Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

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oak Symbolic plant. Large and impressively

long-lived, the oak was one of the most impor-

tant TREES to the Celts. In part, this was because

of the oak’s usefulness: It provides abundant

acorns, which were in ancient times a favored

food of PIGS, whose flesh then became part of

the human diet; its long-lasting wood is sought

after for building; its bark produces a substance

useful for tanning leather. The oak’s usefulness

extended to the spiritual plane as well; accord-

ing to Roman author Pliny the Elder, the Celts

harvested MISTLETOE from oak trees for ritual

use in curing disease and encouraging human

FERTILITY.

Oak forests were common in continental

Gaul, where we find early evidence of their

sanctity: Construction of oak funeral houses by

HALLSTATT and LA TÈNE peoples suggests that

the tree was connected with the afterlife or

OTHERWORLD. The oak may have been associ-

ated with a specific god, although which one is

not clear, because documents date only to

Roman times, when Maximum Tyrius claimed

the oak symbolized the father of gods, who lived

within the tree; the so-called Jupiter columns

(JUPITER being the Roman version of Zeus)

found in Gaulish temples have been interpreted

as indoor substitutes for great trees dedicated to

the god.

Although trees in general were sacred to the

Celts, who practiced their rituals in NEMETONS

or sacred groves, the Celtic priesthood of

DRUIDS held the oak to be the most sacred tree;

indeed, the very word druid is connected to an

ancient word for “oak.” The Roman poet

Lucan described the druids as using acorns in

their prophetic rituals, masticating them until

they saw visions; the story is hard to credit,

because no hallucinatory substances have been

isolated in acorns. Wooden images from the

pre-Roman and Roman periods have been

found, carved of the strong and lasting wood of

the oak.

Belief in the sanctity of the oak survived into

the post-Celtic era, when folklore envisioned the

oak as a living being that, when cut, cried out or

took revenge upon the forester, maiming or

killing him as it fell. An oak was believed to make

a desperate racket when felled, loud enough to

be heard a mile away. FAIRY folk were thought to

live in or around oaks; together with the ASH and

the THORN, the oak constituted the sacred tree

trinity that marked fairy places.

The centrality of the oak in ancient Celtic

life can still be detected in names that embody

the tree: the Celtic capital of the Galacians in

Turkey, Drunemeton (“sacred oak grove”); and

the Irish abbey towns of KILDARE (“church of the

oak”) and of Durrow (“plain of oaks”).

Sources: Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in

Celtic Religious Art. London: Routledge, 1989,

364

p. 152; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies

in Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge

& Kegan Paul, 1967, p. 33.

oakmen British folkloric figures. Occasionally

in the north of England, references are found in

oral literature to FAIRY people who lived in great

OAKS; an old rhyme holds that “fairy folks/are in

old oaks.” Especially powerful were oaks that

regenerated themselves after being cut; the

saplings that came forth in such circumstances

were regarded with awe. In the Cotswolds each

village had a sacred tree, usually an oak, where

fairy beings were believed to hide. The artist

Beatrix Potter used the tradition in her book The

Fairy Caravan, in which oak people wore toad-

stools for caps.

Source: Briggs, Katharine M. The Folklore of the

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

p. 121.

oath Ritual act. Calling upon divine forces to

witness the truth of a statement is known in

many societies, including those of the Celts, who

put great stock in verbal truthfulness—perhaps

because they had no written language. Oaths

were made by calling upon either gods or ele-

mental powers (SUN, MOON, air), who would

punish the speaker for lying; a common form of

the oath among the radically polytheistic Celts

was, “I swear by the gods my people swear by.”

Source: Cowan, Tom. “The Pledge to the

Elements.” In Patricia Monaghan, ed. Irish

Spirit: Pagan, Celtic, Christian, Global. Dublin:

Wolfhound Press, 2001.

Oberon (Auberon, Oberycome) British folk-

loric figure. Oberon makes a memorable appear-

ance in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer

Night’s Dream as a king of FAIRYLAND whose

quarrel with his consort TITANIA prompts him to

meddle in the love affair of humans astray in the

forest. Oberon, who also appears in French and

British romances, is more a literary than a

mythological character. He is associated with the

fairy queens Titania and MAB.

