the druid Catlain ,
whose family Cúchullain had slain. Pregnant at her
husband’s death, this woman had given birth to three
misshapen children, three boys and three girls, “all
mischievous, hideous, poisonous, born for evil.” Mebd
hoping to use them sent them to learn the black arts of
Alba. “And even further they travelled acquiring lore, so
that they came back mighty in their craft, well able to be
loosed against Cuchullain. Aside from these foes, Cúchullain
had enemies in Erc mac Cairbre, whose father he had killed
in battle, and Lewy son of Cu Roi, the one time king of
Munster. Mebd sent secret messages to all these folk, and
they waited until the monthly curse of Macha again brought
down the Ulstermen, and then marched to the Plain of
Murthemney.

There the new host encamped and the children of

Catalin took hooded thistles and puff-balls and leaves and
made them into the semblance of marching men, and
Cúchulainn fought this fairy-host. Sickened and wearied
from mock-battle he was forced to seek the healing house
in a solitary northern glen. While he recuperated, the druids
filled the air with signs of war and loss, with flames and
smoke and cries and wailings “and goblin chatter and the
sounds of trumpets of horns failing on the wind.” A
daughter of the Catalin then put on the form of Cúchullain’s
nurse and bade the hero rise up to defend Ulster. “And the
Mhorrigan came and sat at no great distance croaking of
war and slaughter.” Cúchullain was convinced and rising
from his sickbed, called his charioteer to harness his
horses and make read. Lost amidst phantoms the hero
fought his way to the fortress of Emain Macha, which
seemed to be aflame, but when he arrived it had suffered on
damage and his wife Emer was unhurt. Nevertheless he
departed for the south convinced that war was upon the
land.

At the ford upon the plain of Emain he saw the

kneeling washerwoman, “a young raven-haired maiden,
weeping and wailing, and she washed bloody clothes which
he saw to be his own.” It was soon after that Cúchulainn
was tricked by three old hags (the Bas-finn) into eating
dog-meat, which was his geis. Doomed to death by these
omens of the Mhorrigan/Baobd/Macha , Cuchullain
nevertheless extracted a heavy toll of death from his
enemies before he died with his back to the pillar-stone,
and the black crow plucked out his eyes.
 The Mhorrigan did not remain incarnate much beyond
her nemesis,and her human counterpart, the queen Mebd ,
had no easy life in what remained of her eighty-eight years.
Her lover Fergus was slain by king Ailill when he
discovered the younger man bathing in a lake with his wife.
Ailill was in turn slain by Conal of the Victories, and Mebd
retired to Inis Clothrann (now known as Quaker’s Island) in
Loch Ryve. Here she continued the practise of bathing each
morning, and here Forbai the son of Conchobar discovered
her “and shot her with a bullet from his sling, so that she
was smote in the centre of her forehead and fell dead.”

In discussing the matter of warrior-queens Antonia

Fraser noticed that such these strong-willed Bronze Age
queens were no fable, but she thinks that “the status of
women as a whole was not superior to that of men.” “The
existence of these spirited and respected individuals
represents a state of affairs which is a far cry from the
dreams of true matriarchy and matrilineal succession, the
evidence for which is “very dubious,” and “best consigned
to the large corpus of myths (i.e. fables) surrounding Celtic
society.”

The ravenous raven was the totem of Medb or Maeve.

In folklore she was one of the sidh, who lived "under the
hollow hills". is mentioned by name in the tale called "The
Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel". At the entrance of this
guest-house King Conaire went to meet a giantess who
reeled off her various names, including Samhainn (the time
at which the events were said to have taken place) and Badb.
Conaire knew that The Badb was a banshee of misfortune,
and one of the forms of Morrigan. In addition, he was under
a "geis", or magical proscription that denied him from
admitting any woman into his hostel after sunset. He was
forced to do so, when The Badb impugned his hospitality, but
the result was bloodshed, and she appeared to him as a
black bird as he lay dying.

Queen Medb's taste for blood is also seen in the

peculiar mating customs of her people. At the Samhainn,
men converged on Cruachain, her royal capital, to woo the
maidens of the land. For each successful suitor carried
away from the city, one of his clan had to secretly select
and slay a substitute for the goddess. Each maiden was an
embodiment of this territorial deity whose goodwill was
needed as a prior ritual to intercourse. Medb herself said
that she "never had one man in her bed, without another
waiting in his shadow." The Queen is known to have had
thirty lovers, and Rutherford suggests that they were
sacrificial victims. Remembering the troubles that King
Arthur had with Queen Guinevere reminds one that the Welsh
Morgwyn (Gwen of the Sea), is a form of Morgan. Supposing
Guinevere was a territorial goddess helps in understanding
her various sexual liaisons, and illustrates the fact that all
divine kings had a need to keep an eye on their divine
spouse. See Meabh.

MEBD LETH DEARG, of the “Red Side,” the daughter of Conán

of Cuala, a queen of Leinster. She was the local goddess of
sovereignty who the kings of that realm had to marry to be
legitimate. She had fifty foster children in addition to those
from her own loins, and”founded many tribes and nations.”
Although she had numerous affairs she was regenerated as a
virgin so that she could become wife to nine high-kings,
including Conn of the Hundred Battles, Conn’s son Art, and
Art’s son Cormac in the short list. Corresponds with the
Cailleach bheurr, or “Winter Hag.”

MECHI, MECHE, MEICHE, MACHI. The illegitimate son of Dagda

and Mhorrigan, goddess of battles. He was slain by mac
Cécht because it was prophesied that he was certain to
bring disaster to Ireland. Some said that he had several
heads, but he was, at least, born with three hearts, each
the seed for a serpent, which when born would devastate
the land. After Mechi was killed the three hearts were
removed and burned and their ashes scattered on the waters
of the river Barrow. It was said that this caused the death
of plant and animal life within the river. These serpents are
reminiscent of the Norse “World Worm” born to the giantess
Anngurboda by Lokki.

MEIRBH, spiritless, the same root as marbh, dead. Similar to

the Eng. marble.

MEIRNEAL, Merlin, a hawk, perhaps conferring with the Old

Norse Ve, their god of the wind. Meirle, a thief. The Cymric
Myrddin. Rolleston equates Merlin with Nudd or Lludd, who
confers with the Gaelic Nuada of the Silver Hand, but the
latter is certainly a moon-deity and the former a sun-god.
It is more certain that ancient Britain was entitled Clais
Meirneal, “Merlin's Enclosure (his fortified place)” and that
men travelled there not to gape at Stonehenge but to
observe "the source of the winds between the worlds," a
cave located southwest of this latter-day tourist
attraction, itself one of the wonders of the old stone-age
world. Merlin's cavern has been described as "a close
neither of iron nor steel nor timber nor stone, none of these
exactly, but plain air, done by enchantment so strong that it
may never be undone by any means while the world endures."

There is a tradition that Merlin actually created

Stonehenge, rafting the elements through the air from
quarries in western England. At the last, Merlin came down
from the sky upon Bardsley Island (Wales) and with nine
attendant bards went into retirement, taking with him the
Thirteen Treasures of Britain," thenceforth lost to men." In
some versions of his myth it is said that he was magically
imprisoned by his girl-friend Vivienne, "sleep being the
bond forged against him." With his imprisonment the
location of Merlin's "cave of the winds" was also lost to
men. This god was later an important character in the
Arthurian romances. In mythology this bird is considered
malevolent, note for example Mossad mac Maen, who reared
a giant hawk which wasted Ireland.

MEURAN SITH, “fingers of the sidh,” meur, a finger from

mak, great, might; sith, a “fairy.” The woodland foxglove, a
poisonous plant which in controlled doese is a cardiac
remedy, the active ingredient being digitalis. The
Highlanders useed it to treat fever and skin complaints.

MEURBHEILEACHD, moirbhull. a marvel; meur, a finger; beil,

meil, to grind, meile, a hand-mill, to move the fingers in a
motion similar to that seen in hand-grinding. A druidic
miracle observed to follow such movements. “The priests of
Beil was the men they called Druids, the miracles which
they pretended to perform were called meurbheileachd
(beil-fingering)...” John Dewar as quoted by J.F. Campbell.

MHORGHA, MORGHA, MORGAN, mor+righa, mor, large, grast in

rank, important; righan, queen. Morgantach, obs., magificent.
morganaileach, boastful. The morgha is the folk-descendent
of the Celtic Cailleasch bheurr, the original Mhorgan or
Mhorrigan corresponding with Samh, the alter-ego of the
winter hag. This goddess was described as a perpetual
virgin, one who lay annually, at Samhuinn, with the kings of
Tara, thus ensuring their divine right of kingship. In the
medieval romances, she was described as Morgan Le Fay the
half sister of Arthur. Morgan and Arthur shared the
European carrion-crow as their familiar. Like her "sisters"
Mebd or Maeve (May Eve) and Macha, Mhorrigan was the
daughter of a chief of the Tuatha daoine. This triad
composed the Celtic "befind", "those who predict the future
and endow it with good or doubtful gifts."

In this they were exact counterparts of the Norse

Norns, the three witches of past, present and future, who
promised Macbeth his fate in Shakespeare's play. Latter day
befinds were sidh assigned by the gods to serve as the
familiars of mortal men. As such, they could be invisible
but often took the form of the crow, the totem-animal of
the siol, “seed” of Morgan, also known as Clan Mackay. In
the myths of the Gaels, the Mhorrigan was also known as the
"bean-nighe" (washer-woman) from her habit of frequenting
highland streams where she washed blood from the
garments of those fated to die. Note that when she made
such appearances she was always shape-changed into a hag
and wore red clothing.
 Corresponds with the English “white” or “witch”
woman. In Canada, this raven-haired sidh, with the blood red
pupils and webbed fingers and toes (all revealing her
Fomorian ancestry) is know as the keener, caney (Gaelic
"caoine", a shriek) or caney-caller from her habit of
announcing the approaching death of an enemy or any
member of her clan. These are the creatures better known
as banshees, those of the sidh who attached themselves "to
families of the old Milesian lines, who are known by the
"O'", "Mc" or "Mac" which they prefixed to their names."

The keeners of Maritime Canada were sometimes

identified with roving swamp lights and on Morden
Mountain, near Auburn Nova Scotia, Helen Creighton found an
Irish family possessed of a wailing corpse-cart follower.
Elaborating, Creighton explained that "In the Irish tradition
the banshee was supposed to wail when a member of a
certain family (e.g O'Keefes or O'Sullivans) died. Her wail
was quite distinct from the mourning cries of near
relatives or of the (human "keeners" who were in olden days
called upon to mourn a dead person."

Creighton has also recounted the case of an unnamed

wireless operator who was drowned while rowing across
Hawk Inlet, near Clarke's Harbour, Nova Scotia. At the
wireless station, other workers were bedeviled by "a steady
shrill noise" whose source was never found. This continued
without ceasing until the body was recovered from the sea.
At the turn of the century, a Scot named James MacDonald
insisted that "The mhorag as a rule shows herself on Loch
Morar (Scotland) when a member of a certain clan (Clan
Morgan?) is to die...She reassembles herself on the surface
of the lake in three portions, one a figure of death, another
a coffin, the third an open grave." See next.

MHORGUINN, MG form of Morgan. OG. Morgunn, gen. Morcunt,

Cy. Morgan, OBry. Morcant; mori-cantos, “sea-fire,” the root
being knd,, kindle, as in connadh, the Lat. candeo, to shine,
our source for candle. The stem word relates to Aoidh,
which, see. Disassembled as: mhorr, “great;” combined with
“rig,” queen and possibly Anu. The first word confers with
muir, “the sea,” thus her name may also be translated as
“sea-queen.” Her name is sometimes represented in Gaelic
as Mórrigán or Mórrigú but it is not unknown in the
mythology of other lands, being represented in English as
Morgan. In the ancient lands of the Bas-breton this lady
was known all along the coast as the Korrigan or Korrigwen
and in Cornwall as the Horridgwen. In Italy this sea-deity
was Fata Morgana, “who is perhaps a personification of
Fortune, a being of a higher order (of supernatural).” The
Morgain of the Near East has even been philologically tied
with the Arabic Merjan Peri, “equally celebrated all over
the (Far) East.” The ancient pagan goddess Mhorigann, “the
sea-born,” a “daughter” of the Dagda.. The Gaelic mermaid.
See entry immediately above.

MIALLADH, bad fortune, "overridden with lice." In ancient

times all bad luck was considered an unwanted visitation of
the gods or their representatives.

MIATH, earlier Miaiat, L. Maeatae, Cy. Maead, Mayad, William

Watson says the name is comparable with the ECeltic. gais-
atai, “spearman,” from the Gaullish gaesum. These folk
were not originally a tribe but mercenaries, of various
nationalities. The word may compare with the Ir. Magnatai
who are mentioned by Ptolemy. The Romans regarded this
tribe as one of two principal enemies in the north of
Britain. “The Maeatae dwell close to the wall which divides
the island into two parts and the Caledonians are next ti
them.” There is no way of being certain whether this
reference was to Hadrians Wall or Antonine’s Wall, but Di
Cassius writes as if there was only one, and there is
evidence that the more northern wall was in disrepair by
his time. If so, these folk lived between the walls, while
the Caledonians were north between the Forth and the Clyde.

MICHEIL NAM BUADH, “Michael the Virtuous,” the Christian

replacement for Lugh of the Long Arm. According to some
tales St. Michael took possession of Lugh’s sword of
creation when the Christians gained control of Britain. His
festival was September 29 and was situated to pre-empt
the Samhuinn. Like Eochaid Oolathair, the pagan creator
god, St. Michael was the patron of horses and horse-racing
and in the islands a part of his holiday was the oda, the Old
Norse, odaidh, or “horse fights.”

