Celtic mythology · Irish mythology, the Tuatha Dé Danann
The Morrígan
A goddess who circles the battlefield as a crow, foretelling death more often than causing it.
Stories and legends
The Morrígan is the goddess of war, fate and sovereignty, and her name can be read as "Great Queen", although "Phantom Queen" is also offered. She often appears as three sisters, usually named Badb, Macha and Nemain, but the combination is not fixed from text to text, and some hold that the three are different names of one goddess. On the battlefield she takes the shape of a crow circling overhead, urging her own warriors on and frightening the enemy, and she also washes the blood-stained clothes of those doomed to die, foretelling who will fall. In Táin Bó Cúailnge she turns three times, into a grey wolf, an eel and a white cow with red ears, to block Cú Chulainn. On the night of Samhain she meets the Dagda in the cave at Rathcroghan and tells him how to win the Second Battle of Mag Tuired.
Origins of the story
The Morrígan is a divine figure in medieval Irish literature, not a historical person. The membership of the three sisters is not uniform across manuscripts, and names such as Nemain and Anand are sometimes swapped, so the point remains open. Her link to the banshee of later folk tradition belongs to later development and is not the same thing. Whether her name should be read as "Great Queen" or "Phantom Queen" is still debated, although most scholars take "Great Queen". She is not simply an evil goddess. In the texts she stands on the side of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and she foretells death more often than she causes it.
Places you can visit
When you are in County Roscommon, you can visit the Rathcroghan complex, where the Oweynagat cave is said in legend to be an entrance to the Otherworld and the place where the Morrígan met the Dagda on Samhain night, and the cave can be visited on a guided tour by appointment. In the Dublin General Post Office, the bronze of Cú Chulainn and related paintings also show her in crow form.
Image source · Entrance to Oweynagat cave, Rathcroghan · Gillaween · CC BY-SA 4.0