Hall of Stories

The Morrígan

The Morrígan is a sovereignty, fertility, war, prophecy, and shape-shifting goddess from the Celtic tradition. She is perhaps the most notable goddess to survive the Christianization of Ireland largely unscathed. Some scholars argue that she is the instigator of the conflict in the Taín Bo Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cuailgne), one the tradition’s greatest epics, and she plays a major role in the entire Ulster Cycle.

The Morrígan now exists within the contexts of Christianity, as the Celtic stories were recorded by Christian monks. Additionally, these stories were impacted by numerous Anglo-Saxon/British invasions and occupancies. Unlike other goddesses who were edited throughout the recording process, the Morrígan was not euhemerized and retained her personality. Elizabeth Kempton, in her article ‘TheMorrigan, the Land, and an Ecocritical Critique of Sovereignty and Warfare in Early Ireland’, says ‘The Morrígan strongly resists concepts of ownership’. This is proved true every time she appears, whether it is prophecying the end of the world, in the midst of stealing cows, or assuring victory for the side she wishes to win. I believe this is why her story is so important, especially when other goddesses have been stripped of their power in continously edited narratives.

Etymology

The name ‘the Morrígan’ has three proposed meanings: Great Queen, Sea Queen, and Phantom Queen. ‘Great Queen’ would come from the words mór meaning great and rígan meaning queen. However, ‘Morrígan’ is not often spelled with the ó. ‘Sea Queen’, coming from muir, is also unlikely according to Rosalind Clark. The most widely accepted translation is ‘Phantom Queen’, from mara or maere, both referring to a frightening female spirit. This would make sense for the Morrígan since she is certainly frightening! The word ‘Morrígan’ can also refer to lesser spirits of conflict, such as banshees.

Sovereignty Goddesses and Ireland

Ireland is named after Eríu, a goddess who, when ancient Ireland was invaded by the Milesians, let her enemies pass on the condition that they named the land after her. She is still known as the patron goddess of Ireland. Emain Macha, a place often referred to in the Ulster Cycle, is named after the goddess Macha. In the Celtic tradition, the land is often personified by women or named after them; as Elizabeth Kempton states, “Women were the very land that men had learned to manage and inhabit”. Often kings would either have sex with or marry one of these women as confirmation of their rule. Controlling a land goddess through sex was equal to controlling the land. This is not to say that these women had no agency or say in the matter, but even if they had the power to choose their partner and were able to request favors in return, they still end up suffering at the hands of men, whether through their violence or inaction.

This is reflected in a genre of Irish poetry called aisling or vision poetry where a woman-personification of Ireland appears to the poet, laments the state of the country (usually because of what the English have done), and, in those instances where England is the villian, says she will wed the next king once he overthrows the tyrannical rule. In this narrative, the woman has even less power, as she must wait for the king to help her instead of going out and helping him.

The sovereignty goddess figure’s narratives are built on gender norms. So long as the men control the women, they have true, undisputable power. And so long as the women enable men’s victory, they too can shape history.

The Triple Aspect of Sovereignty Goddesses

In this tradition, goddesses often have three aspects. One is the young and beautiful maiden reminiscent of women in the courtly love genre. The second is the powerfully sexual woman who wields the power to grant or withhold victory and ownership. The last is a ‘hag’ or death goddess. Typically, the goddess first appears to the man as this hag and only after he agrees to her terms (a kiss, sex, marriage, etc.) does she transform into her ‘beautiful self’. For instance, in the Echtra Mac nEchach, some men want to drink water from a well owned by a ‘hideous hag’. She says they can drink on the condition that they give her a kiss. One man, Niall, accepts and goes beyond by sleeping with her. She then transforms into a beautiful woman and he becomes king. As shown in this story, the triplicity is often underplayed as simply disguise. The beautiful young woman is the ‘real’ goddess, while the powerful woman is only circumstantial and the old hag is an illusion used to trick men or force them to reveal their true self.

