Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore
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known from more than one site. It is possible
that the number of divinities may have been
somewhat smaller if each god had many titles,
as the second person of the Christian trinity is
known as “Jesus,” “Lord,” “Christ,” “Savior,”
“Son of Man,” and so forth. Sometimes the
same image appears in different locations under
different names; it is difficult to know if that
indicates regional or tribal manifestations of a
similar divine power or the same god under dif-
ferent titles.
Unlike the Greeks and Romans, the Celts
had no organized hierarchical pantheon, no list
of gods and goddesses arranged in order of
power. Rather, there seems to have been a con-
cept that divinity was deeply linked to place and,
through place, to people. In Irish, the word
TUATH meant a people and the place they lived;
each region had a divinity that represented the
land, the land’s SOVEREIGNTY, and the people
connected with that land. This is most forcefully
expressed by the goddesses of the Irish land, but
similar conceptions seem to be found in other
Celtic regions, where numerous divinities per-
sonify the powers of SPRINGS, RIVERS, river
sources, lakeshores, and other sites.
From this place-based polytheism, some
scholars have argued, grew a passionate love of
the natural world, which is found expressed in
Celtic poetry and in the folkways of Celtic coun-
tries. Rituals were linked to the passage of sea-
sons; OMENS were drawn from the flight of birds
and from other natural phenomena; stories were
told that explained the ways myth and place
intersected. Some have argued that there was an
implied monism in Celtic culture—that while
not seeing a single divinity as monotheism does,
the Celts saw a unity in nature that could be
expressed as a singular being—but there is no
evidence of a hierarchy that places one god
above others. Thus the arrival of Christianity in
Celtic lands meant the adoption of and adapta-
tion to a new worldview.
Source: Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 184 ff.
pooka (púca, phouka; in Wales, pwca; in England,
pouke, puck) Irish folkloric character. The
spectral figure of the pooka was a familiar part of
Irish folklore, although there is great diversity in
its description. Often it was said to be a white
HORSE, but sometimes it appeared as a BLACK
DOG. It also could appear in the form of a GOAT,
who lived in the woods and had a tremendous
capacity for leaping over fences and other obsta-
cles. It may not derive from Celtic mythology,
which knows nothing quite like it, but from that
of the Danes, who had a similar figure called
Pukí. The pooka became, in Welsh, pwca, who
appears as Robin Goodfellow, the half-goat,
mischief-making Puck whom Shakespeare evoked
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Britain the
puck was a
SHAPE-SHIFTER who tended to appear
in human form.
Sometimes the pooka was friendly, helping
farmers who treated it kindly, as in the story of
the boy who made friends with a pooka and soon
found that a half-dozen were living in the barn,
doing the farm’s work. As with any such OTHER-
WORLD being, however, the pooka refused pay,
and when the boy made a little suit for the
pooka, it disappeared. In the famous story of the
Pooka of Kildare, the being appeared as a don-
key, but when given clothing by the farm work-
ers it disappeared.
Often the pooka was a harbinger of doom,
indicating bad luck on the way. One tale
describes how a pooka, in the form of a goat,
leaped onto a man’s shoulders; when he went
home, he took to his bed and was unable to
move for three weeks with intense pain,
although there was no visible mark from the
attack. The pooka attacked most often after
SAMHAIN, the Celtic feast of November 1 when
winter began, and was thought by some to be the
cause of plants’ blighting in that season. In its
horse form, it would take its victims on a wild
ride, flying through the air in terrifying fashion
and leaving the unfortunate rider far from where
he started.
The Irish center of pooka appearances is in
the southwestern province of MUNSTER, where a
384 pooka
castle called Castle Pooka near Doneraile (where
the English poet Edmund Spenser wrote The
Faerie Queene) is said to be haunted by one; a rock
called Carrig-a-Phooka, west of the little market
town of Macroom, is a common site of visitation;
and on the island of Melaam near Kenmare,
frightening noises attributed to the pooka are
regularly emitted during storms and dark nights.
