Irish Gods: Nicnevin

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Nicneven or Nicnevin or Nicnevan (whose name is from a Scottish Gaelic surname, Neachneohain meaning "daughter(s) of the divine" and/or "daughter(s) of Scathach" NicNaoimhein meaning "daughter of the little saint")^[1] is a Queen of the Fairies in Scottish folklore. In Ireland and Scotland, "the Feile na Marbh", (the “festival of the dead”) took place on Samhain (Celtic New Year) The names Satia, NICNEVEN, Bensozie, Zobiana, Abundia, Herodiana, were all used to identify the Scottish Witch Goddess of Samhain. The use of the name for this meaning was first found in Montgomerie’s Flyting (c.1585)^[1] and was seemingly taken from a woman in Scotland condemned to death for witchcraft before being burnt at the stake as a witch.^[2] In the Borders the name for this archetype was Gyre-Carling whose name had variants such as Gyre-Carlin, Gy-Carling, Gay-Carlin amongst others.^[3] Gyre is possibly a cognate of the Norse word geri and thus having the meaning of "greedy"^[4] or it may be from the Norse gýgr meaning "ogress";^[1] carling or carline is a Scots and Northern English word meaning "old woman" which is from, or related to, the Norse word kerling (of the same meaning).^[5][6]
She was sometimes thought of as the mother witch, Hecate, or Habundia figure of Scottish fairy mythology.^[7] This guise is frankly diabolical.^[8] Sir Walter Scott calls her:

a gigantic and malignant female, the Hecate of this mythology, who rode on the storm and marshalled the rambling host of wanderers under her grim banner. This hag (in all respects the reverse of the Mab or Titania of the Celtic creed) was called Nicneven in that later system which blended the faith of the Celts and of the Goths on this subject. The great Scottish poet Dunbar has made a spirited description of this Hecate riding at the head of witches and good neighbours (fairies, namely), sorceresses and elves, indifferently, upon the ghostly eve of All-Hallow Mass. In Italy we hear of the hags arraying themselves under the orders of Diana (in her triple character of Hecate, doubtless) and Herodias, who were the joint leaders of their choir, But we return to the more simple fairy belief, as entertained by the Celts before they were conquered by the Saxons.^[9]

Alexander Montgomerie, in his Flyting, described her as:

Nicnevin with her nymphes, in number anew
With charms from Caitness and Chanrie of Ross
Whose cunning consists in casting a clew.^[10]

Even so, the elder Nicnevin or Gyre-Carling retained the habit of night riding with an "elrich" entourage mounted on unlikely and supernatural steeds. Another, satirical popular depiction made her leave Scotland after a love-quarrel with her neighbour, to become wife of "Mahomyte" and queen of the "Jowis". She was an enemy of Christian people, and "levit vpoun Christiane menis flesche"; still, her absence caused dogs to stop barking and hens to stop laying.^[11] But in Fife, the Gyre-Carling was associated with spinning and knitting, like Habetrot; here it was believed to be unlucky to leave a piece of knitting unfinished at the New Year, lest the Gyre-Carling should steal it.

Irish Gods: Niamh

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In Irish mythology, Niamh /ˈniː.ɒf/ is the daughter of Manannán mac Lir. She is one of the Queens of Tir na nÓg, and might also be the daughter of Fand.
Niamh crossed the Western Sea on a magical horse, Embarr, and asked Fionn mac Cumhaill if his son Oisín would come with her to Tír na nÓg (the Land of Youth). Oisín agreed and went with her, promising his father he would return to visit soon.
Oisín was a member of the Fianna and, though he fell in love with Niamh during their time together in Tír na nÓg, he became homesick after what he thought was three years. Niamh let him borrow Embarr, who could run above ground, and made him promise not to get off the horse or touch Irish soil.
The three years he spent in Tír na nÓg turned out to be 300 Irish years. When Oisín returned to Ireland, he asked where he could find Fionn mac Cumhail and the Fianna, only to find that they had been dead for hundreds of years and were now only remembered as legends. Whilst travelling through Ireland, Oisín was asked by some men to help them move a standing stone. He reached down to help them, but fell off his horse. Upon touching the ground he instantly became an old man. He is then said to have dictated his story to Saint Patrick, who cared for and nursed him until he died. Meanwhile, Niamh had given birth to his daughter, Plor na mBan. Niamh returned to Ireland to search for him, but he had died.
The LÉ Niamh (P52), a ship in the Irish Naval Service, is named after her.

