Beings

The beings index. Gods, heroes, and creatures, each with an entry of its own, browsable by cycle.

Mythological Balor of the Evil Eye Balor of the Evil Eye is the Fomorian king of Irish mythology whose destroying gaze levels armies, killed at the Second Battle of Mag Tuired by his prophesied grandson Lugh.
Cross-cycle Bile The bile was the ancient venerated tree at the centre of an Irish tribal territory: sovereignty emblem, assembly point and inauguration site, whose deliberate felling by a rival was recorded in the annals as an act of war.
Mythological Boann Boann is the Irish goddess of the river Boyne among the Tuatha Dé Danann, who becomes the river itself when she breaks the prohibition of the otherworld well of wisdom.
Cross-cycle Brigid Brigid is the Irish goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft, daughter of the Dagda and first keener in Ireland, whose name and February feast became entwined with Saint Brigid of Kildare.
Ulster Conall Cernach Conall Cernach is the foremost head-taking champion of the Ulster Cycle after Cú Chulainn, foster-brother and avenger of Cú Chulainn, who ends his days a leprous pensioner among the very Connacht enemies he had spent a lifetime destroying.
Mythological Crann Bethadh Crann bethadh, usually rendered Celtic Tree of Life, is largely a modern popularisation: the genuine medieval Irish evidence behind it is the bile tradition of sacred tribal trees, and the familiar knotwork symbol has no medieval precedent.
Ulster Cú Chulainn Cú Chulainn, born Setanta, is the supreme hero of the Ulster Cycle: a semi-divine warrior fated from boyhood to undying fame and an early death, who defends Ulster single-handed in the Táin Bó Cúailnge.
Mythological Danu and Anu Danu and Anu are the names attached to the elusive ancestral mother-goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the people who bear her name, though Anu is the better-attested form and Danu is a modern reconstruction from a possessive case.
Ulster Deirdre Deirdre is the tragic heroine of the oldest Ulster Cycle sorrow-tale, a woman foretold before birth to ruin Ulster, who chooses love over captivity and is destroyed when a king's treachery kills the man she fled with.
Fenian Diarmuid Ua Duibhne Diarmuid Ua Duibhne is the peerless Fianna warrior and foster-son of the love-god Aengus Óg whose love-spot and a reckless geis bind him to flee across Ireland with Gráinne, ending in his death on Ben Bulben.
Ulster Emer Emer is the wife of Cú Chulainn and the most fully voiced woman of the Ulster Cycle, the heroine of the six gifts who riddles her suitor before she will consent and speaks the cycle's sharpest lines on love and loss.
Mythological Ériu Ériu is the Tuatha Dé Danann sovereignty goddess who gave Ireland its name, meeting the Milesian invaders at Uisneach alongside her sisters Banba and Fódla.
Mythological Étaín Étaín is the supreme beauty of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the reborn heroine of the Wooing of Étaín, transformed by jealousy into a fly, swallowed in a cup, and born again a thousand years later as a mortal queen.
Ulster Fergus mac Róich Fergus mac Róich is a tragic hero of the Ulster Cycle, a former king of Ulster driven into Connacht exile after his honour was betrayed, who becomes Queen Medb's lover and, as a ghost, dictates the whole Táin Bó Cúailnge from his grave.
Cross-cycle Fionn mac Cumhaill Fionn mac Cumhaill is the warrior-seer who leads the Fianna at the heart of the Fenian Cycle, Ireland's largest body of medieval narrative and the most widely told hero-tradition in Gaelic culture.
Cross-cycle Flidais Flidais (epithet Foltchaín, 'beautiful hair') is a goddess-queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann, sovereign over domestic cattle and wild deer alike, and the centre of the Táin Bó Flidhais, the cattle-raid epic of Erris, County Mayo.
Cross-cycle Lugh Lugh is the warrior-god of the Tuatha Dé Danann who mastered every art at once, slew his Fomorian grandfather Balor, and gave his name to the harvest festival Lughnasadh.
Cross-cycle Macha Macha is the Irish sovereignty, war and horse goddess of Ulster, one of the Morrígna, whose dying curse on the Ulstermen sets the stage for the Táin Bó Cúailnge.
Cross-cycle Manannán mac Lir Manannán mac Lir is the pre-eminent sea-god and Otherworld king of Irish mythology, lord of Emain Ablach and the Land of Promise, and the great magical armourer of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Ulster Medb of Connacht Medb is the queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle, ruling from Cruachan (Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon) and instigating the Táin Bó Cúailnge, with her legendary grave on Knocknarea in Co. Sligo.
Mythological Ogham and the Tree Alphabet Ogham is the earliest Irish writing system, an alphabet of strokes and notches carved on standing stones from roughly the fourth to seventh centuries AD.
Cross-cycle The Aos Sí The Aos Sí, the people of the mounds, are the supernatural race at the heart of Irish folk-belief: descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann who retreated into Ireland's ancient mounds after defeat by the Milesians, and the 'Good People' of living west-of-Ireland tradition.
Cross-cycle The Bean Sí The bean sí, anglicised banshee, is the supernatural female death-messenger of Irish tradition: a woman of the síd who keens before the death of a member of the old Gaelic families, especially those with Ó and Mac surnames.
Cross-cycle The Cailleach The Cailleach is the divine hag of Gaelic tradition in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, the winter and sovereignty figure said to have shaped the landscape itself.