The pooka makes an important appearance in
the modern Irish comic novel At Swim-Two-Birds
by Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan).
Sources: Croker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends and
Traditions of the South of Ireland. London:
William Tegg, 1862, p. 135; Kennedy
, Patrick.
Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. New York:
Benjamin Blom, 1969, pp. 124–126.
portals to the Otherworld Cosmological
concept. The Celtic OTHERWORLD was not a
place apart from this world; there was no heaven
high above or hell down far below. Rather, the
Otherworld existed in a kind of parallel time and
place, near to this world but not accessible.
Certain sites and times, however, offered portals
to the Otherworld. Then the veil between
worlds, always thin, became even thinner; then
people could pass from one world into the other.
Such places include ancient sites, both Celtic
and pre-Celtic. DOLMENS, which are door-like
structures of stone built by pre-Celtic people for
unknown reasons, were especially likely to be
places where one could enter the Otherworld.
Similarly STONE CIRCLES, also artifacts of the
pre-Celtic period, served as ways to enter there;
Celtic HILLFORTS made ideal portals as well.
Certain times also made an approach to the
Otherworld easier; most significant were the two
ancient Celtic holidays, BELTANE on May 1, and
its opposite day, SAMHAIN on November 1, when
the forces of the Otherworld could easily enter
our world, and those from this side could slip
over to the Other.
portal tombs See DOLMEN.
portent See OMEN; PROPHECY.
portune British folkloric figure. The wizened
and wrinkled portune was a typical BROWNIE-
type fairy, delighted to help with farm work
provided no payment was offered; it was also
necessary to resist the temptation to replace
their wrinkled, ragged old coats. They were
especially useful in hauling and doing other
heavy work. Portunes lived on frog meat,
roasted on hot coals. The name may come from
a mispronunciation of the Roman god of the sea,
Neptune, although the portune has no connec-
tion to the ocean. Occasionally, the portune
revealed his
FAIRY nature by turning mischievous
and driving horses into swamps, laughing hys-
terically at their wild attempts to escape.
power of the word see POETRY.
powrie (dunter) Scottish and British folkloric
figures. Noisy spirits, they set up a racket in old
buildings and towers; when the noise grew
impossibly loud, death or ill fortune was
approaching the hearer.
pregnancy through drinking, eating
Mythic motif. There are a number of Celtic
myths in which a goddess or heroine is made
pregnant though the mouth, by eating or drink-
ing. Most commonly, the pregnancy results from
drinking down a WORM or other insect that has
drowned in water or wine. The divine beauty
ÉTAIN, cursed by the wife of her lover, became a
fly and drowned in a cup of wine, which a
princess drank; when she gave birth nine months
later, Étain was reborn in a new (but still beauti-
ful) form. The hero CONCOBAR MAC NESSA was
born clutching a worm, for his mother, the rav-
ished scholar NESSA, wished to prove that her
son’s father was a worm she drank rather than
the DRUID who held her hostage; his paternal
line being in doubt, Concobar bore his mother’s
name. This motif is found in many other cultures,
pregnancy through drinking, eating 385
including the Chinese, where emperors were
commonly said to have been born through
miraculous conception after their mothers ate or
drank something unusual. Some have argued
that such myths disguise an ancient matrilineal
succession, with property and names being
passed through the mother’s family.
prophecy Religious ritual. The difference
between a prophecy and an OMEN (or portent) is
that the first is the result of a ritual embarked
upon to find information about the future, while
the second is an unsought gift. Omens such as
the flight of birds simply existed, like acts of
nature, although interpreting their meaning was
a skill learned by the Celtic priestly class of
DRUIDS. Prophecy, by contrast, could be courted
by initiates, and the druids practiced various rit-
ual techniques that produced a trance or altered
state that permitted a view into hidden matters.
