Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

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site of a ritual in which the afflicted were pulled

through the stone, naked, and then rolled on the

grass THREE (or three times three) times. The

stone can also be used by the hale and healthy

for DIVINATION, for if one put two brass PINS on

the rock and asked a question, the dancing pins

would tell the answer.

See also HEALING STONES.

menhir Mythological and folkloric site. Often

called a STANDING STONE, the menhir is a single,

usually enormous, stone erected upright in the

ground by the people of the mysterious MEGA-

LITHIC CIVILIZATION some 6,000 years ago.

Sometimes the stones were “dressed” or worked

into a specific shape, but usually they were

erected without alteration. There is considerable

speculation about how ancient people moved the

stones from their original location, sometimes

many miles from their eventual homes, and

engineered them into place.

Mercury British and Continental Celtic god.

With the arrival of the Roman legions, scores of

Celtic gods who were radically localized—found

only in one place or among one tribal group—

were renamed after Roman gods. Whether the

many gods renamed “Mercury” were originally

similar, and what the god’s original powers were,

is difficult to determine. Caesar claimed that

Mercury was the god most worshiped among all

those of the Celts and that he was the most often

depicted in art. Under his Roman name he

remained popular among the Celtic peoples of

both the Continent and Britain.

Celtic Mercury was shown with a COCK, ram,

or GOAT, all symbols of virility and masculine

prowess; he was never a warrior like the Celtic

MARS, but rather a god of commerce and pros-

perity. He carried a bag or purse of money, sug-

gesting success at transactions. Although always

shown in Roman dress, Mercury often wore a

TORC, the twisted neck-piece that indicated

prestige and power. Occasionally the Celtic

Mercury was imagined as a messenger or herald

of the gods, although this typically Roman vision

was rare in comparison to Mercury’s importance

as a god of traders and commercial prosperity.

At times the winged double-snake caduceus,

a classical emblem still used by doctors and

pharmacists, was shown as one of Mercury’s

attributes, suggesting powers of HEALING. The

god was often connected with ROSMERTA, a heal-

ing water goddess who was never Romanized.

The couple was especially worshiped in Braint, a

healing shrine in Gaul.

Several gods have been argued as the original

of the Romanized Mercury. TEUTATES, the god

of the tribe, and ESUS, the woodland god, are

both described with the name Mercury by the

poet Lucan. Some local names survive including:

• Mercury Artaios, “bear” or “ploughed land.”

• Mercury Arvernorix, Avernus.

• Mercury Cimiacinus, a god of roads in

Britain.

• Mercury Cissonius.

• Mercury Cultor, “the farmer.”

• Mercury Dumaitis, Dumias, “hill” or

“mound.”

• Mercury Iovantucarus.

• Mercury Moccus, possibly “PIG,” known

from one inscription in France.

• Mercury Visucius.

Merlin (Myrddin, Myrdinn, Merddyn, Merddin,

Merlinus) Arthurian hero. Aside from the trian-

gulated lovers LANCELOT, GUINEVERE, and king

ARTHUR, the great magician Merlin is the most

renowned character in the Arthurian legends. He

was the power behind the throne, creating and

maintaining the fair realm of CAMELOT. Even

before Arthur’s citadel was built, Merlin was

engaged in adding to Britain’s architectural her-

itage, for it was he who erected STONEHENGE on

Salisbury plain, raising the STONE CIRCLE from its

original site in Ireland and flying it by MAGIC

across the sea to its present site.

Merlin’s gifts were recognized early. As a boy

he was chosen to become a foundation sacri-

324 menhir

fice—a HUMAN SACRIFICE offered to stabilize the

foundation of a new building and to protect it,

through his death, from shifts in the earth that

could damage the structure—but he saved him-

self by going into a visionary trance and uttering

an extended PROPHECY about the land’s future

rulers and challenges.

The vision was centered on a great DRAGON

that the boy Merlin saw in the foundation’s pit.

That dragon led him to envision the greatest

king the land would ever know. Arthur would

never have been conceived without Merlin’s

assistance, for he transformed UTHUR PEN-

DRAGON into the semblance of count GORLOIS

of Cornwall so that Arthur’s father could have

his way with beautiful but loyal IGRAINE,

Gorlois’s wife. In one night of passion with the

disguised Uther, Igraine conceived the future

king; Uther then killed Gorlois and took Igraine

as his wife.

