Sometimes a triple goddess, sometimes an individual entity, the Morrígan is a feared figure from Irish mythology. As a goddess of war, her stories are centred around the battlefield, but she is also connected deeply to the land and fertility, like many other female figures from Celtic myth. Unlike these figures, however, the Morrígan seems to defy or revert typical gender roles—those of the mother, who confirms a king’s ownership over the land through marrying him and bearing him a son.

The Morrígan denies all attempts at ownership and, while men do play a significant role in her myths, they are shown as equal to or lesser than her. There is also the fact that the Morrígan’s place is the battlefield, which has historically been off-limits to women. In Irish mythology in particular, the battlefield was an especially masculine space. The Morrígan is a shape-shifting goddess, so she could have chosen to take on a male form, yet the forms she does take are explicitly gendered as female. She has no one ‘original’ body, with her being just as much of a crow or an eel or a heifer (all forms she takes at some point) as she is a beautiful young woman or an old hag. This also sets her apart from most other mythological characters.

The Morrígan’s name roughly translates to ‘Phantom Queen’, thus emphasising her connection with death and the dead. Many of her other aspects also highlight this connection, for example she is linked to the festival of Samhain, when the veil between the lands of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. As mentioned before, one of the forms she is known to take is the crow, which Celts linked to war, death, and conflict, and it’s possible that the banshee figure, who foretells death by letting out a piercing shriek, had its origins in the Morrígan.

There are two key stories that emphasise the Morrígan’s power—or, rather, two figures. With both, the Morrígan is portrayed as violent and vengeful, but it is done so in opposite ways, depending on whether she favours you or not.

The first is Dagda, a fertility and hearth god whose name translates to ‘Good God’. One of the Morrígan’s other roles is as a sovereignty goddess, and it is this that comes into play when she meets Dagda, who is at war with Indech, who has destroyed the land with his poor leadership.

The Morrígan promises Dagda victory if he sleeps with her, and he acquiesces. They have sex, but instead of affirming his kingship through children or marriage, she instead destroys Indech, bringing Dagda the ‘blood of his heart and the kidneys of his valour’. She then remains on the battlefield for the rest of the story, before prophesying the end of the world.

The Morrígan favours Dagda, but she does it in a bloody and deadly way, thus highlighting the costliness of kingship. This can be read as a critique of medieval society, and even more so when the Morrígan’s continued independence is considered. She does not bind herself to Dagda through marriage or children, thus refusing ties which would fix her to the land, which is owned by the king.

The second figure is the warrior Cú Chulainn, who has a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the Morrígan. She is something of a patron goddess to him and can be protective over him, however they are also frequently on opposing sides. They are often portrayed as near equals; certainly, Cú Chulainn feels no respect or awe for the goddess, and he almost never heeds her words.

Just like with Dagda, the Morrígan offers Cú Chulainn sex in exchange for fortune in war, but he refuses her. As revenge, she shifts into different animals—an eel, a wolf, and a heifer. Cú Chulainn beats and wounds her each time, but is then tricked into healing the Morrígan when she shifts into the form of an old woman (with identical wounds to the ones inflicted on her animal forms) and he blesses her.

In general Cú Chulainn shows disdain for women and their advice, and the Morrígan is no different. The one exception is during a tale called ‘How Cú Chulainn Brought Conchobor from the Field of Battle’, when he is attacked and almost bested by a ghost. As the story goes:

‘He heard the war-goddess crying from among the corpses.

“Poor stuff to make a warrior is he who is overthrown by phantoms!”

Cú Chulainn then strikes off the man’s head with his hurley stick.’

The only reason he listened to the Morrígan was because she taunted his skills as a warrior.

On the morning of Cú Chulainn’s death, the Morrígan seems to try to protect him—she breaks the shaft of his chariot to prevent him from leaving for battle, and then later appears as a woman washing his armour, which was considered to be a death omen.

Naturally, Cú Chulainn disregards both warnings, and he is killed. Whilst on his deathbed, a crow comes and perches on his shoulder, representing both the Morrígan’s victory, but also her respect for him.

So we see the contrast between the two—Dagda accepted the Morrígan’s help and won his kingship; Cú Chulainn was too proud to accept a woman’s aid (even if she was a goddess) and he was killed.

The Morrígan is undoubtedly a hugely powerful figure, capable of influencing the outcome of battles and the sovereignty of the land. So, it is understandable why she was so feared.

Sources:

• Clark, Rosalind, ‘Aspects of the Morrígan in Early Irish Literature’, Irish University Review, 17.2 (1987), 223–36
• Kempton, Elizabeth, ‘The Morrígan, the Land, and an Ecocritical Critique of Sovereignty and Warfare in Early Ireland’, Essays in Medieval Studies, 33.1 (2017), 23–34
• https://www.worldhistory.org/The_Morrigan/
• https://www.theirishroadtrip.com/the-morrigan/
• https://mythology.net/others/gods/the-morrigan/