Prophecy permits early vision of the future; in
this, it is a specialized form of DIVINATION,
which can also include learning about secrets
hidden in the past or present. Thus one might
use divination to find out who had committed a
crime but prophecy to discover whether the cul-
prit would be caught.
The Celts used both prophecy and divination
from earliest times. Both Diodoros of Sicily and
Strabo describe how HUMAN SACRIFICE (proba-
bly the killing of prisoners or criminals) was used
to foretell the future; the victim was stabbed
with a dagger and, as he died, his death agonies
were decoded to reveal events yet to unfold.
In Ireland several complex rituals of
prophecy and divination were known, including
the IMBAS FOROSNAI, or chanting into the finger-
tips, and the tarhbfleis or BULL-SLEEP, in which a
druid or poet slept inside the hide of a newly
slaughtered bull in order to dream the future
(especially the identity of the future king).
protection against fairies Folkloric motif.
FAIRIES were not evil; however, they were
amoral, not tied to the moral and ethical
demands of humanity. Thus to protect oneself
against them was not the same as fending off
evil, for they were merely playful troublemakers
rather than devilish opponents. They commonly
tried to lead travelers astray (see PIXY-LED, STRAY
SOD); this was a minor inconvenience and could
be quite frightening, but even without protec-
tion, the fairy eventually grew bored with the
trick and released the ensnared human.
More seriously, the fairies attempted to lure
useful or attractive people into the
OTHER-
WORLD, to do their bidding until released.
Musicians were sought after to play for the end-
less fairy dances; midwives were useful for deliv-
ering fairy babies; and handsome people of
either sex were desirable for sexual dalliance.
Because time in FAIRYLAND passed so much more
slowly than in our world, a day spent there could
be a lifetime here; the returnee might find loved
ones dead and the world utterly changed. Even
more dreadful, the returnee could find this
world so flat and dull compared to the beauties
of fairyland that death followed soon after.
Therefore it was traditionally considered wise
to carry protection against fairies when going on a
trip of any distance; indeed, even a short hike
could result in trouble, so filling one’s pockets with
bread or SALT was always a good idea. The fairies
stayed away from anything Christian, so crosses
were useful, as was holy water. IRON, too, was
dreadful to the fairies, so keeping a knife, scissors,
or nail in the pocket was considered well advised,
as was mounting a horseshoe over entries to house
and barn. Four-leafed clovers or SHAMROCKS
exuded an oil that, if rubbed on the eye, could
remove any fairy enchantment; other useful plants
were St. John’s wort, daisies, and red verbena.
Most effective of all was ROWAN or mountain ash,
whose berries the fairies could not endure.
Actions could also break the fairy spell. The
most common was turning one’s clothing inside
out or wearing it backward, the latter presum-
ably based on the idea that the fairies fail to tor-
ment someone who seems to be departing rather
than approaching. Praying aloud, or singing, or
whistling, were held to be efficacious. As fairies
were believed to find running water frightening,
leaping over a stream put protection between
386 prophecy
the traveler and the fairy—provided there was
not another fairy standing on the distant shore.
province (cóiced) Irish geographical and cos-
mological concept. The island of Ireland was
divided into four main provinces, each with its
own significance: LEINSTER in the east, the
region of commerce;
MUNSTER in the southwest,
land of song and women; CONNACHT in the
west, the province of wisdom; and ULSTER in the
north, the land of war and strife. These regions
were mythological constructs; indeed, there was
little sense of the provinces as political units, a
situation that remains so today.
In addition to the four main provinces, there
was a fifth, one that existed even more in the
realm of myth than the others. This was MIDE or
Meath, the central province. Its boundaries were
even less firm than those of the others, because
it represented the concept of the center rather
than any specific geographical region. Several
hundred years ago, the county of Meath was
established, but the fifth province of Ireland
remains just as elusive as in prehistory.
See also CÓICED.