However, this does not seem to be the case with the Morrígan. She is unique in that she is a shape-shifting goddess, but never in her story is one shape more prominent than the other. In the Taín Bo Cuailgne, she appears to Cu Chulaínn as a beautiful young maiden. Then she is an eel, a wolf, and a cow, all fighting against him, until she finally appears to him as an old ‘hag’. She appears on the battlefield as a death goddess to prophecy the outcome of the battle the night before it occurs. At Cu Chulaínn’s eventual death, she is a raven that lands on his shoulder to signify that he is truly dead. Nowhere in Cu Chulaínn’s story is she portrayed sexually, but the power is certainly there, and she is still ‘giving’ victory. When she appears to Cu Chulaínn, it is with the intention of sexually granting him victory and power, but he is too proud to accept her help and instead makes her his opponent. In the Cath Maíge Tuíred, however, she does have sex with the Dagda and destroys his enemies afterward, dumping two handfuls of blood in the very same river they had sex in.

Christianization and Euhemerization

Christian thinking leaves little room for morally nuanced women. They are either a Jezebel or a Mary. Therefore, when Christian monks were recording Celtic stories, they couldn’t keep the goddesses as they were. For one, most of the figures were euhemerized, especially the women. Warrior goddess such as Medb became warrior queens. Eriu, patron goddess of Ireland, became a mortal woman. Secondly, the triplicity with equal portrayal of all three aspects as real and authentic did not fit their narrative. This is where the ‘triplicity as simply disguise’ originated. A goddess- or simply mortal woman, now- couldn’t be both a beautiful maiden and an old hag or terrifying warrior. One must be a guise, and what fits the original story the best is that the ‘negative aspect’ is false.

Except for the Morrígan.

The Morrígan’s Departure

The Morrígan can’t be seperated from her identity as a war goddess and she doesn’t exactly fit into the ideal of courtly love or of the Proverbs 31 woman. This often leads to her being vilified. Numerous books have been written with her as the antagonist. Some might even identify her as an antagonist in the Taín Bo Cuailgne and the Taín Bo Regamna. However, she is always proven right in the end. She warns Cu Chuaínn of his death- a warning that he, unsurprisingly, ignores- and he dies. She takes the side of the Dagda, the good god, in the Cath Maíge Tuíred, which is framed as the ‘right’ side. Her identity can’t be fit into one box, so it is obscured and broken up between stories. I have no doubt that her voice diminished in her stories post-Christianization of Ireland. However, it is still there.

Not only did she resist changes that others could not, she never fit squarely into the ideal fertility/sovereignty goddess in the first place. While many fertility goddesses are associated with marriage and children, the Morrígan expresses her fertility through sex that is often for violent purposes. She refuses control, but actively seeks out those she wishes to bestow her power upon instead of waiting. Elizabeth Kempton states: “It also refuses binding relationships which fix the Morrígan within the land, owned by the king… the land is not her body, but rather her sexual tryst.”

War’s Many Consequences

In the Cath Maíge Tuíred (the Second Battle of Mage Tuíred), the Morrígan and the Dagda meet a week before Samhaín. This is a quote from the story translated by Elizabeth A. Gray.

”The Dagda had a house in Glen Edin in the north, and he had arranged to meet a woman in Glen Edin a year from that day, near the All Hallows [Samhaín] of the battle. The Unshin of Connacht roars to the south of it. He saw the woman [the Morrigan] at the Unhin in Corann, washing, with one of her feet at Allod Echae (that is, Aghanagh) south of the water and the other at Lisconny north of the water. There were nine loosend tresses on her head. The Dagda spoke with her, and they united. ‘The Bed of the Couple’ was the name of that place from that time on.

“Then she told the Dagda that the Fomoire would land at Mag Ceidne, and that he should summon the aes dana of Ireland to meet her at the Ford of the Unshin, and she would go into Scetne to destroy Indech mac De Domnann, the king of the Fomoire, and would take from him the blood of his heart and the kidneys of his valour. Later she gave two handfuls of that blood to the hosts that were waiting at the Ford of the Unshin. Its name became ‘The Ford of Destruction’ because of that destruction of the king.”

In this telling, the Morrígan plays a quite active role. Not only does she not leave any room for the interpretation that the Dagda is controlling her when she promises him victory, she is the one to go win him that victory in a way so visceral and gruesome that it is impossible to ignore what she is trying to say: kingship comes with a cost, and war has its consequences.