Like Eochaid and Manann mac Ler, Michael was always

represented as riding a milk-white steed (sea-serpent).
This is an overt sexual symbol since Manann frequently
“rode” his mate Fand, “The White Wave of the Sea.” Like
the Fomors, St. Michael carried a three-pronged spear in his
right hand (they carried theirs in the left) His shield was
three cornered and equal sided. It is noted that “theft of
horse was never condemned” on this day, although the
animal was expected to be eventually returned unharmed.
By tradition horses were “borrowed” the night before the
races. The races were bare-back affairs, and contestants
were not allowed saddles or bridles or spurs, but urged the
animals on with sea-weed whips. The men carried their
sweethearts behind them on horseback, and afterwards
exchanged small presents with them, the women being sure
to give their men some of the carrots obtained at Domhnach
curran (which, see).

Married men could take part in the “circuits,” which

were run sun-wise in Christian times, but were expected to
confiscate someone else’s wife for the ride. The procession
was usually three times about some local landmark; a fire-
hill, standing-stone or Celtic cross. Those who
distinguished themselves in the races received small
awards which were counted for more than a golden plate.
At a communal fire, very like that on the Quarter-Day, an
unblemished white lamb was slain and eaten and the
bannock known as Struan Micheil (see separate note) was
shared. In the course of events there was always a
cavalcade about the graves of ancestors, athletic contests,
races, betting, and an evening dance.

MIDACH, MIACH. A Tuatha daoine physician, the son of the

“leech” Diancecht. He was the better physician being able
to replace Nuada’s silver hand with regenerated flesh and
blood. He is also said to have transplanted the eye of a cat
in a human recipient. The older physician grew jealous of
his son and murdered him scattering his collection of
healing herbs. From his grave their sprung a number of
useful medicinal plants including one supposed to give
almost eternal life.

His sister Airmid gathered them and categorized them

according to their use but Diancecht finding her work shook
the cloak on which they were placed negating her work and
hiding the secrets of their use. The descendants of these
druids, limited as they were by Diancecht's vandalism, were
known on the Continent for their grasp of botany and herbal
healing.

The Gaelic physicians used their herbs orally and in

medicinal baths and were also skilled in surgery, conducting
operations that ranged from stitching a wound, to Caesarian
sections and trepanning of the brain-cavity. They
understood the importance of clean running water,
cleanliness and fresh air to the healing process, and
physicians were obliged by the laws of their order to build
their workshops over a running stream. They were also
required to have doors facing the four quarters of the earth
to allow cross-ventilation of the sickroom. While the
descendants of this clan were usually involved with the
healing arts, they were sometimes hired to invoke evil
spirits that might invade the body of an enemy producing
some hideous malaise, which might range from boils, to
ulcers, through falling hair, to drivelling insanity.

MIDE. central, middle, (Mee), the ancient province now

known as Meath, Ireland. In the days of the Ulster Cycle,
Ireland had only four provinces, Connacht, Leinster, Munster
and Ulster. Even then the word for province, cóiceda, a
fifth, suggested there had been an earlier central province
at the hub of geography. A province called Mide was re-
established in the time of King Tuathal Teachtmhair (the
Acceptable), 130-160 AD. He named it as the as a territory
of the High Kings, and it survives at present as Counties
Meath and Westmeath; thus the expression, “Royal Meath.”
Somewhat like the Norse Misgarth or “Middle Earth” the
world reserved for the use of men.

MIDER, MIDIR (Meeth-er), one of the sons of Dagda, the

patriarch of the Daoine sidh. Sometimes entitled Mider the
Proud from his splendid appearance. He dwelt at Slieve
Callary with his wife Fuamnach, and eventually took a
second wife named Etain the Fair. Fuamnach jealous of the
beauty of her rival turned her into a butterfly and blew her
out of her underworld keep on a blast of air. She fell into
the Brugh na Boyne of the god Aonghas, who recognized her
in spite of her altered form. Unable to break Fuamnach's
spell, he was able to restore her at night, when he took her
as a lover. Her refuge was eventually discovered by
Fuamnach who again blew up a magic wind that carried her
to the palace of an Ulster chieftain named Etar. There she
fell into the drinking-cup of Etar’s wife, and the lady having
swallowed the sigh was forced to bear her as a reincarnate
mortal child, Etain could remember nothing of her past
history and so married Eochy the high-king at Tara.

Mider rediscovered Etain and made a partially

successful attempt to woo her, but she would only agree to
rejoin Mider if her husband agreed. While this appeared an
impossible impediment, Mider managed to talk King Eochy
into playing a board-game with the forfeit unstated. Having
lost the game Eochy learned that Mider claimed a kiss from
Etain. The kiss went beyond mere familiarity as the pair
floated into the air and shape-changed into white swans
that retreated to Mider’s underground palace. Not knowing
where his wife had been taken Eochy had his druid fashion
three wands of yew overwritten with ogham characters, and
by throwing them was able to determine that she was
within the sidh-mound of Bri-Leith. The king and his forces
went there and after nine years of digging ravaged the hill
and regained their lost queen. She returned to the world of
men, bore Eochy a daughter, and remained with him for the
remaining ten years of his life.
MIL, MILE (mee-leh), milidh, champion, mill, destroy, mel,
crush, mil-each. war-horse, milanta, stately, pompous, of
military bearing. Mile, a thousand, thus a host. The King of
the Milesians while they were resident in Spain. He came to
regard Hibernia (Ireland) as the "Isle of Destiny" for his
people, but did not live to see the invasion, which took place
under the leadership of his nine sons.

We are almost in touch with “true history” when we

come to the Milesians, but there is a good deal of
uncertainty regarding the time of their invasion, If
antiquarians represent a greater authority than others then
the sixteenth century scholar, named O’Flaherty, says the
Milesians arrived about the year 1000 B.C. at about the time
that the Biblical Solomon was ascending his throne.
Victorian historians liked later dates up to and including
the year 200 B.C., but the latest trend has been in the
direction of an earlier origin for the invasion, Donnelly
suggesting 1700 B.C. An unknown Greek writer quoted by
Plutarch (ca. 12O A.D.) This individual said that “The Land
of the Dead” was the place of origins for the Gauls, and
that these lands were thought to lie “in the western
extremity of Great Britain (i.e. Ireland).” It was rumoured
that this place was cut off from the world of men by an
impassable wall.

On the northern coast of Gaul, says the reporter there

was once a group of mariners whose only business was
ferrying the dead from the continent to their resting place
somewhere in the west. The mariners claimed they were
awakened, in the night, by whisperings from offshore, and
that they then went to the strand where they found the dark
ships anchored. These they attested were not the craft of
any known people and the pilots and were invisible. These
men awaited the loading of equally invisible passengers
who sank the ships to the gunwales. Those who hired aboard
these ships said that the vessels made the other shore in a
single hour, where it took m,any hours for a normal craft to
reach Britain under sail. At the Otherworld, “passengers”
were not seen to disembark, but the ships lightened and
rose in the water as a voice was heard intoning the names
of new arrivals, presumably now added to the population of
the Dead Lands. On the return voyage the vessel was also
seen to be similarly loaded and emptied. The voyage always
took place at midnight and often at a quarter day, for by the
laws of nature, these appeared to be the times when the
fabric of otherness faded, and the land of the living became
open to the land of the dead, and vice versa.

It was this invariable way of things that allowed Ith

the grandfather of Mil to perceive the wealth of Eiru from
a tower “at the centre of winter.” He resolved to go there
and embarked at last with ninety warriors, and took land at
Corcadyna in the south-west of Ireland. On landing,Ith
discovered that the Tuathan king, Neit had just been killed
in a battle with the Fomorians. His sons were at Aileach, in
County Donegal, trying to equitably divide their inheritance.
At first the three kings-apparent were suspicious of the
motives of the newcomer, but seeing him as a rational man,
asked him to help settle their differences. Equivocating, Ith
suggested that they divide this country “rich in fruit and
honey, wheat and fish, and temperate in climate” according
to “the laws of justice.” The three kings could not be happy
with this judgement and the little talk about the goodness
of Eiru led them to suspect that the visitor had a hidden
agenda.

His companions on the voyage afterwards recovered

Ith’s body and transported to back to “Spain.” Here the
children of Mil ostensibly plotted revenge, but seem
actually to have decided on an invasion of Ireland based on
the reports of its wealth. As noted elsewhere this entire
story may have been a fabrication, as the people of the land
of Ith or Bith (Munster) later insisted that they were
unrelated to any of the Milesians. Whatever their rationale,
the thirty-six chieftains of Milesia put together a equal
number of sailing craft.

In the old accounts it is claimed that the forces of Mil

(which did not include the now dead patriarch) arrived on
Thursday, 17th, on the seventeenth day of the dark moon,
the first day of May, anciently termed the beulteinne. Soon
after landing, the Milesian host advanced on the main city of
Tara, where they found the three Tuathan kings awaiting
them. The invaders immediately demanded unconditional
surrender, and the Tuatha daoine seem to be disposed to
comply, but they did ask that the host withdraw for three
days so that they could consider how to bring about a
surrender. The poet Amergin agreed that this was a proper
request and so the Milesian fleet withdrew to a distance of
nine waves from the shore.

No sooner were they anchored than a mysterious mist

tightened about their ships and a storm came up,, all raised
by the sorcerers of the Tuathans. The winds soon dragged
the shipped into deep water and they were dispersed to in
the Irish Sea. A man was sent aloft to see if the storm was
natural, and before he fell to his death from the rigging was
able to shout out: “There is no storm aloft.” At this
Amerigin began to chant a counter-spell and the winds
dropped.

The Milesians were thus able to point their prows to

the shore but one of the Milesian lords, a man named Eber
Donn, fell into a berserker rage against the Tuathans and his
tempest reinvigorated the one at sea, with the result that
most of the ships went down. The remainder of them found
their way into the estuary of the Boyne, while a few more
landed in the southwest of the island.

The first engagement was in the high mountains of

Slieve Mish in Kerry, the other at Telltown. Some say that
the three queens of the Tuathans bargained away the land in
exchange for a promise that the Milesians would name the
countryside after them, and indeed it is still called Eiru,
Banbha or Fodhla in Gaelic. Others claim that the three
ladies and their husbands were killed in battle. Whatever
the situation, the last of the mythic invaders had broached
Irish shores and entered upon their sovereignty of the lands.
After a great slaughter at the edge of iron weapons, the
somewhat jaundiced poet Amergin was called upon to make
an “honourable division” of the lands of Eiru.

In the world’s best example of technical justice he

deeded all the sunlit lands to the Milesians and gave the
Tuatha daoine control of all the natural caverns of the earth
and islands “beyond the horizon” in the north and western
seas. As it turned out these latter properties were no mean
piece of real estate. Amergin might not have been so quick
with his judgement if he had known the actual extent of
caves and weems and man-made souterrains in Ireland.
Archaeologists have suggested that these structures,
probably pre-dating Tuathan control, were frequently
occupied by men from a very early date. Sean O”Riordin
notes that: “Only a small proportion of souterrains are
known, and it is not possible to give any estimate of their
number. The total must be very large...” (1942).

In response to this the Tuathans assembled at the

mouth of the Boyne under the chairmanship of the Fomorian
Manann mac Ler, a sea-god who had always had a soft spot
for the kin of his foster-son Lugh. The Dagda his kingship
because of the defeat and an election brought Boabd Dearg,
the “Red Crow” to leadership. Manann offered the defeated
people cloaks of invisibility to help them avoid detection by
the Milesians, and promised those who wished refuge in the
western lands of the Atlantic.

Some of the Tuathans elected to join their former

Fomorian enemies in those lands but others fled to Alba
(Scotland) and its islands. The remaining survivors at first
tried to co-exist with the invaders, but the Milesians
noticed their skill at the arts and their conspicuous wealth,
and placed the best craftsmen in bondage, and created laws
prohibiting the Tuathans from having any part in politics or
other highly remunerative jobs. To make matters more
difficult they levied heavy taxes and insisted that the
conquered people remain out of sight. In the end large-scale
movements of the Tuathans were limited to the quarter
days while individuals were only allowed freedom of
movement in the night hours. These restrictions forced the
Tuathans into the remote countryside where they took up
the more menial occupations.

These fugitives were only seen as shadows moving

through the twilight by successive generations of Milesians.
As a result of the seemingly magical skills the Tuathans
had at avoiding detection, they became known as the Dei
terreni, the “gods of the earth,” residents of the “hollow
hills,” the descendants of powerful deities.Wealthy beyond
reason or belief they were seen as having fairy palaces
within the earth, and there held revels in unending sunshine,
nourished by magical meat and an unending source of ale,
both of which imparted undying youth and beauty and near
immortality.

From these places they occasionally emerged to

mingle with men in acts of love or war. The original
concept was one of a heroic race, whose gods were
admissible in the Milesian pantheon. In the latter days,
under the influence of Christianity, they were at first
disparaged, being referred to as the Daoine sidh, the “side-
hill folk,” or as the Tuatha athach, the “people of the wind.”
Notice that the latter word athach is a synonym for “giant,”
thus, an “imaginary people.” These “rent-payers,”
sometimes entitled “rent-payers to hell,” actually were a
mix of all the earlier peoples who had become subject at
one time or another. Each of these made notable, but futile,
attempts to regain power and property in historic times.

The Tuathans, “ground down by rents and compulsory

toil,” overthrew the Milesian king under the leadership of
Cabri Cinn Cait, the “Cat-Headed,” in the first century
before Christ, and he ruled through five years when there
was “but one acorn on the stalk.” At his death, his son
Morann, recognizing the fact that the goddess of earth had
attached herself to the Milesian line, refused the crown.
This allowed the ascension of Feradach Finn-feactnach,
whose reign was equally unhappy. In the reign of the next
Milesian, the Tuathans again banded together and resumed
power for twenty more years. Tuathal Feachtmar, “the
Desired” was the next Milesian to get the upper hand, but he
had to fight 133 battles against the “little people.”

In the end he did break the tribes of the north and

scattered them so widely they were never again a force in
Irish history. The sigh never quiet perished, but among
present-day inhabitants they are quiet creatures of the
imagination, who infrequently trouble the affairs of men.
The Milesians were left with only two sons of Mil when
Ireland was first conquered. There had been eight, but Bith
had fallen from the mast, and Donn and his other brothers
had been drowned in storms at sea.