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, p. 114; Dames,
Michael. Mythic Ireland. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1992, pp. 14–16; Rees, Alwyn, and
Brinley Rees. Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition
in Ir
eland and Wales. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1998, pp. 118 ff.
Pryderi (Gwri) Welsh hero. In the first book
of the collection of Welsh mythology known as
the MABINOGION, this hero was born of the magi-
cal woman (possibly originally a goddess) RHIAN-
NON, who married the human prince PWYLL after
a strange courtship. Rhiannon appeared on an
impossibly speedy mount and was chased by
Pwyll, who never could catch up with her. When
he finally simply asked her to pause, she willingly
did so. Once married, however, their lives were
soon unhappy, for when their son Pryderi was
born, he quickly disappeared from his cradle. He
had been, unknown to the court, snatched away
by an Otherworldly hand, but when the monster
tried to add a foal from another part of the land
to the night’s catch, the foal’s owner counterat-
tacked, causing the monster to drop the tiny
infant and flee. This left the prince far from
home, but happily the noble farmer whose horse
had been threatened,
TEYRNON Twf Liant,
adopted him and reared him in safety and com-
fort under the name of Gwri.
When he learned the truth of his birth, the
young boy set out to claim his inheritance.
Finding that his mother had been accused of
murdering him and was still being punished for
this imaginary crime, he set Rhiannon free by
revealing the truth of his absence. Rhiannon
welcomed him, but named him Pryderi, “care,”
for all that she had suffered. The family lived
happily until their land was set upon by a strange
curse that caused its CATTLE and people to dis-
appear in a magical mist, as described in the
third branch of the Mabinogion. Pwyll had died,
and Rhiannon was remarried to the kingly MAN-
AWYDAN; Pryderi too was married, to the fair
maiden CIGFA. Unbeknownst to them all, friends
of a rejected suitor for Rhiannon’s hand still har-
bored a desire to avenge the humiliation he had
suffered. Thus Pryderi was enchanted, together
with his mother, and held until their spouses
could determine how to free them.
Prydwen Welsh mythological object. This
magical boat, said to have been King ARTHUR’s,
was described by some Welsh legends as able to
navigate both the waters of this world and that of
the OTHERWORLD. The name was also used
occasionally of Arthur’s shield.
puck British folkloric figure. The most
famous little FAIRY in English letters is “that
merry wanderer of the night,” Puck or Robin
Goodfellow of William Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. The puck was well-
known to country dwellers as a kind of POOKA, a
puck 387
ghostly haunt that caused mischief wherever it
went. A small good-natured creature, the puck
lived to make trouble, leading travelers astray
whenever possible (see PIXY-LED), pushing furni-
ture about to make people fall flat on the floor,
laughing at the annoyances he caused. Like any
such being, a puck was friendly enough and
could be induced to assist in farm labor, pro-
vided no reward or recompense was offered.
Under the name of ROBIN GOODFELLOW, the
puck was described in the 17th-century British
folklore as a half-human son of OBERON and a
country lass who took the fairy lord’s fancy.
Robin was a normal child until the age of six,
when he realized his ability to shape-shift, which
he used to become a kind of ROBIN HOOD, caus-
ing mischief to the rich but helping the poor.
Some of these motifs have been traced to the
Celtic myth of the half-human fairy king and sea
god MANANNÁN MAC LIR.
Source: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in
Celtic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe
Humanities Press, 1911, p. 220.
Puck Fair Irish folkloric festival. On a week-
end near the ancient Celtic harvest festival of
LUGHNASA, a strange ritual is held in the small vil-
lage of Kilorglin in the southwestern province of
Ireland,
MUNSTER. A wild GOAT is captured in the
mountains near the town, then ceremoniously
brought into the square and crowned king.