Irish Gods: Nemain

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In Irish mythology, Neman or Nemain (modern spelling: Neamhan, Neamhain) is the spirit-woman or goddess who personifies the frenzied havoc of war. In the ancient texts where The Morrígan appears as a trio of goddesses — the three sisters who make up the Morrígna^[1][2][3] — one of these sisters is sometimes known as Nemain.


In the grand Irish epic of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, Neman confounds armies, so that friendly bands fall in mutual slaughter. When the forces of Queen Medb arrive at Magh-Tregham, in the present county of Longford, on the way to Cuailnge, Neman appears amongst them:

“Then the Neman attacked them, and that was not the most comfortable night with them, from the uproar of the giant Dubtach through his sleep. The bands were immediately startled, and the army confounded, until Medb went to check the confusion.” Lebor na hUidhre, fol. 46, b1.

And in another passage, in the episode called "Breslech Maighe Muirthemhne,” where a terrible description is given of Cuchullain's fury at seeing the hostile armies of the south and west encamped within the borders of Uladh, we are told (Book of Leinster, fol.54, a2, and b1):Nemain is an Irish goddess who is very powerful. Nemain can kill 100 men with just one single battle cry.

"He saw from him the ardent sparkling of the bright golden weapons over the heads of the four great provinces of Eriu, before the fall of the cloud of evening. Great fury and indignation seized him on seeing them, at the number of his opponents and at the multitude of his enemies. He seized his two spears, and his shield and his sword, and uttered from his throat a warrior's shout, so that sprites, and satyrs, and maniacs of the valley, and the demons of the air responded, terror-stricken by the shout which he had raised on high. And the Neman confused the army; and the four provinces of Eriu dashed themselves against the points of their own spears and weapons, so that one hundred warriors died of fear and trembling in the middle of the fort and encampment that night."

In Cormac's glossary, Nemain is said to have been the wife of Neit, "the god of battle with the pagan Gaeidhel". A poem in the Book of Leinster (fol. 6, a2), couples Badb and Neman as the wives of Neid or Neit:—

“Neit son of Indu, and his two wives, Badb and Neamin, truly, Were slain in Ailech, without blemish, By Neptur of the Fomorians”.

At folio 5, a2, of the same MS., Fea and Nemain are said to have been Neit’s two wives but in the poem on Ailech printed from the Dinnsenchus in the "Ordinance Memoir of Templemore" (p. 226), Nemain only is mentioned as the wife of Neit. Also, in the Irish books of genealogy, both Fea and Neman are said to have been the two daughters of Elcmar of the Brugh (Newgrange, near the Boyne), who was the son of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, son of Elatan, and the wives of Neid son of Indae. This identical kinship of Fea and Nemain implies that the two are one and the same personality.
She sometimes appears as a bean nighe, the weeping washer by a river, washing the clothes or entrails of a doomed warrior.

 The variant forms in which her name appears in Irish texts are Nemon ~ Nemain ~ Neman. These alternations imply that the Proto-Celtic form of this theonym, if such a theonym existed at that stage, would have been *Nemānjā, *Nemani-s or *Nemoni-s.
The meaning of the name has been various glossed. Squire (2000:45) glossed the name as 'venomous' presumably relating it to the Proto-Celtic *nemi- 'dose of poison' 'something which is dealt out' from the Proto-Indo-European root *nem- 'deal out' (Old Irish nem, pl. neimi 'poison' ). However, *nemi- is clearly an i-stem noun whereas the stems of the reconstructed forms *Nemā-njā, *Nema-ni-s and *Nemo-ni-s are clearly a-stem and o-stem nouns respectively.
Equally, the Proto-Celtic *nāmant- 'enemy' (Irish námhaid, genitive namhad 'enemy' from the Old Irish náma, g. námat, pl.n. námait [1]) is too different in form from *Nemānjā, *Nemani-s or *Nemoni-s to be equated with any of them.
The name may plausibly be an extended form of the Proto-Indo-European root of the name is *nem- 'seize, take, deal out' to which is related the Ancient Greek Némesis 'wrath, nemesis' and the name Nemesis, the personification of retributive justice in Greek mythology. This is related to the Ancient Greek Nomos, which means a custom or law, and also means to divide, distribute, or to allot. The Proto-Indo-European root is the Old High German nâma 'rapine,' German nehmen, 'take,' English nimble; Zend nemanh 'crime,' Albanian name 'a curse' and the Welsh, Cornish, and Breton nam, 'blame' [2]. According to this theory, the name would mean something like 'the Great Taker' or the 'Great Allotter.'