When Arthur was old enough to claim his

inheritance, Merlin led him to a sword in a huge

stone; this unnamed weapon is not to be con-

fused with EXCALIBUR, the magical gift of the

mysterious LADY OF THE LAKE that later kept

Arthur safe from being wounded in battle. The

sword in the stone could only be removed by the

rightful king. Though many had tried, none had

succeeded in removing it from its rocky prison,

but with one tug, Arthur freed it and revealed his

destiny, as Merlin knew he would.

Merlin served as Arthur’s confidante and

adviser during the happy years at Camelot when

the ROUND TABLE knights quested for glory.

Despite his magic, Merlin either did not see or

could not stop the erosion of Camelot’s power

and prestige, nor Arthur’s eventual defeat.

Merlin himself never died but lives on some-

where in an OTHERWORLD where he was trapped

by his lover, the FAIRY QUEEN or sorceress

VIVIANE (sometimes, MORGAN). Some tales say

that Viviane feared he might be attracted to

other women, others that she wished to ensure

his immortality. Using the very enchantments he

had taught her, Viviane trapped Merlin in a

tower or encased him in a great TREE in the

magical forest of BROCÉLIANDE, where he con-

tinues to live, immobile and powerless.

Behind this figure of literature and legend is

the ghost of an earlier, possibly divine, figure

called Myrdinn, after whom the island of Britain

was called Clas Myrdinn or “Myrdinn’s enclo-

sure.” In Welsh sources, Myrdinn was said to

have been a warrior who, having gone mad (per-

haps the basis for the related figure of MYRDINN

WYLLT) from the horrors that he witnessed at the

battle of Arfderydd, fled to Scotland, where he

meditated until he attained the power of

prophecy. Some argue that Myrdinn was the SUN

divinity worshiped at Stonehenge; that argu-

ment assumes the deity was male rather than

female, an unproven assertion. Upon the arrival

of Christianity, Myrdinn was said to have taken

the treasures of the land and nine BARDS and

gone into retirement in an island off Wales.

Source: Geoffrey of Monmouth. Histories of the

Kings of Britain. London: J. M. Dent and Sons,

1912, pp. 113 ff.

mermaid (Merrow, Morrough, Moruach,

Moruadh, Maighdean-mara, Ben-Varrey, Mary

Morgan) Continental and insular folkloric fig-

ure. Half-human, half-fish beings are found in

the folklore of all Celtic lands, from the west of

Ireland across Scotland and England to the

coasts of France. These figures most often

appeared as female, although male merfolk are

occasionally known. They had much in common

with other half-human beings such as SWAN

MAIDENS and SEAL people but had special powers

as well.

A mermaid was a kind of sea FAIRY, an OTH-

ERWORLD creature who swam in shallow coastal

waters, often with the intention of drawing

humans into the brine and to their deaths. In

some tales, mermaids did so because they found

human men irresistibly attractive; in these tales

they are typical FAIRY LOVERS. Their sweet

singing lulled people to sleep wherever water

could lap over them so they drowned; these

mermaid 325

figures may be confused with the classical siren,

a death-messenger who appears as a bird as well

as a singing maiden.

Unlike the more common fairy mistresses,

mermaids were not necessarily lovely. Some had

GREEN teeth or RED noses or PIG eyes. Their hair

might be green and scraggly, made up of seaweed

or kelp. Despite this, they seemed to attract

enough men that sailors were warned to keep

watch for them; if they spotted you before you

noticed them, you were invariably captured.

Mermaids were said to be fond of brandy; they

worked in teams to wreck ships carrying it so

that they might forage among the wreckage for

unbroken bottles. (The red nose many mermen

sport was attributed to excessive indulgence.)

Every mermaid wore a little cap called a

COHULEEN DRUITH, which permitted her to safely

swim below the waves and to live in reefs with-

out danger. Should a human man wish to take a

mermaid as his wife, it was important to steal the

cap and keep it safely hidden. (Similarly, Swan

Maidens’ feather cloaks and Seal Women’s fur

coats had to be kept from their view.) If a mer-

maid found her cap, she put it on and escaped

from land, leaving husband and children behind,

without a thought or a second glance. As long as

she remained ashore, however, the mermaid was

a wonderful wife: industrious, loving, sensuous,

making the risk of her loss worth taking and her

abandonment devastating.

All the coastal Celtic lands had their own ver-

sions of the mermaid. In Cornwall the mermaid

cloaks an ancient sea-goddess, pictured holding a

mirror, possibly influenced by classical interpreta-

tions of the seaborne Aphrodite, Greek goddess

of lust and love. The Mermaid of Zennor is

Cornwall’s most famous manifestation; in a small

coastal village in Penwith, a girl emerged from

the ocean to lure the best singer from the church’s

choir, Matthew Trenwalla, down to the depths to

share her home and her love. Her image can still

be seen in the town’s church. In Brittany the mer-

maid was apt to steal away young men and keep

them imprisoned underwater, which invariably

resulted in the boys’ death from drowning.