Ocean Sweeper (Aigéan scuabadoir) Irish

mythological object. One of the great treasures

of the Irish

OTHERWORLD was a boat that moved

through the sea under the power of its pilot’s

thoughts. Brought from the Otherworld by the

heroic

LUGH, the magic boat became the prop-

erty of the ocean god MANANNÁN MAC LIR.

Ocelus Welsh and British god. This obscure

god, known from only a few inscriptions, was

associated by the Romans with MARS.

Ochall Ochne Irish mythological figure. A

FAIRY king from the western province of CON-

NACHT, Ochall Ochne played a minor role in the

greatest of Irish epics, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE. It

was his swineherd, RUCHT, who had an unending

argument with another swineherd named

FRIUCH; the two were born and reborn in differ-

ent forms until they became the two great BULLS

who killed each other at the epic’s end.

Ochren (Coinchenn, Corrgend) Irish mytho-

logical site. This name is occasionally used of an

Otherworldly place beneath the ocean where

FAIRY people disported themselves by dancing in

labyrinthine patterns.

Octriallach Irish hero. The monstrous FOMO-

RIANS, one of the early races of mythological Irish

settlers, are rarely known as individuals but

appear rather as a frightening and murderous

mass under the leadership of their king, BALOR of

the Evil Eye. An exception is this spy who

learned the secrets of the Fomorians’ opponents,

the TUATHA DÉ DANANN. DIAN CÉCHT, the

Tuatha Dé physician, bathed their wounded in

the magical WELL of Slaine, which healed all

Octriallach 365

their wounds (it could not, however, reconnect

amputated limbs or HEADS). When he discovered

this, Octriallach decommissioned the well by fill-

ing it with earth, whereupon he was killed by

OGMA, the god of eloquence.

Odras Irish heroine. A LAKE in Co.

Roscommon, in Ireland’s western province of

CONNACHT, was named for this brave girl,

daughter (or wife) of the hostel-keeper Buchat

Buasach. When the MÓRRÍGAN, the great death-

queen, stole Odras’s cow to mate with her own

OTHERWORLD bull, Slemuin the Smooth, Odras

was bold—or foolhardy—enough to go after the

thief. She traveled to OWEYNAGAT, the cave

beneath the great provincial capital CRUACHAN,

hoping to redeem her loss. There an enchant-

ment overtook her, and she fell asleep under an

OAK tree, just short of penetrating to the

Mórrígan’s domain. She never awoke, for the

Mórrígan turned her into the small lake that

bears her name, to keep her from reclaiming her

stolen cow.

Source: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

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

1906–1924, p. 22.

Óenach (Aonach) Irish ritual assembly. At

regular intervals, the Celtic peoples of Ireland

gathered at sacred spots to celebrate seasonal rit-

uals intended to recognize the honor of the nat-

ural cycle while restoring the ancient union of

the tribe. As the ancient Irish lived in relatively

small groups in somewhat isolated spots, such

assemblies served many purposes other than the

paramount religious ones. HORSES and CATTLE

were traded; young people met and courted;

laborers were hired; contracts between other-

wise distant parties were established. Some of

the important Óenachs were those on BELTANE

at the sacred hill UISNEACH in the center of

Ireland, and on LUGHNASA at the site dedicated

to the goddess TAILTIU.

Sources: Aitchison, N. B. Armagh and the Royal

Centres in Early Medieval Ireland: Monuments,

Cosmology and the Past. Rochester, N.Y.: Crithne

Press/Boydell & Brewer, 1994; Raftery, Brian.

Pagan Celtic Ir

eland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron

Age. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994, pp.

81 ff.

Oengus See AONGHUS.

Ogalla Irish mythological site. The Celts

revered WATER, both fresh and salt, and many

myths are situated at or near water. Streams and

WELLS—pure water that springs forth from under-

ground—figure importantly in Irish myth and leg-

end. One such narrative tells of two princesses of

CONNACHT, EITHNE and FEDELM, who went to

bathe one morning in the holy SPRING of Ogalla,

near the great capital city of CRUACHAN. There

they encountered men who, dressed in white,

looked to them like DRUIDS. They were not; it was

ST. PATRICK and his followers.

The girls questioned Patrick about his god.