This left Eber Finn and Eremon, who approached

Amergin for a judgement concerning the portions of
property they should hold. The druid-poet declared that
since Eremon was the oldest he should first rule all the
lands passing them at death to his younger brother. Eber
would not submit to this arrangement and thus the Irish
“troubles” commenced nearly 4,000 years ago. At first
Eremon agreed to keeping the peace by dividing the land into
northern and southern halves, the division line running
“from the Boyne to the Waves of Cleena.” The northern half
was deeded to Eremon with a small northeastern corner
granted to the children of a lost brother named Ir. This was
the land first invaded by the Norse, and encounters with
this tribe caused the whole island to be called Irlande. The
south was the land of Eber, excepting a southwestern part
of Munster which was given to a cousin named Lughaid
because he was the son of Ith or Bith. This settlement held
for a single year, but in that time Eber’s wife began to
politic for possession of Tara which was within the
northern bounds. This “quarrel between women” concerning
“the pleasantest of all Irish hills,” led to war between
their husbands in which Eber was defeated and the
sovereignty settled upon Eremon. See next.

MIL. gen, meala, honey. mild, milbhir, mild beer. mead. mil-
bhriathrach, mild words, sweet-nothings. mileachadh,
benumbing. milliudh, having a blasting eye (like that of
Balor), fascinating, millteach, destructive. Sweet but
dangerous.

The reign of the game-keeper, or Cailleach followed

that of the Maidhdean (maiden), who was sometimes
referred to as the Samh. This summer moon-maiden
corresponded with the ancient goddess Morrigan, while the
winter hag was Macha. The rites of Samhainn commenced in
Gaelic communities with the celebration of the cern (corn,
or horn) which the English named the harvest home. In
Gaelic communities the earliest harvest were taken during
the first week of August, when the festival of Lugh, called
the Lugnasad (and currently Lammas), was celebrated.

The last fruits were gathered at harvest home, which

was also named a feast to mark the end of work in the
fields. The harvest home originally embraced magical
religious rites which were widespread in all of Europe. As
the time of taking the final harvest varied from one year to
the next, this was a "moveable feast" whose date ranged
from mid October through mid-November, with Samhain
falling before or after the rites. In every case, the kirn
involved the creation of a rude figure constructed from the
last of the grain crop (a survival being the "kitchen
witches" sold in kitchen specialty shops). This god-figure
was paraded home in front of the last load to come home
from the fields amidst singing, shouting and surreptitious
drinking. The kern doll, kern maiden or Gaelic
"maidhdeanbuain", literally "the shorn or defrocked maiden"
was identified as the goddess-spirit of the cern, a female
relieved of her virginity by a kern-king, such as the ancient
horned-god Cernu, who the Romans called Cernunnos.

Sometimes, a pair of harvesters was dressed in grain

and ribbons, as a living personification of long dead deities.
In the earliest times, it can be guessed that these kern-
people were paired off and encouraged to indulge in ritual
sex followed by a "bone-fire" and the return of the male
spirit to the land. While impregnation of "the land" was
required at Beltainn to bring on a successful season for
crops and animals, it was also needed at Samhainn so that
the "spirit of the land" could overwinter. In some English
communities the harvest home was described as the mell,
while herding villages practised parallel rites which they
referred to as the hookey, or hockey, after the hooks used in
tending animals.

Early harvests usually spoke of abundance while late

harvests were regarded as unlucky; hence, there were
numerous superstitions related to "taking the maiden". The
symbolism of the cern could not have been more explicit,
the "shorn maiden" being cut down with a horn-shaped
sickle or scythe. It was claimed that the kern-spirit or
spirits fled before the reapers, the queen of their kind being
finally cornered in a remote field. Highland reapers
contested one another to get this maiden, and tried all sorts
of diversions to secure the last sheaf. Some bundled a
small uncut portion away beneath a sod of earth coming
back to cut it at a later date. Local handling of the maiden
varied. In a few places the sexual nature of the act was
most explicit, the final sheaf being termed the maidenhead,
or more simply the head. Where the pagan rites were more
hidden it was called the "clyack", another word for sheath.
In Scotland, the maiden often fell , in a nice bit of
symbolism, to the sickle of the youngest girl on the field,
who was assumed to be a virgin. MILLEADH NOT BATH ADH,
destroying entity, spoiler. This phrase encapsulates the
Tuathan attitude toward the Milesian invaders of Ireland (ca
250 B.C.)

MILUCRA, the youthful Aoine once admitted that she had no

interest in white-haired men and her sister Milucra saw
this as a means of having the hero Fionn mac Cumhail for
herself. The Fiann were at the hunt at this time. They came
upon a doe near the Hill of Allen, and ran it northwards until
it was forced onto Slievenamon, the “Holy Hill,” a focal
point of Tuathan magic, a place very similar to Hugh’s Hill
in legendary lore. Fionn alone saw the doe disappear into
the mountain-side, and it was he who encountered the
weeping lady of the mountain. She claimed to have lost a
golden ring in a nearby lake and asked Fionn to find it for
her. He tried and at last succeeded, at which the lady
plunged into the lake and disappeared. Fionn then saw that
the waters had been magically charged agianst him for his
youth had fled, and he was so feeble and ancient that his
hounds failed to recognize him. When the chase party
caught up with Fionn his voice was so weakened he could
barely whisper his identity. Fionn said he thought he
recognized the perpetuator of his misfortune as Milucra of
Slievegallion.

The Fiann, therefore, placed their leader on a litter

and carried him to that side, where they began to dig. Like
others before them, they eventually penetrated the gates of
the Otherworld, where they were met by a maiden carrying a
drinking horn of red gold. She was Aoine, the goddess of
love and youth, and the first from the cup restored him, but
left his hair white. It is said that Fionn’s hair colour
would have been returned with another sip, but he was
content to be young again and turned away with prematurely
grey hair. At Slievegallion there is an antique standing
stone on the mountain-top, which the locals used to avoid
as the dwelling place of the Baobd or “Witch” of the Lake.
Although the place was not often visited a mysterious
beaten path, worn by inhuman feet, is still seen to lead
from the lake-side up the mountain to the standing-stone.

MINIFIN, "delicate and white", ghosts, superstition.

MIOBHADH, ill-used (by the weather). Control of the weather

was considered the major magic of the Daoine sidh.

MIOLCACH, a clown, a flatterer, miolan, a lie.

MIONN, an oath, imprecation, vow, curse, skull, crown,

diadem, EIr. mind, an oath, a diadem; anciently swearing by
the name of a god. More recently, utilizing the "swearing
relics" of a Christian saint. OHG. menni, a neck ornament,
AS. mene, a neck chain, a symbol of authority on which
oaths were taken. Among the Celts the neck ornament was a
partial circle of precious metal (a "torc") worn with the
opening at the front. This explains why the Gaels felt that
the Christian clerical collar was worn "backwards."

MIOSACH, fairy flax, purging flax, EIr. miosach, monthly. A

menstrual pad, proposed for human use by the Daoine sidh;
probably a species of cotton sedge. Natural Kotex. Mios,
moon, less often, The Moon, fuil mios, menstrual courses.

MIRE, pastime, wanton behaviour, flirting, Ir. sport,

madness. Related to mear, our word merry. AS. merge, EIr.
mer, insane. Allied with the G. mearachd, error, wandering
in purpose. The Eng. marr, originally to stumble, OIr.
meraige, a fool, a Quarter Day “monarch.” OBr. mergidhaam,
I am silly.

MISG, drunkenness, EIr. mid, gen. mead, the English mead

MITHEAR, weak, crazy; mithlean, sport, playfulness. Mith, a

humble person.

MOD, court, trial, meeting, from the ON mod. a town-

meeting, English moot, meet. The earth was once considered
an inspirited being its power points being high land. Sacred
spots were scattered all about the countryside each being
considered a reflection of the prime rise of land. In Ireland
that place was Hugh’s Hill which stood at the boundaries of
the ancient provinces. In Scotland it was the Moot Hill at
Scone. Scone was the capital of the kingdom, and the Lord
Lyon King of Arms still identifies the Moot Hill as “the
constitutional centre of Scotland.” This, in spite of the fact
that political power has moved elsewhere. In the elder days
the King was crowned here and each chieftain brought with
him from his own district some of his own mod soil which
he stood upon while swearing allegiance. At the individual
mods assemblies were held, religious rites performed, laws
made, and judgements passed.
MODOMNOC. A member of Clann O’Neill, this sixth-century
monk was a student under Saint David of Wales. His
specialty was beekeeping, and when he returned to Ireland
bees followed his ship. They were, it is claimed, “the
gifted race of Ireland’s bees.”

MOGAIRE, a mocker, a jester, a clown, a ritual victim of the

Quarter-Day. The English mocker. The major male
participant at the Beltane and Samhain had to have a
twisted sense of humour since he was destined to die in the
concluding hours of ritual. For some time before his
departure he had all the prerogatives of the monarch, and
thus had no compulsions against levelling his ire against all
who offended him. Having nothing to lose, he often made
light of the king and his closest advisors, thereby providing
the rest of the community with an escape valve for the
considerable feelings of hostility that were bound to exist
in a day when power was very unevenly distributed.

MOID, vow, EIr. moit, Cy. mun, AS. mund, Latin, manus, hand.
A promise made at the raising of the right hand. Among the
Gaels the right hand often appears in heraldry where a clan
wishes to make the point that it represents legitimate
descent, where there are pretenders to power. If a left hand
is preferred pagan attachments are suspect.

MOILEAN MOIRE, MORAG, “Lugh’s bannock,” The plump child,

lump, heap, fatling of; Sarah, Mary, the sea. Ultimately,
there is reference to the pagan Mhorrigan. The Lugnasad
bannock persisted into La Feill Moire, the “Feast of Mary,”
which fell on August 15, two days later than the pagan
feast, Old Style. On the morning of this day people plucked
fresh grains, which were placed on a rock to dry. These
were husked by hand, winnowed, ground, and kneaded on a
sheep-skin into bannock. This was roasted before a fire of
rowan and other sacred woods. The husbandman broke
bannock for his family and doled it out by age, chanting a
rann to the Christian “goddess” as he did so. After going
three times around the fire he put embers of the fire into a
pot to be carried three times about his home in a sunward
direction. Sometimes he protected his flocks and field with
a similar rite.

MOL, unsolicited praise; compare with mollachd, a curse,

the northern form is mallachd. It was generally held that
those who praised in this fashion were not friends but
enemies seeking a favour or advantage through magic. "The
Power of Evil should not be allowed to hear praise of any
person or beast. A man was one day ploughing with a pair of
horses in Barra when a Uist man came by praising them very
much, asking where he was likely to get such horses; and
they chatted in a friendly manner together for some
minutes. The Uist man then went his way... but had not been
gone long when both horses fell down as if dead... It was
evidently the work of the Evil Eye, and the Barra man
followed the other and upbraided him bitterly. The Uist man
declared himself innocent in intention, but said that his
"friend" should find them all right on his return, as in fact
he did." Thus praise is seen as a dangerous commodity even
if damage is not intended. "If a person praises your ox, or
your ass, or anything that is yours, be sure to say (in
response):- "Wet your eye, " which if kindly disposed he
will perform literally (thus reversing any effect of the
evil-eye)... If a person should praise a child or beast, you
should praise what he praises, only in more extravagant
terms... If you commend the size or appearance of your child,
you should use some such formula as, "God bless it, how big
it is!" (Celtic Monthly, p. 162). In the highlands any comment
concerning children was thought proper if suffixed with the
words, "may their number increase." Similarly, upon
counting out animals in a field or pen it was more than
polite to end with, "Let not my tongue or eye rest heavily
upon them."

MOLACH, rough, hairy, the Irish-born missionary better

known as Molloch and also called Lugaid, one of the first
Christian missionaries to the Highlands of Scotland and the
Hebrides, where his name is still invoked against the threat
of madness. See also Maag molach.
MOLLACHD, MALLACHD, a curse. The first spelling is used in
northern Scotland. The English malediction, harm created
with mere words. Resembles malc. putrefy, decay and mel,
to grind down. In 1886 John and Ann-Margaret Henderson of
Kilchoan in Arnamurchan were at odds with the shire and
his landlord over matters of taxation and land rent. An
eviction party was led by one of the McColls, who stood
watching as the pair and their six children were removed to
"an old tent." "It was as Ann-Margaret was being taken from
her cottage that she pointed her finger at McColl and laid a
curse upon him... she prophesied "bad cess" to him and said
that he would soon die and when he was dead and buried the
very grass would not grow on his grave, but only docks and
nettles." This all took place as promised and "when grass
was sown on his grave it withered and died and in its place
grew ugly dock leaves and nettles. His relatives weeded it
again and again and planted more grass seed, but still the
weeds crawled over the grave. The ground was dug over,
cleared and covered with new turf but it was no use, the
docks and nettles returned even more strongly." (Scots
Magazine, Aug. 1982, p. 541).

MOLTRAD. The wedder-folk. A tribal or sept name with the

suffix rad, collective feminine. Mol, hairy, rough, bushy.

MONACH MOR, The “Great Curser;” monachd, a curse, an

experienced druid or magician. One given this name ruled the
island of Tile nd was an ancestor of Clan MacLeod. Mollachd
is a northern Gaelic form of mallachd, Oir. maldacht, the
Eng. malediction.

MONAR, diminutive person or thing. Monaran, a mote; munar,

a trifle, a trifling person, one of the Daoine sidh.

MONGFHINN, MONGFIND, mountain woman, the daughter of

Fidach of Munster and wife of High King Eoachaid Muigmedon
(358 - 366 AD). The hostile and bitter stepmother of Niall
of the Nine Hostages, she made several attempts on his life.
She died by accidentally taking poison she had prepared for
him. As her death was at the Samhain, this Festival was
sometimes alternately referred to as the Festival of
Mongfhinn, and her evil shade is still said to stalk the
southern countryside at this time when she preyed upon
children.