In England mermaids were associated with

freshwater as well as the ocean; the LAKE MAID-

ENS did not live in running water but only in

pools and other still water. The first syllable in

their name, which appears to mean “sea” (from

the French, mer), in fact comes from the Anglo-

Saxon meer for “lake” or “inland sea.”

Manx mermaid tales emphasized their irre-

sistible seductiveness. They lured potential

lovers by holding out coral, pearls, and other sea

riches—even jewels stolen from ships they

wrecked. If a potential mate came to his senses

before leaping to certain death and ran away

from the alluring mermaid, she heaved stones at

his departing figure. If she struck him, he was

doomed: even though safely on dry land, he died

shortly thereafter.

In Scotland the Maighdean-mara was a half-

fish, half-woman who appeared on offshore rocks

late at night or near dawn, combing her splendid

long

HAIR (see COMB). From a distance she looked

entirely human, but upon further acquaintance it

was clear she had no legs, only a fish-tail. That tail

could, if the mermaid desired, be shaken off, mak-

ing her appearance entirely human. She could

then be very helpful to humans, which was not

generally the case with her kind.

The Scottish islands are rich in mermaid

folklore. On the Isle of Skye fair-haired people

were said to descend from mermaids; members

of the Morrow, MacMorrow, MacCodrums, and

MacMurray families were their living relatives.

In Orkney, off the northern coast of Scotland, a

mermaid was recorded to have appeared in the

sea in the 1890s, her milk-white body, long arms,

and unnaturally tiny head visible from shore. In

the Hebrides the mermaid did not sport a magi-

cal cap as in other lands; instead she had a mag-

ical belt that had to be stolen to tame her. Her

descendants were said to have the gift (or curse)

of foreseeing who would die at sea. In the

Shetlands many people believed themselves

descended from mermaids, pointing to a small

membrane between fingers and toes (actually a

natural, although unusual, physiological muta-

tion) as proof.

326 mermaid

In Brittany the mermaid appeared as a siren,

luring men to their deaths in treacherous waters.

Their leader was the pagan princess DAHUT, who

floated above her submerged city of YS and sang

beautifully to passing sailors. Should a man ven-

ture toward her, however, he drowned in the

wild ocean waves. Dahut, whose legend describes

her murderous love for men, may have been a

mermaid before being depicted as a princess,

or the opposite may be true. In some parts

of Brittany it was said that all mermaids are

daughters of Dahut.

In Ireland the moruadh or moruach (“sea-

maid”) was known from the earliest literature, for

in the

BOOK OF INVASIONS mermaids played in the

waves as the invading MILESIANS approached the

shore. The Annals of the Four Masters describes

mermaids as GIANTS: 195 feet long, with fingers

seven feet long and hair measuring 18 feet. The

moruadh was a typically sportive and seductive

creature who regularly mated with humans; no

members of the Lee family ever drowned,

because they were descendants of mermaids.

Sir Walter Scott, in The Bride of Lammermoor,

related the tradition that drinking from a mer-

maid’s WELL was fatal, in this case to those of the

House of Ravenswood. The mermaid’s most

famous literary appearance was in the somewhat

sadistic story of “The Little Mermaid” by

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, who

described the pains a mermaid underwent to

have her tail cut into legs; this was an invention

of the author and never part of folklore, but it

became well known as a result of the Disney film

of the same name. A contemporary vision of the

mermaid appears in the film Local Hero by

Scottish director William Forsythe, in which an

elusive mermaid appears as a goddess of SOVER-

EIGNTY who protects her land.

Sources: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends and

Traditions of the South of Ireland. London:

William Tegg, 1862, p. 180; Kennedy, Patrick.

Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:

Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 121; MacGregor,

Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-Tales

and Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.

Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, pp. 105 ff;

McKay, John G. More W

est Highland Tales. Vol.

2. Scottish Anthropological and Folklore

Society. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969, pp.

117 ff; Spence, Lewis. The Minor T

raditions of

British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,

Inc., 1972, pp. 42, 51; Straffon, Cheryl. The

Earth Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the

Landscape. London: Blandford, 1997, p. 95.

merman (Dinny-Mara, Dooinney Marrey,

Dunya Mara) Irish and Scottish folkloric figure.

