The Morrigan          

           The Morrigan is known by many faces and many names.

She is known as the Crow on the battle field,

Wolf- bitch, Naked screaming white haired hag, and lovely daughter of a king.

In Medieval Irish literature she is known as many things. She is a female figure symbolizing an activity which men are dominant. The Morrígan is a troublesome figure in medieval Irish literature.  Defined by scholarship as a “war goddess,” she is associated with terror, confusion, sorcery, prophecy, poetry and doom. 

           Distinguished as a war goddess, in a narrative literature lacking a war god[1], she is not only an individual or a trio, but also an order of milign creature’s link to each other by a web of names. One of the “daughters of ernmas”. The morrigan, badh, macha, nemain, fea, and danu. Hence a war goddess oversees war, or is a personifi­cation of war in its many aspects.

                               War  Goddess

                               .prophecy

                              .incitement

                             .terrible noise

                             .direct assault (physical or magical)

                             .joy in carnage

]                      .proclaiming victory

        As well she is an extraordinary goddess, embodying all that is perverse and horrible among supernatural powers.” The Great Queen”.. She also combined with her bloodthirsty war-mongering, a lust for men - just like the Sumerian Inanna whom she much resembles. She fought on the side of the Tuatha de Danaan against the Firbolgs in the first Battle of Mag Tuired, after the second battle she foretold the end of the world, when moral virtues were ignored and where the land was laid waste. Her normal appearance was in the shape of a battle-crow. She mated with the Dagda while straddling a river. Her name is really a title and is sometimes used as a collective noun for her three aspects - the Morrigan. There are obvious overlays with both Modron and Morgan.

Phantom Queen of Death, Sexuality and Conflict.

       The Morrigan known in Irish legend and mythology as a red-haired goddess of battle and pro-creation, often appearing in triple form. She combined the treshold energies of life and death, sexuality and conflict in one terrifying goddess.

In the time of the Ulster and Fenian cycles, her behavior generally fits under the above traits again of the war goddess with some notable exceptions. In particular, in the Ulster cycle.

The relationship between the Morrigan and Cu chulainn as to a warrior is to his patron goddess. But even when both the Morrígan and Cú Chulainn are sided with Ulster, their encounters are almost always contentious.  The few that are not directly confrontational are overladen with mourning or foreboding of death.

 The centerpiece of the Ulster Cycle is the Táin Bó Cúailnge (the Táin), where Medb leads the forces of Ireland on a cattle raid into Ulster to steal the strongest bull, and Cú Chulainn by himself; defended the province. She appeared to the hero Cu chulainn(son

of the god Lugh) and offered her love to him. When he failed to recognize her and rejected her, she told him that she would hinder him when he was in battle. When Cu Chulainn was eventually killed, she settled on his shoulder in the form of a crow. Cu's misfortune was that he never recognized the feminine power of sovereignty that she offered to him. She appeared to him on at least four occasions and each time he failed to recognize her.

                        Morrigan as the Washer at the Ford

       The Washer at the Ford’ exists in her basic form as a woman washing something, usually clothing, at a river or pool, who holds some element of danger for the passer-by who takes notice of her. In modern oral tradition, she usually washes clothes, while in the medieval period, she more often washes bloody arms, armor, and/or body parts.  The Washer may be young and beautiful or old and hideously ugly.  Most often, she is a death portent who prophesies doom without personal malice, but she may intend to harm the watcher physically.  Sometimes she signals the beginning of a fairy encounter, which can be an abduction or a tryst.  She can be a fairy, a goddess, or a mortal serving penance.

                                     Washer Poem

                    Here and there around us are many bloody spoils; horrible are the huge entrails the Morrígan washes.

She has come to us, an evil visitor; it is she who incites us.  Many are the spoils she washes, horrible the hateful laugh she laughs.

She has tossed her mane over her back; a good, just heart hates her.  Though she is near us, do not let fear startle you.

                                                                                    — Canainne

                                    my conclusion

At first glance, our model for the Morrígan seemed full of contradictions.  One side of her seems negative:  a creature of terror and confusion, a portent of doom, a carrion crow revelling in slaughter and gore, the arch-antagonist of Ulster’s greatest hero.  No mortal is ever pleased to see her in any form she takes, even when she is giving aid.  The other side seems positive.  She gives the hero reasons to fight, encourages him to fight well, inspires him with a fury that sweeps away all in his path, and arranges for him to die with the greatest glory.  She is the trumpet of his fame.  She may even echo a Celtic goddess of battle to whom prayers and offerings were made, however grisly.  As a war goddess, she embodies both the horror and the glory of war.  In a sense, the Morrígan’s presence at the death of heroes is the most telling demonstration of this.  Her imminent devouring of the hero, carrion creature that she is, embodies her blood lust, yet that very gruesome act in itself may hearken to the warrior’s ultimate glory, assuming his place among the honored dead.

, Fame and glory, gore and terror:  in war, are all one.  And so the Morrígan.

                                     By ravenwind

Facts are from: encyclopedia of the Celts: encyclopedia of mythology by Arthur cotterel:                   Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 (reprinted 1994). Our Troth (Ring of Troth)

Study paper from the University of Southern California