Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

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living with a boring man. Finding a Viking pirate

more to her liking, she set off to sea with him

after convincing her lover to kill her husband.

Once back home in Norway, however,

Munanna’s new husband grew worried that she

might repeat the behavior. On an outing on a

lake, he pushed her overboard to her death. She

thereafter haunted him, flying about his boat in

the form of a CRANE, a common bird transfor-

mation for wronged women.

Munster (Mumu, Muman) Irish mythologi-

cal site. Ireland was traditionally divided into

four parts: LEINSTER, the PROVINCE of wealth in

the east; CONNACHT, the province of wisdom in

the west; ULSTER, province of war in the north;

and Munster in the southwest, province of music

and song. A fifth province, MIDE or Meath, sym-

bolized the center; it was not, however, a geo-

graphical but a mythological construct.

Munster, which today comprises the counties

of Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and

Waterford, is a province of varied landscapes. Its

great fertile valleys are among the richest in

Ireland. Its MOUNTAINS are the island’s highest;

each range and many individual mountains are

connected with goddesses. Most impressive are

the PAPS OF DANU, two identical breast-shaped

mountains in central Munster, capped with

stone CAIRNS that form nipples.

Although all Ireland was associated with the

goddess, Munster was most closely identified

with the feminine principle. Many important

goddesses derive from the region, including the

CAILLEACH, the HAG-like figure who is especially

connected with the rocky BEARE peninsula in the

south of the province and the similarly rocky

Burren in its north; the sea goddess MÓR; and the

FAIRY QUEEN ÁINE, whose mountain is visible

near the island’s most haunted lake, LOUGH GUR.

When FINTAN, the magical SALMON of WISDOM,

was asked to define the provinces, he said that

Munster meant song and celebration, festivals

and poetry and the playing of games. Most sig-

nificantly, Munster symbolizes FERTILITY, for

only with sufficient food can people enjoy the

creative arts.

Munster is also the legendary landfall for

invaders. Although archaeology shows that most

early humans arrived in ULSTER, which is visible

on clear days from Scotland and thus attracted

early hunters and gatherers, mythology shows

wave after wave of invaders arriving on

Munster’s rocky shores.

CESAIR landed at Dún na

mBarc on the Dingle peninsula, where the MILE-

SIANS also landed. The currents from Europe

that left the medieval Spanish Armada wrecked

on the Munster coast may have similarly carried

early migrants, so there may be some truth in

the legends.

Murias Irish mythological site. One of the

four great cities of the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN, Murias was the place from which the

CAULDRON of abundance traveled to Ireland.

Murna (Murna of the White Neck, Murni,

Murni Fair-Neck, Muirenn Muncháem, Fuinche,

Torba) Mother of the great hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL, Murna was the descendant of ÉITHNE

and thus of the fierce FOMORIAN king BALOR of

the Evil Eye. Her father was TADG mac Nuadat,

who ruled at ALMU, from which the warrior

CUMHALL kidnapped her after his bid for her

hand had been refused by her father.

Bringing the matter to CONN of the Hundred

Battles, king of TARA, Tadg was told that

Cumhall was banished from Ireland for his deed.

And so Tadg led the battle in which Cumhall was

killed—only nine hours after begetting Fionn

upon Murna. She returned home to Almu, to be

greeted by a furious father who threatened her

life, but Conn intervened and took the woman

back to Tara, where she bore her child. When he

had grown, Fionn demanded an honor-price (see

ÉRIC) from Tadg for the killing of Cumhall, his

father. Rather than fight his powerful grandson,

Tadg gave him Almu, which became Fionn’s

seat. Other versions of the story say that

Cumhall was killed by the unconquerable warrior

344 Munster

GOLL MAC MORNA, whom Fionn killed in retali-

ation when he had grown to become Ireland’s

greatest hero since CÚCHULAINN.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

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

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

Ltd., 1906–1924, p. 73.

music Art and religious symbol. Music, so

much a part of the heritage of Celtic lands today,

plays a significant part in many myths. The actual

music of the ancient Celts is unknown, for the

Celts had no musical notation. Nor do we know

the part music played in their daily and ritual

lives. Instrumental music is attested by early writ-

ers who refer to trumpet-like wind instruments

and stringed instruments that resembled lyres,

but archaeology finds little support for such ref-

erences, except occasional depictions on Celtic

COINS of the Roman era. The HARP, now an icon

of Ireland, was introduced there in medieval

times, as was the bagpipe, which migrated to the

insular Celtic lands from the Balkans. Both myth

and literature refer to singing, still a much-valued

art in Ireland and Wales.