Although the half-fish FAIRY creatures of the sea

were usually female, there are occasional descrip-

tions of mermen in literature and folklore. Unlike

the corresponding female, the merman was rarely

attractive, having piggy eyes and a bright RED nose

from living on brandy salvaged from wrecked

ships. Their breath was also unsavory because they

enjoyed dining on raw fish. According to the early

British historian Holinshed, a merman was cap-

tured alive during the reign of England’s King

John; dubbed the Wild Man of Oxford, he did not

live long in captivity.

Merry Maidens British folkloric site. A num-

ber of STONE CIRCLES in Britain bear this name.

Typically, local legend says the stones were orig-

inally women who, dancing on a Sunday, were

turned to stone for their blasphemy. In some

cases the stones are called “nine maidens,” which

may refer not to their number but to “noon”—

the ninth hour in the ecclesiastical day, whence

‘nones,’ the midday service—for the hour at

which they were transformed.

At Stanton Drew a wedding dance was once

so merry that all of Saturday night passed with-

out anyone’s noticing. As Sunday morning drew

near, a black-clad stranger appeared and took the

fiddle from the chief musician. The music the

stranger played was impossible to resist. Even

the weary, and even those who could not dance,

leapt to their feet. On and on the dancers cir-

cled, until at dawn they all turned to stone. The

Merry Maidens 327

fiddler—who was of course the DEVIL—prom-

ised to come back to play for them again, but,

devils being devils, he did not, leaving them pet-

rified to this day.

The story of dancers being turned to stone is

found in many variations: STONEHENGE is some-

times called the GIANT’S DANCE, suggesting an

ancient story in which the stones are trans-

formed dancers; in Devon a man named Ragged

Dick was turned to stone with his companions

when they danced at an inappropriate time; and

in the Shetland Islands trolls were turned to

stone at Haltadans (“stop the dancing”) together

with their musician when the sun rose, a clear

survival of Scandinavian mythology.

Although dancing was the usual activity pun-

ished by petrification, other actions could bring

the same result: Doing WITCHCRAFT brought

the stony paralysis on Long Meg and her

Daughters in Cumbria, while doing farm chores

(shearing sheep, digging turnips) on Sunday

caused other people to be turned to stone.

Mesca Ulad See INTOXICATION OF THE

ULSTERMEN.

Mesgedhera (Mesgeara) Irish hero. This

Irish warrior was better known after death than

before, for it was a “brain ball” made from his

scooped-out brains mixed with lime that

severely injured the great king of ULSTER, CON-

COBAR MAC NESSA, when hurled by an opponent.

The brain ball lodged in Concobor’s head, and

although the king survived the wound, it led to

his death years later when the ball shook loose.

Mess Buachalla (Mes Buachalla) Irish god-

dess. When the FAIRY QUEEN or goddess ÉTAIN

eloped with her fated lover, the fairy king MIDIR,

her human husband EOCHAID Airem set off in hot

pursuit of the pair. By the time he caught them at

Midir’s stronghold of BRÍ LÉITH, Étain had given

birth to a girl, a daughter conceived with Eochaid.

When Eochaid demanded his wife back, Midir

responded with a fairy trick: He sent out 50 iden-

tical women, one of whom was Étain while the

rest were bewitched to look just like her.

True love sees even through fairy GLAMOURs,

and a true lover would have been able to tell

Étain from the others, but Eochaid was more

interested in having a queen to assure him the

throne of TARA than in Étain herself. Thus he was

unable to tell his real wife from the 49 enchanted

versions of her. He picked a woman and took her

back to Tara, where she reigned, looking exactly

like the lost queen. She was in fact his own

daughter, who eventually went mad with the

knowledge of their incest. She raved about the

countryside, living in the open, for which she

gained the name of Mess Buachalla, “the

herdswoman” or “The cow herd’s fosterling.”

Another version of the story says that she was

the daughter of Étain and

CORMAC, king of

ULSTER, who ordered her killed because he

wanted a son as heir. But so sweet was the baby

that the warriors ordered to carry out the deed

left her instead with the herdsman of the high

king, Eterscél, whence she got her name. She

grew to a woman of great beauty and wed the

high king, but not before mating with a bird god

named NEMGLAN, by whom she conceived the

king CONAIRE.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, Todd

Lecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,

Ltd., 1906.

Miach Irish god. Son of the physician god

DIAN CÉCHT and brother of the herbalist AIRMID,

Miach was himself a brilliant doctor and magi-

cian who made skin grow around the silver hand

of king NUADA, who had been wounded in the

great second battle of MAG TUIRED and had thus

lost his throne. Dian Cécht had crafted a cun-

ning hand of silver, one that worked just like a

real hand, but it was not sufficient to remove the

taboo against a BLEMISHED KING. Only Miach’s

magical healing restored Nuada as king.