Where, the girls asked, is that god located,

whether in the earth or the sky or the sea? Does

he have fine daughters, and are his sons beautiful

to look upon? Patrick assured the princesses that

the Christian god was all they desired (skirting

the question of that god’s “daughters”). Thus he

converted the princesses of Connacht, who then

chose to die instantly upon baptism rather than

linger in the sinful world. The end of the story is

as clearly un-Celtic as the questions the girls

posed were pagan.

ogham (ogam) Celtic symbolic system. The

Celtic people did not practice writing as defined

today; they did not use alphabetic letters nor pic-

torial script to spell out words. Religious, ritual,

and historical material was committed to mem-

ory by the DRUIDS, who believed that such mate-

rial was too precious to be written and thus at

risk of coming into the possession of those

unprepared to understand or appreciate its

366 Odras

meaning and value. For this reason we have no

written mythology, no prayer books, not even

historical works from the Celts themselves. We

have instead only writings by people who came

into contact with them (often through war) and

by later descendants (often Christian monks);

thus we must be careful to evaluate written

sources on Celtic material to discern political or

religious bias.

The fact that the Celts were not literate

does not mean they lacked literature or were

unintelligent. The lack of interest in—some

would say taboo against—writing was based in

the importance of speech, which was held to

have great power. Even today, eloquent speech

is especially valued as a human talent in the

ancient Celtic lands.

The Celts did have a symbolic script system

called ogham, said to have been invented by

OGMA, god of eloquence, or by BRIGIT, goddess of

poetry. Whether ogham developed after contact

with and in response to literate cultures is not

clear, although many argue that it was inspired by

the Latin alphabet. The ogham “letters” were

lines drawn horizontally and diagonally on wood;

there are 20 different combinations of strokes.

Epics refer to libraries of wooden wands

inscribed with such lines, but wood does not typ-

ically endure for centuries; the inscriptions that

have been found—fewer than 400—are all carved

on stone, most giving only a single name or title.

These ogham tablets predominantly come from

the southwestern Irish province of MUNSTER,

where some argue the script was invented in

between the third and fourth centuries C.E., but

tablets have been found in Wales and Scotland as

well. See TREE ALPHABET.

Ogma (Oghma, Ogme) Irish god. This Irish

god is believed parallel or cognate to the conti-

nental Celtic god OGMIOS. He was the son of the

beneficent father god, the DAGDA, and father of

the important goddess ÉTAIN and of the poet

CAIRBRE mac Éadaoine. Although he has little

legend, Ogma is said to have invented the writ-

ing script called, after him, OGHAM. He was also

eloquent of speech and a great poet.

Ogmia British god. Assumed to be a British

version of the continental Celtic god of elo-

quence OGMIOS and the Irish god OGMA, Ogmia

was depicted by Romano-Celtic artists as a

curly-haired youth with rays erupting from his

head. Nothing is known of his myth or cult.

Ogmios (Ogmioc) Continental Celtic god.

The Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata, in the

second century C.E., connected Ogmios with the

powerful classical hero HERCULES, although it

seems clear that the strength of the Celtic god

was rather verbal than physical; Ogmios was

depicted as a dark-skinned bald man dragging

people around by chains that stretched between

his tongue and their ears, symbolizing the power

eloquence has over its listeners. For this

metaphorical strength he is called Trenfher,

“strong man.” Ogmios’s advanced age suggests

that fine speech is a gift of maturity rather than

youth. In some contexts, Ogmios, described

bringing the dead to the OTHERWORLD, was asso-

ciated with the Otherworldly divinity DIS PATER.

Ogniad Irish heroine or goddess. This

obscure figure was the daughter of the impor-

tant FAIRY king MIDIR and mother of the hero

SIGMALL, but little is known of her except that

she was lawless and self-willed. Whether her

own mother was Midir’s consort ÉTAIN is unclear

from textual evidence.

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. 9.

Ogyrvran (Ogyrven) Welsh hero. In Welsh

folklore and literature, we find mention of this

GIANT who owned a CAULDRON from which

inspiration arose in the forms of sprites or

Ogyrvran 367

FAIRIES. He may be a folkloric memory of a local

version of OGMIOS, the Celtic god of eloquence,

to whom his name seems related.

Source: Spence, Lewis. The Minor Traditions of

British Mythology. New York: Benjamin Blom,

Inc., 1972, p. 82.