In folklore, music plays an important part in

FAIRY legends describing the OTHERWORLD

melodies that lure mortals into enchanted places

from which they find it difficult to escape (see

FAIRY MUSIC). Musicians are among the humans

most sought-after by fairies, who reward them

for playing at fairy celebrations by giving them

one of FAIRYLAND’s beautiful melodies to take

back to earth; the famous “Derry Aire” (some-

times known as “Danny Boy”) is the most

famous song to come from the fairy world.

Myrddin See MERLIN.

Myrdinn Wyllt Welsh hero. According to

the British historian Geoffrey of Monmouth,

“Wild Merlin” was a king who, like the Irish

king SUIBHNE, went mad and fled to the woods,

where he lived in a BIRD costume (or perhaps

actually transformed himself into a bird). The

name derives from a Welsh legendary figure

who became famous as the magician MERLIN.

Mythological Cycle Irish mythological

texts. This term is used to describe a series of

texts and stories that tell of the ancient divinities

of Ireland. The central story describes a contest

between mythological races, recorded in the

BOOK OF INVASIONS. After unimpressive early set-

tlements by the followers of NEMED and

PARTHOLÓN, Ireland was occupied by the malev-

olent FOMORIANS, who twice fought and twice

were pushed out by the FIR BOLG. They, in turn,

lost their place to the mysterious and powerful

TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the people of the goddess

DANU, in the first battle of MAG TUIRED. It was at

this battle that the heroic king NUADA lost his

arm and thus, because a BLEMISHED KING could

not reign, lost the rulership of the land.

He was replaced by the half-Fomorian BRES,

who although amazingly beautiful was also stingy

and mean. After Bres refused to provide sufficient

rations for a poet, he was forced from the throne

when CAIRBRE spoke a satire so stinging that it

raised boils on Bres’s face—thus making him too

blemished to continue to rule. By this time, the

miraculous team of the healing god DIAN CÉCHT

and his son MIACH had created a replacement

hand for Nuada: Dian Cécht by crafting it from

silver, Miach by casting enchantments that caused

skin to grow over the artificial limb. Nuada

returned to the rulership just in time, for he was

needed to lead his people in another battle at the

same place as the earlier one.

The second battle of Mag Tuired began on

the sacred feast of SAMHAIN and pitted the

Tuatha Dé against the again-powerful Fomorians,

led by the frightening king BALOR of the Evil

Eye, who looked through only one EYE normally

but in times of battle allowed warriors to lift the

lid on his other eys so that it cast out murderous

rays. His own half-breed grandson, the hero

LUGH, killed him with a spear, after which the

Mythological Cycle 345

Tuatha Dé Danann ruled the land until, much

later, they were replaced by the MILESIANS, a

story that is not considered part of the

Mythological Cycle.

mythology Typically scholars use this word

to refer to the narrative cycles that underpin a

culture’s religious rituals and folkways. In some

cultures such narratives are codified into writ-

ing; divinities then typically become organized

into a pantheon, their relationships articulated,

and the confusions of identity ironed out.

Because the Celts did not write down their

myths but instead recited them, there is no sin-

gle source or scripture that defines Celtic

mythology. In addition, sculptures and inscrip-

tions date from the Roman invasion and were

subject to the reinterpretation of Celtic deities

according to the Roman pantheon; thus it is

sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish what

the Celts originally believed. Finally, many liter-

ary sources were transcribed by Christian

monks, leaving open the possibility that the

written myths themselves may be tainted with

post-Celtic material.