328 Mesca Ulad

Alas for Miach, his brilliance brought him no

glory, but death at the hands of his envious

father. Because Dian Cécht had tried and failed

to heal Nuada, he could not tolerate his son’s

success. Miach’s HEALING powers did not cease

with death, for the most powerful herbs in the

world grew up on his grave. Airmid tended them

until they were ready to harvest, then classified

them according to the good they would bring to

humanity. Dian Cécht again stepped in, how-

ever, scrambling the categories so that the heal-

ing knowledge was lost to humankind.

Michael See ST. MICHAEL.

Midac Irish hero. From the land of the Danes

once came a warrior, Colga of the Hard

Weapons, who was offended that Ireland was the

only seagirt island not under his control. His

invasion brought him against the heroic warriors

called the FIANNA, who, despite being outnum-

bered, defeated Colga’s men. Colga himself fell

beneath the weapons of OSCAR, one of the great-

est of the Fianna.

Colga had brought his young son, Midac,

with him to Ireland. The Fianna’s leader, FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL, decided that rather than kill the

boy as an enemy, he should be brought to ALMU

and reared as an Irishman. And so he was, but he

could not shake his fury at seeing his father

killed, and he quietly plotted revenge.

Fionn’s men noticed that the boy was sullen

and distant, and at length prevailed upon Fionn to

send him away. Giving Midac rich lands in coun-

ties Limerick and Clare, Fionn also bestowed

upon the young man CATTLE and servants so that

he would want for nothing. Fionn sent him away

and gave little more thought to the boy.

For 14 years, Midac lived peacefully enough

near the bright waters of the Shannon. Then the

Fianna came hunting on KNOCKFIERNA, a FAIRY

hill near Midac’s land. A noble warrior

approached them, dressed like a Danish warrior,

and demanded that Fionn answer some riddling

poems. Fionn, who was as gifted with wit as with

strength, quickly saw through the riddles, but he

failed to notice the identity of the young man,

whom other members of his band immediately

knew to be Midac. His identity revealed, Midac

invited the band back to his palace for a banquet.

That palace, surrounded by magical ROWAN

trees, was a splendid sight—but it was silent and

unoccupied. Still undeterred, Fionn entered the

palace and made himself comfortable in the

grand banquet hall. Midac entered, stared at

them, and departed without a word. It was then

that Fionn and his warriors realized that a trap

had been set; they had been deceived by a

GLAM-

OUR and were really being held hostage in a

crude shack. One after another of the Fianna

warriors came to their rescue, with DIARMAIT

finally lopping off Midac’s head.

Fionn was not free, however, for a CURSE had

been placed on him that he could not leave

Midac’s palace until the blood of THREE foreign

kings was sprinkled on its soil. And so Diarmait

went back, to do battle with three armies and

their kings. He was so strong and valorous that,

despite being vastly outnumbered, he was able to

decapitate all three kings and drag their HEADS

into Midac’s palace; as soon as the kings’ blood

struck the floor, it turned back into a rude shack.

The story of entrapment in a bewitched palace is

a common one in folklore.

Midas of the Mountains, King See MIDIR.

Mide (Meath) Irish geographical division;

Irish hero. Ancient Ireland was divided into the

four PROVINCES still recognized today: LEINSTER

in the east, MUNSTER in the southwest, CON-

NACHT in the west, and ULSTER in the northeast.

In addition, there was a fifth province, Mide or

Meath, which was not of this world but was

instead a mysterious and elusive center point.

This corresponds with an Indo-European vision

of the world as divided into four physical dis-

tricts, with the invisible center as the fifth.

During the reign of the historical HIGH KING

Tuathal Teachmhair (130–160 C.E.), a county

Mide 329

near the center of the island was named Meath,

and it is still called “royal Meath” because the

island’s political center, the hill of TARA, lay

within it. The original Mide, however, was not a

geographical concept but a spiritual one. The

word Mide means “neck” as well as “middle” and

so has been interpreted as the point at which the

abstract idea of the land’s SOVEREIGNTY (symbol-

ically, the

HEAD) attaches to the physical land

itself (symbolically, the body). That joining was

said to have occurred on the hill of UISNEACH in

the island’s center, and even more precisely at a

great cracked boulder on the hill, the STONE OF

DIVISIONS, in what is now Co. Westmeath.

