Mórrígan

Mórrígan, Morrígan, Mórrigan, Morríghan, Mór-Ríogain, Morrígu, Morrigu [Ir., great queen; phantom queen (?)]. Goddess of war fury in early Irish tradition, usually spoken of with the definite article, ‘the Mórrígan’. She is part of a trio of war-goddesses called the Mórrígna, with Badb and Macha. Nemain may sometimes also be part of the three, but perhaps she is an aspect of either Badb or the Mórrígan. Some commentators argue that Mórrígna is identical with Mórrígan, and that Badb, Macha, and Nemain are all aspects of her. As war-goddess she does not engage in combat herself but rather affects armies psychologically, especially by her frightful appearance. Her persona in several early Irish narratives, notably the Táin Bó Cuailnge [Cattle Raid of Cooley], fuses her bellicosity with an alluring sexuality. Probably an emanation of the Irish earth-goddess Ana, the Mórrígan has the power of prophecy and can cast spells. She has, additionally, the ability to transform herself into a bird, fish, or animal and from a beautiful young girl into a hag. Much associated with the crow, the Mórrígan is often described as living in the cave of Cruachain in Co. Roscommon, also home to Medb.

Like Badb and Macha, she is the daughter of Ernmas. The Mórrígan may or may not be the wife/consort of the Dagda, but regardless of her bond with him her copulation with him is widely known. At the great feast of Samain she was washing herself, with one foot on either bank, at the River Unshin (or Uinnius; downstream, Ballysadare) 4 miles SE of Ballymote, Co. Sligo. After their love-making, she told the Dagda that the Fomorians would soon attack the Tuatha Dé Danann in a combat to be known as the Second Battle of Mag Tuired [Cath Maige Tuired]. She then began to harass the Fomorian warrior Indech, either to drain the valour and vitality out of him, as in one version (in which he is later killed by Ogma), or to murder him immediately, passing out handfuls of his blood to gaping bystanders. The only son attributed to her is Mechi, the father not named.

Whereas the Mórrígan is an ally of the Tuatha Dé Danann at Mag Tuired, she is a patron of Connacht in the Táin Bó Cuailnge, signalled in part by her residence at the Connacht fortress of Cruachain. Early in the action she journeys across Ireland to bring a cow to the Brown Bull of Ulster, Donn Cuailnge, and to warn him of what is to come. In the text she sometimes bears the epithet buan, evocative of the Amazonian Búanann, but in her dealings with the Ulster hero Cúchulainn she is a femme fatale. She first approaches him as a lovely young girl, clearly wanting him to make love to her, but he rebuffs her, saying that he ‘does not have time for women's backsides’. She then comes to him as an eel, a wolf, and a hornless, red heifer, to no avail. He breaks the ribs of the eel, puts an eye out of the wolf, and breaks the leg of the heifer. Later when she sees him in combat she approaches him as an old milch cow; when he asks for a drink she allows suckling from each of her three teats. Later she tells Cúchulainn that he will die when the calf of her cow is a yearling. To help matters along she breaks his chariot wheels. And at the end the Mórrígan appears on his shoulder as a hooded crow, portending the scavenging of his corpse. The Mórrígan also contends with Cúchulainn in the short but baffling Táin Bó Regamna; see T. P. Cross and C. H. Slover (eds.), Ancient Irish Tales (New York, 1936), 211–14.

Not all of the Mórrígan's spells are made on the battlefield. After she lures away the bull of a blameless woman named Odras, wife of Buchat, living near Tara, the poor mortal woman follows the bull into the cave of Cruachain, an entrance to the Otherworld, where she falls asleep. Finding her, the Mórrígan changes her into a pool of water. Surprisingly, the Mórrígan did not attract much attention from storytellers in oral tradition, but she was sighted at Clontarf (AD 1014) and probably contributed to the conception of the banshee. Her name is alluded to in half a dozen place-names, notably Dá Cích na Mórrígna [two breasts/paps of Mórrígan] near Newgrange, Co. Meath. She may be the old woman implied in the Hebridean whirlpool of Corry-Vreckan, popularly known as the ‘cauldron of the old woman’. Commentators have seen parallels between Mórrígan and the Sumerian/Babylonian earth-goddess Innini/ Innana/ Inanna as well as the Valkyries of Norse tradition, who also take avian form as swans. Folk motif: A485.1. See also MÓR MUMAN; WASHER AT THE FORD.

Bibliography

See William M. Hennessy , ‘The Ancient Irish Goddess of War’, Revue Celtique, 1 (1870), 32–55;
Charles Donahue , ‘The Valkyries and the Irish War Goddesses’, PMLA, 56 (1941), 1–12;
Garrett E. Olmstead , ‘Mórrígan's Warning to Donn Cuailnge’, Études Celtiques, 19 (1982), 165–72;
John Carey , ‘Notes on the Irish War-Goddess’, Éigse, 19 (1982/3), 263–75;
Françoise Le Roux and Christian-J. Guyonvarc'h , La Souveraineté guerrière de l'Irlande: Mórrígan, Bodb, Macha (Rennes, 1983);
Rosalind Clark , ‘Aspects of the Morrígan in Early Irish Poetry’, Irish University Review, 17(2) (1987), 223–36;
Rosalind Elizabeth Clark , Great Queens: Irish Goddesses from the Morrígan to Cathleen Ní Houlihan (Gerrards Cross and Savage, Md., 1990). Recent elaborations of the Mórrígan's persona in popular fiction include Patricia Finney, The Crow Goddess (London, 1978) and Pat O'Shea's popular novel The Hounds of Mórrígan (London, 1985).