346 mythology

Nabelcus Continental Celtic god. This

obscure divinity from the region of Vaucluse in

France was associated by the Romans with their

warrior god MARS.

na buchtogai See SEA FAIRIES.

name Cosmological concept. The power of

naming is commonly connected to spiritual

prowess in many cultures, as is evidenced in the

Christian myth in which the first humans, Adam

and Eve, are granted the power to name all the

animals they encounter. Bestowing a name on a

child is an important act, one that Roman writ-

ers claim was conducted in Celtic Gaul by

DRUIDS. Some Irish texts speak of a kind of bap-

tism, with babies dipped in streams or dunked in

holy WELLS as their names were given to them.

This was not easily supplanted by the Christian

rite; in the Hebrides, a long-lasting tradition

called for children to be sprinkled with drops of

water immediately upon birth, at which time a

temporary name was granted the newborn.

In Celtic lands, where the power of the world

was held primary, the very sound of a name was

so important that to speak it was forbidden at

certain times. While at sea, Scottish fishermen

would not use the proper names of seabirds that

they saw as threatening portents; similarly, names

of villages were not mentioned, the places being

referred to obliquely instead, apparently to pro-

tect those living there from potential harm from

FAIRIES or other spirits. Also in Scotland, people

did not speak the name of a newborn child until

it had been baptized and thus, presumably, pro-

tected from FAIRY KIDNAPPING. The tradition of

giving nicknames or pet names to people simi-

larly arises from the belief that, if fairy people

knew the real name of a loved person, that per-

son would be in danger of being stolen AWAY.

Sources: McKay, John G. More West Highland Tales.

Vol. 2. Scottish Anthropological and Folklore

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

388; Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands.

London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 95.

names for fairyland Many names for the

OTHERWORLD are found in Irish and Scottish

sources, although it is unclear whether these

indicated geographically separate locations or are

merely variant descriptions of the land’s features.

The names describe the Otherworld as an abun-

dant flatland, as in MAG MELL (“plain of honey”)

and MAG MÓR (“great plain”), or as a submerged

island, as in TIR FO THUINN (“land under wave”).

Perhaps the most common name was TIR NA NOG

(“land of youth”), which emphasized the unfad-

ing beauty of fairyland’s residents.

347

names for the fairies Folkloric motif. In

places where the pre-Christian gods were

demoted into FAIRIES, these ancient powers are

respected sufficiently that it is still considered

dangerous to call them by their real names.

Therefore euphemisms are used, some vague,

others flattering: Them, the Other Crowd, the

Good Folk, the Good Neighbors, even That

Lot. In Scotland the common phrase was the

Guid Folk, and on the Shetlands the Guid

Neighbors, while the people of Wales used the

term TYLWYTH TEG, “the Fair Family.” On the

Isle of Man names for the fairies included Ny

Mooinjer Veggey, “the Little Kindred”; Ny

Guillyn Beggey, “The Little Boys”; and Yn

Sleih Veggey, “the Little People.” This verbal

habit originated in Celtic beliefs about the

power of the word. One famous tale describes

how a man was kidnapped by the fairies simply

for consistently using the word fairies rather

than a euphemism when passing their abodes

(see FAIRY KIDNAPPING).

names for the Otherworld Folkloric motif.

Although, unlike with FAIRIES, there was no

taboo against speaking of the OTHERWORLD, we

nonetheless find many evocative names that

describe the Celtic PARADISE: ILDATHACH,

“many-colored land”; MAG MÓR, the “great

plain”;

MAG MELL, the “plain of honey”; Mag

Mon, the “plain of sports”; Mag Réin, “plain of

the sea”;

TIR FO THUINN, the “land under wave”;

TIR NA NOG, the “land of youth”; TIR NA MBAN,

the “land of women”; and TIR TAIRNGIRI, the

“land of promise.” These names sometimes are

used of a specific Otherworld realm like the

floating ISLAND inhabited by the great FAIRY

QUEEN NIAMH of the Golden Hair, but they are

more generally interchangeable.