MONGÅN. The son of Manan mac Ler by the queen of Dal n

Riadi, Scotland. He married Dubh Lacha but once promised a
”friend” named Brandubh anything he desired. He wanted
Mongán’s wife and under the ancient laws of hospitality
promises were inviolate. The poor man was forced to
surrender his mate but was a shape-changer because of his
father’s heritage. He called at the castle of Brandubh in the
guise of a travelling druid and slept with his wife under his
rival’s roof. Eventually he returned in the guise of a young
king accompanied by a very beautiful woman. Since this
lady whose name was Cuimne carried a love charm Brandubh
found her irresistible and gladly traded Dubh Lacha away.
When the two reunited lovers were far away the charm
faded and the replacement was seen to be an ugly hag.

MOR, great, Cy. mawr, Cor. maur, Br. meur, Gaul. maro, OHG,
mari, famed, ON. moerr, famous, Latin, merus, English mere.
Confers with G. muir, the sea. Often seen as a combined
word, e.g. Mhorri-gan.
MOR BRIDD, "The Great Bride." Also referred to as “Great
Bride of the Horses.” It was once said that no man ruled the
Gaelic realms unless he first married the goddess of the
land. The first such marriage supposedly involved Lugh, the
sun god, and Mebd, the earth goddess, whose youthful form
was the reincarnate "bride" named Mhorrigan. In the old
theology it was explained that the triad goddess, who
became a hag during the winter months, was annually
transformed by the sperm (sunlight) of the sun into a virgin
queen.

Morgan was known to the ancient continental Celts as

Matrona. The matron has her fullest exposition in folklore
as the "moerae" of Greece. Here again these demi-goddesses
presided over the destiny of each new-born child. Again,
they were a triad: Clotho, corresponding with Mhorrigan;
Lachesis, with Badb or Mebd; and Atropos, Macha. The first
spun the thread of life, the second goddess knit or wove it
and the last cut it short when the job was finished.

The Norns of Scandinavia had similar duties: "to warn

the gods of future evil, to bid them make good use of the
present, and to teach them wholesome lessons from the
past. They were personified as weavers rather than
spinners, their loom being the sky. The threads of their
weft were cord-like clouds, whose hues varied according to
the nature of events due to occur. Black "threads" running
from north to south, were interpreted by the scalds as
omens of death. It was reputed that the sisters were not
free to act but bound to the wishes of the Orolog, the keeper
of hours.The moerae were said to be disfigured by their
stitchcraft: crooked from bending over their work, with
drooping eyelids caused by squinting under poor light as
they worked through the nights as well as the days. Clotho
stood, but Lachesis had an enormous bottom from sitting at
her job. Atropos had huge pendulous lips and long teeth
from her habit of breaking the thread of life in her mouth.

The norn and the mor bridd were similarly

characterized. As personifications of time these weird
sisters were represented as varying in age, looks and
temperament. Like the youthful mhorrigan, Verdhandi,
goddess of the present was active, and fearless and stared
without hesitation at all within her gaze. Urd was old and
decrepit, continually gazing backward over her shoulder as
if contemplating past events. Skuld , was closely veiled so
that her interests could not be fathomed, but it was known
that she perceived the future. The first two goddesses
were usually considered beneficent guardians of order in
the world, as they constructed the fabric of men's souls.
When the work was near completion Skuld often evidenced
the petulance of Morgan le Fay, angrily tearing the finished
material to shreds, the remnants scattering on the wind as
clouds in the sky.

Like the befind the moerae were duty-bound to appear

before men at the most important events of their lives.
Thus they were seen to materialize, and sometimes
prophecize, at births, marriages and deaths. In Greece, the
individual guardians sent by these goddesses arrived on the
third night after a baby's birth, to foretell his future, give
him advice and favour him with a birthmark such as the caul
of luck. Great care was taken to prepare for their coming,
the house being fully cleaned and the table laid with honey,
bread and three white almonds. In some areas a few coins
were laid out beside the food. The door was left open, a
light left burning, and a decent quiet observed by the
residents. Once the moerae pronounced the fate of an
individual it was understood to be unchangeable.

A similar ceremony was, until recently, conducted in

Scotland on the eve of the arrival of "bridd" (bride). Here
the revival of vegetation was named bride's day (February
1). THus, in the Hebrides, "the mistress and servants of
each family take a sheaf of oats, and dress it up in woman's
apparel, put it in a large basket and lay a wooden club by it.
This they call briid's bed; and then mistress and servants
cry three times, "Briid is come; briid is welcome." This
they do just before going to bed and when they rise in the
morning they look among the ashes, expecting to see the
impression of briid's club there; which if they do, they
reckon it a true presage of good fortune and the contrary an
ill omen."

This ceremony was clearly aimed at the spiritual

revival of the cailleach bheur as a summer spirit like samh
or "brigit". Fraser notes that some of the customs of this
time of year were addressed to Saint Brigit, but he says she
no other than Brigit, the Celtic goddess of fire and the
crops. We know her as the daughter of Dagda, the sister of
Lugh and Ogma, and hence a half-daughter of mhorrigan. In
the far north, the Norns were consulted daily by Odin and
the other gods, and they generally answered all questions
although the answers were often of veiled meaning. These
guardians of the gods and mankind would tell Odin nothing
of his personal fate, but were lavish in gifting their
favourites seldom failing to provided gifts on the
anniversaries of important human events. The moerae were
always invited to weddings, births and funerals, and women
who were about to marry, or who were pregnant, visited
their caves hoping to receive favour. Like the befind, these
fay were the last seen before a person died.

The ancient Romans adopted the three fates as the

"parcae", but unlike other Greek deities they did not thrive
in Italy. Their descendants are loosely attached to that land
and there are three fates who attend Christian homes at
Epiphany. Like Santa Claus, they bear gifts for good
children and punishment for others. They are the Befana,
Maratega and Rododesa, little woman under five feet in
height. The Maratega in ancient and brittle and can stretch
its limbs to improbable lengths, while the Rododesa has the
habit of budding candies from her fingertips. Best known is
Befana who is most athletic, slipping down chimneys or
through keylocks to reward good children with gifts. She
leaves coal for bad boys and girls and is only visible on the
final day of Yule, spending the rest of the year spinning
within a chimney recess or some dark cavern.
Similar spinning women are known all over Europe, those
in Albania being called the "Mir" or wives of "Rica". These
are the "Trois Maries" of Switzerland, the "Witte Wijven" of
Holland, "Les Bonne Dames" of France and "Mutter Gode" of
Germany.

In addition to their other duties, the norns had to tend

"yggdrasil", the tree of life, experience and knowledge,
allowing none but Idun to pick the fruit, which was the
source of the renewed youth of the gods. The norns also fed
and tended two swans who inhabited their Urdar fountain,
and from these pair are descended all the swans of our
Middle Earth. At times, the norns are said to have visited
our world in swan plumage, but more apropos, they came as
mermaids, appearing before men to foretell the future and
give sage advice.

In Germany, the lady was termed the White Woman or

"Bertha", who lived in a hollow hill in Thuringia, caring for
the souls of unbaptized infants, emerging with them in the
spring to water the newest flowers of the field. She spent
some time among humans, being identified as the
ancestress of Charlemagne and the entire imperial house of
Germany. She is frequently represented in medieval art
being drawn or painted as a woman at a treadle wheel, one
foot splayed from overwork.

As matriarch of German royalty, the White Lady

appeared in the palace after the fashion of the banshee,
announcing death or some other family misfortune. This
superstition was very firmly entrenched the last report of
her visit appearing in a newspaper dated 1884.

As "la reine pedanque" Bertha was noted as a spinner

and patroness of all female work that had to do with
manipulating thread. She was formerly see flitting through
the streets during the twelve days of Yule, and was said to
peer into every window to inspect the household spinning
and weaving. Maidens who had been careful and industrious
had no worry and might be rewarded with a gift of an extra
fine distaff of flax or a basket full of threads of pure gold.
Others found their flax soiled, and those who failed to bake
a fruit cake in her honour might find themselves pushed
before an irresistible wind and unceremoniously dumped
into a mud slough.

The Norse goddess "Ran" is very similar in character

to all these others. She was the wife-sister of Hler, who
was often depicted as a greedy, talon-clawed old man, who
greedily pulled ships to the bottom of the sea. Her name
translates as "robber" and she was as cruel, cunning,
insatiable and greedy as the mhorrigan at her worst. In
mermaid form, she lurked near dangerous rocks; there she
spread her met and sang to men, enticing them to their
doom.

For this she was counted the sea-going equivalent of

Hel, the land-goddess of death. Northern nations fancied
that this creature entertained the drowned in her caves, a
place where mead flowed as freely as in Valhalla. The
goddess, like the crow-woman, lusted for sex and gold, and
was sometimes called "the flame of the sea", because she
used this metal to illuminate her halls. To protect
themselves from Ran's bad humour Norse seamen kept gold
on their persons and set at least one coin beneath the main-
mast of their ships, a practise followed to this day in
Maritime Canada. The
descendants of the Fomor and the Vana are known as the
"ceasg" (sea-hags), the "daoine mara" or the "maighdean
mara" in present day Scotland. A subspecies is the "fachan"
a sea-sidh, or trow, identified by the fact that it has but
one eye, hand and leg. These are, of course the "morgans" of
Brittany, the "ben-varrey" of the
Isle of Man, and the people called
"merrows" or the "mara-warra" In
Ireland. Keightley says there are
no sea-sidh in that country
comparable with the horse-like
Scottish "kelpie" and their "ness",
best exemplified by the Loch Ness
monster.
See entry immediately below.

MORGAN, “Dogfish,” one of the

kings of the Land Beneath the
Waves, the husband of a monster
woman named Coinchend, but the
father of the beautiful Delbchaem.
He was slain by Art when he
journeyed to the undersea world
seeking her love.
MORGAN, MORRIGAN, MHORRIGAN (mor-rig-ahn), one of the
Bafinn triad of goddesses, the remaining two being Mebd and
Macha. She was the youngest and most nubile and was the
fate who represented the past. Her name combines mor,
great, the sea; righ, queen, with gan,procreator. Like the
others in her triad, Mhorrigan was said to be of mixed
Tuathan and Fomorian blood and was often described as the
mate/daughter of Don, the creator-sea-god; nevertheless it
was this goddess who helped the human warrior-wizards
remove the sea-giants from Britain. Today, Mhor is
considered the equivalent of the English personal name
Sarah while mhorair, describes a person who possesses
"airgead", or silver, a nobleman. The sea was vast and
important to all the Celtic islanders, and the word was
extended, in to the Atlantic Ocean and the "moors" of
England, Scotland and Ireland. In the Celtic tongue "muir" is
the sea, and in Wales one who lives near the sea is a
"morgant", a name also applied to an individual seaman or
the seashore. The English word morass and the word mere
(a lake) belong to this same family as does the defunct
"moorburn", which describes a fire on the wastelands or an
outbreak of bad temper. Marine, marsh, mermaid and merrow
are all related words suggesting that Mhorrigan was
probably one of the Fomorian tribe, who came to land from
the deep sea, establishing their principal base on Tory
Island northwest of Ireland.

Although her father was Fomorian her mother was

said to be Ernmas of the Tuatha daoine (people of Danu).
Returning from a reconnaissance of the Fomorian camp at
Scetne, Ireland Dagda, the patriarch of land-gods is
reported to have seen her for the first time among men: “On
his way he saw the Battle Crow, the Morrigu washing
herself in the river Unius of Connacht. One of her feet was
at Ullad Echne, to the south of the water, and the other at
Loscuinn, to the north of the water, and her hair was
hanging in nine loosened locks. And she said to the Dagda,
that she would bring the heart’s blood of Indech mac De
Domnann (i.e. Don), he who had threatened the Dagda, to him,
and give it up to the men of Ireland (in return for sexual
favours). This was consummated as she wished and when
the Cauldron of the Deep was purloined by Dagda from the
undersea kingdom, it was placed for safe-keeping in the
hands of Mhorrigan.

After that, the sea-goddess settled at Tara where she

kept her great cooking-spit, which held a shish-kebob of
three different meats, one raw, one dressed and one
buttered: “And the raw was dressed, the dressed not burned,
and the butter unmelted in spite of the three being together
on the one spit.” While it was often said that men who
aspired to kingship at Tara had to mate with Mebd, this not
entirely accurate as she represented a warrior-woman at
the height of power, and the high-kings coupled with a fresh
virgin-goddess. The aspect of newness and virginity was
embodied in Mhorrigan, while Macha, the old crone,
represented the final phase of the triad. Mhorrigan was
then the Samh, or summer-goddess just as Macha was the
winter-goddess. The rituals of Samhain were once thought
essential for the conversion of the coldness of winter into
the warmth of summer.
 "At Samhain men from all over Ireland converged on
Cruchain (in Connaught province) to woo a maiden. For each
suitor, one of his people had to be slain, The maiden must
be (represent) the territorial goddess whose goodwill is
secured by these sacrifices." (Celtic Monthly, p. 111) These
were not actually seen as "sacrifices," but as an important
reshuffling of the life-force, and it should be noted that
these annual deaths were in addition to that of the "king"
whose body was "returned to earth" so that the crops, as
well as the animals and men, that fed upon them might be
"reinvigorated." While Mebd has been described as
somewhat "horse-faced" and blonde, Mhorrigan is usually
represented as a raven-tressed seductress. It is
interesting that her descendants, the morgans, or mermaids,
are often represented as having hair which is the colour of
seaweed when seen in the depths, but this becomes a
blinding flaxen colour in sunlight. While Mebd had small
golden birds as her informants, the Mhorrigan, like Odin,
fancied a coterie of ravens or hooded crows. Like Mebd and
Macha, she was an accomplished shape-changer but
preferred the wolf and crow-form over others.