Hoisted above the square, the Puck rules over
three days of events: Gathering Day, Fair Day,
and Scattering Day. Festivities range from horse
shows to outdoor games to music and drink. At
the end of the fair, the Puck is taken back to the
mountains and released. Locals claim the festival
dates back to time immemorial, but some scholars
suggest that it is a relatively recent invention, per-
haps 300 years old. The fact that the goat is not
found as an important symbolic animal in Celtic
culture, as well as the use of the word
PUCK, which
derives from British rather than Irish sources (for
Irish, see POOKA), supports the latter argument.
Purr Mooar Manx folkloric figure. On the
Isle of Man, this OTHERWORLD specter haunted
people in the form of a PIG.
Pwyll (Pwyll Prince of Dyfed, Pwyll Pendefig
Dyfed) Welsh hero. One of the primary
heroes of the collection of Welsh mythological
narratives called the MABINOGION, Pwyll appears
in the first branch of the series, where he was
asked by an Otherworldly king, ARAWN, to
exchange places with him. Arawn was being
hounded by a murderous enemy and rival, HAF-
GAN, and hoped that Pwyll would be able to save
his country. Pwyll agreed, and taking on the
appearance of Arawn, ruled well in the
Otherworld. So honorable was Pwyll that he
refused to make love with Arawn’s queen,
though she did not realize another man’s soul
inhabited the semblance of her husband’s form.
At the end of the year, Pwyll met the enemy
Hafgan in single combat—a classically Celtic
motif—and defeated him, thus further bonding
him to the grateful king Arawn.
Back in his own world, Pwyll found himself
infatuated with a beautiful woman who
appeared on a white HORSE that no one could
catch. For many nights he chased RHIANNON to
no avail, until finally he called out to her to stop.
She did, and they were soon happily married,
but their happiness was short-lived, for after
their son
PRYDERI was born, Rhiannon was dis-
covered raving with blood on her face, while the
child was nowhere to be found. Believing his
wife had killed and eaten their child, Pwyll pun-
ished her by making her act as a horse, carrying
visitors on her back into their castle. She thus
served for many years before their son
Pyrderi—who had in fact been kidnapped by a
spectral arm and rescued by a distant farmer—
returned to free her from her burdens. Pwyll’s
reign thereafter was without disturbance and
abundantly successful.
Source: Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. New
York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976.
388 Puck Fair
questing beast (Beast Glatisant) Arthurian
figure. This monstrous but unexplained hybrid
combined the bodies of SERPENT, DEER, and
leopard. Although it had only four legs, the
sound of 30 hooves was heard whenever it ran. A
knight—variously called PELLINORE and PALO-
MIDES—pursued it endlessly, perhaps because it
was really human, a boy transformed to animal
shape by the horror of seeing his mother torn
apart by wild DOGS.
quintessence Cosmological concept. This
word, derived from the Latin word for FIVE and
indicating a distilled essence, describes the mys-
tical center or MIDE, a place that is both every-
where and nowhere, a pivot point around which
the world turns. Although Mide exists as one of
the five PROVINCES of ancient Ireland, it was not
limited to one location until the medieval
period, before which it was a shifting boundless
space. See UISNEACH; TARA.
6
Q
389
Ragallach (Raghallach) Irish hero. This
obscure figure was said to have been king of
CONNACHT, the western PROVINCE of Ireland, in
the seventh century C.E. There is some historical
evidence of his life, although the elaborate tales
told about him are partially legend.
Because of his greed for power, Ragallach
arranged to have his only possible rival for the
throne killed—his nephew, who came to him
with guards but was shamed into leaving them
behind, permitting the king to kill him with
ease. Because of this heinous act, the DRUIDS
prophesied that Ragallach would be killed by
his own children. To avert this fate, Ragallach
announced that all his children should be
killed.
His queen, Murieann, hid their daughter
(who is never named in the legends) in the
woods, where she was found and reared by a
poor woman. The daughter grew into a splendid
beauty whose reputation reached the king; in
keeping with his greedy temperament and not
knowing her identity, he demanded that the girl
be brought to him. Murieann was so insulted by
the king’s obvious infatuation that she fled from
the court.
