DARK MIST RISING: AVALON UNVEILED

Finn McCool Comes to Aid the Fianna, by Stephen Reid, 1932 The Morrigan is associated with the Irish mannerbünd groups called fianna .  The fianna played a big role in early Irish history, maybe even spilling over into Scotland and some of Britain. Medb and Ailil employed several.  Nessa led one.  Cú Chulainn fought to avenge the fian of Ulster, which was wiped out in the Cattle Raid of Coolney.  ( Fian is singular; fianna is plural, BTW). What, you might ask, in the Name of Four Leaf Clovers is a fian ?  Well, the fianna were lawless groups of young men, who banded together and took to the road – cue Easy Rider music – to make their living off the land and sometimes as mercenaries before settling down under one king or another to become model citizens.  (Cue John Bender: “What would you be doing if you weren’t out making yourself a better citizen?”)  And by the way, was that second sentence long enough for you? From the look of things, fianna were alive and kicking and perf

"The Twa Corbies (The Two Ravens)", by Arthur Rackham, from S ome British Ballads , 1919 The Morrigan…another weird, old, Irish name.  The Morrigan was a war deity, one-third of a triple goddess (some say), and a washer-at-the-ford, or banshee.  Like the banshee, she was occasionally seen washing the armor – or in a more gruesome version, the entrails – of a warrior at one of the many fords over which the ancient Celts so often fought.  (If you could hold the ford, you could hold the land on at least one side of it.  This held true in Britain as well as in Ireland; when the Roman bridge builders and road repairers left in 410 AD, the roads and bridges fell into disrepair, and the natives took to the ancient fords and byways).  When a warrior saw the Morrigan washing his armor, he knew he was fated to fall in the coming battle. Unlike the banshee, the Morrigan sometimes caused, or tried to cause, a death.  Banshees were heralds of death.  They didn’t cause it; they just pr

"The Image of Irelande", depicting a cattle raid, by John Derrick, 1581 It is mere speculation to suggest that Guinevere was part Irish.  (Although many people are; I myself am 3/8 Irish and proud of it).  But we do know for certain that she lived in a culture where the Irish or Celtic woman warrior was a thriving commodity, or at least an acceptable female function.  So, it is more than barely possible that Guinevere’s warlike tendencies stemmed from a partly Irish birth and upbringing. Warrior women were common throughout Celtic culture.  From the ancient Halstatt and La Téne Celtic burials on the Continent to the tribes of Gaul to the Irish, Manx, Scots, and Britons of the British Isles, the Celts shared many customs.  Fighting women is one such shared custom that Julius Caesar mentioned, describing in his Commentaries About the Gallic War – during which he fought Celts in both Britain and Gaul – the white arms of the Caledonian women.  Thanks to JC, we know that Celt

"Hamlet and His Father's Ghost", by Henry Fuseli, 1780s; (Note the Ghost's Body Armor) The archetype of the Celtic Warrior Woman seems to have been a staple of the fifth century.  In fact, during that strange time, it was more than a mere archetype.  It was an accepted female function. It appears that women of that time fought when needed; not infrequently ruled in their own right; consorted freely with (read: slept with) men of their choice; took lovers openly, even when married; divorced their husbands when they were dissatisfied with them; owned real property – they were sometimes raped by kings and warriors in order for the men to claim the land – made policy; wrote their own dowry stipulations; and occasionally even chose the warrior’s way as their sole calling.  Damsels in distress, Medieval Romance notwithstanding, are more seldom heard from than is commonly believed. Sheela-na-Gig, Fethard Town Wall, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, Photograph by Michael Sider I