Nanny Button-Cap British folkloric figure.

A small sprite known in Yorkshire, Nanny

Button-Cap was a good FAIRY who appears in

some rhymes and stories; she was apparently a

helpful sprite similar to a BROWNIE.

Nar (Náir) Irish goddess. An obscure goddess

of this name (“modesty”) is known from some

texts to have offered a high king of Ireland great

riches. She may be a form of the goddess of SOV-

EREIGNTY more commonly known as Flaith.

Nár Thúathcaech Irish hero. “Shame” is

another name for the figure more commonly

known as

FRIUCH, an argumentative swineherd

reincarnated as the great BULL DONN CUAILNGE

on whom the great queen MEDB of the western

province of CONNACHT set her sights. His name

may derive from his role in setting in motion the

great carnage related in the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE,

for it was his whisperings to Medb that encour-

aged her to marry AILILL mac Máta, who in turn

challenged her to prove herself equal to him,

whereupon the great CATTLE RAID on ULSTER

was launched.

Nás (Naas) Irish goddess or heroine. This

obscure Irish goddess, known only as the wife of

the great hero LUGH, is familiar in Ireland today

because of Naas, a prosperous town near Dublin

that still bears her name. The place is said to

have been the site of her death or burial. Its

ancient importance is suggested by the BUADA or

demand that the king at TARA dine on HARES

from Naas, for which the town is called Naas na

Rí, “Naas of the Kings.” Reputedly Lugh insti-

tuted the great assembly (see ÓENACH) of

Teltown in honor of Nás, although most often

that festival was said to have been organized to

honor his foster mother, the goddess TAILTIU.

Nasciens (Seraphe) Arthurian hero. Once a

pagan ruler named Seraphe, Nasciens (“knows

nothing”) took a new name when, blinded by his

arrogant attempt to look upon the GRAIL, he

became a hermit monk who advised the knights

who rode out in the quest of the sacred object.

Natosuelta (Nantosuelta) Continental Celtic

goddess. Her name has been translated as “mean-

348 names for the fairies

dering river” and “winding brook,” either one of

which makes it clear that she is a goddess of fresh

WATER. Like other Celtic RIVER goddesses, she

doubtless ruled the land of her watershed, in this

case the River Trent in Britain. The Romanized

images of this goddess do not stress her riverine

nature. Rather, she is shown holding a pot—

which could, arguably, hold river water but could

also suggest that Natosuelta was a goddess of the

household, for she was occasionally invoked as a

protector of the home and HEARTH. Some images

show her carrying a house on a sort of pole; on it

perched a RAVEN, common symbol of PROPHECY.

A shrine to Natosuelta was erected at the Roman

settlement of Ad Pontem (today, East Stroker in

Nottinghamshire), where she was shown accom-

panied by an unnamed male deity. On the

Continent, she was sometimes associated with

the god SUCELLUS, “the striker.”

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in

Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,

pp. 24, 26, 42; Straffon, Cheryl. The Earth

Goddess: Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape.

London: Blandford, 1997, pp. 24, 125.

nature Cosmological concept. The Celtic

love of nature has been noted by many writers,

from ancient times to the present. However, it is

important to note that the Celts, being radically

polytheistic (see POLYTHEISM) and seeing divin-

ity as lodged in this world rather than as separate

from it, did not think of nature as we commonly

do today. Nature was not evil or a source of

temptation, as to many Christian believers who

describe this world as a failed copy of the origi-

nal PARADISE. Rather, this world was filled with

beauty and splendor, as well as pain.

In one ancient Irish text, princesses EITHNE

and FEDELM of CONNACHT asked ST. PATRICK

and his followers if their god was “in the heavens

or on earth, in the sea, in the rivers, in the

mountains, in the valleys.” St. Patrick assured

the girls that god was, indeed, in all those places,

but the saint and the princesses, although in

apparent agreement, meant quite different

things. Patrick meant that a transcendent god,

having created the world, still had power over it;

the princesses intended no metaphor but

expressed a belief in what is called immanent

divinity, god found within nature rather than

outside it.