A perpetual virgin, renewed through magic, the

Mhorrigan was very interested in the sex act as a means of
bestowing or taking power; the flow being always toward
the stronger party in the union. This explains why the
Befinne would never keep a partner less spirited than
herself, any other relationship leading to the death of the
underspirited individual. It follows that Mhorrigan made
every attempt to seduce her enemies especially where she
felt they might be less spiritually potent than herself. Even
with one of equal staying-power, a psychic union was
formed which might mean that the enemy warrior might be
unable to offer further opposition. It was with this in mind
that Mhorrigan offered herself to Cúchullain in the guise of
a human maid. As it happened the Ulster hero was too tired
to perform and refused her a he explained. In a tiff, she
left him and thereafter warred against him as he protected
the ford at the border with Connaught. She appeared as a
wolf , as hornless red heifer and as a water serpent in
isolated attempts to kill him, but he nearly finished her.
Near death, she was forced to come to him seeking a boon,
and in the end he granted it, sparing her life.

Although her alter-ego, Mebd continued to war on

against Cúchullain, Mhorrigan imparted some of her spirit to
the Grey Mare, which was his friend and protector. She also
became his befinne and banshee and passed through Emain
Macha, breaking the axle of his chariot to warn him that his
last battle was at hand. As with the latter day Morgans, and
Mackays, she took the crow-form and perched upon the
shoulder of Cúchullain to signal that his spirit had moved
on.

The Mhorrigan appeared as the Macha, at a later time

when she travelled to Da Derga's Hostel to bring down King
Conary: "As long as a weaver's beam were her two shins,
which were as black as the surface of a stag-beetle. Her
hair reached to her knees. Her mouth awry." When he
admitted her against a personal "geis" he and his company
became subject to events which led to their death. King
Conory was the last of the line Etain and Eochy, who had
defeated Mider, the king of the underworld. Conory was his
great, great great-grandson, and it was thus that the
Daoine sidh evened the score between the side-hill people
and men.

When Cúchullain was still a boy she appeared to him

when he was in thrall to some external enchantment of an
enemy. Thinking to arouse him she noted, “There is not the
making of a hero in you, you lie enthraled at the feet of a
mere shadow.” Enraged he sprung to his feet and threw his
hurly-stick at the shadow clipping off its head. When King
Conchobharr was attempting to raise the debilitated men of
Ulster in the Tain wars, he bade his messenger go to the
crow-woman seeking help for Cúchullain. She was always
ambivalent toward him and argued with him as she was
bringing cows down from the peak of her hill at Cruachan.

In another instance, she assented to help Talchinem, a

druid to Conaire Mor, when he sought to steal a bull his wife
had set her mind on having. She pilfered a cow from Odras,
a female keeper in the household of the cow-chief Cormac
Hua Cuined. Pursued to the Cave of Cruachan in the Hill of
the Sidhe she caught Odras as slept and “sang songs over
her until she was changed into a pool of water which is the
source of the west branch of Slieve Buane. In the battle of
Magh Rath she fluttered over the unfortunate Congal Claen
in her bird shape so that he lost all sense of friend and foe.

Again, at the battle of Cluantarbh she flew above the

head of Murchadh mac Brian to his detriment. She showed
herself, similarly, in the battle of Dunbolg taking the part
of the southerners against Leinster, which had the support
of the goddess known as Bridd. See also Aoine, who some
identified as a daughter of Manann mac Ler, while others
insisted she was simply a form of Mhorrigan. Note that she
confers with Morgawr, the Cornish “Sea Giant.” said to live
in the seas nearby, There were sightings of this monster in
1876: Two fishermen off Lizard Point described the
creature as having, “a great head like an enormous seal
(with a) long neck...The body was black and the head was
grey and we saw a total length of about 22 feet... a bog
rounded back (with) humps on the top.”

Every north western land had its version of this

óighea muir , or “sea-maiden,” who left descendants in the
Anglo-Saxon mermaydes. In her book Somerset Folklore
(1961) Miss Ruth Tongue has noted that the people of her
coast related the morgan with the conger eel: “There was
once a sea morgan with a beautiful face, and she’d sing on
the autumn evenings and anyone heard her had to go, and
they’d wade further out and further to reach her till the
quicksands got them, and the conger eels had a feast. They
always knew when the eels barked she would be about on
the low tide...” The dwelling place of sea-morgans led to
such names as that of the Glamorgan coast of Wales.

Thomas Keightley says that the Breton korrigan had

its counterpart in the creatures that the Romans called the
gallicenae, the “strangers of Sena (the Isle of Saints
opposite Brest, France).” These were regarded as oracles of
a Gallic god, living in the Mare Ofismician, the now called
the English Channel. These were said to be nine virgin
priestesses, “able to charm the winds, turn themselves into
what animals they will,, cure wounds, and predict the
future; but the last they will only do for those navigators
who go to that island to consult with them.” Keightley
thought that these ladies had “all the attributes of the
Damoiselle de Lais de Marie du France.”

One of this kind was wounded by Gugemar in the form

of a doe, afterwards addressing him “with a human voice.”
Another “loved Lanval, and carried him off to an island.” A
third proposition Graelent, and he and his mistress crossed
“a very deep and broad river” to arrive in her country. Like
the Gaelic visitors from the Otherworld, the ladies of the
lake appeared to visit their human lovers without being
seen coming or going.

Keightley says this matter may be resolved through a

reading of Lai d’Ywence. The hero of that song is a shape-
changer like these women, “a real man, but one capable of
assuming the shape of a bird.” Note the resemblance to
Lugh who was often seen flying the sky as a hawk or an
eagle. Lanval’s mistress informed him that she was always
available to him, although distance might separate them. He
had merely to wish for her presence and, “I will presently
come to you, All commands ready to do. No one but you will
me see, Or hear the words that come from me.” Granlent’s
paramour warned him:

I shall love you trewely;

But one thing I forbid straitlÿ
You must not utter a word apérte
Which might our love make discovérte.
I will give unto you richlÿ
Gold, silver, clothes and fee.
Much love shall be between us two -
Night and day I’ll go to you:
 You’ll see me come to you alwáy -
With me laugh and talk you may.
You shall no comrades have to see,
Or who shall know my privacy.

Take care that you do not boast

Of things by which I may be lost.

Unfortunately, humans were always human, and never

able to live by their pledges to these sea-morgans, so the
ladies always felt it within their right to “travel on” to
some new love when the oath of secrecy was inevitably
broken. In relating the korrigans to the gallicenae,
Keightley quoted an ancient Breton poem: “There are nine
korrigen, who dance, with flowers in their hair, and in robes
of white, round the far fountains, by the light of the full
moon.” Speaking of the sea-woman and their sea-daughters,
Keightley added that, “they draw down to their palaces of
gold and crystal at the bottom of the sea, or of ponds, those
who venture imprudently too near the edge of the water.
Like the mermaids they sing and comb their golden hair.” In
ancient Italy it was sometimes suggested that the Fata
Morgana was not the ultimate authority in the affairs of
men, but a spirit subject to the Demogorgone.

Keightley says that this overlord of the witches was

“a being unknown to classical mythology,” but we would
guess that reference was made to the “demon gorgons,” the
three fabled sisters of Greek mythology, who had snaky
hair and faces that were so terrible they turned people to
stone. According to Aristoto the Demogorgon had a temple in
the Himalayan region, and here the Fates were summoned
annually to give an account of their actions. “To get there
they travelled through the air in various strange
conveyances, and it is no easy matter to distinguish
between their convention and a Sabbath of the Witches.”

On the other hand, the people of the continental

lowlands of northwestern Europe were as certain that the
headquarters of the faee qui estoit appéllee Morgane was
“en Iysle des Zeelande,” which is to say “Zealand” or
“Sealand.” In Ireland her palace was said to lie in the
underground of Connaught province, but in Scotland it was
more traditionally located within Coire-Bhrecain, or
“Corryvreckan,” the famous whirlpool located between the
northern end of Jura and the Isle of Scarba within the Inner
Hebrides.

The Island of Eigg, which lies in this same group

(whose name is prohibited from polite speech) is also her
property being properly spoken of as Eilean Nem mBan More,
the “Island of Big Women.” Occasionally her residence was
said to be within the largest hollow hill on the Island of
Pomona, which is in the Orkneys. None of these lands may
be counted as her place of origin, which is said to have
been the beginning-gap known as An Domhain.

The Mhorrigan’s parents are not often mentioned as

she is an elemental of the water, and possibly the elemental
Domnu, the feminine form of Donn. the creator-god. She is
sometimes represented as the daughter or “wife” of Ler,
Manann mac Ler, Lugh or the Dagda. but it appears that she
stands beside each man-god, in turn, as his sovereign-
bride, the source of his temporary power. The Mhorrigan was
the physical type of the Daoine mara, or “sea-folk,” and for
this reason there was always a bit of fish in her native
form. She was not as obviously finned, or scaled as the
male of her species, but she did have a translucent skin,
cod-fish like eyes with reflective red pupils, and a slight
webbing of all her fingers and toes. Her hair was variously
described as blond, red, or black, depending on whether it
was seen in sunlight or beneath deep water. Some men who
saw her said that her hair was actually the colour of rock-
weed.

A consummate magician she never had to put up with

natural deficiencies and could alter her form, or coloration,
to suit circumstances. She had the ability to take any
organic form, and could become a seal, a fish, a half-fish, a
dog, cat or horse on a whim. In Ireland, the offspring of her
ocean matings were termed the múrivgach, the “sea-
daughters” or the mara-uara, the merrows, or mermen. In
Scotland the males were the ceasg, or “hairy ones,” and the
females the maighdean mara, or “sea-maidens.” In the
northern islands they were termed sea-trows, or sea-trolls,
after Old Norse models of language. The Mhorrigan and all
her kind had a vast knowledge of history, and could use this
as a base for predicting the future. They also possessed the
ability known as far-sight and the blighting- or evil-eye.

The Mhorrigan was also a channel for what the old

Gaels termed anim or “spirit” (the word being linguistically
attached to her name). The Celtic root of this word was
amnion, that which “stirs” or causes motion, a word close
to the Latin animus and our current word “animal.” It was
believed that the Anu could add to the life force of an
individual, or subtract from it, in the sexual act. It was said
that a highly spirited individual could profit from such a
union as the flow of energies was always in the direction of
the individual having the greater potential energy. This
explains why the Mhorrigan always insisted on mating with
an individual who was at least her equal in terms of lust
and endurance. The Mhorrigan could increase the life
expectancy of a lover by simply kissing him or blowing upon
his face, but these acts could attenuate the life of a older
man or someone with low energy levels. She could also act
indirectly by blowing her anim upon food or drink placed
before a friend or an enemy.

The Anglo-Saxon tribes of southern England

eventually collided with the Celts and described the
descendants of this sea-woman as the Blaec Annis. She was
said to dwell within sloughs and backwaters emerging to
abduct children or kill adults by blowing her fetid breath in
their direction. Although the history of this goddess is
incomplete it would appear that she allied herself with the
Dagda when he and his sons invaded An Domhain. It was
thus that she became a totem of the land-dwelling tribe
known as the Tuatha daoine and left the Great Plain
dispirited. Although she is often represented as the
guardian of the Cauldron of the Deep, it is clear that she is
the cauldron of regeneration, the source of balance between
the world of living and dead things.

Peter Ellis has said that she is “interchangeable with

Macha, Badb and Nemain (Emain Macha),” but this is not
entirely correct since the Mhorrigan was a source of
constructive anim. The other ladies might act as a
mhorrigane, but both were basically destructive elementals.
It is really improper to label the Mhorrigan as embodying
“all that was perverse and horrible among the supernatural
powers.” Where the Mhorrigan was seen to commit any act
of terrorism she was no longer the great renewable virgin
but a “more mature”goddess.

Nancy Arrowsmith is closer the truth in saying that

the sea-folk “reflect the nature of the waters which they
haunt.” At times the morgans could be as serene as the
calmest waters of summer, seeking to delight, charm and
accommodate anyone they happened to encounter. A few
days later their summery looks could change, and under
black clouds, they might become baobhe, dragging victims
into the deep, sometimes devouring them. The summer
occupations of the sea-folk were usually less likely to lead
to violence than the things they did during the winter
months. In the warm days they were seen lounging off-
shore, or on the headlands, singing, hair-combing, dancing
and shape-changing so that they could attend the festivals
of humans who lived near the seashore. At every time of
the year the sea-people had charge of generating weather
and brewing storms. They were considered responsible for
upwellings, “tidal” waves, hurricanes, sea-cyclones, the
trade winds, and when men were killed by these phenomena
they had charge of their spirits which were taken into the
undersea kingdom.

At one time it was commonplace for ocean-going

captains to placate the mer-folk with gifts thrown into the
sea. In the process it was often said that the wreath or
offering of food was donated “for the old cat,” who was, of
course, the Mhorrigan. Many verbal bouts ensued between
sea-captains and mer-people, the winner being considered
the individual who managed “the last word.” In situations
of extreme danger, some seamen promised a son or
daughter, or the next born, in exchange for help in
overcoming a storm at sea. Fishermen also routinely tried
to bargain with the sea-folk because the taking of fish, or
the crossing of wide expanses of water, was though
impossible without the complicity of these supernaturals.

In Scottish folklore, the tale is told of a fisherman,

who being unmarried, and without heirs, promised that he
would surrender his son at the age of twenty to a sea
morgan. Eventually he did marry and his wife gave birth to
a son, who learning of his father’s bargain tried to escape
his fate by journeying in parts away from his homeland.
During his trip, the lad was constantly reminded of his
destiny by the strange creatures who opposed him, two
Fomorian giants, an old crone and the three-headed serpent
of Loch Laidly (representing the triune goddess). In each
case he was able to put down these monsters, and after
saving the life of a local princess, acquired a her as a bride.

The one thing that the Mhorrigan could never tolerate

was a female competitor, so dead on the date of this young
fellow’s twentieth birthday she appeared “without leave or
asking” and “swallowed him whole.” This is a polite way of
saying that the Mhorrigan was nubile and nearly
irresistible as an object of lust. In polite versions of the
tale, a sea serpent “ensnared” the youth and carried him
down into the depths of the loch. The princess who went to
retrieve her prince from the Otherworld, took the advice of
“an old soothsayer” (druid) who remembered that mermaids
were unable to resist beautiful music. She therefore took
her harp to the shore and played upon it until the sea morgan
surfaced. She then stopped her hand, at which the mistress
of the seas asked her to “Play on!” She said she would but
only after seeing that her husband was unharmed.