Oirbsen Irish god. This obscure term was an

alternate name or title of the shape-shifting god

of the sea, MANNANÁN MAC LIR, who drowned in

a lake called Loch Oirbsen (now Lough Corrib).

Oisín (Oshin, Ossian, Oisin) Irish hero. The

poet of the FIANNA, the band of warriors who fol-

lowed the great hero FIONN MAC CUMHAILL,

Oisín was named “little fawn” because of the fur

across his eyebrows, left when his mother SADB

licked her newborn while still wearing her

enchanted DEER shape. He grew into the most

eloquent of his peers and, like many other poets,

drew the attention of a FAIRY LOVER. In Oisín’s

case, this mistress the most beautiful fairy of them

all, NIAMH of the Golden Hair, who stole him

away from his human wife, the blonde beauty

Eibhir. Oisín traveled to her land far beyond the

western waves, TIR TAIRNGIRI, the land of prom-

ise, and lived with her for several happy weeks. Or

at least it felt like weeks to Oisín—but because

time passes differently in FAIRYLAND than it does

here, Oisín was actually away for three centuries,

during which time his friends died and Ireland

changed almost beyond recognition.

When he finally grew homesick, Oisín pre-

vailed upon Niamh to let him visit earthly reality

again. She grudgingly agreed and even provided

him a magical horse, warning him that he was

under no circumstances to touch the ground.

(This common motif in folklore invariably indi-

cates that someone will, in fact, touch the

ground.) And so Oisín went home, and he failed

to attend to Niamh’s warning—although sources

differ as to whether Oisín’s saddle gave way, or he

leaned down to help a beggar, or he was overcome

with desire to feel earth beneath his feet again.

In any case, when Oisín touched the ground,

his many years instantly came over him. He was

no longer the hale and healthy lad who had left

Niamh. He grew stooped and gray, then died and

turned to dust, all in the wink of an eye. In some

versions of the story, Oisín lived long enough to

debate the values of Ireland’s ancient paganism

with ST. PATRICK, and to recognize the value of

the Christian way enough to be baptized.

A character named Ossian, invented by the

19th-century Scottish poet James Macpherson,

was credited with the creation of a number of

poems that Macpherson himself had written,

inspired by the oral literature of his native land.

When it was revealed that there was, in fact, no

ancient Scottish poet named Ossian whose work

had been translated, Macpherson was disgraced

and the “Ossian forgeries” were dismissed as

sentimental. Yet Macpherson’s work was influen-

tial, especially in Germany where it inspired the

emergent Romantic poets.

Sources: Cross, Tom Peete, and Clark Harris

Slover, eds. Ancient Irish Tales. New York:

Henry Holt and Co., 1936, p. 439; Joyce, P. W.

Ancient Celtic Romances. London: Parkgate

Books, 1997, pp. 385 ff; Kennedy, Patrick.

Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:

Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 40.

Olca Ái Irish hero. The GIANT Olca Ái once

so frightened the women of the capital of

CON-

NACHT, Ireland’s western province, that they fled

across the land and, still terrified, drowned

themselves when they reached a large body of

water. The LAKE in which they perished bears

the name of their leader, ERNE. Some have inter-

preted the rough-hewn stone sculptures found

on White Island in Lough Erne as representing

the giant and one of the maidens.

ollam (ollamh, ollave) Irish bardic title. The

highest of the seven level of FILI or poet, the

ollam was prepared to recite all of the 250 impor-

tant stories of the land and 100 of the lesser tales.

368 Oirbsen

Ollamh Fódhla (Ollam Fodla, Ollamh Fodhla)

Legendary Irish king. This HIGH KING was said

to have mounted the throne of TARA in 714 B.C.E.

and to have first codified the law of the land. His

name seems to mean “poet of FÓDLA,” (Fódla

being one of the goddesses of the Irish land); as

poets were also BREHONS or judges, Ollamh may

have held that position before being elevated to

the kingship.

Ollipheist Irish mythological being. A large

snaky creature, the Ollipheist wriggled through

the soil of ancient Ireland, creating a gully down

which water flowed to form the River Shannon.

See LISCANNOR.

Ollototae Romanized British goddess, or

Roman goddess. An inscription to this multiple

goddess was found at Chester, although it is

unclear whether the divinity was a Celtic god-

dess translated into Roman form, or a Roman

adaptation of the Celtic earth goddess.