A nature so suffused with divinity seems not

to have been the vision of the Irish alone but to

have been shared with their Celtic relations

around Europe. Supernatural forces were

believed to pervade the natural world, which was

considered divine. The earth itself was typically

feminine, a goddess, as were bodies of

WATER,

especially RIVERS. For this reason, the Celts wor-

shiped out of doors, in sacred groves called

NEMETONS rather than in roofed TEMPLES. The

forces of nature were not always benign but

could be threatening or even maleficent toward

humans, who were not seen as separate from

nature but as part of it.

Navan Fort See EMAIN MACHA.

Navel Stone See STONE OF DIVISIONS.

Nechtan (Elcmar) Irish god or hero. This

relatively obscure god appears in the story of the

goddess BÓAND, whose river, the Boyne, was said

to arise near a small HILLFORT called Síd

Nechtain, “the FAIRY MOUND of Nechtan.”

Sometimes identified with the better-known god

NUADA, Nechtan was said to have lived originally

in the great stone tumulus called the BRÚ NA

BÓINNE with Bóand, his wife. But Nechtan was

tricked by Bóand, who wished to sleep with the

powerful and well-endowed god, the DAGDA.

They eloped together, and to hide the affair the

Dagda made the sun stand still in the sky for

nine months so that their child could be born

before Nechtan realized what had happened.

That son, AONGHUS Óg, then tricked Nechtan

into giving up possession of the great Brú na

Bóinne by claiming that he alone had been left

Nechtan 349

out when fairy palaces were assigned.

Thereupon, Nechtan moved to another fairy hill

near the river’s source.

He lived there, some legends say, in the form

of a SALMON, although that figure is more com-

monly called FIND or FINTAN. The salmon lived

on the nuts of WISDOM dropped by magical

HAZEL bushes that thrived at the river’s source.

Anyone who could catch and eat the salmon

would be gifted with all its wisdom. Nechtan has

been connected with the continental Celtic god

NODENS, in whose shrine in Britain sculptures of

hooked fish were displayed.

Nechtanebus Irish hero. A supposed Egyp-

tian pharaoh, he was through his daughter

SCOTA an ancestor of the Irish people. Scota

married Míl, the wandering soldier whose chil-

dren, the MILESIANS, were Ireland’s last settlers,

according to the mythological history called the

BOOK OF INVASIONS. Most scholars believe that

work is not factually correct. Despite this doubt,

there were indeed several pharaohs by the name

of Nechtanebus. The name of the hero or god

NECHTAN seems to be derived from this name.

necromancy Cosmological concept. There is

some question as to whether the Celts employed

what is today called necromancy—speaking with

or raising the dead, sometimes with the intention

of gathering information that only they possess.

Folkloric tales describe WITCHES or FAIRIES as

having this ability, but it is unclear whether nor-

mal people could attain it. In Irish texts we find a

description of a long rite employed by a BARD

seeking to gain information through necromancy.

Because parts of the greatest Irish epic, TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE, had been lost, the BARD Senchan

Torpeist did MAGIC for several days that enabled

him to raise the spirit of the great dead hero, FER-

GUS mac Róich, who had participated in the CAT-

TLE RAID that forms the subject of the poem. The

poet managed the difficult feat, memorizing the

missing verses and reciting them aloud to an

assembly of other poets before dying of the effort.

Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in

Celtic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe

Humanities Press, 1911, pp. 151 ff.

Necthan Scéne Irish heroine. An obscure

figure, she appears as the mother of several

heroes who lost their lives to the ULSTER super-

hero

CÚCHULAINN.

need-fire Celtic ritual. FIRE was a potent sym-

bol to the Celts, who viewed it as a seed or essence

of life. Several times each year, fire festivals were

held; these may have begun with the need of agri-

cultural peoples to burn off stubble from fields

and brush from cleared forests and later acquired

a mythological significance as a solar symbol. In

Ireland and on the Isle of Man, such festivals usu-

ally included the dousing of house fires through-

out the land, to be later relighted from the sacral

fires of the festival (see BELTANE).