According to the Dindshenchas, the place-

poetry of Ireland, Mide was a person as well as a

place. A DRUID and son of the otherwise

unknown Brath, he was fostered by the god-

dess of the land, ÉRIU, and lit the first fire on

or near Uisneach. The fire blazed for seven

years, fed by gifts from all of Ireland’s

provinces. In the seventh year, other druids

objected aloud to keeping Mide’s fire ablaze, so

he gathered them together and cut out their

tongues, which he buried in the hill. He then

sat above their tongues, and his teacher, the

woman druid GAINE, named the place Uisneach,

“over somewhat.”

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:

Thames and Hudson, 1992; Gwynn, Edward.

The Metrical Dindshenchas. Part II. Vol. IX.

Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., Ltd., 1906, p.

43; Rees, Alwyn, and Brinley Rees. Celtic

Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ir

eland and Wales.

London: Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 118 ff.

Midir Irish fairy king or god. In one of the

most romantic tales of ancient Ireland, the FAIRY

king Midir fell in love with the beautiful ÉTAIN.

Unluckily, he was already married to the jealous

DRUID FUAMNACH, who cast a spell on her rival.

Étain immediately turned into a fly—a beautiful

fly, but a fly nonetheless. In this form she flew

about until she accidentally drowned in a glass

of wine.

A princess drank the glass of wine and soon

found herself pregnant (see PREGNANCY

THROUGH DRINKING). Her child was the reborn

Étain, who grew up to be just as beautiful as in

her earlier incarnation. She had no memory of

her earlier life as Midir’s beloved, and so she

married the king of

TARA, EOCHAID Airem. Midir

had never forgotten her, however, and set about

gaining back his beloved.

He arrived at Tara and challenged the king

to a game of FIDCHELL, with the prize being a

kiss from Étain. As he kissed her, memory

flooded back to Étain, and she remembered her

earlier life as Midir’s beloved. Together, they

flew away through the skylight at Tara, joined

by a golden chain.

In addition to this romantic tale, Midir also

appears in the story of the movement of his peo-

ple, the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, from the surface of

Ireland to a parallel world underground. When

the father of the gods, the DAGDA, decided to

step down from his leadership of the tribe, his

son BODB DERG was selected to replace him.

Only Midir—called “the proud”—refused to

accept the will of the other gods and launched a

war against them. Not only did he not win his

goal, but the bloodshed caused the other gods to

leave the surface world to hide in their fairy

palaces or SÍDHES. Midir lived thereafter in his

own sídhe, that of BRÍ LÉITH—Slieve Callory or

Ardagh Hill, in western Co. Longford, where he

survives in local folklore as Midas, a giant who

steals children who walk past his hidden palace.

Source: Gregory, Lady Augusta. Gods and Fighting

Men: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of

the Fianna of Ireland. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1970, pp. 88 ff.

Midsummer (Midsummer eve) Calendar fes-

tival. The Celts did not celebrate the SOLSTICES

(longest and shortest day of the year) nor the

EQUINOXES (days of equal light and darkness in

330 Midir

spring and fall) but rather the days in the center

of each season (see IMBOLC, BELTANE, LUGHNASA,

SAMHAIN). Nonetheless, as the Celts encountered

earlier peoples who used the solar pivot-points as

CALENDAR feasts, they adopted rituals to mark

those days. In addition, the change from the

Julian to the Gregorian calendar dislocated some

of the old Celtic holidays from their original

dates, so that some Lughnasa harvest rituals

migrated to become midsummer festivals near

the end of June.

The day called Midsummer is not technically

the middle of summer at all, but actually the sea-

son’s beginning on June 21, the day when the

SUN is at the closest point to the northern hemi-

sphere that it will be all year and when night is

considerably less than day. In some Celtic lands,

as in Scotland and Ireland, daylight lasts well

into the evening hours on the summer solstice,

with as little as five or six hours of darkness;

dancing and feasting were common at that time.

In England, girls went out to STONE CIRCLES

and whispered the names of their favored young

men to the stones, which were said to predict the

future on that day. It was also useful to gather

the seeds of ferns, to be used in potions of invis-

ibility, and to sow hemp, to be used to see por-

tents, on this day. In Cornwall, girls left their

underwear turned inside out and watched, at

midnight, for a ghostly form to appear and turn

it right, thus finding out the identity of their

future husbands. Alternatively, they could pluck

a rose, tie it up in a bag, and save it until

Christmas, at which time if it were worn to

church, the faded rose would irresistibly attract

the groom-to-be.

Sources: Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of the

Cotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974, p.