Olloudios (Ollouidias, Olludio) Continental

Celtic and British god. This relatively obscure

Gaulish god may have been a local divinity

(GENIUS LOCI) worshiped in a TREE, for his name

seems to derive from two words for “great tree”

or “giant tree” (ollo-vidio). His special region was

the islands off the south of France called the

Antibes, where he was honored by the tribe

called the Narbonenses. Olloudios was also

found in Britain, where in Gloucester he was

depicted as having huge ears that stuck out from

his head like wings.

Source: Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in

Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul, 1967, pp. 37, 172.

Olmec (Oílmelc) See IMBOLC.

Olwen Welsh heroine or goddess. The Welsh

tale of KULHWCH AND OLWEN centers on this

heroine, who may descend from an earlier god-

dess. There are many indications that she was

originally a SUN goddess: her name, which

appears to mean “leaving white footprints” or

“golden wheel”; her red-gold necklace and many

golden rings; her streaming yellow hair; and her

power to raise white flowers from every step she

took. The hero KULHWCH wished to marry her,

but her father

YSPADDADEN PENKAWR (“giant

hawthorn tree”) opposed the match because he

believed it would be the death of him (the same

motif is found in the apparently parallel Irish

story of BALOR of the Evil Eye and his daughter

EITHNE, courted by the hero CIAN). Yspaddaden

placed 13 obstacles (possibly the 13 lunar

months) in Kulhwch’s path, but with Olwen’s

assistance the hero won her hand.

omen Cosmological symbol. To see an omen is

not necessarily to see into the future, despite the

most common understanding of the word. Omens

may be portents hinting at events to come, but

they can also point to an event that has already

happened in a distant place and so can be a form

of far-seeing. Belief in omens has been part of

every culture, for there are always those who wish

to know more than their senses can tell them. In

the case of the Celts, we find omens typically asso-

ciated with unusual behavior of animals or stars;

sometimes it is difficult to discern whether such

behavior predicted, or caused, bad luck. In some

cases, ritual relief was suggested; for instance, if

one caught sight of the new MOON through a win-

dow, bowing THREE times to the moon would

ward off the bad luck that otherwise followed.

Things out of place or in the wrong season

were typically interpreted as omens or portents:

A RAT seen at sea was considered among Scots

sailors to be a sign that someone aboard would

drown. Similarly any peculiar juxtaposition of

objects or beings could represent an omen:

Those same Scots sailors believed that seeing a

rat or mouse in a sieve was a sure signal of dan-

ger to anyone at sea that evening, for their boat

would spring as many leaks as the sieve had holes.

omen 369

The Irish specified many omens of death:

gaps in a sown field, a hen cackling on the roost,

a DOG howling for three nights in a row.

Horseshoes were oracular, for if they were found

with the closed end pointing away, bad luck was

coming, but if pointed toward the finder, good

luck was approaching.

Sources: Carmichael, Alexander. Carmina Gadelica:

Hymns and Incantations. Hudson, N.Y.:

Lindisfarne Press, 1992, pp. 176–178; Harland,

John, and T. T. W

ilkinson. Lancashire Legends.

London: George Routledge and Sons, 1873,

pp. 228 ff; Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish

Highlands. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976,

p. 94.

Oona (Ona) See ÚNA.

Oppida Archaeological site. This Latin word

is used to describe ancient Celtic towns such as

that found at LA TÉNE in Switzerland. The large

fortified settlements of the sixth–fifth centuries

B.C.E. were built in easily defensible positions

(on heights or promontories) and were often

located near mineral deposits, which provided

the settlement’s source of wealth.

oracle Symbolic object or event. Systems of

DIVINATION often require the employment of

oracles to indicate the future. Flights of birds,

unusual weather, untimely blossoming: All these

and many other occurrences could predict the

outcome of events. Typically oracles were things

dislocated in place (a seashell found on a moun-

tain) or time (a tree blossoming in winter). A dis-

tinction is sometimes made between

OMENS,

which predict ill-fortune, and the more neutral

or positive oracle. The word is also used to

describe a prophet; that usage is more typically

classical, as in the Oracle of Dephi in Greece,

rather than Celtic.

oracular head See HEAD.