There would also be times when it was felt

necessary to call upon gods and other powers for

assistance—when famine threatened, for

instance, or when disease ran rampant among

herds or humans, or when WITCHCRAFT was sus-

pected (the latter was documented in Scotland

into relatively recent times). Then the needed

ritual fire would be lit, regardless of the season

or date. House fires would be extinguished, and

designated celebrants (DRUIDS, in ancient times)

made fire with a wooden fire-wheel or with flint.

Once the primary fire was burning, each local

household would relight its hearth fire from it,

thus spreading the intercessory ritual through-

out the land.

In some cases, power was believed to come

only from certain types of wood, which had to be

rubbed together to create a spark for the need-

fire. There were often complex rituals connected

with the need-fire, such as that the spark had to

be captured in hemp, which was then used to

light a candle, which in turn lit a torch, and then

finally a pile of peat or turf bricks. At times only

married men were permitted to swivel the

wooden fire-stakes against each other, suggest-

350 Nechtanebus

ing a sexual symbolism to the fire-making that

was apparently believed constrained by the

men’s marital status. Water was sometimes made

part of the ritual, with a CAULDRON being placed

over the blazing fire; when it came to the boil, it

would be sprinkled over homes, people, herds,

or whatever was in need of protection.

Occasionally need-fires were lit for protection

of women in childbirth, and for their children as

well, for it was believed that when a newly lit need-

fire blazed nearby,

FAIRY KIDNAPPING of infants

was less likely than if the child were unprotected.

The ritual of protection sometimes included car-

rying a blazing brand from the need-fire around

the house or herd in order to purify and protect it.

The tradition of the need-fire lasted long in

Celtic lands. It was recorded to have been lit in

the year 1767 on the Scottish island of Mull,

because a CATTLE disease was spreading ram-

pantly and threatening the stock upon which

people depended for food and livelihood.

Despite the spread of Christianity and the

demonization of ancient rites (the need-fire rit-

ual was called “wicked” by local ministers), the

people climbed the hill of Carnmoor with a

WHEEL and some spindles made of OAK, a tree

sacred to the Celts. All the fires within sight of

the hill were doused, and then the fire-wheel was

spun in a sunwise direction until sparks flew

from it. As this occurred, the witnesses chanted

an incantation, whose words are not recorded.

According to tradition, the wheel had to make

fire before noon, presumably because the sun’s

energy was waxing or growing stronger until

then. For three consecutive days, hours of spin-

ning did not produce sufficient sparks, so people

stopped the process until the next day. When the

need-fire was finally sparked into life, they took

a heifer afflicted with the disease and sacrificed

her, burning the diseased part in the blaze. All

the hearth fires of the region were then lit from

the need-fire, and the rest of the animal was

roasted as a sacrificial feast to be shared.

The ritual of the need-fire was practiced by

Germanic peoples as well as Celtic, as docu-

mented by the great folklorist Jacob Grimm. It is

not clear whether the rite began with Germanic

tribes and spread to nearby Celts, or the reverse.

Sources: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the

Ancient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 199;

MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-Fire Flame:

Folk-Tales and Traditions of the Highlands & Islands.

Edinburgh: The Moray Press, 1937, p. 21.

Nehalennia Continental Celtic goddess. One

of the most important goddesses of the region

we call the Netherlands was Nehalennia, a god-

dess so popular that many large monuments and

carved inscriptions to her have been found in

that relatively small geographical area. She was

the center of a large, popular, and wealthy cult

that involved not only Celts but Roman citizens

as well. That she is little known in contemporary

texts is probably the result of our ignorance of

her mythology. No narratives about Nehalennia

survive; we have only the many sculpted images

dedicated to her, with their elaborate and quite

consistent iconography, to use in interpreting

what she meant to her people.