Several saintly men fasted in protest against
the king’s behavior, with the result that he was
magically ensnared on the next
BELTANE night,
the feast of summer’s beginning. A magnificent
STAG was seen racing through the land.
Ragallach gave pursuit and wounded the animal.
The injured stag leapt into a river and swam
away, shortly followed by the king, who found
the beast’s body at last, being divided among
hungry peasants. He claimed the meat, but the
men fell upon him and killed him in the dispute.
Nothing more is said of the daughter whose
beauty caused the king’s downfall, although it is
said the queen Murieann died of jealousy. Nor is
it explained how the prophecy was fulfilled,
unless the starving peasants were the king’s
actual or metaphorical children.
Ragnell Arthurian heroine. After an enchant-
ment had been cast upon her, turning her into a
LOATHY LADY or CAILLEACH, Ragnell maintained
her sweet good humor and helped GAWAIN, a
knight of the ROUND TABLE, learn the answer to
the riddle of what women really want. Despite
her uncomely appearance, the fine knight fell in
love with the wise and kind Ragnell. When they
married, she told him that she could be a lovely
woman during the day and a
HAG at night, or the
opposite, and asked him which he preferred.
When he gave her the power to make the choice
herself, she emerged from her enchantment,
becoming a beautiful young woman and reveal-
ing that women want to make their own deci-
sions. She may be a form of the goddess of
SOV-
EREIGNTY. Ragnell’s tale became the basis for the
6
R
390
medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s
“Wife of Bath’s Tale” in the Canterbury Tales.
rainbow Cosmological symbol. The bright
bridge of colors that decks the sky after a rain-
storm has drawn many legends to itself in Celtic
lands, as in other cultures. In Celtic areas of
Germany the rainbow was believed to leave
traces of GOLD wherever it touched the earth;
the belief gave rise to the production of a coin
with a slightly concave surface called a regenbo-
genschüsselchen (rainbow-coin), which was
thought to have healing powers. In Ireland the
LEPRECHAUN or fairy shoemaker was similarly
said to hide his gold at the end of a rainbow.
ram-headed snake Continental Celtic reli-
gious symbol. An unnatural combination of
mammal and reptile—and, occasionally, of FISH
as well—can be found in some religious art from
Gaul, especially after the Roman occupation.
The significance of this being, unique to the
Celtic lands, is not known and can only be sur-
mised from the way that Celtic artists showed it
with deities and as an ornament on religious
artifacts. The ram and ram-headed snake are
sometimes shown with CERNUNNOS, the god of
wild lands, and thus may have been linked with
FERTILITY.
rat British folkloric animal. Whether the rat
and mouse were originally believed to have mag-
ical powers among the Celts is unclear, but some
vestige of that belief is found in the British
Cotswolds, where they were thought to have
prophetic or precognitive powers. When rats or
mice suddenly left a house, it was believed to
foretell a death the family. In Scotland seeing a
rat or mouse in a sieve meant the likely death of
someone at sea, as did seeing a rat swimming by
when one was in a boat.
Source: Briggs, Katherine M. The Folklore of the
Cotswolds. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974,
p. 127.
rath See HILLFORT.
Rath Irish hero. In an Irish tale, a sailor
named Rath let himself be serenaded by a MER-
MAID and her friends—who then tore the man to
pieces. Mermaids were not believed to be gener-
ally murderous beings, but falling asleep to their
Otherworldly music was something to avoid, for
they were inclined to steal humans
AWAY to
become their lovers (see FAIRY KIDNAPPING).
Rath Chinneich Irish mythological site. The
location of the mythological palace of one of the
first settlers of Ireland, NEMED, Rath Chinneich
has never been found, although it is believed to
have been in Co. Armagh.
Rathcrogan See CRUACHAN.
Rath of the Synods See TARA.