To oblige the morgan thrust the captive man out of the

water until he was visible above the waist. The musician
then continued, and the piece was so sentimental that the
mhorrigan lost her grasp and the prince shape-changed
himself into a falcon which broke free. In one of the
variants of this tale the “sea-monster” regurgitated the
man. Seeing that she had been tricked the morgan took the
princess in place of the man who had escaped her grasp. The
prince, in turn, consulted his druid, who assured him that
there was only one way to overcome the morgan: “In the
island that lies in the midst of the loch is the white footed
hind (doe), and if she is caught there will spring out of her a
hoodie (crow), and if she is caught, out of her will come a
trout, and the trout containeth an egg, and here is
encapsulated the soul of the sea-maiden, and it the egg is
crushed she will die.”

Now, there was no known way of crossing to Eilean

Mhorrigan for the sea-maiden routinely sank each boat and
raft that ventured upon the “loch” (a metaphor for the
ocean). So it was that the prince decided to jump the gulf
using his black stallion (a symbol of storm clouds ). On the
island this prince called upon his magic black dog to track
and bring down the doe. When the morgan shape-changed
into a crow his totem falcon brought her down, and the trout
was caught up by his magic otter. When the egg spewed
from the trouts’s mouth, the prince put his foot upon it, and
the witch cried out, “Break not the egg, and all that you ask
will be given up to you!” The prince then demanded his
wife, and having her in his arms stepped down soundly upon
the egg. It was never said that Mhorrigan was an immortal.

Having complicity in the death of the Oolathair, she

was subject to numerous reincarnations, but her elemental
spirit could not be destroyed and re-emerged time and again
as the renewed virgin of summer. In one of her first
appearances among men, Mhorrigan assisted the Tuatha
daoine in routing the last of the Fomorian sea-giants. When
these god-warrior-magicians were, in turn, defeated by the
Milesians she found no compromise in giving herself to the
heroes among the Milesian invaders. It has been suggested
that she was named Eriu when she and her sisters, Banbha
and Foldha stood on the shores greeting these newcomers:
“Welcome warriors,” she supposedly cried out, “to you who
have come from afar this island shall henceforth belong, and
from the setting to the rising of the sun, there is no better
place than Ireland. Your race will be the most perfect the
world has yet known.”

As we have noted elsewhere the House of Donn was

named after the death god, who was sometimes associated
with the Dagda and Bilé. In current folklore Donn has the
same weight as Ler, or the Norse god Hler, being commonly
associated with shipwrecks and sea storms. In some
folklore, he is represented as the son of Midir, god of the
Underworld. More often he is confused (and understandably
so) with the eldest of the eight sons of Mil. It was this man
who was hospitably greeted by the three soveran goddesses
of Ireland, and he reacted by “paying scant respect.” In this
case, “scant respect” meant a little more that ignoring her,
for elsewhere it is reported that “Eiru was overrun at Inver
Sceni in Bantry Bay.” She survived long enough to predict
the doom of prince Donn . The Milesians put to sea after
this and Manann mac Ler caused a great storm to blow up
against the invaders.

In one version of events Donn lost his life while

checking out the nature of this magic storm from the
mainmast. Others state that he was killed attempting to
make land, or on the land, and that his brothers agreed to
his request that he be buried on an offshore island. Here the
traditions of Donn og and Donn sean , “Old Don) become
intermixed, for the Irish death god also had an offshore
island entitled Tech Duinn, at the southwest of Ireland. In
spite of this bad start, the Mhorrigan was always attracted
to the newcomers, often with fatal effect.

She was central to the Táin Bó Cuailgne, “the Cattle

Raid of Cooley,” which is the most famous Gaelic epic. The
first reference to it in written form is mentioned by
Senchan Torpeist, the chief poet of Ireland, who died in the
year 647 A.D. Surviving texts date much later than this,
perhaps as late as the eleventh or twelfth centuries, but
essentially all describe the troubles that a Connaught queen
named Mebd had while trying to capture the prized Brown
Bull of Cuailgne, which was kept in Ulster province. She led
a host of warriors against Ulster, whose warriors were
rendered useless by “ a strange debility inflicted on them
by the Macha. Only the youthful champion Cúchullain was
unaffected by this “curse of child-bearing,”since he was in
training in the Land of Shadows at the time of
pronouncement. He defended the northern kingdom at the
Ford of Ulster, until these men were relieved and able to
come to his aid. As we will see, the Mhorrigan attempted
to befriend Cúchullain while her two sisters fought against
him.

MORAG, another name for the Mhorrigan. Diarmuid was

approached in a dream by this woman, who introduced
herself as the sister of the king of Donn, the ruler of the
Land Under Waves. “She was the one of the three colours -
the whiteness of snow, the redness of blood, and the
blackness of the raven that drinks the blood that has flowed
on the snow. She was graceful in her stature and graceful
in all her movements,”

When Fiann travelled to the Otherworld to assist

Abartach , the king of Sorc, he was given magical
assistance by Morag. In the battle neither army yielded until
Diarmuid’s sword pierced the shield of Donn. With that done
Abartach was declared the victor, and Fiann was led off to
be introduced to Morag: “When the harps played Morag
chanted a poem meant for Fiann alone, and remembering that
he had once been a bard, Fiann returned the compliment.
Then the sigh-woman turned to Fiann and said,
enigmatically, “I shall be with you in Ireland!” Considering
this promise, Fiann made no further demand on the king for
his services, but Conan demanded the use of the mare of the
ocean: “Put fourteen women of this realm on her back, and
let your own mare, who is queen of this place, bear up in the
rear where Liagan was forced to hold, then return us all to
our homeland.” The other fourteen who had been abducted
cheered for this plan. The king of Sorca merely smiled and
turned to Fiann saying, “Look now upon your men.” When he
did as he was told, the Fionn were no longer in a strange
land but on the wide beach below the hills of Kerry. The
people of the west gone. There was no sign of the fourteen
handmaidens, but Fiann found at his side Morag. “He lifted
the woman on his shield so that she could see her new home.
And with shouts and songs they all marched inland to
Fiann’s house which was on the hill at Alma.

The sigh-woman in this tale is sometimes named

Tasgaidh, loosely translated as “Tasha,” but having the
real-meaning of “a treasury,” or “depository for good
things.” In any instance this story clearly represents
another form of the rape of An Domhain, the treasure which
was carried away being represented in this instance as the
female spirit of the deep. Morag may also confer with
another woman possessed by Fionn, namely Sadb, a daughter
of Boabd Dearg. Her name translates as the “straying-” or
“lounging-one.” She was supposedly shape-changed into a
fawn by the “Dark Druid” for some unspecified offense. One
day while Fionn was hunting near his home fortress he came
across her in this form and kept her from being killed by
hounds. That night she appeared to her rescuer in human
form, and became his mistress. They lived happily for a
while, but the Dark Druid hearing she had been released
from her spell, pursued her and made certain that she had no
further relations with Fionn. Fionn searched Ireland
attempting to recover her, but at Ben Bulben came upon a
naked boy reputedly raised by a doe. Fionn recognized him
as his own son by Sabd and called him Oisin or “Little
Fawn.” One can guess that the “Dark Druid” was Donn who
tracked the lady for her duplicity in the battles of the Fiann
with the king of the Land Under the Flood.

MORAN, MORAIN, great number, multitude, many, a meadow,

, the first day of May, heath rush, meadow saxifrage.

MORANN, the chief judge and druid of Ulster at the time of

the Red Branch. He was born with a caul or “bag of waters”
in place over his head. His “father” judging him to be of
inhuman (i.e. Fomorian) blood, gave ordered that he should be
drowned in the sea. It is now well-known that those who
are “caul-born” cannot be drowned, but the servants
attempted to carry out their orders. When they dropped the
child into the ocean, the “birth-cap” split and the child
spoke to the men asked that he be rescued. The troubled
gilles did not dare return with the child so they took it to
the door of the smith for fosterage. The craftsman raised
the child and eventually returned it to the father. Morann’s
most famous judgement was who should have charge of the
education of Cuchulainn. The matter was referred to him
when Conchobar mac Nessa’s druids could not settle the
matter amongst themselves. Morann decreed that Sencha
should teach the boy languages and rhetoric, that Fergus
mac Roth should be responsible for teaching him
gamesmanship and that Amergin would instruct him in all
other matters.

MÓR-ANOCH, great assembly, market-place, a great heath or

moor.

MÓR-FHLEADH, great feast.

MÓR MUMAN. The daughter of Aod, thus a manifestation of

the sun-goddess. A matriarchal queen of Munster who bore
a child by her father. Hence the old text: “This Mughaim
was his mother, he to her a brother.” She corresponds with
Mhorrigan who was also said to have cohabited with her
father.

MORGHAN, gravel, shingles, a pebbly beach. See Mhorrigan.

MORT, murder, from the Latin mors. death.

MÓR UACH, UAICH, MURIVGACH, mor + uagneach, great and

lonely. The Irish merrow, or sea-maiden, resembling the
English mer-maid. All are descendant from the goddess
Mhorrigan. To pass through the hostile ocean between its
deep-sea abode and the land, these sea-sidh wore the red
cap known as the cohuleen driuth, without which they were
deprived of the ability to travel the seas.

The Fitzgeralds and the O'Sullivans were clans whose

members were romantically involved with these remnant
members of the once powerful Tuatha daoine. La Dame du
Lac, who appears in the earliest prose romance concerning
chivalry, which was printed in 1494: This tale commenced
with the death of King Ban, who died watching his castle
burn under the torch of his treacherous seneschal. His
afflicted queen was forced to abandon her new-born infant
at the edge of a lake while she attempted to minister to her
dying husband. On her return to lake she discovered her
child in the arms of a strange woman, who carried the child
with her into the water. This was Viviane, La Dame Du Lac,
who lived "en la marche de la petit Bretaigne."

As we have said, Merlin came to know her intimately

and taught her portions of his art. In consequence of this
knowledge, she became one of the fay, who the Gaels termed
sidh. The author of this particular romance says that, "the
damsel who carried the young Lancelot to the lake was fay,
and in those times all women were so called who were
enchantresses, and there were many of them at that time,
principally in Greater Britain. They knew the power and
virtue of words, of stones and of herbs, by which they were
kept in perpetual youth and beauty, and in riches as much as
they desired."

The lake itself was "feerie" an illusion made possible

through the teaching of Merlin. The "lake" was actually a
wooded hollow with "many fair houses and very rich...and
this place was so secret and so concealed, that right
difficult was it, for the semblance of the said lake covered
it..." When Viviane's apprentice in magic and knighthood had
completed his education he was presented at the court of
King Arthur, where his subsequent history is well known.

The "korr, korrid, korrig or korrigan" of Breton have

been identified with the "fee" of southern France and are not
improbable cousins of the Welsh creature known as the
"koridgwen", which must surely bear a relationship with the
Irish mhorrigan? Thomas Keightley said that all of these
corresponded with entirely human women, who were called
the "gallicenae" among the people of ancient Gaul (France).
Of them the Roman traveller Pomponius Mela wrote: "Sena
in the British sea opposite the Ofismician coast, is
remarkable for and oracle of the gallic God. Its priestesses,
holy in perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number,
and are thought to be endowed with singular powers, so as
to raise by their charms the winds and the seas, to turn
themselves into what animals they will, to cure wounds and
diseases incurable by others, to know and predict the
future. but this they do only to navigators who go thither
expressly to consult them."

It is interesting that the Lady of Little Van Lake in

Wales was also represented as having a keen interest in
medicine. In Vita Merlini, (The Life of Merlin, 1150) Morgan
was represented as living on an island with her eight
sisters and tending herbs which were used to cure Arthur
after his final battle, saving him from seemingly mortal
injuries. The korid-gwyn was similarly assigned nine
attendants. To this being the poet Taliesin entrusted a
magic vase (or cauldron), the edges of which were adorned
with sea-pearls and which contained the wondrous waters
of bardic genius and of universal knowledge. In Gaelic
folklore this cauldron of the deep was given by Arthur to his
sister Morgan Le Fay.

The korrigan, it was said, could "predict the future,

assume any form, move from place to place with the
rapidity of thought, and cure maladies by the aid of charms
which they communicate to their favourites." These fee, or
fayres, were no more than two feet in height but
proportionate to adult humans rather than dwarfed. They
dressed in a single white veil and seen at night, appeared to
radiate a light which was very beautiful; "but by daylight
their eyes appear red, their hair white, and their faces
wrinkled; hence they rarely let themselves be observed by
day." Their favourite past time was singing, but they were
never much given to dancing. They lived near the Breton
springs. Their chief occupation seems to have been the
combing of their long hair. One might suspect that they had
access to the ale of the cauldron of the deep for at May eve
they held a banquet at which they passed "a liquor, one drop
of which would make one as wise as God himself."
Unfortunately, few outlanders drank this brew as the
korrigans vanished at any human intrusion. This is probably
to the good as they had extreme halitosis, their breath being
deadly. It is of note that the Black Annis of England and
gwrach y rhibya of Wales are hags possessed of similar
appearance and bad breath.

Keightley has noticed that the korrigan were very

similar to the elle (elf) maids of Scandinavia and the trolls
of that northern land. They had the same aversion to
Christian artifacts (eg bells) as the korrigan, had their
chief holiday on May eve and May Day and could foretell
events. The korrigan came equipped with a purse full of
gold (obtained from her prophetic work), but if any human
wrestles it from her it is found to contain nothing more
than hair clippings and her scissors.

The Bretons distinguished these from the sea-going

mermaid, who they named the morgan (sea-woman) and
morverc'h (sea-daughters). They saidthat these creatures
captured people and carried them away to their palaces of
gold and crystal at the bottom of the sea. Like the
korrigans, the morgans sang and combed their hair which
was crow black as they swam through the water, but a
blinding red-yellow colour in sunlight.