At two major cult sites on the North Sea,

archaeologists have found temples filled with

large monuments to her. One of these, on the

Island of Walcheren near Domberg, emerged

from the sea on January 5, 1647, as a storm rav-

aged the seacoast. When it subsided, a huge tem-

ple to Nehalennia, dated to the second or third

century C.E., lay uncovered from the seaside

dunes. More than two dozen altars and other

monuments were part of the complex, which was

unfortunately mostly destroyed by fire in 1848.

Records show that much pottery and many

COINS were found on the site, suggesting com-

mercial activity. It was a rich shrine, made of

stone brought from Metz, more than 400 miles

away in what is today Germany. Presumably

Nehalennia was a special goddess to the sea

traders who stopped in this ancient port for pro-

visions, trade, and worship; that they believed she

blessed or controlled their activities is clear from

the wealth they lavished on her shrine.

Nehalennia 351

Another shrine to Nehalennia was discovered

more recently in 1979, when a fisherman work-

ing the waters of the Oosterschelde estuary near

Colijnsplaat found fragments of altars to

Nehalennia. Since then, almost a hundred arti-

facts have been found in the area, thought to be

the temple called Ganuenta, which in late Roman

times flooded and sank beneath the waters of the

estuary. From these two sites with their wealth of

statuary, inscriptions, and other artifacts, it has

been determined that Nehalennia—despite our

ignorance of her mythology—was a significant,

perhaps the most significant, deity to the Celtic

residents of the region.

She may have begun as the ancestral goddess

of the local Celtic tribe, the Morini, but ulti-

mately she was to become a goddess worshiped

by the various travelers through the area, most

of them sea merchants and sailing crews who

made offerings to her for their continued safety

on the often dangerous waters of the North Sea,

where her worship seems to have been concen-

trated. Much of her iconography, not surpris-

ingly, includes nautical imagery: boats, oars, rud-

ders, shells,

FISH, dolphins, and sea monsters.

She was typically shown as a strong young

woman, usually wearing a little cape around her

shoulders and a round cap, which have been

interpreted as a local costume. Usually she was

seated, although sometimes she stood with her

foot resting on the prow of a ship or hauling a

boat by a rope.

Nehalennia’s name has been translated as

“leader” and “woman who steers,” indicating

that her position as goddess of seagoers did not

limit her domain but expressed it symbolically.

She has been described as a goddess of death, the

one who brings her devotees safely home to an

OTHERWORLD beyond this one, which was often

imagined by the Celts as an ISLAND somewhere

off in the western sea. Nehalennia was most

often depicted with a DOG, which in other con-

texts has been interpreted to represent a

guardian of the dead. On most statues, these

large beasts sit attentively at her feet, ears at the

alert, looking more like guard dogs than pets but

with a kindly rather than fierce expression on

their canine faces.

In addition to her connections with the sea,

Nehalennia was also associated with the produc-

tiveness of the land. She was depicted sur-

rounded by symbols of abundance: the full COR-

NUCOPIA, as well as baskets of produce and grain;

on the top of many of her altars were sculpted

representations of heaped fruits, as though they

had been piled upon her altar in offering. So

predominant was this imagery that not a single

image of Nehalennia has been found that does

not include fruits on vegetables: she appears

unconcerned with human or animal fecundity,

focusing instead on that of the vegetative world.

This combination of nautical and agricultural

imagery has been variously interpreted. As a god-

dess of commerce, Nehalennia naturally would

have overseen the ships full of grain that were part

of trade in those times; thus she may have been

invoked for good harvests that would, in turn,

lead to good profits. The imagery may have had a

less selfish motivation, however, for Nehalennia

may have been envisioned as a goddess of the

world’s journey through the seasons. The fact that

some of her altars show cosmic symbols such as

SUN and MOON suggest that Nehalennia’s influ-

ence was much larger than mere commerce but

included all kinds of abundance and prosperity, in

this world and the Otherworld.

Sources: Green, Miranda. Celtic Goddesses:

Warriors, Virgins and Mothers. London: British

Museum Press, 1995, p. 179; Green, Miranda.

Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art.

London: Routledge, 1989, p. 10.