14; Hunt, Robert. Cor

nish Customs and

Superstitions. Truro: Tor Mark Press, n.d.

midwife Folkloric motif. The midwife who

stood at the door of birth—which was, in the

past, often the door of death as well—was once a

powerful figure. Usually a woman with knowl-

edge of HEALING herbs and medicinal tech-

niques, she was among the Celts also believed to

have the power of PROPHECY, a power granted

midwives in many other cultures as well, pre-

sumably because they saw patterns in the birth

that continued throughout the child’s life.

Midwives also had a special sort of second sight

that permitted them to discover when

FAIRIES were

stealing human children. A midwife traveling to a

late-night birth might encounter such fairies

intent on kidnapping; arriving at the home of the

laboring mother, she would discover that the child

was dead, stolen by those she had encountered.

Legend tells of midwives who traveled to the OTH-

ERWORLD to steal back such infants.

Midwives were—with poets and musicians,

babies and lovers—the people most likely to be

victims of FAIRY KIDNAPPING, for their special-

ized knowledge was useful to those of the

Otherworld. Fairy children were often born

weak and in need of intensive care in order to

survive. Midwives, unlike others stolen by the

fairies, were usually returned to this world

unharmed and lived a healthy life thereafter.

Midwinter See NOLLAIG.

Míl (Míl Despaine, Milesius, Míle Easpain)

See MILESIANS.

Milesians Irish mythological race. In the

Irish mythological history, the BOOK OF INVA-

SIONS, we read of the descendants of a hero

named Míl Despaine—probably a name

invented by the mythological historians from the

Latin term “miles Hispaniae” or “soldier of

Spain.” This mythological ancestor was of the

line of the biblical Noah through his son

Japheth, whose descendants wandered through

SCYTHIA and Egypt before arriving in Spain.

One ancestor, Fénius the Ancient, was a consult-

ant on the Tower of Babel and the only person

who understood all the cacophony of language

Milesians 331

spoken there, while his descendant GOIDEL

invented the Irish language by mixing them all

together. The same Goidel was bitten by a snake

in Egypt and was healed by Moses, who proph-

esied that his descendants would find a place to

live without any such noxious SERPENTS.

Leaving Egypt, the ancestors of the Irish

returned to Scythia, where they found them-

selves at odds with those who had stayed behind.

The wanderers thus set out again, on boats across

the Caspian Sea.

MERMAIDS hindered their

progress until they hit upon the idea of melting

wax and using it to block their ears (a motif

apparently adapted from Homer’s Odyssey). This

permitted them to pass unharmed through to the

Mediterranean and finally to the shores of Britain.

There, climbing a high tower on a fine winter day,

Míl’s uncle ÍTH saw a misty island to the west and

decided to take a group of settlers there.

When Míl heard that Íth had been killed in

Ireland by the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, he set sail to

exact revenge, but he died on the way. His wife

SCOTA reached the shores but was cut down in bat-

tle; their sons finished what Míl and Scota had

begun, finally winning control of the entire island.

His descendants, the Milesians or Sons of

Míl, were the final waves of settlers on Irish

shores, displacing the earlier gods and god-

desses, children of the mother goddess DANU.

Most scholars today believe there is some histor-

ical truth, however degraded in transmission, in

these Irish legends. In such interpretations, the

Milesians were the ancestors of the historical

Goidels. The legends of Egyptian and Scythian

connections, as well as the Spanish link itself, are

generally considered inventions of medieval

writers who imagined connections between

Scythae and Scoti, Iberians and Hibernians.

milk Folkloric motif. Celtic people relied on

CATTLE for much of their food; for this reason,

we find much folklore surrounding milk. A cow

typically gives approximately a gallon to a gallon

and a half of milk a day for nine months after

calving; thus a cow with calf (called a milch cow)

was a valued source of liquid nourishment and of

BUTTER and cheese that were made from milk.

Milch cows, called in Irish cumhals, were so valu-

able that in ancient Ireland they were the basis of

exchange and valuation of other goods and even

of people’s social rankings (see ÉRIC).

Irish myth speaks of the abundant cow, the

GLAS GHAIBHLEANN, who did not even need to

have a calf to produce milk; she filled to over-

flowing every vessel brought to her. When an

evil person attempted to milk her into a sieve,

however, the great cow disappeared from this

earth. Attempts to thwart the natural abundance

of cows formed part of much folklore.