Prophecy

The Morrígan is a goddess of prophecy. She states the outcome of battles before they start, such as her prophecy of Ulster’s win in the Taín Bo Cuaílgne. She gives warnings of death or coming war, such as with Cu Chulaínn or Donn Cuaílgne (the Brown Bull). She even foretells the end of the world at the end of the Cath Maíge Tuíred. This especially shows that no real lasting good comes of war. Immediately after this poem she tells in celebration of the victory:

“Peace up to heaven

Heaven down to earth.

Earth beneath heaven,

Strength in each,

a cup very full,

full of honey,

mead in abundance.

Summer in winter…”

…

She gives this prophecy of the world’s end:

”I shall not see a world

which will be dear to me.

Summer without blossoms

cattle without milk

women without modesty

men without valour

conquests without a king…”

…

The Morrígan speaks truth. Some people may not listen, but it doesn’t change their outcome. When she first meets Cu Chulaínn, in the Taín Bo Regamna, she says to him, “I have power indeed, it is as the guardian of your death”. Here and later in the Taín Bo Cuaílgne, she tells him he will die. He doesn’t listen. Before he rides to his death (told in the Aíded ConCulaínn), the Morrígan breaks the axle of his chariot as a final warning. He didn’t listen before and he isn’t about to start. When he does die, tied to a standing stone with his own entrails, a raven lands on his shoulder and his enemies know he is finally dead.

”Then a raven flew onto CuChulaínn’s shoulder. “That pillar did not usually hold birds,’ said Erc mac Coirpri.”

This further proves that the Morrígan is not a passive figure or one that is willing to submit to control. She will give her favor and help and warn those who receive it (or refuse it) of the consequences, but she makes certain that those consequences happen.

Sidenote on the Morrígan’s Agency

When the Morrígan appears to Cu Chulaínn to offer her aid, he rejects her this way: “It was not for a woman’s backside that I came to battle.” In the same story, Queen Medb is Cu Chulaínn’s opponent. The audience is continously reminded by male figures that she should not be there. When she is ultimately defeated by Cu Chulaínn, it is because she is caught in the ‘womanly weakness’ of menstruating. Cu Chulaínn spares her life because he is ‘not a killer of women’ and she returns to her men, admitting defeat. One of them tells her: “We followed the rump of a misguiding woman. It is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and destroyed.” In this space that is established to be only for men, the Morrígan can’t be denied entry, despite Cu Chulaínn’s rudeness. She can’t be separated from the battlefield. If Ireland is Eire’s land, then the battlefield is the Morrígan’s. She wields power there, she knows what will happen, and this reassures her ability to deny men’s control over her.

Shapeshiting and Ambivalence

Maria Tymoczko, former president of the Celtic Studies Association of North America, wrote an article titled “Unity and Duality: A Theoretical Perspective on the Ambivalence of Celtic Goddesses”. In it, she states: “Transformation is a motif which maintains the tolerance of paradox and the joining of disparate elements, while yet keeping the contradictory aspects distinct.” This paradox is what bothered the Christian editors so much, so they divided the figures into ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The Morrígan’s shape-shifting identity is a large part of what allowed her to maintain the cognitive dissonance of both ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Through their transformations, shape-shifting characters can contain many attributes that are at odds.

The Morrígan has many shapes: an eel, a woman, a wolf, a hag, a white red-eared heifer, a maiden, a raven. These shapes are always female, however. She uses her animal bodies to enter the battlefield when it is established as a male space in the Taín Bo Cuaílgne, but prior to that, she fights as a human as well.

Elizabeth Kempton takes the position that through her shapeshifting, the Morrígan presents the land, humans, and animals as equal. The Morrígan is a land goddess because of her connection to it through her animal identities. This gives her the power to grant sovereignty. She has real, tangible connections to the land, through the battlefield, through the water of the Unshin, through her friendship with the Donn Cuaílgne.

Summary

The Morrígan is important because she defies the roles that define women in Celtic mythology, both pre and post Christianization. She is powerful, she has agency, and not only are the men in the stories unable to control her, so are the men shaping those stories to their own ends centuries later.

Detail of Battle Crow from “Cú Chulainn riding his chariot into battle” by Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 – 1951)