Nemain (Neman, Neamhan) Irish goddess.

One of a trio of war goddesses called the three

Mórrígna, Nemain is the least known, the more

prominent being BADB (“scald crow”) and MÓRRÍ-

GAN (“great queen” or “queen of phantoms”);

Nemain’s name seems to mean “battle panic” or

“frenzy of war.” So frenzied did she make warriors

that they sometimes mistook their friends for

352 Nemain

enemies, resulting in tragedies of the kind today

called “friendly fire,” in which a man is killed by

his own comrades. She is described only briefly in

various texts as confusing warriors with her weird

cries. Like other war goddesses, she was imagined

to take the form of a CROW, which like other car-

rion eaters was often seen hovering over battle-

fields, waiting for a meal. Because her name may

be connected to the Celtic word for an outdoor

shrine,

NEMETON, she may represent the duty of

warriors to protect sacred sites.

Nemed (Neimheadh) Irish god. In the BOOK OF

INVASIONS, Ireland’s mythological history, we read

of this man who was an early settler on the island.

A direct descendant of the biblical Noah through

his son Japheth, Nemed was also descended from

the monster god of Britain, MAGOG. Leaving his

homeland of SCYTHIA, he arrived three decades

after the mysterious people of PARTHOLÓN were

wiped out by an unknown plague, but while the

malevolent beings called the FOMORIANS still

raged through the land. Nemed had set off for

Ireland with an armada of ships, but when his sea-

men saw a tower of GOLD on a shore along the

way, they tried to land in order to enrich them-

selves. The sea was against them, however, and all

the boats but that in which Nemed and his wife

MACHA were traveling were dashed to bits.

Although Nemed kept on toward Ireland, it

took 18 months of sailing before they reached

landfall. Nemed’s people had to fight three bat-

tles to win the right to settle from the fierce

Fomorians, but finally that monstrous race was

defeated, and Nemed set them to work to build

his palace, Rath Chinneich in Armagh. Once

that effort was done, Nemed massacred the

workers so that they could never build a palace

better than his.

It was Nemed who, in honor of his wife

Macha (the first of three goddesses or heroines

by that name), cleared the first fields in the dense

forests of the ancient island. As it happened,

Nemed and his descendants, the Nemedians, did

not long remain in Ireland. After Nemed’s death,

the Fomorians paid back his attack on their peo-

ple by forcing the Nemedians into servitude.

When they tried to escape, their opponents

called upon the winds and seas to crush the

rebellion, and all but one of the Nemedian ships

were overturned into the ocean.

That one carried Macha and Nemed’s son,

FERGUS Lethderg, who moved to the next island

to the east, where with his son Britán (after

whom some claim the island was named; other

sources cite the goddess

BRITANNIA), established

himself and became the ancestral father of the

British people. Another descendant, Semeon,

traveled as far as Greece, where he became the

ancestor of the FIR BOLG, who returned to

Ireland to fight the Fomorians again. Yet other

descendants traveled far to the north where they

became the TUATHA DÉ DANANN, returning to

win Ireland from both the Fir Bolg and the

Fomorians at the two battles of MAG TUIRED.

Related to the Celtic word NEMETON, which

means “sacred place” or “grove,” the name of

this god or hero has been interpreted as meaning

“sacred person” or even DRUID. Some historical

facts seem to hide in the complex tales of the

Book of Invasions. The Nemedians were appar-

ently a Celtic people who had resided for some

time in Ireland and then moved to Britain,

where they remained powerful until the arrival

of the Germanic peoples called the Angles and

Saxons. Unfortunately, attempts to interpret the

Book of Invasions in light of actual settlement pat-

terns are invariably conjectural.

Sources: MacAlister, R. A. Stewart. Lebor Gabála

Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Part 3.

Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1941, pp. 115–200;

O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish History and

Mythology. Dublin: The Dublin Institute for

Advanced Studies, 1946, p. 76.

Nemedians See NEMED.

Nemetius Continental Celtic god. The

grammatical form of the Latinized name has led

Nemetius 353