In the romance entitled Maugis d'Aygremont et de

Vivian son Frere we again find in Perceforest a version of
La Dame du Lac, who lived in a castle surrounded by a river
over which lay a fog so persistent none could cross except
as the lady allowed. Here Alexander the Great came to be
cured of his wounds. While he stayed, he was entertained
and told that his lineage was the same as that of "le roi
Artus".

In this same romance we meet another character

living "en lysle de Zelland" (off the coast of Denmark).
Described as a "ancient jade" she is said to be "une faee qui
estoit appellee Morgane." This Morgane was said to be on
intimate terms with "un espirit Zephyr. This youth was
taught "enchantemiens et des conjurations" along with the
abc's of sex. Keightley declares that the amorous
adventures of this rake in training "form one of the most
interesting portions of the romance. The Zephyr of this
story clearly corresponds with Sir Launcelot of the Lake.

In Sir Launfal this same character is represented in

metrical form by Thomas Chestre, who wrote during the
reign of Henry VI of England. In Chestre's tale, Launcelot is
represented as serving at the court of King Arthur until the
arrival of Gwennere, daughter of Ryon, King of Ireland.
Slighted by the lady, Launfal retired to a forest retreat.
Here he encountered Dame Tryamour (another morgan) whose
father was "king of Faerie". He soon found her naked body to
rival "snow that snoweth in winter's day" and observed that
(like the mermaids) "her haire shone as golde wire." As
marks of affection this lady gave him her never-failing
purse filled with gold and dismissed him, promising him
additional favours provided he remained constant to her.

Launfal now returned to court where he was able to

present a much better image, one sufficient to catch the
interest of Arthur's queen. In other versions the knight
succumbed to her sexual wiles, but in this one he refused
her advances and was sentenced to death on a trumped up
charge of attempted rape. Before the execution ten five
damsels arrived at the pyre on horseback and Launfal was
rescued by his lady of the lake.

A thirteenth century version of the Arthurian tale

entitled "The Dream of Rhonabwy" introduced the Welsh
Owein (Lancelot), who was represented as the son of a
mortal, King Urien, and the goddess Modron (who is
obviously Mhorrigan). She has been equated with Matrona, a
Celtic river-goddess whose domain extended from the Rhine
to northern Italy. Owein's ancestry was revealed in his
playing of the board game "gwddbwyll" (god battle) at the
court of his patron, King Arthur. Owein and the King
engaged in a "game" which appeared to operate at two
levels, the more serious being a battle in the real world
which corresponded with moves made on the board. In the
former, Owein appeared to be supported by flights of
battle-ravens, his mother's totem animal.

In all of these versions of the Arthurian myth, Morgan

le Fay is presented as the foster mother-lover of Sir
Launcelot of the Lake and is not an unsympathetic character.
All of that changed when Chretein de Troyes identified
Morgan as Arthur's half sister and the mistress of
Guingamor, lord of Avalon. In all later romances the lady
tended to be more in common with the ancient Irish
Mhorrigan. In Gawain And the Green Knight she is introduced
as a wrinkled crone rather than a golden-haired lass, and
Thomas Mallory was first to represent her as totally
corrupt, a plotter against King Arthur and his throne.

John Steinbeck started to interpret Malory in

idiomatic English and he characterized Morgan as "dark,
handsome, passionate, cruel and ambitious." In Malory's
tale, Morgan fashioned a sword and sheath exactly like King
Arthur's Excalibur. She then seduced Sir Accolon of Gaul
arranging that he should kill Arthur while under her spell.
Arthur was then misled in the woods and his sword changed
for a dull-edged double. The true Excalibur was given to
Accolon who used it against the king in a very unequal fight.
Nyneve, elsewhere known as Viviane, watched the fray and
released a "geisreg" which caused the real sword to fall
from the traitor's hand and rush to that of the true owner.
Arthur now overcame Accolan and learned that his sister
plotted against him.

Addressing his downed adversary, Arthur said: "I grant

you mercy because I know you were under a spell. I have
honoured Morgan le Fay, my sister, and loved her better than
my other kin. I trusted her more than my wife, although I
knew well her jealousy and lust for flesh and power. I knew
she practised the black arts, and now I have no mercy for
her."

Unaware that her plot had failed Morgan called for her
husband's sword intending to send him to earth along with
her brother. A maid-servant warned her son, Sir Ewain, and
he confronted his mother while the sword was still raised
over her victim. Acutely embarrassed, Morgan seemed to
have a change of heart and foreswore the dark arts. When
the sidh warned her that her attempt on Arthur had failed,
Morgan went herself to intercept Arthur as he travelled
back toward Camelot. She was unable to harm him but stole
Excalibur's sheath, which had protective properties for the
wearer. Accompanied by her men she disposed of this magic
amulet in a nearby lake and hid from her pursuers by giving
her party the aspect of standing-stones. Morgan then
retreated to her own land of Gore where she strengthened
her castles and towns, and armed and supplied them out of
fear of her brother.

Some mythologists consider the Tuatha daoine to have

sprung from the Nemedians after they abandoned Ireland for
the Mediterranean. Fleeing from the Fomorian wars, which
reduced their numbers to thirty descendants of the pirate
named Nemed, they scattered to Britain, and to southern and
northern Greece. The latter settlers under Beotac settled
the four northern islands of Falias (Fal Island), Gorias (Gor
or the Triangular Island), Murias (Mur or Sea Island) and
Findias (Fin Island). It is recorded that "Out of Falias was
brought the Stone of Fal, which was in Tara. It used to roar
under every king that would take legal possession of
Ireland. Out of Gorias was brought the spear that Lugh had.
From Findias came the spear of Nuada, another irresistible
weapon. Out of Murias was brought Dagda's Cauldron from
which no company departed unthankful." Morgan's land of
Gore mauy have been the current Scottish shire of Moray,
for that was aciently the place of "the seed of Morgan".

While Arthur returned to Camelot nursing his rage,

Morgan took up needlework, fashioning a cloak decorated
with "flowers and curling leaves patterned in jewels,
covered with preciousness and flashing colour. This she
sent to Arthur by way of one of her ladies-in-waiting. In
the presentation of this gift Morgan explained her evil
actions as behaviour brought on after the invasion of her
body by an evil spirit. Being honest and innocent, Arthur
was ready to accept this lame excuse but Nyneve seized the
cloak and flung it about the shoulders of the delivery-
woman. Immediately the cloak contracted about her, her
skin reddened and then blackened, and she fell to the floor
as corrosive acids reduced her to ash.

After that Arthur and Morgan became implacable foes,

but in spite of her magic, the realm was finally forced
through battle to a state of peace. In that tranquillity,
Arthur sought use for his unoccupied knights and sent
Lancelot and Sir Lyonel on a quest for adventure which
brought further contact with Morgan.

On the road, Lancelot was subjected to a great

weariness and fell into an deep sleep. In this state he was
discovered by Morgan's befind, "a huge and ancient raven"
and then by a cavalcade that included The Queen of the Outer
Isles (of Scotland), the Queen of North Galys (highland
Scotland), The Queen of Eastland (eastern Scotland) and
finally Morgan le Fay, Queen of Gore (presumably the north
east). "Black of hair, of eye, of robe, and horse. Her cheeks
the white of white rose, and her midnight cloak blacker for
its points of ermine."

The great raven, which had taken to the air, now

dropped on the trappings of Morgan's horse and croaked
"Dog!-Pig!-Death!-Pretty-Pretty-Lady!"

Laughing at her familiar, Morgan threw the bird into

the air and turn to her three sisters saying, "We have
received a titbit
sisters, a honeyed plum for the eating!"

Morgan guessed at first that Lancelot was spellbound

but her magic told her otherwise. To make certain that her
foe would remain calm, Morgan took a vial of "lactucarium,
iridescent with age" from her kit bag and forced the
sleeping knight to drink some. The three queens carried the
recumbent ally of King Arthur to Maiden's Castle.

Within its walls, each of the four woman vied for

Lancelot as a sex-object. There red-haired queen of the
Gaels promised him "the crucifixion of love". The golden-
haired queen of the sea isles dismissed this attraction
suggesting the night would soon tire of "versatility in a
rather simple activity." She promised him change and
variety in the sex act; "I offer you everything in layers of
contrast." The queen of the eastern moors promised Galahad
a motherly love; "safety and warmth, praise for virtue and a
gentle compassion for fault."

Finally Morgan spoke: "My coven sisters offer you

brightly coloured shreds of a whole garment; but I will give
you power. If you want harlotry, it can be purchased.
Admiration? - the world aches to kiss the backside of that
vice. A crown? Power and a sharp knife will put that in
your hands. Change? With power you can try on cities like
hats and smash them when they tire you. After all what
crime is there that does not seem a virtue in the hands of
power. And is not virtue a variety of power? Philanthropy,
good deeds, charity, these are mortgages on the currency of
promised power. It is the one possession that does not flag
or become tedious, there is never enough of it. My sisters
offer cheese for mice with small needs. I offer a ladder to
your brothers, the stars, from which you can view the
anthill of men with contempt and amusement."

In this speech Morgan le Fay was not playing the part

of a politician, but spoke from sincere conviction. Sir
Lancelot is said to have responded first by tracing the
image of a circle which he then crossed. an instinctive
action against witchcraft. He then turned on the queens and
noted that their bodies were artificial constructs created
by the arts. Of Morgan he noted:

"Once on a night I stood in an open window looking out.

I saw red eyes, and into the torchlight came a great she-
wolf, who raised her head and looked into my eyes; her
mouth and tongue were gouted with new blood. Hand me a
spear I cried, but the man beside me warned, "It will do no
good. That is Morgan le Fay giving service to the moon."

At this Morgan threatened to turn her prisoner's legs

to snakes but listened instead as he continued: "Children
have no power to oppose their oppressors so they rant at
their nurse, kick a dog instead of a big brother or pull wings
from a fly naming it father. And then he creates his own
world where he is king, an invisible being who flies and has
all power. Most children make some peace with their
imperfect world and work out compromises so they can live
with out injury to themselves or other. The few who do not
make peace become prisoners to their fantasy, some locked
away as hopelessly insane. Those who are clever
sometimes flesh out the dream with magic. Not being
innately wise or kind a world of enchantment injures
through poor design. When things work poorly in the
elemental world the grown child flies into a familiar rage
and destructive hate. There lies the fear, for bhoabhs and
bhodachs are children, living in a world they have made, one
governed by chaos rather than order. What is more
frightening than a child with great power? A spear and a
sword are full of menace, that is why knights who carry
them are first taught pity, justice, mercy, and to withhold
force till the last. You my ladies are unreal, crippled,
vengeful children, and I your prisoner."

At this, Lancelot was returned to prison but finally

made his escape with the help of a serving girl.

MOTHAN, (pronounced mo-an), the bog-violet or trailing

pearlwort (sagina procumbens). “It is used in promoting and
conserving the happiness of the people, in securing love and
in ensuring life, in bringing good and in warding away evil.”
Gathered with the words: “I will pull the pearlwort, the
plant that Christ ordained; no fear has it of fire-burning, or
wars of fairy women.”

More distantly the following incantation was

preferred: “I pluck the gracious mothan as plucked the
victorious king of the universe in his time. In the name of
Bridd and the holy three, I in the field of red blood, in which
all wrath and fury are quelled. This then the cause of all joy
and gladness, the shield of the mighty one above me.” The
plant was to be carried by the picker or placed on the lintel
of the door to keep the slaugh, or “aerial host,” from
entering and beguiling a member of the household. Placed on
the right knee of a woman in labour it provided relief and
defeated any attempts at changeling substitution by the
sigh. It was placed on the bull’s hoof to promote fertility
when he was “with” a cow. Milk was sained with it so that
its toradh or inner spirit would not be taken away by magic.
A cow with calf was similarly protected, and sometimes in
the “silvering” of magic water the juice of the plant took
the place of silver.

This plant was also a love charm. The woman who

provided it had to collect nine roots of the tiny plant while
kneeling on her left knee. She fashioned a ring of it and
placed it in the mouth of her supplicant with appropriate
Gaelic incantations. If the girl could induce her loved one to
kiss her with the charm in place, he became her bondsman.
Love bent maidens sometimes rubbed it on their lips as an
aphrodisiac. When used as a love-token nine roots of the
mothan had to be woven together into a cuach or ring, and
this was placed by design, or otherwise, in the mouth of the
person who sought affection. Here it was made active by
consecrating it, “in the name of the king of the sun, and the
deity of the moon and stars, and in the name of the holy
three (not necessarily the Trinity).” The charm was thus
carried to the next meeting with the intended, and a kiss
sealed his or her fate “making him hencefast bondsman in
everlasting cord.” The bog-violet was also carried by
travellers as insurance against danger on the road. Red
Roderick Carmichael of Lewis received one from a boabh as
he was going to trial “and he got off although he was as
guilty as the son of a sinner.” Consuming this plant was
said to bring dreams about the location of folk taken into
the side-hills by the sigh.