Irish Gods: Mor Muman

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Mór Muman (meaning Mór of Munster), also written Mór Mumhan or Mór Mumain, (said to have died 630s) is stated to have been a daughter of Áed Bennán, sometime King of Munster, but may in fact represent a euhemerised sovereignty goddess, particularly associated with the Eóganachta.

Irish Gods: Mongfind

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Mongfind (or Mongfhionn in modern Irish)—meaning "fair hair" or "white hair"—was the wife, of apparent Munster origins, of the legendary Irish High King Eochaid Mugmedón and mother of his eldest three sons, Brión, Ailill and Fiachrae, ancestors of the historical Connachta, through whom she is an ancestor of many Irish and European nobility today. She was the sister of Crimthann mac Fidaig, King of Munster and the next High King of Ireland, whom she is said to have killed with poison in the attempt to have the kingdom for her sons.^[1][2] She drank the same to convince him, and died soon after at Samhain, becoming a goddess of sorcery.^[2][3]
She was the first wife of Eochaid; he took a second wife, Cairenn, who gave birth to Niall of the Nine Hostages. Several stories depict Mongfind as an adversary of her stepson.
According to Cormac's Glossary,^[4] she was a goddess the pagan Irish worshipped on Samhain. This was also called the Féile Moingfhinne i.e. "Festival of Mongfind".^[2][3] Later legend, as documented in Patrick Weston Joyce's Social History of Ancient Ireland, makes her a bean sidhe. A prominent hill called Cnoc Samhna "Hill of Samhain"^[5] also known as Ard na Ríoghraidhe "Height of the Kingfolk" south of Bruree, County Limerick is associated with a tale connected to Mongfind. "Anocht Oíche Shamhna Moingfhinne banda" is children's rhyme from County Waterford which translates as "Tonight is the eve of Samhain of Mongfhionn the goddess". Variant spellings of her name include Mongfinn, Mongfionn, Mongfhind, Mongfhinn, Mongfhionn, Mongfinne, Mongfhinne, Mong Find, Mong Finn, Mong Fionn, Mong Fhionn, Mungfionn, Mung Finn, Mung Fionn.
Mongfind and her brother, children of Fidach and grandchildren of Dáire Cerbba in most sources, are sometimes said to belong to an early or peripheral branch of the Eóganachta. However, this is unlikely, as the evidence suggests that, if historical, they belong to a distinct people associated with other kingdoms, possibly the Dáirine, who may be referred to as their people in an obscure poem in Old Irish by Flann mac Lonáin (d. 896).^[6] In the Banshenchus she is called "Mongfind of the Érnai" (Érainn), and given a later son Sidach following the Connachta.^[7] Dáire Cerbba is stated in Rawlinson B 502 to have been born in Mag Breg (Brega), Mide,^[8] much of which probably remained Érainn territory at the time of his supposed floruit. It is difficult to distinguish the Dáirine from the Érainn in the surviving corpus.

Irish Gods: Medb Lethderg

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In Irish mythology Medb Lethderg ([mɛðv l͈ʲeθ.ðerɡ]; "red-side") was a goddess of sovereignty associated with Tara. She was the wife or lover of nine successive kings, including Fedlimid Rechtmar, Art mac Cuinn and Cormac mac Airt.
She is probably identical with or the inspiration for Medb of the Connachta in the Ulster Cycle (Byrne 2001).
The poem "Macc Moga Corbb celas clú" in the Book of Leinster is ascribed to her.

Irish Gods: Medb

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Medb (Old Irish spelling, [mɛðv]; Middle Irish: Meḋḃ, Meaḋḃ; early modern Irish: Meadhbh, [mɛɣv]; Modern Irish: Méabh [mʲeːv], Medbh or Maebh; sometimes Anglicised Maeve, Maev or Maive /ˈmeɪv/) is queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Her husband in the core stories of the cycle is Ailill mac Máta, although she had several husbands before him who were also kings of Connacht. She rules from Cruachan (now Rathcroghan, County Roscommon). She is the enemy (and former wife) of Conchobar mac Nessa, king of Ulster, and is best known for starting the Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley") to steal Ulster's prize stud bull.