Orc Triath Irish mythological beast. The

Irish corollary to the Welsh TWRCH TRWYTH was

a magical BOAR owned by the goddess BRIGIT.

Orlám Irish hero. One of the sons of queen

MEDB and king AILILL mac Máta of the western

province of CONNACHT, Orlám was one of the

first to die at the hands of the great hero

CÚCHU-

LAINN on the CATTLE RAID known as the TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE. Orlám’s charioteer carried his master’s

head to Medb and Ailill, and for his efforts got

brained with a stone thrown by Cúchulainn.

Oscar (Osgar) Irish and Scottish hero. The

son of the poet OISÍN and his human wife Eibhir,

he was the grandson of the hero FIONN MAC

CUMHAILL. Oscar followed his father by becom-

ing a member of the FIANNA, the band of war-

riors that fought with Fionn. His name means

“deer lover” and refers to his descent from his

grandmother, Oisín’s mother SADB, who had

been enchanted into the form of a deer.

The fiercest of the Fianna warriors, Oscar led

the group called “the terrible broom” because it

swept clean any battlefield. After the death of his

grandfather, Oscar became the head of the

mighty band. When they were finally defeated

in the battle of Gabhra, Oscar killed the leader

of their foes, the high king CAIRBRE, but died of

wounds from that battle. His wife, AIDÍN, wept

herself to death when his father Oisín bore him

away to the OTHERWORLD.

Source: Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the West

Highlands. Vol. III. Edinburgh: Edmonston and

Douglas, 1862, pp. 295 ff.

Otherworld Cosmological concept. This

term is used to describe an alternative reality

that was the home of spirits and divinities and

the beloved dead. This folkloric belief is found

in lands where the Celts formerly lived, giving

rise to the supposition that it descends from

Celtic religion, but there is also the possibility

370 Oona

that the Celts adopted the concept from indige-

nous people whom they conquered. Not a

“heaven” like that envisioned by Christian

believers as above and separate from this earth,

the Celtic Otherworld existed nearby, though

just out of reach. Sometimes it rested on an

ISLAND in the ocean that floated unfettered

through time or space. Such an island might

appear only every seven years, or it might

move around the ocean and appear in different

locations. At other times, the Otherworld was

imagined as beneath a hill, often an old fort (see

HILLFORT), which opened to reveal an entire vast

city. Shadowy and liminal not-here, not-there

places such as BOGS, CAVES, and reedy shores

were also seen as gates to the Otherworld.

People of this world could visit the Otherworld

by accident or design. They could be stolen away,

usually by a FAIRY LOVER who wished to take pleas-

ure with a handsome human lover. Musicians were

likely to be kidnapped (see FAIRY KIDNAPPING); if

they played well for the Otherworldly dances, they

might be granted a special tune to play once they

returned to earth. Midwives were stolen to help

with Otherworldly births; it was important that

they not question their kidnappers but do their

jobs quietly and hope for a speedy return home.

Babies could be stolen, for human infants were

more beautiful than those born in the Otherworld;

these could be reclaimed through various rituals

and tricks (see CHANGELING).

Those of this world did not have to await kid-

napping to reach the Otherworld, for at certain

times the doors would swing open. Such was the

case with the great Celtic holidays of BELTANE

(May 1) and SAMHAIN (November 1), which

remained magical in folklore long after

Christianization of Celtic lands. Liminal times

like dawn, and shadowy weather conditions,

could also provide moments when the

Otherworld could break through to this one, or

visitors from this world could gain access there.

In the Otherworld time moved slowly, so that

an hour spent there could be a century here. As

a result, Otherworldly dwellers did not age and

rarely died. There was no illness or pain or bad

weather there, but only beautiful sunny days that

were passed in dancing and song. Trees of the

Otherworld bore fruit and flowers at the same

time; the food served there was impossibly tasty

but never filling.

Many names are used of the Otherworld:

MAG MELL (“plain of honey”), TIR NA NOG (“land

of youth”), and HY-BRÂZIL (the island of Bres,

after which the South American country of

Brazil was named). Some scholars have derived

the word

AVALON, used of the mysterious and

powerful place of Arthurian legend, from the

phrase EMAIN ABLACH (“island of apples”), used

to describe the Otherworld.

See also NAMES FOR THE OTHERWORLD.