MUC, OIr. mucc, a pig, sow, Cy. moch, pigs, Br. moc’h, pigs,
any animal with a snout, French moucher, to blow the nose,
Skr. muncati, to let loose with phlegm, wild things. The pig
was the symbol and mythological ancestor of the Firbolge.
Notice that when the Milesians invaded Ireland they said
that all the hills had the look of “sow’s backs,” a reference
to the continued existence and power of this race. The
Tuatha daoine had never been able to thoroughly subjugate
this earlier people and Queen Mebd’s encounter with pigs
which jumped clear over both her and her stallion may be a
reference to some unfortunate encounter with these
guerillas. Even Manann suffered losses at the hands of
swine: His hounds sought “a pig that was destroying the
whole country, and making a desert of it.” The animals
tracked it at last to a lake, but it turned on them and
maimed or killed its tormentors. Afterwards the pig swam
to the island in the lake which was afterwards called Muc-
inis, the lake being termed Loch Conn, the “Lake of the
Hounds.” The vitality of these folk perhaps led to tales of
Manann’s swine, which could be eaten on one day but
invariably were seen completely reincarnate on the
following morning. These creatures remind one of the
Odin’s pet Sæhrimnir “the boar that always came to life in
time for the next meal.” In the latter days The Firbolgs and
Tuathans took liege to Manann and thus it was thought
unwise to draw their attention by mentioning them by name.
This was considered especially true of men travelling at
sea. Men descended from the sea-giants often travelled with
a pig tattooed on the left knee, believing that, “A pig on the
knee brings good luck at sea.”
MUC DUBH, AN, the black pig, OIr. mucc, confers with the
English mucous. A forerunner of death. A banshee. It was
said that a sow approached men, and a male animal came
before women who were doomed to death. Note entries
immediately below. Those pursued by this death-ward were
either adherents or descendants of the Firbolge.

MUC BIORACH, a porpoise. Cow/calf with a snout.

MUC DUIS, the eternal pig sought by the sons of Tuirill

Biccreo: “Everyone whose side it should come upon was
healed.” As their second task on behalf of Lugh the Sons of
“Turenn” turned to the problem of gaining a magic pigskin.
Here again, the muc, or wild boar which was sought, was a
sun-symbol. Frey, the son of Niord was the Norse
equivalent of Lugh, and his birth-gift from the dark elfs
was Gullin-bristi, the “Golden-Bristled One,” another
personification of the sun. Lugh himself was sometimes
said to travel as a wild boar, and it was sometimes
rumoured that the sun-chariot was hitched to a boar. The
radiant bristles of the animal may have been considered
symbolic of rays of sunlight, or of spikes of golden grain
which were raised by the force of sunlight. Whatever the
case, the boar represented Lugh’s agricultural interests,
and his tearing up of the ground using his sharp tusk is
considered to have suggested the plough to the first
farmers.

In historic times, the pig was so important to the

first settlers of Bermuda, they featured it on their coinage.
Settlers in eastern North America found it equally useful;
they simply turned the animals loose to fend for themselves
through the summer and shot them for food when they had
become fat and uncontrollable. In some of the stories the
pigskin sought by the Tureens is identified as the “Skin of
Duis” or “Tuis,” who is the Germanic god more commonly
identified as Tyr. As we have noted this skin had the
property of healing injuries when placed upon them. If
dipped in ordinary water from a stream it was seen to
become wine. Tyr was said to be the son of Odin by a sea-
goddess. He appears to have no specific dwelling place but
ranked next to Odin and Thor , a fact remembered in the
name Tues-day. He was the principal, divinity of Ziusburg
now called “Augsburg,” so perhaps the Tureens visited the
Germanic tribes as the second of their labours. King Tuis
greatly respected the art of the balladeer, and was pleased
when the visitors offered him a praise-poem. Unfortunately
the king did not feel this was sufficient justification for
giving up the pig-skin, although he did agree to give the
entertainers all the gold coinage which this skin could
contain. With the skin filled to the brim, the Sons of Tureen
turned on their host and fought their way out of his court.
The battle ended when Brian seriously injured the king and
escaped in the confusion that followed. In a forest-retreat
the brothers made good use of the skin by laying it upon
their various wounds.

MUC MAHARA, great “phlegm blower,” a whale.

MUC SHLANGHA, an animal described as having nine tusks in

each jaw. The Fenian warrior Caoilte killed it and the men
of the band feasted from it over a period of several hours. It
had the reputation of preserving the health of those who ate
its flesh, and it was observed to have a mildly intoxicating
effect. By dawn the animal had completely reincarnated
itself from the bones left over from the feast.

MUCAG, “dog”-rose hip, from muc, above. A plant having

medicinal virtues.

MUICE MUCCA BALOR, “a boar of ghastly shape, of power,

wherein the gorge is named. Of the breed of the swift agile
swine that Balor the stout smiter kept.” They were killed by
Fenian warriors.

MUICE ESSACH, six pigs: “they were slaughtered every night

and if their bones were kept without breaking or gnawing,
they would survive alive every day.” The pigs of Manann mac
Ler. See following entries for parallels.
MUICE GENTILUCHTA, “Lugh’s Pigs,” supernatural animals
which came out of the cave of Cruachan, the Irish-Christian
“Gates of Hell.” “Around whatever land they passed, there
the ground was barren for seven years. When men tried to
count them they would not stay, but would pass on into
another territory. Therefore they were never numbered and
they could not be killed. If they were shot at they
disappeared from view, Once Mebd and Aillil determined to
count them while they were in Magh Mucrime. While Mebd
tried to assess them from her chariot, one of the pigs
jumped over her head. Quickly she seized the animal but its
leg came off in her hand and was seen attached to an empty
skin. Then they all disappeared from sight and nobody knows
where they travelled from there.” It has been guessed that
these animals are metaphors for the Firbolge who were a
severe trial to the Tuatha daoine.

MUICE LUBADAN, the pigs possessed by Lubadan, a lord of

the Otherworld. “They will last you till their dying day,
every night they may be killed but within the watch will
live again.”

MUICE NA' MANANN MAC LER, pig, OIr. mucc, cf. the English
muck and mucus, the "pigs of Manan mac Ler." At the
investiture of the Tuatha daoine as adherents of the sea-
gods Manan mac Ler gave them his "pigs", reincarnate
animals who offered their flesh as food in the daylight
hours and refleshed their stripped bones at night. Thus the
Daoine sidh were guaranteed an unending source of food. We
are reminded here of Odin's boar Saehrimnir, "a marvellous
beast slain daily by the cook... although Odin's guests gorged
themselves to the full, there was always meat for all.
Moreover the supply was inexhaustible, for the boar always
came to life again before the time of the next meal." Among
the Anglo-Saxons, the pig was thought to contain some of
the god-spirit of Woden, in fact the name "pig" is thought to
be a dialectic form of bog or "god". Under this
circumstance, most residents of Britain thought it unwise
to mention the name pig, especially upon the open ocean.
MUILIDHEARTACH, a cailleach who travelled from Scotland
to Ireland to participate in the final destruction of the
Fenian warriors. Her appearance is like that of Macha: There
were two great spears of battle at her sides, her face was
blue-black, the sheen of coal and her tufted tooth was like
rusted bone. In her head was a single pool-set eye, glinting
swifter than a star in the winter sky. Upon her head she
wore gnarled brushwood, clawed old aspen roots.

MUIME, MUMU, MUMA, step-mother, nurse, EIr. mumme, the

English mommie. From mud-s-mjâ, the “suckler.” Mud, to
suck. Parallels the Latin mamma, and the German muhme, a
mother’s sister. One of the four provinces of ancient
Ireland, the modern designation being Mun-ster. The current
ending is Norse relating to the goddess Ostara also known
as Easter. Note that Munster only grudgingly recognized the
authority of the High King at Tara. While the rest of the
country claimed Milesian roots, this province claimed
descent from Lugaid, the son of Ith, who had come to Ireland
from Bregon, an island in the western Atlantic. They
proudly claimed relationship with the Fomors of the House
of Donn and noted that Tech Duin, the staging place of the
dead, was located off their shores. The kings of this
southern land even entitled themselves the “King of the
World,” after the fashion of the rulers of An Domhain, the
seat of the creator-god Don.

MUIME CHROISD, the nurse-maid or foster mother to Christ.

The root mord is mud, to suckle. The lady known in the
English tongue as “St. Bride of the Isles (the western isles
of Scotland).” The legend says that Bride, an island cow-
herder of noble birth was transported by angels from Iona to
Bethlehem to become the nurse and foster-mother to Mary’s
Christ-child. Thus in the islands, the pagan Bridd has
devolved into Ban-chuideachaidh, the aid-woman of Mary. In
childbirth island women used to call upon the Bride: “When
all things go well, it indicates that Bride is friendly to the
family; and when they go ill it is seen that she is offended.”
Following the supposed action of Bride at the birth of
Christ, the “aid-woman, ” present at a birth of other
children, dedicated the new-born to the Christian faith by
letting three cold drops of sea-water fall upon its forehead.
It has been noted that the province of Muime, or Munster, is
frequently mentioned in the old tales as a primeval world,
or beginning place. As a result, some part of each invading
force entered Ireland through Munster, and the Christians
were no exception.

MUIR, the sea, especially the open or ocean-sea; the

Atlantic. Br. mor, Gaul, mori, Latin mari, English mere,
German meer. The Gaels who lived at the sea-side often
admitted descent from the Fomorian sea-giants, thus the
opinion that: "The sea is much more blessed than the land.
A man will not be afraid to stay all night in a boat a few
yards from the shore, when he would not stay for an hour
alone in the dark on land. A priest told me that one day he
was crossing the dangerous Minch (Strait) between Uist and
Eriskay, on a dark night to visit some sick person. He asked
the man who had fetched him where his companion, who was
awaiting them, would be sheltering on the shore. Och, He
won't be on the shore at all, by the Book! It is on the boat he
will be, for it is well understood that the sea is holier than
the land."

MUIRCHOL, muir, ocean, open-sea; coll, destruction, skaith;

collachail, boorish, from Ir. collach, or cullach, a boar; col,
sin, wickedness, wrecking havoc. Many promontories on the
sea have this name. The act of muirchol is considered to be
piracy or wrecking. Thus Arida Muirchol, the “Capes of Sea-
sins.” Once a Pictish name. Modern Gaelic murchan.

MUIRDRIS, "sea-bramble." The kelpy of tangy of lowland

Scotland. A shape-changer sometimes seen at sea as a
horse, but capable of coming ashore in that form or as a
human. Similar to the French lutin and the Manx shoopiltee.
Those who attempted to ride this creature were at best
dumped into a latrine or a muddy ditch. In sight of the
ocean, this spirit was much more dangerous, often riding
men into deep water and doom. It is claimed that the
muirdris served as a weregild to some families trying to
dissuade them from entering the water where there was
danger they might drown. They attempted to accomplish
this by producing supernatural sounds or by creating
"fetches" or balls of light that hovered over the water. If
the individual in question was too simple-minded to take
these clues, the sea-horse was likely to conclude that his
"friend" was suicidally inclined. At this, he would attempt
to make death as quick and clean as possible, and after the
fact would consume all the body excepting the liver.

MUIR UAINE, the “Green Sea,” the southern Atlantic,

pointing to the productivity of these Gulf Stream waters.

MUISEAN, the traditional enemy of Mankind, a mean sordid

individual, from musach, nasty, Ir. Mosach, Cy. mws,
stinking, Bry. mous, muck, dirty sea-grass, the Eng. mud. In
the Gaelic situation it is undestood that physical power is a
poor asset as it invariably fails. The Devil of this folklore
is a gentlemanly scamp, always in mischief always
attempting to gain an advantage over mortals, but often
failing as he is a knave of poor intellect, often brought
down by wise men and even by clerics. In this mythology it
is contended that even the muisean “still ha’es a stake (in
salvation).”

MULART, dwarf, elder, a conical heap or mound. A “high

mound.” Confers with ON. muli, a jutting crag, the Fr. mulon,
a clump of dried grass. The Ir. form is mulabhurd or
malabhur. Preferred sites for ritual magic.

MUNGAN, the nearly mythical Saint Mungo, from munganachd,

bullying; thus the Gaelic proverb "Like Mungo's work, it is
never done." Kentigern was his actual name. Born in 573
A.D. he was an illegitimate child, his mother the Christian
daughter of a pagan king, who discovering the religion of her
lover ordered her put to death. She escaped and her child
was adopted by a monk named Servus, who kept a school at
Dumbarton. Here Kentigern endeared himself to the monks
by raising their cook from the dead. But the scholastics
were jealous of him and tried to bring him into disrepute
with his master. Once when a pet robin belonging to
Severus was so roughly handled its head became detached,
these others blamed the "accident" on Mungo, but he
restored it to life. As a grown man he established his own
monastery at Glasgow and travelled among the southern
Picts preaching the Faith. He was banished from Scotland
by a hostile king but returned in the reign of Rederech, who
elected him bishop. Once when his monastery was without
seeds at planting time, he sowed a bag of sand and wheat
sprung up from it. On another occasion, when his work-
place lacked a second hind to pull the plough, he captured a
wolf and tamed it so that it did duty for him. His life story
is little known but he is though to have been contemporary
with St. Columba.

MURIAS, muir + asg, sea + fish, murlach, the dogfish. One of

the original northern islands where the Tuatha daoine
tarried to learn the arts of magic. Corresponds with An
Domhain since "Out of this place was brought the Dagda's
cauldron.” No company ever went away from it unthankful."
This was the “Cauldron of Regeneration,” purloined by the
Dagda and his two sons.

MUTH, MUTHADH, a change, an alteration, a difference from

Latin muto. The Gaels have another word for death, this one
implies an alteration in form, size or kind; shape-change,
the high art of the Fomors.

MURDDIN (mer-thin), muir + dinn, sea + press down upon.

Merlin, the god of the upper air (see Meirneal). In the
medieval romances, Merlin, the “hawk” or magician to King
Arthur.

MURNA, MORNA, Abundant. A descendant of Nuada and

Ethlinn, the latter the daughter of Balor of the Evil Eye.
Cumhail, the leader of the Fionn loved her, but her father
Tadhg, the druid, refused permission for them to marry.
They eloped, but the father persuaded Goll man Morna to
kill Cumhail and assume leadership of the Fionn. He did as
directed, but Morna fled into the wilderness where she bore
Cumhail’s son who was called Demna. The boy was fair in
complexion and thus nicknamed Fionn (Fair) mac Cumhail.
He revenged his father and took leadership of the Finna
when they were at their most powerful. His mother
eventually remarried a chieftain from Kerry.

MURTAGH MAC ERC, “Murderous,” noted as the High King

who sent the Lia Fail, or stone of Destiny to Dal Riada for
the coronation of his brother Ferghas. When all was said
and done, Ferghas refused to return this valuable relic,
which was lost to Ireland.