WITCHES

were believed to be able to steal milk right out of

a cow’s udder, without needing a pail, just by

passing a needle near the beast (dung-forks,

chimney crooks, and other implements were also

named as tools for milk theft). The witch could

then pass the implement near her own poor cow,

which would then give forth the milk of an

entire neighborhood. While the witch enjoyed

the real milk, the cows she bewitched gave only

a thin fluid, which would not form butter or

cheese. Milk could be protected by the recitation

of MILKING CHARMS.

milking charms Folkloric ritual. As herding

people who relied upon CATTLE for much of

their food, those in Celtic lands had many super-

stitions about protecting their food supply, in

particular the MILK that was drunk fresh as well

as made into BUTTER and cheese. Various rituals

ensured that no one would make off with the

milk from a COW: The first drops of milk would

be allowed to splatter on the ground; the sign of

the cross would be made over the cow’s udder;

CHARMS and prayers would be spoken.

There were also taboos. No one could step in

spilled milk nor cross in front of a cow that had

kicked over a milking pail. In Ireland on BELTANE,

the feast of summer’s beginning on May 1, milk-

ing charms were especially necessary, as fairies

and witches roved about, trying to steal all the

milk out of the cows’ udders. Twigs of ROWAN

332 milk

were tied to cows’ tails; a Mary Candle was

melted and the wax rubbed into cows’ hides.

In Scotland milking charms were connected

with LUGHNASA, the harvest festival on August 1:

Juniper was burned before the barn or stale urine

sprinkled on its door; balls of hair were put into

the milk pail to keep the milk from being

bewitched away. A strong charm involved boiling

cow dung into a paste, then adding several

straight metal PINS; any witch attempting to steal

milk would suffer stabbing pains until she arrived

at the farmhouse door with entreaties for mercy.

Similarly, putting urine in a bottle and corking it

would stop up the kidneys of any thieving witch.

Finally, a certain way of keeping the milk flowing

was to place the herb pearlwort on the BULL

before conception; any resulting heifers would be

protected throughout their milking life.

Milucra (Miluchrach) Irish goddess. The sis-

ter of the better-known goddess ÁINE, Milucra

became infatuated with the great hero FIONN

MAC CUMHAILL—as did Áine, who was known

for her lustful ways. Because her sister had sworn

she would never sleep with a gray-haired man,

Milucra enchanted a lake on SLIEVE GULLION in

ULSTER so that it would dye the hair of any

swimmer gray. The young virile Fionn, meeting

a beautiful maiden on the lake’s shores who

claimed her golden ring had dropped into the

water, volunteered to swim out and retrieve it.

He did find the ring, but when he reemerged he

was not only gray-haired—therefore unappeal-

ing to the sensuous Áine—but also withered

with age. The FIANNA captured Milucra and

forced her to give their leader a drink that

restored his youth, but his hair stayed silver.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.

London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 315 ff.

Minerva (Minerva Medica) Romanized Celtic

goddess. In Rome this goddess of HEALING was

absorbed into the powerful Greek warrior god-

dess Athena, but Minerva was no fighter at all,

except against disease and pain. In Celtic lands

the Romans found many similar goddesses whose

healing powers were found in the headwaters of

RIVERS, in hot SPRINGS, and in other WATER

sources. One such goddess can be seen even today

carved into the Roman quarries near the River

Dee in Chester; she is depicted with OWL and

GORGON’s head, symbols of the Greek Athena.

Julius Caesar said that the Celtic Minerva taught

arts and crafts to humanity, but that is not clear

from the remaining images.

Sometimes the Celtic goddess was completely

renamed, her original name lost to history; in

other cases the Celtic name remained. One

Minerva was called Vitrix (apparently “victor” or

“victorious”), found in many relief carvings of a

helmet-crowned female head. Another is associ-

ated with

BELISAMA, the warrior goddess. The

most famous Celtic Minerva was SUL, the god-

dess of the thermal springs at BATH in Britain.

Sources: Green, Miranda. The Gods of Roman

Britain. Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd.,

1983, p. 30; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth Goddess:

Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.

London: Blandford, 1997, pp. 24–29.

Mis (Mish, Miss) Irish heroine. The towering

mountain range of Slieve Mish in Co. Kerry is

named for this woman, who was given the moun-

tain as her bride-price, according to the place-lore

called the DINDSHENCHAS. Daughter of a warrior,

she found her father’s bloodied body after a battle

and, desperate with sorrow, drank his blood,

which drove her mad. Mis went into the moun-

tains and lived by killing animals with her bare

hands, until a harper named Dubh Rois sang, and

she drew near to listen to him. Speaking for the

first time since her madness struck, Mis inquired

about his musical instrument, which she remem-

bered from her father’s house, and then about his

sexual instrument, which she did not remember.

Tenderly and carefully, he showed both to her.

When Dubh Rois made love to her, Mis lost

her wildness and gradually grew to love her

Mis 333