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

Celtic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe

Humanities Press, 1911, pp. 332–338; Löffler,

Christa Maria. The Voyage to the Otherworld

Island in Early Irish Literature. Salzburg Studies

in English Literatur

e. Salzburg, Institut Für

Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität

Salzburg, 1983; O’Rahilly, Thomas. Early Irish

History and Mythology. Dublin: The Dublin

Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946, p. 328;

Patch, Howard Rollin. The Other W

orld:

According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

1950, pp. 27 ff.

otter Symbolic animal. Both the Irish and the

Scottish Highlanders believed that this sleek,

playful water mammal had the powers of the

OTHERWORLD. Otters were believed to live in

kingdoms like humans, ruled over by an otter

king (sometimes called Dorraghow or DOB-

HARCHÚ) whose skin was worth a fortune. It was

hard to catch such a creature, for it was virtually

invulnerable; a bit of white fur under its chin

showed the only point where it could be killed.

Despite the value of the pelt, killing the king

otter was costly, for the murderer (whether

human or dog) would die soon after, apparently

taken out of revenge by the otter-people.

otter 371

Some felt that the king otter’s pelt was worth

even that price, for a fragment of the hide would

protect an entire household from harm.

Soldiers going off to war believed that they

would be protected from death at the front if

they carried a portion of the skin of a king otter.

According to tradition, the only ones who

escaped the historic massacre of the followers of

Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden were those

carrying king-otter skin. In Ireland a purse

made from the skin of the king otter would be

forever filled with coins, making its owner fab-

ulously wealthy.

Sources: MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin. The Peat-

Fire Flame: Folk-Tales and Traditions of the

Highlands & Islands. Edinburgh: The Moray

Press, 1937, p. 132; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí. Irish

Superstitions. London: Gill & Macmillan, 1995,

pp. 55–57.

Owein (Owain, Iwein, Yvain, Owein fab

Urien) Arthurian hero. In an Arthurian text

from Wales (The Dream of Rhonabwy), this name

is given to a knight of CAMELOT, son of king

URIEN and king ARTHUR’s sorceress half sister

MORGAN. One day, while adventuring abroad,

Owein heard of a land that suffered under the

scourge of a mysterious Black Knight. He traced

the Knight to a forest (see BROCÉLIANDE) and

defeated the villain there. There too he found a

fountain, guarded by a lovely maiden named

LUNED, who helped him win the heart of her

mistress, an even lovelier maiden whose only

name was the LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN.

Despite pledging to be true to her, Owein

was unable to fulfill his vow, leaving her to go

adventuring with king Arthur and forgetting to

return. The Lady’s servant Luned followed him

to Camelot, where she shamed him before the

other knights for his faithlessness. He fled into

the forest, where he finally healed himself suffi-

ciently to become a knight again. Adventuring

about the land in knightly fashion, he encoun-

tered Luned again, whom he rescued from an

imprisoning GIANT. To repay his assistance,

Luned arranged a reconciliation between Owein

and the Lady of the Fountain.

Oweynagat (Cave of Cruachan, Cave of

the Cats) Irish mythological site. In Co.

Roscommon, in Ireland’s western province of

CONNACHT, there is a tiny CAVE of huge mythic

importance. Oweynagat is part of the great

archaeological complex of

CRUACHAN, the

ancient capital of the province of Connacht cen-

tered on the fort of its goddess-queen MEDB.

Still visible and accessible in a small field on the

edge of the complex, 700 meters southwest of

the great mound where Medb’s palace was said

to stand, the cave’s opening is quite small, some

three feet high by four feet wide, formed by a

medieval souterrain or underground passage.

After that narrow opening, the cave opens up to

a huge cathedral-like space.

Oweynagat figures prominently in ancient

Irish myth and legend. It was the birthplace of

Medb herself. The goddess and fairy queen

ÉTAIN, fleeing with her FAIRY lover MIDIR from

her human husband, stopped at Oweynagat with

her companions, who included her maidservant

CROCHAN Crogderg, whose name means

“blood-red cup.” Midir was said to have wanted

to visit a relative who lived in the cave, the oth-

erwise unknown Sinech (“large-breasted one”),

for whom he had great affection. At the end of

their stay, Crochan was so enamored of the

place—which although it seems only a dingy

cave, is a great palace in the OTHERWORLD—that

she begged to stay. Étain and Midir gave her the

cave, and so it was there that Crochan’s daughter

Medb was born.