Ratis Continental Celtic goddess. The name of
this obscure Gaulish goddess may be connected
with the word for a HILLFORT or settlement (rath);
she was a protector of such fortresses.
raven Symbolic animal. The distinction
between raven and CROW is not always clear to
the untrained eye, nor are they clearly distin-
guished in Celtic myth. The two birds are
related members of the genus Corvus, with the
raven being considerably larger and typically a
more northern bird than the crow. They have
common eating habits, devouring carrion rather
than, as with birds of prey like the
EAGLE and the
hawk, hunting their food live.
This dietary predilection meant that ravens
and crows were often seen flying over battle-
fields, waiting to feast on the slain. It was easy to
link the birds to war goddesses like the Irish
MÓRRÍGAN and BADB, who were said to take the
form of the birds when encouraging bloodshed.
raven 391
At the same time, the birds were seen as oracu-
lar, a form of the goddess who washed the cloth-
ing or armor of those doomed to die (see
WASHER AT THE FORD) in the next day’s battle.
As a symbol of the OTHERWORLD, the raven
could indicate rebirth as well as death; thus the
birds’s meaning is far from simple and can seem
self-contradictory.
Ancient tradition was carried through the
ages in folklore that claims that ravens are
unlucky. If one is seen when ground is being
broken for a house or when other new projects
are initiated, its appearance foretells a bad end to
the project. If they take to hanging around a
house, it is considered a sure sign that one of its
occupants is near death.
rebirth See REINCARNATION.
red Symbolic color. There were two colors
most often associated with FAIRYLAND or the
OTHERWORLD: GREEN and red, with the latter
being the more popular color for TROOPING
FAIRIES, while SOLITARY FAIRIES tended to favor
green. As a result, the color was considered
unlucky, even when on clothing or scarves worn
by humans: Women wearing red petticoats were
avoided in the west of Ireland until recent times.
Even more ominous was red hair or hide,
whether on human or animals. Combined with
white, red hair was a sure sign of fairy origin.
Thus fairy CATTLE were believed to be white
with red ears; a dog or cat born with the same
coloring was believed to be of fairy blood or a
CHANGELING. Red-haired people were, by the
same reasoning, believed to have fairy blood.
There are many superstitions about such red-
haired people and animals. It was considered
very bad luck to meet a red-haired woman first
thing in the morning; a traveler might return
home rather than risk continuing a journey that
started with such an evil portent. A person
dressed in red could prove unlucky if he or she
passed in the morning or when one was begin-
ning a project. Red-eared animals were believed
to have similar powers to predict (or possibly
bring on) difficulties.
Red Branch Irish warrior group. The war-
riors of the Red Branch were the protectors of
the northern PROVINCE of ULSTER, rather as the
later heroic band, the FIANNA, protected the
eastern province of
LEINSTER. The most famous
Red Branch warrior was the peerless CÚCHU-
LAINN, who single-handedly fought off the
invading army of queen MEDB of CONNACHT.
Some scholars have seen in stories of the Red
Branch warriors a foreshadowing of the later
ROUND TABLE knights who served king ARTHUR.
Red Branch Cycle See ULSTER CYCLE.
Redcap British folkloric figure. His little hat
was RED because he washed it regularly in blood
from his victims, whom he frightened to death
from his haunts in old ruins. His eyes were red,
too, perhaps from staring into the darkness, ever
on the watch for new prey. Should you
encounter, while adventuring around old castles,
a wizened old man with wild hair wearing IRON
boots and carrying a big iron weapon, the only
thing to do was to hold up a Bible, which caused
Redcap to emit a horrific scream before disap-
pearing. Occasionally this figure appeared as a
kind of useful BROWNIE, eager to help around
the house, but generally he was a fearsome spirit
to be avoided.
