The Morrígan

Before you read

The battlefields of the old tales

The Morrígan (Old Irish Mór-Ríoghain, perhaps “Great Queen”, or Mor-Ríoghain, “Phantom Queen”) is a goddess of war, fate and sovereignty among the Tuatha Dé Danann. She is often one of three sisters, with Badb and Macha (or Nemain), so scholars sometimes describe her as a triple goddess. She can change shape: a crow or raven, an eel, a grey wolf, a red heifer.

In The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the Dagda meets her at Samhain, washing herself in the river Unshin with one foot on each bank. She promises to help the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fomorians, and after the victory she speaks two prophecies: one of peace and plenty, and one of a terrible future at the end of the world. In the Ulster Cycle she offers her love and help to Cú Chulainn; he rejects her, and she attacks him in animal forms during his fight at the ford. Before his death, he is said to have seen a woman washing his armour in a stream. When he dies, tied to a standing stone so that he can die on his feet, a crow lands on his shoulder.

The figure of the woman washing the clothes of those about to die, the bean nighe, lived on in later folklore, and some connect her with the banshee. Modern writers have made the Morrígan very popular, but scholars warn that many claims about her online are modern inventions, and that the medieval texts themselves are sometimes unclear.

Fate may warn us, but we still choose how to meet it.

The story

Retold for this lesson from Cath Maige Tuired, the Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Death of Cú Chulainn.

It was the eve of Samhain, and the Dagda, the great father of the gods, was walking alone by the river Unshin in the west. There he saw a tall woman washing herself in the river, with one foot on the southern bank and the other on the northern, and her hair loose in nine plaits. She was the Morrígan. They spoke together, and the place where they met is still called the Bed of the Couple.

She told him that the Fomorians would land, and promised that she would come against their king and take the blood of his heart. And on the day of the second battle of Mag Tuired she kept her word: she went among the Fomorians, shrieking and terrifying them, and she stood beside the Tuatha Dé Danann. When the battle was won, she climbed the high places of Ireland and announced the victory, and spoke a poem of peace: peace up to heaven, heaven down to earth. Then she spoke a second poem, of a far future when summers would have no flowers and people would betray one another, at the end of the world.

Centuries later, in the age of heroes, she came to the young warrior Cú Chulainn as a beautiful woman and offered him her love and her help in battle. He was tired and proud, and he refused her. “Then I will come against you,” she said, “when you are fighting.” And when he was fighting at the ford, she came as an eel to trip him, a grey wolf to scatter cattle, and a red heifer leading a stampede, and he wounded her each time.

Before his last battle, the old story says, Cú Chulainn passed a ford and saw a woman washing bloody armour in the water, and she told him that it was his. He knew then that he was going to die, and still he rode on. Wounded to death, he tied himself to a standing stone so that he would die on his feet, facing his enemies. For a long time no one dared to come near him. Then a crow came down out of the sky and landed on his shoulder, and they knew that he was dead.

Talk and write

Discussion and writing

Omens. In groups, invent three omens for a story, and report them with be said to and the future in the past.

Discuss. 1. Why do so many cultures have a figure who announces death? 2. If you knew your fate, would you still fight, like Saul and Cú Chulainn? 3. Why is it important to check what the old texts really say?

Write (150–180 words). The washer at the ford. A warrior meets a mysterious woman before a battle. Tell the story using prophecy, be said to and modals of deduction.