Oweynagat also appears in the ADVENTURE

tale about one of her servants, a man named

NERA who saved Cruachan from an attack by

Otherworldly forces with the assistance of a

fairy woman whom he met in the cave and mar-

ried. She warned him that Medb’s beautiful

palace would be burned to the ground the fol-

lowing SAMHAIN, a warning that brought the

forces of Medb and AILILL mac Máta into the

cave to eliminate the danger. As with other

372 Owein

tales, this one associates the cave with the feast

of Samhain.

The cave is also associated with the great fig-

ure that shadows Medb throughout the epic

through which she is most known, the TÁIN BÓ

CUAILNGE or CATTLE RAID on CUAILNGE—the

MÓRRÍGAN, who drove her Otherworldly cattle

into the cave each sunset. She may be the one

who flew out of the cave, called “the hell-mouth

of Ireland” in medieval documents, for appari-

tions were said to appear there, especially on the

magical Celtic festival of Samhain (November 1)

when the veils between the worlds were thin and

even those without

SECOND SIGHT could see

beyond this world and into the next.

The Mórrígan was known to have stolen the

herds of a girl named ODRAS and to have driven

them down into the cave of Oweynagat.

Undeterred by Mórrígan’s fierce reputation,

Odras pursued her, trying to regain the cattle

upon which she relied. She got almost to

Mórrígan’s domain, but the great queen was more

powerful than the girl and turned her into a lake.

How the cave got its name is unknown; no

CATS appear in its folklore or myth. An oracular

cave in Connacht where a cat was consulted by

fortune-tellers is recorded in some texts, but its

location is not given, so it is unclear whether

Oweynagat is intended. Oweynagat is much

more commonly associated with CATTLE than

with cats; not only does the Mórrígan drive her

cattle through the cave, but a woman was said to

have traveled underground for many miles,

dragged there by a calf to whose tail she clung.

In a text from the 18th century, the cave was

described as the “Hell-mouth of Ireland,” sug-

gesting that the deities and spirits who had been

believed to live within Oweynagat were still

imagined as active, if diabolical. The cave is still

accessible, although its frighteningly tiny entry

makes it one of the least-visited of Ireland’s great

mythological sites.

Sources: Dames, Michael. Mythic Ireland. London:

Thames and Hudson, 1992, pp. 237–239;

Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture Series.

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

1906–1924, p. 22.

owl Symbolic animal. The majestic power of

the night-hunting owl was recognized by people

around the world. To the Celts, the owl symbol-

ized age and its attendant wisdom. The most

renowned owl in Celtic literature is the trans-

formed Welsh flower-bride

BLODEUWEDD, who

was turned into an owl as punishment for

betraying her husband and persuading her lover

to kill him. We also find an owl (the Owl of

Cwm Cawlwyd) in the Welsh epic of KULHWCH

AND OLWEN, but the wise bird was unable to pro-

vide the hero with the information he needed to

find his lover. In Ireland a vestigial owl goddess

is found in the figure of Echtach, sister or dou-

ble of the cannibal goddess Eghchte.

Some have interpreted the great spiraling

patterns that appear in eye-like pairs on some

pre-Celtic monuments in Ireland, Britain, and

France as representing an owl-faced goddess.

This controversial viewpoint links those

ancient monuments to others in the eastern and

central Mediterranean.

ox Symbolic animal. Although this word is not

always accurately used, sometimes merely indi-

cating CATTLE, it actually means a castrated

BULL, usually of the domestic bovine species.

Because removing the testosterone-producing

testes from an animal typically produces a more

peaceable disposition as well as weight gain, and

because having too many ambitious bulls in a

herd could lead to fighting and thus loss of pre-

cious animal life, some animals were transformed

from bulls into oxen early in life. They then were

used for hauling, for their great bulk gave them

great strength; they also found their way into the

stewpot. Oxen are less important in myth and

legend than either COWS or bulls, but occasion-

ally they appear to represent strength and

endurance. Similarly, landscape features named

for oxen were typically monumental; thus we

find, in the west of Ireland, a powerful range of

hills called the Ox Mountains.

ox 373