Red Etin British folkloric figure. This British
ogre was ugly to look at (having THREE heads is
not typically considered handsome) but not nec-
essarily unfriendly. His interest was CATTLE: his
own, which were large herds of OTHERWORLD
creatures (often with RED ears, a sign of their
FAIRY origin), and others’, which he protected for
no fee. He may descend from an Otherworldly
guardian figure.
In one tale from Scotland, Red Etin appears
as a GIANT from Ireland to whose home the son
392 rebirth
of a widow came, thinking to spy on him from a
hiding place. Unfortunately, Red Etin detected
the presence of human blood. “Be he from
Fife,” he bellowed, “or be he from Tweed, his
heart this night shall kitchen my bread.” He was
not so cruel as he sounded, for he gave the
young man three chances to avoid becoming
dinner, and with the help of magical animals,
the boy survived.
Reid, Thome Scottish folkloric figure. This
is the name given to a visitor from the OTHER-
WORLD who, according to Sir Walter Scott,
appeared in 1576 to a Scottish woman named
Elizabeth (Bessie) Dunlop of Ayrshire. Bessie
was surprised one morning to be greeted by a
gray-bearded man dressed all in gray except for
a black bonnet (unusual colors for Otherworldly
apparitions, who tended rather toward wearing
RED or GREEN). He spoke to her, offered her
riches if she would give up being Christian, and
then disappeared when she refused.
Undiscouraged, he came back again and
again. Bessie invariably refused his demand, but
she learned that the spectral man’s name was
Thome Reid and that he had been a soldier
killed in battle. Sometimes Thome appeared
accompanied by small beings, “good wights,” as
he called them, who lived with him in FAIRY-
LAND. However persuasive he was, Bessie con-
tinued to refuse to join him there, accepting only
his advice on how to heal her neighbors. She
became a renowned herbalist who wanted only
food as her fee. For four years Thome continued
to visit Bessie, all the while encouraging her to
abandon this world for the Other. Her loyalty to
this world and its religion was not rewarded,
however, for she was ultimately convicted of
WITCHCRAFT and burned at the stake.
reincarnation (rebirth) Cosmological con-
cept. There is some dispute as to whether the
Celts believed in reincarnation. The term is
often used in describing the east Asian religious
and philosophical belief that a human being is
born again and again in human form, with the
activities of one life affecting those of the next
(the Hindu concept of karma). When a soul is
believed to occupy various forms, both human
and animal, the proper term is not reincarnation
but TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.
Caesar claimed that the DRUIDS believed that,
after death, the individual was given a new life,
which explained why Celtic warriors were so
fearfully brave on the battlefield, since they
knew they would find another body when the
one they occupied was killed. Caesar was writing
about the culture he tried to conquer, so he may
not be an entirely credible source. Diodoros of
Sicily similarly argued that the Celts believed in
reincarnation, but he attempted to show the
similarity of the Celtic belief system and that of
the Hellenic philosopher Pythagoras, who
believed that we would be born again in various
forms, not always human. Many Celtic legends
describe mythic beings reborn in various forms
(see
ÉTAIN, TUAN MAC CAIRILL, FINTAN, FRIUCH,
TALIESIN), but whether this was believed to hap-
pen to the common individual is not clear.
What the Celts believed about the afterlife is
debatable. The fact that gods and goddesses as
well as heroines and heroines were occasionally
reborn may not mean this was the usual fate of
mortal beings, but rather might emphasize their
uniquely divine qualities—for Celtic deities were
not necessarily immortal. The idea of an
OTHERWORLD where the newly dead join the
shades of the earlier dead, as well as the magical
beings and divinities who lived there, does not
necessarily imply reincarnation. Such descrip-
tions of Celtic belief may be influenced by the
Christian conception of heaven as a place where
the dead enjoy the presence of god forever. The
question of Celtic belief in reincarnation is thus
still an open one.
Source: MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the Ancient
Celts. London: Constable, 1911, pp. 348 ff.
religion See CELTIC RELIGION.
religion 393